Homeland Security's Space-Based Spying Goes Live

 

Following on from the UK data laws, the US are close to implementing a controversial satellite-surveillance program:

While America's attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) "will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws...

 

Read more at - 'Homeland Security's Space-Based Spying Goes Live'
-

International Observers “Dazzled” by Venezuelan Electoral Process

 

A group of more than 130 international election observers praised the organization, fairness, and efficiency of last Sunday's regional and local elections in Venezuela, and also gave constructive suggestions for how to reduce lines at polling booths in the future. By James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

read more

Relocating

Dear reader. I'll be shutting down for a few days. Relocating from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island.

Torturing Democracy: A Documentary

 

Torturing Democracy, an expose of how and why America came to be involved in open large-scale torture of prisoners (many of whom were simply shepherds captured by mountain tribesmen and sold into captivity), is now available for viewing online. As Scott Horton reported last month, PBS can't find a time slot for this Frontline documentary until January 21, 2009 -- the day after Bush and Cheney are scheduled to leave office.

[Uruknet 49057 26-nov-2008 02:37 ECT] Torturing Democracy: A Documentary That Could Put Dick Cheney Out Of Our Misery

Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget -- *combined*!

...and now it's over 7 trillion!!!

Barry Ritholtz sez,

In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

Cory Doctorow

Free trade with Colombia a cruel move

 

Harper says that workers' protection has been written into the trade deal. But whether these stipulations will be enforced is another story.

Free trade with Colombia a cruel move
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:57:28 GMT

Hemispheric Group Calls for Major Changes in Americas Policy - by Jim Lobe

An elite inter-American commission sponsored by a think-tank that is considered close to likely key policymakers in the administration of President-elect Barack Obama is calling for sharp break in U.S. policy toward Latin America, a substantial opening toward Cuba, greater diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, and a major reassessment of its war on drugs.


Hemispheric Group Calls for Major Changes in Americas Policy - by Jim Lobe

Living the Good Life on $5,000 a Year

 

Today's global financial cloud got you feeling gray? Vermonter Jim Merkel sees a silver lining.

Living the Good Life on $5,000 a Year
Kevin O'Connor, Rutland Herald

10 False Flags that Changed the World

An interesting read.

At it’s simplest, the term false flag means pretending to be the enemy.

The name comes from ships and armies that, in previous centuries, deceived their foes by displaying another country’s flag.

These days, false flag activities are much more sophisticated…and debauched. These aren’t your granddaddy’s covert operations.

Hard-boiled Dreams of the World » Blog Archive » 10 False Flags that Changed the World

Best move for Liberals: Govern by coalition

This topic won't go away in the Canadian political blog world since the election. Dobbins paints a useful scenario. 

Talk of a parliamentary accord between the Liberals, Bloc and NDP continues across the country, and inside and between the Bloc and NDP parties.

It would take the form of a Liberal minority government, following a non-confidence vote, with a proposal to the Governor General that the three parties would agree to govern for at least two years.

It would be based on a limited policy agenda - for example, child care, climate change, the Kelowna accord, early troop withdrawal from Afghanistan - defined by the considerable overlap in the three parties' election platforms.

The Liberals' Bay Street agenda would be put on hold as the price it paid to survive and rebuild.

If Grits go right, they get it wrong

read more

Montreal street artist Roadsworth captured in new documentary

From 2001 to 2004, Montreal harboured its own answer to world-renowned street artist Banksy — the mysterious Roadsworth.

Roadsworth transformed a crosswalk into a giant boot print, a traffic divider into a vineyard and a left turn lane into a giant zipper.

He left more than 80 paintings on the streets over three years, never signing his name.

Montreal street artist Roadsworth captured in new documentary

Who's adicted to Heroin? The C.I.A.- that's who.

Capturing a new, abundant source for heroin was an integral part of the U.S. “war on terror.” Hamid Karzai is a puppet ruler of the CIA; Afghanistan is a full-fledged narco-state; and the poppies that flourish there have yet to be eradicated, as was proven in 2003 when the Bush administration refused to destroy the crops, despite having the chance to do so. Major drug dealers are rarely arrested, smugglers enjoy carte blanche immunity, and Nushin Arbabzadah, writing for The Guardian, theorized that “U.S. Army planes leave Afghanistan carrying coffins empty of bodies, but filled with drugs.” Is that why the military protested so vehemently when reporters tried to photograph returning caskets?

 

CIA, Heroin Still Rule Day in Afghanistan
By Victor Thorn

Chavez Celebrates Sweeping Victory

 

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has survived an electoral challenge with flying colors. His party swept 17 of 22 state elections, although the opposition was victorious in several key skirmishes, including the capital state, the mayoralty of Caracas and even Venezuela’s biggest slum, traditionally a Chavez stronghold.

---

 

Read more

Europeana - Connecting Cultural Heritage

Europeana: digital paintings, books, films and archives

Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive – is a 2-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a prototype website giving users direct access to some 2 million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers. The prototype will be launched in November 2008 by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

The digital content will be selected from that which is already digitised and available in Europe’s museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. The prototype aims to have representative content from all four of these cultural heritage domains, and also to have a broad range of content from across Europe.

Europeana - Connecting Cultural Heritage

Mp3s: 75 Jimi Hendrix tracks from a 4-hour radio special

JIMI HENDRIX Hendrix For Everyone The Complete Four-Hour KPFA Radio Special. BigO:. KPFA Radio in California had in the past broadcast a four-hour radio special on Jimi Hendrix. With the passing of Mitch Mitchell ...

Mp3s: 75 Jimi Hendrix tracks from a 4-hour radio special

Verdiem Launch Free Software to Slash PC Power Use Up to 80 Percent

 

 

PC energy saving specialists Verdiem have today released free downloadable software designed to help users slash their energy use up to a massive 80 percent.

