"The Last Magazine" - corporate media (video)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, Aaron Mate (democracynow)

A conscience will cost you in the Army

June 17th marks the first anniversary of the [assassination] of investigative journalist Michael Hastings. Just 33 years old, Hastings died in a [mysterious] car crash at a time when he was considered of one of the country’s most daring young reporters.

 

His dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan unveiled the hidden realities of war. His 2010 Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, sparked a political controversy after McChrystal and his aides were quoted making disparaging remarks about top administration officials.

The article exposed longstanding government discord over the U.S. War on Afghanistan’s direction and led to McChrystal’s firing. One year after his death, Hastings’ reporting has made waves once again.

 

In 2012, Hastings wrote a major investigation for Rolling Stone on the American prisoner of war, Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdhal. At the time, Hastings thought it was the most important story of his career. 

 

But it has only recently earned widespread attention after Bergdahl’s release in an exchange for five "Taliban" members sparked a political firestorm. In his report, Hastings revealed Berghdal was profoundly disillusioned with the War on Afghanistan and may have walked away from his base (as he and others regularly did) as a result. With Berghdal still silent as he recovers from five years in Taliban captivity and torture, Hastings’ article remains the definitive account of the young soldier’s story.

Today another major work from Michael Hastings is upon us: The Last Magazine, a posthumous novel and scathing satire of the corporate news media based on Hastings’ time at Newsweek. Democracy Now! are joined by Hastings’ widow, Elise Jordan, who brought the book to life after coming across the manuscript following her husband’s death. More

An American Junk-Food Tax?

Xochitl; CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; A Martinez, Alex Cohen, Take Two (SCPR.org), Nat'l Burger Day, Vow To Revive Navajo Junk-Food Tax (AP/NPR, April 22, 2014)

This mouth-watering burger is a delicious, cruelty-free vegan melt with baked fries (Vegan)

 

Don't tell anyone these are "good" as in healthy.

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona - Facing a high prevalence of diabetes, many American Indian tribes are returning to their roots with community and home gardens, cooking classes that incorporate traditional foods, and running programs to encourage healthy eating lifestyles [returning back to the Earth].

 

The latest effort on the Navajo Nation, the country's largest "reservation" [modern internment camp], is to use the tax system to spur people to ditch junk food.

 

Manzanita/Sobochesh (eattheweeds.com)

A proposed 2 percent sales tax on chips, cookies, and sodas failed Tuesday in a Tribal Council vote.

 

But the measure still has widespread support, and advocates plan to revive it, with the hope of making the tribe one of the first governments to enact a junk-food tax.

 

Elected officials across the U.S. have taken aim at sugary drinks with proposed bans, size limits, tax hikes, and warning labels, though their efforts have not gained widespread traction. In Mexico, lawmakers approved a junk food tax and a tax on soft drinks last year as part of that government's campaign to fight obesity.

• Sugars, corn like cocaine
• (Why I love cocaine)
• VIDEO: COKE cola recipe
• Coca-Cola corporation's cocaine manufacturing
• Sugar is toxic like alcohol
• Nat'l Burger Day: VaKA, SoCal
• Moosewood's Classic Veggie Tofu Burgers
• Is Kimye junk food for the mind?

Navajo President Ben Shelly earlier this year vetoed measures to establish a junk-food tax and eliminate the tax on fresh fruit and vegetables. At Tuesday's meeting, tribal lawmakers overturned the veto on the tax cut, but a vote to secure the junk-food tax fell short. Lawmakers voted 13-7 in favor of it, but the tax needed 16 votes to pass. More

"Net Neutrality" going down the drain (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman (DemocracyNow.org, May 15, 2014); Sarah Jaffe, Joel Serino (occupy.com); OccupytheFCC

Net: it's a utility, the "People's Platform," not a portable TV for corporate media (occupy)

 

Not until a fair accounting of votes does anything happen in a democracy. (It sure would be nice to live in a democracy). All those who say otherwise are stirring up anarchy. Destroy the deviants, troublemakers, and perverts! Corporate profits depend on it. That should keep the police state busy. In the meantime, what about our Internet?

 

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is voting today on new rules that may effectively abandon "Net neutrality," the concept of a free and open Internet. (Watch this).

(CGP Grey/cgpgrey.com) Let's tell the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility, a Title II common carrier telecommunications service. (Discuss). Music: Broke for Free.

