criminal garden in oak park michigan

Julie Bass interview about her criminal front yard gardens in OakPark

oakparkhatesveggies | once upon a time there was a really sweet family who lived in oak park, michigan.

once upon a time, long before our heroes enter the story, the city planted a tree in front of each house in their tidy new suburb.

once upon a time, in the not too distant past, the city’s tree spread it roots (as trees sometimes do) and cracked the sewer pipe of the really sweet family in question.

fast forward to when things get good: WE are that really sweet family! we fixed the damage in the flooded basement, dug up the entire front lawn, removed the roots, replaced the sewer pipe (which was damaged by the city’s tree, please remember), and were left with mountainous heaps of dirt where our front lawn used to be.

we did some reading, did some thinking, and decided to use the space from the former front lawn and turn it into a beautiful garden. we had someone make us 5 pretty wood garden beds, and we planted some seeds. we have no gnomes (although i think they are cute), no overgrown wildflowers (nothing against flowers- just not our style), no man-eating plants (although some of our neighbors make me wish we did), and nothing in any way offensive- unless you count- drum roll, please- now astonished GASP… vegetable plants!

have the swiss been talking to will allen?

Video - Growing Power movement redux.

swissinfo | As people are recognising the need for more sustainably grown produce, new ideas about agriculture are taking shape.

Swiss entrepreneurs Urban Farmers are pushing the concept of local production and have come up with a pioneering solution to many of the problems of conventional farming methods.

Urban Farmers attended the International Federation of Landscape Architects' World Congress at the end of June. The event drew around 850 participants from around the world to Zurich's Kongresshaus to discuss issues including the integration of agriculture into an urban environment.

Using an almost closed-loop aquaponics system – that combines raising aquatic animals with cultivating plants in water – to produce fish, vegetables and herbs, the firm has developed one of the most ecologically friendly ways to eat. They believe the technology can soon be commercialised.

Top retailers Migros and Coop have expressed an interest in the company’s plans and the firm has been awarded a prize by environmental organisation, WWF Switzerland.

The Swiss Farmers Association said it approved of the idea as a complement to traditional farming, but that it was hard to know how workable it was.

"The concept of urban farming sounds like a good idea to us. Actually, it is a form of Suisse agriculture and our goals in miniature: Produce locally, ecologically food for the local population and pay attention that the circulation of nutrients is closed," spokeswoman Sandra Helfenstein told swissinfo.ch.

"Unfortunately, we cannot judge the potential and the viability of a production like this in the city. Are there enough suitable places and are the consumers interested to buy this product for a higher price?"

Rooftop boxes

With acquaponics there is no waste created, no need for soil or pesticides, and it is all contained in a box designed to be set up on the rooftops of urban buildings.

No transportation is required, thereby cutting out oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

WWF Switzerland sees one advantage as being that no land needs to be cultivated.

“If you can use a surface that is not otherwise being used, it’s worth a try,” spokesman Philip Gehri told Swiss public radio DRS. “It doesn’t mean though that we think cities can provide for all their food needs this way.”

The Urban Farmers box contains vegetables grown in a glasshouse on top of a tank of fish, which provide nutrients for the plants through their waste as it is taken up with the water through the roots of the plants.

"The beauty of this natural system is that it's a symbiosis of fish and plants which lives on its own," Urban Farmers CEO Roman Gaus told swissinfo.ch.

"The main reason for doing this is ecological," added Gaus.

"We think urban agriculture has a future because the current conventional agriculture is at its peak, with issues such as E-coli, CO2 and so on.”

the double-O portfolio...,

ironic effects of anti-prejudice messages

ScienceDaily | Organizations and programs have been set up all over the globe in the hopes of urging people to end prejudice. According to a research article, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, such programs may actually increase prejudices.

Lisa Legault, Jennifer Gutsell and Michael Inzlicht, from the University of Toronto Scarborough, were interested in exploring how one's everyday environment influences people's motivation toward prejudice reduction.

The authors conducted two experiments which looked at the effect of two different types of motivational intervention -- a controlled form (telling people what they should do) and a more personal form (explaining why being non-prejudiced is enjoyable and personally valuable).

