Mar 16, 2012 || World News

Friday, March 16, 2012

Re: Biden sucks up

and you expect what from a PA catholic democrat?

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Re: PBS Footage – Obama at Harvard

let him use his fingernails

On Mar 16, 11:39 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Then give obarfo an Arkansas Toothpick.
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 11:21 AM, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
>
> > On Mar 16, 10:30 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > **
> > > New post on *Fellowship of the Minds*
> > > <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/> PBS
> > > Footage – Obama at
> > > Harvard<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a..
> > .>by
> > > lowtechgrannie<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/>
>
> > > *OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT OF LAW REVIEW*
>
> > > LTG
> > > *lowtechgrannie<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/>
> > > * | March 16, 2012 at 7:19 am | Tags: Harvard Law
> > > Review<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=harvard-law-review>,
> > > Harvard University<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=harvard-university>,
> > > Obama <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=obama>,
> > > PBS<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=pbs>| Categories: 2012
> > > Election <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=4934384>,
> > > Liberals/Democrats <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=74187125>,
> > US
> > > Presidents <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=51656283> | URL:
> >http://wp.me/pKuKY-daz
>
> > > Comment<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...>
> > > See all comments<
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...>
>
> > > Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage
> > > Subscriptions<
> >https://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=7f89380f46003915c34c2cdd2b126a38...>.
>
> > > *Trouble clicking?* Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
> >http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...
> > > Thanks for flying with WordPress.com <http://wordpress.com/>
>
> > --
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Re: So you think water boarding is cruel! Watch this...

torture and killing are sop in war ... get used to it

On Mar 16, 11:33 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ****
>
> ****
>
> [image: Description:http://l.yimg.com/kq/static/images/yg/img/doc/video16x16.gif]
> Al-Qaeda_schoolyard_massacre.wmv<http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/20337019/1280519871/name/Al-Qaeda_school...>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ****
>
> image001.gif
> < 1KViewDownload

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Re: PBS Footage – Obama at Harvard

Then give obarfo an Arkansas Toothpick.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 11:21 AM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.

On Mar 16, 10:30 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> **
> New post on *Fellowship of the Minds*
> <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/> PBS
> Footage – Obama at
> Harvard<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...>by
> lowtechgrannie<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/>
>
> *OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT OF LAW REVIEW*
>
> LTG
> *lowtechgrannie<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/lowtechgrannie/>

> * | March 16, 2012 at 7:19 am | Tags: Harvard Law
> Review<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=harvard-law-review>,
> Harvard University<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=harvard-university>,
> Obama <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=obama>,
> PBS<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=pbs>| Categories: 2012
> Election <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=4934384>,
> Liberals/Democrats <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=74187125>, US
> Presidents <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=51656283> | URL:http://wp.me/pKuKY-daz
>
> Comment<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...>
> See all comments<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...>

>
> Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage
> Subscriptions<https://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=7f89380f46003915c34c2cdd2b126a38...>.
>
> *Trouble clicking?* Copy and paste this URL into your browser:http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/pbs-footage-obama-a...
> Thanks for flying with WordPress.com <http://wordpress.com/>

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Biden sucks up

New post on Fellowship of the Minds

Biden sucks up

by Dr. Eowyn

In the 2008 campaign, Barry Soetoro was hailed as the messiah, the Second Coming:

Looks like Barry's reelection campaign is returning to the old idolatry playbook.

On the campaign trail in Ohio yesterday, VP Joe Biden was a slavish sycophant, hailing his boss as Superman -- with "steel in his spine." Gag.

Hey, Joe. You mean this?

~Eowyn

Dr. Eowyn | March 16, 2012 at 9:21 am | Tags: Barack Obama, idolatry | Categories: 2012 Election, God, Idiots, Liberals/Democrats, New Age, United States, US Presidents | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-daC

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So you think water boarding is cruel! Watch this...