According to Allison Cornia, vice president of product management at Verdiem, “If we could get just 10 per cent of the world’s one billion PCs using [the product] properly we could save 32 billion kilograms of CO2 a year. That’s equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road.”

Read more of this story »

Making Movies the Afghan Way

 

Incredibly, as Afghanistan sinks back into the anarchy which became its natural state these past 29 years, Afghan film-makers are producing movies of international quality, turning out pictures which prove—even amid war—that a country’s tragedy can be imaginatively recreated for its people.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

Meditation May Protect Your Brain

For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering.

Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has a measurable effect on a variety of brain structures related to attention -- an example of what is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain physically changes in response to an intentional exercise.

 

Meditation May Protect Your Brain
Michael Haederle, Miller-McCune.com

Scahill on Obama’s foreign policy trajectory

 

1. Jeremy Scahill's Alternet article: This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House. 2. Scahill and Mother Jones' s David Corn on Democracy Now: Agents of Change or Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons? A Discussion about Barack Obama’s Advisers and Transition Team

"I think . . . this is the precise moment when this kind of journalism matters, when we have to remind people of the history and the previous policies implemented by the people that are at the center of Obama’s foreign policy team right now, because we’re going to be living with these people for the next four years running the show. And I think it’s incredibly important to be all over this right now, before they’re named."

LIFE and Google -10 million historic images

Posted by Cory Doctorow, November 18, 2008 11:24 PM | permalink

LIFE and Google have teamed up to put 10,000,000 historic images online -- about 20 percent of the images are live now. The Disneyland images are great -- here's the old Submarine Ride. LIFE photo archive hosted by Google (Thanks, Neil and Slas








LIFE and Google bring us 10 million historic images - Boing Boing

Barack Obama and Canada

New from Robin Mathews. In my mind, always worth reading.

The victory of Barack Obama - in the U.S.A. – is a gigantic victory. The centuries-long obsessive racism of the population has been modified dramatically. The size of the victory is not, however, in the popular vote – which was very close – but in the racial break-through. It cannot be discounted by the most cynical of observers. A majority of U.S. voters is willing to see a “black man” occupy the White House – a revolution in the state of the U.S. mind or a large part of that mind.

Barack Obama and Canada - Vive

The Steep Price of Power

LA GUAJIRA, COLOMBIA–In the Guajira, a remote northern region of Colombia, the human and environmental costs of coal extraction go beyond the climate crisis, and it is Atlantic Canadians who are fueling part of the demand for Colombia's mineral fuel.

The Cerrejon mine, the world's largest open-pit coal mine, produces half of Colombia's annual 52 million tons.

The Steep Price of Power
Moira Peters

Fascism Hunts Roma

The newly virulent anti-gypsyism is an eerie reminder of the Porrajmos, the Romany Holocaust during the Second World War that killed more than half of Europe's Roma population.


ZNet - Fascism Hunts Roma

Naomi Kline: In Praise of a Rocky Transition

 

Naomi Klein Every sweetheart deal the Bush administration makes threatens to hobble Obama's ability to deliver on his promise of change.

 

 Today in The Nation: In Praise of a Rocky Transition

'Use Your Illusions' by Slavoj Zizek

 

Noam Chomsky called for people to vote for Obama 'without illusions'. I fully share Chomsky's doubts about the real consequences of Obama's victory.

In The News: 'Use Your Illusions' by Slavoj Zizek
Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:20:00 GMT

Delta Blues, a book review

By Ed Ward

Do we really need another book about Mississippi Delta blues? Hasn’t this topic been covered adequately by now?

Truthdig - Arts and Culture - Ed Ward on Ted Gioia’s ‘Delta Blues’

Is Obama Screwing His Base with Rahm Emanuel Selection?

More on Obama's new chief of staff.

I had really wanted to celebrate Barack Obama's remarkable victory for a day or so before becoming cynical again. I really did.

And yet, less than 24 hours after the first polls closed, the president-elect chose as his chief of staff -- perhaps the most powerful single position in any administration -- Rahm Emanuel, one of the most conservative Democratic members of Congress.

 

Is Obama Screwing His Base with Rahm Emanuel Selection?
Stephen Zunes, AlterNet

Canada: A Welfare State That Lost Its Way

Book review. 

The good news is that Canada's unique capacity for success can be found like a buried treasure in this country's history. The bad news is that not only has it been buried, but it has been intentionally covered up.

Canada: A Welfare State That Lost Its Way

Wall Street Lays Another Egg

 

Not so long ago, the dollar stood for a sum of gold, and bankers knew the people they lent to. The author charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world--call it Planet Finance--where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value had no meaning.

Wall Street Lays Another Egg
Niall Ferguson
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Roundtable Discussion

Worth a listen! 

 

Congratulations pour in from around the world for President-elect Barack Obama after his historic victory Tuesday night. But what are Obama’s foreign policy positions, and what are the concerns for those living in countries at the target end of US foreign policy? We host a roundtable discussion with filmmaker and investigative journalist John Pilger in Britain, Columbia University professor and Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani, Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy in Mexico City, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar, Pakistani author Tariq Ali, and Palestinian American Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada. [includes rush transcript]

President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Roundtable Discussion
mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!)
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:09:55 GMT

Obama Picks Pro-Israel Hardliner For Top Post

 

By Ali Abunimah
During the United States election campaign, racists and pro-Israel hardliners tried to make an issue out of President-elect Barack Obamas middle name, Hussein. Such people might take comfort in another middle name, that of Obamas pick for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Israel Emanuel

Obama Picks Pro-Israel Hardliner For Top Post
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:47:51 GMT

A young Dalai Lama.

