you'll figure it out, eventually

"A Tennessee congressman who supports billion of dollars in cuts to the food stamp program is one of..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 09:52:18 -0400

“A Tennessee congressman who supports billion of dollars in cuts to the food stamp program is one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsides, according to new annual data released by a Washington environmental group. Using Agriculture Department data, researchers at the Environmental Working Group found that Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican and a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn., collected nearly $3.5 million in subsidies from 1999 to 2012….During debate on the farm bill in the House Agriculture Committee last week, Mr. Fincher was one of the biggest proponents of $20 billion in cuts to food stamps in the legislation. At times he quoted passages from the Bible in defending the cuts.”

-
- NY Times, Farm Subsidy Recipient Backs Food Stamp Cuts

The worst.

(via ilyagerner)

Hello, everyone in Shiroiwa Junior High, Class 3-B! You are the...

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:36:51 -0400

Hello, everyone in Shiroiwa Junior High, Class 3-B! You are the lucky class chosen for this year’s battle. Congratulations! Now, I’m going to explain the rules for you. Listen well to fight right and with gusto!

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thepoliticalnotebook: This Week in War. A Friday round-up of...

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:38:23 -0400

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.

This round-up will be on hiatus the next two weeks (sorry), but will return!

Fierce fighting is ongoing in the Syrian town of Qusair.

Palestinians are delaying joining UN agencies, conventions and treaties in order to preserve the current peace effort.

A former Israeli border policeman killed himself and four others in a bank in Beersheba after being refused an overdraft and cash by an ATM.

Multiple days of clashes between Sunni and Alawite residents in Tripoli, Lebanon have left at least 11 dead.

Rami Khouri asks if Hezbollah is at a turning point.

Yemenis in the southern city of Aden rallied in support of an independent south.

Six Egyptian policemen and a border guard who were abducted on the Sinai peninsula last week have been released by their captors, who remain unknown.

In Tunisia, 200 Islamist protesters were arrested and one killed in clashes with security.

Karim Mezran at The Atlantic Council worries that Algeria is a powder keg.

300,000 people have been displaced by fighting in the Darfur region this year.

18 soldiers and four Islamists were killed in a gun battle in Agadex, Niger.

M23 rebels in the Congo have declared a ceasefire for the UN Secretary General’s visit.

With the executions of five Yemenis, the total number executed in Saudi Arabia this year is 47.

A wave of car bombings across Iraq on late Sunday and early Monday left 76 dead and 250 injured and on Tuesday explosions in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tarmiyah and Tuz Khurmato added at least another 23 to the death toll.

Iranian presidential candidates Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a former Ahmadinejad aide, and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have been disqualified from elections.

Iran executed by hanging two men accused and convicted of spying for the CIA and the Israeli Mossad.

Kim Jong-un sent an envoy to China.

North Korea reportedly has a new military chief.

The drug war is ramping up in the Mexican state of Michoácan.

Guatemala’s top court threw out former leader Efrain Rios Montt’s genocide and crimes against humanity convictions.

Guantánamo’s WiFi was shut off after the hacker collective Anonymous threatened disruption at the base.

The transcript for President Obama’s speech on drone policy and Guantánamo Bay is in full here.

Prior to the speech Attorney General Eric Holder publicly acknowledged what was already known: the US had killed Americans abroad with the drone program (four, to be specific).

The US State Dept’s annual International Religious Freedom Report found discrimination and bigotry against Muslims and Jews on the rise around the world [PDF].

A former friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Ibragim Todashev, implicated Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple murder and then was himself killed when he reportedly attacked FBI agents during questioning.

The word terrorism is being used to describe a brutal attack on a London street that left a British soldier dead. One of the attackers recorded a video statement directly following the murder.

One attacker has now been identified as Michael Adebolajo, and has been connected on some level to the extremist group al-Muhajiroun.

The University of Kent has created a Rendition Flights Database, cataloging 11,000 individual flights to create a picture of the global renditions network.

