Sandra Finley

2011-11-12 (U.K.) Prosecutions Against 2011 Census Refusers Begin

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Nov 172011
 

Banners and placards

 

(NOTE:  good info at the links in the article.)

Cases against people who refused to complete the 2011 census in England and Wales are starting to come before the courts. Judith Sambrook, who declined to fill in her form in protest at the government’s contract with WMD manufacturer Lockheed Martin to process census data, had a preliminary hearing at Wrexham Magistrates Court on Remembrance Day 11/11/11 with her case now adjourned to 8 December. Over 20 supporters attended the court in solidarity with Judith to demonstrate against Lockheed Martin and the wars it fuels, holding a vigil at the war memorial afterwards. Other known cases are in Liverpool on 8 December and Birmingham on 5 January. There are bound to be more in the coming weeks and months.

Recent articles on the newswires: Liverpool court hearing 8 December | Photos and reports from Wrexham 11/11/11 court hearing [ 1 | 2 ] | Local group in solidarity with census refuser | Occupy London in solidarity | Flyer for download | Support Conscientious Census Objector | Solidarity from Canada | Demo and Vigil at Census Court Case
Previous articles on the newswires: Guantanamo/Abu Ghraib Interrogation Firms and the Census | Supplementary Census Questions | Don’t Co-operate (Scotland) | Boycott Census (Ireland) | For the non-religious | Discussion on Census Data Security | Census e-action day | Count Me Out: info | Count Me Out: Disarm the Census | London Demo Report | Dodgy Census Stats | Why I will be breaking the law | Lockheed Martin and the Census | UK Census 2011 | CACI Torturers in Scots Census Rehearsal
Elsewhere: Count Me Out | No Census Taking Part | Ethical Census (Scotland) | SACC on the Scottish Census | CACI gets immunity from US law | Canadian Resistance to Lockheed Martin’s involvement in Census | The Register: Lockheed Martin suffers network ‘intrusion’ | How to complete your census without Lockheed Martin profiting | Guardian: Boycott Census | No2ID on the Census | London Guantanamo Campaign on the Census | Red Pepper: Why to Refuse the Census | CorpWatch on Lockheed Martin Interrogators | Guardian on torture link | Ekklesia on the Census | Book review: Prophets of War (on Lockheed Martin) | Lockheed Martin announces census contract | CACI announces Scottish census contract

2011-11-17 Philadelphia Police Captain Joins Occupy and is making a strong statement

 Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Nov 172011
 

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/      6 min video at link

Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis Joins Occupy Wall Street, Calls NYPD Conduct “Disgusting,” “Totally Uncalled For”

QUzeV Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis Joins Occupy Wall Street, Calls NYPD Conduct Disgusting, Totally Uncalled For

On the same blog:   Congress Less Popular than Communism, BP During Spill, Nixon During Watergate Or King George During American Revolution

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/congress-less-popular-than-communism-bp-during-spill-nixon-during-watergate-or-king-george-during-american-revolution.html

2011-11-30 Special Dean’s Invite to School of Business Screening -‘Inside Job’

 Take back the University  No Responses »
Nov 152011
 

(Earlier posting –  2011-01-08   “Inside Job”, movie narrated by Matt Damon, highly recommended)

This invitation from the Dean of the Business School to a screening of “Inside Job” at the Broadway Theatre on November 30th, 7:00 pm,  is the best Christmas present I could receive.  It  moves my heart.  I suppose it is hope. 

I have felt a profound sense of betrayal by “influential” people at the University.  The Learning in the community has been pushed by community activists who share information, organize screenings, presentations,  film festivals, etc.   It seems that meanwhile our young people attend University to become “trained” in status quo, non-critical thinking. 

My sincere thanks to Dean Daphne Taras.   I hope we are able to support her work.  (Some may remember the introduction to Daphne:  2010-09-23   The corporate agenda at the University: Tackle this one with a quick phone call or email.)

2011-11-15 YaaHooo!! Fair Vote Canada donates $10,000 to support charter challenge against current voting system!

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Nov 152011
 
 I was having a terrible day, that just suddenly turned for the better!!!
Yes, yes, yes!!!! Thank you Fair Vote Canada!!!!!
Danielle
Yukon
 
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
(Sandra speaking)
For past information on ELECTORAL REFORM please go to sub-category:  Democracy requirements, deficits, solutions .  Changing the election process is PART of the solution.  Corporate funding of political parties in the majority of Provinces is another huge problem that demands solution.
 
