Published on Monday, April 13, 2015 by Common Dreams | byRyan Zinn

'Compared to large-scale industrial farms, small-scale agroecological farms not only use fewer fossil fuel-based fertilizer inputs and emit less GHGs, including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (CO2), but they also have the potential to actually reverse climate change by sequestering CO2 from the air into the soil year after year.' (Image: Fair World Project)

Record-breaking heat waves, long-term drought, “100-year floods” in consecutive years, and increasingly extreme superstorms are becoming the new normal. The planet is now facing an unprecedented era of accelerating and intensifying global climate change, with negative impacts already being widely felt. While global climate change will impact nearly everyone and everything, the greatest impact is already being felt by farmers and anyone who eats food.

When we think of climate change and global warming, visions of coal-fired power plants and solar panels come to mind. Policy discussions and personal action usually revolve around hybrid cars, energy-efficient homes and debates about the latest technological solutions. However, the global agriculture system is at the heart of both the problem and the solution.

As Predictable as 'Death and Taxes,' GOP Pushes Billionaire Estate Tax Cut

"Nothing illustrates more how much the political system is rigged in favor of the wealthy," warn critics of the bill

by Lauren McCauley, staff writer | CommonDreams.org

In another boon for U.S. billionaires, Congressional Republicans are planning to ring in this year's Tax Day with a vote to repeal the federal estate tax.

Under the bill (H.R. 1105) offered by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), estates—no matter how large—would not be taxed, whereas under current law, a deceased person’s assets must be worth more than $5.43 million before they are subject to the tax.

Further, the legislation would also repeal a generation-skipping transfer tax and lower the top marginal gift tax rate. In an email to Common Dreams, Scott Klinger, director of Revenue and Spending Policies at the Center for Effective Government, said the bill is really "repeal on steroids—it would allow vast amounts of wealth to pass from one generation to the next."

“Raul is one of those great, crazy people that is needed in society,” says a friend of Buenos Aires eccentric Raul Lemesoff.

“I’ve known Raul for 4 years and I still don’t know who he is,” says another.

“He’s a very un-well-adjusted person to this society,” jokes a third.

The man they are describing is the artist behind ‘Weapons of Mass Instruction,’ a genius moving exhibit which aims to spread love, laughs, and a joy of learning. Raul converted a 1979 Ford Falcon into a tank armored with 900 books on science, poetry, politics and more. He cruises the streets of Argentina‘s capital giving them away for free, hoping to educate and encourage people to read more. “My primary targets are the youngest, the kids,” says Raul.

published on April 15th 2015 by occupydemocrats.com by Carlos Miller

After a 10-year legal battle, U.S. district judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled last Friday that the U.S. government must release more than 2,000 Torture photos showing the abuse and mistreatment of people detained by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush Administration.

As reported by the award-winning Photography Is Not A Crime police accountability blog, the federal government “is required to disclose each and all of the photographs” in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request from the ACLU, as the government failed to prove that “disclosure would endanger Americans.”

The federal government has tried to suppress these photographs, even going so far as changing the FOIA law in secret with the help of Congress in 2009.

Does protesting make any difference? AAP Image/Forest Activist Network

Posted on 15 March 2013, 11.03pm GMT on: The Conversation

Australians are rightly proud of their democratic traditions. They are also inclined to raise their voice in protest when faced with government, bureaucratic, or civil injustice. Environmental activists have been particularly noisy. But community activism can have unforeseen consequences, resulting in worse outcomes for the environment in the long run.

The success or failure of local environmental campaigns is rarely addressed. Reportage is usually centred around heated encounters between protesters, police and those seeking to enforce development or change.

What happens after the cameras have gone, when the final decisions come down, the bulldozers move in and people go back to their regular lives? This is not often discussed.

Protesting can leave individuals on both sides battered and bruised. The physical, financial and emotional toll is considerable. It can leave one asking “What was the point?”

Researchers in Pennsylvania have discovered that the prevalence of radon, a radioactive and carcinogenic gas, in people's homes and commercial buildings that are nearer to fracking sites has increased dramatically in the state since the unconventional and controversial gas drilling practice began in the state just over a decade ago.

Both odorless and tasteless, radon is a naturally-occurring gas released from bedrock minerals beneath the ground and is found in millions of homes across the country. However, in a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives,scientists compared the results of state-wide radon testing in Pennsylvania to find a significant correlation between unusually high levels of the deadly gas in some buildings (mostly residential homes) and the proliferation of fracking in certain areas of the state.

After withdrawing The Interview from public screening due to threats of terrorism, Sony was met with a wave of criticism from the US public, Hollywood, and the White House. Mostly, the overwhelming response is that Sony had bent to the will of terrorists (allegedly North Korea); due to the subsequent “War on Terror” after 9/11, the American public have become hyper-sensitized to the word “terrorism”, hence the extraordinary amount of outrage that cancelling the film produced.

It is quite right that Sony bent to the will of terrorism – a threat was issued and Sony agreed to the terms. Sony’s, and the writers’, directors’, producers’ etc., free speech was suppressed, so there quite clearly is reason for the outrage. But it must be noted that the American public have tasted just what a nightmare their government is to self-determination around the world, if not freedom entirely.

For this, I chose to focus on how the US have subverted elections or punished a populous for voting “the wrong way”. While a film would more-so run along the lines of free speech, there is a noteworthy parallel: a dominant power have made threats in order to influence the actions of a lesser power.

Nicaragua:

Post-World War Two Latin America was a horrific place, many countries falling victim to the prying eyes of US foreign policy planners, who