news from 16jun2012

• It's Bloomsday! June 16, 2012: 108 years after the fictional date that Joyce's Ulysses was supposed to take place, in Dublin. That's special this year because in Europe, it's the first time that copyright laws have expired and the work can be shared freely, without copyright infringement... hahahahaahaha To me it shows how outdated copyright laws are, in practice.
• Robert Zoellick, chief at the World Bank talks big picture, global economy, 13 minutes, on marketplace 14jun12

• While the right in Congress want to charge the US Attorney General with contempt for not answering their witch-hunt charges over Bush's failed Fast&Furious, the Senate wants something done about intelligence leaks in the Executive. Jon Stewart even talked about it wednesday night (in 5 minutes). Are we sacrificing our values or are people just talking too much? This was actually set into law at the end of last year with that disastrous National Defense Authorization Act. Now they complain leaks of what that act allowed makes Obama look 'good' at killing people with drones. But we talk too much about it. Now Venezuela say they have drones. If we don't know it's happening how can we tell them to stop it? Of course, this is why wikileaks and Bradley Manning and any other whistleblower is so important, upholding what used to be the rights of an informed citizenry and a free press, Firedoglake asks people today to call their congresscritter and demand there be press exemptions from such demogoguery at squelching 'talk'.
• Obama's executive order for children of immigrants is a good step. Should have been done years ago.
• great talk on this saturday's Up w/ chris hayes talking about how we get ripped off and they get paid out and call it beneficial because they hedged it, if it should go down. The following two clips (for a total of 26 minutes in 3 clips there) gives a great rundown on why all this matters... it comes down to how much confidence do we have in the self-proclaimed elites who run things for their profit from gambling with other people's money? They lose sometimes. Do we want them to take down the world economy just because they screw up sometimes? Without further regulation? This is a central reason why I don't want to 'buy into' the system as it runs. The next hour they talk about how lousy the press is and include Amy Goodman....