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Jul 25, 20112 notes

“

The only way out of the vicious economic cycle is for government to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy — spending more in the short term in order to make up for the shortfall in consumer demand. This would create jobs, which will put money in peoples’ pockets, which they’d then spend, thereby persuading employers to do more hiring. The consequential job growth will also help reduce the long-term ratio of debt to GDP. It’s a win-win.

This is not rocket science.

” —

Robert Reich, Vicious Cycles: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse (via underpaidgenius)

Actually, I disagree. There’s a disconnect between what the government does and the actual job creation (notice how you almost never hear anyone talk about literally how a government encourages job creation?*). The “job” cellphone call is dropped by corporations—the so-called “job creators.” They seem to be in a fetal position, refusing to spend any of their profits on actually hiring people. They’ve already got a shitload of money, so what can the government do to persuade them at this point? Nothing.

In short, we’re screwed until big business can start to understand their place in the American eco(nomic)system.

*The always interesting Planet Money podcast once talked about what governments can do to actually encourage job creation—which is not much. All they can do is “create an environment in which companies would want to invest” (I’m paraphrasing). In other words, government has already done all it can do at this point. It’s up to SOMEbody to make the first sacrifice and us workers have nothing left to sacrifice—big business, however…

Jul 25, 20115 notes

#big business #greed #rich people suck

Jul 25, 20115 notes

“That’s really what it’s about, money. That’s why they want you to use their social network, and why they want you to not use Zuck’s. Because they want the money. Remember, if you want to understand how corporations work, if you think about money, you’re most of the way there.” —

Dave Winer - Why Google cares if you use your real name

Yup x 2 (via kirklove)

I mean… duh. ;)

[emphasis mine]

(via stoweboyd)

Jul 25, 20118 notes

#google+ #Google

“I’m torn between being gleeful in my typical anti-corporate, anti-culture homogenization, anti-box store way, and feeling bad that we’re losing hundreds of spaces where readers of all ages could find out about books.” —

Borders Nostalgia | Conversational Reading (via housingworksbookstore)

I’m not torn at all. When big business says there’s no money in books, I think our society is in big trouble. Libraries can barely stay funded and book stores are closing left and right.

This is very scary.

Jul 25, 201117 notes

#books #big business #bookstores

Time to Get Pissed About the USG Again: Scahill Reveals Secret Prisons in Somalia

In case you missed it, back on July 13, 2011 DemocracyNow reported:

Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation

In a new investigative report published by The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the CIA is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism as well as an underground prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Scahill says the CIA is training a new Somali force to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the militant group, Al Shabab, and in Mogadishu. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents.

Seems like the only change Obama has brought to the United States Government is skin color. Read the rest at DemocracyNow.org.

Jul 24, 2011

#Somalia #secret prisons #USG #Obama #WTFObama?

666cast episode 65: When White People Kill! (And die and run companies that want to be gods)

A Massacre in Norway, Amy Winehouse dying and Google going for Godhood all made for a hella hectic week here on Planet Earth.

Episode 65 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about! DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

Jul 24, 2011

#podcasts #666cast #Amy Winehouse #Google+ #Norway

666cast episode 64: the Big Picture, how the Rich Won't Escape and MORE!

IMPORTANT NEWS IN THIS EP! Plus, the rich won’t escape Climate Change and more!

Episode 64 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about! DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

Jul 17, 2011

#666cast #podcasts

Via @Janina: If you don't like gay marriage...

From janinagavankar.com:

via happyplace.com

“If you don’t like gay marriage, blame straight people. They’re the ones who keep having gay babies.”
Makes just as much sense as the whole “gayness is against Gods will” argument!

Jul 15, 2011

#TheGay #gay marriage

Exxon spills 1000 barrels of oil into "America's last best river" (the Yellowstone River)

From DemocracyNow.org:

July 05, 2011 Montana Farmer Says Exxon Refuses to Admit Extent of Damage from Oil Spill Into Yellowstone River

Click here to see more photos of oil on Alexis Bonogofsky’s land.

Family farmer, Alexis Bonogofsky, didn’t get a phone call from ExxonMobil Pipeline Company when its pipeline ruptured Friday night beneath the Yellowstone River, leaking as much as 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the water and onto neighboring land of property owners such as herself. Instead, she discovered “globs of oil” Saturday morning while checking on the flooded pastureland where she grazes her goats. Since then she says company officials have failed to answer her questions about the health and environmental impact of the spill.

