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POPSSteal my content, please!
I completely agree with Scoble on this one, although I can understand why people who make their living directly from their creations have a hard time letting go of the fear of giving away at least some of the rights to their content. Cory Doctorow began releasing all of his literary work under creative commons licenses years ago, allowing people to freely download and distribute his work under some light provisos. I downloaded and read "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" on my palm pilot, freely and legally, and was hooked. Because of that, I've read a huge amount of his writing, become a mammoth fan, and will likely purchase every book he publishes. I've also published everything I've written, shot, and produced under a similar license. While that certainly hasn't brought me traditional commercial success, it has definitely accelerated serendipity countless times for me, and if you trace out the effects of those 'lucky' events, it's helped shape both my career and life.
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POPSSaudi woman to be beheaded for being a "witch" Being beheaded by sword in a public place... For being a "witch" or practising "witchcraft"... Welcome back to the Middle Ages: "Burn the witch!" or "Behead the witch!", by the name of God. Correct me if I'm wrong, Saudi Arabia is a close ally of the US, who enthusiastically invaded Iraq to bring "human rights and democracy" to Arabs, right?
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POPSNude Is Not Lewd Many women worry that nudity might be mistaken for availability. Many men worry that nudity might become too stimulating. People worry too much. Nothing is more natural than the naked body. Throw of those old duds and get yourself a proper tan next summer! Feel the wind under your...wings! *LOL* Nudity is cool and it lessens the laundry load too. Be natural, be brave, be stark raving nude once in a while! It's very liberating. Oh... and if your American? Don't fret. ;) Being unclothed is not illegal on Federal lands, says the National Park Service. It is one of our Constitutional rights according to a federal court decision (Williams vs Hathaway 400F Supp.122 {D.Mass.1975}) The law says it's okay, God says it's okay....chuck it!! There's no excuse!! :lol: Clip Song *giggle*
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POPSWhen Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated. Meanwhile, even in democracies, the law accords diminished rights to many humans: children, prisoners, the insane, the senile. Teenagers may not vote, philosophers who slip into dementia may be lashed to their beds, courts can order surgery or force-feeding. Spain’s Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals. One said such thinking led to abortion, euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
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POPSSave the languages, save the world Linguistic integrity is as important to our survival as a species as environmentalism. Check out the source to see why. Many resources and information at www.terralingua.org.
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POPSThe 14 characteristics of a fascist society Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, wrote an article about fascism which appeared in Free Inquiry magazine, a journal of humanist thought. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The article is titled "Fascism Anyone?," and appears in Free Inquiry’s Spring 2003 issue on page 20.
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POPSTigers in the Air 10x to alanocu graves clip i came to know this site. Maybe the reasons are grave -)) but the art & the visual expressions are quite impressive. more about this artist at source.
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POPSGirls and Women Women of Iraq have gradually let go of most of their 20th century gains and privileges in the last 4 years of occupation. Iraq turned from a modern country of educated and working women into a divided land of Islamic and ethnic warlords who compete in canceling women from the social realm........Read more Islamic Sharia law: a constant threat against the rights and freedom of women in the Middle East
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POPSSex Segregation: 'Get behind, Woman' "Heavy barrages of contempt, humiliation, and threats were directed at me and accompanied me as I left the bus. I returned home and decided to write about it. I used a little humor, meant to cover great fear. Physical fear and genuine dread in the face of the Jewish mosaic, which I so strongly believe in, and which is crumbling before my eyes.." ...YNetNews
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POPSAnd she's not talking about Bush... Either she hasn't been giving this advice to her own boss or he hasn't been listening. In this case, she's referring to Russia and the concentration of power in the Kremlin.
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POPSSaddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death International legal experts and human rights observers have questioned the impartiality of the trial court, which was created to try top leaders of the ousted government during the 15-month period of formal American occupation following the invasion in the spring of 2003. "We saw this trial, along with the others, as an opportunity to bring justice to those Iraqis who had suffered horribly under Baath Party rule," Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on Sunday. "Unfortunately, we believe the serious shortcomings in the fairness of the proceedings undermined the legitimacy and credibility of the trial."
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POPSGlobal compassion - photos Discrimination is an act of depriving individuals of their fundamental human rights and treating them unjustly in any aspect of their lives, be it political, economic or cultural. In Japan, Buraku discrimination happens against people who were born or live in the Hisabetsu Buraku (discriminated districts). The roots of Buraku discrimination come from feudal Japan, when the Buraku were areas separated from the other social classes. The people there lived under tight restrictions in every part of their lives, such as clothing, jobs, and home, due to the feudal class system formed by a variety of political and social factors. These historical areas are the origins of today’s Buraku, people who are still the target of discrimination due to the influence of subsequent social systems. This discrimination is what Japanese call, “Buraku issues.” (via boing-boing)
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POPSA Different Kind of Genocide By one estimate, 27,000 women and girls were raped in eastern Congo in 2006. The hospital has seen victims as young as 3. That comes out to, a woman (or child) was/ is raped every 20 minutes in the Congo. Every 20 minutes! :(
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POPS Hunger Due to Injustice, Not Lack of Food Worth noting:: "In addition, the offspring of some GM plants are sterile, which means they cannot be stored to grow future crops. Poor farmers thus become dependent on transnational companies, and are forced to buy new seeds every year."
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POPSDissenting at Your Own Risk Many times I have been around people who stomped out any discussion of Palestine's plight. Essentially, if you brought it up, people call you Anti-Semitic or they look at you like you just endorsed child abuse.
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POPSIt's WORSE Than Guantanamo And Abu Ghraib The clip does not do the article justice. It was impossible to relay the horrors in such a short space. This is a two page article, that everyone with an iota of humanity left in them MUST read. The U.S Administration and the U.S Military are engaged in widespread, worldwide, systematic torture, abuse, imprisonment and murder!. This is the new USA and what is stands for. I am so sickened, disgusted, angry and I can't even begin to express the outrage I feel. It's sick!! Are you proud of yourself Mr Bush? How do you friggin' sleep at night?!? Geeez... Bush and his fellow partners in crime, have to be removed from power and if there's an ounce of decency left in the citizens of the USA, these people must be stopped and held accountable for all the atrocities and crimes against humanity they have and continue to commit! :mad:
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POPSThe World's Worst Web Censors - Reporters Without Borders the last 6 countries in order of pics are: Saudi Arabia, Turkemenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, Uzbekistan. in source you can slide on, every pic got a short story on this specific state & it`s specific policy of internet censorship. Reporters without Borders Unite !! new kind of union?.. ))
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POPSThe Bigot in your Brain Why might black faces, in particular, provoke vigilance? Northwestern University psychologist Jennifer A. Richeson speculates that American cultural stereotypes linking young black men with crime, violence and danger are so robust that our brains may automatically give preferential attention to blacks as a category, just as they do for threatening animals such as snakes. In a recent unpublished study Richeson and her colleagues found that white college students’ visual attention was drawn more quickly to photographs of black versus white men, even though the images were flashed so quickly that participants did not consciously notice them. This heightened vigilance did not appear, however, when the men in the pictures were looking away from the camera. (Averted eye gaze, a signal of submission in humans and other animals, extinguishes explicit perceptions of threat.)