The FCC proposal would let Internet providers charge corporate media companies extra fees to receive preferential treatment, such as faster speeds for their products and content.

Under previous regulations struck down earlier this year, providers were forced to provide ALL content at equal speeds, including Wisdom Quarterly, Democracy Now!, Occupy.com, FEMEN, CodePink, and other outlets.

The encampment begins with activists from popularresistance.org and Fight for the Future

 

Just steps from the vote, demonstrators have set up an "Occupy the FCC" (occupythefcc.com) encampment calling for federal regulators to reclassify broadband service as a public utility.

"Trust me; I'm a banker!"

This will allow for the requirement of "Net neutrality" rules.

The CEOs of 28 U.S. broadband providers and trade groups told their FCC not to classify broadband as a utility, explaining that regulating broadband would "impose great costs [to our private corporations], allowing unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy."

Save the Internet (freepress.net)

This debate on Net neutrality features guests Timothy Karr of the media reform group Free Press, who want corporations to be regulated for the good of everyone who uses the Net, and Joshua Steimle, a tech entrepreneur who argues that the government should not be entrusted with regulating the Internet. More

• VIDEO: Today I help free the Internet

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Rosecrans Baldwin (npr.org); Nikil Saval

What are you doing? - I'm just happy to see you. - I can tell. You're outta here because you're nothing more than a third cousin to a chimp, Macpherson. Soundly Coldhotcar said so!*

Hell hath many names... Hades, Gehenna, Niraya, and can be very ironic in Buddhism.

 

So long, palace, riches, and power!

Man was not meant to waste away in quiet desperation in a cubicle. Woman, maybe. Probably not either. That is what "work" in the West has become. We have been cubed. 

To think I, like Siddhartha, could cut the cord and go. Go on a quest. Become a truthseeker. But my boss is calling, and she doesn't like to be kept waiting no matter what I'm doing. 

 

Hello, severe austerities and peace.

"Macpherson, what are you doing?!" Thinking 'bout bananas? "Here's a notepad; take some dictation!"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Uh-oh. This is going to be a long one. Good thing NPR/SCPR never stops whispering in the background. Author Nikil Saval proves it wasn't always like this. There was a time when a person could earn a right livelihood doing something more than shuffling papers from the in-box to the out-box before the clock on the wall lets us go for the day.

NPR is not good for dogs, but humans like it where Free Speech Radio is not available.

Cubed

Cubed (Nikil Saval)

I was fresh out of college, working at a Web design company. The office had an open layout. We all shared long tables. I did have a window that looked onto a stone wall. Otherwise, I was given a computer, a drawer, and a fancy ergonomic chair.

Then, about a month into the job, my hands completely froze over the keyboard. I couldn't move my fingers for half a minute, in the grip of my very first panic attack. I'd wonder later, was I simply not cut out for office work? Or was office work not cut out for anybody at all:

• AUDIO (Rosecrans Baldwin, NPR)
• LISTEN NOW: Nikil Saval interviewed by Rachel Martin (Weekend Edition Sunday)

Soundly Coldhotcar (Sonali Kohlhatkar) with Dr. Jared Diamond

*(Uprising Radio) In The Third Chimpanzee (newly reissued for young adults in April 2014), Pulitzer Prize-winning author and UCLA researcher Jared Diamond (famous for Guns, Germs, and Steel) explores how humans fit among other animal species and also what sets us apart. He explains how we have evolved in our behaviors to perpetuate our genes into future generations, how and why we developed language, culture, art, and what the future holds for the human race given our evolutionary past.

Trying to escape the Surveillance State (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; author, researcher, and journalist Julia Angwin with Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, Juan González (democracynow.org)

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin visited Democracy Now! to discuss her new book, Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance. Currently at ProPublica and previously with The Wall Street Journal, Angwin details her complex path toward increasing her own online privacy as a private citizen.

