Random Rush Returns

thanks for the new thread.

if you haven't seen it yet...

http://www.democracynow.org/

good one today.

smorp

squig!

from Clinical/Therapeutic Issues

NARTH Responds to British Medical Association

The recent decision by the British Medical Association (BMA) to repudiate psychological care for clients with unwanted homosexual attractions is both unscientific and unethical. The research reveals that homosexuality is not invariably fixed in all people and that some people can and do change. Even the American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation (though a biased group made up only of members opposed to sexual orientation change efforts) recently concluded that there is not enough evidence to prove that efforts to change sexual orientation are effective or ineffective, nor is there enough evidence to prove that such efforts are safe or harmful. Lack of evidence means there is a need for more research. To repudiate a type of treatment without scientific evidence is at best premature; at worst it is another example of professional associations being led by politics and worldview rather that science.

Furthermore, to deny services to clients who are distressed about their unwanted attractions is counter to all therapeutic ethical codes which state that clients have the right to self-determination. In other words, it is the client who chooses his or her own life-goals, not the therapist.

NARTH hopes that members of BMA who are opposed to their trade organization taking such political positions which interfere with the therapist-patient relationship would seek legal remedies, if needed, to protect the rights of clients to seek care and the rights of therapists to provide that care. Certainly such overtures on the part of a professional organization like the BMA could be considered restraint of trade. Yet, more importantly, such positions are a violation of client self-determination, a violation of basic human rights.

Updated: 14 July 2010

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/30/google_teams_up_with_cia_to

Google Teams Up with CIA to Fund "Recorded Future" Startup Monitoring Websites, Blogs & Twitter Accounts
Google-spy

Investors at the CIA and Google are backing a company called "Recorded Future" that monitors tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts in real time in order to find patterns, events and relationships that may predict the future. The news comes amidst Google’s so-called "Wi-Spy" scandal, that refers to revelations that Google’s Street View cars operating in some thirty countries snooped on private Wi-Fi networks over the last three years

http://www.dancingstarfoundation.org/videos.php

;)

but only ATT listened to what the doctor's videos had to say. Finally - Again, for Repetition is the Key.
{...but I truly have heard similar - yet I truly still agree}. ;)

walk this way please
the steps are bit dusty i'm afraid...
now just click the link
and it'll take you back to 1954
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp5pe610r0s

The website cannot display the page
HTTP 500
Most likely causes:
•The website is under maintenance.
•The website has a programming error.

What you can try:
*Refresh the page.
*Go back to the previous page.
*More information

"You are number six."

Useful Idiots, Lenin's description of intellectuals who gave their blessing to tyrannies and tyrants.
(being capitalists apologists, the bbc won't produce an equally candid expose of capitalisms equally deplorable record - but nevermind, we'll take what's given us & be jolly grateful for it - so on with the show...)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008vd41

The dumb get confident, while the intelligent get doubtful. That's the conclusion that David Dunning and Justin Kruger came to when studying people's perceptions of their own talents. What has now become known as the Dunning-Kruger effect helps describe why lay people often act as experts and inept pollies get our votes.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2893602.htm

with intellectuals to the left of us & teabaggers to the right...
we're fucked!!
thank gawd for nigger bitches...

are you screwing with the blog?

i'm reluctant to post this, because although it's cool & cute & shit
it's very gross and could be misconstrued as child abuse...
so if you click play you might turn away and just listen to the fluffy song
but if you do, you will forfeit the cuteness
as it's impossible to seperate it from the grossness
(they're intrinisically entwined)
and you'll turn into a raging pillar of salt

fate of the Middle East

http://kboo.fm/

THE master was very drunk and his best friend could tell the toe was dead and the rest of the foot was at risk. Love your dogs and animal friends you never know what they know . The man went to the doctor and found out how sick he was. the dr said the dog saved his life.

the devil will bless this blog
and deliver us from ghettodefender

and now we return you to your regular schedule...
ceecee having an orgasm
in the wilds of kentucky
(as sung by roscoe holcomb)

and that, children
is how the english language evolved

but that's all i have to offer...
just a collection of videos i picked up on my travails

i'll link this next one
because of it's lurid nature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjoUTUnRwFE
(it involves a biscuit)

lonely here with so few posters so been doing more as to what work I am to do ... gotta go work out, BUT NEED to brew more tea. ;} teahee *poof*

;} teahee *poof*

'Cloned meat' in UK sparks debate

A debate over produce from cloned animals has been sparked in the UK after the country's food watchdog said meat from the offspring of a cloned cow had entered the food chain and been eaten...

'Novel food'

The FSA said it had identified two bulls born in the UK from embryos harvested from a cloned cow in the United States.

One of the bulls, known as Dundee Paratrooper, was slaughtered in July 2009, and its meat entered the food chain and "will have been eaten," the agency said.

The other bull, called Dundee Perfect, was slaughtered on July 27, but officials stopped its meat from entering the food chain, the FSA said.

The FDA approved the sale of food from clones and their offspring in 2008, stating the products were indistinguishable from those of non-cloned animals.

The European parliament recently voted to exclude food from cloned animals from a list of approved products.

A "novel food" application must now be made before it can be sold.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/201084142257826394.html

Poor Helen Thomas. She shares her birthday not just with Alberto Gonzales, but with our pirate killer. Michelle being out, sounds like boys night for Alberto and barack. Cake, ice cream, and a good torture video.

Site failed my last test. Every thing has to go through the real Room 101-- Room 641A.
http://cryptome.org/klein-decl.htm

Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

ON AIR

http://www.breitbart.tv/msnbc-host-verbally-attacks-conservative-guest-o...

The Great Marginalization

Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller and the Conscience of the Very, Very Rich

By CARL GINSBURG

Of all the farcical notions put forth during this time of high farce, casting America as “broke” places way up there on the list, as trillions of dollars are being stockpiled in the face of a national downsizing and its attendant growth in misery. Here we sit, a captive national audience to the president’s seemingly daily farce, “We are all in this together”.

Instances of hoarding in U.S. history are many, but the current example stands out for its enduring quality, as Congress reaches deep into corporate pockets, with occasional forays into legislation of the extreme incremental variety. Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months--- hardly the recipe for togetherness.

More farce: that irresponsibility is the root of poverty, a stalwart theme in American political theater, with the latest reminder from Treasury Secretary Geithner in a New York Times op-ed this month, saluting Americans for “saving more” and “borrowing more responsibly”. These instructions from the government’s top economic point man were imparted in the face of continued wage stagnation, high foreclosure rates and new forms of financial foolery.
Now enter stage left: the ”Great Givers”, they come in the form of American billionaires proposing to give away half their wealth. Beware strangers bearing gifts.

The billionaire pledge – a broadside of noblesse oblige – was formulated by none other than two of the planet’s leading mega-billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two American moneybags are imploring fellow prophets of profit to address global suffering by earmarking not less than fifty per cent of personal wealth for charity. First discussed at a dinner in May 2009, the specifics are just now surfacing thanks to Carol J. Loomis in the June 16 issue of Fortune.

According to Loomis, Buffett and Gates, who share a commitment to charity and to the Democratic Party, summoned a group of billionaires to dinner in New York City. David Rockefeller -- whose granddad cornered the market in kerosene, then gasoline – played host and invited this billionaire boys club to share their calling. Two subsequent dinners were held, expanding the group invited to take the plunge to about thirty. Areas of charitable concern shared by America’s very richest, Loomis says, include “education, culture, hospitals and health, the environment, public policy, the poor generally.” Generally.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ginsburg08042010.html

http://www.olympiabds.org/

DOG CHEWS TOE OFF DIABETIC OWNER
new
Submitted by taozen on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 12:09pm.
THE master was very drunk and his best friend could tell the toe was dead and the rest of the foot was at risk. Love your dogs and animal friends you never know what they know . The man went to the doctor and found out how sick he was. the dr said the dog saved his life.
============================

AND the dog waited until his patient was anesthetized (drunk)!

Hard to believe someone who is touted as 'intelligent' is saying that BP's spewed oil is no longer a threat because it has been/is "dispersed".

Next will the profiteers be making other outlandish claims, such as, this BP Deepwater Horizon well closing proves that deepwater drilling is safe and can be resumed with minimal concerns?

"But you, Nancy—you don’t even know the kind of pain you are causing all of the “Metrics” in the world, do you? The mothers in all the parts of the world that we are bombing, or helping other people to bomb don’t even enter into your rarefied society. We wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner parties/DNC fundraisers at your estate in Sonoma County, now, would we?

You looked me right in the face in September of 2005 and with crocodile mist in your eyes (do you use Vicks Vaporub for your fake, tears like Glen Beck?) you told me that if the antiwar movement helped Democrats get elected, you would help us end the wars. You are nothing but a cold-hearted liar and I am ashamed that the first female Speaker of the House is nothing but another lying, calculating, and callous politician."
-------

Queen Nancy of the Robber Class
“Metrics”?

By Cindy Sheehan

August 04, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Here is a partial exchange between ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in regards to the multi-billion dollar war-funding bill recently passed by Pelosi’s Democratically controlled House of Representatives:

CA: "Now you didn't vote. I know the speaker doesn't have to vote. But how would you have voted?"

NP: "Well we brought the bill to the floor. And that was a statement that said that we knew that our troops needed to have ... would be provided for them. So we will never abandon our men and women in uniform. On the other hand it gave our members a chance to express their view. How does this figure into our protecting the American people? Is it worth it?"

CA: "Is it worth it? Is it worth it?"

NP: "That is the question," Pelosi replied.

CA: “But that's my question to you.”

NP: "Well we will, as I said, we will see the metrics as they unfold in the next few months.”

Planet Earth of the Real People to Queen Nancy of the Robber Class—can you use some of your husband’s millions to buy a clue? We here down in the class that does the fighting, killing, and dying while you and your buds do the profiteering, don’t quantify human loss as “Metrics.”

read here
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26082.htm

Karel reporting on/emoting about the court ruling against California Prop.8.

He says equal equals equal. And finally a judge is ruling on that. Karel read the ruling and its his estimation that the ruling will stand.

http://www.green960.com/pages/karel.html

Audio archive here:

http://www.green960.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=ka...

Feds use their official standing to protect their own unConstitutional actions...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/03/AR201008...

[excerpt]

Civil rights groups sue Treasury over targeting of terror suspects for killing

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2010; 11:16 AM

Civil liberties groups sued the Treasury Department on Tuesday, alleging that its rules do not allow them to challenge the federal government's authority to target for killing Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit against the department and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in U.S. District Court in Washington. The groups say that without a change, it would be a crime for them to provide even free legal services to a citizen whom the government has designated a terrorist and is seeking to kill.

Human rights lawyers said they were retained early last month by Aulaqi's father, Nasser al-Aulaqi. Anwar al-Aulaqi is a U.S.-born radical cleric based in Yemen who U.S. authorities say is a propagandist for al-Qaeda and has helped plan attacks against the United States.

The center and the ACLU said Aulaqi's father contacted them shortly before Treasury named Aulaqi a "specially designated global terrorist" on July 16, freezing his assets and barring U.S. entities -- including lawyers -- from doing business with or providing services to him without obtaining a license from OFAC.

"The government is targeting an American citizen for death without any legal process whatsoever, while at the same time impeding lawyers from challenging that death sentence and the government's sweeping claim of authority to issue it," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a written statement. "Such an alarming denial of rights in any one case endangers the rights of all Americans."

The groups said OFAC has not responded to their July 23 request for a permit.

In a statement, OFAC Director Adam Szubin called the civil liberties groups' claim significantly misleading, saying, "The Treasury Department has long had in place a general license that broadly authorizes the provision of pro bono legal services to or on behalf of designated persons such as Anwar al Aulaqi" without any requirement for a specific permit.

Szubin said the general rule applies to "criminal, civil or administrative proceedings," as well as challenges to "detention or the imposition of sanctions," adding that to the extent the legal groups' intended services fall outside those categories, "OFAC will work with the ACLU to ensure that the legal services can be delivered."

Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said at the time of Aulaqi's designation that "Anwar al-Aulaqi has proven that he is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide." He added that Aulaqi "has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism -- fundraising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives, and planning and ordering attacks on innocents."

The lawsuit alleges that subjecting unpaid legal services to a licensing requirement violates constitutional guarantees of free speech, due process and separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches.

The groups said that if they could file a broader lawsuit, they would allege that the government has not disclosed what standards it uses to designate U.S. citizens for targeted killing off the battlefield, instead treating them as criminals and bringing them to trial. Human-rights groups say the Constitution and international law do not permit such broad action against civilians, and that lethal force outside a battle zone should be used as a last resort when a threat is imminent.

"President Obama is claiming the power to act as judge, jury and executioner while suspending any semblance of due process," said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Would we tolerate it if China or France secretly decided to execute their enemies inside the U.S.?"