Al-Qaeda_schoolyard_massacre.wmv

Re: Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Invasion of Privacy, Bias Intimidation Hate Crime in Suicide of Tyler Clementi

wow, record this date .. someone other than a white person found
guilty of a hate crime

On Mar 16, 11:08 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Invasion of Privacy, Bias Intimidation in
> Suicide of Tyler Clementi
>
> Defendant Guilty in Rutgers Case
>
> Matt Rainey for The New York Times
> Dharun Ravi, center, and his lawyers, Philip Nettl, left, and Steven
> Altman at Superior Court in Middlesex County, N.J., on Friday.
>
> By KATE ZERNIKE
> Published: March 16, 2012
>
> NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. —A jury convicted a former Rutgers University
> student, Dharun Ravi, of hate crimes for using a webcam to spy on his
> roommate kissing another man in their dorm room.
>
> Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation.
> The jury also found Mr. Ravi guilty of tampering with evidence and
> witnesses for trying to change Twitter and text messages in which he
> had encouraged others to watch the webcam.
>
> Mr. Ravi's roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the
> George Washington Bridge three days after Mr. Ravi viewed him on the
> webcam. The case became a symbol of the struggles facing gay, lesbian
> and bisexual teenagers and the problem of cyberbullying in an era when
> laws governing hate crimes have not kept up with evolving technology.
>
> Mr. Ravi looked down but did not seem to react as the jury forewoman
> read the verdict. Mr. Clementi's parents and family sat with arms
> around each other, leaning forward as they listened to the forewoman
> speak.
>
> Mr. Ravi, 20, was not charged in Mr. Clementi's death. .
>
> The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for about two days,
> following more than three weeks of testimony.
>
> The case was rare because almost none of the facts were in dispute.
> Mr. Ravi's lawyers agreed that he had set up a webcam on his computer,
> then gone into a friend's room and viewed Mr. Clementi kissing a man
> he had invited to his room three weeks after arriving at Rutgers in
> September 2010. Mr. Ravi sent Twitter and text messages telling others
> what he had seen, and urged them to watch a second viewing, then
> deleted messages after Mr. Clementi killed himself.
>
> That account had been established by a long trail of electronic
> evidence — from Twitter feeds and cellphone records, dormitory
> surveillance cameras, dining hall swipe cards and a "netflow" analysis
> showing when and how computers in the dormitory connected.
>
> What the jury had to decide, and what set off debate outside as well
> as inside the courtroom, was what Mr. Ravi and Mr. Clementi were
> thinking at the time.
>
> Did Mr. Ravi set up the webcam because he had a pretty good idea that
> he would see Mr. Clementi in an intimate moment? Did he target Mr.
> Clementi and the man he was with because they were gay? And was Mr.
> Clementi in fear?
>
> Without Mr. Clementi to speak for himself, that last question was
> perhaps the most difficult to determine, and questions the jurors sent
> from their deliberation room suggested they struggled with it.
>
> The prosecution had pointed out that Mr. Clementi had checked Mr.
> Ravi's Twitter feed — where Mr. Ravi told others he had seen his
> roommate "kissing a dude" — 38 times in the days after the first
> webcam viewing. Records showed that Mr. Clementi had gone online to
> request a room change, and a resident assistant testified that Mr.
> Clementi had complained to him.
>
> But the defense argued that if Mr. Clementi had felt intimidated, he
> would have accepted when the resident assistant offered him another
> place to stay, and he would not have invited his boyfriend back to the
> room.
>
> Mr. Clementi's suicide came up only in passing during the trial, when
> a lawyer asked the boyfriend how he had learned of Mr. Clementi's
> death. The man, who testified under tight cover and was identified in
> court only as M.B. because he was considered a victim in the case,
> testified that he had read about it in a newspaper, as the suicide
> prompted international attention.
>
> Still, the death defined the trial, turning what might have been a
> peeping Tom case or, as the resident assistant said, "a roommate
> issue" into something far more grave.
>
> Mr. Clementi's parents, brothers and a huddle of friends sat on one
> side of the courtroom. On the other sat Mr. Ravi's parents, who
> brought him here from India when he was young, and their friends,
> including several who had served as character witnesses for Mr. Ravi,
> testifying he was not biased against gays.
>
> The testimony painted a picture of two college freshman, both from top
> performing high schools in well-off suburbs, who could not have been
> more different. Mr. Clementi was shy and reserved, an accomplished
> violinist who had only recently told his parents he was gay. Mr. Ravi
> was a boastful computer wizard and ultimate Frisbee player who
> communicated with friends constantly via Twitter, text message and
> iChat.
>
> Mr. Ravi's lawyers argued that he was "a kid" with little experience
> of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him.
> M.B., who was 30 at the time, had made him nervous, the lawyers
> argued, so he set up his webcam to keep an eye on his belongings. Mr.
> Ravi, they argued, was being sarcastic when he had sent messages
> daring friends to connect to his webcam, or declaring that he was
> having a "viewing party."
>
> But prosecutors argued that his frequent messages mentioning Mr.
> Clementi's sexuality proved that Mr. Ravi was upset about having a gay
> roommate from the minute he discovered it through a computer search
> several weeks before they arrived at Rutgers in fall 2010.
>
> More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/nyregion/defendant-guilty-in-rutger...
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy

