Seeking Freedom 1963 ~ American Contradictions

Today on MLK Day, perhaps reflect on this sliver of the history of Freedom in America from just over a half-century ago, when Dr King was in Birmingham, Alabama... Thanks to MissC for spotting this PBS clip. Police dogs, firehoses, bullying, oppression, the heavy hand of the State -- unbelievable -- except that it's still happening now in China, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and in other oppressed parts of our Planet.
P.S. And here's the I Have A Dream speech... Thanks to Brad Feld for posting it.

Tzafar ~ Spetsioti's Humanitarian Short Film...

Thanks to Prerna Makkar for spotting Tzafar...

Restore the Fourth ~ July 4th Anti-NSA Protests

What better way for Americans to celebrate Independence from an oppressive and intrusive regime than by protesting un-Constitutional oppressive and intrusive NSA spying and other grotesque violations of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. CNet's Dara Kerr writes that Reddit, Mozilla, EFF and more join July 4th anti-NSA protests...

"Rallying around the Fourth of July holiday, several Web sites have come together to take part in a nationwide protest over the National Security Agency's surveillance program. Organized by the nonprofit Fight for the Future, thousands of sites -- including some heavy-hitters like Mozilla, Reddit, WordPress.org, and 4chan -- will be staging online protests. Rather than going black, like many sites did during the 2012 protests of Congress' Stop Online Privacy Act, or SOPA, these sites will prominently display a Fourth Amendment banner. The banner will quote the text of the amendment, which says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

Besa ~ Albanians Sacred Promise to WWII Jews

Laura Koran of CNN writes that Besa Documentary seeks to explain why Albanians saved Jews in Holocaust...

"During one of humanity’s darkest chapters, when millions of Jews, gays, communists and racial minorities were rounded up across Europe, many Albanians put up a fight to save complete strangers. They risked their lives to shelter displaced Jewish families under Italian, and later German, occupation during the Holocaust. Many in the small, predominantly Muslim country in southeastern Europe took refugees into their homes despite the risks and the cost, passing their guests off as family members to keep them safe. At the core of this effort was a concept called “besa,” an Albanian code of honor that holds a person’s oath as sacred. Under besa, a guest in one’s home must be protected at all cost."

Remembering Tiananmen ~ Mao's Mad Minions

We must never forget that just 23 years ago today Chinese soldiers slaughtered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed pro-freedom protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Communist Chairman Mao's mad minions continue to murder, censor, and enslave their own citizens rather than face democratic elections and the rule of people over Politburo. CNN's Hilary Whiteman writes in Tiananmen: Activists mark date that can't be mentioned...

"More than 100,000 people are expected to gather in Hong Kong's Victoria Park Monday night for a candlelight vigil to remember the lives lost when tanks rolled into the Beijing square. The mainland government still bans public discussion of the events of June 4, 1989, when government forces intent on ending pro-democracy demonstrations opened fire on civilians. [Online references] were quickly deleted on what is commonly referred to as the censors' busiest day of the year. The government is particularly sensitive this year, observers say, in the lead up to the once-in-a-decade leadership transition. In autumn, power will transfer to a new generation of politicians who will decide the future direction for China."

The entire Chinese Communist Party's so-called leadership -- both those "retired" and the "upcoming" -- should not merely resign but be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, a new Nuremberg Trials convened, and justice upheld.

Killed by Incompetence ~ Latest MIT Death...

Very sad to hear MIT alumnus Phyo Kyaw was slaughtered Tuesday 12/27/2011 by a criminally careless truck driver while riding his bicycle at Mass Ave and Vassar. While this death is quite tragic -- and ought to be a capital case against the truck driver and a bankrupting civil case against the liable owner -- it's also a direct consequence of gross incompetence and complete safety neglect on the part of urban planners, traffic engineers, lawless drivers, absent or uncaring police, AWOL lawmakers, and for those rare court cases, spineless judges. Specifically, we have in Cambridge and Massachusetts today...

• Unsafe and totally inadequate bicycle lanes;
• Hazardous & poorly designed intersections;
  
• Unenforced speeding, red light, & cross-walk rules;
• Minimalist punishment of traffic & safety violations;
• Total absence of driver safety culture;
• Rampant road-rage & driving-while-distracted;
• Missing traffic intersection video recording & tracking;
• Inadequately strict driver-fault liability rules;
• Too few indictments, scarce convictions, & liberal sentences;
  
• And more.

In a just world, those directly and indirectly responsible would all be held criminally culpable for this death -- and for the many other related and entirely avoidable safety incidents between motor vehicles and the bicyclists and pedestrians they threaten daily. Let's look at the evidence: the photos show the murder victim's bike is crushed under the wheels of the JP Noonan-owned truck which is completely on the wrong side of the road. That driver should get the electric chair and yet the latest press reports indicate he's not even being charged. Even worse, an MIT campus policeman told me yesterday -- with a completely straight face, mind you -- that the word is "the bicyclist just ran into the truck" and that's why he died. So this vicious murder by means of criminally negligent and reckless driving is actually either an unfortunate "accident" or it's really the victim's own fault. Are you F#CKing kidding me?! This is completely appalling.

Eco-Label Rankings ~ Key Aquaculture Standards

Thanks to Pew Environment for New Study Puts Eco-labels to the Test about the University of Victoria's How Green is Your Eco-label?

"...which uses a well-established quantitative methodology derived from the 2010 Global Aquaculture Performance Index to determine numerical scores of environmental performance for 20 different eco-labels for farmed marine finfish, such as salmon, cod, turbot, and grouper. These scores were used to rank performance among the various eco-labels. [...] “Eco-labels can help fish farmers produce and consumers select environmentally preferable seafood, but only if the labels are based on meaningful standards that are enforced,” said Chris Mann, director of Pew’s Aquaculture Standards Project. “Seafood buyers at the retail or wholesale level should demand that evidence of sustainability be demonstrated, not merely asserted.”

