Daily Archives: 20. Juli 2015


20.07.2015 - 22:40 [ Yahoo! ]

Grooveshark Co-Founder Found Dead at 28

Josh Greenberg, co-founder and CTO of legally embattled music-streaming site Grooveshark, was found dead Sunday evening in his Gainesville, Fla., home, according to police.

20.07.2015 - 22:22 [ Truthout ]

Syriza‘s Hapless and Sad Betrayal of Hope Follows Long Greek Left Tradition

Since the end of WWII, the Greek left has been betrayed by its own leaders and other various populist/progressive politicians on more occasions than one cares to remember. But let‘s review the history, anyway, as the story of surrender and betrayal by Greece‘s left political leadership seems to have no end in sight, latest courtesy of Alexis Tsipras‘ Syriza-led government, whose first six months in power has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster both for the Greek economy and the nation‘s future prospects as it has agreed to a humiliating rescue package on a new three-year European bailout agreement.

20.07.2015 - 21:38 [ Human Rights Watch ]

Israel: Security Forces Abuse Palestinian Children

Israeli security forces have used unnecessary force to arrest or detain Palestinian children as young as 11. Security forces have choked children, thrown stun grenades at them, beaten them in custody, threatened and interrogated them without the presence of parents or lawyers, and failed to let their parents know their whereabouts.

Human Rights Watch interviewed four boys, ages 11, 12, and 15, from different neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, and a 14-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy from elsewhere in the West Bank, whom Israeli forces arrested or detained in separate incidents for allegedly throwing rocks from March to December 2014. They and their parents gave accounts of abuses during arrest and interrogation that caused the children pain, fear, and ongoing anxiety. Human Rights Watch has seen photos and marks on the body of one of the children, consistent with the accounts he and his parents had given; the children’s accounts were also consistent with each other.

20.07.2015 - 21:09 [ TruthDig ]

Neil Young Donates $100K to Vermont’s GMO Lawsuit

Singer Neil Young recently pledged $100,000 to Vermont’s lawsuit to label all food products that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Young also appealed to other wealthy donors to back the state’s prolonged legal battle with food industry representatives.

In 2014, the musician boycotted Starbucks over the coffee chain’s involvement in the lawsuit.

20.07.2015 - 21:08 [ Radio Utopie ]

Neil Young: „GOODBYE STARBUCKS!!!“

Am 9. November 2014 veröffentlichte Neil Young auf Neil Young Times einen Aufruf mit dem Untertitel „Ich habe mir jeden Tag meinen Latte geholt, aber gestern war es mein letzter“, den Starbucks-Konzern zu boykottieren und dessen Filialien nicht mehr zu besuchen.

Da dieser Kaffeeriese seit 2012 in Deutschland aktiv ist, ist die Botschaft auch hier durchaus von Interesse, da Firmen nur über finanzielle Verluste zu treffen sind – eine Sprache, die sie verstehen.

20.07.2015 - 14:21 [ Kurier ]

UNO: Grünes Licht für Ende der Iran-Sanktionen

Nach der Einigung im Atomstreit stimmte der Sicherheitsrat am Montag in New York einstimmig für die Abschaffung der Strafmaßnahmen. Das Waffenembargo bleibt aber vorerst bestehen. Tatsächlich aufgehoben werden die Sanktionen erst, wenn Teheran seinen Verpflichtungen im Atomabkommen nachgekommen ist und die IAEO das bestätigt.

20.07.2015 - 14:00 [ Süddeutsche ]

BND soll Mitarbeiter angezeigt haben – Verbindungen nach Russland?

Der Vorsitzende des NSA-Untersuchungsausschusses, Patrick Sensburg (CDU), sagte der Welt, er und seine Kollegen müssten „sehr gründlich überlegen, ob man den Untersuchungsauftrag des Ausschusses auf den russischen Auslandsgeheimdienst erweitert“. Hintergrund seien Hinweise zu den Veröffentlichungen des im russischen Exil lebenden früheren US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiters Edward Snowden, der ungeklärte Ursprung neuer Wikileaks-Enthüllungen sowie der Bericht zum Rücktritt von Kiesewetter.

20.07.2015 - 13:55 [ Techdirt ]

Washington Post Observes Encryption War 2.0 For Several Months, Learns Absolutely Nothing

Last October — following Apple and Google‘s announce of encryption-by-default for iOS and Android devices — was greeted with law enforcement panic, spearheaded by FBI director James Comey, who has yet to find the perfect dead child to force these companies‘ hands.

The Washington Post editorial board found Comey‘s diatribes super-effective! It published a post calling for some sort of law enforcement-only, magical hole in Apple and Google‘s encryption.

