This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an "elitist," one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office.
We are in a war against radical Islam that is trying to overthrow the moderate elements in the Islamic world and which is fundamentally challenging the secular structures of Western societies. All this is happening at a difficult period in European history.
"A fascinating, bombshell documentary that should shame Americans, regardless of whether or not ultimate blame finally lies with Kissinger. Should be required viewing for civics classes and would-be public servants alike." -- Brent Simon, Entertainment Today.
Most Canadians still proudly believe that their government refused to join the Iraq War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some of the ways in which we joined the fray.
Britain's Foreign Office on Monday released an early version of a 2002 dossier of prewar intelligence on Iraq that became vital to Tony Blair's case for war.
Nigel Morris reports for The Independent UK: "Fresh evidence that the Iraq weapons dossier was 'sexed up' emerged as the Government finally published the secret first draft of the document. As expected, the earliest version of the document did not include the now notorious claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so."
The kaleidoscope of circumstance has turned & Ron Paul has categorically ruled out a third party run. He has, however, called for a march on Washington DC in 3-4 months’ time, to show the democratically-elected rulers of the US that at least some of their subjects are still defiant. As is now clear, what people find so attractive & compelling, are the genuinely liberal ideas & ideals that Paul articulates so well. This is why his voters cross party lines & so many were previously a-political. But only a minute fraction of all these will be able to travel to DC. Can I suggest, therefore, that this march be only the first prong in a two-pronged attack: Let there be a Ron Paul write-in, in November...
As the nation’s major media outlets crown John McCain (George W. Bush on steroids) as the Republican nominee for president, their nearly criminal neglect of Ron Paul’s candidacy in the 2008 presidential campaign is nearly complete. ‘Big media’ have never deemed Paul a ‘major candidate,’ as their paltry coverage of him shows. In fact, the media often brand the ardent groundswell of popular support for Ron Paul as an odd curiosity. The problem is that if Ron Paul is a kook — as they imply — then so are the nation’s founders. His policy prescriptions of more limited government at home and military restraint abroad put him far closer to the spectrum of opinion at the founding than any other candidate in the 2008 race. The media barons would never dream of implying that founders were loony tunes. But the country’s current massive government, with its intrusive activism at home and abroad, is so far removed from the founding vision that the modern-day manifestation of such values appears downright weird to today’s press corps...
Since the end of World War II, no US administration has indulged American idealism to the degree — and with the recklessness — that President George W Bush has. Previous presidents were better able to balance our raw idealism with our realist objectives, even though they often spoke the language of morality to the American people — telling us that we were the planet’s moral beacon — while quietly ensuring that our impulses be checked by a cold dose of caution and realism. For better or worse, it was inevitable that our own idealism (or more cynically, our self-righteousness) would lead us to overreach...
Unique marine life in Antarctica will be at risk from an invasion of sharks, crabs and other predators if global warming continues, scientists warn. Crabs are poised to return to the Antarctic shallows, threatening creatures such as giant sea spiders and floppy ribbon worms, says a UK-US team. Some have evolved without predators for tens of millions of years. Bony fish and sharks would move in if waters warm further, threatening species with extinction, they say. In the last 50 years, sea surface temperatures around Antarctica have risen by 1 to 2C, which is more than twice the global average...
