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The Normalization of Deviance

Submitted by Meteor Man on Fri, 08/19/2016 - 12:27am

The U.S. has not fomally renounced the Geneva Conventions, we simply violate them at will:

Although the U.S. government would not dare to formally renounce the Geneva Conventions, the normalization of deviance has effectively replaced them with elastic standards of behavior and accountability whose main purpose is to shield senior U.S. military officers and civilian officials from accountability for war crimes.

My personal experience with health care

Submitted by doh1304 on Thu, 08/18/2016 - 7:40pm

I started out with crisis level hypertension. (245/145 - "how did you make it to the ER alive?") Then I added diabetes. After years of trial and error, I have the BP under control, but I have to take 10 pills a day (7 different medications, some twice a day) Add in 2 pills (2 drugs) for the diabetes and 1 for cholesterol, that's 10 drugs, 13 pills a day. Cost? $0.00.

Should we be worrying about the Internet?

Submitted by WindDancer13 on Thu, 08/18/2016 - 6:19pm

In the news: US prepares to hand over power of the internet's naming system

My brain is currently in non-functioning mode, so I am not able at the moment to suss out all the possible repercussions or implications this news may or may not foretell. However, the words "privatization" and "Internet" in the same sentence makes me want to pay attention.

The US government's 20-year role in governing a crucial part of the internet is about to end.

Starting October 1, the US will no longer have power over the domain naming system (DNS), the US Department of Commerce said in a blog post Tuesday.

...

Proponents of the move, including the Obama administration, believe privatization will help maintain international support for the system and prevent governance of the internet from becoming a point of dispute.

...

"For the last 18 years, the United States has been working with the global Internet multi-stakeholder community to establish a stable and secure multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance that ensures that the private sector, not governments, takes the lead in setting the future direction of the Internet's domain name system," Strickland said.

For now, this appears to only involve the domain naming system, but the question is what is it leading to. While speculation could lead us into the territory of conspiracy theory (CT), currently I would not put anything past the US government in its effort to give corporations a greater hold over our lives.

There are a couple of agencies and legislation which could make further changes to Internet usage and availability, including price. How does this or does this effect the Internet standing with the FCC? How does the TPP effect future changes which this could just be the tip of? Who funds this non-profit that is taking over the naming? What ties does the non-profit have to the Clinton campaign? Couldn't resist that last. = )

Maybe, just maybe, this is all above board, but we are talking about the same people who are pushing the TPP on us, who steal elections, who conduct private wars, who are selling our country to the highest bidders, so it would be best to be forearmed as we are now forewarned.

The End is Near....For Privatized Prisons

Submitted by WaveyDavey on Thu, 08/18/2016 - 3:58pm

Privatized Prisons (PPs) make money by locking people up, and the more people they lock up for more time, the more money they make. PPs were once outlawed at the beginning of the 20th Century. But, in the mid-1980s a problem began to emerge.

When the state wanted to build a new prison, it traditionally asked the voters to approve the cost through a bond issue. But this time, voters throughout the country began to say no. So the alternative was to start using PPs.

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