Global warming on the Titanic; balancing the budget on the backs of the people; cutting war budget; Barbour commutes life sentences to repair racist ignorance; rule of law in Russia; Voodoo is relative; new chairs flexing power

Global warming not real? We’re sailing on the Titanic

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A tornado fueled by an unusually warm winter air sliced through parts of northwestern Arkansas early on New Year's Eve, killing at least three people, injuring several others and knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses.

______________________________________________

When it comes to balancing the budget, let them eat cake. Why do 98% of the people always have to pay the bill and the 2% who own most of the wealth get a tax break?

The budget woes of the US are not unlike those of some European countries, including Britain, where spending cuts are the new political reality. But the US has for years faced a special problem: the social security system that pays out billions to keep food on the table of its retirees is on a direct path to insolvency unless something drastic is done.
"This debt is like a cancer that will truly destroy this country from within if we don't fix it," Erskine Bowles, a co-chair of the deficit reduction panel and former chief-of-staff to Bill Clinton, warned as he unveiled the new proposals.

______________________________________________


Cutting Defense (War) budget only 50 to 60 billion? How about 400 to 500 billion?

Cutting Defense for Deficit Reduction Is Risky

Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
The Brookings Institution
December 28, 2010 —
At a recent Brookings event on the U.S. defense budget and American power, Robert Kagan asks, "What does the liberal world order cost and what is it worth to us?" He says that saving $55-60 billion per year so that the defense budget can contribute its "fair share" of deficit reduction is too risky and that we're taking grave risks if we try to solve the budget deficit crisis by cutting the defense budget.

_________________________________________

Good Ol Haley of the White Citizens Council? Wonder if he thinks pardon will make amends enough to get him the nomination

JACKSON, Miss. – For 16 years, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott have shared a life behind bars for their part in an $11 armed robbery. To share freedom, they must also share a kidney.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour suspended the sisters' life sentences on Wednesday, but 36-year-old Gladys Scott's release is contingent on her giving a kidney to Jamie, her 38-year-old sister, who requires daily dialysis.

_________________________________________

That dirty ol rotten Russian legal system. Wonder if this equates to life for $11

MOSCOW – Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to six more years in prison Thursday following a trial seen as payback for his defiance of Vladimir Putin.
The outcome of the second trial exposes how little has changed under President Dmitry Medvedev despite his promises to strengthen the rule of law and make courts an independent branch of government

_________________________________________

Voodoo disappearing of baby sounds bizarre from here. But what about all the miracles daily prayed for here?

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – An American aid ?worker, Paul Waggoner, has been released from a notoriously overcrowded Haitian prison after a judge apparently cleared him of allegations that he kidnapped an infant from a hospital where he worked as a volunteer.

Frantz Philistin, a Haitian man whose infant son was treated at a hospital in Petionville in February had declined to take the body, saying he couldn't afford to bury it. Later, he began making accusations against Waggoner, at one point accusing him of putting the infant into a Voodoo trance to kidnap him and sell his organs.

___________________________________________
Foreign policy not prerogative of some faceless factotum trying to make his allegiances known
Guess we can read between the lines of new committee chairman's sentiments.

"Making underserved concessions to Syria tells the regime in Damascus that it can continue to pursue its dangerous agenda and not face any consequences from the U.S.," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R-Fla., the incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. "That is the wrong message to be sending to a regime which continues to harm and threaten U.S. interests and those of such critical allies as Israel."

Choosing politics over Nation; Rendell's hands untied; SPCA and Fox are radical; pedophiles another fad without limits; food for free? or profit?; workers be damned; thieves robbed and angry; Dudamel, LA conductor with dream of changing the world

Top down or bottom up economics--what’s good for the President’s run for re election or what’s good for the man in the street

Obama's economist pick seen as sign of new agenda
Obama's choice for top economic adviser will be closely watched for signs of new agenda

The administration now believes the relationship between Obama and the business community has started to thaw. For example, both sides praised each other following Obama's meeting with CEOs earlier this month. The White House has grown more willing to find another prominent job for a private sector appointee while leaving the council post to an economic heavyweight who can coordinate the advice Obama is receiving from throughout the administration.
"To get a business person in there, it seems like an odd place," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "And if he does need someone from business, I don't think he would want someone from Wall Street."

_______________________________________

Eagles workers leave pile of snow in governor's seat
By Chris Chase
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell lamented that the delay of the Philadelphia Eagles game due to this weekend's blizzard was another example of America turning into a "nation of wussies." On Tuesday night, the staff at Lincoln Financial Field did its best to ensure that Rendell doesn't join the unmanly masses.

_________________________________________

Sometimes SPCA and Fox go ga ga over animal rights. Is there such a thing? Check movie The Deer Slayer for answer.

Tucker Carlson: Vick ‘should have been ‘executed’
PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Fox analyst Tucker Carlson says Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick(notes) “should have been executed” for his role in a dogfighting ring.
Carlson was guest hosting for Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Channel on Tuesday night when he made the remarks. He led a panel discussion about President Barack Obama commending the owner of the Eagles for giving Vick a second chance after his release from prison. Vick served 18 months in federal prison for running a dogfighting ring.
Carlson says, “Michael Vick killed dogs, and he did (it) in a heartless and cruel way.” He added, “I think personally he should have been executed for that.”

_________________________________________
End of world not at hand. Another mania--but no shortage of perps

Father, Sons Face Sex-Abuse Claims - WSJ.com
Fri Dec 10, 2010

The former rabbi of a Brooklyn school for boys is believed to have fled to Israel after police identified him and three of his sons as suspects in the sexual abuse of the rabbi's four daughters, authorities said Friday


Reader responds to a story on Yahoo about Belgian priest/activist
Yahoo never ran the story last month that was all over the New York City papers about the sex abuse Rabbi and his kids and incest.

__________________________________________




A matter of feeding the hungry or the greedy?

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Secret United States diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks detail efforts to promote genetically modified (GM) crops and biotechnology across the globe, including the Vatican, where US diplomats pushed the Roman Catholic Church to support biotech food in developing nations. Cables from embassies in Spain, Austria and even Pakistan reveal the US diplomats have clearly sided with the biotech industry, even as court cases and public debates over GM food raged in the US and abroad."

__________________________________________

International companies have only one goal, make money, the workers of their home country be damned

Where are the jobs? For many companies, overseas
Pallavi Gogoi, AP Business Writer, On Tuesday December 28, 2010, 5:39 pm EST

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?
Actually, many American companies are -- just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

___________________________________________

Business associates take a crack at going after the thieves

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Allstate Corp has sued Bank of America Corp, its Countrywide lending unit and 17 other defendants for allegedly misrepresenting the risks on more than $700 million of mortgage securities it bought from Countrywide
Bank of America also is among banks including Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co to face SEC subpoenas as the regulator examines how mortgages were packaged for sale to investors, people familiar with the probe said.
The SEC accused Mozilo of misleading investors about Countrywide's health and risk-taking, and generating roughly $140 million of improper gains from insider stock sales.

_____________________________________

Top down or bottom up economics--what’s good for the President’s run for re election or what’s good for the man in the street

Obama's economist pick seen as sign of new agenda
Obama's choice for top economic adviser will be closely watched for signs of new agenda

The administration now believes the relationship between Obama and the business community has started to thaw. For example, both sides praised each other following Obama's meeting with CEOs earlier this month. The White House has grown more willing to find another prominent job for a private sector appointee while leaving the council post to an economic heavyweight who can coordinate the advice Obama is receiving from throughout the administration.
"To get a business person in there, it seems like an odd place," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "And if he does need someone from business, I don't think he would want someone from Wall Street."

_______________________________________

Eagles workers leave pile of snow in governor's seat
By Chris Chase
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell lamented that the delay of the Philadelphia Eagles game due to this weekend's blizzard was another example of America turning into a "nation of wussies." On Tuesday night, the staff at Lincoln Financial Field did its best to ensure that Rendell doesn't join the unmanly masses.

_________________________________________

Sometimes SPCA and Fox go ga ga over animal rights. Is there such a thing? Check movie The Deer Slayer for answer.

Tucker Carlson: Vick ‘should have been ‘executed’
PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Fox analyst Tucker Carlson says Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick(notes) “should have been executed” for his role in a dogfighting ring.
Carlson was guest hosting for Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Channel on Tuesday night when he made the remarks. He led a panel discussion about President Barack Obama commending the owner of the Eagles for giving Vick a second chance after his release from prison. Vick served 18 months in federal prison for running a dogfighting ring.
Carlson says, “Michael Vick killed dogs, and he did (it) in a heartless and cruel way.” He added, “I think personally he should have been executed for that.”

