w h o a r . c o . n z

“..Is reality TV finally living up to its name?

Most of what we are served up under that rubric is actually the farthest thing from reality.

The exploits of Snooki, Jake the Bachelor, and all those Real Housewives hardly reflect life as most of America knows it and lives it.

The real America is hurting — not jetting off to an exotic location for Fantasy Suite canoodling.

But no matter how sobering the statistics we are getting on a regular basis (and I’ll offer up some bracing ones in a moment), ..

.. the hardships and suffering tens of millions of Americans are experiencing are almost entirely absent from our popular culture.

Which is a shame, because drama and narrative have the ability to move people’s perceptions in a way that raw numbers never can.

Enter Undercover Boss, the new CBS reality show in which corporate CEOs don disguises and spend a few days experiencing what it’s like to be a low-level worker at their companies.

Watching the show — including the episode in which the CEO of a waste management company vacuumed out port-a-potties ..

.. and learned that one of his employees, a woman who drives a garbage truck, has to urinate in a cup ..

.. because her productivity requirements leave her no time for a bathroom break — I thought of Benjamin Disraeli.

Before becoming Prime Minister of England, Disraeli wanted to issue a wake up call about the horrible state of the British working class.

So, in 1845, he wrote a novel, Sybil, which warned of the danger of England disintegrating into “two nations between whom there is no sympathy, as if they were inhabitants of different planets.”

The book became a sensation .. and the outrage it provoked propelled fundamental social reforms.

In the 19th century, one of the most effective ways to convey the quiet desperation of the working class to a wide audience was via a realistic novel.

In 2010, it’s through reality TV.

And Undercover Boss has clearly touched a nerve with viewers.

Last week, only the Olympics and American Idol scored higher in the ratings.

It’s the kind of popular entertainment that can start out as one thing — a fun, high concept reality show —

– but morph into something that affects the zeitgeist .. by turning a spotlight on just how out of touch America’s corporate chiefs are.

And their cluelessness is not just about the jobs their workers do — it’s about the lives their workers lead.

Ever since Roseanne went off the air, network TV has not been the most welcoming place when it comes to telling the stories of working class Americans.

But now, week in and week out, millions can see what downsizing and Wall Street’s demands for ever-greater productivity and earning margins did to the lives of so many Americans, even before the economic crisis.

The chasm between America’s haves and have-nots has reached Grand Canyon-esque proportions.

Thirty years ago top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did —

– now they make 300 times what their workers make.

That’s the kind of statistic a show like Undercover Boss can put flesh and blood on.

Here are a few others:..”

go to source/story>>Arianna Huffington: Is Undercover Boss the Most Subversive Show on Television?

“..One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse,” warns anthropologist Jared Diamond in “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.”

Many “civilizations share a sharp curve of decline.

Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power.”

Now, Harvard’s Niall Ferguson, one of the world’s leading financial historians, echoes Diamond’s warning: “Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine.

A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice.”

Yes, America is on the edge.

Dismiss his warning at your peril.

Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history.

The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.

Ferguson is brilliant, prolific and contrarian.

His works include the recent “Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World;” “The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World;” “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire;” and “The War of the World,” a survey of the “savagery of the 20th century” ..

.. where he highlights a profound “paradox that, though the 20th century was ’so bloody,’ it was also ‘a time of unparalleled progress.’”

Why?

Throughout history imperial leaders inevitably emerge and drive their nations into wars for greater glory and “economic progress,” ..

.. while inevitably leading their nation into collapse.

And that happens suddenly and swiftly, within “a decade or two.”

You’ll find Ferguson’s latest work, “Collapse and Complexity: Empires on the Edge of Chaos,” in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council of Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

His message negates all the happy talk you’re hearing in today’s news —

–about economic recovery and new bull markets, about “hope,” about a return to “American greatness” —

– from Washington politicians and Wall Street bankers..”

(and..)

Four. Destruction of the Empire

Then comes ‘The Destruction of Empire,’ the fourth stage in Ferguson’s grand drama about the life-cycle of all empires.

In “Destruction” “the city is ablaze, its citizens fleeing an invading horde that rapes and pillages beneath a brooding evening sky.”

Elsewhere in “The War of the World,” Ferguson described the 20th century as “the bloodiest in history, one hundred years of butchery.”

Today’s high-tech relentless news cycle, suggests that our 21st century world is a far bloodier return to savagery.

At this point, investors are asking themselves: How can I prepare for the destruction and collapse of the American Empire?

There is no solution in the Cole-Ferguson scenario, only an acceptance of fate, of destiny, of history’s inevitable cycles.

But there is one in “Wealth, War and Wisdom” by hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, Morgan Stanley’s former chief global strategist who warns us of the “possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure,” ..

.. advising us to buy a farm in the mountains.

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food … well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson.”

And when they come looting, fire ‘a few rounds over the approaching brigands’ heads.’..”

go to source/story>> Collapse of the American Empire: Swift, Silent, Certain : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..I really did not know that I could still be so surprised, even shocked, by corruption in the Congress of the United States.

I thought my coating of cynicism was already more than thick enough to be impervious to any new revelations.

I was wrong.

Consider the following.

Seven members of the House of Representatives steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm, PMA Group.

In fiscal year 2008 alone, the seven lawmakers sponsored $112 million worth of “earmarks” (construction and other projects paid for by the government) for PMA clients ..

.. while accepting more than $350,000 in contributions from the firm’s clients and lobbyists.

Such behavior should be investigated by the House ethics committee, should it not?

And it was.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct issued a report stating unanimously that the Congressmembers had not violated any rules or laws.

“Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions.”

Ethics watchdogs issued sharp denunciations, citing portions of the report that showed that the private companies themselves thought that their donations helped them win earmarks.

One of the seven Congressmembers investigated was Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a government agency not composed of members of Congress, which conducts preliminary reviews ..

.. found probable cause that Visclosky sought contributions in exchange for steering federal contracts to contributors.

The OCE was in possession of e-mails suggesting that Visclosky’s fundraisers were specifically targeted toward PMA’s clients who were seeking earmarks.

Even though the OCE recommended that the more powerful House ethics committee subpoena Visclosky and his staff to answer questions under oath about his earmarking practice .. the members of the House committee chose not to subpoena Visclosky or any of the pertinent records.

