thai's give the three-finger salute to their gun-wielding stick-up kids in uniform...,

NYTimes |  A Thai theater chain has withdrawn the latest “Hunger Games” movie after several student protesters were detained for using a gesture taken from the films, a three-finger salute of resistance to authoritarian government.

The salute, which in the movies is a daring act of silent rebellion, began to appear here in the weeks after the May 22 coup. The authorities warned that anyone raising it in public could be subject to arrest.

The military government in Thailand has clamped down on all forms of protest, censored the country’s news media, limited the right to public assembly and arrested critics and opponents. Hundreds of academics, journalists and activists have been detained for up to a month, according to Human Rights Watch.

The arrests came on Wednesday, before the premiere in Thailand of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.” Five students in T-shirts bearing the slogan “We don’t want the coup” flashed the sign during a speech by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the coup and later became head of the military government.

The students were quickly detained by the police, who handed them over to military authorities.

Army officials later confirmed that the students were held for several hours for “attitude adjustment” and then released. They were told to report back the next day with their parents and still could be charged with violating martial law.

where oh where is dieudonné?

wikipedia |  Various public figures such as Tony Parker, Nicolas Anelka and National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen were pictured making the gesture.^[13] A new trend has emerged, consisting of performing quenelles beside unwitting public figures identified as members of the establishment (such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, Pierre Bergé or Manuel Valls^[20]) or in front of the media's cameras. TV host Yann Barthès publicly apologized for quenelles made by someone in the audience during his show and revealed the identity of the author. Shortly afterwards, a picture of Yann Barthès himself performing a quenelle surfaced on social networks. Barthès argued that he didn't know what he was doing when the picture was taken.^[21] Several people have been fired for having published photos of them performing quenelles^[22][23] and some people have been assaulted for the same reason.^[24] Two teenagers were arrested for having performed a quenelle at school.^[25]

While Dieudonné said in August 2013 that "the quenelle had taken on a life of its own and had become something he could no longer claim as his exclusively," his wife Noémie Montagne registered the quenelle as a trademark with the French National Industrial Property Institute.^[13][26]

By professional athletes

When French footballer Nicolas Anelka of West Bromwich Albion F.C. performed the quenelle to celebrate scoring a goal on 28 December 2013, the gesture, which was already considered "something of a viral trend" in France,^[27] became an international news story and one of the most searched terms on Google.^[28] Anelka described the gesture as anti-establishment rather than religious in nature, and said he did a quenelle as a "special dedication" to his friend Dieudonné.^[27][29] However, French minister for sport Valérie Fourneyron called his actions "shocking" and "disgusting", adding: "There's no place for anti-Semitism on the football field."^[27] A subsequent statement released by West Bromwich said Anelka agreed not to perform the quenelle again,^[30] but nevertheless on 27 February 2014, Anelka was banned for five matches and fined £80,000 for this action.^[31] In response to the incident, club sponsor Zoopla announced that it would not continue its sponsorship deal with West Bromwich after the 2013–14 season.^[29] Dieudonné, who intended to visit and support Anelka in England, was banned from entry to the United Kingdom in February 2014.^[32] Anelka was subsequently sacked by West Brom on 15 March 2014.

In November 2013, a photograph of French footballer Mamadou Sakho performing the quenelle with Dieudonné was discovered. Sakho said he had been tricked into making a quenelle without knowing its meaning, and that the photo had been taken six months earlier.^[33]

Following the Anelka incident, a photograph surfaced of Tony Parker, a French professional basketball player who currently plays for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA), performing the quenelle alongside Dieudonné. Parker apologized, saying he didn't know at the time that "it could be in any way offensive or harmful."^[34]

nurses not having it...,

nationalgeographic |  In a poll of 400 National Nurses United members released Wednesday, 60 percent said their hospital is not prepared for the Ebola virus, and more than 80 percent said their hospital had not educated them about Ebola or communicated any policy regarding potential patients infected with the virus.

Nearly one-third of the nurses said their hospitals lacked sufficient supplies of face shields and fluid-resistant gowns needed to protect them against the virus.

The union, which staged a "die-in" Monday on the Las Vegas strip to call attention to their Ebola concerns, blamed a lack of information and proper systems—rather than human error—for the decision last week to let Duncan leave the hospital when he first turned up complaining of fever and abdominal pain and mentioned his recent trip to Liberia. He was sent home but was readmitted on Sunday, much sicker.

It's not clear why the information about his recent travels did not raise a red flag in the emergency department, and why he was not suspected of having Ebola.

In a prepared statement in response to questions about the nurses' concerns, the American Hospital Association released a statement from Ken Anderson, the chief operating officer for the organization's Health Research and Educational Trust.