= = === = = =  = = = = = =
 
I am on the Saskatchewan Board of Fair Vote Canada (FVC).  Let me know if you’re interested – we need more people. 
Also – – FVC is ALL done by volunteer time and donations.   If you don’t have time, maybe you have money to donate??!  It will make you feel really happy!   http://FairVote.Ca
– – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – –  
 
From: Wayne Smith <wayne.smith _ AT __fairvote.ca>

Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:23:42 -0500

Hello all:

Please distribute widely.

Wayne Smith
Executive Director
Fair Vote Canada

(ENGLISH (copy appended))  http://www.fairvote.ca/en/press-release/2011-11-15/fair-vote-canada-donates-10000-to-support-charter-challenge-against-current

(FRENCH)  http://www.fairvote.ca/fr/REC-fait-un-don-de-10%2C000%24-pour-soutenir-la-d%C3%A9marche-juridique-mettant-en-cause-notre-pr%C3%A9sent-syst%C3%A8me-%C3%A9lectoral

Fair Vote Canada donates $10,000 to support charter challenge against current voting system
For immediate release
November 15, 2011

Canada’s national citizens’ movement for electoral reform today announced they would contribute $10,000 in matching funding to support a challenge in the Supreme Court of Canada against Canada’s current first-past-the-post voting system.

“Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us the right to vote,” said Wayne Smith, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada (FVC), “and the Supreme Court has ruled in previous decisions that this doesn’t just mean the right to put a piece of paper in a box. We are guaranteed the right to effective representation.

“But under the current, Single Member Plurality or first-past-the-post voting system used for all federal and provincial elections, most of us are ‘represented’ by somebody we voted against. We currently have a so-called ‘majority’ government that received less than 40% of the votes cast in the last election, and this is a perfectly normal situation under this voting system. Our election results are always horribly distorted, sometimes to the extent that the party with the most votes loses the election.

“Furthermore,” Smith added, “the Charter also guarantees the equality of men and women. But our current voting system throws up barriers to the election of women and minorities. This can be easily seen by looking at other countries around the world. Every democracy that has at least 30% women in its legislature uses a proportional voting system. Canada now has 25% women in the House of Commons. It’s more than we have ever had before, and it’s about as good as it gets with this type of voting system, but it’s still a national disgrace.

“Mounting a challenge in the courts is an expensive and time-consuming process, and we salute the courage and self-sacrifice of the individuals who make up the L’Association pour la revendication des droits démocratiques (ARDD). They have been paying for this initiative to improve Canadian democracy for years out of their own pockets. Now, finally, they are asking for donations, and Fair Vote Canada is proud to announce that we will provide matching funding for the first $10,000 of donations received.

“It is a small price to pay if it means that every Canadian can be represented in Parliament by somebody they actually voted for, that our parliament will accurately reflect the diversity of our society, and that Canadian voters will finally have the power to hold politicians and political parties accountable, a power promised to us in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

-30-

Contact:

Shoni Field, President
604  720  0541
Shoni.Field _AT_ FairVote.Ca
Wayne Smith, Executive Director
 Wayne.Smith  _AT_FairVote.Ca

416 407  7009

http://FairVote.Ca

2011-11-15 Entrants Aspire to Advance Parkinson’s and Diabetes Research, Create Stem Cell Knowledgebase, Improve Organic Photovoltaics for Solar Cells and Map Genomic Diversity. In the public interest? Don’t be gullible.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Take back the University  No Responses »
Nov 152011
 

I phoned “Laura”, the media contact for the following press release.  She will forward an email I will write to the CEO of  Cycle Computing.

The message I wish to communicate (Can I find a way to say this diplomatically?!):   This is not REALLY in the long term public interest;  it is in the short term financial interests of some corporations.  None of the projects address removal of cause.      /Sandra

press release

Nov. 15, 2011, 9:45 a.m. EST

Cycle Computing Reveals CycleCloud BigScience Challenge Finalists at SC ’11
Entrants Aspire to Advance Parkinson’s and Diabetes Research, Create Stem Cell Knowledgebase, Improve Organic Photovoltaics for Solar Cells and Map Genomic Diversity

SEATTLE, WA, Nov 15, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Cycle Computing announced the finalists of the CycleCloud BigScience Challenge 2011 at Supercomputing 2011 in Seattle last night. The contest offers $10,000 of computation time, the equivalent of eight hours on a 30,000-core cluster to candidates who are working on behalf of non-profit organizations to further humanity and state of the art research.

