● 11.16.11

●● Links – Coordinated attacks against Occupy protests, SOPA, No Porno-Scan for EU.

Posted in Site News at 1:38 am by Guest Editorial Team

●●● Reader’s Picks

God help us, the Revolustion Runs on Windows.[at Occupy LSX] was dismayed to discover that most of their kit was running on Windows XP. The reason, they said, was that Windows was what most people were familiar with. They had one Ubuntu box which was currently not around, and were toying with the idea of maybe putting Linux Mint on a couple of the machines, but it wasn’t a high priority. My jaw was on the floor.All is not lost, St IGNUtius was providing inspiration at the scene. People should go to their nearest Occupy movement and offer assistance. Kick the bums off protester’s computers.Angry Shareholders again suggest Microsoft breakup.ScienceTractor beams.Health/NutritionTories plan to privatize an English hospital, and the company privately recognizes its desire for profit will result in worse care. The UK’s National Heath Service is a great achievement for sick people, but a US-style system would be more profitable for business.. Honey LaunderingCheap stuff from China is not a good deal. Buy local instead.Fatty foods as addictive as cocaine and manipulated the way tobacco is.A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks … can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs. … People knew for a long time cigarettes were killing people, but it was only later they learned about nicotine and the intentional manipulation of it.The EU will not xray people like baggage.Defence/Police/AggressionUS paramilitary police carry out 50,000 raids per year, nearly all about drugs.US Cities launch a coordinated campaign to smear and evict OWS protestersCity by City list from The Guardian.Quan has boosted suspicions about the coordinated nature of recent crackdowns, saying in an interview that she had recently been involved in a conference call “with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation where what had started as a political movement…ended up being a encampment that was no longer in the control of the people who started [it].”Hundreds arrested, many injured, laptops, cameras and other equipment was destroyed in NYC.Minnesota Examiner: DHS coordinated OWS attacks around the world.according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies… … local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.Swat team smashes “Anarchists” in Chapel Hill to protect vacant buildingA cop put his gun on my lower back and I asked him if he was going to shoot me.Another article Scary pictures of swat team.Environment/Energy/WildlifeShambolic FukushimaTepco hopes to complete a “cold shutdown” – when temperatures are stable below boiling point – of the damaged reactors by the end of the year. But Hosono warned it could take more than 30 years to completely decommission the plant. Hiroaki Koide, a nuclear physicist at Kyoto University, said he doubted the decommissioning process will go as smoothly as the government hopes.Shell’s damage to the Niger Delta likely to take 30 years to clean up.The report by the human rights group to mark the 16th anniversary of the execution of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigerian authorities said the two spills in 2008 in Bodo, Ogoniland, had wrecked the livelihoods of 69,000 people.Eat small fish.it takes five pounds of wild-caught sardines, anchovies, and other forage fish to produce a pound of farmed salmon. … when we fail to protect them, we also endanger the bigger species that feed on them … Forage fish like anchovies and sardines rank among the most nutritious and cleanest foods one can eat.China’s greenhouse gas vent threat in bid to extort billionsChina has responded to efforts to ban the trading of widely discredited HFC-23 offsets by threatening to release huge amounts of the potent industrial chemical into the atmosphere unless other nations pay what amounts to a climate ransom. … “If there’s no trading of [HFC-23] credits, they’ll stop incinerating the gases” and vent them directly into the atmosphere. Global warming will more than double the number of people exposed to sleeping sickness [an additional 75 million on top of current 40 to 70 million].FinanceBank of America profiteers on unemployment benefit payments by charging outrageous fees.US Citizens: Tell Obama not to grant immunity to banksters.Students walk out on famous neo-con economics professor.Mankiw’s econ 101 textbook, Principles of Economics, has made it into the minds of almost every economics student in the modern world … In response to the walk-out, Mankiw has only doubled down his orthodoxy, claiming that the 1% have suffered more than the 99% as a result of the recession.The sufferings of the 0.0001%, “Good help is hard to find.”Anti-TrustBarnes & Noble’s Letter and Slides Presentation Filed with the ITCIn effect, Barnes & Noble says Microsoft is doing what’s it’s done in the past against Netscape and Java, only now the target is Android and the weapon of choice is patents.Groklaw: Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft’s “Trivial” Patents and Strategy Against Android[B&N exhibits reveal] the assertion of “trivial” and “invalid” patents against Barnes & Noble and some shocking details about an “oppressive” license agreement that would have controlled hardware and software design features that Microsoft presented, thus limiting to what degree Barnes & Noble could offer upgrades and improved features to its customers if it had signed it, features it says none of Microsoft’s patents cover. Microsoft worked so hard to keep it all secret, and I think you’ll see why. … Take a look especially at Exhibit D, where there is a long detailing of the incredibly insignificant patents Microsoft has the nerve to use against Android [don't read them if you should not read patents]CensorshipGeist: Internet belongs to us, U.S. arguesU.S. intellectual property lobbying around the world has been well documented with new Canadian copyright legislation widely viewed as a direct consequence of years of political pressure. The new U.S. proposal takes this aggressive approach to another level by simply asserting jurisdiction over millions of Canadian registered IP addresses and domain names.What Mr. Geist says for Canada is true for the rest of the world as well.Stacked panel to debate the E-PARASITES bill.Only one person against SOPA — from Google — is being permitted to speak at the hearing on Wednesday. Everyone else will be proponents of the legislation. The Fix is In.PrivacyMP Birgitta Jonsdottir argues we should have the same rights against government searches in cyberspace as we have in the physical world.Civil RightsRemembering Yitzhak RabinAnother Gaza aid flotilla is violently seized and nearly sunk.The war against the poor[and the impoverishment of everyone else]Chomsky on OWSThe Occupy movement really is an exciting development. In fact, it’s spectacular. It’s unprecedented; there’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead — because victories don’t come quickly– this could turn out to be a very significant moment in American history.DRMthe Kindle lending experience from a patron’s perspective “a wolf in book’s clothing”I don’t have a Kindle but I’ve seen how popular they are and I was curious how this would all work. Well, as some bloggers have pointed out, it sort of doesn’t. Or, rather, it seems to require compromises to our systems and more importantly to our professional values. I’m hoping these issues can be resolved, but honestly if we can’t lend with some modicum of patron privacy, we shouldn’t be lending.They can’t and they should not. I hope someone shares some of RMS’s “Copyright vrs Community” talks about this subject with this librarian.Authors discover the downside of KindleAmazon is “boldly breaching its contracts” with publishers, the Guild contends, in “an exercise of brute economic power.”WB launches another expensive DRM scam, “Ultra Violet”The NY Times has an article about it, where it repeatedly claims that the strategy is all about trying to get people to “buy” movies again, rather than just rent them via Netflix of Redbox. Of course, I find this pretty funny, because nothing about UltraViolet is about actually “buying” anything. You’re still renting

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