November 5, 2011
November 4, 2011
Report on Occupy Dallas
I dropped by unannounced day before yesterday, before the cold weather blew in. There were more protesters than I'd expected, they were peaceful and in good spirits, and everything seemed in good order. (Click on the images for larger versions.)
Someone had donated tents, and the Hari Krishnas (think Kalachandji's) have been providing much of their food. The camp has internet, though slow; they expected to get faster service soon. They have a snacks tent and a first-aid tent. They have a library – they'd appreciate donations of more political books, of all persuasions.
Let's see, what else would they like more of . . . . oh yeah, US!
UPDATE: 90.1 FM (Dallas public radio) aired a story on Nov. 4 in which Dallas Occupiers condemned violence attributed to Oakland Occupiers. I hope everyone is at least aware of the possible use of agents provocateurs, as well as that protests often attract anarchist groups that are not committed to nonviolence, as 99% of the Occupiers are. See, e.g., the UK Guardian (assistant editor of conservative magazine admitted posing as a protester and rushing police in an effort to undermine the protest); and provocateurs have also been strongly implicated in Occupier protests in Denver and Minneapolis, as well as at the 2010 G8-G20 protest (see Wikipedia for less recent, well-documented examples).
November 2, 2011
Assange Loses Swedish Extradition Appeal
Details here.
The Swedish extradition effort is based on allegations of sexual misconduct by two women who do not want to press charges and after the first Swedish investigation concluded that the case should be dropped.
It's generally believed that Sweden will hand Assange over to the U.S.
Neither Assange nor Wikileaks has yet been charged with violating any law of any nation. Assange is being extradited for "questioning" by Swedish authorities.
Before leaving Sweden for London, he'd lingered in Sweden for two months in case they wanted to talk with him further. After arriving in London, he offered repeatedly to speak to Swedish authorities there.
Wikileaks has ceased operations due to financial strangulation by Bank of America, Mastercard, PayPal, and other companies, which have been refusing to process donations to WL (more here).
Meanwhile, Bradly Manning has now been jailed for 525 days (see Bradley Manning Support Network), with no trial in sight.
November 1, 2011
October 30, 2011
Final Mandelbrot Set
Benoît Mandelbrot, inventor of fractal geometry – the branch of mathematics that describes the hidden order in nature and in seemingly chaotic systems – died this last Thursday.
More here.
October 29, 2011
October 22, 2011
Study: 147 Transnational Corps. Control 40% of the World's Wealth
. . . held by 37 million companies and investors worldwide. "When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group."
More, including the names of the top 50 corps., at NewScientist.
October 21, 2011
Naomi Wolf on the "Stealth" Theft of Our 1st Amendment Rights
Excellent exposition of what's happening now and how we got here. (As of 2016-08-28 or earlier, the video originally embedded below [previously available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCuax-3DeBc] was "no longer available because the [user] account associated with [it] has been terminated"; so I'm adding a similar interview of Wolf from just a few days later)