Privatisierungtendenzen im Bildungssektor. 1.600 Schulen lassen sich von Bertelsmann evaluieren
Artikel von Hartmut Schurig in blz - die Zeitschrift der GEW BERLIN Nr. 01 / 2008 zu Privatisierungstendenzen im Bildungssektor http://www.gew-berlin.de/blz/11830.htm
Vattenfall auf dem Stundenplan. Gewerkschafter und Bürgerbeauftragte warnen vor Privatisierung an Schulen
„Um die Privatisierung öffentlicher Aufgaben ging es am Sonnabend auf der Konferenz „Bildung ist keine Ware“, zu der die GEW Berlin und das Berliner Bündnis gegen Privatisierung eingeladen hatten. Sie machte deutlich, wie weit Private bereits in den hoheitlichen Bereich vorgedrungen sind…“ Artikel von Birgit v. Criegern im ND vom 18.02.2008 http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/124176.html
„Deutsche-Bank-Vorstandschef Ackermann hat von den deutschen Top-Managern angesichts der Steueraffäre von Post-Chef Zumwinkel mehr Vorbildfunktion und Führungsstärke gefordert…“ Artikel in Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 18.02.2008 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,tt2m4/wirtschaft/artikel/974/158548/
Spontane Demonstration vor Haus von Ex-Postchef Zumwinkel
„Rund 30 Menschen haben sich am Sonntag zu einer spontanen Demonstration vor dem Kölner Haus des ehemaligen Post- Chefs Klaus Zumwinkel versammelt. Die als Clowns verkleideten Demonstranten boten vor der Gebäude symbolisch "Steuerschlupflöcher" zum Verkauf an…“ WDR-Meldung vom 17.2.08 http://www.wdr.de/themen/kurzmeldungen/2008/02/17/demonstration_vor_zumwinkel-haus.jhtml
Dazu auch:
„Clownsarmee übernimmt Kapitalverteidigung“
„Der Proletarier-Mob stürmt die Reichenviertel, die Bild-Zeitung titelt "Schnappt euch die Bonzen!", und die Polizei hat die Seiten gewechselt: Die Leistungsträger der Gesellschaft schreien nach dem Sondereinsatzkommando der Clownsarmee. Ein Sondereinsatzkommando der Kölner Clownsarmee hat am Sonntag, dem 17. Februar 2008 erfolgreich den Ansturm von mindestens 200.000 wütenden Proletariern auf das Kölner Villenviertel Marienburg zurückgeschlagen. Der Einsatz war notwendig geworden, nachdem die bundesdeutsche Polizei offenbar nicht mehr gewillt ist, ihren verfassungsgemäßen Aufgaben - Aufrechterhaltung der öffentlichen Ordnung, insbesondere Kapitalverteidigung - nachzukommen. Stattdessen hatte sie sich in den letzten Tagen wiederholt auf die Seite des Lumpenproletariats geschlagen und die Privatsphäre der Marienburger Villenbewohner verletzt…“ Bericht von ClownIn vom 17.02.2008 bei indymedia http://de.indymedia.org/2008/02/208305.shtml
"A new alert for travellers: be careful what you store on your laptop or your BlackBerry when entering the United States," warns CNN's John Roberts. "Customs agents can examine your computer and even keep your private information."
Dollar Has Biggest Weekly Loss in 2008 on Signs Growth Slowing
The dollar had its biggest weekly loss this year against the euro after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled he may cut interest rates further amid mounting concern that the economy is headed for a recession.
Iran recently acquired the capability to deliver satellites into space. It stands to reason that they can now also deliver a nuclear warhead; however, with the open situation of our borders and ports we should have great concerns over a covert delivery of a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. on Friday demanded that Iran confess to trying to make atomic weapons, suggesting that anything short of that would doom an International Atomic Energy Agency probe of Tehran's nuclear past.
The United States will probably have more troops in Iraq this summer than it did before pouring in forces last year -- even after a planned drawdown, a U.S. general said on Friday.
The Pentagon says it has to shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite because of the threat of a toxic gas cloud. Space security experts are calling the rationale highly unlikely. "Having the US government spend millions of dollars to destroy a billion-dollar failure to save zero lives is comedic gold"...
John Williams, a former Foreign Office aide, said last night that publication of his document would expose how members of Tony Blair's team were locked in a mindset that made military action inevitable.
The secret first draft of the notorious Iraq dossier that helped to take Britain to war is expected to be released tomorrow, in a victory for freedom of information campaigners.
Obama, - has proven to be just as self-serving and easily manipulated as the rest. If he can so readily support the starvation of 1.5 million people, who is to guarantee that he will not renounce his moral stances on issues pertaining to Iraq, Iran, and indeed America itself?
Even veteran Fed-watchers were caught off-guard by Chairman Bernanke's performance before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Bernanke was expected to make routine comments on the state of the economy but, instead, delivered a 45 minute sermon detailing the afflictions of the foundering financial system. The Senate chamber was stone-silent throughout. The gravity of the situation is finally beginning to sink in.
Last week, the Court of Appeal ruled that Lotfi Raissi could claim compensation for his arrest and imprisonment after being wrongly accused of training 9/11 pilots. Here, in his first interview since the landmark decision, he tells of his prison hell, nervous collapse and the terrible toll his ordeal has had on his personal and professional life.
Since 9/11 America has certainly turned into a top-down police state, but true post-modern fascism requires a popular movement to usher it into power. Bush has created a dictatorship out of the Presidency, now the next step towards fascism is being marketed to exploit the desire for change.
On January 10 Moody's, in concert with the other main bond rating firm, Standard and Poor's, gave the United States its top AAA credit rating. The terrorist blackmail threat came in the form of a demand by Moody's that the U.S. government "reform" Social Security and Medicare: "In the very long term, the rating could come under pressure if reform of Medicare and Social Security is not carried out as these two programs are the largest threats to the long-term financial health of the United States and to the government's Aaa rating."
