[One of my former, and unemployed, coworkers noted on FB that her car was surrounded by police chasing OWS protestors, so I went looking for a report.]

Occupy Wall Street spent yesterday in a day-long struggle to occupy a new space (first Duarte Square, then One New York Plaza) on the three-month anniversary of the movement. Over the course of 12 hours, protests ranged from Duarte Square and its Trinity Wall Street-owned and OWS-coveted vacant lot to Times Square to, eventually, One New York Plaza, a Brookfield-owned property near the Staten Island Ferry. Two attempts at occupying a new space failed, and at least 50 arrests were made.

Meanwhile, the assembled press gaggle was having an almost equally rough night. Two photographers say that police threatened to take their official press passes away, a credentialed cameraman was hit over the head with a baton, and another photographer was arrested.

By Ed Pilkington and Matt Williams in Fort Meade, Guardian.co.uk, Dec 18, 2011

A forensic investigator who examined Bradley Manning's army computers following his arrest discovered thousands of US embassy cables and Guantánamo detainee reports that matched exactly the documents published by WikiLeaks, the soldier's pretrial hearing was told on Sunday.

David Shaver, an agent with the Computer Crime Investigative Unit, provided testimony to the court that is likely to prove central to any court martial of the 24-year-old soldier that might ensue [....]

The secure computer had been configured to have intel-link – described as the "Google of classified information" – as its home page. Shaver said his examination of intel-link logs created on Manning's computer enabled him to reconstruct what searches the soldier had been doing.

He found that between October 2009, when Manning arrived in Iraq, until May 2010 when he was arrested, more than 100 searches for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had been made [....]

For other Guardian coverage of the hearing, published Dec 16-19, 2011, see:

• Bradley Manning hearing told of lax security at military intelligence unit  Controls were so loose at information facility that soldiers watched pirated films on army computers

• WikiLeaks investigators 'feared Bradley Manning had links to foreign agents'

• Bradley Manning hearing: court told of Iraq unit's intelligence security chaos

• Bradley Manning hearing: agents say gunship killing video found in room

• Bradley Manning hearing: court rejects bias claim

• Bradley Manning hearing: defence lawyer turns fire on military accusers

By Eric Schmitt and Salman Masood, New York Times, Dec 18/19, 2011

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A tense showdown between Pakistan’s powerful army and its besieged civilian government brought President Asif Ali Zardari hurrying back from Dubai early on Monday, after weeks of growing concerns by his supporters that the military has been moving to strengthen its role in the country’s governance.

Pushed by the army, a Pakistani Supreme Court hearing set to begin on Monday will investigate whether Mr. Zardari’s government was behind an unsigned memorandum that surfaced in October, purportedly asking the Obama administration’s help to curb the military’s influence and avert a possible coup in the wake of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

The case has brought tensions between Pakistan’s military and its civilian leaders to perhaps its highest pitch since Mr. Zardari was elected three years ago. And it may also complicate America’s efforts [....]

Death by Taser? 44 year old veteran on life support within hours of arrest by Arpaio cops. Arpaio's Maricopa County Sherriff's Office was just cited by the federal DOJ for systemic and widespread abuse of Hispanic inmates on Friday.

...."The sheriff's office murdered my brother," said Atencio, acting as spokesman for his family. "That's what I want to get out to the public right now: Sheriff Joe is murdering inmates." 

Atencio said he was told by MCSO Detective Bryan Cluff that his brother was found in his cell without a pulse. This, after being Tasered by detention officers and placed there, Atencio alleged. He was already dead before being rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix....

see also: Arizona Republic

By Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 16, 2011

Stanley Greenberg, a major Democratic pollster, says unhappy and undecided voters make a third-party presidential candidate likely in 2012, introducing uncertainty into the battle to control Congress.

Also see:

A third major party? Most Americans say it's needed
By Susan Page, USA Today, Dec. 13, 2011

[....] In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States Poll, 54% of Americans nationwide and 52% in the nation's top battlegrounds agree that the two major parties "do such a poor job that a third major party is needed."

In the dozen most competitive states, the political group most likely to back the idea of a third party are moderate and liberal Republicans — perhaps because they feel disenfranchised by the clout of a conservative Tea Party movement. Nearly two-thirds back the idea of a third party. Moderates and liberals make up nearly four in 10 Republicans. [....]
 

By Tim Arango, New York Times, Dec. 15/16, 2011

BAGHDAD — [.....]

After nearly nine years, about 4,500 American fatalities and $1 trillion, America’s war in Iraq is about to end. Officials marked the finish on Thursday with a modest ceremony at the airport days before the last troops take the southern highway to Kuwait, going out as they came in, to conclude the United States’ most ambitious and bloodiest military campaign since Vietnam.

[....]

Somewhat to my surprise, the Wall Street Journal didn't merely report that "Donald Trump wants a say in who gets the nomination, so he's hosting a presidential debate, holding out the prospect of his endorsement and threatening an independent run" (i.e., behaving like a kingmaker who expects to be honored and courted by the rival candidates); it even quoted candidate Jon Huntsman's remarkably lewd comment about why he's not going to attend the Trump "debate": Huntsman said, "I'm not going to kiss his ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy."

That vivid and rather gross remark reminded me of how right my extremely cool son Calvin is about the word he wants to see win the American Dialect Society'sWord of the Year contest. I had been talking to Calvin one day about the ghastly crew of obnoxious multi-millionaires who dominate the newspapers, and how they keep threatening to achieve success even in the political arena. Calvin pointed out to me both that we need a new political term for the concept of being ruled by such men, and that there already is such a term. We are living, he observed, in the age of the assholocracy....

...Assholocracy needs more Google hits, though; it's a rare word thus far (105 Ghits as of right now, combining the correct spelling assholocracy and the variant spelling assholeocracy). Rare words don't win. There are several weeks to go before the ADS vote. Those of you with blogs, use the word, visibly and often. Let's get to work and make sure we at least have the appropriate vocabulary items for dealing with the situation should it arise.

Think about the phrase "President Trump". Or even just "presidential candidate hand-picked and endorsed by Trump". Doesn't it chill you to the bone? Canridicule by Doonesbury get rid of him? You'd better be very sure. So get out there and prepare the lexicographical ground. With words, we can win. Without the words, we don't have the concepts: just as the Eskimos have many apposite words for . . . no, never mind that; bad example. Just push the word assholocracywherever you have influence is what I'm saying.

As evidence of a failed Obama presidency accumulates, criticism of his administration is mounting from liberal Democrats who have too much moral authority to be ignored.

We found that subjects were not aware of what was to be learned while behavioral data obtained before and after the neurofeedback training showed that subjects' visual performance improved specifically for the target orientation, which was used in the neurofeedback training.

By Vincent Bevins, L.A. Times, Dec.12, 2011

REPORTING FROM RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazil’s huge northern state of Pará is about three times the size of California, home to much of the Amazon rain forest and is the second-largest producer of the nation's most important export, iron ore.

But poverty levels are well above the national average. [....]

In an attempt to address the contradiction, activists pushed forward a bill that would have split Para into three states and, in theory, increased the amount of federal aid to the region [....]  But in voting Sunday, the measure was defeated by a 2-1 ratio amid criticisms that creating new states would carry heavy administrative costs.

Even opponents of the bill, however, recognized the predicament, and it’s one that is repeated in parts of Peru, Colombia and elsewhere in South America: the lack of central government representation for states that are resource-rich (be it mining, gas or other commodities) but poverty-stricken. [....]