tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76516429827396757502024-02-08T09:22:00.434-08:00The Thinker NewsJeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-59222064812262879032012-03-30T10:51:00.000-07:002012-03-30T10:51:41.750-07:00<h1 class="article_page_h1_margin"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/were-jews-ever-really-slaves-in-egypt-or-is-passover-a-myth-1.420844"><span style="font-size: large;">Were Jews ever really slaves in Egypt, or is Passover a myth?</span></a></h1><h2><span style="font-size: small;">Where is the real proof - archeological evidence, state records and primary sources?</span></h2><span class="writer"> By <span>Josh Mintz / Jewish World blogger </span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="twocols"> <div class="leftcol"> Here's a question for you: what do actor Charlton Heston, DreamWorks animation studios and Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin all have in common? Well, they've all, at one time or another, perpetuated <b>the myth that the Jews built the pyramids. And it is a myth, make no mistake.</b> Even if we take the earliest possible date for Jewish slavery that the Bible suggests, the Jews were enslaved in Egypt a good three hundred years after the 1750 B.C. completion date of the pyramids. That is, of course, if they were ever slaves in Egypt at all.<br />
<br />
We are so quick to point out the obvious lies about Jews and Israel that come out in Egypt – the Sinai Governors claims that the Mossad released a shark into the Red Sea to kill Egyptians, or, as I once read in a newspaper whilst on holiday in Cairo, the tale of the magnetic belt buckles that Jews were selling cheap in Egypt that would sterilize men on contact – yet we so rarely examine our own misconceptions about the nature of our history with the Egyptian nation.<br />
<br />
We tend, in the midst of our disdain for Egyptian, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, to overlook the fact that one of the biggest events of the Jewish calendar is predicated upon reminding the next generation every year of how the Egyptians were our cruel slave-masters, in a bondage that likely never happened. Is this really so different from Jaws the Mossad agent?<br />
<br />
<b> The reality is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt.</b> Yes, there's the story contained within the bible itself, but that's not a remotely historically admissible source. I'm talking about real proof; archeological evidence, state records and primary sources. Of these, nothing exists.<br />
<br />
It is hard to believe that 600,000 families (which would mean about two million people) crossed the entire Sinai without leaving one shard of pottery (the archeologist's best friend) with Hebrew writing on it. It is remarkable that Egyptian records make no mention of the sudden migration of what would have been nearly a quarter of their population, nor has any evidence been found for any of the expected effects of such an exodus; such as economic downturn or labor shortages. Furthermore, there is no evidence in Israel that shows a sudden influx of people from another culture at that time. No rapid departure from traditional pottery has been seen, no record or story of a surge in population.<br />
In fact, there's absolutely no more evidence to suggest that the story is true than there is in support of any of the Arab world's conspiracy theories and tall tales about Jews.<br />
<br />
So, as we come to Passover 2012 when, thanks to the “Arab Spring,” our relations with Egypt are at a nearly 40 year low, let us enjoy our Seder and read the story by all means, but also remind those at the table who may forget that it is just a metaphor, and that there is no ancient animosity between Israelites and Egyptians. Because, if we want to re-establish that elusive peace with Egypt that so many worked so hard to build, we're all going to have to let go of our prejudices.<br />
<br />
<em>Josh Mintz is completing his degree in International Relations and Middle Eastern studies and is the communications director at <a href="http://www.friendasoldier.com/en/" target="_blank">Friend a Soldier</a>, an NGO that encourages dialogue with IDF soldiers.</em><br />
</div><div class="articleServices"> <ul class="post"><span class="writer">
</span></ul></div></div>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-80026575054506758952012-03-21T16:22:00.000-07:002012-03-21T16:22:39.000-07:00<a href="http://home.comcast.net/%7Epmbrig/Drug_names.html"><big><big><span style="font-weight: bold;">Drug Names</span></big></big></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">by Peter M. Brigham, MD</span></span><br />
<br />
<big>In the research literature drugs are not referred to by brand names. In the context of rigorous attention to scientific data, as opposed to the world of sales and marketing, using trade names would suggest influence by commercial pressures, which would call into question the investigator's independence and objectivity. Shouldn't independence from commercial pressures be just as important in the clinical world? But, surprisingly, in day-to-day practice nobody seems to be at all concerned about this. Everyone — physicians, pharmacists, patients, insurance companies — seems to use brand names to refer to medications. I see this as directly related to the pervasiveness of pharmaceutical company marketing and I believe it is a serious problem. Part of the problem is that no one recognizes it as a problem.<br />
<br />
Look at how fundamentally our thinking is affected. The alternative to using the brand name is to use the "generic" name, right? But this term in itself is misleading: what we call the "generic" name of the drug is actually the <span style="font-style: italic;">name</span> of the drug! "Zoloft" was in fact a brand of the drug sertraline from the beginning, but everyone acts as though "sertraline" came into existence only after the patent on "Zoloft" expired. (Many people refer to sertraline as "generic Zoloft.") With older drugs our thinking is clearer — we don't think of aspirin as "generic Bayer," it's aspirin, and "Bayer" is one brand. It is remarkable that even doctors and pharmacists are often confused about this, and that it needs clarifying. Try ordering a new drug still on patent by its actual name and you're likely to get "I didn't think that had gone generic yet."<br />
<br />
Actually, it's worse than that. I recently tried to order simvastatin from a mail order pharmacy and was told they didn't carry it — one of the dozen most prescribed drugs in the country! It took three people 10 minutes of searching around before I was told that they had "Zocor," however! A national mail-order pharmacy, and they didn't list the drug under its actual name — nor did anyone even seem to know the actual name of the drug!<br />
<br />
"Tissues, tissues... let's see.... Hmmm, I guess we don't carry tissues.... Oh, wait — we have Kleenex, is that what you want?"<br />
<br />
Brand name drug marketing is by far the biggest product promotion success in the whole world of commercial enterprise, because the primary brand names have not just become synonymous with the actual names of the drugs, they have <span style="font-style: italic;">replaced</span> the actual names of the drugs. Adofen, Affectine, Alzac, Ansilan, Deproxin, Erocap, Fluctin, Fluctine, Fludac, Flufran, Flunil, and 27 other trade names besides the one everybody knows — all are brands of fluoxetine, but even pharmacists still call the stuff "Prozac." Imagine how the marketing folks at GM would be rubbing their hands with glee if everyone referred to their Toyotas and Hondas and Fords and Subarus as "Chevys!"<br />
<br />
These habits are very deeply ingrained. For instance, remember that each nation handles its own trademarks and patents, so brand names are local to a specific country. On the psychopharmacology mailing list — a listserv that has over 1000 subscribers from all over the world — American psychopharmacologists routinely refer to "Celexa" and "Trileptal" and "Remeron" despite constant reminders that these names are unknown to prescribers in England, Indonesia, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, etc. I have seen the periodic notice about not using brand names go out from the list moderator (as it has regularly for years) and the very next day someone from the US posts a comment mentioning "Luvox," prompting a follow-up question from a member in Japan politely asking what Luvox is. It is remarkable that even in a group of medical professionals, in a context in which it has a direct and personal impact on successful communication, and in the face of constant reminders, people still can't wake up to what they are doing. Judging by the psychopharm mailing list, this seems to be especially problematic in the US.<br />
<br />
Note that Luvox is a particularly illuminating example, since the original manufacturer of fluvoxamine no longer makes this drug. Thus, there is actually no "Luvox" on the market any more. But try referring to it as fluvoxamine and see how many blank stares you get until you say, "You know... Luvox."<br />
<br />
What is so insidious is that everyone seems completely unaware that there is a problem here. The health care system and the public have been hypnotized by the drug companies. I use the word deliberately: the methods used are classic hypnotic techniques. With doctors, the drug reps first establish a context of support and nurturance — gifts of "Cymbalta" pens and notepads, sandwiches — and then they set up a discussion that embodies a further distraction: they show us data on Cymbalta. We say, but what's the difference between Cymbalta and Effexor, they respond with more data about noradrenergic effects at low doses, we're partially convinced but a bit skeptical, etc. We think that we are being objective, that we're sophisticated enough to critically evaluate the data on Cymbalta and thus are immune to bias — and all the while the real marketing agenda succeeds brilliantly: we're talking about "Cymbalta," not about duloxetine. Cymbalta, Cymbalta, Cymbalta, Cymbalta. A lot of us end up a little fuzzy about what duloxetine is. ("Oh, you mean Cymbalta!")<br />
<br />
I am convinced that this is one of the big reasons the drug companies find it worth their while to spend collectively over $11,000 per doctor per year on detailing: in between bites of "complimentary" chicken pesto panini they train us in a language and a habit of thinking. And we doctors remain completely unaware of what we have bought into and then talk to our patients and each other using exclusively brand names — the language that we learn from the drug reps — thereby teaching our patients how to think and talk about meds. All this is now reinforced by direct consumer marketing: "Ask your doctor if Paxil is right for you!" Patients begin requesting "Paxil," and after the original patent expires some will say, "I don't want that generic stuff, I want Paxil." And we write prescriptions for "Paxil." And the shareholders are happy.<br />
<br />
I think that a doctor should be somewhat embarrassed to use brand names in talking about medications. It suggests that her/his primary source of information about meds is the drug rep rather than the medical literature. It shows that s/he is not involved first and foremost in assessing the research data. When I use the actual names of the drugs instead of brand names, my viewpoint changes — the language reminds me that my position is that of an applied scientist, that my job is to weigh all the information available and make judgments about what is best for my patient based exclusively on the evidence, not on the pitch of a salesperson.<br />
<br />
It has occurred to me more than once when talking with a drug company representative that I could say, "OK, I'll refer to olanzapine as 'Zyprexa' if you pay me for advertising your product each time I do it." But that would be grossly unethical, wouldn't it? Well, is it less unethical for me to do it for free? (Or for "free" lunches and pens and notepads and clocks and letter-openers and mugs?)<br />
<br />
So I'm stubborn in fighting this. I'll endure the puzzled pause of a pharmacist when I phone in a refill for escitalopram — though, sadly, to be certain that they get the prescription right I usually have to add, "You know... Lexapro." I try to teach my patients the names, not just the brands, of the meds I prescribe them. I refuse to be a marketing tool. The drug companies may be taking over the world, but they're not going to take over my mind.</big><br />
<big><br />
</big><br />
<b><big>---------------------------------------------</big></b><br />
<b><big>COMMENT: OBEY - like a good little doggy - and be rewarded for your obedience.</big></b><br />
<b><big><br />
</big></b><br />
<b><big>Fail to obey, and you are shut out. That is an Evil country. What are you going to do about it, my fellow Americans?</big></b><br />
<big><b>---------------------------------------------</b><br />
</big>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-38339577010924098202012-02-21T09:35:00.000-08:002012-02-21T09:35:10.497-08:00<h1 class="headline" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376324"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/weight-loss-equation-researchers-determine-key-calorie-cutoff-165002801.html"><span style="font-size: large;">New Weight-Loss Equation: Researchers Determine Key Calorie Cutoff</span></a></h1><h1 class="headline" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376324"><span style="font-size: small;"><cite class="byline vcard" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376498">By <span class="fn" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376504">Rachael Rettner</span> | <span class="provider org" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376501">LiveScience.com</span></cite></span></h1><h1 class="headline" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376324"><span style="font-size: small;"><cite class="byline vcard" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376498"><span class="provider org" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376501"></span></cite></span></h1><div class="first" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376196"> VANCOUVER — <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1329843722_1">Weight loss</span> is not as simple as eating less and exercising more, and for those who struggle to shed the pounds, a new equation may offer some help.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376201"> Scientists are now using mathematics to better understand the physiology of <a href="http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/861-seven-diet-tricks-for-weight-loss.html" id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376333" rel="nofollow">weight loss</a>, and more accurately predict just how much weight someone will lose on a specific <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1329843722_4">diet and exercise regime</span>, researchers said here today at the <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1329843722_3">American Association for the Advancement of Science</span>'s annual meeting.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376189"> In the past, physicians assumed that eating 500 fewer <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1329843722_2">calories per day</span> would lead to about a pound of weight loss per week, said <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1329843722_0">Kevin Hall</span>, a researcher at the <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1329843722_6">National Institutes of Health</span> in <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1329843722_5">Bethesda, Md</span>.</div>But it turns out, this rule of thumb is wrong, Hall said, because it doesn't take into account that <a href="http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/905-weight-gain-how-food-adds-pounds-110202.html" rel="nofollow">metabolism slows down during dieting</a>. Thus, predictions that used this rule were overly optimistic, Hall said. <br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376343"> Hall and colleagues have developed a model that takes into account an individual's age, height, weight and physical activity level to better predict how much weight they might lose on a diet and exercise plan. Currently, the model is intended only for use by physicians and researchers scientists, Hall said.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376346"> Hall's research has also come up with a more realistic rule of thumb for weight loss. The new rule says you need to cut 10 calories per day from your diet for every pound you want to lose over a three-year period. So cutting 100 calories per day will lead to a 10-pound weight loss over three years, Hall said. Half of this weight loss would occur over the first year. To lose more weight after the three-year period, you'd have to cut more calories, Hall said.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376346"><br />
</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376349"> The model may help policy makers understand the impact of public health measures on the <a href="http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/462--obesity-expected-to-grow-in-america-thanks-to-friends.html" rel="nofollow">obesity epidemic</a>. For instance, one estimate of the effect of a 20 percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages predicted that such a tax would lead to a 50 percent reduction in the number of overweight people in the United States in a five-year period. Hall 's new equation predicts about a 5 percent reduction in the percentage of overweight people in five years, Hall said.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_39_1329844295376349"><br />
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<b>COMMENT: IDIOCY. They continue to pretend that hormones don't exist. Yes, calories matter, but hormones ALSO matter. MOST people's bodies have very different hormonal responses to different foods - fats, carbs, and protein.<br />
<br />
After being fat for 30 years, I read Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories; he documented that 100% of the increase in calories over the past 40 years has been from two sources: flour and sugar. Both of those are carbs, not fat. So, I cut THOSE carbs - not raw fruit or cooked veggies - and took 4 inches off my waist. That was over two years ago. I am really enjoying being SMALL.<br />
<br />
There is a ton of $ being made from keeping people fat and sick, by LYING to us about WHY "diets don't work." Those companies employ morons like the guy in the article above, who PRETEND to be smart and PRETEND to do science.</b><br />
<b>-------------------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-77486368929381327982011-12-03T15:54:00.000-08:002011-12-03T15:54:34.795-08:00<a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/entire-united-states-is-now-war-zone.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The entire United States is now a war zone: S. 1867 passes the Senate with massive support</b></span></a><br />
<br />
<b>Madison Ruppert, <i>Contributing Writer</i></b><br />
<br />
This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing <a href="http://endthelie.com/" rel="nofollow">End the Lie</a> over eight months ago: <b>the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate.</b><br />
<br />
To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that <b>our government <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD8">does not work<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> for us in any way, shape, or form.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD9">fiscal year<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> of 2012, passed with a resounding <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2011-218" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">93-7 vote</a>.<br />
<br />
That’s right, <b>93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected after <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD4">the PATRIOT<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11<sup>th</sup>, 2001.</b><br />
<br />
<a href="" name="more"></a>The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable.<br />
<br />
The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD11">do business<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions#Effects_on_the_Iraqi_people_during_sanctions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sanctions on Iraq did</a>.<br />
<br />
Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House.<br />
<br />
Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD6">homeless<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> man who told me he was John F. Kennedy.<br />
<br />
I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the White House’s <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">official statement</a> doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.”<br />