"Attorneys shouldn't have to ask the government for permission in order to challenge the constitutionality of the government's conduct," Romero said.

...

[more at link]

How is everyone doing?

Study shows these drugs block necessary neurotransmitter acetycholine from brain causing cognitive impairment:

"...common over-the-counter brands as Benadryl, Dramamine, Excedrin PM, Nytol, Sominex, Tylenol PM, and Unisom.

Other anticholinergic drugs, such as Paxil, Detrol, Demerol and Elavil are available only by prescription."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/03/tylenol-pm...

fluoride and all the rest of the dangerous chemicals added already to our drinking water ... it puts our health at serious risk. And lives.

Nora, taozen, Sunny Jim and everybody here on the blog: Please, If you know about a good water filter that works please let me know about it.

--
Considering the present circumstances I have no doubt that the plan of the elite, i.e. the "dumbing down" and "pacification" of the citizens" has begun some time ago.

Isn't it clear to everyone that People have lost the urge to fight back? I mean, people hear about Obama's kill order, the tazering of little old ladies, the planned wars on Iran, Syria and other countries, the fact that we don't have any civil rights left, the news of the shredding of The constitution and the Bill of Rights ... and people do Nothing. Nothing.

That is not normal.
The citizens have been totally pacified.

People didn't use to act this way.

And On the servant TV and radio hosts yak about Lindsey Lohan (sp), Mel Gibson and the celebs of the day. When Obama was hyping Afghanistan, the blogs acted as if Roman Polanski was the most imp. subject. Pathetic.

So Don't expect to hear the truth and help from this servant corner.
btw. I see a LLohan link (w. v. important news about her, no doubt) on the google page every single day. This has been going on for weeks now.

Furthermore, I also heard that Lithium will be added to the drinking water, food, etc. About mandatory vaccines. So people won't stress out anymore. Yeah, right. Its mind control in a big way.

I'll come back to that one later.

So If you have a good water filter, please let me know. I need all my "fighting brain cells" I can keep.

post again

it is not just plus good, but double plus good ;-)

I did watch the film clip - thanks for posting the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp5pe610r0s

Clearly, the simplification of the language is going on ... not just in everyday life but it is so obvious everywhere on the net.

About Big Brother
One of my favorite films is V for Vendetta (05). Have you seen it? It was a great film

Yet V was completely ignored at Oscar time and not even nominated. Same thing happened this year to the amazing The Road and Che.

The brave new world has already started in England where cameras follow every single movement of the citizens.

The people should know better.
But they are fine with it, obviously.
The same thing is happening here. Take my civil rights away, spy away ... I have done nothing wrong ... so why should I worry ....

Double Plus Scary.

fall over themselves defending Israel:
Israel threatens to retaliate against attacks on three fronts

Violence this week on Israel's northern and southern borders has escalated tensions and raised the prospect of further clashes this summer, Israeli military experts said Wednesday.

A clash between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers Tuesday was the most serious outbreak of violence in the north since the two countries fought a war in the summer of 2006.

In the south, rockets from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where Islamist militants have operated in the past, struck Israel's and Jordan's Red Sea ports, killing a Jordanian civilian and wounding three others.

Militants in Gaza also fired rockets at Israel and Jordan Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would retaliate against all the attacks.

"Over recent days we've witnessed three attacks against Israel. An attack from Gaza on Ashkelon, an attack by the Lebanese army on Israel Defense Forces troops carrying out a routine operation, and another attack from the Sinai at Eilat," Netanyahu said Wednesday. "I want to make very clear to Hamas and to the Lebanese government that we view them as responsible for the violent provocation against us. Don't test our determination to protect our citizens."

The IDF was on high alert Wednesday, military officials said. Additional Israeli military units moved into the north as IDF soldiers moved to complete a tree pruning operation that led to violence Tuesday.

One Israeli reserve officer, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist were killed in what was supposed to be a routine operation to clear a cypress tree whose branches were tripping the electronic anti-infiltration devices on a border fence....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/04/98655/israel-threatens-to-retaliat...

(Over at McCLatchy where this story is posted only three comments out of country of 300 million. Amazing.)

I never listen to Rush L. but this little clip was too typical to just let it go IMHO.

Sam:
"where does he get off?"

Excuse me, Sam,
at least someone is waking up in the servant press
and this time it is Rush

(here I'll exclude the immigration issue because I didn't quite understand that section)

besides
since when do we believe that elections are honest and LEGAL? The 08 primary itself was completely corrupt.

Oh, and you better believe that Obama has gall. Tons of it. Does anyone still believe Obama fights for us little people? Even for a second?

Besides, Name one candidate whose every single campaign promise and utterance turned out to be a lie ... and he knows Dems keep defending him instead of fighting for the Bill of Rights and Peace for us all. He knew it during the campaign, he knows it now.
The destruction of the Gulf should secure him a second Peace Price. Most likely.

Remember Obama's "they got me" statement re the fall elections? So full of hubris
Obama's popularity is in freefall. But Why should he care? Did Bush II care? Same thing. Not even for a minute.

;) BOYCOTT OLYMPIA BDS!

Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff

MUST SEE Video

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed - PT 1/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSpkLk0vYmk&feature=related

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed - PT 2/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B9MeO3SRxU&feature=related

MUST SEE Video

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed - PT 1/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSpkLk0vYmk&feature=related

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed - PT 2/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B9MeO3SRxU&feature=related

---
Hi N!
hope you and your family are doing well ...

Lets all watch this v. important video .... our health and the health of our children and companion animals depend on it.

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed

Alex Jones & Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
July 29, 2010

The grocery store, along with your kitchen sink, are two of the most dangerous places in the world.

In a special video, Alex Jones addresses one of the darkest modes of power the globalists have used to control the population– food. The adulteration of the planet’s staple crops, genetically-altered species and intentionally-altered water, food and air all amount to a Eugenics operation to weaken the masses and achieve full spectrum domination.

read here

http://www.infowars.com/food-the-ultimate-secret-exposed/

just got done watching "Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed" again, a couple days ago...Everyones good...wish you the same...especially while we all stand at the edge of tha map eh?

Michael Parenti: Race, Gender and Class Struggle

Michael Parenti is one of America's most astute and engaging political analysts. In this talk, he describes how divisions of race and gender have played into -- and often against -- struggles for economic justice and human rights. He calls on progressive activists to focus on fighting the oppressive power structures that are at the base of wars and economic injustices rather than on differences among ourselves.

The Great Marginalization
Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller and the Conscience of the Very, Very Rich

By CARL GINSBURG

Of all the farcical notions put forth during this time of high farce, casting America as “broke” places way up there on the list, as trillions of dollars are being stockpiled in the face of a national downsizing and its attendant growth in misery. Here we sit, a captive national audience to the president’s seemingly daily farce, “We are all in this together”.

Instances of hoarding in U.S. history are many, but the current example stands out for its enduring quality, as Congress reaches deep into corporate pockets, with occasional forays into legislation of the extreme incremental variety. Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months--- hardly the recipe for togetherness.

More farce: that irresponsibility is the root of poverty, a stalwart theme in American political theater, with the latest reminder from Treasury Secretary Geithner in a New York Times op-ed this month, saluting Americans for “saving more” and “borrowing more responsibly”. These instructions from the government’s top economic point man were imparted in the face of continued wage stagnation, high foreclosure rates and new forms of financial foolery.
Now enter stage left: the ”Great Givers”, they come in the form of American billionaires proposing to give away half their wealth. Beware strangers bearing gifts.

The billionaire pledge – a broadside of noblesse oblige – was formulated by none other than two of the planet’s leading mega-billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two American moneybags are imploring fellow prophets of profit to address global suffering by earmarking not less than fifty per cent of personal wealth for charity. First discussed at a dinner in May 2009, the specifics are just now surfacing thanks to Carol J. Loomis in the June 16 issue of Fortune.

read here
http://www.counterpunch.org/ginsburg08042010.html

thanks so much for your good wishes

"especially while we all stand at the edge of tha map eh?"

Absolutely.

You watched Food already? Great.

I'll check out the Michael Parenti video tomorrow.

Time for me to say good night :)

;)

Might get to watch all the candidates this fall....
new
Submitted by ghettodefender on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 8:51pm.
fall over themselves defending Israel:
Israel threatens to retaliate against attacks on three fronts

Violence this week on Israel's northern and southern borders has escalated tensions and raised the prospect of further clashes this summer, Israeli military experts said Wednesday.

A clash between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers Tuesday was the most serious outbreak of violence in the north since the two countries fought a war in the summer of 2006.

In the south, rockets from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where Islamist militants have operated in the past, struck Israel's and Jordan's Red Sea ports, killing a Jordanian civilian and wounding three others.

Militants in Gaza also fired rockets at Israel and Jordan Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would retaliate against all the attacks.
...
===============================

Back to my previous suspicions on this one: I do not want to rule out that attacks "against" Israel are actually Israeli 'false flag' operations.

It was not that easy to get an objective report out of Israel about the "flotilla massacre", so I think I am justified in not believing much of the reports/information that comes out of Israel about what is going on over there.

Not so much. Trust/Faith - what's the difference? Internet/Israel - wha . . . ?

Truth/"Media [Press]" - huh?

An implication: Carry a big stick and lie broadly.

- Helen O'Handbasket

...and then makes it next to impossible to to contact...
;)

"What I hear you saying is . . . ." What I? hear? you?

Archly

http://www.aquasana.com/

their shower fiflter is a good place to start.

Just say'n ... but so very thrilled Continual Oil Volcano is capped!

BTW Excellent! {HaHaHa LOL - What I? hear? you?}

*** ***

says I -
Submitted by ellwort on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 3:08am.

Archly ... {Rolling upon floor laughing ;D}

Russia will ban the export of grain from 15 August to 1 December after drought and fires devastated crops.

"I think it is advisable to introduce a temporary ban on the export from Russia of grain and other agriculture products made from grain," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

Russia, one of the world's biggest grain producers, exported about a quarter of its output last year.

Mr Putin's announcement sent wheat prices to a 23-month high.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10879138

Russia is still fighting to extinguish nearly 600 wildfires in an emergency that has now claimed 50 lives.

Foreign reinforcements are arriving, Russian officials say, including two Canadair water-bombing planes from Italy. Ukraine and Belarus are also sending firefighters.

One fire threatens a shelter housing some 1,000 animals in the Moscow area.

The Moscow smog eased on Thursday, though an acrid smell persisted from peat fires burning outside the city.
Related stories

The Bim charity shelter at Khoteichi, 100km (60 miles) south-east of Moscow, said a forest fire had come dangerously close to the animals' cages. It is home to hundreds of dogs and cats, as well as circus animals, RIA Novosti news agency reports.

No details are available on the number of animals killed in the wildfires, which have spread amid a record heatwave, with temperatures soaring to nearly 40C (104F).

Forecasters expect Moscow's high temperatures to persist for several more days.

On Wednesday President Dmitry Medvedev sacked several top military officials for failing to stop wildfires from destroying a naval base outside Moscow.

He made the announcement after halting his summer holiday to return to Moscow for emergency talks on the wildfires.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10881892

The Bush administration's "misguided" policies are to blame for huge U.S. budget deficits, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner charged on Wednesday as he sought to build an election-year case for ending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6735PX20100805?type=politicsNews

in this story we learn where netanyahu got his "credentials"

(Mr levy had a hard 50th birthday that's for sure)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/world/europe/05levy.html?_r=1&hpw

I am not his fan but I will give it up to him on the Mosque situation in lower Manhattan. The turtle came out of his corporate shell long enough to speak passionately for the Constitutional right to worship in the way that one chooses.

By Peter Bohmer

Thursday, August 05, 2010

[This is the third and final part of a ZNet commentary series about global economic crisis and relating to Greece, by Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel. Hahnel spoke at the Greek anti-authoritarian movement’s B-Festival in Athens last May and Bohmer will be speaking at the festival in Thessaloniki in September.]

If stonewalling financial reform and fiscal austerity will only make matters worse, what should be done instead? When unable to defend bad policies advocates always resort to TINA – There Is No Alternative. This is what Prime Minister Papandreou and PASOK now claim in defense of caving to financial speculators, the European Commission, and the IMF, and imposing an austerity budget on ordinary Greeks who did nothing to cause the economic crisis. Papandreou now claims fiscal austerity is regrettable but unavoidable. In the words of Bill Clinton, “he feels his fellow Greeks’ pain.” However, there is a better alternative for Greece, just as there is for the world at large.

(1) Instead of imposing wage freezes, reducing vacation and retirement benefits, and laying off public employees providing useful services and public goods, taxes should be raised on the wealthy, and financial transaction taxes should be levied to discourage speculative, destabilizing activity. Raising the value added tax (the European equivalent of a sales tax) is highly regressive. Going after taxi drivers for tax evasion is small change and petty. Tax evasion by wealthy Greeks is notorious, and forcing the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes is where fiscal austerity should begin – and end for the foreseeable future!