_________________________________________
End of world not at hand. Another mania--but no shortage of perps

Father, Sons Face Sex-Abuse Claims - WSJ.com
Fri Dec 10, 2010

The former rabbi of a Brooklyn school for boys is believed to have fled to Israel after police identified him and three of his sons as suspects in the sexual abuse of the rabbi's four daughters, authorities said Friday


Reader responds to a story on Yahoo about Belgian priest/activist
Yahoo never ran the story last month that was all over the New York City papers about the sex abuse Rabbi and his kids and incest.

__________________________________________




A matter of feeding the hungry or the greedy?

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Secret United States diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks detail efforts to promote genetically modified (GM) crops and biotechnology across the globe, including the Vatican, where US diplomats pushed the Roman Catholic Church to support biotech food in developing nations. Cables from embassies in Spain, Austria and even Pakistan reveal the US diplomats have clearly sided with the biotech industry, even as court cases and public debates over GM food raged in the US and abroad."

__________________________________________

International companies have only one goal, make money, the workers of their home country be damned

Where are the jobs? For many companies, overseas
Pallavi Gogoi, AP Business Writer, On Tuesday December 28, 2010, 5:39 pm EST

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?
Actually, many American companies are -- just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

___________________________________________

Business associates take a crack at going after the thieves

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Allstate Corp has sued Bank of America Corp, its Countrywide lending unit and 17 other defendants for allegedly misrepresenting the risks on more than $700 million of mortgage securities it bought from Countrywide
Bank of America also is among banks including Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co to face SEC subpoenas as the regulator examines how mortgages were packaged for sale to investors, people familiar with the probe said.
The SEC accused Mozilo of misleading investors about Countrywide's health and risk-taking, and generating roughly $140 million of improper gains from insider stock sales.

______________________________________

Inspirational--a man with a mission and a dream

The system in Gustavo Dudamel's magic
The Venezuelan wunderkind conductor is intent on his mission to bring his musical revolution to the youth of the world

From Times Online
June 7, 2010

Richard Morrison

The world’s most celebrated young conductor is in full exuberant flow, rehearsing his orchestra. Correction. He is rehearsing one of his three orchestras — and it’s the one that people usually forget about. The whole world clamours to welcome Gustavo Dudamel with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. After all, they are the most famous products of the Venezuelan Sistema, the remarkable 30-year project that has turned thousands of street urchins into virtuoso instrumentalists.

Origin of species, poisoning ourselves for free, power of Federal PR, Kabul's figment, Huxley and Orwell combine, UN and Gibbs, college sports, Vick and Obama

A theory is a theory is a theory--and none of them perfect. We’re still a mystery
JERUSALEM –
Israeli archaeologists said Monday they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern man, and if so, it could upset theories of the origin of humans.

_____________________________________

Poisoning the environment for free and loving it. In praise of turning the Nation over to Business

Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "Cars and trucks produce exhaust, which deteriorates buildings and statues, causes cancers and asthmas, and, when rain catches it on the way down, pollutes waterways and crops, with those poisons ending up in the food chain.... Here in the United States, we allow businesses to externalize those costs and have government or consumers (in the case of cancers and asthma) pay for them, instead of incorporating that cost into the retail price of gas. The first imperative in business is to make a profit, and one of the effective ways to do so is to internalize profits while externalizing costs. The internalizing-profits part is pretty easy to figure out: keep as much money as possible in the company, jack up prices to the maximum the market will bear, reduce expenses like labor and raw materials as much as possible, and increase efficiencies. All of these things constitute 'the way of doing business' that most Americans understand. But it's only half of the equation."

______________________________________________

The power of image making--Mandella hands down for Most Admired Man of the Year and 50 others after him, including Manning and Assange. Obama/Bush/Clinton not even fit to hold their coats.

Twenty-two percent of Americans surveyed said that the president is the person they hold in highest esteem, granting Obama the titled of "Most Admired Man" for the third year in a row in the annual survey.
George W. Bush placed second with 5 percent, and Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates rounded out the top five, in that order.

__________________________________


After ten years, Kabul not in control of its own destiny. Petraeus probably said “Tough.”

KABUL (Reuters) – The NATO-led force in Afghanistan disputed Monday an Afghan government accusation that foreign troops had violated a security deal by conducting a night raid in Kabul in which two guards were killed.
"This was an irresponsible way of dealing with an issue within Kabul city and that was clearly conveyed," Omer told a news conference, adding that the security council also said the operation had been "unnecessary."
Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor, McClatchy Newspapers: "The international Special Forces military team that targeted a Kabul office complex on Christmas Eve day thought they were thwarting a holiday season plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy. But the pre-dawn raid that left two security guards dead found no explosives, no plot and no evidence that the building's occupants - an Afghan armored car firm that has been working with the U.S. military for nearly a decade - were scheming to attack American diplomats."



________________________________________

SUCCESs--Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all

Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell's '1984' and Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World.' The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second."

_________________________________________

If you want the truth, check the UN maps not Robert Gibbs

KABUL (AFP) – Confidential UN maps show a clear deterioration in security in parts of Afghanistan over the course of this year, despite White House claims its strategy is working, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
While the situation in the south -- the fiercest battleground between US-led troops and the Taliban -- remained virtually unchanged at "very high risk", it worsened in 16 districts in the north and east, the paper said.

________________________________________

Not just at Notre Dame where varsity athletes roam the campus like gods

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP)
Notre Dame's president says the university acted with integrity in its handling of sexual misconduct allegations against a football player by a St. Mary's College student who later committed suicide.
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak said the case broke down because of inconsistencies in the statements of various people involved in the case.
"Conflicts exist among the witnesses' accounts of the events given to the police. Subpoenaed cell phone records are inconsistent with parts of the complaint itself," Dvorak said.
Notre Dame President Jenkins said the player and a friend still may face student disciplinary action on accusations of sending Seeberg a text message that said, "Messing with notre dame football is a bad idea."

_____________________________________


Obama gets it right for a change

Obama calls Eagles owner to congraulate him for signing Vick
By Chris Chase
Michael Vick(notes) has been getting support from all sides during his road to redemption. He's now getting it from the leader of the free world.
NBC's Peter King reports that Barack Obama called Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie earlier this week to congratulate him for giving Vick a second chance after his release from prison. According to King, the president said that released prisoners rarely receive a level playing field and that Vick's story could begin to change that.

______________________________________

Eisenhower on military stealing from hungry; Obama finished Democrats; American drug companies rise on backs of sick abroad; al Qaida inspired security killing us; Korea, who fired first?

Facts without impact in setting budget cuts that will penalize working Americans

President Dwight Eisenhower who gave the strongest warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.

_____________________________________


The New Republicrats-- Obama has obliterated what was left of the Democratic Party after Clinton’s destruction of the welfare program

Alex Seitz-Wald, ThinkProgress: "For the past two years, conservatives have repeatedly attacked President Obama for supposedly endangering American lives by not being aggressive enough in going after terrorists.... Retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under President Bush, said the Obama 'administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing' terror threats."
“Republicans think banging the war drums wins them votes, and Democrats think if they don’t chime in, they’ll lose votes,” said Andrew Bacevich, an ex-military officer who now is a historian at Boston University. He is author of a thoughtful recent book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.”

_____________________________________


American Drug Corporations use illegal aliens to benefit our elite health insurance companies

Patrick Winn, GlobalPost: "Before any pill reaches the pharmacy shelf, it must first pass through a gauntlet of human guinea pigs: the 'clinical subjects' paid to take trial drugs so specialists can observe their symptoms. But like call centers and high-end hospitals, drug trials too are rapidly shifting to India and Asia with Thailand as the region's favored frontrunner."

_________________________________________

Security agencies will destroy us.

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

____________________________________


Who started the artillery exchanges in Korean Peninsula?