"We strongly recommend that hospitals follow CDC guidance in identifying potential Ebola patients," the statement said. "While in the Dallas case the hospital has acknowledged that it had a regrettable lapse in communication, the AHA is redoubling our efforts to make sure hospitals are aware of the latest CDC guidance, including checklists and screening criteria."

Frieden described the missed opportunity to catch Duncan's disease earlier as a "teachable moment," and said the CDC is redoubling its efforts to provide clear and useful information to hospitals about the Ebola risk.

"Essentially, any hospital in the country can safely take care of a patient with Ebola," he said, by providing a private room and bathroom, and by "rigorous, meticulous training" of staff. But Frieden acknowledged that the CDC is still working through the challenge of how to safely dispose of medical waste from Ebola patients.

baddest bish on the planet claps back at the naked hypocrisy of fraudulent-poodle haters!

HuffPo |  Charlo Greene certainly knows how to make incredible live TV.

After announcing she was leaving her job at the KTVA station in Anchorage, Alaska, by telling viewers, "Fuck it, I quit," she joined HuffPost Live on Thursday and smoked a joint live on the air.

"I'll spark up right now. It is what it is. I'm in the privacy of my own home. I can spark up," she told host Alyona Minkovski as she gleefully lit up.

Greene responded to the apology from KTVA's news director, who said she "betrayed the basic bedrock of responsible journalism" by reporting on a business she herself owned, the Alaska Cannabis Club.

"It's true," she said of accusations that she acted unethically. "I have a journalism degree. I know in journalism there's a line that you're not supposed to cross, and the minute I bought my business license on 4/20 of this year, I shouldn't have reported on any marijuana stories. But if I had gone to my boss and said, 'Hey, I bought this company,' I would have been fired, period. I wasn't ready for that to happen."

Greene said she felt a "responsibility to the community" to offer a dissenting voice from Alaska's "Vote No On 2" campaign, which seeks to defeat a ballot measure to legalize marijuana, and ensure "their fear-mongering wasn't going to be broadcast as fact." She explained:

If everyone is upset about my 'breach of trust,' and me crossing that line, then how about you get upset about the fact that journalists in 2014 just go off and say, 'Alright, well you say whatever it is that you have to say,' [and they hear] 'Oh, the kids. The kids are going to start using if we legalize marijuana.' You put that on air without even vetting that? The state of Colorado says teenage usage rates are falling, but the No On 2 people aren't going to say that. Yet every other journalist in this market is going to put their comments on air without vetting them.

Greene also shared her side of what she called a "patently false" TMZ report in which her neighbor Tyler Gilbrech claimed Greene smoked so much pot in her apartment that it seeped through the walls and made his 4-year-old "violently sick." Gilbrech got a restraining order against Greene after she allegedly threatened him to "watch his back."

will scotland imitate iceland and free itself from the vampire squid?

medialens |  Craig Murray was scathing about the leaders of the main Westminster political parties, and their last-ditch desperate trip to Scotland last Wednesday to 'save the Union':

'Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. Just typing the names is depressing. As part of their long matured and carefully prepared campaign plan (founded 9 September 2014) they are coming together to Scotland tomorrow to campaign. In a brilliant twist, they will all come on the same day but not appear together. This will prevent the public from noticing that they all represent precisely the same interests.'

Murray nailed what is at stake when he said that the 'three amigos' 'offer no actual policy choice to voters', and he gave a list showing how tightly they march together:

'They all support austerity budgets
They all support benefit cuts
They all support tuition fees
They all support Trident missiles
They all support continued NHS privatisation
They all support bank bail-outs
They all support detention without trial for "terrorist suspects"
They all support more bombings in Iraq
They all oppose rail nationalisation'

In short:

'The areas on which the three amigos differ are infinitesimal and contrived. They actually represent the same paymasters and vested interests.'

These 'paymasters and vested interests' are surely trembling with fear at the power now residing in the hands of voters in Scotland. As George Monbiot observes:

'A yes vote in Scotland would unleash the most dangerous thing of all - hope.'

He expands:

'If Scotland becomes independent, it will be despite the efforts of almost the entire UK establishment. It will be because social media has defeated the corporate media. It will be a victory for citizens over the Westminster machine, for shoes over helicopters. It will show that a sufficiently inspiring idea can cut through bribes and blackmail, through threats and fear-mongering. That hope, marginalised at first, can spread across a nation, defying all attempts to suppress it.'