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Re: PBS Footage – Obama at Harvard

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.

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Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Invasion of Privacy, Bias Intimidation Hate Crime in Suicide of Tyler Clementi

Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Invasion of Privacy, Bias Intimidation in
Suicide of Tyler Clementi

Defendant Guilty in Rutgers Case

Matt Rainey for The New York Times
Dharun Ravi, center, and his lawyers, Philip Nettl, left, and Steven
Altman at Superior Court in Middlesex County, N.J., on Friday.

By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: March 16, 2012

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. —A jury convicted a former Rutgers University
student, Dharun Ravi, of hate crimes for using a webcam to spy on his
roommate kissing another man in their dorm room.

Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation.
The jury also found Mr. Ravi guilty of tampering with evidence and
witnesses for trying to change Twitter and text messages in which he
had encouraged others to watch the webcam.

Mr. Ravi's roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the
George Washington Bridge three days after Mr. Ravi viewed him on the
webcam. The case became a symbol of the struggles facing gay, lesbian
and bisexual teenagers and the problem of cyberbullying in an era when
laws governing hate crimes have not kept up with evolving technology.

Mr. Ravi looked down but did not seem to react as the jury forewoman
read the verdict. Mr. Clementi's parents and family sat with arms
around each other, leaning forward as they listened to the forewoman
speak.

Mr. Ravi, 20, was not charged in Mr. Clementi's death. .

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for about two days,
following more than three weeks of testimony.

The case was rare because almost none of the facts were in dispute.
Mr. Ravi's lawyers agreed that he had set up a webcam on his computer,
then gone into a friend's room and viewed Mr. Clementi kissing a man
he had invited to his room three weeks after arriving at Rutgers in
September 2010. Mr. Ravi sent Twitter and text messages telling others
what he had seen, and urged them to watch a second viewing, then
deleted messages after Mr. Clementi killed himself.

That account had been established by a long trail of electronic
evidence — from Twitter feeds and cellphone records, dormitory
surveillance cameras, dining hall swipe cards and a "netflow" analysis
showing when and how computers in the dormitory connected.

What the jury had to decide, and what set off debate outside as well
as inside the courtroom, was what Mr. Ravi and Mr. Clementi were
thinking at the time.

Did Mr. Ravi set up the webcam because he had a pretty good idea that
he would see Mr. Clementi in an intimate moment? Did he target Mr.
Clementi and the man he was with because they were gay? And was Mr.
Clementi in fear?

Without Mr. Clementi to speak for himself, that last question was
perhaps the most difficult to determine, and questions the jurors sent
from their deliberation room suggested they struggled with it.

The prosecution had pointed out that Mr. Clementi had checked Mr.
Ravi's Twitter feed — where Mr. Ravi told others he had seen his
roommate "kissing a dude" — 38 times in the days after the first
webcam viewing. Records showed that Mr. Clementi had gone online to
request a room change, and a resident assistant testified that Mr.
Clementi had complained to him.

