Why We Won’t Stop Mass Killings: We Like Them Too Much | Econ201 Forgive me if I’ve already offended you with the title of this piece, but I’m an economist. As such, I tend to weigh up the costs and benefits of just about anything when trying to figure out what it means for society. And when it comes to mass killings, my analysis suggests we have some reason for introspection. Because of the inescapable reach of media, mass killings affect virtually everyone. While the victims and the ones who loved them suffer terribly, the rest of us may feel a combination of many emotions: grief (through empathy), fear, disbelief, curiosity, fascination, and even a thrill at seeing the commotion caused by what happened. After shootings like the one in Newtown, the media descend excitedly on the crime scene, and the public tunes in to see and hear the latest details. Later on, the media produce articles and programs eulogizing the dead. So how is the balance sheet looking so far? And that, in fact, is what we do.
Hacker Who Exposed Steubenville Rapists Raided By FBI, Faces Ten-Year Prison Sentence In April, the FBI quietly raided the home of the hacker known as KYAnonymous (whose real name is Deric Lostutter) in connection with his role in the Steubenville rape case. Today he spoke out for the first time about the raid and his motivations for pursuing the Steubenville rapists.Lostutter may deserve more credit than anyone for turning Steubenville into a national outrage. After a 16-year-old girl was raped by two members of the Steubenville High football team last year, he obtained and published tweets and Instagram photos in which other team members had joked about the incident and belittled the victim.Lostutter says he played no role in the hacking the Steubenville team’s fan page; he points out that another hacker, Batcat, has publicly taken the credit.
Verified Warnings From Former U.S. Presidents About the “Invisible Government” Running the U.S. With “No Allegiance To the People” “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”- George Santayana Past presidents of the United States and other high profile political leaders have repeatedly issued warnings over the last 214 years that the U.S. government is under the control of an “invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” According to six of our former presidents, one vice-president, and a myriad of other high profile political leaders, an invisible government that is “incredibly evil in intent” has been in control of the U.S. government “ever since the days of Andrew Jackson” (since at least 1836). As a result, “we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.” “Mr. The Federal Reserve
Guess which North American country produces the most garbage. Wrong! Despite how demure its citizens are, Canada sometimes feels a little insecure about always being promoted as second-fiddle to the United States. There is a famous T-shirt which suggests that Canada is America’s hat; while this is largely true, Canada yearns to occasionally suggest that the U.S. is Canada’s boxer shorts. (Your Florida is hanging out.) In one thing, though, Canada emerges victorious: garbage production. The Conference Board of Canada gave Canada a C grade on Thursday and ranked it in 15th place among 17 developed nations studied across a host of environmental-efficiency metrics. This is what happens when you have a ton of extra space — it fills up with junk you don’t need to keep. [This spot could have been used for a hacky joke about the things Canadians throw away -- Tim Horton's cups, moose antlers, empty syrup bottles, retired NHL players -- but we're too mature for that.] So congratulations to our head-warming neighbors to the north. U-S-A, motherf*ckers.
Area Woman Decides Not To Post Facebook Status That Would Have Tipped Gun Control Debate AURORA, IL—The contentious debate on gun control will continue unresolved after local woman Theresa Delacroix opted Friday not to post an anti-gun message on Facebook, an opinion experts agreed would have tipped the scales toward a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s firearm laws. “There’s already so much chatter about the gun issue floating around on the Internet, I really didn’t see the point of throwing my two cents into the mix,” said Delacroix, 29, whose unposted status update “No more Newtowns—the time has come for action” would have completely swayed the tide of public opinion, pushing the government to end the gun-show loophole and adopt a permanent ban on assault weapons. “Some of my friends are pro-gun, and I didn’t want to stir things up.
One Era's Traitor Is Another Era's Whistle-Blower - By J. Dana Stuster When the Guardian named Edward Snowden as the source behind a series of leaks last week on National Security Agency surveillance programs, the backlash was swift. In a rare show of bipartisanship, several members of Congress -- including House Speaker John Boehner, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton -- labeled the 29-year-old contractor a traitor. The Guardian's profile, meanwhile, characterized Snowden as "one of America's most consequential whistleblowers" and compared him to Daniel Ellsberg. The Guardian isn't alone in comparing Snowden to Ellsberg, who leaked a secret Pentagon-authored history of the Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers, to reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post in 1971. But the reaction to Snowden's leaks is in many ways different than the response Ellsberg received when the Pentagon Papers were published four decades ago. When Ellsberg did face harsh criticism, it was often personal in nature.
KISSINGER AND CHILE: THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD ON REGIME CHANGE Peter Kornbluh recieves an award from Chris Lemmon (photo credit: Gabriela Vega). Joyce Horman, Peter Kornbluh, and Joan Jara, widow of Victor Jara (photo credit: Gabriela Vega). On September 9, 2013, Peter Kornbluh moderated the "Taking Accountability to the Top for Human Rights Crimes" panel discussion for the Charles Horman Truth Foundation's Tribute to Justice event. Peter Kornbluh, Jennifer Harbury, Judge Guzman, Peter Weiss, Reed Brody (photo credit: Gabriela Vega). Washington, D.C., September 11, 2013 – Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile because his "'model' effect can be insidious," according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive. "These documents provide the verdict of history on Kissinger's singular contribution to the denouement of democracy and rise of dictatorship in Chile," said Peter Kornbluh who directs the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive.
To Barack Obama on the Eve of His Second Term: Time to Acknowledge Climate Change, Globalization, and Genetic Engineering In the three or four decades after 1490, the human experience on planet Earth arguably changed more than it had since the Year One. Voyages of discovery transformed a world of isolated societies and sent potatoes and tomatoes sailing from the New World to Ireland and Italy, and horses and apples from Europe to the Americas in return. Trade became truly global, and cross-cultural exchange the norm. At the time of Columbus’s first voyage, direct trade and communication between Europe and East Asia was mostly blocked by the Islamic regimes that lay between them. Now fast-forward. When Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term, in 1985, the Human Genome Project was still years away, but the era of genetic engineering would soon be upon us, bringing capabilities we may not want but cannot forestall. Today we know almost everything, but can’t seem to act on the knowledge or even take it seriously.
Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack SAN DIEGO—Following the events of last week, in which a crazed western lowland gorilla ruthlessly murdered 21 people in a local shopping plaza after escaping from the San Diego Zoo, sources across the country confirmed Thursday that national gorilla sales have since skyrocketed. “After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me,” said 34-year-old Atlanta resident Nick Keller, shortly after purchasing a 350-pound mountain gorilla from his local gorilla store. “It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. “Law enforcement and animal control can only get there so quickly,” Keller added. “The answer to this systemic problem is not more gorillas,” Simmons continued, her eyes welling with tears.
Ashley Jessica, Student Activist, Says She Was Violated During TSA Pat-Down A 27-year-old Ph.D. student says a TSA agent touched her vaginal area during a pat-down at a California airport; however, a representative told The Huffington Post the agents followed procedure. Ashley Jessica , a psychology student from Toronto who has recently campaigned to raise awareness about invasive TSA practices , told HuffPost that she and her mother chose to opt out of a full-body scan at San Diego International Airport on May 23. Because they opted out, TSA agents said they had to give her an "extensive pat-down." Jessica and her mother filmed the whole thing, and video of the pat-down has gone viral since being posted online Sunday. About halfway into the procedure (at the 4:35 minute mark in the video above), a TSA agent feels the area between Jessica's breasts, and Jessica puts up her hands as if to protect herself from further touching. Less than two minutes later, the agent appears to run her hands all the way up the inside of Jessica's leg. "She just touched my vagina!"