According to her research, the private data collected by East Germany’s Soviet-era Stasi secret police at its height of abuse pales in comparison to the information revealed today by an individual’s Facebook profile or Google search history, which is never erased by Google even when we clear our history. It is used by the government for unconstitutional unwarranted spying on Americans, by police to give everyone a police record, and by advertisers to target individuals. More

• Obama Administration confirms warrantless "backdoor" searches target U.S. citizens 
• Chile declares state of emergency after 8.2 earthquake triggers tsunami
• Koch Brothers-backed measure bans transit funding in Tennessee
• GM CEO apologizes to the dead, family victims, but fails to explain negligence [which was due to a profit motive for the car compy after a very conscious cost-benefit analysis]
• Obama celebrates [weak, insurance-friendly] health law enrollment numbers
• NATO suspends formal cooperation with Russia
• Palestinian Authority signs International Conventions after Israel goes back on promised prisoner release 
• Obama Administration: No decision on release of jailed spy 
• Group: Syrian civilian death toll could reach 220,000
• House votes to block climate research

"Terms and Conditions May Apply" (trailer)

Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Cullen Hoback (vimeo.com)

The "may" is a courtesy. They do apply. Snowden reveals the secret documentation.

(Trailer) Terms and Conditions May Apply, directed by Cullen Hoback, 2013 documentary about contractual terms of user-service agreements used on spy-friendly sites like Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on. Mark Zuckerberg appears in the film.
 

Admit it: no one really reads the endless terms and conditions connected to every website we visit, phone call we make, or app we download. No one can. But every day, billion-dollar corporations are spying and learning more about our interests, our friends and family, our finances, and our secrets... 

I f'd the country, it's true, maybe even the world. But I made a billion doing it, mo-fo's! Selling out to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and MIC pays big. Ask Jobs, ask Gates, ask... Oh, I've said too much. See you online...even if you don't see me seeing you, lol! Don't watch The Social Network.

  

Not only are they selling our information to the highest bidder, they are freely sharing it with the government (NSA, CIA, DHS, Pentagon, FBI, member corporations, or any of the many arms of the military-industrial complex). And you "agreed" to it when you clicked SUBMIT.

 

With fascinating examples and so-unbelievable-that-they're-almost-funny facts, filmmaker Cullen Hoback exposes what governments and corporations (together referred to as the military-industrial complex) are legally taking from us every day -- making the future of both privacy and civil liberties uncertain.

 

I agree. Spy on me: NSA malware via my Facebook (Ryan Gallagher/The Intercept)

 

From whistleblowers and investigative journalists to zombie fan clubs and Egyptian dissidents, this disquieting exposé demonstrates how everyone has incrementally "opted-in" to a real-time surveillance state, click by click. However, it also explains what, if anything, can be done about it. 

• In North America WATCH on: vimeo.com/ondemand/tacma

CULLEN HOBACK grew up in L.A. At 17 he started his own public access late night TV show but was kicked off the air for making offensive statements that angered some viewers. Hoback enjoyed sharing his perspective on strange and unfamiliar topics. In college he produced short films and a feature when digital cameras first came out. At 21, he made “Freedom State,” a comedy that captures the daily life of individualists who live “on the edge of the world.” Another narrative feature he made was “Friction,” a film about summer camp members who enact a scripted tale as the line between utopia and entity blur. In 2007, he was granted a budget to direct the LARPing documentary “Monster Camp,” which featured social outcasts coming together to create a community where magic is real and identity is limited only by imagination. In 2011, Hoback came back to the screens to create his documentary “Terms and Conditions May Apply.”

Living arguments on gun control (comedy)

Wisdom Quarterly; Tom Tomorrow (thismodernworld.com); Kevin Uhrich (PW)

No walk on the beach

I'll kill ya...for pointing that at me

The sun had already started setting by the time a former girlfriend and I arrived at Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades one night...

 

We were going to have dinner at nearby Gladstone’s Restaurant, where Sunset Boulevard ends at Pacific Coast Highway, but decided to first grab a blanket from the car and head down to the sand to watch the sun go down...

 

It was chilly that night, and few people were out there with us, except for one young man who stood just where the sand turned into parking lot, seemingly watching our every move.

(Comedy Central) We the U.S. are the problem, not our guns, as Canada demonstrates.

 

After a [while] I didn’t really think much of the guy, but I looked around just the same, to see exactly how alone we really were out there.

 

Looking back over my right shoulder, my eyes scanned the rest of the parking lot, then north, along the sand. That’s when I saw another young man, this one a short distance from us, walking slowly on the beach, not along the surf but toward the parking lot, all while looking intently at the two of us.

Tea Party Republican Libertarian Na...