But the defense argued that if Mr. Clementi had felt intimidated, he
would have accepted when the resident assistant offered him another
place to stay, and he would not have invited his boyfriend back to the
room.

Mr. Clementi's suicide came up only in passing during the trial, when
a lawyer asked the boyfriend how he had learned of Mr. Clementi's
death. The man, who testified under tight cover and was identified in
court only as M.B. because he was considered a victim in the case,
testified that he had read about it in a newspaper, as the suicide
prompted international attention.

Still, the death defined the trial, turning what might have been a
peeping Tom case or, as the resident assistant said, "a roommate
issue" into something far more grave.

Mr. Clementi's parents, brothers and a huddle of friends sat on one
side of the courtroom. On the other sat Mr. Ravi's parents, who
brought him here from India when he was young, and their friends,
including several who had served as character witnesses for Mr. Ravi,
testifying he was not biased against gays.

The testimony painted a picture of two college freshman, both from top
performing high schools in well-off suburbs, who could not have been
more different. Mr. Clementi was shy and reserved, an accomplished
violinist who had only recently told his parents he was gay. Mr. Ravi
was a boastful computer wizard and ultimate Frisbee player who
communicated with friends constantly via Twitter, text message and
iChat.

Mr. Ravi's lawyers argued that he was "a kid" with little experience
of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him.
M.B., who was 30 at the time, had made him nervous, the lawyers
argued, so he set up his webcam to keep an eye on his belongings. Mr.
Ravi, they argued, was being sarcastic when he had sent messages
daring friends to connect to his webcam, or declaring that he was
having a "viewing party."

But prosecutors argued that his frequent messages mentioning Mr.
Clementi's sexuality proved that Mr. Ravi was upset about having a gay
roommate from the minute he discovered it through a computer search
several weeks before they arrived at Rutgers in fall 2010.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/nyregion/defendant-guilty-in-rutgers-case.html

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
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Re: How Ayn Rand's Bizarre Philosophy Made the New Right so Toxic

The poor go down, the
ultra-rich survive and prosper
---
that's life ... get used to it

On Mar 16, 10:34 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How Ayn Rand's Bizarre Philosophy Made the New Right so Toxic
> Rand's psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like
> victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats.
> The Guardian
> ByGeorge Monbiot
>
> It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the
> postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism
> evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor
> deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been
> tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the
> belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago this
> month, has never been more popular or influential.
> Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the
> United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her
> nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a
> philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course
> is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to
> members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse"
> and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart
> from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no
> role for government: no social security, no public health or education,
> no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations,
> no income tax.
> Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled
> by government intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against
> a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas
> holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with the result that the
> nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and
> selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt.
> The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and
> their own sloth and fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed.
> In a notorious passage, she argues that all the passengers in a train
> filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for instance, was a
> teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother
> married to a civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a
> housewife "who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of
> whom she knew nothing".
> Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of
> cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows
> in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what
> Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult.
> Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read
> Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every
> year.
> Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has
> taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards
> reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues,
> provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and
> unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by
> the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the
> guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress.
> Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people
> who have never read it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side
> of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new demands to remove the 50p tax
> band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering, jeering
> bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking
> compassion and empathy, attacking efforts to make the word a kinder
> place.
> It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers
> them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a
> sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the
> ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.
> It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would
> suffer grievously from a withdrawal of government. But such is the
> degree of misinformation which saturates this movement and so prevalent
> in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and
> expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as
> billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at
> the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she
> signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed
> furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she
> despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for
> the realities of age and ill health.
> But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy:
> as Adam Curtis's BBC documentary showed last year, the most devoted
> member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan,
> former head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for
> Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called
> Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.
> Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into
> government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even
> builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as "the 'greed' of the businessman
> or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector
> of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their
> clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity.
> Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system".
> Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the
> letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining
> banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives
> trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is
> already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has
> successfully airbrushed history.
> Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous
> admission that it was Rand who persuaded him that "capitalism is not
> only efficient and practical but also moral", he mentioned her in his
> memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this,
> it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence
> that even today Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced
> his partial admission of failure to Congress.
> Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the
> Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the
> wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the
> ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.George
> Monbiot is the author Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Read
> more of his writings at Monbiot.com. This article originally appeared
> in the Guardian.
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy

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How Ayn Rand's Bizarre Philosophy Made the New Right so Toxic

How Ayn Rand's Bizarre Philosophy Made the New Right so Toxic
Rand's psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like
victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats.
The Guardian
ByGeorge Monbiot

It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the
postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism
evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor
deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been
tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the
belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago this
month, has never been more popular or influential.
Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the
United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her
nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a
philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course
is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to
members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse"
and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart
from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no
role for government: no social security, no public health or education,
no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations,
no income tax.
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled
by government intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against
a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas
holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with the result that the
nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and
selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt.
The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and
their own sloth and fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed.
In a notorious passage, she argues that all the passengers in a train
filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for instance, was a
teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother
married to a civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a
housewife "who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of
whom she knew nothing".
Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of
cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows
in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what
Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult.
Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read
Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every
year.
Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has
taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards
reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues,
provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and
unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by
the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the
guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress.
Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people
who have never read it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side
of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new demands to remove the 50p tax
band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering, jeering
bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking
compassion and empathy, attacking efforts to make the word a kinder
place.
It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers
them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a
sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the
ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.
It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would
suffer grievously from a withdrawal of government. But such is the
degree of misinformation which saturates this movement and so prevalent
in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and
expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as
billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at
the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she
signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed
furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she
despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for
the realities of age and ill health.
But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy:
as Adam Curtis's BBC documentary showed last year, the most devoted
member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan,
former head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for
Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called
Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.
Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into
government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even
builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as "the 'greed' of the businessman
or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector
of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their
clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity.
Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system".
Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the
letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining
banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives
trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is
already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has
successfully airbrushed history.
Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous
admission that it was Rand who persuaded him that "capitalism is not
only efficient and practical but also moral", he mentioned her in his
memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this,
it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence
that even today Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced
his partial admission of failure to Congress.
Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the
Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the
wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the
ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.George
Monbiot is the author Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Read
more of his writings at Monbiot.com. This article originally appeared
in the Guardian.

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PBS Footage – Obama at Harvard

New post on Fellowship of the Minds

PBS Footage – Obama at Harvard

by lowtechgrannie

OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT OF LAW REVIEW

LTG

lowtechgrannie | March 16, 2012 at 7:19 am | Tags: Harvard Law Review, Harvard University, Obama, PBS | Categories: 2012 Election, Liberals/Democrats, US Presidents | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-daz

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Threats and Killings Striking Fear Among Young Fashionable "Emo" Iraqis, Including Gays

Threats and Killings Striking Fear Among Young Iraqis, Including Gays

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
A group of gay Iraqis in Baghdad, who feared being identified, said
they faced daily harassment.

By JACK HEALY
BAGHDAD — A recent spate of killings and intimidation aimed at gay
Iraqis and teenagers who dress in brash Western fashions is sending
waves of fear through Iraq's secular circles while casting doubt on
the government's will to protect some of its most vulnerable citizens.

Many details of what Iraqi newspapers have called the "emo killings"
are murky, but the uproar comes at an awkward moment for Iraq. The
country has been preparing to showcase itself to the world as host of
a high-profile meeting of Arab leaders in late March, the first major
diplomatic event here since American forces withdrew in December.

But the news that young men in tight T-shirts and skinny jeans are
being beaten to death with cement blocks and dumped in the streets has
threatened to overshadow the new palm trees and fresh paint. The
violence offers a reminder that the government has been unable to stop
threats and attacks against small religious sects, ethnic groups and
social pariahs like gay men.

