I'll keep this quick and simple. We have Russia trying to bring forces down from the north (it'll take awhile too), but they are politically engaged which could be dangerous. We have some new information that the U.S. is lining up it's stealth forces in the region (to use or just in case); if we elect a Republican President for the U.S. this November the chances go up.

... more inside ...

I spend 1-4 hours a day consuming videos and chatter here and at sites linked to from here, all of which leans towards the liberal. It occurred to me (again) today that absorbing so many opinions and talking points that conform to my own isn't really being intellectually honest. So I figured I should find some to balance things out. I'm not thinking of watching half and half, but maybe for every hour I spend on stuff I like, I could spend 10 minutes on something that challenges me a bit more.

So I'm looking for some sites that will satisfy me.

I know many of you will just get a good laugh out of this, and that's fine, but I'm looking for -- wait for it -- some intelligent, fact-based, rationally argued and conservative media, like a conservative equivalent to "The Point". They can be libertarians, fiscal conservatives, whatever. They cannot be blowhards who spew crap that's verifiably bullshit, who argue from tautological (especially religion-based) PoVs, or who just spout their talking points and win by yelling louder.

OK, stop laughing, I'm serious. If you know of any sites that would fit the bill, please drop them in the comments. It doesn't have to be videos, but it must be open to public comments and have at least a semi-intelligent atmosphere.

Or if you think I'm dreaming, you can have a laugh at my expense too.

Thanks!

The WaPo ran a whole set of articles about it, each more interesting and disturbing than the last.

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.

In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.

As a result, hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.

With regards to the case of Santae Tribble, who was convicted based largely on the analysis of a hair found on a stocking the perpetrator wore during the crime. Here's what it turned into:

Details of the new round of hair testing illustrate how hair analysis is highly subjective. The FBI scientist who originally testified at Tribble’s trial, Special Agent James A. Hilverda, said all the hairs he retrieved from the stocking were human head hairs, including the one suitable for comparison that he declared in court matched Tribble’s “in all microscopic characteristics.”

In August, Harold Deadman, a senior hair analyst with the D.C. police who spent 15 years with the FBI lab, forwarded the evidence to the private lab and reported that the 13 hairs he found included head and limb hairs. One exhibited Caucasian characteristics, Deadman added. Tribble is black.

But the private lab’s DNA tests irrefutably showed that the 13 hairs came from three human sources, each of African origin, except for one — which came from a dog.

“Such is the true state of hair microscopy,” Levick wrote. “Two FBI-trained analysts, James Hilverda and Harold Deadman, could not even distinguish human hairs from canine hairs.”

Jolly good work, lads.

-- Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.

-- DOJ review of flawed FBI forensics processes lacked transparency

So there's this neat little mural painted on the side of a building near downtown in Columbus. I've driven past it a few times, and I have to admit it's a pretty neat little bit of street art:



Well, a few days ago it got some slight modifications:



In case you're wondering, that black square is covering the word "niggers." Here's the full article I lifted that pic from.

We've been having quite a bit of this lately. Only a few days before that the African-American Studies building at OSU got tagged with "Long live Zimmerman!" and a few days before that some lady got her garage covered in racial slurs.

Once upon a time, I wouldn't read too much into this kind of thing. I'd figure that it probably was just a handful of assholes who think they're geniuses because they can hold a spray can and draw swastikas with it.

Problem is, I know the national context. This does not feel like some random guy doing his own thing. This feels like all the ugliness that gets broadcast through our airwaves and our internet transitioning from word to deed.

And I have no idea how we stop it.

22 year old Sam Gorman did a streak at a MAJOR soccer league game on Feb 12th...... My question is does he deserve to be put on the sex offenders register for two years as a result of this despite the fact that he sexually assaulted /harrassed/molested nobody?.......... because that's what happened to him.

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2012/03/21/aston-villa-streaker-is-put-on-sex-offenders-register-after-running-onto-pitch-for-a-bet-97319-30590014/

I'm just interested in feedback here guys & gals.....please discuss.

Test is here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

If you'd like to be included, post UR numbers.

