enlarge Credit: The Capital Times Oh, look at the shiny new offices of Koch Companies’ lobbyists. Right now they have seven of them on staff, ready to do the bidding of their BirchMasters at the drop of a hat. Via The Capital Times : Charles and David Koch, who co-own Koch Industries Inc. and whose combined worth is estimated at $43 billion, have been recently tied by many media outlets to Walker’s push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers. The two have long backed conservative causes and groups including Americans for Prosperity, which organized the tea party rally Saturday in support of Walker’s plan to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights and recently launched the Stand with Scott Walker website. Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, acknowledged in a New York Times story Tuesday that he had encouraged Walker even before the election to mount a showdown with labor groups. Koch Industries, which owns Georgia-Pacific Corp. and the Koch Pipeline Co., operates a coal company and toilet paper factory in Wisconsin as well as gasoline supply terminals. And they’re about to own a whole lot more, if Walker gets his way. Those n o-bid sale/lease contracts for public utilities in Wisconsin are looking pretty for the Koch Industries folks, and the lobbyists are certainly ready to roll for their very special client. And of course, if you’re Koch Industries, the first thing you want to do is break the unions not only to weaken their voice in elections, but also so you can do things like this : Koch Industries is a major player in Wisconsin: Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant: Officials at Georgia-Pacific said the company is laying off 158 workers at its Day Street plant because out-of-date equipment at the facility is being replaced with newer, more-efficient equipment. The company said much of the new, papermaking equipment will be automated. Malach tells FOX 11 that the layoffs are not because of a drop in demand. In fact, Malach said demand is high for the bath tissue and napkins manufactured at the plant. Why pay man when machines can do the job, after all? And it’s not about the economy; it’s about making as much money as possible while workers are laid off with no other jobs opening up for them. We can certainly expect more of this as time goes on. Their goal is to control, reduce, and coerce the labor force into their bidding. I guess we could say the lobbying industry has grown by seven in Wisconsin, anyway. Doesn’t do much for the factory workers in Green Bay, but it certainly lines the pockets of Koch and their political minions. Oh, by the way…this is the sort of thing Koch doesn’t mind spending lots and lots of money on. Forget workers. Why worry about workers when they can run ads like this ?
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As Tweets were coming indicating that there was some violence in Misurata today, we get a video via the Sharek platform, showing an 8-year-old girl named Fatima who says she was shot near her home – she’s in a hospital in Misurata:
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The new digital technologies are powerful tools in moments of crisis, but they cannot substitute for sustained citizen activism My friends and I spent much of the past month channelling Cairo via New York. Our Facebook and Twitter feeds kept breathless pace with the events in Tahrir Square. There were plenty of fears and reservations (which remain), but our dominant emotion was awe that such change was indeed possible – and that social media could play a significant part in it. Now that the euphoria has waned, hard political realities come into view. But for my part, I’m left wondering about the nature of this new chimera, with the face of social media grafted onto the body of political action. As I ponder at recent examples from my travels, I think I perceive a pattern: social media can make an impressive contribution when there’s a dose of urgency in the air, quickly translated into adrenalin. But absent that charge, online attention and activism can fade quickly. Coincidentally for me, the events in Egypt came on the heels of the first anniversary of the Haitian earthquake. I co-authored a report on the latter event for the Knight Foundation that examined the role of media in the relief efforts. The report describes how the disaster inspired legions of students at various universities to create impromptu support systems for Ushahidi and other social media platforms. The tech community also came together. One of its contributions was to consolidate and upgrade various search wikis into the Google Person Finder. This platform utilises crowdsourcing to help disaster victims locate their loved ones. The advances achieved in Haiti are now available to the victims of the 22February New Zealand earthquake . Obviously, people who see real potential to overthrow a brutal dictator and people involved with dislocated populations as a result of natural disasters experience a strong motivation to use whatever tools come to