Global
Technology was supposed to liberate us from the oppressive forces of authoritarian censorship, allow us to connect with diverse voices around the world and in general make the world a better place by building an interconnected world. It is hard to look at the current political landscape and not be cynical about the promises of the techno visionaries of the past. But there are groups of freedom fighters who still think that we can find liberation in the technology we use and that we can liberate it by freeing the technology itself from centralization and control by both governments and corporations. These are the type of people who attended the Free Software Foundation’s LibrePlanet 2019 conference held in Boston.
To give a brief introduction, the Free Software Foundation is an organization built around the four software freedoms. In their basic form, they are the freedom to use, study, share and improve the software. This manifests in a lot of ways, but at its heart the Foundation helps build a community where people care about freedom. LibrePlanet was a meeting of these people.
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
02 April 19
orty years ago this week, the Three Mile Island nuke began pouring lethal radiation into our air and water, lungs and livers.
Throughout central Pennsylvania and beyond, people, animals, plants, and the planet began to die en masse.
In 1980, a mile from the plant, I interviewed many of the immediate victims. It was the worst week of my life.
Today 98 US reactors could repeat the slaughter. Worldwide there are about 450. Many are falling apart. Each could deliver a lethal dose of apocalyptic proportions. All heat the planet, emit carbon, kill nearby newborns, suck up public money, hinder renewables, and threaten fresh catastrophes.
None are “zero emission” or “carbon free.” None can compete with the solar, wind, battery storage, and LED/efficiency technologies that can save us from a fried planet.
If we’re to live on this Earth, King CONG (Coal, Oil Nukes & Gas) must die.
Since TMI, Solartopian costs have become far cheaper than fully amortized reactors.
by TVR Staff - Published January 30, 2019
Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer has introduced Senate Bill 1115 in the Arizona State Senate requiring health care professionals to provide a full list of vaccine ingredients and side effects to adults and parents of minor children prior to administration of any vaccine.
Disclaimer: I am not a dance critic nor do I play one on TV (I usually appear as a film historian and critic, which is what I am). So minus this training, you can take my two cents worth for what it’s worth. My personal main interest is that the Malpaso Dance Company is from Cuba, that little country that can, and my long standing interest in that island nation.
As limited private enterprise comes to what is no longer “Castro’s Cuba” (per se), the Malpaso Dance Company moved away from state subsidies and independently formed in 2012 (hence the name “Malpaso”, which means “misstep”). According to press notes, the contemporary dance troupe of 11 hoofers is among the Caribbean country’s “hottest,” combining various dancing styles, including modern, ballet, jazz and urban.
The dancers presented four numbers in a short program of only about 90 minutes, including intermission, at the Wallis Annenberg. The music was presumably taped and the set bare - I suppose 60 years of imperialist embargo and little or no state funding will do that to your budget.
Trump wants to leave 31% of discretionary spending for all things non-military, while Bernie wants to move some unspecified amount of money from militarism to human needs, and Elizabeth Warren believesa budget is a statement of values.
Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no presidential candidate has now or within living memory ever produced a proposed federal budget, or ever been asked in any debate or interview, to even approximate — give or take $100 billion — what they’d like spent where, or even just whether militarism would be better at 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, or 30% of federal discretionary spending.
The head of NATO is visiting the White House and Congress next week to be publicly praised by the U.S. President and both big political parties. For more on how they love NATO, keep reading.
The foreign ministers of the NATO nations are meeting at the State Department on April 4th.
We’re planning to unwelcome them, and to throw a party for peace and for the nonviolent activist, racial-justice, economic-justice, and peace vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: No to NATO – Yes to Peace Festival— April 3-4, 2019, Washington, D.C.
To participate in preparations on the 3rd for protests on the 4th, REGISTER.
So, I loves me some Greek mythology. Under the influence of Homer’s Odyssey and Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautika - especially inspired by the 1963 screen version of that third century B.C. epic poem called Jason and the Argonauts, co-starring Todd Armstrong as the title voyager and a pre-Pussy Galore Honor Blackman as the goddess Hera, with Ray Harryhausen’s scintillating special FX and Bernard “Psycho” Herrmann’s score - when I was 21 I embarked on my very own Oceanic Odyssey. While Ulysses and Jason journeyed around the relatively puny Mediterranean, lured by them thar South Seas sirens, in search of paradise I peregrinated around the Pacific Ocean’s vast expanses, often on cargo boats to far-flung Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro atolls and the Marquesas, outrigger canoes, zigzagging from Raiatea to Bora Bora aboard motorboats during purple sunrises, riding the wild surf to Molokai’s Kalaupapa in a kayak or on a yacht from Oahu to Lanai in choppy seas and the like. When I think that I could have squandered my youth in New Yawk City and gone corporate, I am endlessly slapping myself on the back for having been such a hardy adventurer and would-be Argonaut!
Should we save the planet or kill the enemy?
Perhaps no question more succinctly separates the past from the future, or so it occurred to me after I read Rebecca Solnit’s stunning observation in a recent essay: that the mass murders in Christchurch, N.Z. on March 15 occurred on the same day, and in the same general area, as the climate strike young activists were holding in Christchurch as part of a global action, with rallies in well over a hundred countries involving tens of thousands of people.
This juxtaposition was “also a perfectly coherent one, a clash of opposing ideologies,” Solnit wrote. “Behind the urgency of climate action is the understanding that everything is connected; behind white supremacy is an ideology of separation.”
To my Colleagues in the Anti-Over-Vaccination Activist Community:
In the last few days there has been a lot of commentary generated online about a recent publication (from the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Research on the Media, Technology and Health) about the internet and the vaccine controversy. The article is being published in the pro-over-vaccination journal Vaccine. The summary is printed further below.
ORAC (the pseudonym of the infamous David Gorski and his “respectful insolence” website) has already commented favorably on the findings, and he has praised the two co-authors that are employed by the pro-over-vaccination, Kids Plus Pediatrics clinic in Pittsburgh (which, in any fair and open society should be the “kiss of death” for Dr Wolynn).
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Coup-leader Prayuth Chan-ocha expects his
impressive wins in elections on March 24 will extend his prime
ministry, but anti-junta politicians are struggling to form a
coalition strong enough to challenge him.
Voting results were marred by irregularities and delays but both sides
appeared to win large competing blocks of seats in the House of
Representatives elections.
Attention was now on smaller parties to see which side they would support.
The most stunning victory by a smaller party was Thanathorn
Juangroongruangkit's rebellious Future Forward.
They promised to punish future coup leaders, end army conscription,
slash the military's budget and rewrite Prime Minister Prayuth's 2017
constitution.
Mr. Thanathorn is a 40-year-old scion of a wealthy family
manufacturing automobile parts, and attracted most of his support from
younger voters.
They were fed up with their parents' inability to stop Thailand's
U.S.-trained army from launching a dozen coups since World War II in a
bloody cycle of putsches and pro-democracy protests.