Undernews: April 19, 2012

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To comment on an article, click on the headline and go to the end of the item

Where the action is. . .
• Greek town turns to alternative currency
• The Occupy Handbook
• Good list of articles on the continuing problems in the Gulf
• Groups opposing latest anti-Internet bill
• Community radio poised for big comeback

Upcoming

Resources for a May 1 general strike
People's Summit Chicago May 20-21
National socialism conference starts June 28
• ACTION NEWS
• A BETTER U.S
• POST EMPIRE AMERICA
• A NEW AGENDA

Race to the bottom
• Pennsylvania Governor Corbett wants to sell a reservoir with six billion gallons of water to a private firm for $50 million. It's worth at least $5 billion.
• Anthony Weiner was a jerk even before Crotchgate
• Judith Miller thinks it's fine to spy on Muslims

Furthermore. . .
• Scientist believes computer can replace Simon Cowell and cost a lot less
• Banker uses Excel spreadsheet to keep track of girlfriends
• The Oklahoma City bombing revisited

Things not to do on Facebook

Smoking Gun - A Kentucky man is facing a misdemeanor rap after he siphoned gasoline from a police car, a theft that came to the attention of cops after the perp posted a Facebook photo memorializing the crime.

As seen in the above photo, as Michael Baker, 20, was swiping the gas last month from a Jenkins Police Department squad car, he made sure to flip the bird as his girlfriend snapped a picture.

Anti-Internet bill allows web firms to turn over private data to NSA

CNET- New revisions to a proposed federal cybersecurity law still would permit Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency.

A recent torrent of criticism prompted the politicians behind the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act to circulate a revised version (PDF) of CISPA before an expected floor vote next week. But the authors made only relatively minor tweaks.

The legislation remains so broad that the NSA could vacuum up "all sorts of sensitive information like Internet use information and the contents of e-mails," ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson told CNET.

Great moments in the law

Lowering the Bar - To your list of places not to watch porn on your computer, please add, "in court during a rape trial," and more specifically, "while sitting directly in front of the judge." The offender in this case was the court's clerk, and he actually did this while the victim was testifying. The clerk admitted it was not the first time he had watched porn during a trial, but said he "only looked at porn if the case was boring."

Frank O_____, an individual, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, v. The Dial Corporation [et al.] No. 3:12-cv-361 (S.D. Cal. filed Feb. 9, 2012)

Class action complaint for violations of California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the California Unfair Competition Law. The defendants have falsely marketed and sold their soap product line "Dial For Men Magnetic Attraction Enhancing Body Wash" as having "pheromones in them to attract women."

Child abuse by NY schools gets worse

Juan Gonzalez, NY Daily News - Students will spend 270 minutes in English Language Arts assessment and 270 minutes on math exams, but some of the questions don't even count.

Those dreaded state tests are here again.

All third-to eighth-graders in New York began Tuesday the first of three consecutive days of English Language Arts assessment, to be followed next week by three days of math tests.

And those state tests have never been longer.

A typical third-grader last year spent 150 minutes over three days taking the ELA test and 100 minutes over two days on the Math exam.

This year, all students will spend 270 minutes in the ELA exam and 270 minutes in the Math test - 90 minutes over each of six days.

The stakes also have never been higher, not for the pupils who take the tests or the teachers whose evaluations will be based on their students’ performance or the schools that could face closure if pupil scores drop.

Yet fewer of the answers public school children give this year on those tests will actually count toward their final score.

State education officials and their private testing firm, Pearson, have tossed in a large number of “field test” questions for the first time - questions that don’t count in the score but make it easier to design future tests.

MORE

How states have reacted to the recession
Center for Budget & Policy Priorities - State and local governments have shed 641,000 jobs since August 2008. They have also cancelled contracts with vendors, reduced payments to businesses and nonprofits that provide services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. All of these steps have removed demand from the economy and slowed the recovery.

By diminishing funding for elementary and high schools, making college less affordable, and reducing residents’ access to health care, the cuts threaten to make the U.S. economy less competitive over the long term.