Whatever happens on Thursday, skewed media performance on Scottish independence - in particular, from the BBC - has helped huge numbers of people see ever more clearly the deep bias in corporate news media.

nothing short of an urban rebellion against a conspicuously corrupt just-us system?

csm |  Police are concerned about making a fellow officer and his family vulnerable to death threats made on social media and may be concerned that details of the autopsy could spark more civil unrest. But residents have credible claims in demanding to know information that would be available if the shooter weren’t a lawman.

The looting and mayhem in Ferguson, where a nearly all-white police force patrols the largely black St. Louis suburb, suggests deep frustration. Eyewitnesses have said that the officer pursued an injured Brown and shot him after he put his hands up in surrender. Police have done little to counter that narrative except to suggest there was a struggle for the officer's gun and a shot fired inside the cruiser. Amid that vacuum, questions about police transparency have only intensified.

Ferguson police are “are walking a tightrope of how much they should be releasing versus how much information they are releasing,” says Rob Kane, a policing expert at Drexel University in Philadelphia and coauthor of “Jammed Up: Bad Cops, Police Misconduct, and the New York City Police Department.”

“Police departments operate in an environment where they are often tried in the media, and where they have a very real concern about civil litigation, so that’s where it gets tricky,” Professor Kane adds. At the same time, “the police are teetering on the total loss of legitimacy, and it has to do with not releasing information that the public wants.”

As a result, he says, Ferguson is seeing “nothing short of an urban rebellion against the justice system.”

In a statement Tuesday, United States Attorney General Eric Holder warned Ferguson police that the department “should be prepared to complete a thorough and fair investigation in their own right…. Aggressively pursuing investigations such as this is critical for preserving trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”

european neuroscientists boycotting the european version of BRAIN?

scientificamerican |  The Human Brain Project is an attempt to create a computerized facsimile of the entire brain, down to the level of individual molecules, within a 10-year time frame. It has always been viewed with skepticism by some neuroscientists, who view its objectives as impossibly ambitious. The project is principally the  brainchild of neuroscientist Henry Markram, who wrote for Scientific American on the topic. (A detailed story on the protest by Ian Sample appears in The Guardian. Also, check out this great book excerpt by Sebastian Seung that we ran on Markram and his desire to create a digital brain. Our coverage on this has been ongoing. Maybe also give a look  here and here.)

Here’s a snippet of the letter that was drafted by scientists to convey their discontent:

..we wish to express the view that the HBP [Human Brain Project] is not on course and that the European Commission must take a very careful look at both the science and the management of the HBP before it is renewed. We strongly question whether the goals and implementation of the HBP are adequate to form the nucleus of the collaborative effort in Europe that will further our understanding of the brain.

The letter calls for an independent review of the Human Brain Project or perhaps a reallocation of funding to an array of broad-based neuroscience projects that do not just focus on a SimBrain. If either of these options is not forthcoming, the scientists who signed the letter pledge to not participate in the project.

Not your usual Big Science outing, eh?

Markram got back to me with a comment:

It seems that it will take decades more for the neuroscience community to mature to the level of other disciplines. This is such an exciting direction that can bring everyone together to take on this grand challenge. Just so sad that it gets torn apart by scientists that don’t  want to understand, that believe second-hand rumors and just want money for their next experiment. For the first time in my career as a neuroscientist, I lose hope of neuroscience ever answering any real questions about how the brain works and its many diseases.

Then Zach Mainen, a principal investigator at the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme in Portugal, got back about the reasons for the upsurge of criticism:

A large group (now more than 250) neuroscientists in Europe are trying to send a wake up call to the European Commission to say that the Human Brain Project is not an effective vehicle to form the hub of European neuroscience. Unlike the U.S. Brain initiative, the HBP is a narrowly focused information computing technology effort that, contrary to how it was sold, does not have a realistic plan for understanding brain function. We want the public to know that neuroscience research is not represented by the HBP. We hope that the open message to the EC can help to initiate a dialogue and find a better solution.

The Obama Administration’s brain initiative—possibly a multi-billion dollar undertaking, if fully funded—has also met with some grumbling, but at least some of that has subsided as major neuroscientists have assumed an important advisory role.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. One of the trendiest fields in all of science now has to contend with an unprecedented rebellion in the ranks that festers away as the whole world watches.

clever memetic engagement with/for doing something about it...,

resistcomics |  What is resistcomics? The summer of 2013 saw one of the greatest mass uprisings in the history of Turkey. What started out as a small scale environmentalist demonstration became a defiant outcry in the face of an increasingly authoritarian, conservative, neoliberal government.

The resistance became associated with creativity and humour of the protesters from early on, as they tackled the violent oppression of the state with a cheerful attitude of subversion. #diren (#resist) became a hashtag mantra in social media and on the streets. 