<br />
As Glenn Greenwald <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/congress_endorsing_military_detention_a_new_aumf/singleton" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">points out</a>, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.”<br />
<br />
Obama’s opposition has <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD2">nothing to do<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, <b>Senator Levin disclosed</b> and Dave Kopel <a href="http://volokh.com/2011/11/30/defense-bill-will-allow-president-to-indefinitely-detain-american-citizens/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reported that</a>, <b> “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.</b><br />
<br />
As I have detailed in two past <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD5">articles<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> entitled <i><a href="http://endthelie.com/2011/11/30/do-not-be-deceived-s-1867-is-the-most-dangerous-bill-since-the-patriot-act/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Do not be deceived: S.1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act</a></i> and <i><a href="http://endthelie.com/2011/11/25/s-1253-will-allow-indefinite-military-detention-of-american-civilians-without-charge-or-trial/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">S.1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial</a></i>, the assurances that this will not be used on American citizens are hollow, evidenced by the fact that the Feinstein amendment to S.1867, amendment number 1126, which, according to the official Senate Democrats page, was an attempt at “prohibiting military authority to indefinitely detain US citizens” was rejected with a <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2011/s/214" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">45-55 vote</a>.<br />
<br />
Let’s examine some of the attempts to convince the American people that this will not change anything and that we will still be protected under law.<br />
<br />
Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Antonio <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2011-11-30/pdf/CREC-2011-11-30-pt1-PgS8012-2.pdf#page=42" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">said</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in section 1031 that says that this includes ‘any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.’ This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its affiliates. Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.</blockquote>While this might sound reassuring to some, one must realize that the government can interpret just about anything as engaging “in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.<br />
<br />
Consider the fact that the <a href="http://endthelie.com/2011/09/09/homeland-security-policy-institute-releases-report-that-lends-support-for-increased-police-state-measures-ignores-all-contrary-facts-and-statistics/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Homeland Security Police Institute’s report</a> published earlier this year partly focused on <b>combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” </b>which sets the stage for the government being able to declare that spreading the narrative amounts to “a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.<br />
<br />
At the time I wrote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Part of these <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD10">domestic<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> efforts highlighted in the report is combating the 'spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative' but never addressed is why exactly extremist groups have the ability to spread their narrative. </blockquote><blockquote>A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from the focus on the 'spread of the entity’s narrative' is that such claims could be used to justify limiting the American right to free speech. </blockquote><blockquote>It would be very easy to justify eliminating free speech if much of the United States was convinced of the danger of spreading terrorist narrative. </blockquote><blockquote><b>The report doesn’t specifically explain what the narrative is or why it is so dangerous, but one could assume that any anti-government, anti-war, anti-corporatist and pro-human rights speech could be squeezed under this umbrella. Essentially, anything that criticizes or questions the United States could easily be demonized because it is allegedly spreading 'the entity’s narrative'.</b></blockquote>This raises an important question: <b> could </b>my work and the work of others devoted to<b> exposing the fraud that is the “war on terror” and the intimate links between our government and the terrorist entities they are supposedly fighting be considered to be supporting these entities?</b> <br />
Unfortunately, the only conclusion I can come to is that it is possible for the following reasons:<br />
<br />
1) <b>The <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD1">Department of Defense<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> actually put a question on an examination saying that protests are an act of “<a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/14/dod_training_manual_protests_are_low-level_terrorism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">low-level terrorism</a>”</b> (which <a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/22/dod_deletes_protest_terrorism_problems_remain" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">they later deleted</a> after the ACLU sent a letter demanding it be removed).<br />
<br />
2) <b>Anti-war activists and websites are deemed worthy of being <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/in-modern-america-liking-peace-is-considered-terrorism.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">treated as terrorists and being listed on terrorist watchlists</a>.</b><br />
<br />
3) We likely will never even be told how exactly the government is interpreting S.1867.<br />
<br />
<b>In the case of the PATRIOT Act (which is <a href="http://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/patriot-act/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">overwhelmingly</a> used in cases that are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_invocations_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">unrelated to terrorism</a> in every way), there is in fact a <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act</a>, as revealed by Senator Ron Wyden back in May.</b> <br />
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (read the PDF <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/215_complaint.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>) in an attempt to <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-sues-government-find-out-secret-interpretation-patriot-act" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">force the government to reveal the details</a> of the secret <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD3">interpretation<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> of the PATRIOT Act.<br />
<br />
As of now, we still do not know how the PATRIOT Act is interpreted by the government, meaning that <b>we have no idea how it is actually being used.</b><br />
<br />
I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make the assumption that S.1867 would be interpreted in a straightforward manner, meaning that all of the assurances being made by Senators are worthless.<br />
<br />
Glenn Greenwald verifies this <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/congress_endorsing_military_detention_a_new_aumf/singleton" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">in writing</a> the following as an update to the post previously quoted in this article, “Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” <i>i.e.</i>, off U.S. soil — <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00213" rel="nofollow">failed by a vote of 45-55</a>.”<br />
<br />
Furthermore, as I detailed in my <a href="http://endthelie.com/2011/11/30/do-not-be-deceived-s-1867-is-the-most-dangerous-bill-since-the-patriot-act/#ixzz1fN4ol2FL" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">previous coverage of S.1867</a>, <b> Senator Lindsey Graham clearly said</b>, in absolutely no uncertain terms whatsoever, “In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] <b>1031, the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD7">statement<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland.”</b><br />
<br />
The fact that the establishment media continues to peddle the blatant lie that is <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD12">the claim<span class="IL_AD_ICON"></span></span> that S.1867 will not be used on American citizens is beyond me.<br />
<br />
<br />
This is especially true when one considers the fact that lawyers for the Obama administration <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lawyers-citizens-targeted-war-us-154313473.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reaffirmed</a> that American citizens “are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida,” although we all know that <b>no proof or trial is required to make that assertion</b>.<br />
<br />
As evidenced by the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, no trial is needed for <b>our illegitimate government</b> to assassinate an American citizen.<br />
<br />
We can only assume that <b>it is just a matter of time until American citizens are declared to be supporting al Qaeda and killed on American soil without so much as a single court hearing.</b><br />
<br />
CNN <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/01/politics/senate-detainee-policy/index.html?hpt=hp_t1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">claims</a>, “Senators ultimately reached an agreement to amend the bill to make clear it’s not the bill’s intent to allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and others legally residing in the country.”<br />
<br />
Yet, of course, they fail to cite the amendment, and quote Senator Feinstein in saying, “It supports present law,” even though Feinstein’s amendment was not passed.<br />
<br />
The Associated Press reported, “<b>Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pointed out that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.</b>”<br />
<br />
Yet they still quoted senior legislative counsel for the ACLU Christopher Anders who said, “Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law.”<br />
<br />
The fact that the corporate-controlled establishment media is barely covering this – if at all – is just another piece amongst the mountains of evidence showing that they are complicit in the criminal conspiracy that is dominating our government.<br />
<br />
<b>Every single Senator that voted for this amendment is a traitor.</b> It’s that simple. 97 of our so-called representatives, which you can see listed in full <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2011-218" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>, are <b>actively working against the American people.</b> <br />
They are turning the United States into such a hellish police state that the world’s most infamous dictators would be green with envy.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, the top stories on Google News makes no mention of the atrocious attack on everything that America was built upon that is embodied by S.1867.<br />
<br />
This legislation is clearly being minimized and marginalized in the press, as if it is some minor bill that will never be invoked in order to detain Americans indefinitely without charge or trial.<br />
<br />
That is patently absurd and to assume such would be nothing short of ignorant to an extreme degree, given that <b>the American government utilizes every single possible method to exploit, oppress and assault Americans who stand up for their rights.</b><br />
<br />
Furthermore, <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2011/s/214" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Senators</a> who voted against S.Amdt.1126, the amendment to S.1867 which would have limited “the authority of the Armed Forces to detain citizens of the United States under section 1031” should be considered traitorous criminals of the highest order, not to say that all 97 of those who voted for S.1867 are any better.<br />
<br />
<b>These Senators are not only defying their oath of office in waging war on the Constitution, they are also fighting to destroy the most critical rights we have in this country and in doing so are desecrating everything that our forefathers gave up their lives for.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Instead of British troops patrolling the streets in their red coats, it will be American soldiers who have the authority to detain you forever without a shred of evidence if they decide you’re a terrorist or supporting any organization affiliated with al Qaeda.</b> <br />
<b>How they define that is anyone’s guess, but given that the entire interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is regarded as a state secret, we can assume that we will never even get to know.<br />
<br />
Moreover, the fact that no charges or trial are needed under S.1867, the government needs no proof of supporting, planning, or committing terrorism whatsoever.</b> <b><br />
<br />
Since no evidence will ever be presented given that no trial or charges will ever be filed, they need not worry about that pesky thing called habeus corpus or anything resembling evidence of any kind.</b> <br />
<br />
<b>All they need to do is declare that you’re an enemy combatant and suddenly you’re eligible to be snatched up by military thugs and locked away never to see the light of day again.<br />
<br />
As far as I have seen, there are no detailed requirements set forth in the bill which have to be met before the military can indefinitely detain, and torture (or conduct “enhanced interrogation” if you’d prefer the government’s semantic work-around), Americans and people around the world.</b> <b><br />
<br />
What is stopping them from creating accounts for Americans who are actively resisting the fascistic police state corporatocracy which our once free nation has become on some jihadi website and using it has justification to claim these individuals are involved with terrorists?</b> <br />
<br />
What is stopping them from manufacturing any flimsy piece of evidence they can point to, even though they never actually have to present it or have it questioned in a court of law, in order to round up American dissidents?<br />
<br />
The grim answer to these disturbing questions is: nothing. I regret having to say such a disheartening thing about the United States of America, a country I once thought was the freest nation in the world, but it is true.<br />
<br />
I must emphasize once again that <b>our government considers even ideology and protest to be a low-level act of terrorism, so if you’re anti-war, pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-justice, anti-corruption</b>, or even worse, if you’re like me and expose the criminal government in Washington that supports terrorism while criminalizing American citizens, <b>you very well might be labeled a terrorist.</b><br />
<br />
Keep in mind that <b>the House sister bill</b>, <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR01540:@@@R" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">H.R.1540</a>, <b>was passed </b>with a <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll375.xml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">322-96 vote</a> <b>on May 26<sup>th</sup></b>, now all that is stopping this ludicrous from utterly eliminating the Bill of Rights is resolving the differences which will be done by the following appointed conferees: Levin; Lieberman; Reed; Akaka; Nelson NE; Webb; McCaskill; Udall CO; Hagan; Begich; Manchin; Shaheen; Gillibrand; Blumenthal; McCain; Inhofe; Sessions; Chambliss; Wicker; Brown MA; Portman; Ayotte; Collins; Graham; Cornyn; Vitter.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2011-218&sort=vote" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">not a single person who voted against S.1867</a> is included in that list.<br />
<br />
I do not hesitate in saying that what our so-called representatives have done is an act of treason that represents the single most dangerous move ever made by our government.<br />
<br />
Every single square inch of the United States is now a war zone and you or I could easily be declared soldiers on the wrong side of the war and treated as such.<br />
<br />
No proof, no charges, and no trial are required. They do not even have to draw spurious links to terrorist organizations in order to indefinitely detain you as they could easily declare the evidence critical to national security and thus withhold it for as long as they please.<br />
<br />
I will continue to hope that Obama decides to go against every single thing he has done after being sworn in, but I think the chances are so slim that it is almost delusional to believe that he will do this.<br />
<br />
After all, the only reason his administration is opposing it is because it doesn’t give the executive enough power, not because it strips away every legal protection we have.<br />
<br />
If this is not the most laughably illegitimate reason to oppose the attack on all Americans that is S.1867, I don’t know what is.<br />
<br />
The most important question that remains unanswered, for which I am not sure that I have a viable solution, is: how do we stop this? Is there any way we can bring down a criminal government packed to the brim with traitorous co-conspirators in a just, peaceful manner?<br />
<br />
<br />
After all, if the American people resort to violence, we are no better than those bloodthirsty members of our armed forces and law enforcement who kill and beat human beings around our nation and the world with impunity.<br />
<br />
However, if our military and police forces realize that at any moment they too could be deemed enemy combatants and treated like subhuman scum and thus decide to refuse all unlawful orders and arrest the real terrorists in Washington, we might be able to reinstate the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which once defined our nation.<br />
<br />
Please do not hesitate to contact me with your ideas, comments and information for future articles on this subject and any other issue for that matter. You can get in touch with me directly at <a href="mailto:Admin@EndtheLie.com" rel="nofollow">Admin@EndtheLie.com</a> and hopefully I will be able to read and respond if I’m not deemed an enemy combatant and shipped off to a CIA black site to be tortured into confessing to killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database <a href="http://endthelie.com/"><b>End The Lie</b></a> and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at <a href="mailto:admin@EndtheLie.com"> <b>admin@EndtheLie.com</b></a><a href="mailto:admin@EndtheLie.com"> </a></span></i><br />
<br />
<b><i>-------------------------------------------------</i></b><br />
<b><i>COMMENT: This country is a police state and they are just making it "legal."</i></b><br />
<b><i> </i></b><br />
<b><i>As to what to do about it, we have been under attack - both physical pollution and psychological warfare - our entire lives. It is our right as humans to defend ourselves when attacked; that right is not granted to us by a gov, and it cannot legitimately be taken away.</i></b><br />
<b><i>-------------------------------------------------- </i></b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-90043768019592276702011-11-25T10:12:00.000-08:002011-11-25T10:12:16.345-08:00<h1> <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/034125_food_freedom_picnic.html"><span style="font-size: large;">Health department tyrants raid local 'farm to fork' picnic dinner, orders all food to be destroyed with bleach</span></a></h1>Friday, November 11, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"> </div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">(NaturalNews) It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special "farm to fork" picnic dinner put on for guests -- and <b> the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach.</b><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