Mittigated Disasters: Bain Capital allegedly fired managers for not being Mormons

Courthouse News - Former members of Bain Capital fired six out of seven managers of a senior housing company because they are not Mormon, the fired managers claim in Federal Court.

.."During their tenure with defendants, plaintiffs learned that SCP strongly favored hiring, employing, and doing business with other members of the LDS Church," the complaint states.

Scientist believes computer can replace Simon Cowell and cost a lot less

BBC - Music talent show judges are among the highest-profile figures in the modern media, watched by millions each week on shows like The Voice and X Factor.

But they can be expensive and temperamental. What if they could be replaced by computer judges - cheap, consistent and low maintenance?

This is essentially the task that Dr Nick Collins from the University of Sussex has set himself, with his research on machines which listen and learn.

He has programmed three computerised judges, complete with general musical knowledge and individual quirks, for a competition in London.

Dr Collins has achieved his feat thanks to a highly versatile programming language written specially for music, called SuperCollider.

Its devotees - from cutting-edge musicians to scientists and sound artists - have come from all over the world to London this week for a conference to showcase this powerful tool, which programmers can use to explore musical artificial intelligence.

How to figure the volume of your pizza

James Cordeiro - If a pizza has a radius 'z' and a depth 'a' that pizza's volume can be defined Pi*z*z*a.

Want to visit the White House? Better give Obama at least $100,000

NY Times - Although Mr. Obama has made a point of not accepting contributions from registered lobbyists, a review of campaign donations and White House visitor logs shows that special interests have had little trouble making themselves heard. Many of the president’s biggest donors, while not lobbyists, took lobbyists with them to the White House, while others performed essentially the same function on their visits.

More broadly, the review showed that those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times.

French left pressing for upset

Financial Times - A powerful revival of France’s radical left, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former socialist minister, and with a resurgent Communist party at its core, looks poised to be one of the most striking outcomes of next Sunday’s first round of voting in the country’s presidential election.

At the heart of Mr Mélenchon’s campaign, which brings together his own Left party, the Communist party of France and other far left groups under the banner of the Left Front, is an outright rejection of the austerity policies pursued across the European Union, including France, in response to the sovereign debt crisis.

It is a message that has resonated widely: Mr Mélenchon’s outdoor rallies have easily rivalled those of Nicolas Sarkozy, the president, and Mr Hollande in numbers and intensity; his poll ratings have soared from 5 per cent two months ago to as high as 17 per cent in recent surveys, suggesting that he could even come in third behind Mr Sarkozy and Mr Hollande, who have pledged to stick to tough targets to reduce France’s budget deficit and high public debt.

Films
Recommended by the Work Site

COINTELPRO 101. A 56-minute documentary consists primarily of interviews about an FBI program in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to disrupt, discredit, and “neutralize” leaders of black, Latino, Native American, and white radical organizations. Many such leaders were assassinated or imprisoned. The FBI infiltrated such organizations to sow dissension or provoke actions that could be used as an excuse for repression. Footage from the time includes clips of U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) whose committee investigated and documented these activities by the FBI and CIA that used “national security” as a pretext for violating Americans’ basic civil liberties.

And now some modest school reforms

Lisa Cooley, Minds of Kids

Let’s think about those school practices that have actually been proven to be harmful to kids. Not big-picture issues this time; let’s think of the littler stuff that is very big in the eyes of the kids who are subjected to it.

1. Homework. Get rid of it. Elementary grades: we should be giving none at all. Middle and high grades: only stuff that is supported by research. Don’t make kids work a second shift. Do we really have any idea the happiness this would bring to so many kids? Instant good will on the part of children, with accompanying positive impact on learning.
2. Extrinsic motivation. Snuff it out. No more lollipops for “good behavior,” no more rewards for conforming to adults’ expectations. Again, check out the research. All negative. Dump it.
3. Early start times for adolescents. Do you need to see any more research? Our high schools are full of zombies half asleep, half awake, all miserable. Let them sleep. It won’t kill us.
4. Ban on cell phones. If you can’t hold their attention in competition with a cell, that’s not their problem.
5. Ban on social media. Kids have the world at their fingertips…except in school. Figure out how to connect your classes to the world. Better still, let kids do it.
6. Stop making them wait to go to the bathroom when they have to go.
7. Stop the ban on food in the classroom. When kids are hungry, they should eat.
8. Let them play. Let them hang out. Let them socialize.
9. Better lunch food, with kids playing a role in researching and deciding on menus

A former TSA chief blows the whistle on. . . the TSA

Guy gets to play harmonica in Carnegie Hall

Word
Borowitz Report - Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when the Secret Service kept lookout while the President saw prostitutes.

