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Barack Obama wins healthcare battle in tight vote

2010-03-22T10:09:00.000+02:00

NEWS

Barack Obama wins healthcare battle in tight vote

Monday, March 22, 2010

The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to pass a landmark healthcare reform bill at the heart of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

The bill was passed by 219 votes to 212, with no Republican backing, after hours of fierce argument and debate.

It extends coverage to 32 million more Americans, and marks the biggest change to the US healthcare system in decades.

“We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things,” Mr Obama said in remarks after the vote.

“This legislation will not fix everything that ails our healthcare system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction,” he said.

Mr Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly.

But a new challenge is expected in the Senate, where Democrats hope amendments to the bill will be enacted by a simple majority. Republicans say the move is unconstitutional and plan to stop it.

We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, healthcare for all Americans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Historic vote

He has been tough and tenacious – some might say stubborn – in pushing this legislation after so much opposition and so many setbacks, our correspondent says.

This is the most significant victory for the president since he took office 14 months ago.

When the vote count hit the magic number of 216 – the minimum needed to pass the bill – Democrats hugged and cheered in celebration and chanted: “Yes we can!”

Under the legislation, health insurance will be extended to nearly all Americans, new taxes imposed on the wealthy, and restrictive insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions will be outlawed.

However, our correspondent says it has become a rallying point for Republicans, who are convinced the American people do not want the changes and that it will be a vote winner for them come the mid-term elections in November.

They say the measures are unaffordable and represent a government takeover of the health industry.

“We have failed to listen to America,” said Republican party leader John Boehner.

Speaking moments before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the health care reform honoured the nation’s traditions.

“We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, healthcare for all Americans,” she said, referring to the government’s pension program and health insurance for the elderly established nearly 50 years ago.

Although Democrats pushed the measure through with three votes to spare, 34 members joined Republicans in voting against the bill, worried about paying a political price in November.

In a last-minute move designed to win the support of a bloc of anti-abortion lawmakers, Mr Obama earlier on Sunday announced plans to issue an executive order assuring that healthcare reform will not change the restrictions barring federal money for abortion.

Next steps

The bill’s final approval represented a stunning turnaround from January, when it was considered dead after Democrats lost their 60-seaty majority in the Senate, which is required to defeat a filibuster.

To avoid a second Senate vote, the House also approved on Sunday evening a package of reconciliation “fixes” – agreed beforehand between House and Senate Democrats and the White House – amending the bill that senators adopted in December.

The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend.

The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes – rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics.

The Republicans say they will seek to repeal the measure, challenge its constitutionality and co-ordinate efforts in state legislatures to block its implementation.

But the president has signalled he will fight back.

The White House plans to launch a campaign this week to persuade sceptical Americans that the reforms offer immediate benefits to them and represent the most significant effort to reduce the federal deficit since the 1990s.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the healthcare bill will cut the federal deficit by $138bn over 10 years.

The non-partisan body said last week that the legislation would cost about $940bn over the same period.

The reforms will increase insurance coverage through tax credits for the middle class and an expansion of Medicaid for the poor.

They represent the biggest change in the US healthcare system since the creation in the 1960s of Medicare, the government-run scheme for those aged 65 or over.

[Via http://dominicstoughton.wordpress.com]

U.S. Bishops' final plea to Congressmen: Do not pass pro-abortion ...

HAPPY HEALTHCARE, USA

2010-03-22T02:51:00.000+02:00

After decades of debate, attempts, and failures, real Health Care Reform has finally come to America with the passage of HR3590. Obama has brought real change to America.

Final vote: Yay - 219, Nay - 212 PASS!!!

I have followed the debate closely over the past year and have written several posts which can help you to understand the content, context, and importance of this bill: check them out here.

Let’s all hope that Rush Limbaugh now makes good on his pledge to leave the country if this legislation passes:

Good night and good luck!

[Via http://freshmandenial.wordpress.com]

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 3/21 - Arrowhead Pride

Wind and Dust and Real Wild West

2010-03-19T18:57:00.000+02:00

Two days in the desert—driving, hot wind roaring, through the pebbles and boulders, palm groves and dusty towns, the strange angles of the Joshua trees, arching up towards something, a sky as pale as eyes. It’s not hard to imagine infinity in the desert, that’s it’s all still at the bottom of some great prehistoric sea, that the sky were the lid of the sea and we were all swimming through it, rattling highway through it—the wind, waves; the dust, sand; the crunch under your sneakers some kind of ancient asking.

I arched over the hills, my tired car chugging, and arrived in Joshua Tree, went teeth-chattering down an unpaved road that dead-ended at open lot of strange, scavenged art. I’d read about the Noah Purifoy Foundation on Trazzler, and it immediately rose to the top on my list of things to do .

An LA artist that moved to the desert for more space and peace, Noah Purifoy erected whimsical sculptures out of found and salvaged materials—toilets, old vacuum cleaners, scrapped tin. During the 60s he’d directed the Watts Towers Art Center, and you can definitely see the influence of Simon Rodia—though Purifoy’s creations are more folksy, more political, less abstract. In fact, one of the most powerful pieces in the wind-swept lot was a piece made from materials found after the Watts Riots. To take a tragic, violent event, to sift through its remains and piece them together to create something new, something beautiful—this seems to be what Noah Purifoy was all about.

Admission to the Noah Purifoy Foundation is free; there’s a couple pamphlets at the entrance that guide you through your wanderings. There were only a couple other people there, and I hadn’t read about the place anywhere else. Except that, the next day, I saw on Twitter that it’d been featured in the New York Times. So much for having the edge.

Then it was off into the park itself. You hear a lot about the strange spiritual power of Joshua Tree, and I gotta say, they aren’t exaggerating. The terrain was other-worldly, to say the least. The tumble of boulders looked as though they’d been piled up by a toddler’s hand. The arms of the Joshua trees twisted and reached, fists full of beige spring flowers. The shrubs had a slight purplish haze, like an old woman’s hair, and the air was full with a charged silence, the sound of wind.

I of course made a beeline to the site of Gram Parson’s impromptu cremation, something of a pilgrimage site for fans and aficionados of the bizarre. I drove out to Cap Rock and walked slowly around the massive formation, searching for the tributes and messages written on the rock that would signal the spot. And you know, I have to say, sitting there, the whole thing seemed much less odd. Well, the bit about stealing the body and having it actually burned on the spot is still a bit far-fetched, but being there—listening to the wind and watching the lizards dart—it seemed less like some kind of opiate-inspired fit of fancifulness, and more like an honest yearning to become a part of the place. It felt like somewhere, very far beneath the surface of it all, those plutonic intrusions that caused the rock formations were still boiling, still shooting up through the crust of the earth, and it didn’t seem so strange to want to become a part of it—to become smoke, twisting; dust, dancing; and at last the wind.

Across the desolation lay a supreme indifference, the casualness of night and another day, and yet the secret intimacy of those hills, their silent consoling wonder, made death a thing of no great importance. You could die, but the desert would hide the secret of your death, it would remain after you, to cover your memory with ageless wind and heat and cold.

John Fante, “Ask the Dust”

The next day it was off find the Wild West. I’d been stoked about Pioneertown, for nothing more than the kitsch factor. An old movie and TV set from the 40s, my trip to Pioneertown seemed ill-fated from the beginning. The Pionnertown Motel suddenly “closed indefinitely” the week before I left, and Harriet and Pappy’s Palace, billed as the best honky tonk west of the Mississippi, was closed the night I wanted to go boogie down. So I headed out in the morning and I have to say, if it would have been monumentally disappointing if Ice Cube hadn’t been there, in a poncho and a sombrero hat, filming a new video.

I headed back on the highway, through squat, peopleless towns of gas stations and boarded-up buildings. Did you know they grow dates in the California desert? I didn’t. Or that a date milkshake is god-damn delicious?

I made it to Niland, a windy little town with a couple shops, a no-name gas station and a stretch of trailers. There were two big sights there that inspired me to go 2 1/2 hours out of my way: Salvation Mountain and Slab City—the real, modern-day Wild West. It’s fitting that most people know about these places, if at all, from the movie and book Into The Wild, because they capture the kind of not-for-profit weirdness that can only take place in California.

Salvation Mountain is Leonard Knight’s neon, latex-paint monument to God. Really. Radioactively bright, the art installation is covered in biblical passages, odes to God, and topped with a cross. The old dude came out to the desert in 1985, shortly after he was saved by Jesus, and began building the tribute, fueled by some kind of insane passion and other-realm vision.

Leonard was there that day, as he is most. Weathered, red-skinned and still mostly coherent, Leonard showed a small group of us around, spouting his message of God’s love and keeping it simple. He had a 10th grade education, he told us, and was one of the dumbest creatures on Earth, but because he’d repented, God had enabled him to build Salvation Mountain. He didn’t do it for money, he didn’t do it for fame—he did it spread the message.

His paint-stained pants were hitched up high, one of the legs tucked into his sock. The Velcro straps of his stained sneakers flapped, and he’d missed a button on his shirt. Three long hairs grew out of the top of his nose; he had a cold sore and one long thumb nail. He looked like a man that had become the desert, was the desert. He gave us each a handful of postcards and asked us to distribute them. He wanted nothing in return, just for us to spread the word. He repeated “keep it simple” like a mantra.

A quarter-mile down the road was the legendary RV squatter encampment of Slab City—”the last free place,” the sign read. Pebbly and stark and covered with trailers, Slab City is a piece of land no one wants. The government bulldozed a military base that was there in the mid-40s, leaving nothing but concrete slabs, covering the ground like graves. Word got out in the squatter community, and it became a wintering place for “snow birds.” There’s no water, no bathrooms—nothing, again, but wind and dust.

There were a number of “yard sales”—tables and blankets were random stuff was displayed, on sale for passer-throughs like myself. I pulled over to one and chatted with the people there, a desert-skinned man with a scabby elbow on a bicycle, and a sun-visored woman with obese ankles and a gap where a tooth once was. I asked them about life in Slab City, about the community and why they were there.

“There’s no rules here,” they told me. “No one bothers you, and you can do whatever you want.” They let the statement linger, and I didn’t ask what “whatever” was. As long as you were sociable with your neighbors and didn’t steal, anything went.

They told me how they easily lived on $200 a month in government assistance and food stamps, how people helped each other without payment or reward, how there were weekly live music shows and how the cops wouldn’t come out there (since Slabbers provide all the income for the nearby town Niland, they claimed). They talked about local goings-on, about drunk neighbors who’d stabbed each other and a dog that had recently died, a new church that had opened and was going to start giving out food on Sundays. Last year a trailer had burned; there was nothing to do but watch it blaze in the night.

“By April 1,” the guy told me, “everyone will be gone.”

“Where do they go?”

He shrugged. “Oregon. Canada. There’s not many free places left, places like this.”

He looked around the shrubs and dirt, squinted under the heavy sun—a place that had etched itself onto his skin, his sharp blue eyes. This was no OK Corral; this was the realeast Wild West I’d ever seen.

[Via http://lonelygirltravels.com]

EVE Tyrannis expansion due in May News | MMO | Eurogamer

What's in a name

2010-03-19T02:50:00.000+02:00

Another entry in the “US politics is deranged” file – Fox News interrogating Obama about what procedural method the Democrats might use to get a straight vote on the healthcare bill:

“Deem and Pass” sounds so much more sinister when you pronounce it “Demon Pass” and introduce it as “the Slaughter Rule”, doesn’t it?

What next? For the remainder of the Obama Administration, will they start calling the power of the President to veto legislation the “Obama Skullf*cks Your Grandmother Rule”?

[Via http://anonymouslefty.wordpress.com]

AMERICAblog News: The NY Times discovers that GOP leader McConnell ...

Warfare between Christ and Islam

2010-03-17T10:18:00.000+02:00

Stand for truth in politics, law, education, media, and culture. However, continue to rest in the works of Jesus Christ. “It is finished.” Indeed, the state of this world distresses us, and we must pray and work in the Spirit against the continuous stream of new versions of the old lie; however, let us not be tempted to think that this is a war against Christians and Muslims.

Muslims are victims of the lie of Islam. Islam shall be defeated by the weaponry of our Lord; pitting foolish Muslim weapons (demographics, politics, war, terrorism, lies, protests) against Muslims will not defeat Islam. The living God is the Powerful. We will not send out a fat Goliath with a flashy costume to impress or intimidate men. We will be weak, we will have faith, and we will be strong in the Lord.

Even as the spirit of Islam conquers Europe and invades North America, it is rotting from the inside-out. Souls in the very heart of Dar al-Islam are crying out for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nobody can stop the work of our Lord. When they say Christianity is dying, it is a sure sign that it is just beginning.

A Muslim’s greatest shame is that a tiny nation called Israel remains in the middle of Islam’s headquarters. Heavy militant action since 1948 has not removed this thorn that even stuck the gut of prophet Muhammad until his death, even though hungry dogs surround Israel on all borders. This shame cuts to the core, not only of Muslim politics, but also of their personal service to their dead god. This question haunts them: “What have I done wrong, Allah, that this stain will not be removed?”

Even as the strong-man Islam cannot wipe out the puny nation of Israel, so much more shall he not wipe out the kingdom of Jesus Christ. He cannot touch it; God’s will forbids it. Christ’s kingdom is not even of this world. Our citizenship is in heaven, where our King is preparing a place for us.

Let us show love to our Muslim neighbors. Let them see our weakness, for weak we are. But just as the Philistines saw in young David, they will also see that the God of Israel is the living God. Our strength is in the Most High. The Jew, the Muslim, and the Arminian Christian struggle and fuss to please the God of Abraham, but they altogether disgust Him. No dead man can work from his filthy heart to impress God.

[Via http://looseassociations.wordpress.com]

Michael Sigman: News/PR Line Gets Blurrier

Obama Sides with RIAA, MPAA; Backs ACTA

2010-03-17T02:25:00.000+02:00

From: OS News

And thus, our true colours reveal. Since Obama was the young newcomer, technically savvy, many of us were hoping that he might support patent and/or copyright reform. In case our story earlier on this subject didn’t already tip you off, this certainly will: Obama has sided squarely with the RIAA/MPAA lobby, and backs ACTA. No copyright and/or patent reform for you, American citizens!

Obama made the remarks in a speech at the Export-Import Bank’s annual conference in Washington.

“We’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,” Obama said in his speech, “Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the

American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.”

“There’s nothing wrong with other people using our technologies, we welcome it,” Obama continued, “We just want to make sure that it’s licensed and that American businesses are getting paid appropriately. That’s why the [US Trade Representative] is using the full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses, and that includes negotiating proper protections and enforcing our existing agreements, and moving forward on new agreements, including the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”

It seems that the RIAA, MPAA, and similar organisations have been successful in lobbying the US administration into supporting their cause. This means that the US government will continue to (financially) support an industry that is simply outdated, and has failed to adapt to the changing market – which seems remarkably anti-capitalistic and anti-free market, even for a Democratic president.

Full Article

[Via http://noriots.com]

It's Official: News Media Are Missing The Twitter Boat – GigaOM

Affirmative Action part 2 of 7693

2010-03-15T10:53:00.000+02:00

There is nothing that winds me up more than affirmative action. In Australia it’s a problem, but nowhere near the level that it is in America where they have affirmative action doctors. God help me if I ever get sick there. However, we have a situation at the Melbourne Fire Brigade (MFB) that desperately needs to be nipped in the bud:

The MFB recently applied for an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act to give preference in pre-training to indigenous people and ethnic minorities, while the gender plan was trying to boost the number of women firefighters.

Thankfully, the backlash has been significant. And guess what, the main opponents for this moronic plan are the same people that these arseholes are claiming to help.

The Lefty Age reports that:

NEARLY half the women firefighters at the Metropolitan Fire Brigade have publicly rejected claims of a ”closed culture” and say setting diversity targets is ”patronising and forever taints applicants”.

Can we hear that again? Can I underline it, bold it, highlight it, etc. etc. without appearing to labour the point?

”patronising and forever taints applicants”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. This is the evil, yes EVIL, that is affirmative action. When you give a group a preference for employment that trumps merit, you forever doom that group to be looked down upon. This is because you have undermined them. Before, their employment meant that they had met the standard, that they were qualified to deal with the real life demands of the job, that they were competitive and that they deserve to be there. It means that the people they work with view them as equals – they are good enough.

The moment you change that, you instantly destroy all the hard work of the people of that group. Suddenly, they don’t deserve to be there. Future employees of that group may not deserve to be there. They might, because they are hard working and qualified for the job, but they also might not, because there is a short cut available to them. And the reality is that the question mark is how they will be viewed forever.

If you want to help, do it at the source. I don’t have a problem with proactive help to those who were disadvantaged from the moment they were born. But reactive “help” at the point of employment is fucked. It is patronising and it leads to resentment.

If a minority goes for a job who is qualified and hard working, and if they are then denied the job on the basis of their gender, country of birth, or their race, I will be the first to complain. That simply isn’t fair and it goes against the principles of Equal Opportunity. But if you favour a person over others on the basis of their country of birth, gender, or race, then you are basically saying to everyone else who belongs to that group that you can’t cut it… that you are so worthless that the only way you can contribute to society is by hand outs.

That’s bullshit, and it is contrary to everything I believe in.

We need to stop this insanity before it spreads.

[Via http://jesscon.wordpress.com]

Citigroup's Good News, Not so Great - The Curious Capitalist ...

China itching for a fight with the US? Bring it on, punk.

2010-03-15T02:12:00.000+02:00

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph seems to think so. According to him, the Chinese politburo – like the Iranian Ayatollahs, the inbreds from North Korea, the Okinawans, and more recently, the Mexican drug lords – are acting on the basic assumption that Obama’s spine is as stiff as mee kia that’s been dipped in boiling water for far too long. The script is something you can’t buy with MasterCard: Chinese are accusing the US of “serial villiany”, while the US is starting to love everything made in Taiwan. The Chinese thinks that with the trillions they hold in UST, they have the US by its hairy nut sack, but nothing really stops the US from doing a Mahatir on China, i.e. “Tomollo, we are preparing humbly to announce that China can prease to go fuck itself on US debt obligations. Want to negotiate today, punk?”.

From the Telegraph “Is China’s Politburo spoiling for a showdown with America?”

The long-simmering clash between the world’s two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system.

China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand.

Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a “currency manipulator”, triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America’s U6 unemployment at 16.8pc.

“It’s going to be really hard for them yet again to fudge on the obvious fact that China is manipulating. Without a credible threat, we’re not going to get anywhere,” said Paul Krugman, this year’s Nobel economist.

China’s premier Wen Jiabao is defiant.

“I don’t think the yuan is undervalued. We oppose countries pointing fingers at each other and even forcing a country to appreciate its currency,” he said yesterday. Once again he demanded that the US takes “concrete steps to reassure investors” over the safety of US assets.

“Some say China has got more arrogant and tough. Some put forward the theory of China’s so-called ‘triumphalism’. My conscience is untainted despite slanders from outside,” he said

Days earlier the State Council accused America of serial villainy. “In the US, civil and political rights of citizens are severely restricted and violated by the government. Workers’ rights are seriously violated,” it said.

“The US, with its strong military power, has pursued hegemony in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and trespassing their human rights,” it said.

“At a time when the world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the US subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the US government revels in accusing other countries.” And so forth.

Is the Politiburo smoking weed?

I let others discuss the rights and wrongs of this, itself a response to the US report card on China. Clearly, Beijing is in denial about is own part in the global imbalances behind the credit crisis, specifically by running structural trade surpluses, and driving down long rates through dollar and euro bond purchases. No doubt the West has made a hash of things, but the Chinese view of events is twisted to the point of delusional.

What interests me is Beijing’s willingness to up the ante. It has vowed sanctions against any US firm that takes part in a $6.4bn weapons contract for Taiwan, a threat to ban Boeing from China and a new level of escalation in the Taiwan dispute.

In Copenhagen, Wen Jiabao sent an underling to negotiate with Mr Obama in what was intended to be – and taken to be – a humiliation. The US President put his foot down, saying: “I don’t want to mess around with this anymore.” That sums up White House feelings towards China today.

We have talked ourselves into believing that China is already a hyper-power. It may become one: it is not one yet. China is ringed by states – Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India – that are American allies when push comes to shove. It faces a prickly Russia on its 4,000km border, where Chinese migrants are itching for Lebensraum across the Amur. Emerging Asia, Brazil, Egypt and Europe are all irked by China’s yuan-rigged export dumping.

Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that China’s reserves of $2.4 trillion – arguably $3 trillion – are a sign of weakness, not strength. Only twice before in modern history has a country amassed such a stash equal to 5pc-6pc of global GDP: the US in the 1920s, and Japan in the 1980s. Each time preceeded depression.

The reserves cannot be used internally to support China’s economy. They are dead weight, beyond any level needed for macro-credibility. Indeed, they are the ultimate indictment of China’s dysfunctional strategy, which is to buy $30bn to $40bn of foreign bonds every month to hold down the yuan, refusing to let the economy adjust to trade realities. The result is over-investment in plant, flooding the world with goods at wafer-thin export margins. China’s over-capacity in steel is now greater than Europe’s output.

This is catching up with China, in any case. Professor Victor Shuh from Northerwestern University warns that the 8,000 financing vehicles used by China’s local governments to stretch credit limits have built up debts and commitments of $3.5 trillion, mostly linked to infrastructure. He says the banks may require a bail-out nearing half a trillion dollars.

As America’s creditor – owner of some $1.4bn of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments – China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China’s export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom?

Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped – in extremis – by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be “mutual assured destruction”, as often claimed. Washington would win.

Contrary to myth, the slide to protectionism after the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act did not cause the Depression. Trade contracted more slowly in the 1930s than this time. The Smoot-Hawley lesson is that tariffs have asymmetrical effects. They devastate surplus countries: then America. Deficit Britain did well by retreating into Imperial Preference.

Barack Obama has never exalted free trade. This orthodoxy is, in any case, under threat in the West. His top economic adviser Larry Summers let drop in Davos that free-trade arguments no longer hold when dealing with “mercantilist” powers. Adam Smith recognized this too, despite efforts by free-trade ultras to appropriate him for their cause.

China’s trasformation has been remarkable since Deng Xiaoping unleashed capitalism, but as ex-diplomat George Walden writes in China: a Wolf in the World? you cannot feel at ease with a regime that still covers up Mao’s murderous nihilism. He reminds us too that China has never forgiven the humilations inflicted by the West when the two civilizations collided in the 19th Century, and intends to exact revenge. Handle with care.

[Via http://singaporeuncletrader.wordpress.com]

New Jersey Devils Morning News, Mar 14 - In Lou We Trust

A clear-skinned Amy Winehouse sticks to natural highs as she shops for healthy food and vitamins

2010-03-12T10:49:00.000+02:00

(Daily Mail)

With a bit more weight on her bones and a smooth, glowing complexion it would definitely take a second glance to spot this troubled star. And if it hadn’t been for her trademark beehive hairdo, Amy Winehouse could well have gone unrecognised as she shopped in central London yesterday.

The singer looked happy and healthy as she pottered round Marylebone, stopping at a health food shop. The singer, 26, was snapped filling her shopping basket inside Holland & Barrett and left with a paper carrier bag that was bursting at the seams.

As she strolled down the high street and made her way to Boots, she stopped outside the pharmacy’s entrance to stop and chat to a charity worker. She looked deep in conversation with the man, even laughing out loud at one point, before she dropped some cash into his collection tin.

It’s a rarity to see Amy looking so well, especially in recent years, so these photos of her looking healthy and happy will come as a relief for her fans and her family. Or maybe she’s just in a great mood having reconciled with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Today, a source close to the singer dismissed several reports that she and Blake are planning to re-marry in Las Vegas “as soon as possible” and that they have bought a £2.5million Camden home in which they plan to raise their children.

The pair originally tied the knot in Miami, Florida, in 2007, before divorcing last September. Reports said the couple want to tie the knot in a quickie ceremony as soon as her US visa application is approved after she was denied a previous visa for possessing cannabis. But a source said she and Blake had not spoken about re-marrying and there was “no wedding on the horizon”.

They also pointed out that as Blake is a convicted criminal, he would not be allowed into the US and it would be an “impossibility for them to consider that option”.

Meanwhile, Amy today announced that she has teamed up with clothing brand Fred Perry to create her 17-piece apparel and accessories collection. She said: “I’m really excited about doing this collection with Fred Perry. We’ve been working on it for a while and it’s great to see it finally come to fruition.”

[Via http://newboobsandpanties.wordpress.com]

Stocks in the News: Facet Biotech, InterMune, American Eagle ...

Why are Zionists the only ones allowed to work at the US State Department near east section?

2010-03-12T02:38:00.000+02:00

[Via http://thepeopleofpakistan.wordpress.com]

The Hockey News: Special Features: VIDEO: Bruins goaltending ...

Your irascible kid will be ordered to get psychiatric treatments

2010-03-10T10:47:00.000+02:00

Your irascible kid will be ordered to get psychiatric treatments; (Mar. 9, 2010)

Any single behavior of yours has now a psychological label attached to it. An irascible kid is diagnosed “humor deregulation with dysphory”; an eccentric adolescent is treated for “syndrome of psychotic risk”; and if you are into much sex activities then you are labeled “hypersexual troubled person”

A few expert psychiatrists of the American Psychiatry Association (APA) have been efficaciously working for a decade on categorizing and revisiting the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The proposed revisions are published on the APA site www.dsm5.org are opened for comments till April 20, 2010. The definitive version DSM-V is due on May 2013. Comments, validation studies, complementary evaluations, and the vote of the administration council of APA will deliver the final acceptance decision of this version.

Mental illnesses are intrinsically related to family and community supports, health structures, and mental customs in treatments; all these factors are irrelevant to multinational pharmaceutical companies with interest to globalize definitions of psychiatric syndromes and treatments.

Based on globalize diagnostics and criteria, individuals will be considered suffering from mental troubles, prescribed standardized psychotrops, and health insurance coverage encouraged. The president of APA, Alan Schatzberg, said “The DSM may have incidences on the way individuals perceive others and perceive themselves. It influences the nature of research and their methodologies. There are repercussions in justices, industries, and public health.”

There is no doubt that millions of people will be taking pills that were not necessary in many societies in the first place; they will suffer secondary effects that are more dangerous and harmful than the original ailments. Worse, the revised DSM-V will be imposed globally to include all societies as the definitive Psychiatric Bible. APA will enjoy hegemony in that troubled field.

For example, a “depressed” Nigerian would say he has burning in the head; a Chinese would say he has pain in the shoulders or stomach; a Salvadorian would claim to have sensation of intense corporal heat. Ethan Watters published “Crazy like Us: The globalization of the American Psyche”. There is a terrifying global tendency to de-humanizing people by imposing unified cultural outlooks.

Western, more specifically US, repertory of mental symptoms and treatments is trying to homogenize it globally, as if there are no specificities to various societies differing vastly from Western concepts of mental illness. Since it is Western States that are contributing mostly to natural disasters and catastrophes, then the US medical teams have disseminated their diagnostics related to post-traumatic ailments.

Multinational pharmaceutical industries are heavily lobbying to redefining mental symptoms so that they sell medical pills that DSM might be recommending, especially allowing public health institutions and health insurance to cover the mental disorders expenses.

[Via http://adonis49.wordpress.com]

Codemasters unveils Bodycount FPS News | PS3 | Eurogamer

Jump ...!

