The Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire.

The Proust Questionnaire | vanityfair.com

Web Exclusive: EL SALVADOR: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

 

On Monday, June 1, 2009 El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country´s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America. Jay Hartling is an independent journalist and researcher based in Halifax, NS.

 

Web Exclusive: EL SALVADOR: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

Spanish Highways, French Reactors. Welcome to Canada.

Government of Canada Moves Forward on Restructuring Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
“Our Government is acting now to inject strength into Canada’s nuclear industry by enhancing the culture of growth; the culture of efficiency; and the culture of leadership,” said the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources. “The ultimate objective of this restructuring is to leverage Canada’s long-term investment in nuclear energy and strengthen Canada’s nuclear industry at a time of global expansion.”

Spanish Highways, French Reactors. Welcome to Canada.
Jennifer Smith

Behind The Nightmare In Swat

 

By Ashley Smith
An Interview With Saadia Toor , an assistant professor of Anthropology and Social Work at Staten Island College and part of the group Action for a Progressive Pakistan, talked to Ashley Smith about the situation in Pakistan today

Behind The Nightmare In Swat
Fri, 29 May 2009 18:57:28 GMT

Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting

Image via Wikipedia

 

Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting - Series - NYTimes.com

Colonizing Culture

An Iraqi boy walks down a street in southern Baqouba, surrounded by US Army soldiers. (Photo: Marko Drobnjakovic / AP) Transgress The geo-strategic expansion of the American empire is an accepted fact of contemporary history. I have been writing in these columns about the impact of the US occupation on the people of Iraq in the wake [...]

Colonizing Culture
admin
Wed, 27 May 2009 23:44:48 GMT

Fresh Off Worldwide Attention for Joining Obama's Book Collection, Uruguayan Author Eduardo Galeano Returns with "Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone"

We spend the hour with one of Latin America’s most acclaimed writers, Eduardo Galeano. The Uruguayan novelist and journalist recently made headlines around the world when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of Galeano’s classic work, The Open Veins of Latin America. Eduardo Galeano’s latest book is Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. We speak to Galeano about his reaction to the Chavez-Obama book exchange, media and politics in Latin America, his assessment of Obama, and more. [includes rush transcript–partial]

Fresh Off Worldwide Attention for Joining Obama's Book Collection, Uruguayan Author Eduardo Galeano Returns with "Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone"
(Democracy Now!)

New Super-Embassy in Pakistan is a Gross Example of How the U.S. Chooses Security Over Aid

The construction of mega-embassies syphons aid away from areas that could potentially help stabilize the Middle East.
If this story sounds familiar, it’s because this has all happened before. Recently, Pakistanis learned that almost half of the $1.9 billion approved by the U.S. House of Representatives for aid will instead go toward "a new secure embassy and consulates" in their country. Of course, the United States has good reason to fear for their security in the region.

Our New Super-Embassy in Pakistan is a Gross Example of How the U.S. Chooses Security Over Aid

The influence of Edmund Spenser across two and a half centuries as traced through 25000 different texts

Image by dennisar via Flickr

 

Spenser and the Tradition: English Poetry 1579-1830 is a mammoth database of English poetry and other writings that traces the influence of the great 16th-Century poet Edmund Spenser on English poetry across 250 years. There are roughly 25000 different texts on the site, over 6000 poems from famous classics to obscure ephemera, and further thousands of biographies and commentaries. Since it would take years to read all the material I am happy to say that there is a guide to navigating the database, an overview of its contents, a statistical summary and an essay on tradition and innovation. The immense database, which started life as a pile of index cards, was compiled largely by Virginia Tech Professor David Hill Radcliffe over the course of 17 years.

The influence of Edmund Spenser across two and a half centuries as traced through 25000 different texts
Kattullus
Thu, 28 May 2009 04:54:47 GMT

West Plots To Supplant United Nations With Global NATO

Ten years ago it first became evident to the world that moves were afoot in major Western capitals to circumvent, subvert and ultimately supplant the United Nations, as the UN could not always be counted on to act in strict accordance with the dictates of the United States and its NATO allies.