hand. In Egypt, there has been a lot of emphasis on Twitter, but the data suggests that there were well under 15,000 Egyptians tweeting , out of a population of more than 80 million (and some may have been outside the country). So we shouldn’t let tech-euphoria distract us from other critical factors. These include al-Jazeera’s broadcasts of the protests reaching into millions of Egyptian living rooms; Muslim clerics who authorised resistance to the state’s abuse of authority; and uncounted millions of individual cellphone calls (as opposed to tweets). Not all of these activities generate data, but that doesn’t mean they should be overlooked. At the same time, there are a lot of worthy social media projects that have a hard time getting traction. I’m a big fan of Ushahidi, and have been collecting examples of its use on my travels. One of my favourites is on Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post’s Citizen Map , which charts illegal waste dumping and other environmental abuses. The map has been up since November, but the paper is hoping that the number of participants will grow. The team for the Kibera Open Street Map project in Kenya reports a similar phenomenon: “Build it and they will come … slowly.” It appears that when a situation involves low-grade chronic problems such as uncollected garbage and uncharted neighbourhoods, it’s simply harder to convince citizens to volunteer their time – even if the project is to their immediate benefit. I can’t say I’m surprised. During the last big blizzard in New York, an Ushahidi map popped up on my screen to record street blockages. After a day, there were only some 30 reports. (I’m embarrassed to say none were mine, even though our street was impassable for three days). Evgeny Morozov calls it “slacktivism” , where it’s easier to click a “like” button on Facebook than it is to participate in a crisis-mapping platform. Part of the challenge is to teach the public the power of the new tools. But maybe it’s also time to revive a notion of citizenship that involves more than one-click participation – before we hit the next crisis. • Anne Nelson is speaking at The Morningside Post ‘s second annual conference, “Information Overload? Navigating the Age of Democratised Media” , at Columbia University, New York on Friday 25 February. More details via Facebook Digital media Egypt Arab and Middle East protests Middle East Social media Crowdsourcing Twitter Facebook Google Social networking Protest Activism United States Haiti Al-Jazeera Anne Nelson guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Just when those arms deals in the Middle East were going so well, along comes a spot of bother in Libya to spoil things Cameron: Blessings and freedom be upon the Middle East! The Middle East: Who is this bloke? Cameron: I come in peace. Though I was just wondering if you’d like to buy some weapons. I’m doing a nice three-for-the-price-of-two deal on some tanks and I can throw in a SA80 rifle too. The Middle East: Can we just bury those who died in the revolution first? Cameron: Please yourself. But what’s the point of you lot becoming a democracy if we don’t get to flog arms to both sides? So, what do you want? The Middle East: To be left alone. Cameron: That’s not an option. You’re not a region, you’re a market. The Middle East: You’re beginning to sound awfully familiar. Tony Blair: Can we just forget that I was the one who went out of my way to rehabilitate Mubarak and Gaddafi? Mubarak: Did you enjoy your free holidays in Sharm el Sheikh? Blair: That’s no way to talk to the UN Middle East peace envoy. Colonel Gaddafi: I’m going nowhere. William Hague: I cannot confirm that Gaddafi is not on his way to Venezuela. Everyone: What’s he on about? Hague: I don’t know. I’m completely out of my depth. Milidee: Can you remind me why we handed al-Megrahi back? Gordon Brown: So that Gaddafi could go into exile in Scotland. Gaddafi: But I’m still going nowhere. Cameron: Can someone please get our people out of this country that we’ve now decided we don’t like any more? Hague: No. Cameron: Why not? Hague: Because I’m still completely out of my depth and I can’t find a military aircraft anywhere. Cameron: Oh bugger. I think I might have sold our last two to the Iraqis. Hasn’t anyone got any good news for me? George Osborne: Fraid not, Cams. The Treasury tells me we’ve got more money than we thought we had. Cameron: Isn’t that a good thing? Osborne: Don’t be ridiculous. It means we could have afforded to give Vodafone and Barclays even bigger tax breaks. Clegg: I’ve done a good thing, Daddy. Cameron: What’s that, Cleggster? Clegg: I’ve gone a whole week forgetting I’m looking after the country without making a total idiot of myself. Cameron: Just when you think the situation can’t get worse . . . David Cameron Arms trade Egypt Middle East Libya George Osborne Nick Clegg Liberal-Conservative coalition John Crace guardian.co.uk
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The main headlines on Al Jazeera English, featuring the latest news and reports from around the world.
