Hey! I made a new “profile” because the other one just kept spazzing out. It’s a WIP right now, but you should Ch-ch-check it out

I’m very excited about the tattoo thing. it will be so so pretty !!! I just need to wait a while to get the money together, and make sure i absolutely positively want it

:D

You’re welcome! :D

the circles work now – when you’re in a circle and create a new space, the new space shows up in the circle.

it’s more like a forum now.

try it out – go to a circle and help me spark the discussions….

the circles need to be used!

but it’s such a new system, maybe people don’t understand it, it works better than it did when we launched it.

help me figure out why circles aren’t getting used much yet.

I’m glad you like my profile and my test drives :D it is all very exciting :D so your notes are transparent on my page until you hover over them and I’M FREAKIN OUT. its so fuckin cool. but i dont know how it happened.

I was going to put that one up on your page!! :D

those were live noted during watching blood diamond

more notes on the bottom left of this screen

so yes, i am a hyper typer and am totally into taking notes on movies

hey ! thanks for paying attention to the home page a bit.

haven’t even broken 1000 users yet

sort of sad about that

have no idea what i am doing when it comes down to it, what if you create a crazy notetaking environment and nobody really uses it, you look like a clown

sigh

something’s gotta give

i am more hoping that METANOTES is “discovered” rather than having to force-market it to everyone

people seem really busy publishing these days on other platforms but that’s because the school is going to be the real blogging season

but if we don’t start racking up impressive things soon, we will be depressed and it will be hard to convince ourselves to keep working hard on METANOTES if nobody is even using it

this is still a genius dream come true of a ssytem

have you ever seen the Guerilla News Network documentary on sierra leone from years ago ?

“Diamond Life”: Documentary Examines How Diamonds Funded the Civil War in Sierra Leone

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1646243

We turn now to the issue of conflict diamonds—also known as blood diamonds. The documentary “Diamond Life” looks at how diamonds funded the civil war in Sierra Leone. [includes rush transcript]

We turn now to the issue of conflict diamonds—also known as blood diamonds. Just last week, two men were arrested in Arizona for smuggling and attempting to sell more than eleven thousand carats of rough diamonds. Federal officials believe that these diamonds were in violation of the Kimberley Process – an international government certification process set up to stop the trade in diamonds that fund conflict in Africa.

Watchdog groups have pointed to these arrests as proof that it is still relatively easy to smuggle diamonds, and that the Kimberley Process is not strong enough. In a minute we’ll talk with Corinna Gilfillan of Global Witness. But first – we go to the documentary “Diamond Life” – produced by Stephen Marshall and Josh Shore of Guerrilla News Network. It was made in 2000 and is about how diamonds funded the civil war in Sierra Leone.

• Excerpt of “Diamond Life”, the documentary produced by Stephen Marshall and Josh Shore of the Guerrilla News Network.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate – $25, $50, $100, more…

AMY GOODMAN: In a minute, we’ll talk with Corinna Gilfillan of Global Witness, but first we’re going to go to a documentary called Diamond Life. It was produced by Stephen Marshall and Josh Shore of Guerrilla News Network. It was made a few years ago. It was made in 2000. And it’s about how diamonds funded the civil war in Sierra Leone.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: From 1991 to 1999, Sierra Leone was in a state of civil war. During that time, 50% of the 4.5 million people of Sierra Leone were forced out of their homes. And thousands of people have been killed. Millions more have experienced atrocities you do not want to even think about.

UNIDENTIFIED 2: The people of Sierra Leone insisted that they wanted a democratic government. They no longer wanted a military power. The military resisted.

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Well, there were fights for power going on in Africa, and the opposition movements always call themselves “revolutionary forces” in one way or another.

NARRATOR: The Revolutionary United Front is led by a dismissed Sierra Leone corporal, Foday Sankoh.

UNIDENTIFIED 4: The RUF is not a revolutionary movement. The RUF seeks political power.

FODAY SANKOH: And, above all, we’ll fight to the last man.

UNIDENTIFIED 5: What’s the war about? The rebels want to force themselves into power.

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Rebel leaders want to buy weapons. In order to buy weapons, they need money. In order to get money, they need diamonds.

NARRATOR: The diamond mines of Sierra Leone are the initial targets of rebel attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: Trading diamonds has allowed rebel forces to buy fuel, to buy weapons, to buy friends.

UNIDENTIFIED 5: The rebels are angry at civilians for voting in the civilian government.

UNIDENTIFIED 2: Soldiers will cut the people, say, "Oh, you voted," look at the finger, and if they see that indelible ink on the finger, they chop off your finger.

AMPUTEE: Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. [inaudible]

UNIDENTIFIED 2: And this is how this business of amputations started.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: In Sierra Leone, it’s quite clear that the tactics of the RUF were to target civilian population in order to spread terror.

NARRATOR: On January 6, 1999, RUF rebel forces attack Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

UNIDENTIFIED 5: It was like we’re experiencing hell on earth. The rebels, they started attacking innocent people.

UNIDENTIFIED 6: People were hacked to death, houses set on fire. Anybody who tried to get out of the house was gunned down. People lined up at random and shot.