 Tibet: trilogy of silent films from the 1940s, with a young Dalai Lama.
Xeni Jardin

Rating the agencies - Yahoo! Finance

...and then there's the credit rating agencies, classifying all those (now known as) toxic assets as AAA.

“Let me read this email to you. It’s a series of instant messages between Standard & Poor’s officials that were sent on April 7 2007.”

The speaker is John Yarmuth, a Democratic Congressman from Kansas. It’s Oct. 22, 2008, Yarmuth, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington, D.C., is in the process of grilling two former executives at credit rating agencies, and one current one. (Ratings agencies represent just one of many players being assigned blame in the ongoing financial crisis.)

Yarmuth’s question is directed at Mr. Frank Raiter, the former head of the division in charge of rating mortgage backed securities at Standard & Poors.

“These employees are from the structured finance division,” Yarmuth goes on. “One writes: ‘By the way, that deal is ridiculous.’”

“The other writes back: “The model does not reflect even half of the risk.’”

“The first employee writes back: “Yeah, but we rate every deal. It could be structured by cows, and we would be rating it.’

“What exactly does this mean, Mr. Raiter, that the model ‘does not even capture half the risk?’”

Raiter takes a breath. “Collateralized Debt Obligations were driven by the diversity index,” he explains. “They are supposed to tell you if bonds are highly correlated or not. But I can remember days when I was requested to put ratings onto transactions I had not even seen.”

Rating the agencies - Yahoo! Finance

Can Obama Stop the Bush Administration's Final Economic Heist?

Terrible looting of public capital has a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition, and Bush has one underway.
Plus major article in Rolling Stone.

Can Obama Stop the Bush Administration's Final Economic Heist?
Naomi Klein

U.S. Election: Pot a Winner

 

Voters dealt what may be a fatal blow to America's longest-running and least-discussed war -- the war on marijuana.

Pot Wins in a Landslide: A Thundering Rejection of America's Longest War
Rob Kampia, AlterNet
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:00:01 GMT

Economics can open to new realities

An analysis of the U.S. financial/political quagmire and some thoughts on a new paradigm of social organization.

The United States government has for two decades attempted to maintain a financial bubble rather than address the fundamental problems underlying the political economy. Our understanding of reality, rather than belief in the facade of false growth, offers a better platform on which to build a more reliable economic future. - Joe Costello

Economics can open to new realities
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Barack Obama: How He Did It

Major look behind scenes from todays Newsweek election issue.

A team of NEWSWEEK reporters reveals the secret battles and private fears behind an epic election."

Barack Obama: How He Did It | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com:

Israeli industrial zones using West Bank as chemical dump

Don't read this if you're feeling a little low today.

The Israeli administration has buried more than 50 percent, or three million tons, of its nuclear and chemical waste in the occupied West Bank. Most of the waste comes from the Israeli industrial zones and is buried secretly causing slow death and disease as it seeps from the soil, PNN partner station Radio Dream reports.

[Uruknet 48504 04-nov-2008 08:13 ECT] Israeli industrial zones using West Bank as chemical dump

Only Nader Is Right on the Issues

By Chris Hedges —

Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. But there is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues.

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Only Nader Is Right on the Issues
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:25:00 GMT

Michael Moore And The Great Barack Hope

Reality check? What changes, what doesn't. Passing of the guards or the same old story.

By John Murphy
When Amy Goodman asked how Michael Moore could say that he was opposed to war and yet support a candidate who has announced his intentions to commit the same crimes against humanity as are being committed by the Bush cabal and which were committed by the Clinton regime, the rotund Republican-lite moviemaker said, well, I dont know if Im giving him the benefit of the doubt. Im hoping that he breaks his campaign promise, like all politicians do. Im counting on him to be a good politician and do that. Michael Moore is hoping that O-BOMB-A is just a liar instead of a mass murderer

Michael Moore And The Great Barack Hope
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:15:14 GMT

Cuts Targeted to Keep the Neo-Cons on Top

A little backgrounder on 'the Calgary School, Straussism and the Harperites world view.

by Frances Russell - October 10, 2006

Despite their professed Christian beliefs, many theological and social conservatives have a strong 'survival of the fittest' streak. They want a hierarchical society with heterosexual white males at the top.

read more

Palin Punked by Faux Sarkozy Prank Call

 

In what will go down as one of the epic prank calls of all time, Canadian radio show jester Marc Antoine Audette got Sarah Palin on the phone Saturday by telling her French President Nicolas Sarkozy was calling. Oops.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

The Lost Synthesizer Classics of Ursula Bogner

 

It seems almost incredible that Ursula Bogner's musical talents should have remained undiscovered until now.

Europe Seeks Moratorium to Protect Public Water from Privatization Push

The first-ever pan-European civil society coalition against water privatisation was launched last week during the European Social Forum in the Swedish city Malmö. Including citizens groups from Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Turkey and a dozen other countries across Europe, the European Network for Public Water will insist on major changes in EU policies towards water management, away from the current pro-privatisation approach.

Europe Seeks Moratorium to Protect Public Water from Privatization Push
Olivier Hoedeman, Corporate Europe Observatory

Australia: Debt Driven Globalism

Interesting. So Australia had it's own public-owned bank like the one formed in Canada in the 30's. And had it's demise in the early seventies, the same time that the private banks in Canada began printing all the money, when most of the public debt became interest on money borrowed from the private banks.

The Fisher Labor Government in 1910, at the instigation of Tasmanian Member King O’Malley, founded the Commonwealth as a “peoples’ bank”. Almost immediately it showed its value and potential. Among other items, it funded expenditure on World War 1 to the tune of $700 million at an interest rate of five-eights of one percent! Sir Dennison Miller, the single Director of the Bank, claimed shortly after the war that his bank had the capacity, not only to finance the war all over again had it been needed, but that it could save Australia untold millions in peacetime projects as well.