Defending Korea Line Seen Contrary to Law by Kissinger Remains U.S. Policy
The sea border that has become the main battleground between North and South Korea 57 years after it was imposed by a U.S. general has been called legally indefensible by American officials for more than three decades.
Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a 1975 classified cable that the unilaterally drawn Northern Limit Line was “clearly contrary to international law.” Two years before, the American ambassador said in another cable that many nations would view South Korea and its U.S. ally as “in the wrong” if clashes occurred in disputed areas along the boundary.
The first arty firing South Korea did was already a clear provocation. It was not routine. It fired, despite heavy protest, from an island in disputed (and likely not really South Korean, see Kissinger) westward which is in that area towards North Korean water and land. The North Koreans responded as promised. With some 150 shots of which some 90 fell into the see, most of the rest hit the South Korean artillery base killing 2 military, 2 civilians working there and wounding 17 military. A few rounds did hit civilian places but no one was harmed there.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2010/12/south-korean-artillery-fire-how-will-north-korea-respond.html

Christ pre empted; Christians threatened, Baghdad; al Qaida succeeds; Haiti as measure of intent; Mexico in America in Afghanistan; Gitmo detainees supermen; NCAA corrupt

Message pre empted by marketing guys who could see potential for doping the masses

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "If you are as lucky as I am, remember those who are not. Give what you can, if you can, and keep your fellow citizens in mind and heart. Before Santa and presents and shopping and all the attendant Christmas bullshit got involved, this holiday was enshrined to commemorate a guy who got nailed to a tree for daring to tell people to be kind to one another. If you have two cloaks, He said, give one away. Remember those who have less than you, be charitable, be good, be merciful."

_______________________________________


Wasn’t a big deal when we destroyed whole Muslim city and anybody who walked in Fallujah

"Nearly two months after a shocking assault by Islamist militants, Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church will commemorate Christmas quietly, with daytime mass and prayers for the dead, under security fit more for a prison than a house of worship. It is the same at Christian churches across Baghdad and northern Iraq, where what's left of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prepares to mark perhaps the most somber Christmas since the start of the Iraq war."

______________________________________

Terrorists succeed where armies fail. Mention of al Qaida has impact of Atilla the Hun and his hordes.

WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department has alerted air carriers to a potential terror tactic involving insulated beverage containers like thermoses.

_____________________________________

Wonder why it isn’t more important to pay a trillion for a regime change in Haiti. They really need the help.

KHAR, Pakistan – A burqa-clad female suicide bomber in Pakistan lobbed hand grenades, then detonated her explosive belt among a crowd at an aid center Saturday, killing at least 45 people in militants' latest strike against the authorities' control over the key tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

_______________________________

Sounds like something that happens all the time in Afghanistan

MEXICO CITY – Joseph Proctor told his girlfriend he was popping out to the convenience store in the quiet Mexican beach town where the couple had just moved, intending to start a new life.
Three soldiers have been charged with killing him. Two have been charged with planting the assault rifle in his hands and claiming falsely that he fired first, according to a Mexican Defense Department document sent to her through the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
It is at least the third case this year in which soldiers, locked in a brutal battle with drug cartels, have been accused of killing innocent civilians and faking evidence in cover-ups.
Such scandals are driving calls for civilian investigators to take over cases that are almost exclusively handled by military prosecutors and judges who rarely convict one of their own.

_________________________________

Spiderman, Superman and other super heroes have nothing on the super power of the prisoners at Guantanamo

"President Barack Obama's hopes of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility appear as far from being realised as ever in the wake of new legislation approved by Congress this week. Wednesday's approval by the Senate of an amendment banning the use of Pentagon funds for 2011 to transfer detainees at Guantanamo, the U.S. naval base on Cuba, to the United States or its territories appears to guarantee that the facility will remain open for business at least through next September."

__________________________________

You could see it in the cards with the choice of Heisman winner. NCAA and college athletics corrupt to core

Updated Dec 24, 2010 9:51 PM ET
When dealing out punishment to athletes, don’t apply it to the current season. Apply it only to future seasons — if the players are even still around then.

BUCKEYES SUSPENDED
Still eligible for Sugar Bowl
Who's on Buckeyes' 2011 schedule?
Video: Fiutak talks Buckeyes
Video: Ohio State responds
Photos: Suspended players
Scout: Recruits sticking with OSU
Scout: Everyone loses
Scout: 2011 questions
That’s apparently the NCAA’s new hypocritical guidelines for punishment and reinstatement of players found in violation of its rules.
At least that’s what you can glean from Thursday’s announcement that five Ohio State players will be suspended for the first five games of next season for each accepting $1,000 to $2,500 in cash in exchange for Buckeyes memorabilia. But they’ll be allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 4 against Arkansas.

Grim news of bad tidings on Christmas eve

Sounds like they modeled the U.S operation. I guess Cuba learned how to be more efficient with their tiny budget.

Alexis Levinson - The Daily Caller – Fri Dec 24, 3:06 am ET
Last week, Cuba launched EcuRed, it’s own version of Wikipedia. It was an intriguing move for a country whose population has very minimal Internet access. But the Cuban regime produces a large amount of propaganda targeted at the outside world, and EcuRed fits neatly into that framework.
“They do these extensive media operations,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the executive director of Cuba Democracy Public Advocacy, and a member of the board of directors of U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, “so that eventually the rest of the world, they hope, is seeing that, and they think it’s the truth because it’s coming from all kinds of different sources.”

_____________________________________


The power of intimidation as effective at killing free speech as anytbing Iran’s Guard did.

SAN FRANCISCO – Federal authorities are investigating a pilot who posted videos on YouTube that were critical of security at San Francisco International Airport, the pilot's attorney said Friday.
Don Werno of the Santa Ana-based law firm Werno and Associates said the Transportation Security Administration is looking into whether his client revealed sensitive information.

______________________________________

Finally a churchman who has adjusted his vision

RICHMOND, Va. – Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" audience that harsh penalties for marijuana possession are costly for the nation and damaging to young people….

_____________________________________


al Quaida everywhere. Think we just elevated the status of local thugs?

MUMBAI, India – Police searched India's financial capital on Friday for four men who authorities believe entered Mumbai to carry out a terrorist attack, a top police official said.
_____________________________________

Manning National Security risk--sounds like Code Red to me

"It has become obvious to me that (Bradley) Manning's physical and mental well-being are deteriorating," David House wrote on the blog Firedoglake, recounting a visit to the military brig where the accused soldier is being held.
"It's become increasingly clear that the severe, inhumane conditions of his detention are wearing on Manning," he wrote.
Held at a military brig in Virginia at the Quantico Marine base since July, Manning, 23, has been placed under a maximum security regimen because authorities say his escape would pose a risk to national security.

_____________________________________________

It all comes back to bite us sooner or later

LAS VEGAS – Two Las Vegas men pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring with a Navy SEAL and another man to sell machine guns and other weapons smuggled into the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan, the top federal prosecutor in Nevada said.

Kabul corrupt, Schilling for AT&T, Cheaters prosper in D.C.,

Corrupt to the core

KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S.-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant to keep the new Afghan army and police healthy have been disappearing before reaching Afghan military hospitals and clinics, and the government said it is removing the army's top medical officer from his post as part of an investigation into alleged corruption.
Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press that Surgeon General Ahmad Zia Yaftali was being removed from his post as part of the inquiry. Three officials from the country's top medical facility, Dawood National Military Hospital in Kabul, have been fired, he said.

__________________________________________________

So much for net neutrality--Obama caves to AT&T/Verizon on wireless when he had majority votes

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators adopted new rules Tuesday to keep the companies that control the Internet's pipelines from restricting what their customers do online or blocking competing services, including online calling applications and Web video.
The new rules have the backing of the White House
Critics were disappointed that the new regulations don't do enough to safeguard the fastest-growing way that people access the Internet today — through wireless devices like smart phones and tablets.

______________________________________


No safe haven for whistleblowers and never has been

WASHINGTON – House Democrats scrambled on Tuesday to salvage legislation that would bar federal agencies from punishing employees who report corruption, waste and mismanagement after Republicans linked the bill to the WikiLeaks scandal.
In a Dec. 16 letter to Issa, a coalition of public interest groups urged Issa to back the new bill, saying "efforts to draw a connection between WikiLeaks and this good government measure are misguided."
On Monday, one of the coalition members, the Project on Government Oversight, was more critical of Issa.
"We are disappointed that Mr. Issa has flip-flopped on the bill he used to support and instead is perpetuating the myth that this bill would protect WikiLeaks," the Project said in a statement posted on its Web site.

________________________________________


Stalin’s security system would have envied all the spy technology focused on Americans by AMERICA

The 5 most surprising revelations from the Post’s ‘Monitoring America’ investigation
By Liz Goodwin
The FBI is assembling a massive database on tens of thousands of Americans who have not been accused of any crime. The names on the fed watchlist have attracted the suspicions of local law enforcement or citizens, The Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin report. The reporters' latest look at the country's ballooning national security system focuses on the role local agencies-- often staffed by people with little to no counter-terror training--have played in combating terrorism since 2001.

____________________________________________

U.S manipulation in Iraq, West Bank, America; political crap continues

Imagine the outrage over an Iraqi-sponsored proposal to curb the powers of th President of the U.S.

