TNHP Feb 15 2013

In the Name of Humanity, tip your server, then save the world
Groucho Gave Secretary High Marx
Author Steve Stoliar recalls his days as Groucho Marx’s secretary
Staff Writer
Steve Stoller: 'I'm very happy to meet you, after all this.'
Groucho Marx: 'Well, you should be.'
To the Dean’s relief, Stoliar had no plans to take on the system—at least not UCLA’s system. And, erring on the side of democracy, the university granted him the permission he was seeking.
That winter quarter in the student commons, seated somewhere between Stop the War, Gay Rights activists and the Hare Krishnas, were Stoliar and friends, or CRAC as they called themselves -- The Committee for the Rerelease of Animal Crackers -- out to collect enough signatures so that Universal Studios would release the 1930 black-and-white film starring the Four Marx Brothers. (More)
When God Is Not Enough
Religious states have highest rates of anti-depressant use
They say that religion is the opiate of the masses, but it seems that the opiates of the religious are antidepressants
A study released Wednesday 13 February, confirmed that Mississippi remains the most religious state in the Union, followed by a handful of its southern belt brothers: Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, as well as the Mormon stronghold of Utah.
From the Desk of Dennis Carr, Sustainable Development Editor
Rebecca Tarbotton, 39, leading environmentalist, drowns
By Lisa Hymas
grist.org
The green movement has too few visionary leaders and too few women leaders and too few leaders under the age of 40. Tragically, this week it lost one leader who stood out in all three categories.
(Don't miss the video)
Tarbotton had been at the helm of RAN since August 2010, and had worked with the organization for almost six years. Under her leadership, RAN has focused on the intersections between forests, fossil fuels, and climate change, and run aggressive campaigns pushing corporations to change the way they do business. Most recently, Tarbotton helped convince entertainment giant Disney to adopt a major new policy that will eliminate the use of paper connected to the destruction of endangered forests. (More)
When it comes to Israel the distinction between
right and left among American Jews fades to zero
Progressive Congressman Jerry Nadler would block free speech at Brooklyn College
Check out this letter from Congressman Jerry Nadler, a West Side Manhattan Democrat, demanding that Brooklyn College not permit a campus group to discuss strategies for boycotting Israel to meet on campus. Nadler is joined by virtually every major “progressive” New York politician. Nadler and his cohorts make the case that they don’t mind the boycott group meeting but object to the political science department sponsoring an event that presents “only one side.” Of course, anyone who attended college knows that academic departments do that all the time because sponsoring a discussion does not mean the department is endorsing it, only that it favors airing of all sides.
Nadler himself was a major anti-Vietnam war activist during his years at Columbia, rightly opposing U.S. policy and participating in campus “teach-ins,” no different than the boycott session at Brooklyn. But Nadler was young then and, besides, he is a strong advocate of dissent against U.S. policies. He draws the line however when it comes to Israel. The same can be said of all the other “progressives” who signed his letter. Nadler, however, is a true believer; he is utterly devoted to supporting the Israeli government in all situations. The others are just courting support from donors or potential donors. (More)
03 February 2013 — You have to check out this new film, House of Cards.
It is big. It stars Kevin Spacey who also directed it. Additionally, it is the first film produced by Netflix, which is itself a huge deal, and is available instantly at its site for free streaming.
Here is the amazing part. I don’t think I’m revealing any spoilers because this is only a small part of the plot but, if you are sensitive about such things, stop reading.
So…Kevin Spacey plays the Democratic whip of the House of Representatives. A new president has just been elected, who has promised to appoint Spacey’s character Secretary of State. However, he reneges and gives the job to someone else. The guy who gets the job is fine, even from Spacey’s viewpoint, but Spacey is mad and has to block him to hurt the president.
But the guy is clean. What to do?
Spacey’s staffer comes up with a Williams College editorial on Israel, published when the Secretary of State nominee was editor-in-chief of the college paper. The editorial calls the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza illegal.
Spacey figures that should be enough to destroy the would-be secretary’s chances EXCEPT it turns out that he did not write the editorial, another student did. Spacey dispatches a corrupt, drug addicted Congressman (really) to visit the guy who wrote the article and convince him to say that it was, in fact, the Secretary of State nominee who was responsible. (More)
One subject, at least, got remarkably little attention during the inaugural blitz and, when mentioned, certainly struck few as odd or worth dwelling on. Yet nothing better caught our changing American world. Washington, after all, was in a lockdown mode unmatched by any inauguration from another era - not even Lincoln's second inaugural in the midst of the Civil War, or Franklin Roosevelt's during World War II, or John F. Kennedy's at the height of the Cold War.
Here's how NBC Nightly News described some of the security arrangements as the day approached: (More)
'Pregnant, Chained to Wall, Starved'
One of 136 US 'War on Terror' Stories
Entitled “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition”, the report confirms that the CIA held suspected terrorists in undisclosed prisons, known as “black sites”. The agency also carried out “extraordinary renditions” – defined by the report as the illegal transfer of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for detention or interrogation.
According to the Justice Initiative’s report, CIA detainees were tortured and abused in detention sites around the world. Some were wrongfully detained, and others were never charged for a crime. (More)
US prison population has 'unprecedented' increase
System now taking aim at juveniles and the elderly
Over the past 30 years, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the federal prison population has jumped from 25,000 to 219,000 inmates, an increase of nearly 790 percent. Swollen by such figures, for years the United States has incarcerated far more people than any other country, today imprisoning some 716 people out of every 100,000. (Although CRS reports are not made public, a copy can be found here.)
