Aussie mobile carriers have simple code to shut stolen phones

So besides being good for the business of selling new phones, why don't US mobile operators do the same? Doesn't this make sense for consumers? It's time to start showing some respect for consumers again. Consumers carry the US economy, but they continue to be treated like low grade dog food for the corporate world.

But American phone companies aren't doing that. When asked why, representatives from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T; instead touted their apps to locate a lost phone or wipe out a SIM card. But that's not the issue. Petty thieves ditch the SIM card immediately. That doesn't shut down the phone.

Australia uses something akin to a serial number, basically a 15-digit fingerprint found on every phone. That number is transmitted every time the phone is used. A database crosschecks the number and blocks service to anyone who uses a stolen phone. The service is free to cellular customers.

When American carriers are asked why they don't do the same, there is a lot of huffing and puffing and hand waving, but none of it is very convincing. Frankly, the carriers don't gain anything from putting in this service, and actually add customers if someone signs up a stolen phone with them. As for the phone companies, every stolen phone is a potential new sale.

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iPhone 4S or professional camera?

The iPhone photos tend to have too much brightness, but not too shabby in general. Click through for lots of examples. Read the rest of this post...

Iowa poll: Gingrich leads, Romney in third place

Poor Mitt really isn't liked by the GOP voters.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has carved out a clear lead in what’s become a three-candidate race in Iowa, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has risen into second place, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has slid to third with just over a month before the Iowa caucuses kick off voting in the presidential nominating process.

Gingrich has support from 25 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers, Paul is at 18 percent and Romney at 16 percent.

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Everything you need to know about Republicans (but were afraid to ask).

• The full Grover Norquist 'Tax Pledge' is actually to never raise taxes on the 1%. Raising taxes on the rest of us is fine.
  
• Republicans enjoy killing people: Electric fences are good, executions better, wars are best. They also like torture.
  
• It is OK for a Republican to air campaign ads with intentional misrepresentations of opponents.
  
• Allegations of sexual harassment and assault are not a bar to being the GOP nominee but alleged consensual adultery is.
  
• Other things that do not disqualify a candidate include; not knowing the US embassy in Iran has been closed for 31 years or not knowing that China has nuclear weapons
  
• It is OK for a Republican who demonstrates he knows absolutely nothing about Libya to trash the President's handling of the situation.
  
• When a Republican says they know what they don't know, what they don't know is likely to be absolutely everything.
  
• It is OK for what they don't know to include the fact that they are running for President of the United States, not elected dictator.
  
• Contrary to claims of achieving an economic miracle, things have got so bad in Texas that the state faces an epidemic of horses abandonded because the owners can't afford to feed them.
  
• They think that the Tea Partiers will reject a candidate who has spent all their time in Washington but accept a $0.50 billionaire instead.
  
• The Republican idea of winning a negotiation is to force the President to accept some plan that his base hate, even when they are going hate it even more when they actually understand the implications and it is exactly what the President wanted all along.
  

OK, that is not everything you might want to know about Republicans (and it is very probably much more than you want). But it should be all you need to know. Read the rest of this post...

Report: 84 year old grandmother allegedly strip searched by TSA

Let's hope there's some confusion in this story because this is excessive even by TSA standards. The TSA is claiming that a strip search never happened and that they followed proper procedure but the alleged victim says otherwise. The TSA has a credibility issue but let's see what more research brings up. NY Daily News:

An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.

Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.

“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”

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L.A. poised to be the first major U.S. city to call for end to "corporate personhood"

Update: This is Part I of a two-part post about corporate personhood. Part II is here.
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An end to "corporate personhood" would be a constitutional revolution of monumental proportions. This means it either won't happen, or will happen only with major social "consequences" — stains on the pavement, if you will.

Nevertheless, this change, more than any other, is needed if we're going to save the current just-born century (in my humble opinion, of course).

The world of the Top 0.01% is organized by very simple principles. This is how the Barons of the 21st Century get their power:

■ Corporations suck most of the created wealthy out of the world. (And lest you forget, labor creates wealth, not capital.)