For about five years now, Quail Hollow Farm has been growing <b>organic produce and raising healthy, pasture-based animals</b> which it provides to members as part of a CSA program. And it recently held its first annual "Farm to Fork Dinner Event," which offered <b>guests</b> an opportunity to tour the farm, meet those responsible for growing and raising the food, and of course partake in sharing a meal composed of the delicious bounty with others.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">But when the <b>Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD)</b> got word of the event and decided to get involved, this simple gathering of friends and neighbors around a giant, family-style picnic table quickly became a convenient target for the heavy hand of an out-of-control government agency. And Monte and Laura Bledsoe, the owners and operators of Quail Hollow Farm, were unprepared for what would happen next.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">SNHD official Mary Oaks raids picnic without cause or warrant, orders destruction of dinner food</span></b><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">Laura Bledsoe explains in a letter to her guests written after the fact that two days prior to the event, SNHD contacted the farm to say that, because the picnic was technically a "public" event, the couple would have to obtain a "special use permit," or else face a very steep fine. <b>Not wanting to risk having the event disrupted, the Bledsoes agreed to jump through all the demanded legal hoops even though their gathering was really just a backyard picnic.</b><br />
<br />
But the day of the event, an inspector from SNHD, Mary Oaks, showed up and declared that all the food the Bledsoes would be serving was "unfit for consumption," and that it would have to be destroyed. Though there was <b>no logical or lawful reasoning behind this declaration</b>, and <b>the Bledsoes had complied with all the requirements, Oaks insisted that the food be discarded and destroyed using a bleach solution.</b></div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
One of <b>the so-called reasons for this action included the fact that some of the food packaging did not contain labels, even though labels are not necessary if the food is eaten within 72 hours</b>. Oaks also cited the fact that some of the meat was not US Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified, that <b>the vegetables had already been cut and were thus a "bio-hazard," and that there were no receipts for the food (which was all grown on the farm, not purchased from a grocery store).</b><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
You can view pictures of the event, as well as video footage of Inspector Oaks raiding the party, at the following link:<br />
<a href="http://www.reallyvegasphoto.com/Events/CSA-Farm-Government-Inspection/19707296_v2zFML" target="_blank">http://www.reallyvegasphoto.com/Eve...</a><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
Unaware of their rights, the Bledsoes initially complied with<b> Oaks' unlawful demands</b> and destroyed the food. But shortly thereafter, Laura's husband Monte remembered that they had an emergency contact number for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) on their refrigerator.<br />
<br />
Shocked that they even had to resort to this desperate measure, the Bledsoes called FTCLDF for advice and spoke with General Counsel Gary Cox, who instructed them to ask Oaks for a search and arrest warrant, which of course she did not have. The Bledsoes then asked Oaks to leave the property, upon which she allegedly<b> stormed off in anger and screamed that she was going to call the police.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Police eventually arrived, but unaware of why they had been called and what the alleged crime was, they, too, left and offered their apologies to the Bledsoes.</b> Fortunately, the Bledsoes were able to improvise with the chef to create a whole new meal for their guests, which ended up turning out to be a type of blessing in disguise, according to Laura.<br />
<br />
The entire shocking incident serves as a reminder to know your rights when it comes to food and health freedom. Without a proper search or arrest warrant, so-called health inspectors or law enforcement officials have no business on your property. And if they ever try to pull a stunt like what happened at Quail Hollow Farm at your gathering, you have every right to demand that they vacate your property as well.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------------</b></div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><b>COMMENT: Completely baseless charges, insane claims, unreasonable "solutions", AND SHE was actually in violation of the law. HOWEVER, despite the Libertarian bent of Natural News' description of the reasons why this happened, it is NOT because of "the heavy hand of an out-of-control government agency"; this woman Mary is an obvious <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2011/10/heritability-of-psychopathy.html">half-path</a>.</b></div></div></div><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />
</div></div><b>This horrible evil will continue unless and until most people stop REFUSING to learn the FACTS about the heritability of psychopathy.</b></div></div></div>------------------------------------------------------------Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-307922416805701752011-11-23T11:20:00.000-08:002011-11-23T11:20:36.146-08:00<h1 class="story-header"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15828349"><span style="font-size: large;">School murder scandal shocks France</span></a></h1><h1 class="story-header"><span style="font-size: small;">BBC News Europe</span></h1><span class="story-date"> <span class="date">22 November 2011</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at </span><span class="time">04:35 ET</span></span><br />
<span class="story-date"><span class="time"> </span> </span><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1"><b>The French government has condemned the judiciary's handling of a teenager accused of rape who went on to murder a girl from his boarding school.</b></div><b>The boy, identified as Mathieu M, 17, had spent four months in jail for raping a minor in southern France.</b><br />
He had been under judicial supervision. The school said it had not been fully aware of his past.<br />
Last Friday, the body of Agnes, 13, was found in a forest close to the school. <b>She had been raped and burned.</b><br />
<br />
<b><span class="cross-head">'Sexual aggression'</span></b><br />
<b><span class="cross-head"> </span></b> <br />
Agnes's mother, Paola Marin, said she would not have died "but for a little less negligence" from the school.<br />
The victim's father, Frederic Marin, alleged that the school, Cevenol International in Chambon-sur-Lignon, had been aware of the boy's history and that he had problems involving "acts of sexual aggression".<br />
Head teacher Philippe Bauwens told French radio station RTL that the school was aware the boy had had problems with the judiciary but did not know their nature.<br />
"We had no contact with the judicial authorities," he said.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="cross-head">'Dysfunction'</span></b><br />
<b><span class="cross-head"> </span></b> <br />
After an emergency meeting with fellow ministers on Monday, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told TF1 television that "there had been a dysfunction" in the case and that reform of the justice system for minors would be a priority after elections next spring.<br />
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that in the most serious cases where a minor was a suspect, they should be "placed in a secure educational centre".<br />
He also asked cabinet colleagues to ensure that it was no longer possible for a pupil to be enrolled in a school without the head teacher being fully informed of serious cases involving judicial supervision.<br />
<b>French media report that Mathieu M was accused of raping a childhood friend and that after four months in custody had been assessed as not posing any danger.</b><br />
His parents were said to have looked for another school for him to complete his education but had been rejected on several occasions before being given a place at Cevenol International.<br />
<br />
Agnes disappeared on Wednesday last week and her body was found two days later.<b> The prosecutor said she had been murdered in an extremely brutal manner.</b><br />
<br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b>COMMENT: A clear case of a <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2011/10/heritability-of-psychopathy.html">double-dose.</a></b><br />
<br />
<b>This horrible evil will continue unless and until most people stop REFUSING to learn the FACTS about the heritability of psychopathy.</b><br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-8002843983973139312011-11-20T12:50:00.000-08:002011-11-20T12:50:17.792-08:00<h1 class="headline" id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277566"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/top-0-1-nation-earn-half-capital-gains-172647859.html">The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains</a></span></h1><span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1321810223_1"></span><cite class="byline vcard" id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277653"><b>By <span class="fn" id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277655">Robert Lenzner</span></b> </cite><br />
<br />
<b><span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1321810223_1">Forbes.com</span></b><br />
<br />
<span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1321810223_1">Capital gains</span> are the key ingredient of <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1321810223_2">income disparity</span> in the US-- and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. <b>If you want to even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% <span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1321810223_0">capital gains tax</span>.</b><br />
<br />
Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation's earners-- rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%-- about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million-- are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and <b>these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.</b><br />
<br />
It's crystal clear that the <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1321810223_3">Bush tax reduction</span> on capital gains and <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1321810223_4">dividend income</span> in 2003 was the cutting edge policy that has created the immense increase in net worth of corporate executives, Wall St. professionals and other entrepreneurs.<br />
<br />
The reduction in the tax from 20% to 15% continued the step-by-step tradition of cutting this tax to create more wealth. It had first been reduced from 35% in 1978 at a time of stock market and economic stagnation to 28% . Again 1981, at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October 19 232% crash in the market. In 1997 Clinton agreed to reduce it back to 20%, which move was an inducement for the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most "rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent."<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277413">Make no mistake; the battle that is to be fought over the coming attempt to reverse this reduction in capital gains will be bloody and intense. The facts are clear according to the Congressional Budget Office: <b>more than 80% of the increase in income inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains.</b> In fact, you can go so far as to claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed-- and volatile-- source of household income," according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277413"><br />
</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415">No wonder <b>the super wealthy plutocrats</b> obtained the largest share of national income-- 25% of the nation's wealth- greater than any other industrial nation in the the period of 1979 to 2005. Make no mistake; after unemployment-- this disparity between the 1%-- 3 million-- or the 0.1%-- the 300,000-- and the other 312 million citizens of the U.S. has become the major theme of the Occupy <a href="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/SIG=11m8ki247/EXP=1323029430/**http%3A//www.forbes.com/wall-street/">Wall Street</a> movement-- and an important national debate.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><br />
</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415">I commend you to the late Justice Louis Brandeis warning to the nation that " We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." We have to make up our minds to restore a higher, fairer capital gains tax to the wealthiest investor class-- or ultimately face increased social unrest.</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><br />
</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>-----------------------------------------------------------------</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"> <b>COMMENT: This is Capitalism - investors trying to maximize their profits, and they don't care what effect it has on anyone else.</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b><br />
</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>The small business owner is not a Capitalist. Most privately held companies are not started/run by Capitalists. </b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b><br />
</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>KILL the U.S. Military Empire by killing its funding.</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b><br />
</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>Let the Bush tax cuts expire forever.</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><br />
</div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>And</b><b> why are capital gains taxed separately from other income? Why aren't the rich paying 39% on ALL income?</b></div><div id="yui_3_3_0_24_1321819834277415"><b>---------------------------------------------------------------</b></div>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-84863922719240522912011-11-03T12:29:00.000-07:002011-11-03T12:29:05.644-07:00<h1 class="heading entry-title"><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111101/full/479015a.html"><span style="font-size: large;">Report finds massive fraud at Dutch universities</span></a></h1><b>Investigation claims dozens of social-psychology papers contain faked data.</b><br />
Ewen Callaway<br />
Published online <abbr class="published" title="2011-11-01T14:22:00Z">1 November 2011</abbr> | <span class="journalname">Nature</span> <span class="journalnumber">479</span>, 15 (2011) | doi:10.1038/479015a<br />
<br />
When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report (<a href="http://go.nature.com/tqmp5c">go.nature.com/t</a>qmp5c) released on 31 October gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing <b>years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication</b> by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.<br />
<br />
"We have some <b>30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake</b>, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.<br />
<br />
Stapel's eye-catching <b>studies on aspects of social behaviour such as power</b> and stereotyping garnered wide press coverage. For example, in a recent <span class="i">Science </span> paper (which the investigation has not identified as fraudulent), Stapel reported that untidy environments encouraged discrimination (<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1201068"> <span class="i">Science </span> <b>332, </b> 251–253; 2011</a>).<br />
<br />
"Somebody used the word 'wunderkind'," says Miles Hewstone, a social psychologist at the University of Oxford, UK. "He was one of the bright thrusting young stars of Dutch social psychology — highly published, highly cited, prize-winning, worked with lots of people, and very well thought of in the field."<br />
In early September, however, <b>Stapel was suspended from his position as dean of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences</b> over suspicions of research fraud. In late August, three young researchers under Stapel's supervision had found irregularities in published data and notified the head of the social-psychology department, Marcel Zeelenberg. Levelt's committee joined up with sister committees at the universities of Groningen and Amsterdam, where Stapel has also worked, to produce the report. They are now combing through his publications and their supporting data, and interviewing collaborators, to map out the full extent of the misconduct. <br />
<h2 class="inlineheading"> <span style="font-size: small;">Mistakes made</span></h2>Stapel initially cooperated with the investigation by identifying fraudulent publications, but stopped because he said he was not physically or emotionally able to continue, says Levelt. In a statement, translated from Dutch, that is appended to the report, Stapel says: "I have made mistakes, but I was and am honestly concerned with the field of social psychology. I therefore regret the pain that I have caused others." <span class="i">Nature </span> was unable to contact Stapel for comment.<br />
<br />
The report does not identify specific papers that contain manipulated or fabricated data, pending the completion of the investigations. The investigators conclude, though, that Stapel acted alone. "The co-authors, and in particular the PhD students, were absolutely not involved, they really didn't know what was going on in this data fabrication," Levelt says.<br />
<br />
The data were also suspicious, the report says: <b>effects were large; missing data and outliers were rare; and hypotheses were rarely refuted</b>. Journals publishing Stapel's papers did not question the omission of details about where the data came from. "We see that the scientific checks and balances process has failed at several levels," Levelt says.<br />
<br />
At a press conference, Tilburg University's rector, Philip Eijlander, said that he would pursue criminal prosecution of Stapel. The committee is also producing a list of tainted papers to guide co-authors and journal publishers in what will probably be a long list of retractions.<br />
<br />
Joris Lammers, a psychologist at Tilburg who did his PhD under Stapel's supervision, says he is "shocked" by the findings. Lammers says he worked independently of Stapel and collected all the data in his PhD himself — the report notes that his dissertation is not under suspicion. Several other former collaborators contacted by <span class="i">Nature </span> declined to comment.<br />
<br />
Hewstone, who has never worked with Stapel, had initially fretted that Stapel's fraudulent oeuvre would undermine other findings in the field of social psychology. While editing a new edition of a social-psychology textbook, however, Hewstone turned up no references to Stapel's work in 15 chapters, suggesting that Stapel's work was not as influential as he had thought. "I think the impact is going to be particularly devastating for the young people he worked with, but not for the field of social psychology as such," he says.<br />
<br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: Another <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2011/10/heritability-of-psychopathy.html">half-path</a> PRETENDING to be competent, PRETENDING to practice the scientific method.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
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<span class="end-of-item"></span>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-9434118507859594942011-11-02T12:38:00.000-07:002011-11-02T12:38:11.440-07:00<h1 class="headline title"><a href="http://gawker.com/5855259/jon-corzines-spectacular-failure-just-got-more-spectacular"><span style="font-size: large;">Jon Corzine’s Spectacular Failure Just Got More Spectacular</span></a></h1>There's no better argument against the privilege of wealth than Jon Corzine, the clownish former Goldman Sachs CEO who thought his facility for extracting money from a rigged financial game entitled him to run the state of New Jersey. After getting roundly rejected by voters after one term, he got a job from a friend running derivatives firm MF Global. <a href="http://gawker.com/5854868/jon-corzine-is-still-a-miserable-well+compensated-failure">Yesterday it went bankrupt</a>. And today we learned that <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/regulators-investigating-mf-global/?hp">he's lost $700 million of his clients' money</a>.<br />
<br />
That's right—$700 million from client accounts have simply disappeared from MF Global. The missing money first came to light over the weekend as a potential buyer for the struggling firm pored over its books. When it realized that hundreds of millions in client dollars were unaccounted for, it backed out, leaving MF no choice but to file for bankruptcy yesterday.<br />
<br />