The stock market was inaugurated in a video conference ceremony from the capital Tehran attended by ministers of oil, finance and economic affairs as well as chairman of Iran's Stock Exchange and a number of other officials and financial experts.
Iran's Ambassador to Moscow said Iran and Russia, as major energy suppliers, can rid the world of US dollar's slavery by promoting oil and gas deals using different currencies, IRNA reported.
In his testimony McConnell emphasizes Iranian attempts to enrich uranium as well as Iran's capacity to fire long-range weapons. The combination of these two are now being presented at the highest levels of power as the central argument for branding Iran as a danger to world peace. As if the National Intelligence Estimate never even existed.
That Congress puts the so-called integrity of a game ahead of its own Constitutional mandate of oversight of legitimate governance is a travesty. That this travesty is carried out in the face of a pledge by a Democratic-controlled Congress to effectively and responsibly carry out its duty to investigate how and why our nation went to war with Iraq is not only incomprehensible, but reprehensible.
Because of the abysmal approval ratings of Congress itself, there is a real groundswell of "throw the bums out" voting, as evidenced by the 24-point victory in the primary challenge this week by progressive Donna Edwards. But we need to very careful not to let the exceptionally good be swept out with the bad.
That is why we need everyone to see this new Dennis Kucinich ad, to protect his seat from a hostile primary challenge in his own district.
For weeks big money has been running terribly false attack ads against Dennis trying to smear him out of Congress. And Dennis needs your help to fight back by running the ad on the page above in his own district. So if you can make any kind of donation, please use the easy form on the same page above to do so.
And to thank you for your valiant support, Dennis wants you to have as his gift to you a copy of his special Kucinich commemorative edition pocket constitution, with your donation of $100 or more. And if you are one of the few who have not be blindsided by Cheney's gut-the-economy agenda, Dennis Kucinich will personally autograph your copy with your donation of $1,000 or more.
Please note that even if you had already donated the full legal limit to his brave presidential run, which had a real impact in shifting the debate, you can donate another $2,300 for his congressional seat defense.
But even if you can't make a donation right now, there is still something incredibly important you can do to help, and that is to send links to the video to anyone you can. So ask all your friends to visit the page below too.
So please do what you can to spread the word that this is a must win, must-keep situation. It is only because of the courage of Dennis Kucinich in standing strong to protect and defend the Constitution that we are where we are now, with more and more members of Congress clamoring for meaningful impeachment hearings, and the House still holding the line against that craven telecom immunity thing.
Let us not be complacent. Let us not take anything for granted just because Dennis is so amazing on every issue. We have to make sure that we empower Dennis to remind his constituents what a magnificent job he has been doing for them and for us all. And nothing would push impeachment forward more than the most clearcut victory for Dennis in his primary.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
usalone178b:105757
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"Mr. Speaker, we make war with such certainty, yet we are befuddled how to create peace. This paradox requires reflection if we are to survive. Making and endorsing war requires a secret love of death, and a fearful desire to embrace annihilation. Creating peace requires compassion, putting ourselves in the other person's place, and all of their suffering and all of their hopes and to act from our heart's capacity to love, not fear." Dennis Kucinich
Deutsche fühlt sich durch Handystrahlung beeinträchtigt (Infas-Studie)
- die Zahl stieg in drei Jahren um 50 Prozent. Symptome: z. ... http://tinyurl.com/33laac
McCain Can't Keep Stories Straight On Iraq, Torture
In Saturday's Washington Post the paper examines, in two separate articles, instances in which John McCain seems to be either changing his position, contradicting himself, or distorting the truth on topics such as Iraq and his opposition to torture.
Writing for Truthout, Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III says, "Ideology is a closely held belief system that guides an individual, social movement or institution. It is a comprehensive view that society can be made better, and projects the vision of an individual or group's ideal concept of how to live in the world. When the abstractions of ideology are combined with practical and realistic applications, very positive things can happen. The Colonists believed in liberty, freedom and self-rule. They combined those ideologies and created an organized resistance to defeat the better armed and better financed British. It was people's commitment to freedom, equality and civil rights that gave them the strength to challenge the status quo and create the civil rights movement. The combination of an ideology and its realistic application defeated Jim Crow segregation and improved the quality of life for many people of color in America. Belief in a particular ideology is the glue that holds a group together."
Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times reports: "A technical glitch gave the FBI access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network - perhaps hundreds of accounts or more - instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode."
