Is the Facebook IPO Pointless?
Check out this interesting article in the Financial Times by John Gapper:
“Facebook ought to ditch its public offering“
According to Gapper, who has read the prospectus, Facebook is flush with cash. It is, he says, “a veritable cash machine.”
Gapper says Zuckerberg should call the whole thing off:
“Its sole tangible purpose for the IPO proceeds is to meet a tax obligation that will be triggered by going public.”
Read the full article here.
Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism
“By Rebecca Searles
“Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.
“The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.
“I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.
“Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study’s lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.”
Read the full article here.
Bluegrass Blessing
Watch this brief video of the Josh Williams Band until at least the 1-minute and 30-second mark and you will see something unbelievable … and beautiful.
This may be how the gods express their appreciation for a great performance.
“A Universe from Nothing”
Richard Dawkins calls Lawrence Krauss “the Woody Allen of cosmology.”
Here’s a video of Krauss talking about how the Universe emerged out of nothing, and how abundant nothing really is.
This video is long (over and hour) and challenging, especially if you are attached to a traditional religious viewpoint. I watched it because I was curious to know why over a million people (1,080,352 to be exact) would watch one YouTube video. I’m glad I did, because I was totally entranced by the portions of it I actually understood.
Goodbye to The Union.
January 17, 2012 (4:28 AM)
Today much of the online content of The Union has gone behind a paywall, even yesterday’s news and op-eds (although I notice that the publisher’s editorial from yesterday is still available online in full for free).
Because I’ve stopped reading The Union regularly anyway, I’ll be one of those who will pass on this new opportunity to pay for online content.
I’ll still buy a hardcopy from time-to-time when we go out to breakfast, another ritual we enjoy less often these days as the budget gets tighter (maybe The Union should have a special discount for seniors in these hard times?).
By the way, most of the local restaurants where we have breakfast — like South Pine and TJs — have a couple of copies of The Union lying about for diners to peruse while they eat.
The free market is a wonderful thing to behold.
How GOP Candidates’ Economic Plans “Screw the Middle Class”
The details are in the first four minutes of this video:
Professor Juan Cole on the Iranian Scientist Murders
From Professor Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog:
The countries most eager to stop the Iranian program are Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia. So they are the ones with motive.
The means, a sticky bomb, is commonly used by radical militias in Iraq.
The opportunity belonged to an Iranian who could move freely and had his papers in order. Of course, such a person could be recruited as an agent by almost any espionage organization. An MEK double agent inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps would be useful.
If you put this all together, you can come to a speculation. The circumstantial evidence would point to a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK or People’s Jihadis) terrorist organization. The MEK is known to have been involved in espionage on the Iranian nuclear program, and it wants to overthrow the current government in favor of a Marxist-Islamic regime, working with Israeli intelligence. Mossad does targeted assassinations, as in Dubai. The MEK has a history of pulling off bombings in Iran. One, in 1981, killed over 80 members of the revolution’s political elite, including the prime minister. The MEK is based in part in Iraq and so could acquire sticky bombs easily. It is known to have an operational alliance with Israeli and American intelligence. And that this bombing occurred on an anniversary of a previous one also suggests a terrorist group for which the date is symbolic.
I underline that this conclusion is circumstantial and purely the result of an intellectual exercise, i.e., of speculation. I’m not making an accusation and have no proof of this conclusion. But it is more likely the solution to the mystery than that Thai ninjas or Argentine gauchos did the deed.
Journalist Richard Silverstein says he has a reliable Israeli source who affirms that the bombings are a joint production of Mossad and the MEK. But since his source in anonymous, it is hard for others to judge the solidness of this source.
Anyway, the scientists so far killed have not been proven in a court of law to have done anything wrong at all, and so they have been murdered in cold blood for political purposes, which is the definition of terrorism. Western leaders who accuse Iran of being the world’s major purveyor of terrorism (a stupid allegation) would have to, if they were honest and consistent, speak out against these grisly murders in Iran (which also killed innocent bystanders).
Read Professor Cole’s full post here.
National Day of Action Against Citizens United: January 21, 2012
Press Release by Occupy Nevada County:
Saturday, January 21, is the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission, which overturned decades of campaign finance law and allows unlimited corporate funds to flood our election system. On Saturday, a coalition of local groups is hosting a Festival and Teach-In in Nevada City as part of a National Day of Action, in coordination with other events that will take place nationwide. The purpose of these events is to raise awareness and educate people about how corporations dominate the political process and to build momentum for a Constitutional Amendment to abolish “corporate personhood” and overturn the controversial Citizens United ruling.
A poll taken by ABC News/Washington Post revealed that eighty percent of Americans opposed the ruling. Seventy-two percent stated that they would support efforts by Congress to reinstate the restrictions that were stripped away by the decision. California Lawmakers in California have now introduced a resolution calling on Congress to “propose and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.” Similar resolutions have been passed in many city councils, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Albany, Boulder, and New York.