Alan Moore, the author of V for Vendetta, wrote an article for BBC News that I found interesting and wanted to share.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16968689

A Greek choir of the "disgusted" and the "outraged" predictably greeted BRICS members Russia and China double veto to the United Nations Security Council resolution imposing regime change in Syria. The resolution was backed by that haven of democracy, the GCC League, the organization controlled by the six monarchies/emirates of the Gulf Cooperation Council formerly known as the Arab League.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the double veto a "travesty". Then Clinton duly incited "friends of democratic Syria" to keep working for regime change, which was the object of the resolution. The copyright for this idea is held by the liberator of Libya, neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said Paris was already working to create a NATOGCC "Friends of the Syrian People Group" in charge of implementing the Arab League's regime change plan.

Right on cue, Paris puppet Burhan Ghalyun, the head of the Syrian National Council (SNC) - the opposition umbrella group - also summoned these countries "friendly to the Syrian people". Everybody knows who they are; the US, Britain, France, Israel and GCC members Qatar and Saudi Arabia. With "friends" like these, the "Syrian people" certainly don't need enemies.

More: Pepe Escobar: Syria and those 'disgusting' BRICS

Related: Report of Arab League Observer Mission (PDF)


Now compare it to your local news headlines/articles.

What would Jesus say if he were a Republican?

http://teapartyjesus.tumblr.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-paul-signed-off-on-racist-newsletters-sources-say/2012/01/20/gIQAvblFVQ_story.html

By Jerry Markon and Alice Crites, Friday, January 27

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian , has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, according to three people with direct knowledge of Paul’s businesses.

The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.

But people close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.

The newsletters point to a rarely seen and somewhat opaque side of Paul, who has surprised the political community by becoming an important factor in the Republican race. The candidate, who has presented himself as a kindly doctor and political truth-teller, declined in a recent debate to release his tax returns, joking that he would be “embarrassed” about his income compared with that of his richer GOP rivals.

... more inside ...

- Maybe about pulling out of Kyoto and stifling the Durban climate talks?
- or The Oilsands? "Not the cleanest stuff around, but hey we'd still like to run it over your aquifer and sell it to ya, eh!"
- or Building more prisons for Texas style justice, which coincidentally, Texas recently advised against.

What do you think/hear about Canada these days?

I'm curious because of this site below.

http://sorryworld.ca/

The same bought jerkoff from Texas Rep. Lamar Smith who sponsored SOPA also submitted:

"Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011"

This bill will accomplish much of the same things and be reworked with the same hooks into the internet. What is really absurd is that they can already immediately shutdown and websites involved with child pornography, and they already have the ability to go after IP addresses of anyone involved with file sharing.

As the Megavideo take down shows, they don't need any of these SOPA/PIPA/PCIP laws. The difference is that big corporations want the ability to decide which companies to go after instead of having to influence the DOJ and FBI to enforce the existing copyright laws.

The Best Reason to Oppose Ron Paul
(http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644386-the-best-reason-to-oppose-ron-paul)
December 27, 2011 at 12:35 pm - by Ed Brayton

I am on record praising many of Ron Paul’s positions, but I’ve also said that while I think he is refreshing on many issues of executive power and bill of rights issues I cannot support him. And the most powerful reason why I can’t support him is because I think his ideas on other issues are extraordinarily dangerous. And nothing exemplifies that more than the We The People act that he has sponsored in the House.

This is a court-stripping bill, one that would reverse decades of case law that protects freedom and equality in a thousand different ways. Here is the core of the bill:

The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court– (1) shall not adjudicate– (A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion; (B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or (C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and (2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1).

This would reverse not only Roe v Wade but Griswold v Connecticut and Lawrence v Texas and every other ruling related to a right to privacy as well. That means the states could once again outlaw homosexuality and the use of contraception (and if you don’t think there are powerful political interests that favor doing both of those things, you haven’t been paying attention). It erases virtually every single church/state ruling in the last century, allowing public schools to once again force students to read the Bible aloud and to recite state-composed and mandated prayers. That is every bit as crazy as Newt Gingrich’s absolutely insane anti-judiciary policy proposals. And it is an absolute deal-breaker for me.

Blast ‘Em?
(From the Ron Paul Political Report October 1992 newsletter. [http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/PoliticalReportOctober1992.pdf])

If you live in a major city, you’ve probably already heard about the newest threat to your life and limb, and your family: carjacking.

It is the hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos. The youth simply walk up to a car they like, pull a gun, tell their family to get out, steal their jewelry and wallets, and take the car to wreck. Such actions have ballooned in the recent months.

In the old days, average people could avoid such youth by staying out of bad neighborhoods. Empowered by the media, police, and political complicity, however, the youth now roam everywhere looking for cars to steal and people to rob.