#ResistComics has been inspired by the intelligence of the protesters and the sense of solidarity and collaboration in the air. We wanted to capture the spirit of the resistance in our words and pictures. We wanted to make a political statement without being didactic. We wanted to tell good stories about the resistance in different genres. 

#ResistComics anthology contains 96 pages of comics, illustrations, a short story and an article on comics and politics. We would like to entertain, inform and inspire our readers through this anthology.

Who are we? We are an international group of writers, artists, academics and critics. We are based in different parts of the world, including Turkey, France, Germany and Australia. In the early days of the resistance, we organised online to collaborate on a comics anthology. We used online tools to workshop scripts and artwork, and to exchange ideas. As we all have day jobs and other responsibilities (some of us became parents in the last year), it took us a while to bring our project to life. 

We embrace a punk/DIY approach, and have been involved in every stage of production and we would like to self-publish our anthology through the support of our Kickstarter backers. 

We are supporters of indie art and the comics scene and some of us have been involved with independent comics projects before. Some of us are professional comic artists and cartoonists published internationally, while others are first timers. We bring an eclectic range of styles and diverse stories.

cliven bundy and homeland security

rsn |   t’s a stark image: A supporter of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy lies prone behind a concrete retaining wall on a freeway overpass, training a rifle on federal agents.

He walked away a free man. When does that happen?

This episode, this time, involved a private rancher's self-proclaimed right to graze his commercial herd of cattle on public lands. The most coherent argument he makes is that his family has owned the adjacent ranch since the 1870s. The other arguments are more conceptual, focusing on issues like "natural law,” the “sovereign citizen movement,” and various other quasi-legal invocations based loosely and vaguely on the US Constitution and white-militia psycho-babble.

At stake clearly is the rule of law. “Terrorism” after 9/11, certainly in light the Patriot Act, is defined so broadly that any material act of opposition to the US Government can be prosecuted as an act terrorism and a matter of homeland security.

The images of fully militarized police beating unarmed Occupy protesters for nothing more than assembling in public places stands in vivid contrast to agents of Bureau of Land Management releasing back to Bundy and his heavily armed supporters 400 confiscated head of cattle.

Ultimately federal and state law enforcement officials would say they intended to handle it in court. But since the BLM operation was carried out pursuant to a federal court order, a subsequent court order is likely to carry the weight of a paper airplane. Make no mistake about it, this was a heavily armed standoff and the US Federal Government backed down.

Mostly white, middle aged, male, fiercely opposed to what they see as an oppressive government and just as fiercely loyal to the NRA, they took militarily-inspired positions in opposition to federal rangers with sights trained and fingers on triggers.

Civil War on the Table

“We’re about ready to take the country over with force!” Bundy bellowed to his supporters. There is no doubt that many of them wish they could. 

While this case of federal agents acquiescing to the demands of an angry mob with guns may be unsettling, the reality is that it might have been the right decision. Had the situation escalated, what followed might have ignited an American insurgency. Bundy’s supporters, it should be noted, had a vast tactical advantage. The BLM personnel and lightly armed park rangers were totally outgunned and would have stood little chance against the militias assembled. 

Yes, additional federal firepower could have been called in, in theory as much as needed, but had such an action resulted in significant loss of life the result could easily have been nationwide conflict.

support the world economics association

   

Three years ago the World Economics Association (WEA) was launched to create an inclusive professional association for the global community of economists.  Already it is second in size only to the American Economic Association, from which it differs in two fundamental dimensions. 

One is the self-evident geo-political difference; the other is that the WEA is not committed to maintaining the hegemony of the neoclassical school.  Instead, in the tradition of the natural sciences and physics especially, it supports investigation of real-world economies from multiple perspectives.

I should also emphasize that the WEA is not the tool or creation of the world’s financial oligarchy; instead it is financially independent.

The WEA’s strength is the breadth and size of its membership.  Real communities consist of individuals.  And that is why I am inviting you, a RWER subscriber, to join.  The WEA membership is free, and I have two incentives to motivate you to give the two or three minutes that it takes to join.

Firstly, you will receive WEA periodicals free of charge.  The WEA already publishes three journals (with print copies soon to be available).  It also publishes a substantial bi-monthly newsletter, holds online conferences, and has a rapidly growing network of national chapters.  Membership will give you immediate access to all this, including email notifications.  The covers of the current issues of WEA periodicals are pictured below.

Secondly, you will be helping a good and important cause.  It is now commonly recognized that humanity is ill-served by the economics profession as currently constituted, and that the primacy of the one nation over a global professional focus is both absurd and unjust. The WEA exists to overcome these deficiencies.  By joining the WEA and donating your two or three minutes you will be helping it achieve these goals.