2010-03-10T02:21:00.000+02:00

On the new 425m / 1400ft glass-floored ledges of the Willis (ex-Sears) Tower at lunchtime today. An apt visual metaphor for the the fact that – as most of you already know – after 22 amazing years, and many “Will I? Won’t I?” moments, I’m finally leaving the Office.

Jump into the unknown … no visible means of support, and all that. Seriously scary … but also OhMyGODThisIsSoEXCITING!!

The sudden move helps explain the tidying frenzy described in the previous post; although I couldn’t at that stage be frank about what had raised me from slobbishness as the news wasn’t yet official.

So far, the glass hasn’t given way; and, amazingly, I don’t believe it will …

[Via http://softedges.wordpress.com]

TechMeme's Robots Are Now Compiling Media News - megan mccarthy ...

Why Malaysia do make films that touches the heart like this "Crazy Heart" movie..a story of a Great Musician which Malaysia also have plenty...

2010-03-08T10:30:00.000+02:00

video clips of “Crazy Heart”

By the way,Jeff Bridges,the lead actor for this film won the Academy Award for Leading Actor category.Congratulations Jeff!

Ramli also love country music and the blues…there’s lots of soul to these music…you know….

Is it so easy to win an Academy Award?What about winning it again the second time,third time or even for the fifth time?

[Via http://pramleeelvis.wordpress.com]

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Good news: Pop stars now posing in ...

Milennium Park Walkabout

2010-03-08T02:34:00.000+02:00

Stunning stunning weather yesterday and I took my camera out to give it a runabout.

Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate

I am a pretty fair weather photographer I have to say but I got some great shots of the city yesterday. As we are leaving Chicago, permanently, soon I wanted to take lots of typical scenes of the city to remember it by. I have many good memories here and the architecture is amazing.

BP Bridge over to the park.

[Via http://anthonyjstewart.wordpress.com]

MetsBlog.com – News: on Jose Reyes and his Thyroid

Precision Turned Components

2010-03-05T10:36:00.000+02:00

Karachi Engineering & Foundry Works has an undisputed reputation of being one of leading manufacturer & exporter in India. Fly Press Machine, Brass Precision turned parts for electrical & wiring industry, cable glands and lamp parts for Lamp & Lighting Industry, Automobiles Industry, Brass forge parts, Brass precision component for Hi-tech Applications as per drawing/samples and C.I casting.

With an experience that spans over 50 years Karachi Engineering has achieved excellence in quality by incorporating cutting edge technologies. We have an immaculate reputation for providing quality products as per the specifications of the customers. At Karachi engineering we have a highly skilled staff with enormous experience; needless to say we at Karachi Engineering are fully equipped to face any challenging situation.

Manufacturing Fly press, Precision Brass, Turned Components, Brass Lamp Parts and Brass Forge Parts in India. We are exporter of Goldsmith Tools, Blacksmith Tools, Bending Machine, Cutting Machine, Embossing Machine, Punching Machine, Pressing Machine, Stamping Machine, Deep Drawing Machine. In Brass Components we are exporting Brass Precision Turned Components, Brass Forged Parts, Brass Lamp Parts Precision Turned Parts, Brass Products, Brass Nuts & Bolts, Brass Parts, Brass Plumbing Fittings, Brass Components, Brass Parts from India.

Karachi Engineering & Foundry Works primary business involves the manufacturing and supply of high quality turned part fitting and assemblies into the following market sector :-

Brass lamp Parts
Plumbing Fitting
Fusegear & Switchgear
Sanitary Fittings
Electrical Industries
Hydraulic & Pneumatic Fitting
Inserts for Moulding
Hose & Garden Couplings
Automotive Industries

KEFW Components

High percision turning diameter from 5mm to 50mm.

Turning length up to 70mm

High quality Manufacturer of both precision turned parts and automatic machined components, mainly in brass materials.

Large/ medium/ small volume production.

[Via http://precisionturnedcomponents.wordpress.com]

Exclusive: Unknown DOJ Lawyers Identified « Liveshots

McChrystal sells Taliban fued

2010-03-05T02:34:00.000+02:00

Arrest of No 2 may signal Taliban feud, says McChrystal

SPIN BOLDAK: The arrest of the Afghan Taliban’s former number two figure may have been the result of an internal feud and purge among Taliban leaders, US and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal said on Thursday.

The arrest in Pakistan of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a US-Pakistani operation confirmed last month, was described as a major intelligence coup and a possible sign Islamabad is becoming more willing to help fight Afghan Taliban. A theory in some intelligence circles, however, is that Baradar was captured only after he had already effectively been expelled from the Taliban after an internal tribal feud, leaving behind a more radical rump Taliban leadership.

McChrystal said it was not entirely clear why Pakistan arrested Baradar now, but that an internal Taliban feud was one plausible explanation. “I think that’s very possible,” McChrystal said in an interview with Reuters and the New York Times, when asked about reports that an internal Taliban purge had led to the arrest. “I did hear that. I can’t confirm it but I find it possible.” reuters

[Via http://pakistanledger.com]

Activision unveils Call of Duty reshuffle News | Eurogamer

Israel vs S Africa: "the most awkward difference between the two cases"

2010-03-03T18:52:00.000+02:00

From Chas Freeman:

South Africa’s whites did not have a dedicated cadre of coreligionists or ethnic kin abroad who labored to protect them from the consequences of their deviance from the norms of humane behavior as defined by Western civilization at large. Nor, despite open sympathy for South African whites in the American South and among ardent anti-Communists, did apartheid enjoy international ideological support outside the neo-Nazi fringe. Israel’s policies are supported morally, politically, and financially by large Jewish communities and a vocal minority of Christians abroad, especially in North America, which is where global power remains concentrated. Without that support and those subsidies, Israel manifestly could not act as it does. – Chas Freeman

[Via http://filasteen.wordpress.com]

News Ticker: Taylor Swift, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Pussycat Dolls ...

DHEC Asks SC Cops To Investigate Them?

2010-03-03T02:56:00.000+02:00

Weird report at the wspa.com site: The Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to “look into allegations that DHEC documents were found in the City of Columbia public recycling bin.”

This is followed by the following:

“DHEC has recovered and secured the documents, and turned them over to SLED. SLED officials say they’re looking into the matter. The agency would only confirm that the documents contained personal information.”

Let me take some time to understand the situation…the DHEC asks the LSED to look into whether their (DHEC) documents were found in a recycling bin, after DHEC recovered said documents and turning them over to SLED?

Allegations? What allegations? The word allegation implies that the veracity of a statement cannot be proved or disproved. I’d say, based on the above, seeing how the DHEC recovered their own documents and handed them over to the SLED that the allegations can be verified…is there something I’m missing on this story?

[Via http://datasecurityguy.wordpress.com]

News 'grazers' welcome: Platform ready: The Swamp

My Name is Khan is different

2010-03-01T18:56:00.000+02:00

My Name is Khan was a good effort from Karan Johar

After the hype generated for “My Name is Khan” by the Shiv-Sena threat and SRK himself after he got detained at the Chicago airport for questioning, I thought to myself what could be so different about a Karan Johar movie? But after watching the movie yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. I never liked Karan Johar type of movie making. His movies are monotonous and his hero worship of Shahrukh Khan often gets on my nerves.

This movie though was completely different from his other efforts in the past. The movie is heavily inspired by “The Rain man” where Dustin Hoffman had played the role of a person suffering from Autism brilliantly. Shahrukh has copied the mannerisms of Dustin Hoffman to perfection and also speaks and behaves exactly like Raymond (Name of the character Hoffman plays) of Rain Man. His repeating of some sentences, avoiding eye contact and also the way he walks are heavily inspired by Dustin Hoffman.

Even though MNIK (My Name is Khan) also has a Tom Cruise sort of brother for Shahrukh’s character, but the similarity ends there. This movie is mostly based on the 9/11 tragedy and one man’s endeavor to meet the president of United States to say “My Name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. So this movie is about an Autistic Muslim man (Shahrukh Khan) who wants starts off in search of the president of USA after his step son’s death.

The movie on its own was very good and the lead actors performance was very nice. Jimmy Shergil as Shahrukh’s brother was absolutely wasted in a role which seems to have been created just to get the protagonist to US. Shahrukh as Rizwan Khan was absolutely brilliant and has carried off his role with élan. Kajol though doing a good job, has played a character which she has done before on numerous occasions in Karan Johar movies.

The others in the movie are just adequate and do their roles as required. Karan Johar as a movie maker has surely made me change my opinion about his capabilities and I hope that this marks a turning point in his career. Shahrukh also has gotten away from his stereotypes and has tried something different which he had not done since Swades. Overall MNIK is a great effort. Even though the movie suffers from certain clichés associated with Indian cinema, the overall message doesn’t get lost in the same.

I never thought I would ever say this about a Karan Johar movie but I definitely liked this one and I hope that this is his foray into meaningful cinema.

[Via http://girisopinion.com]

News briefs - Daily Tribune: Breaking news coverage for ...

Pentagon chief condemns European “pacifism”

2010-02-26T10:23:00.000+02:00

By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, Feb 26, 2010

Amid growing fears in Washington that European powers may withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, just as the US escalates the war there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a speech blasting Europe for insufficient militarization and warning of a deepening crisis in the NATO alliance.

Gates gave the speech February 23 at Washington’s National Defense University, a training center for mid-level and senior US officers. His audience was a forum on the reworking of the “strategic concept”—essentially the mission statement—of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The revision of the statement is being conducted by a panel led by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and a draft is to be presented to a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal in November.

Gates’ remarks came just three days after the Dutch government was brought down over opposition to continuing the deployment of some 2,000 Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The Labor Party, one of the government’s coalition partners, refused to support the extension of the deployment for another year, setting the stage for their withdrawal by the end of 2010.

There is strong popular opposition to the Afghanistan war in the Netherlands, as there is throughout Europe. The concern within US ruling circles is that a Dutch withdrawal could set a precedent for a number of other NATO members pulling out their troops as well.

With the total number of US troops killed in “Operation Enduring Freedom”, centered in Afghanistan, having topped the 1,000 mark, and US generals predicting far bloodier months ahead, Washington is anxious to dampen opposition to the war at home by employing more European soldiers as cannon fodder.

Gates insisted that to achieve this aim, European powers would have to confront underlying “cultural and political” trends.

“One of the triumphs of the last century was the pacification of Europe after ages of ruinous warfare” he said. “But, as I’ve said before, I believe we have reached an inflection point, where much of the continent has gone too far in the other direction.”

Gates continued: “The demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it—has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.

“Not only can real or perceived weakness be a temptation to miscalculation and aggression, but, on a more basic level, the resulting funding and capability shortfalls make it difficult to operate and fight together to confront shared threats.”

The conception that “lasting peace” in the present century can be achieved only by confronting popular aversion to war and building up the armed forces of the continent’s nation states will no doubt be seen as perverse in Europe itself. European militarization in the first half of the last century preceded two world wars and the deaths of tens of millions.

Underlying Gates’ remarks are deepening tensions between Europe and America that threaten to undermine the 60-year-old trans-Atlantic alliance.

In the “post-Cold War, post-9/11 world,” Gates argued, NATO is compelled to shift “from a static, defensive force to an expeditionary force—from a defensive alliance to a security alliance.”

In reality, this supposed transition from defense to “expeditionary” interventions has been driven by an explosive growth of US militarism and the waging of two aggressive wars—in Iraq and Afghanistan—over the course of the last decade.

Washington is attempting to pressure NATO’s European members to bear more of the costs of America’s wars, both in terms of money and the lives of their troops.

Gates complained that the Europeans are not pulling their weight. He pointed out that while the Obama administration has proposed a record military budget of over $700 billion for 2011—5 percent of US GDP—only four of NATO’s 26 European members had budgeted more than 2 percent of their GDP for military spending.

As a result, said Gates, NATO “faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems.” He pointed in particular to the failure of European NATO states to carry through on proposals to build more cargo planes and helicopters, warning that “their absence is directly impacting operations in Afghanistan.”

In what appeared to be a sharp rebuke of unnamed NATO members, the US defense secretary invoked the conditions facing troops in Afghanistan “living in austere conditions, and…facing enemy fire on a daily basis.”

“That is a stark reminder that NATO is not now, nor should it ever be, a talk-shop or a Renaissance weekend on steroids,” he continued. “It is a military alliance with real-world obligations that have life-or-death consequences.”

Divisions within NATO have emerged over a host of issues. In relation to Afghanistan, the Obama administration had requested other NATO countries to join in its “surge” by deploying an additional 10,000 troops. Only 7,000 have been promised, and even this lower figure reportedly includes soldiers already deployed in the country. Moreover, some of NATO’s European members have placed restrictions on the mission of their contingents that limit their role in combat.

The European powers have backed the US war in Afghanistan in part out of concern that to withhold support could tear apart the NATO alliance under conditions in which they have no structure to replace it. Moreover, European ruling circles hope to reap some of the spoils of the predatory war, in terms of access to the energy-rich Caspian Basin and the pipeline routes for extracting its oil and gas reserves.

With the election of Barack Obama, European governments had hoped that the unilateralist character of US policy would be changed and that they would be dealt with as Washington’s partners. Despite cosmetic and tactical shifts, however, the US continues to pursue its interests unilaterally, demanding that Europe accept its decisions and line up accordingly.

In ordering the escalation of the Afghanistan war and the deployment of an additional 30,000 US troops, for example, the Obama administration acted without any consultation with the European states, despite the fact that the war and occupation are ostensibly being carried out under NATO’s banner.

Sharp divisions have also emerged over NATO expansion, with Germany and France reluctant to bring Washington’s client states in Eastern Europe into the alliance and wary of provoking Moscow by pushing NATO to Russia’s borders.

Der Speigel, meanwhile, reports that Germany is demanding that “the US remove its nuclear weapons from German soil.” It has allied itself with Norway and the Benelux countries in seeking a discussion of the issue at a NATO conference set for April in Tallinn, Estonia.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton preceded Gates’ remarks with her own speech on Monday, ratcheting up intra-NATO tensions and speaking directly to Germany’s position on nuclear arms, insisting that they should stay put.

“This dangerous world still requires deterrence and we know there’s a debate going on in Europe and even among some of our leading member nations about, well, what does that mean,” she said. “We would hope that there is no precipitous move made that would undermine the deterrence capability.”

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

Expedia releases TripAssist 2.0 | iLounge News

"The Cultural Cleansing in Iraq"

2010-02-26T02:00:00.000+02:00

“Do not read this book, if you are an American or British citizen conscious of the obligations of democracy, who wants to believe that Judeo-Christian morality played some part in your government’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq to impose ‘democracy and freedom’. For if you do, you may be crushed by its revelations of deliberate state-ending destruction and a policy of cultural cleansing; by your shared responsibility for this human and national calamity; and, despite the near irreparability of what has been accomplished, by the massive reparations needed now and for the next fifty years to begin to counter the consequences of genocide. The case for cultural genocide is powerfully made in this extraordinary and frightening book.” [link added] – Denis Halliday

[Via http://filasteen.wordpress.com]

EdCone.com: Jerry watches the news

Chinese rights advocates ask US for funds to break China 'firewall'

2010-02-24T10:55:00.000+02:00

AFP, Feb. 23, 2010-

WASHINGTON — A coalition of human rights campaigners on Tuesday urged the US government to fund efforts led by the Falungong spiritual movement to circumvent Internet censorship in China and other nations.

Congress approved 30 million dollars in the 2010 budget to combat cyber censorship in China, Iran and elsewhere. But lawmakers have voiced concern that the funding since 2008 has been used ineffectively.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, rights advocates — most from China — urged that money go to the Global Internet Freedom (GIF) Consortium, originally set up to evade China’s Internet “firewall.”

“By taking the right steps, the United States can make a historic contribution to its own security and to the advancement of democracy by rapidly tearing down the information firewalls of the world’s closed societies,” it said.

The letter was signed by exiled leaders of the 1989 democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square including Chai Ling, Wu’er Kaixi and Xiong Yan, along with figures behind the landmark Charter 08 petition for greater freedoms in China.

Other signatories included Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of exiles from China’s Uighur minority, along with activists campaigning for greater openness in Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and Syria.

GIF software was designed by the Falungong, which was banned by China in 1999 and branded an “evil cult” following a silent mass gathering in Beijing by its members.

But the technology was also put to use last year by Iranians who circumvented censorship to organize protests against clerical hardliners via Twitter and other websites.

The letter said that GIF servers, which nearly crashed after the Iranian elections, could be upgraded to allow 50 million unique users a day, up from 1.5 million now.

Five senators — Democrats Robert Casey, Edward Kaufman and Arlen Specter, along with Republicans Sam Brownback and Jon Kyl — wrote a letter to Clinton last month voicing concern that the grant money was going to waste.

They faulted the State Department for restricting grants to groups working inside a country, countering that “the most successful censorship circumvention tools are operated remotely.”

Clinton, who testifies before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, last month urged China to conduct a thorough probe into cyberattacks on Google and pressed technology firms to resist censorship.

- AFP

[Via http://chinaview.wordpress.com]

Valkyria Chronicles DLC this week News | PS3 | Eurogamer

National Identity 2

2010-02-24T02:54:00.000+02:00

It doesn’t matter who wins – it only matter how the US does. Just listen to the commentators.

Of course, if the US won, it’d be a different situation. It’s funny to me though that the strong sense of National Identity and mind. I’m watching the Olympics – Norway just won and the US got silver – and basically the commentator says – Norway has been here before – but then spends more time talking about how no American has ever stood on the podium and got a medal. You are your country. It is a part of your identity; a valuable part of your essential self. Or is it?

[Via http://identityspecialist.wordpress.com]

Faliszek: Valve will "look at" PS3 support News | PS3 | Eurogamer

Fascinating brand stories | Marlboro [2 of 2]

2010-02-22T10:33:00.000+02:00

By Dian Hasan | February 20, 2010

Marlboro is one of America’s most quintessential brands, and the early days of global advertising saw Marlboro project the image of the Marlboro Man, a fictitious cowboy of the Wild West. Attempting to capture the traits of ruggedness, macho, freedom, casual, in touch with nature and male-bonding, through the famous tagline “Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country”

Changing times, changing needs!

The original image of Marlboro Country replete with intrepid cowboys have now been replaced with a very different breed: speed, excitement, sexy ladies in tight-fitting red outfits. Gender equality or exploitation? The jury’s out.

What is clear is that Marlboro continues as the world’s leading cigarette brand. And it’s still growing, amid increased notion of smoking as “uncool”!

[Via http://dianhasan.wordpress.com]

Michelle Obama & Huckabee Interview On Fox News (VIDEO)

My earliest ambigrams

2010-02-22T02:33:00.000+02:00

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been in the habit of writing my name, William, in its abbreviated form, Wm, and my first ambigrams were stylized versions of that abbreviation, exaggerating its natural symmetry. This one, with the two letters sharing a leg, was the one I used the most.

I soon realized that this same glyph encoded both my own name and that of my native country, making it both a rotational ambigram and an oscillation. (Of course I wasn’t using those terms at the time. Ambigrams and I would be formally introduced much, much later, through the books of Douglas Hofstadter.)

Some time later I decided to try to expand my Wm into a full William. Filling in the four spaces with illi, I found that an A appeared naturally in the negative space around the second i.

(I think this one also qualifies as a very simple example of what Nagfa would call a romanized kufic. I think I’ll call it kufesque – a technical term which I, Humpty Dumpty, hereby hijack and redefine as “script in any language which completely fills an area (often square) with bands of positive and negative space, all of the same fixed width.”)

My first “real” ambigram — the first one that I consciously thought of as an ambigram, and the first one that could be read left-to-right in an ordinary, linear fashion, was also of my name:

It doesn’t look like much now, and I’m sure plenty of other people have come up with the same basic design and pulled it off in a more aesthetically appealing manner — but it’s what got me started on what has so far turned out to be a rather persistent hobby.

[Via http://wmjasambigrams.wordpress.com]

Bits Scan: Friday's Tech News Roundup - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A Cut Out And Keep Collection Of Anti-American Diatribes

2010-02-19T10:50:00.000+02:00

Oh yes – we have some prime cuts for you today. Boris Johnson has decided to have a USA Day to coincide with the NFL visit in October (this year it clashes with Halloween – American culture I can do without etc.) and is spending money on the group of people most likely to visit London from overseas. I’m not sure I agree with the logic, or spending any of my cash on it, but as he’s cut funding to other events that could, if they tried hard enough, find funding themselves, and if they didn’t, then why should we foot the bill, we can’t be too snippy. Of course, these events celebrate diversity and other cultures, so to oppose the funding is probably racist and homophobic in some eyes… but of course you can’t slag “these kind of people off” but the Americans? Fair game…. as witnessed by these quotes in that paragon of liberal intelligence – The Guardian…

“There is no need for subsidizing American culture. It is already celebrated every day through Mc Donalds, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Hollywood rubbish and all those overweight people one can see in the streets. Not even Americans themselves know what is their real culture because they have been fed with the rubbish culture which is only goal to make more money and make the populace more stupid.”

“Why are we funding all this nonsense when the US Embassy won’t pay the congestion charge? If I want to experience American culture I’ll by the New York Review of Books and read it in McDonalds.”

(Note – the congestion charge is a tax, for which all states’ embassies and staff are not liable under the Geneva Convention. The last time we tried that taxation wheeze on the Americans, they gave us an “ass-kicking”. And a good deal more countries don’t pay the charge either, but let’s single out the USA, eh?)

“Broadly speaking, the Americans don’t travel well. If they are reassured they can obtain fatty, salty, sweet fast food – and watch their own low cultural events – they are far more likely to visit London. And then spend money here.”

“Which aspects of American culture will we be subsidising? Obesity and tooth decay (thanks to the Mayor taking Coca Cola’s dollar and pasting enormous posters of a Coke bottle and the Coca Cola Santa, bearing the slogan “open happiness, enjoy the music” behind the buskers’ pitches on the Underground) and Disney Enterprises, Inc (the Regent/Oxford Street Christmas lights were lit weeks earlier than usual and were adverts for Disney’s A Christmas Carol) maybe?”

“Is this a way of softening up the capital in preparation for an application to become the 51st state of the Union? We have quite enough US culture as it is, so why give us more?” (Barack Obama, that hero, believes there are more than 51 states…. don’t believe me – look here).

“We fight their wars for them, so why not appease the master further?” (The Second World War and the defeat of fascism never really happened in some history books, did it?)

“American Culture, such a brilliant oxymoron”

“I thought every day in London was already USA day. Or at least CIA day. I’d like to see Boris sing the Fug’s CIA Man (“Who can kill a general in his bed? Overthrow dictators if they’re red?”) at his proposed festival.”

“So we’re holding a party for the country that has plunged us into the worst recession in decades and decades…”

“Every day is USA day in McBKFC. Why bother setting another one aside?”

“Seriously? Britain already celebrates American culture, except for the bbc, all we are able to watch is CSI.” (Pay for the sport channels then, or if not, the adult ones…)

“The most honest way for Boris to celebrate American culture would be for a Hellfire missile fired from a Reaper rpv to slam into a restaurant Boris had visited the previous night, following which we could have a “NATO” briefing telling us that Boris was in fact killed in the attack and the other people killed were certainly fellow extremists (especially the very small corpses).

Welcome to the American Way, London!”

“We should only have a party when the American finally take their planes and soldiers and piss off back to America. WW2 ended 65 years ago when will you take the hint and remove your occupying forces from Europe!”

Yep…there’s more in there for those who want to read up. When those of us not doing impressions of Dave Spart or some comic book hippy pipe up that it is a little bit hypocritical to bash Americans while big-upping “diversity” and fighting mindless stereotypes, they almost perceptibly put their hands over their mouths, look at their fellow Yank Bashers, while communicating by ESP along the lines of “when they go away, we can start again.”

Of course, a country with a written constitution, protected fairly well from the meddling hands of politicians has nothing to teach the UK. All they are good for are Big Macs and CSI…..

I’ll finish off with something from the “I would like to have written that” file…referring to this article.

“Yet another idiotic anti American bash by a silly little person who while deriding American culture as typified by Big Macs, beamers and Britney.

Has no problem watching Sex in the City,Lost on her I-Pod while drinking a can of Coke.

Yes lets all lament the loss of multi-cultural festivals such as rise by mentioning that its funding could easily be borne by the monies owed by the US embassy, while omitting the fact that Third world Embassies owe even more. (Out of £23 million owed in congestion charges by foreign embassies the US owes £2.7M) or that foreign registered vehicles aren’t chased either (£8M as of 2006)

And lets be serious while it may be trendy to attack the Yanks, the fact remains they come to the Uk with money, which is what this country needs. The people who flock to third world festivals on the other hand come to the UK for money.

But hey when it comes to a liberal and other peoples money they are soon parted.”

[Via http://sevenandseven.wordpress.com]

PGA Commissioner Confirms Tiger Woods Trip to Rehab - The World Newser

School Laptops' Surreptitious Surveillance

2010-02-19T02:27:00.000+02:00

Boingboing.net is carrying a story on how a Pennsylvania school used school laptops to monitor students at school and at home.

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins’s child was disciplined for “improper behavior in his home” and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.

What an imbecile. Ruling after ruling in US courts have shown that schools cannot and should not try to control what students do outside of school, and here’s a vice-principal overstepping boundaries.

Disciplined for “improper behavior in his home?” How about letting parents deal with that?

Also, what if the kid had been naked in front of the laptop? You know, takes a shower and afterwards is in the privacy of the student’s room?

I can totally see how some creep in the future (maybe even now) using the same technology would use it for peeping-tom activities. Then all hell will break loose.

[Via http://datasecurityguy.wordpress.com]

Bits Scan: Wednesday's Tech News Roundup - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

USA Hockey Starts with Win

2010-02-17T10:42:00.000+02:00

Team USA beat Switzerland 3-1 in their first game at the Winter Olympics from Vancouver. Bobby Ryan, David Backes, and Ryan Malone scored the goals for USA. The U.S. skates with Norway on Thursday.

Also in the Olympics; Canada blanked Norway 8-0, Jarome Iginla had a hat trick, Dany Heatley added 2 goals. Russia had no problem with Latvia winning 8-2. Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of goals.

[Via http://985thesportshub.radio.com]

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Good news: GOP, conservative leaders, tea ...

Design Bio : Suno NY

2010-02-17T02:53:00.000+02:00

Founder: Max Osterweis

Founded: 2008

Collections: F/W 2010, S/S 2010, Resort 2010, F/W 2009, S/S 2009

One of the most colorful and optimistic design labels of recent times, Suno New York was founded amidst turmoil in the Kenyan political structure, due to Mr Osterweis’ love for the country, textiles and people. After years of collecting fabrics from Kenya, Suno New York became the outlet for a new kind of design house. One that not only creates stunning garments, but also utilizes the abilities of hand craft in New York and Kenya.

Design, pattern making and samples are created in Manhattan’s Garment District, an area that has faced many bankruptcies and layoffs due to the globalization of the industry. By keeping the development aspect local to New York, Suno is one of few labels using the resources this country can provide. Once the collection has been realized, the samples are taken to Kenya, where final garments are produced in small workshops.

For Spring Summer 2009, 1000 individually numbered one of a kind pieces were produced. Each season since has had similar stats. Though the inspiration may change from one season to the next, the playfulness, the heart and the impeccable quality hold strong. Suno NY is a design house that we will be seeing for seasons to come. And with any luck, this is only the beginning of labels with a purpose, caring about the prosperity of the individual craftsman and local businesses and not simply their bottom line.

