Are We About to See a Large Scale Debt Strike?

"The U.S. student loan bubble has inflated larger than car or credit card debt. In this ballooning crisis, graduates now have financial deficits that rival home mortgages."

—Russia Today

Last Call at the Oasis

"We think of it as air, infinite and inexhaustible, but when you use water in such quantities that it exceeds the capacity of the system to renew itself, we have a problem.”

—University of Arizona Law Professor, Robert Glennon

Dr. James Hansen: Climate Change

"The important point is that we will have started a process that is out of humanity's control. Ice sheets would continue to disintegrate for centuries. There would be no stable shoreline. The economic consequences are almost unthinkable. Hundreds of New Orleans-like devastations around the world. What may be more reprehensible, if climate denial continues, is extermination of species. The monarch butterfly could be one of the 20 to 50 percent of all species that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates will be ticketed for extinction by the end of the century if we stay on business-as-usual fossil fuel use."

—Dr. James Hansen

Bastard Love Child of Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley: The War on Drugs

If Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley had a baby it would look like the War on Drugs.

Richard Nixon enrolled the assistance of Elvis Presley in the 1970's to spread the gospel about his War on Drugs to a younger generation. However, Nixon may not have foreseen events just a few years later in the iconic performer's life that wold put a cynical twist to this propaganda effort. Now that the bloom is well off the rose more and more people from all walks of life can readily see the wasteful and even damaging effects of the misguided effort.

Journalism major Pete Blanchard boasts that he has, "only been to the slammer once" and manages to  neatly encapsulate his reasoning to end the War on Drugs for Buzzsaw Magazine:

"Despite the billions of dollars that have been funneled into federal, state and local anti-drug programs every year for the past four decades, the illegal drug industry is thriving, every drug is cheaper and more available, and drug use is at an all-time high in the United States. The facts are out there, and a recent Gallup poll found that 50 percent of Americans support marijuana legalization. While many Americans are not yet able to stomach the thought of legalizing hardcore drugs, the push for marijuana legalization is gaining popularity."

But as U.S. leaders appear to be intent on continuing with business as usual the international community seems just as intent on re-tuning efforts toward drugs enforcement based on lessons learned over the course of years.

As President of Poland at the turn of the century Aleksander Kwaśniewski signed some of the toughest drug possession laws into action. The hope of Poland's conservative lawmakers was that strict enforcement would break the back of the drug trafficking industry and reduce the spread of AIDS by users of injectable substances. It did none of these things, but it did manage to swell prison populations and ruin the lives of many young people. Now in civilian life, Kwaśniewski has joined the Global Commission on Drug Policy, he writes:

"The Global Commission offers a set of policy recommendations that should be the cornerstones of drug laws around the world. One of the main approaches that the commission supports is the decriminalization of drug use and possession of drugs for personal use.

"I was one of the supporters of the effort in Poland to revise the drug possession law of 2000. It now protects users from prosecution for having small amounts of drugs for personal use and allows prosecutors to discontinue legal proceedings against drug users."

Now in it's 125th trimester, it may be said that this bastard love child of Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley has had ample opportunity to prove itself viable. And everyone from college students to Eastern European political leaders can see that it is time to make way for more productive measures.

Search Results Should be Protected Speech

Google has commissioned UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh to write a paper advocating the position that Internet search results should be treated as protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Volokh asserts, as part of his argument, that since human engineers make decisions about how search engines work they are in effect exerting editorial control over the results that are produced. As such, this editorial process should be protected as free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Read more at Volokh's blog.

New Book Published by Wistleblower Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a translator shortly after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The Turkish-American Edmonds' was fired a few months later, by her account, because she exposed pervasive corruption within the FBI. With the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union, Edmonds has fought against the FBI, asserting that she was wrongfully dismissed as a whistle blower.

In this Russia Today interview Edmonds recounts events of the uphill battle to tell her side of the story, which she has finally been able to do with her recently recently published book "Classified Woman-The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir".

