March 1, 2013

Chris Hedges @ Edmonton Public Library "Freedom to Read" week

Published on Feb 28, 2013

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt: EPL presented Chris Hedges to launch Freedom to Read Week 2013 in Edmonton. Chris spoke about injustice and corporate greed in America...and argued Canada is travelling the same path.

March 1, 2013

Manning plea statement: Americans had a right to know 'true cost of war'

(Guardian UK) Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of the biggest unauthorised disclosure of state secrets in US history, has pleaded guilty to being the source of the leak, telling a military court that he passed the information to a whistleblowing website because he believed the American people had a right to know the "true costs of war".

At a pre-trial hearing on a Maryland military base, Manning, 25, who faces spending the rest of his life in military custody, read out a 35-page statement in which he gave an impassioned account of his motives for transmitting classified documents and videos he had obtained while working as an intelligence analyst outside Baghdad.

Sitting at the defence bench in a hushed courtroom, Manning said he was sickened by the apparent "bloodlust" of a helicopter crew involved in an attack on a group in Baghdad that turned out to include Reuters correspondents and children.

He believed the Afghan and Iraq war logs published by the WikiLeaks website, initially in association with a consortium of international media organisations that included the Guardian, were "among the more significant documents of our time revealing the true costs of war". The decision to pass the classified information to a public website was motivated, he told the court, by his depression about the state of military conflict in which the US was mired. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/28/bradley-manning-trial-plea-statement

March 1, 2013

Look Who Rose From Irrelevance?

http://www.workinglife.org/2013/02/27/look-who-rose-from-irrelevance/


from the Working Life blog:



Look Who Rose From Irrelevance?
Posted on 27 February 2013.


One of the enduring feats that always amazes me is the way in which liars, fools and manipulators, who are proven to be such, still manage to occupy some space in the public debate and rise from the dead. You remember Arthur Laffer, the man who peddled the phony and discredited “Laffer curve” arguing for lower taxes? Well, he’s baaccck…with another pile of manure to sell.

Citizens for Tax Justice looks at a new phony baloney argument by Laffer, in which he tries to claim that 62 percent of the 3 millions jobs created over a ten-year period sprung up in nine states without an income tax. Except it’s rubbish:



It’s important to get on top of this nonsense right away and shred it to pieces because, otherwise, it threatens to join the other phony arguments about the economy. Kill it in its infancy.

March 1, 2013

Boots on Campus: Yale Flap Highlights Militarization of Academia

Boots on Campus: Yale Flap Highlights Militarization of Academia

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:06
By Kelley B. Vlahos, AntiWar.com | News Analysis


Have American university campuses become so inured to the militarization of policy, culture – our thought – that they can’t see the Trojan horse sitting in the quad, its occupants pouring out and passing out sweets and credits to all the Ivy Leaguers passing by with goggled eyes and open arms?

A caricature for sure, but is it so off base? How else does one explain the muted response to news that the Department of Defense may have been funding the "U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) Center of Excellence for Operational Neuroscience," at the Yale Medical School in New Haven? The proposed program, according to a report by ABC News last week, would teach special operations personnel the art of "conversational," and "cross cultural" intelligence gathering, and pay volunteers from the community’s vast immigrant population (mainly poor Hispanics, Moroccans and Iraqis) to serve as the guinea pigs test subjects.

ABC got wind of the story from both The Yale Herald and the Yale Daily News, the pages of which were used by students to complain about what they saw as their school/alma mater inviting military intelligence to campus to hone their wartime interrogation techniques on the local non-white population. Their outrage – which played out on only two national mainstream news outlets, by the way – ABC and The Huffington Post – was apparently enough for the school to announce Friday night that the program would not be coming to Yale, "until we have investigated all these issues" (we think the prestigious Ivy League got freaked when med school alumni start talking about withholding donations). However, as Nathalie Batraville, a Yale graduate student who wrote about her aversion to the program in The Yale Daily News, told Democracy Now! on Feb. 21:



It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for a school that has done everything but plant military insignia outside the administration building in order to make it feel welcome, the very least of which was to invite the ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Court) back onto campus in 2012. Last year we read about how Yale students who more than 40 years before had marched in defiance of the Vietnam War and of the FBI’s COINITELPRO and Black Panther trials, were lining up like groupies to get into a new "leadership" seminar taught by rock star Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired from his command in 2010 for badmouthing the president, and who was never held accountable for the beating and torture of individuals under his authority in Iraq. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/14837-boots-on-campus-yale-flap-highlights-militarization-of-academia

March 1, 2013

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending cuts out the Wall Street middlemen

from Grist:



28 Feb 2013 1:44 PM

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending cuts out the Wall Street middlemen
By Isa Hopkins


Christina Ruiz and Helen Ochoa don’t seem to have much in common. Ruiz is a stylish, photogenic fashion school grad who owns and operates TopShelf Boutique, San Francisco’s first fashion truck. Ochoa is a single mother of three, an immigrant from Guatemala who lacked a credit score and struggled for years to find a decent apartment for herself and her children. But their differences are not so vast as they seem. Before she opened TopShelf, Ruiz, too, was financially flailing, suffering from a bad credit score that prevented her from financing her mobile shop. Without access to traditional loans or credit, both women turned to the same place to realize their dreams: San Francisco’s Mission Asset Fund.