[Via http://iloveyounonetheless.wordpress.com]

Financial woes hit developer Interzone | News

The economy is a cheif the threat to the CCTV industry

2010-02-15T10:40:00.000+02:00

Ifran Pandor sounds a word of caution on the state of the UK economy and its impact on the security market

Lloyds and RBS are about to sell 1000+ of their branches in Britain. HSBC has just announced hundreds of job cuts in Britain . The Government is claiming that banks are lending today but confidence and credibility is at a low point in British businesses. The opposition is asking if it is worth doing it for taxpayers money. There are arguments and opinions on whether the recession is going to be over soon or if Britain is heading for an even bigger crisis. Even for the USA, it is very clear that a revival from the recession doesn’t mean that the glory days are going to be back very soon. Unless jobs are created and many fundamental signs of economic recovery are seen, we should not feel that we have recovered as President Obama says.

Alan Hyder in ’’ Time running out for failing installation firms’’, Security Installer, November 2009 mentioned that about 225 security systems companies are about to fail before the recovery starts in the UK. Scepticism and Cynicism are endemic today when it comes to government policies and plans for recovery, and clear divisions in the academic and intellectual world over these issues are visible not only in the USA and the UK but also across the globe.

Although not all industries have suffered in the downturn, it is no longer advisable to assume that for major corporate projects in B2B market, [e.g. Security Systems Market ] money will be readily available. Many companies have done really well in different sectors and even a number of ‘’reputed’’ banks have reported enormous profits recently. Companies such as retailers Marks & Spencer and Next are also doing well, but it is not wise to think that the economy is back on track.

Ifran Pandor is a member of the Linkedin CCTV Group, please view his Linkedin profile here.

[Via http://cctvsecuritynews.wordpress.com]

YouTube Celebrates 5th Birthday » Podcasting News

Fascinating Brand Journey | Chevy Nova

2010-02-15T02:15:00.000+02:00

By Dian Hasan | February 14, 2009

When brands enter the global stage, and leave the cozy comforts of their domestic market, one key element becomes crucial in conquering foreign turfs, and “going international”: the role of CULTURE! And language is a big part of it. And a simple thing like a name can take on an entire new meaning in the realm of foreign languages.

Case in point: Chevrolet’s Chevy Nova was a major success in the US, but it was a total flop when exported to the Latin American markets. Nova literally translates to “No Go” in Spanish, and that’s probably the last name you’d want to call your car.

… when Chevrolet launched “Chevy Nova”, they were not aware that the word meant “doesn’t work” in Spanish. You can only guess how the Nova did in the Latin American markets.

[Via http://dianhasan.wordpress.com]

News Ticker: Dr. Dre, Veoh, Rage Against the Machine, Richard ...

Gay, bisexual teens at risk for eating disorders

2010-02-12T10:54:00.000+02:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers may be at higher risk of binge-eating and purging than their heterosexual peers, starting as early as age 12, a new study finds.

Health

Past research has found connections between sexual orientation and the risk of eating disorders in adults — showing, for instance, that gay men have higher rates of symptoms than their heterosexual counterparts.

Less has been known about how sexual orientation affects teenagers’ risks of various eating disorders.

For the new study, researchers at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston used data from a U.S. survey of nearly 14,000 12- to 23-year-olds to look at the relationship between sexual orientation and binge-eating and purging.

They found heightened rates of binge-eating among both males and females who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or “mostly heterosexual.”

Purging, by vomiting or abusing laxatives, was also more common among these teens, the researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

“We found clear and concerning signs of higher rates of eating disorder symptoms in sexual-minority youth compared to their heterosexual peers even at ages as young as 12, 13 or 14 years old,” lead researcher S. Bryn Austin, an assistant professor of pediatrics, told Reuters Health in an email.

Among females, lesbian, bisexual and mostly heterosexual respondents were all about twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to report binge-eating at least once per month in the past year.

Bisexual and mostly heterosexual girls and women were also more likely to say they had purged in the past year in order to control their weight.

Among males, the highest risks were seen among homosexuals — who were seven times more likely to report bingeing and nearly 12 times more likely to report purging than heterosexual males.

Bisexual and mostly heterosexual boys and men also had elevated risks of both problems — with rates anywhere from three to seven times higher than those of their heterosexual counterparts.

The survey data do not offer a potential reason for the findings, but past studies give some insight, according to the researchers.

“We know that gay, lesbian, and other sexual-minority kids are often under a lot of pressure,” Austin said, noting that these teens are often “treated like outsiders” in their own families and schools, and may be excluded, harassed or victimized by bullies.

“This kind of isolation and victimization can take its toll on a young person,” Austin explained, “and one of ways it can play out is in vulnerability to eating-disorder symptoms and a host of other stress-related health problems.”

She added that because negative attitudes and discrimination against sexual minorities are still pervasive in society, families need to be a source of support.

It is “incredibly important,” Austin said, “for parents and other family members to reach out and make sure these youth know they are loved and supported, that they can count on their families to stay by their side.”

SOURCE: Journal of Adolescent Health, September 2009.

[Via http://ro2010.wordpress.com]

What News Stories Are 'Awesome'? - The Learning Network Blog ...

Tickar klockan?

2010-02-12T02:48:00.000+02:00

Jag sitter nu tillslut på mitt rum. städat som aldrig förr btw. syrran gör sig som i ordning.

Jag tror jag har packat tillslut. Efter MKT om och men. Ha med allt, ha med lite, ha med inget, ha med dig mycket som du sen kan slänga. eh.. slutsatsen blev efter många visa ord att jag tar med mig det nödvändigaste (jasså?) och typ 1 1/2 ombyte som jag är inte är extremt rädd om men ändå tycker är snyggt. bara jag som är snurrig efter den utläggningen?

Ikväll har jag jobbat på min bar, LochNess. Både ett dumt och ett asbra val. Mest asbra. Fick ett annat totalt kaos att tänka på. Att ha fem bollar i luften på jobbet är svårt när jag endast kan jonglera med fyra.. ? Eeefter jobbet hann jag med en sväng till Indigo där syrran med 2 Oslobor hängde. Beslutet fattades fort att “detta är ju faktiskt sista kvällen i stan och hej jag kommer inte ens kunna dricka överallt i staterna och så vidare..”, så vi beställde en taxi till 01.10 mot Danderyds sjukhus, där bussen mot the Å-side of life sedan “väntade”.

Var var vi, jo! hemma. nu har jag alltså dragit ur allt ur min ursprungliga väska, packat i den största ryggsäcken (70 liter) + min lilla vanliga ryggsäck som nu är full med allt vad min packlista kallar praktiskt: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, filmkamera, digitalkamera, extra mobil, 3000:- i än så länge svenska cash, kortspel, hörlurar, solglasögon, lampa, öppnare (fickkniven ligger i stora väskan) diverse laddare och eladaptrar, två svenneturistplånböcker mm.

I can’t fucking wait samtidigt som jag inte har en susning om att från 10.30 IDAG kommer jag resa bakåt i tiden och vara in The United States of America.

Catch you on the flipside!

[Via http://axelyxx.wordpress.com]

TRAIL BLAZERS Blog | The Dallas Morning News

Old enough to go to war but too young to have a beer

2010-02-10T09:33:00.000+02:00

So news this week is that the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants to raise the legal drinking age to 21. I’m not a fan of Rudd (I voted for Howard in the last election, shoot me) and this only deepens my dislike for the man.

I feel that if a person is able to fight in a war, then they should at least be able to have a beer. What Rudd is saying is that 18-year-olds are responsible enough to make decisions on taking someone else’s life on the battlefield, but too irresponsible to have a glass of wine. Something doesn’t seem quite right here.

In America, the drinking age is 21 and yet there is still a problem with youth binge drinking within the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 92 per cent of US adults who drink excessively report binge drinking in the past 30 days. Obviously raising the drinking age to 21 didn’t make these people more responsible drinkers.

I’ll be the first to admit that binge drinking is a problem in Australia. It’s also a problem in the UK. Between 2004 and 2005 in Australia, statistics revealed that one in eight adults drank at risky levels. However, I don’t think that the best way to combat this problem would be to raise the drinking age. Nor do I think raising the tax on ‘alcopops’ would help either. The culture of drinking needs to change before people change their habits.

I lived in France for a year between 2002 and 2003 and during this time I attended many a party. Although there was always alcohol present, never did I see anyone out of control and throwing up in the corner. By contrast, every party I attended throughout high school in Australia there was at least someone being sick. (Including me at times.)I put these differences down to the differences within the two cultures.

In France it is unacceptable, not to mention embarrassing, to get out of control on alcohol. In Australia, people laugh it off and in some ways even encourage rowdiness. If we want to change our binge drinking culture we need to first change our attitudes.

Whatever happens, hopefully the younger generation won’t be as unlucky as my dad – he grew up in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and when he was young the drinking age was 21. But when he turned 21, they lowered it to 18. Ouch.

[Via http://carmentheaussie.wordpress.com]

AP Articles Reappear On Google News

Argentina in the '70s:

2010-02-10T02:36:00.000+02:00

*Here are a couple paragraphs about what was going on in Argentina in the ’70s:*

Anyone suspected of favoring these groups (revolutionaries against the gov) or their ideas was subject to arbitrary arrest. All cultural life was now subjected to strict censorship. The government took control of all labor unions. People were kidnapped on the streets and never seen again. The prisons overflowed with political prisoners and torture was common. There were no trials or pretense of legal process. An estimated 11,000 Argentines disappeared between 1976 and 1982, called *los desaparecidos* or “the disappeared.” More than 30,000 people died during this period, many in Argentine concentration camps modeled after the Nazi camps. At the height of the horror, only the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared had the courage to stand up to the government. Every Thursday, they began assembling in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Presidential Palace, demanding information on their missing children. Conditions in the prisons were unfathomable. Prisoners were not allowed to lie down on their cots during the day, and the strain of this sometimes caused paralysis or atrophy of the legs. They were allowed no contact with family or friends, and most prisoners were afraid to write to loved ones, for fear they too would be targeted. Almost all letters were seized by the censors. The prisons would play sad songs by Julio Iglesias to deepen prisoners’ depression (no kidding). Prison guards would stage fake escapes and executions with mannequins to scare the prisoners. When a prisoner was moved out of his cell, he had to keep his eyes straight ahead; one glance over his shoulder meant loss of all privileges and possible torture. Newspapers and radios were banned insider the prison. Only books written before the French Revolution were in prison libraries.

Prisoners were experimented on with tranquilizer darts, were tortured with cattle prods, had the soles of their feet beaten with batons, had metal buckets placed on their heads and then the buckets hammered, had electrical wires applied to breasts, vaginas, anuses, penises, tongues, and other body parts. In some cases, prisoners’ bellies were slit open and they were dropped in a river as “fish food.” Some were thrown out of airplanes fully conscious. The length of sentences was completely arbitrary and had nothing to do with the “crime” committed, and at the end of the prison term, the prisoner or his family had to pay the state back for the cost of his imprisonment or he would not be released.

*And here is what was declassified in 2003 about America’s opinions of what the Argentine Gov was doing:* In 2003, the *Miami Herald* published proof that America and the Ford administration had approved of this brutal military regime. According to a recently declassified U.S. government document, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister in 1976, at the height of the Dirty War, that America supported the Argentine government. The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Argentine Navy Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti in New York is the first documentary evidence that the Ford administration approved of the junta’s harsh tactics. “Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed,” Kissinger reassured Guzzetti in the seven-page transcript, marked *SECRET*. “I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better.” The Argentine military regime was delighted.

[Via http://debrainwashing.wordpress.com]

Clinical Cases and Images: CasesBlog: Health News of the Day

Endeavour lifts off on two-week mission

2010-02-08T10:44:00.000+02:00

NEWS

Endeavour lifts off on two-week mission

February 8, 2010 5:27 a.m. EST

a href=”http://www.cnn.com/” target=”_blank”>

(CNN) — The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center early Monday on a two-week mission to the International Space Station.

The shuttle quickly pierced light cloud cover along the Florida coast in a brilliant launch.

The six-member Endeavour crew is delivering a key module to the International Space Station.

Cmdr. George Zamka is leading the STS-130 mission. Joining him aboard are pilot Terry Virts, and mission specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire, NASA said.

The crew is delivering a third connecting module, an Italian-built Tranquility node and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission also will include three spacewalks.

It’s a busy week for NASA, with the agency also preparing to launch a Solar Dynamics Observatory into orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket on Tuesday.

Only five more shuttle launches are scheduled before the program ends in 2011.

Endeavour was originally scheduled to lift off early Sunday, but low cloud ceilings forced a nearly 24-hour delay.

[Via http://dominicstoughton.wordpress.com]

The Morning News: Superbowl, Boeing, Tea Party, Iran, Toyota, Pac ...

Connecticut Power Plant Explosion

2010-02-08T02:47:00.000+02:00

Two people were killed in the explosion that happened at the natural-gas power plant in Middletown (Kleen Energy Systems plant), of which one is a former Police Commissioner named, Raymond Dobratz. There could be more casualties but officials have not confirmed the number of casualties yet.

The power plant is located on 137 acres in the industrial part of Middletown, bounded on one side by the Connecticut River and another by residentially zoned land.

Excerpt photo

[Via http://fyi09.wordpress.com]

Firedoglake » DC “Not News” Event: Attaturk's Revenge on Chuck Todd

Too Late To Apologize: A Declaration

2010-02-05T10:49:00.000+02:00

As a one time Political Science major i obviously have an interest in Politics. And as an American I am proud of my country and what it had to do to become its own sovereign nation. But now a days people get too caught up in Party’s and personal views so much that forward progress for our people gets put on the wayside. That said heres a little video to show how the meetings of the American forefathers actually occurred.

When people who love politics, pop culture and filmmaking are asked to humanize the sentiment of the founders in writing the declaration, we sometimes get carried away. And every now and then, they let us run with it.

The following video is an anachronistic daydream asking the question, “If pop producer Timbaland had sought to build consensus around declaring independence, what might he have produced?”

[Via http://tallguyian.wordpress.com]

Facebook Is Already The World's Largest News Reader

US Fed. Passes Cybersecurity Bill, Manhattan Project of Our Generation

2010-02-05T02:25:00.000+02:00

The House of Congress passed a bill that will build up the US’s cyber defenses. (If you’re a conspiracy nut, you’re probably thinking all those news stories of China’s hack on the US government and companies was probably targeted raising awareness over the issue. Tsk, tsk.)

The bill requires the president’s administration to assess the current government body when it comes to cybersecurity, and “establishes a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students who agree to work as cybersecurity specialists for the government after graduation.”

It sounds like good news for students who are already majoring in something related to computers:

Mr. Arcuri said that the federal government will need to hire between 500 and 1,000 more “cyber warriors” each year to keep up with potential enemies. Troops online “are every bit as important to our security as a soldier in our field,” he said.

It’s about the only specialized field I know of that will guarantee a job for decades to come. This cyberwarfare stuff? Not going away any time soon.

[Via http://datasecurityguy.wordpress.com]

Apple launches iTunes Preview for iPhone, iPod touch apps ...

Grand Canyon University Review

2010-02-03T09:56:00.000+02:00

If you are driven to pursue a higher standard of success and require flexibility in your schedule to get there, Grand Canyon University is the right choice for you. With an online and campus-based enrollment of more than 15,000, GCU emphasizes individual attention for both traditional undergraduate students, as well as the working professional. With our cutting-edge curriculum, you will gain the real-world experience you need to succeed in today’s global marketplace. Online and campus-based bachelor’s and master’s degree programs are offered through the College of Education, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Ken Blanchard College of Business, and the College of Liberal Arts. Grand Canyon University is a private Christian university.

Courses Offered

To view what is available to you please click here.

Fees

For fee information please click here.

For more information on what financial aid may be available to you please click here.

Contact Details

Web address: www.gcu.edu

Postal address:

Grand Canyon University

3300 W. Camelback Road

Phoenix, Arizona 85017

USA

Phone: 1-877-860-3951

Location

Grand Canyon University

3300 W. Camelback Road

Phoenix, Arizona 85017

USA

[Via http://rateyourcollege.wordpress.com]

Cutting Edge Fox News Channel Show to Premiere Monday | NewsWax

Rodarte - smithsonian cooper-hewitt museum show

2010-02-03T02:54:00.000+02:00

Quicktake: Rodarte – mulleavy sisters on show their pieces

On View February 11, 2010 through March 14, 2010

Design USA – Contemporary Innovation

On view October 16, 2009–April 4, 2010

[Via http://itssweets.wordpress.com]

Ailes exposes Fox News' GOP philosophical connections | Crooks and ...

Grammy Awards 2010 - Taylor Swift

2010-02-01T10:34:00.000+02:00

This performance is totally different to how Taylor usually performs it is acoustic and I love “You Belong With Me” sung like that its really good. Taylor won 4 awards last night and I think she totally deserves them. I love her music and cannot wait to hear more from her. I still don’t think she is very big in the UK, I got right into her music when out in the USA and was rather disappointed that my friends did not really like or know much of her when I came home. So many of her songs totally describe things I have been going through in the past few months.

[Via http://carolineames.wordpress.com]

skippy the bush kangaroo: environmental news stories sunday

Ukrainian Orange Revolution: How It Was Back Then

2010-02-01T02:11:00.000+02:00

The Orange Revolution was the time when the Ukrainian people had high hopes for a better life. It was the time when everybody was excited to be a Ukrainian. It was the time when a lot of Ukrainians were living on the streets in tents, and they did so because they wanted to have the biggest change in their lives. After all, the change never happened.

The Orange Revolution took place in Ukraine in 2004; it got its name because of the political party “Nasha Ukraina” (“Our Ukraine”) color. The orange was the color this political party used in their election’s campaign that year. In 2004 European “Time Magazine” published an article about the Orange Revolution.

[Via http://olesya80.wordpress.com]

skippy the bush kangaroo: environmental news stories sunday

NATO's Role in the Afghanistan Escalation

2010-01-29T10:40:00.000+02:00

Tom Haydon, The Nation, January27, 2010

NATO countries are poised to add 7,000 soldiers to the 30,000-troop US escalation in Afghanistan, providing a cover of multilateralism for the Obama administration and the NATO commander, US General Stanley McChrystal. The NATO decision is expected to be ratified January 28 at a conference called by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Karzai administration and the United Nations Afghan Mission (UNAM).

To assuage European public hesitation, McChrystal is describing the troop surge for the first time as a step towards negotiating a political settlement with the Taliban. The London paper points out that “the prospect that an eight-year war could end with some Taliban leaders in power represents a remarkable turnaround” in US and NATO policy.

While NATO escalates its troop commitment, the London conference is billed as a display of “soft power” that will stabilize Afghanistan. One of the conference sponsors, the discredited Afghan president Hamid Karzai, will ask the conference for a $1 billion commitment to lure Taliban fighters onto the Kabul regime’s payroll, a replica of the payments to 99,000 Sunni insurgents during the Iraq surge of 2007-8.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not identical conflicts, however. Iraq’s Sunnis were a 20 percent minority fighting a majority Shi’a government and army, which the United States installed in power. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are powerful among the 45 percent Pashtun population, and cannot be defeated by Karzai’s dysfunctional government or the northern Hazara, Tajik or Uzbek minorities. The situation resembles an ethnic-based stalemate, which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged this week , in saying the Taliban are woven into the “political fabric” of Afghanistan.

One reason for the dovish hints is that European and Canadian public opinion strongly oppose the escalation. In Germany 71 percent are opposed, and in the UK 56 percent . In France, 82 percent are against increased troop commitments. Canada is committed to withdrawing troops in 2011, and pressure is building for other NATO nations to follow.

Obama’s escalation is causing increased US and NATO casualties, a toll that is sure to increase rapidly as more troops arrive. In January, twenty-five Americans and twelve Europeans and Canadians have died, compared to twenty-four Americans and nine Europeans and Canadians during the same month last year. The 57 percent spike shows that the Afghan “fighting season” is becoming year-around rather than concentrated in the summer months.

Twenty-five deaths may seem a small number in the so-called war on terror, but the toll accumulates. The American dead in the war so far number 972, and will pass the 1,000 mark in the coming weeks. At that rate, an additional 1,000 Americans will die before the Obama administration’s planned date for beginning withdrawals, in summer 2011. The numbers of American wounded leaped to 350 per month last summer. The cumulative European and Canadian death number is 617, doubling in a single year.

The cost of the eight-year war so far is $250 billion, and roughly $1 million per US soldier. It will become another trillion-dollar war by the end of Obama’s second term. Along the way, the budget costs are likely to capsize Obama’s domestic agenda and intensify inflationary pressures.

In keeping with the new tone of the escalation, the UK’s Gordon Brown describes the London plan as “fully aligning military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy,” an echo of McChrystal’s recent strategic plan. Brown promises that Afghan troops will begin replacing NATO units as early as this year. But beneath the rhetoric, Brown is pledging 500 additional British troops, bringing the number up to 9,500.

The London-based Stop the War Coalition is calling for mass protests in London this week, at both the conference and Friday’s so-called Chilcott inquiry, an official investigation of the deceptions British and American officials employed in launching the Iraq War. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to testify Friday. Protests in several other European capitals are being organized as well.

Germany is particularly conflicted because both constitution and custom forbid the deployment of troops in war zones for aggressive purposes. Yet a German commander ordered the September 4, 2009, airstrike that killed some 142 Afghan civilians. The civilian deaths were denied at first, then acknowledged, then defended, resulting in the German official’s resignation and widespread German debate. This week the Angela Merkel government is expected to send 500 more German troops, raising the total to 5,000. And Germany will train another 30,000 Afghan police and soldiers, doubling its current commitment.

The Karzai government recently raised alarms by predicting that NATO will remain in Afghanistan until 2024, to train and protect the still-weak Afghan security forces.

The current “talk about talks” runs counter to the neoconservative espousal of the “long war” doctrine, but there is no reason to believe that peace is at hand. Instead, the Obama/Pentagon plan is for brutal combat, including an emphasis on drones and special operations, for eighteen to twenty-four months, in the belief that the Taliban can be pounded into accepting an American-imposed peace settlement, and to permit Karzai’s Afghan army time to grow into an effective force.

The sides are far apart. The Taliban, the Karzai government, some Europeans and the peace movement all agree that the United States and NATO must set a deadline for ultimate withdrawal of its forces, to be replaced by nonaligned peacekeeping troops. Further, negotiations must include the Taliban leadership, particularly Mullah Omar, who currently are headquartered in the Pakistan state of Baluchistan, over the Afghan border. They demand a lifting of the UN’s so-called blacklist, which classifies 144 Taliban leaders as criminals and bars them from travel. Until the blacklist is suspended, no direct talks will be possible. Peace advocates also demand that 750 detainees be granted due process to avoid another Guantánamo. As an incentive towards peace, the Taliban have implied in recent statements that they may separate themselves from any Al Qaeda agenda in exchange for a power-sharing role in the future Afghanistan.

The United States and many in NATO, on the other hand, refuse so far to set a deadline for withdrawal, although Obama has announced a timeline to begin withdrawing. Nor will they negotiate with the Taliban leadership, viewing Omar as an ally of Al Qaeda. The United States has demanded that Pakistan “eliminate” Omar and the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, or permit it to launch a military assault there. Recent statements by Gates and other US officials insist that the Taliban is linked irrevocably to Al Qaeda. Any US offer to negotiate at present is aimed at lower-echelon Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s villages. Although the United States has promised to identify the 750 detainees, any semblance of the rule of law is at best a work in progress in occupied Afghanistan.

The present quagmire is likely to result in bloodshed through 2011, reaching a crisis point when Obama is scheduled to begin the withdrawal of US troops. The Europeans and Canadians will be packed and ready to go by that point, and likely will linger no later. But the Pentagon, and the domestic hawks, could be predicting catastrophe if the United States departs, leaving Obama and the Democrats to choose between a deeper stalemate and the politics of strategic disengagement as the 2012 elections approach.

Research for this article was contributed by Emily Walker, of the Peace and Justice Resource Center.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

GamesAid charity day is a sell out | News

New photos coming soon

2010-01-29T02:44:00.000+02:00

I am still pursuing my 365 Days of gratitude….just had a holiday away without access to upload my photos. Lots of things to be grateful for family time together, our creature comforts of home, the great coffee Australia has to offer (was hard to get my latte fix in USA, sorry if your a US resident, but you really need to do barista training). I will put up my photo’s in slideshow few since there are 30 days to catch up on and some days have more than one photo as I found so many beautiful things to shoot!

[Via http://latteaddict.wordpress.com]

Why does Fox News consider a scatological Facebook smear of ...

Obama-metrics: What to expect?

2010-01-27T10:26:00.000+02:00

Obama-metrics: What to expect?

In the previous two posts I enumerated the promises of Barack Obama campaign promises and how to rebound. Bill Adair (Pulitzer Prize) published the Obama program that included 510 promises. Promises being executed are 240 promises, 86 promises were kept, 26 were compromised, and 62 were blocked by the oppositions.

Russell Banks reported the restrictions of the US political systems on the initiatives of President Barack Obama campaign program. The US system is Not democratic for two reasons: First, in a democratic system the leader of the winning party is the leader of the nation and it is the way around in the US except when the President is running for a second term: Once a President is elected then his party appoint him leader of the party. Thus, the President is controlled by the heavy weight politicians and administrators of his party. Actually, the President is not elected by the majority of popular votes but by the delegates of the States. There are many instances when the majority of the popular vote was defeated (Bush Junior is the most recent example)

Second, even if the winning party has majority in the Senate, any text of law needs 60 out of 100 Senators to agree on reading a text. A Senator from Nebraska has as much power as the one representing New York State. Thus, the President is constantly managing the heavy weight politicians and Senators of his party to passing any law before even negotiating with the opposing party. Anything in the US to get moving needs frequent popular active pressures on the Senators of the States of both parties to reaching a law favorable to the neediest: a Senator has to realize that financial backing by lobbyists cannot counter balance the angry voters.

The US is a Republic trying for a century to becoming a plutocracy (run by the heavy weight politicians and lobbyists); the US political system might get there if Obama fails to capitalize on his landslide victory. We can understand why for a century the successive Administrations did their best to alienate people from getting involved in politics by making the political process more complex and by extending activities that shun people away from politics such as sports and entertainments.

In a bipartite system it is the center that is the determining factors; mainly the economic and internal policies. Obama shifted the center a bit to the left by moving from total privatization concept that began 40 years ago to involving the Federal government. Obama re-appointed the culprits of the financial disaster such as Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Peter Orszag, and Ben Bernanke; all of whom coming from Wall Street related institutions. For example, the Administration refrained from selecting among the syndicate leaders, militant associations, intellectuals and university professors. It seems that Obama started with a high dose of confidence in the authority of the richest class in matter of financial and economic management.

Obama managed to bring public opinion around the classes that need more attention and care or what is more likely, it is the American people that opened Obama eyes to new realities and he grabbed the opportunity. If the public was not convinced that banks, lobbyists, and multinational financial institutions are pure robbers of their public wealth then Obama could not have won with such a landslide.

So far, Obama was successful in forging ahead and putting in execution many promised reforms of his program announced during his campaign trail by shear momentum: The public that supported him failed to get on the move; thus, Obama had to relent and bend before the opposition public activities before launching new “controversial” initiatives. The new public health program added 30 million more citizens but it is to kick in by 2013. More citizens are demanding and expecting to witness a Presidential will for stringer regulations and control on the banks and multinational financial institutions.