UNIDENTIFIED 5: The bulk of them were young boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. Some were carrying AK47. Some were carrying Russian assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. I heard a loud blast. One weapon fired a rocket-propelled grenade in one of the flats around. I noticed the scattered remains of some eight people. I saw two children whose heads were separated from the rest of their body and a good number of people with their remains scattered all over. The war was upside-down, the worst in Sierra Leone at that time.

UNIDENTIFIED 4: This is a war about diamonds, a war about natural resources.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: In chaos, there are people who can take advantage of the lack of government and of the lack of legal controls.

NARRATOR: Foday Sankoh and his RUF mercenaries have collected over $200 million selling conflict diamonds.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: There are utterly shameless individuals and organizations out there, who would buy conflict diamonds, even though they know that those diamonds are helping to sustain a war, even a war as brutal as the one in Sierra Leone.

NARRATOR: DeBeers controls two-thirds of the world's diamond supply.

UNIDENTIFIED 3: The DeBeers Company has been caught up in a big controversy. They claim not to be buying diamonds and gems from conflict zones like Sierra Leone. They have developed codes of conduct and other ethical standards, because they have been criticized severely by NGO groups that have monitored their practices.

NARRATOR: In 1998, Global witness, a UK-based NGO embarrassed DeBeers in a report proving they had bought gems from Angolan rebels.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: At some point in the chain, those diamonds do get down to consumers who, when they buy themselves an engagement ring, want to know that that jewel has not blighted somebody else's life.

NARRATOR: In July 2000, World Diamond Congress issued a worldwide ban on the trade of conflict diamonds.

Global Witness Founder Charmian Gooch: “The Diamond Industry is Failing to Live Up to Its Promises”

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1647221

For more on the diamond industry, we’re joined by Global Witness founder and director, Charmian Gooch. Gooch says diamond companies have failed to deliver on promises to reduce the prevalence of blood diamonds. [includes rush transcript]

For more on the diamond industry, we’re joined by Global Witness founder and director, Charmian Gooch. Gooch says diamond companies have failed to deliver on promises to reduce the prevalence of blood diamonds. We invited a representative of the World Diamond Council to join us as well but they never responded to our invitation.

• Charmian Gooch. Founder and Director of Global Witness. On the line from London.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate – $25, $50, $100, more…

AMY GOODMAN: Right now, we’re going to turn to Charmian Gooch in London, who is with Global Witness. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Charmian. And in this last two minutes, can you update us. The documentary we ran was from 2000 about conflict diamonds, about the civil war in Sierra Leone. What is happening today?

CHARMIAN GOOCH: Well, hello, and it’s very nice to get the chance to talk about some of these issues. So thanks for inviting me on. Well, I mean, the issue - the problem really is, is that although worldwide, particularly in Africa, conflicts have decreased, which is obviously a very, very good thing, there are still conflict diamonds out there, as noted by the United Nations, coming out of the Ivory Coast. And diamonds, you know, in the last - we’re talking very recently, we’re talking the late ’90s, mid-’90s, late ’90s, and, you know, the early stage of this - early - 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, large quantities of conflict diamonds, these blood diamonds, were getting into the trade. The diamond industry, as a whole, was doing nothing. It had to be the civil society, the campaigning organizations that protested, and there was a global campaign about this.

That led to governments around the world putting together a broad-brush process called the Kimberley Process, which is broad-brush import and export. And the industry has all promised that it would put something meaningful in place in parallel. And it has failed to do so completely.

And this is our big concern. You know, Global Witness has been working on this; we launched the whole issue and the whole campaign and directed the world’s attention back in 1998. And since then, we have been working with other groups around the world to try and really push for changes to this. And that’s why Global Witness and Amnesty have been raising concerns around Valentine’s Day, which is traditionally one of the biggest sales points in the year for diamonds and diamond jewelry, just to say to consumers, you know, “You have some power here. You can take action.” There’s a set of four really simple questions that you can ask, and you can do something about this, because the industry on its own is absolutely failing, as a whole, to live up to its promises.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the four simple questions?

CHARMIAN GOOCH: Four simple questions. When you go into a jewelry store, if you really want to buy a diamond, the four questions are: do you know where your diamonds come from? Can I see a copy of your company’s policy on conflict diamonds? Can you show me a written guarantee from your diamond suppliers that states your diamonds are conflict-free? And, fourthly, how can I be sure that none of your jewelry contains conflict diamonds?

Now, that’s a lot—I know, that’s quite a lot there. If anyone wants to, they can have a look at the globalwitness.org website or the Amnesty International website. There’s a leaflet there they can print out that’s got all that information in it.

AMY GOODMAN: And we will link to that. Charmian Gooch, I want to thank you for being with us; co-founder and director of Global Witness, on the line with us from London. Happy Valentine’s Day.

CHARMIAN GOOCH: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Talk to Me.

I love Alex! HI!

I got Firefox and MetaNotes!! we should chat sometime^^

Search for ‘Found’ on your music page

ok so i’m hashing out the concept in the peoplemath inbox some more :)

i haven’t pushed it on the unamerican audience yet

this is totally the perfect system for me but

maybe there aren’t that many people like me

oh well