You may join here 

http://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/membership

Hopefully,

Edward Fullbrook

Executive Director of the World Economics Association

Editor of the Real-World Economics Review

University of the West of England

don giovanni may have gotten ghadafi, but he won't get assad...,

WaPo |  Three years into the revolt against his rule, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in a stronger position than ever before to quell the rebellion against his rule by Syrians who rose up to challenge his hold on power, first with peaceful protests and later with arms.

Aided by the steadfast support of his allies and the deepening disarray of his foes, Assad is pressing ahead with plans to be reelected to a third seven-year term this summer while sustaining intense military pressure intended to crush his opponents.

The strategy is not new, but in recent months it has started to yield tangible progress in the form of slow but steady gains on several key fronts on the battlefield that call into question long-held perceptions of a stalemate.

Most notably, the government has pushed the rebels back or squeezed them into isolated pockets in large swathes of the territory surrounding Damascus, diminishing prospects that the opposition will soon be in a position to seriously threaten the capital or topple the regime.

For those who joined the effort to unseat Assad three years ago, flush with the fervor of the Arab Spring protests sweeping the region, the realization that the rebellion is faltering is “deeply depressing,” said Abu Emad, a student activist who has watched as the government has steadily crushed the armed rebellion in his hometown of Homs, once regarded as the epicenter of the revolt.

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the initially tentative anti-government demonstrations that spiraled into civil war, and many Syrians are wondering whether the 140,000 deaths and the displacement of millions of people were worth the price, he said.

“More than ever there is no hope. Not on the ground and not politically,” Abu Emad said, using a pseudonym to protect his identity. “For the rebels to win, it will take a miracle.”

does religion turn weak groups violent?

physorg | But new research by a team of Arizona State University faculty has uncovered one factor that increases the likelihood that weak groups will engage in conflict with stronger groups, despite the likelihood of defeat. That factor is religious infusion, or the extent to which religion permeates a group's public and private life.

"Under normal circumstances, weak folks don't try to beat up on stronger folks," says Steven Neuberg, a psychology professor at ASU and the lead researcher on the project. "But there's something about a group being religiously infused that seems to make it feel somewhat invulnerable to the potential costs imposed by stronger groups, and makes it more likely to engage in costly conflict."

Their findings are published in the January issue of Psychological Science, the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. Their work was also written about in the Huffington Post last summer.

The study Neuberg and his team undertook, part of the Global Group Relations Project, spanned five continents and included nearly 100 sites around the globe. The countries included in the project together account for nearly 80 percent of the world's population.

"Our sites include the most populated countries of the world – China, India, USA, Brazil – as well as a wide range of others," says Carolyn Warner, an ASU political science professor and a co-principal investigator on the project. "This breadth and diversity is rarely the case in studies of religion and conflict."

Most research on group conflict employs one of two methods – the case study, which closely examines a particular location or situation in which conflict occurs – or a quantitative analysis of data pulled from existing studies.

For this project, researchers recruited a large, international network of social scientists with expertise on the sites selected for study. These "expert informants" responded to an Internet survey, answering a wide range of questions on a host of social, political, religious and psychological variables about the groups being studied.

Neuberg and his team examined the data to learn how religion might shape intergroup conflict around the world. They focused on two factors known to increase conflict: incompatibility of values and competition for limited resources.

They found that religious infusion was an important factor in predicting conflict in both situations. In cases where two groups held incompatible values, the groups tended to exhibit increased prejudice and discrimination against one another only if religion permeated their everyday lives.

More surprising, however, is the finding on how religious infusion affects groups competing for limited resources and power. Only the disadvantaged groups that are religiously infused are more likely to engage in violence.

european right-wingers don't hate europe, but I suspect they hate banksters posing as "europe"...,

NYTimes | It may seem bizarre that two far-right, nationalist politicians — Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands — have reached across borders to form a Pan-European group dedicated to weakening the European Union. Their aim is a transnational political alliance that would compete in the May elections for the European Parliament; once in power, they would cooperate to try to rein in the power of Brussels. 

Are these politicians, who share an opposition to immigration and a skepticism about the free flow of labor and capital across the Continent, simply hypocritical opportunists, as many Europeans of the left believe? Perhaps. 

But in fact, since the early 20th century, Europe’s far-right nationalists have often united in search of an “other” to oppose, exclude, resist, restrict or oppress — historically, minorities like Jews, homosexuals, the disabled, Roma, Marxists and, more recently, Arabs, Africans and Asians. What emerged after World War I was a philosophy that could be called Euro-fascist. The most extreme proponents, of course, were the Nazis: Notwithstanding their doctrine of racial supremacy, even they formed alliances with Mussolini’s Italy and the militarists of Japan and found keen fascist collaborators in nations they invaded. 

