January 3, 2014

Americans Forecast Downhill Slide To 2050

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ask people to imagine American life in 2050, and you'll get some dreary visions.

Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today.

Whites are particularly gloomy: Only 1 in 6 expects better times over the next four decades. Also notably pessimistic are middle-age and older people, those who earn midlevel incomes and Protestants, a new national poll finds.

"I really worry about my grandchildren, I do," says 74-year-old Penny Trusty of Rockville, Md., a retired software designer and grandmother of five. "I worry about the lowering of morals and the corruption and the confusion that's just raining down on them."

Even groups with comparatively sunny outlooks — racial and ethnic minorities, the young and the nonreligious — are much more likely to say things will be the same or get worse than to predict a brighter future. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/americans-2050_n_4535892.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

January 3, 2014

Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer Than You May Realize - How Do We Finish the Job?

Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer Than You May Realize - How Do We Finish the Job?

Thursday, 02 January 2014 09:15
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | Op-Ed


The current social movement that exploded onto the national scene with the 2011 Occupy Movement is following the path of successful movements so far. The social movement in 2014 is poised to begin an exciting era of broadening and deepening the growing consensus for social and economic justice.

This week, our article for the end of 2013 focuses on where we are, i.e. at what stage of the progression of social movements do we find ourselves; and broadly outlines the next steps. Next week, our article for the new year will look more specifically at the tasks ahead for the movement in 2014 and beyond.

Successful people-powered movements follow a similar arc of development. The best description comes from Bill Moyer’s The Movement Action Plan: A Strategic Framework Describing The Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements. We believe this is essential reading for activists and include a link to it on the strategy page on Popular Resistance. Moyer expanded this 1987 article into, Doing Democracy, a book published in 2001, a year before he died. You can see a video of Bill Moyer’s last public presentation where he summarized the insights of his lifetime about how social movements grow and succeed, and about his vision of a new culture emerging through the cracks of a declining empire.

Moyer’s work is heartening for social justice activists because it shows how movements grow, recede and change their functions at different stages. By understanding the current stage of development we can better define the work that must be done to achieve success and predict how the power structure and public will react to our actions. Moyer worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on poverty campaigns. He also worked on a variety of causes over his nearly 50 year career in social movements. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20966-major-social-transformation-is-a-lot-closer-than-you-may-realize-how-do-we-finish-the-job

January 3, 2014

Jim Hightower: Geithner Gets a Perch on Wall Street

Jim Hightower: Geithner Gets a Perch on Wall Street

Thursday, 02 January 2014 10:51
By Jim Hightower, OtherWords | Op-Ed

The former Treasury Secretary is proof the Washington-to-Wall-Street revolving door serves the interests of bankers, not the public.

Timmy Geithner has landed.

After President Barack Obama’s first-term Treasury Secretary resigned early this year, I lost track of him. But in November, Geithner reappeared, having spun himself through Washington’s revolving door – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – and flung himself all the way up to Wall Street, landing softly in the cushy quarters of Warburg Pincus, one of America’s top 10 private-equity empires.

Yes, the guy who was responsible for rescuing and regulating Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail, multibillion-dollar, financial casinos is now the president of one.

Writing in The New Yorker magazine, Andrew Huszar says we need not be surprised that the former treasury chief is cashing in on his insider knowledge and contacts. Huszar worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when Geithner became president of that powerful supervisor of Wall Street firms.

He says that rather than promoting knowledgeable regulators from within the Fed, Geithner broke with tradition (and prudence) to put top bankers from JPMorgan Chase, American Express, Goldman Sachs, and other powerhouse firms in key regulatory positions. In other words, the new honcho built his own revolving door in the New York Fed, bringing in bankers to regulate themselves. ............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20971-geithner-gets-a-perch-on-wall-street

January 3, 2014

No Need to Cyberspy; Government Officials Can Simply Confiscate Your Laptop

via truthdig:


No Need to Cyberspy; Government Officials Can Simply Confiscate Your Laptop
Posted on Jan 2, 2014


With all the leaks revealed thanks to whistle-blower Edward Snowden, we’re finally all pretty aware that most of our digital data is impossible to keep private. For this eye-opening information that’s opened up an important conversation about Internet privacy, the whole world is without a doubt indebted to Snowden.

But did you know, even without fancy software, border officials can seize your computer whenever they feel like it?

