By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | December 4, 2013

 
 
The American Studies Association leadership has endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities over what it describes as the Israeli regime’s violation of international law and ethical codes.
The decision posted Wednesday follows a contentious debate at the group’s annual meeting last month and 10 days of deliberations that were supposed to last a morning. The boycott resolution was approved unanimously by the 20-member national council.

ED. I have not seen the the Sequel yet, but the first movie edition of the teenage attraction “The Hunger Games” was mostly a dystopian attack on life and liberty. The simple premise takes Gladiatorial Bread and Circus to a new level of Totalitarian evil, where teens are forced to hunt and kill each other for fame and fortune, and the right to life itself.
We will have a review for you when and if we see the sequel.

Interfax
December 5, 2013
Drug production in Afghanistan grows 40 times during NATO operation – FSKN
MOSCOW: The global illegal drug trade is annually estimated at $800 billion, Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov told a conference in Moscow.
“The drug market is estimated at $800 billion a year. Drug production in Afghanistan presents the biggest danger for Russia and Eurasia,” he said.

Voice of Russia
December 5, 2013
Russian lawmaker slams NATO statement over Ukraine crackdown
A prominent Russian lawmaker and the chief of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament has pointed out inconsistency between NATO’s reaction to the recent crackdown on Ukrainian protesters in Kiev and similar police violence in the US.

According to Pelosi, when women succeed, America succeedsYesterday I got an e-mail from an awful candidate running for an open House seat in northeast Iowa, Swati Dandekar. Blue America is backing the progressive running for that seat, Pat Murphy.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Arnold Zweig: Selections on war
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Arnold Zweig
From The Crowning of a King (1937)
Translated by Eric Sutton

WTO: Just another elite organization that should be kicked to the curb.Globalization is a fail. It serves the powers that shouldn’t be. It does not serve the people. In any nation. Anywhere on the globe.

by Judith Curry The US CLIVAR Program has published a Science plan that provides a roadmap for the next 15 years [link]. The US CLIVAR program goals: US CLIVAR is a US national research program investigating the variability and predictability of the … Continue reading →

RT| December 4, 2013

A group of high-profile academics has written an open letter warning that food poverty has become an “emergency” in the UK. Use of food banks has tripled in the past year alone, but the government says this does not mean more people are starving.

The following article by Arnold Leese is reprinted from Gothic Ripples, No. 49, dated 28th February, 1949. It shows that the seeds of Bolshevism were planted in China by Jews, who also tended and trained the growth that resulted. The corruption of the regime of Chiang Kai‑Shek caused many of the masses in China to turn to Communism for relief, since Chinese Communism is mixed with Nationalism and discourages the old Chinese curse of official corruption; but Communism in China has the same de­humanising effect on the people as it has elsewhere.
THE JEWISH ROTTING OF CHINA.

On today’s episode James Corbett joins Pearse Redmond of Porkins Policy Review to discuss the notion of blowback as it exists in the current war on terror narrative. We examine how it has evolved since 9/11 into a catch all phrase to mask much of the reality of the war on terror.

Welcome back to The Asia-Pacific Perspective, that monthly show where James Corbett of corbettreport.com and Broc West of apperspective.net break down all the latest news and headlines from the Asia-Pacific region. In this month’s conversation (recorded on the afternoon of December 2nd):
China ADIZ: US flyover in China-Japan island row: Will the real provocateur please stand up?
http://ur1.ca/g4qp5

Though the President of the United States is responsible for the management of the nation’s foreign policy he hardly has a free hand. Congress has increasingly been playing a role utilizing its power to legislate and also its control over the federal budget while various non-government constituencies within the United States have the ability to […]

Chances are dim that elections will be held in Yemen next February. Yet without elections, the push for reforms and change that were inspired by the Yemeni revolution would become devoid of any real value. Yemenis might find themselves back on the street, repeating the original demands that echoed in the country’s many impoverished cities, […]

Yesterday I went to see my doctor, Dr. Vicky. She is the bomb! And she wrote me a prescription for 4 weeks of Doryx (200 mg). The pharmacy said the cost is $786.00/week. With Medicare insurance the price is $25/week. That's why seniors-- at least the ones who are awake-- react so badly to reactionaries like Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz who want to "ease out" Medicare and undermine Obamacare.Also yesterday, when I got back from Dr. Vicky's office, I spoke with Matt Moore, one of the Democrats intent on taking on Don Young for Alaska's single, giant at-large House seat.

