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Submission + - UK to Claim A Million Sq Km of Antarctica (techluver.com)

Submitted by
JagsLive
JagsLive writes: "UK to Claim A Million Sq Km of Antarctica: The claim is one of five territorial requests planned by the country ahead of a May 2009 deadline and covers a vast area of the seabed around British Antarctica near the south pole, a spokeswoman said. "We are one of many coastal states who are submitting various claims," she told Reuters. She further said the four other claims would be for Atlantic seabed territory around South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, around Ascension Island, near the Bay of Biscay in the south-west Atlantic, and in the Hatton-Rockall basin off Scotland's coast. The claim to extend British sovereignty in Antarctica could spark disputes with South American nations such as Argentina and Chile, who are likely to make overlapping claims in the region. It also conflicts with the spirit of 1959 Antarctic Treaty, to which Britain is a signatory, which prevents all exploitation of oil gas and minerals, other than for scientific research. ( http://techluver.com/2007/10/17/uk-to-claim-a-million-sq-km-of-antarctica/ )"
Editorial

Submission + - Of Laffer, Deficits, and Poverty (functionalisminaction.com)

Submitted by
IConrad01
IConrad01 writes: "Functionalism In Action: Of Laffer, Deficits, and Poverty:

Every once in a while, you see something that just plain makes your haunches bunch up in disgust. Apparently, this happens more to conservatives than it does to liberal, but I digress. Today, I should like to go over something that makes this happen to me every time I encounter it.
[...]

That's right — when the income tax was instituted, it's highest percentage was 7%. And within five years, it went to 77%This becomes all the more disturbing when we consider that not too long ago, someone took the time and effort to calculate the effective "flat tax" rate for America. And they found that this rate was ~40%:

Is anyone else out there wishing that a basic comprehension of 'economics' was actually something you had to have before you graduated High School? It would certainly change the way we operate in this country..."
United States

Submission + - Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV' (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by
hogga
hogga writes: "The Bush administration provided fake videos to news stations. For example; an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items."
Republicans

Submission + - Jimmy Carter says Bush allows torture

Submitted by cryfreedomlove
cryfreedomlove writes: Former US President Jimmy Carter is lending his reputation to the growing story that the USA, under the leadership of George W. Bush, is torturing prisoners in violation of international law. Carter is adamant that the torture is happening and that Bush is a liar. It is interesting that, because we live in a free society (for now), that this story is gaining traction in the press and now from a former President who has made a career in the past decade out of lending his personal integrity to causes of social justice around the world. This is happening despite the fact that the Bush machine is trying to urgently keep a lid on this story. Their chilling quote is: "Our interrogation methods are tough, safe, necessary and legal.".
United States

Submission + - Japanese Stealth Fighter: Return of the Zero (inventorspot.com)

Submitted by
reporter
reporter writes: "According to a news article by the Associated Press, Tokyo has begun developing an indigenous stealth jet-fighter that will be deployed in 2016. Mitsubishi, the prime contractor, has already developed a full-scale model, of which several pictures have been accidentally leaked to the press. The model is named "Mitsubishi ATD-X". A laboratory of the French government has evaluated the "stealthy-ness" of ATD-X.

Will ATD-X achieve air superiority over the F-22, which Washington refuses to sell to Tokyo?"
The Internet

Submission + - More censorship clauses found at Verizon and AT&am (savetheinternet.com)

Submitted by
Mediacitizen
Mediacitizen writes: "As more censorship language is uncovered in service agreements at Verizon and AT&T, the media policy group Free Press has just called for congressional hearings into the matter. Their question to Congress: If the phone company can't tell you what to say on a phone call, why should it be able to tell you what to say in a text message, an e-mail, or anywhere else?"
Privacy

Submission + - UK increases surveillance

Submitted by speardane
speardane writes: The BBC reports that the Uk government plans to require the logging of all landline and phoneline calls to be stored for a year.

This has been signed off under previous legislation, effectively by passing debate in parliament. The justification for the change is to bring it into line with EU legislation.
The Courts