20.07.2015 - 13:54 [ Middle East Monitor ]

Israel and Greece sign security cooperation agreement

Ya‘alon praised the present military and security cooperation between Israel and Greece, which he says is expressed in the joint military exercises conducted by the armies of the two countries.

The Israeli air force held joint military exercises with its Greek counterpart last April that took place in Greek airspace and lasted for several days.

20.07.2015 - 13:52 [ Techdirt ]

EU Proposes To Reform Corporate Sovereignty Slightly; US Think Tank Goes Into Panic Mode

Back in May, we wrote about the European Commission‘s sharing „concerns“ about corporate sovereignty chapters in trade agreements. The Commissioner responsible for trade, Cecilia Malmström, even went so far as to say that the present investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system was „not fit for purpose in the 21st century.“ But rather than removing something that is unnecessary between two economic blocs with highly-developed and fair legal systems, she instead proposed to „reform“ it, and to start working towards an international investment court.

20.07.2015 - 11:25 [ Radio Utopie ]

Rundfunkgebühren für Computer ohne TV- oder Radio-Karte in Österreich vom Tisch

Am 30.Juni 2015 entschied der Verwaltungsgerichtshof (VwGH) in Österreich über die Einzelklage einer Notebook-Besitzer, dass ein Notebook oder Laptop kein Rundfunkempfangsgerät darstellt, wenn es nicht über Rundfunkempfangsmodule (TV-Karte oder Radiokarte) verfügt.

20.07.2015 - 08:28 [ Mixcloud ]

04.2012 by meistsonnig

(5.April 12) Yeah, a long time since Socialist was the jingle of John Peel‘s Music and a fresh voice announced a broad variety of fantastic music.
Well, this is meistsonnig with some of the music he listened to in the past couple of weeks just right in time for a Good Friday. Who cares ?
I tagged it crossgenre, with a kind of electropopsong at position 4. Later it gets steadily darker, and two masters of overtone singing complete the set.

20.07.2015 - 07:58 [ Luftpost ]

Die USA versuchen die wegen der Milzbranderreger verängstigten Deutschen zu beruhigen

In Weilerbach, wo die US-Streitkräfte für eine Milliarde Dollars ein neues US-Hospital bauen, erklärte die Verbandsbürgermeisterin Anja Pfeiffer, die einheimische Bevölkerung erwarte Antworten auf alle Fragen zu den betreffenden Geschehnissen.
`Besonders im Hinblick auf das neue US-Krankenhaus in Weilerbach erwarten die Menschen eine vollständige Aufklärung des Vorkommnisses.´

20.07.2015 - 07:44 [ Wikipedia ]

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks CBE (* 9. Juli 1933 in London) ist ein britischer Neurologe und Schriftsteller und bekannt durch seine populärwissenschaftlichen Bücher, in denen er komplexe Krankheitsbilder anhand von Fallbeispielen in zwanglos-anekdotischem Stil allgemeinverständlich beschreibt. Sein Ziel ist es, neben der modernen Wissenschaft die betreffenden Menschen nicht aus dem Blick zu verlieren, hinter jeder Erkrankung das individuelle Schicksal zu erkennen und die eigene Normalität in Frage zu stellen.
Gemeinsam mit dem russischen Neuropsychologen Alexander R. Lurija greift er auf die medizinisch-literarische Tradition des 19. Jahrhunderts zurück, die bei der wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung den kranken Menschen in den Mittelpunkt stellte. Lurija nannte dies eine „romantische“ Wissenschaft.

20.07.2015 - 06:12 [ Netzpolitik ]

BND-Mann informierte Ex-NSAUA-Obmann Kiesewetter über Infiltration des Reservistenverbandes

Zum 1. März trat der damalige CDU/CSU-Obmann im NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss, Roderich Kiesewetter, von seinem Posten zurück. Die Welt berichtet nun unter Berufung auf einen BND-Mitarbeiter, dies sei geschehen, weil ein Mitarbeiter des BND ihm im Oktober 2014 mitgeteilt habe, „dass zwei enge Vertraute im Reservistenverband auf unterer Stufe für den BND tätig seien.“

Die Information an sich über die BND-Leute im Reservistenverband ist bis dahin nichts Neues, schon im Februar hatte Kiesewetter, seines Zeichens Vorsitzender des Reservistenverbandes der Bundeswehr, solches bestätigt. Neu ist, dass die Welt behauptet, er sei explizit von einem BND-Mann benachrichtigt worden. Es wird außerdem ein Bezug zu Russland hergestellt:

20.07.2015 - 05:55 [ therealnews.com/ ]

