Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Want To Score High On The SAT? Pick Rich Parents
ZeroHedge | author | 10/08/14

While money (reportedly) can't buy love, it appears, according to The WSJ, that it can buy brains.On average, based on calculations from FairTest, students in 2014 in every income bracket outscored students in a lower bracket on every section of the test. Rather stunningly, students from the wealthiest families outscored those from the poorest by just shy of 400 points. As WSJ's Josh Zumbrun so poetically notes, perhaps SAT should more appropriately stand for Student Affluence Test. ... Read more
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Are Tiny Houses a Viable Affordable Housing Solution?
BillMoyers | John Light | 10/06/14

Last month's well attended climate march in New York City showed that we are finally recognizing the harmful effects of our fossil-fuel driven economy on the planet. Some Americans looking to shrink their carbon footprint are doing so by shrinking their homes, opting to live in ultra-compact houses, often referred to as "tiny houses."

Increasingly, these small homes are also being considered as models for affordable housing that could serve as a place for the homeless to find some stability and, perhaps, live permanently. In such varied locations as Portland, Oregon, upstate New York, Austin, Texas and Madison, Wisconsin, local advocates for the homeless have constructed communities of tiny houses. ... Read more
Are Tiny Houses a Viable Affordable Housing Solution? (10/07/14) [9:32]

Key Democrats, Led By Hillary Clinton, Leave No Doubt That Endless War Is Official U.S. Doctrine
The Intercept | Glenn Greenwald | 10/08/14

Long before Americans were introduced to the new 9/11 era super-villains called ISIS and Khorasan, senior Obama officials were openly and explicitly stating that America's "war on terror," already 12 years old, would last at least another decade. At first, they injected these decrees only anonymously; in late 2012, The Washington Post - disclosing the administration's secret creation of a "disposition matrix" to decide who should be killed, imprisoned without charges, or otherwise "disposed" of - reported these remarkable facts.

... In May, 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether it should revise the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). A committee member asked a senior Pentagon official, Assistant Secretary Michael Sheehan, how long the war on terror would last; his reply: "At least 10 to 20 years." At least. A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed afterward "that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today -- atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted." As Spencer Ackerman put it: "Welcome to America's Thirty Years War," one which -- by the Obama administration's own reasoning -- has "no geographic limit." ... Read more

Airstrikes are big business for defense companies
magazine | Cliff Judy | 09/29/14

Airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have served as launching point for far more than missiles. Those military decisions cost the U.S. millions of dollars a day, and defense contractors pocket much of that money. (Video via U.S. Navy)

Bloomberg reports in mid-September just ahead of airstrikes in Syria, defense firms Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Raytheon and General Dynamics Corporation all set stock price records. ... Read more
*Airstrikes are big business for defense companies (09/29/14) [3:17]

Woman Explains Why She Will End Her Life on November 1
AlterNet | Alyssa Figueroa | 10/08/14

Brittany Maynard and her husband were on their honeymoon when she started to get severe headaches. By January 2014, she found out she had a type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme and was told she had ten years to live. A few weeks later, however, doctors uncovered the cancer was at stage 4, and she would only have six months to live. ... Read more
Woman Explains Why She Will End Her Life on November 1 (10/08/14) [6:30]