The Mission Asset Fund is like a financial version of a potluck dinner: Everyone contributes something of their own, but each individual also benefits from what everyone else brings to the table. Its most popular financial product, “lending circles,” formalize the peer-to-peer lending practices common in low-income and immigrant communities. Members of a lending circle contribute small monthly amounts to a common pot, which is then loaned to a member in need. The borrower makes payments on the loan just like he or she would a bank loan, only there’s no interest or fees.

Borrowers are held accountable by the community — lending circles often include friends and even family members, so the power of peer pressure ensures timely payments. Mission Asset Fund reports the payments to credit bureaus, allowing borrowers to build credit histories and win access to traditional loans. According to the fund, the credit scores of lending circle participants have increased by an average of 49 points through the program.

And if someone doesn’t pay it back? Well, it doesn’t happen. When a borrower is struggling with payments, Mission Asset Fund sets him or her up with intensive one-on-one financial counseling and resets their payment schedule. So far, the approach has worked every time: Spokesperson Tara Robinson says the lending circles’ repayment rate stands at 100 percent. ...........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/living/peer-to-peer-lending-cuts-out-the-wall-street-middlemen/

March 1, 2013

The Drone War Doctrine We Still Know Nothing About

The Drone War Doctrine We Still Know Nothing About

by Cora Currier and Justin Elliott
ProPublica, Feb. 26, 2013, 7 a.m.


The nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director has prompted intense debate on Capitol Hill and in the media about U.S. drone killings abroad. But the focus has been on the targeting of American citizens – a narrow issue that accounts for a miniscule proportion of the hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen in recent years.

Consider: while four American citizens are known to have been killed by drones in the past decade, the strikes have killed an estimated total of 2,600 to 4,700 people over the same period.

The focus on American citizens overshadows a far more common, and less understood, type of strike: those that do not target American citizens, Al Qaeda leaders, or, in fact, any other specific individual.

In these attacks, known as “signature strikes,” drone operators fire on people whose identities they do not know based on evidence of suspicious behavior or other “signatures.” According to anonymously sourced media reports, such attacks on unidentified targets account for many, or even most, drone strikes. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.propublica.org/article/drone-war-doctrine-we-know-nothing-about

March 1, 2013

Dysfunctional Holy See (cartoon)

March 1, 2013

In France, a Truly Low-Cost High-Speed Rail Option

from the Transport Politic blog:


In France, a Truly Low-Cost High-Speed Rail Option




France’s SNCF national rail service has, since the introduction of the TGV in 1981, held to the belief that fast trains should not be segregated to serve only higher-paying passengers. As a result, fast trains have replaced all slow-speed service on most long-distance travel throughout the country; passengers are able to take advantage of fare deals that allow them to journey between cities hundreds of miles apart at €25 or less, as long as they book in advance.

This dedication to opening up speedy trains to people across the income spectrum is unique compared to most other European and Asian countries. In Germany, for instance, train service between major cities is often available at two speeds — fast Intercity-express and slower InterCity, at very different prices. In the U.S., too, a trip on Amtrak’s Acela “high-speed” service in the Northeast is routinely $50 or more than a similar journey on the slightly slower Regional.

SNCF has now extended the principle further with the introduction of its OuiGo* service this week. Attempting to spur more train ridership, particularly among car owners living in the eastern suburbs of Paris, OuiGo will offer 300 km/h TGV speed at very low prices, starting at €10 for journeys between the Paris region and the Mediterranean coast (Montpellier and Marseille, via Lyon), a trip of about 500 miles (10% of overall tickets will be as low as that, with the rest increasing to a maximum of €85). SNCF claims that these ticket prices are the lowest available in the world for high-speed trains. Current TGV tickets start at €19 for similar journeys, but generally are above €50. OuiGo tickets will always be cheaper than equivalent TGV tickets on similar journeys.