Wait, it gets better —

– The FBI actually raided the PMA offices as part of an investigation into whether the company had directed illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers who helped clients obtain earmarks ..

.. and in 2009 a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to Visclosky, one of his former aides, and his political committees.

But nothing — apparently nothing — could move the members of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the United States House of Representatives to condemn their comrades.

This is the kind of Congressional corruption that drives so many Americans - on the right and on the left — to think of forming a new party.

At times, the thought hits me as well.

But two factors interfere.

One, the overwhelming role played by money in American electoral campaigns can trump the best of intentions.

Wealthy elites have no need for any other party.

The Democrats and Republicans serve their needs just fine, thank you.

And two, ideology.

Gathering together a lot of people who are turned off by Congressional venality and amorality sounds good .. until the ideological shit hits the fan.

There will undoubtedly be a wide range of ideological leanings in any such group because people who are serious about third parties like to be “non-sectarian” or “non-exclusionary” ..

.. but this typically leads to serious friction, disputes and splits.

Even if you specify something like “the United States should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible”, that can still take various conflicting forms;..

.. people’s politics are complicated, not to mention confused.

To those who like to tell themselves and others that they don’t have any particular ideology I say this: ..

.. If you have thoughts about why the world is the way it is, why society is the way it is, why people are the way they are, what a better way would look like, and if your thoughts are at all organized, that’s your ideology ..

.. even if it’s not wholly conscious as such.

Better to organize those thoughts as best you can, become very conscious of them, and consciously avoid getting involved with a political party that is incompatible.

It’s like a bad marriage.

Things are indeed polarizing in America.

There’s The Tea Party on the right and The Coffee Party on the left.

On the face of it, The Tea Party scarcely makes any sense.

A seemingly burgeoning new movement semi-hysterically marching and screaming that their beloved free enterprise is threatened by the “socialist” Barack Obama.

(What next, that he’s a committed “Marxist” or “communist”? They’ve probably already said that; ..

.. if you’re going to be dumb you may as well go all the way and be retarded.)..”

go to source/story>> Where \Seldom is Heard a Discouraging Word … Like “Bribery” : Information Clearing House - ICH

“.. Most Americans don’t know what kind of people 9/11 truthers really are.

So they can’t figure out whether or not they are dangerous.

Below is a list of people who question what our Government has said about 9/11.

The list proves - once and for all - that people who question 9/11 are dangerous.

Email this list to everyone you know, to prove to them that 9/11 truthers are all dangerous nut cases.

Senior intelligence officers:

* Former military analyst and famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”.

He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.

And he said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible ..

.. that “very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been”,..

.. that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of the current administration ..

.. and that there’s enough evidence to justify a new, “hard-hitting” investigation into 9/11 .. with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath.

* A 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials (Raymond McGovern) said

“I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”, and is open to the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job.

* A 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis (William Bill Christison) said ..

..“I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. …

.. All three [buildings that were destroyed in the World Trade Center] were most probably destroyed by controlled demolition charges placed in the buildings before 9/11.” (and see this).

* A number of intelligence officials, including a CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies (Lynne Larkin) ..

.. sent a joint letter to Congress expressing their concerns about “serious shortcomings,” “omissions,” and “major flaws” in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation (they were ignored)

* 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer (David Steele) ..

..stated that “9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war”, and it was probably an inside job (scroll down to Customer Review dated October 7, 2006).

* A decorated 20-year CIA veteran, who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called “perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East” ..

.. and whose astounding career formed the script for the Academy Award winning motion picture Syriana (Robert Baer) ..

.. said that “the evidence points at” 9/11 having had aspects of being an inside job

* The Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004 (Melvin Goodman) said ..

..”The final [9/11 Commission] report is ultimately a coverup.”

* Professor of History and International Relations, University of Maryland. Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency, former military attaché in China, with a 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence (Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army)..

.. questions the government’s version of the events of 9/11..”

(but wait..!..there’s more..!..)

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Proof that 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..There’s a game I’ve been playing recently.

Any time I read the news and get depressed about the parlous state of our world, I type “Bolivia” into Google news and wait for the results.

It’s really all you need to brighten up your day.

In the last month things such as this have popped up: ..

.. Bolivian women spearhead Morales revolution, which describes the decision by Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, to stock half his new cabinet with women, nearly half of them indigenous.

More recently there was this: Bolivian president donates half pay to victims, which detailed Morales and his vice president Alvaro García’s decision to donate half their March salaries to help the victims of the Haiti and Chile earthquakes.

What is happening in Bolivia now - and has been since MAS, or Movimiento al Socalismo, came to power in 2005 - is truly inspiring.

There has been a lot of talk about how the left is dead and Francis Fukayama’s “End of History” means we all have to accept that a global economic system that creates obscene inequalities and mass starvation is the highest stage of social and economic organisation our species can attain.

That might be true for an academic at Johns Hopkins, but for everyone else looking to the future and something to fight for, I ask them to kindly divert their gaze to Bolivia.

It is the closest thing we have to real democratic socialism: a government, but more importantly a grassroots movement, committed to economic and gender equality, anti-racism, free speech and every other ideal the left should hold dear.

In December last year MAS won their second five-year term with 67% of the public vote, more than double the percentage won by their nearest opponent, Manfred Reyes Villa.

The re-election of an incumbent was particularly exceptional in Bolivia.

A country often dismissed by regional experts as “ungovernable” due to its bloody history of military coups and mass public protests, it has seen only a handful of presidents complete their terms in office.

The FT now calls Morales “one of Latin America’s most popular leaders”.

Morales’s landslide victory was a clear sign of public support for the present administration and the extensive social reforms they have implemented.

On coming to power in 2005, Morales pledged to see through a “democratic revolution” in an attempt to alleviate poverty in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America.

The democratic revolution had its genesis in 2000 in what were called the “water wars”, centred in the city of Cochabamba.

The water industry had just been privatised with the help of the neoliberal government and the IMF and was run now by the US corporation Bechtel.

Prices soared and police were even instructed to arrest people collecting rainwater to bypass the new prices.

The indigenous community was up in arms and Bechtel was forced out by the local communities.

The indigenous movement, which is based around small micro-democratic communities, went on to blockade La Paz.

The government shot dead a score of protesters in 2005, before the presidential incumbent was forced out and fled to Miami.