(2) Greece needs fiscal stimulus not fiscal austerity to pull its economy out of the recession. Moreover, the world needs fiscal stimulus not fiscal austerity to end the Great Recession. Governments everywhere, including Greece, should engage in aggressive fiscal stimulus. Greece has every reason to be angry at Germany for not engaging in more fiscal stimulus, while Germany has no reason to criticize Greece for running a budget deficit -- since it should be! Right now Germany can borrow at very low interest rates to finance a deficit, whereas financial speculators are forcing Greece to pay much more than is warranted by objective circumstances. All the so-called PIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain -- should unite and (a) refuse to accede to counterproductive demands that they engage in useless fiscal austerity, (b) demand that the stronger European economies like Germany launch strong fiscal stimuli as the best way to reduce unsustainable trade imbalances within the EU, and (c) demand underwriting protection from the EU sufficient to earn smaller EU countries reasonable interest rates to refinance their debt.
http://www.zcommunications.org/what-economic-policies-do-we-need-by-pete...

Kate Perkins interviews Norman Finkelstein, August 2010
The Israel critic and Holocaust heir on the “Gaza massacre,” the Goldstone Report, the public turn against Israeli policy, and the difference between “of” and “in.”

The career of radical political scholar Norman Finkelstein might be described as a sort of heroic painting-into-a-corner. The son of Holocaust survivors, his life’s work has been dedicated to exposing the hypocrisy, ideology, and violence that sustains the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The dimensions of his emphatic anti-Zionism, expounded over the course of six meticulously researched and often polemical books on Israel, Palestine, and the legacy of the Holocaust, have made him a pariah in the mainstream and a hero amongst supporters of Palestinian liberation.
The high controversy around Finkelstein’s politics has penetrated university walls on more than one occasion, making his academic career fraught with defensive, uphill battles. I first met Finkelstein in 2007, in the eye of a storm of controversy surrounding his academic status at DePaul University. Despite his prolific and highly influential body of critical scholarship—and after first having been approved for tenure at DePaul by both department and faculty committees—Finkelstein’s tenure had ultimately been denied—minority dissenters had campaigned successfully against his appointment. Flanked by a supporting cast of speakers including Tariq Ali, Tony Judt, and Noam Chomsky (via satellite), Finkelstein stood before some one thousand six hundred people in the University of Chicago’s packed Rockefeller Chapel to make the case for academic freedom. Contrary to his reputedly prickly demeanor, he appeared extraordinarily collected and calm, his heavy brow furrowing only slightly over sharp, dark eyes as he prepared to publicly address the charges against him. (The university’s final word on the matter was that Dr. Finkelstein’s reputation for outspoken criticism of Israel and of Israeli apologists like Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz made Finkelstein unfit for tenure at DePaul, a school of “Vincentian values.”)
It was the culmination of a long struggle to advance his radical political critique of Israel and of the American Israeli lobby from within the academy. Now an independent scholar, Dr. Finkelstein remains a leading voice of dissent against the pro-Israel policies that underwrite an apartheid regime enforced by egregious war crimes and human rights violations. In This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, his first book since departing from DePaul—he argues that Israel’s November, 2008 invasion of Gaza, which decisively ended a fragile ceasefire brokered by Egypt that June, marked the beginning of an unprecedented decline in public support for Israel. The book’s epilogue is devoted to the Goldstone Report, a document authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone that describes the damning conclusions of a U.N.-commissioned investigation into the Gaza invasion, including charges of war crimes against Israel.
In the wake of the bloody attack on the Mavi Marmara aid flotilla, Finkelstein’s argument has been affirmed as Israel wages a round of diplomatic gestures in response to an unprecedented international outcry. I spoke to Dr. Finkelstein by phone about the implications of diminished international support for Israel, the damning conclusions of the Goldstone Report on the 2008 invasion of Gaza, and what the turning tide of public opinion means for a peace process that has, historically, looked more like a state of war.
—Kate Perkins for Guernica
Guernica: This Time We Went Too Far looks at Israel through the lens of international public opinion—specifically, a severely damaged public perception of, and support for, Israeli policy after its invasion of Gaza beginning in November of 2008. How substantial is that change in public perception, and to what extent does it give critics of Israel a new kind of traction with respect to influencing policy?
Norman Finkelstein: There’s no question that public opinion is changing, and if you’re a person of the left, your goal is presumably to try to mobilize public opinion to affect elite policy; and I think now there are unusual, unprecedented opportunities to do so. Whether anything will come of it, well, that’s the challenge. It’s not enough for public opinion to shift; it then requires marshalling that public opinion, harnessing it, for it to have a political impact.
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/1933/finkelstein_8_1_10/

All the news that isn't news in the US.

Canadian judge frees 'al-Qaeda' man
Khadr has been held for nearly five years and has appeared in court a number of times

A Canadian man indicted in the United States on terrorism charges has been freed from jail after a Canadian judge refused to extradite him.

Abdullah Khadr has been held in Canada since his arrest in December 2005. US officials accused him of purchasing weapons for al-Qaeda, and based their charges in part on a statement he made in Pakistan to the FBI and Canadian police.

Khadr's lawyers argued that the statement was the result of torture, and the judge in Khadr's case agreed, calling it "manifestly unreliable".

Canadian judges rarely deny extradition requests from the US. Christopher Speyer, the judge, called his ruling "a remedy of last resort," and held that Khadr was illegally detained and interrogated.

"I think this is going to be a new beginning for me in life," Khadr said after the ruling. "I just want to start anew now."

Rob Nicholson, Canada's justice minister, said the government would study the ruling closely before deciding whether to appeal.

Khadr is the eldest son of Ahmed Said Khadr, an alleged al-Qaeda member who was killed in 2003 by the Pakistani army.

Khadr's younger brother, Omar, is currently detained in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. The US accuses him of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.

The younger Khadr is scheduled to go on trial at Guantanamo later this month.

The United States paid the Pakistani government half a million dollars for Abdullah Khadr's capture, according to court records.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/20108420318101.html

(Half a million dollars for bounty hunters, or money for Detroit schools? That's an east choice. Excited about the election of Virg Bernero as the Dems gubernatorial candidate here. But wondering, if he actually miraculously wins the general election, whether he'll be just another fraud like Obama. If Obama actually campaigns for him- which I don't expect- I'll know the answer.)

During the early 1940s high in the remote Welsh mountains one of the greatest British inventors of the twentieth century lived in seclusion. With Britain at war, Harry Grindell Matthews found himself isolated from the scientific community and a pariah of the British Government. The classic stereotype of the British inventor, Matthews was eccentric, determined and other-worldly but his achievements and world firsts make for impressive reading...

http://www.harrygrindellmatthews.com/default.asp

It's taken millions of dollars to cap it, and it could take billions more to clean it up. BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is acknowledged the environmental catastrophe of the century. But Tel Aviv University has a solution that may help "bioremediate" the remaining problems.

Prof. Eugene Rosenberg and Prof. Eliora Ron of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology are using naturally occurring oil-munching bacteria, grown at the TAU lab, to clean the hard-to-reach oil pockets that occur when oil mixes with sand and organic matter on beaches and forms a thin layer on the Gulf's precious waterways.

"It's worked to clean up an oil spill on the coast of Haifa, Israel, so we've already got good evidence it could work in Florida too," says Prof. Ron. Details of their decades of research appear in The Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology, published this year by Springer Verlag.

more info

http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12637

US 'in nuclear talks with Vietnam'

The US deal with Vietnam may hurt global nuclear non-proliferation efforts [GALLO/GETTY]

The US is reported to be in advanced negotiations to share nuclear fuel and technology with Vietnam in a deal that would allow the communist nation to enrich its own uranium.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Thursday that the US state department-led negotiations could upset China, which shares hundreds of miles of border with Vietnam.

"The unique feature of this [proposed deal] is that Vietnam will be able to enrich uranium on its own soil, very few countries can do that," Willem Van Kemenade, an analyst specialising in China's global strategic relations, told Al Jazeera from Beijing, the Chinese capital.

The proposed deal "should be seen in the context of Vietnam regionalising and multilateralising its latent conflicts with China" particularly over islands in the South China Sea, Kemenade said.

The paper quoted a senior US official briefed on the negotiations as saying that China had not been consulted on the talks.

"It doesn't involve China," the official said.

'Double standards'

The Journalreported that US officials familiar with the matter say negotiators have given a full nuclear co-operation proposal to Vietnam and have started briefing US House and senate foreign-relations committees.

The paper also said the move will be seen by US government critics as a double standard, as the US has made more stringent demands of its Middle East partners....
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/08/20108563528362386...

...agile thinkers. And, now an up and coming Democrat, US Representative Tom Perriello of Virginia's 5th District came through this system-

http://www.youtube.com/user/k12albemarle#p/a/u/0/bIHiljvptJw

Read more about him here:
http://perriello.house.gov/
and
http://www.perrielloforcongress.com/

...virus or WHAT?

US Interference in Venezuela Keeps Growing
By Eva Golinger

Despite President Obama’s promise to President Chavez that his administration wouldn’t interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is channeling millions into anti-Chavez groups....
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/08/us-interference-in-venezuela-keeps.htm...

very nice picture quality
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Submitted by ghettodefender on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 3:43pm.
US Interference in Venezuela Keeps Growing
By Eva Golinger

Despite President Obama’s promise to President Chavez that his administration wouldn’t interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is channeling millions into anti-Chavez groups....
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/08/us-interference-in-venezuela-keeps.htm...
========================

In this 2007 interview Russo said he was told before 9/11 that tumbling Venuzuela was the power elite's plan...
[Apologies if this is a repost.]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5420753830426590918&hl=en#

If only Pelosi et al had impeached these freaks, then we wouldn't have to deal with schemes like Rove's at this time...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100805/el_yblog_upshot/a-citizens...

[excerpt]

A guide to the ‘shadow GOP’: the groups that may define the 2010 and 2012 elections

...

It's a nondescript office building just two blocks from the White House — but in politics, it's ground zero for what many are referring to as the "shadow GOP." On the 12th floor of this New York Avenue office complex, four separate conservative groups are collectively planning to spend at least $70 million to help Republicans win back control of Congress this November.

But the effort isn't limited to 2010. In an operation modeled after the ambitious fundraising, organizing, and research infrastructure that Democrats built up during the George W. Bush years, GOP political strategists are looking to achieve the same goal that their Democratic counterparts did in 2006: They want to win back the White House.

The four groups — American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS, American Action Network and the American Action Forum — are all part of a larger GOP network assembled in recent months to help rebuild the Republican brand. While dozens of former GOP lawmakers and seasoned Republican strategists are involved, the effort largely springs from the work of two former Bush aides: Ed Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chairman who later served as White House counselor, and Karl Rove, the man Bush once described as the "architect" of his presidency.

All of the organizations were founded separately and organized as individual groups. But each is working closely in concert — they share the same office space within the New York Ave. building, and according to Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, his group rents its offices from American Action Network.

[more at link]
[This is part of a series.]

one finger typing today

bad shoulder

Obama Adm. report based on 'modeling', a method which is questioned.

Is this report a case of 'garbage in, garbage out'?

[Plus, aren't there some estimates of BP oil spewage being as high as 15 million gallons?]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/us/05oil.html?_r=1

[excerpt]

Oilspill calculations stir debate on damage

...

The report, the subject of an extended White House briefing, claimed that most of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that have leaked into the gulf could be accounted for, that much of it was effectively gone already, and that most of the remaining oil was in a highly diluted form. The implication of the report was that future damage from the oil might be less than had been feared.

That suggestion was not happily received on the Gulf Coast, where people are still coping with the collapse of fishing and tourism and saw the report as fresh evidence that the Obama administration was preparing to abandon them in the same way they felt the Bush administration did after Hurricane Katrina.

Gulf residents pointed to oiled beaches, blackened marshes and dead birds as evidence that, whatever the future damage from the remaining oil, the damage already done was severe enough.

...

The Obama administration’s latest report on the Gulf of Mexico disaster set off a war of words Wednesday among scientists, Gulf Coast residents and political pundits about what to make of the Deepwater Horizon spill and its aftermath.

The report, the subject of an extended White House briefing, claimed that most of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that have leaked into the gulf could be accounted for, that much of it was effectively gone already, and that most of the remaining oil was in a highly diluted form. The implication of the report was that future damage from the oil might be less than had been feared.

That suggestion was not happily received on the Gulf Coast, where people are still coping with the collapse of fishing and tourism and saw the report as fresh evidence that the Obama administration was preparing to abandon them in the same way they felt the Bush administration did after Hurricane Katrina.

Gulf residents pointed to oiled beaches, blackened marshes and dead birds as evidence that, whatever the future damage from the remaining oil, the damage already done was severe enough.