Wouldn't you think ex-Police Commish Rickety Ray'ssecurity will require a string of NYPD polo ponies?by KenWhen last we encountered departing NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, in "A holiday F.U.

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D. PressTV December 4, 2013 [download video] [download audio]

By Yves Engler · December 4, 2013

Last week in Switzerland big money staved off an important challenge to big paychecks. But the sentiment that spurred a Swiss effort to tie executive compensation to common workers’ wages will not be defeated so easily.

By W.T. WHITNEY Jr. | CounterPunch | December 4, 2013

Negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to end fifty years of war have been ongoing in Cuba for a year. Agreements on agrarian rights and recently political participation have boosted peace hopes. But whatever the outcome of negotiations, chances for peace rest largely on what happens in cities and regions like Barrancabermeja.

Latest Ed Snowden leak via Washington Post: NSA collects cellphone location data on Americans, “incidentally”, keeps it “intentionally”Click here for free audiobook download, and support the PBC Podcast with the same clicks!
In an excerpt from the in-depth interview, Coleen Rowley gives first-person impressions of Ed Snowden.
–tapes of 911 calls during Sandy Hook shooting last December are finally released, after Rachel Maddow advocated suppression

Our guest this week is Dr. Frederick vom Saal, Curators' Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who joins us to discuss the substance bisphenol A (or BPA), and to share with us his serious concerns about its impact upon human health.

Our guest this week is Dr. Frederick vom Saal, Curators' Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who joins us to discuss the substance bisphenol A (or BPA), and to share with us his serious concerns about its impact upon human health.

Peter Van Buren | What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind. What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away?

Robert Parry | In the insular world of Manhattan media, there’s much handwringing over the latest blow to print publications as New York Magazine scales back from a weekly to a biweekly. But the real lesson might be the commercial failure of snarky writing, the kind that New York demonstrated in its recent hit piece...

Mark Thornton | Hemp is a plant from the cannabis family that is often closely associated with marijuana. Marijuana or Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa can contain high concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is a psychoactive component of marijuana, along with a large number of other cannabinoids...

Boehner must feel like the little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike, holding back the flood-- in this case, the flood of popular comprehensive immigration reform, the flood of popular passage of a bill to end workplace discrimination against the LGBT community, the flood against

People have complained to me that in each and every single Sunday rant, I always close with something pertinent to America's #1 family of skanks and trollops, the fabulous Kardashians.   I honestly wish that people would understand that I take a shot every single week at these misfits for the simple reason that they are symbolic of the collapse of America itself by the fact that Americans focus so much attention on garbage such as them instead of concentrating on things that really matter... Such as actually saving the nation from total economic collapse!Well....

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | December 4, 2013

It is impossible to predict the future. But one can state with a degree of certainty that little good can possibly be awaiting Palestinians when their political leadership seems to value their ties with Israel more than the fate of Gaza and all of its inhabitants. An exaggeration? Hardly.

This transmission will disappear on January 1st, 2014.

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This transmission will disappear on January 1st, 2014.Please Support School SucksYour support keeps the show going and growing, which keeps us at the top of the options for education podcasts and leads to new people discovering this message. This subscription also grants you access to the A/V Club, a bonus content section with 200+ hours of exclusive audio and video. If you are a regular consumer of our media, please consider making a monthly commitment by selecting the best option for you...Join the A/V Club!

This transmission will disappear on January 1st, 2014.

Please Support School Sucks

Your support keeps the show going and growing, which keeps us at the top of the options for education podcasts and leads to new people discovering this message. This subscription also grants you access to the A/V Club, a bonus content section with 200+ hours of exclusive audio and video. If you are a regular consumer of our media, please consider making a monthly commitment by selecting the best option for you...