As King O’Malley had foretold, the need for foreign borrowing and compounding debt had been averted for future generations.

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Australia: Debt Driven Globalism
Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:39:00 GMT

Messenger's Colorized Mercury

On the Lighter Side/ On the dark Side

 

A map illustrating regional personality differences across America is surprisingly similar to the red state/blue state map of the nation.

Can You Guess a Person's Politics by Their Personality? Psychologist Team Says Yes
Maria Luisa Tucker, AlterNet

The IMF is back in business

 

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is scurrying across both developed and developing countries signing new multi-billion dollar loan deals.

The IMF is back in business

IMF may need to "print money" as crisis spreads

The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it will have to tap taxpayers in Western countries for a capital infusion or resort to the nuclear option of printing its own money.

IMF may need to "print money" as crisis spreads - Telegraph

The Automatic Earth

The IMF is running out of money to put thumbscrews on the world's poor. But that won't deter the fund, it can simply start issuing AAA rated bonds, which are rated by the .... IMF, and in real life are simply more casino bathroom paper. And if you don't like that one, they’ll move to the most perverted financial instrument in centuries, the Special Drawing Rights, also called paper gold, introduced in 1969, in anticipation of Nixon’s 1971 decision to not honor US gold liabilities.

Who do you think determines the value of an SDR? Yup, you’re right, it’s the IMF. They can buy the world. That may seem far-fetched, but don't forget that for a few billion dollars in loans that have to be paid back at high interest, they’ve bought themselves financial control of the likes of Hungary, Iceland, the Ukraine and soon Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Latvia and Turkey. And their eye is on Russia.

The Automatic Earth

Out of order: Where have all the water fountains gone?

 

Richard Girard, Polaris Institute, October 28, 2008 – People are turning away from bottled water as fast as they turned onto it.

read more

The Bailout Lie Exposed: Financial "Big Boys" Never Intended To Lend Out Their Windfall

In an unexpected adventure in extra-curricular empiricism, Nocera reported in Saturday’s NYT that he was able to gain access to a recording of an employee-only October 17 conference call by a top (unnamed) executive of JPMorgan Chase, the beneficiary of $25 billion of federal largesse.
At one point in the conference one participant asked whether the $25 billion will “change our strategic lending policy.” The executive then proceeded to spill the beans: “What we do think, it will help us to be a little bit more active on the acquisition side  or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struugling.” Translation: “Say what? Lend to folks up to their ears in debt already?! Do we look like morons?? You know as well as I that breakneck financial consolidation has been the name of the game since the early nineties. So have leveraged buyouts. Only the latter are normally accomplished with private money. Now we get to leverage bank acquisitions  with public money! Is this a deal or is this a deal?”

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

The Bailout Lie Exposed: Financial "Big Boys" Never Intended To Lend Out Their Windfall

Press Freedom Index 2008 -

 

Democracies embroiled in wars outside their own territory, such as the United States or Israel, fall further in the ranking every year while several emerging countries, especially in Africa and the Caribbean, give better and better guarantees for media freedom.

Press Freedom Index 2008 - Only peace protects freedoms in post-9/11 world - 22.10.2008

Les Miserables

Lewis Wickens Hine- 1911
All three are 11 years old and worked weeknights till midnight. Lowell, Mass.

Only Non-Irving Owned Newspaper in New Brunswick Goes Under

This is truly unbelievable. The most obnoxious news to date about the lack of regulation in Canada on concentration of media. So much for freedom of the press. What a joke!

“We have tried everything,” said publisher Ken Langdon. “Our staff has been heroic, right down to the last person. We’ve got a good paper. We’ve earned a place in the fabric of Carleton County, but in the end we simply cannot compete with Irvings’ financial power.

“Brunswick News can afford to drop a few million dollars here to get the Bugle-Observer’s monopoly back and the Irving chain’s manager is willing to do what it takes here to discourage any others who might take heart from our success to compete in other New Brunswick markets,”

read more

Rant of the Day

Sarah PalinIn an election that has been fought on an astoundingly low cultural and intellectual level, with both candidates pretending that tax cuts can go like peaches and cream with the staggering new levels of federal deficit, and paltry charges being traded in petty ways, and with Joe the Plumber becoming the emblematic stupidity of the campaign, it didn't seem possible that things could go any lower or get any dumber. But they did last Friday, when, at a speech in Pittsburgh, Gov. Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place "in Paris, France" and winding up with a folksy "I kid you not."

The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for science and learning. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Ethiopia Receiving Africa’s Largest Wind Farm

 

The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation has announced today that it plans to build Africa’s largest wind farm. The farm, which is being built in Ashegoba, will have a relatively impressive output of 120MW— enough power to supply 15 percent of Ethiopia’s energy needs.

Read more of this story »

Bolivia in recovery - 3 part interview with Federico Fuentes

 

Part 1 - Federico Fuentes returns to Caracas after two weeks in Bolivia assessing the situation there after the attempted right wing coup last month. Morales seems to have outmanouevred the ultra-right's attempts to unseat him and appears to have made his own position stronger, while his enemies are in disarray. He is so confident of his support in the popular social movements now that he is holding another referendum next month. Download here
Part 2 - In this section he talks about the new strengths of the Morales government, from the popular social organisations, and support from other Latin American nations. The US and the right are caught on the back foot. US influence in the region has been significantly weakened, with many regions refusing to accept US aid money. Download here
Part 3 - Federico Fuentes talks about renewed power to the people and the popular organisations, after the Morales government survived the crisis of last September. Bolivian society showing new openings and seeking new ways forward. Download here

Bolivia in recovery - 3 part interview with Federico Fuentes

The Hedge Fund Melt

...and then, about those hedge funds

The hedge fund industry's ever-widening crash is likely going to leave average Americans the hardest hit. Here's why.