When Morales was elected he became the country’s first indigenous president and his party embarked on a programme of “decolonising the state”.

For Latin America, the election of an indigenous leader had the same poignancy as Barack Obama’s election in the US.

Throughout his mandate Morales has determinedly pursued a programme of social change, including the part-nationalisation of the country’s energy resources..

.. and a surge in social spending that has focused on conditional cash transfers (whereby payments have been made to poor families on the condition that they send their children to school.)

These measures have seen Bolivia record a fiscal surplus for the first time in 30 years;..

.. the country has been predicted a higher growth rate this year than anywhere else in the Americas;..

.. and poverty levels have dropped continually since MAS came to power.

Even the head of the IMF’s western hemisphere countries unit has praised the Morales government ..

.. for what he referred to as its “very responsible” macroeconomic policies..”

go to source/story>>Bolivia, A Beacon of Hope : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..The Government’s wholesale funding guarantee, introduced during the 2008 global banking crisis, will be shut down at the end of next month, says Finance Minister Bill English.

The wholesale funding facility was set up in November 2008 when the liquidity crisis hit global credit markets.

Speaking at a meeting in Auckland today, English said the scheme had helped the banks access funding during the crisis, but international conditions had now improved.

“New Zealand banks are now raising funds without using the guarantee, which was always envisaged as a temporary measure for extraordinary times,” he said.

Today’s announcement follows confirmation last month that the Australian wholesale funding guarantee will end on March 31.

Other countries have also ended their guarantee schemes .. or are in the process of doing so.

English said the wholesale guarantee facility was separate from the retail deposit guarantee scheme.

No changes are planned for the retail deposit scheme beyond those announced last year, which take effect from 13 October 2010.

Since the wholesale guarantee was set up, 24 guarantee certificates have been issued, covering $10.3 billion of borrowing by banks.

The scheme has made no payouts and the Government will receive almost $290 million in fees..”

go to source/story>>Bank guarantee scheme will end in April, says English - Business - NZ Herald News

“..There are no constraints left to halt America’s slide into a totalitarian capitalism.

Electoral politics are a sham.

The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners.

The working class has been impoverished .. and is now being plunged into profound despair.

The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests.

Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power.

And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police.

The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable.

Brace yourself.

The American empire is over.

And the descent is going to be horrifying..

(and..)

It is hard to see how this can be prevented..”

go to source/story>> Calling All Rebels : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.

Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed - at least according to the media coverage - the viciousness of the enemy.

It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.

Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding over 7,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; ..

.. and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.

The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints - our allies during the Korean War.

No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.

In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders.

At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames.

One of our lieutenants also got caught commanding his troops to open fire on an entire village of civilians - women and children.

We had obviously - to some - gone too far.

If those few torturous incidents hadn’t been filmed, we might have carried on and won the war in Vietnam (or so the thinking goes) with our napalm and wanton village massacres.

Then, when the Iraqi troops ran (literally) fleeing Kuwait in 1991, our bloodthirsty aviators annihilated them on the road north ..

.. bombing their retreat to “melted glass” (as one Lockheed acquaintance put it).

That feast for hungry slaughterers received little attention.

The bombers and strafers felt no guilt after Saddam’s troops had blown up Kuwait’s oil wells.

The nagging memory of non-avenged defeat in Vietnam somehow allowed members of the clergy to ignore the devastating inhuman cost to children in Iraq during 10 years of sanctions.

Only a few humanitarians among academics spoke out.

Congress completely ignored it.

The public didn’t care.

Why should they?

Our leaders spoke of everything but the brutality of our enforcers.

We have now reached a stage where our extreme horrors of brutality and cruelty have exceeded our past records.

We no longer have the rationale of moral righteousness of the earlier wars.

There were no excuses for Abu-Ghraib, but our interest in that inhuman travesty dried up and blew away.

We have little concern about our violations of human rights in Guantanamo.

We care less about ill-treatment of Arabs and Arab Americans in the USA.

But the most extremes - the real horrors - of this war come with the primitive killer mentality developed in our youth.

I’ve now seen a half dozen documentary films and read eyewitness accounts that reveal troops or pilots gloating over the massacres of civilians who just happened to be available targets.

Without doubt, the US has not only become the world’s major power .. it has become the world’s sickest warrior state.

Neither conscience nor empathy for others defines the qualities of the sociopath..”

go to source/story>>
The World’s Sickest Warrior State : Information Clearing House - ICH

“.. The healthiest and happiest societies aren’t those with the highest incomes but those with the most equality.

Epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson discusses why.

We live in a world of deep inequality, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

We in the rich world generally agree that this is a problem we ought to help fix—but that the real beneficiaries will be the billions of people living in poverty.

After all, inequality has little impact on the lives of those who find themselves on top of the pile.

Right?

Not exactly, says British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson.

For decades, Wilkinson has studied why some societies are healthier than others.

He found that what the healthiest societies have in common is not that they have more—more income, more education, or more wealth—

– but that what they have is more equitably shared.

In fact, it turns out that not only disease, but a whole host of social problems ranging from mental illness to drug use are worse in unequal societies.

In his latest book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, co-written with Kate Pickett ..

.. Wilkinson details the pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, encouraging excessive consumption.

The good news is that increased equality has the opposite effect: ..

.. statistics show that communities without large gaps between rich and poor are more resilient .. and their members live longer, happier lives.

YES! Magazine web editor Brooke Jarvis sat down with Richard Wilkinson to discuss the surprising importance of equality—

– and the best ways to build it..”

go to source/story>>What Makes the Healthiest and Happiest Societies? Hint: It Not Rich People | Personal Health | AlterNet

“.. Nicotine builds up gradually in smokers’ brains rather than spiking after each puff, according to a study that might help point to new ways to help people quit smoking.

Dr. Jed E. Rose of Duke University reports in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that nicotine buildup in the brain was gradual over several minutes.

Scientists have theorized that there is a spike of nicotine in the brain about seven seconds after each puff, but almost no measurements had been taken until now, Rose said in a telephone interview.

“We were surprised to find that the rate of uptake was much different from what one commonly hears,” said Rose, who directs the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research, a part of the university’s School of Medicine.

Rose used brain scans to measure the nicotine levels in 13 regular smokers and 10 people who smoke only occasionally, an indication they were not addicted to nicotine.

