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Hello all, hope your are well.

International Developments

Overall

– Failures and lies of US drone policy exposed in new film, check it out here

– “The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Monday demanded the United States explain abuses allegedly committed at Guantanamo prison, especially its practice of force-feeding inmates on hunger strike”

– Syrian Electronic Army takes credit for hacking Obama’s Twitter account

– “The United States could lose access to an important law enforcement tool used to track terrorist money flows, German officials said Monday, as Europe weighed a response to allegations that the Americans spied on their closest European allies.”

Middle East

– “Yemeni security officials said that an explosion followed by what sounded like heavy gunfire had been heard near the U.S. Embassy in the capital Sanaa late Monday, but government spokesmen later said that the blast was fireworks from a wedding procession.”

– Max Blumenthal talks about his new book “Goliath” and more about Israel

– Another green-on-blue attack, but an Afghan soldier died this time

– British soldiers photographed for giving Nazi-salute in Afghanistan, all are failures and do not have any of my respect.

– “Oil-rich Kuwait said Monday that the generous cradle-to-grave welfare system provided to its 1.2 million citizens was “unsustainable” and it was time for change.”

– Syrian Christians fear the future 

– “International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks in Damascus on Monday at the end of a Middle East tour to promote a Syrian peace conference, but regional tensions have cast a pall over his mission.”

Africa

– “Libya is liberated, but please don’t visit!”

– “Security forces fired teargas to disperse hundreds of students protesting against Egypt’s military-installed government at Cairo’s al-Azhar university on Monday, a week before ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi is due to face trial.”

– Al-Shabaab is rebuilding forces in Somalia

– Here we go again. “Egypt’s top prosecutor on Monday ordered an investigation into a complaint that satirist Bassem Youssef, known as the country’s “Jon Stewart,” harmed national interests by ridiculing the country’s military in his first program of the season.”

Asia

– Scandal can cause South Korea to abandon nuclear power

Europe

– German parliament to meet over U.S. spying

Latin America

– Militias spring forth in Mexico to take down cartels and that is worrying the existing government

– “President Cristina Fernandez’s government sought on Monday to downplay a sobering defeat in Argentina’s mid-term elections, asserting that its ability to govern has not been diminished even though voters shrank her majority in Congress and erased her chances of seeking a third term in 2015.”

Financial Matters

– Center for Economic Policy and Research study: Restructuring government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) into a more private model is a bad idea. Press release here

– “Financiers Stanley Druckenmiller, Pete Peterson and John Arnold form a trifecta of treachery.”

– The five reasons why cutting Social Security would be irrational

– MOOCs: Corporate welfare for credit

– “The U.S. mortgage market has experienced an “irrational restriction” of credit as lenders and regulators overreact to the loose lending during a bubble that burst in 2007, mortgage-bond pioneer Lewis Ranieri said.”

– Gallup: Economy would increase if more people would marry

– Detroit emergency manage Kevyn Orr testifies in bankruptcy trial

– Jelly Belly chairman helped fund repeal of a bill to protect transgender students’ rights.

– Chart of where Apple’s money comes from

– How London is separate from the UK in one chart

– “Reports on manufacturing and housing market point to a weakening economy”

Surveillance Planet

– White House: We need “constraints” on spying

– Dianne Feinstein is opposed to spying of allies. Wait, didn’t she say that NSA wasn’t spying? Make up your mind Dianne (though the surveillance industry already did)

– NSA tracked 60.5 million phone calls in Spain

– David Cameron: Government will act on the Guardian leaks

– “Did the NSA keep Obama in the dark about its surveillance?”

– “Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll said Monday she is looking forward to the start of new Obama administration protections for journalists after the Justice Department’s “overly broad” collection of AP phone records.”

– Germany and France say surveillance jeopardizes the war on terror 

– Investigative journalist claims feds raided her house for guns, but grabbed notes of anonymous sources 

Labor’s a-Brewing

– Adjunct professors, who represent 75 percent of faculty in the US, are now organizing this week in 25 states for better pay and benefits

– “Strikes, demonstrations and protests are at a record pace in Colombia this year as workers seek a bigger share of wealth generated by the country’s expanding economy. After 50 years of guerrilla warfare, the government’s success in weakening illegal armed groups has drawn investment and rewarded businessmen, while the gap between rich and poor remains considerable, according to the World Bank’s Gini index of income distribution.”