Now the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/cme-investigating-mf-global/">CME Group</a>—a commodities exchange where MF Global did business—are investigating. According to the <em>New York Times</em>, it appears that the firm used client money to finance its own trades, a big no no. <b>Either way, not being able to answer the question, "Where are you keeping the $700 million these folks gave you?" is a sign that something is very, very wrong.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Jon Corzine, the man responsible for all this, is worth a half a billion dollars.</b><br />
<br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b>COMMENT: Another obvious <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2011/10/heritability-of-psychopathy.html">half-path</a>.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-30205204174333841292011-10-25T12:07:00.000-07:002011-10-25T12:08:49.729-07:00<h1><span style="font-size: large;">Millionaires and corporations are using tax breaks to help sway public opinion</span></h1><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/17/millionaires-corporations-tax-breaks-sway-opinion">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/17/millionaires-corporations-tax-breaks-sway-opinion</a><div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first">Rightwing thinktanks profess a love of freedom, but their refusal to reveal who funds them is deeply undemocratic</div><div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first"><br />
</div><div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first">George Monbiot</div>guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011 15.30 EDT<br />
<div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first"></div><div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first"></div><b>Since the late 19th century, the very rich have been paying people to demand less government.</b> The work of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/" title="">Herbert Spencer</a>, for example, was sponsored by Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and Thomas Edison. Spencer believed that society changed according to evolutionary laws. Humans were evolving towards perfection, but this process was inhibited by interference from the state. By protecting people from the consequences of their own actions (or their own bad luck), it stopped the winnowing process that would otherwise result in the survival of the fittest.<br />
<br />
Social security, publicly funded education, compulsory vaccination, laws enforcing safety at work all interrupted social evolution. But a self-regulated free market would swiftly ensure that those who were best adapted would survive and triumph. It's not hard to see why the millionaires loved him. They saw themselves as winners of the evolutionary race, taking their rightful place at the pinnacle of the social order. Any attempt to limit their freedoms would prevent society from achieving perfection.<br />
<br />
Today, sponsorship by millionaires and corporations explains why free-market thinktanks outnumber and outspend the thinktanks arguing for public services and the distribution of wealth. Or so I guess. But their absence of accountability means that guesswork is all we've got. <b>As I showed last month, only one of the rightwing thinktanks I contacted was prepared to reveal who funded it. All the others refused on the grounds that they had to respect the privacy of their donors. These organisations exert great influence in public life. But we have no means of discovering on whose behalf they do it.</b><br />
<br />
Revelations about this <b>secret funding network</b> have now brought down a cabinet minister. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/liamfox" title="">Liam Fox</a> was enmeshed in a web of corporate influence about which we still know little. The organisation he founded, Atlantic Bridge, was registered with the Charity Commission as a thinktank. Like many others, it looked more like a lobbying outfit, <b>demanding privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts.</b> The key question remains unanswered: who funded it?<br />
<br />
As a result of better transparency laws in the US, we know more about Atlantic Bridge's partner organisation, the American Legislative Exchange Council. It claims, like most thinktanks, to stand for limited government and free markets. What this means in practice is lobbying against government action such as regulating tobacco and greenhouse gases. By an astonishing coincidence, it turns out to have been funded by the tobacco companies Altria and Reynolds American, by the oil giant Exxon and by the billionaire Koch brothers, who run a fossil fuel and chemicals empire they call "the biggest company you've never heard of".<br />
<br />
<b>Freedom is what all these groups claim to stand for. But the freedom they promote is of a particular kind. They are not campaigning for freedom from hunger or poverty. They are not demanding free access to health and education. They are not lobbying for freedom from industrial injuries, exploitation, pollution or unscrupulous banking. When these libertarians say freedom, they mean freedom from the rules that prevent their sponsors behaving as they wish: mistreating their workers, threatening public health and using the planet as their dustbin.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Like everything else about these lobbyists, the true, unacceptable meaning of the freedom they espouse is hidden behind an acceptable front.</b> Thinktanks and lobby groups are the bane of democratic politics. They are the means by which corporations and the ultra-rich influence public life without having to reveal their hand. Their refusal to reveal who funds them, and the British state's failure to demand it, are deeply undemocratic.<br />
<br />
Last week in the Guardian, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/13/liam-fox-werritty-special-adviser" title="">Michael White wondered</a> why Liam Fox did not make his friend Adam Werrity an officially sanctioned special adviser. Had he done so, Werrity's presence in his department would not have broken civil service rules, and Fox might still be in his post. But it would also have meant that Werrity's activities would have been subject to freedom of information requests, and that could have been fatal to what he was doing.<br />
<br />
What this case highlights is the asymmetry of information in public life. The public sector is now so transparent that we have a right to read the private emails of climate scientists working for a state-sponsored university. <b>The private sector is so opaque that we have no idea on whose behalf the people who appear every day on the BBC, using arguments that look suspiciously like corporate propaganda, are speaking.</b><br />
<br />
The Labour government weakened the rules on lobbying transparency. The ministerial code published in 2007 dropped the requirement that meetings between ministers and lobbyists should be recorded. It also rebuffed MPs' demands for a register of lobbyists. You'll be surprised to hear who the villain was: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tom-watson" title="">Tom Watson</a>, then a Cabinet Office minister, now a heroic campaigner for corporate accountability. He brushed aside the call for a register with the claim that "we have a pretty good system in the UK". In fact, we have no system at all: the Commons public administration committee has pointed out that "Lobbying activity in the United Kingdom is subject to no specific external regulation."<br />
<br />
Thanks to the Fox scandal, the coalition government will now be forced to do something. But unless new legislation also applies to the thinktanks, their funders will keep using them to promote their interests without disclosure. The law should insist that all organisations which seek to influence public opinion should reveal sources of funding greater than £1,000.<br />
<br />
The government might also take a look at charity law. It seems remarkable to me that groups such as Policy Exchange, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Global Warming Policy Foundation have charitable status. The Charity Commission disqualified Atlantic Bridge on the grounds that "it is not permissible for a charity to promote a particular pre-determined point of view". Should this not disqualify all of them? Can you imagine the IEA deciding that private companies should get their noses out of the NHS? Can you picture Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation announcing that climate change is an urgent threat and fossil fuel companies need stricter regulation? Is it credible that these organisations do not have "a particular pre-determined point of view"?<br />
<br />
And shouldn't it be a basic requirement of charity law that we know who, as taxpayers, we are subsidising? How can an organisation qualify as a charity if we don't even know whose interests it is promoting? I strongly suspect that <b>we are granting tax breaks to multimillionaires and corporations to help them change public opinion.</b> I invite the thinktanks to prove me wrong.<br />
<br />
Let's also demand that the BBC reform its editorial guidelines, so that no one working for a group whose purpose is public advocacy can take part in a programme unless it has published a registry of interests. Otherwise the BBC is granting free airtime to corporations without disclosing who they are or what their interest in the question might be.<br />
<br />
<b>So come on you free-market libertarians, let's hear your arguments against transparency and accountability. And let's hear how you reconcile them with your professed love of freedom.</b><br />
<br />
© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.<br />
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<b>--------------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: George Monbiot is an idiot; there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas, and vaccines are an attack on the human race.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Perhaps that is why he stops short of saying what really needs to be done: the end of privacy.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>The Lie is like air to the Evil; without the Lie, the Evil dies. The Truth is like air to the Good; without the Truth, the Good dies.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Everyone should be able to find out anything about anyone. No more secrets, no more lies!</b><br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-59110243107347788472011-06-08T10:29:00.000-07:002011-06-08T10:29:02.694-07:00<h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-mob-attacks-20110606,0,7509040.story#tugs_story_display">Random attacks cause concern in Chicago</a></span></h1><h2><span style="font-size: small;">Mob attacks create a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business</span></h2><span class="toolSet" style="width: 335px;"> </span><br />
<div class="byline"><span class="byline">By <a href="http://bio.tribune.com/JasonMeisner">Jason Meisner</a> and Jeremy Gorner, Tribune reporters</span> <br />
<div class="date"><span class="timeString">10:26 p.m. CDT</span><span class="dateTimeSeparator">, </span><span class="dateString">June 6, 2011</span></div><div class="date"><br />
</div>No one was seriously hurt in the flurry of five random attacks by <b>a mob of young men</b> on Chicago's lakefront over the weekend.<br />
<br />
But the feeling among many visitors and residents that the popular <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/illinois/cook-county/chicago/near-north-side-PLGEO100100501256200.topic" id="PLGEO100100501256200" title="Near North Side">Near North Side</a> stretch where the attacks occurred is safe for strolling on a summer night may have taken a hit.</div><div class="byline"><br />
</div>"I think it reflects badly on Chicago," said Dr. Jack Singer, 68, a Seattle <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/health/medical-specialization/oncology-HEMSP00007.topic" id="HEMSP00007" title="Oncology">oncologist</a> who was one of two <b>victims</b> in town for a convention of cancer specialists at <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/career-workplace/mccormick-place-PLCUL000061.topic" id="PLCUL000061" title="McCormick Place">McCormick Place</a>. "I've been coming to the convention every year, and this is the first time I've felt threatened downtown."<br />
<br />
The outbreak of <b>random violence</b> along a busy stretch of Chicago Avenue and the lakefront creates a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business.<br />
<br />
"No matter what, we have to remember this isn't just about downtown residents, but our tourism economy," said Ald. <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/government/brendan-reilly-PEPLT007978.topic" id="PEPLT007978" title="Brendan Reilly">Brendan Reilly</a>, whose 42nd Ward encompasses most of the downtown business district. "Perception is reality in tourism world. There are economic consequences if people think downtown isn't safe."<br />
<br />
Reilly said Monday that police need more resources to deal with the influx of "hundreds of thousands" of people flooding downtown and the beaches on weekends.<br />
<br />
Five <b>youths</b> were charged Monday in the crimes, and acting police Superintendent <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/crime-law-justice/police/law-enforcement/garry-mccarthy-PEPLT00008426.topic" id="PEPLT00008426" title="Garry McCarthy">Garry McCarthy</a> praised the department's response. He said there is no need for <b>people</b> to be afraid to walk around downtown.<br />
<br />
"I think our reaction to it has been quick, it's been swift and it's been very effective," McCarthy said outside his confirmation hearing at City Hall.<br />
<br />
<b>The attacks</b> occurred around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Moments after <b>a group of teens</b> wrestled with Singer over his <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/services-shopping/electronic-devices/apple-ipad-PRDCES000000029.topic" id="PRDCES000000029" title="Apple iPad">iPad</a> and BlackBerry, <b>members of the same mob</b> attacked <b>a 42-year-old doctor</b> visiting from <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/intl/japan-PLGEO000001.topic" id="PLGEO000001" title="Japan">Japan</a>. That doctor <b>was beaten</b> and robbed of his <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/services-shopping/electronic-devices/apple-ipod-PRDCES000000025.topic" id="PRDCES000000025" title="Apple iPod">iPod Touch</a> while walking in the 700 block of North Lake Shore Drive, authorities said.<br />
<br />
"He looked like he had no idea what had happened," Singer said of the Japanese doctor, who rode with him in a squad car while helping police search for <b>the assailants.</b> <br />
Both physicians were in town for the annual convention of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which entered into a 10-year deal with McCormick Place in 2010. The five-day event typically brings in more than 30,000 doctors, vendors and other specialists from around the world.<br />
<br />
Police sources said they have been aware of <b>large groups of teens</b> causing trouble along North Michigan Avenue for at least the last year. One source said the fear is the attacks could become more frequent as the weather gets warmer.<br />
<br />
While there have been reports nationwide of shoplifting and other crimes carried out by "flash mobs" coordinating their efforts through text messaging, the attacks Saturday did not appear to be coordinated by any social media, police said.<br />
<br />
On Monday, two 16-year-old <b>boys</b> were ordered held in custody on juvenile charges of attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery.<br />
<br />
Three other <b>teens</b> were charged with robbery as adults: <b>Dvonte</b> Sykes, 17, of the 7500 block of South Normal Avenue; <b>Trovolus</b> Pickett, 17, of the 8400 block of South Dorchester Avenue; and <b>Derod'te</b> Wright, 18, of the 3500 block of South State Street. They remained in custody Monday night in lieu of bonds ranging from $200,000 to $300,000.<br />
<br />
None of <b>the defendants</b> has any adult arrests, according to prosecutors.<br />
<br />
The first <b>victim</b>, insurance salesman Krzysztof Wilkowski, 34, said he was sitting on his motor scooter checking his cellphone around 8:30 p.m. when he was hit in the head with a baseball, which knocked his helmet off.<br />
<br />
<b>"The next thing I know is I'm being hit by the helmet, then being dragged into the street," Wilkowski said. "I couldn't believe it. It was broad daylight outside, there were people around, and this happened."</b><br />
<b> </b> <br />
Moments later, Singer, who was sitting on a park bench smoking a cigar and typing an email, was attacked by <b>members of the same group</b>. The <b>teens</b> then ran east to Lake Shore Drive, where <b>they</b> allegedly attacked <b>the doctor from Japan</b> and two other <b>people</b> along the bike path just south of Chicago Avenue.<br />
<br />
Ryan Dacumos, 20, of the <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/illinois/cook-county/chicago/lakeview-%28chicago-illinois%29-PLGEO100100501254600.topic" id="PLGEO100100501254600" title="Lakeview (Chicago, Illinois)">Lakeview</a> neighborhood, said he was riding his mountain bike when <b>the mob</b> approached him and <b>one of them</b> grabbed the headphones to his iPad.<br />
<br />
"They were asking for my wallet," Dacumos said. "After I gave it, they punched me in my mouth and in my left ear. I started to run away so fast because I scared."<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Tribune reporter Kristen Mack and <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/economy-business-finance/media-industry/television-industry/wgn-ORCRP0107330.topic" id="ORCRP0107330" title="WGN">WGN-TV</a> reporter Pat Curry contributed.</i><br />
<br />
<b>The board for this story has been closed because of excessive violations of the Tribune's comment policies. Details of those policies are described below. </b> <br />
<div class="copyright">Copyright © 2011, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/" target="_blank">Chicago Tribune</a></div><div class="copyright"><br />
</div><div class="copyright"><b>-----------------------------------------------------------</b></div><div class="copyright"><b> COMMENT: How much you wanna bet that 100% of the ATTACKERS were BLACK? (Click on the linked title ^ for pictures of three of the "youths.") How much you wanna bet that NONE of the VICTIMS were BLACK? </b></div><div class="copyright"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="copyright"><b> And just look at the CONTORTIONS, the EFFORT, these piece of shit liar "reporters" have to go through to cover up the truth! Teens, members, youths, they, the assailants, young men; no, BLACK teens, BLACK members of the group, BLACK youths, BLACK assailants. </b></div><div class="copyright"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="copyright"><b>And this VIOLENCE is NOT RANDOM. The VICTIMS are mostly WHITE. To put it plainly, as the "reporters" seem unable to do, the BLACKS are TARGETING the WHITES (and one Japanese) for these RANDOM attacks.</b></div><div class="copyright"><b><br />
</b></div><b>Oh, "The board for this story has been closed because of EXCESSIVE violations of the Tribune's comment policies." FUCK YOU. The lie is like air to the Evil; without the lie, the Evil dies. The truth is like air to the Good; without the truth, the Good dies.</b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-22367947903517063132011-06-03T13:04:00.000-07:002011-06-03T13:06:47.107-07:00<h1 class="cnbc_blghdln"><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236764"><span style="font-size: large;">Wall Street Baffled by Slowing Economy, Low Yields: Trader</span></a></h1>Published: <span class="cnbc_sbhd_comp">Wednesday, 1 Jun 2011 | 11:06 AM ET</span><br />
<br />
<span class="cnbc_sbhd_comp">By: <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/15837548/cid/208884">Margo D. Beller</a><br />
Special to CNBC.com</span><br />
<br />
<b>Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low</b>, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.<br />
<div class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span><b>"What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money,"</b> he said. <b>"They can not find a yield</b> and you just don’t want to be putting your money into commodities or things that are punts that might work out or they might not depending on what happens with the economy.</div><div class="textBodyBlack"><br />
</div><div class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>"We need to find real yield and real returns on these assets. You see bad data, you see Treasurys rally, you see all bonds and all fixed-income rally and then the people who are betting against the U.S. economy start getting bearish on stocks. That’s a huge mistake."</div><div class="textBodyBlack"><br />
