Millions of dollars in USAID funding still flowing to Honduras | | the narcosphere

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The taxpayer-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation has continued to move millions of dollars into Honduras since the June 28 coup d'état, but it is not alone, Narco News has now confirmed.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is slated to provide Honduras with nearly $47 million in funding in fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30, 2009. Nearly all of that money (some $43 million) is scheduled to be delivered as previously planned to Honduras — which is now under the leadership of a putsch regime that President Obama has already described as “not legal.”


Millions of dollars in USAID funding still flowing to Honduras | | the narcosphere

Noam Chomsky in Venezuela: 'A better world is being created'

U.S. author, dissident intellectual, and Professor of Linguistics at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Noam Chomsky met for the first time with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas and analyzed hemispheric politics during a nationally televised forum on Monday.

Noam Chomsky in Venezuela: 'A better world is being created' | rabble.ca

The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina

A chilling account of the actions of the military, including blackwater operations, in the days following Katrina. . A must read.

There was nothing natural about the disaster that befell New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath.

—By James Ridgeway

The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina | Mother Jones

The U.S. Invades and Occupies Pakistan

We are watching it happen in the streets. The recurring nightmare has become a grim, new reality for the people of Pakistan. After watching the horrors of the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and neighboring Afhanistan for 8 years, the "war on terror" has finally arrived in The Land of the Pure. Obama is fulfilling his campaign promise to Pakistan. The sudden arrival of U.S. marines, U.S. military Hummers, the hired killers of Blackwater, houses barricaded for U.S. personnel in Islamabad and the construction of the world's largest U.S. "Embassy" are terrorizing this nation of 180 million people. The U.S. slaughter and destruction in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan for the last 8 years warn them of what may lie in store for them, their families, their land.


The U.S. Invades and Occupies Pakistan | Pakistan |Axisoflogic.com

Facebook agrees to address Privacy Commissioner’s concerns

Privacy Commissioner of Canada satisfied that proposed changes to the social networking site’s privacy practices and policies would bring Facebook into compliance with Canadian law.

OTTAWA, August 27, 2009 — Facebook has agreed to add significant new privacy safeguards and make other changes in response to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s recent investigation into the popular social networking site’s privacy policies and practices.

News Release: Facebook agrees to address Privacy Commissioner’s concerns - August 27, 2009

World Science Festival 2009

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale on Vimeo

AFRICOM: The Pentagon's First Direct Military Intervention In Africa

The U.S. has intensified military involvement in Africa over the past seven years with such projects as the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), launched by the State Department but which deployed US Army Special Forces with the Special Operations Command Europe to Mali and Mauritania among other locations. U.S. military personnel are still engaged in the counterinsurgency wars in Mali and Niger against Tuareg rebels.

The Pan Sahel Initiative was succeeded by the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI) in late 2004 which has American military personnel assigned to eleven African nations: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.


FRICOM: The Pentagon's First Direct Military Intervention In Africa

United Kingdom: Half of GPs refuse swine flu vaccine over testing fears

Up to half of family doctors do not want to be vaccinated against swine flu.

GPs will be first in the line for the jabs when they become available but many will decline, even though they will be offering the vaccine to their patients.

More than two thirds of those who will turn the jab down believe it has not been tested enough. Most also believe the flu has turned out to be so mild in the vast majority of cases that the vaccine is not needed.

United Kingdom: Half of GPs refuse swine flu vaccine over testing fears: "."

"Smoking is the leading cause of statistics"

Fletcher Knobel

PMO Iqaluit gaffe draws smiles, frowns

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The Canadian Press

An unfortunate blunder by the Prime Minister’s Office has residents of Nunavut alternately chuckling and cringing.
A news release sent out Monday outlined Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s itinerary as he began a five-day tour of the North.
The release repeatedly spelled the capital of Nunavut as Iqualuit — rather than Iqaluit.
The extra “u” makes a world of difference in the Inuktitut language.
Iqaluit, properly spelled, means “many fish.”
Spelled with an extra “u,” the Nunavut language commissioner’s office says the word translates as a derogatory reference to “people with unwiped bums.”
Bloggers from Iqaluit were quickly online ridiculing the gaffe — some light-hearted, some angry.
Iqaluit was named capital of Nunavut when the territory was created in 1999.
A news release today from the PMO spells Iqaluit correctly."