The Hedge Fund Melt: Another Reason Wealth Needs Spreading
Sam Pizzigati

Author Andrew Nikiforuk fears tar sands undermine democracy

 

Georgia Straight October 23, 2008

Author Andrew Nikiforuk fears tar sands undermine democracy

By Charlie Smith

A Calgary author and journalist says most Canadians don’t understand that
we’re living in a “petrostate” that could undermine our democracy. Andrew
Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
(Greystone Books, $20), told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that
Canada needs a national debate on the topic. “I think the tar sands has
created a political emergency for the country,” he said.

read more

MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power : CleanTechnica

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a new way of storing energy from sunlight that could lead to ‘unlimited’ solar power.

The process, loosely based on plant photosynthesis, uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. When needed, the gases can then be re-combined in a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity whether the sun is shining or not.

MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power : CleanTechnica

Wrecked Iraq

 

Post-"surge" Iraq is being touted in the United States as a "modest" success and returning to "normalcy". Yet Iraq has suffered quite another fate: what was once the most advanced Middle Eastern society - economically, socially and technologically - has become an economic basket case, rivaling the most desperate countries in the world. - Michael Schwartz (Oct 24,'08)

Wrecked Iraq
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Good Thing We're Going to Have to Live with Less Stuff -- We'll Stay Alive on Earth for Longer That Way

 

According to a recent analysis by Minqi Li, economics professor at the University of Utah, the world economy must contract at a historically rapid clip -- at an annual rate of about –1 to –3.4 percent between now and 2050 -- if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be held below 445 parts per million (ppm). That is the level at which we could run into a nightmare scenario in which warming could start feeding on itself in positive-feedback loops and lead to who knows what. Much deeper cuts are needed to get down to 350 ppm, at which the planet will remain in a familiar and comfortable condition.

Good Thing We're Going to Have to Live with Less Stuff -- We'll Stay Alive on Earth for Longer That Way

World Food Day: Global Crises’ Double Standards

It's very telling that trillions have already been spent to patch up leading world financial institutions, while out of the comparatively small sum of $12.3 billion pledged in Rome earlier this year, to offset the food crisis, only $1 billion has been delivered. The hope that at least extreme poverty can be eradicated by the end of 2015, as stipulated in the UN's Millennium Development Goals, seems as unrealistic as ever, not due to lack of resources but a lack of true concern for the world's poor.

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

World Food Day: Global Crises’ Double Standards

ASIA HAND : Companions in crisis

 

Notions that Southeast Asian economies had established in the past decade economic paths separate from those of the US and Europe look foolish as the region's markets and currencies tumble in value. Yet lessons learned from the Asia financial crisis may still stand Thailand and others in good stead. - Shawn W Crispin

ASIA HAND : Companions in crisis
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:00 GMT

DIPLOMACY : EU formally renews ties with Cuba

 

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque (right) and EU Commissioner Louis Michel (left) have signed a cooperation accord formally restoring ties and putting an end to five years of chilly relations between the EU and Cuba.

DIPLOMACY : EU formally renews ties with Cuba

Left Coalition Badly Needed (in Views)

Murray Dobbin reflects upon the Canadian election results.  

Harper's agenda must be stopped by Liberals, NDP and Bloc.

Left Coalition Badly Needed (in Views)
Murray Dobbin
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:10:00 GMT

Iraq Facilities

Everything you ever wanted to know about U.S. bases in Iraq.

Iraq Facilities

The Idiots Who Rule America

Chris Hedges really stretches out on this one.

Posted on Oct 20, 2008

AP photo / Henny Ray Abrams

By Chris Hedges

Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.”


Truthdig - Reports - The Idiots Who Rule America

Another Million Iraqi demonstrators: Get out of our country

Baghdad witnessed another demonstration with more than one million Iraqi, Arabs and Kurds and others, Muslims and Christians and others, Sunnis and Shiites and others demonstrated together against the occupation and the long term agreement, asking for a complete withdrawal the leaves no permanent bases, no troops, and no mercenaries.
they can't they'll use force.




Another Million Iraqi demonstrators: Get out of our country
Raed Jarrar (noreply@blogger.com)

History: How the US Government Was Overthrown In Three Easy Steps

by TocqueDeville, Daily KOS
October 22, 2008, originally published July 27, 2008

So what if I told you that the powers of financial capitalism (bankers etc.), had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. [Ed. Note: He is not talking about freemarket Capitalism here - free trade between consenting individuals in a system where individual rights are respected - this is an older system, the “Ancien Regime”, in which the state and the economic sector are one and the same. Mussolini called it Corporativism or Fascism. With that caveat, I cede the floor.]

(more…)

How the Rich are Destroying the Earth by Herve´ Kempf - Chelsea Green

How the Rich are Destroying the Earth by Herve´ Kempf - Chelsea Green: "A best seller in France, and already translated into Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Korean, Hervé Kempf’s How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth now appears in its first English edition. Bringing to bear more than twenty years of experience as an environmental journalist, Kempf describes the invincibility that many of the world’s wealthy feel in the face of global warming, and how their unchecked privilege is thwarting action on the single most vexing problem facing our world."

