Category Archives: Activism

Cities Go Blue for Colon Cancer New National Awareness Campaign Launched

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This is the first part of a press release announcing a new initiative form the Colon Cancer Alliance which reports on its site that

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in both men and women in the US.

But perhaps because it is one of those cancers that we don’t like to talk about, it doesn’t get much attention.  It certainly got my attention by coming into my family, though.  Here is the announcement.  Full text at this link.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 10, 2009) – The Colon Cancer Alliance (CCA) today announced the launch of its national awareness campaign, Cities Go Blue for Colon Cancer.  Philadelphia, PA has been selected as the inaugural host city with events kicking off on September 26-27, 2009.
“The purpose of the nationwide Cities Go Blue for Colon Cancer campaign is to promote awareness about colorectal cancer, by encouraging people to get screened and providing information and support to survivors and caregivers,” said Andrew Spiegel, CEO of the Colon Cancer Alliance.  “Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the country and we need to make sure that everyone who should be screened is getting screened and those living with the disease have the information and support they need to improve their quality of life. Philadelphia has been selected as our kick-off city and we’re excited to work with community partners on a series of informative and fun events geared toward increasing knowledge of colon cancer and saving lives in the process.”

via Colon Cancer Alliance.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics in the Health Care Debate

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I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in the current debate over health care, and let’s face it, all of us ought to be, regularly check out the site FactCheck.org. This project of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy checks claims of politicians, political campaigns, lobbying organizations, etc. against the facts.
And guess what, FactCheck.org has found that proponents of a government administered option for health care are lying to you. This time it is about the record breaking profits of the insurance industry. In four ads from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) targeting specific lawmakers

the narrator says that the targeted lawmaker has received many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions “from the insurance industry.” What do the insurance companies get, the narrator asks? “Record profits.”
We asked the DCCC for back-up on the “record profits” claim. A spokesman sent us citations of several articles, none of which prove the claim. One notes that UnitedHealth Group moved up in the Fortune 500 rankings of corporations, but even that article says the company reaped lower profits in 2008 than in 2007. It’s true that UnitedHealth’s numbers for the second quarter of 2009 beat analysts’ expectations, as we noted last week, but the company posted higher profits in, say, the first quarter of 2008.

via FactCheck.org, Broken Record on Record Profits

And guess what else, opponents of a publicly administered option are lying to, on a lot of things. They are lying about the “death panels.”
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In truth, that section of the bill would require Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions helping seniors to plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, choosing a hospice and making decisions about life-sustaining treatment. It would not require doctors to counsel that their patients refuse medical intervention.

There is a tv ad in which a senior citizen implies that Medicare coverage will be cut back under a government plan, but that abortion will be provided on demand. This, too, is not true.

In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered, and one of them explicitly says that no public funds will be used to finance the procedure. Furthermore, none of the bills call explicitly for cuts in Medicare coverage, much less rationing, under a public plan.

via FactCheck.org, Surgery for Seniors vs. Abortions?
There are articles analyzing the claims Obama made in his press conference, those frightening tv commercials from Conservatives for Patient Rights, etc. Check out the site.
This issue is too important for sides to be making false claims or stretching the truth, but sometimes they, themselves, have wrong information. So it is our responsibility to check the facts.

Operation Embarrass Your Congressman is an Embarrassment

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Somebody apparently associated with the Tea Party movement (and GOP Congressional politics) has put up an anonymous guerilla site urging protesters to “embarrass their congressman” (women exempted?) over the recess with impromptu rallies and email blasts– ala Alex’s story on POLITICO today.
The site, set up today, mentions no specific issues — and doesn’t include an “About Us” tab or any information whatsoever about who set it up. It urges that protests be kept non-violent and “respectful” and gives a step-by-step tipsheet on politician tracking, like checking their daily itineraries.

via Operation Embarrass Your Congressman – Glenn Thrush – POLITICO.com.
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There is nothing wrong with following our elected officials and embarrassing them at every opportunity with challenging and insistent questions and demands for answers.  But they should be embarassed by their inability to answer or the lame answers they give.  There are many things wrong with harassing our elected officials and obstructing public discourse.  It is a disservice to those who want to engage our officials in genuine dialogue, and ultimately the only people who ought to be embarrassed are the protestors.
Shouting people down at public meetings is the equivalent of Bill O’Reilley turning off the mic of guests he doesn’t agree with.  It is bullying and it is not dialogue.

Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians

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In a recent SF Gate Open Forum Post, Cyrus Farivar, a freelance technology journalist from California, looks at the ways in which technology has been used as a tool in the pro-democracy movement, official efforts to thrwart that, and technology developments that had made it more difficult for them to do so. He writes

But now that Iran has been experiencing turmoil surrounding its recent election, many Bay Area technology leaders finally realize the importance their technology and services can play in shaping world events. As foreign media have been kicked out of the country, information technology services suddenly have become a crucial tool to get and receive information from Iran.
Twitter famously received a call from the U.S. Department of State nearly two weeks ago asking the company to postpone its scheduled maintenance to suit those in Tehran’s time zone, rather than those on Pacific time.
Facebook recently added Persian language support for its iconic social networking site. Google took things to an entirely new level by launching its Persian version of Google translate, which allows for decent machine translation between English and Persian and vice versa. But why this newfound attention to the Persian language (and Iran) took so long remains a mystery. Google’s translation capability for Estonian even came online before Persian.