Lapavitsas Calls for Exit as the Only Strategy for Greek People

Why this capitulation? Why have we come to this after all the enthusiasm of six months ago? After all the, the surge of grassroots support in this country and in Europe? Why, why this? The answer is clear to me. And it has to do with the wrong strategy, that was good enough to win elections, to triumph over elections, but it proved disastrous in government. Wrong strategy that has collapsed. That‘s the reason for it. What is this wrong strategy? It‘s very simple, expressed openly time and time again. We will achieve radical change in Greece, radical change in Europe, and we will do it within the Eurozone. That was the strategy. Well, that‘s not possible, period. That‘s not possible. That‘s the lesson of the last few months. This is simply not possible.

20.07.2015 - 05:52 [ the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens ]

Greece: Operation `mutation of the Left´ has started!

Obviously, the European bureaufascists studied SYRIZA´s internal political `geography´ very carefully, and one of the reasons that they insisted on catastrophic measures, fully aligned with the German leadership, was to remove the „annoying barrier“ of the Left platform, according to the plan.

20.07.2015 - 05:52 [ Keep Talking Greece ]

EU’s last terrormongering card: if Grexit “the sound of army tanks would be heard in the street of Athens”

An “EU official” from the known species of “anonymous sources”, apparently well-skilled in scare-, terror- and fear mongering-tactics told Greek daily Kathimerini that in case of a Grexit:

“If this plan did ever materialize, the sound of army tanks would be heard in the street of Athens”

20.07.2015 - 05:40 [ Keep Talking Greece ]

Germany sinks in “self-righteousness” – What if it would switch places with Greece?

Germany sinks in “self-righteousness” and raises the Teacher finger to Europe: we are right, we are successful, we work hard and we don’t spend money. What Germany does not mention in its Euro-policies is that Germany is the only winner from the strict austerity of the other European folks. German Heile Welt (Idyllic World) concept in a Euro-Europe that falls apart.

20.07.2015 - 05:34 [ Jacobin ]

UK Politics and Global Capitalism

The problem with the struggle for rights today is that citizens’ rights and citizenship tend to be associated with the constitution and with the state, which would be fine if the national state remained the major institution in society.
But with growing financialization and the increasing power of transnational capital in an ever more integrated world market, demands should be for rights against financial capital rather than vis-à-vis the national state, because the territorial state is losing its territorial and temporal sovereignty — just think of TTIP, TPP, and, worse yet, TiSA.
When I was writing my book The Future of the Capitalist State, I was thinking in ideal-typical terms and aiming to identify what kind of economic policy and welfare regime would work for a knowledge-based economy. The latter notion still provided the hegemonic economic imaginary at the time. What we actually got was not the knowledge-based economy but finance-dominated accumulation.

20.07.2015 - 04:40 [ NOW. ]

What the Iran nuclear deal holds for the region

(14.Juli) While the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran will certainly help Hezbollah, it won’t happen rapidly, says Fahs. “These agreements require time to be enforced and even more time to show their effects. Hezbollah can claim the victory now, but they will have a long-term problem with adjusting the ideology to the new situation: for a long time they have advertised their anti-US stance; for decades they chanted ‘Death to America!’ It will be very difficult to keep up with the fast changes in Tehran.”

20.07.2015 - 04:11 [ South Asian Media ]

India, Israel start to see new enemies from within

(16.Juli) The supremacism of these ethno-nationalists goes with a loathing of dissenters, who seem to be undermining collective unity and purpose. Regev has described Israel’s culture scene as dominated by “arrogant, hypocritical, scheming, ungrateful” people.
Indeed, the most striking aspect of the right-wing upsurge in India and Israel is mob fury, sanctioned by the new ruling class, against anyone who can be labelled, plausibly or not, liberal, leftist or secularist.

20.07.2015 - 04:02 [ RT ]

Protestors take to streets of Kiev to denounce high utility bills

Around 2,000 rallied in the center of the Ukrainian capital on Sunday to protest high housing and public utilities prices, which have skyrocketed 88 percent since last year. (…)
The participants carried Ukrainian flags and banners reading: `No to rising tariffs,´ “Increase pensions,” “Where are the reforms?” and “We are dying of hunger.”
The rally’s organizers said they wanted to draw the authorities’ attention to the importance of preserving social guarantees for pensioners and public sector employees.
Utility rates, including water and heating prices, have grown three-fold in Ukraine due to a rise in the price of gas since April 1, 2015.
Electricity prices are being increased in accordance with a five-stage program, due to be completed by March 1, 2017.