Am forwarding you Matt Rudd's amusing but sobering article on testing the "mosquito." It begs the question: if it is fully accepted that kids are acutely aware and feel seriously discomfited by these frequencies-- in a range which most adults cannot even hear--why then can it not be accepted that some of us can hear and are equally discomfited by microwave frequencies. It is also worth noting while reading his article that he found a few older adults who also retained what is generally consideed to be a young person's capacity to hear these frequencies.
Imelda, Cork
The Sunday Times
February 17, 2008
Sonic devices are not the way to control our youth
Fed up with antisocial yoof, our correspondent tests the Mosquito, the sonic device designed to send teenagers packing, and is shocked by the results
Matt Rudd
The hoodie came in for a lot of stick last week. Stabbings, shootings, alcopop orgies, children forced to arm themselves just to get to and from school in one piece, liver transplants at the age of 14. This, quite clearly, is a nation at war with its yoof.
But, more important, the whole issue has forced something of a marital dispute between my beloved and me, in Valentine’s week, to boot. You see, we were on the train the other day and a hoodie sat next to us. He put his feet on the seat and switched on his MP3 player at a volume that made it impossible for other people in the carriage to converse.
I did what I usually do: I became incensed and suggested we move carriage. My beloved said if I had a problem I should tell the hoodie. I explained that I didn’t want to get stabbed and I’d rather be a grumpy coward than a dead hero. She said if everyone behaved like me, that was just like Germany in the 1930s. I said I didn’t care. She said fine, she would tell him herself. I explained that I would still get stabbed because the hoodie always stabs the bloke (unless, of course, it’s a female hoodie).
She said, “Tough,” and told the hoodie to get his feet down and shut up. He apologised politely and desisted. Now beloved and I aren’t talking because she thinks I’m pathetic and I think she rashly endangered my life.
Related Links Mosquito does the job very nicely Ultrasonic anti-teen device sparks row So when Sir Al Aynsley-Green, children’s commissioner for England, launched a campaign to ban the Mosquito, a device that repels teenagers by emitting a high-pitched siren that only young people can hear, I thought he was mad. Given that society is going to hell in a cider-fuelled handcart, a nonconfrontational way to control unruly yobs sounds like genius. So I decided to borrow a Mosquito from the inventor to prove how good/harmless it is.
When the Mosquito arrived, I plugged it in under my desk but nothing happened. Everyone just kept on working because my immediate colleagues are significantly older than 25, the age beyond which most people lose the ability to hear such high frequencies. There’s no light to indicate that it’s working and I couldn’t hear anything either, so I unplugged it and walked over to the picture desk. They have young people over there.
I plugged it in again and a 22-year-old three desks away started twitching a bit, as if she had a flea or a mosquito in her ear. After about a minute she swivelled around, looking puzzled. You could see what she was thinking: “No one else seems to be bothered by that high-pitched siren. Is it just me? Am I going mad?”
Then a 19-year-old from the post room sauntered past, all hoodie-like, and immediately ducked for cover – as if he’d just come under fire. “What the f***?” Again, because no one else seemed to be hearing anything, he tried to saunter on. Typical teenager. But then he saw the puzzled girl and she saw him. Finally both of them noticed me holding a grey box, and the penny dropped.
Describing a “horrible pulsing sensation” they were both astonished that no one else could hear it. The 19-year-old begged, literally, for me to turn it off.
Out in the street I zapped more youths. Each followed a similar process: saunter, saunter, twitch, twitch, half-saunter, stop, glance around, wiggle finger in ear, try ducking, glance around a bit more, notice me with Mosquito, beg me to switch it off.
It is a clever invention. Thanks to presbycusis or age-related hearing loss, I was safe but teenagers and twentysomethings were diving for cover. The manufacturer says very few people over the age of 25 will be able to hear the Mosquito but I got my first senior victim when a 37-year-old subeditor came and asked me to desist because he couldn’t concentrate. Then the editor of this section, youthful in looks but a decade beyond 25, demanded I switch it off because it hurt. So I did.
At 85 decibels, the Mosquito is right on the limit for a noise permitted in the workplace. Howard Stapleton, who invented it, points out that this limit is only for long periods of time – up to eight hours – and that his gizmo is designed to be used for only up to 20 minutes in populated areas. But it is clear from my zapping that some people find it immediately distressing.
Stapleton has spent the week mounting a furious defence of the gadget, which he invented after his daughter was scared off by a gang from buying milk at her local shop. He has received support from the government, the police and a nation of fed-up shopkeepers. But now he feels he may have created a monster. “I never wanted to turn Britain into a place that kids can’t go. That puts the fear of God into me.”