"As Iraqi politicians put the final touches on a long-awaited new government, a US-sponsored proposal to curb the powers of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is still struggling to take shape. The plan aims to create a national strategic council to guide policy decisions. But after months of haggling, Iraqi lawmakers remain divided over how much power the council should have, who should sit on it and what it should be called."

_____________________________________


Stab in the back. Palestinian leader compromised by Israel/US

SALEM – A diplomatic message released by WikiLeaks on Monday suggested close cooperation between Israel and forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when rival Hamas militants overran the Gaza Strip three years ago.
The June 13, 2007, memo from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, citing a conversation that took place during the civil war in Gaza that ended with the Hamas takeover, cites Israeli Security Agency chief Yuval Diskin as saying Israel Abbas' internal security agency “shares with ISA almost all the intelligence that it collects."
Collaboration with Israeli security is seen by Palestinians as an onerous offense.


________________________________________


Don’t let the facts get in the way of the government spin machine

As our new video shows, the Afghanistan War makes us less safe and isn’t worth the cost.

The facts are clear:
2010 is already the deadliest year of the war for U.S. troops, with at least 472 killed this year alone.
2010 is the deadliest year so far for civilians living in the war zone, with more than 2,400 killed this year alone.
We’re spending $2 billion / week on the war while Americans are out of work here at home.
Yet, the president and his advisors seem dead-set on damaging their credibility by claiming “progress” in Afghanistan in the face of these easily available facts.


__________________________________________

The political crap continues

WASHINGTON – A top Democrat predicted Monday that the Senate will approve a new arms control treaty with Russia, but conceded that it will take "house by house combat" to collect enough votes from recalcitrant Republicans to prevail.
The comments by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., came a day after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would oppose the accord, complicating President Barack Obama's prospects for achieving his top foreign policy priority….

Dying from cigarette cancer

The Pulse of Being, A Chistmas Song

The collective sigh
In the whispered breathing
Of the bellows in balance
So the sound is overlooked
Except at moments
When the community
Raises its voice as one
To capture the collective
Inchoate yearning
For the fulfillment
Of a longing
Born with that first breath,
The sound condensed
Like tears of rain
In the words,
Oh come all ye faithful.
Joyful and triumphant,
Oh come all ye citizens,
Oh come you belongers,
You strivers,
You lovers,
You suffering reachers,
You prayers,
You hopers,
You dreamers,
You kneeling beseechers,
Come, come into this gathering
Of breathers
And mingle your being
In the consciousness
That was from the beginning
Is now,
And ever shall be,
Song without end.
JM

Poetry is inexplicable. The words come from some self producing unconscious source. And I find myself the scribe, the gospel writer. It's not something I set out to write and follow some formula to accomplish. I'm glad it captures some meaning for you and I hope others.
Tunie has had a tremendous will to survive and a hope, even perhaps to the moment she went back to smoking, that she could beat this thing. I would not have tolerated all she has been thru.
She is more heroic than any person I have known. Maybe I was just too ignorant or too distant from the scene to know that when my father in law died from colon cancer and then my father from jaw cancer--and my mother in intensive care gasping for moments for each final breath for two days dying from congestive heart failure.
If you remember nothing else of your sister, remember her indomitable courage. She could have quit any time in the past two years. She didn't have to keep going thru chemo. She chose that. She didn't have to continue radiation. She chose that. She didnt have to get the brain operation. She chose that. She didn't have to go throu the sterotactic procedure. She chose that. Two years of painful choices with continuing consequences and an end that the statistics predicted from the start. Two years.
And she went thru it all with grace and dignity, did not complain, did not blame anybody, have any anger, and maintained her respect for others always.
Maybe you are too distant to have understood Tunie's choices--but don't forget them or her hunger to keep going.
Jerry

Outta money/outta power, same bankrupt policies, collapsing Union, corruption of college sports

How will the U.S. affect change without the money to buy or the arms to enforce its will?

The latest US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks indicated that the United Nations offered Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe a retirement package and safe haven overseas if he agreed to stand down.
The offer was made by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general at the time in 2000, said the memo, which was drawn up by US officials and cited the then-opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
________________________________________

Missile defense and Start Treaty more of the same--Obama mirroring a Bush boondoggle

Just before Saturday's vote, the White House released a letter from Obama to top lawmakers reaffirming his plan to deploy US missile defense systems and rejecting Russia's claim that doing so would justify withdrawing from START.
"Regardless of Russia's actions in this regard, as long as I am president, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners," he said.

_________________________________

The State of the collapsing Union

The list, with Illinois leading the pack, comes from website TopRetirements.com. According to John Brady, president of TopRetirements.com, the 10 states earn this dubious distinction largely because of three factors: fiscal health, taxation, climate.
As for fiscal health, six of the 10 worst states for retirees on TopRetirements.com's list were among those just identified by a Pew Center for States report as being in "fiscal peril."
The report, "Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril," showed that "some of the same pressures that have pushed California toward economic disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of other states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country."

____________________________________

When good enough is not good enough

Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen will accept a buyout and not return for the 2011 season, according to multiple reports.
Friedgen was named the 2010 ACC Coach of the Year after leading Maryland to an 8-4 record.
Friedgen is slated to be paid $2 million next season.

Lawless in Islamabad, 250 million for Cheney, Congress' sick values, BP in Azerbaijan, Rich invest outside U.S., Mich., canary in coal mine, tasteless T.V.

Identifying the lawless not an easy task
ISLAMABAD – The CIA yanked its top spy out of Pakistan after his cover was blown and his life threatened, and 54 suspected militants were killed in a U.S. drone missile attack Friday in stark new signs of the troubled relationship between mistrustful allies locked in a war on terror groups.
The CIA's decision to remove its Islamabad station chief comes at a pivotal moment. The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to rid its lawless northwest frontier of militants, even as public outcry in the country has intensified against the U.S. spy agency's unacknowledged drone war.
__________________________

Power taking care of its own, price? chump change, $250,000,000
Bush Sr., James Baker Instrumental in Getting Nigeria to Drop Bribery Charges Against Cheney
Friday 17 December 2010
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
Dick Cheney recently faced bribery charges related to $180 million in bribes that executives working for Halliburton's former subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root paid to Nigerian government officials between 1994 and 2004. (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Kristin Fitzsimmons / Wikimedia)
Last week, after the indictment was filed in Abuja, Nigeria's capitol, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "We do not believe that there will be a basis for further action (requiring Cheney to respond to the charges), but we will look into it."
Former President George H.W. Bush and ex-Secretary of State James Baker were part of a negotiating team that convinced Nigerian government officials to drop bribery charges against Dick Cheney and Halliburton, the oil services firm he led prior to becoming vice president.
Bush and Baker participated in conference call discussions with senior Nigerian government officials, including the country's attorney general, Mohammed Adoke, last weekend on behalf of Cheney in an attempt to work out a settlement, according to Nigerian news reports.
Representatives for Halliburton also participated in the talks.
On Friday, Femi Babafemi, a spokesman for Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the agency that filed the 16-count indictment last week, said the case against Cheney and Halliburton was "formally dropped."
_________________________________________

WHAT A JOKE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A controversial measure providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children was dealt a death blow in the U.S. Senate on Saturday by Republicans who said it would reward illegal activity.

_________________________________________

Why WikiLeaks—where was the media
WikiLeaks Cables Reveal BP Narrowly Avoided Disaster in Azerbaijan
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Just 18 months before the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, British Petroleum (BP) evacuated 211 platform workers from a BP platform in the Caspian Sea after an undersea well blowout caused a potentially explosive gas leak, according to US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Wikileaks released cables detailing the 2008 BP platform blowout off the coast of Azerbaijan just hours after the US Department of Justice announced a civil lawsuit against BP for contaminating the Gulf of Mexico with millions of gallons of oil."
_________________________________________
Reagan continues to destroy the Middle Class to profit the rulers
Robert Reich | The New Tax Deal: Reaganomics Redux
Robert Reich, Truthout: "More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense. The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics. It will not stimulate the economy. A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return."
_______________________________
Taking on Reality TV With Jennifer Pozner
Anne Elizabeth Moore, Truthout: "'Reality Bites Back,' a new book on the phenomenon of unscripted television programming from feminist media critic Jennifer Pozner, distills into 386 pages an entire decade full of the cheapest, sleaziest TV shows in history. It's also the most popular genre of media the information age has yet produced.
_________________________________
Politicizing blind justice
Ruth Marcus | Of Politics and Judges
Ruth Marcus: "I'm hoping for the moment when a federal judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the health care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it. Either way. Because the current lineup of decisions, in which two Democratic-nominated judges have ruled in favor of the law, one Republican against, is not healthy for the judiciary or the democratic process."