Bolivia's miracle of sight - Guardian Weekly

Operation Miracle is a Cuban health programme that provides free eyecare to low-income patients around the world. The brainchild of Fidel Castro, it began in 2004 as a cooperative initiative with Venezuela and has since expanded to 33 countries. In Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, thousands of patients every year have their sight returned to them by Cuban doctors. Yanet Valdez Morales is one of them, a Cuban ophthalmologist whose life's mission is to bring light to the poor

Bolivia's miracle of sight - Guardian Weekly

THE COLLAPSE OF A 300 YEAR PONZI SCHEME

All the king’s men cannot put the private banking system together again, for the simple reason that it is a Ponzi scheme that has reached its mathematical limits. A Ponzi scheme is a form of pyramid scheme in which new investors must continually be sucked in at the bottom to support the investors at the top. In this case, new borrowers must continually be sucked in to support the creditors at the top. The Wall Street Ponzi scheme is built on “fractional reserve” lending, which allows banks to create “credit” (or “debt”) with accounting entries. Banks are now allowed to lend from 10 to 30 times their “reserves,” essentially counterfeiting the money they lend. Over 97 percent of the U.S. money supply (M3) has been created by banks in this way.⁵ The problem is that banks create only the principal and not the interest necessary to pay back their loans. Since bank lending is essentially the only source of new money in the system, someone somewhere must continually be taking out new loans just to create enough “money” (or “credit”) to service the old loans composing the money supply. This spiraling interest problem and the need to find new debtors has gone on for over 300 years -- ever since the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 – until the whole world has now become mired in debt to the bankers’ private money monopoly. As British financial analyst Chris Cook observes:

“Exponential economic growth required by the mathematics of compound interest on a money supply based on money as debt must always run up eventually against the finite nature of Earth’s resources.”⁶

The parasite has finally run out of its food source.

Web of Debt - THE COLLAPSE OF A 300 YEAR PONZI SCHEME: THE REAL DEBATE IS CRONY SOCIALISM OR FINANCIAL SOVEREIGNTY: "The Collapse of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme

Time

 

Flow of Time is a BBC documentary that "tries to explain time and covers the different ways we have used to understand Time, religion, mathematics, relativity, and quantum mechanics." Part 1, 2, 3, 4

Time
nola
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:33:18 GMT

Islamic banking escapes fallout

 

ISLAMIC banking has largely escaped the fallout from the global financial crisis, thanks to rules that forbid the sort of risky business that is felling mainstream institutions. But experts say that because of its heavy reliance on property investments and private equity, the booming 1.0 trillion dollar global industry could be hit if the turmoil worsens and real assets start to crumble. 'In the current financial turmoil, it is interesting to note that Islamic financing may have prevented a majority of the mess created by the conventional banking and financial institutions,' Kuwait Finance House said in a report...

[Uruknet 48133 22-oct-2008 06:38 ECT] Islamic banking escapes fallout

Canada- post election numbers mulling

When—let’s assume it’s inevitable—you pick up the election edition of Maclean’s, you’ll find, among other tales of adventure and woe, a fine accounting of the Conservative party’s electoral prowess. Political “genius” is fleeting and often nothing more than a figment of the imagination, but there is probably something—either horrifying or commendable—to be said for what the Harper Conservatives have done here. Which is to say, there is something to be said for reducing all of this nonsense to a series of geographic and demographic equations. Politics as a mathematical exercise. Nothing worth doing if it doesn’t equal votes.

In that regard, a few numbers to consider.

Stephen Harper can now claim two of the five smallest mandates, by popular vote, since 1900. To wit.

BTC: He talks in maths
Aaron Wherry
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:35:11 GMT

American Dream a Biological Impossibility, Neuroscientist Says

What if people are biologically unsuited for the American dream?

The man posing that troubling question isn't just another lefty activist. It's Peter Whybrow, head of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at UCLA.

"We've been taught, especially in America, that happiness will be at the end of some sort of material road, where we have lots and lots of things that we want," said Whybrow, a 2008 PopTech Fellow and author of American Mania: When More Is Not Enough. "We've set up all sorts of tricks to delude ourselves into thinking that it's fine to get what you want immediately."

He paints a disturbing picture of 21st century American life, where behavioral tendencies produced by millions of years of scarcity-driven evolution don't fit the social and economic world we've constructed.

American Dream a Biological Impossibility, Neuroscientist Says | Wired Science from Wired.com

FBI struggles to handle wave of financial fraud cases

WASHINGTON: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is struggling to find enough agents and resources to investigate criminal wrongdoing tied to the country's economic crisis, according to current and former bureau officials.

The bureau slashed its criminal investigative work force to expand its national security role after the Sept. 11 attacks, shifting more than 1,800 agents, or nearly one-third of all agents in criminal programs, to terrorism and intelligence duties. Current and former officials say the cutbacks have left the bureau seriously exposed in investigating areas like white-collar crime, which has taken on urgent importance in recent weeks because of the U.S. economic woes.

FBI struggles to handle wave of financial fraud cases - International Herald Tribune

Iceland's Economic Meltdown

 

Iceland followed the prescriptions of a right-wing ideologue, and its economy paid a severe price.

Iceland's Economic Meltdown Is a Big Flashing Warning Sign
Toby Sanger, AlterNet

From the fourth century BC, words our leaders should heed - Robert Fisk

Let us now praise famous men. And after yet another US presidential candidates' debate of awesome sterility – not to mention their shameless refusal to tackle the real, bloody issues that confront America – I'm referring principally to one of the first journalists to understand war and, so far as he could, to check his sources: Thucydides.

Robert Fisk's World: From the fourth century BC, words our leaders should heed - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent

Global crisis may accelerate Latin America’s turn to the left

 

The crisis that is threatening to contaminate the global financial system has caused an odd role reversal. Amid the turmoil, many Latin American countries find themselves in healthy economic shape compared to the United States and Europe. As a result, the position of progressive governments, a majority in the region, grows stronger.

read more

US Treasury meeting: How the financial aristocracy laid down the law

Get out the barf bag and read this.

By Alex Lantier

(WSWS) -- Accounts of the October 13 meeting between US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and top bank CEOs on the government’s bailout of Wall Street—now estimated at $2.5 trillion—paint an extraordinary portrait of class relations in America. Though they were to receive hundreds of billions of dollars from the Treasury to stave off a credit collapse of their own making, the bankers arrogantly refused to accept the slightest limits on their prerogatives.