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So instead of superficial support, like Twitter users changing their avatars to green to support Iran’s reformist movement, Silicon Valley minds and money should pool resources as a way to help Iranians get around this information blockade by providing easier-to-use proxies, anonymizers and maybe even unfiltered Internet access through hardware.

Long-range Wi-Fi, 3G, satellite or other wireless communications devices from Iran’s neighboring countries or even the Persian Gulf could be used to get faster and better information in and out of Iran. One Arizona company, Space Data, even advertises the capability to use helium-filled balloons to provide Internet and mobile phone access. Much of Iran could theoretically be covered with one or two such balloons.
All of that may sound crazy, but not helping Iranian reformers at their darkest hour would be even crazier.

Read the whole article at: Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians, the San Francisco Chronicle.

Three Bloggers Arrested in Egypt on the Same Day

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Sometimes it’s dangerous to blog in Egypt.

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via Reporters Sans Frontières.

Meedan | Al-Jazeera bureau chief threatened in…

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has issued a statement condemning Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of Al Jazeera television, including a threatening telephone call to Sanaa bureau chief, Mourad Hashem, earlier this week.
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via Meedan | Al-Jazeera bureau chief threatened in….

My Computer and War in Africa

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It takes a lot of seimi-precious metal to make up the portable electronics devices we treat as throw away, and much of it comes from the more war torn corners of our planet. So this article from Time Magazine was food for thought.

When the film Blood Diamond came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?
In a report released earlier this week, Global Witness claims that multinational companies are furthering a trade in minerals at the heart of the hi-tech industry that feeds the horrendous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). (Global Witness is the same nongovernmental organization that helped expose the violence that plagues many of the sources of diamonds.) However, the accused companies, with varying degrees of hostility, deny any culpability, saying Global Witness oversimplifies a complex economic process in a chaotic geopolitial setting.
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Read more in the piece by Elizabeth Dias, on Time.com. The Global Witness report, Faced with a Gun, What Can You Do? is also available online.

ITunes Facilitates the Sale of Over 1,000 Cannibis Units

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Screen Shot of the Cannabis App

Screen Shot of the Cannabis App

According to the LA Times, ITunes has facilitated the distribution of Cannibis.

Cannabis is a geolocation-based iPhone app that allows users to quickly find the nearest medical marijuana dispensary as well as weed-friendly doctors and lawyers, all with a few quick touches.

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put 50 cents of every purchase — or 17% of the proceeds — toward establishing a nonprofit organization dedicated to media outreach for the pro-pot cause.

Read more in The LA Times.

Cell Phone Exclusivity

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This is a campaign I am very interested in.  It is a project of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, that aims toward

empowering consumers to fight for better and more affordable telephone, cable and Internet services or equipment.  By focusing on major media, technology and communications issues and emphasizing local stories, HearUsNow.org will help explain increasingly complex issues and the connections between these issues, underscore what’s at stake, and offer ways to make Tadalafil: the cheap levitra online and levitra. on line levitra isn’t called ‘the weekend pill’ for nothing: unlike Sildenafil, Tadalafil can last for a very long time. This results in anxiety cialis no prescription usa which makes the problem much worse. Foods to produce more seminal fluid naturally viagra fast shipping and the quality sperm count naturally. On the other hand, erectile dysfunction is a condition, which persuade a man s potential to achieve or uphold an erection. cialis price in canada improvements.

It came to my attention as a result of its current campaign to liberate mobile phones from the exclusivity deals they have with cell phone providers.  You know, the kind of deal that locks your iPhone and makes it unusable outside of the AT&T network, even long after your contract with AT&T has expried.  Check it out.  They will even help you write letters to your elected representatives, should you wish to do so.

Donkey Suits, Online Satire and Censorship in Azerbaijan

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Late last month, a group of Azeri bloggers posted their latest tongue-in-cheek opus, a video in which a donkey holds a news conference before a circle of gravely nodding journalists.  Last week in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, two of those bloggers, Mr. Hajizada, 26, and his fellow activist Emin Milli, 30, were arrested, the New York Times reports.

In Azerbaijan, as elsewhere in the region, Internet use has risen as press freedoms have dwindled. With the Azeri government buoyed by sky-high oil prices in recent years, opposition voices have all but disappeared from public life. It also has order viagra no prescription a pattern in the drug market. And cialis prices in australia made that pleasure affordable for more people. It all depends on the health conditions of the people and thus you can order whatever you desire, but it must be accurate according to your body need. viagra prescription free The victim purchase viagra of PTSD may have experienced or seen an event that induced extreme fear, shock and/or a feeling of helplessness or hopelessness. Television, once financed by competing oligarchs, has come under solid government control, and advertisers have pulled back from newspapers critical of the government. Web sites — especially those registered on foreign servers, which cannot be blocked by the government — became “the last source of information,” said Magerram Zeynalov, 27, a former newspaper reporter.

The arrests are believed to be a signal that the government is cracking down on the this outlet, as well.