There are international legal precedents that already point towards a consensus that democracy is above the law[*]. The only thing that the city needs to do to apply this new tax is to organize (and win) a referendum.

I'd like to see a global organization pushing forward this view. I.e. legitimizing full democracy at a local, municipal, or smaller level. And at the same time to push for a Commons-based society, i.e. instead of "affordable housing", collective ownership of housing, utilities, energy, farms, etc. so that all the life's necessities are provided for free, and people voluntarily work in maintaining such services for the community. Also partner with people who prefer social relationships based on trade rather than based on giving, to advance with / for them an agenda of free social services plus unconditional basic income (UBI).

I'm working along this lines at "Living Commonly .org , please PM or contact me there if you are interested :)

[*] and we'll likely see a few more in the upcoming months: the illegal secessionist / independence referendums for the Iraqi Kurdistan (September), a part of Spanish Catalonia (October 1st), and Scotland (some time later)

question chipschap: did the touchpad and the screen brightness keys work out of the box on Linux Mint? or you had to fix it?

I quickly tested asus UX305CA on GNU/Linux, with Mint, Ubuntu and Kubuntu and had issues with this two components. None of them worked on Ubuntu, the brightness keys did work on one of them, Mint if I recall properly, and the trackpad didn't work in any of them. Otherwise it felt quite fast, and google thinks there are drivers available for the trackpad, so I just bought one for myself and I'm waiting for it to arrive.

The main reasons why I choose this laptop are: 1) fanless (I hate the noise and they are always the first thing to break, unless the mechanical HD breaks first, but this is not an issue anymore with SSDd), 2) long battery life 3) serviceable battery (not as good as replaceable, but at least is supposed to be easy to disassemble, unlike the mac books, where everything is glued and unreachable) 4) light

My SO has been using one on windows for more than two months and she consistently gets +10h battery life on windows with the "battery savings mode" enabled (otherwise, with the default settings, she was getting less than half of that). She uses it mostly for taking courses on gaming (unity, blender...) and is very happy with it. Yes, some programs take a bit more time to load than on a more capable desktop, but once loaded they perform fine. At least for doing simple things, she expects to have to switch to a desktop computer when in the future she wants to work on more complex projects, but the laptop is ideal for taking it to classes and meeting with friends to discuss projects.

Windows has stability issues with the intel graphics drivers, but don't bother enough to spend time looking for solutions (yet). Other than that it doesn't have other issues, besides all the issues that windows always have :)

I recommend this report

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/26/the_new_pentagon_papers_wikileaks_releases

They have also covered the war extensively on the past, so to the Democracy Now audience already knew many reasons why the USA is loosing the war. For example allegedly +10% of the military budget is spent bribing the insurgence for "security protection" paid by USA contractors. An the USA pays many time the prices of basic items (like fuel) that acquires through the same contractors. Yo don't need conspiracy theories or leaks: just follow the money and you'll see that is on the interest of capital that wars last as long as possible, the same way it's in the capital's interest to make medications that make your diseases chronic, rather than curing you.

Well, of course they do, but the real question is, is it really worth it to buy insurance and smash the phone? or is more profitable, easier faster and less risky to just sell the phone and buy a new one?

P.S. I recommend the book Freakonomics which talks about economic incentives of corruption, crime, cheating, .... Maybe in the next book they'll write about cheating to insurance companies and I'll know the answer to my question :)

I've been following the situation in Haiti via Democracy now and they have covered this topic extensively on their daily newscast. They even flew some reporters there for a few days. I highly recommend to subscribe to their tv/radio podcast (is free). I also recommend to read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" for a good background on disaster relief operations.

My conclusion is that the whole violence situation has been fabricated. For example, the prison escape that you mention, they had an interview with a local civil rights activist who said that about 80% of the prisoners where in prison without charges. Political prisoners of the coup regime are being held for years without trial. According to him the case could be made that the mass escape had actually been a good thing.

