LearnMEsomeSh!T

Robert Kennedy, Jr. - The Last Mountain

Michael Eric Dyson on This Week…

Dennis Kucinich fights for US!

Unfortunately, this guy will never get the coverage he deserves.   I guess he’s a little too “progressive” for the mainstream.  I was surprised when he actually got some airtime on the big brother channels:

And this speech he gave a couple weeks ago in Wisconsin was completely ignored by the mainstream press, even Democracy Now missed it!   Most of the collective bargaining news was overshadowed by all of the more sensational Middle East and African uprisings, not to mention the Japanese catastrophe.   Meanwhile, back home we are letting these crooks have their way.

“Of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.”  

“We will fight back!  We will fight back! We will fight back!!”  

Speak the truth, Dennis!

Dambisa Moyo Lecture

International economist Dambisa Moyo talks about her latest book, How The West Was Lost. Learn more at her website, http://dambisamoyo.com/.

She talks about how Western spending, although well-intended, often gets swallowed up by corrupted and/or poorly executed programs, mishandled foreign aid, etc.  Her last book, Dead Aid, focused on aid to Africa, but in this new book/lecture she discusses the problems with America’s spending practices and how we fail to solve long-term problems.  One of the main issues being our hyper-politicized discourse.  Her discussion is a little over my head, but that’s why I posted it.  Reminds me that I need to go LearnMeSomeSh!t.  We really do waste a lot of money, though…military spending, unmonitored foreign aid - we send pallets of cash (and weapons) overseas to “help” only to have it disappear due to poor management and corruption. Billions of dollars unaccounted for, and conservatives say the teachers’ unions are the problem.  

Dyson on Hardball…

I love the way Michael Eric Dyson thinks…what a brilliant dude.  This video also reminded me that I need to check out Media Matters.  Oh, and side-note, Huckabee is a simpleton douche.

Another one…

…set free after 17 years in jail for NOTHING!! 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/02/texas.rape.exoneration/index.html

See the Innocence Project post below.

http://hameen.tumblr.com/post/2987521601/the-innocence-project

Survey says…BULLSH!T

So I was watching Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points (the only 3 minutes of Faux News that I can stand or allow in my Hulu queue) and noticed that every time he displays the results of a poll - for example, “Do people oppose taking away collective bargaining rights of union workers?” - the percentages are pulled from a survey of a minuscule portion of the population, often a poll of 500 people or less. He then implies that 70% of all Wisconsinites are in favor of taking away those rights, when in actuality only the opinions of a small group of prospective Wisconsin voters (many of whom I am assuming are Republican) were counted. You really have to check the sources, and pay attention to the fine print.

A couple days ago, Colbert showed us this example of companies and media outlets using these kind of surveys to push their products and ideas to the public.

Language as a Window into Human Nature…

Animated excerpt from Steven Pinker’s lecture, The Stuff of Thought, available HERE courtesy of The RSA.

“Lifesavers…”

The Innocence Project

Cornelius Dupree was finally exonerated after 30 years in jail!!  Are you kidding me?  And it turns out that out of nearly 300 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the US, his made the 20th in Dallas, and something like the 40th in Texas (and that’s just since they started paying attention to this).  Something is horribly wrong here.  I can’t begin to imagine the resentment these people must feel.

There are people that are doing something about this injustice.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Criminal lawyer John T Floyd and company break it down in this blog entry from last September.

The last paragraph really sums it up well:

“The time has long passed for the U.S. Supreme Court to get its act together on “actual innocence claim” issue and the time has arrived for the Texas Legislature to upgrade the state’s post-conviction remedies to make “actual innocence” claims more accessible to the courts…According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there has been an average of five DNA exonerations per year between 2000 and 2007. We cannot continue to execute people or confine them with life sentences without the possibility of parole with a system that refuses to do everything possible to protect the innocent with open and honest avenues to pursue the truth.”