Buoyancy gained/buoyancy lost in struggle to be free

Notes 42


A reader writes on Assange interview on 60 Minutes
EH
The shoe is on the other foot. Citizens hardly have the right to use the word privacy any longer, there are camera's, phone-taps, e-mail-taps and heaven knows what and we have to explain ourselves very humbly at every turn, all under the motto "if you are not a terrorist, you have got nothing to hide" (thank you David). So if our e-mails etc. ought to be readily accessible for them, so that they can better regulate us, how much more should their e-mails be readily accessible for us.

We pay their salaries, we are their bosses, we are supposed to be responsible for everything they do because we chose them. But we cannot take responsibility for something that is not known to us. No CEO would take responsibility for a company he has no full control over, and for full control you need full insight.

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Schumer on top of this latest addiction
Sun Jan 30
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two drugs that produce a "meth-like" high and are being sold under the guise of "bath salts" would be banned as federally controlled substances under a bill unveiled on Sunday by Senator Charles Schumer.

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Why is Schumer so far behind on criminalizing tobacco and companies’ license to kill?

Nicotine study opens path for anti-smoking drug
AFP/File – Scientists have pinpointed a source of nicotine craving in the brain, opening up a new path towards drug …
by Marlowe Hood Marlowe Hood – Sun Jan 30
PARIS (AFP) – Scientists have pinpointed a source of nicotine craving in the brain, opening up a new path towards drug treatments to help smokers kick their habit, according to a study released Sunday.
Tobacco kills more than five million people every year and accounts for nearly one-in-10 adult deaths, 90 percent of them due to lung cancer.

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No responsibility here for unequal distribution of oil revenues. We’ve got our own wealth distribution problems. But we do set the table for how the game is played. House rules.

Face of Mideast unrest: young and hungry for jobs
Brian Murphy, Associated Press – Sun Jan 30
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Just days before fleeing Tunisia, the embattled leader went on national television to promise 300,000 new jobs over two years.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak did much the same Saturday as riots gripped Cairo and other cities: offering more economic opportunities in a country where half the people live on less than $2 a day.
The pledges-under-siege have something else in common: an acknowledgment that the unprecedented anger on Arab streets is at its core a long-brewing rage against decades of economic imbalances that have rewarded the political elite and left many others on the margins.

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U.S money buys different rights in different countries. We are watching it all played out right in front of us these days. In some countries like Gaza, it doesn’t buy anything from Hamas. In West Bank, it buys settlements for Israel from Abbas.
Clinton meets with Haiti presidential candidates
AFP
By BRADLEY KLAPPER and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Bradley Klapper And Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press – 15 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The United States has no plans to halt aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in spite of a crisis over who will be the nation's next leader but does insist that the president's chosen successor be dropped from the race, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.