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US: Maine Law Firm Wins Landmark Smart Meter Case

Alan Stone
Skelton, Taintor & Abbott
Wed, 25 May 2011 12:17 UTC
smart meter system
© Unknown
On behalf of several Maine residents, Skelton, Taintor & Abbott secured a landmark decision that will benefit utility customers throughout the country. Alan Stone, chair of the firm's energy law group, successfully convinced the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) to find that it was an unjust and unreasonable practice for Central Maine Power Company (CMP) to refuse to permit residential and small commercial customers to opt-out of CMP's smart meter program.

Skelton, Taintor & Abbott represented a group of customers in a complaint against CMP, and convinced the MPUC to order CMP to offer customers the option of opting out of the smart meter program and retaining their existing electromagnetic meters. Stone proved that because of unresolved concerns relating to health, privacy and cyber security resulting from the installation of wireless meters on their homes, customers should have a choice concerning the installation of those meters. CMP argued vigorously that customers should not be allowed to opt out, and the MPUC found that position to be unjust and unreasonable.

Comment: For more on the dangers of smart meters see:

"Smart" meters' flaws aid hacking

UK: Smart meters in homes could be hacked

Some Cancers Linked To Very Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields, Study Suggests

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Handcuffs

US: Atlanta police arrest around 50 anti-Wall Street protesters


MSNBC
Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:05 UTC
Oakland, Calif., police in riot gear stand guard after firing tear gas, beanbag rounds overnight
Image
© David Goldman/AP
An anti-Wall Street protestor in Atlanta is arrested early Wednesday after refusing to leave a city park.

Police moved into a downtown Atlanta park and arrested around 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters who had been encamped there for about two weeks early Wednesday, while across the country in Oakland, Calif., officers in riot gear stood watch after clashes there with demonstrators overnight.

The scene was calm but tense early Wednesday in Oakland, where only a few dozen stalwart demonstrators remained in the aftermath of skirmishes in front of City Hall. Police deployed five volleys of tear gas in blasts that seemed to intensify with each round over a roughly three-hour stretch of Tuesday evening scuffles, causing some protesters to douse their eyes with water and even vomit, NBC affiliate KNTV in San Francisco reported.

Officers also fired beanbag rounds, clearing out the encampment of protesters in less than an hour.

The site was among numerous camps that have sprung up around the country as protesters rally against what they see as corporate greed and a wide range of other economic issues. The protests have attracted a wide range of people, including college students looking for work and the homeless.
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Chalkboard

A Silicon Valley School That Doesn't Compute

Matt Richtel
The New York Times
Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:08 UTC
The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.

But the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don't mix.
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Family

UK Sent 'Children' to War Zones Despite Government Ban

Ian Drury
Daily Mail
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:09 UTC
Image

Frontline: Four child soldiers have been deployed alongside British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has emerged
The children were sent to 'operational theatres' between April 2008 and March 2010

Campaigners against use of child soldiers demand ministers end 'outdated practice'

Four British child soldiers have been sent to war zones - despite a Government ban, it was revealed last night.

Military chiefs 'inadvertently' sent the youngsters - all under 18 - to fight on the frontline.

It is understood the teenagers were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan where they risked being shot or blown up by homemade bombs.

The revelation sparked outrage because the UK is a signatory to a United Nations pledge not to send children on to battlefields.

The disclosure will also give fresh ammunition to campaigners urging the government to change in the law to end the recruitment of 16 and 17-year-olds into the Armed Forces.
The London-based charity Warchild said: 'Using kids as soldiers constitutes one of the most horrendous breaches of those rights and it is simply and unequivocally wrong.'
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Bad Guys

War and Serfdom: Is This The World We Really Want to Live In?

Eric Blair
Activist Post
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:46 UTC
tank laptop big brother
© Anthony Freda Art
I'm raising three sons in a world that I don't want them to live in. A world of hate, deception, war, injustice, and serfdom. A world that seems out of our control to change. If given a choice, who would want to live in that world?

Yet, we try to live the change that we want to see. We don't have TV, we homeschool our boys, and we've opted out of the system as much as possible. We eat healthy, don't use dangerous household chemicals, and shop almost exclusively at the local level. We grow food, keep chickens, recycle, and live as simply and independently as feasible. And we've taught our children that the principles of peace and love carry more weight than patriotism or any other manufactured beliefs.

But sometimes personal change doesn't seem to be good enough to counteract a powerful establishment intent on having more war and more power.
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Beaker

Mounting Liability on Gulf Coast: Corexit Maker Will Not Get Immunity from Thousands of Personal Injury Claims

Stuart H. Smith
Stuart Smith Blog
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:46 UTC
Spraying chemical dispersant Corexit
© n/a
Spraying chemical dispersant Corexit in the Gulf of Mexico
It's been a brutal few weeks for BP and the other companies involved in last year's Gulf oil spill. BP in particular has been throttled by a barrage of bad news as the date looms for the massive multi-district liability trial to begin in New Orleans.

