Sunday, April 29, 2012

CEOs Make 380x As Much As The Average Worker



Watch the video to get a more in-depth view on this topic!

Oh, Religion —If It Only Had A Brain! | Addicting Info

 According to a study cited in the Los Angeles Times, “thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane.” Analytical thinking and religion aren’t quite mutually exclusive, but when religious people exercise their brains, they tend to reach some conclusions that are antithetical to what their religions teach. A prominent example is in their attitudes toward women.
Former President Jimmy Carter is a thinking person of faith. In 2009, he left the Southern Baptist Church because of its refusal to ordain women and its strictures that women be subservient to their husbands. In leaving, he made these statements:
“At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities….

“The truth is that male religious leaders have had—and still have—an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.”
The abuses perpetrated on women around the world are horrific, but we don’t need to look any further than the United States to see the persecution of women by religious forces. Let’s consider the ten most religious states in America. They are Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma. These are some of the leaders in initiating anti-woman legislation—like Utah’s law to criminally prosecute some women for miscarriages, or Louisiana and Oklahoma’s attempts to pass personhood amendments that declare a fertilized egg to be a citizen with full rights, or Georgia’s effort to pass the cynically named “Protect Life Act” that would give hospitals the right to refuse treatment to a woman whose life is in danger—if it involves an emergency abortion. Georgia, by the way, ranks eleventh in the nation in its number of forcible rapes.
It doesn’t take much brainpower to see why there’s a link between religion and the mistreatment of women. Randall Bailey, of the Interdenominational Theological Center, goes even further than Carter. A thinking person has to see the logic behind this statement:
“We think we can use abusive texts in a sanitized way to prevent violence… If we continue to sidestep those issues, we are furthering abuse not only on those we want to help, but also on ourselves.”
That cuts right to the heart of the problem. The histories and holy books of the three major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are filled with God-sanctioned violence toward and control of women. All three religions have come from the same source: Abraham. The great founding father, Abraham, married his half-sister, Sarah, and then prostituted her to the Pharaoh of Egypt in order to save his own skin. He is the role model for every subsequent generation of believers in all three faiths. The bottom line is that women are seen as tools for men to use for their own purposes.
There has been a lot of emphasis in the media on the role of the Christian Right in political attempts to forcibly control the behavior of women, but the Right is the easy target. The truth is that the language of all the major religions victimizes and subjugates females. Randall Bailey is right; trying to use abusive texts in a sanitized way doesn’t come close to addressing the problem. The words shape attitudes and behavior. You can paint the walls of a building pure white and make it look quite holy and presentable, but when rot eats at the foundation, there is no salvaging the whole. It must come down.
Randall Bailey continues:
“What is this notion we have in religion that there is a spirituality that can be anti-human rights? What can even condone that as an option?”



Oh, Religion —If It Only Had A Brain! | Addicting Info

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

National Database Planned to Combat Cellphone Theft - NYTimes.com


National Database Planned to Combat Cellphone Theft
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: April 9, 2012

WASHINGTON — The soaring popularity of smartphones has produced an unwelcome, if predictable, side effect: an epidemic of smartphone thefts.

Now, police departments, the Federal Communications Commission and the wireless phone industry have devised a plan to fight back: the creation of a central database to track stolen phones and prevent them from being used again.

On Tuesday, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the F.C.C., is scheduled to join police chiefs from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland and representatives of a wireless industry trade group to announce the new plan, which will allow wireless providers to disable and block further use of a device once it is reported stolen.

The groups are also working with members of Congress to write legislation that would make it a federal crime to tamper with a phone’s unique identifiers in an attempt to evade the blocking process.

“It’s just too easy for a thief to steal a phone and sell it on the black market,” Mr. Genachowski said. “This program will make it a lot harder to do that. And the police departments we are working with tell us that it will significantly deter this kind of theft.”

Over the last year, roughly one out of three robberies nationwide have involved the theft of a cellphone, according to an F.C.C. summary of the new plan. The thefts have grown most rapidly in urban areas; cellphones are stolen in more than 40 percent of all robberies in New York City and 38 percent of robberies in the District of Columbia, according to the groups.