Submission + - IRS Suffers Staggering Defeat

Submitted by Free Man
Free Man writes: From WeThePeopleFoundation.org:
" Around noon on Monday, September 17th, a Las Vegas federal jury returned its verdict refusing to convict nine defendants of any of the 161 federal tax crimes they had been charged with. The charges included income tax evasion, willful failure to file and conspiracy to evade taxes.
The four-month trial centered around the family businesses of Robert Kahre who paid numerous workers for their labor with circulating gold and silver U.S. coins, and did not report the wages. The payments took place over several years, allegedly totaling at least $114 million dollars.
On September 20, 2007, three days after the federal trial's dramatic conclusion, the Las Vegas Review Journal, reportedly under a degree of public pressure, ran its first (and last) story about the outcome of the trial. To this day, with exception of the single article by the Review Journal, no major media entity has published a news story regarding the outcome of this important federal criminal tax case.
The censorship of this important news story is, unfortunately, not unexpected given the continuing, worldwide onslaught against the U.S. "dollar" — specifically the Federal Reserve variety, and the ever growing numbers of Federal Reserve Notes required to trade for an actual ounce of silver, gold, oil, or for that matter, anything.
In short, this failed prosecution has coalesced and exposed truths our Government desperately needs to hide from the People: the truth about our money, the truth about our (privately-owned) central bank, and the truth about the fraudulent nature of the operation and enforcement of the federal income tax system.
Read the April, 2005 DOJ press release announcing the prosecution.
Read the 9/20 story by the Review Journal about the trial.
"
To read more go to http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2007-09-30.htm
United States

Submission + - Canadians and there war on drugs

Submitted by polishspartan68
polishspartan68 writes: Canada decides the party is over. With the new drug policy and new strategy that Canada is about to announce some Canadans say the party is over. Health Minister Tony Clement is set to announce the conservative governments new plan and strategy that will help crack down on the users that think the Liberal Bill aimed at decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana was passed already. This increased in the amount of users smoking more boldly and in larger amounts. This new strategy is to clear up any smoke left in the air and set the people strainght by telling them that small amounts of dope can and will get u in trouble.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Michigan State Gvt. Begins Partial Shutdown

Submitted by iknowcss
iknowcss writes: As lawmakers fail to reach agreement on recent tax reform bills, the Michigan state government has come to a partial halt in operations. From the New York Times article:

Michigan began to shut down much of its government early Monday after lawmakers failed to resolve a $1.75 billion budget deficit before the new fiscal year started.
Privacy

Submission + - One-Click-Submission to German terror watchlist (www.bka.de) 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As the German daily Der Tagesspiegel reported today, the German federal criminal agency has a new strategy to catch terrorists: they put up an informational web page about the terrorist group "militante Gruppe" ("militant group") and now look at their web logs. If someone clicks on that link, his IP address will be investigated and he will be put on the terror watchlist. It would be utter madness of us to ask you to click on THIS LINK to put a billion people on their list so we are not even going to mention the URL. In case you find it, do not click on it! Thank you.
Privacy

Submission + - EU collection of racial and ethnical data.

Submitted by
TheP4st
TheP4st writes: "The European Parliament adopted an own-initiative report on the application of the Racial Equality Directive of 2000 with 500 votes in favour, 46 against and 24 abstentions. MEPs believe more needs to be done to implement the directive in full, notably on issues such as legal redress, the burden of proof in racial discrimination cases, awareness-raising, data collection and the independence of anti-discrimination bodies. Directive 2000/43/EC known as the Racial Equality Directive, was due to be implemented by all Member States by 19 July 2003. The directive was revolutionary at the time of its adoption because it did not limit protection against discrimination to the area of employment but also covers social security, education and access to housing. However, according to the draft report of the Civil Liberties Committee, authored by Kathalijne Buitenweg (Greens/EFA, NL), questions remain as to the directive's real impact. Not all Member States have fully implemented it in their national law. Not many cases are brought to court, which the rapporteur believes may be due to the length and complexity of the procedures. Proving discrimination is notoriously difficult, and the directive's rules on the burden of proof have not been properly applied in some Member States. Data on race and ethnicity — a useful tool, despite concerns The collecting of sensitive data, which could be needed to establish indirect discrimination or to assess the extent of discrimination in society, continues to raise concerns and fears in many Member States. The committee "underlines that additional guarantees should be provided for data on race and ethnicity, as these data could be diverted and used for other purposes in the justice and home affairs field" but it does believe such data — for example, statistics on racist crime and on employment — are needed as a tool to combat discrimination."
Slashback

Submission + - The Deterioration of a Grand Old Institution (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by
grrlscientist
grrlscientist writes: "This country is spending billions of dollars to bomb the innocents in Iraq, but we can't even spare a fraction of that cost to fix our premier museum and zoo, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo??

From the story: Picture this: holding street corner bake sales to raise enough funds to protect this country's national treasures while we mortgage our future to bomb one country that is 6,000 miles away because we are afraid of the citizens in yet another, even more distant, country that we believe to be our friends."
Biotech

Submission + - How to profit out of the climate change (climatecash.com) 1

Submitted by
bigpepi
bigpepi writes: "As I was searching for resources, that show what the economic impacts of global warming will be, I found the site www.climatecash.com The site contains articles, a message board and book reviews. I will visit the site in future regular, as this is a really interesting topic."

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