This vision did not die with the end of World War II. Transnational links among right-wing parties, based on common fears of minorities and immigrants, endured. The right-wingers, while speaking different languages, borrowed ideals, strategies, slogans and theorists from one another. The National Front in France, founded in 1972 by Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, imitated the symbol and political tactics of the original neo-Fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, which was formed in 1946 by admirers of Mussolini and, in 1979, coordinated with like-minded French and Spanish parties to compete (with little success) in the first popular elections for the European Parliament.

So when observers marvel about the “new” nationalist parties of Europe, they are capturing only part of the truth. These right-wingers mistrust or even detest the Continent’s core institutions — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Parliament — but they are perfectly happy to join up with extremists in other countries to weaken those institutions. 

Which raises a question: What makes the European Union so appealing as a target?

quenelle

wikipedia | The quenelle (French pronunciation: ​[kə.nɛl]) is a gesture which is performed by pointing one arm diagonally downwards, while touching that arm's shoulder with the opposite hand.^[1] French political activist and comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala is credited with creating and popularizing the gesture, which he first used publicly in 2009 while campaigning as a candidate for the 2009 European Parliament elections at the head of an anti-Zionist list.^[2] While Dieudonné says the quenelle is "an anti-establishment gesture," it takes the appearance of a Nazi salute in reverse, and critics describe it as an expression of antisemitism. The negative intent of the gesture, they say, is further underlined by Dieudonné's history of anti-Semitic remarks and racial hatred convictions..^[3] In France, displaying Nazi symbols is illegal if done to cause offense, and the quenelle is viewed by critics as an underhanded manner of expressing hatred for Jews without inviting legal prosecution.^[4]

The location of a number of photographed quenelle salutes in front of prominent Holocaust landmarks and Jewish institutions further suggests the prejudicial nature of the gesture. Individuals have been photographed performing the gesture at the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, and French essayist and film-maker Alain Soral performed a quenelle in front of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. He justified itself in a video by declaring, "You the Zionists who using the Holocaust to terrorize us and to prevent us from criticizing a neo nazi state that is the state of current Israel, this manipulation does not work any more, that's what it means".^[5] In September 2013, two French soldiers on duty had their picture taken in front of a Paris synagogue doing a quenelle.^[1] A man wearing a shirt featuring a portrait of Yasser Arafat was photographed performing a quenelle in front of a Jewish school in Toulouse, where in March 2012 a rabbi and three children were gunned down.^[6][7]

When French footballer Nicolas Anelka performed the quenelle to celebrate scoring a goal on 28 December 2013, the gesture, which was already considered "something of a viral trend" in France, became an international news story. While Anelka said he did a quenelle as a "special dedication" to his friend Dieudonné, French minister for sport Valérie Fourneyron called his actions 'shocking' and 'disgusting', adding: “There’s no place for anti-Semitism on the football field.”^[3] In November, a photograph of French footballer Mamadou Sakho performing the quenelle with Dieudonné was discovered. Sakho said he had been tricked into making a quenelle without knowing its meaning, and that the photo had been taken six months earlier.^[8]

On 23 December 2013, French President Francois Hollande said, "We will act, with the government led by [Prime Minister] Jean-Marc Ayrault, to shake the tranquility which, under the cover of anonymity, facilitates shameful actions online. But also we will fight against the sarcasm of those who purport to be humorists but are actually professional anti-Semites."^[4] In a statement on 27 December 2013, France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls said he would consider "all legal means" to ban Dieudonné's "public meetings," given that he "addresses in an obvious and insufferable manner the memory of victims of the Shoah."^[9]

While Dieudonné said in August 2013 that "the quenelle had taken on a life of its own and had become something he could no longer claim as his exclusively," he has been working on launching a range of quenelle-related merchandise and in October 2013 his wife registered the quenelle as a trademark with the French National Industrial Property Institute.^[1]

india maids speak out....,

usatoday | But Richard's lawyer said Thursday that the housekeeper worked from morning until late at night, seven days week, for less than $3 an hour. Unable to get better pay, she made sure Khobragade's two children were cared for one day and walked out, lawyer Dana Sussman said.

Protests erupted in cities around India, where demonstrators burnt effigies of President Obama. The Indian government has since downgraded certain privileges granted to American diplomatic staff in New Delhi like withdrawing all airport passes and stopping import clearance of liquor to the US Embassy.

The Indian government snubbed a visiting American delegation refusing requests for a meeting till Ms. Khobragade was tendered an apology. Indian media has mainly focused on the humiliation of Khobragade.