At that time in 1999 the NATO alliance was waging what would become a 78-day bombing war against Yugoslavia in flagrant contravention of the United Nations and of international law in general.

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

West Plots To Supplant United Nations With Global NATO

Canadians Take Notice, the U.S. Is Militarizing the Border

So I think we can safely throw out the 'longest undefended border' myth for good by now. Please let me not hear that one again.

More troops, more searches, more surveilance drones. The U.S. is taking Canadians' pictures as they cross the border, and their biometrics.

Canadians Take Notice, the U.S. Is Militarizing the Border

Tales of U.S. Hegemony and Pakistani Government Betrayals

By Talha Mujaddidi. Axis of Logic

War it is! Prime Minister Gillani announced to the Pakistani public on national television that the Government has decided to launch an operation against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) 1 (Operation Rah-e-Raast or straightpath).

Who wants peace?

The Pakistani public opinion was divided on the peace deal. But the parties that played a key roles in the breakdown of the fragile peace agreement were the TTP (described below); the U.S. government; Prime Minister, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani; and General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's Army Chief.

Tales of U.S. Hegemony and Pakistani Government Betrayals
Mon, 25 May 2009 23:55:41 GMT

Spain's Judges Cross Borders in Human Rights Cases

Judges at Spain's National Court, acting on complaints filed by human rights groups, are pursuing 16 international investigations into suspected cases of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to prosecutors. Among them are 2 probes of Bush officials.

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Poets Mirror Feelings of Afghans Caught in Conflict

 

by Hanan Habibzai

Intellectuals and poets have a commanding presence in Afghan  society. It is the poets who often mirror the feelings of  ordinary people, revealing much about the mindset of Afghans in  the face of occupation and civil war.

Now, it is the smell of fresh blood rather than the delights  of Afghanistan's mountains and fields that occupies the poets.  As an Afghan, when I read their works, I am shocked by the state  of my country, and see in that state the failures of my  government and the international community.

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You've Got Skeleton

A Swedish artist has been testing the limits of the European postal system by sending everything from a hamburger to a skeleton, as-is and unpackaged.

You've Got Skeleton

Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges:

so it's just as as we thought- the man was truly mad and deluded. how does that happen? does he get off by pleading insanity?

Bush explained to French Pres. Chirac that the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Mid-East and must be defeated.

Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"

Muhammad Yunus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muhammad Yunus (Bangla: মুহাম্মদ ইউনুস, pronounced Muhammôd Iunus) (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He previously was a professor of economics where he developed the concept of microcredit. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."

Muhammad Yunus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Obama’s AfPak War Engulfs Pakistan’s Swat Valley

Image via Wikipedia

click map to enlarge. then click again...

By James Cogan | WSWS

A humanitarian catastrophe is taking place in areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), as a result of the Obama administration’s expansion of the occupation of Afghanistan into the so-called “AfPak war”.

Over the past seven years, ethnic Pashtun Islamist movements in NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have lent assistance to the resistance being waged against the American-led forces in Afghanistan by the Pashtun-based Taliban, including by disrupting US and NATO supply routes through Pakistan.

On Washington’s insistence, the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered the military to embark on operations to crush the militants. In late April, Pakistani forces deployed into the Lower Dir and Buner districts of NWFP to drive out a small number who had moved into the area from their strongholds to the north, in the Swat Valley district.

Read more.

How Those Who Kill Can Enter Canada While Those Who Save Lives Are Barred

by Joshua Blakeney

World renowned, award winning journalist John Pilger commented on George Galloway’s autobiography: “Galloway’s work has saved countless lives, particularly in Iraq”. This is an accurate statement about the record of the five-times elected British MP who was described by Canadian Minister for Immigration Jason Kenny as “a threat to Canada’s security” and subsequently banned from entering Canada during March of this year. Juxtaposing the blood-soaked records of George W Bush and Bill Clinton - especially in relation to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia and elsewhere - with the unimpeachable record of George Galloway MP, the patent rudderless and deceptive nature of the current Canadian government and its media accomplices becomes transparent.