20.07.2015 - 03:47 [ PLOS ]

The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era

The consolidation of the scientific publishing industry has been the topic of much debate within and outside the scientific community, especially in relation to major publishers’ high profit margins. However, the share of scientific output published in the journals of these major publishers, as well as its evolution over time and across various disciplines, has not yet been analyzed. This paper provides such analysis, based on 45 million documents indexed in the Web of Science over the period 1973-2013. It shows that in both natural and medical sciences (NMS) and social sciences and humanities (SSH), Reed-Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and Taylor & Francis increased their share of the published output, especially since the advent of the digital era (mid-1990s). Combined, the top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published in 2013. Disciplines of the social sciences have the highest level of concentration (70% of papers from the top five publishers), while the humanities have remained relatively independent (20% from top five publishers). NMS disciplines are in between, mainly because of the strength of their scientific societies, such as the ACS in chemistry or APS in physics. The paper also examines the migration of journals between small and big publishing houses and explores the effect of publisher change on citation impact. It concludes with a discussion on the economics of scholarly publishing.

20.07.2015 - 03:45 [ PappasPost ]

Germans Demonstrate in 14 Cities Against Merkel’s Tough Stance on Greece

(17 Juli) `Sovereign countries´ policies will continue to be dictated by the disciplinarian, quasi-fascist German state – something that has to be opposed at all costs. We have seen the results of unrestricted German hegemony,´ he says.
People frustrated with the treatment of Greece by eurozone leaders have also taken to social media to protest the measures from across Europe.

20.07.2015 - 03:43 [ Natural News ]

Academic oligarchy: Majority of science publishing is controlled by just six companies

The flow of science in this modern age is largely controlled by just six corporate publishing groups, which by calculated design have been gobbling up the journal market since at least the 1970s. And a new study out of Canada reveals that this mass consolidation of publishing power is, to a large extent, skewing what passes as scientific progress.

20.07.2015 - 03:36 [ Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg ]

öffentliche Demontage

Ausstellungsdauer: 23.07.2015 – 25.07.2015
mit:
Jens Becker, Mathias Bertram, Micha Brendel, Joe Dilworth, Juliane Duda,
Jürgen Eisenacher, Martin Frese, Thomas Gust, Johannes Jansen, MK Kaehne,
Robert Lippok, Ronald Lippok, Jutta Scheiner, Frank Siewert, Igor Tatschke,
Tippi Tillvind, Joerg Waehner, Majla Zeneli

öffentliche Demontage
(Die Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg schließt ihre Räume in der Greifswalder Straße 218.)

20.07.2015 - 03:32 [ German Foreign Policy ]

Eine neue Ära in Mittelost

Wie der ECFR vorschlägt, sollten `die größten EU-Staaten´ und Brüssel jetzt `eine ehrgeizige Initiative zur regionalen Sicherheit´ vorantreiben, um gemeinsam mit Iran und Saudi-Arabien „eine Sicherheitsarchitektur“ zu formen, „an der sämtliche regionalen Akteure teilhaben können“.[6] Der Abgleich zwischen Riad und Teheran, der dazu nötig ist, lässt sich formal womöglich als Maßnahme zur Herstellung von Frieden etwa in Syrien oder im Jemen gestalten – in Ländern also, in denen die westliche Machtpolitik seit Jahren Konflikte befeuert und Kriege geschürt hat.(…)
Zum anderen bietet ein schnelles Vorgehen die Chance, einen Vorsprung gegenüber der US-Konkurrenz aufzubauen, die zur Zeit noch nicht in Iran tätig werden kann, weil der Kongress in Washington noch an den Sanktionen festhält. Ein etwaiger ökonomischer Vorsprung Deutschlands und der EU könnte in Verbindung mit dem US-Schwenk nach Ostasien [10] wiederum dazu beitragen, Berlin einen exklusiven Einfluss in Teheran und eine führende Rolle bei der Neugestaltung des Mittleren Ostens zu sichern.

20.07.2015 - 03:31 [ Jewschool ]

Chicago’s Rebel Rabbi: An Interview with Brant Rosen

Tzedek Chicago is an avowedly non-Zionist congregation rooted in core values of spiritual openness, anti-racism, universalism and solidarity with the oppressed. It is a conscious attempt to create a Jewish spiritual community that celebrates Judaism as a global diaspora-based spiritual peoplehood. I will be serving as its rabbi part time while continuing to work in my full time capacity at AFSC.

20.07.2015 - 03:21 [ Robert Parry / Consortiumnews ]

Seeking War to the End of the World

For instance, Robert’s brother Frederick works at the American Enterprise Institute, which has long benefited from the largesse of the Military-Industrial Complex, and his wife Kimberly runs her own think tank called the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).