A highly critical government report released last month blasts BP for egregious safety lapses and reckless cost-cutting efforts - opening the door to hefty punitive-damage awards and greatly increasing the likelihood that criminal charges will be brought. At the same time, two academic studies signaled that BP's liability could be much farther-reaching than the company and its attorneys predicted. One study focuses on the spill-related developmental and reproductive problems of the Gulf's killifish while the other reveals that the oil BP sunk to the seafloor with dispersant isn't breaking down as expected (see links to my previous posts below).

Well, if the defendants thought it couldn't get any worse, they need to think again - and those who thought they were immune from prosecution should go ahead and lawyer up if they haven't already.

You see, up to this point, the bulk of the liability had been tied to the 200 million gallons of oil that BP's Macondo Well spewed into the Gulf. But now, according to an Oct. 3 report from Courthouse News, a federal judge has ruled that the "companies involved in the use of the dispersant Corexit during the Deepwater Horizon spill last year cannot get immunity from what may be hundreds of thousands of personal injury claims."

Comment: While it is welcome news that those damaged by BP's reckless actions with respect to the Gulf spill, the damage is much more catastrophic than is being publicised.

Life on this Earth Just Changed: The North Atlantic Current is Gone

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Bulb

Turning Warren Buffett's quick-fix deficit plan into reality

bnhstacy
Occupy Wall Street
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:11 UTC
Image

Occupy Everything
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only three months and eight days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971... before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
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Che Guevara

Comrades in Cairo send solidarity, and advice, to Occupy Wall Street

Anonymous
Mondoweiss
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:13 UTC
Image
© Nick Turse/Alternet
To all those in the United States currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in sol­i­dar­ity. Having received so much advice from you about tran­si­tion­ing to democracy, we thought it's our turn to pass on some advice.

Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call "The Arab Spring" has its roots in the demon­stra­tions, riots, strikes and occu­pa­tions taking place all around the world, its foun­da­tions lie in years long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repres­sion, dis­en­fran­chise­ment and the unchecked ravages of global cap­i­tal­ism (yes, we said it, cap­i­tal­ism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhab­i­tants. As the interests of gov­ern­ment increas­ingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transna­tional capital, our cities and homes have become pro­gres­sively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic devel­op­ment or urban renewal scheme.

An entire gen­er­a­tion across the globe has grown up realizing, ratio­nally and emo­tion­ally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under struc­tural adjust­ment policies and the supposed expertise of inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, indus­tries and public services were sold off and dis­man­tled as the "free market" pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immis­er­a­tion rein­forced by a massive increase in police repres­sion and torture.
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Eagle

Setup? 5 People, 4 Companies Indicted in Iran Exports

Pete Yost
MSNBC
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:00 UTC
Image
© Bendib
Some radio devices turned up in roadside bombs in Iraq, prosecutors say

Washington - Five people and four companies have been indicted for allegedly plotting to export 6,000 radio control devices to Iran, including 16 of the items that were found in improvised explosive devices in Iraq, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Authorities in Singapore arrested four people in the case Monday. The fifth defendant is a resident of Iran who remains at large.

According to the indictment, in 2008 and 2009, U.S.-led forces in Iraq recovered numerous radio controls manufactured by a Minnesota firm used in a remote detonation system for IEDs. The radio devices can transmit data wirelessly as far as 40 miles with a powerful antenna.

The defendants allegedly made tens of thousands of dollars for arranging the transportation of the 6,000 radio devices in five shipments from June 2007 to February 2008.

Some of the defendants also are accused of conspiracy involving exports of military antennas to Singapore and Hong Kong.

The defendant who is at large, Hossein Larijani, is a citizen of Iran. The four people arrested are all citizens of Singapore. They are Wong Yuh Lan, Lim Yong Nam, Lim Kow Seng and Hia Soo Gan Benson.

Wong, Nam, Seng and Hia allegedly conspired in the shipment of 6,000 of the radio control devices from a Minnesota company through Singapore to Iran. Seng and Hia also are accused of conspiring to ship military antennas from a Massachusetts company to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Comment: This whole story has a rancid odor to it. A [unnamed Massachusetts] company is the initial seller. The items could possibly be for a remote controlled airplane for all we really know.

A strange suspicion in this is the items are sold to another country, that country sells them to any so-called enemy of the U.S. and blame is created [by the US], so that said enemy can be attacked for something that cannot be proven it has done [for the creation of IED's which has been disproven]. This creates tension so the cycle of violence can continue, and cross new boarders. This is how the Secret Team is able to make up new enemies world wide - blame your enemies for what you yourself are doing. The technique has been effective in Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Libya and others.

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Wall Street

Lemony Snicket's 13 observations about Occupy Wall Street

Lemony Snicket
OccupyWriters
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:05 UTC
Image

Unfortunate
Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn't mean you would be a midget if you were bald.

2. "Fortune" is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.

3. Money is like a child - rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.
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