Read More At The New York Times Here

National Database Planned to Combat Cellphone Theft - NYTimes.com

Racist Rant Gets John Derbyshire Fired From National Review

Monday, April 9, 2012

National Review Fires John Derbyshire, Writer Who Penned Racist Screed

National Review Fires John Derbyshire, Writer Who Penned Racist Screed



John Derbyshire Fired
The conservative magazine National Review has fired John Derbyshire, a prominent columnist who provoked outrage Friday with a column published in the webzine Taki's Magazine, which warned white people to avoid "large concentrations of blacks," among other nuggets of racially tinged advice.
Derbyshire has a history of controversywhen it comes to race — he even proclaimed himself a racist, though a "tolerant" one, in a 2003 interview — but he had managed to avoid any real firestorms. His latest piece, though, proved to be a step too far. Written in response to articles about the "talk" black parents were having with their children about the dangers of racism in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Derbyshire wrote about some of the offensive advice he had allegedly given his own children. Just a few of the examples:
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
Read more by clicking on the link above for the Huffington Post article!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Deadly Racism: Kenneth Chamberlain Tased, Shot By Cops


White Plains Mayor Apologizes for Police Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain

The mayor of White Plains, New York, has finally apologized to the family of a 68-year-old veteran fatally shot by police in his own home. Kenneth Chamberlain, an African-American former marine, was killed after police responded to a false alert from his medical pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. That was on November 19th. On Friday, more than four months later, White Plains Mayor Tom Roach issued a statement offering "condolences" to Chamberlain’s family. The move came one day after Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., publicly criticized Roach and other city officials for staying silent about the case for so long. Chamberlain’s killing is expected to go before a grand jury in the coming weeks.

Liz Trotta: Black Anchors Covering Trayvon Martin ‘Can Only Hurt Their Credibility’ With Personal Stories

Many conservatives are upset– and some rightfully so– with the way some liberals in the media have approached the Trayvon Martincase. Liz Trotta added her voice to the outrage on the expected fronts– Al Sharpton covering the story, the tendency to want to “fry the guy” before an arrest– but added that she also opposed seeing black anchors and reporters share experiences of being profiled or discriminated against, because it “can only hurt their credibility. 
“It was really ugly to watch because of the bias and virtual conviction,” Trotta told anchor Gregg Jarrett of the coverage. She crowned MSNBC “the worst offender,” but objected also to NBC News using “my favorite anchorman of all time” Lester Holt to cover the story with Tamron Hall, where they “had to agree to telling their experiences as a black person, how the cops would follow them, how security and police would follow them.” “Why do you involve your black reporters and anchors in this kind of framework that can only hurt their credibility?” she asked of NBC executives. It isn’t exactly a demand for less diversity in the media, but more of a desire to neuter the potential of that diversity before it is ever tapped, because, one assumes from her argument, white anchors never share personal experiences on television over any case, ever. She seems to legitimately not see any value in hearing prominent people of color describe experiences only people of color can have. She added a scoff at Al Sharpton– there’s always Al Sharpton, with his ‘unique perspective.’”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/liz-trotta-black-anchors-covering-trayvon-martin-can-only-hurt-their-credibility-with-personal-stories/

Black Policeman Shot 28 Times by 4 Chicago Cops and Lived


s much of the country follows the Trayvon Martin case, activists in Chicago are hoping to bring some of that attention to Howard Morgan, a former Chicago police officer who was shot 28 times by white officers -- and lived to tell his side of the story.
Morgan was off-duty as a detective for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad when he was pulled over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street on Feb 21, 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. While both police and Morgan agree on that much, what happened next is a mystery.
According to police, Morgan opened fire with his service weapon when officers tried to arrest him, which caused them to shoot him 28 times. His family, however, very much doubts those claims.
“Four white officers and one black Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad police man with his weapon on him — around the corner from our home — and he just decided to go crazy? No. That’s ludicrous,” Morgan's wife, Rosalind Morgan, told the Sun-Times.
She was not the only person to doubt CPD's side of the story. A Change.org petitionsigned by more than 2,600 people called for all charges against Morgan to be dropped, and now Occupy Chicago is getting involved.
"After being left for dead, he survived and was then charged with attempted murder of the four white officers who brutalized him," Occupy wrote on their website, adding that Morgan was found not guilty on three counts, including discharging his weapon. The same jury that cleared him of opening fire on the officers, however, deadlocked on a charge of attempted murder -- and another jury found him guilty in January.
That jury was not allowed to hear that Morgan had been acquitted of the other