He made some motions with his head toward the guy in the parking lot, who by this time was joined by a third man, and those two started making their way into the sand to meet their associate.

Gladstone’s was only about an eighth of a mile away, but it might as well have been miles if we had to run to it in the deep sand in order to get away. By this time, we had finished..., my friend seemingly oblivious to what was going on around us.

(Comedy Central, Daily Show, Part II) John Oliver vows that never again
will a political career end in a senseless act of meaningful legislation.

Let us prevent political suicide in the face of NRA lobbyists.

“C’mon, I think we better go,” I said, grasping the slender neck of the bottle, preparing myself to smash it across one of their heads, if necessary.

“What’s the matter?” she asked before turning around and suddenly realizing that our new friends were actually about to try something.

 

Guns don't kill people; bullets kill people.

With that, she stood up, faced the three guys and placed her hand inside of her purse, which she then raised up slightly at arm’s length with her other hand. A look of deadly earnestness crossed her face, but she didn’t say a word. They all seemed to understand that my girlfriend was armed with a gun, and, even better, that she at least appeared prepared to use it if need be.

(Comedy Central, Daily Show, Part III) John Oliver: it's pointless for US to

study Australian gun control because the situations are just too similar.

 

I gathered up our stuff and headed toward the car as she turned toward our potential assailants, never once taking her eyes off of them. They stood there frozen, apparently knowing better than to make any kind of move as we hustled back to the car, got in, and drove away. We never did go to dinner at Gladstone’s. More

My government killing me

Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R.J. Rummel as the murder of people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder." He created the term as an extended concept to include forms of government-murder that are not covered by the term "genocide," and it has become accepted among other scholars in spite of the fact that the term democide was defined and used in English more than 40 years earlier by Theodore Abel. In the 20th century democide surpassed war as the leading cause of non-natural death... More

Guns: Are we pro or con?
Wisdom Quarterly (EDITORIAL)

Like Budai, let's throw away the AKs (CC)

We unanimously agree. Our position on guns is that they should ALL be gotten rid of. We cannot have police, the paramilitary, and military retain firearms and expect that citizens, protesters, and advocates of civil liberties would be safe from these deadly agents, who in the past have done so much to violate the Constitution, our rights, and the laws of the land with tacit approval of the court and manipulated juries. It would be Martial Law and oppression that perhaps is only staved off because the two sides, ordinary second-class citizens versus elites and their soldiers, have guns. So they should have access to the same terrible guns.

Killing is unskillful, unwholesome karma. And what excuses we make for this intentional action will do little to alter the bitter fruit of our deeds. Many are willing to kill -- whether motivated by fear, greed, delusion, or hatred. Because that is the subtle underlying motivation, the harm is there. Rationalizations that it is "self" defense or patriotism or attacking one group to defend another group does not change the personally verifiable fact that when it is being done, one of these for motivations is at work.

Nothing good will come of it when that karma ripens. Yet, there are many people willing to shoot and kill for pay, for pleasure, for peer pressure, or simply not knowing and not understanding karma.
 
We stand for life and for the right of living beings to live oppression-free. Guns are not the way to life or beneficial karmic results. Say no to guns in the hands of authorities or in the hands of second-class citizens. But when they are in the hands of one, it seems they have to be in the hands of the other. Put the guns down.

(Mental Floss) Don't expect "science" to solve the issue

• VIDEO: Ted Nugent is a racist, I mean a black guitarist
• VIDEO: Democide is when the state kills off its citizens
• VIDEO: Capitalists propose giving millions of small handguns to Indian women to kill men on buses and elsewhere who "Eve Tease" (sexually harass) them. What could possibly go wrong? It's not as if men and criminals can take or borrow the guns from their sisters, mothers, and daughters to kill, rape, rob, engage in a budding drug trade, or cause general mayhem for corruptible police in a post ahimsa world.
• VIDEO: We have a RIGHT to bare arms! And to bare legs, bare bellies, bare bottoms... so why not let ALL citizens go topless if they want?
• VIDEO: Ex-FBI Agent explains what to do if police abuse you and your rights (Make Yourself Arrest-Proof, Dale Carson)
• VIDEO: Police given right to shoot anyone by claiming they thought the "suspect" was reaching for a waistband. It also works if they shout, as they beat you, "Stop resisting!" Or they could make it all up. How would everyone having a gun to reach for help the situation? Does a citizen have the right to shoot police about to kill him or her when we don't even have the right to have one?
• VIDEO: Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan talks to Alex Jones

U.S. Government vs. Jon Stewart's Daily Show claim. See 5:10.

