British Press Freedom Under Threat

A chilling inquisition aimed at The Guardian over publishing leaks highlights how, unlike the United States, Britain has no constitutional guarantee of a free press.

British Press Freedom Under Threat - NYTimes.com: "Britain has a long tradition of a free, inquisitive press. That freedom, so essential to democratic accountability, is being challenged by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron...." (read more at link above)

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Glass Houses, Obama Administration Leakers

Hullabaloo: "Rockefeller charged in his letter that the most “damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of intelligence agencies.”"(read more at the link above)

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Bodies on the Border (video)

Bodies on the Border - Video - NYTimes.com: Bodies on the Border by Marc Silver (August 17th, 2013)

Forensics experts in Arizona struggle to identify the bodies of migrants who perished while attempting to cross illicitly from Mexico into the United States.


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Surviving, the post-employment economy

Surviving the post-employment economy - Opinion - Al Jazeera English: "We live in the tunnel at the end of the light. If you are 35 or younger - and quite often, older - the advice of the old economy does not apply to you. You live in the post-employment economy, where corporations have decided not to pay people. Profits are still high. The money is still there. But not for you. You will work without a raise, benefits, or job security. Survival is now a laudable aspiration."

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Sandy Island found not to exist in Pacific Ocean (video)

 Pacific's Sandy Island found not to exist – video | Science | guardian.co.uk: "Geologists from the University of Sydney have discovered that a 26km-wide land mass called Sandy Island that can be seen on charts and maps – including Google Maps - does not in fact exist. An island was thought to exist between Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia, but there is no satellite image of it. Geologist Sabin Zahirovic says it is possible that human error during the process of digitising maps created Sandy Island"

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Ownership Doesn't Make Sense Anymore

In the future, we won’t own things because it won’t make sense to. Why should ideas be any different? (source infra)

World without copyright? Prepare for mind blowing « WordsByNowak:" . . . The success of online cloud media services such as Netflix and Spotify suggest that a growing number of people are not interested in owning movies and music, so long as they have access to them whenever and wherever they want. This makes sense for a lot of reasons: CDs and DVDs take up a lot of space, gather dust and cost a lot (relatively speaking). Why buy them and maintain them if we use them once in a blue moon? I recently wrote a story about how this non-ownership rental model is also gaining currency with the devices we watch that content on. With gadgets evolving and improving so quickly, we don’t want to keep them for very long, which means we could be moving to a “cloud rental” model on actual hardware too. Add in the likelihood that we won’t own the fast-developing robot cars when they arrive and a clearer picture starts to emerge. . ."

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Carville says Obama has 'deep' problems (video)

Carville: Obama has 'deep' problems | TheHill: "“I think we can stop putting the nails in the coffin here. We can admit that there’s some real, deep, fundamental problems with this president. But I think we’re throwing the dirt here too soon,” Carville said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”"

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Rahm Emanuel says 'Heads are spinning' over ObamaCare website (video)

Rahm Emanuel: 'Heads are spinning' over ObamaCare website | TheHill: “I have all the confidence and I — and all the assurance that heads are rolling and they're spinning right now to fix the problem," Emanuel told CNN.

 Heads are spinning? Heads are rolling?

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Body found hanging, after 8 years

News of the weird from France --

Man's body found hanging after eight years in flat near Paris - FRANCE 24: " . . . . The man, aged around 40 when he died, had not been heard from since 2005 when he filed a labour complaint against his firing. He had cut ties with his family years before and neighbours believed he had returned to Cambodia. His apartment was eventually sold after he failed to make mortgage payments and to cover building charges. A police source said the new owner discovered the body when he arrived to inspect the apartment and entered with the aid of a locksmith. "The body was in perfect condition, as was the apartment," the source said. Investigators were unable to explain why the body had not decomposed. . . ."

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Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, Official Secrets Act

Glenn Greenwald and the Future of Leaks: "He says a big reason he left The Guardian, the paper that made him world-famous, is the Official Secrets Act, a 19th-century British law that grants the government powerful tools to protect secrets. The law had a “public interest” defense for leakers until 1989, when Parliament struck it from the statute." (read more at link above)

Obviously, the Official Secrets Act should be amended or repealed.

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US drone strikes, war crimes

US drone strikes could be classed as war crimes, says Amnesty International | World news | The Guardian: "US officials responsible for the secret CIA drone campaign against suspected terrorists in Pakistan may have committed war crimes and should stand trial, a report by a leading human rights group warns. Amnesty International has highlighted the case of a grandmother who was killed while she was picking vegetables and other incidents which could have broken international laws designed to protect civilians. The report is issued in conjunction with an investigation by Human Rights Watch detailing missile attacks in Yemen which the group believes could contravene the laws of armed conflict, international human rights law and Barack Obama's own guidelines on drones. The reports are being published while Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister, is in Washington. Sharif has promised to tell Obama that the drone strikes – which have caused outrage in Pakistan – must end. . . ."

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Dollars Without Privilege

Imagining the Dollar Without Its Privilege - NYTimes.com:  On Tuesday, Britain became the first country to sign an agreement with China allowing investors in London to get a license that will allow them to invest directly in shares and bonds in renminbi. It’s a long way from there to the kind of open capital market China would need for its currency to become a reserve asset. . . . (read more at link above)

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