US Treasury meeting: How the financial aristocracy laid down the law

What it's like in Iceland right now: "Surreal Reykjavik"

 

 

It feels surreal to drive the streets of downtown Reykjavik. The banks are lit up and people are working there. The logos are still outside the houses. The ads are still running saying how wonderful and trustworthy the banks are. Range Rovers and BMWs are still filling the streets and the parking lots. Bankers in their suit walk the streets with heavy eye brows. There’s a strange silence.

 

Surreal Rekyavik (Thanks, @pistachio)

Harper government pushed financial deregulation

 

The Harper government is responsible for pushing the envelope on deregulation both domestically and internationally despite cautionary events in the U.S. clearly indicating what could go wrong.

Harper government pushed financial deregulation

World Bank should not be solving food crisis

 

The World Bank is making a grab to become the key agency on this issue, entrusted with more power — and more taxpayer funds. But the World Bank’s record should disqualify it from playing a leading role.

read more

Countries at risk of bankruptcy from Pakistan to Baltics

A string of countries face the risk of "going bust" as financial panic sweeps Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, raising the spectre of a strategic crisis in some of the world's most dangerous spots.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 7:55PM BST 10 Oct 2008

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is bleeding foreign reserves at an alarming rate leading to fears that it could default on its loans.

There are mounting fears that Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Argentina could all now slide into a downward spiral towards bankruptcy, while western banks exposed to property bubble across Eastern Europe have seen their share price crushed.

Financial crisis: Countries at risk of bankruptcy from Pakistan to Baltics - Telegraph

Brown lawn means jail time

There's justice in the land...

BAYONET POINT — On Friday morning, Joseph Prudente put on a pair of shorts and his "Grandpa Gone Wild" T-shirt. He took off his wedding band and put his heart medication in a plastic Wal-Mart bag.

Then his daughter drove him to jail. Grandpa had time to do.

His crime? He had disobeyed a court order that he sod the lawn at his Beacon Woods home.

His bail? Zero.

Brown lawn means jail time - St. Petersburg Times

SPP ? The Merger of North America

 

With the final ratification of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) occurring at some point in 2010 at a yet to be named elitist stronghold somewhere in Canada, the three countries of North America will, for all intensive purposes, be merged into a union with a corporate oligarchy at the helm of power.

 

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/7967

How Harper Government Pushed Financial Deregulation Here & Abroad

 

By Ellen Gould - The Tyee

The...Harper government is responsible for pushing the envelope on deregulation both domestically and internationally despite cautionary events in the U.S. clearly indicating what could go wrong...On the international stage, Canada is a major proponent of financial liberalization...At the WTO, Canada heads a group of delegations pressing developing countries to open their economies to the supposedly superior services of foreign financial institutions.

read more

US standing in Caspian drips away

 

The standing of the United States in Central Asia is plunging as new geopolitical realities play out following the Georgia-Russia conflict. US efforts to court countries in the key oil pipeline region have been bluntly snubbed as resurgent Russia is seen instead as key energy ally. Moscow's financial bailout of distant Iceland also sends a message to the steppes. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 10, '08)

US standing in Caspian drips away

Afghan talks widen US-UK rift

 

Political talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are likely to deepen the rift between the United States, with its preference for building up troop numbers in Afghanistan, and Britain, which sees talk offering a quicker exit opportunity than reliance on guns and bombs. - Gareth Porter (Oct 10, '08)

Afghan talks widen US-UK rift

America the Banana Republic

The ongoing financial meltdown is just the latest example of a disturbing trend that, to this adoptive American, threatens to put the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave on a par with Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Equatorial Guinea.

America the Banana Republic
Christopher Hitchens

Canada is not the United States

 

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Canadian home owners are currently in arrears, said Will Dunning, chief economist at the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP), in a report released Monday.

This means about 0.3 per cent of Canada's 8.05 million home owners are behind on their mortgages by three months or more, he said.

By contrast, arrears in Canada hit about 0.7 per cent in 1992, as the effects of the housing bubble in the late 1980s and early 1990s worked their way through the mortgage market, Mr. Dunning said.

 

"Canada is not the United States"
Stephen Gordon

The downfall of Mbeki -- The hidden truth

 

By John Pilger

October 7, 2008 -- The political rupture in South Africa is being presented in the outside world as the personal tragedy and humiliation of one man, Thabo Mbeki. It is reminiscent of the beatification of Nelson Mandela at the death of apartheid.

 

read more

Washington and Latin America: farewell, Monroe doctrine.

 

There is a major paradox in current United States-Latin American relations. In the very decade which many saw as the apex of Washington's latest and unrivalled "imperial moment", the Monroe doctrine - the notion, outlined by the US president in 1823, that the US regards any attempt by other powers to exercise influence in the region to its south as "dangerous to our peace and safety" - has collapsed.

 

Washington and Latin America: farewell, Monroe doctrine, Juan Gabriel Tokatlian
david hayes

Evolution of the Apocalypse: Empire’s Demise, ­Human Renaissance

An article by Carol Brouillet in globalresearch.ca. An inspirational read.

“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”
I just received a comment on this post by the author. She mentioned a typo in her name in the article and that she is running for congress for the Green Party in California. Good luck Carol!

Evolution of the Apocalypse: Empire’s Demise, ­Human Renaissance

Harper, the Cons & Big Pharma

A study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

October 2008: Prescription for Trouble
info@policyalternatives.ca (Julie White and Michael McBane )
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Iceland Crashing

Iceland is on the precipice. Last month, having the highest standard of living on the planet. Today, not enough money to bail itself out. The first victim? Now the U.S. is bringing in the army (see previous post) and Germany is trying to pass a law so they might do the same. As John Lennon would say '...strange days indeed'.