The Michigan model, PolitiFact's lie of the year

THIS is the political reality
"The whole country is now seeing the story that Michigan has been living with for a long time," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. "We have kicked the can so far down the road that now all we have is a cliff to fall off."
"The recession merely revealed a reality that has been with us for a long time. We faced a growing gap in education and skills that we tried to fill with debt and credit, which gave us the illusion of growth."
After World War Two, unskilled blue-collar jobs in manufacturing -- typified and in many ways defined by the auto sector -- became America's easy path to the middle class. As U.S. manufacturing declined, starting in the 1980s Congress and successive administrations focused instead on the financial sector and relied on debt -- its own and that of the U.S. consumer -- to foster economic growth.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BF28720101216?pageNumber=1

It's a sad state of affairs that is only continued by bankrupt political strategies bent on keeping politicians in power not in politicians bending their shoulders to reversing the problems. And this action to pass the tax cut bill is just more of the same.

____________________________________
Like sheep to slaughter—why democracy doesn’t work
The Founders were thinkers and writers AND activists who thought their small country would be filled with people like them. The Republicans now know better.
In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion.
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/

Et tu, Brute--House collapses on tax revision

Obama follow same scenario as Bush
Bush used 911 to torpedo a gutless Congress. Now Obama has used financial collapse for the same end.
Et tu, Brute
After forcing a delay in the House early in the day, Democratic critics settled for a separate vote in their bid to toughen an estate tax provision they attacked as a giveaway to the very rich. They were defeated, 233-194, with one vote of "present."
"We stand today with only one choice: Pay the ransom now or pay more ransom later," said Rep. Brad Sherman of California. "This is not a place Democrats want to be. But, ultimately, it is better to pay the ransom today than to watch the president pay even more, and I think he'd be willing to pay a bit more next month."

Public education for profit, CIA convicted in Rome, Westmoreland dejavu, Alosi's mistake

Privatizing health care has been so successful, let’s privatize education. Let’s eliminate gov’t altogether
Newly elected Florida Gov. Rick Scott is making waves with his proposal that all children should receive education vouchers they can use to attend private, public or charter schools.
"The parent should figure out where the dollars for that student are spent," the Republican governor-elect told the St. Petersburg Times. "So if the parents want to spend it on virtual school, then spend it on virtual school. If they want to spend it on, you know, whatever education system they believe in, whether it's this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school, that's what ought to happen
__________________________________
Further evidence of new meaning of law under Obama
ROME (AFP) – An Italian court upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US "extraordinary rendition" programme.
The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a "shocking blow" for the US.
They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (two million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.
Washington has refused to extradite the agents, who all remain at liberty but now risk arrest if they travel to Europe.
___________________________
Shades of Johnson/Westmoreland reports on Viet Nam
The [Afghanistan War] review comes at the end of the bloodiest year since U.S.-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, with almost 700 foreign troops killed so far. Yet Afghan civilians bear the brunt of the conflict as insurgents expand from strongholds into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday that worsening violence in Afghanistan has made it more difficult than at any time in three decades for aid groups to reach people in need.
The review's unclassified summary said al Qaeda had been weakened in Pakistan but was still capable of plotting attacks against the United States. It also noted "uneven" progress in U.S. efforts to get Pakistan to go after militants along its border with Afghanistan, and it said widespread corruption continued to threaten the future of Afghanistan. Despite cautious optimism from the White House a year after Obama ordered the extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, civilian and military deaths have reached record highs in Afghanistan and Obama must overcome skepticism in the U.S. Congress and among Americans tired of the long, expensive conflict.
________________________________
Sal’s getting a bum rap for all the mayhem coaches deliberately inflict weekly
Sal Alosi, the New York Jets coach who tripped Miami player Nolan Carroll(notes) in the third quarter of the Dolphins’ 10-6 win last Sunday, didn't "just happen" to be there.
The Jets have discovered that he strategically ordered players to "form a wall" in that specific place, and have now changed Alosi's suspension from "rest of the season" to "indefinite."

Manning a hero, Peace, People's responsibility, money ain't everythin

Dec 14, 2010 · Bob Meola authored a resolution for Berkeley City Council calling Pfc. Bradley Manning a hero ... with the awarding of the Soldiers Medal, the U.S. Army's highest award ...

www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/14/meola.bradley.manning

_________________________________________

Another world is not possible, it is necessary

_____________________________________

It’s the people—finally somebody gets it

“The Chinese are the ones who should be celebrating Thanksgiving and we should be having a big Mardi Gras party,” Zakaria said. “But that’s what we pick up, a kind of a culture of overconsumption.”
Parker asked Zakaria if he had faith the American people could handle the fiscal discipline he advocated. Zakaria used the platform as an opportunity to attack Americans and refute the notion “the American people are wonderful.” His solution: Less consumption by the American people.
“No, I think the people are the big problem,” Zakaria said. “I mean, Americans — everybody wants to say the American people are so wonderful. You know, I think that when they come to recognize that they have to make sacrifices too that it’s not just wasteful — they need to have — they need to recognize that some of what’s going to happen here is fewer. They have to consume fewer things. They have to accept slightly higher taxes. And in the long run, you will have a much better economy.”
________________________________


The time for sharing

Christmas Island residents on a cliff above watched in horror as the boat — carrying about 70 people — broke apart with a crack, dumping screaming men, women and children into monstrous waves that pounded them against the rocks.
"It was just horrible. People getting crushed. Bodies, dead children, the whole thing was pretty awful," island resident Simon Prince told The Associated Press.
_____________________________________


Money ain’t everythin--finally

Lee is the first major free agent in recent memory to be targeted by the Yankees and to ultimately reject them. The Yankee dollar generally does not take no for an answer. This, only months after the Rangers outbid the Yankees for Lee at the trading deadline.

He is 32 years old. He’s seen what the end of a career looks like, in ’07, when he was dismissed to the minor leagues and left off an Indians postseason roster that played to within a win of the World Series. So, yeah, he told everyone how much he enjoyed his four months in Texas, and laughed when a reporter suggested during the World Series all that was left was to hire a realtor – “Uh, something like that,” Lee responded with a smile….

Understanding the Democrats by understanding Santa

Responding to a friend

I was watching a lovely, touching Christmas movie last night about this 9 year old girl whose faith in Santa was destroyed by her father who lived on a farm, was having some major financial problems--and had lost his wife sometime in the past.
Her father's attack on her faith was precipitated by this event: Some town workmen were suspending Santa's sleigh and reindeer across a street when one of the reindeer fell off and broke. The girl thought it was Prancer and that Santa would not be able to make his rounds. Then, as if by a miracle, as she was walkng thru the woods back home she saw a reindeer--not known in these parts.
She told her father who blew her off. Then, as he was driving her to stay with her Aunt Sarah, the deer appeared in the headlights with a hurt leg. The father got out his rifle and was going to shoot it--but the deer disappeared.
Then the girl found it in their barnyard and hid it in a shed and fed it back to health.
She wrote a letter to Santa saying she would deliver Dancer to a specific location on Christmas Eve for Santa to pickup and gave it to a mall Santa she knew was a fake. And then the father found out about the deer, the pastor preached a sermon on the girl's faith after reading a story about her in the local paper, and the father sold the deer to a local merchant who penned it up and used it to attract crowds to his Tree lot.
She tries to release him, falls from a tree and gets a concussion.
The long and short of it is, the girl recognizes that reindeer can't fly when it can't escape thru the hole in the roof's pen she made before falling from the tree, her father buys the deer back, he reads to her from a book he rescued from the barn where she had been nursing the raindeer, "Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood," together they take the deer off to the rendezvous with Santa, the deer disappears over a cliff, she can hear his collar bells ringing in the distance, is reconciled with her father, and has reconciled her loss of faith with a new deeper understanding.
Your friend is a lovely faithful person--and shaking faith can be an earthshaking event, so I don't wish it upon her. But Reagan set out to dismantle the programs of the New Deal that created a vibrant Middle Class. The programs were so set in stone it seemed a fantasy to my mind that Reagan could do it. But here we are, only 30 years later, on the precipice of a collapsing vision of compassionate liberalism. And we are there because of the deals I listed in my epistle to the faithful the other day that have been made just in the Obama years under the pretense of saving the Middle Class--like current tax break legislation which opens the door to eliminating Social Security under the guise of reducing the payroll deduction and giving more working people immediate money.
What a Trojan Horse.
And the past 30 years have been filled with Trojan Horses passed by or supported by Democrats--like NAFTA and the elimination of the Glass-Stiegel Act and and the work for welfare program and on and on.
That is how I see it now.
I guess your friend will find the proof in the pudding down the line.
The Democratic Party is not the one she remembers. They are mainly concerned about getting re-elected

Obama, the master demogogue

Over the past several days, since announcing agreement on the proposed tax break legislation with the Republicans, Obama’s mantra has been his unrelenting commitment to the Middle Class. He has repeatedly said he has made this deal, as distasteful as it is to him, to save the Middle Class from the terrible pain of running out of work and out of unemployment benefits. If that means he has to cave in on continuing the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy and the continuing disproportionate increase in their wealth coming from the resources of the country, well, that is the cost of making a bipartisan deal. And if it means that he will have to agree to estate tax relief for 35,000 ultra rich, even though ultra rich people like Buffet and Gates have said they are not leaving the bulk of their own wealth to their children because such bequests stifle American innovation, so be it.

