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Scott Walker brags that he knows how to win blue state elections.

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker makes his case for the Republican 2016 nomination. See he knows how to win over Democratic voters. “Mr. Obama won Milwaukee County with 67.5% of the vote; I won with nearly 60%,” he writes.

I won’t subject you to more. I just want to point out that Scott Walker’s style of electioneering has resulted in fifteen felony charges for his staffers. And that was only in round one of investigations. Round two is just getting under way.

Having Scott Walker tell you how to win elections is like John Dillinger lecturing you on the subject of bank security.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

satanic-capitalist

2 FOX News Reporters Fired for Covering Monsanto’s Cancer-Causing GMO Milk

By Christina Sarich

Two Fox journalists were recently fired for exposing milk that is ‘unfit for human consumption’ due to Monsanto GMO meddling. Reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre revealed the shocking truth that natural foodists have suspected for quite some time – that almost all of the milk sold in the United States is a cancer-causing concoction full of a growth hormone manufactured by Monsanto called ‘Posilac,’ or ‘BGH,’ otherwise known as ‘rBGH’ or bovine growth hormone.

Both reporters were hired by FOX News as investigative journalists to ask tough questions, and to get to the ‘truth’ of the matter. As soon as they covered this story; however, both reporters were fired. Akre states, “With Monsanto, I didn’t realize how effectively a corporation could work to get something to the market place – the levels of coordination they had to have – they had to get University professors into the fold, they had to get experts into the fold, they had to get reporters into the fold…they had to get the public into the fold, and of course let’s not forget the FDA, and leave them out. They had to get the federal regulators into the fold to agree this was a ‘find and safe product.’”

Before Posilac was given a rubber stamp by our government, it was tested for 90 days on rats, yet Monsanto created commercials to promote the product saying “Prosilac is the single most tested product in history.” They say nothing of the possibility to cause toxicity in human subjects, not of their testing to prove that bovine growth hormones were safe. When Health Canada looked at Posilac, they came up with very different results than the FDA did. In the UK, it was reported that Posilac could be absorbed by the human body and could cause serious health concerns. The GMO hormone to cause cows to produce more milk was, in fact, possibly toxic. Monsanto new the possibly lethal outcome of using rGBH, anddeleted it from the final report submitted to the FDA. The Canadian regulatory bodies saw the potential for a serious human health hazard, and said, ‘no,’ while the FDA favored Monsanto’s non-factual 90-day study, and gave it their rubber stamp.

There are now numerous scientific studies which prove that Posilac, another warped Monsanto brain-child, causes multiple types of cancer, from breast cancer to prostate cancer, and more.

"The widespread consumption of BST [rBGH] supplemented milk is therefore an experiment on an unsuspecting population that could have horrendous consequences and overwhelm the health care system. The experiment would take one to three decades when it would be difficult to dismantle a well-entrenched BST [rBGH] industry, and still have one to three decades’ worth of individuals in the pipeline. I can conceive of no animal experiments to test this and to provide hard data to predict the magnitude and time frame for this effect. The risk to benefit ratio of this experiment is clearly not in favor of the consumer." [George L. Tritsch, Cancer Research Scientist (Retired), August 7, 1995]

With overwhelming research like this now available for public perusal, the FDA warns that raw, untreated milk is ‘dangerous’ to our health. More likely, raw milk, devoid of genetically modified ingredients (Posilac), is dangerous to Monsanto’s poison-making kingdom.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/2-fox-news-reporters-fired-covering-monsanto-s-cancer-causing-gmo-milk-1385184532. All rights are reserved.

sagansense

“The conventional bombs of World War II were called “blockbusters”, filled with 20 tons of TNT they could destroy a city block. All the bombs dropped on all the cities during World War II amounted to some 2 million tons of TNT — two megatons. Coventry, Rotterdam, Dresden and Tokyo — all the death that rained from the skies between 1939 and 1945 — a hundred thousand blockbusters, two megatons. Today, two megatons is the equivalent of a single thermonuclear bomb — one bomb with the destructive force of the second world war. But there are tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The missile and bomber forces in the Soviet Union and United States have warheads aimed at over 15,000 designated targets. No place on the planet is safe.

The energy contained in these weapons — genies of death, patiently awaiting the rubbing of the lamps — totals far more than 10,000 megatons; but, with the destruction concentrated efficiently, not over six years but over a few hours. A blockbuster for every family on the planet; a World War II every second for the length of a lazy afternoon. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 70,000 people. In a full nuclear exchange, in the paroxysm of global death, the equivalent of a million Hiroshimas would be dropped all over the world. And, in such an exchange not everyone would be killed by the blast and the fire storm and the immediate radiation. There would be other agonies. The loss of loved ones; the legions of the burned and blinded and mutilated; disease; plague; long-lived radiation poisoning the soil and the water; the threat of stillbirths and malformed children; and, the hopeless sense of a civilization destroyed for nothing. The knowledge that we could have prevented it and did nothing.”

- Carl Sagan; The Blessing and the Curse: Carl Sagan on Nuclear War, Colonizing Space | "Who Speaks For Earth?" (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage)

thelybrarian-deactivated2019010

xreivyn

narcodigitalhedonist

Street Scene by artbytheo

narcodigitalhedonist

Virtual Inequality: No Escape From the Economic Gap

Millions of players worldwide enjoy using the MMORPG site Gaia Online, where they spend time customizing their avatars, playing games, interacting with other players in virtual environments and in forums, and even decking out their own homes, cars, and aquariums.

The site started out small; originally called go-gaia.com, it started out as an anime link list with a small community, and by 2005, when the site was only two years old, founder Derek Liu expressed that “Currently all our ideas revolve around role playing. Gaia will be as much of a game as it is a forum” (Liu). Today it has developed into a community of millions of players with its own virtual world and a virtual economy that anyone on the site can participate in. Gaia Online started out giving its users equal opportunity to participate in the social and economic aspects of the world, but this is no longer the case: the introduction of Gaia Cash in summer 2007 (which allows users to purchase virtual gold and items using real money) has swapped out equal opportunity for privileging its wealthiest IRL (in real life) users.

1GC is worth about 60g, and 100GC is worth $1 USD (“Gaia Cash”).

Prior to the introduction of Gaia Cash, the primary method of earning gold (the site's currency) was through direct participation in the site through forums, games, and exploration. As in other virtual worlds with their own independent economies, each user has the same opportunity to participate in gold-earning activities as every other user (Ludgate). In his article in GigaOM, James Wagner observes that this model ensures that “Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia. . . and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.” Ironically, a mere three months after the publication of Wagner's article, Gaia Online introduced Gaia Cash as a way of getting around these more time-consuming ways of earning gold.

One of the biggest motivators for earning gold on Gaia Online is to buy cosmetic items to dress up one's avatar. An article entitled “Living Digitally,” T. L. Taylor states that in virtual worlds, the avatar becomes an embodiment of the user, a virtual body through which the user shapes his or her identity. He points out that “avatars are particularly powerful artifacts to consider. They prove to be the material out of which relationships and interactions are embodied.”

Just like our corporeal bodies are a big factor in shaping our identities in real life, avatars become the bodies that shape our identities in virtual space, and users are constantly looking for approval from their community members. Unlike in the real world, however, Gaia Online users can customize their avatars in an endless variety of ways (changing not only clothing but hair, eyes, even race), meaning they have practically free reign over their own virtual identities.

However, the users are limited to the items available and, of course, the cost of these items.

And the real-money cost is not insubstantial: in 2007 more than $1.5 billion was spent on virtual goods (Sayre). There.com and Second Life are two MMO sites with primary markets that operate similarly to the Gaia Cash system, and their developers have recognized the correlation between the possession of virtual goods and users' self-worth—There.com CEO says, "It's all about exclusivity. . . People want to have the newest and coolest thing," and Second Life's community and product developer maintains that "Humans are humans, whether they are in real life or the virtual world. Everyone wants to look good. Everyone wants to be unique, and they will pay for it" (Sayre). The same is true on Gaia Online. If users want to be cool, if they want to be respected in the virtual community, they have to look the part. And the way they accomplish that is by spending hoards of gold on sought-after cosmetic items for their avatars.

Some users go "questing" for expensive items by saving up and asking others for help.

Before Gaia Cash, these items were just as attainable by one user as by another, because obtaining gold was dependent on time spent interacting with the different parts of the site. But now that users can buy gold with real money, not everyone has to put in the time to earn gold. For example, working husband and father Doug Robinson plays the online game Star Wars Galaxies, and he is not atypical in his stance that "I just don't have the time to grind for 10 hours a day to get to the fun content in most games, I had rather spend a little real-world cash" (Musgrove). Many Gaia Online users must feel similarly, because the average paying Gaian spends $30 per month buying virtual items and the Gaia company relies on these payments for 60% of its revenue (the other 40% coming from ads) (Takahashi).

If users buy Gaia Cash because they don't have time to work for their gold, then the users with the coolest items are not necessarily the ones who contribute most to the community. In fact, those who contribute regularly to the world of Gaia Online but who cannot afford to buy Gaia Cash become overshadowed by less-involved users that simply have more money IRL. By introducing Gaia Cash, Gaia Online has allowed its wealthier users to get ahead, leaving its more dedicated users in the dust.

WORKS CITED:

"Gaia Cash." Gaiapedia: Gaia Online Wiki. Wikia, n.d. Web. 10 June 2013.

Liu, Derek. "Interview: Derek Liu, Gaia Online Anime Community." Big-Boards.com. N.p., 2005. Web. 10 June 2013.

Ludgate, Simon. "Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work." Gamasutra. UBM Tech, 16 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 June 2013.

Musgrove, Mike. "Virtual Games Create A Real World Market." The Washington Post. N.p., 17 Sept. 2005. Web. 10 June 2013.

Sayre, Carolyn. "Imaginary Trends." Time 9 Nov. 2008: n. pag. Web. 10 June 2013.

Takahashi, Dean. "Teen Virtual World Gaia Online Lays off 15 to 20 Staffers." VentureBeat. N.p., 23 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 June 2013.

Taylor, T. L. "Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds." The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. By Ralph Schroeder. London: Springer, 2002. 40-41. Print.

Wagner, James Au. "Move over MySpace, Gaia Online Is Here — Tech News and Analysis." GigaOM. N.p., 22 Apr. 2007. Web. 10 June 2013.

Final Project Proposal

Topic(s): Can include thematic and specific topics/object/phenomenon

location-based media

Foursquare

online privacy/real life privacy

social online gaming

Format: (multi-media or paper) What type of multi-media? Why?

Multi-media: graphics will be helpful in illustrating the uses and disadvantages of Foursquare.

Thesis question(s):Remember this is something you should be able to argue persuasively about. It may be two questions--1 that talks about a theme or conceptual issue, and 1 that presents the specific object(s) of inquiry you'll be using to make a persuasive argument about this topic. Remember, this isn't about opinion, so you'll want your question to be framed in a way that can be "proven" or "persuasively argued" through concrete examples.

What are the implications with physically navigating through the “real world” via location-based media applications? How does framing these applications as “online games” shape our identities in- and outside the Foursquare world?

Sources: For the sources, try to have at least 2 completely nailed down, but failing that, you can also write the sources you think you will need & possible places to look (you should be able to do this for 4 sources). For example, if you know you will need a history of the wii or of facebook, you can write down that you’ll need one and possible sources (let’s say its wii & you haven’t done the research yet but know you’ll need a history you can at least say “history of wii specifically & history of game consoles generally—Possible sources: Wired, NY Times Science & Technology, video gaming magazines, books or histories about gaming, play or consoles). Then explain how you see these relating to your project.

Two sources on history and how they relate:

1. Something that addresses media/social situations that preceded and maybe led to the idea of location-based media

2. History of social gaming

Two sources on theory and how they relate:

1. Article from Time Magazine: Please Rob Me: The Risks of Online Oversharing

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1964873,00.html

2. Interview with Foursquare co-founder:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/foursquare-founder-selvadurai-talks-about-privacy-future/2011/04/08/AFGYa21C_blog.html

How you got there/Problems/Issues you see: (OPTIONAL)

List of new media/technologies:

siri

iphone

pottermore

youtube

tumblr

facebook

myspace

instagram

stumbleupon

vine

snapchat

ebooks

cloud

dropbox

google glass

check-in

Check-in: Why do people want everyone on facebook to know where they are at any given time? Is this not dangerous? Why does facebook encourage, or even offer, this feature? Has anything bad happened because of this feature?

Location-based media

Foursquare

What makes people so interested in using Foursquare? -gaming aspect

What are the advantages and disadvantages of location-based media being treated as an online game?

In what way are location-based media applications like Foursquare being treated and utilized as online games? What are the implications on personal privacy and online identity?

How do location-based media applications like Foursquare contribute to users' online identities and what are the implications of their impact?

Group Project Explanation

Working with Handerson, Jade, and Marissa was very easy. Each person fulfilled their portion of the assignment in a timely manner and we were generally very communicative. Marissa couldn't make it to meet with the three of us to discuss the project, but she still kept up-to-date on our ideas and kept in contact with Jade about the writing portion. Handerson's copious notes were extremely helpful in narrowing down our original concept of objectification of women on social networking sites to the more specific problem that Instagram encourages women to conform to society's ideas of beauty. I conversed with my groupmates about what kind of pictures we needed and chose the final photos from Instagram based on what would best accompany Jade's and Marissa's text portions of the assignments. I also created the blog and did the initial organization of information and graphics.

To be constitutionally protected under the Copyright Act, a work must be the 'writing' of an 'author' . . . it has readily been accepted that visual artists, sculptors, composers, photographers, and other expressive creators using tools other than the written word are 'authors,' whose works, if appropriately fixed, are 'writings' in the sense constitutionally required for protection.

-Halpern, Copyright Law and the Challenge of Digital Technology

Upon reading this my first thought was, "Well, doesn't Facebook consider the photos I post its own property, despite the fact that under copyright law these original photos should belong to me?" I mean, I've heard people get upset about Facebook accessing personal information on profiles and using that information to advertise its funders. But when I looked into it, it turns out that we do own our own content. In fact, when we agree to the terms of service upon signing up for Facebook, we are basically giving permission for Facebook to do anything it wants with anything we post: “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. . . .For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License)” (x). I think most of us have no idea that merely by checking the little “I have read all Terms of Service” box, we are allowing Facebook to use our content in any manner. I also think most of us are unaware that via privacy and application settings, we can choose how much power we give Facebook over the content that we recognizably own ourselves.

Beth DeFalco (2000), a student intern for the Denver Post during the events at Columbine, saw another problem: reporters attempting to make sense of a youth culture they did not fully understand. 'They had so many people who were thirty and forty and trying to do these trend pieces about what kids are doing on the Internet and what a horrible game Doom was and half of my friends were playing it on the weekend.'

-Instant Transmissions: Covering Columbine's Victims and Villains, by Marguerite J. Moritz

First off, I take issue with any kind of news coverage because of the simple fact that the companies that bring us our news capitalize on disaster. In the case of the Columbine incident, I believe much of the media that was released (such as emotional candid photos of suffering students and their families) was unethically distributed. However, one of the biggest points of view that erupted in the news post-Columbine is the idea that the two students responsible for the massacre were inspired to commit these crimes because of their exposure to violent video games. This assumption entirely over-simplifies the situation. Different types of media are often blamed for being a bad influence on people, especially teens—chat rooms make us less empathetic, Facebook makes us less social in 'real life,' video games make us violent—but the mediums themselves cannot be entirely to blame. Yes, violent video games do offer more exposure to violence and use of guns, but I would argue that a large percentage of teenagers have played or often play violent video games, and most of them are not marching into their schools and shooting people. As suggested by DeFalco above, this over-simplification by blaming media for these events probably stems from a lack of understanding of youth culture on the part of the adults responsible for these news reports.

Choosing or designing an avatar is an adventure in self-definition. . . fat men choose to be petite Asian girls; disabled people appear in armor that mimics yet transforms the orthopedic devices they wear in real life; children become powerful monsters or wizards. New personal identities facilitate new forms of connection and community. . . What emerges from this intimate fusion of ego and alter ego is a kind of synthetic social life—part art and part reality.

-Larry Friedlander, “Narrative strategies in a digital age: Authorship and authority”

I find the concept of virtually creating a new identity and living vicariously through that avatar both exciting and dangerous. On the one hand, in gaming we can experience a world in which our abilities are far beyond what we can do in the real world, giving us a sense of power and control that we may feel is lacking in our daily lives. On the other hand, it's easy to become addicted to gaming because the visuals, the world, and the freedom to control our own stories encourages us to spend more and more time interacting with our avatars' virtual world, building virtual communities, and strengthening our avatar's virtual skills—rather than inspiring us to build and strengthen these things in our daily lives.

. . . A crisis of voice can also be discerned in mediated public culture. While interactive formats and online spaces have prima facie brought audience/user 'voice' into the heart of media production, much popular culture resolves itself into two modes where voice is illusory: celebrity culture (a discourse, however multi-directional, about centralised human reference-points, driven by market needs) and 'reality' programming, a pedagogic mode which generates and sustains social norms of performance and desire.

- Nick Couldry, Digital storytelling, media research, and democracy: Conceptual choices and alternative futures

I agree that celebrity culture and reality programming are significant facets of pop culture that encourage not individual voice but rather social homogeneity. However, Couldry's argument fails to recognize the influence of the individual voice within (and allowed by) “interactive formats and online spaces.” For example, as we talked about in class, social networks like Facebook have made it possible for minorities in repressed areas of the world to congregate via virtual space in order to create social change, whereas without the online medium they would not have had the same success. By the same token, voices expressed on the internet can be just as powerful in a negative way: online bullying, especially in response to recent viral photos of teenage girls being raped and then blamed for their fate, is an overwhelming force that results in many suicides every year.

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