Politics USA

Washington USA

– Business and GOP Establishment: The Tea Party is over

– Healthcare.gov is back up, but HHS says it’s still slow

– Calls for immigration reform increase, yet what drives such immigration to the U.S.?

– “Here’s how GOP Obamacare hypocrisy backfires”

– “Rafiq ur Rehman, a primary school teacher in Pakistan’s beleaguered Waziristan province has felt personally and profoundly the impact of U.S. drone strikes in his region. In one strike last October, not only were his three young children, aged five to 13, injured, but his 67-year-old mother was killed.” He now will speak in front of Congress about drone strikes.

– Lindsey Graham wants to block every nomination unless more info on Benghazi is released

– “Will the sequester cost Pentagon’s ‘Yoda’ His Job?”

– New FBI director James Comey: I want FBI “independent of all political forces”

– “The White House says it opposes legislation in the Republican-controlled House that would exempt certain financial transactions used by banks from falling under the provisions of a 3-year-old law passed in response to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.”

Everything Else USA

– Miracles in Minneapolis and Seattle

– After Sandy, only a luck few are getting “buyouts”

– A foolproof illustrated guide to ACA with pictures!

– “Governments usually use eminent domain powers to displace people. But one hardscrabble Bay Area city is going to the mat to do just the opposite.”

– Silicon Valley dreams of succession

– Bill Clinton attacks partisan politics in Washington during a stop in Virginia for a gubernatorial candidate

– Glenn Greenwald: The New York Times “helped kill journalism as a potent force for checking power”

– Right-wing, quasi-fascist Pamela Geller: Bill de Blasio’s surge in the polls shows press is aligned with “jihad force.” Is it bad I know people with this line of thinking?

– Banksy: The new World Trade Center is a “disaster” that says “New York: We lost our nerve”

– Rand Paul uses “My Left Foot” to argue against genetics-based discrimination

– WSJ calls forth Suzanne Somers to critique Obamacare and fails

We Don’t Need No Education 

– Five Ways Student Debt Resistance is Taking Off 

Health, Hunger and Homelessness

– Five billion dollars will be cut from food stamps this Friday as stimulus expires

– “The Pentagon’s cutting-edge research agency hopes to use electrical brain implants to treat a variety of mental conditions.”

– Growing up poor changes young brains

– Aside from the garbage editorializing that indicates how pathetic this reporter is, subways in NYC are overrun with homeless folk

– “Human breast milk naturally contains a protein called Tenascin C that neutralizes HIV and, in most cases, prevents it from being passed from mother to child.”

– “Five years after the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released its landmark recommendations to remedy the public health, environment, animal welfare and rural community problems caused by industrial food animal production, a new analysis finds that the Administration and Congress have acted “regressively” in policymaking on industrial food animal system issues.”

The War on Women

– The most shocking restrictions of women’s rights around the globe

– A federal judge has blocked part of Texas’ new abortion law

– Kenyans angry that rapists were told to cut grass as punishment

Planet Earth

– Bill McKibben: “Will Obama ever stand up to the oil industry or just keep bending?”

– Climate change calamity is already upon us

– Scientist Paul Mayewski on climate change and what scares him the most

– Without the Amazon, what would happen?

– “A wide range of things you eat, drink, touch and inhale on a daily basis could be interfering with your endocrine system, warns a new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).”

– NOAA helps produce a children’s show on ocean awareness

– Six dead in Germany as storm continues to go through Europe

– “A Brazilian judge has ordered that work on the controversial Belo Monte dam in the Amazon be halted on grounds that environmental commitments were not met, the court said Monday.”

– “The Gulf of Mexico, stung by the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history in 2010 and then overshadowed by the onshore fracking boom, is on the verge of its biggest supply surge ever, adding to the American oil renaissance.”

Mixed Bag

– So much for a Yelp revenge

– No one cares about Latino or Hispanic label, except in Texas

– Twitter was lifeline of information during Hurricane Sandy

– Penn State gives 26 people around $60 million over Sandusky

– “NASA said Monday it is on track to launch its Maven probe to Mars next month to find out why the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere.”

Break Time

– Immigrant Song