Maximum brain levels of nicotine were reached in 3 to 5 minutes, and built up slower in addicted smokers than in casual ones, the researchers found.

“This slower rate resulted from nicotine staying longer in the lungs of dependent smokers ..

.. which may be a result of the chronic effects of smoke on the lungs,” Rose suggested..”

go to source/story>>Nicotine builds up gradually - study - life-style | Stuff.co.nz

“.. Girl Guide biscuits are being tested after complaints that they were too dry and like eating cardboard.

Girlguiding chief executive Ruth Teasdale said the product had not been recalled “but it looks like there was a problem where the mix was a bit dry in the biscuits that went to Johnsonville.”

The tests by biscuit manufacturer Griffins may also find that there are problems with biscuits in other areas of the country.

It is unknown how many packets have been sent to Griffins for testing, Ms Teasdale said.

“They are going to test them and it could be a bigger issue.

We will have a clearer picture [this] morning.”

(i’ll keep you updated..on this breaking-story..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>Girl Guide biscuits sent for testing - national | Stuff.co.nz

“..Paula Bennett should not need to spend five weeks away from her Beehive desk to find the “piece missing in the middle” of the corporate social responsibility jigsaw.

The answer lies squarely in the incentives offered to the business world to help the less well-off by supporting the work of non-government organisations.

The generosity of the government carrots in the United States has sponsored a culture of giving .. that has only the glimmer of an echo in this country.

Work associated with the Social Development Minister’s Eisenhower Fellowship will merely confirm how much it will take to bridge the gap.

It is unsurprising, however, that the Prime Minister has approved the trip.

While working in the US, he came to admire Americans’ benevolence ..

.. in terms of personal donations to charity, endowments to alma mater, and in corporate philanthropy..”

go to source/story>>Editorial : Charity begins at home, with a hefty rebate - Opinion - NZ Herald News

“..Don’t you wish Bishop Tamaki and John Campbell would stop all their highly public flirting and just meet up?

If the jousting goes on much longer, I’ll start to think it’s all a publicity promo for the Destiny leader’s new pre-breakfast time show on John’s channel.

There was a time when I might have joined the fulminating about how super-salesman Brian Tamaki was brain-washing simple folk into parting with their hard-earned cash so he could enjoy the good life.

But on reflection that does seem rather patronising.

If people want to hand over 10 per cent or more of their hard-earned cash in the hope of a life of luxury in the kingdom to come, then more fools them.

But it’s a free world and the good bishop is only repeating what popes and other prelates of the established churches have been preaching for 2000 years..”

go to source/story>>Brian Rudman: Tamaki merely one more empty prophet - Opinion - NZ Herald News

“..Everyone likes a bit of pampering now and again - and sharks and manta rays are no exception.

The feared ocean fish congregate in reef “salons” to be groomed by smaller fish, researchers have discovered.

And instead of being eaten during the cleaning sessions, the smaller fish derive nutrition as they remove dead and diseased tissue, mucus, scales and parasites from their “clients”.

Marine scientists at James Cook University in Townsville set up cameras on the Great Barrier Reef and the Osprey Reef, off Cairns.

Over five months they observed sharks and rays gathering frequently for a “clean, wax and polish”.

Sometimes the sessions would last several hours .. as the smaller fish swarmed continuously over the predators..”

go to source/story>>Sharks queue at underwater beauty salon - World - NZ Herald News

“..Creation of super-regulator should be Simon Power’s next step

The Hanover Finance and Huljich KiwiSaver affairs point up the pressing need for a “super-regulator” with the authority, budget and, importantly, guts ..

.. to not only enforce existing regulations .. but publicly hang the miscreants out to dry.

That should be the next priority on Commerce Minister Simon Power’s plate after his decision to fast-track KiwiSaver regulation.

He’s put a rocket under officials and asked them to report back within four weeks on the needed measures ..

.. instead of piggy-backing them to the lengthy review of the Securities Act .. which is not due to be finalised until October next year.

Surely it is important to properly regulate a sector which is managing retirement savings for the 1.3 million New Zealanders who have $4.88 billion in various KiwiSaver funds.

But that’s only one part of the investing market.

Power should now be asking why arguable commercial hazards - many of whom continue to grace New Zealand’s puffed-up social columns -

- seem able to pop up again with impunity ..

.. within months of their latest failure to entice another wave of unsuspecting punters to “invest” their cash with them..”

go to source/story>>Fran O’Sullivan : Urgent need for watchdog with some bite - Business - NZ Herald News

“..You couldn’t blame Paul Volcker for feeling ill-used.

He was one of the first of the financial Brahmins to endorse Barack Obama .. back when Hillary Clinton was a sure thing for the nomination.

Volcker was an earlier adviser to Obama than Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Bob Rubin, or the rest of the Wall Street gang.

Then, after Obama became the Democratic nominee, Volcker was trotted out as a senior advisor and his prestigious name was dropped for a top administration post.

But then the dust settled, Volcker was given a largely ceremonial position as head of an advisory committee that didn’t even meet until May, and his advice was largely ignored.

Volcker’s wise counsel was for much tougher regulation, including the restoration of the Glass-Steagall wall between commercial banking and more speculative activities such as securities underwriting and proprietary trading —

– a wall whose dismantling in 1999 laid the groundwork for many of the abuses that led to the great financial collapse.

This counsel ran counter to the views of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.

Only when Obama found himself in political trouble in December and January, as a president who seemed hopelessly in bed with Wall Street, did the administration turn to Volcker.

Volcker is no radical.

He is the former Fed chairman who raised short term interest rates to 21.5 percent as a cold-bath cure for inflation.

He has a tightwad’s view of monetary policy .. even in a severe recession.

But he has been around long enough to know that Wall Street speculators are capable of terrible mischief when regulations are dismantled.

When the most radical person on the scene is Paul Volcker .. it tells you just how politics have moved to the right.

During the months of his internal exile in the Obama administration, the old lion hadn’t been just licking his wounds..”

go to source/story>>Robert Kuttner: We’re in Trouble When the Radical Is Paul Volcker

“..If you believe what the IMF says … you must be an executive with Goldman Sachs.

No, wait, I take that back.

You must be Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke.

No wait you must be Hank Paulson and Alan Greenspan.

