news with yang

[BlaneckW]

http://rt.com/news/154168-brazil-internet-freedom-law-conference/

Brazil passes ‘internet constitution’

"Ahead of a two-day Net Mundial international conference in Sao Paulo on the future of the Internet, Brazil's Senate has unanimously adopted a bill which guarantees online privacy of Brazilian users and enshrines equal access to the global network.

The bill known as the "Internet constitution" or Marco Civil was first introduced in the wake of the NSA spying scandal and has now been signed into law by President Dilma Rousseff - one of the primary targets of the US intelligence apparatus, as leaks by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed.

Rousseff presented the law on Wednesday at a global Net Mundial Internet conference in Sao Paulo.

The bill promotes freedom of information, making service providers not liable for content published by their users, but instead forcing the companies to obey court orders to remove any offensive material.

The principle of neutrality, calling on providers to grant equal access to service without charging higher rates for greater bandwidth use is also promoted. The legislation also limits the gathering and use of metadata on Internet users in Brazil.

The final version bill states that companies collecting data on Brazilian accounts must obey Brazilian data protection laws even if the data is collected and stored on servers abroad. "

[BlaneckW]

http://notrickszone.com/2014/04/25/german-interview-of-patrick-moore-greenpeace-living-in-an-absolute-dream-world-poverty-is-biggest-threat/

Poverty Is the Biggest Threat to the Environment

"Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore today is one of the environmental organization’s harshest critics.

Moore tells readers how things have run amok at the activist organization, claiming it has changed from one that “not only cared about the environment, but also about people” to one that has since transformed to today’s radical organization “that characterizes people fundamentally as enemies of the earth.”

"Poor people today cannot afford to treat wastewater, to clean the air, to reforest, etc. Poverty is a problem for man and for the environment. Fighting poverty helps both. There’s no contradiction.”

Moore says he left Greenpeace because the organization opted to follow a course based on confrontation and anti-development. He also believes that the organization’s popularity is because the environmental movement has indeed become a religion.

Two million children die annually from diseases related to Vitamin A-deficiencies. If I take the precautionary principle seriously, then I can only demand that golden rice be immediately approved. If Vitamin A deficiency were a disease like malaria and someone discovered a medicine to heal the disease, it would not be long before people would use it.”

The whole interview is well worth reading and it hopefully it will appear soon in English."

[BlaneckW]

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/alaskan-polar-bears-threatened-too-much-spring-ice-0

"Five meters of ice - about 16 feet thick - is threatening the survival of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region along Alaska's Arctic coast, according to Dr. Susan J. Crockford, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia who has studied polar bears for most of her 35-year career.

"Prompted by reports of the heaviest sea ice conditions on the East Coast 'in decades' and news that ice on the Great Lakes is, for mid-April, the worst it's been since records began, I took a close look at the ice thickness charts for the Arctic," Crockford noted in her Polar Bear Science blog on April 18th.

"The male seals arrive in the area in early spring to set up breeding territories. They drill a hole through the ice to maintain breathing holes close to the shore. But there's a limit. They can drill through two meters (about seven feet) of ice. But too much beyond that and they're in trouble."

"When those bears come out of their dens in the spring, they need to find seals right away because they will have gone six months without eating," Crockford said. "If there are no seals, they have to go further out, where there's thinner ice."

[BlaneckW]

http://rt.com/news/154756-spanish-police-protest/

“The Spanish government is using the full force of the law to suffocate legitimate peaceful protest”

"The Spanish government and police are using legislation and force to snuff out peaceful public protest across the crisis-stricken Iberian nation, claims human rights group Amnesty International in a new report.

"The Spanish government is using the full force of the law to suffocate legitimate peaceful protest," said Jezerca Tigani, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Program Director for the non-profit organization.

"The police have repeatedly used batons and rubber bullets against demonstrators, injuring and maiming protestors and bystanders alike. The police act with complete impunity, while peaceful demonstrators and leaders of social movements are continually harassed, stigmatized, beaten, sometimes arrested to face criminal charges, imprisonment and fines."

According to government figures, there were more than 4,300 protests in Madrid alone last year, with thousands more across the country. Police statistics show that less than 1 percent of those turned violent.

Yet, Amnesty says, police use "excessive force in many cases, including inappropriate use and misuse of anti-riot gear, and when carrying out arrests."

But Amnesty says that it is not only during demonstrations themselves that police exceed their remit. The report outlines instances of incessant identity checks, harassment, and humiliation of female protesters as tactics used to dissuade demonstrators from attending in the future.


"They want to destroy the leadership of the movements, and so are seeking out the spokespeople. I keep participating in demonstrations and other activities, because I've been told we'd all pay the fine jointly; but you can see that there is fear. Young people who have no job cannot afford to pay the fines," Maria, one organizer who refused to give her name, told Amnesty.

The government is planning a reform of its penal code, which could see fines for demonstrations increase manifold.

"Spanish authorities have restricted the enjoyment of human rights in Spain, in particular the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and freedom of expression, in a way which is inconsistent with international human rights standards and with Spain's obligations under international law," sums up the report."