</div><div class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>Stocks <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236131/"><b>extended losses</b></a> after the <b><b><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236208/"><b>manufacturing fell below expectations</b></a></b></b> in May and the <b><b><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43234521/"><b>private sector added only 38,000 jobs</b></a></b></b> during the month. </div><div class="textBodyBlack"><br />
</div><div class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," Yastrow said. <b>"We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.</b> </div>"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."<br />
<br />
<div class="textBodyBlack"><span id="byLine"></span>However, he said he wouldn’t sell stocks. </div><div class="textBodyBlack"><br />
</div>"Any bears out there better be careful because the dividend yields on these stocks look awesome relative to all the other investment vehicles out there," Yastrow said. "So bears are going to have to find a new way to express their discontent with the U.S. economy."<br />
<br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<div class="textBodyBlack"><b>COMMENT: The U.S. economy has hit its natural size. In fact, we hit that point in 2000. ALL the APPARENT growth during the Bush years was FAKE. It was a lie. The U.S. economy will never grow again.</b></div><div class="textBodyBlack"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="textBodyBlack"><b> Karl Marx, although <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2010/10/socialism-definition-essay-in-two-parts.html">seriously wrong about Communism</a>, was seriously right about Capitalism; the ability of Capitalism to deliver benefits to the majority of U.S. citizens has ended. We need Socialism now, and forevermore (this does NOT, however, mean every ridiculous Liberal bullshit).</b></div><div class="textBodyBlack"><b> ----------------------------------------------------------</b></div>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-78765722651804314682011-05-19T13:02:00.000-07:002011-05-19T13:06:18.556-07:00<h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://news.discovery.com/history/bible-new-testament-forgery-110518.html">Forgeries in the Bible's New Testament?</a></span></h1>Analysis by <a href="http://news.discovery.com/contributors/rossella-lorenzi/">Rossella Lorenzi</a> <br />
Wed May 18, 2011 04:19 PM ET<br />
<br />
Nearly half of the New Testament is a forgery, according to a provocative new book which charges that the Apostle Paul authored only a fraction of letters attributed to him, and the Apostle Peter just wrote nothing. <b>Written by Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical Christian</b> and now agnostic professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the book claims to unveil "one of the most unsettling ironies of the early Christian tradition:" <b>the use of deception to promote the truth.</b><br />
"The Bible not only contains untruths of accidental mistakes. It also contains what almost anyone today would call lies," Ehrman writes in "Forged: Writing in the Name of God -- Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are."<br />
According to the biblical scholar, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him.<br />
<b>"Virtually all scholars agree that seven of the Pauline letters are authentic</b>: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon," said Ehrman.<br />
Individuals claiming to be Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians, he added.<br />
<b>Contradictory views, discrepancies in the language and the choice of words among the books attributed to Paul are all evidence of this forgery, the author asserts..</b><br />
For example, Ehrman’s analysis of the book of Ephesians shows that the text, filled with long Greek sentences, doesn’t match with Paul’s peculiar Greek writing style, made of short sentences.<br />
Moreover, the content of what the author says "stands at odds with Paul’s own thought, but is in line with the Ephesians," writes Ehrman.<br />
<b>The biblical scholar</b>, who also challenges the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, disputes the assumption that the Apostle Peter wrote the Epistles of Peter or anything else.<br />
<b>Unlike Paul, Peter, a fisherman raised in rural Palestine, was most certainly illiterate. So was the Apostle John, who could have not written the Gospel bearing his name, said Ehrman.</b><br />
But why would an author claim to be an Apostle when he wasn’t? The answer is pretty obvious according to the scholar.<br />
In the early centuries of the church, Christians felt under attack from all sides. "They were in conflict with Jews and pagans over the validity of their religion... but the hottest debates were with other Christians, as they argued over the right thing to believe and the rights ways to live," said Ehrman.<br />
Thus Christians aiming at authorizing views they wanted others to accept, wrote in the name of the Apostles, "fabricating, falsifying, and forging documents," said Ehrman.<br />
"If your name was Jehoshaphat and no one had any idea who you were, you could not very well sign your own name to the book," said Ehrman.<br />
"No one would take the Gospel of Jehoshaphat seriously. If you wanted someone to read it, you called yourself Peter. Or Thomas. Or James. In other words, you lied about who you really were," Ehrman concluded.<br />
<b>According to the scholar</b>, the idea that "writing in the name of another" was a common, accepted practice in antiquity is wrong. Forgery was just as deceitful, inappropriate, and wrong as it is today, he said.<br />
As expected, the book has raised a heated debate.<br />
"The book is more provocative than insightful," writes the <a href="http://www.catholicherald.org/news/newsitem.aspx?newsid=1273&newsitemid=16041" target="_blank">Catholic Herald</a>.<br />
Conceding that "some New Testament books probably were not written by the people traditionally assigned as authors," the Catholic website remarks that Ehrman "barely mentions the concept of oral tradition."<br />
"So even if a specific letter was not done by Peter or Paul, it could well have been written by someone drawing from the oral tradition passed down by one or the other," wrote the Catholic website.<br />
<br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: FIRST, in science, it doesn't matter who AGREES, or how many AGREE.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>SECOND, do these "scholars" who all "agree" know ANYTHING about alchemy, the fourth PHYSICAL dimension, the results of Jacques Vallee's and John Keel's investigations of the UFO "phenomenon", or the great science that's been done on the psychology and heritability of psychopathy? No? Then their "analysis" is BULLSHIT.</b><br />
<br />
<b>THIRD, "Unlike Paul, Peter, a fisherman raised in rural Palestine, was most certainly illiterate. So was the Apostle John, who could have not written the Gospel bearing his name, said Ehrman." is IDIOCY. Why couldn't an illiterate eye-witness tell someone else what he saw and heard, who then wrote it down?</b><br />
<br />
<b>Also, there is NO SUCH THING as "lying in the service of the Good." Indeed, it is "using the truth to lie" that is the hallmark of the psychopathic personality. Maybe what this "former" evangelical christian doesn't want to admit is that "saint" Paul was EVIL.</b><br />
<br />
<b>This book is obviously anything BUT "scholarly." </b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-49008190202963638602011-05-13T14:20:00.000-07:002011-05-13T14:20:38.492-07:00<h1 class="headline"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/how-perpetual-war-became-us-ideology/238600/1/"><span style="font-size: large;">How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology</span></a></h1><h5 class="author"><span style="font-size: small;">By <span class="authors"><span class="author">James Joyner</span></span></span></h5><span class="date">May 11 2011, 7:00 AM ET</span><br />
<br />
The United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades. <b>Despite frequent opposition by the party not controlling the presidency and often that of the American public, the foreign policy elite operates on a consensus that routinely leads to the use of military power to solve international crises.</b><br />
<b> </b> <br />
<em>Ideological Domination</em><br />
<br />
Neoconservatives of both parties urge war to spread American ideals, seeing it as the duty of a great nation. Liberal interventionists see individuals, not states, as the key global actor and have deemed a Responsibility to Protect those in danger from their own governments, particularly when an international consensus to intervene can be forged. Traditional Realists, meanwhile, initially reject most interventions but are frequently drawn in by arguments that the national interest will be put at risk if the situation spirals out of control.<br />
In a widely discussed March essay, <b>Harvard international relations professor <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/21/what_intervention_in_libya_tells_us_about_the_neocon_liberal_alliance">Stephen Walt</a> wrote of a "neocon-liberal alliance" in support of war, contending, "The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance."</b><br />
The Progressive Policy Institute's <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/28/not_all_interventions_are_the_same">Jim Arkedis</a>, who describes himself as a "progressive internationalist," calls this notion of a neocon-liberal alliance "bunk." Neocons, according to Arkedis, "disdain multilateral diplomacy and overestimate the efficacy of military force" in a way that "saps the economic, political, and moral sources of American influence." He adds, "Though our ends are similar, our thresholds for intervention, our military methodology, and our justifications for action could not be more different."<br />
But <b>are neoconservatives and liberal interventionists really so different?</b> Neoconservative bastions like the <i>Weekly Standard, Commentary</i>, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are passionate advocates of spreading American values. In Iraq, the toppling of <b>Saddam Hussein</b> and discovery that there was no WMD program to speak of were both accomplished in the first weeks of the war and with a relative handful of American casualties. If these had been our chief concerns we would have left immediately; the apparent U.S. goals in staying on so many years were democracy promotion and nation-building, both ideals the neoconservative White House leadership shared with liberal interventionists.<br />
Further, while neocons are doubtless less patient than liberal interventionists when it comes to exhausting diplomatic options and achieving international consensus, <b>what does it really matter if the end result is the same either way: military action.</b><br />
Neocons and liberal interventionists may have dominated American foreign policymaking since 1993, but what about the realists? During the Cold War, there was a bipartisan elite consensus against the U.S. involving itself in wars not believed to be directly tied to protecting vital American interests. This included two major hot wars in Korea and Vietnam and more than a dozen quick strikes and proxy conflicts aimed at stopping the spread of Soviet Communism, ranging from Cuba to Afghanistan to El Salvador. And there were a handful of interventions in the Middle East to protect Israel and retaliate for terrorist attacks.<br />
Starting with the 1991 Gulf War, however, despite the end of the Cold War, we've had two decades of non-stop fighting: Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Serbia-Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2001, and Iraq again from 2003. With Libya, we've added another U.S. war.<br />
Ideologically, the <b>George H.W. Bush</b> administration should not have been inclined toward military intervention. <b>Bush senior was a reluctant intervener</b>, the National Security Council was guided by eminent realist Brent Scowcroft, and Colin Powell, the author of an eponymous doctrine that urges extreme caution in going to war, headed up the Joint Chiefs. <b>And yet the administration launched three major military operations in its four-year term</b>: the Panama invasion (derided by many as Operation Just 'Cause), the first Gulf War, and the Somalia intervention.<br />
But all three of those missions were at least ostensibly tied to U.S. national interests. As odd as the Panama invasion seems in hindsight, earning the derisive nickname "Operation Just 'Cause," at the time, it was justified within the realist goals of safeguarding U.S. personnel in country, combating drug trafficking, and protecting the Panama Canal. The first Gulf War was, at its heart, about preventing Saddam Hussein from gaining control of more than half the world's oil supply. And Bush envisioned Somalia as a purely humanitarian relief mission; it morphed into warlord hunting and nation building under his successor.<br />
<b>Clinton</b> may well have been the first full-throated liberal interventionist since the days of Woodrow Wilson. During the 1992 campaign, he declared, "The continuing attacks by Serbian elements in Bosnia threaten the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid, jeopardize the safety of U.N. personnel and put at risk the lives of thousands of citizens." He added, in what could have been a textbook definition of liberal interventionism, "The United States should take the lead in seeking U.N. Security Council authorization for air strikes against those who are attacking the relief effort. The United States should be prepared to lend appropriate military support to that operation. Air and naval forces adequate to carry out these operations should be visibly in position."<br />
Clinton followed through on these policies as president, committing American forces to military action in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti for reasons almost exclusively framed in humanitarian and international legal terms. More importantly, perhaps, he committed to long-term nation-building operations after each conflict. He also greatly expanded the Somalia operation, turning it into a warlord hunting exercise that led to the infamous Black Hawk down incident.<br />
While most mainstream Republicans in Congress and the commentariat bitterly opposed these interventions, Clinton had strong neoconservative allies in Bob Dole, John McCain, <b>Charles Krauthammer</b>, <b>Bill Kristol</b>, and Robert Kagan. While realist Republicans were criticizing Clinton for the follies of nation-building, a bipartisan neoconservative group calling itself the <b>Project for a New American Century</b> issued a statement of principles in June 1997 calling for significant increases in defense spending in order to promote "a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities." Among the Republican signatories were<b> Dick Cheney</b>, <b>Donald Rumsfeld</b>, and <b> Paul Wolfowitz</b>.<br />
In the 2000 campaign, <b>George W. Bush</b>, leveraging public frustration with Clinton's long string of interventions, declared that he would pursue a more "humble foreign policy" that eschewed "nation-building" and had as its "guiding question, 'Is it in our nation's interests?'" In other words, he pledged to be a realist president.<br />
But, few readers will need reminding, he took us to war in Afghanistan -- a retaliation for a direct attack on the country and supported by virtually everyone -- but almost immediately turned it into the nation-building exercise in which we are still mired. And, of course, there was Iraq, ostensibly a preemptive strike at a rogue regime building weapons of mass destruction that instead became a years-long nation-building mission.<br />
During his own 2008 campaign, <b>President Obama</b> gave every indication of a realist foreign policy, keeping Robert Gates on at Defense, reversing policies favored by our Eastern and Central European allies in order to improve relations with the increasingly important Russian state, and eschewing unhelpfully aggressive rhetoric about Iran. But the arguments of the liberal interventionists on his vaunted team of rivals -- notably <b>Hillary Clinton</b>, <b>Susan Rice</b>, and <b>Samantha Power</b> -- ultimately won the day on Libya debate, overwhelming the more realist caution of Gates and the intelligence leadership.<br />
<br />
<em>How Did We Get Here?</em><br />
<br />
While neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have led post-Cold War U.S. foreign policymaking, traditional realists continue to dominate the academic study of security policy and even the rank-and-file military and intelligence communities. But their more ideological brethren are better positioned to win the day politically.<br />
The Cold War not only provided a neat national grand strategy, the prospect that superpower competition could lead to global nuclear annihilation greatly restrained the inclination for adventurism. That may be why, for example, no one seriously suggested a Responsibility to Protect Ugandan innocents from the atrocities of military dictator Idi Amin; Uganda was a Soviet client state. Similarly, a U.S. invasion of Libya to affect regime change after Muammar Gaddafi's 1980s terrorist strikes against our citizens would have been unthinkable. There was simply too much risk of escalating U.S.-Soviet tension.<br />
Those days are gone. Bush senior proclaimed a "new world order" after the quick and decisive victory in the 1991 Gulf War, thinking that a permanent international consensus to enforce norms of decency had been forged. Though that grand vision never came to pass, the notion that the United States and its allies were now free to project power to "do good" has remained intact.<br />
This has coincided with a still-ongoing revolution in global communications technology. With the rise of network news channels that can broadcast far-away violence into American living rooms, and more recently of social media technologies that give voice to oppressed peoples in all corners of the globe, this environment has made it much easier for advocates of humanitarian intervention to make their case.<br />
Realist arguments about national interests, unknown risks, and post-conflict reconstruction have proven far less able to sway Americans than are television images of humans being slaughtered. Whereas the victims of Idi Amin were statistics, those dying in the Arab Spring have faces, names, and Facebook accounts.<br />
The passionate zeal of the liberal interventionists and neoconservatives satisfies an emotional hunger that has been a part of our political system since the emotion-laden days of the Cold War, when the public first came to view U.S. foreign policy as a tool of good to be deployed against evil. Both ideologies use the language of morality and appeal to our shared humanity. People want to do something about tragedy and it's easy to persuade them that doing the right thing will be worthwhile. Realists may often be right, but they are rarely convincing.<br />
<br />
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<b>COMMENT: What Harvard international relations professor Sthephen Walt calls "neoconservatives" is actually Conservative psychopaths; what he calls "liberal interventionists" are actually Liberal psychopaths.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Every U.S. President since the bullet entered the FRONT of JFK's head has been a psychopath (yes, even <a href="http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/07/49-criticism-of-mein-obama.html">Mein Obama</a>). Every other person whose name I bolded above is also a psychopath.</b><br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-4634518661908320832011-05-05T08:39:00.000-07:002011-05-05T08:39:38.147-07:00<h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.universetoday.com/85401/gravity-probe-b-confirms-two-of-einsteins-space-time-theories/#more-85401">Gravity Probe B Confirms Two of Einstein’s Space-Time Theories</a></span></h1><b>by <span class="author vcard fn">Nancy Atkinson</span> on <abbr class="published" title="2011-05-04">May 4, 2011</abbr></b><br />
<br />
Researchers have confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, concluding one of NASA’s longest-running projects. The Gravity Probe B experiment used four ultra-precise gyroscopes housed in an Earth-orbiting satellite to measure two aspects of Einstein’s theory about gravity. The first is the geodetic effect, or the warping of space and time around a gravitational body. The second is frame-dragging, which is the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates.<br />
<span id="more-85401"></span><br />
Gravity Probe-B determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, GP-B’s gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit. But in confirmation of Einstein’s theories, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin, while Earth’s gravity pulled at them.<br />
