Inequality

Published on Real-World Economics Review Blog, by Peter Radford, March 1, 2014.

I am preparing a talk on inequality here in America, and so have been re-reading the Piketty and Saez work. Amongst the more eye-opening facts I have come across is the assertion, by Saez, that the surge in the top 1% incomes is so large that the growth of the bottom 99% amounts to only half the average [mean].

Think about that for a moment. Continuer la lecture de « Inequality »

Former NASA Scientist claims conspiracy about Mars photo

watch this video with former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover, 23.31 min, uploaded by Open Minds Production, Feb 19, 2014: former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover shares revelations with journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post. Hoover talks about the fact that someone may have destroyed evidence of life on Mars. This took place at the Open Minds 2014 International UFO Congress and Film Festival in Fountain Hills Arizona.

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance

Published on Necessary and Proportionate.org, Info and Link received by Newsletter-Email, From: HURIDOCS, Date: Feb 11, 2014:

Dear reader, Privacy is a human right: People need it, governments have to protect it and business has to respect it. Too often, this is not the case.

Today is the day we fight back: Thousands of individuals, international experts and a coalition of NGOs from all around the globe demand an end to unchecked mass surveillance. Privacy is dear to everyone of them: It enables them to speak freely. To meet others without being watched. To know that it is their decision to share information about themselves.   Continuer la lecture de « International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance »

The Geopolitical Dimensions of the Coup in Ukraine: A Struggle for Power and Influence

Published on Global Research.ca (first on World Socialist Web Site WSWS), by Peter Schwarz, Feb 27, 2014.

“When the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, Dick wanted to see the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world,” wrote former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his recently published memoirs. Gates was referring to the then-Secretary of Defense, and later US Vice President, Dick Cheney.

The statement sheds light on the geopolitical dimensions of the recent putsch in Ukraine. What is at stake is not so much domestic issues—and not at all the fight against corruption and democracy—but rather an international struggle for power and influence that stretches back a quarter of a century … // Continuer la lecture de « The Geopolitical Dimensions of the Coup in Ukraine: A Struggle for Power and Influence »