See here summary of how standards performed overall...

Death to Dictators ~ Q'Daffy Tastes Own Medicine

Q'Daffy's dead. Good riddance. Now how about Assad, Mugabe, Chavez, Kim, Castro, Khamanei and the rest of the verminous swine? See here the bastard caught, courtesy DailyMail... Slain. And that's a good thing. Lockerbie avenged, among others...

Sierra Leone 2050 ~ Challenges & Opportunities

I'm fascinated by the long-term future prospects for Sierra Leone, an impoverished but beautiful and resource-rich West African country on the mend after a destructive civil war. Opportunities come from developing the mineral resources in such a way that the people participate in the upside, perhaps via some percapitization method, and certainly drawing on the lessons-learned by Paul Collier and colleagues, as well as Paul Romer and his Charter Cities movement. This means seeking better pathways for sustainably developing Freetown, the capital city, an intriguing emerging entrepot, and potentially the Hong Kong of West Africa. This certainly includes seeking slum solutions and transforming the lives of people in locales such as Kroo Bay for the better... Further bridge-building with neighbors, both Liberia and the historically Francophonic, are important, including, for instance, accelerating connective infrastructure, especially railways and upgrading the roadways, and turning Gola Forest into a transfrontier peace park. And certainly boosting openness, supporting the UN's deep engagement, resolving land disputes, minimizing corruption, and seeking a measure of justice for the injured and aggrieved. As TIME just noted in a tragic photoessay, maternal and other healthcare services need investment and support. While there's tremendous challenges and room for progress, Sierra Leone has many positives... As a final note, here in a very cool move, UNICEF goodwill ambassador and ultra-famous football star, David Beckham, stops at a roadside pitch in Sierra Leone and totally surprises the local players!-)

Birth Tourism ~ Paying $1,500 for US Citizenship

Eye-opening to read in the Washington Post this piece by Keith Richburg, For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for baby remains a powerful lure...

"What can $1,475 buy you in modern China? Not a Tiffany diamond or a mini-sedan, say Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao. But for that price, they guarantee you something more lasting, with unquestioned future benefits: a U.S. passport and citizenship for your new baby. [The couple] run one of China's oldest and most successful consultancies helping well-heeled expectant Chinese mothers travel to the United States [...] for a three-month stay in a center -- two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips. The mothers must pay their own airfare and are responsible for getting a U.S. visa, although Zhou and Chao will help them fill out the application form."

While I certainly understand the attractiveness of this generous loophole in the US Citizenship laws, I still don't understand what possible social good favors the spawn of some rich tourist over the thousands of adult, intelligent foreign students studying science, engineering, business and other innovation-oriented fields. While the automatic baby-citizens are useless burdens, the smart, hardworking non-citizen graduates are summarily kicked out of the country. Surely this is stupidity.

Superclass ~ Global Power Elite Rules Planet...

Interesting to read in the IEET about David Rothkopf's book Superclass which investigates the role of some ~6K people who each have...

"the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide."

Rothkopf's both an entrepreneur and himself connected to nodes in this power elite. See here his talk at the Carnegie Endowment...

Government Lies ~ Judge Napolitano on Reason

Check out libertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano's discussion with Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie about Lies The Government Told You, the saga of "Myth, Power, and Deception in American History"... Part II...

General Morons ~ GM's Deceitfully Slimy Ad...

Reason.tv skewers General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre who brags...

"...in TV commercials and newspaper columns that GM has paid back its bailout "in full and ahead of schedule." [This is] fanciful to the point of deceit. GM received $50 billion in TARP funds (never mind that TARP was only supposed to cover financial institutions). About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account. So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan."

Is this what "American ingenuity" has become? Slimy bullshit...

Human Rights ~ For Liberty, Prosperity, Vitality...

Thanks to Anne Liu and Kayvan Zainabadi for spotting this History of Human Rights short spotlighting the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an epic document dating back to post-WWII founding of the United Nations. In the final analysis, however, such rights have little meaning or endurance or application unless they are fought for and practiced and protected by us all, starting with me and you...

Correcting Injustice ~ WWII US-Japanese Camps

Thanks to Cambridge's CCTV for spotlighting both the disgraceful injustice of the forced internship during WWII of US Citizens of Japanese-decent into concentration camps and the 1988 US legislation apologizing for this misdeed. The bill admited that "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" occurred and authorized $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese-Americans or their heirs. Justice can ultimately prevail -- and that's one more reason why the US is a great country!

Closed Zone ~ Towards Freedom of Movement

Living everyday life in a concentration camp -- for no crime -- doesn't seem legitimate or just at all, does it? Everyone should have the basic human right to travel peaceably and freely where ever they please.

In Vino Vivo ~ Most Livable Places on Planet!

Curious how the most livable parts of our planet are also those where wine and alcohol and other "liberties" are appreciated, starting with Freedom to Ferment... Propensity to Imbibe...Freedom to Drink...Freedom to Say What You Damn Please...

Recovery ~ Beyond Justice in Sierra Leone...

Recent BBC coverage asks Did Sierra Leone get war crimes justice? The atrocities committed there -- and the tremendous resulting economic and social disruptions -- should never be forgotten. See also this BBC slideshow of photos by Nick Danziger on Recovering in Sierra Leone... The rebel terror tactic of chopping limbs -- and the resultant great need for solutions -- is one reason I'm an enthusiastic supporter of our MIT Developing World Prosthetics class in the D-Lab family.

Payback's a Bitch ~ Bull Sticks It To Matador...

From the WSJournal's photogallery -- Spanish bull gives matador Israel Lancho a taste of his own medicine...