<br />
The project as been in the works for 52 years.<br />
<br />
The findings are online in the journal Physical Review Letters.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.universetoday.com/85401/gravity-probe-b-confirms-two-of-einsteins-space-time-theories/#more-85401">Read full article... </a><br />
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<b>----------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b>COMMENT: From Newton to Faraday to Maxwell to TESLA, humanity was on a path that would long ago have led to the development of extremely efficient - and environmentally clean - energy technology. By now, we would have eliminated both pollution and poverty on the entire planet.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>This could not be allowed, so the <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2011/04/4th-d-not-fluid.html">Forces of Darkness</a> sent in <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2005/03/einstein-was-wrong.html">Albert Einstein</a> and the <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2005/03/quantum-mechanics-is-wrong.html">Quantum Mechanics</a> to DERAIL science, and put it on a counterfeit path. </b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>The fact of a fourth spatial dimension makes time the fifth dimension, not the fourth; there is NO SUCH THING as "the fabric of space-time".</b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-85923879339337835812011-04-21T12:28:00.000-07:002011-04-21T12:28:12.744-07:00<a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/iowa-video-cameras-now-lethal-weapons.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>IOWA: Video cameras now lethal weapons; Republicans launch another attack on your rights</b></span></a><br />
<br />
<b>Marti Oakley</b>, <i>Contributing Writer</i><br />
<b>Activist Post</b><br />
<i> </i><br />
<b>Iowa is following in Florida’s footsteps and working on passing a bill making it a criminal offense to film or photograph the abuse of animals on farms or in commercial CAFO operations. Apparently it is ok to abuse your animals, to leave them in fetid conditions, or to treat them inhumanely . . . Iowa just doesn’t want you documenting that abuse.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Nine House Democrats joined all of the Republicans present to pass the bill</b> in a 66 to 27 vote on Iowa bill H.R. 589.<br />
<br />
Turns out your video camera or camera are now considered lethal weapons…the stuff of terrorism!<br />
<a href="" name="more"></a>In an effort to protect industrialized CAFO operations, and unscrupulous corporate growers, Iowa is standing up to those activist citizens who document the abhorrent conditions on industrialized farms and ranches and also in some privately owned operations, claiming this somehow interferes with, or tampers with the property of another.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 2.0em;"><b>11A.</b> <i>“Record” means any printed, inscribed, visual, or audio information that is placed or stored on a tangible medium, and that may be accessed in a perceivable form, including but not limited to any paper or electronic format.</i></div><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><b>This means anything recorded on your film or camera that would adversely affect the profits of the person committing the abuse. This includes, video’s, stills, pictures captured on your cell phone or any other documentation.</b><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 2.0em;"><span style="color: black;"></span><b>d.</b> <i>Disrupt operations conducted at the animal facility, if the operations directly relate to agricultural production, animal maintenance, educational or scientific purposes, or veterinary care.</i></div><div style="margin-left: 2em;"><i> </i></div>IF your pictures highlight the abuse, unsanitary conditions or what is referred to as educational or veterinary…..meaning drug testing, experiments, vivisection research, dissemination of disease for “research” or other inhumane activities under the guise of Education or scientific,……you too could be a unique terrorist with a camera. Animal maintenance is the catch-all phrase that covers abusive treatment, mistreatment, unsanitary conditions and lack of care.<br />
<br />
And here is the coup de grace:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Sec. 9. NEW SECTION. 717A.2A Animal facility interference.</b><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black;">1. A person is guilty of animal facility interference, if the person acts without the consent of the owner of an animal facility to willfully do any of the following:<br />
<br />
(1) Produce a record which reproduces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility as follows:<br />
<div style="margin-left: 2.0em;">(a) The record must be created by the person while at the animal facility.<br />
(b) The record must be a reproduction of a visual or audio experience occurring at the animal facility, including but not limited to a photographic or audio medium.</div><br />
(2) Possess or distribute a record which produces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility which was produced as provided in subparagraph (1)<br />
<br />
(3) Subparagraphs (1) and (2) do not apply to an animal shelter, a boarding kennel, a commercial kennel, a pet shop, or a pound, all as defined in section 162.2.</div><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><b>Wouldn’t the more prudent thing to do here have been to enforce animal cruelty laws? How about all those fake food safety regulations? Would it be too much to ask that a higher, safer standard of animal care be enforced? Rather than criminalizing those who expose the corruption and abuse that occurs routinely in these facilities.</b><br />
<div style="color: black;"><br />
</div><span style="color: black;"></span>This bill, like so many others we are seeing from the Republicans is a direct assault on your first amendment rights; your right to free speech. They’ve already attacked workers rights, your right to alternative healthcare and now they want to stop you from documenting the corruption and abuse in corporate farming and livestock operations.<br />
<div style="color: black;"><br />
</div><span style="color: black;"></span>This works out really well . . . this way, you are prevented from gathering the evidence, producing the evidence and forcing them to acknowledge the evidence. Perfect scenario: Plausible deniability.<br />
<div style="color: black;"><br />
</div><span style="color: black;"></span>YES! Corporate protectionism is alive and well in Iowa! And why wouldn’t it be? This is Tom Vilsack’s home turf; a man, who if he was any closer to Monsanto and other bio-pirates would most likely have to give them their own key to his place. Apparently they already have the keys to Iowa.<br />
<br />
<br />
Bill HR 589<br />
<div style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589">http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589</a></div><br />
Roll Call on bill vote<br />
<div style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5">http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5</a></div><br />
<div style="color: black;">Bill history</div><div style="color: black;"><a href="http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C">http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C</a></div><div style="color: black;"> </div>Bill HR 589<br />
<div style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589">http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589</a></div><br />
Roll Call on bill vote<br />
<div style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5">http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5</a></div><br />
<div style="color: black;">Bill history</div><div style="color: black;"><a href="http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C">http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C</a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Marti Oakley is a political activist and former op-ed columnist for the St Cloud Times in Minnesota. She was a member of the Times Writer’s Group until she resigned in September of 07. She is neither Democrat nor Republican, since neither party is representative of the American people. She says what she thinks, means what she says, and is known for being outspoken. She is hopeful that the American public will wake up to what is happening to our beloved country . . . little of it is left.</i> Her website is <a href="http://ppjg.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><b>The PPJ Gazette</b></a> <i> </i> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<b><i>--------------------------------------------------------</i></b><br />
<b>COMMENT: The truth is like air to the Good; without the truth, the Good dies.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>The lie is like air to the Evil; without the lie, the Evil dies.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>ALL of the people who voted for this bill made themselves EVIL by that action.</b><br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-51914399803450479692011-04-19T16:04:00.000-07:002011-04-19T16:04:13.349-07:00<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7527387.html"><span style="font-size: large;">Texas rape bill opens door to prior conduct</span></a></h1><h2><span style="font-size: small;">Judge would decide if jury could hear previous uncharged allegations</span></h2><h2> </h2><h3><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and BRIAN ROGERS</span></span> <span class="sourge-org vcard"><span class="fn">AUSTIN BUREAU</span></span></span></h3><h4><abbr class="updated" title="2011-04-19T01:45:00Z">April 18, 2011, 8:45PM</abbr></h4><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText Text-Dateline" id="id2425755">AUSTIN — In what critics say could be a "seismic change" in state criminal law, the Texas Senate tentatively approved a bill that would allow jurors in sexual assault cases to hear testimony about similar allegations against a defendant — <b>even if the previous incident did not result in a conviction or even criminal charges.</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2421311">The bill by S<b>en. Joan Huffman, R-Houston</b>, would allow the introduction of testimony about allegations of other sexual assaults to be admitted during the guilt or innocence phase of a trial if a judge — outside the presence of the jury — hears the evidence and deems it relevant.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2421318">The bill gives "greater resources to prosecutors and victims of sexual assault," Huffman said Monday. Allowing testimony of similar sex offenses "brings Texas closer in line with federal rules of evidence," she added.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2421324">Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, opposed the bill, arguing <b>the measure would bring about "more wrongful convictions" because jurors will be afraid to acquit a defendant against whom they have heard multiple allegations. Jurors who are skeptical of the evidence of the case before them could feel compelled to convict "because he (the defendant) must have done something wrong,"</b> West said.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2420408">"All of us want to be law and order and the whole nine yards," West said. "But this is carving new ground in criminal jurisprudence. You ought to think long and hard, 'is that fair?' "</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2421327">Although the Senate gave initial approval to the bill on a 23-8 vote Monday, Huffman retreated on her first attempt to pass the bill last week when it was met with hostile questions.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2420417">"This is a hard bill for many to vote against," said Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. While current rules of procedure "are designed to protect liberty," he said Huffman's measure would allow jurors to hear "allegations that have not even been vetted by a grand jury."</div><h3 class="Text-TextSubhed BoldCond PoynterAgateZero" id="id2420447">Constitutional issues </h3><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418681"><b>In an emotional response, Huffman described watching a 6-year-old girl clutching a teddy bear testify about a sexual assault.</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418686">"It would have been very helpful" to hear evidence about similar conduct by the defendant, she said. "Under current law, you can't do that."</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418691">Criminal law experts are split over the idea, said University of Houston law professor Adam Gershowitz.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418695"><b>"Defense attorneys believe it makes the trial more about the character of the defendant than whether they committed the act for which he is on trial,"</b> he said. "The evidence of prior behavior convinces the jury that he's a bad guy."</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418702">On the other hand, he continued, prosecutors find sexual assault cases difficult to prosecute because defendants charged with rape often claim the sex was consensual. Allowing testimony about similar acts would give jurors "evidence that this is not the first time it happened, that the defendant has a pattern of violent behavior."</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2419676">"That's why it's a very hard issue," Gershowitz said. "I don't know which side is right."</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2419680">Houston defense lawyer Pat McCann called it a terrible idea.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2419684"><b>"With all due respect to Senator Huffman's sincere commitment to protecting victims of violent crime, this is probably one of the worst ideas that any senator has ever come up with,"</b> McCann said.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2419690">He said <b>the rules of evidence are specifically designed to prevent juries from considering anything other than the facts of the case in front of them. Bringing in allegations that are too weak to garner an indictment or a criminal charge changes, fundamentally, the criminal justice system, he said.</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2419697"><b>"When you have an uncharged extraneous offense that somehow comes in at that phase, you have just guaranteed a guilty verdict and thrown out the U.S. Constitution," </b>McCann said.</div><h3 class="Text-TextSubhed BoldCond PoynterAgateZero" id="id2419726">Similar bill in House </h3><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418971">He noted that <b>accused sex offenders are convicted every day without that provision.</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418975">A past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, McCann said he was reminded of the Salem Witch trials.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418980"><b>"It's a dangerous, dangerous thing to convict people on past allegations, not convictions, not even charges,"</b> he said. <b>"This is an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem."</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985">The Senate is expected to vote on final passage of the bill today . <b>Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston</b>, has sponsored a companion bill which is pending in a House committee.</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985"><br />
</div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985"><b>------------------------------------------------------</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985"><b>COMMENT: Pure evil. REAL rape is terrible and should be prosecuted, of course. But a women getting drunk, having sex, then - after the alcohol wears off and her inhibitions return - she regrets it, is NOT rape. </b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985"><b>And what is to stop a group of Feminists from targeting a man for a series of ALLEGATIONS?</b></div><div class="Text-TextBody HoustonText" id="id2418985"><br />
</div><b>"In an emotional response, Huffman described watching a 6-year-old girl clutching a teddy bear testify about a sexual assault."</b><br />
<b>MANIPULATIVE BITCH.</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>And notice that both introducers of these bills are Republican women.</b><br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-46332735651003967022011-04-17T09:54:00.000-07:002011-04-17T09:54:12.187-07:00<h1 class="title"><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/e-sa041411.php"><span style="font-size: large;">Serotonin: A critical chemical for human intimacy and romance</span></a></h1>Contact: Chris J. Pfister<br />
<a href="mailto:C.Pfister@elsevier.com">C.Pfister@elsevier.com</a><br />
215-239-3266<br />
<span class="relinst"><a href="http://www.elsevier.com/">Elsevier</a></span><br />
<br />
Philadelphia, PA, 14 April 2011 - The judgments we make about the intimacy of other couples' relationships appear to be influenced by the brain chemical serotonin, reports a new study published in <i>Biological Psychiatry</i>. <br />
Healthy adult volunteers, whose levels of serotonin activity had been lowered, rated couples in photos as being less intimate and less romantic than volunteers with normal serotonin activity. <br />
The approach involved giving amino acid drinks to two groups of volunteers in order to manipulate blood concentrations of the amino acid tryptophan, which is a vital ingredient in the synthesis of serotonin. One group received drinks that contained tryptophan. The other group received drinks that did not contain tryptophan. They were then asked to make judgments about sets of photographs of couples. Differences in the judgments made by the two groups reflected changes in their serotonin activity. <br />
<b>"Serotonin is important in social behavior, and also plays a significant role in psychological disorders such as depression," explained Professor Robert Rogers of Oxford University, who led the research.</b> "We wanted to see whether serotonin activity influences the judgments we make about peoples' close personal relationships." <br />
The volunteers who received the drink without tryptophan consistently rated the couples in the photos as being less 'intimate' and 'romantic' than the participants who received the control drink. <br />
This finding is an important reminder that our relationships with other people are influenced by processes beyond our awareness and control. But we should not be surprised by this revelation. Serotonin function drops in association with episodes of depression, where the capacity for intimacy also is often compromised. <br />
Understanding the powerful influence of these chemicals is important as <b>supportive close relationships are known to protect against the development of mental illnesses and to promote recovery in those affected by psychiatric conditions.</b> The opposite is also true: dysfunctional relationships can be triggers for those at risk of these conditions. <br />
The results raise the possibility that lower serotonin activity in people with depression and other psychiatric conditions could contribute to changes in the way they perceive personal relationships, or even in their ability to maintain positive personal relationships. <br />
"Although this is only a small study, the same patterns may well extend to the way we perceive our own relationships," said Professor Rogers. <br />
"The ability to chemically influence the capacity for intimacy could be very important. Reduced capacity for intimacy can be a vexing symptom of many psychiatric disorders and an important <b>target for </b> <b>treatment</b>," noted Dr. John Krystal, Editor of <i>Biological Psychiatry</i>. "<b>Drugs </b>that ameliorate the impact of serotonin deficits might play a role in the <b>treatment of this symptom</b>." <br />
Although much more research is necessary before a <b>drug</b> might come to <b>market</b> that can help promote intimacy, it is clear for now that our chemistry has an impact on nearly aspect of our lives, from our most public actions to our most private, as we see here with human intimacy and romantic feelings.<br />
<div align="center">###</div>Notes to Editors: The article is "Serotonergic Activity Influences the Cognitive Appraisal of Close Intimate Relationships in Healthy Adults" by Amy C. Bilderbeck, Ciara McCabe, Judi Wakeley, Francis McGlone, Tirril Harris, Phillip J. Cowen, and Robert D. Rogers. Bilderbeck, McCabe, Wakeley, Cowen, and Rogers are affiliated with Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom. McGlone is affiliated with University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom. Harris and Cowen are from King's College, London, United Kingdom. The article appears in <i>Biological Psychiatry</i>, Volume 69, Number 8 (April 15, 2011), published by Elsevier.<br />
