stellabluesbeads

occupyallstreets: German Pirate Party Becomes Third Most...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:15:57 -0400

German Pirate Party Becomes Third Most Popular Political Grouping

Germany’s maverick Pirate Party has gone from electoral fluke to the third most popular party, according to a new poll for Stern magazine.

In just four years the new arrival has overtaken the Green Party to become Germany’s third most popular political grouping, with 13 per cent support.

“For many young people, the Greens have become a stale, old-fashioned party,” said Manfred Güllner, poll analyst with Forsa polling agency.

Related News: Pirate Party Refuses to Shutdown Pirate Bay Proxy, Faces Lawsuit

occupyallstreets: Facebook Will Give Complete, Detailed...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:47:38 -0400

occupyallstreets:

Facebook Will Give Complete, Detailed Printout of Your Activity to Police

If police officers were to file a subpoena for your Facebook information, they would receive a printout of the data from the social network. This printout would be so detailed, complete and creepy that you should strive to be a good law-abiding citizen, just to prevent it from ever existing.

We have just learned about the true nature of Facebook’s responses to subpoenas thanks to documents uncovered by the Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly.

While researching a story about a man dubbed the “Craigslist Killer,” reporters at the Phoenix had access to “a huge trove of case files released by the Boston Police Department.” And in the process of sifting through all of those documents, they discovered the Boston Police’s subpoena of the suspect’s Facebook information - as well as the data provided by the social network.

The data - which really did come in the form of an old-fashioned paper printout rather than as a digital file of some sort - included all of the suspect’s wall posts, photos he’d uploaded, photos he’d been tagged in, a list of his Facebook friends, and “a long table of login and IP data.” Based on a look at the actual documents, it appears the login and IP data actually lists which parts of Facebook the individual accessed - down to the photos, groups and profiles he viewed.

Source

occupyallstreets: The Obama Administration’s Disturbing...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:43:21 -0400

occupyallstreets:

The Obama Administration’s Disturbing Treatment of Whistleblowers

Over the past three and a half years the Obama White House has instead shown a ferocious hostility to many whistleblowers and earned itself the ire of progressive columnists like Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and whistleblower defence groups like the Project on Government Oversight and the Government Accountability Project.

Danielle Brian, of the PGO, has said the US department of justice in the Obama administration “sent a clear of message of fear and intimidation” to whistleblowers in the national security field. This is how the GAP’s Jesselyn Raddack – herself a former whistleblower at the DoJ – put it: “While the Bush administration treated whistleblowers unmercifully, the Obama administration has been far worse. It is actually prosecuting them,” she wrote recently.

To do that it is using the bluntest of tools: the Espionage Act, a first world war-era law intended to combat the threat from spies, not internal dissenters. So far six whistleblowers have been charged under the draconian law with the last one – CIA veteran John Kiriakou – being indicted on 3 April.

Kiriakou, who was a counter-terrorism expert in Pakistan and helped capture senior Al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, has been a vocal critic of waterboarding. He spoke to journalists and wrote a book about it, calling it torture and exposing it as a deliberate policy, rather than the actions of a few rogues. Now a hefty jail term could be his reward.

Others, from across a spectrum of government departments, include people who have exposed wrongdoing at the National Security Agency or fears at the FBI that Israel might attack Iran. Another at the state department spoke out about North Korean nukes and, of course, there is the suspected WikiLeaks source, army private Bradley Manning.

Defenders of Obama’s record on these whistleblowers point to a national security defence and say they actively encourage people to speak out about wrongdoing elsewhere. Whistleblowing may be one thing, they say, but intelligence leaking is another. Every government has a right to protect its secrets. But one can also point to other areas where the Obama administration has shown a love of secrecy that should shame the Democrats who slammed President George Bush for a similar attitude.

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Orwellian Newspeak and Pre-Emptive “Defence”

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:35:10 -0400

Orwellian Newspeak and Pre-Emptive “Defence”:

A self-appointed vigilante, carrying a loaded gun, decides to look for “danger” in his neighborhood. He begins to follow a 17-year-old boy, who is carrying candy and a soft drink. The boy asks why he is being followed; words are exchanged. The man aims his gun at the boy, fires, and kills the boy dead. The man claims he acted in “self-defense.”