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I’ve never seen a pundit attack a First Lady with such vitriol in my life. And to think Michelle Obama is taking up a cause that’s as uncontroversial as can be. She’s trying to protect our children from the hell that obesity can cause on their lives. Maybe he’s afraid that she’ll turn our children into radical Muslim sleeper agents if they try to eat healthier? US News: For the people who still can’t stand the fact that someone with a darker hue and a non-Anglo name is in the White House , it must be frustrating, looking for something to denigrate the woman who married him. And yet, they persist. What can be said about Michelle Obama? That she’s a Harvard-educated lawyer, half of a parenting team that has produced, by all indications (since the Obamas have wisely gone to great lengths to protect their children’s privacy) two well-behaved and adorable girls, and that she is leading an important mission against childhood obesity . Really, is there anything offensive in that personal resume? [ See photos of first lady Michelle Obama. ] Oh, but it seems there is, in the eyes of the Obama-haters and just the haters in general. First, we have Rush Limbaugh, who, as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank notes , bizarrely slams the first lady for daring to eat barbecue and for not looking like the picture of health she’s seeking to promote. “Our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue,” said Limbaugh, who, Milbank points out, is on the doughy side himself. This is unfathomable and as you’ve probably noticed, the GOP< Tea Partiers and most of the media has been silent. Can you imagine if a Liberal commentator like say Al Franken had attacked Laura Bush over her concerns for better education and women’s health? It would be on a 24/7 loop of indignity from the right. And rightly so I might add. Limbaugh is being more disgusting as usual and I think ‘boycotts are in order this time around. Especially since he’s a lying sack of sh*t. Limbaugh’s Lying Calorie Counter Following up on glass McMansion owner Rush Limbaugh hypocritically calling Michelle Obama fat, it turns out that he’s lying as usual : A restaurant owner in Colorado is calling for a calorie recount after conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh slammed First Lady Michelle Obama for a reported après ski pig out over the weekend. The portly host called out Obama on his radio show Monday after it was reported she dined on 1,500 calorie-per-serving short ribs at the restaurant Kelly Liken in Vail, where the First Lady and her daughters were on a ski trip. But the ancho chili short ribs were actually more like 600 calories, the owner, Kelly Liken, told the Vail Daily on Monday .. .read on === The lying jackass made it sound as though she’d eaten a full rack of sugary, greasy pork ribs at Tony Romas, not braised short ribs, ferchristsake. And, it turns out that the restaurant is involved in a schoolyard garden project so Limbaugh’s entire thesis that she’s a hypocrite is total bullshit too. But I’m sure his racist, sexist listeners got a big old belly laugh out of it. There’s nothing like dishonestly disparaging a black woman to make their day Limbaugh might take heed to the message that our First Lady is spreading because he looks like he might explode right in his studio from one of his overheated rants after an especially haughty meal, don’t you think? His satanical exploits against Michael J Fox and stem cell research helped Claire McCaskill to win her seat against Jim Talent in the 2006 midterms. I remember this story well because we were one of the first sites to break it and then watched it take off pretty quickly. Click here to view this media Rush: It’s clearly an act. He’s shaking and moving all around. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen MJ Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. He actually called Fox, (not FNC) shameless. This coming from a man who was caught carrying those little blue pills in a prescription, which could cause certain side effects, that wasn’t in his own name. I did a lot of investigative reporting over that story: Limbaugh not charged, but the doctors might be in hot water
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Here’s a video showing several wounded men in what the person who posted the video claims to be Az Zawiyah on February 24, when the army reportedly fired at protesters for up to 5 hours. Eyewitnesses say that as many as 100 were killed and 400 were injured.
Continue reading …Scott Walker Claims He’s Never Met the Koch Brothers and Doesn’t Know Who Breitbart Is
February 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Well, MSNBC and CNN may have cut away from Scott Walker taking questions after he got punked by the fake Koch brother , but Fox’s Greta Van Susteren actually asked Walker about the incident on her show this Wednesday. Walker claimed he’d never spoken to the Koch brothers before and he was just taking a phone call from one of the countless people who call him every day when he allowed the… you know… fake Koch brother to take up twenty minutes of his time. It’s pretty amazing that someone he’s never talked to before managed to get twenty minutes with him when Democratic legislators and union leaders have said he’s not taking their calls. But of course Greta didn’t ask him about that. Walker also claimed he had no idea who Andrew Breitbart was when Van Susteren quoted him responding to the fake Koch brother saying he was going to bring him in to cause trouble at the protests. WALKER: Look, yeah. I don’t even know who that is. VAN SUSTEREN: You don’t know who that is? WALKER: No. I’ve never met the Koch brothers before so this is obviously why someone calling could prank me because I’ve never talked to him before. I know he’s an employer in the state and in the end, I mean, I think it’s interesting because the prankster there tried to insinuate at least that this person was going to push for people to come in and cause a disturbance amongst the protesters. I made it very clear, that’s not right. That doesn’t work. That has no value. VAN SUSTEREN: But you thought about it. When you brought up the part about doing dirty tricks with the crowd, you said well, at least you’re quoted as saying, you know well the only problem with that, because we thought about that, the problem that, my only gut reaction that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have completely had it with them. The public isn’t really fond of this. WALKER: Right because in the end the protesters have not overwhelmed them. They’ve realized they’ve come in from other states. VAN SUSTEREN: But you thought about it. WALKER: Well yeah, we had people contact us, I had people, I even had lawmakers in other states suggesting riling things up. When I pointed out, increasingly and I’ve said this all over the media, I’ve said it in all my interviews, is that we’ve had a civil discourse amongst people here in the state of Wisconsin. My great fear was of people coming from other states. My biggest fear was last Saturday when you had protesters both for and against the bill coming in. I thought you were going to have some major collisions between the two and thank god, we didn’t have any disturbances. I think it’s because the people of the state are the ones thriving. Yeah, thank god that thing I was thinking about doing but chose not to for purely political reasons didn’t end up in any of my constituents being exposed to some violence at these otherwise peaceful protests. What a schmuck. And just who are these lawmakers from other states? You want to fill us in on that Scott? Shorter Scott Walker: Koch brothers, what Koch brothers? Oh those guys. Barely met ‘em. Breitbart, who’s that? Trip, what trip? Did I say I wanted to go on a trip? I’m just looking out for the voters of Wisconsin. Good grief what a horrible liar. Walker obviously thinks the voters of Wisconsin are idiots incapable of listening to a recording or reading a transcript . When John Nichols was talking to Ed Schultz about Walker’s potential ethical and legal problems after this prank, he said there hasn’t been anything that the voters of Wisconsin have been paying as much attention to since Brett Favre quit the Packers. I hope as many of them as possible get a chance to watch this little lie-fest with Greta since they’re obviously paying attention to what’s going on.