“This is one of the major human rights problems within the United States, as many of the people caught up in the criminal justice system are low income, racial and ethnic minorities, often forgotten by society,” Maria McFarland, deputy director for the U.S. programme at Human Rights Watch, told IPS.
In recent years, as a consequence of the imposition of very harsh sentencing policies, McFarland’s office has seen new patterns emerging of juveniles and very elderly people being put in prison.
“Last year, some 95,000 juveniles under 18 years of age were put in prison, and that doesn’t count those in juvenile facilities,” she noted.
“And between 2007 and 2011, the population of those over 64 grew by 94 times the rate of the regular population. Prisons clearly aren’t equipped to take care of these aging people, and you have to question what threat they pose to society – and the justification for imprisoning them.” (More)
The dangers of Obama's Cyber War power grab
05 February 2013 — When our founders were drafting the Constitution, they went out of their way to give warmaking powers to Congress, not the President.
They understood that if the President could make war on his own, he'd be no different than a king.
And they also understood, as James Madison said, that such power "would be too much temptation" for one man.
And so they vested that power in Congress.
But since World War II, one President after another has usurped that power.
The latest usurper is President Obama, who did so in Libya, and with drones, and now is prepared to do so in cyberspace. (More)
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Hillary Clinton's legacy as Secretary of State
A reprehensible role model for young women
Madeline (children are expendable) Albright was on the leading edge of the Balkans bombings, and famously described the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as "worth the sacrifice".
Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice should be prosecuted for War crimes and Treason for her role in the lead up to and war in Iraq.
Susan Rice backed the bombing of Libya and has been the Empire's lead enforcer at the UN. Some have suggested she was ruled out for Secretary of State because of her abusive demeanor.
In 2003 then US Senator Clinton voted to invade Iraq when it was clear to anybody with an IQ of 90 that the Dubya Regime's justifications for invasion were 100% bogus.
Which all goes to show that in order to move up in the Imperial ranks women must be even more aggressive and despotic than men. The "liberation" of women and "advancement" of minorities in general has been a boon to the prosecution and propaganda of Empire as an equal opportunity employer.
The precocious coder, hacker visionary, and “pirate” was already a tech legend by the time he’d turned 17. But in the weeks since his suicide last month, at 26, his friends and comrades have tried to turn him into something else—a martyr.
There is a category of young person able to do things like contribute to the building of the Internet in their teens, or sell their tech start-ups for millions of dollars when they are 19, or rally a million opponents to a major piece of legislation when they are in their twenties. Usually such people are not the same young people who write on their blogs that they are too frightened to ask for a glass of water on a plane, or that "even among my closest friends, I still feel like something of an imposition, and the slightest shock, the slightest hint that I'm correct, sends me scurrying back into my hole." Swartz was preternaturally adult when he was still a child and still a precocious child after he had grown to adulthood - "so vulnerable and fragile," his friend Ben Wikler said. "He put up shields in all the wrong places." He had done more in 26 years than most of us will do in a lifetime, but often avowed to others, and most of all himself, that he had done nothing of any worth at all. (More)
Hitler’s failed Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union
The Battle of Moscow: Turning Point of World War II
The victory of the Red Army in front of Moscow was a major break...
By Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels
Global Research
Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, author of The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, James Lorimer, Toronto, 2002.
04 February 2013 — World War II started, at least as far as the “European Theatre” was concerned, with the German army steamrolling over Poland in September, 1939. About six months later, even more spectacular victories followed, this time over the Benelux Countries and France. By the summer of 1940, Germany looked invincible and predestined to rule the European continent indefinitely. (Great Britain admittedly refused to throw in the towel, but could not hope to win the war on its own, and had to fear that Hitler would soon turn his attention to Gibraltar, Egypt, and/or other jewels in the crown of the British Empire.) Five years later, Germany experienced the pain and humiliation of total defeat. On April 20, 1945, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin as the Red Army bulldozed its way into the city, reduced to a heap of smoking ruins, and on May 8/9 German surrendered unconditionally.
Clearly, then, sometime between late 1940 and 1944 the tide had turned rather dramatically. But when, and where? In Normandy in 1944, according to some; at Stalingrad, during the winter of 1942-43, according to others. In reality, the tide turned in December 1941 in the Soviet Union, more specifically, in the barren plain just west of Moscow. As a German historian, an expert on the war against the Soviet Union, has put it: “That victory of the Red Army [in front of Moscow] was unquestionably the major break [Zäsur] of the entire world war.”[1]
That the Soviet Union was the scene of the battle that changed the course of World War II, should come as no surprise. War against the Soviet Union was the war Hitler had wanted from the beginning, as he had made very clear on the pages of Mein Kampf, written in the mid-1920s. (But an Ostkrieg, a war in the east, i.e. against the Soviets, was also the object of desire of the German generals, of Germany’s leading industrialists, and of other “pillars” of Germany’s establishment.)
In fact, as a German historian has just recently demonstrated,[2] it was a war against the Soviet Union, and not against Poland, France, or Britain, that Hitler had wanted to unleash in 1939. On August 11 of that year, Hitler explained to Carl J. Burckhardt, an official of the League of Nations, that “everything he undertook was directed against Russia,” and that “if the West [i.e. the French and the British] is too stupid and too blind to comprehend this, he would be forced to reach an understanding with the Russians, turn and defeat the West, and then turn back with all his strength to strike a blow against the Soviet Union.”[3]
This is in fact what happened. The West did turn out to be “too stupid and blind”, as Hitler saw it, to give him “a free hand” in the east, so he did make a deal with Moscow – the infamous “Hitler-Stalin Pact” – and then unleashed war against Poland, France and Britain. But his objective remained the same: to attack and destroy the Soviet Union as soon as possible. (More)