Unfortunately, in foreign policies Obama is playing the traditional and exhausting Washington provincial game that requires internal consensus: Obama is resuming the traditional strategy save in his rhetorical ability in the selection of words, tones, and style.

Obama did not prove to the public that he exercised good imaginative alternatives to redressing the financial and economic crisis. Obama has to remind the public that he is the victor so that the public may extend him voluntary rights to guide the nation against the many political restrictions that are erected against public opinion pressures. For the time being, if you inhale deeply then you realize that US policies didn’t make a qualitative dent for long-term reforms.

[Via http://adonis49.wordpress.com]

Notes from Q1 2010 Apple Conference Call | iLounge News

Hoa nở tháng Tư

2010-01-27T02:51:00.000+02:00

Chỉ còn vài tiếng nữa tôi sẽ ra phi trường, rời Orlando trở về New York. Mùa đông đã qua. Mùa xuân đang tới trên thành phố thân yêu tôi và người tình trăm năm đã sống 34 năm nay.

Mùa xuân New York rất đẹp. Bông hoa nở rộ sau mùa đông lạnh giá, rực rỡ vô cùng. Sau đây là một vài loại hoa nở vào tháng tư ngoài hoa anh đào. Tôi sẽ post một entry riêng về hoa anh đào..

Tại New York nơi tôi đang sống, Hoa Mộc Lan nở vào đầu tháng Tư, rất đẹp. Một ngày đẹp trời mùa xuân mát mẻ, cùng người tình trăm năm đi dạo vườn hoa New York, ngắm nhìn bông hoa, lắng nghe tiếng chim chíu chit trên cành, cuộc đời đáng sống lắm..

Mời các bạn thưởng thức một vài hình ảnh các loài hoa nở vào tháng Tư ở New York: hoa magnolia (Hoa Mộc Lan), forsythias (cây đầu xuân), hoa thủy tiên, hoa lan dạ hương (hyacinth), pansies (hoa păng-xê hoa bướm), crocus (hoa nghệ tây) và witch-hazel…(sẽ bổ túc sau).

Magnolias (Hoa Mộc Lan)

“Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae.

The natural range of Magnolia species is rather scattered and includes eastern North America, Central America and the West Indies and east and southeast Asia. Some species are found in South America. Today many species of Magnolia and an ever increasing number of hybrids can also be found as ornamentals in large parts of North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The genus is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol, from Montpellier…”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia )

Tại khu hoa “magnolia” (Magnolia Plaza) trong vườn hoa BBG ở New York, hoa magnolia (Hoa Mộc Lan) nở đầu tháng Tư rất đẹp..

Forsythias (cây đầu xuân)

Lúc đầu xuân khi trời New York hảy còn rất lạnh, có thể lạnh hơn mùa đông Hà Nội, hoa đầu xuân forsythias đả nở rồi, màu vàng rất đẹp, đàng xa nhìn như bông mai ở Saigon ngày Tết.

“Forsythia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae (olive family). There are about 11 species, mostly native to eastern Asia, but one native to southeastern Europe. The common name is also Forsythia; the genus is named after William Forsyth.

They are deciduous shrubs typically growing to a height of 1–3 m (3–9 ft.) and, rarely, up to 6 m (18 ft.), with rough grey-brown bark. The leaves are opposite, usually simple but sometimes trifoliate with a basal pair of small leaflets, and range from 2–10 cm (1–4 in.) in length and, rarely, up to 15 cm (6 in.) long; the margin is serrated or entire. The flowers are produced in the early spring before the leaves, bright yellow with a deeply four-lobed corolla, the petals joined only at the base. The fruit is a dry capsule, containing several winged seeds.”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsythia )

Narcissus (Hoa thủy tiên)

“Chi Thủy tiên (danh pháp khoa học: Narcissus) là tên gọi để chỉ một nhóm cây dạng thân hành cứng, chủ yếu ra hoa về mùa xuân, trong tiếng Việt có tên gọi chung là thủy tiên. Có một vài loài thủy tiên ra hoa vào mùa thu. Các loài cây này chủ yếu có nguồn gốc ở khu vực Địa Trung Hải, nhưng một số loài được tìm thấy tại Trung Á và Trung Quốc. Các giống cây thủy tiên khá nhiều và nói chung chúng đã được biến đổi và mở rộng rất nhiều, với các giống mới được đưa ra từ các vườn ươm mỗi năm.

Tên gọi Narcissus có nguồn gốc từ tên gọi của một nhân vật thần thoại Hy Lạp chỉ yêu bản thân mình là Narkissos.

Hoa thủy tiên đôi khi còn được gọi là hoa trường thọ, nhưng một cách chặt chẽ thì tên gọi này chỉ áp dụng cho một loài là Narcissus jonquilla và các giống trồng được tạo ra từ loài này.

Tất cả các loài thủy tiên có bao hoa hình loa kèn trompet ở trung tâm được bao quanh bằng một vòng các cánh hoa. Các loài hoa thủy tiên truyền thống có màu vàng kim, nhưng bao hoa thường có màu tương phản. Các nhà nhân giống đã tạo ra một số loại thủy tiên với 2 hoặc 3 hàng cánh hoa, làm cho chúng trông giống như một quả cầu nhỏ màu vàng. Các giống khác có các cánh hoa xếp nếp hoặc bao hoa trung tâm được kéo dài hay nén nhỏ.

Các loài thủy tiên chứa chất độc và có thể gây tử vong nếu ăn phải…

Hoa của thủy tiên là loại hoa trang trí phổ biến trong ngày Tết cổ truyền Trung Hoa.

(Wikipedia, http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Th%E1%BB%A7y_ti%C3%AAn )

Hyacinth (Hoa lan dạ hương)

“A Hyacinth is any plant of genus Hyacinthus, which are bulbous herbs formerly placed in the lily family Liliaceae but now regarded as the type genus of the separate family Hyacinthaceae. Hyacinths are native to the eastern Mediterranean region east to Iran and Turkmenistan. Hyacinths are sometimes associated with rebirth. The Hyacinth flower is used in the Haftseen table setting for the Persian New Year celebration Norouz held during the Spring Equinox…

The Dutch, or Common Hyacinth of house and garden culture (H. orientalis, native to southwest Asia) was so popular in the 18th century that over 2,000 cultivars were cultivated in the Netherlands, its chief commercial producer. This hyacinth has a single dense spike of fragrant flowers in shades of red, blue, white, orange, pink, violet, or yellow. A form of the common hyacinth is the less hardy and smaller blue- or white-petalled Roman hyacinth of florists. These flowers should have indirect sunlight and are to be moderately watered.

The related grape hyacinths (Muscari), sometimes called baby’s-breath, are very low, mostly blue-flowered plants similar in appearance to hyacinths and are also commonly cultivated.

Several types of brodiea, deathcamas, squill, and other plants that were formerly classified in the lily family and have flower clusters borne along the stalk also have common names with hyacinth in them.”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_(flower) )

Pansies (Hoa păng-xê Hoa bướm)

The pansy or pansy violet is a plant cultivated as a garden flower. Pansies are derived from Viola tricolor also called the Heartsease or ‘Johnny Jump Up’. However, many garden varieties are hybrids and are referred to as Viola × wittrockiana but sometimes they are listed under the name Viola tricolor hortensis. The name “pansy” also appears as part of the common name of a number of wildflowers belonging, like the cultivated pansy, to the genus Viola. Some unrelated species, such as the Pansy Monkeyflower, also have “pansy” in their name…

Pansy breeding has produced a wide range of flower colours including yellow, gold, orange, purple, violet, red and even black (dark purple)many with large showy face markings. A large number of bicoloured flowers have also been produced. They are generally very cold hardy plants surviving freezing even during their blooming period. Plants grow well in sunny or partially sunny positions in well draining soils. Pansies are developed from viola species that are normally biennials with a two-year life cycle. The first year plant produce greenery and then bear flowers and seeds their second year of growth and afterwards die like annuals. Because of selective human breeding, most garden pansies bloom the first year, some in as little as nine weeks after sowing.”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansy )

“Hoa pensée được đưa từ Pháp vào nước ta hồi đầu thế kỷ 20 và đã thích nghi với một số nơi như Sapa, Ba Vì, Tam Đảo và các tỉnh Tây Nguyên. Đặc biệt, Đà Lạt với điều kiện khí hậu quanh năm mát mẻ, ôn hòa đã được coi là quê hương thứ hai của loài hoa này.

Hoa pensée có cánh mỏng như cánh bướm, tên khoa học Viola tricolor Linn., nghĩa là loài hoa có ba màu thuộc loại hoa tím (Violaceae). Tuy số lượng ba màu ở mỗi loài hoa không bao giờ thay đổi và đã trở thành đặc trưng của hoa pensée, nhưng ba màu này được “tổ hợp ngẫu nhiên” từ các màu đen, đỏ, vàng, xanh, trắng, cam, để tạo nên nhiều giống hoa pensée với những màu sắc lạ, rất hấp dẫn.

Theo truyền thuyết, pensée là tên một sứ thần có tư duy sâu sắc và có cách ứng xử tế nhị… Ngày nay, người đàn ông nào tặng hoa pensée cho một phụ nữ là có ý khẳng định tình cảm và hy vọng của mình. Còn người phụ nữ nào nhận hoa pensée thì điều cô ấy muốn nói là: “Tôi đang trong sự mong chờ về một điều gì đó”…

Ở Đà Lạt hoa pensée gần như có quanh năm, nhưng đẹp nhất là vào những tháng mùa khô, trời nắng hanh, se lạnh… Du khách hay gặp pensée ở vườn Bích Câu, thác Prenn, thung lũng Tình Yêu… nhưng trước đó nó được trồng nhiều ở trạm khí tượng và khảo cứu nông nghiệp Dankir, khách sạn Palace và Trường Lycée Yersin… Lứa tuổi “mực tím” cũng rất thích loài hoa này, hay ép hoa pensée vào trong sách vở, lưu bút và vì thế ở Đà Lạt hoa pensée còn có tên là hoa học trò.

Hoa pensée được trồng bằng hạt, giâm cành hoặc có thể bằng công nghệ cấy mô. Nhưng nhìn chung các nghệ nhân và nhà sản xuất hoa vẫn thích trồng pensée từ hạt, vì mỗi lô hạt giống của loài cây này đều luôn chứa những bất ngờ, thú vị… Hạt hoa pensée rất quý, thường nhập từ Pháp, Hà Lan và gần đây đồng bào ở Bắc Mỹ cũng đã gửi giống về…

HOÀNG NGUYỄN

Nguồn: Tuổi Trẻ Chủ Nhật, 1999

Crocuses (Hoa nghệ tây)

“Crocus (plural: crocus, crocuses) is a genus of perennial flowering plants, native to a large area from coastal and subalpine areas of central and southern Europe (including the islands of the Aegean), North Africa and the Middle East, across Central Asia to western China.”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus )

Witch-Hazels

“They are popular ornamental plants, grown for their clusters of rich yellow to orange-red flowers which begin to expand in the autumn as or slightly before the leaves fall, and continue throughout the winter. Numerous cultivars have been selected for use as garden shrubs, many of them derived from the hybrid H. × intermedia Rehder (H. japonica × H. mollis).

The bark and leaves are astringent; the extract, also referred to as witch hazel, is used medicinally. Extracts from its bark and leaves are used in aftershave lotions and lotions for treating bruises and insect bites. Witch-hazel is the active ingredient in many hemorrhoid medications. It is also a common treatment for postpartum tearing of the perineum. The seeds contain a quantity of oil and are edible.”

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hazel )

Danh sách video vừa upload lên youtube.com:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=LTHDan&view=videos

Danh sách video được xem nhiều nhất, từ trên 7,000 đến gần 207, 000 lần:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=LTHDan&view=videos&sort=v

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Đi giang hồ: Washington D.C. (3)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/1872670

Đi giang hồ: Washington D.C. (4)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/1886451

Đi giang hồ: Washington D.C. (5)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/1889117

Đi giang hồ: Washington D.C. (6)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/1910171

Malaysia

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/1172179

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Cambodia)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2962462

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Osaka Nhật)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2961713

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Nhật)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2898269

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Spain)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2893319

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Trung Quốc)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2888072

Tôi và người tình trăm năm (Thái Lan)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2996585

Những ngày vui tại Malaysia

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2998761

Những ngày vui tại Singapore

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3001252

Thác Niagara điểm hẹn của tình nhân

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3001325

Những ngày vui tại Toronto Canada

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3006677

Tham quan khu 1,ooo Islands Canada

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3009430

Những ngày vui tại Pháp

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3016967

Đi giang hồ: Marseille (Pháp)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2172241

Đi giang hồ: Cannes (Pháp)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/2166861

Những ngày vui tại Hoa Kỳ

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3020509

Những ngày vui tại Ý Đại Lợi

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3019426

Những ngày vui tại Đức

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3020385

Những ngày vui tại Prague (Czech)

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3033219

Những ngày vui tại Ba Lan

http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3030344

Mời xem một vài video trên youtube.com :

New York Và Em

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDluaZnstnM

New York của tôi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-KGDA1Kn5Y

Thác Niagara Falls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVqtE6e5z8

Triển lảm quốc tế hoa lan tại New York

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfaCArVNip0

New York, Mùa Xuân Của Tôi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d_UuBUbp3A

Spring In New York

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttGObhBibHM

Cây Hoa Anh Đào Trước Ngỏ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUTu3iudABA

New York, My Hometown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBGD-cRnXmo

Mùa hè năm ấy (Ausable Chasm)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU3f76Erlqg

Đi giang hồ: Washington D.C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOfXaWrfz5A

Đi giang hồ: Montreal Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzI2m2UN9GA

Đi giang hồ: Sea world Orlando USA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwCNrGSeulc

Đi giang hồ: Hawaii

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SE00-uIxmc

Đi giang hồ: Quê Hương Mến Yêu (5):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BuBscCyB-l0

Đi giang hồ: Quê Hương Mến Yêu (4):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Q3GEvf7mS8

Đi giang hồ: Quê Hương Mến Yêu (3):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=brYAqdF7X0c

Đi giang hồ: Quê Hương Mến Yêu (2):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ouv4yyTzf4w

Đi giang hồ: Quê Hương Mến Yêu (1):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=blV_Y1zDA18

Xem đầy đủ bài viết tại http://my.opera.com/Le%20Thanh%20Hoang%20Dan/blog/show.dml/3107726

[Via http://lthdan02.wordpress.com]

Breaking News: Reuters Learns Video Games Not Just for Children ...

Way out west, Kalifornien & Nevada

2010-01-25T10:16:00.000+02:00

Vi har varit runt och tuffat i USA några gånger. Första gången var 2005, och då skrev jag en ambitiös reseberättelse som jag tänkte dela med mig av igen. Särskilt spännande är den för er som tänkt att bila i Kalifornien och Nevada. Trevlig läsning!

Las Vegas by night

SAMMANFATTNING:

Jag och min flickvän (numera fru) flög till San Francisco, stannade två nätter. Vi åkte kustvägen sedan söderut och spenderade tre nätter på vägen – innan det bar av till Vegas. Vi stannade i Vegas fyra dar där vi också hade en halvdag i Grand Canyon inplanerad. Efter Vegas bar det av mot Los Angeles där vi stannade tre heldagar (fyra nätter) innan vi stack norrut igen för en sista natt i San Francisco innan flyget tog oss till Sverige. Jag tänker dela upp berättelsen i lite delar så man kan läsa det man är intresserad av, det blir en kombination av resguide och reseberättelse, håll till godo!

RESA DIT:

Vi valde billigaste flygresan som gick att få tag på, denna bokade vi på sembo.se där vi även kunde boka två hotellnätter downton San Francisco till ett otroligt bra pris jämfört med på plats! Det går även att boka hotell i flera andra städer, men utbudet är begränsat. Via sembo kan man även boka bil, dock ställs vissa krav om man är under 25 år, därför var det krångligt för oss att resa dit. Nåja, Kastrup-london- san francisco med brittish airways (genom sembo) kostade drygt 4500:- ToR/person. Räkna med två timmar till London, plus väntetid där sen ungefär elva timmars flygning till USAs västkust.

BIL:

I bilens förlovade land är bilen tyvärr ett måste om man ska färdas utanför San Francisco, de allmänna kommunaktionsmedlen är unde all kritik. Vi valde att boka på holidayautos.se eftersom dom hade ett extra-paket för de som var under 25 år, för runt 5000:- kunde vi boka en hyfsat stor femdörrars bil i två veckor inklusive alla försäkringar och självrisker etc, full tank ingick också – det enda som tillkom var övrig bensin. Jag tror vi betalde drygt 100 dollar för drygt 250 mils körning till slut. Priset per gallon (3,7 liter) ligger på ungefär $2.5.

SAN FRANCISCO:

Den mest europeiska staden av de alla, staden har ett downtown med hyfsad shopping, restauranger med mera. Det går att åka runt i de klassiska spårvagnarna samt med bussar, vi tog oss dock runt med bilen till bland annat Twin Peaks (utsiktsplats över hela staden). Vi var också i ett mysigt turistområde som heter Fisherman’s Warf där det bland annat guidade turer (förhandsboka!) till Alcatraz avgår. Det är ett gammalt fiskeområde som är av lite gammaldagsstuk och helt klart värt ett besök! Parkera 100 meter in mot land så blir det billigare . Tilläggas bör att parkering downtown är svindyrt, nästan överallt kostade det $18 för ett dygn. Spelade även en del poker i San Francisco, se pokeravsnittet nedan…

KUSTEN:

Som första stopp söderut är Monterey värt ett besök, en ganska mysig småstad. Den stora attraktionen är byns akvarium, vi bevittnade här bland annat pingvinger och världens enda vithaj i fångenskap, mäktigt! Strax söder om Monterey återfinns kustbyn Carmel som har ett rykte som en mycket ren stad, ganska turistigt men ändå mysigt centrum och en stor fet sandstrand vid vattnet som bör vara värd ett besök sommartid!

Efter Monterey börjar världsberömda highway 1 på allvar. Den krokiga vägen har Still Havet på ena sidan och ett berglandskap på den andra. Åk denna väg i dagsljus helst med klart väder så lär ni inte uppleva något liknande, grymt vackert (inget ord jag slösar med .

Vidare söder ut ligger Solvang, en dansk by! Byn grundades av utvandrade någongång (runt år ????) och består av korsvirkeshus och väderkvarnar, lite småskön kontrast till de amerikanska unga städerna. Byn är dock ganska exploaterad av turistnäringen så det räckte med en timmes strapats för vår del.

Nästa stopp var Santa Barbara (med flest plastikoperationer i världen?), värmen tilltog här neråt och det var ju såklart positivt. Vi hade trott att Santa Barbara skulle vara flott och lyxigt, detta stämde dock inte riktigt och stället var faktiskt en liten besvikelse med en del smuts och avloppsrör på stranden.

OUTLETS:

Första outleten vi besökte var också den bästa på resan och den låg i Camarillo (söder om Santa Barbara på väg 101) och hette helt enkelt Camarillo outlets (på 101ans högra sida om man åker i North bound). Prisexempel på kläder: DCShoeCO,skate-sko runt $40. För den som är intresserad av kläder och mode finns det också outlets i Barstow mitt mellan Los Angeles och Las Vegas, dessa höll dock inte alls samma klass som i Camarillo. Näst bästa återfanns precis söder om Las Vegas och hette Las Vegas premium outlets.

LAS VEGAS:

Okej, det ska erkännas att jag är en pokerdåre. Därför extra fokus på Vegas

När vi släpat omkring oss själva på Las Vegas Premium oulets tills klockan nådde 14:40 var det dags för avfärd mot Strippen och vårt hotell där incheckningen startade 15.00. Vi kom in från söder och möttes av Mandalay Bays mäktiga hotellbyggnader, trafiken på Strippen var tjock som sirap och man fick vänta tre gånger om på grönt ljus när man skulle svänga av därifrån eftersom det var så mycket bilar. Jag har läst att det är mäktigare att anlända kvällstid till Vegas och där lär ligga viss sanning i det. Efter en kort bit på strippen svängde vi av vänster och efter en mile (1.6 km) ungefär så hade vi vårt hotell, Orleans på vänster sida. Vi bodde alltså inte på strippen utan på ett av de få hotellen som ligger s.k off-the-strip.

Orleans hotell (***) har 1860 rum, 72 bowlingbanor, 18 biosalonger, 9 restauranger men framförallt 35 (!!!) pokerbord (http://www.orleanscasino.com/gaming/poker-room.html). Vad jag förstod det så hade Orleans flest pokerbord i hela Vegas. Hotellpriserna i Vegas fördubblas på helgerna, därför åkte vi strategiskt nog dit måndag-fredag och fick bo på 40 kvadratmeter för priset av 65$ per natt för båda två! Orleans lär vara det bästa hotellet off-the-strip och jag tror inte man kan vänta sig samma standard för samma pris på The Strip. Vi var mycket nöjda med vår vistelse och jag kan starkt rekommendera ett par nätter på Orleans. Däremot så betvivlar jag inte att Bellagio, Mirage, Ceacars, MGM, Venetian, Mandalay Bay och dom andra har bättre klass och kanske är ännu skönare att bo på – men räkna med det dubbla priset (minst!). Det där är efter plånbok och tycke och smak, man kan få hotell i Vegas för till och med så låga priser som 29$!

Vad tyckte jag då? Det var mycket större än vad jag väntat mig, The Strip hade säkert fyra filer i vardera körriktningen och snabbaste vägen över var oftast gångbroar mellan casinona. Hela strippen var späckat med hotellkasinon och byggena var enorma. Det tog säkert en halvtimme att köra hela strippen ner till downtown. Det kanske jag ska utveckla… Södra delen av strippen består av alla de hotell jag räknat upp plus ett femtiotal mer eller mindre kända till, sen kommer lite ingenmansland med låga hus och bröllopskappel innan man når downtown där Freemont street är pulsåldern, där återfinns bland annat Jack Binions Horseshoe (WSOP).

Missa inte:

Freemont Street (en 300 meter lång storbildsskärm går som ett valv över gatan och på denna är det ljus- och TV-show varje jämn timma efter skymning!). Skulle även gissa att detta är Las Vegas enda gågata så det kan vara skönt om man vill strosa lite lugnt, det går bra att parkera i Jack Binions P-hus intill. Gamblers General Store, en komplett spelbutik som ligger i norra delen av Vegas, kör Strippen norrut och vik av in till vänster på Main efter Stratosphere, efter runt 500 meter (osäker här) så återfinns affären på vänster sida. Byggnaden är gammal lite nedgången och kan lätt missas så håll ögonen öppna! I övrigt så finns väl allt sevärt längs med strippen, ni lär hitta runt själva…

GRAND CANYON:

Det går sightseeing flyg från Vegas till Grand Canyon. Vi valde att åka med Look Tours då dom var absolut billigast, dom måste dock haft en dålig dag då det mesta var försenat (det finns massa bolag – så ta kanske ett annat). Hursomhelst hämtar dom upp en vid hotellet och kör en till flygfältet där ett 18-sitsigt plan väntar, efter runt en halvtimme med flygning över Hoover Dam når man Grand Canynon. Man blev sedan runtbussad av indianerna som bodde där och fick ströva omkring ett par timmar och se på utsikten – storslaget! Vi fick betal $159 var totalt och då ingick även mat hos indianerna på Grand Canyon.

POKERN:

Jag lirade bara på Orleans i Las Vegas eftersom det var absolut bekvämast. Spelen som erbjöds var 2/4, 4/8, 6/12 och 10/20 samt även 4/8 Omaha och 1/2 NL holdem när det fanns tillräckligt med folk! Dom har även turneringar varje dag, en vid kl 12.00 och en vid 19.00, registreringen börjar drygt en timme innan och buy-in ligger mellan 25-50$ med en jävla massa rebuys till halva priset (dessa knäckte mig). Mina resultat går ju att läsa ovan.

Jag har väl dragit det mesta högst upp i tråden? Fråga om det är något! Motståndet på Orleans var iaf i tuffast lagret , men jag låg ju plus på ring-gamet och så här i efterhand borde jag spelat 6/12 hela tiden för då hade jag nog dragit in ett par hundra dollar. Jag spelade istället mestadels 4/8 och några överaggressivt dåligt spelade händer från min sida fick mig att sluta på allt för lite plus (tycker jag).

Jag fick dock lite tips av de trevliga motståndarna vid bordet, MGM Grand hade återöppnat (i dagarna) och skulle tydligen vara jäkligt schysst att spela på. Vidare så gillade dom limit-spelet på Bellagio då det var många turister där (dom hade dock ett tillfälligt pokerrum när jag var där, lite tråkigt). Sen så tyckte dom att turneringarna var bäst på Sahara där man fick jäkligt många startmarker och allt var bra uppstyrt. Men jag tror inte det skiljer jättemycket de olika rummen emellan, det viktiga är dock att organisationen är bra och det var den verkligen på Orleans.

Spelade ju dessutom på Lucky Chances i San Francicso där det var riktigt tomte-motstånd på 6/12, rekommenderas varmt!

LOS ANGELES:

Överträffade helt klart förväntningarna, men så hade jag också tur med gästvänliga, generösa släktingar som bodde på ett utmärkt strategiskt läge för oss som turister. Jag orkar knappt skriva mer nu, men missa inte:

The Grove, jäkligt fint utomhusköpcentrum mellan Beverly Ave och Third i West Hollywood, ät gärna på Cheese Cake Factory (har även mat, jätteportioner!).

För den filmintresserade, dagspass på Universal Studios i Hollywood. Vi var där och det var rätt skönt att varva all shopping och sightseeing med lite nöjen i filmens värld. Pris, runt 50$ per skalle.

Venice Beach/Santa Monica Beach: Feta stränder helt enkelt.

Spänstiga killar på Muscle Beach, Venice Beachwalk

Santa Monica gågata, den enda gågatan i Los Angeles, say no more…

Annars så har Melrose Avenue i West hollywood bra (trendig) shopping och rekommenderas.

Missa inte heller Famous walk i Hollywood (alla stjärnor i marken)….

[Via http://pavag.wordpress.com]

Weekly International Travel News Roundup | Peter Greenberg Worldwide

US ClimateGate Report: NOAA and the Global Historical Climate Data (GHCN)

2010-01-25T02:31:00.000+02:00

[PDF]. It describes itself as a “preliminary introduction” inspired by info in the ClimateGate leak. Primarily about the National Climatic Data Center at the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — a US Govt Agency) and the GHCN (the Global Historical Climatology Network, i.e. the world’s climatic databases):

[...] CRU’s Director at the time Phil Jones acknowledges that CRU mirrors the NOAA data. “Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) archive used by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center.”

NOAA appears to play a key role as a data gatherer/gatekeeper for the global data centers at NASA and CRU. Programmer E.M. Smith’s analysis of NOAA’s GHCN found they systematically eliminated 75% of the world’s stations with a clear bias towards removing higher latitude, high altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler. The thermometers in a sense marched towards the tropics, the sea and to airport tarmacs.