"What's unsettling about this case is how little we know about Richard's side of the story," said Deepanjana Pal on the news website Firstpost. "While there are endless articles available on Khobdagade and how terribly she's been treated by U.S. officials, there's almost nothing on Richard."

Or for that matter there has been little said by the politicians going after the U.S. attorney about how maids are treated in India.

In large cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, most middle class families employ a maid or two, many have separate drivers, gardeners, and cooks. According to a report by the Indian government, nearly 5 million people employ at least two domestic workers.

Yet, except in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, domestic workers are not offered any legal protection. Seven Indian states have made efforts to standardize minimum wage but the recommended wage has been set low.

Also, there are no guidelines that govern working hours, or minimum wage, and no authority to turn to in cases of exploitation, say the workers.

"At the most I would complain to the local Resident Welfare Association if I had a problem – but even then I would be scared – chances are that they will side with my employers rather than me," said Manju Bahri.

the runaway slave's family victimized by angry embarrassed indians....,

DailyMail Picture Exclusive Article

NYTimes | The latest development in the case came as American officials expressed concern that relatives of the victim, Sangeeta Richard, might be subjected to intimidation in India, where they lived. 

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office is prosecuting Ms. Khobragade, said in a written statement on Wednesday that it became necessary to “evacuate” the victim’s family, which has been brought to the United States. He said the family “reportedly was confronted in numerous ways regarding this case.” 

The State Department on Thursday confirmed, without offering details, that the government had “taken steps to reunite” the family and was aware of “allegations that the family was intimidated in India.” 

A person close to Ms. Richard’s family described several episodes that frightened family members. In one case, Ms. Richard’s husband, while bicycling with one of his children, was confronted by a man with a gun who demanded that his wife return home. 

Ms. Richard’s husband said he had been called more than once by Ms. Khobragade’s father, who asked him to make his wife return to India, the person said. Yet another time, Ms. Richard’s husband was interrogated by the police in India about his wife’s whereabouts in the United States.

uh.., you don't pay us enough to get mixed up in this medieval isht...,

militarytimes | To the list of skeptics who question the need for air strikes against Syria, add an another unlikely group — many U.S. troops.

“I haven’t heard one single person be supportive of it,” said an Army staff sergeant at Fort Hood who asked not to be identified by name.

A Military Times survey of more than 750 active-duty troops this week found service members oppose military action in Syria by a margin of about three to one.

 

The survey conducted online Monday and Tuesday found that about 75 percent of troops are not in favor of air strikes in response to reports that the Syrian government used chemical weapons to kill civilians in that country.

A higher percentage of troops, about 80 percent, say they do not believe getting involved in the two-year-old civil war is in the U.S. national interest.

The results suggest that opposition inside the military may be more intense than among the U.S. population at large. About 64 percent of Americans oppose air strikes, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll published Monday.

The Military Times survey is an unscientific sampling of Military Times readers and reflects the views of many career enlisted members and officers.

For many troops, money is a key consideration. Troops question the cost of bombing Syria at a time when budget cuts are shrinking their pay raises, putting their benefits package at risk and forcing some of their friends to separate involuntarily.

“We don’t have money for anything else but we have a couple hundred million dollars to lob some Tomahawks and mount an expensive campaign in Syria?” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Chris Larue, a 39-year-old maintenance expert at Fort Eustis, Va., referring to the precision-guided missiles that are likely to be used in any strike.

The debate about striking Syria is also revealing a strain of isolationism growing inside a battle-weary military that has spent more than a decade supporting high-tempo war operations overseas.

“People are just sick of it,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Harvey, a nuclear-trained officer who works at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.

“It’s like the old pre-World War II isolationism, I hear grumblings of that. People would rather withdraw all our troops and let the rest of the world figure out what to do. I think there is a lot of credence to that argument.”

wizards summoned to battle the all-seeing eye!!!

slate | It was more than 20 years ago that I received my first security briefing, and a lot of what I learned is now outdated. Back then, few had heard of what was nicknamed "No Such Agency," and the government wanted to keep it that way. We were taught not to breathe a word about the NSA; if anyone asked, we worked for the Department of Defense. That's even what it said on my resume and one of my NSA-issued ID cards. Now there's little point to such pretense. The agency has been outed and is a regular fixture of Page 1 headlines. In 1992, I was taught that the code words we stamped on all our classified documents were a closely guarded secret, that it was a crime to reveal them to outsiders. But a quick Google search shows that government websites are chock-full of papers clearly marked with words and phrases that were at one time for the eyes of only those few with the need to know.

Another thing they used to say at those briefings was that the might of the NSA would never be used against U.S. citizens. Back when I signed up, the agency made it crystal clear to us that we were empowered to protect our nation against only foreign enemies, not domestic ones. To do otherwise was against the NSA charter. More importantly, I got the strong sense that it was against the culture of the place. After working there for two summers, I genuinely believed that my colleagues would be horrified if they thought our work was being used to snoop on fellow Americans. Has that changed, too?

