The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons Prisoners earning 23 cents an hour in U.S. federal prisons are manufacturing high-tech electronic components for Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles, launchers for TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles, and other guided missile systems. A March article by journalist and financial researcher Justin Rohrlich of World in Review is worth a closer look at the full implications of this ominous development. (minyanville.com) The expanding use of prison industries, which pay slave wages, as a way to increase profits for giant military corporations, is a frontal attack on the rights of all workers. Prison labor — with no union protection, overtime pay, vacation days, pensions, benefits, health and safety protection, or Social Security withholding — also makes complex components for McDonnell Douglas/Boeing’s F-15 fighter aircraft, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, and Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter. Increased profits, unhealthy workplaces
What Started the Obesity Epidemic in America? July 26, 2011 | 234,985 views Share The website Fooducate has taken a look at the annual obesity report issued by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Adult obesity rates rose in 16 U.S. states over the past year, and NOT ONE state decreased Twelve U.S. states now have obesity rates above 30 percent Just 4 years ago, only one state had an obesity rate above 30 percent Obesity rates exceed 25 percent in more than two-thirds of U.S. states Mississippi had the highest rate of obesity (34.4 percent) Colorado was the only state with a rate below 20 percent -- and next year will probably be above Adult diabetes rates increased in 11 states and Washington, D.C. in the past year; in 8 states, more than 10 percent of adults now have type 2 diabetes. To read the rest of their list, you can click on the link below.
Plutocracy: If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish | Economy July 24, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Once upon a time in America, back a century ago, our nation's rich paid virtually nothing in taxes to the federal government. But those average Americans would do battle, over the next half century, to rein in the rich and the corporations that made them ever richer. America's wealthy, predictably, counterattacked — and, by the 1980s, they were scoring successes of their own. Today, the rich and their corporations no longer bear anything close to their rightful share of the nation's tax burden. This “debt crisis” in no way had to happen. Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been. In 2007, Diamond and Saez point out, taxpayers in the nation's top 1 percent actually paid, on average, 22.4 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. No mystery here.
Queen tried to get UK poverty fund to heat palace published online: 9/25/2010 LONDON - Even a monarch needs a little help from time to time - especially when the cost of heating those drafty old palaces spirals past $1.5 million a year. But a request for assistance from a government fund that provides subsidized heating to low-income Britons has caused a spot of bother for Queen Elizabeth II, long one of the world's wealthiest women. Her Majesty's application in 2004 was politely turned down by the government - in part because of fear of adverse publicity - and quietly forgotten until The Independent newspaper published the correspondence Friday. The documents quote an unidentified functionary as gently reminding the royal household the program was meant for people in need, not the upper crust, and he noted the potential public relations disaster. Advertisement "I also feel a bit uneasy about the probable adverse press coverage if the Palace were given a grant at the expense of, say, a hospital," the official said.
How 'Twilight,' other dark fiction affect teen brains Scientists, authors and education experts are meeting this weekend at Cambridge University to investigate how the teenage brain is affected or altered by reading the "Twilight" saga, the "Harry Potter" series and other books that invite fear and anxious emotional responses. Edward Cullen altering the teen brain? This is one education conference that I would have enjoyed attending. (I have two teenage daughters.) It turns out, according to the organizer of the interdisciplinary conference, called "The Emergent Adult -- Adolescent Literature and Culture,” that fiction with dark themes does indeed alter teen brains in sometimes important ways. The conference is bringing together scientists, authors and education experts to make connections between recent neuroscience research and the representation of the adolescent in literature, film, computer games and social networking sites. Inside the teenage brain, synapses are breaking and reforming, and the chemistry keeps changing. Q. A. Nothing.
US physics professor: 'Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life' Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society. It's so utterly damning that I'm going to run it in full without further comment. Dear Curt: When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
VIDEO: 120 Seconds Of Gerald Celente Kicking Wall Street's Ass - "$144B Bonus Is 49th Largest GDP In World!" Video: Celente is on fire... I don't usually post GC, so you know this clip is really good. By far the best part is the utter annihilation of private equity billionaire Stephen Schwarzman. Text from youtube page -- While millions of Americans are unemployed and the national debt is soaring, it seems top financial executives are far from feeling the pinch. This amount is equal to the U.S. stimulus package approved by Congress in 2008. Celente says Americans are failing to react to the payouts, because the financiers' fanbase in the mainstream media is distracting public opinion.
WikiLeaks Being Used to Justify "Patriot Act" Legislation For Internet Eric BlairActivist Post Senator Mitch McConnell called Assange a "high-tech terrorist" on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday and said, "if it‘s found that Assange hasn’t violated the law, then the law should be changed." Over the weekend, an insightful article by Zen Gardner exposed how WikiLeaks resembles an establishment creation. The article correctly pointed out that the WikiLeaks storyline was conforming nicely to the elite's problem-reaction-solution method, with the solution of more tyranny for our safety. WikiLeaks is being used to bring in the agenda on so many levels, but most importantly by setting the precedent of shutting down websites for politically "dangerous" content. Gardner writes: After all, if information is now the enemy, we must carefully police any and every aspect of this dangerous medium -- all for the safety and protection of 'we the people.' Oh, we’ll still have the Internet, just like you can still fly. That, we agree with. : "Truth is treason in an empire of lies."
Students set to find out just how effective violent protest is Students across the country are set to learn an important life lesson today when the government completely ignores all of their protests to vote in a significant rise in tuition fees. There have been a large number of angry protests across the country, as the student body mobilised for an important lesson in futility. Psychologist William Morris told us, “Learning about the futility of our rebellious actions in the face of authority is something many of us never truly understand until we get a job or a career.” ” But these students are being given the opportunity to learn just how the world really works whilst still in full-time education.” “The arrival of the dead look that people get behind the eyes when they realise this is how it’s going to be forever is an important right of passage for young people.” Student fee vote Not all students have accepted defeat, with some of the more gullible ones still hoping for a positive outcome during the parliamentary vote.
The Death of the Hard Drive - FoxNews.com The Caviar Green hard disk drive from Western Digital.Western Digital Stop worrying about when the hard drive in your computer will die. Google wants to kill it permanently anyway. The new Google Chrome operating system, which was unveiled Tuesday, as well as hints and suggestions from Apple and Microsoft, offers us a preview of the PC of the future. The Chrome OS will at first be available on all-black laptops from Samsung and Acer. The new Google laptops come without hard drives, in other words. Other hardware manufacturers have seen the trend, too: The ebook readers from Amazon and Barnes & Noble don't have hard drives. Is this the end of the hard disk? "For the first 35 years of the PC revolution, the answer to the question 'How much storage do you need?' It's all about "the cloud," the generic term for storing data online and off your computer. Google's Chrome operating system takes that idea and runs with it -- down the street, up the next block, and straight on into the sunset.
Quality of Greek protests fail to impress British rioters Greece has become the most recent country to enter the running for the Best Violent Protest prize, amid French criticism that the UK unfairly disadvantaged nations without a monarchy by poking the Duchess of Cornwall with a stick. The Greek mob opened its protest against austerity measures yesterday with the expected strategy of petrol bombing and vandalism outside the parliament building in Athens, which police countered with a solid tear-gas defence. However, in later rounds the quick-thinking rioters showed their true class and initiative by chasing and beating a government minister who happened to pop out for a souvlaki. “The Brits have made it tough, definitely.” “But I think we still have a chance. Greece Austerity protests France, which held its own riots over retirement age back in September, was dismissive of the British coup. “It doesn’t count,” said one former hooligan. “It’s just sour grapes,’ said a British student.