The challenge is not to become a machine. The greatest danger is not from outside: the greatest danger is ourselves – that is, the greatest danger is losing touch with our own hearts and common sense. Above all, strive to maintain compassion and pres…
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Montreal Simon: Bradley Manning: The Angry Gay Soldier
On Thursday it will be one year since Bradley Manning was arrested by the U.S. military and accused of leaking classified documents and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.The massive leak revealed war crimes, embarrassed the rich and the powerful, and is c…
Continue readingLate Friday Night Ode To … Peaceful Democratic Uprisings
Back there last Saturday, I wrote the following:As we applaud our Tunisian and Egyptian brothers and sisters, let us keep firmly in mind that it is they whom are bravely uprising in order to win their birthrights of freedom and liberty that are the bon…
Continue readingMeanwhile, Back In Utopia Democratica …
First Tunisia and now Egypt.
One can only rejoice at seeing people taking their aspirations for civil rights and freedoms into their own hands, courageously claiming these justly as their undeniable birthrights as human beings and steadfastly demandin…
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Basra and Iraq: Oil and Expectations
A strange portrait of the Southern-Iraqi city of Basra is painted in a recent and brief Economist article. Better than Baghdad struggles to find real evidence of improvement of quality of life or opportunity in Basra, which is Iraq’s international oil and shipping hub and home to a large disenfranchised
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Revolution in Tunisia?
Zine el Abidine Ben Ali The President of Tunisia, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, has been driven from office. Following up on a previous article here at World Headlines Review about civil unrest in Tunisia, demonstrations only intensified in the face of the lethal force applied by police and military
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: China: Fear of its Rise is Fear of Ourselves
A recent Economist article, The dangers of a rising China, leads a 14 page report loosely discussing the dangers posed to the world by China’s eclipsing of the USA’s international economic and military order. The article attempts to draw parallels in the power-balance shift between Britain and Germany which led
Continue readingOn things that aren’t like the long gun registry.
[My original thoughts on the long gun registry, dated in November 2009, are here. I have seen nothing in the past few months that changes my mind one iota.]The Press ReleaseThere was a press release making the rounds yesterday, allegedly released by th…
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Copyright Reform and the StatsCan Report
Michael Geist posted about the politics in the debate on copyright reform. The point stems from dissonance between the recent Statistics Canada report and a reform-oriented bill expected to introduce more restrictive copyright policy. The report showed some nice Canadian recording industry profits where similar industries in other parts of
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