If the 35,000 have to get tax relief as part of a bipartisan agreement to secure their estates while protecting the Middle Class from unbearable pain, so be it. The people have spoken, the President says. And they have given him a shellacking that delivered their message. So he’s listening, giving them what they want. Never mind that 75% of the people polled since the mid term elections have said they oppose tax cuts for the wealthy. Everybody knows the vote count is the only one that does count.

Never mind that unemployment benefits will only continue 13 months under the proposed legislation and the tax cuts will continue until the next election. Apparently the President is calculating that the economy will improve by 2012, the additional 11 month unemployment benefits will be unnecessary, a weakened Democratic Congressional delegation will be able to strike a favorable bipartisan deal with a strengthened Republican Congressional delegation that they are unable to strike when they are in control, AND the Bush tax cuts will be rolled back on the wealthy.

What are the chances of that?

Could it be the President has misread the tea leaves? Could it be that the majority of a minority of voters in unpopulous states are the only ones whose votes were counted? Could it be that the polls are a true reflection of popular opinion? We will never to be able to know for sure because the vote count is the only thing that is certain, however you may interpret it. The President thought it was a shellacking. As for the President, he has decided the polls do not count. And after his masterful misrepresentation of the successes of his legislative agenda to the believing public, why should he decide otherwise?

I am speaking of the usual litany—the failure to support a public option in favor of government subsidies to corporations for 30,000,000 new health insurance customers. The continuation of Wall Street domination of American financial affairs by siphoning off free money from the Treasury for the banks’ profit. The further destruction of unions and pensioners, bondholders and dealers, with the failure to bankrupt the auto companies rather than power broke a restructuring—in the name of all the losers. The failure to prosecute Bush and Cheney and the others who have admitted breaking domestic and international laws on torture. The continued refusal to draw a line in the sand on Israeli expansion into the West Bank while claiming to be an impartial broker and offering additional financial support in the billions. The continued incursions, carried over from the Bush Administration and enhanced, on First Amendment rights. The escalation of the war in Afghanistan and the approval of multiple undeclared wars in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and other Muslim countries.. All clever ruses that undermined his own stated agenda for a more peaceful, equitable, transparent government but delivered the country to the rich and the corporate and the warrior tribe.

Because the only thing that matters, as we were first advised when the President threw his spiritual adviser under the bus, was getting elected—and then getting re-elected.

Never mind that the cost of the proposed deal is $900,000,000,000 when two weeks ago everybody, the Republicans and the Democrats, were concerned about the deficit impact of approving a $700,000,000,000 continuation of the Bush tax cuts for two years. The President has made a bipartisan deal that continues the Bush tax cuts for everybody perhaps forever, continues unemployment benefits for the 9.8% of the workforce unemployed for 13 months, gives probably permanent approval to a low tax rate on estate transfers, includes a bundle of other tax benefits to diverse constituencies, and increases the deficit amount by $200,000,000,000 over that deal.

A brilliant bipartisan move that gets the Republicans to support bigger deficits. As it appears, none of the political class really cared about the deficits anyway.

What really matters to the President is getting back the independent voters and getting reelected—proving that the lust for power has no color line or price tag.

Would the roof fall in if the Democratic House musters enough votes to scotch this deal? Probably not. People losing their unemployment benefits would have found another way to tide themselves over. Nobody is dying for lack of unemployment benefits. People have been steadily getting peeled off the rolls in the past months and have turned to relatives, friends, relief agencies, marginal jobs, sold valuables, and done whatever they could to continue to survive.

The tax rates would have reverted to a rate that had not been onerous during the Clinton years. People would survive the increase in taxes the way they have survived the increase in gasoline in the recent past. They would have hunkered down and done what they had to do to get to their jobs.

Will the Republican juggernaut in the House alone be more successful than the Democrat juggernaut of the past two years at preventing the other party from derailing whatever it finds unacceptable? I can’t imagine that unless the Democrats are a lot less clever at saying no than the Republicans have been. And the Republicans fashioned a winning election strategy by using no. How difficult can that be?

I am not clever enough to dig through the entrails of the proposed tax cut agreement to grasp all the nuances and ramifications of who wins and who loses. But I am clever enough to weigh the numbers. The President has calculated he needs to win back half of the 30% of the independent vote that appears to have abandoned him. That would be a maximum improvement of 15%. The President thinks he will keep the twenty percent of the Democratic Party liberal/progressives he needs to get re-elected.. They are compromised of a hodgepodge of minorities—Latinos, blacks, legal immigrants AND whites who believed with a fervor that he was a compassionate liberal.

What do you think the chances are that the public he has duped so many times will believe him again.?

JM

Poster child for tobacco

Her brain is melting,
The tumors from her cancer
Festering invisible wounds,
The messages that once came so clearly
Now distant, fading echoes,
Only the habit of thought,
Like the habit of smoking,
What keeps her conscious
To the world where we live.
So much for quality of life,
The nicotine in full possession
Such is the price of profit
So Tobacco Magnates
Can live La Dolce Vita.

JM

Vatican, Budget limits to transplants, Sanders on democracy, Assange on democracy

Surrendering to the authorities and hoping for justice may be an oxymoron for Assange
LONDON – Assange faces a new extradition hearing in London next week where his lawyers plan to reapply for bail. The 39-year-old Australian denies two women's allegations in Sweden of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion, and is fighting his extradition to Sweden.
Hackers rushed to the defense of WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank and others who have acted against the site and its jailed founder Julian Assange.
"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement. "We want transparency and we counter censorship ... we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
The coming budget reality for the transplant industry and the right to lifers
First Arizona, now Indiana, finally an end to saving everybody from the inevitable
After budget cuts, Indiana baby denied life-saving treatment
By Zachary Roth – Thu Dec 9, 11:42 am ET
An Indiana baby needs life-saving surgery, but the state health care agency -- whose budget was slashed this year -- won't pay for it.
Six-month-old Seth Petreikis suffers from complete DiGeorge syndrome, which keeps him from developing a thymus, an infection-fighting glandular organ. He needs a transplant that's been pioneered by a specialist at Duke University in North Carolina. But the procedure costs $500,000, and the state's Family Social Services Administration won't pay for it under the state's Medicaid, reports the Northwest Indiana Times. It claims that the treatment is "experimental”….
Vatican just another corrupt government—nothing holy about it
The Institute for Religious Works is a bank, and it's under harsh new scrutiny in a case involving money-laundering allegations that led police to seize euro23 million ($30 million) in Vatican assets in September. Critics say the case shows that the "Vatican Bank" has never shed its penchant for secrecy and scandal.
The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses optimism it will be quickly cleared up. But court documents show that prosecutors say the Vatican Bank deliberately flouted anti-laundering laws "with the aim of hiding the ownership, destination and origin of the capital." The documents also reveal investigators' suspicions that clergy may have acted as fronts for corrupt businessmen and Mafia.
The documents pinpoint two transactions that have not been reported: one in 2009 involving the use of a false name, and another in 2010 in which the Vatican Bank withdrew euro650,000 ($860 million) from an Italian bank account but ignored bank requests to disclose where the money was headed.
Emile Zola and Bernie Sanders
What Bernie did on the floor of the Senate earns him the "BuzzFlash Wings of Justice" Award for the year. There have been many courageous actions in 2010 by many people, but what Bernie accomplished was to let the genie of truth out of the bottle, and as much as the White House and the Republicans will try to ignore it, the truth has a way of going viral.
After many years of news releases and short floor speeches deploring the economic heist that is taking taking place - with DC's blessing - in America, Bernie Sanders had had enough.
He was like a rainbow of devastating insight and reality shining across the Senate chamber.
The infamous White House/GOP tax cut deal will likely pass both the Senate and House next week and then become law. But Bernie Sanders has opened a Pandora's box of illumination that will vex the feckless, ever-retreating White House and the grossly hypocritical Republicans for some time to come.
Bernie, we got your back, because you have ours.
Class War Finding Its Voice
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "Friday morning at approximately 10:30 am, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) began what he referred to on his Twitter account as a 'filibuster' or 'very long speech' making his case against President Obama's tax deal, which would prolong the Bush tax cuts for all Americans for two years, extend unemployment benefits for 13 months, and instate a temporary 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax.... 'What this agreement says is, we're going to provide huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. That is insane,' argued Sanders."
Mark Karlin
_____________________________________
Some Appointees to Oil and Gas Commission Are Industry Execs, Lobbyists
Marie C. Baca, ProPublica: "The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission ... is increasingly positioning itself as an authority on drilling-related issues like hydraulic fracturing.... The commission members are appointed by the member governors. Most are state regulators who oversee gas and oil drilling, but at least seven states have representatives who are either lobbyists or energy executives."
The latest attack on the First Amendment
In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which the evidence is heard secretly.
Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law Project's speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the law since it "frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," and also helps lend "legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to "intimidate, harass or destruct" its adversaries, and that even peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.

