Experiments with truth: 8/8/11

    • More than 300,000 people took part in demonstrations across Israel on Saturday night calling for “social justice,” a blanket term covering demands for reforms in housing, taxes, healthcare, childcare, and education.
    • Forty-five thousand Verizon Communications Inc. workers from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., went on strike Sunday after negotiations fizzled over a new labor contract for more than a fifth of the company’s work force.
    • Tens of thousands of opponents of embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh held rallies across the country following prayers on Friday.
    • In Jordan, dozens of activists staged a sit-in following Ramadan evening prayers on Friday night in front of Salt city’s cultural center, protesting what they concidered government stalling in impementing nesessery political and economic reforms.
    • Thousands of demonstrators angry about the government’s austerity program briefly reoccupied a central Madrid plaza on Saturday after police withdrew following widespread outrage at officers’ handling of a protest two days earlier.
    • The pro-LGBT activists from GetEqual Texas braved the Houston sun on Saturday to protest outside Reliant Stadium, where Governor Rick Perry and thousands of  Evangelicals were holding an unabashedly political “day of prayer,” “The Response.”

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