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The ‘Kony 2012’ campaign is calling for more military intervention into Africa and follows US President Barack Obama’s decision last Octoberto deploy 100 troops to Uganda with the aim of “removing” Joseph Kony from the picture.

As Jody McIntyre has rightly pointed out: “It is clear that the United States of America are intent on re-colonising Africa, directly and militarily, and the ‘Kony 2012’ video is a cleverly produced piece of propaganda to further this aim.”

Of course Kony is a brutal warlord. Kony, along with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni – whose army the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign explicitly support and want the US military to give direct assistance to – has a well-documented history of human rights violations.

It is clear that Western military intervention in Uganda is not a recipe for solving that country’s problems. Slavery, the colonialisation and the neo-colonialisation of Africa, along with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya all teach us that Western imperialist intervention in Africa and the global south leads to death, destruction and devastation.

And that is before the West’s global project of neo-liberalism – and the poverty, starvation and brutal inequality which comes along with it – is even mentioned.

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Quick: What country jails the most journalists?

If you guessed China, you were close, but no cigar. Twenty-seven reporters are in prison there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. If you guessed Iran, you’re getting warmer—forty-two in prison there—but you’re still off.

How many of you guessed Turkey?

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A correspondent tells me that Fox News has declared me a “menace to society”.

Always glad to be of service.

– Krugman

If right wingers don’t hate you you need to reexamine your life and see where you have gone wrong.

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case

Pope Benedict on Friday denounced the “powerful political and cultural currents” seeking to legalize gay marriage in the United States, urging visiting US bishops to beef up their teaching about the evils of premarital sex and cohabitation.

So, dear Benny, tell me, have you beefed up your teaching about the evils of boy-fucking yet?

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Bank of America NA prevented homeowners from receiving mortgage-loan modifications under a federal program in order to avoid millions of dollars in losses while benefitting from financial incentives for participating in the program, according to a complaint unsealed in federal court Wednesday.

The suit is the second whistleblower complaint unsealed so far with apparent ties to the $1 billion False Claims Act settlement announced by Bank of America and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York on February 9.

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Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) appeared on Voice of Christian Youth America’s radio program Crosstalk with Vic Eliason yesterday to promote his new book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, where he repeated his frequent claim that human influenced climate change is impossible because “God’s still up there.” Inhofe cited Genesis 8:22 to claim that it is “outrageous” and arrogant for people to believe human beings are “able to change what He is doing in the climate.”

I don’t care what this guy thinks, but him being minority leader on the Committee on Environment is, at least, worrying. On the other hand, isn’t “Genesis 8:22″ an oblique reference to “Corporate donors”?

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An attorney for the family of Trayvon Martin, the teenager shot to death last month by a neighborhood watch captain in an Orlando, Fla., suburb, said police withheld the shooter’s violent past from the slain youth’s family.

Police initially told Martin’s family that George Zimmerman, 28, admitted to shooting Martin, 17, on Feb. 26, after he called 911 and reported a suspicious person, said the attorney, Benjamin Crump. Zimmerman said the shooting was in self-defense, police said.

Zimmerman, who is white, has not been charged in the death of Martin, who was black. Police in Sanford, where the shooting occurred, told Martin’s family that Zimmerman had a “squeaky-clean” record and that’s why they had not arrested him, according to Tracy Martin, the teen’s father.

Crump said public records show that Zimmerman was arrested in Orange County in 2005 on charges of resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer.

“They just lied to the family,” Crump said. “They just couldn’t see why [Zimmerman] would do anything wrong or be violent. But not only do you know the guy killed this kid, because he admitted to it, you knew that he has a propensity for violence because of his past record.”

[..]

The teenager was on his way back from a convenience store during halftime of the NBA All-Star game when Zimmerman began following him in his car, police said.

Chief Lee on Thursday said that Zimmerman called 911 and reported a suspicious person. “For some reason he felt that Trayvon, the way that he was walking or appeared, seemed suspicious to him,” Lee told HuffPost. “He called this in and at one part of this initial call [the dispatcher] recommends him not to follow Trayvon. A police officer is on the way at that point.”

Lee said Zimmerman instead followed Martin. A confrontation ensued, and soon after he shot the teen, the chief said.

He followed him, initiated the confrontation in a public place, subsequently killed an unarmed kid and was not charged?

The only explanation I have is that the child was guilty of “walking while black.” Since it was in a gated community, the offense should be increased to “aggravated walking while black.” And, since the kid actually lived in the gated community, “willfully, knowingly, and consistently” walking while black.

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MIT physicists have managed to build a light-emitting diode that has an electrical efficiency of more than 100 percent. You may ask, “Wouldn’t that mean it breaks the first law of thermodynamics?” The answer, happily, is no.

The LED produces 69 picowatts of light using 30 picowatts of power, giving it an efficiency of 230 percent. That means it operates above “unity efficiency” — putting it into a category normally occupied by perpetual motion machines.

However, while MIT’s diode puts out more than twice as much energy in photons as it’s fed in electrons, it doesn’t violate the conservation of energy because it appears to draw in heat energy from its surroundings instead. When it gets more than 100 percent electrically-efficient, it begins to cool down, stealing energy from its environment to convert into more photons.

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But if you want to sell it to me, you’re doing it my way.

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I’ve been on the phone all day for the last 2 days with reporters and journalists of all kinds, including the big bad MSM, and one South Florida reporter told me that he had been “strongly cautioned” by the TSA not to cover this story. Absolutely unbelievable:

The TSA is clearly no fan of the 4th Amendment, nor of 5th Amendment due process rights, and now this blatant attempt to manipulate the free press with “strong caution” hits at Amendment the First. Why strong caution? Are there repercussions for journalists that fail to heed this “advice?” Because, you know, if I were a member of the free press and the federal government asked me to censor myself, I’d happily comply . . . . . . . . . riiight.

I have news for the federal government: Americans will not take censorship in any form. We thought we made this clear when you tried to force SOPA on us.