THE HEADLINES

(Principled Progressive returns on Wednesday. Have a safe and happy 2013!) 

SIBEL EDMONDS’ PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR: SAME OLD, SAME OLD, MORE “WAR ON …WHATEVER.”

A noted whistleblower posts her year-end assessment as the old year splutters out and and the new year rings in. Piece of cake, she says. When one puts into context the wars of this year by noting the perpetual but ever-changing ones of the past, one can only believe that the days of auld lang syne are going to be the days of this and all future years.

(Boiling Frogs)

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“EXTRA” MEN IN INDIA MAY BE FUELING EXTRAORDINARY FREQUENCY OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN.

This is one conclusion of an article describing women’s protest reaction against the rape and killing of one young girl in New Delhi. The aborting of female fetuses, motivated by the cultural emphasis on the greater value of male children, is said to create a situation in which “packs” of males form and treat the abusive treatment of girls and women as part of the everyday entertainment for their packs.

(New York Times)

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ONE-FIFTH OF A NATION: TIME TO TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE.

William Manson might almost be reprising FDR’s “one third of a nation” rhetoric of depression days in noting that around 20% of the U.S. population is “obsolete” and therefore fit fodder for the trash can. This just happens to coincide with the “structural unemployment” rate in the country. As with all situations of over-supply in a market economy, the disposition of excess products is a major problem. While the killing of the obsolete population would be the neatest solution to the problem, considerations of “humanity” call for a more “humanitarian” solution, which our social planners are now fashioning in the form of “austerity” measures that will solve the problem by “de facto classicide.”

(Dissident Voice)

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…OR YOU CAN AVOID THE TRASH CAN BY GETTING A VOLUNTEER JOB WITH HABITAT FOR HUMANITY.

Richmond Times Dispatch publishes a soapy piece about a young woman, a “full-blooded Navajo Indian,” a college graduate unable to get a job who opts to “make a difference” by joining in the building of affordable housing by Habitat. No word in the article (except that she lives with her “fiance”) about how she manages the cost of her own living with this “volunteer” work.

(Richmond Times-Dispatch)

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AT SUN LIFE STADIUM IN MIAMI GARDENS YOU CAN BUY A TICKET FOR THE BCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME FOR AN AVERAGE OF $1890—OR YOU CAN GRAB A $12 SEAT TO THE ORANGE BOWL GAME ONLINE AT SEAT-GEEK.

The Orange Bowl match-up of Florida State and Northern Illinois is a hard sell this year. It fulfills neither requirement for success at the gate: proximity to the home bases of the teams (Tallahassee is 500 miles away); and a large fan base of the teams which clearly does not exist for NI.

(Orlando Sentinel)

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Quote of the day…

We are worried that the EU negotiators will force Thailand to accept new conditions on patents that would make access to new generic drugs more difficult. People with HIV and patients needing medicines for cancer, heart disease and diabetes will have to pay more. These clauses in a Thai-EU FTA would make it difficult for Thailand to produce or import generic drugs. It will pave the way for big pharmaceutical companies to monopolise the market andundermine generic competition.

Chalermsak Kittitrakul, campaign officer at the AIDS Access Foundation, on concerns about new fair trade agreement between Thailand and the European Union.

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