Yeah, that’s who you would have to be to believe this little story:

‘Greece’s financial crisis is unlikely to spread to other eurozone countries with high debt levels, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said “there’s no reason” to expect that Spain and Portugal would also need to call for external support’.

Because all the geniuses on Wall Street, and at the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the “City of London” are always right about their predictions which never contradict each other.

Hmm, just for fun, I wonder what the IMF was saying about the global economy roughly 2½ years ago back in November 2007:

‘The International Monetary Fund is predicting continued and steady growth for the world economy in 2007 and 2008, despite a slow down in the US economy caused by problems in its housing market.

The IMF expects global economic growth in the coming two years will approach five percent.

The European economy is expected to pick up even more .. while China and India will continue to lead the global pack.

Guess they sure called that one right on the money, eh?

But Steven, you say.

Aren’t you cherry picking here?

Well, maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

Look at this article in Huffington Post about the prescience of the IMF from last summer:..”

go to source/story>>Why It’s Time to Stop Trusting the IMF « SpeakEasy

“..Today is a big day in America.

Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gleefully proclaims on the Senate floor.

Harry Reid is not really happy with the loss of 36,000 jobs.

He is just happy if the American people are silly enough to accept this as really good news.

Come on folks.

Is it really good news to keep losing tens of thousands of jobs each month (the number is likely higher then whatever they are telling us).

So here is what the good consumers of America are supposed to believe.

People keep losing tens of thousands of jobs .. but miraculously the unemployment rate trickles down a bit each month.

But what is the real umemployment rate?

Well the government’s U6 number reports that the unemployment rate for February is up a bit to 16%.

That number “is the broadest measure of unemployment in the civilian labor force in the U.S. economy and includes those who need work but have given up the search, and those who have taken part-time jobs while still seeking full time employment.”

But wait .. there are some statisticians that claim even the government’s U6 number is a lie..”

go to source/story>>“Today is a Big Day in America” Real Unemployment Rate Over 21% « Bodhi Thunder

“..Well, frumps, things are definitely starting to look up for Democrats and the Obama administration .. if my Lunatic Fringe barometer can still be trusted.

I’ve discovered, over the past year, that there is a quantifiable inverse relation between the fortunes of the Obama White House and threats of violence from the far-right reaches of the blogosphere.

None too stable at the best of times, these folks have a tendency to fly around the room backwards whenever Obama shows signs of succeeding at advancing his domestic social policy agenda.

Obama has an interesting way of achieving his ends.

He allows debate to rage unbridled .. allows people to act out vent melodramatically .. until we are all simply exhausted by the topic.

Then, as we mentally move on, he quietly administers CPR and, next thing you know, dead-in-the-water issues are moving apace toward realization.

It’s a pretty impressive strategy, to me, at least.

Just think about the health care reform battle.

A year went by while we raged and fumed on our various sides of the issue.

As Obama put it in his Health Care Summit, last week, “everything that could be said, had been said.”

Gray-haired grannies duked it out with the local teamsters in Town Halls.

Conspiracy theorists pumped up the volume .. and warned us all of The New World Order and/or Socialism/Fascism that lie just around the corner.

Gun nuts decided to pack a little heat as long as we were all taking stands.

Constitutionalists called for either a Second Revolution or a Second Civil War ..

.. (take your pick, but the Civil one has better costumes)..

.. causing a world-wide shortage of small arms ammunition.

Some were ready to chuck it all and just plain secede.

All because Obama and Co. got the wild idea that the American people might benefit from some help with the insurance industry that was eating their lunch and bankrupting millions.

Clearly Obama hasn’t learned yet to never underestimate the ignorance and paranoia of “just plain folks.”

And before anyone decides to whack me with the nasty stick, I’m not saying that I think Americans are stupid –

- gullible, perhaps and intellectually lazy, almost certainly – but not stupid.

It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude just to be an American in the 21st century.

It’s no simple thing to be a member of one of the most technically advanced capitalistic empires on Earth.

It’s a 24/7 job just to keep up – why else would we need so many Iphones and Smartphones and Droids, websites and apps and such ..

.. if life was free and easy?

Since we are harried and over-stimulated and overcommitted in every way, it’s no surprise that determined people, with their own agenda ..

.. can make us believe that up is down .. and left is right..”

go to source/story>>Blogging From Bedlam « Tales of the Imperium

“..For more than half her life, Charlotte Philby has been devoted to cigarettes, even after watching her father die of lung cancer.

Then a friend persuaded her to see a hypnotherapist – and something extraordinary happened:..

The whale music isn’t playing yet, but I sense it’s on its way.

At this point I’m still in sitting position in a hypnotherapy treatment room above a healthy living shop in north London, and Meira Shore, my therapist for the next hour, is taking me through a series of increasingly surreal questions.

The aim is for her to find out as much as she can about my relationship with cigarettes .. before helping me kick my 14-year addiction (that’s more than half my lifetime) by waving a watch in front of my face and chanting positive affirmations.

Or something to that effect.

To start us off, Shore wants me to tell her what it is I like about smoking, which is rather an extensive list.

In fact, apart from having to stand outside pubs in the rain, I can’t think of one thing I don’t like –

- and in any case, I have an umbrella so I don’t even mind that bit too much.

I don’t even resent the cost – which at £6.20 a packet, a minimum of one packet (20 fags) a day, and significantly more at weekends, amounts to a fair portion of my disposable income –

- because I genuinely believe that they make my life a little bit better.

At least I’m in good company.

Last week, the results of Barack Obama’s recent health check were published, revealing that the President has still not managed to kick the habit, despite vowing that he would stop after his inauguration more than a year ago.

Obama’s been admirably frank about his habit and, given just how much pressure he’s under to quit, his must be quite an addiction.

“OK, now describe what it is that you like,” Shore is saying: “How does it make your life better?”

I close my eyes and cast my mind back: ..

.. Ten minutes earlier and I’m huddled in a doorway, soaked to the bone, feeling the soft barrel of the cigarette between my fingers; ..

.. wistfully, I recall the thick black smoke as it rolls down my throat;..

.. the smell lingering on my skin and clothes as I ascend the stairs to my appointment..”

(disclaimer:..i used to smoke at least 20 a day..

..i went to a hypnotherapist..and said i wanted to stop smoking tobacco..but that i didn’t want to stop smoking pot..

..i also had decided i wanted to stop..