Israeli road map, States' Rights, Compromising Clean Air, Venerating a tree

Israeli tail keeps wagging dog
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration sought a new strategy for salvaging the U.S.-led Middle East peace talks Friday, less than a week after dropping an effort to persuade Israel to impose a temporary freeze on some settlement activity.
___________________________________
Unintended consequences of new States’ Rights movement
High-speed rail never used to be a partisan issue, but its inclusion in Obama's controversial stimulus package has made it a kind of proxy issue; Democrats call it a "wise investment," while Republicans call it "big spending," and talk about rescinding unspent money. Wisconsin's outgoing Democratic governor, Jim Doyle, was always enthusiastic about the program as a source of employment as well as mobility; the Spanish firm Taigo manufactures trains in Wisconsin. But Walker insisted that his administration would not spend a dime to maintain the train, even though the federal government was shouldering the costs of building it.
"I am sure that you share my disappointment that Wisconsin will not benefit from federal high-speed rail dollars at this time," Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo wrote in his termination letter to Doyle. "But I hope that as a staunch supporter of high-speed rail you will appreciate that the funds will be redirected to other states eager to develop high-speed rail corridors and put people back to work in good-paying jobs."
__________________________________
A remarkable negotiator—don’t waste a good crisis
Obama is also compromising on tougher EPA regulations. New regulations on smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers that were supposd to take effect this month were postponed until at least next summer.
__________________________________________
So much for security
NEW YORK – The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government's knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.
___________________________________
Venerating a tree
LONDON – British police were searching Friday for vandals who chopped down a thorn tree venerated for centuries by Christians.
The Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree, said to have links to the earliest days of Christianity in England, has been reduced to a six-foot stump by vandals who sawed off its limbs.
______________________________
Army Zealots—the execution of a prisoner
AP service story 12/7/10-- Lawrence is charged with premeditated murder in the Oct. 17 death of the prisoner, who prosecutors say was asleep in a jail cell when he was shot. If convicted, Lawrence could face execution or life in prison.
At the Fort Carson hearing, prosecutors described Lawrence as a zealot bent on killing the enemy. They said his words and actions indicated he deliberately arranged to be the only guard on duty at the prisoner's cell.
Prosecutors said Lawrence didn't tell Army officials until after the shooting that he was hearing voices, and that after his arrest he spoke of "playing the crazy card."
_______________________________
Noam Chomsky
Israeli and U.S. high-tech civilian industries are closely integrated. It is small wonder that the most fervent support for Israeli actions comes from the business press and the Republican Party, the more extreme of the two business-oriented political parties. The pretext for the huge arms sales to Saudi Arabia is defense against the “Iranian threat.”
However, the Iranian threat is not military, as the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence have emphasized. Were Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capacity, the purpose would be deterrent – presumably to ward off a U.S.-Israeli attack.
The real threat, in Washington’s view, is that Iran is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries “stabilized” by U.S. invasion and occupation.
The official line is that the Arab states are pleading for U.S. military aid to defend themselves against Iran. True or false, the claim provides interesting insight into the reigning concept of democracy. Whatever the ruling dictatorships may prefer, Arabs in a recent Brookings poll rank the major threats to the region as Israel (88 percent), the United States (77 percent) and Iran (10 percent).
________________________________

Obama the traitor

After the brokering of a tax cut deal sealing the triumph of the new oligarchs, Obama makes Neville Chamberlain look like a saint. You may recall from ancient history how Neville Chamberlain, in an effort to broker a peace with the rising Third Reich, brokered a deal to surrender parts of Czechoslovakia to Germany that resulted in the surge toward WW II. I never understood the feeling of deep betrayal that people around the world felt about Chamberlain after that event until today. My wife is dying from brain cancer and I feel worse about this deal Obama cut today.
I had misgivings about Obama’s ambition to get elected president from the moment he threw his pastor Jeremiah Wright under the bus when the Rev Wright threatened to be an obstacle in Obama’s path to the presidency. But the candidate quietly sealed that deal behind closed doors.
I felt worse when Obama nominated Geithner and Sommers and the old Wall Street gang to fix the destruction Wall Street had wreaked upon the American economy. But the President convinced us saving the banking industry was good for America.
And I felt worse when their fix was to let the investment bankers become commercial bankers and borrow money for nothing from the Fed without any benefit to mortgage holders or the man in the street. But the President convinced us that trickle down economics really would work this time for the man in the street.
And I felt worse when the abomination of desolation, disgraced enabler of Bush 41 years in the White House was held over from the Bush 43 years to continue the failed policies of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am speaking of Sec Defense Robert Gates, the leader of the military industrial complex that has made the U.S defense industry the armorers of the anti-democratic free world. But the President’s henchmen spoke highly of a deal to protect the rest of the world from the predations of an ambitious Iran.
And I felt worse when Obama continued the Bush policies on public surveillance and the perpetual war on terror and the illegal war in Pakistan and the Special Services invasion of Yemen. But the President assured us that all those legions of terrorists would bring us down if we weren’t protected.
And I felt worse when the President pacified the Israelis on the settlement issue obstructing peace with the Palestinians. But the President claimed true grit in standing in the way of an Israeli government determined to continue its expansion into the Palestinian territories that have been sanctified by multitudes of international laws and agreements. And who could doubt the President’s sincerity?
But I never felt I could feel worse than I did today when the President finally exposed himself for what he was, the ultimate traitor to the values and ideals of a liberal government of the people, by the people, for the people without any trickle down required.
JM

The media and THE real news

Ruling the world
Iran denies that it is pursuing the bomb, and its top authorities state that Islam forbids nuclear weapons. Frequent inspections by the IAEA have not turned up diversion of any nuclear material, though the UN agency says Iran has not yet fully cooperated in clarifying past design issues.
The new task for negotiators will be creating confidence where little exists, and amid tense rhetoric. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina in November explicitly called for the military annihilation of Iran's regime, while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the West of "thinking as aggressors," adding, "No embargoes can change the Iranian people."
CSM, 12/6/10
___________________________
On the crash of the Concorde AND the death of Democracy
Before the verdict, FENVAC, a French association that represents victims of accidents that is a civil party in the case, said the court owed it to those who died to determine the truth.
During the trial, it has been "striking and shocking to see how the defendants were determined to avoid or play down any responsibility, citing probabilities, nuances of terminology, failing memory, obscure rules and other means of artifice," the group said in a statement Friday.
________________________________
From a respondent

I'm amazed at all the outrage over a website [WikeLeaks] that simply published the truth.
______________________________

Report on business profits—most on record
According to the Washington Post, recent government indicators show that: *Even as conditions are likely to remain miserable for job seekers for years to come, an extraordinary bounce-back is underway in the nation's corporate sector, with profits rebounding 28 percent over the past year to an all-time high in the third quarter.
The evidence shows that the wealthiest sectors of American society have come out of the recession in an even more advantageous position, while the pain of "structural adjustment" will continue well into the future for the less fortunate sectors of society. In effect, the dubious competence, fraud and mismanagement of Wall Street has resulted in the federal government's bankrolling of the financial sector's return to an obscene level of prosperity in the short-term, creating the impression of a society running amok on corruption. The downside of this "upturn" is long-term damage to the wider society, including a real estate crisis that has yet to manifest its full impact, projections of high levels of unemployment and depressed wages across the wider society and threats to a wide range of services that will further strip the limited social safety net that America provides its beleaguered citizens.
http://www.truth-out.org/revisiting-politics-social-change65550
___________________________
* From a respondent
Median Wage for 2009
It would have been more informative if you had told people the MEDIAN wage for 2009: about $26,200. HALF of the wage earners in the country make less than that and have to get by on that.
Oh, and the professional Democrats have more in common (and make more common cause) with the professional Republicans than they do with the people making less than the median wage.
_____________________