Gallery

Ten story tree house

Keith Olbermann 'switched car services eight times in a year and complained his drivers smelled and talked to him'

Whistleblower accuses top brass of lying about Afghanistan

Print slide continues

Jim Romensko - U.S. consumer magazines saw their number of ad pages fall 8.2% during the first quarter of 2012 from the year earlier period the third straight quarter where the number of ad pages declined from the year-earlier period, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Titles that had 20% or more declines in the most recent quarter include Golf Digest, In Touch Weekly, Martha Stewart Living, Men’s Fitness, and O, The Oprah Magazine. “Automotive and food companies were among the businesses that significantly pulled back on their U.S. ad-page purchases,” reports the Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica.

The Progressive Review, ever ahead of the curve, gave up its print edition in 2004 after 40 years of publishing.

Arizona practices medicine without a license again

Daily Kos - Arizona can now claim the nation's worst assault on women's reproductive rights so far.

The life begins at menstruation law goes into effect in 90 days:

• It sets the gestational age as beginning on the first day of a woman’s last period, rather than at fertilization. Which, in practice, means that a virgin can get pregnant and instead of barring abortions after 20 weeks as the law states, actually cuts the time to 18 weeks.

• Medication abortions (by pill), usually done at home or a clinic within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, must now be done by a medical provider who has hospital privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure takes place...

• Health-care facilities must put up signs warning against abortion "coercion."

• • The state health department must set up a website focusing on alternatives to abortion and displaying photos of fetuses.

• "Counseling" is required for women aiming seeking abortions because of fetal abnormalities. Such counseling must include perinatal hospice information.

• Previous requirements are reiterated for a notarized parental consent form for minors and a mandatory ultrasound screening 24 hours before having an abortion.

Orwellandia: England treats Olympics as though it were the MPAA

Boing Boing - As London ramps up for the 2012 Olympics, a dystopian regime of policing and censorship on behalf of the games' sponsors is coming online. A special squad of "brand police" will have the power to force pubs to take down signs advertising "watch the games on our TV," to sticker over the brand-names of products at games venues where those products were made by companies other than the games' sponsors, to send takedown notices to YouTube and Facebook if attendees at the games have the audacity to post their personal images for their friends to see, and more. What's more, these rules are not merely civil laws, but criminal ones, so violating the sanctity of an Olympic sponsor could end up with prison time for Londoners.

Esther Addley documents the extent of London's corporatism for The Guardian:

Why are third graders tested longer than law school applicants?

Carol Corbett Burris, Washington Post:

My 10-year-old friend... will be subjected to six days of New York State exams. Her teacher must allot 90 minutes for six days a total of nine hours not counting 60 minutes of “prep time” to pass out materials. The New York State Education Department estimates that each test book will take 60 minutes to complete for a total of 6 hours of testing of students from Grades 3 to 8. For students with a learning disability who get extra time, it can be as much as 12 hours of testing. Let’s put those into perspective.

The LSAT for Law School admissions takes 2.9 hours plus a 35 minute writing sample.

The NYPD Officer Written Exam designed to measure the cognitive ability, observational skills, and mental acuity of applicants to the NYPD takes one hour and 30 minutes to complete.

The NCLEX (National Council Licensure EXamination) is an examination for the licensing of registered nurses. Nurses are permitted up to six hours to complete it.

The Series 7 exam, which licenses stockbrokers, is a six hour test, too.

Only the American Board of Dermatology certification exam exceeds the NY State test time for third graders. It is eight hours long. But that does include breaks.