<br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMRT: Serotonin is a self-calming brain chemical; i.e., the brain releases it to calm itself in times of stress, to prevent the over-stimulation of neurons. So, chronically high serotonin means you are chronically stressed out. Therefore, to FORCE the brain to have high serotonin all the time would be incredibly STUPID.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>See Ray Peat's <a href="http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/serotonin.shtml">article on serotonin, tryptophan, stress, body temp, and learned helplessness</a> for more info.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>ALSO, "</b><b>supportive close relationships are known to protect against the development of mental illnesses and to promote recovery in those affected by psychiatric conditions." "Using the truth to lie" is one of the hallmarks of the pyschopathic personality.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>ALSO, the Medical BUSINESS Model is the treatment of the symptoms of disease conditions with drugs and surgery. That is NOT health; they do NOT have good intentions.</b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-20614016861386151702011-04-15T11:38:00.000-07:002011-04-15T11:38:15.169-07:00<h1 class="headline"><a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/pentagon-warns-big-defense-cuts-20110413-123335-629.html"><span style="font-size: large;">Pentagon warns on big defense cuts</span></a></h1><cite class="byline vcard">By <span class="fn">Missy Ryan and Jim Wolf</span> | <span class="provider org">Reuters</span> – <abbr title="2011-04-14T01:05:19Z">Wed, 13 Apr, 2011 9:05 PM EDT</abbr></cite><br />
<br />
<div class="yom-mod yom-art-content"><div class="bd"> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - <b>The United States may have to scrap some military missions and trim troop levels if <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1302743225_1">President Barack Obama</span> sticks with his goal of saving $400 billion on security spending over a 10-year period, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.</b><br />
<b>Arms makers' shares sold off</b> after Obama made a speech on the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1302743225_6">budget deficit</span> in which he called, in effect, for holding growth in the Pentagon's core budget, <b>excluding war costs</b>, below inflation through 2023, starting in fiscal 2013.<br />
The squeeze on the Pentagon's budget, <b>which has roughly doubled since 2001</b>, is part of a larger drive to cut the budget deficit by $4 trillion over the 10-year period.<br />
Standard & Poor's aerospace and defense index declined 0.9 percent on Wednesday, underperforming the S & P 500 index, which closed up .02 percent. Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, dropped 2.6 percent to close at $80.37 on the New York Stock Exchange.<br />
"It's not just a math exercise which is 'cut $400 billion'," said <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1302743225_3">Geoff Morrell</span>, the Pentagon press secretary. "It's 'let's review our roles and our missions and see what we can forgo, or pare down, in this age of fiscal constraint, where we are all collectively trying to work with the deficit problem.'"<br />
Analysts said a selloff of arms makers' shares was an overreaction.<br />
"We think that a flat defense budget" (excluding overseas contingency operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan) "is what investors and the defense industry already expect," said Rob Stallard of RBC Capital Markets.<br />
"We think the knee-jerk selling in response to today's headlines has created an opportune entry point for our preferred defense names, notably Raytheon Co and General Dynamics Corp," he added in a note to clients.<br />
The Pentagon has been tightening its belt in the hope of warding off deep cuts amid the concern over budget deficits.<br />
<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1302743225_0">Defense Secretary Robert Gates</span> already had eliminated or scaled back more than 20 troubled or "excess" weapons programs since April 2009. Last June he ordered the military to come up with more than $100 billion in overhead savings over five years, <b>which could be reinvested in higher priority programs</b>.<br />
The chairmen of Obama's deficit commission as well as a Bipartisan Policy Center Debt Reduction Task Force each had called for cuts in projected military spending of up to $1 trillion over 10 years, far more than Obama proposed.<br />
<br />
OBAMA'S GOAL<br />
<br />
<b>The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion</b>, roughly $10 billion less than Gates said was critical when the Obama administration sent Congress its spending plan for 2012.<br />
The Defense Department could easily meet Obama's goal -- which amounts to saving an average of about $40 billion a year -- without jeopardizing the U.S. military's <b>global dominance</b>, said Gordon Adams, a senior White House official for national security budgets from 1993 to 1997.<br />
"It's fundamentally trivial," he said. "This is stuff a comptroller can do while playing with his prayer beads." He suggested it would mean shrinking the force "a bit," trimming and deferring some hardware purchases and finding more efficient ways to handle operations and maintenance spending.<br />
But Mackenzie Eaglen, a national security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the world was not getting any safer and the U.S. bill would come due.<br />
"The need to modernize the inventory of all the services is not going away and that bill will simply grow larger the longer policymakers defer modernization," she said.<br />
<b>The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Howard McKeon, said he had "grave concerns" about spending reductions while the U.S. military was involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.</b><br />
The Defense Department accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending and roughly half of discretionary, non-mandated spending.<br />
Gates said in January the United States planned to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years, including a reduction of up to 47,000 troops. That came on top of the $100 billion cost-savings drive that Gates kicked off last year.<br />
"My greatest fear is that in economic tough times that people will see the defense budget as the place to solve the nation's deficit problems," Gates said last August.<br />
<br />
(Reporting by Missy Ryan, Phil Stewart and Jim Wolf; editing by Christopher Wilson)<br />
<br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: The U.S.A. is a MILITARY EMPIRE: over 1000 military bases on planet Earth, and troops PERMANENTLY stationed in over 100 countries. That is EVIL.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>And that is in addition to the THREE wars we are currently fighting. </b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>DISMANTLE THE MILITARY EMPIRE. Complete withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. BAN all arms sales to other countries (and no "gifts" either.)</b><br />
<b>----------------------------------------------------</b></div></div><cite class="byline vcard"><abbr title="2011-04-14T01:05:19Z"><br />
</abbr></cite>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-8526984832534160732011-04-12T13:49:00.000-07:002011-04-12T13:49:48.245-07:00<h2><a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410">Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System</a></h2><h6 class="date" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Posted on Apr 10, 2011</span></h6><h6 class="date" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"> By <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges">Chris Hedges</a> </span></h6><h6 class="date" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">www.truthdig.com </span></h6><h6 class="date"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.<br />
<br />
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. <b>These instructors obey.</b> <b>They teach children to obey.</b> And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml">“Texas Miracle,”</a> is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating. <br />
Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. <b>They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs.</b> The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. <b>They reward those who obey</b> the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.<br />
<br />
“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg’s <a href="http://www.nycleadershipacademy.org/who-we-are">Leadership Academy</a> and Eli Broad’s <a href="http://www.broadacademy.org/about/overview.html">Superintendents Academy</a>, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. <b>There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.”</b><br />
<br />
Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. <b>Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside. </b><br />
“It is extremely dispiriting to realize that you are in effect lying to these kids by insinuating that this diet of corporate reading programs and standardized tests are preparing them for anything,” said this teacher, who feared he would suffer reprisals from school administrators if they knew he was speaking out. “It is even more dispiriting to know that your livelihood depends increasingly on maintaining this lie. <b>You have to ask yourself why are hedge fund managers suddenly so interested in the education of the urban poor?</b> The main purpose of the testing craze is not to grade the students but to grade the teacher.”<br />
<br />
“I cannot say for certain—not with the certainty of a Bill Gates or a Mike Bloomberg who pontificate with utter certainty over a field in which they know absolutely nothing—but more and more I suspect that <b>a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave</b> while they still retain a modicum of self-respect,” he added. “In less than a decade we been stripped of autonomy and are increasingly micromanaged. Students have been given the power to fire us by failing their tests. Teachers have been likened to pigs at a trough and blamed for the economic collapse of the United States. In New York, principals have been given every incentive, both financial and in terms of control, to replace experienced teachers with 22-year-old untenured rookies. They cost less. They know nothing. They are malleable and they are vulnerable to termination.”<br />
<br />
<b>The demonizing of teachers is another public relations feint, a way for corporations to deflect attention from the theft of some $17 billion</b> in wages, savings and earnings among American workers and a landscape where one in six workers is without employment. <b>The speculators on Wall Street looted the U.S. Treasury. They stymied any kind of regulation. They have avoided criminal charges. They are stripping basic social services. And now they are demanding to run our schools and universities.</b><br />
<br />
“Not only have the reformers removed poverty as a factor, they’ve removed students’ aptitude and motivation as factors,” said this teacher, who is in a teachers union. “They seem to believe that students are something like plants where you just add water and place them in the sun of your teaching and everything blooms. This is a fantasy that insults both student and teacher. The reformers have come up with a variety of insidious schemes pushed as steps to professionalize the profession of teaching. As they are all businessmen who know nothing of the field, it goes without saying that you do not do this by giving teachers autonomy and respect. They use merit pay in which teachers whose students do well on bubble tests will receive more money and teachers whose students do not do so well on bubble tests will receive less money. <b>Of course, the only way this could conceivably be fair is to have an identical group of students in each class—an impossibility.</b> The real purposes of merit pay are to divide teachers against themselves as they scramble for the brighter and more motivated students and to further institutionalize the idiot notion of standardized tests. There is a certain diabolical intelligence at work in both of these.”<br />
<br />
“If the Bloomberg administration can be said to have succeeded in anything,” he said, “they have succeeded in turning schools into stress factories where teachers are running around wondering if it’s possible to please their principals and if their school will be open a year from now, if their union will still be there to offer some kind of protection, if they will still have jobs next year. This is not how you run a school system. It’s how you destroy one. The reformers and their friends in the media have created a Manichean world of bad teachers and effective teachers. In this alternative universe there are no other factors. Or, <b>all other factors—poverty, depraved parents, mental illness and malnutrition—are all excuses of the Bad Teacher that can be overcome by hard work and the Effective Teacher.</b>”<br />
<br />
<b>The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. They do not throw 6 million families from their homes as the cost of doing business.</b> Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. <b>Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked.</b> They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves.<br />
<br />
“It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself,” Socrates said.<br />
<br />
Those who can ask the right questions are armed with the capacity to make a moral choice, to defend the good in the face of outside pressure. And this is why the philosopher Immanuel Kant puts the duties we have to ourselves before the duties we have to others. The standard for Kant is not the biblical idea of self-love—love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—but self-respect. What brings us meaning and worth as human beings is our ability to stand up and pit ourselves against injustice and the vast, moral indifference of the universe. Once justice perishes, as Kant knew, life loses all meaning. <b>Those who meekly obey laws and rules imposed from the outside—including religious laws—are not moral human beings.</b> The fulfillment of an imposed law is morally neutral. The truly educated make their own wills serve the higher call of justice, empathy and reason. Socrates made the same argument when he said it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. <br />
“The greatest evil perpetrated,” <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/">Hannah Arendt</a> wrote, “is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.”<br />
<br />
As Arendt pointed out, we must trust only those who have this self-awareness. This self-awareness comes only through consciousness. It comes with the ability to look at a crime being committed and say “I can’t.” We must fear, Arendt warned, those whose moral system is built around the flimsy structure of blind obedience. We must fear those who cannot think. Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.<br />
<br />
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,” Arendt writes. “For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur—the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.” <br />
<br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: I am a truth-loving visionary genius - exactly what is not wanted in this evil goddamned country, my home. Thinking is not wanted. The truth is not wanted. ESPECIALLY not the truth.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Thinking, challenging, asking questions, trying to create greatness efficiently would only disrupt the FRAUD that the APPARENT business activity is only a cover for. </b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>What job can I get that will pay me enough to be middle-class, will not be serving Evil, and is not de-humanizing? The vast majority of rich and middle-class in this country today are rewarded for their OBEDIENCE. I am a white, heterosexual male of very high ability, and I have worked hard at various jobs. I have always been poor, as punishment for my failure to obey.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>What are you risking to resist the evil in real life, my fellow humans? If the answer is "nothing", then you are a worthless piece of shit who should be killed.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>MY NAME IS JOHN GALT, AND I DECLARE A STRIKE.</b><br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b></span></h6>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-15376123632124573282011-04-11T10:40:00.000-07:002011-04-11T10:40:06.323-07:00<h1 class="heading"><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/for-life-liberty-and-the-burqa-muslim-women-defy-frances-ban-on-full-face-veils/story-e6frf7lf-1226037202428"><span style="font-size: large;">For life, liberty and the burqa: Muslim women defy France's ban on full-face veils </span></a></h1>By Dheepthi Namasivayam<span class="datestamp"> </span><br />
<span class="datestamp">April 11, 2011</span> <span class="timestamp">1:05PM</span><br />
<span class="timestamp"></span><br />
<br />
<div class="story-summary-list"> <ul><li>French ban on full-face veils starts today </li>
<li>Risk of fine if women refuse to show faces </li>
<li>Muslims women say they are not oppressed </li>
<li><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/minister-says-burka-is-alien-prompting-applause-from-libs/story-fn59niix-1226036884169" target="_blank">Libs back minister who called burqa alien</a> </li>
</ul></div><div class="story-intro"> <strong> THEY are the women prepared to defy France for the burqa. </strong><br />
</div>From today French police have the power to stop Muslim women wearing full-face veils and to threaten them with fines or prison if they refuse to expose their faces.<br />
All over France posters have been put up reminding veil-clad women that <a href="http://www.visage-decouvert.gouv.fr/" target="_blank">“the Republic lives with its face uncovered”</a>.<br />
Last year, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy" target="_blank">President Nicolas Sarkozy</a> pushed through a controversial law banning Muslim women from wearing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqas" target="_blank">burqas</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b" target="_blank">niqabs</a> in public. He said the law was to increase security but claimed it would liberate Muslim women from the oppression of their veil.<br />
Any woman who refuse to lift her veil can be taken to a police station, fined 150 euros ($205) and ordered to attend re-education classes.<br />
Anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear face veils in public or in private faces a fine of 30,000 euros and a year in jail.<br />
However, some women have vowed to defy the law.<br />
“I will not obey it,” said Wahiba Mebrek, 25, from the suburb of Villepinte, north of Paris. “I will only respect laws of the French Republic which are not in contradiction with me, my religion and my faith,” she added.<br />
She is angry the Government and media peddled this image of them as being oppressed. For her, it was a conscious decision, made by her and husband when they became devout Muslims eight years ago.<br />
<br />
<strong>Violent reaction</strong><br />
Hind*, a 31-year-old single mother from the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois outside Paris, switched from the “miniskirt to the veil” after converting to Islam six years ago.<br />
She said that her wearing of the veil had provoked hostile, even violent reactions in the street. She was recently attacked in front of her daughter by a couple.<br />
“People’s reactions weren’t as violent until this issue was mediatised. Now that the law has passed, they feel that their violent behaviour towards us is justified,” she said.<br />
“People have the impression that we are totally cut off from the world, but we have normal relationships like everyone else, we are accessible."<br />
Hind will not take off her niqab, if asked by police. “Never ever will I apply this law,” she said. “It is not up to the government to meddle in my private life and my beliefs.”<br />
French officials estimate that about 2000 women, from a total Muslim population estimated at between four and six million, wear the full-face veil.<br />
Many Muslims and human rights groups accuse Mr Sarkozy of targeting one of France's most vulnerable and isolated groups to signal to anti-immigration voters that he shares their fear that Islam is a threat to French culture.<br />
<br />
<strong>Years of abuse</strong><br />
