Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, April 10, 2012.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Dead End Street by Lou Rawls
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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U.S. man 1st arrested with help of drone
By (UPI)
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A North Dakota man, the first U.S. citizen arrested with the help of an unmanned Predator surveillance drone, says he's challenging the legality of the arrest.
The arrest of Rodney Brossart came after six cows wandered onto his 3,000-acre farm in Lakota in June, and the anti-government "sovereignist" believed he should have been able to keep the cows, U.S. News & World Report reported.
Brossart and two family members chased police off his land with high-powered rifles and after a 16-hour standoff, the SWAT team from the Grand Forks police department, which had a search warrant, used the unmanned drone to determine Brossart's location.
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John Villasenor, an expert on information gathering and drone use with the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said he doubts the court will throw out the case. Using a drone, he said, is no different than using a helicopter.
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In first, judge will let media lawyer argue in Guantanamo courtroom
By Carol Rosenberg
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The chief war court judge Tuesday agreed to let a First Amendment attorney argue against closure of the first ever military commissions testimony by a captive about CIA interrogations that the government contends are secret.
New York lawyer David A. Schulz emerged from a meeting with Army Col. James Pohl, the judge, saying he would be able to follow defense lawyers Wednesday morning with an objection by members of major U.S. news organizations to plans to close portions of a pre-trial hearing in the capital case of alleged al Qaida bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Prosecutors allege that Nashiri orchestrated the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors. If convicted, he could face military execution.
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The judge was expected to rule by Wednesday afternoon how much of this week's hearings will be seen in public. Schulz also said that the hearings, once expect to end by Friday morning could extend through the weekend.
“This is arguably the first major test of this iteration of the commissions,” said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. “Somebody has got to take a hard independent look at what’s classified and why.”
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The race to get rainforest frogs into arks
By Sabri Ben-Achour
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Frogs matter - they play a vital role in the food chain, and some have been found to produce chemicals that cure human diseases. But a fungus dubbed "the amphibian smallpox" is making many species extinct. So scientists are mounting a rescue operation.
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That's why biologists in Panama, with some help from Gratwicke and his colleagues from the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC, are out collecting frogs and other amphibians ahead of the arrival of the fungus.
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Brian Gratwicke from the Smithsonian National Zoo says there are compelling reasons for rescuing all of these frogs.
"There's a species in Australia that produces a chemical called caerin, which blocks HIV transmission to T-cells," he says. "The skin of another species has produced compounds that have been shown to kill 'superbugs' in hospitals. The untapped resources of our amphibian biodiversity are virtually unknown," he adds.
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Gratwicke quotes a legendary American ecologist called Aldo Leopold: "'To keep every cog and wheel is the first rule of intelligent tinkering.'" In this case, he says, amphibians are more than just the cogs and wheels. They are the entire middle of the food chain. "They eat the bugs and are then eaten by snakes and birds and other things. So we want to make sure we look after them."
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Miss Universe to allow transgender women in pageants
By (BBC)
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Miss Universe says it will allow transgender women to compete in its pageants starting in 2013, a week after a current contestant was reinstated.
Twenty-three-year-old Jenna Talackova, a Vancouver resident who was born male, will be able to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant this year.
The organisation previously barred her under the rule that contestants be "naturally-born" female.
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The policy revision follows consultations with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad), that organisation and Miss Universe said in a joint statement.
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International |
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U.S. extends emergency for Somalia
By (UPI)
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Obama, in an executive order, declared that a national emergency with respect to Somalia was extended for another year.
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Al-Shabaab, a militant group tied to al-Qaida, controls parts of Somalia though it has lost ground amid an offensive supported by troops from the African Union.
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Obama's announcement came one day after at least 12 people were killed when an improvised explosive detonated in the Somalia market town of Baidoa and a week after Somali officials were killed in an attack on a theater in Mogadishu.
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Iran Isn’t Shutting Down the Internet In August, Merely Building a New One Next March
By Andrew Tarantola
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Iran has issued a strongly worded statement denying reports from yesterday that the country planned to shut itself off from the rest of the Internet. Quite the contrary—Iran is just building its own, closed version. Totally different!
