STEPHEN C. WEBSTER, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Since 911 more and more of our fundamental rights are being stripped away.
The court's full decision was available online (PDF).
A little-noticed Indiana Supreme Court decision late last week overturned long-standing precedent and stripped citizens of the right to resist unlawful police entry to their homes, in a move dissenting justices called ‘breathtaking’ and ‘unnecessarily broad.’
The ruling, which came on the appeal of a case in which police subdued a man who refused to allow them entry to an apartment following a report of domestic violence, strikes to the heart of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unlawful search and seizure.
It effectively means that officers may enter any residence without warrant, probable cause or permission of the owner, leaving citizens’ only legal recourse against such intrusions in the hands of police review boards or district courts.
‘[We] hold that the right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into a home is no longer recognized under Indiana law,’ the court’s majority wrote in it’s verdict on Richard L. Barnes v. Indiana.
The decision, which came down from a split vote of 3-2, drew sharp dissents from Justices Brent E. Dickson and Robert D. Rucker.
‘In my view, the wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad,’ […]
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PHILIP PROEFROCK, - Ecogeek.org
Stephan: So much innovation, so little commercially available progress.
Synthetic photosynthesis has been around for more than a decade. Early versions were costly and short-lived, which made them impractical for any real-world application. Now, an MIT research team has developed a method of artificial photosynthesis to create and store energy, with 10 times the efficiency of plant photosynthesis.
The process is similar to plant-photosynthesis, but while plants store energy as sugars, this process uses the elemental hydrogen and oxygen as stored fuel. This makes it possible to have a solar power system that works beyond just the times when the sun is shining. As the inventor, Dr. Daniel Nocera of MIT says of the process, ‘Sunlight plus water equals fuel.’ Instead of trying to directly generate electric power, as with solar cells, this technology breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can be stored until needed and then be fed back into a fuel cell to produce electricity when it is needed.
The components needed for the catalysts used in this process are also abundantly available and inexpensive, nickel and cobalt, rather than relying on costly and difficult-to-obtain exotic minerals, which should also help with the scaling of the technology to commercial production levels. The process is simple enough that […]
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INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY KONSTANTIN VON HAMMERSTEIN AND SIMONE KAISER. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY J, - Der Spiegel (Germany)
Stephan: Here is an interview with the first rational politician I have discovered; by which I mean someone who understands that we need a new economic model, one that puts the health and functionality of both the people and the environment first, and then seeks to figure out how to make a profit within those parameters.
Compare Kretschmann's views with those of the willfully ignorant political prostitutes who litter our national landscape.
Winfried Kretschmann, 62, is the new governor of Baden-Württemberg and the first-ever leader of a German state from the Green Party. In a SPIEGEL interview, he talks about redefining economic growth, his plans to make industry more environmentally friendly and the future of nuclear power in Germany.
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SPIEGEL: Mr. Kretschmann, you have just become governor of Baden-Württemberg, the first-ever state governor from the Green Party in Germany. Baden-Württemberg has the strongest economic growth of all of Germany’s 16 states, as well as the second-lowest rate of unemployment and the third-healthiest public finances. Can someone who governs a state like that simply sit back and say: Keep up the good work?
Kretschmann: No.
SPIEGEL: Why not?
Kretschmann: Because our prosperity is merely on loan. Our entire economy and lifestyle are incompatible with our economic foundation. We’re facing the challenge of the century. If we want to maintain our prosperity in the long term, we must find a way to reconcile environmental protection and economics. So where better to start than here?
SPIEGEL: The economy of the state of Baden-Württemberg grew by 5.5 percent last year. Is that good or bad?
Kretschmann: This concept of growth is outdated because it doesn’t distinguish between negative and positive effects. […]
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MATT TAIBBI, - RollingStone
Stephan: Matt Taibbi has consistently had an accurate take on what is going on in the financial world. I certainly hope he is right again. To finally have some accountability would be very good news.
Got a chance to meet Josh Rosner (co-author, with Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson, of the new book Reckless Endangerment) last night during an appearance on Eliot Spitzer’s In the Arena. We were brought in to talk about the new investigation of the banks that apparently is being launched by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, which looks like it might be the first for-real attempt at a prosecution of the systemic corruption that led to the financial crisis.
Schneiderman’s probe, news of which came out yesterday in this piece by Morgenson, reportedly targets the banks’ mortgage securitization process during the bubble years. Morgenson reported that Schneiderman is focused on at least three companies: Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and old friend Goldman, Sachs.
This investigation has the potential to be a Mother of All Nightmares situation for the banks for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the decision to go after the securitization process is a total prosecutorial bullseye. This is the ugly heart of the wide-scale fraud scheme of the bubble era. Again, the business model during this time was a giant bait-and-switch scam. Sleazy lenders like Countrywide and New Century first created huge masses of bad loans, committing […]
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ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is yet another example of the fundamental changes that are occurring at the Federal level of government in the United States. This is not at all what the Founders had in mind, but it is completely consistent with a degenerating democracy.
A little noticed provision in the House Armed Services Committee’s National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the United States to use military force anywhere there are terrorism suspects, including within the U.S. itself, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Section 1034 was added to the bill [PDF] by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA).
‘Congress may soon vote on a new declaration of worldwide war without end, and without clear enemies,’ the ACLU warned in a statement. ‘A ‘sleeper provision’ deep inside defense bills pending before Congress could become the single biggest hand-over of unchecked war authority from Congress to the executive branch in modern American history.’
The only opposition to the provision has come from Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), who offered an amendment to strike Section 1034 while the House Armed Services Committee was reviewing the bill. The committee passed the National Defense Authorization Act by a 60 to 1 vote — without the proposed amendment — with Garamendi as the sole dissenter.
Garamendi said he plans to introduce the amendment again on the House floor, where debate on the bill will begin the week of May 23.
‘President Obama has not sought new war authority,’ the ACLU said. ‘In fact, his […]
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