President Obama, speaking at a union meeting in Washington on Wednesday, sought to allay the fears on the Gulf Coast. “We have to reverse the damage that’s been done,” he said. “We will continue to work to hold polluters accountable for the destruction they’ve caused, we’ve got to make sure that folks who were harmed are reimbursed, and we’re going to stand by the people of the region however long it takes until they’re back on their feet.”

Even among scientists specializing in the issues raised by the new report, splits emerged Wednesday about how much credence to give it.

Some researchers attacked the findings and methodology, calling the report premature at best and sloppy at worst. They noted that considerable research was still under way to shed light on some of the main scientific issues raised in the report.

“A lot of this is based on modeling and extrapolation and very generous assumptions,” said Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at the University of Georgia who has led some of the most important research on the Deepwater Horizon spill. “If an academic scientist put something like this out there, it would get torpedoed into a billion pieces.”

But other scientists, while acknowledging that the report incorporated assumptions that could not be directly tested, found them reasonable, if not conservative. Edward B. Overton of Louisiana State University, one of the most experienced gulf researchers, said the report, if anything, might have underestimated the amount of oil that had effectively gone away or been dispersed. He expressed concern, however, that dispersed oil in the deep ocean might not break down quickly.

Jeffrey W. Short, a former federal scientist who led major studies after the Exxon Valdez disaster and now works for the environmental advocacy group Oceana, found the report plausible, over all.

The estimates in the report “are better than nothing, and probably not very far off,” he said. “They have measured all the easy stuff to measure, and the rest will be very difficult to measure if not impossible. So I suspect it is not going to get a whole lot better than this.”

The heart of the debate is the applicability, in a situation like the gulf spill, of the scientific technique known as modeling. In that approach, scientists build an elaborate computer program, incorporating numerous best guesses, to try to answer complex questions that cannot be tackled any other way.

[more at link]

America: Freedom to Fascism?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5420753830426590918&hl=en#docid=...

Who rules the country. The Federal Reserve - they have got the money - they have got the power.
Trillions of dollars disappear ... and does the mainstream servant press get excited? Do the hardworking taxpayers get mad? No.

Pacified.

Where does it state that wage earners must pay taxes? No where.

-----
The Aaron Russo Interview is really awesome as well

after all these years I finally found out what the globalists had in mind when supporting women's lib

.... one really has to lean far far over when thinking out of the box if one wants to understands the globalists. They are ruthless. They are without integrity and conscience. But they must be taken seriously. Its even out in the open now. For them it is: NOW or NEVER. They think they are close to achieving their goals.

While the servant press sleeps.

The Aaron Russo/Nick Rockefeller friendship story is fascinating scary. So What more do we need to know? There it all is.
-----

They did want to bring Sanchez down but it didn't work out at the time. That doesn't mean they are giving up. Everything we heard some time ago (and didn't want to believe) becomes more and more relevant from day to day.

Despite President Obama’s promise to President Chavez .....

Of course Obama promises. I hear this kind of stuff from Obama and deal with this exactly the same way as I did all those time during the Bush speak years: think the opposite. Never take it at face value. Never.

for helping me

A good filtration company
Submitted by taozen on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 7:00am.
---

We researched and ordered the Apec Reverse Osmos Water Filter

It had good reviews.
Hope it works out.

:-) greetings

Why is our government still subsidizing the cancer-causing tobacco industry?--

http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=tobacco

BUT essentially works to prohibit the nation's citizens from lawfully benefitting from cannabis' anti-cancer properties:

http://www.gsalternative.com/2010/05/cannabinoids-kill-cancer/

I so agree re
"...If only Pelosi et al had impeached these freaks, then we wouldn't have to deal with schemes like Rove's at this time..."

Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?

Late last year, the U.S. economy experienced a surprising decoupling

[surprising?...my hairy old arse if it was]

Some argue that the decoupling has gone even further. Michael Lind, a policy director for the Economic Growth Program at the New American Foundation, argues in Salon that the American rich no longer need the rest of America.

[there's one intrinsic problem...neither those inclined to sociopathy nor the conservative, prone to delusion but good at math left brained folk are any good at creating anything...they're only good at making money and deception...the very traits that have made them successful are their greatest weakness...like parasites without a host, if they are rid of us then they are rid of themselves.]

Conservative Left Brain, Liberal Right Brain

Maybe it is just coincidence that the political affiliations of "left" and "right" correlate with handedness. Maybe not. Michael Gazzaniga, Roger Sperry, and Joseph Bogen were researching the impact of brain-splitting operations, and encountered a patient named Paul. Paul had a commissurotomy, and his right and left brains no longer communicated with each other. Since Paul had an enhanced language capability in his right brain, he was able to express his opinions, whereas most recently split-brain patients would not be able to vocalize the opinions of their right hemispheres. Paul's right brain wanted to be a racecar driver while his left brain wanted to be a draftsman. This study was done during the Watergate scandal, so the research team naturally threw in a question about Richard Nixon. Paul's right brain expressed dislike for Richard Nixon, while his left brain liked him.

Feds suspect California census workers of falsifying count

Federal investigators have opened multiple inquiries into California census operations, including allegations that some workers felt so much pressure that they cut corners or got things wrong during the crucial population count.

The investigation isn't unique. Last month, investigators revealed that two Brooklyn census supervisors had directed workers to falsify answers to household questionnaires. The Brooklyn case arose from whistleblower complaints, much as the California investigations did....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/05/98712/feds-suspect-california-cens...

Despite constitution, Nicaragua's Ortega plans to stay in power

The constitution bars Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega from seeking re-election next year, but that's not stopping the onetime leftist revolutionary.

Billboards and murals are going up across Nicaragua announcing "Daniel — 2011," making it plain that Ortega intends to stay at the helm.

Now 64, Ortega still has some of the panache of his guerrilla days three decades ago, when the Sandinista National Liberation Front swept away the Somoza family dictatorship, which had ruled Nicaragua for four decades. Now, however, Ortega is laying the groundwork to rule Nicaragua for a long time himself in apparent defiance of the constitution.

With some arm-twisting, Ortega gained a faint judicial green light to seek re-election. Last October, he won a ruling from a Supreme Court stacked with his supporters that Article 147 of the constitution, which bans the re-election of a sitting president, doesn't apply to him....
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/05/98701/despite-constitution-nicarag...

NATO And The US: Protectors of Global Corporate Capitalism

"The American Media Empire of Managed News" with Dr. Peter Phillips.

By Guns and Butter - Broadcast August 04, 2010

"Fortress America," the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, is the largest, most expensive in the world, and one that few taxpayers have ever seen. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

see this Video
first pictures of the Baghdad US Embassy I ever seen
pics are from 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/

----

The US Isn't Leaving Iraq, It's Rebranding the Occupation

Obama says withdrawal is on schedule, but renaming or outsourcing combat troops won't give Iraqis back their country

By Seumas Milne

August 05, 2010 "The Guardian" -- For most people in Britain and the US, Iraq is already history. Afghanistan has long since taken the lion's share of media attention, as the death toll of Nato troops rises inexorably. Controversy about Iraq is now almost entirely focused on the original decision to invade: what's happening there in 2010 barely registers.

That will have been reinforced by Barack Obama's declaration this week that US combat troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq at the end of the month "as promised and on schedule". For much of the British and American press, this was the real thing: headlines hailed the "end" of the war and reported "US troops to leave Iraq".

Nothing could be further from the truth. The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".

But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do.

read here
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

(Read about the Vatican-size US Embassy ...costing $$$$$)

Tony Blair Must Be Prosecuted

By John Pilger

August 05, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime." This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf, and Basra (the latter "liberated" by the British) are now revealed as higher than those at Hiroshima. "UK forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003," the Defense Secretary Liam Fox told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic "anti-personnel" weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and American forces.

Such carnage was justified with lies that have been repeatedly exposed. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament, "We do know of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq …." Last month, the former head of the intelligence service, MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcot inquiry, "There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection … [it was the invasion] that gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad." Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied, "Substantially."

The bombings in London on 7 July 2005 were a direct consequence of Blair’s actions.

Documents released by the High Court show that Blair allowed British citizens to be abducted and tortured. The then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, decided in January 2002 that Guantánamo was the "best way" to ensure UK nationals were "securely held."

Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed. Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he has accumulated an estimated £20 million, much of it as a result of his ties with the Bush administration....

read more
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26090.htm

August 5, 2010

Confronting a Mindset

By SUSAN GALLEYMORE

Imagine the power to erase, in nine seconds, more than 200,000 human beings and everything surrounding them within a two mile radius. Then imagine that power magnified many times over. Then understand that We, the People, are represented by those who are capable of destroying far more people and property in less time. For, according to President Bill Clinton and reiterated by Barack Obama, “nuclear weapons are the cornerstone of the policies” of United States of America – that protector of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Every day of the last sixty-five years since August 6 and August 9 when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have continued to design, test, develop, and stockpile ever more awesome nuclear weapons.

Researchers at the non-profit think tank Tri-Valley CAREs based in Livermore, California found that, contrary to their assumptions, Congress, the Pentagon, and the President do not commission such weaponry. “We found,” says Executive Director Marylia Kelly, “that [members of] the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory rather forcefully sell ideas for and promote weapons to the U.S. government. We'd always thought that the lab responded to the sorts of weapons these entities wanted but found the opposite is true. The weapons labs at Lawrence Livermore (CA) and Los Alamos (NM) really are the tap root of the nuclear arms race.”

It began during the Cold War...and, Kelly says, “this one-nation nuclear arms race has continued ever since. As long as these labs are unimpeded that tap root of continued weapons design and development will flourish.”

There are three main test facilities that simulate nuclear explosions and develop ever more sophisticated – and lethal – weapons. The Nevada Test Site has an underground sub-critical test facility. Los Alamos Laboratory has a new hydro test facility dedicated to the beginning stages of nuclear weapons' explosions. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has an ignitions facility that explores the physics of nuclear weapons with respect to the later stages of nuclear explosions.
http://www.counterpunch.org/galleymore08052010.html

"Here's Vice-President Joe Biden: "We know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred." 1"

"Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001."
----------------

So Please Tell Me Again: What's The War About?

By William Blum

August 05, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- When facts are inconvenient, when international law, human rights and history get in the way, when war crimes can't easily be justified or explained away, when logic doesn't help much, the current crop of American political leaders turns to what is now the old reliable: 9/11. We have to fight in Afghanistan because ... somehow ... it's tied into what happened on September 11, 2001. Here's Vice-President Joe Biden: "We know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred." 1

Here's Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC): "This is the place [Afghanistan] we were attacked from 9/11." 2

Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking House Republican, asserted that the revelations in the Wikileaks documents do not change his view of the Afghan conflict, nor does he expect a shift in public opinion. "Back home in Indiana, people still remember where the attacks on 9/11 came from." 3

Here's President Obama a year ago: "But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." 4

And here is the president, two days after the release of the Wikileaks documents, referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the region from which the 9/11 attacks were waged and other attacks against the United States and our friends and allies have been planned". 5

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Never mind that the "plot to kill Americans" in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why hasn't Washington bombed those countries?

read on
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26085.htm

=======THE TRUTH OF 9/11 WILL SET US FREE

Unemployment is Worse Than We Know, The Recovery Challenge Harder Than We Think
By Danny Schechter

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

As we move into the dog days of summer, and a coming Congressional recess, the Obama Administration has shifted its focus back on to the economy and wants to convince one and all that an economic recovery is just around the corner.

In recent speeches, the President warns that the Republicans, if they take over, will support policies that will usher in a new recession, as if the current recession is over. “They are the same policies, “he said, ”that led us into this recession. They will take us backward at a time when we need to keep America moving forward.”

He wants to push “distractions” like the Shirley Sherrod affair and the BP spill out of media view so we can all get back to the economy.

Wake me up when reality intrudes into a “debate” that is flawed on all sides.

The “signs” of recovery, so breathlessly trumpeted by the politicians who want it to be true, is not generating the new jobs we need. The resumption of unemployment benefits will help those who were cut off but not all who need them. Foreclosures are rising, and government programs to stop them are not working.

It is unlikely that the current policies can remedy any of this and it is certain that extending tax cuts for the rich will not create jobs. There is no jobs bill about to be enacted. Many of the industries blue collar workers toiled in are going or gone. Bailed out General Motors just spent $3.5 Billion dollars to buy a new lending company to get those subprime loans restarted to move cars off the lot. Is this moving “backwards” or not?

Unemployment is worse than we know. The Daily Finance site reports that the firm TechnoMetrica which monitors the stats is finding the real figures shocking. “.

“The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who's unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department's jobless numbers.”

The site adds, “For years, many economists have pointed to evidence that the government data undercounts the unemployed. Economist Helen Ginsburg, co-founder of advocacy group National Jobs For All Coalition, and John Williams of the newsletter Shadow Government Statistics have been questioning these numbers for years.
http://www.zcommunications.org/whither-the-economic-agenda-by-danny-sche...