The party's over for Iceland, the island that tried to buy the world | World news | The Observer

Invasion of the Sea-Smurfs

and on this note I'm off to bed (perchance to dream) 

By Amy Goodman - October 05, 2008

A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. "Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months...the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks...[T]hey may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control"...The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced "sea-smurf."

read more

The Fraud of a 'Free Press' in Canada

Robin Mathews takes aim at the 'Canadian free press' in Vivelecanada.ca. He's not happy and why should he be. It reminds me of a previous post I included here last week by John Le Carre, on the surveillance issue in Britain. He was asked why he was so angry and he said "because no one else was". That's rang a bell for me.

An apparently 'free press' in Canada is almost wholly in the Harperite camp. The October 4 Globe and Mail is an insult to Canadians.

The Fraud of a 'Free Press' in Canada: Flat-Out Campaigning for Stephen Harper

Time to quit Afghanistan

Photo- The Battle of Maiwand

Canada's Eric Margolis weighs in on 'talking to the Taliban'. Interestingly, he mentions that Canada's already spent $22 billion there. Haven't heard that figure before. I guess there is more than ideological reasons to cut arts funding. I can't wait to see all the cutting and slashing when he gets back in. Please excuse the violent language.

...Last week, the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, revealed he had asked Saudi Arabia to broker peace talks with the alliance of tribal and political groups resisting western occupation collectively known as the Taliban.

[Uruknet 47755 05-oct-2008 18:56 ECT] Time to quit Afghanistan

‘SNL’/ VP Debate

Saturday Night Live seems to have gotten some of it's mojo back. Tina Fey's Sarah Palin parody is pure delight. If you missed it here's the bit from last night.

‘SNL’ Spoofs the VP Debate

The Surge and the Stench of "Victory"

 

By WILLIAM BLUM - Counterpunch Weekend Edition

No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.

read more

Social Media in Africa, Part 2: Mobile Innovations

In Amsterdam the social media technology conference PICNIC2008 wrapped up last week after devoting an entire day of scheduling to the innovations coming out of Africa. Dubbed 'Surprising Africa', the conference featured prolific social entrepreneurs and technology developers from around the world who offered insight into various projects from the African continent.

In this post we look at the state of the fast-growing mobile industry in Africa. This is the second post in our series on Africa's Web (Part 1 is here).

Social Media in Africa, Part 2: Mobile Innovations - ReadWriteWeb

Sarah Palin's Poujadist Agenda

 

Sarah Palin has put a new face and voice to the long-standing, powerful, but inchoate movement in US political life that one might see as a mutant variety of Poujadism, inflected with a modern American accent. There are echoes of the Poujadist agenda of 1950s France in its contempt for metropolitan elites, fuelling the resentment of the provinces towards the capital and the countryside towards the city, in its xenophobic strain of nationalism, sturdy, paysan resistance to taxation, hostility to big business, and conviction that politicians are out to exploit the common man...

Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill by Jonathan Raban

Chomsky

 

In an exclusive interview, Noam Chomksy weighs in on the financial collapse, the election and the power of U.S. propaganda.

Chomsky: "If the U.S. Carries Out Terrorism, It Did Not Happen"

Vancouver Gives Green Light to Low-Speed EVs

 

CBC News. The Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) city council has approved the use of low-speed electric vehicles on city streets.

Under city bylaws, they will now be able to travel on Vancouver streets which have a posted speed limit of 50 km per hour [31 mph] or less, meaning they will be able to travel on most city streets.

Will the Crisis Brings Down the Global Financial System? Go Get Your Dollars Out Now! FAST!!!

A view from Argentina, which had it's own total financial meltdown in '91.

The events of the last two weeks have clearly revealed that the global financial, monetary and banking system imposed on the world by the power structures promoting "globalization" is fundamentally flawed, unviable and immoral in its effects upon the most all of Mankind. After allowing a small cabal of shady characters to illegitimately accumulate vast amounts of wealth and power over markets, corporations, industries, media, armed forces and entire nations, like the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, this entire System is now in free-fall, collapsing into itself in one massive implosion.

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Will the Crisis Brings Down the Global Financial System? Go Get Your Dollars Out Now! FAST!!!

PM Harper has already officially endorsed the North American Union!

Look's like a done deal. Harper get's his next term and we're done. Extreme suggestion? Really hard to tell when most of what goes on is behind closed doors. And it's not just the Cons. This whole thing started under the Liberal government. John Manley is right there (so we sent him to Afghanistan to suss it out- RIGHT!). The odd rat jumps back onto the sinking ship.


Prince George Citizen - PM Harper has already officially endorsed the North American Union!

America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role

 

Spiegel Online
October 1, 2008

The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat.

There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker’s tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience’s reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.

Or what is left of him.

 

Read article

Searching for Robert Johnson

In the seven decades since his mysterious death, bluesman Robert Johnson's legend has grown--the tragically short life, the "crossroads" tale of supernatural talent, the genuine gift that inspired Dylan, Clapton, and other greats--but his image remains elusive: only two photos of Johnson have ever been seen by the public. In 2005, on eBay, guitar maven Zeke Schein thought he'd found a third.

Searching for Robert Johnson

Latin American and Caribbean Unity

Truly one of the most interesting experiments happening on the planet today. After 500 years of exploitation one would surely hope for ongoing success here. 

By Noam Chomsky - Znet

Regional integration of the kind that has been slowly proceeding for several years is a crucial prerequisite for independence, making it more difficult for the master of the hemisphere to pick off countries one by one. For that reason it is causing considerable distress in Washington, and is either ignored or regularly distorted in the media and other elite commentary.

read more

‘There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.'
So spoke Harry Anslinger, the US commissioner of narcotics, testifying to Congress on why marijuana should be made illegal, in 1937. The Marijuana Tax Act came into effect on 1 October 1937. Seventy years later, (...) -

1 October