MarksterBlog

Metro (DC) Hypes False Fears Over Photographers

Metro has begun to hype false fears over photography, despite the system’s own regulations allowing camera use in the system.

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As a result, they get owned:

Norton Schools Union Station Management on Photo Rights, Other Issues

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) used her perch as chair of a House Transportation subcommittee today to blast management for Washington DC’s Union Station over their treatment of photographers, and LightboxDC was on the scene.

The hearings were sparked in part by harassment of photographers at the historic train station, and led to an hours-long grilling of station management regarding inconsistent policies on photography and a raft of other issues.

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This pretty much started it all:

Union Station Photo Flap

Last Edited: Monday, 02 Jun 2008, 8:30 PM EDT
Created: Friday, 30 May 2008, 6:28 PM EDT

Tom Fitzgerald Reports
D.C. is a hotbed for beautiful photography. But one place where taking pictures is frowned upon is Union Station. Fox 5’s Tom Fitzgerald investigates why security is telling people to turn off their cameras.

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Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008 for his work on Depression Economics, a study of the Asian Economic Crisis. He speaks here about the current economic crisis.

View video here

By Jordy Yager

Posted: 12/17/08 05:41 PM [ET]

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”
However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

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Salaries through history (PDF)

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower slaves to help free themselves.

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Marijuana Legalization Tops List of Questions for Obama in Online Poll
Tim King Salem-News.com

“We’re tremendously excited about the promise of tools like this that offer Americans a level of access that has historically been hard to come by.”- Obama Team

(SALEM, Ore.) - I am not surprised that the number one thing Americans are asking President-elect Barack Obama is whether or not he is going to legalize marijuana. Generations are changing and evolving and the taboos around cannabis are slowly falling away.

Change.gov questions

Ack! Here I thought I had finished with my polotical rants once the election is over. But, here I go again. Glen Greenwald was interviewed by Bill Moyer recently, and his comments really captured my attention. Who is Glen Greenwald you ask? He’s a Constitutional lawyer who writes a column at Salon.com.

Watch (especially part 2)

Monday 10 November 2008

by: David Gutierrez, Natural News

A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

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Voters dealt what may be a fatal blow to America’s longest-running and least-discussed war — the war on marijuana.

On Tuesday, largely under the radar of the pundits and political chattering classes, voters dealt what may be a fatal blow to America’s longest-running and least-discussed war — the war on marijuana.

Michigan voters made their state the 13th to allow the medical use of marijuana by a whopping 63 percent to 37 percent, the largest margin ever for a medical marijuana initiative. And by 65 percent to 35 percent, Massachusetts voters decriminalized the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, replacing arrests, legal fees, court appearances, the possibility of jail and a lifelong criminal record with a $100 fine, much like a traffic ticket, that can be paid through the mail.

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