Food Stamp Use Hit Record 40.8m in May

By Bloomberg News

August 5, 2010 "Bloomberg" -- WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday.

Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website.

Participation has set records for 18 straight months.

Unemployment in July may have reached 9.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts in advance of the Aug. 6 release of last month’s rate. Unemployment was 9.5 percent in June, near levels last seen in 1983.

An average of 40.5 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according to White House estimates.

The figure is projected to rise to 43.3 million in 2011.

read here

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26087.htm

Land of Squandered Opportunity
By MIKE WHITNEY
Aug. 5, '10
The economy has gone from bad to worse. On Friday the Commerce Department reported that GDP had slipped from 3.7% to 2.4% in one quarter. Now that depleted stockpiles have been rebuilt and fiscal stimulus is running out, activity will continue to sputter increasing the likelihood of a double dip recession. Consumer credit and spending have taken a sharp downturn and data released on Tuesday show that the personal savings rate has soared to 6.4%. Mushrooming savings indicate that household deleveraging is ongoing which will reduce spending and further exacerbate the second-half slowdown. The jobs situation is equally grim; 8 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession, but policymakers on Capital Hill and at the Fed refuse to initiate government programs or provide funding that will put the country back to work. Long-term "structural" unemployment is here to stay.

The stock market has continued its highwire act due to corporate earnings reports that surprised to the upside. 75% of S&P companies beat analysts estimates which helped send shares higher on low volume. Corporate profits increased but revenues fell; companies laid off workers and trimmed expenses to fatten the bottom line. Profitability has been maintained even though the overall size of the pie has shrunk. Stocks rallied on what is essentially bad news.

This is from ABC News:

"Consumer confidence matched its low for the year this week, with the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index extending a steep 9-point, six-week drop from what had been its 2010 high....The weekly index, based on Americans’ views of the national economy, the buying climate and their personal finances, stands at -50 on its scale of +100 to -100, just 4 points from its lowest on record in nearly 25 years of weekly polls...It's in effect the death zone for consumer sentiment."

Consumer confidence has plunged due to persistent high unemployment, flat-lining personal incomes, and falling home prices. Ordinary working people do not care about the budget deficits; that's a myth propagated by the right wing think tanks. They care about jobs, wages, and providing for their families. Congress's unwillingness to address the problems that face the middle class has led to an erosion of confidence in government. This is from the Wall Street Journal:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney08052010.html

"No one believes that the U.S. is the land of opportunity anymore or that their children will have a better life than they did. As the slump deepens, pessimism will turn to desperation, higher crime and social unrest. Everyone pays for long-term unemployment."
----

Land of Squandered Opportunity
An Avoidable Depression

By MIKE WHITNEY

The economy has gone from bad to worse. On Friday the Commerce Department reported that GDP had slipped from 3.7% to 2.4% in one quarter. Now that depleted stockpiles have been rebuilt and fiscal stimulus is running out, activity will continue to sputter increasing the likelihood of a double dip recession. Consumer credit and spending have taken a sharp downturn and data released on Tuesday show that the personal savings rate has soared to 6.4%. Mushrooming savings indicate that household deleveraging is ongoing which will reduce spending and further exacerbate the second-half slowdown. The jobs situation is equally grim; 8 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession, but policymakers on Capital Hill and at the Fed refuse to initiate government programs or provide funding that will put the country back to work. Long-term "structural" unemployment is here to stay.

The stock market has continued its highwire act due to corporate earnings reports that surprised to the upside. 75% of S&P companies beat analysts estimates which helped send shares higher on low volume. Corporate profits increased but revenues fell; companies laid off workers and trimmed expenses to fatten the bottom line. Profitability has been maintained even though the overall size of the pie has shrunk. Stocks rallied on what is essentially bad news.

This is from ABC News:

"Consumer confidence matched its low for the year this week, with the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index extending a steep 9-point, six-week drop from what had been its 2010 high....The weekly index, based on Americans’ views of the national economy, the buying climate and their personal finances, stands at -50 on its scale of +100 to -100, just 4 points from its lowest on record in nearly 25 years of weekly polls...It's in effect the death zone for consumer sentiment."

Consumer confidence has plunged due to persistent high unemployment, flat-lining personal incomes, and falling home prices. Ordinary working people do not care about the budget deficits; that's a myth propagated by the right wing think tanks. They care about jobs, wages, and providing for their families. Congress's unwillingness to address the problems that face the middle class has led to an erosion of confidence in government. This is from the Wall Street Journal:

"The lackluster job market continued to weigh on confidence. The share of consumers who expected the job market to improve in the next six months fell to 14.3% in July, the second-straight monthly drop and the lowest reading since March...Views of business conditions also worsened. The share of people who expected conditions to improve over the next half-year fell to 15.9% in July, the lowest since April 2009." ("Home prices rise but outlook for sector dims", Conor Dougherty, Wall Street Journal)

No one believes that the U.S. is the land of opportunity anymore or that their children will have a better life than they did. As the slump deepens, pessimism will turn to desperation, higher crime and social unrest. Everyone pays for long-term unemployment.

read here
http://www.counterpunch.org/

"In June Marine Times reported 32 deaths on prescription drugs in Warrior Transition Units (WTUs) since 2007 and said an internal review "found the biggest risk factor may be putting a soldier on numerous drugs simultaneously, a practice known as polypharmacy."

====WOW BIG PHARMA!!!

Army Suicide Report Ignores Role of Suicide-Inducing Drugs

Why are US Troops Killing Themselves?

By MARTHA ROSENBERG

Why are troops killing themselves?

The long awaited Army report, "Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, Suicide Prevention" considers the economy, the stress of nine years of war, family dislocations, repeated moves, repeated deployments, troops' risk-taking personalities, waived entrance standards and many aspects of Army culture.

What it barely considers are the suicide-inked antidepressants, antipsychotics and antiseizure drugs whose use exactly parallels the increase in US troop suicides since 2005.

In the report Chief of Staff General Peter W. Chiarelli acknowledges antidepressant risks, saying there's "fair quality evidence that second generation antidepressants (mostly SSRI) increase suicidal behavior in adults aged 18 to 29 years" while adding that "other research evidence shows the benefit of antidepressant use."

But nowhere does he acknowledge the suicide potential of antiseizure drugs so widely used for pain and as "mood stabilizers" by troops even though the FDA mandated suicide warnings on Lyrica, Topamaz, Depakote, Lamictal, Tegretol, Depakene, Klonopin and 16 others in 2008.

(Lamictal also has the distinction of wasting more taxpayer money than any other drug according to a July American Enterprise Institute report. Medicaid spent an unnecessary $51 million on Lamictal instead of buying a generic last year, thanks to GSK salesmen. You go guy, guys,)

When asked by NPR's Robert Siegel if the high number of medicated troops contributed to suicide, Gen. Chiarelli said, "The good thing about those numbers is...the prescriptions were all made by a doctor." Asked why troops who had not even deployed were among the suicides, Chiarelli said there were other stressors involved.

In June Marine Times reported 32 deaths on prescription drugs in Warrior Transition Units (WTUs) since 2007 and said an internal review "found the biggest risk factor may be putting a soldier on numerous drugs simultaneously, a practice known as polypharmacy."

read here
http://www.counterpunch.org/rosenberg08032010.html

I like how the Republican coalition is labeled.
There is the Libertarian faction.
The Social Conservatives.
And the Hypocrites (whose main representative is Newt Gingrich).

"Today, Haitians know Clinton as a man who wields immense power over the country's future. Esquire's description of him as the "CEO of a leaderless nation." can only be called a political Freudian slip--a CEO, after all, is concerned with profitable investments for shareholders, not meeting people's needs."

-----
Clinton in Haiti

Haiti's Colonial Overlord

By ASHLEY SMITH

Amid the hoopla over Chelsea Clinton's wedding at a posh estate north of New York City, there were plenty of toasts in the media to Bill Clinton and the good works he's performed since leaving the White House.

In particular, Clinton's role in working with Haiti, both before and after the catastrophic earthquake last January, was singled out.

To the U.S. media, Clinton is a compassionate statesmen, with only the best interests of the Haitian people at heart. Particularly since this year's quake, he has been viewed as a decisive leader who can "get things done," in contrast to the country's ineffective government. Because of his role as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), Esquire magazine called Clinton "CEO of a leaderless nation," theMiami Herald repeatedly refers to him as the "czar of the recovery effort."

Ordinary Haitians have a different view. They remember Clinton as the man who, while president, demanded Haiti follow the "Plan of Death"--the neoliberal prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank that "structurally adjusted" the Haitian economy in the interests of U.S. business, at the expense of the country's peasants and poor.

Today, Haitians know Clinton as a man who wields immense power over the country's future. Esquire's description of him as the "CEO of a leaderless nation." can only be called a political Freudian slip--a CEO, after all, is concerned with profitable investments for shareholders, not meeting people's needs.

It isn't even true that Clinton can "get things done." According to the Washington Post, only 2 percent of the more than $5 billion in aid promised by the U.S. and other countries at a UN donor conference for the first 18 months of reconstruction has materialized. Clinton's IHRC has dispensed just over $500 million so far--a drop in the bucket compared to the need.

* * *

CLINTON HAS promised to "burn up the phone lines" to get world governments to fulfill their pledges. But if and when he manages to get funds for the IHRC, no one should be under any illusion that the reconstruction aid will be used in the interests of Haitian peasants and poor.

The IHRC is a colonial body that will implement the same old neoliberal measures. The U.S. spearheaded setting up the IHRC at an international conference in June. In its original design, the 26-member executive body had a majority of foreigners representing various countries and international financial institutions. Faced with protests from Haitians, the executive was reorganized so that there is now 13 Haitians and 13 foreigners. Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Max Bellerive were selected as co-chairs.

read here

http://www.counterpunch.org/smith08052010.html

...gives me strength... LOL :D

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_8_(2008)

[excerpt]

Expensive campaign
The campaign over Proposition 8 attracted very significant financial donations on both sides; by the time of the vote, over $70 million had been spent on the issue. Checks in the $1 million range were written to both campaigns from wealthy backers, and the campaigns also each had many tens of thousands of small donors. Of the 153 ballot measures on state ballots around the country, Prop 8 was the most expensive. It is also more expensive by far than any previous electoral contest over same-sex marriage.[25],[26],[27],[28],[29],[30],[31],[32]

Donors supporting Prop. 8
Some of the donors supporting Prop 8 were:

Knights of Columbus, $1,400,000.[33] [34]
Howard Ahmanson, $1,150,000.
John Templeton, $900,000.
National Organization for Marriage, $785,750.[35]
Elsa Prince, $650,000.
Fieldstead & Company, $600,000.
American Family Association, $500,000
Focus on the Family, $411,000.
Doug Manchester, $125,000.[36]

One group that opposed Proposition 8 focused attention on the contributions to the pro-Proposition 8 campaign from individuals who belong to the Mormon church. Contributions from Mormons were said to amount to between 33%-40% of the total amount raised in support of Proposition 8.[37]
[end excerpt]

...& I have read & heard similar info in many different ways, THROUGHOUT THE DECADES, since I was in my early "teens". :)

Maybe my friend overrates birthday celebrations, and that could be why he finds it peculiar that Michelle and the girls are out and about and Barack home 'alone' on his.

for a moment - IMO. ;D

... Time to Brew more Tea! ;)

Lavelle had covered-up secret bombing records.

Why reinstate this guy? Sheesh.

http://www.military.com/news/article/af-wants-disgraced-generals-rank-ba...

grrr ;):(

Study shows fructose used differently from glucose
* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.
Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
"These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation," Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."
Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.
Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.
Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
Several states, including New York and California, have weighed a tax on sweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda. [ID:nN12233126]
The industry has also argued that sugar is sugar.
Heaney said his team found otherwise. They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose.
Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. "Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different," Heaney's team wrote.
"I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets," Heaney said in a statement.
Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumor cells from making use of fructose.
U.S. consumption of high fructose corn syrup went up 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

MOSCOW — Planes were diverted from Moscow airports on Friday after huge peat and forest fires blanketed the capital in acrid smoke, forcing some businesses to close and office workers to wear surgical masks at their desks.
Pollution surged to five times normal levels in the city of 10.5 million, the highest sustained contamination since Russia's worst heat wave in more than a century began a month ago. Officials urged Muscovites to not venture outdoors.
"Looking at the overall duration (of the pollution), today's smoke level is the worst yet," said Alexei Popikov, an expert on air quality at Moscow's state-run pollution monitoring agency.
The famous onion domes of St Basil's cathedral were not visible from the other end of Red Square Friday morning because of the dense smoke. NASA satellite images showed a 1,850-mile smoke cloud covering European Russia.
The deadliest wildfires in nearly four decades have killed at least 50 people and left thousands homeless as entire villages of wooden houses burned down. Russia has also announced a temporary ban on grain exports after crops were ravaged.
Despite a huge effort involving 150,000 people fighting fires, authorities appeared to be losing the battle.
The size of peat fires burning in the Moscow region almost doubled from 92 acres Thursday to 162 acres hectares Friday, the regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry said on its website

there is some major loss of food supplies in Russia and Pakistan . the floods in Pakistan have lost over 20% of the rice growing fields and In Russia another 20% of the wheat harvest has burned. Do we realize how significant this is?

