John Duprey is a husband, father, and geek. He makes his living from the latter as a software architect for Thomson Reuters Research and Development. However, he lives for the former two - his wife Abby and their daughter Emma. -- Public Profile
"Wikipedia is protesting against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours, beginning at midnight January 18, Eastern Time. Readers who come to English Wikipedia during the blackout will not be able to read the encyclopedia. Instead, you will see messages intended to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, encouraging you to share your views with your representatives, and with each other on social media."
Secretary Hilary Clinton gives a very compelling speech on the advocacy for equal rights of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Its a 30 minute video and I feel she supports her arguments well. For me, she was preaching to the choir, but I hope her statesmanship is able to change the hearts and minds of others in power. And for those of you who do not share the view that the LGBT community should be afforded the same rights and freedoms as everyone else, please set aside your opinions for a moment and hear her argument.
September 11 – A Decade Later
On September 11, 2001, four hijacked planes were used to carry out the attacks on the United States. Two planes hit New York City’s World Trade Center, a third plunged into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after an attempt was made by passengers to regain control. In total 2,992 people were killed.
Drawing on the past 10 years of Reuters news coverage, we invite you to watch 9/11: Looking Back on Ten Years, a multimedia retrospective reflecting on the tragic events of that one day, while bearing witness to how lives around the globe have been forever changed.
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Listen, my American brothers and sisters.
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/04/137497061/reading-the-declaration-of-independence-aloud?sc=17&f=1001
- July 4, 2011
Twenty-three years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence.
It was 235 years ago this Monday that church bells rang out over Philadelphia, as the Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence.
Below is the original text of the Declaration, alongside photos of the NPR staff members and contributors who performed the reading.
Declaration Of Independence
The original text of the Declaration of Independence, with photos of NPR staff and contributors who performed the reading:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
And to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent; For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences, For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments; For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.
And that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
[Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]
To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews
Finally.
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137413564/n-y-legalizes-gay-marriage-after-42-year-stonewall?sc=17&f=1001
The Associated Press - June 25, 2011
Champagne corks popped, rainbow flags flapped and crowds embraced and danced in the streets of Manhattan's Greenwich Village as New York became the sixth and largest state in the U.S. to legalize same-sex marriage.
Dear FactCheck.org,
We get it. They're all a bunch of lying liars.
NYMag has a great article on Jon Stewart and the Daily Show.
“Jon has chronicled the death of shame in politics and journalism,” says Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor who is a frequent Daily Show guest. “Many of us on this side of the journalism tracks often wish we were on Jon’s side. I envy his platform to shout from the mountaintop. He’s a necessary branch of government.” -- nymag.com
NRA push polling on UN arms trade treaty
I received the same phone call. It was funny and infuriating at the same time. I told the person on the other end, that I am generally pro-gun but it was this kind of rhetoric that turns me off to EVER supporting the NRA. She then asked me if I'd like to make a donation to the NRA or some organization affiliated with it. At that point, I said "Good bye" and hung up.
http://www.archive.org/download/EffsFiveFamousFriendsOfFreedom/effffff_512kb.mp4
Please consider donating to the EFF this year: http://eff.org/give
Mark Leon Goldberg - November 9, 2009 - 12:34 pm
A UN Dispatch reader in New Hampshire was at the receiveing end of a National Rifle Association push poll about the Obama administration's decision to join a treaty process at the UN to limit the sale of small arms to irresponsible end-users, like militias that use child soldiers. From our man in the north country:
For the record, the proposed Arms Trade Treaty, does not yet exist. A few weeks ago, however, the Obama administration breathed new life into a process to control the sale of arms to irresponsible governments and militias by, for the first time, agreeing to a General Assembly resolution that set a time table for negotiations. It's not like such a treaty could ever affect domestic American gun policy, but predicting opposition from the domestic gun lobby, the Obama administration nevertheless inserted a provision in the resolution stipulating that domestic guns sales would not regulated by the agreement.
The gun lobby follows this issue closely. They know that the United Nations has neither the ability nor desire to regulate domestic gun sales. Still, they deliberately mislead people by framing this process as an insidious global effort to take Americans' guns away.
This is a flat out lie. And to the extent that it makes a treaty process to limit the sale of weapons to militias and governments with poor human rights records or ties to insurgent groups, it is a dangerous lie.