And thanks to Judge Edward R. Korman, who recently threw out a case pertaining to this exact issue, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers will continue to be able to search through your private data to their hearts’ content. The Daily Dot reports:

On Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed a 2010 case challenging the U.S. government’s broad authority to search and seize electronic devices at international borders without a warrant. It’s a decision that has stymied the cause of the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates who have resisted the erosion of Fourth Amendment rights at airports and border crossings.

The case was brought by Pascal Abidor, a dual U.S.-French citizen who was detained in May 2010 while returning aboard an Amtrak train to the United States from school in Canada.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers searched Abidor’s laptop computer after discovering that he was an Islamic Studies student who had recently lived in Jordan and traveled to Lebanon. Upon discovering images of Hamas and Hezbollah on Abidor’s laptop (part of a research project), CBP officers further searched his computer, cellphone, and person. They ultimately wound up putting Abdor in a holding cell for three hours. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/no_need_to_cyber-spy_government_officials_can_simply_confiscate_your_laptop

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/no_need_to_cyber-spy_government_officials_can_simply_confiscate_your_laptop

January 2, 2014

The Twitterverse reacts to the Jay Cutler deal

http://voices.suntimes.com/sports/twitter-reacts-to-jay-cutler-signing/


Jemale Bozeman @JemaleBozeman
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How does Jay Cutler get the new deal but the back up had a better season than him?
11:10 AM - 2 Jan 2014

.......

Daniel Green @KnocNightowl951
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Jay Cutler must own some disturbing photos from members of the Bears front office...
11:10 AM - 2 Jan 2014

.......

Jane Bell @janeandtonic
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Packers fans rejoice @SportsCenter: BREAKING: The Bears have signed Jay Cutler to a new deal through the 2020 season. #unhappymamabear
11:10 AM - 2 Jan 2014

.......

hashtagsutton @hashtagsutton
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Jay Cutler signs 7-yr contract extension with the Bears. In related news, the Packers will make the playoffs the next 7 years.

January 2, 2014

Minimum Wage vs. Living Wage: A chart

from HuffPost:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/state-minimum-wage-raise_n_4530757.html?ir=Politics&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

January 2, 2014

OMG: Payday lender collecting tolls in El Paso

At a time when payday lenders are under scrutiny in El Paso and Texas, the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority which is charged with implementing the area's first toll road is partnering with an organization that uses a payday lender to help collect tolls.

As of right now, ACE Cash Express -- a payday lender -- is the only place in El Paso a person can walk into to buy a toll tag or pay a toll to use the toll lanes on the César Chávez Border Highway. People can also pay the toll by phone, online or mail.

The Border Highway toll road is expected to be operational by Jan. 8. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_24820752/toll-authority-partners-payday-lender?source=most_viewed

January 2, 2014

Warming Climate May Cut Cloud Cover

This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.


LONDON—Australian and French scientists believe they have cracked one of the great puzzles of climate change and arrived at a more accurate prediction of future temperatures.

The news is not good, according to Steven Sherwood of Australia’s Centre for Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales. If carbon emissions are not reduced, then by 2100 the world will have warmed by 4°C.

This figure does not, at first, sound high: researchers have been warning for 20 years on the basis of computer models that under the notorious business-as-usual scenario in which everybody goes on burning coal and oil, then as carbon dioxide levels double, global temperatures could rise by between 1.5°C and 4.5°C.

Pessimists could cite one extreme, optimists the other: the range of uncertainty was a recognition that there were still some big unknowns in the machinery of climate, and one of those unknowns was the behaviour of the clouds in a warmer world.
More warmth means more evaporation, more vapour could mean more clouds. Low-level clouds reflect sunlight back into space, and help cool the climate a bit. This is what engineers call negative feedback. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/warming_climate_may_cut_cloud_cover_20140102

January 2, 2014

Those Michigan State Spartans aren't half bad.......

January 1, 2014

Chris Christie on track to break his own record for vetoes

TRENTON — The legislative session that wraps up in two weeks could be the least fruitful in recent memory, with the fewest bills signed into law in at least 25 years.

That’s in part because Gov. Chris Christie is on track to break his own record for vetoing bills that he set just two years ago.

"This governor has more power than any other governor in the nation, and he uses every inch of it," said Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester).

Since the current two-year session began in January 2012, Christie has signed 270 of the bills placed on his desk by the Democratic Legislature and taken his veto pen to 92 bills — striking down 49 outright and conditionally vetoing 43. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/12/chris_christie_on_track_to_break_his_own_record_for_vetoes.html