An Interior Ministry security officer said that in the past two weeks,
officials had found the bodies of six young men whose skulls had been
crushed. Reuters reported the toll to be 14 or more, citing hospital
and security officials, while rights groups say that more than 40
young men have been killed, but have provided no evidence for this
figure.

Human rights advocates say the threats and violence are aimed at gay
men and at teenagers who style themselves in a uniquely Iraqi collage
of hipster, punk, emo and goth fashions. The look, shorthanded here as
"emo," has flourished on Baghdad's streets as an emblem of greater
social freedom as society has begun to bloom after years of warfare.
But it has drawn scorn and outrage from some religious conservatives,
and is often conflated with being gay.

Verifying the reports of the killings has proved nearly impossible. In
most cases, no family members or friends have come forward, and Iraqi
officials deny that there is any campaign targeting gay men or emo
teenagers. They call the stories a media fabrication designed to drum
up hysteria and embarrass Iraq.

But it was the Iraqi government that first labeled emo youths a public menace.

On Feb. 13, the Interior Ministry released a statement that condemned
the "phenomenon of emo" as Satanic. The rebellious teenage fashions of
dark clothes, skull-print T-shirts and nose rings, the statement said,
are emblems of the devil.

The ministry said its Social Police would be sent to investigate "the
emo" and added that its forces had also received the authority to go
into all of Baghdad's schools to find them.

"They have official approval to eliminate them as soon as possible,
because the dimensions of the community began to take another course,
and is now threatening danger," the statement said.

Emo is short for "emotional hardcore" and its aesthetic sprang from
the American punk music scene in the 1980s and has been remixed in
Baghdad over the last few years.

Ibrahim al-Abadi, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the statement
had been misinterpreted. He said emo youths were free to dress as they
pleased, and said the government would protect them.

But over the past month, threatening letters began appearing in Shiite
neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents said.

One of the fliers, scanned and posted online, addresses dozens of gay
men by name and nickname. It warns people identified as Japanese
Haider, Allawi the Bra, Mohammed the Flower and others: Reform your
behavior, stop being gay, or face deadly consequences.

"Your fate will be death if you don't quit doing this," one leaflet
warns. "Punishment will be tougher and tougher, you gays. Don't be
like the people of Lot."

Another flier circulating around the Zayouna neighborhood appears
addressed to emo youths. It tells them to cut their hair, not to wear
the clothing of devil worshipers, and not to listen to metal, emo or
rap music. And if they refuse, "God's punishment will be come down
upon you," the letter says.

The authenticity of the fliers could not be verified.

It is unclear who is behind the intimidation or violence. Advocates
have blamed Shiite militias such as the Mahdi Army of the radical
cleric Moktada al-Sadr for past anti-gay killings and assaults. On
Saturday, Mr. Sadr denied any responsibility for the recent threats or
violence, but called the emo teens unnatural and said they should be
dealt with through legal means, according to Al Sumaria, an Iraqi news
channel.

Related
Exodus From North Signals Iraqi Christians' Slow Decline (March 11, 2012)
Times Topic: Iraq
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For at least six years, gays have been bullied and harassed by
security forces and beaten and killed by reactionary Islamist militias
in Shiite areas of Baghdad.

Ali Hili, a gay Iraqi activist who lives in London, said as many as
750 gay Iraqis have been killed in the past six years, and thousands
have emigrated or are living deep in the closet.

"It's a clear war on sexual minorities on Iraq," he said. "They are
refusing to admit it."

Fear has rippled across socially liberal niches of Baghdad, from the
basement-level clothing shops where teenage boys buy skull pendants
and skater gear, to upscale hair salons and theaters. Advocates say
some emo youths and gay men have left for northern Iraq, while others
have shorn off hairdos or muted outfits that were once badges of
identity.

Four gay friends in Baghdad, sitting together for an interview, said
the daily barrage of harassment and threats has taken on an especially
menacing edge in the last few weeks. Neighbors have told them, "Your
turn will come soon." Young men have driven by and shouted "Block!
Block! Block!" referring to the current weapon of choice for attacks.

