Operation Condor
March 8th, 2013Via: Democracy Now:
A historic trial underway in Argentina is set to reveal new details about how Latin American countries coordinated with each other in the 1970s and ’80s to eliminate political dissidents. The campaign known as “Operation Condor” involved military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. They worked together to track down, kidnap and kill people they labeled as terrorists: leftist activists, labor organizers, students, priests, journalists, guerrilla fighters and their families. The campaign was launched by the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and evidence shows the CIA and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were complicit from its outset. We’re joined by John Dinges, author of “The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents.” The book brings together interviews and declassified intelligence records to reconstruct the once-secret events.
Research Credit: ottilie
Maine Town Declares Food Sovereignty
March 8th, 2013Via: Food Renegade:
Sedgwick, Maine has done what no other town in the United States has done. The town unanimously passed an ordinance giving its citizens the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meats, and just about anything else you can imagine. It’s also a decided bucking of state and federal laws.
From David Gumpert’s coverage:
This isn’t just a declaration of preference. The proposed warrant added, “It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” In other words, no state licensing requirements prohibiting certain farms from selling dairy products or producing their own chickens for sale to other citizens in the town.
What about potential legal liability and state or federal inspections? It’s all up to the seller and buyer to negotiate. “Patrons purchasing food for home consumption may enter into private agreements with those producers or processors of local foods to waive any liability for the consumption of that food. Producers or processors of local foods shall be exempt from licensure and inspection requirements for that food as long as those agreements are in effect.” Imagine that–buyer and seller can agree to cut out the lawyers. That’s almost un-American, isn’t it?
I applaud the residents of Sedgwick for making such a bold stand. Three other Maine towns are also slotted to vote on a similar ordinance in the coming weeks.
Nearly 80% of New York City Public High-School Grads at CUNY Community Colleges Require Remedial English or Math Classes
March 8th, 2013Via: New York Post:
Nearly 80 percent of city public high-school graduates who enrolled in a City University of New York community college last year had to relearn the basics of reading, writing or math — the highest percentage in years.
A stunning 79.3 percent of city public-school grads who went to CUNY’s six two-year colleges arrived without having mastered the basics, up from 71.4 percent in 2007.
The ballooning numbers come despite the state having raised the requirements to graduate from high school in each of the past five years.
In 2012, this meant that roughly 10,700 students who earned high- school diplomas and enrolled at two-year CUNY schools weren’t prepared for college-level work — most of them because of math.
Those students were then forced to shell out money for non- credit-bearing courses — for as much as $1,000 a pop, they said — before they could start making their way toward a college degree.
Holder: Some Banks Too Big to Prosecute
March 7th, 2013Via: New York Magazine:
GRASSLEY: OK. On the issue of bank prosecution, I’m concerned that we have a mentality of too-big-to-jail in the financial sector of spreading from fraud cases to terrorist financing and money laundering cases — and I cite HSBC. So I think we’re on a slippery slope.
So then that’s background for this question. I don’t — I don’t have recollection of DOJ prosecuting any high-profile financial criminal convictions in either companies or individuals. Assistant General — Attorney General Breuer said that one reason why DOJ has not brought these prosecutions is that it reaches out to, quote/unquote, “experts” to see what effect the prosecutions would have on the financial markets.
So then on January 29th, Senator Brown and I requested details on who these so-called experts are. So far, we’ve not received any information. Maybe you’re going to, but why have we not yet have been provided the names of the experts that DOJ consults with as we requested on January 29th? Because we need to the find out why we aren’t having these high profile cases.
And then I got one follow-up. But maybe you can answer that quickly.
HOLDER: Well, we’ll endeavor to answer your letter, Senator. We did not, as I understand it, retain experts outside of the government in making — in making determinations with regard to HSBC. Now, if we could just put that aside for a minute, though. The concern that you have raised is one that I, frankly, share. And I’m not talking about HSBC now. That would not be appropriate.
But I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.
Again, I’m not talking about HSBC. This is just a – a more general comment. I think it has an inhibiting influence — impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. And I think that is something that we — you all need to — need to consider. So the concern that you raised is actually one that I share.
Mexico: The Country That Stopped Reading
March 7th, 2013Via: New York Times:
EARLIER this week, I spotted, among the job listings in the newspaper Reforma, an ad from a restaurant in Mexico City looking to hire dishwashers. The requirement: a secondary school diploma.
Years ago, school was not for everyone. Classrooms were places for discipline, study. Teachers were respected figures. Parents actually gave them permission to punish their children by slapping them or tugging their ears. But at least in those days, schools aimed to offer a more dignified life.
Nowadays more children attend school than ever before, but they learn much less. They learn almost nothing. The proportion of the Mexican population that is literate is going up, but in absolute numbers, there are more illiterate people in Mexico now than there were 12 years ago. Even if baseline literacy, the ability to read a street sign or news bulletin, is rising, the practice of reading an actual book is not. Once a reasonably well-educated country, Mexico took the penultimate spot, out of 108 countries, in a Unesco assessment of reading habits a few years ago.
One cannot help but ask the Mexican educational system, “How is it possible that I hand over a child for six hours every day, five days a week, and you give me back someone who is basically illiterate?”
New York: Government Emergency Alert Test Interrupts Rand Paul Filibuster
March 7th, 2013Via: YouTube / CSPAN:
Tighten It Until It Strips, Then Back It Off a Quarter Turn: Microsoft Restores Transfer Rights for Office 2013
March 7th, 2013Via: ZDnet:
As part of its shift to a subscription model, Microsoft introduced a controversial “no transfer” restriction with Office 2013. Now, after an intense outcry from customers, the company has reversed course and agreed to allow users to transfer retail Office licenses between devices.
Great Free Alternative: LibreOffice
Afghanistan: U.S.-NATO to Stop Reporting Number of Taliban Attacks
March 6th, 2013Via: Wired:
One of the major metrics for the decade-long Afghanistan war is seriously flawed. Rather than fix the problem, the U.S.-NATO military command in Kabul has decided that you simply shouldn’t see the data.
Late last month, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) conceded that it misreported the 2012 statistics on Taliban attacks. Its explanation was that a data-entry error had discounted attacks reported by Afghan forces — so much so that a statistically insignificant change in the level of so-called “enemy initiated attacks” became a seven percent decline from 2011 levels.
ISAF’s response, the Associated Press recounts, is to end public reporting on enemy-initiated attacks. It’ll still record attack levels, according to spokesman Jamie Graybeal, but it won’t publish any of the data it collects — all because it’s losing confidence in the veracity of its information. As Afghan forces take increasing control of the war, ISAF will cede control of overseeing the attack data collection. “We have determined that our databases will become increasingly inaccurate in reflecting the entirety of enemy initiated attacks,” Graybeal told the Associated Press’ Bob Burns, who broke the story.
Holder: Drone Strikes in U.S. Possible in Response to ‘Extraordinary Circumstance’
March 6th, 2013Via: NBC:
The Obama administration has “no intention” of carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists in the United States, but could use them in response to “an extraordinary circumstance” such as the 9/11 terror attacks, according to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by NBC News.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who received the March 4 letter from Holder, called the attorney general’s refusal to rule out drone strikes in the U.S. “more than frightening.”
China: Concept for Cairn-Shaped Farmscrapers
March 6th, 2013While I definitely wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for any of these to be built, my guess is that you would be hard pressed to find a better gallery of sci-fi cityscapes to look at while you waste time at work.
Via: Vincent Callebaut Architectures:
Vincent Callebaut Architectures
Related:
Secret Organic Gardens for China’s Elite
China Acknowledges ‘Cancer Villages’