The Festival will begin at 10:30 am, with people of all ages gathering at the Nevada City United Methodist Church for face painting, shadow puppets, music, games, arts and crafts, stories, food, displays, and informal discussion. At 11:30 there will be a colorful parade down Broad Street to Robinson Plaza, where there will be a rally with street theater, speakers, music, song, and dance.
After returning to the church for a finger foods lunch, childcare will be provided during a two-hour Teach-In, in which local speakers will explain the Citizens United decision and its implications, the concept of corporate personhood, and the movement to amend the constitution to abolish corporate personhood and overturn Citizens United. Sharon Delgado will present an interactive workshop on these issues. Jedediah Biagi, Mia Nash, and Lorraine Reich will present a Corporate Personhood Timeline explaining how corporations were gradually given constitutional rights and protections originally designed for human beings. Tom Grundy will present an overview of local and state resolutions that support a constitutional amendment. Discussion will focus on action opportunities, including organizing to pass local resolutions.
Occupy Nevada County initiated the organizing for this event. They were contacted by the national Move to Amend coalition, then formed a Working Group to focus on this issue and called together local groups to form a coalition that includes the Nevada City United Methodist Church and Society Committee, Grass Valley Friends Social Action Committee, Nevada County Democrats, Grandmothers for Peace of Nevada County, Social Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Mountains, the Peace Center of Nevada County, and Earth Justice Ministries. National groups working on this issue include Public Citizen, People for the American Way, and Move to Amend. More information about this event and Occupy Nevada County can be found if you sign up at http://www.occupywallstreetnc.org or email info@occupynevadacounty.org.
More Information:
Occupy Nevada County Website: http://www.occupywallstreetnc.org/
Contact Occupy Nevada County at: info@occupynevadacounty.org
Facebook: Occupy Wall Street NC
Background on
The Movement to Amend the Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood
By Sharon Delgado
Through a gradual process, corporations have been growing in power. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. the FEC created a whole new level of imbalance, because it gave corporations the right to spend unlimited funds out of their treasuries on campaigns to elect candidates of their choice. This money allows corporations to create a megaphone so big that their message drowns out the voices of the people. This decision has been describes as meaning that “money equals speech.”
Several ideas have been put forth as ways to correct this power imbalance and restore democracy to the people. One approach is to pass a constitutional amendment stating clearly that corporations are not persons, and that civil rights are for the protection of actual human beings.
Although it would not be easy, a constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood would not just level the playing field, it would change the playing field altogether. It would prevent corporations from drowning out the voices of the people.
To find out more, go to:
Move to Amend, the movement for a constitutional amendment:
Public Citizen’s Democracy is for People
http://democracyisforpeople.org/
People for the American Way, including background on the Supreme Court Ruling: Citizens United vs. the FEC
http://site.pfaw.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=14581&em_id=12261.0
http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=amend&printer_friendly=1
Resolutions–California and others
U.S. Poll on Citizens United
www.huffingtonpost.com/marge-baker/overturning-citizens-unit_b_1194043.html?ref=politics
People for the American Way
Who’s Systematically Murdering Iranian Nuclear Scientists?
Who’s bumping off Iranian nuclear scientists?
Cui bono? (Who benefits?)
Who, besides the U.S. and Israel, has been obsessing about the purported development of Iranian nuclear weapons?
In January, 2010, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, who “taught neutron physics at Tehran University.” In November, 2010, two separate car bombs exploded within minutes of each other on the same day, one that killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriar and wounded his wife, and the other which wounded another nuclear scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, along with his wife. Then, in July of last year, Darioush Rezaei, 35, was shot dead and his wife was wounded by two gunmen firing from motorcycles outside of their daughter’s kindergarten; Rezaei “did his doctorate in neutron transport – which lies at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in reactors and bombs” and “was a member of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the country’s official atomic energy commission.”
And now, yet another Iranian scientist has been killed. According to Iranian media, a 32-year-old university professor, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, died when an assailant riding on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car, which then detonated and killed him. According to The Washington Post‘s Thomas Erdbrink, a conservative news outlet in Iran reported that the young scientist “was believed to be involved in procuring materials for Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.”
As Greenwald points out, no matter who’s doing it, the murder of civilians on foreign soil meets the definition of terrorism. He quotes Kevin Drum:
“After all, killing civilian scientists and civilian leaders, even if you do it quietly, is unquestionably terrorism. That’s certainly what we’d consider it if Hezbollah fighters tried to kill cabinet undersecretaries and planted bombs at the homes of Los Alamos engineers.”
Greenwald concludes:
If, as is widely assumed, the Israelis are responsible, does that mean that Israel is a Terrorist state, and if U.S. agencies are complicit in some way, does that mean President Obama is a Terrorist, a state sponsor of Terrorism or, at the very least, a supporter of Terrorism?
Read Glenn Greenwald’s full post here.
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