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Communications Minister Reza Taghipour did confirm via the statement that while the government isn't going to shut itself off from the rest of the Internet, it will instead build an Iran-only national intranet—the so-called Clean Internet. This network would reportedly operate much like a large corporate intranet—that is, easy to control and monitor—though Iranian officials have not commented on whether or not the Internet access will be cut once the national network is in place.
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Asia's rapid growth fuelling inequality, the ADB warns
By (BBC)
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Asia's rapid economic growth may undermine stability because the gap between the rich and poor is widening, the Asia Development Bank has warned.
Releasing its annual report, the bank said a key inequality measure increased to an average reading of 38 in Asia.
And while that is less than the average found in Latin America and Africa, Asia's figure is climbing as it declines in the other regions.
China, India and Indonesia have seen significant growth in inequality.
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Joyce Banda: Malawi's first female president
By Raphael Tenthani
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Joyce Banda, who has made history becoming Malawi's first female president and only the second woman to lead a country in Africa, has a track record of fighting for women's rights.
She took power over the weekend following the death of 78-year-old President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died in office after heading up the southern Africa country since 2004.
Mr Mutharika's decision to appoint her as his running mate for the 2009 elections surprised many in Malawi's mainly conservative, male-dominated society - which had never before had a female vice-president.
Equally surprising was her decision to publicly stand up to her boss - by refusing to endorse his plans for his brother, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika, to succeed him as president in 2014 when he was due to retire.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Obama goes on offensive over taxes on wealthy
By Jackie Calmes
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With a rousing speech Tuesday to a receptive university audience of about 5,000 in this battleground state, Obama defined the coming contest as a clash of philosophies: His argument that tax fairness and the common good demands the richest Americans pay at least as much as middle-income taxpayers do, contrasted with Republicans' opposition to any tax increases as job killers and class warfare, even at the cost of deep cuts in domestic programs.
While voters have not often rewarded candidates who advocate tax increases, Obama and his campaign advisers, in league with Democrats in Congress, express confidence that voters are on their side, with polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly agree that wealthy taxpayers should pay more and favor spending for programs like education, research and health care.
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Before the Florida trip, the White House released a report by Obama's economic team making the substantive case for what is essentially a political proposal since it has no chance of advancing in Congress before the election. The Buffett Rule would set a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for individuals on their annual income above $1 million.
The report argued that the minimum tax would restore some fairness to the tax code and reduce economically inefficient gaming of the system. Over five decades since 1960, it said, the average tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans has dropped much more than the rate for middle-income taxpayers, even as the income of those at the top of the scale has grown significantly more than for everyone else.
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Tennessee adopts law on teaching of evolution, climate change
By (globalpost.com)
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has let a new law designed to protect teachers who allow students to criticize evolution and other scientific theories, like climate change, come into effect without his signature.
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Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, said the bill "undermines science education in Tennessee public schools."
"The new law is effectively a permission slip for teachers to violate the First Amendment by allowing them to dress up their religious beliefs on the origin of life as pseudo-science," Weinberg reportedly said.
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7 Rules for Recording Police
By Steve Silverman
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Last week the City of Boston agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2007 felony arrest for videotaping police roughing up a suspect. Prior to the settlement, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Glik had a "constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public." The Boston Police Department now explicitly instructs its officers not to arrest citizens openly recording them in public.
Slowly but surely the courts are recognizing that recording on-duty police is a protected First Amendment activity. But in the meantime, police around the country continue to intimidate and arrest citizens for doing just that. So if you're an aspiring cop watcher you must be uniquely prepared to deal with hostile cops.
If you choose to record the police you can reduce the risk of terrible legal consequences and video loss by understanding your state's laws and carefully adhering to the following rules.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls . . . was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game". Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records,[citation needed] appeared as an actor in motion pictures and on television, and voiced-over many cartoons. He was also known for his frequently used expression,"Yeah buddy!"