Why are our 9 year olds subjected to state exams that last as long or are longer than entrance and certifying exams for adult professionals who make life and death decisions? Why are the 75-minute third-grade state exams of 2005 no longer enough?

Dealing with the overabundance of deer

Tree Hugger - Towns, cities, suburbs, and rural areas all have at least one thing in common: An over abundance of deer and other large herbivores. The free-ranging herds cross busy traffic lanes, eat from gardens, and spread disease¬among other things. But what can be done to control them?

The answer, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Oregon State University, is to cultivate healthy predator populations. Yes, this includes reintroducing wolves.

The researchers found that "there's consistent evidence that large predators help keep populations of large herbivores in check, with positive effects on ecosystem health."

Densities of large herbivores¬like deer and moose¬were six times greater in areas without wolf populations. In addition, they found that combinations of predators¬like wolves and bears¬had a greater benefit by allowing the species to work together to cultivate an "ecosystem of fear" amongst their prey.

The case for worker owners

Tennessee to teach magic as reality in its schools
Gawker - In Tennessee ... a bill permitting public school discussion of creationism alongside evolutionary-based explanations for the origins of life became law.

Republican Governor Bill Haslam had initially planned to sign the bill, but backed down when he received a 3,000-signature petition against the proposed legislation. It was able to become law without his signature, though (and could have gone through even if he'd vetoed it, thanks to a legislative simple majority), so everybody wins in the end.

Governor Haslam sort of but not really defended the bill on Tuesday, saying:
"I do not believe that this legislation changes the scientific standards that are taught in our schools or the curriculum. I also don't believe that it accomplishes anything."

Senate Bill 893 requires teachers to permit a discussion of "alternative theories" to issues like evolution and climate change in their classrooms. While educators are not allowed to raise the topic of these alternative theories themselves, they must explore them if a student brings them up, meanings kids all over Tennessee have a new way to stall classroom time indefinitely.

What offshore tax havens are costing you and small business

PIRG - A new U.S. PIRG report found the average tax filer in 2011 would have to pay $426 to make up for revenue lost from corporations and wealthy individuals shifting income to offshore tax havens. The report additionally found that if they were to cover the cost of the corporate abuse of tax havens in 2011, the average American small business would have to pay $2,116.

“When corporations shirk their tax burden by shifting profits legitimately made in the U.S. to offshore tax havens like the Caymans, the rest of us must pick up the tab through either cuts to public spending priorities, higher taxes, or more debt,” said Dan Smith, Tax and Budget Associate for U.S. PIRG and one of the report’s co-authors. “Responsible small businesses are further hurt by corporate tax dodging because they are put at a competitive disadvantage since they can’t hire armies of well paid lawyers and accountants to use offshore tax loopholes.”

Every year, corporations and wealthy individuals avoid paying an estimated $100 billion in taxes by shifting income to low or no tax offshore tax havens. Of that $100 billion, $60 billion in taxes are avoided specifically by corporations. A GAO study found that at least 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations use offshore tax havens.

Breaking the data down by state, U.S. PIRG found that residents of Delaware and Minnesota picked up the largest share of the tab - $1,317 and $774 respectively.

Good reads: Loneliness, narcissism and Facebook

Stephen March, Atlantic -A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier.

....Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant.

..Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant.

State funded assistance to the poor disappearing

Bookshelf: The American Idol presidency of Barack Obama

School cop uses pepper spray on students not moving fast enough to next class

Jonathan Turley - Students at Jack Robey Junior High School in Pine Bluff [were] pepper-sprayed when they failed to go to their classes fast enough after lunch. One mother says that her daughter suffered a severe allergic reaction to the spray.

School superintendent Jerry Payne confirmed the use of the pepper-spray by an officer because students were moving too slow to their classes. The officer reportedly said that he sprayed toward the ground as opposed directly at the students. That is hardly an improvement. The idea of spraying a painful caustic substance into a hall as a crowd motivator is the definition of not just negligence but assault and battery.