(i practiced aversion therapy..not emptying ashtrays..and spending a deal of time contemplating/meditating on their contents..)

so..what worked..?..was it my desire to quit..?..or the hypnotherapy..?

i reckon it was a mix of the two..and would recommend those trying to quit to give hypnotherapy a go..eh..?

..i can’t see how it would hurt..

..just..if you still want to smoke pot..make sure you tell the hypnotist beforehand..eh..?

go to source/story>>Clean break: ‘How my habit went up in smoke’ - Features, Health & Families - The Independent

“..U.N. highlights the struggles of developing countries in the fight against drug addiction

While celebrities earn notoriety from publicly going into rehab, millions of impoverished drug addicts are being ostracized, do not have access to doctors and are often imprisoned, a senior U.N. official said Monday.

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, also said the developing world — already struggling to deal with health, education and unemployment problems — lacks the treatment facilities and law enforcement to control narcotics.

“Poor addicts — and there are millions of them — have been pushed to the margins of society, deprived of medical attention, often exposed to conditions, including imprisonment, that exacerbate their illness,” Costa said according to a copy of a speech he delivered at a Vienna meeting of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

“Strikingly, the addicted rich, singers, models and bankers alike, enter posh private clinics in a deluge of camera flashes — and amuse themselves in the role of trend setters,” he added.

Costa said his office is working with the World Health Organization to achieve universal access to drug treatment and urged governments around the world to protect and respect the human rights of imprisoned addicts and drug users in general..”

(gee..!..going on the criterea cited here..new zealand is most definitely in the ‘developing-country’ grouping..eh..?..

..wot with our barbaric attitudes towards/non-treatment of .. the health issue that is drug addiction ..eh..?..

..our ostracising/denial-of-treatment/imprisonment of our addicts..eh..?..

..all the cited-hallmarks of the ‘developing-country’..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>Plight of the impoverished drug addict - Drugs - Salon.com

“..Whenever someone asks me my greatest fear, the very first thing that comes to mind is poverty.

I grew up in a small town in Michigan.

We were those country folks for whom my dad’s success deer hunting in November really did make a difference in how well we would eat all winter.

My mom, in addition to holding down two minimum-wage jobs, grew a garden and canned everything from it, which sounds nice and idyllic now ..

.. but at the time was no joke.

This was survival, and tomato worms and potato bugs really were our competitors.

We were government cheese and powdered milk poor.

We were cars repossesed .. and a leaky roof we couldn’t afford to fix poor..”

go to source/story>>Greatest fear: Poverty, and the trap that it builds - librarienne - Open Salon

“..As medical marijuana booms, a notorious dope smuggler makes a bid for legitimacy.

But the game just ain’t the same

The King of Pot is shorter than you’d imagine.

When you meet a famous drug dealer, one expects scars and a distrustful sneer and some flashy clothes.

But Bruce Perlowin, found waiting for an elevator at the Los Angeles Convention Center dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, is more Patch Adams than Tony Montana.

Standing about 5 feet 6 inches tall, he has Robin Williams’ twinkling eyes as well as his manic energy.

What he lacks in stature, though, he more than makes up for in reputation among pot smokers and those who bust them.

Perlowin is the biggest West Coast dope smuggler in U.S. history, a fact he offers like a verbal handshake to every new person he meets.

He has his script down cold, a near-giddy 30-second biography of not only himself but also his former marijuana-running buddies, who are at the convention center on this mid-January weekend.

There’s the Duke of Dope, for instance, a guy who looks like a roadie for the Grateful Dead.

And there’s the Sultan of Shrimpers, who became famous for running pot into Florida in the 1970s on a fleet of fishing vessels.

And there’s Robert “Bobby Tuna” Platshorn, a former drug runner who holds the record for serving the longest sentence for marijuana smuggling, 29 years.

It’s not a stretch to say that these men were responsible for practically every joint smoked from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale in the late 1970s and early 1980s ..

.. before the boom fell and most of them were sent to prison..”

go to source/story>>Will the King of Pot go up in smoke? - Drugs - Salon.com

“..Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century ..

.. is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit ..

.. and move residents into stronger neighborhoods.

Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots.

Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there.

Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

Detroit officials first raised the idea in the 1990s, when blight was spreading.

Now, with the recession plunging the city deeper into ruin, a decision on how to move forward is approaching.

Mayor Dave Bing, who took office last year .. is expected to unveil some details in his state-of-the-city address this month.

“Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable,” said James W. Hughes, dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is among the urban experts watching the experiment with interest.

“There is now a realization that past glories are never going to be recaptured.

Some people probably don’t accept that .. but that is the reality..”

go to source/story>>Detroit Wants To Save Itself - By Shrinking

“..Writing in The Tablet, Father Kung, who in 1979 was stripped of his licence to teach Catholic theology after he rejected the doctrine of Papal infallibility ..

.. welcomed the apology .. but described the denials of any link between abuse, celibacy and other teaching as “erroneous”.

He said that it was the case that abuse was found also in families, schools and other churches.

But he asked: “Why is it so prevalent in the Catholic Church under celibate leadership?”

He said that celibacy was not the only cause of the misconduct but described it as “the most important and structurally the most decisive” expression of the Church’s uptight attitude to sex.

Citing the New Testament, he says that Jesus and St Paul practised celibacy .. but “allowed full freedom in this matter to each individual”.

St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians wrote: “Because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”

Peter and the apostles were married and their ministries did not suffer ..

.. he said, pointing out that thousands of priests protested when the new law was introduced as late as the 11th century.

Father Kung said: “Compulsory celibacy is the principal reason for today’s catastrophic shortage of priests ..

.. for the fatal neglect of eucharistic celebration ..

.. and for the tragic breakdown of personal pastoral ministry in many places..”

go to source/story>>Father Hans Kung blames Catholic views on sex for clerical child abuse -Times Online

“..Men’s personal-care brands gear up for an unprecedented fight to be crowned the alpha aroma Video

Can you smell the aroma of manufactured manliness?

Because there is an epic, and pungent, battle underway in the men’s personal care aisle.

Today, Advertising Age declares that we are seeing “the biggest array of product launches for men in nearly a decade and maybe ever.”

The major competitors in this pissing contest: Procter & Gamble, which is responsible for Old Spice and Gillette..

.. and Unilever’s new line, Dove Men+Care ..