SPP Deactivated

OTTAWA, Aug. 14 /CNW Telbec/ - Opponents of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) are celebrating a preliminary victory in reaction to the announcement on the official U.S. government SPP website that the pact "is no longer an active initiative" says the Council of Canadians. Two years after the controversial SPP summit in Montebello - where police agents provocateurs were exposed trying to subvert the peaceful protest there - opponents of the SPP have succeeded in making the initiative politically poisonous for governments to support.


SPP Deactivated | Mostly Water

Why Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is so great.

Image via Wikipedia

an appreciation by Fred Kaplin

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, which was released 50 years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don't like jazz, likes Kind of Blue.


Why Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is so great. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

The Destruction of a Civilization

James Petras. Axis of Logic

'The US imperial conquest of Iraq is built on the destruction of a modern secular republic. The cultural desert that remains (a Biblical ‘howling wilderness’ soaked in the blood of Iraq’s precious scholars) is controlled by mega-swindlers, mercenary thugs posing as ‘Iraqi officers’, tribal and ethnic cultural illiterates and medieval... » read this article"

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

by John Perkins via Global Research

In writing my new book Hoodwinked (Random House, Nov 2009 publication date), I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras's minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

Amnesty International Withdraws from Leonard Cohen's Israel Concert Fund

New York, NY, August 18 – Amnesty International has announced today that it will abstain from any involvement in the Leonard Cohen concert in Tel Aviv and will not be party to any fund that benefits from the concert's proceeds. A number of media accounts had reported that Amnesty International was to manage or otherwise partner in a fund created from the proceeds of Cohen’s concert in Israel that would be used to benefit Israeli and Palestinian groups. Amnesty International’s announcement today followed an international outcry over the human rights organization’s reported involvement in the Leonard Cohen concert fund, and an earlier international call for Cohen to boycott apartheid Israel.

Amnesty International Withdraws from Leonard Cohen's Israel Concert Fund :: www.uruknet.info

Americans Want 'Freedom to Pay Too Much for Inferior Health Care'

the title says it all...that seems to be what it boils down to.


US President Barack Obama has lost his messianic status in the row over health care reform, say German media commentators. The debate reveals the downside of America's ideological aversion towards government: Americans are ready to put up with an inferior health service in the name of freedom, it seems.



The World From Berlin: Americans Want 'Freedom to Pay Too Much for Inferior Health Care' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Cocaine Contaminates Majority of U.S. Currency

I remember there wsa survey back in the last 70's . I forget what the percentage was then, but that was the days when it first hit BIG. I'm amazed that it's still so popular as it seems to be.

For cocaine users, a rolled up $20 bill may be the most convenient tool for snorting the powder form of the drug. Or so it would seem from a new analysis of 234 banknotes from 18 U.S. cities that found cocaine on 90 percent of the bills tested.



Cocaine Contaminates Majority of U.S. Currency: Scientific American

Canadian Media's Coverage of the Coup in Honduras Has Been Atrocious

This resistance - taking place under the threat of military repression - has gone almost entirely unreported by leading Canadian media. So has Canada's tacit support for the coup.

Uninterested in the Conservative government's machinations, the Canadian media is even less concerned with the corporations that may be influencing Ottawa's policy towards Honduras.


Canadian Media's Coverage of the Coup in Honduras Has Been Atrocious | Mostly Water

I Hate to Bother You: Is Justice Right Side Up?

by Edwardo Galeano

Is justice right side up?

Has world justice been frozen in an upside-down position?

The shoe-thrower of Iraq, the man who hurled his shoes at Bush, was condemned to three years in prison. Doesn’t he deserve, instead, a medal?

Who is the terrorist? The hurler of shoes or their recipient? Is not the real terrorist the serial killer who, lying, fabricated the Iraq war, massacred a multitude, and legalized and ordered torture?

Who are the guilty ones--the people of Atenco, in Mexico, the indigenous Mapuches of Chile, the Kekchies of Guatemala, the landless peasants of Brazil—all being accused of the crime of terrorism for defending their right to their own land? If the earth is sacred, even if the law does not say so, aren’t its defenders sacred too?

I Hate to Bother You: Is Justice Right Side Up?:

Harper consistently embarrasses Canada abroad

by Haroon Siddiqui

Israel and the U.S. have well-deserved reputations for standing up for their citizens abroad. Canada, under Stephen Harper, is gaining a reputation for failing its own.

