Notes from the Surf
Bottlenose dolphins mud-ring feeding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ50PYMXDCQ
Some amazing water patterns.
Is this person some kind of space alien?
http://buttersafe.com/2010/01/21/stand-up/
Bombing on stage (?)
Unlimited power to buy elections
http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2010/01/conservative-supreme-court-majority.html
"Perhaps the next step is just to get rid of voting. Instead, we can have big corporations bid on which candidates they dislike the most. The candidate who is least disliked by the corporations takes office. Such an auction would be a cheaper and more expedient way of deciding who leads us"
BBC and superficial, condescending journalists
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5084
"The BBC’s coverage of Venezuela, in general, is highly biased against the government... their main writer in Caracas, Will Grant, sees the country... from the perspective of a very comfortable first world citizen. He sympathises with the upper class and opposition minority, and complains of petty things like the price of luxury goods, while ignoring all the improvements and the increased voice of the majority poor."
Coping while the Ultra Rich Pull Away
http://www.mybudget360.com/income-average-american-household-making-52000-a-year-is-coping-while-the-ultra-rich-pull-away-examining-the-new-numbers-on-income-distribution-in-the-united-states/
"Remember that estate tax debate? ...we had a major debate for 50,000 tax filers in a nation with over 113,000,000 households? The top 1 percent are betting on you not doing the numbers... The banking bailouts are largely a transfer of wealth to those who least need it."
FDIC Chief Got Bank of America Loans While Working On Its Rescue
http://huffpostfund.org/stories/2010/01/fdic-chief-got-bank-america-loans-while-working-its-rescue
"one of the chief regulators overseeing Bank of America’s federal rescue, took out two mortgages worth more than $1 million from the banking giant... FDIC officials said... Bair violated no ethics rules... Bank of America... received $45 billion in federal bailout money, the second-most among banks."
South Africa: The ANC's Big Sell Out
http://libcom.org/news/new-wave-repression-south-africa-20012010
a gang of forty armed men attacked the Kennedy Road shack-dweller community... police arrested not the ANC attackers but 13 members of Kennedy Road Development Committee... the ANC embraced the IMF-brokered Growth Employment And Redistribution... “Levels of human development are now lower than in 1994, and South Africa has overtaken Brazil as the country with... gap between rich and poor.”
Robin Hoods on the High Seas?
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1656671&postcount=1
Somali ‘Pirates’ want to send loot confiscated from rich countries to Haiti... "The humanitarian aid to Haiti can not be controlled by the United States and European countries; they have no moral authority to do so. They are the ones pirating mankind for many years"
India: The After Kill Of Narayanpatna
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne211209the_after.asp
"We hide in the jungles during the day and come to the village at night. We don’t want to be arrested by the police who come to our villages during the day" ...he asks if his name and village can be kept anonymous. "If the police read the report, they may come to our village and hunt us down"... When a team of nine women from various civil rights organisations attempted to travel to the region on 9 December 2009... the team members were strangled, beaten up and assaulted repeatedly – even right outside the Narayanpatna police station. They were ultimately forced to return – without having travelled to the villages.
A review of Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010venezuela-voices
"by failing to see beyond Chavez... one of the most significant political dynamics in Venezuela has gone ignored and underappreciated... the response of ordinary Venezuelans... often in ways that go beyond the expectations of the government... Venezuelans have created cooperatives; taken over factories; occupied urban and rural lands; launched community radio and television stations; built centers for culture and popular education"