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Rawls was born on December 1, 1933 in Chicago and raised by his grandmother in the Ida B. Wells projects on the city's South Side. He began singing in the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church choir at the age of seven and later sang with local groups through which he met future music stars Sam Cooke, who was nearly three years older than Rawls, and Curtis Mayfield.
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In 1955, Rawls enlisted in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He left the "All-Americans" three years later as a sergeant and rejoined the Pilgrim Travelers (then known as the Travelers). In 1958, while touring the South with the Travelers and Sam Cooke, Rawls was in a serious car crash. Rawls was pronounced dead before arriving at the hospital, where he stayed in a coma for five and a half days. It took him months to regain his memory, and a year to fully recuperate. Rawls considered the event to be life-changing.
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In January 2004, Rawls was honored by the United Negro College Fund for his more than 25 years of charity work with the organization. Instead of hosting and performing as he usually did, Rawls was given the seat of honor and celebrated by his performing colleagues, including Stevie Wonder, The O'Jays, Gerald Levert, Ashanti, and many others. His final television performance occurred during the 2005-2006 edition of the telethon, honoring Stevie Wonder in September 2005, just months before entering the hospital and after having been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year. This program, aired in January, 2006, contains his final public television performance, where he performed two classics, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," and a final ode to Frank Sinatra with, "It Was A Very Good Year."
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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More evidence links pesticides to honeybee losses
By Claire Thompson
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It’s been three weeks since beekeepers filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to remove clothianidin — the pesticide widely suspected to be wreaking havoc on honeybee populations — from the market. In that time three studies have been released that strengthen the link between bee die-offs and neonicotinoids (neonics), the chemical family of which clothianidin is a member. Here’s what they found:
Study No. 1: Bees exposed to pesticides are getting lost.
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Study No. 2: Bee colonies exposed to pesticides are smaller and the ratio of males to females is way off.
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Study No. 3: The more pesticides bees are exposed to, the faster they die.
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Let’s get this straight. Commercial beekeepers feed their colonies high fructose corn syrup to keep them alive so they can pollinate our crops. But that high fructose corn syrup could actually be sickening bees, because it’s tainted with the same pesticide that sickens them if they survive the corn syrup to get to the point of actually trying to do their job as pollinators. The agrochemical industry has basically turned bees’ life work into a kamikaze mission. It’s a wonder there are any of them left at all.
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Light pollution 'saturates' UK's night skies
By (BBC)
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Half of the UK's population cannot see many stars because the night skies are still 'saturated' with light pollution, campaigners have warned.
Some 53% of those who joined a recent star count failed to see more than 10 stars in the Orion constellation.
That had decreased only very slightly from 54% since 2007, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Campaign for Dark Skies said.
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They said that in 2010, local authorities collectively spent more than £500m on street lighting, accounting for 5% to 10% of each council's carbon emissions.
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Malaysian rare-earth anger
links up with poll reform calls
By Simon Roughneen
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With Western countries and Japan seeking to get around China's domination of the crucial but mis-named "rare earths" sector, a potentially game-changing processing site slated for Malaysia looks set to become a major election issue as that country gears up to vote.
Opposition politicians and local activists from Kuantan - where Australia's Lynas Corp hopes to build a processing plant for rare earth minerals mined in Australia - are protesting against the project. The plant will provide "a crucial link in developing a non-Chinese supply of rare earth metals", according to Yaron Voronas of the Technology and Rare Earths Center, an online forum for the industry.
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The fracas looks set to be entwined in Malaysia's fractious party politics as speculation grows that Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak will call national parliamentary elections soon, with whispers about an early June vote to coincide with school holidays. In the meantime, opposition-linked activists will stage renewed public demonstrations on April 28, after the findings of a parliamentary committee set up to assess electoral reform options were dismissed as "flawed" by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
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The rare-earths row has become entangled in domestic politics in the United States, with US-China relations likely to be a key foreign policy issue come the presidential election later in 2012. With Republican candidates sucking-up news space, US President Barack Obama took to banging the anti-China drum in March, when the US, European Union and Japan announced a joint complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), over China's restrictions on supply of rare earths and alleged preferential treatment for domestic companies using rare earths and for foreign companies located inside China.