In experiment one; participants were randomly assigned one of two brochures to read: an autonomy brochure or a controlling brochure. These brochures discussed a new campus initiative to reduce prejudice. A third group was offered no motivational instructions to reduce prejudice. The authors found that, ironically, those who read the controlling brochure later demonstrated more prejudice than those who had not been urged to reduce prejudice. Those who read the brochure designed to support personal motivation showed less prejudice than those in the other two groups.

In experiment two, participants were randomly assigned a questionnaire, designed to stimulate personal or controlling motivation to reduce prejudice. The authors found that those who were exposed to controlling messages regarding prejudice reduction showed significantly more prejudice than those who did not receive any controlling cues.

The authors suggest that when interventions eliminate people's freedom to value diversity on their own terms, they may actually be creating hostility toward the targets of prejudice.

According to Dr. Legault, "Controlling prejudice reduction practices are tempting because they are quick and easy to implement. They tell people how they should think and behave and stress the negative consequences of failing to think and behave in desirable ways." Legault continues, "But people need to feel that they are freely choosing to be nonprejudiced, rather than having it forced upon them."

Legault stresses the need to focus less on the requirement to reduce prejudices and start focusing more on the reasons why diversity and equality are important and beneficial to both majority and minority group members.

U.S. decrees that marijuana has no accepted medical use

Video - Bob Marley I Shot the Sheriff Live at the Rainbow

LATimes | Marijuana has been approved by California, many other states and the nation's capital to treat a range of illnesses, but in a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that it has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a highly dangerous drug like heroin.

The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

Advocates for the medical use of the drug criticized the ruling but were elated that the Obama administration has finally acted, which allows them to appeal to the federal courts. The decision to deny the request was made by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and comes less than two months after advocates asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force the administration to respond to their petition.

"We have foiled the government's strategy of delay, and we can now go head-to-head on the merits," said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access and the lead attorney on the lawsuit.

Elford said he was not surprised by the decision, which comes after the Obama administration announced it would not tolerate large-scale commercial marijuana cultivation. "It is clearly motivated by a political decision that is anti-marijuana," he said. He noted that studies demonstrate pot has beneficial effects, including appetite stimulation for people undergoing chemotherapy. "One of the things people say about marijuana is that it gives you the munchies and the truth is that it does, and for some people that's a very positive thing."

In a June 21 letter to the organizations that filed the petition, DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana "has a high potential for abuse," "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" and "lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision." The letter and 37 pages of supporting documents were published Friday in the Federal Register.

This is the third time that petitions to reclassify marijuana have been spurned. The first was filed in 1972 and denied 17 years later. The second was filed in 1995 and denied six years later. Both decisions were appealed, but the courts sided with the federal government.

for-profit predators waiting in the wings...,

NPR | Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are overseen by their own independent boards. Because of their independence, they are allowed to do things that traditional public schools cannot do. School administrators can experiment with things like the length of the school day and the makeup of each school's curriculum.

With that freedom, charter schools have become academic beacons for parents looking to find the best and safest schooling options for their children. But the system's lack of oversight has also created problems. In recent years, there have been investigations in states, including California, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which found charter school CEOs taking money from their own schools, putting unqualified relatives on their payrolls and engaging in other questionable activities.

On Monday's Fresh Air, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Martha Woodall details her ongoing investigation into Philadelphia's charter school system, where 19 of the 74 charter schools operating in the city are under investigation for fraud, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

Corruption And Fraud
At one school, the Philadelphia Academy Charter School, parents raised concerns in 2008 after school administrators told them that there was no money available for special education students.

"The school kept saying 'We don't have money [for these students],' " Woodall tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "However, there was money being spent on all kinds of other issues. [When parents] raised questions at the Board of Trustees meetings, [they] were basically told, 'We don't want you asking questions.' "

Ultimately, both the founding CEO of Philadelphia Academy Charter School and his successor were charged with stealing almost $1 million from the school's coffers, including money students had collected for a Toys for Tots campaign. The two men — one of whom had only a high school education — also allegedly engaged in questionable real estate deals. As a result, the high school paid rent money for its facilities directly to them.