The mathematicians and cryptanalysts I met were from all over the country and had very different backgrounds, but we all seemed to be drawn to the agency for the same two reasons. First, we all knew that the math was sexy. This might sound bizarre to a non-mathematician, but certain mathematical problems just exude a certain something—a feeling of importance, of gravity, along with a sense that the solution is not far outside of your grasp. It's big, and it can be yours if you just think a little bit harder. When I signed up, I knew that the NSA was doing interesting math, but I had no idea what I was in for. Within a week of arriving at the NSA, I was presented with an amazing smorgasbord of the most alluring mathematics problems I had ever seen, any of which could possibly yield to a smart undergraduate. I hadn't seen anything like it—and I never will again.

The other thing that drew us—or so I thought—was an idealistic vision that we were doing something to help our country. I knew enough about history to have shed the notion that it was ungentlemanly to read your enemy's mail. And once I was on the inside, I saw plenty of ways that the agency was having an effect on national security. Even as a rookie, I felt I had a chance to make a difference in some small way. Some of the veteran mathematicians whom we met had clearly had a palpable effect on the security of the United States, legends almost completely unknown outside of our own club.

if you're not with the all-seeing eye, then you're against the all-seeing eye...,

NYTimes | Mr. Rusbridger said that two months ago he was contacted by “a very senior government official claiming to present the views of the prime minister,” David Cameron. There were two meetings in which officials “demanded the return or the destruction of the material we were working on,” and in other meetings, he said, officials said: “You’ve had your fun, now we want the stuff back,” and, “You’ve had your debate, there’s no need to write any more.” 

The officials then threatened legal action to obtain the documents. Then two security experts from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, known as G.C.H.Q., the counterpart to the American National Security Agency, came to oversee the destruction of hard drives in The Guardian basement by Guardian executives, Mr. Rusbridger said. 

He called it “one of the most bizarre moments in The Guardian’s long history.” 

Efforts to prevent publication of Snowden-related material began on June 7, when defense officials issued a confidential notice to newspapers and broadcasters in an attempt to limit the coverage of Mr. Snowden’s revelations about surveillance tactics employed by intelligence agencies in Britain and the United States. 

Editors were reminded not to publish information that could “jeopardize both national security and possibly U.K. personnel.” The notice followed The Guardian’s first publication of details of the American intelligence-gathering program called Prism. 

Now, it is not just the opposition Labour Party that is questioning the use of the terrorism laws in this case to seize material intended for journalism, which in countries like the United States would be under more legal protection. David Davis, a Conservative member of Parliament, said that the responses of the Home Office fail “Logic 101.” 

“’If you’re not on our side, you’re on the side of the terrorists,’ is what they’re trying to say,” Mr. Davis said. 

Robert Wintemute, a professor of human rights law at King’s College, London, said that “I hope this is an aberration rather than a signal of a wider clampdown” on press freedom and human rights. “I do think Greenwald and Miranda should bring this to court, because winning in court will rein in the government’s powers,” he said.

is the establishment's fourth estate getting out of pocket?

Guardian | The detention of Miranda has rightly caused international dismay because it feeds into a perception that the US and UK governments – while claiming to welcome the debate around state surveillance started by Snowden – are also intent on stemming the tide of leaks and on pursuing the whistleblower with a vengeance. That perception is right. Here follows a little background on the considerable obstacles being placed in the way of informing the public about what the intelligence agencies, governments and corporations are up to.

A little over two months ago I was contacted by a very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister. There followed two meetings in which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on. The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian approach.

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the centre of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

During one of these meetings I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal route – by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the US, was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK. But my experience over WikiLeaks – the thumb drive and the first amendment – had already prepared me for this moment. I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organisations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Whitehall was satisfied, but it felt like a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age. We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London. The seizure of Miranda's laptop, phones, hard drives and camera will similarly have no effect on Greenwald's work.

The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it. Most journalists can see that. But I wonder how many have truly understood the absolute threat to journalism implicit in the idea of total surveillance, when or if it comes – and, increasingly, it looks like "when".

We are not there yet, but it may not be long before it will be impossible for journalists to have confidential sources. Most reporting – indeed, most human life in 2013 – leaves too much of a digital fingerprint. Those colleagues who denigrate Snowden or say reporters should trust the state to know best (many of them in the UK, oddly, on the right) may one day have a cruel awakening. One day it will be their reporting, their cause, under attack. But at least reporters now know to stay away from Heathrow transit lounges.