■ The mega-rich suck most of the wealth out of corporations. Corporations are just their engines, the organs through which they operate. It's like Ripley and that giant humanoid lift-loader at the end of the second Aliens movie — the corps are a power-multiplier for the mega-rich, but they have no separate mind.

■ The mega-rich use their wealth to buy the world. They don't work for a living; they feed. The politicians (the Clintons, the Bushes, the Cheneys, the ... guess who) do work for a living. They, like Gov. Scott Walker, report to the Kochs of the world, and serve them.

This sounds way too simple, I get that; but how is it wrong? Caesar used his army and his allies to control and loot northern Europe. You disagreed, he killed you. That was simple too. At the level of the real Masters, it's not a complicated world.

The power of the mega-rich to loot corporations would end immediately with a return to Nixon-era top marginal taxes. It's not worth stealing (sorry, getting your hand-picked Compensation Committee to approve) an extra $2 million per year if you have to pay 75% of it (or a job-killing Eisenhower-era 92%) to the government. At those tax levels, it makes more sense just to grow the company.

The power of corporations to loot the world via power-enhancers like "money equals speech" would end immediately if "corporate personhood" were repealed. (I'll have more on how corporate personhood happened tomorrow.)

Personally, I'd like to see a "corporate death penalty" for capital crimes. If a corp murders third-world union leaders, for example, it gets sent to the chair — meaning its charter is revoked and the shareholders divvy up the assets and go home.

With that in mind, here's what's happening in Los Angeles. Via David Swanson:

Next week the Los Angeles City Council will vote on a resolution that calls on Congress to amend the Constitution to clearly establish that only living persons -- not corporations -- are endowed with constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech. If this resolution is passed, Los Angeles will be the first major city in the U.S. to call for an end to all corporate constitutional rights.

The campaign in Los Angeles is the latest grassroots effort by Move to Amend, a national coalition working to abolish corporate personhood. “Local resolution campaigns are an opportunity for citizens to speak up and let it be known that we won’t accept the corporate takeover of our government lying down," said Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, a national spokesperson for Move to Amend. "We urge communities across the country to join the Move to Amend campaign and raise your voices.”

Earlier this year voters in Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin overwhelmingly approved ballot measures calling for an end to corporate personhood and the legal status of money as speech by 84% and 78% respectively. In November voters in Boulder, Colorado and Missoula, Montana both passed similar initiatives with 75% support.

In a popular revolt, grassroots movements count. Move to Amend might be a very good group to keep an eye on (or even support).

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Van Morrison - Into the Mystic

Christmas shopping season is in high gear (in theory) but wow, barely more than the usual yesterday at a nearby mall. Christmas decorations not moving and shoppers not buying is never a good sign. Maybe they're buying like mad elsewhere but this seems to fit with what I'm hearing from others who are being very cautious this year. There are just too many questions about where things are going over here for people to have much confidence. Read the rest of this post...

UK green alliance mocks 'greenest government ever' claims

Perhaps being the "greenest government ever" is as ridiculous as "change" for other administrations. Many politicians will say anything to get elected. The Guardian:

With the government outlining cuts in solar energy subsidies, reforming planning regulations and introducing tax support for energy-intensive industries, the chancellor's rhetoric has infuriated the green lobby. "Following the chancellor's autumn statement, we can say that the coalition is on a path to becoming the most environmentally destructive government to hold power in this country since the modern environmental movement was born," states one letter, signed by the green campaigners George Monbiot, Tony Juniper, Jonathon Porritt, Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, and others.

A second letter, from the heads of the RSPB, Greenpeace and others, says: "The stunning disregard shown for the value of the natural environment not only flies in the face of popular opinion but goes against everything the government said in June, when it launched two major pieces of environmental policy – the natural environment white paper and the England biodiversity strategy."

The backlash comes as serious tensions are developing inside the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition over green policy. The Observer understands that the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, Chris Huhne, was not consulted by Osborne about his comments in the autumn statement. In terms that many MPs saw as at odds with the government's professed enthusiasm for the environment, Osborne told the Commons last Tuesday: "We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers. All we will be doing is exporting valuable jobs out of Britain."

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