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Science and Health |
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Autism by the Numbers: Researchers Examine Impact of New Diagnostic Criteria
By (ScienceDaily)
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Getting an autism diagnosis could be more difficult in 2013 when a revised diagnostic definition goes into effect. The proposed changes may affect the proportion of individuals who qualify for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, according to a study by Yale Child Study Center researchers published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
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"Given the potential implications of these findings for service eligibility, our findings offer important information for consideration by the task force finalizing DSM-5 diagnostic criteria," said Yale Child Study Center director Dr. Fred Volkmar, who conducted the study with colleagues Brian Reichow and James McPartland.
Volkmar and his team performed an analysis of symptoms observed in 933 individuals evaluated for autism in the field trial for DSM-4. They found that about 25 percent of those diagnosed with classic autism and 75 percent of those with Asperger's Syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified, would not meet the new criteria for autism. The study also suggests that higher-functioning individuals may be less likely to meet the new criteria than individuals with intellectual disabilities.
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Symptoms That Mimic Epilepsy Linked to Stress, Poor Coping Skills
By (ScienceDaily)
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Based on their clinical experience and observations, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians and psychologists say that more than one-third of the patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital's inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit for treatment of intractable seizures have been discovered to have stress-triggered symptoms rather than a true seizure disorder.
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The costs of believing you have epilepsy when you don't are high, Brandt notes. Financially, there are the costs of doctor visits, medication that doesn't work and hospitalizations in specialty units like Hopkins' epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU). In the EMU, patients are hooked up to both a video camera to capture the onset and characteristics of a seizure and an EEG (an electroencephalogram) that monitors the electrical signals of the brain. Sensors attached to the scalp check for alignment of seizure behavior and abnormal electrical discharges in the brain. There are also psychological and social costs of having disabling seizures that can't be controlled.
Gregory L. Krauss, M.D., a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and one of the study's co-authors, says he is surprised by how many patients are being referred to his epilepsy unit without having epilepsy at all. And the numbers appear to be growing. He says that in recent months, as many as half of those referred to the unit have pseudo-seizures.
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Terminal cancer treated too aggressively
By (UPI)
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The best hospitals in the United States don't do much better than local community hospitals when it comes to caring for dying cancer patients, researchers say.
The study published in the journal Health Affairs said hospitals in general fail to consistently fail to meet recommendations for end-of-life care.
Dr. Nancy E. Morden of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice said National Quality Forum terminal cancer standards include: having lower rates of use of the intensive care unit in the last month of life, use of chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life, deaths not occurring in the hospital and the use of hospice care for more than three days.
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Technology |
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Instagram founders turn two years of work into $1bn – only in Silicon Valley
By Dominic Rushe
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Kevin Systrom, 28, joined the long line of technocrats turned plutocrats on Monday when he sold Instagram, a profitless photo sharing app that's less than two years old, for $1bn. He sold it to that other wunderkind, Mark Zuckerberg, 27, the Facebook founder whose social network is now worth an estimated $100bn.
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Last week Instagram raised $50m from venture capital firms, valuing Systrom and Krieger's baby at $500m. Zuckerberg had reportedly already approached Systrom and asked to buy the firm but after the funding he came back with an offer that couldn't be refused: double the price.
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The rest is Silicon Valley history. Launched in October 2010, Instagram was an instant hit. Over 30m people have downloaded the app now. When the firm launched an Android version earlier this month, it attracted 1m downloads in 12 hours. People love sharing their photos online and making them look like their Dad took them in 1980 with a camera he borrowed from his dad.
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Apple Makes $9.5B USD in Britain, Pays Only 0.16% in Taxes; Google Also Targeted
By Jason Mick
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In America Fortune 500 corporations pay 12.1 percent in taxes, on average, on their profits [source] versus the default rate of 34 to 35 percent that any small-to-midsize business (SMB) making over $335,000 USD per year in profit must pay. With corporate tax rates plummeting in half over the last three decades, individuals and SMBs in America are increasingly left to shoulder the difference.