McDonalds on strike; NSA spies on cell phones

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; DemocracyNow.com, "Fast-Food Workers Strike..."

Fastfood workers nationwide are walking off the job in about 100 cities today (Dec. 5, 2013) in what organizers call their largest action to date. Today’s strikes and protests continue a campaign that began last year to call for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.

   

NSA collecting data on cellphones worldwide

New leaks from Edward Snowden show the NSA is tracking the locations of cellphones worldwide on a massive scale. The Washington Post reports the NSA is gathering around five billion call records a day that show the whereabouts of cellphone users around the globe. The spying allows the NSA to track individuals’ movements, as well as their personal routes and relationships. The records are fed into a database that monitors hundreds of millions of devices. The data is retrieved by tapping into the cable networks of mobile phones worldwide. Of all the NSA spying programs exposed by Snowden, The Washington Post says the mobile location tracking "in scale, scope, and potential impact on privacy... may be unsurpassed."

NSA morale down after Snowden revelations, former officials say

AT&T says it doesn't have to disclose NSA dealings

The phone company AT&T, under fire for ongoing revelations that it shares and sells customers' communications records to the NSA and other U.S. intelligence offices, says it isn't required to disclose to shareholders what it does with its customers' data. 

AP Exclusive: Rough ride for US-Russia copter deal 

Obama defends NSA against latest spying report  

President Barack Obama is defending the National Security Agency, saying it does a very good job of not engaging in domestic surveillance.

Discussion: The implications of NSA cellphone surveillance 

Switchboard: Patriot Act author wants Clapper prosecuted House of Representatives passes patent bill and FTC sanctions popular "flashlight" app for privacy violations.

Spooky: corporations spy on non-profits

Wisdom Quarterly; Gary Ruskin (CorporatePolicy.org, Nov. 20, 2013), "Spooky Business: A New Report on Corporate Espionage Against Non-profits"

Giant corporations are employing highly unethical or illegal tools of espionage against nonprofit organizations with near impunity, according to a new report by Essential Information. 

The report, titled Spooky Business, documents how corporations hire shady investigative firms staffed with former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), US military, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Secret Service, and local police departments to target nonprofit organizations.

 

“Corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations is an egregious abuse of corporate power that is subverting democracy,” said Gary Ruskin, author of Spooky Business. “Who will rein in the forces of corporate lawlessness as they bear down upon nonprofit defenders of justice?”

Many of the world’s largest corporations and their trade associations -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Monsanto, Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Burger King, McDonald’s, Shell, BP, BAE, Sasol, Brown & Williamson, and E.ON -- have been linked to espionage or planned espionage against nonprofit organizations, activists, and whistleblowers.

 

Many different types of nonprofit organizations have been targeted with corporate espionage, including environmental, anti-war, public interest, consumer, food safety, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control, social justice, animal rights, and arms control groups. More

• Wear a suit and helmet that feed you: One person’s head-mounted torture device may be another person’s idea of food. Case in point: the Algaculture Symbiosis Suit.

Ordinary alcohol works like gas (petrol)

Wisdom Quarterly; David Blume (alcoholcanbeagas.org)

Running cars on alcohol is better than hydrogen or non-solar electricity (ACBAG)

 

Anyone can become energy independent with alcohol fuel. Reverse global warming. Survive the end of Peak Oil. Alcohol fuel is "liquid sunshine" not controlled by trans-national corporations.
 
Anyone can produce alcohol for less than $1.00 (1 USD) a gallon using a variety of plants and waste products from algae to stale donuts. It is a much better and cleaner fuel than gasoline.

Motors were invented before gasoline (petrol) was, originally using alcohol. That is what car engines were invented to use. It can go into cars right now! No adjustments or modifications are needed. But Big Oil has scare tactics and powerful lobbyists.

Alcohol can also generate electricity. Alcohol burns so cleanly that, by law, gasoline must be added before using it in cars. It must be denatured so that people will not drink it. Brazil already uses it widely in as high as a 90% mixture. Ethanol would be added in the US, but the petrochemical industry worries about how that would affect its bottom line.