Mustafa, 25, said he was fired last week from a clothing shop because
his boss thought his clothing too effete. Hussein, 26, said he left
home two weeks ago after his brothers threatened to kill him. Hasan,
32, wears a burgundy ski cap to hide his long hair.

"What do you see about me that is so wrong?" asked Mustafa, who said
he was too afraid to allow his full name to be published. "I'm a
normal guy. I wish I could die rather than live like this." With
little to go on but denials from the government, gay Iraqis and
secular teenagers have been trying to understand what is happening.
They have circulated copies of the threatening letters, and passed
along pictures that seem to give face to at least one killing that
matches the pattern.

In one photo, a handsome young man in a white jacket, dark aviator
sunglasses and coifed black hair stands as if he were a fashion model.
In another, the vacant, bloody face of a man with similar features
stares up at the sky. His body lies in the bed of a police truck.

Friends have identified him as Saif Raad Asmar Abboudi, a 20-year-old
from one of the poorest areas of the vast Shiite neighborhood of Sadr
City. An Iraqi police report obtained by Mr. Hili's advocacy group,
Iraqi LGBT, says he was beaten to death with a brick on Feb. 17.

The police have not identified a suspect, the report concludes.

One of Mr. Abboudi's friends, Noor, also 20, described him as a gentle
and quiet young man who "was not even very emo." Being emo in Iraq,
she said, was simply about style and self-expression. She said she and
her family had fled north after Mr. Abboudi's death. She did not know
when she would feel safe enough to return.

"Is this what we get," she asked, "because we dress in black?"

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/middleeast/killings-strike-fear-in-iraqi-gay-and-emo-youth.html?pagewanted=2&sq=gay&st=cse&scp=5

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A Culture of Greed: Does Morality Have a Place on Wall Street? Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith

Does Morality Have a Place on Wall Street?

In his resignation from Goldman Sachs that appeared as a Times Op-Ed
this week, Greg Smith spoke of a culture of greed and excess at the
investment bank in which the goal is to "rip-off" clients. Does
morality have a place on Wall Street? Was Smith being naïve to think
that what he saw was anything other than business as usual?

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
By GREG SMITH

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the
firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York
for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long
enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its
identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic
and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client
continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about
making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world's largest and most
important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to
continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I
joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience
say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was
always a vital part of Goldman Sachs's success. It revolved around
teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by
our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place
great and allowed us to earn our clients' trust for 143 years. It
wasn't just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for
so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the
organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see
virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this
firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited
and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was
selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to
appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college
campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern
program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students
who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look
students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may
reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein,
and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm's culture on
their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm's moral
fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run
survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two
of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset
managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent
sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a
total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken
a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right
for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is
becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it
was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about
leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and
doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm
(and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a
position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm's
"axes," which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest
in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of
because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b)
"Hunt Elephants." In English: get your clients — some of whom are
sophisticated, and some of whom aren't — to trade whatever will bring
the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like
selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself
sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque
product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient
of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not
one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help
clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off
of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these
meetings, you would believe that a client's success or progress was
not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients
off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing
directors refer to their own clients as "muppets," sometimes over
internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God's
work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on.
Integrity? It is eroding. I don't know of any illegal behavior, but
will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated
products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or
the ones most directly aligned with the client's goals? Absolutely.
Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If
clients don't trust you they will eventually stop doing business with
you. It doesn't matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about
derivatives is, "How much money did we make off the client?" It
bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of
what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should
behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don't have to be a
rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly
in the corner of the room hearing about "muppets," "ripping eyeballs
out" and "getting paid" doesn't exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn't know where the bathroom was,
or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning
the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance,
getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they
defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from
South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes
Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at
the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all
come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has
become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It
just doesn't feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the
client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you
will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally
bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And
get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right
reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this
firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.

Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director
and head of the firm's United States equity derivatives business in
Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

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Firm Romney Founded Is Tied to Chinese Surveillance

Keith Bedford for The New York Times
Cities in China are installing surveillance systems with hundreds of
thousands of cameras like these at a Beijing building site.

By ANDREW JACOBS and PENN BULLOCK
Published: March 15, 2012
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CloseDiggRedditTumblrPermalink BEIJING — As the Chinese government
forges ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country
with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain
Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney.

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Keith Bedford for The New York Times
Chinese cities are installing surveillance systems with hundreds of
thousands of cameras like these at a Beijing building site.
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In December, a Bain-run fund in which a Romney family blind trust has
holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese
company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government's
Safe Cities program, a highly advanced monitoring system that allows
the authorities to watch over university campuses, hospitals, mosques
and movie theaters from centralized command posts.

The Bain-owned company, Uniview Technologies, produces what it calls
"infrared antiriot" cameras and software that enable police officials
in different jurisdictions to share images in real time through the
Internet. Previous projects have included an emergency command center
in Tibet that "provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of
social stability and the protection of people's peaceful life,"
according to Uniview's Web site.

Such surveillance systems are often used to combat crime and the
manufacturer has no control over whether they are used for other
purposes. But human rights advocates say in China they are also used
to intimidate and monitor political and religious dissidents. "There
are video cameras all over our monastery, and their only purpose is to
make us feel fear," said Loksag, a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Gansu
Province. He said the cameras helped the authorities identify and
detain nearly 200 monks who participated in a protest at his monastery
in 2008.

Mr. Romney has had no role in Bain's operations since 1999 and had no
say over the investment in China. But the fortunes of Bain and Mr.
Romney are still closely tied.

The financial disclosure forms Mr. Romney filed last August show that
a blind trust in the name of his wife, Ann Romney, held a relatively
small stake of between $100,000 and $250,000 in the Bain Capital Asia
fund that purchased Uniview.

In a statement, R. Bradford Malt, who manages the Romneys' trusts,
noted that he had put trust assets into the fund before it bought
Uniview. He said that the Romneys had no role in guiding their
investments. He also said he had no control over the Asian fund's
choice of investments.

Mr. Romney reported on his August disclosure forms that he and his
wife earned a minimum of $5.6 million from Bain assets held in their
blind trusts and retirement accounts. Bain employees and executives
are also among the largest donors to his campaign, and their
contributions accounted for 10 percent of the money received over the
past year by Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney "super PAC." Bain
employees have also made substantial contributions to Democratic
candidates, including President Obama.

Bain's decision to enter China's fast-growing surveillance industry
raises questions about the direct role that American corporations play
in outfitting authoritarian governments with technology that can be
used to repress their own citizens.

It also comes at a delicate time for Mr. Romney, who has frequently
called for a hard line against the Chinese government's suppression of
religious freedom and political dissent.

As with previous deals involving other American companies, critics
argue that Bain's acquisition of Uniview violates the spirit — if not
necessarily the letter — of American sanctions imposed on Beijing
after the deadly crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square. Those
rules, written two decades ago, bar American corporations from
exporting to China "crime-control" products like those that process
fingerprints, make photo identification cards or use night vision
technology.

Most video surveillance equipment is not covered by the sanctions,
even though a Canadian human rights group found in 2001 that Chinese
security forces used Western-made video cameras to help identify and
apprehend Tiananmen Square protesters.

Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who frequently
assails companies that do business with Chinese security agencies,
said calls by some members of Congress to pass stricter regulations on
American businesses have gone nowhere. "These companies are busy
making a profit and don't want to face realities, but what they're
doing is wrong," said Mr. Wolf, who is co-chairman of the Tom Lantos
Human Rights Commission.

In public comments and in a statement posted on his campaign Web site,
Mr. Romney has accused the Obama administration of placing economic
concerns above human rights in managing relations with China. He has
called on the White House to offer more vigorous support of those who
criticize the Chinese Communist Party.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/world/asia/bain-capital-tied-to-surveillance-push-in-china.html?google_editors_picks=true

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