With big corporate hitters on both sides of the issue slugging it out over SOPA and PIPA—two bills that would place Internet censorship capabilities in the hands of the entertainment industry—the legislation is losing some congressional support. Simple, articulate videos like this one are helping to make it happen.
In his Truthdig column this week, Chris Hedges gave details about his decision to sue President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta over a particular part of the National Defense Authorization Act (Title X, Subtitle D, to be precise) that makes room for the military to take up domestic policing in the U.S.
This is the kind of scientific story that’s a little “ooh” with some “ew!” mixed in, too: Scientists at Utah State University have cleverly combined goat and spider genes to make a normal-looking strain of goat that happens to be able to produce extra protein in its milk that can be made into spider silk.
Did you see the one about the Bulgarian bandit artists who used a little color to reconfigure a public monument commemorating the Soviet takeover of their country in 1944 into a cartoonish visual joke?
He’s certainly been rehearsing for this role for years (remember his post-Katrina floating photo op?), and now Sean Penn has an honest-to-goodness new post as the ambassador at large to Haiti, as of a special ceremony held in his honor last weekend.
Do we learn anything about Margaret Thatcher from Abi Morgan’s screenplay? And more important, will anyone born after Thatcher’s 11 years in office learn anything about her brand of conservatism and its effects?
Wednesday, Jan. 18, marked the largest online protest in the history of the Internet. Websites from large to small “went dark” in protest of proposed legislation before the U.S. House and Senate that could profoundly change the Internet.
Once upon a time, the “red line” for Washington on Iran was the “enrichment” of uranium. Now, it’s an actual nuclear weapon that could be brandished. But what if the red line is really the petrodollar line?
Now that America’s primary elections have eliminated the more implausible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, it is possible to take a clearer look at what the electorate will be up against when the conventions are over in the fall.
From all evidence, the issue of economic justice isn’t going away. Break the news gently to Mitt Romney, who seems apoplectic that the whole “rich get richer, poor get poorer” thing is being discussed out loud. In front of the children, for goodness’ sake.
A lot of people with important-sounding titles pontificate on what lies ahead, but whom are they kidding? It’s like we’re watching kids playing around with vials of highly volatile chemicals.
Newt Gingrich has made it clear that if he can’t be president, he’s going to try to take Mitt Romney down with him. But the former House speaker’s endless stream of attack ads could, perversely, end up strengthening the “Massachusetts Moderate,” who seems likely to survive the onslaught.
Four tuberculosis patients in India were found to be untreatable with the best available drugs. Experts who say the country’s program for dealing with the disease does not adequately address resistant strains are calling for an overhaul of its treatment methods, including rigorous adherence to medication regimens.
On the day it was announced that British unemployment had risen to close to 2.7 million people, a high court judge ruled that Occupy London protesters must dismantle their encampment on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the city’s center. The protesters, who expressed both defiance and resolve, were given seven days to appeal the decision.
To protest two pieces of legislation that threaten the free and open Internet as we know it, thousands of websites, including Wikipedia, are taking themselves offline. Others, including Google, are asking users to take action. (more)
For obvious reasons, Americans’ savings accounts are shrinking during this ongoing recession, both because there’s not as much money to deposit and many more reasons to make withdrawals. This has consequences for the economy’s long-term recovery prospects, as does another currently popular method of payment: the credit card.
Savvy Truthdig readers (as if there were any other kind) already know that the drug business is highly political here in the States, but the story of the Chinese malaria remedy artemisinin takes it up several notches on the international stage with a saga spanning several decades. Oh, and Chairman Mao is also involved.
Friends tell the Los Angeles Times that Itzcoatl “Izzy” Ocampo returned from Iraq a changed man. The ex-Marine from Orange County, Calif., is accused of killing four homeless men, each stabbed more than 40 times. “He’s a veteran who did not get the help he needed,” said a fellow Marine, adding that she had trusted Ocampo with her life.
Rupert Murdoch is a surprisingly good tweeter, direct and revealing in his comments, but he is also the head of a media conglomerate, so when he loses his cool and fires off a shot at “[p]iracy leader” Google, it has reverberations beyond the nail salon.
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