The Illumicorp Manifesto

"We are in the last days of darkness. Together in secret, we wait to begin the final phase of the great plan. The sun is rising, and it will beam a glorious dawn upon our New World. As an employee of Illumicorp, you are above the limitations of nationality, class and religion. You are a member of the illuminated now. Your loyalty and devotion belong only with us. Help us finish the plan. Together, we will proudly initiate the New World Order."
—Illumicorp President

KKK Leader Running for Sheriff in Bonner County, ID

Shaun Winkler, is running for sheriff of Bonner County, Idaho as a Republican. The thing that is raising eyebrows of County residents is Winkler's past ties with white supremacist groups including the Aryan Nations. That, and the fact that he recently hosted a 'cross lighting' as head of the local chapter of White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. According to the Bonner County Daily Bee this occasion gave Winkler a platform from which to proclaim, among other things, “Most people don’t know that we don’t just oppose the Jews and the negroes,” he said. “We also oppose sexual predators and drugs of any kind.”

Bonner County voters have reason for skepticism based on a rocky history with white supremacist groups in the area. During the 1980's and 1990's Aryan Nations and other groups attempted to establish headquarters in the nearby Hayden Lake area. In opposition to this, Bonner County residents formed a Human Rights Task Force which brought lawsuits against the Aryan Nations. The situation escalated to violent altercations, but ultimately due to costs from the lawsuits, the Aryan Nations group had to dissolve and give up their Hayden Lake property. The Southern Poverty Law Center maintains archives detailing these events.

Factory Farm Abuse Documented by Undercover Investigation

The Humane Society of the United States has recently released video recorded during an undercover investigation at Wyoming Premium Farms in Wheatland, WY, a supplier for Tyson Foods. The video reveals miserable conditions and cruel treatment of pigs raised at this factory farm.

Read more at humanesociety.org

Diabetic Teen's Insulin Pump Ruined by a TSA Scanner

As a type one diabetic, Colorado Teen Savannah Barry relies upon an insulin pump to manage her condition. Since she wears the device 24 hours a day she had it on while going through a TSA security check point at the Salt Lake City, UT airport. Savannah advised TSA agents she was wearing her insulin pump and showed them a doctor's letter warning that the pump should not go through electronic scanners. Despite this, TSA agents directed the teen through a millimeter wave scanner which damaged the $10,000 insulin pump she was wearing.

Read more at abc4.com.

The Truth of Polarization

So, which is the 'correct' polarity? 

Plutonomy and the Precariat

Noam Chomsky offers insightful analysis in this TomDispach post:

In 2005, Citigroup came out with a brochure for investors called “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances.” It urged investors to put money into a “plutonomy index.” The brochure says, “The World is dividing into two blocs -- the Plutonomy and the rest.”

Joe Arpaio's War on Drugs

Freud might have something to say about this. 

Patient Arrested at CVS for Trying to Fill a Prescription

As reported by CBS Dallas / Fort Worth:

"Lenhart’s doctor confirmed in an affidavit that he wrote the prescription for her and that he never received a call from CVS asking to confirm the prescription. Benton thinks the pharmacy may have called the wrong physician."

The Pirate Party's (not so) Secret Weapon: Liquid Feedback

GigaOM reports on how Germany's Pirate Party is using Liquid Feedback to hack politics.

It’s hard to say how much of an attraction Liquid Feedback is for the general public. The system itself is as ugly as sin and, while the Pirates recently produced APIs to let people create sexier front-ends for smartphones and the like, it’s almost certainly not a draw in itself.

But the ethos behind it is. Make no mistake, the biggest reason voters are flocking to the Pirates is that they’re disillusioned with the opaque deal-making and elite hierarchies of traditional politics.

Douglas Rushkoff on Psychedelics, Technology, Art.

"These were the only people who were capable of imagining the world that the rest of us were going to be in."

—Douglas Rushkoff (Keynote: Seven on Seven 2012)

Small genetic changes can have big effects on neurology.

Genetic research indicates a possible link between a copying error in the SRGAP2 gene to the development of human intelligence. I wonder if this has implications for the understanding of autism.

Sudden Realization Cat (GIF)