If you would like to receive this round-up as a weekly email, you can sign up through this form, or email me directly at torierosedeghett@gmail.com.

Photo: Ramallah, West Bank: A Palestinian protester during clashes with Israeli troops near the village of Deir Jarir. Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Disease threatens Florida's orange groves

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:37:19 -0400

aljazeera:

Multi-billion-dollar citrus industry faces serious threat as incurable disease spreads across the country.

motherjones: “I Built This AK-47. It’s Legal and Totally...

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:32:02 -0400

motherjones:

“I Built This AK-47. It’s Legal and Totally Untraceable.”

In which our reporter attends a “build party” where anyone can make a rifle that no cop will ever know about.

christel-thoughts: ghdos: sandandglass: Wayne Allyn Root -...

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:29:54 -0400

christel-thoughts:

ghdos:

sandandglass:

Wayne Allyn Root - seriously, look his face in the last gif.

This smug motherfucker.

I don’t even know whether to classify this as classism, the dehumanizing effect of capitalism, or simply “look at this fucking asshole”. The most appropriate is most likely “I’m a rich white guy; nobody’s suffering matters more than my money” - a brief synopsis of a good 65/70 % of the world’s problems.

racemash: In positive news, actress Eva Longoria recently...

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:27:24 -0400

racemash:

In positive news, actress Eva Longoria recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Chicano Studies from Cal State Northridge.

from the LATimes:

She titled her thesis “Success STEMS From Diversity: The Value of Latinas in STEM Careers.” “STEM” is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math. The petite actress also has a bachelor’s of science degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M University, according to IMDB.

Longoria celebrated the happy occasion with none other than her parents, friends and family.

“In my cap and gown with mom and dad! I look like Harry Potter!” she wrote, posting another pic. And friends in the Twitterverse and online were quick to send her congrats.

Great job!
In case anyone is interested, here are a few extra resources on STEM and diversity:

Latinas in Stem (twitter link)

Fact sheet on Latinas in STEM (published in Dec 2008)

The Center for STEM Diversity at Tuft University

"At the risk of sounding naive, I was hoping that at least one of Mayor Emanuel’s school board..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:19:44 -0400

“

At the risk of sounding naive, I was hoping that at least one of Mayor Emanuel’s school board appointees might take a break from voting to close 50 schools and mention the $55 million the mayor wants to spend on his near-south-side hotel and basketball arena.
As you know, the board voted yesterday to close those schools on the grounds that the system’s too broke to keep them open.

And yet the school system’s not so broke it can’t afford to contribute about $28 million of the $55 million in property tax dollars that Mayor Rahm wants to spend on the hotel and DePaul basketball arena.

It’s even worse. The hotel/b-ball arena project will wind up costing the schools money. Because by buying the land, Mayor Emanuel will make it tax exempt, and the schools will no longer be able to tax it.

So they’ll have to raise the taxes on everyone else’s property to compensate. Lucky us!

”

- Ben Joravsky, Mayor Rahm’s school board takes a big stand!

(via frijoliz)

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moon-dreams: onebigmeshi: Alien head dumplings at Tokyo...

Thu, 23 May 2013 22:21:29 -0400

moon-dreams:

onebigmeshi:

Alien head dumplings at Tokyo Disney Sea. They are mochi filled with ice cream. Each one is a different flavor!

Aggressive tears

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thepeoplesrecord: Israel & Mexico swap notes on abusing...

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:40:46 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

Israel & Mexico swap notes on abusing rights
May 22, 2013

Earlier this month, Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, Mexico’s newly-appointed secretary of public security in Chiapas, announced that discussions had taken place between his office and the Israeli defense ministry. The two countries talked about security coordination at the level of police, prisons and effective use of technology (“Israeli military will train Chiapas police,” Excelsior, 8 May [Spanish]).