Also the loss of seafood from the gulf ?

If humans were as varied as dogs we would range in height up to 22 feet tall and in weight more than 1,000 pounds. In the ultimate canine ancestral story, NGC traces the genetic journey from wolf to dog, taking viewers back 100,000 years to meet the "mother of all dogs." It's no accident that dogs evolved this way, as humans have been selectively breeding them for around 14,000 years to serve our needs as laborer, companion, hunter, herder and warrior, as well as to suit our aesthetic fancy.

sunday august 8th at 9 pm National geographic channel

The recession and droves of retiring baby boomers will force Social Security to pay out more than it takes in for this year for the first time ever.

The tipping point has come six years sooner than was projected in 2009, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Thursday, as he released annual trustees' reports on the fiscal health of Social Security and Medicare.

Geithner said Medicare's financal outlook has dramatically improved since the passage of health care reform earlier this year.

Medicare will remain in the black until 2029 under its current structure, mainly because of cost cutting-measures included in the health care legislation, the trustees reported. The program serves 46 million retirees and people with disabilities.

Social Security is projected to pay out more than the $41 billion it is expected to take in this year in payroll taxes, the trustees disclosed.

Some 53 million Americans collect Social Security, which is projected to run out of money by 2037 unless Congress makes benefit cuts or raises revenue sources to put it back in fiscal balance.

Some Republicans questioned the administration's accounting practices and its claim that health care reform will save Medicare money and extend its solvency

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/08/06/2010-08-06_soc_sec_p...

Uh-oh. Are you turning this place into a private club?
If you're not registered and logged in, there are no posts or comments visible if they were posted after:

more from NN
Submitted by SEDER on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 10:08am.

If it's not an intended change, good luck with repairs.
_______________________

BBC TV - George Orwell's 1984 (from 1954)
Downloads and streaming video available

Thanks for posting the YouTube clip, air-ono.
I wouldn't have thought to look for it without the reminder.

Wildlife advocates hail Rocky Mountain wolf ruling

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100806/ap_on_re_us/us_gray_wolf_endangered

...U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy's ruling knocked down a U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision last year that kept federal protections in place in Wyoming, where state law is considered hostile to the animals' survival, but turned over to Montana and Idaho wolf management responsibilities within their borders. ... moreso continued at link

the new vids.

_ _ _ _ _ _
|

Obamas hit Spanish beach, with help from police

....The Obamas arrived Wednesday for a five-day stay in southern Spain that is being described as private, although Mrs. Obama is to meet with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia Sunday at their summer residence on the island of Mallorca.

On Thursday they toured Granada, taking in the Alhambra palace — the exquisite reddish citadel that was the seat of Moorish rule in Spain — and the city's cathedral, and also watched a flamenco show in a hillside cave turned into a tavern.

At that performance, the first lady clapped along with the booming chords of the guitarists and rapid-fire, clicking heels of the dancers.

"She did it well. This woman has rhythm," said Juan Andres Maya, leader of the flamenco troupe...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9209236

US job losses are double expected figure

• American employers shed 131,000 jobs in July
• Data sparks rally in government bonds but stock indices fall

Employers in the US shed twice as many jobs as expected in July, fanning fears that the recovery in the world's largest economy will not see a revival in employment...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/06/us-jobs-fall-double-expec...

Is the world safer now?

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article555309.ece

2008 The government declared that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was solely responsible for the anthrax attacks that killed five in 2001. (Ivins had committed suicide on July 29.)

Bruce Edwards Ivins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins
(long entry worth reading)

...On the morning of July 27, 2008, Ivins was found unconscious at his home. He was taken to Frederick Memorial Hospital and died on July 29 from an overdose of Tylenol,[5][23] an apparent suicide. No autopsy was ordered following his death because blood tests prior to his death made it unnecessary.[24] A summary of the police report of his death, released in 2009, lists the cause of death as liver and kidney failure, citing his purchase of two bottles of Tylenol PM (containing diphenhydramine), contradicting earlier reports of Tylenol with codeine.[25] His family declined to put him on the liver transplant list, and he was removed from life support.[25]

Immediately after news of his death, the FBI refused to comment on the situation....

...Results of the investigation were initially distributed to the public via ABC News claiming "four well placed sources" attesting to the fact that "trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite" were found in the anthrax samples, and that this was the chemical signatures of Iraqi-made anthrax.[27] It has been confirmed that bentonite was never actually found in the anthrax samples.[27] While it is presumed that Ivins was one of ABC News' four sources, ABC News has refused to reveal their identities, which has contributed to the mystery of Ivins' role in the initial investigation and its widely reported findings...

...Ivins passed a polygraph-assisted interrogation (also known as a "lie detector test") in which he was questioned about his possible participation in the anthrax attacks. Boyd responded by saying that the FBI now believes that Ivins used countermeasures to deceive the polygraph examiners....

Those who argue for Ivins' innocence claim that the anthrax used in the attacks was too sophisticated to be produced by a lone researcher without relevant training....The presence of the anti-clumping additive silicon in the anthrax samples also suggests a high degree of sophistication as specialists working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were unable to duplicate this property despite 56 attempts...

Statement by Henry S. Heine

Dr. Henry S. Heine, a microbiologist who was Ivins' fellow researcher at the Army Medical Research Institute, told a National Academy of Sciences panel on April 22, 2010 that he considered it impossible that Ivins could have produced the anthrax used in the attacks without detection...

here is a view

(from a recent thruthdig article)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/65_years_after_hiroshima_trumans_cho...

Bal Patil responded

http://balpatil.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/08/pax-americana-was-hiroshim...
There was absolutely no military necessity to use the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945. Japan was, by the Summer of that year, a defeated nation. The only real question was to work out the terms of surrender. But there was a powerful faction which wanted to use the bomb, not to compel the surrender of Japan, but to “shock and awe” the world into submission to an Anglo-American-dominated, one-world government. The untimely death of Franklin Roosevelt on April 12, 1945 gave this grouping the opportunity to succeed with their evil schemes, which they never could have done had Roosevelt been alive.

The shallow, ill-informed Harry Truman became a dupe of this faction, which operated primarily through his Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. It was these two men who briefed Truman on the bomb project immediately after FDR’s death.

One of the steps that Stimson and Byrnes subsequently took, was to induce Truman to postpone the Potsdam summit with Stalin until the bomb’s design had been completed and tested. And at Potsdam, the clause offering the Japanese the possibility of establishing “a constitutional monarchy under the present dynasty,” was removed from the final Declaration.
The myth which grew up later—that the use of the atomic bomb saved a million American lives—has no basis whatsoever in reality. The effects of the naval blockade were such that Japan’s raw-materials dependent island economy was virtually shut down, and its military situation was hopeless. Surrender was only a matter of time—within months, November or December at the latest—so long as reasonable terms were offered.
The following statement of Stimson, the then Secretary of State to the then President Truman published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Feb.3, 1947:
“The future may see a time when such weapon may be constructed secret and used suddenly and effectively with devastating power by a wilful nationor group against an unsuspecting nation or or group of much greater size and material power. With its aid even a very powerful and unsuspecting nation might be conquered within a very few days by a very smaller one…”
Quoting this the most distinguished experimental physicist and Nobel prize winner in 1948 P.M.S. Blackett says in his book The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (1948): “The obvious result has been to stimulate a hysterical search for 100 per cent security from such attack. since there can be no such complete seccurityfrom such attack. Since there can be no such complete security for America except through world hegemony by America in one form of another…” p.128

Officials and analysts in the United States have been warning that Al-Quaida or associated groups are planning such nuclear attacks on American soil.

Dubbed as American Hiroshima the plan apparently targets New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Franscisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washigton D.C..

Former US Defence Secretary William Perry says there is an even chance of a nuclear attack on the US this decade. Renowned investor Warren Buffet has predicted A nuclear terrorist attack isinevitable.”

The FCC has called off negotiations with major Internet industry players to arrive at a compromise for net neutrality. The meetings were an attempt to come to an amicable agreement over net neutrality rules and dodge political pressure over FCC jurisdiction and authority--but asking the fox how to protect the henhouse is generally unwise.

Snip

I have to say, I agree with Schwartzman's sentiment. Companies either follow the rules, or they don't. There are no negotiations. When government agencies try to play nice with the industries they are tasked to oversee and include key stakeholders in developing the framework of rules they are supposed to follow, we end up with Enron, the meltdown of Wall Street, the BP oil fiasco in the Gulf, and people dying from taking Vioxx.

We don't expect the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) to let farmers dictate what quality of meat is good enough for Americans to consume. We don't expect the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to check with Columbian drug cartels to negotiate how much cocaine should be allowed into the country. And, we don't expect DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to talk to Al Qaeda to select which individuals should be closely monitored for terrorist activity. Why should the FCC consult with the industry it is supposed to police?

from
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202726/end_of_net_neutrali...

THIS COMMONDREAM ARTICLE IS BETTER
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/08/05-14

I enjoyed this cool exhibit of a geodesic commune home, circa 1973. Bob Dylan music was playing and the bookshelves included High Priest, by Timothy Leary and The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris. (I wish I could have taken clearer photos of the bookshelves.)

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/05/hippy-geodesic-dome.html?utm_source...

==========
http://www.foresthostel.com/

try it and see if it will work for you.

i loved the "Idiots Guide" to Volkswagen Repair by John Muir on the domes coffee table!

seems like yesterday. I thought I saw a copy of "Be Here How" by Baba Ram Das and "steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman.

what an amazing publication

That has to be the most symbolic or is it emblematic journal of those times. I was thinking how there isn't a new one for these times.

like those geodesic domes

http://www.mongolian-yurt.com/gallery.html

-------
http://www.mongolian-yurt.com/How-yurts-look.html

sometimes we compare memories of the dome period. he's built some dandies out of reinforced concrete.

and in one of my Library Periodical storage boxes.

it's there for future use.

shoulders better. i can type with both hands (slowly)

Hiroshima 65 years later: US attends ceremony, but offers no apology

The US sent its first delegation to Hiroshima's annual memorial ceremony. Some Japanese would like the US to apologize for nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

clip

"On the streets of Tokyo, there were mixed feelings regarding the US delegation’s attendance. “It’s good they’ve come, but why has it taken 65 years?” asked an office worker who was watching the morning’s ceremony from Hiroshima on public broadcast NHK. “And really, Obama should be here after the speeches he’s made about nuclear weapons."

[Of course, this is not the kind of stuff Obama ever does. He has a public reputation of goodness and sainthood to uphold. Besides, isn't he and Madame on vacation again, dancing with the royalty in Spain? So much more elite like = Obama-style.]

read here
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0806/Hiroshima-65-years...

yurts
Submitted by taozen on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 1:39pm.
---

This film introduced me to Mongolian culture, the close loving family life, the amazing yurts. Simple from the outside, v. colorful and original in the inside. And when the family moves on after the season is over, they pack it all up.

This film was wonderful. Don't miss it.
Since then I have seen others - all great.

the links are great, taozen :-)

Hi Jim, hi taozen,

I don't know this publication. What exactly is it all about?
Can I get it from the library?

I am glad your shoulder is better, SJ :)

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.....
http://blogs.alternet.org/oleoleolson/2010/08/05/massive-censorship-of-d...

Anglo-American dominated 0ne-world government."
---
here is a view
Submitted by taozen on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 11:38am.
-------

Bal Patil responded

http://balpatil.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/08/pax-americana-was-hiroshim...

"There was absolutely no military necessity to use the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945. Japan was, by the Summer of that year, a defeated nation. The only real question was to work out the terms of surrender. But there was a powerful faction which wanted to use the bomb, not to compel the surrender of Japan, but to “shock and awe” the world into submission to an Anglo-American dominated one- world government?"

clip:

"The untimely death of Franklin Roosevelt on April 12, 1945 gave this grouping the opportunity to succeed with their evil schemes, which they never could have done had Roosevelt been alive."

taozen,
this is an interesting statement re Roosevelt? So he wouldn't have used the atomic bomb on the Japanese people? Why not?
As the story goes, he knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen because he wanted War w. Japan. The US fleet and soldiers died. And since he was no doubt for the Anglo-American dominated one-world government himself, why would he have resisted?
The plans for this world dominance are long range. I heard someone explain that 9/11 was most likely planned as long ago as 40 years. And Why not? It makes a lot of sense.

btw. a few years ago (while America was still in shock and awe after 9/11) I heard Tariq Ali answer the Hiroshima/Nagasaki question in front of a group of ivy-league students and they still believed that the atomic bomb saved thousands of American soldiers and that Truman did the right thing. Tariq Ali did say that it had not been nec. to bomb Japan since they were already a defeated nation. The students didn't have a clue. Probably still didn't believe him.