..(apparently a plus sign equals masculinity)..”

go to source/story>>Battle of the man scents - Advertising - Salon.com

“..David Shenk’s new book, “The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong,” is 300 pages long ..

.. and more than half of those pages are endnotes.

You need to offer up a lot of evidence when your goal is to overturn a concept as commonplace as the idea that genes are the “blueprints” for both our physical bodies .. and our personalities.

Above all, what Shenk wants to communicate is that “the whole concept of genetic giftedness turns out to be wildly off the mark —

– tragically kept afloat for decades by a cascade of misunderstandings and misleading metaphors.”

Instead of acquiescing to the belief that talent is a quality we’re either born with or not ..

.. he wants us to understand that anyone can aspire to superlative achievement.

Hard, persistent and focused work is responsible for greatness, rather than innate ability.

Shenk does have a lot of evidence for this assertion..

.. most of it coming from geneticists and other biological researchers who are perplexed at the way their disciplines get depicted in the media.

“Today’s popular understanding of genes, heredity and evolution is not just crude, it’s profoundly misleading,” Shenk writes.

While most scientists long ago rejected the idea that nature and nurture are two separate factors competing in a zero-sum game to dominate human behavior..

.. laypeople still cling to the idea that whatever aspect of ourselves isn’t caused by our environment must be caused by our genes..

.. and vice versa.

In recent decades, heredity has gotten most of the credit;..”

go to source/story>>“The Genius in All of Us” - Laura Miller - Salon.com

“..In a media blitz, the Treasury secretary tries to sell a message a public eager for revenge doesn’t want to hear

What do we learn that we didn’t already know about Timothy Geithner, after reading 15000 freshly pixellated words about him this morning?

Not a whole hell of a lot, really .. except that the economy must be doing a lot better than it was a year ago ..

.. because the Treasury Secretary sure seems to have plenty of time to spare these days for press interviews..

Which is, of course, the point.

An underlying theme to both Joshua Green’s epic profile in The Atlantic and John Cassidy’s more restrained treatment in The New Yorker ..

.. is that, due in no small part to the efforts of Geithner, the economy is in much better shape than it was a year ago.

Financial markets have stabilized, Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions do not appear to be on the verge of bankruptcy ..

.. and the sense of widespread panic has more or less dissipated.

And yet, neither Obama nor Geithner get much credit for this feat .. from either the left or the right.

The reasons are obvious:

..Unemployment is holding steady at near ten percent, the future prospects for economic growth are, at best, uncertain ..

.. the general public’s understandable desire for vengeance against the titans of Wall Street has not been satisfied at all ..

.. and efforts at financial regulatory reform seem half-hearted .. and unlikely to achieve much .. even if pushed through.

As both profiles stress, the Obama administration, with Geithner as its economic policy point man, may have prevented further economic collapse ..

.. but did so in such a way as to “lose the public.”

The political costs have been immense.

But we knew that already.

Geithner’s multi-magazine profile explosion is clearly calculated to reverse that impression .. to rebuild his reputation.

It’s going to be an uphill climb.

The storyline has been set.

No amount of spin or media management at this point is likely to change how he is viewed ..

.. no matter how articulately the Treasury secretary jousts with smart financial reporters..”

go to source/story>>Tim Geithner: Wall Street vengeance isn’t mine - Timothy Geithner - Salon.com

“.. People are already saying you “pulled a Kanye.” What happened?

BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court.

But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn’t invited to any of them.

And he’s not speaking to me.

So we weren’t even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won.

And then, as I’m sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award.

And his mother took her cane and blocked me.

So I couldn’t get up there very fast..”

(how about that mother/cane action..?..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>The story behind Oscar’s “Kanye moment” - Oscar Nominations, Academy Awards 2010 - Salon.com

“.. Anti-gay California State Sen. Roy Ashburn today demanded a sweeping recall of the vehicle that drove him to a gay nightclub this week.

Sen. Ashburn, a Republican who has consistently voted for anti-gay legislation, said that the car drove him to the club “against my will.”

“If we are recalling cars for problems with their brakes and power steering ..

.. then surely we should be recalling vehicles that force their drivers to go to gay nightclubs,” Sen. Ashburn said.

The state senator said not only did the car drive him to the gay nightclub ..

.. but it forced him to enter the club and party there for hours .. resulting in his later arrest for DUI.

“I can’t tell you what a menace this car is,” he said.

“It really is the gayest car I’ve ever seen.”

In addition to calling for a recall of the gay car ..

.. Sen. Ashburn said he would sponsor legislation mandating that all California vehicles be fitted not only with GPS .. but gaydar..”

go to source/story>>GOP Lawmaker Demands Recall of Car That Drove Him to Gay Club | | AlterNet

“..Last Wednesday, I attended a conference initiated by the Roosevelt Institute on the financial mess, called Make Markets Be Markets.

The conference’s speakers included people with experience on Wall Street, the banking industry, government and academia; ..

.. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, Elizabeth Warren, and other luminaries who have offered an alternative and reformist narrative to our recent financial crisis.

At two and half hours, it was relatively short, giving each speaker the opportunity to make their points and providing a sharp focus.

One underlying theme of the event was fraud ..

.. the great elephant in the room .. that neither the press or our government officials acknowledge ..

.. though it is a fundamental element to the financial crisis .. and its solutions.

Joe Stiglitz started the conference and stated how reducing transparency and hiding information was an essential element to the crisis.

Stiglitz concluded, “Innovation was regulator and tax arbitrage.”

Wall Street and the banks deliberately added opacity and complexity to confuse clients and consumers.

Elizabeth Warren pointed out, “complexity made a lot of profits,”..

.. for example, she showed how the average credit card contract in 1980 was one page .. today it is thirty.

This opacity and complexity helped make the financial industry predatory against their clients and customers.

Not only did government regulatory agencies fail in stopping this confidence game of historical magnitude, but so did markets.

NYU’s Lawrence White pointed out the credit agencies such as Moody’s and S&P .. whose role is to provide independent analysis ..

.. essentially became co-conspirators ..

.. as their business model changed from being paid by investors .. to being paid by the Wall Street issuers ..

.. making it against their interests to issue dour ratings on investments..”

go to source/story>>Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System | | AlterNet

“..It is time for a revolution.

Government does not work for regular people.