Continue reading …MSNBC Makes It Sound Like Wisconsin Democrats Caved And Made A Deal…But Did They?
February 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Watch the breaking news banner in this video as MSNBC breaks the “news” that “GOP & Dems in WI Agree to Deal Ending Debate on Labor Battle.” The initial report was breathlessly shared by Norah O’Donnell this way: SCARBOROUGH: I understand the Associated Press is uh — has breaking news that there may be a deal in Wisconsin. Whaddya got? ODONNELL: That’s right. We’re learning now from the Associated Press — this passed the urgent wires — that Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin have agreed to a deal that will limit further debate on this bill taking away the collective bargaining rights. So, this deal was just announced this morning after 6AM. They are going to have a vote on this measure today, later today this Thursday, so they’ve agreed on that. The Democrats have agreed to limit further amendments, this is after some 40 hours on this and so there is going to be a vote later today, this Thursday, Joe. That’s just passing the wires. SCARBOROUGH: Any information– Any more specific information, I mean, are the — from the initial report, it sounds like the Democrats are just going to come back and vote on an up or down. Is that what it sounds like? ODONNELL: Well, what they’ve agreed to is to limit further amendments to just 38 with a 10-minute time limit on each one. And if they take the maximum time that’s going to put the vote around noon so I think we’re going to have a debate today, essentially it’s going to be debated on, we’re going to watch that debate and there’s going to be a vote on it. See how O’Donnell never really mentions that it’s the Wisconsin ASSEMBLY that’s voting on it? The Assembly Democrats have been working to filibuster in that chamber as hard as they can. They’ve thrown 100 amendments at it and have done everything they can to stop it from going forward. They’re tired. And so they’ve agreed to close their filibuster down . That’s the ONLY thing that’s been agreed to. But O’Donnell never makes that distinction and indeed, it’s only made about 30 minutes later in the broadcast, despite the banner clearly stating it’s the Assembly that’s voting, not the Senate. In my opinion, this kind of “error” is intended to demoralize those fighting passage of this bill, the same way the Fox News “error” yesterday flipping poll results was meant to do. So let’s clarify exactly what that “breaking news” was and what Senate Democrats are and are not doing. LA Times: Even as demonstrators continued to chant and sing their protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to end collective bargaining for state workers, lawmakers prepared to move the bill along. Though the measure is expected to easily pass the Republican-controlled Assembly, it also needs Senate approval. In television interviews from Illinois, Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach said all 14 senators who have fled Wisconsin would not return until some form of compromise is negotiated with Walker. The Republican governor has repeatedly ruled out any talks. Just a reminder about how biased that “liberal media” can be.
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A new bus-stop billboard put up by anti-choice activists near a NYC Planned Parenthood hits an all new low in taste: enlarge Credit: BestWeekEver It takes a lot to do this, but I’m speechless . Found on 6th Ave. and Watts Street, merely 3 blocks away from a Soho Planned Parenthood Clinic, the ad portrays an adorable African-American toddler with the text “The Most Dangerous Place For An African-American Child Is In The Womb.” Their website, which I visited for the purposes of this post, claims that our generation is being wiped out due to abortions. Um, newsflash? Our Earth isn’t even going to have the resources to feed our population by the year 2050 , and that’s assuming the aliens from Independence Day don’t get here first. If these people really cared about stopping abortions and lowering our population crisis, they should stop worrying about women’s bodies and start a campaign encouraging castration. There is so much wrong with the thinking behind this ad campaign that even trying to formulate a tempered response is giving me a migraine. I really wish that these anti-choice people gave even the littlest bit of energy to caring about the conditions in which most African Americans live and trying to fix that than they do to such horrifically racist and ugly ads.
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