"They charged really high rental rates for the school to use the building and then they accumulated money through the higher rates," she says. "They were using taxpayer money that was supposed to go to the school for other purposes."

In addition, both the school's founding CEO and his successor had relatives on the school's payroll. The founding CEO's wife was the head of the board of trustees.

"They were making more money and supervising people who had far more experience and more credentials than they had," she says. "In order to keep the school open, the Philadelphia School District required the top administrators to leave and required a replacement of the board, and the board then basically fired all of the relatives. They wanted to sever all ties with all of the families involved."

But Philadelphia Academy Charter School wasn't the only charter school in Philadelphia with ethical and financial problems.

"We've had cases here where large numbers of family members are on the payroll and [other instances where there were] contracts awarded to relatives and friends that include leases on luxury cars," she says. "Part of the problem that we have found is that the boards that are overseeing some of these schools are not involved as deeply as they should be. ... They may be friends of the CEO and therefore they're reluctant to provide the type of oversight that they should be providing."

School districts are supposed to monitor charter schools' academic progress. In the Philadelphia School District, says Woodall, there are seven people overseeing all 74 charter schools in the district — but that office will soon be halved owing to budget cuts.

"You have so few people keeping track of the charter schools," she says. "They don't have opportunities to go out and visit the schools and pay too much attention until the charters are up for renewal. So that gives several years in between where people can get away with things."

the insidious evils of "like" culture

WSJ | If you happen to be reading this article online, you'll notice that right above it, there is a button labeled "like." Please stop reading and click on "like" right now.

Thank you. I feel much better. It's good to be liked.

Don't forget to comment on, tweet, blog about and StumbleUpon this article. And be sure to "+1" it if you're on the newly launched Google+ social network. In fact, if you don't want to read the rest of this article, at least stay on the page for a few minutes before clicking elsewhere. That way, it will appear to the site analytics as if you've read the whole thing.

Once, there was something called a point of view. And, after much strife and conflict, it eventually became a commonly held idea in some parts of the world that people were entitled to their own points of view.

Unfortunately, this idea is becoming an anachronism. When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition.

But there was one other element of human nature that the Internet still needed to conquer: the need to belong. The "like" button began on the website FriendFeed in 2007, appeared on Facebook in 2009, began spreading everywhere from YouTube to Amazon to most major news sites last year, and has now been officially embraced by Google as the agreeable, supportive and more status-conscious "+1." As a result, we can now search not just for information, merchandise and kitten videos on the Internet, but for approval.

Just as stand-up comedians are trained to be funny by observing which of their lines and expressions are greeted with laughter, so too are our thoughts online molded to conform to popular opinion by these buttons. A status update that is met with no likes (or a clever tweet that isn't retweeted) becomes the equivalent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewritten. And so we don't show our true selves online, but a mask designed to conform to the opinions of those around us.

Conversely, when we're looking at someone else's content—whether a video or a news story—we are able to see first how many people liked it and, often, whether our friends liked it. And so we are encouraged not to form our own opinion but to look to others for cues on how to feel.

"Like" culture is antithetical to the concept of self-esteem, which a healthy individual should be developing from the inside out rather than from the outside in.

europe, free speech, and the sinister repression of the rating agencies

Telegraph | Before we all join the chorus of abuse against the robber agencies, let us not lose sight of what is happening in the eurozone. The EU authorities are attempting to muzzle free opinion, first by threatening Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P with vague retribution, and then by drafting restrictive laws to prevent them from publishing unwelcome messages.

It is financial repression, pure and simple. The same will be done to the press in due course. Then to you, dear reader.

“We must break the oligopoly of the rating agencies,” says German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. By “we”, of course, he means the EU apparatus of coercion.

The European Commission has already created a pan-EU oversight body with binding powers to breathe down the necks of these agencies. It will draft restrictive legislation by the end of the year. The Portuguese downgrade ensures that it will be even nastier.” Developments since the sovereign-debt crisis show we need to take a further look at reinforcing our rules,” said Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

Mr Barroso came close to accusing the agencies of cartel activities and a malicious agenda.