How Those Who Kill Can Enter Canada While Those Who Save Lives Are Barred
Sat, 23 May 2009 22:19:00 GMT

Canada's shock doctrine

Todd Gordon says that the Conservatives are using fears about the recession to sideline environmental regulations, especially for oil and gas projects on First Nations land.

Todd Gordon is assistant professor of Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. He says that the Conservatives are using the recession to sideline environmental regulations and and fast track controversial projects like the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline.

To find out more about Redeye, check out our website.

Canada's shock doctrine

Obama: From Anti-War Law Professor to Warmonger in 100 Days

 

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN - May 22-24, 2009

How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, “decapitation” strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses [at] the far end of the globe?...There’s nothing surprising here. As far back as...the early twentieth century, American liberalism has been swift to flex imperial muscle, to whistle up the Marines.

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US corporations fighting to keep poor countries from getting patent-free access to green tech

 

The US chamber of commerce is leaning on trade representatives to make sure that poor countries have to pay to license patents on technologies that will reduce their carbon footprints and stave off global warming:

 

Green technology should be shared

America's Viceroy in Afghanistan

by Sonali Kolhatkar & James Ingalls

In 2006 we wrote Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (Seven Stories) at a time when most Americans, even on the left, were paying little attention to Afghanistan. In light of the renewed attention on Afghanistan and the recent New York Times article, Ex-U.S.

read more

Video: Brief History of Weed

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

As a promo for their sitcom Weeds, Showtime created this concise history of cannabis.

Video: Brief History of Weed

Hubbles Greatest Hits

Shakespeare's Sonnets Turn 400

Image via Wikipedia

Check out the 'Sonnets' link- open source Shakespeare.

400 years ago today, Thomas Thorpe entered into the Stationers' Register a book titled "Shake-Speares Sonnets". However, Clinton Heylin argues that - like Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - the Sonnets were never intended for a wide audience. "In both cases, they were killing time and at the same time dealing with huge personal issues in a private way, which they never conceived of coming out publicly."

Downloading and the collapse of the old media regime

Most people I know do not watch TV in real time anymore but use bit torrent to download what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, and without commercial breaks. While charges of piracy have loomed over that activity, this practice is arguably legal right now in Canada – one of the purposes of last summer’s Bill C-61 was to make the practice illegal. It is taping shows on a VCR for viewing later that is currently illegal (but would have been made legal by Bill C-61).

Downloading and the collapse of the old media regime

On the Devaluation of Labor

Image by Egui_ via Flickr

 

By EUGENIA TSAO - May 18, 2009

The union-bashing and labour-trivializing that has come into vogue of late has typically been predicated on a small set of dubious assumptions...The first is the notion...that the wages and benefits enjoyed by unionized workers are undeservedly generous, and have served only to exacerbate the economic downturn...Those who have literally given their lives to their industries...are called overpaid parasites.

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Pakistan starts privatization of agriculture lands

Image via Wikipedia

Arab companies rush for corporate farming in Pakistan to lock up scarce water resources in agriculture belts as Federal Government offers one million acres of agriculture land to Arab monarchs, giving way to new corporate feudal system of it own kind.
During the last couple of years the extra ordinary increase in prices of staple commodities (wheat, rice, corn, soybeans and barley) have apparently compelled many states of the world including oil-rich Arab monarchies and Middle Eastern (...) - English / Privatizations, Pakistan

Fuelling Wars: Canada's Military Exports

Canada is thoroughly and completely integrated into the military industrial complex as part of the "North American Military Industrial Base." The Pentagon is therefore free to take advantage of publicly subsidized Canadian military products in all of its wars, invasions, interventions, regime changes and bombing.