Other critics worry the law may be hard to enforce, since it had to be drawn up without reference to religion to ban any kind of face covering in public and since police officers will not be allowed to remove women's head coverings.<br />
But for other women, wearing the veil was not a choice.<br />
Zeina*, 31, was forced to wear the niqab by her abusive ex-husband. She lived with his abuse until one day, a neighbour saw her bruises and took her to a women’s refuge. She details the ordeal in her <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sous-mon-niqab-French-Zeina/dp/2259212336" target="_blank">autobiography, <em>Sous Mon Niqab</em> (Under my Veil)</a>.<br />
“When I wore the niqab, I felt excluded from the world, from society,” she said. “Taking it off was a sort of freedom, a liberty for me.”<br />
But she opposes the law, saying it will further oppress women. Unable to wear their veil in public, Zeina fears their abuse may go unnoticed as they will be confined to their homes.<br />
As for those women who wear their niqab in the street for Friday afternoon prayers at their local mosque, they too risk being fined.<br />
This is what worries Mrs Mebrek.<br />
“The veil is an exterior manifestation of my religion but in a secular country, I am free to do so,” she said. “All this will stop from April 11.”<br />
<br />
<em>*Names were suppressed or changed as requested</em><br />
<br />
<b>-------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b>COMMENT: No, you are NOT free to do whatever you want.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>The PSYCHOPATHS promote "freedom" as the highest value, because THEY want to be free... to continue all their ridiculous and evil bullshit.</b><br />
<b><br />
-------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-47706850614160810112011-04-10T10:59:00.000-07:002011-04-10T11:00:55.504-07:00<div id="hn-headline"><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iISI7ifh-AjUE3ejyC1wQmwFrMFw?docId=CNG.61c886c438708471a9f4ea23070fa70c.3a1"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Brain structure differs in liberals, conservatives: study</b></span></a></div><div id="hn-headline"></div><div class="hn-byline">(AFP) – <span class="hn-date">1 day ago</span></div>WASHINGTON — Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but <b>scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.</b><br />
Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.<br />
"We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.<br />
Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.<br />
"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place.<br />
<b>"Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."</b><br />
The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned.<br />
People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.<br />
Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts," it said.<br />
"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views."<br />
<b>It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in political views, or are the effect of them.</b><br />
But the central issue in determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.<br />
"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty," the study said.<br />
<br />
<div id="hn-distributor-copyright">Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.</div><div class="g-section"></div><div class="g-section"><br />
</div><div class="g-section"><b>-----------------------------------------------------------------</b></div><div class="g-section"><b>COMMENT: It is inherited.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Conservatives - SJ - can feel shame, but cannot feel compassion; that is their defining characteristic. We can never allow them to be in charge of anything ever again.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Liberals - SP - can feel compassion, but cannot feel shame; that is their defining characteristic.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>We iNtuitive types - NT and NF (inherited a preference for the behaviors that make a person acquire depth) - can feel both shame and compassion. We deserve to rule over the Sensation Types.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>[Note: For those who CAN feel compassion, learning to NOT give love to those who do NOT deserve it is a major life lesson.]</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Psychopaths cannot feel either shame or compassion.</b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------------------</b></div>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-83304625885082661682011-04-01T14:19:00.000-07:002011-04-01T14:19:18.498-07:00<h3><a href="http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/03/29/17793211.html#/news/canada/2011/03/29/pf-17793211.html">Child-porn discovery not a 'licence to kill': Crown</a></h3><div class="byline">By <span>QMI Agency</span></div><div class="updated">Last Updated: March 29, 2011 11:18am</div><div class="updated"><br />
</div><div class="updated"><br />
</div>MONTREAL - A man who beat his neighbour to death after finding child pornography on his computer should serve six years behind bars, says the Crown.<br />
Patrick Belanger, 28, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the July 2009 beating death of Leonard Wells, 63, in west-end Montreal.<br />
Prosecutor Thierry Nadon told a Quebec Court judge the sentence would send a clear message to society that vigilante killings are unacceptable and that a man's pedophilic tendencies don't give citizens "a licence to kill."<br />
Belanger will be sentenced on April 21.<br />
He was initially charged with first-degree murder following the attack on July 25, 2009. He had been helping Wells to move and had asked to use his computer while the two were taking a break.<br />
He flew into a rage when he stumbled across images of children being sexually assaulted. Belanger called 911 and warned he would take matters into his own hands unless Wells was arrested immediately. He began punching and kicking the man when police failed to arrive after 20 minutes.<br />
Belanger called 911 a second time as Wells lay in a pool of his own blood. The victim was transported to hospital in a coma and died a month later.<br />
Belanger later told the court the child-porn images triggered memories of his own father's tale of childhood sexual abuse. The defendant also said he was drunk at the time of the beating and he had been an alcoholic for several years.<br />
But the Crown said the "horrific" and "revolting" images did not give Belanger an excuse to kill a man.<br />
"We cannot allow people to mete out their own justice," Nadon told the court.<br />
"(Otherwise) we would be promoting anarchy. Incidents such as this one ... do not give him a licence to kill."<br />
The prosecutor said the fact Belanger waited 20 minutes to administer the beating was evidence the killing was premeditated.<br />
Defence lawyer Julien Archambault countered Belanger had no criminal record and has been in alcohol rehab for two years.<br />
He requested a three-year prison term.<br />
Belanger told judge Louise Bourdeau he's a changed man and was "not thinking rationally" at the time of the deadly attack.<br />
"I'll have to pay for what I did," he added. "I have no hard feelings towards the Crown. Justice must be served."<br />
<br />
<b>---------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b> COMMENT: Justice WAS served by killing the evil child porn guy; the human who did the justice going to prison is a mis-carriage of justice.</b><br />
<br />
"But the Crown said the "horrific" and "revolting" images did not give Belanger an excuse to kill a man."<br />
<br />
<b>Yes, it did.</b><br />
<br />
"We cannot allow people to mete out their own justice," Nadon told the court."<br />
<br />
<b>The question "was justice done?" must ALWAYS be asked - and answered - in deciding if a crime has been committed, and if so what punishment is appropriate if any. Mindlessly applying laws without context is evil. </b><br />
<br />
"(Otherwise) we would be promoting anarchy."<br />
<br />
<b>No, you IDIOT; "justice" does NOT equal "anarchy." We the people institute a government because it benefits us to do so; what does the gov have to do to be <a href="http://jeffreybrauer.blogspot.com/2010/10/socialism-definition-essay-in-two-parts.html">LEGITIMATE</a>?</b><br />
<b>--------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-86271740350115919772011-03-29T13:26:00.000-07:002011-03-29T13:26:03.805-07:00<h1 class="title"><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/uoe-rsn032311.php"><span style="font-size: large;">Research shows not only the fittest survive</span></a></h1>Contact: Daniel Williams<br />
<a href="mailto:d.d.williams@exeter.ac.uk">d.d.williams@exeter.ac.uk</a><br />
44-013-927-22062<br />
<span class="relinst"><a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a></span><br />
<br />
<b>Darwin's notion that only the fittest survive has been called into question by new research</b> published today (27 March 2011) in <i>Nature</i>.<br />
A collaboration between the Universities of Exeter and Bath in the UK, with a group from San Diego State University in the US, challenges our current understanding of evolution by showing that bio<b>diversity</b> may evolve where previously thought impossible.<br />
The work represents a new approach to studying evolution that may eventually lead to a better understanding of the <b>diversity</b> of bacteria that cause human diseases.<br />
Conventional wisdom has it that for any given niche there should be a best species, the fittest, that will eventually dominate to <b>exclude all others</b>.<br />
This is the principle of survival of the fittest. Ecologists often call this idea the `competitive exclusion principle' and it predicts that complex environments are needed to support complex, <b>diverse</b> populations.<br />
Professor Robert Beardmore, from the University of Exeter, said: "Microbiologists have tested this principle by constructing very simple environments in the lab to see what happens after hundreds of generations of bacterial evolution, about 3,000 years in human terms. It had been believed that the genome of only the fittest bacteria would be left, but that wasn't their finding. The experiments generated lots of unexpected genetic <b>diversity</b>."<br />
This test tube bio<b>diversity</b> proved controversial when first observed and had been explained away with claims that insufficient time had been allowed to pass for a clear winner to emerge. <br />
The new research shows the experiments were not anomalies.<br />
Professor Laurence Hurst, of the University of Bath, said: "Key to the new understanding is the realisation that the amount of energy organisms squeeze out of their food depends on how much food they have. Give them abundant food and they use it inefficiently. When we combine this with the notion that organisms with different food-utilising strategies are also affected in different ways by genetic mutations, then we discover<b> a new principle, one in which both the fit and the unfit coexist indefinitely</b>."<br />
Dr Ivana Gudelj, also from the University of Exeter, said: "The fit use food well but they aren't resilient to mutations, whereas the less efficient, unfit consumers are maintained by their resilience to mutation. If there's a low mutation rate, survival of the fittest rules, but if not, lots of <b>diversity</b> can be maintained.<br />
"Rather nicely, the numbers needed for the principle to work accord with those enigmatic experiments on bacteria. Their mutation rate seems to be high enough for both fit and unfit to be maintained."<br />
Dr. David Lipson of San Diego State University, concluded: "Earlier work showed that opposing food utilisation strategies could coexist in complex environments, but this is the first explanation of how trade-offs, like the one we studied between growth rate and efficiency, can lead to stable <b>diversity</b> in the simplest possible of environments."<br />
<br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------------</b><br />
<b>COMMENT: Liberals, motivated by the desire to promote the IDEA of "diversity" (with all its implications for gov policies) PRETENDING to do science.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>There are many people on this planet right now who CANNOT understand the Scientific Method, but they just PRETEND they are scientists anyway. In science, you have to be willing to discover what the truth is NO MATTER WHAT it turns out to be. Liberals - like Conservatives - LOVE science whenever it supports what they WANT to be true... or seems to. When it violates their desires, the Liberals say "that's racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever smear is applicable." (The Conservatives say it's "elitist", or lately, "lib-tard".)</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span class="relinst">Charles Darwin's proposed explanation for the mechanism of evolution - which he called "natural selection", meaning the local environment naturally selects those inherited characteristics which best fit that environment - has been proven correct over and over, etc. You are not free to believe whether it's true or not.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span class="relinst">However, Darwinian evolution supports SOME of what the Conservatives have been saying all along about different races and sexes, so the Liberals are utterly DESPERATE to "prove" Darwin wrong. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span class="relinst">The Truth is Good, The Lie is Evil. Choose.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="relinst">------------------------------------------------------------</span></b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7651642982739675750.post-84910489923465899762011-03-21T18:13:00.000-07:002011-03-21T18:13:26.103-07:00<a href="http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2011/03/20/features/feat3.txt"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="newsheadline">Book review: ‘Moral Landscape’ examines science behind human values</span></b></span></a><br />
<br />
<em>Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:48 PM CDT</em><br />
<br />
The goal of this book is to begin a conversation about how moral truth can be understood in the context of science. There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident and many are deeply counterintuitive.”<br />
<br />
So writes Sam Harris in his latest best-seller, “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.” Harris is co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation that advocates for science and secular values; he has degrees in philosophy and neuroscience from Stanford University and UCLA. His previous books include “The End of Faith,” which won the PEN Award for Nonfiction in 2005, and “Letter to a Christian Nation.”<br />
<br />
At the heart of “The Moral Landscape” is the notion that all human values have their genesis in the natural order and, as such, we do not need “God” or anything else to define concepts of right and wrong or to otherwise make judgments about the inherent efficacy of different behaviors. To illustrate this point, he examines a number of values that tend to be common to people in most societies. For instance, acting in one’s own self-interest has often been characterized as being beneficial from an evolutionary perspective. Conversely, most religions tend to articulate, in one way or another, that cooperation and empathy for others are higher-order aspirations that allow us to transcend our more primal tendencies.<br />
<br />
“Many people imagine that the theory of evolution entails selfishness as a biological imperative,” Harris observes. “This popular misconception has been very harmful to the reputation of science.” He then proceeds to provide several examples of how selfishness has been counterproductive to the evolution of some species, while cooperation has led to a competitive advantage for others.<br />
<br />
“We have good reason to believe that much of what we do in the name of ‘morality’ - decrying sexual infidelity, punishing cheaters, valuing cooperation, etc. - is borne of unconscious processes that were shaped by natural selection,” Harris adds.<br />
<br />
Harris thinks that scientists should not shy away from passionately extolling the virtues of their particular medium for pursuing new insights into reality that bring us closer to defining the perpetually elusive “absolute truth.” Specifically, he would like to see his colleagues become a lot more vocal in their critique and criticism of the proponents of religion. “The scientific community’s reluctance to take a stand on moral issues has come at a price,” Harris notes. “It has made science appear divorced, in principle, from the most important questions of human life.”<br />
<br />
When you dig a little deeper into his thesis, however, it becomes increasingly obvious that Harris has embedded his own self-serving agenda in “The Moral Landscape.” As is the case with so much of what is done in the name of motives that are alleged to be altruistic and pure, the allocation of financial resources - i.e., money - seems to be a driving force behind this book. “Many of our secular critics worry that if we oblige people to choose between reason and faith, they will choose faith and cease to support scientific research,” Harris contends. “Currently, federal funding is only allowed for work on stem cells that have been derived from surplus embryos at fertility clinics.”<br />
<br />
The author also seems to understand that the scientific community can sometimes be its own worst enemy. “There is no question that scientists have occasionally demonstrated sexist and racist biases,” Harris concedes. At the same time, he seems in denial when he argues that science is somehow impervious to these deleterious attitudes. After providing several examples of where less than admirable human qualities have arguably distracted from the quest to advance knowledge, he comes to the rather dubious conclusion that “none of these facts, alone or in combination, remotely suggests that our notions of scientific objectivity are vitiated by racism or sexism.”<br />
<br />
To his credit, very few books are as extensively researched and referenced as “The Moral Landscape.” There are 43 pages of notes in the back, together with 40 pages of citations. Harris is intimately familiar with both the current and the historical literature that forms the nucleus of his work. When discussing the debate concerning whether creationism should be included in curriculum, he does a reasonably balanced job of providing both sides of the issue, although his personal bias does tend to shine through in various passages.<br />
<br />
A primary problem with Harris’ argument is that he assumes the scientific method is the only valid method of inquiry; i.e., the only mechanism through which legitimate knowledge can be satisfactorily derived. Ultimately his belief in science comes down to a matter of faith, and this is the glaring contradiction at the core of “The Moral Landscape.” The scientific method is admittedly very useful for dealing with the empirical world, but it does exhibit rather severe limitations when it veers outside that realm.<br />
<br />
“The Moral Landscape” is not a bad book. It is a fairly interesting read that tends to stimulate critical thought and reflection in an area of life that touches us all, although the author’s intolerance and contempt for opposing perspectives is definitely a distraction. It’s one thing to passionately advocate for your position - it’s quite another to claim that your position is the only viable way of understanding and interpreting the world.<br />
<br />
— Reviewed by Aaron W. Hughey, Department of Counseling and Student Affairs, Western Kentucky University.<br />
<em> </em><br />
<b><em>-----------------------------------------------------------</em></b><br />
<b><em>COMMENT: Sam Harris said</em></b><br />
<b><em><br />
</em></b><br />
<b>"At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.</b><br />
<b> Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria.. "</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>and</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>"In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.</b><br />
<b> Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah."</b><br />
<a href="http://www.rationalresponders.com/head_in_the_sand_liberals_by_sam_harris"><b>http://www.rationalresponders.com/head_in_the_sand_liberals_by_sam_harris</b></a><br />
<br />
<b>thereby identifying himself as PRETENDING to be rational.</b><br />
<br />
<b>P.S.</b><br />
<b>Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are all evil.</b><br />
<b>-----------------------------------------------------------</b>Jeffrey of Troyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08012361017883221081noreply@blogger.com0