Gov. Rick Perry Blaming Hispanics For Recent Murders Linked To Aryan Brotherhood

Via The Contributor

Last week, Texas DA Mike McLelland of Kaufman County and his wife Cynthia Woodward were murdered in their home. Only a few months ago, McLelland's assistant district attorney, Mark Hasse, was murdered in a parking lot. Authorities are discovering a link between these murders and the murder of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements less than two weeks ago.

The developing connection? The Aryan Brotherhood, a national white supremacist prison gang. McLelland, Hasse and Clements each led charges against the gang and dealt severe blows to their leadership in recent months. The primary suspect in Clements' murder is Evan Spencer Ebel, a known member of the gang.

But Rick Perry wants to blame it on Hispanics. Asked about McLelland's murder on Fox News this Wednesday, Perry gave an answer that will make your blood boil.

We know the drug cartels are very, very active in our country now. It goes back ... to the whole issue of border security and the failure of the federal government to put the men and women, whether they are military or whether they're border patrol or whether working with the local law enforcement, expend the dollars necessary to secure the border with Mexico...That's of great concern. I would suggest to you, it is really at the heart of this issue. You secure the border, then it makes it harder for these individuals to have access into this country as well as it addresses this whole issue that's hanging out on immigration.

Perry's comment is utterly fictional bile that promotes nothing but bigotry and misleads people about the murders. There is growing evidence that these murders are coming out of the Aryan Brotherhood, and no evidence linking them to undocumented Mexican immigrants. Perry is politics at its worst - making up lies to support a narrow political agenda.

Yesterday, Perry offered a $100,000 reward to anyone with information on the Kaufman County murders. But after Perry's terribly misleading comments, it wouldn't be surprising if the reward only applies to claims of evidence against Hispanics.

Vile.

Corporate Welfare – Employees Paying Taxes Directly To Corporations

Via Addicting Info

Taxes have been a part of government for as long as there have been things to tax, and the general idea behind them is pretty well understood. The government takes a portion of everyone’s income and spends it in such a way as to improve things for everyone in one way or another. That could be defensive spending, such as military technology or troop wages, administrative costs will always factor in, educational funding, etc. And that’s the way it works in America. Or is it? In truth, corporate lobbyists have ensured that our convoluted tax code heavily favors corporations. The fact is that it’s even possible, if you’re employed by a large corporation, that you’re paying your taxes directly toward your employing company.

In his recent book, The Fine Print, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston explains the laws that allow corporations to go to war with the American working class. In an interview with Alternet, he said the following:

It’s now up to 21 states. In 21 states, they’ve passed a law that says that taxes withheld from your paycheck, for the state, can be kept by the company. Now, every employer doesn’t get this windfall — you have to have to get a deal from the government to do it — 2,700 big companies, every big company you’ve ever heard of, General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Deutsche Bank, you name it, they’ve got these deals, where they get to keep the taxes. Billions of dollars are diverted this way. You know the best thing for the companies about this?


The workers don’t know, because once the taxes are withheld, the state government treats you as having paid your taxes. You paid your taxes. They just then give a credit to let the company keep the taxes. I’ve called journalists. I’ve called union people who negotiate union contracts. And they say, “What are you talking about?” I showed them the work I’ve done. They go, “Oh my God!” They have no idea that this is what’s happening, and the fact that it’s spread from the 16 states when I first wrote about this and it’s now grown to 21 – eventually, all of the 44 states with income taxes are going to allow this, if we don’t put a stop to it.

He also addresses the fact that a lack of regulation is actually limiting to competition when it comes to capitalism, as more successful businesses will rapidly form industrial monopolies and oligarchies:

I want more competition. Here’s what really goes on, however. We put up barriers to competition, and in fact, Wall Street has institutionalized this concept. Morningstar, they’re a big financial advice firm. They tell people that they should grade companies and decide whether to buy their stock, based on something called a “moat index.” Moat, like around a castle? A moat index asks, “What barriers has the government erected to keep anybody else from competing against that company?” Indeed, as I show in my book, you could get rich if you invest in those companies that have regulatory moats — where under the name of deregulation, we have insulated them from the rigors of the market.

