Our man on the spot VIII – by SPE

Posted by bob on June 16, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

Climate change continues

(N.Y. Times, June 10, 2013)

“This is the worst spring I can remember in my 30 years of farming,” said Rob Korf. He continued “…just continuous rain, not having an opportunity to plant…”

Breeding nutrition out of food

Jo Robinson, Eating on the Wild Side, “Unwittingly we have been stripping phyto-nutrients [phyto-nutrients are nutrients derived from plant material that have been shown to be necessary for sustaining human life and reduce risk of cancer] from our diet since we stopped foraging for wild plants some 10,000 years ago and became farmers…wild dandelions, once a springtime treat for Native Americans, have seven times more phyto-nutrients that spinach.”

Human rights infringements

(N.Y. Times, June 10, 2013)

“[In China] There have been other notable infringements on human rights in recent months, including the detentions of at least 15 people who, this spring, had separately called for officials to disclose their assets and…charged with various crimes including inciting the aversion of state power…as Xi Jinping meets with Obama in the U.S. [it was kind of a slap in the face].”

The Hong Kong advantage

A FULL PAGE ADVERTISEMENT (N.Y. Times, June 10, 2013)

“[Hong Kong] A home away from home for many American business expatriates and students,” said C.Y. Leung, Chief Executive of Hong Kong. But, he might have added, “not American NSA analysts seeking to hide here, at least not while Chairman Xi is still trying to create an Obama dumpling.”

Financial planners turn to yoga

(Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2013)

“Spencer Sherman [co-founder of Abacus Wealth Partners, in Santa Monica, California] teaches his clients a breathing technique called The Money Breath to get through tough financial situations.”

Citizens United is free speech

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia and photographer David Shankbone.

Floyd Abrams, who years ago defended the New York Times for its Pentagon papers release, and recently the Citizens United case which won corporations (persons of course) the unlimited right of investment in political advertising, said on PBS (June 11) that Edward Snowden who released NSA equally unlimited haul of internet and phone records, “looks more like a whistle blower to me than a criminal.” Diane Rehm actually got him on the air to say that if asked he would consider representing Snowden.

Mr. Abrams said, about the fact that even conservative ‘talk’ radio is shocked at the administration’s policies towards First Amendment issues, “[The administration] …has acted in a manner that is, at best, indifferent to First Amendment interests…it’s good to have conservatives as well as others saying that.”

NSA DELVES DEEPER

(N.Y. Times, June 9, 2013, Lichtblau-Risen)

Photo courtesy of the Brennan Center for Justice.

“Industry experts say that intelligence and law enforcement agencies also use a new technology, known as tri-laterization, that allows tracking of an individual’s location, moment to moment. The data, obtained from cell phone towers, can track the altitude of a person, down to the specific floor in a building. There is even software that exploits the cell phone data seeking to predict a person’s most likely route.”

GOTHAM

(N.Y. Times, June 11, 2013)

In Michael Powell’s Gotham column: “I placed a call to Faiza Patel, a top official at the Brennan Center for Justice, which has fought police spying and stop-and-frisk tactics. Pakistani born and Harvard educated, she is a passionate human rights lawyer and, like most New Yorkers, rarely stays her tongue. And, yet she worries. If she is researching Jihadi web sites, she is careful to do so at her office rather than at home, where the work might trip an electronic intelligence wire.”

TECH WORLD: TRIED LIGHTLY [LIE QUIETLY]

(N.Y. Times, June 11, 2013, Andrew Ross Sorkin)

“Senior executives I spoke with at many of the technology companies cited in the Prism documents (NSA programs siphoning data from internet servers) said they routinely provided the government with requested data, in some cases months’ worth of e-mail traffic for a certain address. They have teams of people whose entire job is to work with the government to comply with such requests…”

WATCHED BY THE WEB: SURVEILLANCE IS REBORN

(N.Y. Times, June 11, 2013)

Michiko Kakutani, “Google does it. Amazon does it. Walmart does it. And, as news reports last made clear, the United States government does it. Does what? Uses big data analysis of the swelling flood of data that is being generated and stored about virtually every aspect of our lives to identify patterns of behavior…”

The right to a fair and speedy trial

Bradley Manning is currently on trial for the mass release of classified military documents. However, his trial is barely being covered because the military judicial system in the person of the military trial judge is not allowing open access to the records of the trial.

Of course Bradley has been in the slammer for three years while awaiting trial – thus violating the sixth amendment’s requirement of a ‘fair and speedy trial’.

This reporter soon after the Korean “conflict” was cleared from court martial charges when my Army lawyer threatened to remove my case from the Army to the jurisdiction of a Federal Court to rule if my right to a ‘fair and speedy trial’ was being violated when I was held past my discharge date for a few months (see All American Boy – eurekaproductions.tv) not three years incarcerated like Bradley.