Thursday, February 26th, 2015
Stephan: If we cannot tell ourselves the truth, corrective choices are not possible. Here is the truth about the integrity of America's electoral process. We come in 26th in the world, one step above Mexico. Nothing to be proud of.
Karl Rove, David Koch
Credit: AP/Marion Curtis/Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Photo montage by Salon
Electoral integrity has not improved in the U.S. over the past year, according to a new study. In fact, elections in Mexico now have more integrity than ours, the new survey, based on the observations of some 1,400 international election experts, finds.
Last year
we reported: “A
report [PDF] by researchers at Harvard and the University of Sydney finds the U.S. ranks just 26th on a global index of election integrity. That finding places the U.S. in the category of nations with ‘Moderate’ election integrity, ranking the country one notch above Mexico and one notch below Micronesia, according to the findings tracking elections in 66 countries.”
Well, bad news — of a sort. This year’s new Election Integrity Project report [PDF] is now out. It takes into account the 2014 mid-term elections in the U.S. and more elections in a number of additional countries. It appears the U.S. has fallen a few pegs from it’s […]
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Thursday, February 26th, 2015
Stephan: This is what it looks like in a state when the Theocratic Right comes to power.
Montana Statehouse
Credit: Politico
A Montana Republican made news earlier this month when he introduced a measure that would ban yoga pants, but his GOP colleagues have flooded the legislative session with more than a dozen similarly wacky bills.
GOP lawmakers have proposed bills to establish a uniformed state militia, exempt ammunition manufacturers from taxes to encourage them to make more bullets, allow hunting with silencers, nullify all federal gun laws, and allow concealed weapons to be carried on college campuses, in banks, and anywhere alcohol is served.
Legislators set dress code guidelines in December that reminded women lawmakers to “be sensitive to skirt lengths and necklines,” and one Democrat said a Republican colleague looked at her clothing and told her he was glad to see she was dressed appropriately.
Republicans have also proposed measures that would allow teachers to present “alternative” theories to evolution, and one bill would prohibit the state Board of Education from establishing math and reading standards while another would rescind existing standards.
State […]
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2015
Spencer Ackerman, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: This is the next installment of Spencer Ackerman's extraordinary investigative journalism series, published in what I think is the world's most balanced English language paper, Britain's Guardian. There is something deeply broken in how all too much of American law enforcement operates, as today's installment reveals. Ask yourself, why is this not a major part of the political conversation? And why was this was published in a British newspaper?
‘The real danger in allowing practices like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is the fact that they always creep into other aspects,’ criminologist Tracy Siska told the Guardian.
Credit:Chandler West/Guardian
CHICAGO — The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.
The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.
Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
Keeping arrestees […]
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2015
Stephan: This is what going green looks like in action. There is so much more than wind and solar.
A previous LucidPipe installation, with one of the turbines visible inside the pipe.
Credit: Lucid Energy
There’s a lot of water constantly moving through the municipal pipelines of most major cities. While the water itself is already destined for various uses, why not harness its flow to produce hydroelectric power? Well, that’s exactly what Lucid Energy’s LucidPipe Power System does, and Portland, Oregon has just become the latest city to adopt it.
LucidPipe simply replaces a stretch of existing gravity-fed conventional pipeline, that’s used for transporting potable water. As the water flows through, it spins four 42-inch (107-cm) turbines, each one of which is hooked up to a generator on the outside of the pipe. The presence of the turbines reportedly doesn’t slow the water’s flow rate significantly, so there’s virtually no impact on pipeline efficiency.
The 200-kW Portland system was privately financed by Harbourton Alternative Energy, and its installation was completed late last December. It’s now undergoing reliability […]
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2015
John B. Alexander, Ph.D., Retired Senior Military Officer and Retired Los Alamos National Laboratory - The Huffington Post
Stephan: John Alexander is a retired combat Army colonel who specialized in asymmetrical and nonlethal warfare, and its geopolitics. I chose his piece because I hear and read the most egregious nonsense about this conflict and I think John's military assessment as to how this could be ended is correct. This is an intra-Islamic struggle. And I think conceptually his strategy and tactics would work. But I think the probability of his recommended strategy coming to pass, and an intra-Persian-Arab coalition marshaling a combined force, is essentially zero — for many reasons. John is an old friend, and long time SR reader, and I don't think he would disagree. This is what could be done, not what will be done. What is going on is in many ways the Islamic version of the Protestant Reformation. And just like the Christian power struggle it is going to go on for years, and there will be pain, war, and suffering.
Remember we chose to become embroiled in this.
Credit: BBC News
While ISIS can, and must, be defeated as soon as possible, it is wrong to suggest that America should lead the fight. In fact, it must be done without further U.S. ground units as even the threat of intervention by American troops plays directly into the enemy’s strategy. Psychologically attuned and media savvy, ISIS employs tactics specifically designed to push Western emotional hot-buttons and are used with the sole purpose to draw us further into the fray. Unfortunately, we continually play their game thus exacerbating the situation and assisting in their sophisticated recruitment efforts.
The first step is to acknowledge that this is a religious war, albeit predominantly intra-Islamic in nature. It is most important to note that it is those nations in the region that have the most to lose if ISIS continues its barbaric aggression. Thousands of Muslims have been ruthlessly slaughtered while only a handful of foreigners have died, albeit in very high profile cases. Therefore, this war must be fought by the Islamic nations of the Middle East. Strategically, there is both a long and […]
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