Chiapas is home to the Zapatistas (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), a mostly indigenous Maya liberation movement that has enjoyed global grassroots support since it rose up against the Mexican government in 1994. The Zapatistas took back large tracts of land on which they have since built subsistence cooperatives, autonomous schools, collectivized clinics and other democratic community structures.

In the twenty years since the uprising, the Mexican government has not ceased its counterinsurgency programs in Chiapas. When Llaven Abarca was announced as security head in December, human rights organizations voiced concerns that the violence would escalate, pointing to his history of arbitrary detentions, use of public force, criminal preventive detentions, death threats and torture (“Concern about the appointment of Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca as Secretary of Public Security in Chiapas,” Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Frayba) Center for Human Rights,14 December 2012 [PDF, Spanish]).

Aptly, his recent contacts with Israeli personnel were “aimed at sharing experiences,” Abarca has claimed. This may be the first time the Mexican government has gone public about military coordination with Israelis in Chiapas. Yet the agreement is only the latest in Israel’s longer history of military exports to the region, an industry spawned from experiences in the conquest and pacification of Palestine.

Weapons sales escalate

The first Zionist militias (Bar Giora and HaShomer) were formed to advance the settlement of Palestinian land. Another Zionist militia, the Haganah — the precursor to the Israeli army and the successor of HaShomer — began importing and producing arms in 1920.

Israeli firms began exporting weapons in the 1950s to Latin America, including to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic under the Somoza and Trujillo dictatorships. Massive government investment in the arms industry followed the 1967 War and the ensuing French arms embargo. Israeli arms, police, military training and equipment have now been sent to at least 140 countries, including to Guatemala in the 1980s under Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator recently convicted of genocide against the Maya.

Mexico began receiving Israeli weaponry in 1973 with the sale of five Arava planes fromIsrael Aerospace Industries. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, infrequent exports continued to the country in the form of small arms, mortars and electronic fences. Sales escalated in the early 2000s, according to research that we have undertaken.

In 2003, Mexico bought helicopters formerly belonging to the Israeli army and Israel Aerospace Industries’ Gabriel missiles. Another Israeli security firm, Magal Security Systems, received one of several contracts for surveillance systems “to protect sensitive installations in Mexico” that same year, The Jerusalem Post reported.

In 2004, Israel Shipyards sold missile boats, and later both Aeronautics Defense Systems and Elbit Systems won contracts from the federal police and armed forces for drones for border and domestic surveillance (“UAV maker Aeronautics to supply Mexican police,”Globes, 15 February 2009). Verint Systems, a technology firm founded by former Israeli army personnel, has won several US-sponsored contracts since 2006 for the mass wiretapping of Mexican telecommunications, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.

Trained by Israel

According to declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents [PDF] obtained via a freedom of information request, Israeli personnel were discreetly sent into Chiapas in response to the 1994 Zapatista uprising for the purpose of “providing training to Mexican military and police forces.”

The Mexican government also made use of the Arava aircraft to deploy its Airborne Special Forces Group (Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, or GAFE). GAFE commandos were themselves trained by Israel and the US. Several would later desert the GAFE and go on to create “Los Zetas,” currently Mexico’s most powerful and violent drug cartel (“Los Zetas and Mexico’s Transnational Drug War,” World Politics Review, 25 December 2009).

Mexico was surprised by the Zapatistas, who rose up the day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The Mexican government found itself needing to respond to the dictates of foreign investors, as a famously-leaked Chase-Manhattan Bank memo revealed: “While Chiapas, in our opinion, does not pose a fundamental threat to Mexican political stability, it is perceived to be so by many in the investment community. The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy.”

Full article

class-struggle-anarchism: You know, this murder in Woolwich is only the second successful piece of...

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:35:24 -0400

class-struggle-anarchism:

You know, this murder in Woolwich is only the second successful piece of jihadist terrorism in London ever.

That’s two incidents.

The Angry Brigade alone successfully bombed 25 different targets in the early seventies. The IRA pulled off much more, over decades.

It’s like this tiny speck in a great sea of terrorist attacks by white people.

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