“It’s quite strang that the market is almost dominated by only three players. It seems strange that there is not a single rating agency coming from Europe. It shows that there may be some bias in the markets when it comes to the evaluation of the specific issues of Europe.”

Leaving aside the not-small matter that Fitch is owned by the French group Fimalac (quoted on the Paris bourse), or that it is largely run by Britons who belong to the EU and contribute to Mr Barroso’s salary, this talk of anti-European bias cannot pass unchallenged.

Currency unions switch exchange risk into default risk. The rating on countries in currency unions ought to be lower therefore (ceteris paribus). States with their own sovereign currency and debt in their own currency can let the exchange rate take the strain when they get into trouble, as the US and the UK have done. Foreign investors lose money on the exchange rate. There may be all kinds of risks and dangers in the US and the UK, but default is not high on the list (discounting the US soap opera over the debt ceiling).

This not the case at all for EMU laggards. They cannot devalue or inflate away debt. The stress shows up in the bond markets instead. The more relevant comparison in this respect is between the Euroland’s Club Med states and California. The Anglo-Saxon agencies do not rate many US states at AAA. California is A- and may lose that soon enough.

To compare the ratios of national debt to GDP levels in the Anglosphere with those in Europe, as the EU elites tirelessly do, is to the miss the point. My gripe against the agencies is not that they are downgrading all these semi-bankrupt states today, but that they totally failed to signal the inherent dangers of EMU a long time ago when the crucial investment decisions were being made. They too were swept up by euro euphoria. They too failed to understand the inherent structure of monetary union, or to spot obvious warning signs as the drama unfolded and the North-South divide became ever-more apparent. They handed out AAAs like confetti.

That is the great indictment of Fitch, S&P, and Moody’s in this sovereign saga, especially Moody’s (which has since replaced much of its French-led sovereign team). Moody’s still had a A3 rating on Greece in May 2010. Unbelievable.

the war you don't see - redux

John Pilger in conversation with Julian Assange from John Pilger on Vimeo.

quoth Jay Hanson:

This is good in the same tradition as Adam Curtis' videos. It has a dozen or so interviews with media people. It contains a long interview with Julian Assange. Here is the gist.

Everyone in the media and government works for large corporations that demand endless economic growth. The public is a problem that must be dealt with.

If you are a reporter who tells the truth, you won't have access and you can't do your job. Corporations demand that everyone in the media (e.g., Fox News) and government (e.g., Colin Powell) must lie to the people. This explains why we invaded Iraq on a sea of lies. Every decision in our government and the media is an economic calculation.

Assange said he saw several analogies to "money laundering" in government. Money laundering is moving money to a location where normal laws do not apply.

Guantanamo is "people laundering." We send people to places where normal laws do not apply.

Besides the obvious oil interest, Iraq Afghanistan, and Columbia are "taxpayer money laundering" -- ways to divert taxpayer money to corporate friends, who in turn, will give some of it back to the politicians who sent us to those wars. Every decision in our government is an economic calculation.

Everything our government does is about money and profit.

Economic interests (e.g., American arms dealers) will force us to fight a new world war over resources.

Our government will attack and kill anyone who stands in the way of corporate profit.

Information Clearinghouse | The Strange Silencing of Liberal America

Obama's greatest achievement is having seduced, co-opted and silenced much of liberal opinion in the US.

July 07, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia was banned in the United States in 1980, the broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone calls were not returned. Something had happened. But what? Year Zero had already alerted much of the world to Pol Pot's horrors, but it also investigated the critical role of the Nixon administration in the tyrant's rise to power and the devastation of Cambodia.

Six months later, a PBS official told me: "This wasn't censorship. We're into difficult political days in Washington. Your film would have given us problems with the Reagan administration. Sorry."

In Britain, the long war in Northern Ireland spawned a similar, deniable censorship. The journalist Liz Curtis compiled a list of more than 50 television films that were never shown or indefinitely delayed. The word "ban" was rarely used, and those responsible would invariably insist they believed in free speech.

The Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, believes in free speech. The foundation's website says it is "dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity and creativity". Authors, film-makers and poets make their way to a sanctum of liberalism bankrolled by the billionaire Patrick Lannan in the tradition of Rockefeller and Ford.

The foundation also awards "grants" to America's liberal media, such as Free Speech TV, the Foundation for National Progress (publisher of the magazine Mother Jones), the Nation Institute and the TV and radio programme Democracy Now!. In Britain, it has been a supporter of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, of which I am one of the judges. In 2008, Patrick Lannan backed Barack Obama's presidential campaign. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, he is "devoted" to Obama.

World of not-knowing

On 15 June, I was due in Santa Fe, having been invited to share a platform with the distinguished American journalist David Barsamian. The foundation was also to host the US premiere of my new film, The War You Don't See, which investigates the false image-making of warmakers, especially Obama.I was about to leave for Santa Fe when I received an email from the Lannan Foundation official organising my visit. The tone was incredulous. "Something has come up," she wrote. Patrick Lannan had called her and ordered all my events to be cancelled. "I have no idea what this is all about," she wrote.Baffled, I asked that the premiere of my film be allowed to go ahead, as the US distribution largely depended on it. She repeated that "all" my events were cancelled, "and this includes the screening of your film".

On the Lannan Foundation website, "cancelled" appeared across a picture of me. There was no explanation. None of my phone calls was returned, nor subsequent emails answered. A Kafka world of not-knowing descended.The silence lasted a week until, under pressure from local media, the foundation put out a terse statement that too few tickets had been sold to make my visit "viable", and that "the Foundation regrets that the reason for the cancellation was not explained to Mr Pilger or to the public at the time the decision was made". Doubts were cast by a robust editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican. The paper, which has long played a prominent role in promoting Lannan Foundation events, disclosed that my visit had been cancelled before the main advertising and previews were published. A full-page interview with me had to be pulled hurriedly. "Pilger and Barsamian could have expected closer to a packed 820-seat Lensic [arts centre]."The manager of The Screen, the Santa Fe cinema that had been rented for the premiere, was called late at night and told to kill all his online promotion for my film. He was given no explanation, but took it on himself to reschedule the film for 23 June. It was a sell-out, with many people turned away. The idea that there was no public interest was demonstrably not true.

Symptom of suppression

Theories? There are many, but nothing is proven. For me, it is all reminiscent of long shadows cast during the cold war. "Something is going to surface," said Barsamian. "They can't keep the lid on this."My 15 June talk was to have been about the collusion of American liberalism in a permanent state of war and in the demise of cherished freedoms, such as the right to call governments to account.

In the US, as in Britain, serious dissent -- free speech -- has been substantially criminalised. Obama the black liberal, the PC exemplar, the marketing dream, is as much a warmonger as George W Bush. His score is six wars. Never in US presidential history has the White House prosecuted so many whistleblowers, yet this truth-telling, this exercise of true citizenship, is at the heart of America's constitutional First Amendment. Obama's greatest achievement is having seduced, co-opted and silenced much of liberal opinion in the US, including the anti-war movement.

The reaction to the cancellation has been illuminating. The brave, such as the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, were appalled and said so. Similarly, many ordinary Americans called in to radio stations and have written to me, recognising a symptom of far greater suppression. But some exalted liberal voices have been affronted that I dared whisper the word censorship about such a beacon of "cultural freedom". The embarrassment of those who wish to point both ways is palpable. Others have pulled down the shutters and said nothing. Given their patron's ruthless show of power, it is understandable.

For them, the Russian dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko once wrote: "When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie."John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him."

“The War You Don’t See” is available on www.johnpilger.com

the strange and dangerous militarization of U.S. police forces

Alternet | Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family.

The shooting death of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.

Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation carried out by the Huffington Post's Radley Balko, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo'nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.

How did we allow our law enforcement apparatus to descend into militaristic chaos? Traditionally, the role of civilian police has been to maintain the peace and safety of the community while upholding the civil liberties of residents in their respective jurisdiction. In stark contrast, the military soldier is an agent of war, trained to kill the enemy.

Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade.

i dunno if I'm with you on entheogens though...,

Video - Mushroom and the Cross montage

Wikipedia | An entheogen ("God inside us,"[4] en εν- "in, within," theo θεος- "god, divine," -gen γενος "creates, generates"), in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.

Yeah PK Dick's characters keep zoning out and seeing ancient Rome around them, which sounds pretty much right to me. I dunno if I'm with you on the entheogens though, broski.

Aight then, you tell me what was going on in the mysteries, across time, cultures, languages, and a fairly sizeable geography - that bound all of these up together in a continuous skein of dying god symbolism, values, and praxis?

former mexican presidents lead the debate

Reuters | Once praised lavishly by the United States for waging a war on drugs, Mexico's last two presidents now say legalizing them may be the best way to end the rising violence the U.S.-backed campaign has unleashed.

Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox led efforts to crush drug trafficking gangs in Mexico between 1994 and 2006 but the rapid escalation of violence over the past four years under President Felipe Calderon has convinced them a change of tack is needed.

"As a country, we are going through problems due to the fact that the United States consumes too many drugs," the 68-year-old Fox told business leaders in Texas last month. "I would recommend to legalize, de-penalize all drugs."

Though public support for some legalization is growing on both sides of the border, resistance is firmly entrenched in the U.S. government and analysts say Mexico is very unlikely to liberalize its drug laws without Washington's approval.

Calderon is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He has staked his reputation on breaking the cartels and is unlikely to press for radical change in what remains of his presidency but the death toll is surging and Zedillo, Fox and other former Latin American leaders are pressuring Mexico to consider opening up the market.

Victims' families are adding to the clamor for change.

Calderon has begun to soften the hard-line rhetoric that won him allies in Washington, stressing his readiness to discuss the merits of drug legalization.

"I'm completely open to this debate. Not just on consumption, but also on movement and production," he told a meeting with victims' families in Mexico City on Thursday.

But he added: "This issue goes beyond national borders. If there's no international agreement, it doesn't make sense."

Since he sent the army to fight the cartels in late 2006, some 40,000 people have died. If the rate of killing persists, the total will surpass U.S. combat deaths in the Vietnam War by the time a new president is elected in mid-2012.

the highs and the lows...,

Haaretz | The electorate in the State of California voted against legalizing the cultivation and consumption of marijuana by a majority of 53% against 47% on November 2, 2010, a decision that, in my opinion, is wrong. Legalization would have constituted an important step in the search for an effective solution to the problem of crime linked to drug trafficking that, as it was recently officially announced, has caused a chilling total of 12,000 deaths in Mexico in 2010.

This solution lies in the decriminalization of drugs, an idea which until relatively recently was unacceptable to the bulk of public opinion convinced that police repression of producers, sellers and users of narcotics was the only legitimate method for ending such a plague. The reality has been revealing what is illusory in this idea. Research has shown that, despite the astronomical sums invested, and the huge movement of funds to combat it, the market for drugs has continued to grow. It has extended across the world, creating cartels that are immensely powerful, both in military and economic terms. As we have seen in Mexico ever since President Calderón decided to take on the drug bosses and their bands of mercenaries with the army as his weapon, the cartels are able to fight state governments as equals thanks to their power, while they infiltrate state governments through corruption and terror.

The millions of Californian voters who did vote to legalize marijuana are an auspicious indicator that there are a growing number of us who think that it is time to change policies regarding drugs. The time has come to reorient efforts, from repression to prevention, cure and information, in order to end the enormous levels of crime that prohibition creates, and the havoc that drug-trafficking wreaks on democratic institutions, especially in developing countries. The cartels can pay better salaries than the state, and in this way they can neutralize members of parliament, police, ministers, bureaucrats, or even have them at their service. They can finance political campaigns and acquire media outlets that defend their interests.

In this way, they provide employment and sustenance to many professional working in legitimate industry, business and companies through which they launder their vast profits. This dependency of such a large number of people on the drug industry creates a tolerant or indifferent mood in the face of everything that the industry brings with it. That is, degradation and the collapse of the law. This is a path that leads, sooner or later, to the suicide of democracy.

greatest depression's end - preview trailer

Video - Instead of hunting down terrorist, you fight American soldiers.

