Friday, October 31, 2014

READING FOR THE WEEKEND (Oct. 31, 2014)



Fellow Nobel Peace Laureates to Obama: Stain of U.S. torture is your job to repair (Common Dreams).

Casualties of The Gridiron ... a series of short story documentaries of retired NFL players who battle head trauma, crippling pain, and drug abuse (The Scene).

The crisis that changed Pope Francis, and the Catholic Church (Newsweek).

Idiot woman "improves" some of the country's most precious national parks with her "art" (Salon).


HALLOWEEN STUFF
13 facts you probably didn't know about Halloween (Business Insider).

Halloween trivia (Halloween Website).

Silly Halloween jokes for kids (RobynsFYI).

Silly Halloween jokes for the older crowd (Jokes4us).


THINGS WE SHOULD EMBRACE/CHEER
Unlike Walmart, Costco has no plans to cut employee benefits (Huffington Post).

What America can learn from Norway's success in regulating campaign finance (World.Mic).

How Germany managed to abolish university tuition fees (Epoch Times).


CONSERVATIVE  DELUSIONS ... AND REALITY 
Busted: More global warming denial "science" found to be unrealistic and inaccurate (Raw Story).

Standing tall in America. We're #1 ... When it comes to military budgets, knocking off wedding parties, military bases, etc. (Common Dreams).

Beautiful Disaster - The Republican hoax of the Texas Miracle (Progress Texas).

Kansas governor is forcing disabled people off Medicaid (Think Progress).

North Carolina's state of political hate (Center for Public Integrity).


INEQUALITY & SOCIAL MOBILITY
Grim numbers from the 2014 Global Wealth Report (Buzz Flash).

Compensation shrinks for all income groups - except the very highest (Al Jazeera).

7 things the middle class can't afford anymore (Wall St. Cheat Sheet).

Why can't we talk about social mobility (Prospect Magazine).


BRAZIL
Continuing Latin America's 'left turn,' Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff wins another term (Common Dreams).

In Brazilian city, homeless people face 'extermination' (Al Jazeera).


WHEN THE PRIVATE SECTOR HIDES BEHIND THE STATE
Jamie Dimon: U.S. must create a "safe harbor" where JPMorgan's corruption is not "punished" (William K. Black / New Economic Perspectives).

Booz Allen: the world's most profitable spy agency, or America's largest corporate welfare case (Bloomberg News)?

OK, this one's mine, but the taxpayer public subsidies for "private" market players pisses me off ... Why are we "privatizing" NASA (Mark Martinez Blog)?


MISCELLANEOUS
15 of the most awkward things to happen on a date (Huffington Post).

Dead babies near oil drilling sites raises questions for researchers (Denver Post).

For more teens, arrests by police replace school discipline (Wall Street Journal).

Paul Krugman's fear: "It's by no means clear" whether democracy or plutocracy will prevail in America (Salon).

- Mark

No comments: