How To: Giant Space Invaders Street Art

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Update on #Occupy Seattle from Very Cool Mayor

We understand that Occupy Seattle wishes to have a sustained presence in Westlake Park for the purpose of expressing their views. From the outset we have been trying to work out a solution that meets the city’s needs and Occupy Seattle’s need to protest against wealth inequality in our country.


My staff has been reaching out to and communicating with members of Occupy Seattle. Here’s how we are proceeding:

* We are providing a permit for protest activities at Westlake Park which will allow them to have an organizing tent that can remain overnight. As a condition of the permit, protestors will have to allow for cleaning of the park, protect park property, accommodate the other existing permitted events, and protect access to businesses.
* We are making City Hall Plaza available for those that wish to stay overnight, with reasonable restrictions on the tents so as to allow free use of the plaza during the day. Unlike Westlake, City Hall also has restroom facilities available. Both the permit and the ability to set up tents at City Hall Plaza would last for two weeks, at which point we can assess whether the arrangement is meeting everyone’s needs and should be extended.

These are extraordinary times. We have seen the Occupy Wall Street movement take off in cities across the country, and there’s a reason for it. There is real anger about the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in this country and the inequality it has produced. I share the values and the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We want to provide the opportunity for the people of Seattle to express their views. And we are.


Posted by: Mayor Mike McGinn

SOURCE LINK

Right Here All Over - A film from #OCCUPY NYC

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

A new angle on Occupy Wall Street reveals the strong micro community that has formed there.

Alex Mallis

Down with Student Debt

From This...

To this...

Says Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing

Reclamations, a journal published by University of California students, has published a special, timely pamphlet called "Generation of Debt," on the trap of student debt in America. Young people in America are bombarded with the message that they won't find meaningful employment without a degree (and sometimes a graduate degree).


Meanwhile, universities have increased their fees to astronomical levels, far ahead of inflation, and lenders (including the universities themselves) offer easy credit to students as a means of paying these sums (for all the money they're charging, universities are also slashing wages for their staff, mostly by sticking grad students and desperate "adjuncts" into positions that used to pay professorial wages; naturally, the austerity doesn't extend to the CEO-class administrators, who draw CEO-grade pay).


The loans are backed by the government, and constitute a special form of debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and that can be doubled, tripled, or increased tenfold through usury penalties for missed payments (the lenders themselves have a deplorable habit of applying these penalties even when payments are made, through "bureaucratic error" that is nearly impossible to correct).


These debts are turned into securities, and represent the backbone of yet another subprime bubble in America, one that is due to explode soon, as more and more Americans find themselves drowning in student debt and faced with the prospect of having their wages garnished all the way through to social security.

"Generation of Debt" consists of five essays on the trap of student debt, analyzing the causes of the problem, marking out the beneficiaries of this bubble, and suggesting ways to break free of it.

Reclamations LINK HERE

4 Billionaire 'Vultures' Trying to Pick Our Next President

In light of the nature of this Article it is completly reposted here and no commentary is needed, Greg Palast needs no introduction and no help from our staff at ALGG at making a point.

Stealing oil from Indian reservations, cheating dying workers out of compensation for asbestos-exposure claims, voter-roll purging -- just some of the work of these kingmakers.

By Greg Palast,
Posted on October 5, 2011
Alternet.org

Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new tablemates: billionaires Ken Langone and the Koch brothers, Charles and David.


Singer has called together the billionaire boys' club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old-fashioned way of choosing presidents -- democracy and counting ballots and all that - has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d'état.


Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The New Jersey governor's pseudocampaign went belly up before it began. But that's beside the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through "corporations," this new combine of the ultrawealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but as a threat to democracy.


Let me give you a rundown from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers.

Billionaire 1: Ken Langone


Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.


But he was also the man, with his right-wing partners, behind Database Technologies. It was in my first investigation of Langone in 2000 that I discovered that DBT had created a list of several thousand "felons" - most of them black, all of them innocent, all of them purged from Florida's voter rolls by DBT's client, Katherine Harris. And Langone's company knew exactly what was going on.


What qualifies Langone to pick our president? In his own words: "I'm nuts; I'm rich."


Billionaires 2 and 3: David and Charles Koch


You think you've read all about the billionaire brothers. Well, there's more:


In 1996, an FBI agent, Richard Elroy, told my team that oil had been pilfered from the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. He and other G-men filmed the filch-theft, say witnesses, personally ordered by Charles Koch. A few barrels here, a few barrels there.

It all added up: to about a billion and a half dollars in looted petroleum, says one expert, a third of the Koch fortune at the time. David and Charles shared in the booty via their private company, Koch Industries.


Billionaire 4: Paul Singer


Now we get to the carrion king, Paul Singer, known as Singer The Vulture. I didn't give him the moniker. The name Vulture was tagged on him and his speculator colleagues by the prime minister of Britain and the World Bank. Recently, former United Nations envoy Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, "Do you know you're causing babies to die?"


What does this guy do -- put poison in kiddies' milk? Worse: he takes away the milk.


Singer's modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo were on his menu). He waits for the United States and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations' debts, then waits at bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces, legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage.

Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. At BBC TV's Newsnight, we learned that Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. If he doesn't get his 4,000 percent profit, he can effectively starve the nation. I don't mean that figuratively -- I mean starve as in no food. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition.


For BBC, I tried to ask Vulture Singer the diplomat's question about the baby-killing, but I couldn't get past George Gershwin. (In the New York office tower housing the billionaires' roost, a Gershwin lookalike in top hat and tails plays show tunes on a grand piano for Singer's grand entrance.)


And it's not just poor African carcasses that tempt Singer. Indeed, during my investigation for my new book, Vultures' Picnic, I discovered that Singer's first big vulture attack was on American asbestos victims.


Background: The executives of three companies -- vermiculate mine operator WR Grace, wallboard manufacturer USG and building materials company Owens Corning -- knew that asbestos exposure in their respective operations was killing their workers. When caught and sued, the companies filed for bankruptcy, agreeing to pay almost all of their earnings to the people who were dying and injured by their asbestos.


But Singer had a better idea. These companies, as you can imagine, were worth next to nothing, and Singer bought Owens Corning for a song.

If he could cut the amount paid to the victims, Singer could boost Corning's value big time. So, a public relations campaign began, attacking the dying workers, saying they were all faking it.


One attacker was a guy named George W. Bush.


In January 2005, President Dubya held a televised meeting to promote an "expert" who pronounced that over half a million workers suing Singer's industry were liars. If workers couldn't breathe, he said to the grinning president, it wasn't the fault of asbestos.


The "expert" was not a doctor, but, notably, his "research" was partly funded by ... Paul Singer. And so was Bush. Since the death of Enron's Ken Lay, Singer and his vulture flock at Singer's hedge fund, Elliott International, had become the top contributors to the Republican National Committee. It's hard to measure his largess exactly because some of that help comes in through the side door. For example, Singer put money behind the Swift Boat smear on Bush's opponent, John Kerry.


The legal, political and public relations attacks on the dying workers chiseled away the compensation expected to be paid by the asbestos companies, boosting their net worth. Singer then flipped Corning, selling it for a neat billion-dollar profit.


It's legal. It's brilliant. It's sick. It's Singer.

One of my favorite Singer scores was his successful scheme to legally loot the Treasury of Peru. The nation's US lawyer told me, aghast, how Singer let Peru's rogue President, Alberto Fujimori, flee his nation to avoid murder charges. Singer had seized Fujimori's getaway plane. The Vulture named his price: one of Fujimori's last acts as president before he fled was to order his dirt-poor nation to pay Singer $58 million.


Why the Billionaires Need to Buy the White House


A Koch Industries executive (not knowing he was being taped) said he had asked Charles Koch, who already had a billion from an inheritance, why Koch was pocketing a few bucks a week from poor American Indians. Koch told him, "I want my fair share, and that's all of it."


And "all of it," of course, includes the White House.


Putting Bush in the White House was worth his weight in gold to these gents - more, in fact. And now, the Kochs, Singer and Langone have teamed up to pick a candidate they pray can take back their real estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


The Gimme for Langone

Langone's firm DBT's "felon" scrub list included only innocent people, so you certainly wouldn't find the name "Langone" on it. In 2004, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged Langone with conspiracy, accusing the billionaire with subverting a stock exchange regulator's investigation into monkey business by Langone's investment bank.


A technicality ended the civil action on the conspiracy charge.


But now, Obama's new banking and securities reforms, albeit weak, give regulators new enforcement powers and provide an extra independent eye on stock market shenanigans. For Langone, picking the president means closing the regulatory eye.


The Gimme for The Kochs


FBI man Elroy told our investigators that the Justice Department was going to let the FBI cuff Charles Koch on criminal charges for the theft of the Osage Indian oil. But then, fumes Elroy, Koch's well-funded buddies, then-senators Bob Dole and Don Nickles, stepped in - and Koch walked. No charges.

Dennis DeConcini, then an Arizona senator, wanted to know why criminal or civil charges were never brought against the Kochs. That was not a wise question to ask. The senator told me that the Kochs threatened his political destruction if the Congressional committee he chaired continued with its investigations of the theft of Native oil. He continued, but his political career did not.


During the Clinton administration, Koch Industries was charged with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. Under President Bush, the charges, but not the water, were cleaned up.


In other words, crime pays -- if you get to pick the sheriff.


The Gimme for Paul Singer


Paul Singer had placed a big bet on the asbestos industry, then, set out to fix the casino, helping install Bush in the White House. That is, he had a president willing to beat up on asbestos workers and push for so-called "tort reform" that undermined these victims' claims. What the victims lost, Singer gained.


But there's trouble on the horizon for Singer. In 2007, Britain outlawed Singer and all other Vulture speculators in Third World debt from collecting their pound of flesh in the United Kingdom. Other European nations are following suit.

Several US Congressmen are pushing a UK-style prohibition on Singer's activities. (Even Chevron Corporation is complaining about the Vulture attacks. When Chevron calls bankers unscrupulous, they've got to be really unscrupulous.) Without a veto pen over Congress, Singer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.


Singer plays defense, but is best at offense: to collect on some of his claims against Argentina, his lobbyists have pushed a bill in Congress to put an economic chokehold on trade with the South American nation. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked this crazy attack on our ally. As a result, Singer is not a happy gaucho. There will be blood. Obama will have to pay.


The Gimme for Them All


There's one thing that every billionaire wants: another billion. And that's threatened by Obama's plan to tax the "carried interest" tax deferment.


Guys like Singer and Langone don't pay taxes like you and I do. While we pay taxes on income, the profits from vulture speculation and arbitrage are often recorded as "carried interest," effectively not taxed. It's a billion-dollar benefit for the billionaires, and every Republican candidate has sworn to keep this loophole open and make sure you and I pay Singers' taxes for him.

Unfortunately for Singer, the Kochs and Langone, the GOP candidates currently kissing the billionaires' behinds don't seem electable.


So the Billionaire Boys Club prodded Gov. Christie, a bully-boy from Jersey, to muscle his way into the Oval Office. Christie didn't fly, no surprise. But whether they pick the GOP candidate or retreat to their old tactics of smear-from-the-rear, the fragile thing called democracy stands little chance against the tsunamic powers of the quartet's combined checkbooks.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
View Palast's reports for BBC TV and Democracy Now! at gregpalast.com.

© 2011 TruthOut.org All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/152625/

Cool Photo of the Day: The Delorean

Classy Girl Photo of the Day: Street Art Girl

Corporate Psychopaths, like we didnt already know

...the researchers "pitted a group of stockbrokers against a group of actual psychopaths in various computer simulations and intelligence tests and found that the money men were significantly more reckless, competitive, and manipulative." Even more striking, the researchers note that achieving overall success was less important to the stock speculators than the sadistic drive "to damage their opponents."

...the award winning-documentary "The Corporation" used World Health Organization metrics to show that if companies really are "people," as our Supreme Court insists, then many of them are mentally ill.

Obviously, these results reflect the not-so-surprising fact that the extreme nature of the modern political process and of today's casino economy inherently self-select for certain kinds of traits. And no doubt, wholly changing that dynamic may be impossible or undesirable — or both.

However, the findings are a reminder of why now — more than ever — we must refuse to succumb to political apathy and laissez-faire demagoguery. Indeed, it's time to redouble our commitment to strengthening checks on political and corporate power because that power is often being wielded by the most unstable among us.

SOURCE LINK

The Corporation (2-Disc Special Edition)

#Occupy Update: iPhone and Android Apps for Activists

Here is a short but very effective list of Apps for phones that can really save you alot of toruble when attending Rallies, Conventions, and many other Security related events in your life. Esspecially ones that involve the Law...

Audioboo: This application allows you to record sound and then publish it to your Audioboo account directly from your iPhone. The application is supported by Audioboo.com where you need register for a free account. It has its own categorized community of others’ boos you can listen to, follow and favourite. In addition the site provides you with embed codes for audio players for each boo so you can embed them anywhere the code is supported.

The application comes in handy when you want to conduct a vox pop or perhaps record what is being said at a rally or in a meeting with politicians. However, it is limited by the fact that you cannot edit the audio before it is uploaded, so it is important to know what you want to ask or say before you begin. An additional limitation is that there is no way of saving the audio file to upload Audioboo application and site registration is free.


Documents 2: This application lets you use your iPhone as a storage device so you can carry documents with you. In addition to having a storage device you can download documents from your Google Documents account, through a WiFi connection or an FTP account. It’s handy when you can send emails with the necessary documents when you’re not at your desk or in front of your laptop. Not having the right documents at hand could cause a delay in distributing key information through email or even through blogs and social media.

The application however is limited by the iPhone’s capabilities. You can download a free version but it comes with advertisements, which are not overly annoying.


Flickr (or Photobucket): Sharing your photos through Facebook and Twitter is great but it probably isn’t reaching your entire network; or even the widest possible audience. Using applications like the one from Flickr to upload photos to your account can help increase the visibility of your photo(s). The application gives you the option of adding a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums; as well as the picture size. There is the option to upload multiple pictures. The interface is simple to use however, it can be confusing as to how you upload a picture the first time you try.

The application is free but requires a Flickr account, which is also free. If you’re using Yahoo!7 mail or have an account then you’re ready to go.

Photobucket is another photo sharing and networking site. It’s application is sophisticated and easy to use, with options to add a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums. Like the Flickr application, you need to have a Photobucket account to use the application. It’s free to download and to register a Photobucket account.


Qik Video: lets you record video using the iPhone's camera. It's also possible tostream the video live to the Internet.

There are a range of video modes to select from before shooting your video. For example youshoot video in sepia, black and white or with frost, among others. The application alsoincludes zoom and light-balance functionalities. It's an easy-to-understand and easy-to-useapplication.You can connect the application with your Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts to helptell all your followers about the video.

This application is great for activists while they're out attending a rally or demonstration. Itcan also be a great tool to interview different people involved with the campaign to add toyour blog or share with friends on Facebook and Twitter; including in real time, as it'shappening.


PhotoShop Express: This application is a god-send. Having looked at a large range of photo-editing applications, this is by far the best one. There will be those that argue thatInstagram is the better application, I find the fact that membership to a site not be necessary to be a major advantage.

PhotoShop Express is from those wonderful folk at PhotoShop. The application is a very simple, cut-down version of the PhotoShop. It gives you a limited range of functionality butit does deliver is powerful and effective.

The application also allows you share your edited pictures with your online social networks.There are no limitations on the number of pictures you can edit and it is free to download.


Bambuser: is a popular app already used by many Middle Eastern activists.

The sheer power of Bambuser came to light when Egyptian activist Tarek Shalaby was arrested during a protest outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo. In the harrowing recording, which streamed live at the time of his arrest, you can clearly hear Egyptian security forces attacking protesters.

In addition to live streaming video, you can automatically connect the service to your social networks, sending a notification to Facebook, Twitter and 10 other sites, that you’re video is live.

Bambuser is available as a free download and is compatible with over 260 phone models, including all iPhone models, Nokia phones and a wide variety of Android phones.


AndroidLost: Activists in the Middle East face a serious risk of being arrested by governmental security forces. Their smartphones, while an essential weapon in protests, can easily become a weapon used against them when detained. One way in which activists can protect themselves, and their contacts’ identities, is by wiping their phones and restoring them to factory settings.

AndroidLost is available as a free download from the Android Market. After you’ve installed and activated the app on your phone, you can log into the web interface where you can remotely control your phone.

You can share your log-in information with a trusted friend, or under Security you can add their phone number so they can SMS commands to your phone, which will come in handy if WiFi or data has been disabled. You can also enter a passcode to lock your phone, and most importantly if you have sensitive data on your phone, you can wipe the SD card or reset the phone to factory settings.

Total F*cking Idiots trying to spread Disinformation fail miserably

Whoever wasted their time making and posting this image is an idiot. I cant say that any better.

The movement is not an anti-capitalist nor an anti-corporation movement, its a Movement against a corrupt financial system that has stolen from the American people to line its pockets. The housing crisis was a manufactured attack on the people in an effort to take their homes. And when America was forced to bailout the banks the banks used the funds to give themselves raises, buy private jets and other crap you would expect from crooks and thieves.

I keep seeing the news talkingheads confused about what the movement is about... it's not AGAINST corporations, it's about ending their disproportionate influence on political policy via financial contributions. 

Politicians no longer represent 'the governed', they represent whoever gives them the largest campaign contributions (read: bribes) and unfortunately us common working folk cant afford to 'lobby' (read: bribe) them to preserve OUR interests so companies prosper at the expense of the 99%. 

It would take anyone 2 seconds of research to find that our for themselves, Olbermann read the Occupy Wall Street Statement on the air earlier this week! I guarantee you these kids are doing the right thing based on a simple observation technique you can test for yourself. Listen to RUSH, Glenn Beck, any Right wing politician, and any other corporate mouth piece you can dig up and see if they are for or against this movement! Then you will know for sure that, whatever the goals of this movement may be, it is righteous!

So we also have some 'Sock Puppet' action on Social Networking Sites trying to spread lies and scare people from gathering in new cities, so be on the lookout for this kind of garbage. Of course its no real surprise when you have your typical asshat bootlicking Commentators posing as politicians and 'Reporters' standing up for the 1% en masse.



Eric Cantor (Merrill Lynch-R) is now calling the protesters across the country a "mob" and is very upset that people are standing against this huge income inequality and legalized corruption. He is the House Majority Leader...the 2nd highest leadership post in the House. Its safe to say that he speaks for the whole of the Republican party. Interestingly...he was and is a HUGE supporter of the "Tea Party" protesters.

And then there is this shit passing for News...