I'm getting caught up on my Democracy Now! and I thought this was very interesting coverage of rendition and Obama's decisions so far.
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( 2.9 / 19 )I picked up the book Last Child in the Woods at my parents' house in Wisconsin over Christmas break. I was surprised to see that the author, Richard Louv, used to write for the San Diego Union Tribune, and many of his examples are from San Diego. Tonight I got a chance to hear Louv speak. The evening was also a kickoff for local efforts to get children into nature, as previewed in this Union Tribune article .
Louv also wrote an editorial today on how nature can help us in tough economic times.
In his talk tonight, Louv explained how multiple studies have shown that exposure to nature helps kids focus better, behave better, stay healthier, avoid obesity, and more. One of the most intersting studies found that "executive function" in children, including self-regulation and decision-making, has decreased over the last 60 years, such that today's 7-year old has the executive function of a 1940s 5-year old. Children develop executive function through independent creative play, of the sort they do in a natural landscape. Depriving kids of time to play in nature has made them less able to think independently and control themselves. Thankfully, the Children and Nature Network is bringing people together to make "No Child Left Inside" a reality.
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( 3.3 / 18 )I'm getting tired of all the columns and articles inveighing against public workers' pensions. I work for the County of San Diego and I feel proud of the work I do and the pension I'm earning. Properly managed, there's no reason a pension plan should bankrupt the government or company paying it. If people working for private companies are feeling pension envy, there's a simple solution. Join a union, and negotiate a pension plan in your workplace. Anyone who spends 30 years of their life serving the public has earned their retirement. No one should have to worry about their 401k going down the drain just when it counts. And since all of us taxpayers rely on police officers and firefighters to risk their lives protecting us, it's only fair to let them rely on us when they've completed their service.
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( 3 / 12 )Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.
Why the distinction between Guantanamo and Bagram when both are American military bases in foreign countries? In both places we are holding people in American-run jails. If we're running the jails, the prisoners should have the same rights as anyone jailed on American soil. Obama should continue the good work he started when he ordered Guantanamo closed. Somehow he's been pulled off course.
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( 2.3 / 3 )Navid and I went for a walk in La Jolla Cove today. We saw:
sea lions
seals
squirrels
brown pelicans
herring gulls
Heermann's gulls
double-crested cormorants
bushtits
Anna's hummingbirds
black phoebes
and a peregrine falcon up close! He was sitting in a tree right along the path, along with a couple of cormorants. Sadly, we didn't have a camera, but we both took cell phone pictures . You can't see much detail but you can see how close he was. That was amazing! I was reluctant to go out walking since I hurt my toe playing with the cat this morning (I was running to make him chase me, and hit a corner) but it was definitely worthwhile.
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( 5 / 1 )Navid and I went for a walk in the canyon this afternoon and saw the following birds:
black phoebe
mourning dove
woodpecker (don't know which)
hummingbird, probably Anna's
California thrasher
California towhee
spotted towhee
red-tailed hawk
white-tailed kite
scrub jay
little yellow bird TBD
orange and black bird TBD
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( 5 / 1 )More news outlets have picked up the extraordinary rendition story. Here's an editorial by the Boston Globe: A Nasty Privilege, Reasserted .
And here's a piece by law professor Marjorie Cohn on Alternet: Rendition is a Horrible, Violent Crime in Any Form -- It Should Not Be U.S. Policy
It's also becoming an issue in Europe.
Here's a related case . The government was finally forced to release a bunch of documents relating to extraordinary rendition and black sites, but they redacted so much text there's almost nothing left. It's hard to believe this is the government's idea of transparency.
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( 0 / 0 )I just found this action alert by the Center for Constitutional Rights. You can ask Eric Holder to stop using the State Secrets privilege to cover up U.S.-sanctioned torture and prevent torture victims from seeking justice.
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( 3 / 7 )Watch this video from the ACLU on the extraordinary rendition lawsuit against Jeppeson Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing.
There's a lot of information about the case here . It's horrific that the Obama administration has asserted state secrecy to obstruct justice for the men who were kidnapped and tortured by this private company under CIA direction. These are the kinds of secrets we should never have had in the first place and we should certainly not keep them now. All of the torture committed in our name must be made public, those responsible brought to justice, reparations made (as much as reparation is possible in this situation), and we must commit to never, ever allow this to happen again.
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( 3.5 / 2 )Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on 'Extraordinary Rendition' Lawsuit
February 09, 2009 2:44 PM
From Jake Tapper and Ariane de Vogue:
The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.
The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition -- including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free. They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured.
Read more at abcnews.com
Let's hope the court reads the constitution before ruling on this one.
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