The crippling inequality was highlighted in 2011 when General Electric Corp. (GE) pocketed $14B USD in profit, plus received a "generous" $3B USD tax refund from the federal government. GE was a key donor to U.S. President Barack Obama and was repaid by its CEO being anointed head of America's "Council on Jobs" which helps advise Congress on corporate tax policy.
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In the U.S., Britain, and other wealthy nation states, change over such inequity is slow coming. After all, increasingly corporations are responsible of paying federal candidates' way into office -- regardless of their political affiliation. In office, these candidates inevitably look to serve their masters -- not the populous, but the corporations.
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'Fearless' Commodore 64 Creator Dies Aged 83
By (news.sky.com)
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Polish Auschwitz survivor Jack Tramiel, who created one of the first home computers, the Commodore 64, has died aged 83.
The entrepreneur revolutionised computer technology and lived the American dream after making his fortune.
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Mr Tramiel introduced the home computer VIC-20 in 1980 for under $300 (£189).
William Shatner, or Star Trek's Captain Kirk, featured in the advert, making him Silicon Valley's first celebrity endorser.
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Mr Tramiel liked to say: "We sell to the masses and not the classes".
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Cultural |
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A Church Divided: Ruling Ends Va.'s Episcopal Battle
By Barbara Bradley Hagerty
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Cerar, rector of St. Stephen's Anglican Church, is leaving, along with his congregation. They're handing the keys over to their theological rivals, the St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that seven conservative Virginia congregations that had split with the Episcopal Church must hand over almost everything they own. It's like the end of a marriage, with people moving out and splitting up assets — even its own long, ugly battle.
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In 2006, most of the St. Stephen's congregants voted to leave the American Episcopal Church after it elevated an openly gay man to be a bishop. They decided to affiliate with the Anglican Church in Nigeria instead, which bars gay clergy, and they renamed the congregation the St. Stephen's Anglican Church.
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Virginia is the epicenter of the Episcopal schism. Heathsville is one of seven churches — including two of the largest and most historic in the country — that broke away from the denomination in 2006. Now that they've lost their lawsuit, they all have to find new homes.
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Simpsons creator Matt Groening spills Springfield secret
By (BBC)
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The creator of the iconic cartoon sitcom The Simpsons has finally revealed the inspiration behind the show's fictional town of Springfield.
Matt Groening told Smithsonian magazine he based the town on Springfield, Oregon, but since it is such a common US place name he knew many would think it was their own Springfield.
The Springfield question is one of the best-kept secrets in TV history.
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The wisdom of women written out of history
By Bettany Hughes
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The female of the species is more deadly than the male, cautioned Rudyard Kipling. Given Kipling's love of mythology and prehistoric studies, he should perhaps have added "and smarter". Because of all deities of wisdom across the globe and through known time, the massive majority – 97% – were (or are) female. Mankind, for the vast span of human experience, has worshipped at the shrine not of the god, but the goddess, of wisdom.
Flesh-and-blood women, it seems, have managed to draw strength from this fact. Women were often accepted as the prime educators in their communities, but individuals also exploited the currency of sacred wisdom with surprising results. Religion is an easy target for accusations of repression and misogyny, but achievement in the sacred and therefore socio-political sphere was often an option for women, thanks not to brawn, but to brain.
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Determined to promote Buddhist ideas (and word of her power) throughout her vast territories, which reached from outer Mongolia to the Pacific ocean, she ordered the mass production of 84,000 Buddhist texts. She was also the first imperial ruler to see the potential of printing technology in successful, sacrally tinged statecraft. For centuries Wu has been commemorated only by remote communities of Buddhist monks. To this day, at dawn prayers in Famen-Si monastery, they still chant the poetry she composed.
Men came to resent the liberty that learning afforded women like Wu and chose not to record these case studies in official histories. Religious institutions, with the patterning of those early goddesses of wisdom still in their DNA, were more confident about allowing women to be wise.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |