Latino immigrants and their supporters will stage a one-day strike and commercial boycott on May 1 to pressure Congress to grant illegal aliens the right to gain citizenship, protest organizers said on Tuesday.

Participants will stay home from work and school and refuse to buy or sell anything that Monday to press for greater rights for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, said leaders of several groups that have organized other protests over the past month.

“We’re flexing our muscles to send a message that we are not criminals,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the Hispanic-rights group Latino Movement USA.

Gutierrez is a member of the ANSWER LA steering committee and has spoken many times at ANSWER forums. He was quoted today at a press conference at the National Press Club in DC which drew a substanial number of reporters.

The boycott/strike is gaining momentum. Word about it is getting out everywhere. It’s being called ‘A Day without Latinos” and also “The Great American Boycott.”

With Congress approaching a train wreck on the issue, it’s important that millions act, and a nationwide one-day strike is a real good way to do it.

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The Washington Post thinks so.

Attacking Iran may trigger terrorism

In the land of WaPo, if the US launches a violent attack on Iran, that’s permissible, but if Iran responds with violence, then it’s terrorism.

Orwell spoke of this in the novel 1984, in his dictionary of Newspeak

Blackwhite

blackwhite means the ability to accept whatever “truth” the governing totalitarian party puts out, no matter how absurd it may be. Orwell described it as “…loyal willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this. It also means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”

It’s not terrorism if the US attacks a country that is no threat, but it is terrorism if that country fights back - that’s what the Washington Post is saying. Mad as hatters, aren’t they?

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Making the Net rounds

This Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds past 1 o’clock

It will be

01:02:03 04/05/06.

Won’t happen again for a hundred years.

Ah, but this isn’t quite so. It will happen again exactly twelve hours later, assuming military time isn’t used. (Thanks Bethany!)

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From Lying Media Bastards

[HR 4437] is personal. Why are Latino students protesting by the thousand? Because for many, the law says “we’re going to take your parents away.” Why doesn’t anyone understand that?

Too many don’t. But that is what the Sensenbrenner Bill mandates. If the children are US-born and the parents are undocumented, then deport the parents anyway. This is a racist and mean-spirited bill to the core. It’s a given there will be huge mobilizations, strikes, and walk-outs should it look like it will become law.

- Sadly, in public discourse, the words “immigrant”, “illegal immigrant”, “illegal alien”, “Mexican”, “Hispanic”, and “latino” are used almost interchangably, as though they all meant the same thing. So when Congress proposes a bill to make it a felony to be an “illegal immigrant”, and to deport them all, how do you think people respond to that?

PS “Native Americans had a special name for immigration - white people.”

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Third World countries, led by Bolivia and social organizations, have ratified their rejection of the privatization of water at the 4th World Water Forum, underway in Mexico City.

Spokespeople from these sectors voiced their opposition to the intention of developed nations and international organizations to exclude the human right to water from the meeting’s final declaration.

Water is so basic and so important that it needs to be protected from predatory capitalism, like the World Bank, who forces water privatization as a condition for loans to developing countries. Inevitably, water then becomes more expensive and the quality drops. The people in that country suffer as the money gets shipped elsewhere.

Increasingly fresh water is becoming inaccessible

By the year 2025, many estimate that two-thirds of the world’s population could be facing severe water scarcity problems, which has disastrous, if not apocalyptic, implications for both humans and the environment. Even today, one billion people throughout the world lack access to clean drinking water, and approximately 2.6 billion are left without adequate sanitation, a fatal situation which has lead to the death of 2.2 millions victims annually.

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Podzinger will create text transcriptions of podcast. Now there’s a new site, AudibleType, that will do the same. Plus it has an open API.

www.audibletype.com is a web based voice recognition system. The system allows for transcription of audio and video files to search engine friendly text! The system will transcribe your audio or video file for you and provide time indexing so that you can quickly navigate trough the relevant data. Audibletype is also working on an open-api so that others can develop and build “widgets” to take full advantage of the technology and service. It also comes with tools so that you can make good use of your content. You can even send it back to your blog.

Audibletype is currently inviting beta-testers to participate in our UI development phase. Check it out at www.audibletype.com.

I just signed up and will blog about what the site can do.

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