Everybody interviewed during the first days were saying that there was no insecurity problem. There was no need for massive deployment of soldiers. The guy in charge of the main hospital n Port-au-Prince was even complaining that the arrival of troops had interfered with the functioning of the hospital.

Tons of help has been shipped there but almost none has arrived to the people. Lots of volunteer nurses and doctors have arrived but they don't have access to any electricity or medical supplies. They are doing tabletotop amputations with tools acquired at the local hardware store and without anesthesia. Most of which unnecessary as they would have been avoided if they had had antibiotics on the first place.

The USA controls the airport and are preventing some of the planes with aid to land. Tons of aid has arrived but is just staying at the airport, or being delivered to ... the USA embassy. The little aid that is being delivered is being handed out by armed personnel who have been told the people out there are dangerous and they throw them food from a distance. People are getting really pissed of at being treated like dogs and/or very frustrated of not receiving any help.

It's the perfect recipe for violence and has been perfectly executed according to a plan. And it is starting to work: there are the first reports of insecurity at night, women being raped. Communities are just asking for proper lightening at night in their camps site to prevent this from happening. Nobody wants guns.

Local communities had all the experience required to get organized, and all the means except petrol. If they had just been handed some gas they would have used their own trucks to get water for the victims and relocate the people to less hit areas.

As usual when there is a natural disaster the disaster capitalists have stepped in to size the opportunity to steal as much as possible from the local people (they call it privatization). It is crucial that local communities are prevented from self organizing. There is also the issue of preventing any good PR from "hostile" regimes: cuba had already 400 doctors in the ground when the earthquake struck, and they sent more help immediately, Venezuela also sent aid, so did China while the USA was still "planning". In their military effort to prevent good PR for other governments they missed a golden opportunity to create good PR for the USA: the Guantanamo base is just around the corner and they could have sent emergency aid from there during the first hours. They didn't.

There is also the issue of racism. With Haiti being the first and only independent state created by a slave revolution, it is even more pressing to keep them poor, otherwise they would set a bad precedent. God forbid people from realizing that a bunch of negroes are capable of running a country. The USA has recently done two cups against a democratically elected government in Haiti (both times led by Jean-Bertrand Aristide) and it has had very good reasons to do so.

Here is a sample of democracy now reporting:

Security “Red Zones” in Haiti Preventing Large Aid Groups from Effectively Distributing Aid

As thousands of well-equipped US soldiers pour into Haiti, there is an increasing concern about the militarization of the country, supporting the soldiers and not the people. Or, as one doctor put it, “people need gauze, not guns.” We take a look at aid distribution in Haiti and the effect on Haitians fighting to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake. [includes rush transcript]

Are you new here? Either you are with us or against us when it comes to MS terrorist business.

Please make up your mind quickly or we will preemptively send you to Gitmo.

I don't know about the other four countries but last summer I was in Iran and USA brands were ubiquitous. For example all the restaurants had either Coca Cola or Pepsi which seem to be the locals' favorite drink. "Bottled in Iran with license from Coca Cola" read the cans, in plain English. And they were less than 50c!

I was clearly on the minority when drinking the local traditional soda, dugh, made with yogurt and mint.

Some locals take offense if asked about the embargo. It hurts their national feelings. "we've been under embargo for generations and we know how to get around it".

Friends who hadn't been to Iran for several years missed the old traditional Persian cola brands. Apparently Persicola and Zam Zam tasted much better than the USA brands. But locals didn't remember when the change had happened.

Similarly local olive and olive oil brands had been replaced with European counterparts. Last news I hear from Iran is that some clerics are getting around the import tariffs and illegally importing cheap Malaysian fruits which are driving local farmers to bankruptcy.

A few years ago the supreme leader abolished an article in the constitution which prevented the government from privatizing core state services. Now Ahmadinejad is eliminating the subsidies for bread, electricity, and gas.

Recently the Iranian government sounds more like the Bush neocon administration than a revolutionary socialist one.

I know that the embargo of Internet services are different to get around from the embargo of physical goods, but many people in Iran already use a VPN and browse with a foreign IP, to get pass the Iranian censorship.