The problem, as he explains it, is that despite the device being sent out with an automatic 20-minute switch-off, it’s easy to alter so that it never cuts out. This means the Mosquito can be left on all the time, rather than being deployed only when a crowd of teenagers are throwing bricks through a supermarket window. Listen to James Hewwitt from Barnsley: “I am at school, I am a good person with 100% attendance and targeted to get 13 BA*s in my GCSEs. I have to catch the bus home every day. Unfortunately someone decided it was a good idea to put one of these things inside the bus terminal and now I am forced to stand daily for almost 30 minutes listening to my migraine forming. This thing is incredibly loud and incredibly painful to me, and I do karate so it’s not like I can’t take getting punched; but this buzzing is worse than that.”
In my local pub, Psalms the landlord was willing, purely on scientific grounds, for his clientele to be Mosquitoed. Most of them continued drinking, none the wiser, but Chris-tina, 28, had to leave. Psalms himself could hear it despite his 31 years. Storm, one year old, went absolutely crazy, started jumping up on me, running around in circles, whimpering a bit. Call the RSPCA, not the NSPCC . . . Storm is a dog (even though dogs aren’t supposed to hear it).
The next day I decided not to try the Mosquito on my two-year-old son. Even though Stapleton used his own children to come up with the irritating two-tone pulse, even though audiologists have told him it can’t cause any harm, it just felt cruel. I zapped a few schoolkids out of the window instead – and they noticed immediately, not “within a few minutes” as the Mosquito marketing information suggests. I felt as bad as I did when I fired airgun pellets at rabbits back when I was a hoodie.
Stapleton might object furiously to the rights group Liberty’s labelling of it as “a sonic weapon”, but in the wrong hands I’m not so sure. Because most parents can’t hear Mosquitos there is a very real risk that no one will understand why a toddler is crying because no one notices one switched to permanent outside the shop beneath the toddler’s bedroom.
Stapleton has come up with a solution. In less than eight weeks he will have a noise recorder available to local councils to stick up next to any Mosquitos suspected of misuse. “Liberty can have one at cost as well if they want,” he says. “It will provide them all the evidence they need for a prosecution under environmental law.” This is an inventor’s response to an inventor’s problem.
But I put the Mosquito back in its box with a new perspective on the yoof issue. However bad they may be, controlling our teenagers with sonic “weapons” is not the answer. “Even Orwell couldn’t have thought this up,” says pub philosopher Tom, 41, fiddling with the device. He’s right. I’m just not quite ready to hug a hoodie.
Dan Balz of The Washington Post says, "Among the costliest decisions Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign has made this year was to largely cede caucus states to Barack Obama. It is one that, in retrospect, baffles Democratic strategists and, even more so, the operatives on Obama's team."
Writing for The New York Times, Patricia Cohen says, "Joining the circle of curmudgeons this season is Eric G. Wilson, whose 'Against Happiness' warns that the 'American obsession with happiness' could 'well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation.'"
The Washington Post's Elizabeth Williamson writes: "One of government's chief internal watchdogs resigned yesterday, as Comptroller General David M. Walker, an outspoken gadfly and frequent witness on Capitol Hill, announced his plans to lead a new foundation focused on US fiscal responsibility."
Andrew Gray of Reuters reports: "The United States will probably have more troops in Iraq this summer than it did before pouring in forces last year - even after a planned drawdown, a US general said on Friday."
What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, and inequality? To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prizewinner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that.
Tropenstürme, Hochwasser, Gletscherschmelze, Ozonloch. Ist die Menschheit gerade dabei, sich selbst zu vernichten? Die Botschaft scheint angekommen: Wenn nicht bald eine globale Bewusstseinsveränderung eintritt, werden die folgenden Generationen vor unlösbaren ökologische und ökonomische Probleme steht.
Miller: „Einsatz von Biomasse ist aktiver Klimaschutz“
Der Einsatz von Biomasse leistet nach den Worten von Landwirtschaftsminister Josef Miller einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Energieversorgung und bedeutet gleichzeitig aktiven Klimaschutz.
Trump and His Allies...
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/21/trump-and-his-allies-are-clear-and-present-danger-american-democracy?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter_op
rudkla - 22. Jun, 05:09
The Republican Party...
https://truthout.org/articles/the-republican-party-is-still-doing-donald-trumps-bidding/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=804d4873-50dd-4c1b-82a5-f465ac3742ce
rudkla - 26. Apr, 05:36
January 6 Committee Says...
https://truthout.org/articles/jan-6-committee-says-trump-engaged-in-criminal-conspiracy-to-undo-election/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=552e5725-9297-4a7c-a214-53c8c51615a3