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USAID's Silent Invasion in Bolivia

Eva Golinger

 

Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002.

 

USAID's Silent Invasion in Bolivia

Correa: The Citizen’s Revolution

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

A bio of the new president of Ecuador.



When Rafael Correa came to power in 2006, he said that he was not a traditional politician. We could add that he is not a traditional economist either –at least not like the economists who have dominated the field in favour of “free-market” economics. Correa served briefly as Minister of Economy and Finances in 2005, under President Alfredo Palacio, and even at that time he advocated for the reduction of poverty and the increase of economic sovereignty for Ecuador. He did not follow the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and he did not believe much in signing free trade agreements with the United States. Correa’s focus was, however, in increasing cooperation between Ecuador and other Latin American countries.

Ecuador's Correa: The Citizen’s Revolution

Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice

“The Deltas are psychos…You have to be a certified psychopath to join the Delta Force…”, a US Army colonel from Fort Bragg once told me back in the 1980’s. Now President Obama has elevated the most notorious of the psychopaths, General Stanley McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan.

AxisofLogic - Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice, James Petras. Axis of Logic

Rummy Dumb Dumb

AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has always answered his detractors by claiming that history will one day judge him kindly. But as he waits for that day, a new group of critics—his administration peers—are suddenly speaking out for the first time. What they’re saying? It isn’t pretty

By Robert Draper

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Central and Southern African tribal art and culture

Image via Wikipedia

 

The exceptionally informative and well illustrated Galerie Ezakwantu has great pages on African tribal art, culture and history [due to partial nudity many links NSFW]: African Lip Plugs - Lip Plates; African Currency - African Slave Beads; Jewelry; African Scarification; Thrones and Stools; Shields; Combs; Musical Instruments; Fertility Dolls; Weapons; Zulu Basketry; Contemporary Art; Cups; Tribal Currency; Zulu Ricksha attire; Southern Africa Tribal Migrations; South African Kings and Chiefs. Also some interesting pages on anger about Robert Mugabe; the sale of the gallery owner's property; Cape Dutch Homesteads and blueberry recipes.
A little more about the Body Art of Africa: Scarification among African cultures.

Central and Southern African tribal art and culture

As Smash-and-Grab Capitalism Collapses, the French Economy Shines

Image by Alexandre Syrota via Flickr

Many in Britain and the United States are in mourning for what’s taken as the suicide of the American (or Thatcherite, or Chicago-school) model of capitalism, accompanied by the non-interventionist state that hands the national economy over to business and financial leaders to run.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

First Look at Wolfram Alpha's Impressive (and Fun) Knowledge Computation [Webapps]

How many football fields would fit between the Earth and the sun? What's the likelihood of getting 2 heads in 10 coin flips? One search engine calculates all that on the fly and more.

Mathematician Stephen Wolfram's much-hyped "computational knowledge engine" Wolfram Alpha just went public, and it's got more than a few data nerds tickled absolutely pink (myself included). Walpha (as I affectionately call it) finds and visualizes real-world data points from natural language queries.

The U.S. to Raise Military Aid to Israel

Image via Wikipedia

Summary: Despite expectations that the Obama administration will pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution and implement practical measures, the U.S. administration has sent signals that aid to Israel will, in fact, be raised. At the same time, the budget also imposes harsh conditions on the Palestinian Authority in order to receive aid. source: THe Alternative Newsread more

The U.S. to Raise Military Aid to Israel

Academics for Empire

By James Petras - 04/01/2009

The danger and appeal to academics of Pentagon funding is especially acute nowadays, given the economic depression and the pseudo-progressive image of the Obama regime. Wall Street bailouts and the crash of the US stock market have reduced university endowments resulting in sharp reductions in academic budgets, salaries and research funding especially on non-military, non-business related research

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Appetite for China

Appetite for China - a food blog whose motto is "1.3 billion people must be eating something right". Today: Dried Fugu and Durian Pudding

Appetite for China