OuiGo brings the aviation low-cost concept to high-speed railways. In exchange for a cheap ticket, customers will be charged for a second carry-on bag; they’ll pay more for the use of an electrical outlet; they’ll be unable to change their tickets without a fee. There will be fewer conductors — only four per train, who will also be tasked with some maintenance. Double-decker trains will seat 1,268 passengers, not because seats have been compressed (unlike the airlines, thank god), but rather because the first class and dining car spaces have been replaced by economy-class areas. Trains themselves will be scheduled to run more often than typical TGVs, traveling about 80,000 kilometers per month, double the normal rate. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2013/02/24/in-france-a-truly-low-cost-high-speed-rail-option/

March 1, 2013

In France, a Truly Low-Cost High-Speed Rail Option

from the Transport Politic blog:


In France, a Truly Low-Cost High-Speed Rail Option




France’s SNCF national rail service has, since the introduction of the TGV in 1981, held to the belief that fast trains should not be segregated to serve only higher-paying passengers. As a result, fast trains have replaced all slow-speed service on most long-distance travel throughout the country; passengers are able to take advantage of fare deals that allow them to journey between cities hundreds of miles apart at €25 or less, as long as they book in advance.

This dedication to opening up speedy trains to people across the income spectrum is unique compared to most other European and Asian countries. In Germany, for instance, train service between major cities is often available at two speeds — fast Intercity-express and slower InterCity, at very different prices. In the U.S., too, a trip on Amtrak’s Acela “high-speed” service in the Northeast is routinely $50 or more than a similar journey on the slightly slower Regional.

SNCF has now extended the principle further with the introduction of its OuiGo* service this week. Attempting to spur more train ridership, particularly among car owners living in the eastern suburbs of Paris, OuiGo will offer 300 km/h TGV speed at very low prices, starting at €10 for journeys between the Paris region and the Mediterranean coast (Montpellier and Marseille, via Lyon), a trip of about 500 miles (10% of overall tickets will be as low as that, with the rest increasing to a maximum of €85). SNCF claims that these ticket prices are the lowest available in the world for high-speed trains. Current TGV tickets start at €19 for similar journeys, but generally are above €50. OuiGo tickets will always be cheaper than equivalent TGV tickets on similar journeys.

OuiGo brings the aviation low-cost concept to high-speed railways. In exchange for a cheap ticket, customers will be charged for a second carry-on bag; they’ll pay more for the use of an electrical outlet; they’ll be unable to change their tickets without a fee. There will be fewer conductors — only four per train, who will also be tasked with some maintenance. Double-decker trains will seat 1,268 passengers, not because seats have been compressed (unlike the airlines, thank god), but rather because the first class and dining car spaces have been replaced by economy-class areas. Trains themselves will be scheduled to run more often than typical TGVs, traveling about 80,000 kilometers per month, double the normal rate. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2013/02/24/in-france-a-truly-low-cost-high-speed-rail-option/

March 1, 2013

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending cuts out the Wall Street middlemen

from Grist:



28 Feb 2013 1:44 PM

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending cuts out the Wall Street middlemen
By Isa Hopkins


Christina Ruiz and Helen Ochoa don’t seem to have much in common. Ruiz is a stylish, photogenic fashion school grad who owns and operates TopShelf Boutique, San Francisco’s first fashion truck. Ochoa is a single mother of three, an immigrant from Guatemala who lacked a credit score and struggled for years to find a decent apartment for herself and her children. But their differences are not so vast as they seem. Before she opened TopShelf, Ruiz, too, was financially flailing, suffering from a bad credit score that prevented her from financing her mobile shop. Without access to traditional loans or credit, both women turned to the same place to realize their dreams: San Francisco’s Mission Asset Fund.

The Mission Asset Fund is like a financial version of a potluck dinner: Everyone contributes something of their own, but each individual also benefits from what everyone else brings to the table. Its most popular financial product, “lending circles,” formalize the peer-to-peer lending practices common in low-income and immigrant communities. Members of a lending circle contribute small monthly amounts to a common pot, which is then loaned to a member in need. The borrower makes payments on the loan just like he or she would a bank loan, only there’s no interest or fees.

Borrowers are held accountable by the community — lending circles often include friends and even family members, so the power of peer pressure ensures timely payments. Mission Asset Fund reports the payments to credit bureaus, allowing borrowers to build credit histories and win access to traditional loans. According to the fund, the credit scores of lending circle participants have increased by an average of 49 points through the program.

And if someone doesn’t pay it back? Well, it doesn’t happen. When a borrower is struggling with payments, Mission Asset Fund sets him or her up with intensive one-on-one financial counseling and resets their payment schedule. So far, the approach has worked every time: Spokesperson Tara Robinson says the lending circles’ repayment rate stands at 100 percent. ...........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/living/peer-to-peer-lending-cuts-out-the-wall-street-middlemen/