A vigilante Super-State, armed to the teeth with thousands of WMDs, claims to perceive a threat from a small country, still battered and tattered from a war lost over a decade ago. However, international inspectors are allowed to scour the country and find no such threat (i.e., WMDs). Even so, to “prevent” any possibility of such a threat, the vigilante Super-State launches an all-out War on the small country—which is quickly pulverized, incinerated and murdered on a mass scale. Shortly thereafter, it is discovered that the small country was un-armed. “But the small country might still have made war!” the mass-murdering Super-State proclaimed. “We reserve the right to pre-emptively attack in the name of our security and interests!”

youranonnews: HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY NYAN CAT! NYAN NYAN...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:31:50 -0400

youranonnews:

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY NYAN CAT! NYAN NYAN NYAN!

Thanks for an amazing year of lulz and kitties!

Sincerely,

~Anonymous

major-hxh-redflag: Join the Strike by ~Party9999999

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:19:39 -0400

major-hxh-redflag:

Join the Strike by ~Party9999999

occupyallstreets: Senior Citizens Owe Billions In Student Loan...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:06:12 -0400

occupyallstreets:

Senior Citizens Owe Billions In Student Loan Debt

New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.

That even seniors remain saddled with student loans highlights what a growing chorus of lawmakers, economists and financial experts say has become a central conflict in the nation’s higher education system: The long-touted benefits of a college degree are being diluted by rising tuition rates and the longevity of debt.

Some of these older Americans are still grappling with their first wave of student loans, while others took on new debt when they returned to school later in life in hopes of becoming more competitive in the labor force. Many have co-signed for loans with their children or grandchildren to help them afford ballooning tuition.

The recent recession exacerbated this problem, making it harder for older Americans — or the youths they are supporting in school — to get good-paying jobs. And unlike other debts, student loans cannot be shed in bankruptcy. As a result, some older Americans have found that a college degree led not to a prosperous career but instead to a lifetime under the shadow of debt.

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fralcon: The State of California spends a little less than 8k a...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:11:55 -0400

More of this!

Less of this!

fralcon:

The State of California spends a little less than 8k a year per college student. It spends over 50k a year per prisoner. It’s obvious where their priorities lie, considering more black men are in prison than college. That’s what happens when you turn prisons into a for profit system. Personally, I think saying “Don’t become just another statistic” is patronizing and dishonest, putting all the blame squarely on black men. It should be more like “Don’t let them make you another statistic in their capitalistic system”.

seekdivinewisdom: Everyone should take off work for one week,...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:55:55 -0400

seekdivinewisdom:

Everyone should take off work for one week, and spend that week helping their neighbors.

The Truth would come to the surface.

Ideas and Opinions.: Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:14:27 -0400

Ideas and Opinions.: Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind:

1. The Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First Thoughts

“Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? What’s your best estimate?” Researchers asked this question to a group of people, and the estimates were seldom too far off 35 million. The same question was posed to a second group, but…

wearethe1in3: “I was raped at 14. I was told it was my fault. I...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:52:59 -0400

wearethe1in3:

“I was raped at 14. I was told it was my fault. I was drinking, wearing a skirt. I was shamed for aborting the pregnancy that resulted. I was told, “it’s not the baby’s fault.” NEWSFLASH: it was not my fault either, and no person should have to go through a pregnancy, be it a result of rape or not, if they don’t want to.”

10 years later, my rapist is still out there. No one ever bothered to ask me how I was doing, how I was coping with being raped. My life was turned upside down. No one cared.All anyone ever cared about was my aborted fetus.

I am the 1 in 3.

yeah, and usually those people that judge are the ones that should be protecting us from further crap…i can relate to this.

virtual hug

Photo

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:48:53 -0400

Go To Trial, Crash The Justice System

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:30:43 -0400

Go To Trial, Crash The Justice System:

letterstomycountry:

Michelle Alexander reflects on a state of affairs that every student of our criminal justice system knows about:

AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”

Read More

brilliant

my mother found this, and i have been smiling all day...turn your speakers down

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:46:00 -0500

my mother found this, and i have been smiling all day...turn your speakers down:

i hate that they are in captivity, but love that we can all watch them interact, they are smart

theriverwanders: joost5: Hetty Bower - 105-year-old former...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:39:38 -0500

theriverwanders:

joost5:

Hetty Bower - 105-year-old former suffragette marking the International Women’s Day in London

She was 12 in 1918 when the Representation of the People Act gave the vote to women over 30.