This is the real welfare in America. Corporate welfare. Where the rich get richer, and they pay other people to convince Republicans how important it is to vote for conservative puppet politicians that will vote for laws that allow “the American people” to keep more of their income tax dollars — which really benefits the rich. In reality, it’s the Republican Party that is engaging in wealth redistribution. The difference in their version? They’re redistributing wealth to the top.

Malala Yousafzai - I Have The Right

Via Zen Pencils

Malala Yousafzai (1997-) is a 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head on the way home from school by the Taliban. Her only crime was criticising the Taliban’s strict rules against female education and standing up for her right to go to school.

Inspired by her activist father, Malala was involved in social justice from a young age. She first gained prominence at age 11, when she wrote a blog for the BBC for 10 weeks (under a pseudonym) detailing her life under Taliban rule. The blog was extremely popular and her real identity was later revealed when her father nominated her for an International Peace Prize. From there she started appearing on television, speaking against the Taliban’s ruling that banned girls from attending school. Her international status grew even more when she was featured in a New York Times documentary (which you can watch here). She continued to speak out against the Taliban and was nominated for the International Youth Peace Prize and won the inaugural Pakistan National Youth Peace Prize in 2011 (now named the National Malala Peace Prize).

On the 9th October 2012, on her way home from school, Malala was shot in the head and neck by a masked gunman (two other children, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, were also injured). The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that Malala was “the symbol of the infidels and obscenity”. Straight after the incident Malala was taken to Peshawar Military hospital for an initial operation where part of her skull was removed to allow room for the swelling of her brain and was later flown to the United Kingdom for further treatment. She would receive two further surgeries to insert a titanium plate in her skull and attach a cochlear device in her left ear to restore her hearing. Malala was released from hospital this month and is currently staying in her temporary home with her family in Birmingham and is expected to make a full recovery.

Malala has recently been nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person in history to receive the honour, and I, along with the millions of people she has inspired, am hoping this remarkable young woman wins.

• - The Malala Fund was established to educate girls throughout the world.


• - The quotes in the comic were taken from her blog entries, the NYT documentary and this interview Malala did with CNN.


• - I illustrated the events of the shooting after reading a few sources: Daily Mail, The Guardian, CNN, ABC Australia and Wikipedia.

The PyCon Sexual Joke Debacle - Making Pariahs From Developers When You're In Developer Relations

Via Venture Beat

Playhaven Developer Fired For Sexual Jokes After Sendgrid Marketer Outs Him On Twitter

Playhaven fired a developer after he allegedly made sexual jokes in the audience during a keynote session at PyCon, a conference for Python developers. Now Adria Richards, a developer evangelist for SendGrid, is getting rape and death threats via Twitter.

Richards was sitting in the audience immediately in front of two developers. After someone made a comment about forking a software repository, the two allegedly began making jokes about forking in a sexual manner and “big dongles.” After listening for some time, Richards got fed up, took a picture of the two, and posted it to Twitter:

Not cool.Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles.Right behind me #pycon
— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) March 17, 2013

One of those two developers is Alex Reid, an engineer at PlayHaven, the mobile gaming monetization and marketing company. The other developer, whose name is not yet known but goes by mr-hank on Hacker News, was fired by PlayHaven for the incident (PlayHaven confirmed this today). He posted about what happened from his perspective on Hacker News and denied that any sexual comments were made about forking:

While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and I had decided forking someone’s repo is a new form of flattery, the highest form being implementation, and we were excited about one of the presenters projects; a friend said “I would fork that guys repo.” The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us.

Adria Richards Fired By Sendgrid For Calling Out Developers On Twitter

Email delivery company SendGrid has fired developer evangelist Adria Richards (pictured above) after she outed a developer who was allegedly making sexual jokes during a conference, via Twitter.

The developer in question was fired by his employer, PlayHaven, after Richards posted his picture and a few details about what he said. VentureBeat broke the story last night.

The company made a statement on its Facebook account:

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of information, we will post something more comprehensive.