The PDF summarizes manipulation of data/data-sources around the world, including…

Canada: “…the number of stations dropped from 600 to 35 in 2009. The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced in half.”
China: “…100 stations in 1950, over 400 in 1960 then only 35 by 1990. [...] CRU’s own Phil Jones showed in 2008 peer review paper that contamination by urbanization in China was 1.8F per century. Neither NOAA nor CRU adjusts for this contamination.”
“High elevation stations have disappeared from the data base. Stations in the Andes and Bolivia have vanished. Temperatures for these areas are now determined by interpolation from stations hundreds of miles away on the coast or in the Amazon.”
New Zealand: “…where raw data for major cities shows virtually no trend (0.06C/century), adjusted data has a 0.92C warming.”

[Via http://catastrophist.wordpress.com]

Fox News, Tribune Newspapers Beat NYTimes.com In The Numbers

US: Clinton lifts ban on Ramadan

2010-01-22T10:49:00.000+02:00

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted a six-year old ruling denying a visa for a Muslim scholar to enter the United States, the State Department said.

The department invoked the Patriot Act in 2004 when it revoked the visa of Tariq Ramadan, accusing him of contributing financially to a charitable organization the United States said was linked to terrorists. Clinton Wednesday signed an order allowing Ramadan to apply for a new visa, The New York Times reported.

"I am very happy and hopeful that I will be able to visit the United States very soon and to once again engage in an open, critical and constructive dialogue with American scholars and intellectuals," Ramadan said in a statement, the newspaper reported.

Ramadan’s line of thought can be called "Islamic socialism" and includes Jihad as a “struggle against oppression”.

[Via http://teaandpolitics.wordpress.com]

BBC - Douglas Fraser's Ledger: Paperless news

Clinton: Internet 'information curtain' is dropping

2010-01-22T02:45:00.000+02:00

NEWS

Clinton: Internet ‘information curtain’ is dropping

January 21, 2010 1:04 p.m. EST

Washington (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Thursday that a “new information curtain is descending across much of the world.”

In a speech on Internet freedom and security, Clinton also urged China to investigate a wave of cyber attacks against Google and other companies.

The Internet and other technologies are critical to foreign policy, and those who engage in cyber attacks should face international condemnation, she said.

“In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all,” she said at The Newseum in Washington.

Clinton made the comments as search-engine giant Google threatened to shut down its operations in China, five years after agreeing to allow some censorship in exchange for the right to work in that country’s massive emerging technology market.

Google charges that Chinese hackers have targeted Google and up to 34 other companies.

The Chinese government argues that the Google case is a business dispute and should not affect overall relations between the two countries.

Clinton has said that Google’s allegations of censorship and online attacks by China raise “very serious concerns,” and her agency has said it will file a formal protest over the company’s complaints.

Also this month, foreign correspondents in at least two Chinese bureaus of news organizations had their Google e-mail accounts attacked, with e-mails forwarded to a mysterious address, according to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.

Clinton warned that the latest information technology — designed to open access to governments — can also be used by some governments to “crush dissent and deny human rights.”

“In the last year, we’ve seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the Internet,” she said.

“In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained.”

A member of that group, having since been freed, was in the audience, Clinton said.

“So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and welfare of much of the world’s population,” she said.

“The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al Qaeda to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent,” Clinton said.

Some governments also have “co-opted” the Internet to silence “people of faith,” Clinton said.

In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all.

–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“Last year in Saudi Arabia, a man spent months in prison for blogging about Christianity,” she said. Countries such as Vietnam and China have used similar tactics to “restrict access to religious information.”

The State Department will convene a high-level meeting next month of firms that provide network services for talks on Internet freedom, she said.

Citizens and businesses must be able to rely on the security of information networks, Clinton said.

“Our ability to bank online, use electronic commerce and safeguard billions of dollars in intellectual property are all at stake if we cannot rely on the security of information networks,” she said.

Referring to social and economic development, Clinton said the Internet can serve as a “great equalizer.”

By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunity where none exist.

“Over the last year, I’ve seen this first hand in Kenya, where farmers have seen their income grow by as much as 30 percent since they started using mobile banking technology,” Clinton said.

Information technology has been a great help in addressing the staggering problems in Haiti, she said, pointing to a young girl and two women who were pulled from the rubble after they sent a text message for help.

The text message campaign to raise money for Haiti has raised more than $25 million for recovery efforts, Clinton said. Each texter was asked to donate $10, and the State Department said Wednesday that it is believed to be the largest amount raised for the country through a mobile phone campaign.

CNN‘s Jill Dougherty and Doug Gross contributed to this report.

[Via http://dominicstoughton.wordpress.com]

Obama: Seat Scott Brown and Health Care Next Steps - George's ...

US Security Company Offers to Perform "High Threat Terminations" and to Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti

2010-01-20T10:26:00.000+02:00

Here we go: New Orleans 2.0

By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports, Jan 18, 2010

We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about “looters.” After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed check-point outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).

Now, it is kicking into full gear in Haiti. As we know, the member companies of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade association, the International Peace Operations Association, are offering their services in Haiti. But look for more stories like this one:

On January 15, a Florida based company called All Pro Legal Investigations registered the URL Haiti-Security.com. It is basically a copy of the company’s existing US website but is now targeted for business in Haiti, claiming the “purpose of this site is to act as a clearinghouse for information seekers on the state of security in Haiti.”

“All Protection and Security has made a commitment to the Haitian community and will provide professional security against any threat to prosperity in Haiti,” the site proclaims. “Job sites and supply convoys will be protected against looters and vandals. Workers will be protected against gang violence and intimidation. The people of Haiti will recover, with the help of the good people from the world over.”

The company boasts that it has run “Thousands of successful missions in Iraq & Afghanistan.” As for its personnel, “Each and every member of our team is a former Law Enforcement Officer or former Military service member,” the site claims. “If Operator experience, training and qualifications matter, choose All Protection & Security for your high-threat Haiti security needs.”

Among the services offered are: “High Threat terminations,” dealing with “worker unrest,” armed guards and “Armed Cargo Escorts.” Oh, and apparently they are currently hiring.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

Windows Mobile 7 handset news

Who would Jesus shoot?

2010-01-20T02:43:00.000+02:00

In case you haven’t already seen this, it’s been discovered that gunsights on weapons used by British and American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with coded biblical references, including:

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that carved onto weapons of war are words of truth and peace, words from a man who embodied and heralded a kingdom characterized by peace, and from a man who announced an alternative to empire and spoke of faith, hope, joy, gentleness, goodness, and peace. How in the heck do these things go together?!

On the website of Trijicon, the US-based manufacturer, it states: “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.” Which of course is clearly congruent with SHOOTING people.

Clearly.

No wonder Christians have a bad name. You’d think we’d learned our lessons from the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. But apparently not.

[Via http://jbarnabas.wordpress.com]

News Ticker: Slash, Golden Globes, Iggy Pop, Elvis Costello ...

Mooksha Ayurveda Training in house

2010-01-18T10:43:00.000+02:00

Hello

I would like to introduce myself Anitha Mohanasundaram I am the head of operations for the company called Mooksha ayurveda based out of santa clara California. We bring in well qualified teachers in the field of ayurveda from india to teach the different ayurvedic massages and techniques in the USA

Our program would include a 5 day introductory course in the ayurvedic Massage and Body work.We come to your facility to train your students.

1. Introduction to ayurveda

2. Hands on training in the below treatments

a. Shirodhara

b. Shirovasthi

c. Abhayanga Traditional Ayurvedic Massage

d. UDvarthanam

e. Utsadanam

f. Nasya

g. Ayurvedic facial

h. Mukha Abyanga

Our teachers have been teaching international students for many years and they are well qualified doctors in the field of ayurveda.

For more information contact us

Phone: 408-982-9113

Email: mookshausa@gmail.com

Regards

For Mooksha ayurveda

Anitha Mohanasundaram.

Feedback from our earlier training

I loved it!!! Would love to have more training. Loved the hads on parts. Love the video – Amanda Kinstar

Loved it! I feel so blessed. I am very thankful for this opportunity. I would love more training and to experience treatments – Candace Fruge

Throughly enjoyed it. Very informative. Enjoyed the videos and the techniques. Very interesting by the entire process and how the body responds — Connie Lafay

I cant express how grateful I am to have had this opportunity – mary Witman

He was wonderful Dr.Hari has a very soothing yet riveting voice. He is an incredible instructor. Thank you for your time & willingness to share your knowledge with us – Terra Jeffres

[Via http://mookshaayurveda.wordpress.com]

Technology News: Internet: How Much Would China Miss Google?

Soft söndag

2010-01-18T02:20:00.000+02:00

Migränen gav med sig till slut. Lite medtagen som vanligt efter en attack så det blev en skön vilodag. Började med en bok i fåtöljen, sen en stund i sängen med massor av glassiga magazine och träningstidningar. Sedan beställda jag hem Fame på OnDemand. Urk vilken jävla skitrulle, jag brydde mig inte ett dugg om de små tramsiga kidsen och deras små tramsiga problem. Nej tacka vet jag originalet med Leroy och Coco och c:o. Hmmm, nu blev jag så avslagen att jag tror jag måste ta bort den där Fame-låten från min cardio-lista på iPoden. Inte en suck att den låten kan peppa mig igen. Sen efter den filmfloppen blev det middag framför tv:n för att kolla Red Carpet och sedan Golden Globe Awards och äta glarre. Haha, Ricky Gervais är genial! När galan är över kryper jag i säng och tar nya, friska tag imorgon (som för övrigt är Martin Luther King Day och helgdag här i USA). Planen är att köra cardio och styrka.

P.S. Idag drar Beach 2010 igång på allvar på La Röhnisch-bloggen. Du hänger väl på?

[Via http://sportyspiceblog.com]

openSUSE News » Reminder: openSUSE Weekly News Team Meeting

Gullible Barack Obama

2010-01-15T10:17:00.000+02:00

“I believe that I’m secure!” “That? Oh, yeah…”

President Barack Obama will continue to trust the United States Secret Service, despite the fact that its agents missed interlopers, Tarek and Michelle Selahi, at a state reception at the White House. “I have full confidence in the Secret Service, they do terrific work. They have been close to me ever since I became a presidential candidate. I trust them one hundred percent, and not only I do, but my wife and children do, too”, Obama said in an interview in USA Today.

RIA-Novosti

http://www.rian.ru/caricature/20091204/197049524.html

[Via http://02varvara.wordpress.com]

Fox News, Anderson Cooper See Strong Ratings With Haiti Coverage ...

Houston Museum Guide

2010-01-15T02:53:00.000+02:00

Houston has a treasure trove of museums just waiting to be discovered. The bulk of them are located in the museum district near downtown. Over the next few posts, I will give an overview of the museums and a brief description/review of each. This first post is general information and getting around.

Transportation and Parking

Driving: You should generally be able to find free parking without a problem. Most museums have their own parking lot with limited spaces where you can park for free. Free parking is available in the various lots in Hermann Park, which is a short walk to the museums. The Museum of Fine Arts also has a free parking lot on Bissonnet St.

Public Transportation: from downtown- take the Metro light rail to the Museum District stop. Or take any of the Metro buses to the museum district.

Getting Around

The museum district is a pedestrian friendly area. The museums are clustered together and are within walking distance of each other. Some of them may be a farther walk though. The museums have a brochure you can pick up that has a map of the museum district and info on all the museums. Alternatively, here is a link to the map. The other option is to drive and most museums will have their own parking lot where you can park for free.

Free Admission Dates/Times

The vast majority of Houston’s museums are either always free or free on certain days/times, which makes the museums very accessible and easy on the wallet. I make note of the free days/times as I review each museum but it is a good idea to check with the museum to make sure they haven’t changed it.

Museum District Free Day

Once a year the museum district puts on a “Museum District Free Day” when all museums in the area waive their admission fees for the day. This is usually on a Saturday in September. Last year in 2009 it was on September 12th. They even have a complimentary shuttle bus that will take you to all the participating museums that day. It is best to plan out your route in advance because there are so many museums to see and it would be impossible to see them all on just one day. I used Museum Day to see all the smaller museums that I hadn’t gotten a chance to see yet, but did not want to make a special trip to the museum district to check out. Also keep in mind that there will be crowds on this free day, especially in the more popular museums, so patience goes a long way.

休士頓博物館指南

休士頓有好多值得我們參觀的博物館。大多數都是在阜下附近的博物館區。接下來，我在博克會介紹給大家休士頓的博物館。這第一篇是關於停車，路綫，和免費參觀時間。

交通和停車

停車：要在這裡找免費停車場不難。大部分博物館都有自己的免費停車場，可是很小，位子有限量。在你想參觀的博物館找不到停車位子，可以到赫曼公園 (Hermann Park) 的免費停車場停車。赫曼公園有好幾個大大的免費停車場。可以步行到博物館。休士頓美術館在 Bissonnet 街也有一個大的免費停車場。

坐公車：可以坐休士頓 Metro 輕軌鐵路或 Metro 巴士到博物館區。

參觀路綫

到了博物館區，可以步行到這裡任何博物館。大多數的博物館都是很鄰近，但有幾間比較遠就可以開車到。博物館指南有博物館區地圖和介紹區裏的博物館。在任何博物館可以拿到。

免費門票時間

休士頓大多數的博物館都有免費參觀的時間和日期的優惠，讓參觀者可以省一點錢。我介紹博物館時會寫它的免費時間在博客，但去博物館前該聯係博物館查明。

博物館區免門票一天

每年秋天九月左右博物館區舉辦免費參觀的一天。那天，區内的博物館整天都不收門票。去年2009 年是9月12 日。博物館區也開幾班免費巴士給參觀者乘坐到每一個博物館。這是一個省錢的好辦法來一次過看很多博物館。要一天看完全部的博物館就很趕速，所以應該提前計或好路綫。然後其他博物館選另外的時間參觀。

[Via http://passporttotheworld.wordpress.com]

nVidia Hot News ā€“ Which Is Not Good ~ Revelations From An ...

India’s Shattered Hope of War

2010-01-13T10:51:00.000+02:00

Confused in achieving its secret designs to become a super power of Asia, now India has started intimidating declared nuclear powers like Pakistan and China through threat of open war.In this regard, Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor vocally revealed on December 29, 2009 that Indian Army “is now revising its five-year-old doctrine” and is preparing for a “possible two-front war with China and Pakistan.”

India has received a matching response from Islamabad. Responding to New Delhi’s open threat, on January 1, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani warned that the situation would get out of control in case of any dangerous adventurism of New Delhi. A day after, Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid stated, “The Indian Army Chief’s statement exhibits a lack of strategic acumen”. He further said that such a path could “fix India on a self-destructive mechanism.” In this connection, taking cognizance of Indian new war-mongering style, on January 6, Gen. Kayani also chaired the meeting of corps commanders, and showed satisfaction over the operational preparedness of the Pakistan Army.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military and the political leadership has decided to be in active contact and to chalk out an effective strategy to counter hostile approach of India.

While taking notice of India’s tactics to disturb the regional balance of power in South Asia, the cabinet’s defence committee underscored that Pakistan would never allow its security to be jeopardised at any cost. It was decided in the meeting that until and unless South Waziristan operation and rehabilitation of war torn areas in Swat is not completed, no new military front would be opened and no foreign pressure would be tolerated in that respect.

As regards New Delhi’s belligerent approach, it is the result of Indian shattered hope to intimidate other regional countries especially Pakistan whom the former considers a continuous obstacle in the way of its ambitious policy. In fact, both the neighbouring adversaries are nuclear powers, Indians cannot ignore the principles of deterrence, popularly known as balance of terror.

In 1945, America dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Tokyo had no such devices to retaliate. After the World War 11, nuclear weapons were never used. These were only employed as a strategic threat. During the heightened days of the Cold War, many crises arose in Suez Canal, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam when the US and the former Soviet Union were willing to use atomic weapons, but they stopped due to the fear of nuclear war which could culminate in the elimination of both the super powers. It was due to the concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’ that the two rivals preferred to resolve their differences through diplomacy.

Political strategists agree that deterrence is a psychological concept that aims to affect an opponent’s perceptions. In nuclear deterrence weapons are less usable as their threat is enough in deterring an enemy that intends to use its armed might.

A renowned scholar, Hotzendorf remarks that nuclear force best serves the interests of a state when it deters an attack.

It is mentionable that a few days after the November 26 tragedy of Mumbai, New Delhi, while embarking upon a hot pursuit policy towards Islamabad, under the pretext of that carnage, endeavoured to isolate Pakistan diplomatically in the comity of nations. For this purpose, India sent a number of diplomatic missions to various western capitals to convince them that Pakistan is officially behind Mumbai terror events, emphasising them to pressurize Islamabad in handing over the militants, responsible for the catastrophe.

[Via http://rupaligaurav.wordpress.com]

Sarah Palin To Join Fox News, Moving Her Even Further From White ...

Amazing Traveling Photography of USA National Parks

2010-01-13T02:52:00.000+02:00

Photographers, amateur and pro alike, can turn a summer trip into an enjoyable and challenging photograph opportunity. Scenic countrywide parks thru the continental US provide wildlife and landscape vistas not found any place else. Additionally, if you are really looking punctiliously, the glory of nature can be found on most roads and highways.

Opportunity abounds for great pictures in Glacier national Park, as an example. This area was created by glaciers and remains in its primitive condition for the main part. Just one road crosses the Park. Bears, wolves, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, elk and moose are the bigger carnivores who call this Park home. Varied habitats provide conditions for a selection of plant and animal life, thus creating a unique environment not equaled any place else in the country.

Late June and July offers opportunity for a spectacular wild flower display which will thrill photographers. Some short roads ( more like trails ) lead to trail heads that one can span to find the fields of flowers throughout the park. Some fringe roads also provide this opportunity. Autumn brings the blazing colours that mark the fantastic thing about nature’s changing seasons. And photographers love blazing color.

Early morning shots of wildlife grazing are available for early risers. Traveling Going-To-The-Sun Road ( the one that crosses the park ) and taking some of the offshoot roads leads you to grazing areas. There is also opportunity for photos that combine wildlife and wildflowers, an especially staggering display of nature’s beauty.

Other photo ops in national parkland include Bryce canyon, also formed by glaciers and the Grand Staircase in Escalante, New Mexico. Arizona and Utah offer Monument Valley and its grand rock formations that were formed by wind and water erosion. Yellowstone national Park will be a state favorite for many years to come.

Our national parks are among the most spectacular in the world.

If you enjoy traveling and would like to read more on some of the most famous places in the world, visit famouswonders.com and also check out Redwood National Forest Camping.

[Via http://travelusaphotography288.wordpress.com]

The Daily Politics - NY Daily News

The teens who can barely talk - they only have an 800 word vocabulary

2010-01-11T10:39:00.000+02:00

Teenagers have been warned they are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words.

The limited linguistic range also consists of many made up words and ‘teenspeak’ which has developed through modern communication methods such as text messaging and social networking sites.

Today Jean Gross, who advises the Government on children’s speech, said urgent action was required to prevent children failing to find jobs because they are unable to communicate.

Mrs Goss, who last week issued a stark warning over the effect of television on children’s development said yesterday: ‘Teenagers are spending more time communicating through electronic media and text messaging, which is short and brief.

‘We need to help today’s teenagers understand the difference between their textspeak and the formal language they need to succeed in life — 800 words will not get you a job.’

The majority of teenagers should have developed a broad vocabulary of 40,000 words by the time they reach 16.

www.dailymail.co.uk

[Via http://thedesso123.wordpress.com]

Good Crime Stat News For A Change! | Diane Dimond

Economics

2010-01-11T02:29:00.000+02:00

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Adebayor unhurt in gun attack - Manchester City FC

The Benefits of 3D Modeling.

2010-01-08T10:50:00.000+02:00

3D modeling is beneficial for those instances in which we will benefit from seeing a physical object in a solid form. For this reason, 2D models cannot justify the results required from observing the model.

Medical surgery has come a long way, with the use of 3D models. Modern surgical tools have implemented schematics which include a 3D model of the body, showing the surgeon precisely where to create an incision or the exact location of a tumor that is to be excised. An x-ray, which uses 2D features and techniques, will not have this gravity throughout the surgery process, and can yield, at best, an estimation of where to cut.

If we think back to chemistry class, and the models in the textbook and in the classroom of the 3D representations of molecules, this is more than likely one of the most memorable influences that many students have faced when interaction with 3D models. Researcher, students, teachers and professors alike have benefited from the creation of 3D models.

Property development companies require 3D models of developments for planning committees, zoning, architects, and designers and most important, to pre-sell the properties before the buildings have been completed. Customers purchase the property based on the models alone, justifying the importance of creating accurate and concise 3D models, which can be rendered in the form of a tour of the unit.

Without 3D models and the rendering and animation of these models we would not have advanced graphics within video games and animated films. Not only are 3D models beneficial for entertainment purposes, but for teaching and instruction techniques, such as a 3D model rendered, to show the process of digestion within the human body. These 3D models engage the viewer and offer unique interaction that cannot be found in a 2D model.

Of course, there are always going to be objects that have shown better results when they are visualized in a 2D space, these are: the traditional x-ray, and perspective drawings.

The Advantages of 3D Modeling

3D modeling and 3D renderings serve multiple advantages in a variety of fields. Without these renderings, we would have no simplification in the form of animated video for complex processes such as surgery, or the complex journey through the digestive system.

Considering in the avenue of film, or in current events how time and cost consuming it could be to recreate an event such as a fire, or explosion that has occurred. The animation of 3D models allows artists to create these events using models, than rendering the models, which provides life into the structure to create a sequence of events.

The process of 3D modeling allows artists to learn a variety of techniques and forms to create models, animation and even visualizations. As these artists are taught varying techniques, productivity increases as each technique is best for create specific types of the models.

Using 3D models are learning tools are a business all in its own. We are each gifted with different abilities, and with these abilities comes different ways in which we are able to learn new concepts, easily and effectively. Through the use of 3D models and 3D visualizations we are able to create concepts which can easily be learned by visual or tactile learners. That is, those who learn best by visual recognition of an object, and those who learn best by being able to feel, or take part in an object.

We are able to create models that can mimic art through the use of complex lighting, and photo realistic capabilities created with 3D modeling software programs. We are able to create artistic 3D models, which can benefit the arts as providing another media. Sculpture is one of the earliest forms of 3D modeling, and now, we are able to take sculpture to a new level, with the use of 3D modeling software which can create new media.

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[Via http://3darchitecturaldesign.wordpress.com]

Real Estate News: Investors Swoop into Commercial Real Estate ...

US Jobless Claims Edge Higher

2010-01-08T02:10:00.000+02:00

The number of people filing for first-time unemployment help edged up last week, but the figure remained near its lowest level in more than a year and came in better than economists had expected.

The US Labor Department revealed Thursday that initial jobless claims came in at 434,000 for the week ended on January 2. This was up 1,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 433,000.

Economists had expected initial claims to edge up to around 435,000.

The 4-week moving average for initial claims, a statistic that flattens out week-to-week fluctuations in the data, dropped 10,250 to 450,250. This suggests that the overall trend for initial claims remains a move lower.

Continuing claims, a statistic that measures the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment help, dropped 179,000 to 4.802 million. This marked the lowest total since late January of 2009.

Attention is now focused on Friday’s monthly employment statistics.

The report, considered by many to be the most important set of economic statistics, is scheduled to be released at 8:30 am Eastern Time.

Mots clés Technorati : American Economy,Employment,fvtaiwan

[Via http://financeroom.wordpress.com]

Fox News Scrubs 'Honest Injun' From Steele Transcript

Protect Gay Ugandans

2010-01-06T10:52:00.000+02:00

by Sarah Sloan

A recent article in The New York Times describes Ugandan efforts to make homosexuality punishable with hanging. The shocking thing about the news, indeed the point of the article, was that a year ago three American evangelical Christians had spoken to Ugandans about the threat of homosexuality. In so doing, they had helped fan the flames of the anti-gay fervor in Uganda. I was disgusted and horrified when I read the article. Something about Americans being involved, however tenuously, in such an egregious act of persecution made the Ugandan efforts seem much closer to home. It was appalling to think that such intense hatred could spread to the United States, could in fact originate in the United States.

But the more I think about it, the more I believe that attempts to legalize the hanging of homosexuals in Uganda should shock the conscience of the United States, and of the world, whether or not Americans encouraged the attempts. The bottom line is that Uganda is trying to blatantly persecute an entire group of people, and this action threatens not only homosexuals everywhere, but heterosexuals too. Because when the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are compromised.

[Via http://yjhr.wordpress.com]

President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department ...

Paul Rand Inc

2010-01-06T02:28:00.000+02:00

i found this pretty dope blog entry on my now new fav blog: amassblog.com

i’mma re-copy and paste it for your pleasure:

i receive lots of emails asking about paul rand. it seems many people want to know what it was like to have him as a teacher, or how many rand-designed items i have. like so many of his students, i have my own personal stories to tell. after leaving yale, I kept in touch with him and tried to visit often. the videos you see on youtube—or the interview with steve jobs about working with him—give a pretty accurate picture of what he was like. my association with him has engendered many stories. here is one. i once had the pleasure of interviewing withpeter arnell. this was in 1993 when he was still working with donna karan and i was an art director at bergdorf’s. (you may not know, but when apple did the “think different” campaign and chose paul rand as one of the featured artists, it was peter arnell’s photo they used. i have always disliked that he made money from that.) anyway, i walked into arnell’s office and sat down. he did not open my portfolio. he held up my resume and read it aloud. “so, you went to yale?” he asked. “i did,” i replied. “it doesn’t bother you that i went to princeton and my partner went to columbia?” “no,” i said, “not everyone gets into yale.” (i already figured I wasn’t getting the job.) “so you studied with paul rand?” ”i did.” “would he remember you?” “um, i guess. i would like to hope so.” at this point he yelled out to his assistant, “can you get paul rand on the phone?” ok. there is a first time for everything. the only thing going through my mind was what mr. rand could possibly say. and what if he didn’t remember me? although i was pretty sure he would. arnell put the phone on speaker and we listened together as it rang over and over. arnell was watching me the whole time. i remember this as if it were yesterday. finally the answering machine came on. arnell hung up without leaving a message. i wasn’t especially relieved, mostly just perplexed. what would he have asked him? we then proceeded to discuss rand and his work. what i liked about it, etc. the rest of the interview was pretty uneventful. for my follow-up to the interview, i sent arnell one of my prize rand books, “leaved canceled,” a book he designed in 1945 for knopf. i included a note of thanks and mentioned our shared enthusiasm for mr. rand. my southern roots expected some sort of response. it never came. mr rand touched many people, even someone like peter arnell. mr. rand’s business card sits framed on my shelf, like so many other things he designed. enjoy.

fyi: for privacy reasons the phone number was left incomplete

[Via http://smizz.wordpress.com]

AMERICAblog News: US tightens international flight security

Welcome to website “Foreign policy”!

2010-01-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

My new blogs:

“Amerika, velikaja i dalekaja…” with URL http://kotev.podbean.com/

“War Journalist`s Notes” with URL http://ngkotev.wordpress.com/

“Nikolaykotev`s Blog” with URL http://nikolaykotev.wordpress.com/

“Military Diplomacy” with URL http://nkotev.wordpress.com/

“World of Intelligence”with URl http://kotevnik.wordpress.com/

“War Photoblog – II” with URL http://nikkotev.wordpress.com/

“The Wars. Afghan…” with URL http://nikg.wordpress.com/

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History Websites Top 100 Military History

World Visitor Map

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Report: Brennan knew of underwear bombing technique - The Hill's ...