It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful.

But it does not work for people.

The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ..

.. it is the peoples right .. in fact their duty .. to engage in a revolution.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States.

He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.”

It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.

Look at what our current system has brought us ..

..and ask if it is time for a revolution?..”

go to source/story>>15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country | | AlterNet

“..John McDougall MD describes a recent archeological discovery in Turkey where researchers concluded Roman gladiators ate a vegan diet.

This is a short excerpt from Dr. McDougall’s fascinating talk THE STARCH SOLUTION at the Healthy Lifestyle Expo 2009.

In his talk, Dr. McDougall gives example after example from the historical record showing that all successful cultures thrived by subsiting on a largely starch-based diet.

And he presents the biological case that humans evolved to live on starchy foods for optimal health..”

we also discover that the roman army..before going into battle..would switch to a vegan diet..(who knew..?..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>Gladiators Were Vegan (VIDEO) - Vegsource.com

“..Arctic seabed stores of methane are now destabilizing and venting vast stores of frozen methane—a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The paper, in the prestigious journal Science, reports the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf—long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane—

- is instead perforated and leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Melting of even a fraction of the clathrates stored in that shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

Lead author Natalia Shakhova Shakhova of the International Arctic Research Center tells U of Alaska Fairbanks:

“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans.

Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area encompassing more than three-quarter million square miles of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean—

- three times larger than the nearby Siberian wetlands formerly considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane.

Shakhova’s research shows the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is already emitting 7 teragrams (1 teragram = 1.1 million tons) of methane yearly ..

.. about as much as the all the oceans of the world..”

go to source/story>>Massive Methane Melt off Siberia | Mother Jones

“..With their powers combined, can climate change skeptics and creationists succeed in getting anti-science views into the country’s classrooms?

The New York Times today reports that there is a growing .. (evolving, perhaps?) .. movement to unite skepticism of both global warming and evolution ..

.. in hopes of a creating a winning legal case for getting their agenda into schools.

This move comes after a 2005 ruling in the United States District Court in Atlanta found that a school district that had placed stickers on textbooks telling students that evolution is just a theory ..

.. violated the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.

..The Times reports:..”

go to source/story>>Climate Skeptics and Creationists Join Forces | Mother Jones

“..In her latest collection of essays, novelist and essayist Arundhati Roy turns her critical eye to her home country of India.

Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers is published by Haymarket Books.

In this UtneCast conversation, Roy challenges the mainstream media story of “India shining” ..

.. and describes the recent laws and military operations inside the country that she says challenge India’s image as a great democracy..”

go to source/story>>Arundhati Roy on Democracy, India, and Writing

“..Imagine some ugly, underused street in your town, marked by drab buildings, wide streets, and forbidding expanses of parking lot.

If you have to go here at all, chances are you’d prefer to drive.

Now imagine it remade into a place where you’d actually want to walk or bike.

There would be broad sidewalks, trees, and streetfront buildings with ground-level windows.

There would be other people walking around too.

Picture this in your mind, if you can.

If you can’t, digital artist Steve Price might be able to help.

Price builds Flash animations that show what blighted urban landscapes would look like if they became healthier, safer, and more sustainable places..”

go to source/story>>Digital designer shows what future towns could look like | Grist

“.. Stirling Moss is recovering in hospital after falling down a lift shaft at home and breaking both his ankles, a friend of the British motor racing great has told Reuters.

Moss, who turned 80 last September, opened the lift door on the third floor of his house in central London and stepped forwards but due to a malfunction the lift had stopped on the floor above.

The friend said he spent the weekend in intensive care but, despite suffering damage to some vertebrae, had no internal injuries.

The driver’s wife Susie was quoted as saying Moss was in good spirits ..

.. and already complaining about the size and quality of the hospital breakfast..”

go to source/story>>Moss falls down lift shaft - motorsport - sport | Stuff.co.nz

“..Prime Minister John Key says the notion that senior members of his party leaked documents to journalist Nicky Hager is “bollocks” and “fiction put out by the left”.

Police yesterday released a police investigation into how 475 emails from former National leader Don Brash came into Mr Hager’s hands.

It found that it was “highly unlikely” that the system was hacked, and leaned towards an inside job.

The emails formed the basis of The Hollow Men, and Dr Brash resigned soon after it was released.

When asked if there had been a leak from senior National Party sources, Mr Key said: ..

..”That’s a great, sort of, nonsense, fiction put out by the left.

“Or bollocks is another way of putting it.”

He firmly believed that the system had been hacked into - “but I can’t back that up” - and he had a theory on who it was.

When pressed by journalists, Mr Key said: “There’s no question other people had access to that system.

It’s a statement of fact. There are contractors that had access to those old systems.

“The system had no capability of knowing who went in and out of it.

That was one of the faults of the system.”

Mr Key said he was not worried about his email being hacked.

“I’m not in the process of sending dodgy emails, but at the end of the day someone can always cut and paste and break into the system.”

Mr Hager said Mr Key’s reaction was “shocking”.

“For the Prime Minister at the end of all that [investigation] to repeat the same baseless allegations is shocking.

“The main way information comes and goes from offices and organisations is the people who come in and out the doors.

It doesn’t suit them to admit that so they will keep repeating something even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary from the police inquiry.

“Any reasonable person reading this result will give up those diversions about hacking and stealing.”

He maintained there had been a mixture of sources close to and inside the National Party.

“They weren’t people dressing up as cleaners, or whoever they might be fantasising.”

go to source/story>>Senior Nats leaking emails is fiction: Key - Politics - NZ Herald News

“..Mr Key said the business model for running council services was not new, but hinted at changes to make it more accountable to the Auckland Council and ratepayers.

Political heavyweights John Banks and Len Brown, Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett, community leaders and ordinary Aucklanders are opposed to so much activity being run by seven “council controlled organisations”.

One submitter to the Government’s third and final piece of Super City legislation, lawyer Douglas Allan ..

.. said the bill “creates a corporate city, rather than a democratic city”.

The biggest concerns are over a CCO which will plan and develop a huge swathe of the waterfront ..

.. and a mega-CCO for transport ..

.. that will commandeer about $630 million from Auckland ratepayers to spend on everything from new roads to fixing footpaths..”

go to source/story>>Auckland lockout - Key backs CCO plan - National - NZ Herald News