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm correct in assuming these are articles?  If you'd put up a bolded headline at the top of these stories, it would be clearer what was copy/paste and what was your commentary.  In quotes is good too, unless there's a YouTube/Daily motion video to embed with it - that's why I didn't put the last Star Wars story in quotes.

[BlaneckW]

None of it is my commentary.  I would do commentary in a separate post, but I don't usually consider it necessary to comment on an article.  I will put them in quotes and add some titles if that helps you.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okydoke.  Just sayin'.

[BlaneckW]

Have you considered cutting bread and milk out of your diet, BUncle?

[Buster's Uncle]

Do those make me stupid?  -Because I don't get it.

[BlaneckW]

Do those make me stupid?  -Because I don't get it.

They do, they may also make you tired and may not be very good for you.

Grain can have immune system and inflammatory responses in the gut and brain.

if you are a sugar eater you should try to replace it with sweet fruits, though chocolate has health benefits.  Drop things like Soda and Cereal off of your diet altogether.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - you're serious.  There are a lot of RL factors in the mix, as well as running this place asking for more from me lately.  I appreciate your concern.

[BlaneckW]

Oh - you're serious.  There are a lot of RL factors in the mix, as well as running this place asking for more from me lately.  I appreciate your concern.

My dietary suggestions would be easy for you to implement.  Things like fat and meat have been demonized but they aren't bad for you and won't make you fat.  A diet of carbohydrates would do so much more easily.  If you like nuts, you might try eating those for your energy.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm a pretty dedicated carnivore, so it's not that.  Speaking of which, supper; brb.

[BlaneckW]

Kiev Fascists Begins Army Offensive
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-02/ukraine-begins-army-offensive-regain-slavyansk-separatists-retaliate-shoot-down-heli

After a few days of extended verbal foreplay, it was only a matter of time before Ukraine finally snapped and resumed a military operation to regain the lost cities in the east, especially once the warmongering IMF made it explicitly clear that should Ukraine lose control of pro-Russian controlled cities the $17 billion bailout package would be lost too. Sure enough, early this morning Kiev launched a military operation to regain control of the pro-Russian separatist stronghold of Slovyansk, overrunning numerous roadblocks and surrounding the city, officials said, but meeting stiff resistance from militants who managed to shoot down at least one helicopter.

Arsen Avakov said militant fighters fought back against the advancing Ukrainian units with heavy weaponry, including grenade launchers and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. There was no immediate sign that Ukraine's forces were moving further into the city.

Separatist leaders claimed to have shot down four Ukrainian helicopters in the clash, Russian state media reported, but Ukraine's defense ministry said two helicopters had been shot down and that two soldiers were killed and several more wounded. Ukraine's state security service confirmed only one Mi-24 chopper was taken down, with one pilot killed and the other taken captive. A spokeswoman for the separatists said one person was killed and another wounded on their side.

    Putin's spokesman heaped blame on the Ukrainian government, which took power two months ago after pro-Western protests forced the Kremlin-backed elected president to flee to Russia. Noting that Putin had warned before that any "punitive operation" would be a "criminal act", Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that this was what had now happened at Slaviansk, where separatists seeking independence or annexation by Moscow are holding seven foreign European military observers.

    "While Russia is making efforts to de-escalate and settle the conflict, the Kiev regime has turned to firing on civilian towns with military aircraft and has begun a punitive operation, effectively destroying the last hope of survival for the Geneva accord," he said, referring to a deal on April 17 signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

    Putin's spokesman heaped blame on the Ukrainian government, which took power two months ago after pro-Western protests forced the Kremlin-backed elected president to flee to Russia. Noting that Putin had warned before that any "punitive operation" would be a "criminal act", Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that this was what had now happened at Slaviansk, where separatists seeking independence or annexation by Moscow are holding seven foreign European military observers.

    Saying Putin had sent an envoy, Vladimir Lukin, to southeast Ukraine to negotiate their release, Peskov said that Lukin had not been heard from since the Ukrainian operation began.

    "While Russia is making efforts to de-escalate and settle the conflict, the Kiev regime has turned to firing on civilian towns with military aircraft and has begun a punitive operation, effectively destroying the last hope of survival for the Geneva accord," he said, referring to a deal on April 17 signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

Armed groups seeking union with Russia have seized a number of government buildings in towns in eastern Ukraine. The action in Slaviansk appeared to mark the heaviest military response by Kiev since it tightened a cordon around the city a week ago.

"They wanted to carry out some small-scale tactical operations just to scare the people," said a militant manning a checkpoint leading to the army-held airfield. "But so far things have not worked out the way they wanted."

The irony of course is that East Ukraine is for all intents and purposes lost to Kiev, and with the IMF ultimatum hanging over the acting government's head, a civil was is now all but inevitable, a war which will most certainly end up involving both Russia and NATO eventually:

    "Shells came into my garden," said one local man, Gennady. "They say that they have come to defend us. But who from?" he said of the Ukrainian forces. "Civilians must stop them."  On the town's southern outskirts, eight Ukrainian armored personnel carriers cut off the road but faced a cordon two deep of local residents shouting at them to go home

[Buster's Uncle]

Your sense of humor isn't the easiest thing in the world to understand...