Unlearnt lessons of the Great Depression

2010-01-04T02:17:00.000+02:00

The problem is that there are several different lessons from the Great Depression. They are confusing when we conflate them. Especially in the US, the Great Depression is usually identified with the stock market crash of 1929. Economists have two simple macro-economic policy answers to that kind of collapse. The first is the lesson that John Maynard Keynes already taught in the 1930s – in the face of a collapse in private demand, there is a need for new public sector demand or for fiscal activism.

The second is the lesson above all drawn by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in the 1960s. In their view, the Depression was the result of the Fed’s policy failure in the aftermath of 1929. There was a massive monetary contraction, which was responsible for the severity of the downturn. In the future, central banks should commit themselves to providing extra liquidity in such cases.

A 1931-type event requires micro-economic restructuring, not macro-economic stimulus and liquidity provision. It cannot be imposed from above by an all-wise planner but requires many businesses and individuals to change behaviour. The improvement of regulation, while a good idea, is better suited to avoiding future crises than dealing with a catastrophe that has already occurred.

[Via http://lanle.wordpress.com]

Wednesday's College Basketball – Yahoo! Philippines News

It's a new year

2010-01-01T18:23:00.000+02:00

The turn of the year is generally a reflective time for me; and I’ve probably got more than usual to reflect on … though not yet for sharing …

Tony took me out to Cité, a 70th floor restaurant, for dinner (the tasteful sparkles above were scattered on our tablecloth), then we came home, watched the 8.15 fireworks (so thoughtful of Chicago to have an early sitting of New Year for those of us who’re no longer night owls …), watched an old Miss Marple, and went to bed … my perfect Hogmanay!

Today the plan had been to go out for a walk; but, despite the sunshine, it’s minus 12-ish out there … so we’ll maybe just sit indoors and watch the lake freeze over instead (below).

[Via http://softedges.wordpress.com]

The Jets Stream - NY Daily News

The book of hours, drunks and a decade gone by

2010-01-01T10:10:00.000+02:00

I have done my share of traveling in my 46 years and I am always amazed at how in different parts of the world the book of hours changes so radically….. and no, I am not speaking about the Catholic book of prayers….. This morning, as I took my dog, Lolita, out for our walk around 8AM I was not surprised to see people in the street coming back from celebrating New Year’s Eve, it happens on weekends too…. only the date was just different. In other parts of the world, 8:00AM is normally quite quiet, but not here in Spain. Many places begin to open at midnight and it is around 4:00 or 5:00 AM that the party really gets started….. At midnight, I was out on my deck seeing the incredible display of fireworks lighting the city and trying to take pictures with my phone as I could not find my camera and did not want to miss it. It did not matter where I looked, lights were everywhere and the joy could be felt in the air…… Spain is a vibrant country, the collective feelings of the country can be felt and seen no matter what part of Spain I am in……..

Were I in the United States, I recall the shouts of joy coming from the neighbor’s homes and teenagers driving around shouting ‘Happy New Year’…. Were in Mexico, I recall from my youth, loud music, firecrackers, cherry bombs blowing up in metal trash cans, laughter and occasionally a few shots fired into the air from somewhere nearby…… God forbade us from a lost bullet!…. By 3:00AM, the stillness began to crawl back into the city……. and all was quiet…….. just around 4:30AM…… too late for drunks and too early for decent people…. a lovely hour to go outside in my robe, take a deep breath of the crisp air and look at the stars…… and for just a few moments, dream…… and hold the world as it belonged to me……. the breeze moving the tree branches, the sky which seemed I could pierce with my fingers, the occasional tomcat or a far away dog barking at some imaginary ghost.

In the quietness of the park, with a cold wind on my back, I kept a close eye on Lolita as she played…. people were hurrying to their homes after a night of celebrating, many of them with the silly look of drunkenness.. yes, the one that makes women think they are the center of attention and men irresistible… from the early morning cup of coffee perspective, it is quite funny to see actually…..crossing the threshold can make us do and say funny things but then again there are a few – like in every part of the world- who are aggressive, mean, belligerent and nasty…… A very nice looking older gentleman, obviously on his way somewhere was being harassed by a young man who was yelling, kicking whatever crossed his path and taking the trash bags out of the bins in the park spreading the garbage with his kicks…. Not a good way to either end his celebration, nor to start his new year and a new decade….. Yet, gratefully the spectacle was broken by a group of young people returning home singing and laughing still filled with the joy of celebrating a new day, a new year, a new decade… friendship, family, life……. I could not help but smile and become a part of their jovial happiness.

Ten years ago, I was in mid thirties wearing a size 6 dress and thinking I was fat. I had a 13 year old girl who skateboarded ….mortified she had acne. I had an 11 year old boy who still participated in the school’s talent show singing songs from some pop music boy group. I was constantly calling my psychotherapist with some existential crisis, I was longing to travel, trying to figure out who I was, had so much to prove…. would hide my smoking from my husband by spraying perfume in my mouth -French mind you-….. I would get upset and drive down to the mall calling the saleswoman at Sak’s Fifth Avenue or Ann Taylor to put something together for me because I had an important meeting to attend to -whether I did or not, its irrelevant-, baked cookies and treats for my children, was into preparing extravagant meals for my family and of course, feeling I could take on the world……..

A decade later……… I am back to a size 6 not because of a diet, but the stresses I have put my body under and not everything is where it was, but I have grown to love my body, my wrinkles, my gray hairs and yes the passing of time. Now, I have an extraordinary young woman for a daughter. One that amazes me with her beauty, growth and self-assurance. I have a son who has taught me more than I could ever learn on my own about the power of change and a very talented DJ who has me dancing to the beat of Drum and Bass music. I do not call my psychotherapist anymore except to say ‘hi, how are you doing?’ just to stay in touch -I am still as crazy as I ever was- I have travelled, figured out who I was on my own, done more than I thought I wanted to do.. no longer hide my smoking but still wear French perfume. I no longer shop at those expensive stores for I am quite comfortable with the look I have developed on my own and not what fashion dictates and as for meetings? I stick to my 12 step ones…… the other ones for whatever reason…. unless they are with people I really enjoy around, I do not care much for……

In the decade gone by, I lost my father, my grandfather, my grandmother, my father in law, my mother in law, my sister-in-law, my best friend and a few others…….yet, I gained a beautiful man in my daughter’s life, a loving supportive woman in my son’s life, nephews, my faith, and a glimpse into the wisdom imparted to me by many who crossed my path…. In the decade that begins now….. grandchildren are coming my way, new stories will be woven, new adventures undertaken and dreams that might or might not come true……. In the decade that now begins, I stand here at the threshold looking with excitement at what awaits me ahead……………. and I cannot wait to take the first step.

Peace and all good.

[Via http://peregrinamom.wordpress.com]

Touching Base - NY Daily News

Paul Craig Roberts: Israel Rules

2009-12-30T09:06:00.000+02:00

By Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, Dec 29, 2009

On Christmas eve when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, the New York Times delivered forth a call for war. “There’s only one way to stop Iran,” declared Alan J. Kuperman, and that is “military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Kuperman is described as the “director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin,” but his Christmas eve call to war relies on disinformation and contradiction, not on objective scholarly analysis.

For example, Kuperman contradicts the unanimous report of America’s 16 intelligence agencies, the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Russian intelligence with his claim that Iran has a nuclear weapon program. Astonishingly, it does not occur to Kuperman that readers might wonder how an academic bureaucrat in Austin, Texas, has better information than these authorities.

Kuperman is so determined to damn President Obama’s plan to have other countries enrich Iran’s uranium for Iran’s nuclear energy program and medical isotopes that Kuperman commits astounding blunders. After claiming that Iran has a “bomb program,” Kuperman claims that “Iran’s uranium contains impurities” and that Ahmadinejad’s threat “to enrich uranium domestically to the 20 percent level . . . is a bluff, because even if Iran could further enrich its impure uranium, it lacks the capacity to fabricate the uranium into fuel elements.”

What was the New York Times op ed editor thinking when he approved Kuperman’s article? Iran, Kuperman writes, needs “90 percent enriched uranium” to have weapons-grade material, but cannot reach 20 percent or even make fuel elements for its nuclear energy. So, how is Iran going to produce a bomb? Yet, Kuperman writes that “we have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.”

It could not be made any clearer that, as with the US invasion of Iraq, a military attack on Iran has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. An “Iranian nuke” is just another canard behind which hides an undeclared agenda.

One wonders about Kuperman’s non-proliferation credentials. How does a wanton military attack on a country encourage non-proliferation? Aren’t America’s bullying, threats and acts of war more likely to encourage countries to seek nuclear weapons?

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United States has wars ongoing in Iraq where the ancient Chaldean Christian community was destroyed–not by Saddam Hussein but by the neoconservatives’ illegal invasion of Iraq–in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yeman, and Sudan. The US initiated a war, which it lost, between its puppet ruler in the former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia.

The US, the world’s greatest supporter of terrorism, is the main financier of terrorist groups that stage attacks within Iran, and US money succeeded in financing protests against President Ahmadinejad’s re-election and in dividing the ruling Islamic clerics. It was American money, weapons, and diplomatic cover that enabled the Israeli war crimes against the Lebanese people during 2006 and against Palestinian civilians in Gaza during 2008-2009, crimes documented in the Goldstone Report.

Iran has never interfered in US internal affairs, but the US has a long record of interfering in Iranian affairs. In 1953 the US overthrew Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq and installed a puppet who tortured Iranians who desired political independence.

Despite this and other American offenses against Iran, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed Iran’s interest to be on friendly terms with the United States, only to be repeatedly rebuffed. The US wants war with Iran in order to expand US world hegemony.

One might expect a non-proliferation expert to take history into account, but Kuperman fails to do so. Kuperman also has nothing to say about Israel’s, India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Unlike Iran, none of these countries are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, India, and Pakistan all developed their nuclear weapons in secret, and many experts believe Israel had American help, an act of treason. All three countries have been rewarded by Washington despite their perfidy. Why is Kuperman concerned about Iran, which submits to the IAEA inspections, but is unconcerned with Israel, a country that has never permitted a single inspection?

The answer is that the Israel Lobby, the US military-security complex, and the “Christian” Zionists have succeeded in demonizing Iran. Every real expert knows that an Iranian nuclear weapon would have no function other than deterring an attack on Iran. Ever since the US lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons, after using them offensively and pointlessly against a defeated Japan, nuclear weapons have served no purpose other than deterrence.

The US has no conflicting economic interests with Iran. Iran is simply a supplier of oil, an important one. A US attack on Iran, such as the one advocated by Kuperman, would most likely shut down oil flows to the West through the Strait of Hormuz. This might benefit refiners, who sell gasoline to the West and could charge enormous prices, but no one else would benefit.

Adding to the war cry are congregations of fake Christians. A great number of them, organized by someone’s money under the banner, “Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-free Iran,” has written to Congress demanding sanctions against Iran that amount to an act of war. The roll call http://www.clnfi.org/ includes the “Christian” Zionist John Hagee, who, according to reports, denigrates Jesus Christ and preaches to his illiterate congregation that it is God’s will for Americans to fight and die for Israel, the oppressor of the Palestinian people.

Among the signatories of the “Christians” demanding an act of war against Iran, are Dr. Pat Robertson, president of Christian Broadcasting Network, Nixon-era criminal Chuck Colson, and Richard Land, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention. Obviously, for southern baptists ethics means murdering Islamists, and religious liberty excludes everyone but “Christian” Zionists.

It is a simple matter for an educated person to make fools of these morons who profess to be Christians. However, these morons have vast constituencies numbering in the tens of millions of Americans. There are, in fact, more of them than there are intelligent, informed, moral, and real Christian Americans.

The votes of the morons will prevail.

In the second decade of the 21st century, America’s Zionist wars against Islam will expand. America’s wars in behalf of Israel’s territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America. The Treasury’s bonds to finance the US government’s enormous deficits will lack for buyers. Therefore, the bonds will be monetized by the Federal Reserve. The result will be rising rates of inflation. The inflation will destroy the dollar as world reserve currency, and the US will no longer be able to pay for its imports. Shortages will appear, including food and gasoline, and “Superpower America” will find itself pressed to the wall as a third world country unable to pay its debts.

America has been brought low, both morally and economically, by its obeisance to the Israel Lobby. Even Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States and Governor of Georgia recently had to apologize to the Israel Lobby for his honest criticisms of Israel’s inhumane treatment of the occupied Palestinians in order for his grandson to be able to run for a seat in the Georgia state senate. http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri12252009.html

This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys who really runs “their” country.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

Tyra Banks Announces End of Daytime Talk Show | Fancast News

Aching

2009-12-30T02:30:00.000+02:00

Just got back from the basketball courts where I suffered a two game dismal loss to Speedy Gonzales;

Indeed I thought I was good at basketball, however now I must re-evaluate. The last two days have been somewhat of a start to a new healthy, fit way, though it is quite possible I may not walk the next few days due to the fact my muscles are aching and as tight as blood brothers!

Remember “Pain is temporary, film is forever…”

Until then…

Miss D

[Via http://labloggy.wordpress.com]

Peter Orszag to Wed ABC News Reporter - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

AVATAR 3D

2009-12-28T18:33:00.000+02:00

Avatar imdb`s

Ameerika ühendriigid

2009

lavastaja James Cameron

osades Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang jt.

Kuna iidne filmiblogimisvanasõna ütleb “vana aasta sees vaadatud filmidest tuleb rääkida vana aasta sees, muidu keegi enam su blogis ei kommenteeri ja päevas tuleb 100 külastajat vähem”, siis peaks ka rääkima paar sõna revolutsioonide revolutsioonist Avatarist. Kuna midagi uut kirjutada pole ja teravat ka ei viitsi punnitada, siis teeme lühidalt:

Mis toimus?

“Kurjad” ehk suurkorporatsioonid ja Ameerika sõdurid tahavad väärtusliku energiaallika kaevandamise eesmärgil vallutada “häid” ehk pärismaalasi (kelle poolele asuvad hiljem ka teadlased). Et oma eesmärki saavutada ründavad sõjaväelased ühte püha puud, kuid sellest ei piisa ja nad peavad veel ühte püha puud ründama. Tore, et James Cameronil ikka ideid jätkus. Väidetavalt pidid filmile ka järjed tulema- huvitav, kas ka nendes kogu möll toimub puude ründamise ümber? Samal ajal avastab halvatud sõdur Jake, et avatari ehk suurt sinist na`vit juhtides saab ta jälle joosta, seksida ja hullata ning armub jäägitult pärismaalaste džungliellu. Loodus võidab tehnika, smurfid inimesed, armastus vihkamise, põiki sarvega ninasarvik roboti, lohe helikopteri ja nii edasi.

Mis ei meeldinud:

Põhimõtteliselt kõik, mis polnud filmi visuaalse küljega seotud, oli ikka piinlikult halb ja klišeedest kubisev. Huvitav, kas kõik tegelased ja tegevustik kirjutati seepärast nii must-valgeks ja lihtsaks lastefilmiks, et inimene ei peaks filmi vältel kordagi mõtlema ja saaks rahulikult neoonsele pildile keskenduda? Ju vist.

Mis meeldis?

Kuigi film oli vahepeal oma enda ilusse ära armunud, siis vaieldamatult on tegu suurteosega. Nii reaalselt liikuvaid ja perfektselt välja joonistatud miimikaga olendeid pole IT-osakonnad filmidesse veel sokutanud. Ja loodus, kus kõik asjad olid tehtud lihtsalt neoonseks ja suureks oli ka ilus. Vägev värk ühesõnaga.

Samas oli selles kõiges midagi nii revolutsioonilist, et paneks mind antud filmi uuesti vaatama? Vaevalt küll.

[Via http://filmifriik.wordpress.com]

AMERICAblog News: In Iran, as government shoots protesters ...

Fee or no Fee?

2009-12-28T02:08:00.000+02:00

So, we know that my relationships with the institution – whether that be the University/academy, or the school, or the gallery/museum, or the family, ect – are rocky, and often precarious.

No matter what I do, I always seem to be screwed by them.

Take the place where I study. I love SHU. I think it’s great. Contemporary Fine Art at SHU is one of the best courses you could ever go on. For a number of reasons. You are taught to be self-motivated, to develope a practice and not just simply a portfolio or a piece of work, you have time and the space (mentally) to develop into the artist that you want to be. The staff, of course, are just simply fantastic; and the community of students are the least competitive and the most supportive that I have ever seen in terms of an art course.

However, the pure beurocracy of the institution limits the greatness of what SHU could be. (An ironic statement since their wanna be – business – savy talk, and plans, and wanna be materialistic and capitalistic endeavors actually hinders their positive attributes!)

As part of my course I had to undertake a work placement/internship/work experience for 12 weeks. This could be taken at any time between the summer/september and to be completed by the end of January 2010. I asked the student finance how to fill out my loan request form for tuition fees in my last academic year. They said tick these boxes (placement) and this one for one semester (university). So my LEA decided that I only had to pay half of the tuition fees because I am in actuality not in college. I am in a different country, working for free, NOT in the university.

I enrolled (after many problems – of course – more beurocracy) and as I enrolled it said: You will may £3,700. Alarm bells started to ring. My LEA loan form told me they were only going to pay the semester that I was at college. surely this was a mistake on the behalf of SHU? I rang some people in the university – They told me that they’d call me back… then never did.

I went to America, had an amazing time.

When I arrived in the USA. My editor tells me that my college had never tried to contact him before my arrival. This was embarrassing on my behalf. It looks unprofessional, and certainly makes me look foolish. I didn’t appericate this. It also told me that the university didn’t actually care about my personal welfare. I just took a plane to Chicago, and no one checked to see whether there really was an office, or whether one would be insured. An act of gross misconduct if they want to be professional and business like!

So, I grit my teeth and shake it off. What did I really expect from SHU? I had contact with a member of staff 2 times via email and skype (the latter to make sure i was still alive i suspect). after 4 awesome months, I arrive back home to a bill for £1,6315 of tuition fees for the 1st semester that I wasn’t there for?

Thanks SHU!

I go to college the next available working day and ask to clarify a few things.

Here’s my case:

I was in a different country
I never had any classes, lessons, no staff contact, no use of facilities, the institution couldn’t even be arsed to check on the place I was going.
the placement takes a semester up in time
the placement was unpaid
There was no exchange, thus no one was using those facilities instead of me?
they could, of course, argue that I was using the SHU name for my placement – but to validate that excuse I believe that they should have checked-in in Chicago.

Erm, so why do I have to pay tuition fees for that semester? For January onward I have no problems with? I thought I paid tuition for well… it’s the name TUTITION FEE?

Clearly we are laboring under some misapprehension?

I went to Student Finance, they were equally confused. The woman rings another woman up – she doesn’t use my name – she refers to my student number throughout the whole conversation.

There the cold, unearthly realization hits me hard. I always moan – yeah we’re just numbers. But there it was, in the thick of my fincial crisis. I am being refered to 106.

“1-0-6 says that they got it in the post” the woman continues. I am – ultimately – just a number! Another pay cheque, another profit. Another student through the system who will cough up 1 and half grand of cash with no university support to show for it?

She gets off the phone, ” it’s not a finance thing” she replies handing me back the BILL, ” See your faculty”

So I go to call the Faculty. It’s rare for someone to meet the administration staff , poor folks are always the first to get students like me bitchin’ at them for the university beurocracy and lack of communications between departments (i hope they get my fee in their wage package) – i feel like i am on Deal or no Deal. The woman is the banker.

She tells me to go to the Finance department, I tell her i’ve been there and they told me to call her. She is now also confused. She tells me she will enquire and call me back.

45 minutes later, i was the belief it was going to be another non-call back, there was my New York Shit by Busta-rhymes ring tone.

Before I answered i KNEW that the answer was that I was to pay the money because, well they wouldn’t have called me back otherwise.

They tell me MOST of the people she has asked say I should pay it because it’s a modual component thus, i have to pay for it. Hmmm I think, isn’t computer science, architecture, engineering all compulsory modual components? yes. But this is art, and well – the institution definitely would like to make an extra buck. She tells me I NEED to tell my LEA to pay the other tution fees.

How do I do this when they, like most people, think i shouldn’t have to pay it by their classifications. PlACEment in a different country does indeed equal no teaching?!

Should be a fun phone call.

This of course comes at a time where the government wants to make courses 2 years long, instead of 3, raise tuition fees and get rid of maintenance grants all at the detriment of education. Of course, this will reflect in years to come with a badly educated workforce and a classist system whereby only the middle class rich kids can afford to go to university, and receive a 2 year mediocre course in what typically should take even 4-5 years of studying to truly get to know the subject matter personally and intelligently with integrity and passion.

my irony continues, as I have discovered by writing this that i actually can’t spell tutition ! Thanks spell checker!?

But in conclusion, what do I know? I’m just a working class kid that has somewhat beat the system thus far by the skin of my teeth, to be caught out on the worst area to caught out on for me – MONEY!

Stubborn in my ways, one will have to call the LEA but I am still very convinced that this should not be the case.

Yeah, Sarah Smizz is back with the blogging.

HOLLA!

[Via http://smizz.wordpress.com]

Obama "Likely" to Speak About Flight 253 - Political Punch

Finnair Debuts New Business Class Product

2009-12-25T09:55:00.000+02:00

Finnair has taken delivery of its fifth Airbus A330-300 aircraft this week. The jet, registered OH-LTR, is fitted with the airline’s new Business Class product featuring shell seats and a new layout that allows Finnair to increase seat capacity, yet offer passengers greater privacy.

45 of the Contour Vantage seats are now available on each flight, with 90% providing direct aisle access. For the first time on Finnair, each seat reclines into a full-flat bed and offers greater storage space for carry-on luggage and clothing, in addition to amenities found on the existing Recaro angled lie-flat seats fitted to its first 4 A330s and A340 fleet. The airline has also set aside a third of the seats as single units without another seat beside it, which is expected to be popular with business travellers.

Finnair will be progressively introducing the new product to the rest of its long-haul fleet. The airline’s 2-class A330s are fitted with 42/45 Business Class and 229 Economy Class seats and currently fly on the airline’s long-haul routes from Helsinki to Delhi, Nagoya, New York and Seoul.

For more information, visit www.finnair.com.

[Via http://travelwerke.wordpress.com]

updating news - Hot Scripts Forums

Senate health bill creates new insurance program

2009-12-23T10:36:00.000+02:00

NEWS

Senate health bill creates new insurance program

Reporting by Donna Smith; Editing by Bill Trott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new government insurance program that would help the elderly and disabled stay in their homes is headed for passage in the U.S. Senate’s sweeping healthcare revamp despite doubts about its viability and cost.

Barack Obama | Healthcare Reform

The measure has not received the intense scrutiny focused on a proposed government-run medical coverage plan, which has been jettisoned from the Senate’s healthcare bill and is unlikely to be restored in final legislation.

But the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which was championed by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, is a significant program that supporters say is long overdue and critics say could add to the federal treasury’s long-term debt problems.

“If the CLASS Act becomes law, the federal taxpayer is at very serious risk of paying the price to clean up the fiscal disaster when the CLASS Act fails,” Republican Senator Charles Grassley said in a Senate speech on Tuesday.

Backers said the bill would allow disabled people to stay in their homes and out of institutional care.

It also could save states billions of dollars in the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor, which provides long-term institutional care for the disabled poor typically at much higher cost than supporting them to stay in their homes.

“We think CLASS is one of the real transformational items in the (healthcare reform) bill,” said Larry Minnix, chief executive at the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. He said the cost to states to provide long-term care for their elderly and disabled through Medicaid will skyrocket during the next 10 to 15 years without the new program.

The insurance is voluntary and would provide a cash benefit to participants if they become unable to perform at least two activities of daily life, such as dressing and bathing.

Under the Senate proposal, workers pay a monthly premium to buy coverage, probably through their employer. They would have to pay into the program for at least five years before qualifying for benefits.

PART-TIME HELP

The benefit would be at least $50 a day and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimates the cost of pending legislation, assumed it would provide about $75 a day.

Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says that would be enough to hire a nurse for a few hours to help a disabled person get ready for work or to give a break to someone who is caring for an elderly parent or disabled family member.

Harkin said it was Kennedy’s wish that the measure be included in the sweeping healthcare overhaul that the Senate is expected to pass on Christmas Eve.

The measure is supported by dozens of healthcare groups and stands a good chance of being part of a final healthcare bill that goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. But a number of analysts have voiced concern about whether the program would be financially sound over the long run.

“I think there is a significant risk it won’t work,” said Allen Schmitz, an actuary with Milliman Inc, a global consulting firm. With an initial monthly premium that one estimate said could be as high as $240, few healthy people would choose to purchase the insurance and that could undermine the financial stability of the program, he said.

“They are creating a new government program that everyone concedes is clearly unsustainable,” said Dennis Smith, a healthcare reform analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The insurance program would not screen people the way private insurers do. For that reason the program is likely to attract mostly those who will need some sort of long-term care, eventually undermining its financial health, he said.

The CBO said in its analyses that the program initially would raise enough money to reduce the federal deficit by $72 billion in the first 10 years, with about $2 billion of that attributed to savings in Medicaid, which provides long-term institutional care for the disabled poor.

Premium income would continue to help reduce federal deficits in the second decade. But after that it would begin to add to deficits as benefit payments exceeded premium income and any savings to the Medicaid program, CBO said without providing specific numbers.

A similar provision was included in the healthcare overhaul passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in November. The House calls for a more expansive program than the Senate. The Senate would make the program available to active workers while the House would allow non-working spouses to join as well.

The two chambers would have to work out their differences before a final bill can be delivered to Obama.

[Via http://dominicstoughton.wordpress.com]

News from around the state « New Mexico Independent

Home for people

2009-12-23T02:40:00.000+02:00

By the end of 2008, slightly more than nine percent of all mortgages in the US were either delinquent or in foreclosure, this according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. A total of 8.1 million US homes, or 16 percent of all households with mortgages, could fall into foreclosure by 2012, this according to a report by Credit Suisse.

As people were getting thrown out of their homes across the country, and in the absence of any real government action thus far, some are taking action on the local level. The community organizing group ACORN recently unveiled a campaign in at least twenty-two cities to help homeowners resist foreclosure evictions. Meanwhile, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America is busing homeowners facing foreclosure to the homes of chief executives of financial institutions to protest outside.

Sheriffs in some places have also taken a stand. In Wayne County in Michigan, Sheriff Warren Evans suspended all evictions starting February 2nd, until the federal government implements a plan to help homeowners facing foreclosures.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign recently revealed to the media its long-running project moving homeless people into many of the foreclosed and vacant homes in Minneapolis’s North and South Side. They’re also seeking a city moratorium on foreclosures, short sales and evictions.

CHERI HONKALA: We’ve begun to do a variety of things. One is that on March 11th we are organizing folks across the Twin Cities, and we’re going to stop sheriff sales on March 11th by going in and holding sit-ins over and over again to stop the sheriff sales.

The other thing that we’re doing is that we’re putting homeless people with vacant properties. So, any of the homes that have already been foreclosed on, that are sitting there vacant, we’re moving homeless families into them.

And then we’re also organizing what’s called emergency response teams as a part of the Underground Railroad project. And we’re going in and remaining with families that are in the final stages of foreclosure and saying that we’re not going to leave. We’re asking for a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and sheriff sales, until we can deal with this serious affordable housing crisis in our country.