TheStar.com | Opinion | Harper consistently embarrasses Canada abroad

GPI- Nova Scotia measures economic reality

yea, Nova Scotia!!!!!! a Nexis of economic evolution.

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

Surely you follow the economic recovery saga. Every new report -- on consumer spending, jobs, credit, whatever -- sends the stock markets crazy, either up or down. Governments may stand or fall on whether growth resumes. And that peculiar branch of show business, TV business reporting, relentlessly applauds the "good news" at the slightest presumed uptick.

What we crave is "growth" -- the more the better, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) index. But have you stopped to ask what it is we're wishing for?

read more

for more information go here

Les Paul (1915-2009)

With apologies to Hendrix and Clapton, inventor and musician Les Paul, who died Wednesday at 94, was the most influential rock guitarist ever — even though he was only tangentially involved in rock. Paul was important not just for his instrumental virtuosity, but also for his groundbreaking studio developments and creation of the Gibson solid-body guitar that bears his name, the quintessential rock instrument made famous by such legends as Clapton, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen.

Les Paul (1915-2009) : Rolling Stone

Les Paul, 1915-2009

Les Paul via last.fm

 

Les Paul, musician, pioneer of multitrack recording, and creator of one of the most successful and recognizable guitars in history, passed at the age of 94.
Known to guitarists around the world through the guitar that bears his name (built initially using a hunk of 4"x4" lumber), Les Paul also is credited with being the first to develop multitrack recording in 1955 to overcome the noise problem of using the overdubbing technique used at the time.Les Paul, 1915-2009

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• Rock guitar pioneer Les Paul dies (news.bbc.co.uk)
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Judge sentences man to 6 months for yawning in court

Illinois Circuit Judge Daniel Rozak sentenced Clifton Williams to 6 months in jail for yawning in court. Rozak's contempt order stated that Williams "raised his hands while at the same time making a loud yawning sound," which was both disrespectful and disruptive.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Rozak, one of 30 judges in the the 12th Judicial Circuit, personally issues over a third of the contempt charges and has thrown more people in jail for ringing cell phones than "any other judge in Will County in the last decade."

Judge sentences man to 6 months for yawning in court

Happy 26th Torin

The annual Perseids meteor shower is at its most spectacular tonight.

Endless War: The Suicide of the United States

1,467 veterans died while waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. The average duration of an appeal pending a VA decision on disability claims is 1,608 days, which amounts to nearly four and a half years.

As a result, the suffering of returning vets is compounded by the agonizing wait. In 2007, the Army’s official suicide count was 115, the most since the Pentagon began keeping suicide statistics in 1980. In 2008, it rose to 133, and 2009 is currently on track to set yet another grim record.

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

Endless War: The Suicide of the United States
Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:17:00 GMT

African Development Hindered by Vast U.S. Corporate Interests in Continent's Land, Resources

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As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Nigeria today, we turn to the issue of US corporate interests in Africa’s natural resources. Clinton’s seven-country tour of Africa includes both Nigeria and Angola, the continent’s top two oil producers. We speak with Amy Barry of Global Witness, an anti-corruption watchdog that focuses on natural resources.

African Development Hindered by Vast U.S. Corporate Interests in Continent's Land, Resources
(Democracy Now!)

"The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power"

A secretive group known as The Fellowship, or “The Family”, is one of the most powerful Christian fundamentalist movements in the United States. The Family’s devoted membership includes congressmen, corporate leaders, generals and foreign heads of state. Author Jeff Sharlet profiles the group in his book “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.”

Jeff Sharlet on "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power"
(Democracy Now!)

Paris's Electric Car Sharing Plan

A plan to make 4,000 electric cars available for Parisians to pick up and drop off at rental stands still has some kinks to be worked out.


Future Voiture: Paris's Electric Car Sharing Plan - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Blackwater’s Dark Secrets

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Jeff Sharlet’s cover story for the May Harper’s, “Jesus Killed Mohammed,” introduced us to the role that Christian fundamentalists play in military operations in Iraq. The title comes from a legend painted on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that cruised the streets of Samarra. Sharlet shows us that a number of religious right figures in the military construe their mission as a crusade. Many of the same ideas apparently affect private security contractors operating in Iraq. . . .

SCOTT HORTON—Blackwater’s Dark Secrets
Scott Horton
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:39:42 GMT