THE HEADLINES

AFRICAN-AMERICANS: LET THEM EAT SYMBOLS.

The just-past inaugural festivities highlight the yawning discrepancy between the rhetoric and reality of the situation of black Americans. Black leaders at every level from the courthouse to the White House seem to think like some modern day Marie Antoinettes. Faced with the reality of African Americans stuck in conditions of poverty, violence and educational deprivation, they are encouraged to take solace in the massive “achievement” of the election and selection of their “own kind” to positions of political “leadership” who ignore these conditions, providing nothing but “symbolic” relief of their problems.

(Black Agenda Report)

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“BUREAUCRATIC BLUNDERS KEEP MANY IMMIGRANT UK RESIDENTS FROM RE-UNIFICATION WITH THEIR FOREIGN SPOUSES: HOW BRITISH CAN YOU GET?

Reports surface that at least 2,000 Britons are snarled in red tape associated with their applications to have their spouses join them, some delays for as much as 10 years and situations such as the “forgotten box” of a whole group of applications sent from one town to another. An inspector decries the high rate of granting of appeals from early turn-down applications, indicating to him that the “bureaucrats” in question are not doing their jobs on the original applications.

(UK Independent)

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HISTORIC STEP FOR EQUALITY: U.S. MILITARY WILL LIFT ITS BAN ON COMBAT DUTY FOR WOMEN.

Already 14.2% of military personnel, women will now be granted the same “privilege” as men to engage in military combat. In the words of an official of the ACLU, which pushed for the lifting of the ban, “qualified women will have the same chance to distinguish themselves in combat as their brothers-in-arms, which they actually already have been doing with valor and distinction.” Might we add the same chance as men to get themselves killed?

(McClatchy)

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INTERNET USERS: WHEN GOOGLE ISSUES A “TRANSPARENCY REPORT,” PERHAPS YOU HAD BETTER LISTEN

Its semi-annual report indicates a massive increase in the number of government requests for Google records on the users of its search service, the majority of which are issued with subpoenas requiring that the information be furnished. As a Google user, you might be surprised at definitions of what is “abandoned” e-mail and thereby exempt from usual privacy protections.

(Common Dreams)

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“YOU CANNOT STOP AND WATCH. KEEP MOVING, KEEP MOVING!”

Matt Palmer visits Universal Orlando’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter and gets this admonition as he waits a half hour for a paid ride through that “world.” His impression is that the numerous touches of “wizarding” creation in waiting areas are being down-played in the rush to get paying customers into the paying parts of the exhibit. (In contrast, visitors to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg can linger around much “Dali” wizardy without having to pay for an exhibit entrance, except maybe by buying a “Dali clock.”)

(Orlando Sentinel)

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Quote of the day…

The Wadi Hilweh Information Center, in Wilwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, reported that Israeli soldiers violently attacked and arrested several Palestinians playing with snow, in Sheikh Jarrah, in occupied Jerusalem, amidst the current snowfall that is covering nearly every part of Palestine. Extremist settlers, who gathered in the area shouted slogans against the Arabs and the Palestinians.

Saed Bannoura, in Desert Peace dispatch on unusual snowfall in Palestine.

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