DWAYNE CUNNINGHAM: Well, it’s like this. I’ve been homeless for a while, so I’m just going to cut this short. But the home I just was blessed with by the homeless association, I couldn’t have got no better, because I’m outside of the cold, and being in the cold is not that nice. And trying to get in to talk to landowners or people who may foreclose their own homes, I can’t get in no doors. I have no numbers. I can’t get no door. So the best number I have and the best door I can walk through is this door right here.

DWAYNE CUNNINGHAM: Well, say, for instance, she heard about me and my plight, as far as my situation. And I have an injury I sustained back in June. I met Cheri through my wife and through another associate, a relative of mine. And ever since I met her, she’s been like a guardian angel over me and my wife, so, yeah, I’ve become like family to her. We’re like family.

So, whatever she’s on, I know it’s got to be something positive, because there’s not been one person that came to her I ain’t seen her—I have never seen her turn away no one. So, this is the truth, you know. I don’t know what you’re looking for, you know. I don’t know what the people are looking for, but this is the truth. Why you’ve got all these people out here homeless, and you’ve got all these homes, south and north, south and north. I’m talking about more homes than there is people homeless. And you still—this is—it’s red tape. So she’s cutting the red tape. That’s the way I look at it.

CHERI HONKALA: Yeah. One of the things is that Dwayne and his wife were not allowed to be vouchered into appropriate facilities. They both have very serious healthcare issues, and for insurance reasons, you know, the shelter just basically told me, you know, “Cheri, this is not an appropriate place for them to be at.” So, we didn’t think living in their car was an appropriate place for two people that have serious medical issues to be staying. So that’s why we thought they were an important candidate for one of our takeover houses.

CHERI HONKALA: Well, I mean, so far, in the thirteen houses that we have, there was only one house that we were kicked out of. But as Dwayne was saying, there’s plenty of them. So, you know, with thousands of empty properties, it was easy just to take that family and re-move them into another abandoned house. So, unless the police department starts to, you know, put police officers in front of every abandoned property, we’re OK.

The one property that folks were kicked out of, were only kicked out of there because we had a, you know, overactive cowboy police department at that particular property. But other than that, the police know that there’s more important things that they need to be doing, like dealing with murders and drug issues and all of those kinds of things.

And people, quite frankly, are sick of having empty houses next to them, that are then used for drug houses and those kinds of things. So, you know, we’re about the business of bringing the neighbors back into the neighborhood, as opposed to throwing them out onto the streets.

I’m standing trial against Housing and Urban Development, because during the Republican National Convention, the head of HUD here, the director, promised that he would meet with hundreds of families across the state of Minnesota to hear their foreclosure stories and to, you know, listen to the troubles that they’re dealing with. And right before the Republican convention, he went back on that commitment. So we organized a bunch of folks to bring them down to their office during public hours in a public building, and instead, they had us met by Homeland Security, and myself and another member, Deeq Abdi, were arrested and charged with trespassing. So we go to trial on that on March 9th. And the director of HUD has been subpoenaed in the case.

AMY GOODMAN: Overall, Cheri, you were homeless for years with your son. Can you talk about the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign that you started?

CHERI HONKALA: Yeah. Well, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is actually across the entire country. And one of the things that we do, and for people that are watching the show or listening today, is we teach people how to reclaim housing as a human right. We’ll teach you how to move into an abandoned government-owned property, to house families. We’ll teach you how to hold a sit-in, to hold a house that’s in the process of foreclosure. You know, we help people with food, with—that aren’t getting access to healthcare—all of the basic necessities of life.

It’s not enough to just try and change things in the halls of Congress, because people are dying today, the people that don’t have access to healthcare, the people that are going to freeze on the streets because they’re pushed out of their homes. And so, that’s why we have to take these immediate measures. We can’t just wait until perhaps some laws are changed in a year or two from now. You know, we’re going to lose people now. We’re going to lose them to our prison system, or worse, they’re going to die because they’re going to freeze to death on the streets, when we’ve got all these empty heated homes.

Discussion: Cheri Honkala, Dwayne Cunningham, Amy Goodman

Cheri Honkala, National Organizer with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. She grew up in Minneapolis and is based in Philadelphia.

Dwayne Cunningham, Recently moved into a vacant home under the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign home-takeover program.

- from democracynow

[Via http://jagadees.wordpress.com]

US economy, Obama's inauguration chosen 2009's top news stories in ...

China central banker says harder to buy U.S. Treasuries

2009-12-18T10:40:00.000+02:00

… on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.

He then addressed where demand for that debt would come from.

“The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries,” Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. “Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible.”

“The U.S. current account deficit is falling as residents’ savings increase, so its trade turnover is falling, which means the U.S. is supplying fewer dollars to the rest of the world,” he added.

“The world does not have so much money to buy more U.S. Treasuries.” (via China central banker says harder to buy U.S. Treasuries | Reuters).

Reuters slips in a dud

Interestingly, Reuters tried talking up the dollar by making out as though China was scrambling for dollars which were not available. Post the Lehman-collapse, after initial panic over the dollar has subsided – and most economies have continued on the dollar bearing – with a slight change in course. Unlike Britain (or most of Europe), US debt and deficit are still well within ‘reasonable’ limits.

Where did all this money go

Also, must be remembered, that most of this deficit and debt has been rung up for consolidating alliances and de-fanging potential adversaries (like China). For instance, in case of the USA,

The deficit for the fiscal year 2009 came in at more than $1.4 trillion-about 11.2 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That’s a bigger deficit than any seen in the past 60 years-only slightly larger in relative terms than the deficit in 1942 … having the fiscal policy of a world war, without the war … war in Afghanistan and Iraq … are trivial conflicts compared with the world wars.

According to the CBO’s … projections, (US) federal deficit will decline from 11.2 percent of GDP this year to 9.6 percent in 2010, 6.1 percent in 2011, and 3.7 percent in 2012 … (and) stay above 3 percent … Meanwhile, in dollar terms, the total debt held by the public (excluding government agencies, but including foreigners) rises from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $14.3 trillion in 2019-from 41 percent of GDP to 68 percent.

While the above picture is not rosy, it’s not a cause for alarm. For any peace-loving nation, that is. For the Empire of the USA, seeking to maintain its hegemony. This is a bad financial situation to be in.

If war is what USA wants!

[Via http://quicktake.wordpress.com]

Paradox Interactive acquires strategy developer AGEOD // News

The John Hancock Center - Chicago

2009-12-18T02:43:00.000+02:00

The Hancock Tower

The Hancock Center is one of my favourite buildings. I took this shot from Karen and Larry’s apartment on the 40th floor of 161 East Chicago and with a bit of Photoshop trickery pokery I managed to get the perspectives correct. The original was taken with an ultra wide angled lens so the building looked like it was tilting backwards and to the right. Photoshop is an incredible tool for correcting distortions or even for being creative.

[Via http://anthonyjstewart.wordpress.com]

News Corp. to Sell Subscriptions on Sony Reader - Bits Blog ...

Turn-key USA Property Investment

2009-12-16T10:48:00.000+02:00

Atlanta USA – New property for sale fully renovated & tenanted

Price $49,400 fully renovated & tenant in place- “Turn-key” investment requiring little input from the investor… full rental management included….

Large detached property in fantastic setting
Excellent middle class area
3 Beds, 2 bath (one en-suite)
House size = 1,460 sq.ft / Plot = 1/3 of an acre
Built in 1985
Current Value before renovation = $74,410
Property Tax = 2255 USD per year
Rental return = approx $800/month
Net Rental Return = 12.93%
Estimated market value after renovation $95,000
Images shown are pre-renovation. Read more….

[Via http://internationalhorizons.wordpress.com]

Surfing The Mets - NY Daily News

Yosemite Falls Black @ White Images

2009-12-16T02:16:00.000+02:00

Thank the heavens for the rain …. When Luke and I first turned up to Yosemite National Park it looked dry, very dry. Yosemite Falls was not flowing at all and the Merced River was very low. I think this was a monday, but the following day as we set up for the morning 6am shoot it started to rain and it never stopped till after 6pm that evening. We woke the following day to a national park transformed overnight. The Merced and the many creeks where running high and loud, Yosemite Falls was a completely different place with huge amounts of water coming over the falls. The parked looked greener and photo opportunities exploded …

Below is a shot of Yosemite Falls the morning after the rains.

Larger view is accessible by clicking the thumbnail preview below …

http://www.spoolphotography.com

[Via http://spoolphotography.wordpress.com]

A bit.ly of Interesting News

The Real Reason Behind The Copenhagen Walk-Out

2009-12-14T18:32:00.000+02:00

Developing countries have walked out on the Copenhagen climate talks, but one of the primary reasons as to why nations like China and India have boycotted the summit is being hidden by the corporate media – namely the fact that the negotiations were doomed once poorer countries learned of the globalist’s neo-colonial agenda as a result of the Danish text leak.

“Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation,” reports the BBC.

“Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol. As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted “We stand with Africa – Kyoto targets now”.

However, the media has completely failed to highlight the real reason behind the walk out – the fact that funds from climate financing, originally allocated to go to the UN and then be doled out piecemeal to third world nations, would instead be paid directly into the coffers of the World Bank and IMF, organizations that have made a habit out of looting poorer countries with crippling debts that cannot be paid back, forcing such countries to hand over their entire infrastructure to globalist loan sharks.

In the leaked Copenhagen text that emerged last week, leaders of third world countries were horrified to discover that developed nations would take on less of a burden than anticipated and that more would be demanded of poorer countries despite the fact that any further cuts in CO2 emissions would further cripple their flimsy economies and poverty-stricken people.

Billionaire elitist George Soros subsequently told Copenhagen delegates how poorer nations would be forced to take on what he described as “green loans” in the name of combating climate change, a policy that would land the already financially devastated third world with even more debt, payable to globalist institutions such as the IMF.

www.prisonplanet.com

[Via http://thedesso123.wordpress.com]

Dallas Cowboys Blog | Sports News | News for Dallas, Texas ...

Dissolution

2009-12-14T10:51:00.000+02:00

Amicable split completed

GE Intelligent Platforms to continue focus on software and services, control systems and embedded computing; FANUC to promote industry-leading CNC portfolio globally

GE and FANUC LTD have announced that the two companies have completed their agreement to dissolve the GE Fanuc Automation Corporation Joint Venture. This agreement reverts the respective portions of the joint venture back to the parent company and allows each company to focus on its existing businesses and pursue growth in its respective core industry of expertise. The two companies signed the final agreement on Friday 11th December 2009, in Chicago (US), and will now operate independently as GE Intelligent Platforms and FANUC LTD.

About FANUC

FANUC LTD, headquartered on the foot of Mt. Fuji, Japan, is the most diversified manufacturer of FA (Factory Automation), robots and Robomachines in the world. Since its inception in 1956, FANUC has contributed to the automation of machine tools as a pioneer in the development of computer numerical control equipments. FANUC technology has contributed to a worldwide manufacturing revolution, which evolved from the automation of a single piece of machine to the automation of entire production lines. FANUC develops better and more reliable products into the twenty-first century.

About GE Intelligent Platforms

GE Intelligent Platforms is an experienced high-performance technology company and a global provider of software, hardware, services, and expertise in automation and embedded computing. We offer a unique foundation of agile and reliable technology providing customers a sustainable advantage in the industries they serve, including energy, water, consumer packaged goods, government & defense, and telecommunications. GE Intelligent Platforms is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA and is part of GE Enterprise Solutions.

“Today begins the next phase in GE Intelligent Platforms’ focus to provide our customers with a sustainable advantage through industry-leading technology and the passion and expertise of our people,” said Maryrose Sylvester, President and CEO of GE Intelligent Platforms. “We will continue to invest in our product and solution platforms that allow our customers to compete and succeed in a challenging economy. In addition, we intend to utilize our world-class enterprise software as a platform for faster growth for the entire GE portfolio. ”

GE Intelligent Platforms continues to be a leading high-performance technology company that serves a vast array of industries around the world including government & defense, telecommunications, energy, water, transportation, and consumer packaged goods. The company delivers software and services, control systems, and embedded systems globally.

FANUC Honorary Chairman Dr. Seiuemon Inaba said, “Our joint venture has achieved great success in the computer numerical control (CNC) business. We have achieved many things together, but FANUC is now looking forward to focusing our efforts on our industry-leading CNC portfolio and the opportunities unique to our industry that will deliver great benefits to our customers.”

The two companies will continue to work together in a commercial relationship related to GE’s motion control and motor products with no interruption in supply of these components. In addition, GE intends to support its CNC customers in the Americas through its CNC services business.

Sylvester added, “We are truly grateful to Dr. Inaba and his team at FANUC for their partnership with GE over these past 20 years, and we wish them continued success in the future. We are confident that this change will allow both companies to serve our customers better as we continue to innovate and solve some of our customers’ toughest problems.”

[Via http://instrumentsignpost.wordpress.com]

Vanguard News Online

Blackwater ‘became an extension’ of the CIA: report

2009-12-11T10:28:00.000+02:00

By Raw Story, Thursday, December 10th, 2009

The role of Blackwater employees in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was so central to the US’s efforts that the lines between the controversial security contractor, the CIA and the military were effectively “blurred,” says a report in the New York Times.

During the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, Blackwater guards participated almost nightly in “snatch and grab” raids on suspected militants, the Times reported in a story published late Thursday.

The company’s cooperation in top-secret CIA operations “illuminate[s] a far deeper relationship between the spy agency and the private security company than government officials have previously acknowledged,” the Times reports.

“Blackwater’s partnership with the CIA has been enormously profitable for the North Carolina-based company, and became even closer after several top agency officials joined Blackwater.”

“It became a very brotherly relationship,” an unnamed “former top CIA officer” told the Times. “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.”

From the Times article:

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in an interview that “the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined.” While he declined to comment on specific operations, Mr. Holt said that the use of contractors in such operations “got way out of hand. It’s been very troubling to a lot of people.”

Over the course of the past year, information has been slowly leaking out about Blackwater’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the broader war on terrorism. Allegations have emerged that the Bush administration hired Blackwater to run elements of its “extraordinary rendition” program, which saw terrorism suspects kidnapped and taken to countries where they could be tortured.

Following the revelation last summer of a secret “CIA hit squad” that targeted high-value terrorists for assassination, allegations emerged that the government had outsourced parts of that program to Blackwater, a move some critics have described as “unconstitutional.”

And an investigative report from The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill revealed last month that the Obama administration is using Blackwater in a program to assassinate terrorist targets in Pakistan.

With a slew of bad news about his company emerging almost weekly in the press, Blackwater founder and chairman Erik Prince revealed last week that he plans to retire from the company. Prince said he wants to teach high school.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

Breaking news: Nokia closing two Flagship stores in New York and ...

«Viva Palestine» raise money for suicide bombers and Hamas in the US

2009-12-11T02:02:00.000+02:00

The Viva Palestina USA group do not only raise support for the population of Gaza, but for its Hamas rulers as well.

Brad Sherman ring the alarm bell on American money being collected to support Islamic suicide bombers.

This is the claim from Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) in a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder. The Attorney General is being urged to launch an investigation into whether or not a new pro-Palestinian charity is raising funds on American university campuses that will eventually end up in Hamas’ pockets.

Sherman noted that Viva Palestina USA was founded by British lawmaker George Galloway, and was modeled after his British-based charity Viva Palestina.

In their first visit to Gaza in March, Galloway and other Viva Palestina representatives gave medical supplies to Gaza hospitals, but also met with and voiced their support for Hamas leaders. According to a report at the time, Galloway held up a bag of cash, declared that it was not charity, but politics, and handed it to Hamas officials.

When Viva Palestina USA first visited Gaza several months later, it avoided outright political statements, but Sherman and other pro-Israel figures in the US insist the spirit and intentions remain the same.

If true, that could cause legal problems for the group, which started raising fund on the campus of the University of California, Irvine during the summer. It if a federal crime to raise money in the US that may end up in the hands of recognized terror groups.

Source: Israeli magazine, Israel Today.

[Via http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com]

R&D Tax Credit change can benefit developers - Sheridans // News

Landon Donovan loaned to Everton

2009-12-09T18:38:00.000+02:00

The Internet is ablaze with the news that LA Galaxy midfielder and US National Team star Landon Donovan has finalized a loan deal sending him to Everton in the Barclay’s Premier League.

The rumors of the move first surfaced yesterday. The BBC is reporting today that the move is in the final stages of closing. MLS has yet to make an announcement or comment on the move, possibly because it has not been 100% finalized. The loan is reportedly for three months, beginning when the January transfer window opens. This will allow Donovan to return to the Galaxy for the start of the 2010 MLS season.

Many USMNT fans, myself included, would like to see the loan extend through the remainder of the EPL season, but given Bruce Arena’s comments at the end of the MLS season, that is unlikely. The Galaxy will already be without David Beckham through the end of the World Cup, provided Beckham makes the England squad. The chances the Galaxy want to play half a season without their captain and top ticket draw when Beckham is already out are slim to none. Recent reports have slim leaving town on the next bus.

[Via http://captainpositive.wordpress.com]

Havok launches independent developer program // News

Obama expands war into Pakistan

2009-12-09T10:13:00.000+02:00

Barry Grey, wsws.org, Dec 9, 2009

One week ago, President Obama in a speech at West Point sought to portray his escalation of the war in Afghanistan as the prelude to an early withdrawal of US troops. It has since become increasingly apparent that the speech was nothing more than a calculated exercise in public deception.

The speech was crafted to chloroform the public, the better to defy and disorient mass popular opposition to the war.

Continues >>

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

UK charts: MW2 top, Tony Hawk tanks News | Eurogamer

Writing Supplies in Germany and the USA

2009-12-07T10:45:00.000+02:00

I’m American, but I go to school in Germany, and I’ve noticed a few differences in writing supplies between the two countries.

All through high school, I wrote my class notes in cheap spiral notebooks from Target, you know the type, with college-ruled paper. I didn’t bring any with me to Germany, because I figured, cheap notebooks must be available everywhere! And, sure, they are. But not college ruled. I found only two kinds of notebooks at Marktkauf, the German equivalent of a Wal-Mart or Target: lined notebooks with paper closer to what we call wide-ruled, and notebooks with squared paper. Nothing college-ruled in sight! I chose squared paper, because I have small handwriting, and I have to say, I now actually prefer to write on squared paper. The lines are more my size than even college-ruled paper.

After some discussion with a German friend, we figured out a theory as to why college-ruled paper doesn’t exist in Germany: students are taught to write with fountain pens. I had never in my life used a fountain pen; in America, there are artsy, old-fashioned, or elite people who might use them, but we use cheap ballpoint pens, or pens with gel inks or whatever (or pencils, but I’ll get to that in a minute), not fountain pens. The vast majority of Americans (myself included at that point) would have no idea how to use a fountain pen, but for a German student, it’s normal. They all have correcting ink for when they make a mistake with fountain pens, too! To my German friend, it was unthinkable that one would turn in any sort of official assignment written with the kind of pen that comes in a package of twenty for less than three dollars at any discount store–or, God forbid, written in pencil!

They even write math in ink, and when I did find some pencils at a stationary store in Germany (a chain called McPaper, for some reason), none had erasers. None. Okay, maybe one over on the end, but 99% did not have erasers. In America, fancy artist pencils may not have erasers, but those that the average person writes down grocery lists or scribbles calculations with certainly do! Again, I turned to my German friend, who said : “Why would those pencils have erasers? Pencils with erasers are for children.” Which, in my opinion, is a really interesting statement. It says that in the German mindset, they can’t admit to the fact that they might make mistakes and have to correct something. They do have erasers, separate from the pencils, but those are not so readily available: those do not have the reminder that one might make a mistake staring you in the face as you write. I guess. Apparently, admitting that we’re all human and make mistakes is not the German thing to do.

I still don’t know why squared paper is a normal writing paper in Germany, though. I guess because schoolchildren use it a lot, definitely because it’s easier to do math on, and possibly the teaching of handwriting is made easier on squared paper, the same way we use paper with a dotted line between every two solid lines to teach handwriting in the States.

It’s interesting–something I always thought was universal, stationary, turned out to be far from that!

[Via http://writersxblock.wordpress.com]

Organizing for America | OFA Blog: Morning News

SNL Tiger Woods And Elin Woods Skit

2009-12-07T02:12:00.000+02:00

Saturday Night Live presented a hilarious sketch lampooning the ”trangressions” that Tiger Woods admitted to,right before his wife beat him down with an iron golf club.

In the skit posted here, actor Jason Sudeikis portrayed Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “Situation Room” reporting on a news conference that Woods (played by Kenan Thompson) and his wife (played by host Blake Lively) were holding outside his home.

What happens next is truly a funny take on this sordid affair. That is what comedy is for.

The writers have actually created a skit that Kenan is funny in, and attempts to portray a different character, outside of the same one he always does.Maybe this is the beginning of funny stuff for Kenan to finally be able to do on this show.

Leave it to the comedians at SNL to bring humor to a heavy subject. Keep up the good work guys,I enjoyed the laugh…

SNL Tiger Woods Skit

If the You tube clip is deleted for copyright issues,then check out the skit attached to the article on the link below…

http://www.examiner.com/x-32213-Memphis-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m12d6-SNL-Tiger-Woods-skit-See-Saturday-Night-Live-skit-here-video

[Via http://jerrybrice.wordpress.com]

Steam News

No Way Out

2009-12-04T10:42:00.000+02:00

No Way Out

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

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Protest started oct 5th

Sign Petition by one click at http://act.ly/t4

.

.

.

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No Way Out

.

.

who should we turn to?

United Nations?

all they did was to empty their seats when tyrant was speaking!

who should we turn to?

United States?

USA has enough trouble and can’t solve his own problems!

who should we turn to?

God?

he was, is & will be with tyrant!

who should we turn to?

Israel?

today Russia & China are waiting to crush Israel!

No Way Out.

[Via http://iranvote.wordpress.com]

PlayReplay inks W!Games deal // News

Seti@Home Leads To $1 Million Loss For School?

2009-12-04T01:56:00.000+02:00

Talk about really wanting to find E.T.

A network systems administrator for the Higley Unified School District has resigned after it was discovered he had deployed Seti@Home on more than 5000 computers.

What’s Seti@home? Why, only the first distributed computing project that used the unused power of individual computers to chug through data received from the Arecibo Observatory! Basically, the project scans the skies for signals from E.T. All that scanning creates data, and this stuff has to be analyzed to see if there are any signals.

In order to foster more adoption, the Seti@Home guys put ranking in place, so people would have bragging rights and create an element of competition.

And this guy really took up to it:

[Higley superintendent Denise] Birdwell said the massive software slowed down educational programs in every classroom and cost the district more than $1 million in added utility fees and computer replacement parts.

Apparently, the alien-seeking software had been running since Niesluchowski was hired nearly 10 years ago.

“Basically our processors were hooked up and running 24 hours a day, 12 months a year, every day of the school year,” Birdwell said.

It took them 10 years to figure this out? Forget intelligent life in space; what about intelligent life closer to home?

There is–supposedly–more to this story, apparently.

Links to same stories covered here and here.

[Via http://datasecurityguy.wordpress.com]

Gran Turismo 5 demo dated News | PS3 | Eurogamer

Obama orders more troops to Afghanistan

2009-12-02T10:45:00.000+02:00

After ordering 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, US president Barack Obama warned that his country would begin to withdraw its military forces by 2011. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Deployed as quickly as possible, those soldiers will bring the US troop strength in Afghanistan to more that 100,000.

Calling for more allied troops, Obama said the world security is at stake.

He added that the mission in Afghanistan is to defeat al-Qaeda, reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny them the ability to overthrow the government.

The deployment decision followed more than three months of deliberations and 10 top-level meetings between president Obama and advisers.

Obama’s speech was welcomed by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan,who said he had been given “a clear military mission” and the necessary resources.

Although some 32,000 foreign troops are serving in Afghanistan, Nato allies have been cautious about contributing further forces.

Yet Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s Secretary General, said he was confident 5,000 extra troops could be found.

The Afghan government also welcomed the decision.

However there is concern that putting a date on a US withdrawal sends the wrong signal, says the BBC’s Ian Pannell in Kabul.

According to him it risks giving encouragement to the Taliban. Furthermore, most Afghans do not want more troops but direct talking to the insurgents to end the conflict.

There were three major points in Obama’s speech. The president celebrated the US as a nation “founded in resistance to oppression” and talked about its long record of sacrifice in “advancing frontiers of human liberty.”

Then he promised an “effective partnership” with Pakistan, warning that the US could not “tolerate a safe haven for terrorists.”

Citing repeatedly the poor economy, he also explained that the estimated cost ($30bn for the military this year) was a factor in his deliberations.

‘Vital national interest’

Obama’s speech was delivered to cadets at the West Point military academy in New York, and nationally televised. (photo, from nytimes.com)

The US president stressed that his country was in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on America by al-Qaeda militants. He said that their Taliban allies had “begun to take control over swathes of Afghanistan” while committing “devastating acts of terrorism” against Pakistan.

He added that US forces lacked “the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population”.

“I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan,” he told the cadets.

“After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

Domestic opposition to the eight-year-old war has been increased by the rising violence, more than 900 US soldiers died in Afghanistan, and August’s discredited presidential elections.

Urging the Americans not the see the conflict as a new Vietnam war, president Obama said he was aware of the gravity of his decision to send extra troops.

He said that America was backed by a “broad coalition of 43 nations” and was not facing a “broad-based popular insurgency”.

“Most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border,” the US leader added.

He said the US would take the Iraq experience as its model for withdrawal.

“Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.“

Though he pledged to continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s security forces, he warned : “It will be clear to the Afghan government – and, more importantly, to the Afghan people – that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.

“The days of providing a blank cheque are over,” he added.

During his speech, the US president also outlined other priorities, such as enhancing the country’s domestic security, preventing nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists and forging better ties with the Muslim world.

Allies help

The BBC’s Matthew Price says that the White House wants to convey that this is Barack Obama’s war and he is clear about the aims he wants to achieve.

“What’s at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world,” said the US president, calling on America’s allies to boost their troop commitment.

UK prime minister Gordon Brown welcomed the US pledge saying “I call on all our allies to unite behind President Obama’s strategy.

“Britain will continue to play its full part in persuading other countries to offer troops to the Afghanistan campaign,” Mr Brown said. The day before, London confirmed it was sending 500 more troops, taking the UK’s total deployment to 10,000.

Although French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered full support to Mr Obama’s strategy and called it “courageous”, France earlier ruled out deploying more combat soldiers, though it might send military trainers.

Italy said it will also increase its force, but without saying by how much.

Germany has said it will wait until after a 28 January conference in London on Afghanistan before deciding on any troop increases.

[Via http://babs22.wordpress.com]

Mr. Murdoch (and the Rest of News Corp.) Go to Washington | Peter ...

D.U.T.C.H.

2009-12-02T02:44:00.000+02:00

Hello,

Tonight President Obama gave a speech, addressing cadets at the USMA at West Point, NY. The focal point of the speech was the war in Afghanistan and the future of American plans for the region. It is no secret that part of the world is one of the most precarious places to fight and practice politics. Nations throughout history have come to Afghanistan only to meet defeat at the hands of the locals. From Alexander the Great, who conquered the known classical world, to the massive Red Army of the Soviet Union, tried to submit the Afghans to foreign rule. The terrain, and culture when clashed with an invading nation’s tactics proved fatal to all who have tried. The Soviets used some of the most aggressive and inhumane tactics to eliminate the Mujahadeen threat to their operations in Afghanistan, only to strengthen the opposition.