What’s ironic is that the Yellowstone River is known as “America’s last best river”. What’s even more ironic is that TransCanada is hoping to be allowed by the US State Department to pipe tar sands from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

What could go wrong?

Jul 14, 2011

#TransCanda #oil #tar sands

In 1976, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote in The Selfish Gene, “If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.” By 2006, the tide had started to turn. Harvard University mathematical biologist Martin Nowak could declare, in an overview of the evolution of cooperation in Science magazine, “Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of evolution is its ability to generate cooperation in a competitive world. Thus, we might add ‘natural cooperation’ as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection.”

Why is this deep-rooted belief about human selfishness beginning to change? To some extent, the answer is specific to evolutionary biology. But similar ideas challenging the notion that people are born selfish have surfaced in several other fields, such as psychology, sociology, political science, and experimental economics. Together, these ideas are tracing a new intellectual arc in the disciplines concerned with human action and motivation.

I love it when evidence against the existence of the negative side of humanity is found. Anyone who says “human nature is to be XYZ” makes me think: “there’s an ignorant person.”

But that’s Richard Dawkins for you. He’s got great ideas about atheism, but in the end, he’s just like so many of us, a big dumb white man.

Jul 14, 201161 notes

#Richard Dawkins

Jul 12, 20118 notes

666cast episode 63: Breakdown of the Breakdown and Solutions!

This week a breakdown of the breakdown in our society—what are our main problems and are there solutions? The answers are simple, we just need to have spines. Start by listening to this week’s 666cast!

Episode 63 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about! DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

Jul 10, 2011

#666cast #podcasts

From postcardsfromspace:

Watching the final launch of Atlantis this morning, I finally put my finger on what bothers me so fundamentally about the privatization of space travel.

For fifty years, the accomplishments human spaceflight—all that brilliance and innovation and technology and sheer goddamn pluck—have very literally belonged to all of us.That launch this morning? All that pride, and all that inspiration? It was ours.

Human spaceflight will continue, but it’ll no longer belong to everyone. It’s the difference between a state park and a private garden.

Some things should belong to no one—and to everyone. And this is one of them.

The US government is supposed to be “for the people, by the people.” Corporations are “for getting rich, by exploiting people.”

Going into space now, more than ever, is the ultimate in contrarianism. At one point in human history merely saying the Earth revolved around the sun could get you killed. Now saying it gets you laughed at and called a “space nerd”. The truth about the universe is all but marginalized now. We’ve learned over the past ten years that the truth doesn’t matter in politics or government, now we’ve learned truth doesn’t matter in science and knowledge, either.

I believe we’ve entered the Moronic Period of human history.

Jul 8, 201125 notes

#space #stupidity #intelligence

Jul 8, 2011728 notes

#space

Texas kills again...this time a foreigner...

Yep, Texas has killed again! This time it happened despite a bunch of procedural issues AND the President of the United States being against it.

From a blog post at WSJ.com:

Texas Executes Leal Despite White House Objections

July 8, 2011, 8:27 AM ET

By Nathan Koppel

Texas yesterday executed Mexican national Humberto Leal for raping and murdering a teenager despite complaints from the White House and diplomats that the execution violated U.S. treaty obligations.

In his final words, Leal accepted responsibility, saying, “I have hurt a lot of people,” according to this A.P. report As the execution drugs began to take effect, Leal twice added: “Viva Mexico” (Here’s another account of the execution scene from the Huntsville (TX) Item.)

The Supreme Court yesterday denied Leal’s objection to the execution on the grounds that Texas law enforcement officials failed to advise him of his rights, under the 1963 Vienna Convention, to get assistance from his home country’s consulate or embassy.

Here’s a report from WSJ, which notes that Texas and other states routinely have failed to advise foreigners of their consular rights as required under the Vienna treaty.

So much for a just trial, huh? But who needs standards? It’s not like he was using foul language in his last statement or anything… that reminds me of something motherjones just posted about:

markcoatney:

Apparently in Texas it’s OK for the state to execute 471 people since 1982, but it’s not OK for them to curse about it.

At least they stopped publishing their final meals…

One of my favorite double standards! To stop some from killing we kill them. This despite the very fallible United States Justice System convicting the wrong people on occasion.

We just sent four humans into space and we still kill people as punishment. Well done, humanity.

Jul 8, 2011172 notes

#death penalty

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Jul 8, 2011

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August 2011

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July 2011

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