WSJ | A People’s Liberation Army Type 99 battle tank trundles through a darkened forest. Moments later, a Chinese soldier takes aim with a QBZ-95 assault rifle and sends a barrage of bullets flying in the direction of what appears to be a cluster of American soldiers.

Scenes from the cutting-room floor of the ‘Red Dawn’ remake?

No, this shadowy slice of post-Cold War apocalyptica comes courtesy of “Glorious Mission,” a videogame designed to help train China’s enlisted men.

The existence of “Glorious Mission,” a first-person shooter co-developed by the PLA and Nasdaq-listed Chinese software company Giant Interactive Group, was first revealed when test footage was aired on the military channel of state-run broadcaster CCTV in May. Aside from some noteworthy parallels between the “enemy” in the game and the U.S. military–the test footage at one point shows a U.S.-made Apache helicopter being given the “Black Hawk Down” treatment–the report offered little detail on the project itself.

On Wednesday, the state-run Xinhua news agency ran a report that fills in some of those details.

Citing unnamed PLA sources, the report says the game allows a maximum of 32 people to play simultaneously, adding that the weapons and vehicles in the game are all based on actual PLA equipment.

Counter to reports that players would not be able to operate planes and aircraft, Xinhua says, “the final version will allow players to control aerial and naval combat vehicles.”

r'lyeh rises

Video - Nyarlathotep
Reuters | An invasion of jellyfish into a cooling water pool at a Scottish nuclear power plant kept its nuclear reactors offline on Wednesday, a phenomenon which may grow more common in future, scientists said.

Two reactors at EDF Energy's Torness nuclear power plant on the Scottish east coast remained shut a day after they were manually stopped due to masses of jellyfish obstructing cooling water filters.

Nuclear power plants draw water from nearby seas or rivers to cool down their reactors, but if the filters which keep out marine animals and seaweed are clogged, the station shuts down to maintain temperature and safety standards.

Britain's Office for Nuclear Regulation said power plants follow a pre-planned programme when these situations occur.

Latest plant availability data from network operator National Grid showed Torness reactor 1 would return to service on July 5 and reactor 2 on July 6, but operator EDF Energy was unable to give a restart date.

Operators often take the opportunity presented by an unplanned stoppage to carry out maintenance work.

"We are working to clear the jellyfish from the waters near the power station. This work, as well as monitoring the area for more jellyfish, is ongoing," a spokesman for Britain's largest nuclear power operator, EDF Energy, said.

Scientists say jellyfish obstructing nuclear plants is a rare occurrence in Britain, though it has happened more often in other countries such as Japan.

r'lyeh stirs...,

DailyMail | Another power station was shut down by jellyfish today amid claims that climate change is causing a population surge among the species.

A huge swarm clogged up the Orot Rabin plant in Hadera, Israel, a day after the Torness nuclear facility in Scotland was closed in a similar incident.

Hadera ran into trouble when jellyfish blocked its seawater supply, which it uses for cooling purposes, forcing officials to use diggers to remove them.

r'lyeh mined?

Telegraph | Scientists have hailed a giant discovery that could end China's grasp on 97pc of the world's rare earth minerals - but unfortunately the vast new deposits are at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Explorers from Japan claim to have found more than 100bn tonnes of rare earth minerals, which are used in the manufacture of electronic goods like hybrid cars and flat-screen televisions.

The sought-after deposits could spark a battle between Japan, Hawaii and Tahiti, which are near to where the minerals have been located.

Although in the middle of international water, the Japanese scientists claim the minerals can be easily extracted, having pinpointed their presence in sea mud across 78 locations up to 20,000 feet under the sea.

Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, who led the explorers, said: "Just 0.4 square mile of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption.

"Sea mud can be brought up to ships and we can extract rare earths right there using simple acid leaching. Using diluted acid, the process is fast, and within a few hours we can extract 80pc to 90pc of rare earths from the mud."

Rare earth metals have emerged as one of the most sought after resources in commodities boom. Minerals present in the mud include gadolinium, lutetium, terbium and dysprosium.