The fall of John Edwards as seen close up

Toyota announces one seater with charging time of an Ipad

How corporations can spy on you without your password

The global dangers of our Iran strategy

Juan Cole, Huffington Post - It’s a policy fierce enough to cause great suffering among Iranians -- and possibly in the long run among Americans, too. It might, in the end, even deeply harm the global economy and yet, history tells us, it will fail on its own. Economic war led by Washington (and encouraged by Israel) will not take down the Iranian government or bring it to the bargaining table on its knees ready to surrender its nuclear program. It might, however, lead to actual armed conflict with incalculable consequences.

The United States is already effectively embroiled in an economic war against Iran. The Obama administration has subjected the Islamic Republic to the most crippling economic sanctions applied to any country since Iraq was reduced to fourth-world status in the 1990s. And worse is on the horizon. A financial blockade is being imposed that seeks to prevent Tehran from selling petroleum, its most valuable commodity, as a way of dissuading the regime from pursuing its nuclear enrichment program.

Historical memory has never been an American strong point and so few today remember that a global embargo on Iranian petroleum is hardly a new tactic in Western geopolitics; nor do many recall that the last time it was applied with such stringency, in the 1950s, it led to the overthrow of the government with disastrous long-term blowback on the United States. The tactic is just as dangerous today.

..The great oil blockade of 2012 may still be largely financially focused, but it carries with it the same dangers of escalation and intervention -- as well as future bitterness and blowback -- as did the campaign of the early 1950s. U.S. and European financial sanctions are already beginning to interfere with the import of staples like wheat, since Iran can no longer use the international banking system to pay for them. If children suffer or even experience increased mortality because of the sanctions, that development could provoke future attacks on the U.S. or American troops in the Greater Middle East. (Don’t forget that the Iraqi sanctions, considered responsible for the deaths of some 500,000 children, were cited by al-Qaeda in its “declaration of war” on the U.S.)

The attempt to flood the market and use financial sanctions to enforce an embargo on Iranian petroleum holds many dangers. If it fails, soaring oil prices could set back fragile economies in the West still recovering from the mortgage and banking scandals of 2008. If it overshoots, there could be turmoil in the oil-producing states from a sudden fall in revenues.

MORE

Obama's NSA: getting close to knowing all about us

Gallery

Library of Congress photographs of ex-slaves

Who really owns that organic food you're buying

Why does Tim Tebow get free speech but not Ozzie Guillen?

Dave Zirin, The Progressive - Howard Cosell once said famously that sports and politics don’t mix. Yet the more you stare at the world of sports it becomes obvious that it’s not “sports and politics” that don’t mix, but sports and a certain kind of politics. If an athlete wants to “support the troops,” rally behind a new publicly funded stadium, or in the case of Tim Tebow, do commercials for rightwing evangelical hate-shop like Focus on the Family, then you are a role model. Anyone who dares step out of that box would bear a very different set of consequences. This was seen sharply with the case of Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen.

To be clear, I have no problem with what Guillen said. Castro’s ability to survive since Eisenhower was President of the United States is remarkable.

I also have no problem with South Florida’s very well connected, rightwing Cuban community, flexing their muscle in an effort to denounce Guillen. Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism.

I do have a tremendous problem with the Miami Marlins franchise suspending Guillen for five games without pay.

I do have a problem with Guillen becoming yet another person from the world of sports who gets fined, loses money, and has his job threatened for daring to have something political to say.

I have a problem with him, in order to save his job, having to grovel like a broken man at a press conference that was only missing a stockade. Guillen had to say, “I come to apologize on my knees with my heart in my hands,” and “I’ve learned not to speak in politics where I don’t belong.” He then renounced Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and every last red short of Paul Robeson. Those kinds of political statements were fine.

This kind of awful morality theater is nothing less than the stone-cold definition of a chilling effect on free speech.

As Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, said, “Baseball managers are entitled to the same Constitutional rights as anyone else. Period, full stop,” Marshall wrote. “In fact, we ought to call an end to the all-too-common ritual of public humiliation, confession, and absolution that follows whenever some celebrity says something stupid or offensive. It’s the closest thing our supposedly free society has to a totalitarian show trial.”

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