The mountains and caves of Afghanistan provide an insurmountable natural barrier to any army that may face them. Nuclear blasts could not topple the refuges the enemy takes from Coalition forces when night comes. Afghans do not like to fight at night. Just like any other place on Earth, money dictates the reason d’etre in Afghanistan. The cash crop of the local economy is opium, which is made into heroin, morphine and other narcotics. Money from drug sales finances Taliban and Al Qaida operations in that region, with everyone having their price. In effect, we are buying the Taliban off, not to fight us. We are not going to win a fair fight with anyone in Afghanistan. The Soviets tried chemical weapons and that didn’t work. The true strategy would be to deny the enemy any ground in their operating areas. Mines, reconaissance, UAV drones, bribes won’t do the job by themselves. Unconventional weapons, unfortunately, have the moxy to rid the mountains of the Taliban, but at a substantial cost to everyone in the region. (See Chernobyl).

Not only can we not win in Afghanistan with things as they are, the situation in Pakistan is much more dire. The Pakistani government has nuclear weapons. Islamabad is very close, about 80 miles, to the border with Afghanistan. Many in Pakistan see the US as an enemy due to the Bush administration’s support of the Musharraf regime, which persecuted many in tribal areas. The average Madras in Pakistan teaches Muslim children conservative Islamic values which can be exploited for use by any extremist group in the area. The real scary part is if a patient, Pakistani mal-content gets his/her hands on a bomb and gives it to Al Qaida. Though the probability is rare, it could happen. Did I mention that U.S. Predator and Reaper drone are just blasting the hell out of things in Pakistan’s tribal areas? Yes, the CIA is at it again and has been for years. The thought of the CIA doing anything besides playing Risk scares me, after reading “Legacy of Ashes”.

The heart of the matter and what disappoints me the most is how the United States cannot afford this war right now. I believe war to be the worst way to solve a problem Sun Tzu often suggested diplomacy and reason over a fight, but if you have to fight… On 9/11/2001 the U.S. had no choice but to fight. Al Qaida called us out onto the mat and we had to respond. The lawlessness of Afghanistan in the regime set up by the Taliban fostered an environment acclimate to Al Qaida’s activities. Activities, which could not be held without notice in other nations. Without going in to the mis-deeds of the previous administration, the U.S. made it’s point and there are now bigger fish to fry.

The American people have been under an economic siege, without respite for close to two years. Lives all across the nation have been changed for the worst, whole states have gone bankrupt, while those responsible receive bailouts and are living as things have not changed. Courtesy of you and me. AIG, Goldman Sachs, Chrysler, GM all received money when there was none to be had. Many said the Obama administration just printed more, under the direction of a Treasury Secretary that can’t even pay his own taxes. Many in the Obama administration are wayward with taxes and the IRS, a luxury not afforded to the unwashed masses. The President can legally send troops abroad without the consent of Congress, but only they can approve the necessary spending for such deployments.

Where is Congress going to get the money? First they’ll gut an already anorexic health care bill, after that, a “war tax” on all of those who make more than $30,000.00 per year. So, in addition to the tax money we are already paying, we will have to pay more. Please tell me if I am wrong in my thinking. If that is the case, I see the TEA party becoming the next political party in the United States. The one thing the Obama administration has tried to accomplish for the good of the people is about to be eclipsed by the act of sending 30,000 more troops to fight a pointless war. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers stand to die for an 18-month stand in the face of Al Qaida and where is the logic? Obama’s action proves his lack of skill and understanding in this area. Military operations hardly go according to plan, and telling the enemy when you plan to withdraw only makes them wait until that date. In the words of an Australian serviceman in Afghanistan, the decision reflects a D.U.T.C.H. spin on the whole war and where to go.

D.U.T.C.H. ~ Don’t Understand The Circumstances Here … and not the people of that delightful European nation.

I like President Obama and if I did not, I would want him to succeed in his efforts. His successes are our successes, but this will not be one of them. I don’t know if his decision to proceed with more forces in Afghanistan was made out of consensus among his staff, or by himself, but someone needs to read up on their history there. History has a tendency of repeating itself.

Thanks!

[Via http://apoliticum.wordpress.com]

This Just In: Chelsea's Getting Married - The World Newser

Islamophobic Swiss Vote To Ban Minarets On Mosque

2009-11-30T10:35:00.000+02:00

Minarets (Turkish: minare,[1] from Arabic manāra (lighthouse) منارة, usually مئذنة) are distinctive architectural features of Islamic mosques. Minarets are generally tall spires with onion-shaped or conical crowns, usually either free-standing or taller than any associated support structure, states a source from Wikipedia …http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret

The main function of the minaret is to provide a vantage point from which the call to prayer (adhan) is made. Call to prayer in Islam happens five times each day, and is a very important ritual required of all who practice Islam.

Voters in Switzerland chose to take a step in the direction of Nazi Germany, and collectively decided to restrict and to persecute Islam and the religious practices required by those who are Islamic.

The BBC is reporting from Geneva,Switzerland that in a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country’s reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government.

Swiss voters’ clear decision on Sunday to ban the construction of minarets has generated a wide range of emotions,supporters of the initiative said the Swiss electorate wanted to put a brake on the Islamization of their country, whereas opponents were concerned about the violation of rights, not to mention an international backlash and possible boycott of Swiss products.

Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure – we don’t have that in Switzerland and we don’t want to introduce it,” said Ulrich Schlüer, co-president of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets.

Amnesty International has expressed deep regret over the Swiss voters’ approval of a ban on minarets, calling it a violation of religious freedom for Muslims.

“The ‘yes’ vote comes as a surprise and a great disappointment,” David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International’s deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia, said on Monday.

The Swiss Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the rightist Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., and a small religious party had proposed inserting a single sentence banning the construction of minarets, leading to the referendum.

The Swiss government said it would respect the vote and sought to reassure the Muslim population — mostly immigrants from other parts of Europe, like Kosovo and Turkey — that the minaret ban was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.”

The president of the People’s Party, Toni Brunner, said voters had clearly rejected the idea of parallel societies and the further expansion of Islam – including radical, political Islam – in Switzerland.

Saida Keller-Messahli, president of the Forum for an Advanced Islam, said the public’s fears had been too great and “hatred had won over reason”.

She said there would now be legal consequences, since the ban violated the freedom of religion.

The Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland also regretted the result, saying the propaganda of the campaign supporters had succeeded in frightening the majority of voters.

The federation said it was too soon to judge the negative social and legal consequences – what was important now was to strengthen their public relations and clear up any misunderstandings or prejudices concerning Islam.

“Switzerland has lost,” said Rifa’at Lenzin from the European Project for Interreligious Learning in Zürich, adding that the country was “leading the way” for Islamophobia.

“Switzerland is heading straight for a battle with Islam,” he said, adding that he feared a boycott of Swiss products.

The ban on minarets’ violates the right of Muslims to manifest their religion in Switzerland, and is incompatible with the international conventions signed by the European country.

It is to note that this is similar to the way that Nazi Germany, under the rule of Hitler, was able to gradually assert their main agenda, which was to exterminate the Jewish religion and all those who practice it.

It appears as though the Islamic citizens of Switzerland need to prepare for similar treatment, and mounting restrictions on the practice of their religion.

Swiss Ban Minarets,and restrict the practice of Islam

Let’s never have this disgrace ever happen in the United States of America….Shame on Switzerland.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=112489§ionid=351020606

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/29/swiss-ban-minarets-in-sur_n_373172.html

[Via http://jerrybrice.wordpress.com]

Reese Witherspoon Photos & Pics | BREAKING NEWS - Reese ...

Iraq Inquiry: Fourth Day of Public Hearings, with Greenstock, 27th November 2009

2009-11-30T02:19:00.000+02:00

Original Home Page

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Comment at end

3oth November, 2009

Iraq Inquiry: 4th day of public hearings with Greenstock

By Julie

This post, like the – 1st Day and the 2nd Day and the 3rd Day comes with my grateful thanks to Julie here

Also see Iraq Inquiry timetable of hearings, who and when

These are the most significant quotes from the fourth session of the Iraq Inquiry

You can read the full transcript of the morning session here

————————————-

4th day of public hearings

27th November 2009: Morning session: Evidence by

Sir Jeremy Greenstock (from 1998 until July 2003)

Greenstock:

“By the beginning of 2001, which, of course, was also the moment when the new American administration came on the scene, the containment of Iraq was flawed and was regarded by everybody as flawed, by those who thought the sanctions regime should be maintained and by those who thought that the sanctions regime should not be maintained.”

“I don’t think there was a single member of the Security Council who believed that Iraq was trying honestly and honourably to meet Security Council conditions. I don’t think there was a single member of Security Council, throughout my period there, who supported Saddam Hussein or Iraq. I don’t think there was a single member of the Security Council who believed that Iraq was innocent, was not plotting to develop military capability, was not defying United Nations, was not cheating on sanctions.”

“The United Kingdom had a different approach from the United States, to the extent that we believed that action on or against Iraq should be unequivocally collective, that it had to be based on Security Council Resolutions, that it had, if at all possible, to avoid the use of force, but also that it had to be effective, that it had to remove nationally any threat which Saddam Hussein and his regime might pose to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, and collectively would remove the defiance by Iraq of the United Nations Resolutions.”

“It wasn’t until the Crawford meeting in April 2002 that I realised that the United Kingdom was being drawn into quite a different sort of discussion”

“The Secretary General, Kofi Annan, took it upon himself to have his own bilateral discussions with the Iraqis, which happened, I think, first of all in March and extended through to about July, because, as I understand it, he, himself, was worried that unless the UN effort on maintaining the sanctions regime and the other UN measures on Iraq was more successful, the United States might have a valid reason, in politics at least, if not in Security Council Resolution terms, to take another route, and so he took his own initiative as a mission of good offices, which the Secretary General can perform, to see whether there was more room to persuade the Iraqis that the inspectors should return. So he went through those discussions, which the US looked upon as a side issue, not likely to produce any good results, up until July, when I think Secretary General Annan decided not least on the basis of his past experience in dealing with the Iraqis, that he was being led down a track and he gave up those discussions in July.”

“After the resolution was adopted, things began to drift in two directions; that the US and the UK took the terms of 1441 absolutely literally, which is the fair and just thing to do with a resolution that takes on the force of a legal declaration, whereas the French and others interpreted the resolution as meaning that there was scope for the Security Council to meet, and, if the Security Council met, under normal Security Council practice, since the Security Council was responsible for international peace and security, only the Security Council should take a decision on whether or not force should be used.”

“It was the point of view of the United Kingdom that the use of force could not be justified unless every other avenue had been tried to bring Iraq into compliance.”

“There was, as part of the lead up to the negotiation of 1441, the idea that there should be a pair of resolutions, not a single one in 1441 that should have the inspectors’ conditions in one part and in the second resolution the consequences for Iraq on what would happen if they didn’t comply with the first one. There was the possibility of passing those resolutions either together and simultaneously or sequentially in time. As it happened, in 1441 we built those two elements into a single text and it was successfully negotiated and passed unanimously on 8 November as a single text.”

“We felt that with 1441 that was sufficient legal cover so long as it was made clear that Saddam Hussein was not cooperating under the operative paragraph number 2 of 1441 that give him a final chance to show that he was cooperating. That was our criterion.”

“It was actually quite surprising to me that only the Mexican delegation said unequivocally that they expected that, if it came to the use of force, it would be solely the Security Council that had the authority to take that decision.”

“President Chirac said at some point, I think in the summer of 2002 to President Bush, as I saw in other papers, that France believed that Saddam Hussein was developing biological and chemical materials.”

(Referring to WMDs) “I don’t believe that even Moscow could say, “We are sure there are none.”

(On whether there is a smoking gun or not) “That wasn’t where I came from. I thought there was something there. I actually still believe there is something there, but it is a question of what that something is now.”

“Before the war actually started, the Iraqi Air Force buried a number of Russian jets in the sand, which overhead telemetry didn’t notice them doing. It was only when the wind blew the sand away from those jets that the tails stuck out of the sand and we discovered that they had buried some aircraft. If they can get away with burying aircraft in the sand, they are going to be quite good at burying much smaller things in the sand.”

(On national interests) “I do not have firsthand evidence of that, but I was very well aware of, from reading other people’s reports, that this might well be a factor because the Russian and French debt from Iraq, the Iraqi debt to those two nations, was in many billions of dollars resulting from the Iran/Iraq war purchases and they wanted sanctions to be lifted so they could get some of their money back.”

“In my personal contact with my colleagues at the United Nations, I understood that the UK had been given a good deal of credit for trying diplomacy up to the last minute, in spite of the noises off, and there is something bigger than all of that: in the fact that the United Kingdom was part of this military operation, that the United States was not completely alone, we ensured whether it was intentional or not, but this was the effect that the international community, the Security Council, the members of the United Nations, remained able to talk to each other after this had all blown up in our faces, when, if the United States had gone about this operation unilaterally, solely, there would have been a huge division between the United States and the rest of the international community.”

“It was certainly my view at the time, whether it remains my view now, that the containment of Iraq through United Nations’ measures would progressively have continued to erode and the smuggling capabilities and the smuggling results in terms of Iraq’s wish to increase its military and economic capacity, would have been disadvantageous for UK national interests in the Middle East and internationally.”

“The United Nations is a forum of its member states, it is not a separate agency to deal with something, and there is no doubt that the United Nations, over 12 years, failed to deal with the fact that they were being defied by Saddam Hussein. That aspect of the formation of UK policy, I think, has to be remembered, that we were trying to defend the United Nations from being eroded by successful noncompliance by a member state just as much as we were trying to deal with the threat posed by the Iraqi possession of dangerous weapons, and that is a consideration that should come into your discussions.”

Important exchanges:

PRASHAR: “You referred earlier the use of the word “legitimate”, can you unpack that for me a little as to what you mean by the word “legitimate” in terms of justifying war? It is really that I would like some explanation of that. “

GREENSTOCK: In international law there is no Supreme Court. It is up to a nation state to make its own national decision as to whether to adhere to the judgments of the International Court of Justice or not. Iraq was not a treaty based member of the International Court of Justice, so that didn’t come into it, probably, in our consideration of what we were doing with Iraq. But short of that, it is possible to have a firm legal opinion on the legality of action under the UN charter for a particular operation. But it is also possible for there to be many different legal opinions as to what is actually legal without having an apex arbiter of what is legal or what is not. So we are still in the position, even now in 2009, of having legal opinions out there that say that what we did in March 2003 was legal and what we did in March 2003 was illegal, and except as a matter of opinion, you can’t establish in law which of those two opinions are right finally and conclusively. When you get to legitimacy, it is a very fair way of describing that if you have got broad opinion behind you, broad, reasonable opinion behind you, you are doing something that is defensible in a democratic environment. To some extent, the United Nations is a democratic environment. It is a forum of equal states equally signed up by treaty to the United Nations Charter, and each of those states have an opinion. If you do something internationally that the majority of UN member states think is wrong or illegitimate or politically unjustifiable, you are taking a risk in my view, and increasingly and I think one of the lessons you may want to look at as an Inquiry is on the importance of legitimacy in geopolitical affairs nowadays. I regarded our invasion of Iraq our participation in the military action against Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn’t have the democratically observable backing of a great majority of member states or even perhaps of a majority of people inside the United Kingdom. So there was a failure to establish legitimacy, although I think we successfully established legality in the Security Council in the United Nations for both our actions in December 1998 and our actions in March 2003 to the degree at least that we were never challenged in the Security Council or in the International Court of Justice, for those actions.”

PRASHAR: “Just one question before we break up, on the weapons of mass destruction and the question of disarmament, were there differing views within the Security Council? I mean, did anybody challenge the fact that the Saddam had weapons of mass destruction during this period that we have been discussing?”

GREENSTOCK: “No colleague on the Security Council ever came up to me at any point and said, “You are barking up the wrong tree. You are hopelessly on the wrong track here, because we know that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction”. No member of the Security Council, not Hans Blix, not Mohammed ElBaradei, nobody, said to the United Kingdom, and I don’t believe they said to the United States, “We know that the Iraqi Government has no weapons of mass destruction.”

GREENSTOCK: “Actually, if you look at the wording of 1441, it comes very close to being a report of a material breach.”

CHAIRMAN: “Both before and after the “and”.

GREENSTOCK: “Because the declaration was clearly inadequate. Even with hindsight, that declaration is inadequate, and they were not cooperating fully, completely, finally: material breach.”

[Via http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com]

Dallas Stars Blog | Sports News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas ...

Porque é tão importante o combate e a dissiminação de medo relativo ao aumento de CO2?

2009-11-27T18:47:00.000+02:00

Esta pequena entrada é só para dizer que toda esta imensa preocupação em fazer passar a mensagem que o aumento de CO2 é mau e negativo para a vida na terra (o que é FALSO), tem tudo a ver com dois simples pormenores que se encontram em todos os projectos da Nova (Des)Ordem Mundial.

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people.”

Henry Kissinger

1º Controlo dos povos e controlo do número de seres humanos na terra, por isso o combate ao CO2 é tão importante para estes senhores, é que como se sabe o aumento de CO2 melhora e muito a produção de alimentos o que vai frontalmente contra o Controlo Populacional defendido há muito tempo e sobre o qual o assassino Kissinger escreveu no famoso memorando, NSSM 200.

The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 “to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population.” The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since “a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production.” The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, “might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West,” especially effecting “military strength and security.”

NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 “key countries” in which the United States had a “special political and strategic interest”: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome, since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.

(…)

There were several measures that Kissinger advocated to deal with this alleged threat, most prominently, birth control and related population-reduction programs. He also warned that “population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline,” even if such measures were adopted.

A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: “There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.”

[via http://www.schillerinstitute.org/food_for_peace/kiss_nssm_jb_1995.html]

Mais uma vez se demonstra que o problema deste planeta, continua a ser o Império Britânico que na realidade nunca terminou, apenas se expandiu, tornando-se no Império Anglo-Americano, mas com sede em Londres, contráriamente ao que se poderia pensar.

Uma pequena dica sobre este último parágrafo, porque razão acham que em Londres existe um Obelisco, com duas Esfinges de cada lado?

Londres

Egipto

2º Em todos estes projectos da elite oligarca, do poder/Governo sombra, para além de de nos quererem destruir, matar e escravizar os restantes, existe algo que lhes é comum, os OBSCENOS LUCROS que esta corja realiza com eles.

Dois exemplos paradigmáticos são a actual histeria à volta da gripe AH1N1 e os LUCROS avultadissimos que a oligarquia tem realizado com todo este esquema de medo.

E claro o chamado ‘Aquecimento Global’ e o tal combate ao CO2, onde mais uma vez já começam a aparecer os milionários, como é o caso do mentiroso patológico Al Gore, bem como George Soros entre outros, inclusive o vencedor do Prémio Nobel da Paz deste ano, o fantoche mor Obama.

No artigo de hoje do Mitos Climáticos têm lá uma tabela dos patrocínios aos ‘cientistas’ que defendem estas teses do ‘Aquecimento Global’.

E claro por cá também temos os defensores, os esbirros, destes senhores e destas políticas.

Por último apenas uma indicação para um livro interessante, “A Century of War” de F. William Engdahl que habitualmente escreve para o site Global Research, aconselho sem dúvida a leitura deste artigo sobre o Cofre das Sementes de Svalbard.[em protuguês]

The Three Pillars of the British Empire

Geopolitical history for the last 100 years was shaped around the quest for what Big Oil acolyte Daniel Yergin called “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power” with two countries at its epicenter – first Britain and now America with its UK junior partner that built its rule on three essential pillars:

– controlling the seas and setting the terms of trade;

– dominating world banking and manipulating the world’s largest gold supply; and

– controlling world raw materials with oil the key one at the turn of the century; with these working, it devised an “informal empire” to loot world wealth and maintain a balance of power on the continent.

Britain’s “genius” was being able to shift alliances without letting sentiment interfere with its interests. Post-Waterloo, it operated “on an extremely sophisticated marriage between top (London) bankers and financiers, government cabinet ministers,” key industrialists and espionage chiefs. By keeping everything secret, it “wielded immense power over credulous and unsuspecting foreign economies.” By the late 19th century, however, things began to change, and a new strategy was needed. Key to it was oil geopolitics as a vital naval supremacy ingredient.

[via http://www.populistamerica.com/century_of_war]

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[Via http://ovigia.wordpress.com]

News Dissector Blog » Blog Archive » Financial Crisis Update ...

Recap

2009-11-27T10:44:00.000+02:00

So, despite my suspicions about how the Iraq war inquiry will eventually end, I will admit watching the proceedings is fairly interesting, even if it mostly reaffirms what we have heard from other quarters. There have been some surprises, but not many. Anyway, an overview:

The USA was making noises about invasion as far back as 2001, though it varied as to how seriously these claims were made and taken by various officials.

9/11 sounded a death knell for the policy of containment and the ascendency of Iraq war hawks in the Bush administration.

The British foreign policy establishment were initially wary of such attitudes, because of the legal status of such a war (in the words of Sir William Patey “we dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law”).

Blair’s attitude began to shift in early 2002, though there is no agreement over whether this was due to the Crawford ranch meeting or not. Sir Peter Ricketts, chairmain of JIC, claims that up until March 2002 there was “no increased appetite” among ministers for regime change via invasion.

MI6 dismissed the claim of links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. There was no evidence of any serious cooperation.

Iran, Libya, North Korea and the continuing war in Afghanistan were considered to be more serious concerns to British security.

Intelligence concerning WMD wasn’t as coherent on the likelihood of a threat as was claimed to be. In the words of Sir William Ehrman, earlier intelligence about Hussein’s WMDs and missiles was “sporadic and patchy”. This contrasts with Blair’s claims that intelligence assessments had established “beyond a doubt” that Saddam had such programs underway.

Tim Dowse, head of counter-proliferation at the FCO was certain WMD would be found.

The 45 minutes claim, as well as that of “mass evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories” were not supported by the evidence.

UNSC Resolution 1441 was designed as a trip-wire to justify a war.

Weapons inspections were not given time to work

There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss in detail, but that will have to wait for another post. In the meantime, there is always the Iraq Inquiry Digest, if you want more.

[Via http://nationalinsecurity.wordpress.com]

Perez Hilton: Ed Begley, Jr. Freaks Out On Fox News!

USA: Islamización de las escuelas americanas

2009-11-25T10:48:00.000+02:00

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 7/4/06) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called for stepped up outreach efforts by the Muslim community in Maine after a severed pig’s head was thrown into one of that state’s mosques during prayers. CAIR said the frozen pig’s head was rolled into the Lewiston Auburn Islamic Center late Monday as worshipers bowed in prayer. The Washington-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said the use of pigs or pork products is a favorite theme of Islamophobic bigots who wish to attack or insult Muslims. Muslims are prohibited from eating pork. LINK

LEWISTON — A national Muslim civil rights organization TERRORIST FRONT GROUP has filed a formal request with the Lewiston School Department to allow a middle school student to pray on school property. The group also wants Lewiston to modify existing policy and provide “constitutionally protected religious accommodation,” such as a designated prayer room.

El gran error de los islamístas es que son racístas. Ellos se creen que Europa y América fueron poderosas solamente por la gente (étnia) que las poblaron. Entonces razonan: si les implantamos el Islam, éste será poderoso y dominará al mundo. Ésto es equivocado, Europa y América fueron grandes por la doctrina que impulsó a la gente, por sus ideales, por su filosofía.

Si se reprimen estas raíces y se reemplazan por el Islam, las etnias europeas no seran muy diferentes que las árabes y ambos continentes se transformaran en páramos, salvajes , rebeldes violentos, sometidos a la explosión demografica y al analfabetísmo y con ciudadanos destinados a trabajar como0 esclavos y no llegar a la ancianidad.

Si a los europeos se les asesinan sus raíces ideologicas, entonces Europa y America habrán muerto, el Islam no se puede injertar en ellos, no puede convivir con otra filosofía, no es asimilable y sus resultados en las sociedades estan a la vista, basta con recorrer los países islamicos y ver como viven, producen, crean, investigan,progresan. Si no fuera por el petroleo y los intereses economicos de Occidente no tendrían ni siquiera ciudades sino tiendas y poblados.

[Via http://yahel.wordpress.com]

The official news that News Corp and Microsoft are in talks. Or ...

Asphalt Graffiti

2009-11-25T02:47:00.000+02:00

Figured I’d post about my paying job for a minute. I’m sure you’ve all seen these markings on either sidewalks or raodways and wondered WTF are these? They are often seen in different colors but the more prominant ones are; Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and often inside a marked area in White. The paint itself is not permanent and will eventually fade.

Each color identifies a utility; Electrical, Gas, Potable Water, Sewer/Storm line respectively. Most people who mark are minimalists and some get real technical using industry abbrev. that identify material, size and even depth. Pretty straight forward stuff for excavation work. So that “Joe Dirt” doesn’t sever your power, water and poop water leaving you a caveman/woman/family for several hours eating cold Ligo sardines and rice, which is pretty damn tasty.

The industry mantra is “Call before you dig” meaning all proposed excavations must be called into USA North, a third party that sends out notifications to agencies and operators of a proposed project. Each operator/agency is required to locate and mark their particular utility within the proposed work area marked in white with the words USA. Mark’em if you gottem!

Obviously roadways and sidewalks can get pretty colorful if it’s a large project, which can really piss off some of the residents in my municipality. Often times they don’t care to know what they are for, despite every attempt to explain their importance so their services won’t be affected by “Joe Dirt” wanking on the heavy equipment joystick. “I don’t like how it looks”, “can’t you use a more subdued color that matches the roadway?”, how long will I have to look at it?”, I have visitors coming from out of town and this is not acceptable”, “can’t you write smaller?” “I’m calling the police as I consider this graffiti, what is your name?”…Donald “effen” Duck ma’m. O_o

Graffiti you say!? I may just have to keep practicing my handstyle. Montana paint, anyone?

[Via http://malayadesigns.wordpress.com]

HP announces 4Q profits, and the news is good

Afghanistan Contractors Outnumber Troops

2009-11-23T10:48:00.000+02:00

Even as U.S. troops surge to new highs in Afghanistan they are outnumbered by military contractors working alongside them, according to a Defense Department census due to be distributed to Congress — illustrating how hard it is for the U.S. to wean itself from the large numbers of war-zone contractors that proved controversial in Iraq.

The number of military contractors in Afghanistan rose to almost 74,000 by June 30, far outnumbering the roughly 58,000 U.S. soldiers on the ground at that point. As the military force in Afghanistan grows further, to a planned 68,000 by the end of the year, the Defense Department expects the ranks of contractors to increase more.

online.wsj.com

[Via http://thedesso123.wordpress.com]

Felix Salmon » Blog Archive » Annals of news-burying, Overstock ...

Hickoree's Hard Goods - Toiletries

2009-11-23T02:45:00.000+02:00

The guys from The Hill-Side, who make some incredible ties, handkerchiefs, and many more accessories, have started Hickoree’s Hard Goods. A mercantile of sorts with everything you could ever want…besides the dream girl, porsche, and stretch of land.

I’ll be posting some great articles from the vault up here as they come along, also check out the lads at The Pop Up Flea this weekend for all you New Yorkers, the stock is going fast. Support some home grown companies!

[Via http://drinkinanddronin.wordpress.com]

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