With demand increasingly outweighing supply, shortages of rare earth metals have triggered a string of mining ventures likened to a 21st century gold rush.

There has been much concern around China's control over global rare earth prices, trade restrictions and using its monopoly for political effect.

Japan accounts for a third of demand because of its strength in the electronics industry.

priceless...,

Video - Wikileaks financial blockade commercial

evolutionary roots of fairness

NYTimes | A sense of fairness is both cerebral and visceral, cortical and limbic. In the journal PLoS Biology, Katarina Gospic of the Karolinska Institute’s Osher Center in Stockholm and her colleagues analyzed brain scans of 35 subjects as they played the famed Ultimatum game, in which participants bargain over how to divide up a fixed sum of money. Immediately upon hearing an opponent propose a split of 80 percent me, 20 percent you, scanned subjects showed a burst of activity in the amygdala, the ancient seat of outrage and aggression, followed by the arousal of higher cortical domains associated with introspection, conflict resolution and upholding rules; and 40 percent of the time they angrily rejected the deal as unfair.

That first swift limbic kick proved key. When given a mild anti-anxiety drug that suppressed the amygdala response, subjects still said they viewed an 80-20 split as unjust, but their willingness to reject it outright dropped in half. “This indicates that the act of treating people fairly and implementing justice in society has evolutionary roots,“ Dr. Gospic said. “It increases our survival.”

David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary theorist at the State University of New York at Binghamton, sees the onset of humanity’s cooperative, fair-and-square spirit as one of the major transitions in the history of life on earth, moments when individual organisms or selection units band together and stake their future fitness on each other. A larger bacterial cell engulfs a smaller bacterial cell to form the first complex eukaryotic cell. Single cells merge into multicellular organisms of specialized parts. Ants and bees become hive-minded superorganisms and push all other insects aside.

“A major transition occurs when you have mechanisms for suppressing fitness differences and establishing equality within groups, so that it is no longer possible to succeed at the expense of your group,” Dr. Wilson said. “It’s a rare event, and it’s hard to get started, but when it does you can quickly dominate the earth.” Human evolution, he said, “clearly falls into this paradigm.”

Our rise to global dominance began, paradoxically enough, when we set rigid dominance hierarchies aside. “In a typical primate group, the toughest individuals can have their way and dominate everybody else in the group,” said Dr. Wilson. “Chimps are very smart, but their intelligence is predicated on distrust.”

Our ancestors had to learn to trust their neighbors, and the seeds of our mutuality can be seen in our simplest gestures, like the willingness to point out a hidden object to another, as even toddlers will do. Early humans also needed ways to control would-be bullies, and our exceptional pitching skills — which researchers speculate originally arose to help us ward off predators — probably helped. “We can throw much better than any other primate,” Dr. Wilson said, “and once we could throw things at a distance, all of a sudden the alpha male is vulnerable to being dispatched with stones. Stoning might have been one of our first adaptations.”

Low hierarchy does not mean no hierarchy. Through ethnographic and cross-cultural studies, researchers have concluded that the basic template for human social groups is moderately but not unerringly egalitarian. They have found gradients of wealth and power among even the most nomadic groups, but such gradients tend to be mild. In a recent analysis of five hunter-gatherer populations, Eric Aiden Smith of the University of Washington and his colleagues found the average degree of income equality to be roughly half that seen in the United States, and close to the wealth distribution of Denmark.

Interestingly, another recent study found that when Americans were given the chance to construct their version of the optimal wealth gradient for America, both Republicans and Democrats came up with a chart that looked like Sweden’s. There’s no need to insult the meat in the land of lutefisk.

KMBC | Officials are monitoring water levels on the Missouri River after recent rains caused renewed flooding concerns in some areas.

The State Emergency Management Agency said a heavier-than-expected rainfall of 1½ to 2 inches fell over the weekend in the Missouri River Basin.

Flash flooding was reported in some areas, and most of the Young Riverfront Park in Riverside was underwater. SEMA also says a sinkhole has been reported on a spur of Missouri 45.

But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that the good news is that two Holt County levees it is monitoring are holding and aren't expected to be overtopped.