Businesses' spending on compensation for employees, by contrast, rose only 7.6 percent.
*Among the reasons for the strong earnings growth were that financial companies are no longer suffering from massive write-downs on bad investments, as they were in 2008, and profits from U.S. firms doing business overseas have shot up. [2]
And, according to The New York Times:
*The nation's workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released November 23, 2010. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.[3]
_________________________________

Government purpose—lead the public to serve its purposes
Despite sustained denials by US officials spanning more than a year, US military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan, helping direct US drone strikes and conducting joint operations with Pakistani forces against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in north and south Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, according to secret cables released as part of the Wikileaks document dump. According to an October 9, 2009 cable classified by Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Pakistan, the operations were "almost certainly [conducted] with the personal consent of [Pakistan's] Chief of Army Staff General Kayani." The operations were coordinated with the US Office of the Defense Representative in Pakistan. A US special operations source told The Nation that the US forces described in the cable as "SOC(FWD)-PAK" were "forward operating troops" from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the most elite force within the US military made up of Navy SEALs, Delta Force and Army Rangers.
The cables also confirm aspects of a Nation story from November 2009, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," which detailed offensive combat operations by JSOC in Pakistan. In response to the Nation story, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell called it "conspiratorial" and explicitly denied that US special operations forces were doing anything other than "training" in Pakistan.
___________________________

Christmas Wishes

Enduring Wishes from Fleeting Light

This glass in a shop window,
Refracting the light from the mountains
On a break day in Vail
When I was young and free
Of common cares for a moment,
Flashed the shifting colors
Of a rainbow in the iris of my eye
And has done that carelessly
Again and again
In fleeting moments of clarity
For almost thirty years
In less grand settings
In the hills of Holly
And flatlands by the Gulf sea.
Such is the serendipitous flash
Of a distant vision of beauty
Captured in molten sand
In the mind of an artist
And an intervening mold,
Transformed on this Sun day
Before Christmas, 2010.
Sent like wishes
From an unflagging glow
Of charcoal light shifting
In the breeze,
With wanton care less
Unfettered fleeting
Moments of Love,
That you will find
As many rainbowed moments
For as long,
JM

Mullen, arsenic, Assange, Gitmoand the rest

Who is the patriot and who is the politician?
"With all due respect, Mr. Chairman and Sen. McCain, it is true that, as chairman, I am not in charge of troops. But I have commanded three ships, a carrier battle group and two fleets. And I was most recently a service chief myself. For more than 40 years I have made decisions that affected and even risked the lives of young men and women.
"You do not have to agree with me on this issue. But don't think for one moment that I haven't carefully considered the impact of the advice I give on those who will have to live with the decisions that that advice informs. I would not recommend repeal of this law if I did not believe in my soul that it was the right thing to do for our military, for our nation and for our collective honor." Admiral Mullen
______________________________
The end of Free Speech
"The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops," Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said in a tweet reposted by WikiLeaks to its 300,000-odd followers.”
Proving the Bill of Rights is a sham and the government can pick and choose when, where, and if we exercise them. WE have come to this.
_________________________________
Not good for Muslim radicals over icons, not good for American commentators over politics
WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said late Wednesday the organization was trying to keep Assange's location a secret for security reasons. He noted commentators in the United States and Canada had called for Assange to be hunted down or killed.
_______________________________
Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboarding"
A two-month investigation lead by Truthout's Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye reveals for the first time that the Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding."
_______________________________
From an AP Press release 12/2/10
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff tried to play down Won's [South Korean spy chief Won Sei-hoon] comments, saying the intelligence was that North Korea ordered its troops to prepare to return fire should South Korea conduct artillery drills [which it did].
_______________________________
From Time Magazine, 2010 Year in Review
But in the past few years, governments have designated so much information secret that you wonder whether they intend the time of day to be classified. The number of new secrets designated as such by the U.S. government has risen 75%, from 105,163 in 1996 to 183,224 in 2009, according to the U.S. Information Security Oversight Office. At the same time, the number of documents and other communications created using those secrets has skyrocketed nearly 10 times, from 5,685,462 in 1996 to 54,651,765 in 2009. Not surprisingly, the number of people with access to that Everest of information has grown too. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found, the Pentagon alone gave clearances to some 630,000 people.
_____________________________
"When everything is classified, then nothing is classified," said Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his judgment in the Pentagon papers case in 1971, when documents detailing the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam were leaked to the Washington Post and New York Times. Then, said Potter, "the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion."
_____________________________
Arsenic and old lace—life not all it’s cracked up to be
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A strange, salty lake in California has yielded an equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers reported on Thursday.
The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said.
ED’s Note—Maybe there’s a chance we will get it right yet on another planet surviving on the poison that is killing us here.
______________________________
From a respondent
If you are a true American you understand the media is intended to be the 4th branch of the government. This man is not a danger to our nation our own government that steals our liberties is from tapping our phones to tapping our emails.
Is anyone aware of how many young muslim children we are turning into future actual terrorists who have seen nothing but Americans wreaking havoc in their country. There is no reason to be there spending 2 billion daily overseas.
Our entire war in Vietnam was predicated on the Gulf of Tonkin incident which was Robert McNamara finally admitted never occurred.
Where is the outrage toward our own government and intelligence agencies that took our President Kennedy from us because we was removing all troops from Vietnam by 1964?
America has had a silent coup since that day and it is run by a group of elites who want nothing but to use the American middle class as cattle and our troops as imperial pawns.
Most of Americans do not even know Wall Street is paying out 144 billion in bonuses and that the Federal Reserve prints money whenever it feels like it punishing Americans who are trying to save.
They do not want you being able to afford a home 50% lower from these levels so they are inflating the assets of the elite with literal free money and our food and energy is climbing higher.
This government is just looking for distractions for the peasants will use anything to keep you unaware and in zombie mode while they steal the future wealth from our children.
I work full time, I have 2 daughters, I attend school full-time but I finally took the time to realize that everything created around me is like the Matrix. They want us watching Dancing with the Stars, The Kardashians, Glee, Football and shutting up and sitting down while they thieve our wealth.

This is actually happening folks. Check out Zero Hedge

The source of conflict in world news

From an AP Press release 12/2/10
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff tried to play down Won's [South Korean spy chief Won Sei-hoon] comments, saying the intelligence was that North Korea ordered its troops to prepare to return fire should South Korea conduct artillery drills [which it did].
__________________________________
From a respondent
I meet so few people in my daily life who are willing to fight to save this country from total madness. I believe 95% of the American people are willing to be led into a gas chamber. Some may have strong feelings about the difference between right and wrong, but they choose to do nothing to save their own lives. They have great political conversations at parties and Starbucks, but they do not put their feet on the street.
___________________________
W.H. Auden wrote:
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the rich and the poor. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Gaza or a child in the blighted pockets of Washington, D.C., diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, blinded by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics. Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing.
_____________________
Hope has two beautiful daughters;
Their names are Anger and
Courage.
Anger at the way things are,
and Courage to see they do not
remain as they are.
~ St. Augustine
_____________________________
WikiLeaks and Democracy
Outraged politicians are claiming that the release of government information is the criminal equivalent of terrorism and puts innocent people's lives at risk. Many of those same politicians authorized the modern equivalent of carpet bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, the sacrifice of thousands of lives of soldiers and civilians and drone assaults on civilian areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Their anger at a document dump, no matter how extensive, is more than a little suspect.
Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the U.S.
That is good for democracy
_________________________________
The absurdity of justice
Assange told Time magazine that Clinton should resign "if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations" in violation of international agreements.
The White House said his statements "are both ridiculous and absurd" and U.S. diplomats do not engage in spying.
Assange is wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. The exact nature of the allegations aren't completely clear because formal charges have not been filed.
Prosecutor Marianne Ny said that a European arrest warrant had been issued for Assange, but said that "for secrecy reasons, she cannot give more information concerning this matter at the moment.”
___________________________
Note from a respondent
A bit of irony from the quote of the day wouldn't you say?

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." --Albert Einstein

I believe that Julian Assange is doing something.
____________________________
Note from another respondent
So he's up with Bin Ladin on the most wanted list for an alledged rape? Another lie from the American government, charge him with what you are really after, try being honest with everybody for a change!