Month: May 2007

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A great reason for no TV in the living room

At 6:00 pm Wednesday night, while moms across America were getting dinner ready and hungry kids were watching TV waiting for it to be served, Samantha Ventresca lay in her living room in Lawrence, NJ, pinned underneath her own family’s 27-inch TV.

In a freak accident, apparently, the TV fell on top of 2½-year-old Samantha when she tried to climb onto the table it inhabited. Tonya, her mom, was home but had been attending to Samantha’s sister of 15 months. Tonya immediately dialed 911 and called for the help of a fire-fighter neighbor who was sitting outside on his porch, but Samantha slipped into coma and passed away at 10:30 pm. read more

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Each citizen should have a right to vote in the US!

Republicans do cherish their little practical jokes – the leaflets in African-American neighborhoods warning that voters must pay outstanding traffic tickets before voting; the calls in Virginia in 2006 from the mythical “Virginia Election Commission” warning voters they would be arrested if they showed up at the polls. The best way to steal an election is the old-fashioned way: control who shows up. It’s widely known that Republicans do better when the turnout is lighter, whiter, older and richer; minorities, young people and the poor are easy game for hoaxes and intimidation . . . read more

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Pizzas fall from sky for homeless to honor
request of Executed prisoner.

The final meal request of Philip Workman ended up memorializing him in a way he probably never expected to be remembered – as the posthumous provider of pizza meals to thousands of Nashville homeless the day after his death.

Workman was convicted of killing a police officer during the robbery of a Wendy’s restaurant undertaken when he was addicted to drugs . . . and homeless. He asked that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza. Instead of eating it, he wanted the pizza donated to any homeless person located near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where he died last Tuesday by state order. read more

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Gina is changing insurance and employment laws

New Scientist reports that the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act [GINA] won an overwhelming 420 to 3 majority vote in the House of Representatives. It will soon be illegal for an insurance company to charge higher rates to people genetically disposed to certain illnesses, and for applicants to be denied employment based on genetic test results.

That law will come into being as soon as Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, lifts the hold he has placed on the bill to delay its passage into the legislation archives. read more

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American Nazis publicly blame Jews for wars and gas hikes

Nazis in downtown Minnesota, publicly blame Jews for the gas hike, the Iraq war and claiming that the Talmud gives permission to Jews to have sex with three year old babies. None of these allegations are true, of course.

Please take a couple of minutes to watch this video, and a couple of more minutes to post a blog or send a letter to your preferred news service/newspaper – voicing your distaste for this message of hate.

The first few seconds of the movie show commentary in Hebrew. Just wait until it ends. read more

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For some in Japan, a room is their world

An estimated one million Japanese youth suffer

from a problem known in Japan as hikikomori, which translates as “withdrawal” and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home. (The word is a noun that describes both the problem and the person suffering from it and is also an adjective, like “alcoholic.”) Some hikikomori do occasionally emerge from their rooms for meals with their parents, late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi’s case, once-a-month trips to buy CD’s. And though female hikikomori exist and may be undercounted, experts estimate that about 80 percent of the hikikomori are male, some as young as 13 or 14 and some who live in their rooms for 15 years or more. read more

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World Without Oil: the online game

“Play it – before you live it”

There’s a “very real possibility” that someday soon people will wake up worrying how they’ll get to work . . . because the world ran out of oil the night before. If you want to know how you and your neighbors will react, tune into the web. An “interactive month-long alternate reality event” is underway to explore every aspect of how prepared, or unprepared, society is to face a World Without Oil. The event began April 30.

The participation architect for this project is Jane McGonigal, who was named by MIT in the Fall of 2006 as one of the top 35 innovators changing the world through technology. read more

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Save Internet Radio. Act Now!

Internet Radio in Danger

A ruling by an obscure regulatory agency threatens to silence Internet radio. After intense lobbying from the recording industry, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is about to mandate exponential increases — by as much as 1,200 percent — in royalties paid every time webcasters stream a song online.

If these unfair rules are allowed to go into effect on July 15, many public, independent and smaller Internet radio stations will have to shut down. At stake is the diversity of musical choice that the Internet has come to represent for more than 50 million listeners. read more

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Google Shaping Wireless Airwaves Auction

. . . influence Google is having on a closely watched government auction of $10 billion in licenses to provide wireless service. The Web search giant has hired some big guns to help it shape the rules for how the auction will be carried out, reflecting the company’s growing interest in the wireless industry and the rising stakes in the battle for a crucial chunk of airwaves.

Google’s agenda is clear. As a provider of a host of Internet services, including search, e-mail, and online video through YouTube (NWS), Google wants to ensure its content can flow unimpeded and untaxed over the world’s broadband networks. One way to do that is by making sure there’s plenty of competition in the market for high-speed Internet access—in particular, from providers other than behemoths like AT&T (T) and Comcast (CMCSA). “Google’s key interest here is in seeing fourth and fifth [broadband access] pipes to the home to compete with cable and telecom companies,” says Whitt. read more

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Is Facebook funded by the CIA?

I just learned that the CIA has a venture capital branch. And guess what? One of the guys who runs it helped start Facebook. I particularly loved learning this little tidbit of information: when you become a Facebook member you authorize Facebook to gather information about you from Facebook and “other sources” and to share this information with “responsible corporations” Facebook has a relationship with.

What do you think about this practice? I think it’s intrusive and immoral. Leave your comment, let me know. read more

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Conservatism has been killing Americans

“Conservatism has been killing Americans. The recent food safety crisis is only one case study. . .

The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone.”

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