So many Americans grew up believing Truman to be a hero. Since Truman didn't care at all about the Japanese citizens who suffered the horrible consequences of the atomic bombs - they didn't either.

In University one of my anthropology teachers said that the US decided against dropping the atomic bomb on Germans since they are caucasians, i.e. white folks.

But no doubt the fire bombing of cities like Dresden and Hamburg (by the English) alone killed as many German citizens as was done in Japan w. the atomic bomb. And If all these were not the most cruel war crimes I don't know what is.
But the Nuremburg type trials are only for the vanquished.

We learned that now.

And the victor does not need to apologize. It is all careful strategie.

July 29th, 2010
Jonesing for a Slump?

Doug Henwood

Having successfully avoided depression through a massive, largely coordinated, stimulus program, the world bourgeoisie now looks ready to reverse it – some because they think it a success, and others because they think it was a failure. This is a very dangerous business.

Abroad, the austerity party is led by Germany, with some neighbouring allies, whose approach to the Eurocrisis is to put the depressed periphery through the wringer and cut budgets modestly at home. So far, the German economy has been holding up well, and German capital seems not to fear a hit to exports coming from a deep recession at the fringes of Europe.

Graph 1: Federal debt as a per cent of GDP, 1870-2085.

In the United States, orthodox types across the political spectrum are now obsessing about the horrors of mounting U.S. indebtedness. Although the Obama administration isn't embracing the austerity agenda passionately, they are taking it far too seriously.

The nearby graph, based on projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), looks alarming, with U.S. debt rising steadily for the next 75 years to levels, when measured against GDP, haven't been seen since the end of World War II.

No Alarm

This sounds alarming, but there are reasons to hold off a call to 911. The big increase that came from the Great Recession, the bailouts, and the Stimulus Package is largely over. It took federal debt held by the public from 37% of GDP in 2007 to a projected 65% next year, when the emergency spending will peter out.

But debt, by the CBO's reckoning, doesn't begin to rise seriously again until the 2020s. The main culprits are, as anyone familiar with this territory can easily predict, “entitlements,” meaning Medicare, Medicaid, and other health spending, and, to a much lesser extent (though this comparison is often elided in the more heated commentaries), Social Security. Expressed as a percentage of GDP, total health care spending is slated to rise by 11 points, and Social Security, by 1 point. Even if the Social Security projection is correct – and, as Left Business Observer (LBO) has been arguing for years, there are many reasons to believe that it's cracked – a point over seven decades is nothing to worry about. Health care's 11 points are a problem, but they're a product mainly of our crazy health care financing system – still as crazy as ever, despite “reform” – and not a problem to be addressed through fiscal hysteria.
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/397.php

Globalists Race To Enforce Criminal Carbon Tax

$100 Billion A Year Levy Is About Bankrolling Global Government And Lining The Pockets Of Con Artist Oil Men Soros, Strong and Gore, Has Nothing To Do With Saving The Environment

clip

"As was revealed during the Copenhagen negotiations, the global tax that the elite are pushing for will not even go to the UN to fight carbon dioxide, the evil life-giving gas that humans exhale and plants breathe. A leaked document obtained by the London Guardian during the summit exposed the fact that the tax will do directly to the coffers of the World Bank, and this revelation led to poorer countries refusing to sign a properly binding resolution on CO2 emissions.

The UN panel’s members include billionaire globalist George Soros, who has been calling for a carbon tax for years. Soros has $811 million of his own money invested in Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company.

The fact that Soros plays both sides of the rigged game emphasizes once again the fact that the carbon tax has nothing to do with saving the environment from the mythical threat of global warming and everything to do with industrialists who own the carbon trading systems getting filthy rich while crucifying U.S. sovereignty at the altar of global government.

With electricity and gas prices set to soar following the introduction of a carbon tax, people like Soros and Al Gore, who are heavily invested in energy companies and also own huge chunks of the carbon trading market, are set to make obscene profits."

read more

http://www.prisonplanet.com/globalists-race-to-enforce-criminal-carbon-t...

---
Okay. I don't believe in global warming and that human activity is responsible for it. Nope.

There. I said it.

I feel like a complete fool that I actually believed Al Gore's story. He is not even a scientist. Just a Dem Vice Pres. Ah well, another learning experience.

What concerned me was that Al Gore hasn't done anything for the country since he took off with Oscar and Peace Price. Instead he turned into a big business mogul with jets, monster houses, boats, etc. and 300.000 $ per speech - until he vanished from everyone's sight.
For someone who wanted to save the world Shouldn't Al Gore work 24/7 for peace and civil rights for the American citizens and the end of American aggression and wars? Instead for the last three year: Nada. Nichts. Rien. Nothing.

Sorry, global warming people, IMHO the debate is not over. Nope, it ain't, Mr. Gore.

In fact, I believe another hoax has been played out on the backs of the American people .... going global ...

ESPECIALLY
The carbon tax should really wake everyone up.

FIGHT THIS CARBON TAX AS HARD AS YOU CAN.
It will ruin the country. And that is the goal of the elite who came up with this global warming nonsense.

I live in the hottest part in California. And I mean hot. Last July the East coast had a heat wave. At the same time We had the coolest weeks in early July. Record cool weather. Loved it. Mr. B. got out the golf clubs and enjoyed himself on the lovely green.
Does this mean anything? Yeah.
Sometimes it is cool, sometimes hot. It all depends on the Sun :-)

it's time to party in the Big Apple.

Former madam is running for New York governor

Many people from California have entered politics, but few with the erotic resume of former madam Kristin Davis.

She used to provide prostitutes for high-powered clients including, she says, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Now she's making a run for Spitzer's old job.

"The overall goal isn't so much to win the governorship," Davis said in an interview Friday. "What we're really trying to do is establish a new party."

Davis is collecting signatures to secure an Anti-Prohibition Party slot on New York's November ballot. Her platform includes legalizing prostitution, legalizing and taxing marijuana and expanding casino gambling.

As a candidate, her vulnerabilities are an open book.

She's on probation, for one thing. After pleading guilty to promoting prostitution in the third degree and spending four months in New York City's fearsome Rikers Island jail in 2008, Davis must complete five years of probation.

The 35-year-old graduate of Saint Mary's College of California has raised campaign money by auctioning off dates with former Penthouse models. She's campaigned at swingers' parties. She maintains a personal website called Manhattan Madam, which also is the title of the 170-page book she wrote about her immodest misadventures.

"Find out the dirty secrets of Kristin's celebrity, politician and Wall Street clients," the website urges. "You'll be shocked and amazed by who used her services, and what they requested!"

Financially, she's outgunned.

Davis ended July with about $1,700 in her campaign treasury, campaign records show. Republican Rick Lazio had $688,000. Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo, the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo and New York state's attorney general, reported that he had $23 million.

"Andrew Cuomo has already got it," Davis conceded, when asked about her chances in November, "but let's show that there are certain issues that people care about...."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/06/98785/former-madam-is-running-for-...

(You go girl!)

Meanwhile, barack continues his work to make destroying Social Security easier:

Obama courts GOP's McConnell — a vision of life after November?

Is President Barack Obama preparing for a new political balance in Washington if Democrats lose or significantly narrow their congressional majorities in November's elections and he'll need more Republicans to get anything done?...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/05/98724/obama-courts-gops-mcconnell-...

In 1968 Stewart Brand launched an innovative publication called The Whole Earth Catalog.It was groundbreaking, enlightening, and spawned a group of later publications.

The collection of that work provided on this site is not complete — and probably never will be — but it is a gift to readers who loved the CATALOG and those who are discovering it for the first time.

http://www.wholeearth.com/index.php

read the electronic version

http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/1070/

http://www.wholeearth.com/category.php?rec=22

the carbon tax is actually a good thing...carbon credits are a good thing...

this is how it works...heavy CO2 users like industry that pumps tons of CO2 into the atmosphere are issued carbon limits...

producers of clean energy such as solar and wind power are issued carbon credits based on the energy they produce...

even the smallest, most rural energy producer...even at your house.

these carbon credits are made tradeable...you will be able to sell your carbon credits to companies that you support so that they will be able to go beyond their carbon limit...

this puts green energy producers in the drivers seat when the can pick and choose who to trade to...

this is also why you're seeing anti carbon credit propoganda...and terms such as "carbon tax" being bandied about...sounds a lot like "death tax" doesn't it?...lol

to give an example...if I were to setup a solar/wind combo system at the farm (which I am working on doing) I will at first only produce about a third of our total useage of electrity and because of mandatory buyback in my state then that power production will be deducted from my bill.

however at the same time I will be issued carbon credits per watt generated...I can the sell these for cash and buy more solar/wind equipment (which I'm likely to do)...I can choose who to sell to (bonus for the politically active and gives me a lil more oomph vs the big corporations) or I can sell to a broker and let the market determine the value of those credits...

It's a bonus for businesses that produce CO2 and can't afford expensive scrubbers...allowing them to produce knowing that their carbon production is being offset by an equal amount of clean energy production...

where it becomes an issue and why you're seeing the propoganda is because it does promote clean power, it does allow the individual to vote with their pocketbook and with their conscience, it does whittle away at the control of the power elite and promotes self sufficiency...

If you produce your own power then you have the means to cleaning your own water, you're that much less tied to the whims of the elite, you're that much less controllable...

and that's why the propoganda...they just don't want to give up the "power" to control your lives.

http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/

http://carbontrading.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

http://www.world-wire.com/news/0802130001.html

http://carbonfutures.wordpress.com/

http://www.globalcarbonexchange.com/

and they're trying to make you believe that you'll be taxed on what you exhale...even if this were true you'd only have to offset going over your carbon cap with clean energy production...which you could do on a pedal bike with a generator attached in 15 minutes...lol...yes it is that ridiculous...

even with as lucrative as carbon trading ALREADY IS...the elite are still afraid of it...because it puts "power" in the hands of anyone that can afford even the smallest power generation system (presently about $500 and prices will drop as availability increases)

oh and another point...

unlike dollars where some goober can just fire up a printing press and magically create some weird parody of value...carbon credits are fixed to the amount of energy generated...this stabilizes world economies much like when a dollar was actually tied to a commodity like gold and silver...

now imagine a world somewhere in the future where we all have our own small robotic manufacturing, produce our own food, purify our own water...a little like star trek eh?...lol

thing is...capitalism dies at that point and all control the elite had....there will be no rich or poor...no class oppression...none of the things the powerful use to divide us...to keep us fighting amongst ourselves like racism...

We won't even need war...we can all just sit at home and follow our own dreams...no longer slaves...but creators as we were meant to be...where is the conflict to be exploited when everyone is self sufficient?

carbon credits have the abiility to transform this world and the human experience...and that's what they fear and why they fear it...nothing worse for an upper cruster than to lose that one thing that makes them "better" than the rest of us...control of resources and the ability to deny them to people...

I dunno if we'll make it to that point...I do know that they're going to try awfully hard to maintain control of us...the slave master is just another man and weaker than most without his slaves...whether he pays them a wage or not...

He's going to lie...he's going to bully...he's going to struggle as if his life depends on it...because in a way it does...without power these people have little to offer humanity and they know it...they'll become second class citizens unless they find it within themselves to be able to create...

the sociopath mind isn't good at original thinking...the left brained or right wing mind isn't good at original thinking...and they're afraid of those that are.

BINGO!

(arms still sore)

It will replay throughout the night...
;)

ya...sorry about the arm...must of been all that time baiting...but at least you mastered it you old fisherman you...lol

presently they control

water delivery
food production
power generation

without those things how else are they going to coerce people into fighting/slaving for them?

you can endlessly clean and recycle water if you have the power...

you can grow a lot of produce in a small place if you have the power...(as any stoner knows)

carbon trading puts solar/wind into everyones hands...

why then if people don't have to worry so much about the basics of staying alive they might even find time to do things like pay attention to politics and vote...

they might find time to just be with their families...so much stress gone when those basics are taken care of...the crime rate would plummet...the prison industry would go bankrupt...

of course they fear...

Milo Yiannopoulos wonders if the company’s glory days are ancient history

By Milo Yiannopoulos
Published: 12:34PM BST 06 Aug 2010

When a big software company starts investing in social, that’s when you know they’re in trouble. So when I saw the rumours this week that Google had bought Slide at an eyebrow-raising valuation of $182 million - after previously investing over $100 million in social gaming company Zynga - it got me thinking: has Google jumped the shark?
In the late nineties, Google turned the internet on its head. At the time, it was a strange and mystical entity; a magical place where magical things happened. A halo surrounded the company. Working at Google was something people dreamed about. It was almost as if Google existed on some other, higher plane. They could do no wrong: when they made a mistake, which didn't happen often, somehow they just got let off, like a favourite daughter who gets an easy ride because she's the pretty and clever one.