Every woman in America must vote. Every. Single. One.

beautiful, and look at her smile

WikiLeaks, whistleblowers and wars

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:35:22 -0500

WikiLeaks, whistleblowers and wars:

solitaryforager:

On February 24, the Washington Post ran a prominent story on a “top-secret” State Department cable that warned of Pakistani safe-havens for militants that were allegedly putting the “US strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy”. The cable was so secret, the Post reported, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan “sent it through CIA channels rather than the usual State Department ones”.

Yet somehow, it still ended up on the pages of one of the biggest newspapers in the United States of America.

While many might have assumed this was the work of WikiLeaks and their alleged source Bradley Manning, it wasn’t. “Several” US officials described the cable’s contents to the Post in a seemingly coordinated effort to affect Afghanistan war policy. Meanwhile, during the same week the Post article ran, Bradley Manning was arraigned on 22 charges, including “aiding the enemy”, that have him facing life in prison for also leaking State Department cables - none of which were classified as high as the cable published by the Washington Post.

Will those “several officials” be investigated, arrested and aggressively prosecuted for leaking such highly sensitive information? And will the Justice Department open up a grand jury investigation into the Washington Post for publishing such information, as it did for WikiLeaks?

The answer is almost certainly no, and highlights the hypocrisy in the Obama administration’s current war on whistleblowers. But this is far from the only example in recent weeks; a separate incident led ABC’s Jake Tapper to admirably confront the White House over its contradictive policy.

Two weeks ago, the White House issued multiple statements praising two prominent journalists who both recently died reporting from Syria, proclaiming their deaths were “a reminder of the incredible risks that journalists take … in order to bring the truth about what is happening in a country like Syria to those of us at home”. But as Tapper told White House press secretary Jay Carney, just as the administration was praising “aggressive journalism” overseas, its Justice Department had just finished indicting a sixth person under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information - a total higher than all of the previous presidents combined.

Former CIA agent Jon Kiriakou stands accused of leaking information to news organisations in 2008 about the torture methods used on two alleged al-Qaeda leaders and the names of the CIA agents involved. Despite the fact that torture is illegal in the United States, no one has been prosecuted for the CIA’s torture programme carried out under former President George W Bush. Yet the Justice Department decided to prosecute someone for merely alerting the press about it.

“There just seems to be disconnect here,” Tapper remarked. “You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.” While Carney tried to excuse the Justice Department’s Espionage Act cases by claiming they involve highly sensitive state secrets, Tapper rightly observed, “you’re suing a CIA officer for allegedly providing information in 2009 about CIA torture. Certainly that’s something that’s in the public interest of the United States”.

owsposters: The New “Slut” Download the poster pack

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:42:14 -0500

owsposters:

The New “Slut”

Download the poster pack

"According to reports over the past 24 hours, the US military has used unmanned Predator Drones to..."

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:40:09 -0500

“According to reports over the past 24 hours, the US military has used unmanned Predator Drones to end the lives of at least 20 people in Yemen and 15 people in Pakistan. Also the US backed Israeli army has ended at least 10 lives in Gaza. The United States and Israel boycott the International Criminal Court. Why would anyone invite entities such as this into Africa or Syria under the pretext of arresting war criminals? Why would any US citizen have to look any further than their own government when looking for war criminals?”

- Lowkey (via warriorsrise)

why indeed…hint : rare earth minerals

Friday’s death toll in Syria rises to 77 people

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:22:11 -0500

occupyallstreets:

belarttheilliteratereader:

Where are the celebrities at to speak about this cause? Where are the tweets? The tumbles? The Facebook posts? What’s that, silence?

Most celebrities don’t care about anything other than their money and a majority of people who live in first world countries are willfully ignorant.

Snooki’s pregnancy receives more press than Syria does. That’s the world we live in.

No one cares until it become a trend.

this is sad, and as un excusable as can be.

forgot to add

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:20:31 -0500

half of proceeds from barbed wire go to help @korgasm_ continue with the excellent on the ground coverage from #occupies nationwide. She has been on the ground and streaming live all along and deserves a big hattip for doing so, and our continued support.

Help support your streamers, they bring you what mainstream media is not allowed to.