Alcohol fuel production is ecologically sustainable, revitalizes farms and communities, and creates huge new opportunities for small-scale businesses. Its byproducts are clean and valuable. Alcohol has a proud history and a vital future.  Learn more with the 5-minute video "Alcohol Fuel Overview," or view the Two-Minute Summary, and see the Alcohol Can Be a Gas! book and DVD.

Did climate change cause typhoon? (video)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow.org, 11-13-13

Eye of Typhoon Haiyan (a.k.a. Super Typhoon Yolanda) travels over islands (wiki)

"Listen to the people, not polluters" (DN at the UN Climate Summits)

What would the devas say?

It's 90+ degrees in sunny SoCal as Thanksgiving (a rare Thanksgivukkah) approaches. But the temperature is about to drop and rain is looming by the weekend. My petty chores need doing to contribute greenhouse gases to the global warming problem. Meanwhile, people are dying crushed under flimsy houses demolished by the super storm in the Philippines. Better send a check. More importantly, better address climate chaos and think of a better solution than the "magic of the marketplace" after captitalizing on the sale of "carbon credits" as major polluters, multi-millionaires like Al Gore, and Wall Street dream. We can all go vegetarian, waste less, bike more, plant trees, pre-cycle (buy in a way that minimizes post-consumer waste) and recycle, stop war, promote peace, turn toward sustainable power sources (like free energy), conserve water, collect rainwater, boycott multinational corporations, thwart the NSA and CIA, share, love, meditate, care, go green, vote green, occupy...
 

Science on climate change

Desperate survivors of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines are struggling to receive aid in the aftermath of the worst storm in recorded history. In Tacloban, a city flattened by the typhoon, survivors marched in a contingent three miles long to seek water and food at the local airport. Eight people died in the province of Leyte when a crowd of thousands stormed a government rice warehouse in search of food. The victims died under a collapsed wall. On Tuesday, Philippines Pres. Benigno Aquino cited a lower death toll for Typhoon Haiyan, saying he believes around 2,500 people were killed. Initial estimates put the toll at around 10,000. More than 670,000 people have been displaced. The United Nations, meanwhile, has launched a $300 million appeal for relief aid. Speaking in Manila, U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the Philippines is facing its worst-ever crisis:

"This is such a major calamity for the Philippines, a country which over this year has already seen so many crises, but by all accounts, this one is the most deadly and destructive. While it’s still too early to tell the full scale of the destruction, it’s clear that the needs are huge."

Typhoon a "manifestation of climate change"

Haiyan/Yolanda's eye (wiki)

Appearing with U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario thanked international donors for providing aid [after Yeb Saño declared he would respectfully be going on hunger strike until action is taken by this body of world officials at the U.N. Climate Change Summit]. But he also issued an appeal for action on global warming, saying climate change worsened the typhoon’s scale and strength:

"From the devastation, it is clear, though, that much more aid and assistance will be needed. And we thank the international community for its continued generosity and support. The unprecedented scale and strength of Yolanda [known as Haiyan in the US], a typhoon that occurred at a very late time of the year, is a clear demonstration of the changing weather pattern. Whether the world faces up to it or not, this is a manifestation of climate change." More

An emotional Yeb Saño at U.N. Summit

"Stop this madness!" - Filipino Climate Chief Yeb Saño begins hunger strike fast to protest global inaction on global warming and climate chaos.

"Get it done!": After stirring Durban speech, student Anjali Appadurai initially banned by U.N. in Doha.

A Carbon Tsunami in Doha (Nov. 12, 2013) On the opening day of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Doha, Poland, the chief climate negotiator from the Philippines gave an emotional appeal to the world to address the climate crisis following...

• Why getting aid to survivors of typhoon is slow (The World)
• President lowers death toll as Haiyan survivors seek aid [but we guesstimate an actual death toll of 25,000 with 11,000,000 directly affected]
• Philippine climate negotiator continues hunger strike
• Obama admin seeks Congressional pause on Iran sanctions 
• Israel Freezes E1 Settlement construction, but okays 20,000 illegal new West Bank homes
• Afghan gov’t abandons Wardak probe, U.S. stonewalling
• Bangladeshi workers strike grows, 250 factories closed