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
December 4, 2013
Serbian Chief of the Defence General Staff visits JFC Naples
Story by Allied Joint Force Command Naples Public Affairs Office
Naples, Italy: The Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, General Ljubiša Diković, paid an official visit to the Allied Joint Force Command Naples headquarters in Lago Patria on Tuesday 3 December till Wednesday 4 December 2013.

Shi et al 2013 use the following five varve thickness series, all of which have become widely used in multiproxy series since their introduction in Kaufman et al 2009: Big Round Lake and Donard Lake, Baffin Island; Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island; and Blue Lake and Iceberg Lake, Alaska. Some of these proxies have been discussed from time to time, with an especially detailed discussion of Iceberg Lake (see tag here.)

In a previous post on PAGES2K Arctic, I pointed out that they had used the Hvitarvatn, Iceland series (PAGES2K version shown below), upside-down to the interpretation of the original authors (Miller et al), who had interpreted thick varves as evidence of the Little Ice Age. A few days ago, Miller and coauthors archived a variety of series from Hvitarvatn, prompting me to review this data.

Welcome back to The Asia-Pacific Perspective, that monthly show where James Corbett of corbettreport.com and Broc West of apperspective.net break down all the latest news and headlines from the Asia-Pacific region. In this month’s conversation (recorded on the afternoon of December 2nd):

Voice of Russia
December 4, 2013
Why NATO issues statement on Ukraine? – Lavrov
Moscow is surprised by NATO’s statement against the use of force in dispersing demonstrations in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
He also urged outsiders not to interfere in the Ukranian domestic policy. During the meeting with NATO Secretary General, Sergei Lavrov also spoke about Iran’s nuclear issue and situation in Trascaucasia region.

Trend News Agency
December 4, 2013
Georgia expects serious consideration of its future in NATO at next alliance summit
By Nana Kirtzkhalia
Tbilisi: At the next NATO summit Georgia expects serious consideration of its future in the alliance, Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said in an interview with Rustavi-2 TV Channel.
Discussions are underway on this issue, according to the president.

Today we talk to Galen Mitrzyk of 911JusticeCampaign.org about the 9/11 Justice Campaign, its list of suspected co-conspirators in the crime of 9/11, and the effort to convene a Grand Jury to indict these suspects for their crimes. We discuss the campaign’s suspects, its aims, and the steps that are necessary in order to move the campaign forward.

This is the first episode of the new podcast series, Themes and Memes. Hosted by Aaron Franz of TheAgeofTransitions.com and Adam of CerebralRevolt.com the podcast will consist mainly of movie reviews. Each episode will focus on uncovering the predictive programming elements of a certain movie. The movie being reviewed here is Elysium.

As the U.S. wrestles with the Karzai government to finalize a security agreement that would govern thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for another decade, virtually everyone across every spectrum agrees that pulling out completely – the so-called ‘zero option’ – would be reckless and dangerous for America.

By David Letwin | Palestine Chronicle | December 4, 2013 

David Letwin (Jews for Palestinian Right of Return) interviews Dr. Haidar Eid, Associate Professor, Department of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine. Dr. Eid is also a one-state activist and a member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

The Depeche Mode double platinum award for Violator is very nice-- and I hope you're the winner. It isn't something anyone can buy in a store, no matter how rich they are. Very few of this particular RIAA plaque were ever made, basically just for the band members and a few of their colleagues. The double platinum (for achieving 2 million) is ultra-rare; by the time it was delivered, the record had already sold 3 million. Eventually the album sold 15 million.But there's even a better reason to participate in Blue America's final contest of 2013.

Militants have again targeted a security installation in Iraq. This time it was in Kirkuk. At 21 people were killed and 87 more were wounded there or in other attacks.

By Stuart Littlewood | Intifada Palestine | December 4, 2013

CNN reports on Israeli PM Netanyahu’s reception at the Vatican and plans for the Pope to visit Israel in May.