Finalists were selected based on their proposal’s long-term benefit to humanity, originality, creativity and suitability to run on CycleCloud clusters launched within Amazon Web Services (AWS). The grand prize, which includes an original $10,000 in credit from Cycle Computing and four hours of CycleCloud engineering support, will also include an additional $2,500 of credit from AWS.

Due to the impressive caliber of submissions, all finalists were awarded both the original $500 credit from Cycle Computing and an additional $1,000 credit from AWS. The finalists will be judged by Jason Stowe, CEO, Cycle Computing, and a panel of industry luminaries, including Matt Wood, technology evangelist for Amazon Web Services, Kevin Davies, editor-in-chief, Bio-IT World and Peter S. Shenkin, vice president, Schroedinger.

The finalists:

�
—  Alan Aspuru-Guzik, professor in department of chemistry and chemical
biology and Johannes Hachmann, postdoctoral fellow, Harvard Clean
Energy Project: Hachmann and Aspuru-Guzik wish to conduct
computational screening and design of novel materials for the next
generation of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). The goal is to facilitate
creating the next generation of photovoltaic cells.
—  Jesus Izaguirre, associate professor of computer science and
engineering and concurrent associate professor of applied and
computational mathematics and statistics, University of Notre Dame:
Izaguirre intends to explore mutations in proinsulin case misfolding
and analyze the ability to stimulate the folding pathways of these
mutations to provide mechanic insight into the events of onset of
diabetes. He also plans to examine the dominant states in the folding
pathways to enable structure-based drug design and the production of
new therapies to combat this disease.
—  Soumya Ray, assistant professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School:
Ray’s team has identified a mutation that represents the majority of
Parkinson’s disease patients. They seek to utilize the additional
computational power to explore the dynamics of the protein and how it
interacts with inhibitors to understand how drugs interact with the
mutation, benefitting a large number of researcher and other drug
discovery programs around the world.
—  Victor Ruotti, computational biologist, Morgridge Institute for
Research: Ruotti aspires to collect genetic information, specifically
RNA alignments, from different types of cells to build an RNA-based
indexing system for stem cells. Once these alignments are identified,
analysis based on this knowledgebase will provide a better
understanding of the overarching signaling mechanisms used by stems
cells to support generation of personalized, cell-based therapies for
a variety of diseases.
—  Martin Steinegger, bioinformatics researcher, TU Munich ROSTLAB:
Steinegger’s team’s goal is to provide access to every possible
mutation in the gene sequence that will ever be observed in humans. To
achieve, they have started a new project called SNAP-Map, which
strives to calculate every possible single-nucleotide polymorphism
(SNP) in human proteins to make this technology and data available
worldwide. With this data available, researchers will have the ability
to access the effect of mutations in individuals and advance the
efforts towards individual medicine based on understanding human
diversity and variation.
�

“We created the CycleCloud BigScience Challenge to remove boundaries and help democratize access to supercomputing resources” said Jason Stowe, founder and CEO, Cycle Computing. “As a bootstrapped company, we understand why researchers are usually confined to sizing their questions to the compute cluster they have, or can afford. These finalists highlight how utility supercomputing gives scientists the computational room to realize their vision, ask challenging questions, and move humanity forward.”

Each finalist will provide a presentation and demo on their research to the Cycle Judging Panel followed by a 30 minute Q&A. The Finalists’ entries will be judged against the contest criteria and the grand prize winner will be announced next year on the Cycle Computing site.

About Cycle Computing: Cycle Computing, a bootstrapped, profitable software company, delivers proven, secure and flexible utility supercomputing software and services since 2005. Cycle helps clients maximize existing HPC infrastructure and speed computations on servers, virtual machines, and on-demand in the cloud. Thanks to our CycleServer HPC management software and our CycleCloud fully-supported & secured HPC clusters, Cycle clients experience faster time-to-market, decreased operating costs, and unprecedented service & support. Starting with three initial Fortune 100 clients, Cycle has grown to deploy proven implementations at Fortune 500s, SMBs and government and academic institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Purdue University, Pfizer and Lockheed Martin.

�
Media Contact:
Laura Anderson
Articulate Communications Inc.
landerson@articulatecomms.com
212.255.0080, ext. 11

SOURCE: Cycle Computing

mailto:landerson _AT _articulatecomms.com

Copyright 2011 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.