Please note that, though this is showing up on SendGrid’s Facebook account, I have not been able to confirm with the company that Richards has actually been fired. SendGrid is under DDOS attack right now, which means that some fairly sophisticated hackers are very focused on the company, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they have cracked into SendGrid’s social media accounts.

However, SendGrid has also confirmed the firing on Twitter:

Effective immediately, @adriarichards has been terminated from @sendgrid. For more details, please see ow.ly/jhW0y

Sendgrid Under Ddos Attack After Its Developer Evangelist Complains About Sexual Jokes At Pycon

Last night VentureBeat broke the story about a developer who was fired from his job at PlayHaven after being outted on Twitter for allegedly making sexual jokes during a conference. Today, the company where the person who outted him works is under a distributed denial of service attack.

After hearing several jokes about forking software repositories and “big dongles,” SendGrid’s developer evangelist Adria Richards tweeted a picture of the jokesters with the hashtag “pycon.” Conference organizers saw the tweet, ejected the developers, and in short order, PlayHaven fired one of the accused.

Today, SendGrid, the email delivery company where Richards works, is under a DDOS attack.

So are the idiots now DDoS’ing SendGrid because of #pycon? YOU ARE BREAKING THE INTERNET YOU FOOLS
— Tane Piper (@tanepiper) March 21, 2013

A DDOS attack basically shuts down a website or Internet service by flooding it with traffic. Communication requests from a distributed pool of computers — often in a botnet controlled by a hacker — occupy the site’s servers and make it impossible for the site to continue.

So SendGrid.com is currently inaccessible, and that’s not the only problem: At least some developers are cancelling their accounts with the service.

Canceled my accout with @sendgrid today. I cannot do business with someone who supports a woman who gets a father fired over a joke #freedom
— Pj(@pjmprometheus) March 21, 2013

SendGrid posted about the incident — apparently trying to calm the furor — but says that mail is still being sent. I’m trying to contact the company for more information and Adria Richards for her perspective on this entire situation.

We hear you, internet. We’re working to serve our customers at the moment. Further comments, once we’ve done our job of delivering email ^tf

— SendGrid (@SendGrid) March 21, 2013

Adria Richards’ personal site, But You’re A Girl, is also under DDOS attack but is currently being protected by CloudFlare. That’s something her company might want to consider as well.

Interestingly, PlayHaven.com, the company that fired the developer, is working just fine.

Full articles can be seen at:
Playhaven developer fired for sexual jokes after SendGrid marketer outs him on Twitter
Breaking: Adria Richards fired by SendGrid for calling out developers on Twitter
SendGrid under DDOS attack after its developer evangelist complains about sexual jokes at PyCon

Update: SendGrid's Official Response

Wow. This week has been extremely challenging for all. We want to give you our perspective on this complicated situation, so here goes…

On Sunday at PyCon, Adria Richards felt comments made behind her during a conference session were inappropriate and of an offensive, sexual nature. We understand that Adria believed the conduct to be inappropriate and support her right to report the incident to PyCon personnel. To be clear, SendGrid supports the right to report inappropriate behavior, whenever and wherever it occurs.

What we do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders – and bystanders – was not the appropriate way to handle the situation. Even PyCon has since updated their Code of Conduct due to this situation. Needless to say, a heated public debate ensued. The discourse, productive at times, quickly spiraled into extreme vitriol.

A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid.

In the end, the consequences that resulted from how she reported the conduct put our business in danger. Our commitment to our 130 employees, their families, our community members and our more than 130,000 valued customers is our primary concern.

We will continue listening to the community, addressing this situation constructively, and serving our customers to the best of our ability. I welcome your feedback, and you can email me directly at ceo@sendgrid.com.

Nestle CEO Says Water Isn’t A Human Right

http://youtu.be/nTqvBhFVdvE?t=1m59s

In a candid interview for the documentary We Feed the World, Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck makes the astonishing claim that water isn’t a human right. He attacks the idea that nature is good, and says it is a great achievement that humans are now able to resist nature’s dominance. He attacks organic agriculture and says genetic modification is better.

