The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

twosnoos

Poetry slams began across the Atlantic. In 1981, a factory worker in Chicago grew tired of the dull, pretentious atmosphere of traditional recitals and introduced a competitive element to poetry performances occupying strict time-slots. The legacy of that innovation has been Def Poetry, a high-profile national competition that is screened every year in the US on the HBO television network.

The district is known for standing tough on its dress code. Earlier this year, a seventh-grader in the district was sent home for wearing black skinny pants. His parents chose to home-school him.

On its Web site, the district defends its code, saying "students who dress and groom themselves neatly, and in an acceptable and appropriate manner, are more likely to become constructive members of the society in which we live."

jwz

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems...The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said.

michaelkvance

Using a male pseudonym when you’re a woman isn’t anything new. Writers have been doing it for centuries. George Eliot, George Sand, Isak Dinesen...Why did they do it? To have their work accepted, because women weren’t supposed to be writers. Their work had a much better chance if their audience didn’t have to get over initial skepticism that a woman could write at all, much less do it well.

Since then, we’ve had feminism...And yet apparently we haven’t gotten past those 19th century stigmas.

The evidence was right there in front of me.

I never wanted to be an activist, or to fight the world. I’m not interested in clawing my way up a ladder to a glass ceiling...I just want to earn a living and be respected for my skills. I want my kids to be happy and have access to what they need. I want them to go to university and have good opportunities in life.

"...regularly used photos of naked women to illustrate her posts...occasionally essentialized women -”all the women” loved Jerry McGuire, Chartland wrote -while conveniently placing herself outside of the gender categories she set for them...used a photograph of a man silencing a woman with his hand as the logo...When a few commenters noted that the photographed failed to create an “inviting community for women,” Chartrand replied: “Photography is very subjective. You see a woman being terrorized. I see a man helping a woman stay quiet so he can save her life.”

No one appreciates them, they bitch and whine, and they feel they aren’t taken seriously in the business world.

Before I have my comment section filled up with nasty remarks about how I hate women and my email bombarded with insulted letters telling me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, let me reassure you that I fully understand the hardships of both being a mother and working from home. I respect work-at-home mothers.

Many blogs run by women, managed by women and read by women seem to have an unspoken “all men beware” mantra. They’re full of posts and comments that leave me the distinct impression that these women wield their feminism like a spiked mace sword.

It’s scary.

Woe to the man that steps foot in those online communities of female bloggers with children.

On the few occasions that I’ve risked my balls to post a comment on a mommy blog, I noticed my comments were skipped over as if they (I?) didn’t even exist. Sometimes my comments get a sharp, snappy, “piss off” kind of remark in reply. Sometimes I’m absolutely bashed, and I have a hard time figuring out why.

I don’t understand that. Yes, I understand catering to a female/mother audience and forming a blog community. I understand forming an online personality. I understand discussing the difficulties of working while raising children and maintaining a household.

I don’t understand making male readers and participants feel unwelcome. I know plenty of mothers who blog and who come off as… well, bloggers who are mothers. They don’t perpetuate the stereotype of a frazzle Mom trying to work in a household of chaos. They don’t try to shave the balls of all males who dare to visit the blog. They don’t discount opinions from men. Everyone is equal.

Chartrand claims to have testicles in order to avoid being lumped in with all those whining, stereotypical mommy blogs, and then she has the nerve to insist all the lowly female bloggers let her into their club? Chartrand, of all people, knows that everyone is not equal on the Web...she found her work perpetually discounted, insulted, and ignored by men. Men (and people who assume masculine identities) get to have the rest of the Internet. Women get their own tiny little part of it, where women’s voices are actually valued. In those spaces, comments about how these women “wield their feminism like a spiked mace” from the one man valiant enough to “risk his balls” to wade into the comments are not welcome. Obviously.

( She created a male space that—while welcoming to female commenters and clients—is, let’s be honest, more welcoming to men. But now that she’s a Web presence of her own, complete with clients, employees, and substantial readership, does she really have to keep perpetuating the guy thing? )

Many friends and associates are shocked, shocked, I say, to find out that U.S. border guards acted abusively. Some people are so shocked that they are positive that Dr. Watts must have done something to deserve it. Many people base this shock on how often they've crossed the border with nothing but good experiences at the hands of U.S. border guards.

"America leads the world in shock. Unfortunately, America does not lead the world in decoding the causes of shock." -- Gil Scott Heron

Some people, such as delux_vivens, have pointed out that authority abuses by border guards are standard operating procedure for some time now, and most days there are no legal defense funds and letter writing campaigns getting set up for the victims. Knees have jerked, and people are rushing to assure everyone that race has nothing to do with this. Some people have even looked no further than noting that Mr. Watts is white.

...What happened to Dr. Watts happens every single day...Most of time, when it happens most of the people who are making all this fuss about it happening to Dr. Watts don't say boo...This legitimately raises the question of whether people think the problem is that it happened, or that it happened to someone was supposed to have the privilege of not having it happen.

...we live in a country with a history of maintaining a system of white privilege, and part of how that system is maintained is that white people speak up when oppression encroaches our privilege, but allow silence to be the voice of complicity when oppression is oppressing people in order to maintain our privilege. When living under an oppressive system, one can actively or passively support it; but one can only oppose it actively.

...That doesn't mean it's time to beat one's chest and express how utterly guilty we feel because of it, nor does it mean it's time to beat one's chest and express how one refuses to feel guilty about it. This isn't about guilt, it's about recognizing how the game's been set up in order to change the game.

....if all we do now is write letters about Dr. Watts and donate to Dr. Watts legal defense fund, we are part of the problem....the message we're sending is that we only care when it happens to someone white and/or famous...if you've been blogging or commenting or donating or letter writing about Dr. Watts but were conspicuously silent about Prof. Gates, or Amidou Dialo, or Their Name Is Legion; if you've written about the incident but not the daily occurrence...this is your opportunity to choose whether you will be a part of the problem or the solution.

One last thing: Not one word of what I've written is something that hasn't been said by someone else, most likely a person of color.

The Ministry of Defence has closed its UFO investigation unit....In a statement, the MoD said: "The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life.

"However, in over 50 years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.

"The MoD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources."

An MoD spokesman added: "Our resources are focused on the top priority - the frontline in Afghanistan. Any legitimate threat to the UK's airspace will spotted by our 24/7 radar checks and dealt with by RAF fighter aircraft."

Houston Becomes Largest City to Elect Openly Gay Mayor