2011-11-14 The Story of Broke.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Economy / Political Economy, Genetically Modified, Nuclear, Sustainability  No Responses »
Nov 152011
 

Thanks to Janet:

Another Annie Leonard treasure (Annie of ‘The Story of Stuff’), & only 8 minutes long!

 Relevant to ALL the issues we’re all working on – $$$ for war, nukes, incinerators, education reforms, tar sands, green jobs, Occupy Wall St. – you name it!  

The Story of Broke.

It is in the US context, but the situation in Canada has many similarities.

http://www.nationofchange.org/story-broke-1320860582

The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.

2011-11-11 Occupy Coachella Valley Protests Bush Visit

 George Bush war criminal, Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Nov 112011
 

http://palmdesert.patch.com/articles/occupy-coachella-valley-protests-bush-visit

Approximately 25 people chanting and waving signs protest policies enacted by former President Bush during a visit to Palm Desert.
An Occupy Coachella Vallye protestor holds a sign reading “Citizens: Arrest Bush” during a visit by former President George W. Bush to Palm Desert. Friday, Nov 11, 2011.
Photos (6)

Photos

About two dozen members of Occupy Coachella Valley marched along sidewalks and in crosswalks in front of the JW Marriott in Palm Desert on
Friday morning.

The peaceful demonstration was a protest against former President George W. Bush, who spoke earlier in the morning to a private group at the hotel. 

“We’re protesting the presence of the top 1% and President Bush, who started the polices that have bankrupted this nation,” said a person
in a Guy Fawkes mask who called himself “Anonymous”, but was later found to be Jayel Aheram. 

“We’re protesting two budget busting wars, the fat bailouts and the Patriot Act and things of that nature. For the most part, the fact that he put this country into massive debt,” Aheram said.

With chants of “Bush lied, soldiers died,” and “Shame on Bush”, the group received honks and approving waves from a handful of vehicles passing in front the Marriott.  Only one person was seen making a negative gesture toward the group. 

The former President was speaking as part of an Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum, which was not open to the public.  Attendees, which Occupy Coachella Valley claims represent the 1% of people that control political power and wealth, paid $3,695 to register for the five-day event. 

= = = = = = == = = = = = = =

http://www.kpsplocal2.com/Content/Headlines/story/Former-President-George-W-Bush-In-The-Valley/BkVyCzxECUOqiXWGJ7hj3Q.cspx

Former President George W. Bush is visiting the Coachella Valley Friday.

He’s speaking at the 25th Annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Ceremony. The event is being held at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert.

The event is part of the annual Strategic Growth Forum, which takes place from November 9 through the 13, with the awards ceremony taking place on the final night, hosted by Jay Leno.

According to Ernst & Young’s website there will be more than 2,100 CEOs and senior executives from America’s top high-growth, market-leading companies at this year’s sold out Forum.

The event is private and closed to the public.

Protesters from the “Occupy Coachella Valley” movement will be demonstrating outside the hotel.

Copyright 2011 Desert Television LLC All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

2011-11-25 Sun TV, (“Fox News North”), turns its guns on the peace work of Ceasefire.ca

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Propaganda  No Responses »
Nov 112011
 

WATCH:  Sun TV attacks Ceasefire.ca!

http://www.ceasefire.ca/?p=9260

Defence lobby, Steven Staples

Right-wing TV host calls our letter to supporters “despicable”

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/big-labour-v-military/1292517244001

Sun TV, also known as “Fox News North,” has turned its guns on the peace work of Ceasefire.ca and all of its 20,000 supporters – but especially Ceasefire.ca founder Steven Staples.

In a 9-minute rant, sometime nasty – and sometimes comical – Sun TV host and far-right commentator Brian Lilley attacks our latest letter to supporters, and calls it “despicable.”

It’s clear that our campaign to confront Harper’s military-funded pro-war lobby is worrying the corporations and the “old generals.”

It’s no surprise that Lockheed Martin, the maker of the F-35 and billions of dollars’ worth of other weapons sold to the Canadian military, is a major advertiser and supporter of Sun TV.

Watch the Sun TV video, above, for yourself.:   http://www.ceasefire.ca/?p=9260

Then read the letter that Sun TV calls “despicable,” and make a donation to help our defence campaign against these attacks from Sun TV.

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