Nestle is the world’s biggest bottler of water. Brabeck claims – correctly – that water is the most important raw material in the world. However he then goes on to say that privatisation is the best way to ensure fair distribution. He claims that the idea that water is a human right comes from “extremist” NGOs. Water is a foodstuff like any other, and should have a market value.

He believes that the ultimate social responsibility of any CEO is to make as much profit as possible, so that people will have jobs.
And just to underline what a lovely man he is, he also thinks we should all be working longer and harder.

Consequences of water privatisation

The consequences of water privatisation have been devastating on poor communities around the world. In South Africa, where the municipal workers’ union SAMWU fought a long battle against privatisation, there has been substantial research (pdf) about the effects. Water privatisation lead to a massive cholera outbreak in Durban in the year 2000.

The Nestle boycott

Nestle already has a very bad reputation among activists. There has been a boycott call since 1977. This is due to Nestle’s aggressive lobbying to get women to stop breastfeeding – which is free and healthy – and use infant formula (sold by Nestle) instead. Nestle has lobbied governments to tell their health departments to promote formula. In poor countries, this has resulted in the deaths of babies, as women have mixed formula with contaminated water instead of breastfeeding.

Tell Nestle they are wrong – water is a human right

There is Europe-wide campaign to tell the European Commission that water is a human right, and to ask them to enact legislation to ensure this is protected.

If you live in Europe, please Sign the petition here.

Via USILive.org

Zero Dark Thirty, the CIA and film critics have a very bad evening

Wall St. Sets Off Controversy Claiming The Average American Household Makes $650,000

While Wall St. has been playing the victim, demanding bailouts and special treatment within the U.S. judicial system (too big to fail), they also seemed to have time to show exactly how disconnected they are to the average American. A post made January 4, 2013 on The Wall Street Journal seems to have riled up quite a few people because of it's obviously naive viewpoint on the income of the majority of Americans. Here's the infographic they posted while moaning about their unfair taxation.



The article itself has to be just sickening for someone struggling to make ends meet. I myself consider myself lucky with the job I have and yet this pic enrages me. The average American probably makes less than what this "Infographic" shows them paying in taxes, hell the average Americans income is probably closer to the "increase in taxes" than the actual income shown here.

Of course, the article in the Wall Street Journal plays it out as if the "1% of taxpayers" are the ones suffering.

In the nick of time, and amid much political drama, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act on New Year's Day—averting massive tax increases for nearly all earners that were slated to take effect Jan. 1.

Even so, millions of people soon will feel something less than relief from the new law.

The bill approved in Congress to avert the fiscal cliff would bring the first major tax increase on high earners in 20 years. Laura Saunders breaks down how new tax increases will impact across different tax brackets.

While the top 1% of taxpayers will bear the biggest burden, many other families, affluent and poor, will pay more as well.

The most immediate change affects nearly all workers: Congress allowed a two-percentage-point cut for the employee portion of the Social Security tax to expire. As a result, each will owe up to $2,425 more in payroll tax this year than in 2012.

Fortunately we have people out there like Matthew Gray [MIT] that are checking facts and calling bullshit on this.

I believe I was able to determine an answer from the 2011 American Community Survey microdata. First limiting to households composed exclusively of children and a single parent (as depicted), gets you down to 6.5 million households. (Sanity check: Wikipedia cites about 13 million single-parent households, but that includes those with other adults present, and the microdata shows an equal number of single-parent households with a single adult and multiple adults.)

Further restricting to single parent with 2 children, exactly, gets you down to 2.1 million households.

Limiting to those with an income of $260,000 or more, leaves you with 9,489 households total, or the top 0.4% of single-parent two-children household incomes. Median income for this demographic is $23,400. 90th percentile is $70k, and 95th percentile is $94k.

The internet has also been quite vocal about this spurious and offensive article

Huffington Post - The Wall Street Journal Doesn't Actually Know Any Middle-Class Americans


Esquire - LES INSUFFERABLES


American Livewire - Wall Street Journal Baffles Americans With Tax Graphic


Daily KOS - Revealed: The Wall Street Journal Has No Idea What is Happening in America

Silhouette Man - WTF Are Americans Thinking

Kim Dotcom Interview - Encrypt Half The Internet, Government Spying Out Of Control

http://youtu.be/mphBRtr030s

Proposed New Mexico Bill Criminalizes Abortions From Rape Claiming 'Tampering With Evidence'

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.