But that was the nineties. Stung by a series of PR disasters, and dogged by scepticism about their professed corporate culture, it seems to me like Google has become just another technology company. Since 2007, Google has slipped from first to fourth on Fortune magazine’s list of best companies to work for. What were adorable quirks before, like the kooky brand, or the legendarily brilliant canteen food, have been either swept away or discredited, despite the installation of a “Chief Culture Officer” in 2005, whose job it is to maintain the flat, casual structure in its offices.
Let’s take a look at the headlines Google has been making recently. First, there’s Wave, a high-profile and humiliating disaster. Now, a lot of people – particularly entrepreneurs – have praised Google for failing fast; that is, being brave enough to call time on a product that wasn’t working before it became a moribund embarrassment. But honestly, Google should never have released it in the first place. And it’s by no means the only failure in recent years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7930328/Has-Google-jumped-t...

--An Arkie Politico Pronunciation Guide--

Regarding your appearance on Countdown 8/6/2010 during which you pronounced Boozman as booze-man whilst discussing Blanche Lincoln (D) and her opponent John Boozman (R) in the Arkansas Senate race:

Booz is pronounced boze and man is pronounced mun. The accent is on the first syllable. Boozman rhymes with goes-man, toes-man, ho's-man and Margaret Cho's-man.

Not to worry. Arkansans pronounce a lot of stuff differently than you do. Perspicacious, for instance. In Arkansas it's pronounced "smart."

whassup?

Cancer cells slurp up fructose
new
Submitted by taozen on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 8:10am.
Study shows fructose used differently from glucose
* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.

...

==========================

Amazing. Thanks for the post, Taozen.

Boycott 'em. Ban 'em.

"Beat the Food Giants", as biochemist Paul Stitt advised in his book "Beating the Food Giants".

"but to “shock and awe” the world into submission to an Anglo-Am
Submitted by bridge on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 4:00pm.
Anglo-American dominated 0ne-world government."
---

...

So many Americans grew up believing Truman to be a hero. Since Truman didn't care at all about the Japanese citizens who suffered the horrible consequences of the atomic bombs - they didn't either.

In University one of my anthropology teachers said that the US decided against dropping the atomic bomb on Germans since they are caucasians, i.e. white folks.

But no doubt the fire bombing of cities like Dresden and Hamburg (by the English) alone killed as many German citizens as was done in Japan w. the atomic bomb. And If all these were not the most cruel war crimes I don't know what is.

...

=========================

Are most Americans completely brainwashed into a militarist mindset via propaganda? Or is U.S. Militarism an expression of the majority of U.S. citizens being aggressive, greedy, heartless predators? Are most of us stupid, or just ignorant (whether by personal choice, or by profiteer's plan)? Will we ever find out? We need to, don't we?, in order to find out if change is possible for us and what it would take to change us....

Ours is a militarist culture by now and even what little 'artistic' stuff people are allowed to consume, like cinema, has been used and is still used to romanticize and justify American militarism and national militarist choices.

It has taken decades for the U.S. government's uses of the A-bombs in 1945 to be described outside the propaganda version of the event. SO, how long before we will have a collective memory of Bush One's Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney burning alive a RETREATING ARMY in Gulf War --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

or an awareness by U.S. citizens that their military (war-profiteering Military Industrial Complex) is responsible for continued longterm poisoning of innocents and the Planet during war and after war by means of military use of harmful materials (Agent Orange, depleted uranium (DU)...)?

After reading that post about the left and right brain findings, finding a solution to this mess or what can be done seems way too allusive on a Friday night!

Eliminate the Useless Eaters

by Paula Demers

Every time I turn around I will hear over the news, or read in the paper of the tremendous over population of our planet. This is very interesting, because if you took the entire population of the world (roughly seven billion people), and stood them side by side in the state of Texas, each person would have 1000 square feet! There are 261,914 square acres in Texas (that figures to seven trillion square feet). So there is enough room just in Texas for every person in this world to get a piece of land 32 ft. X 32 feet! And that's just Texas! There is no overpopulation problem! This planets just not big enough for the rich and the poor to live together, that's the real problem!

Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff - Part 2 of 6
Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff - Part 3 of 6
Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff - Part 4 of 6
Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff - Part 5 of 6
Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff - Part 6 of 6

read it damn you...
Submitted by Nobody on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 7:47pm.
Conservative Left Brain, Liberal Right Brain
...
=====================

After I read it, I looked at the website a little too. Lots of interesting graphs they have there.

Here's another quote from Brack & Zhang:

"The caucasian Liberals are no doubt losing the fertility war with the Conservatives. The fact that political disposition is genetically inheritable certainly puts birth rates at the center of the disequilibrium between Liberalism and Conservatism. Without the presence of cataclysmic events, the proportion of caucasian Liberalism should continue its downward trend."

http://neuropolitics.org/defaultapr06.asp

Some interesting details--a sample:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/080610.html

[excerpt]

...

Hyde took to the House floor to gleefully mock anyone who still doubted the October Surprise innocence of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

During his "special order" speech, the white-haired Hyde did acknowledge some weaknesses in the House task force findings and the documentary evidence. Casey's 1980 passport had disappeared, as had key pages of his calendar, Hyde admitted.

Hyde noted, too, that the chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches, had told his biographer that Casey did hold hostage talks with the Iranians in Paris in October 1980. Several French intelligence officials had corroborated that assertion.

But Hyde insisted that two solid blocks of evidence proved that the October Surprise allegations were false. Hyde said his first cornerstone was hard-rock alibis for Casey and other key suspects.

"We were able to locate [Casey's] whereabouts with virtual certainty" on the dates when he allegedly met with Iranians in Europe to discuss the hostages, Hyde declared.

For instance, Casey had been in California (at the Bohemian Grove resort) on the late July 1980 weekend of a purported meeting with Iranians in Madrid, Hyde said.

There was an alibi, too, that same weekend for the late Cyrus Hashemi, an alleged Iranian intermediary who supposedly was at the Madrid meeting. Hashemi – who had ties to the CIA, to Tehran's radical mullahs and to the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) – was in Connecticut, Hyde said.

That supposedly disproved the allegations of Hashemi's older brother Jamshid, who testified under oath that he and Cyrus were with Casey and senior Iranian cleric Mehdi Karrubi in Madrid that weekend.

The second debunking cornerstone, Hyde said, was the absence of anything incriminating on FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi over five months in late 1980 and early 1981 when he was under suspicion for his dealings with Iran.

"There is not a single indication that William Casey had contact with Cyrus or Jamshid Hashemi," Hyde said. "Indeed, there is no indication on the tapes that Casey or any other individuals associated with the Reagan campaign had contact with any persons representing or associated with the Iranian government."

...

[more at link]

Chomsky: Government in the Future (2 of 6)
Chomsky: Government in the Future (3 of 6)
Chomsky: Government in the Future (4 of 6)
Chomsky: Government in the Future (5 of 6)
Chomsky: Government in the Future (6 of 6)

lol....fortunately my family isn't limited to being just "caucasian"

what it does point to however is two very different propoganda techniques being used on those of different idealogies...

those that the powerful like are encouraged to breed whereas those they don't are 'guilted' into not doing so...obstensibly as a means to fight world hunger and poverty...

if the top 5% would give half their wealth back there would be no hunger or poverty on this planet...

there is no population problem...beyond there being too many for the elite to maintain control over easily...

Report: Obama Launches New Program to Help Corporations

"Take Advantage of Low Labor Costs" Abroad

By David Sirota

Now look, I'm all for a robust foreign aid budget - we don't do nearly enough to help the developing world. However, using foreign aid money to specifically help private corporations "take advantage of low labor costs" in the developing world - that's not "aid," that's rank taxpayer subsidization of for-profit exploitation.

'Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy'

A Documentary Film By John Pilger

Pilger uncovers the shocking complicity of the US and Great Britain governments in the East Timor genocide - the same governments who were willing to go to war with Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Kuwait, but who stood aside as Indonesia broke the exact same UN regulations to rape and pillage East Timor using Western arms.

Scientific Expertise Lacking Among 'Doubters' of Climate Change, Says New Analysis

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2010) — The small number of scientists who are unconvinced that human beings have contributed significantly to climate change have far less expertise and prominence in climate research compared with scientists who are convinced, according to a study led by Stanford researchers.

"I never object to quoting opinions that are 'way out.' I think there is nothing wrong with that," said Stephen Schneider, professor of biology and a coauthor of the paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "But if the media doesn't report that something is a 'way out' opinion relative to the mainstream, then how is the average person going to know the relative credibility of what is being said?"

;)

I have been proclaiming as a dear strategy to friendly acquaintances, at other places I write & I post, for many a year that "Christians are OVER BREEDING on purpose" & proselytizes to have more children so ATT {although I have been only pro THE ZERO PROPULATION MOVEMENT, in the past} we of "The True Good Souls" should have more children -- to counter Christian actions. :o

nobody is filling up the blog with some fresh energy in the dog days of August! Sam is on the big screen with Keith. .

I am feeling hopeful this morning.

Approximately 1 million pounds of ground beef products are being recalled by Valley Meat Company, because it may be tainted with E. coli 0157:H7. The company says the recall applies only to the products listed further down this page, and were produced between October 2nd 2009 and January 12th 2010. The products have been sold in California, Texas, Arizona, Oregon and overseas.

All products with establishment number EST. 8268 inside the USDA mark of inspection are subject to the current recall, as well as a five-digit dated code. The 2009 products that are part of this recall will carry numbers 275 to 365 before the 09 ending; 2010 affected products have the numbers 001 to 012 before the 10 ending.

The company says it is working with retailers to get the affected products off grocery store shelves. Shoppers are urged to dispose of products they may have taken home, or return them to the retailer for a full refund.

The Valley Meat Company says the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working with them in retrieving products.

Refer to the list below for all of the products including in the recall.

for a listing see
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/197144.php

A ship bearing aid for Gaza is preparing to leave Tripoli in Lebanon this weekend in the latest attempt to defy the Israeli blockade – with only women on board.
The Saint Mariam, or Virgin Mary, has a multi-faith international passenger list, including the Lebanese singer May Hariri and a group of nuns from the US. "They are nuns, doctors, lawyers, journalists, Christians and Muslims," said Mona, one of the participants who, along with the other women, has adopted the ship's name, Mariam.
The Mariam and its sister ship, Naji Alali, had hoped to set off several weeks ago but faced several delays after Israel launched a diplomatic mission to pressure Lebanon to stop the mission.
The co-ordinator of the voyage, Samar al-Haj, told the Guardian this week the Lebanese government had given permission for the boats to leave for Cyprus, the first leg of the journey, this weekend.
Israel says it is concerned a flotilla from Lebanon, with whom it has ongoing hostility, will smuggle weapons to Gaza. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, has warned that Israel reserves the right to use "necessary measures" in line with international law to stop the ship.
But al-Haj says the mission is purely humanitarian. "Our goal is to arrive in Gaza," she said. "It is the responsibility of the government to deal with the politics. We are not political."
She said that once news of the flotilla was out organisers were inundated with requests to join the voyage, with more than 400 from the US alone. At least 10 Americans will be on board.
The boat has been stocked with medical instruments and medicines to take to the Palestinians.
In preparation for the voyage the participants gathered at a hotel in Beirut to discuss their plans. The logistics are many: minimal grooming, strict food rationing, and limited water supply.
"There will be no showers, no skirts and no makeup," al-Haj told the group.
The participants are aware of the dangers, having followed the fate of another flotilla carrying aid for Gaza that was attacked by Israel in May.
Israeli forces landed on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, killing nine activists on board. Al-Haj reminded the women to be prepared for a confrontation.
"Have blood tests in case we come under attack from Israel and you need a blood transfusion," she said. She added that organisers were going out of their way not to provoke Israel.
"We will not even bring cooking knives," she said.
Serena Shim, who is heavily pregnant, decided to join the voyage because of her belief that the blockade is unjust. "These people need aid,'' she said.
Asked how they would react to an Israeli military assault, one activist, Tania al Kayyalisaid: "We are not planning to fight or attack – but we will not leave the St Mariam.

more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/gaza-aid-flotilla-lebanon-wo...

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Information Clearing House Newsletter
News You Won't Find On CNN
August 06, 2010
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight Eisenhower - Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

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"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..." - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

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"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. " - "The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." - William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman - I Was There, pg. 441.

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight Eisenhower - Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
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Surprisingly, we are still in a battle of discourses over the dropping of the bombs on Japan. Tomorrow, the History Channel will air a show on Truman's planned invasion of Japan, "Where 10 times as many people would have died than did die as a result of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The dominant opinion is still that Truman saved lives through his orders. He is also a major war criminal.

i can lift my hand to keyboard height if i move carefully!

good to read Crnkr and N.

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5935#new