What can you do? More and more Americans are carrying a gun in the car. An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example).

I frankly don’t know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.

I've been reading the context of Ron Paul's Racist Newsletter

http://bsalert.com/artsearch.php?fn=2&dt=1&as=2160

I remember the Rodney King riots.
And I remember how I felt, so
Anyone who didn't feel outrage at black people beating helpless drivers, looting and burning stores,
WASN'T THERE

How Freedom Became Tyranny
December 19, 2011

Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th December 2011

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws(1); big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Right-wing libertarianism recognizes few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange(2). Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterized as a clash between negative and positive freedoms.

These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty(3). It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

Put briefly and crudely, negative freedom is the freedom to be or to act without interference from other people. Positive freedom is freedom from inhibition: it’s the power gained by transcending social or psychological constraints. Berlin explained how positive freedom had been abused by tyrannies, particularly by the Soviet Union. It portrayed its brutal governance as the empowerment of the people, who could achieve a higher freedom by subordinating themselves to a collective single will.

Rightwing libertarians claim that greens and social justice campaigners are closet communists trying to resurrect Soviet conceptions of positive freedom. In reality the battle mostly consists of a clash between negative freedoms.

As Berlin noted, “no man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. ‘Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows’”. So, he argued, some people’s freedom must sometimes be curtailed “to secure the freedom of others.” In other words, your freedom to swung your fist ends where my nose begins. The negative freedom not to have our noses punched is the freedom that green and social justice campaigns, exemplified by the Occupy movement, exist to defend.

Berlin also shows that freedom can intrude upon other values, such as justice, equality or human happiness. “If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of a number of other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust and immoral.” It follows that the state should impose legal restraints upon freedoms which interfere with other people’s freedoms – or on freedoms which conflict with justice and humanity.

These conflicts of negative freedom were summarized in one of the greatest poems of the 19th Century, which could be seen as the founding document of British environmentalism. In The Fallen Elm, John Clare describes the felling of the tree he loved, presumably by his landlord, that grew beside his home(4). “Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom’s ways/So thy old shadow must a tyrant be./Thou’st heard the knave, abusing those in power,/Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free.”

The landlord was exercising his freedom to cut the tree down. In doing so, he was intruding upon Clare’s freedom to delight in the tree, whose existence enhanced his life. The landlord justifies this destruction by characterizing the tree as an impediment to freedom: his freedom, which he conflates with the general liberty of humankind. Without the involvement of the state (which today might take the form of a tree preservation order) the powerful man could trample the pleasures of the powerless man. Clare then compares the felling of the tree with further intrusions on his liberty. “Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;/The right of freedom was to injure thine:/As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm/In freedom’s name the little that is mine.”

But rightwing libertarians do not recognize this conflict. They speak, like Clare’s landlord, as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterize any attempt to restrain them as tyranny. They refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.

Last week, on an internet radio channel called The Fifth Column(5), I debated climate change with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas, one of the right-wing libertarian groups which rose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist Party(6). Claire Fox is a feared interrogator on the BBC show The Moral Maze. Yet when I asked her a simple question – “do you accept that some people’s freedoms intrude upon other people’s freedoms?” – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen. I used the example of a Romanian lead smelting plant I had visited in 2000, whose freedom to pollute is shortening the lives of its neighbors(7). Surely the plant should be regulated in order to enhance the negative freedoms – freedom from pollution, freedom from poisoning – of its neighbors? She tried several times to answer it, but nothing coherent emerged which would not send her crashing through the mirror of her philosophy.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people. This bastardized, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrongfoot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned “freedom” into an instrument of oppression.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/09/06/making-a-mockery-of-localism/

2. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/09/12/think-of-a-tank/

3. http://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/Ankuendigungen/Berlin_twoconceptsofliberty.pdf

4. http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/john-clare/the-fallen-elm/

5. http://www.thefifthcolumn.co.uk/the-interrogator/global-warming-does-it-matter/

6. http://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/

7. http://www.monbiot.com/2000/05/19/the-most-polluted-place-in-europe/

Mythbuster Adam Savage (the one that can dance) blogs an accurate description of the bill in congress that threatens to give greedy media companies effective control over the world wide web.

His blog is easily the most concise description of SOPA you can read:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/mythbusters/articles/mythbuster-adam-savage-sopa-could-destroy-the-internet-as-we-know-it-6620300