House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."


“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.


Third-degree felonies in New Mexico carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.


Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico, a progressive nonprofit opposing the bill, called it "blatantly unconstitutional" on Thursday.

Full Article on Huff Post

TYT - Forcible Rape: New Mexico Considers Outrageous Policy

http://youtu.be/Iz6MLy8LIvc

Army Col. Denise Lind Judge In Charge Of Bradley Manning Pre-trial Speaks Up For Manning On Twitter - Possible Hoax

Not quite sure if this is legit or a possible hacked account but it's making a stir online nonetheless

TSA - Overreaching, Ineffective And Coming To A Train Station Near You

[caption id="attachment_1307" align="aligncenter" width="545"] Are you in?[/caption]

Early Adopter Of TSA Oversight Seen This Wednesday In California

People are used to seeing TSA inspectors at airports but on Wednesday, a specialized team made their presence known at the Amtrak station in Emeryville. Train stations are difficult to secure because they're so wide open but on Wednesday, the TSA showed up unannounced to let the public, especially potential troublemakers, know that they are keeping an eye on the rails.


Amtrak passenger Vera Molina said she noticed all the black-clad TSA inspectors right away and it's a presence she appreciates. Asked if she would like to see them more often she said, "I would, can't hurt, just in case you never know." As part of their nationwide "Viper Team" effort, the Transportation Safety Administration put about a dozen agents at the station to see and be seen, although some of the inspectors also work undercover.

Full Article on ABC

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TSA Is Ineffective

I almost cannot believe the reaction from people over this. The whole "just in case" story is starting to get a little old and yet we keep chasing the boogeyman on the issue. What really bothers me with this TSA expansion isn't even the concerns with invasion of privacy, it's that their efficacy in catching terrorists is nonexistent. Statistics gleaned from Representative Jason Chaffetz's hearings on TSA Oversight show that out of 25,000 recorded security breaches caught by TSA 0 (that's ZERO) were terrorists. So we are paying more and more for a service that is proven it's incompetent at it's main stated goal? Peter Greenberg speaks on the matter on his blog:

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A security breach is broadly defined as anything from a misplaced checked bag to someone caught in the act of breaching security.


TSA spokesperson Greg Soule responded with the statement that “[the TSA] takes every security breach incident seriously and take[s] appropriate action accordingly which is why the TSA keeps close track of all the ‘breaches.’ Many of these instances were thwarted or discovered in the act.”


These inquiries into the TSA come after several high-profile lapses and public outrage over TSA security practices.

Among the latest outrages: TSA Says It Acted Appropriately In Demanding Removal of Terminally-Ill 95-Year-Old’s Adult Diaper.

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Full Article - TSA: 25,000+ Security Breaches, 0 Terrorists Caught

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Is democracy in crisis? A Q&A with TED ebook author Ivan Krastev, who says "yes"

CNN - Why Marijuana Should Be Legal For Adults

Crazy when even media outlets as large CNN are saying this. America jails more of it's citizens that any other nation on the globe and a large majority of them are over drug related charges. Look at statistics from Portugal, and other European nations that have decriminalized. The results are shocking; we need rehabilitation not incarceration for people with serious drug habits. And I'm sorry if you disagree, but I think those marijuana users out there should be completely overlooked the same as alcohol or tobacco users.

Throughout my career as a clinical psychiatrist, I have seen lives ruined by drugs like cocaine, painkillers and alcohol. I have also borne witness to the devastation brought upon cannabis users -- almost never by abuse of the drug, but by a justice system that chooses a sledgehammer to kill a weed.


Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, caffeine and refined sugar are among the most commonly used, potentially habit-forming recreational substances. All are best left out of our daily diets. Only marijuana is illegal, though alcohol and tobacco are clearly more harmful. In several respects, even sugar poses more of a threat (PDF report) to our nation's health than pot.

Full Article on CNN