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Monday
Nov142011
Brian Montopoli - Poll: Americans' views on foreign policy
November 14, 2011 |
By Brian Montopoli |
Entries by Gary Null (624)
November 14, 2011 Friday
Nov112011
Gwynne Dyer - Iran -- Here We Go Again?
November 11, 2011 Published on Thursday, November 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/10-0
by Gwynne Dyer
“We will not build two (nuclear) bombs in the face of (America’s) 20,000,” said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency report this week that accuses Iran of doing just that. He called Yukiya Amano, the head of the IAEA, a US puppet, saying: “This person does not publish a report about America and its allies' nuclear arsenals.”
Well, that’s true, actually. Amano will never publish a report about America’s nuclear weapons (only 5,133 of them now, actually). He hasn’t said anything about Israel’s, Britain’s and France’s weapons of mass destruction either. And his report is largely based on information fed to him by Western intelligence agencies.
But apart from that, Amano is as impartial and free from US influence as you would expect a career Japanese diplomat to be. Only cynical people will see any resemblance to Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations in 2003, when the US defense secretary held up a test tube and assured us all that Iraq really was working on germ warfare.
Thursday
Nov102011
Jill Sobule & John Doe - Occupy Wall Street Protest Song "Under the Bridge"
November 10, 2011 Jill: I had just heard from another (former working musician) friend that had recently been fired from their job and was having a hell of time finding another. They were at the end of their rope -- having to move back in with the parents. I joked that they had spent a ton of dough in the past trying to have some sort of homeless hipster look, but now they really were. In "Under the Bridge" I imagined an "Our Man Godfrey" hobo town filled with destitute artists, students, and working class stiffs banding together. I wrote this with my songwriting partner, Robin Eaton, and put it on a live fan-funded record with the fabulous John Doe (of X and Knitters fame). To all the good folks pitching tents at OWS, this one's for you. I support you, hope you keep warm this winter, and ask you to keep a spot open in your tent for me.
John Doe: There would be no Day at the Pass record if it weren't for "Under the Bridge"! Jill called me up and said, "I found a guitar and wrote a song with the tuning it was in." The poor guitar had no name, only five strings and I believe it was tuned to open F or C. She said the song was about people who lost their middle management jobs and are going to end up learning how to cook mulligan stew with their college degrees. Anyone can tell that it was a song that just popped out fully formed, all inspiration, I don't think she had to edit it at all. It's turned out to be very prophetic since there are Occupy camps all over the world these days. And the protests are not just about lost jobs, it's about how people have to learn to pull together, organize and try to fight against an unequal system that has grown much worse over the last 5-7 years. Playing this song is always a joy and people get it immediately!
By the way, you can get "A Day at the Pass" on itunes or even better... Jill's site: jillsobule.com. And John Doe has an even newer record out.
Here's the song and video, "Under the Bridge":
Thursday
Nov102011
Thursday
Nov102011
Malcolm Moore - US Weapons 'Full of Fake Chinese Parts'
November 10, 2011 Published on Wednesday, November 9, 2011 by The Telegraph/UK
Thousands of United States' warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee.
by Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
The US Senate Armed Services Committee said its researchers had uncovered 1,800 cases in which the Pentagon had been sold electronics that may be counterfeit.
In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules".
It also found fake components in Boeing's CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter and the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system.
Thursday
Nov102011
Michael Snyder - Extreme Poverty Is Now at Record Levels
November 10, 2011 By Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse
Posted on November 8, 2011
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than they have ever measured before. In 2010, we were told that the economy was recovering, but the truth is that the number of the "very poor" soared to heights never seen previously. Back in 1993 and back in 2009, the rate of extreme poverty was just over 6 percent, and that represented the worst numbers on record. But in 2010, the rate of extreme poverty hit a whopping 6.7 percent. That means that one out of every 15 Americans is now considered to be "very poor". For many people, this is all very confusing because their guts are telling them that things are getting worse and yet the mainstream media keeps telling them that everything is just fine. Hopefully this article will help people realize that the plight of the poorest of the poor continues to deteriorate all across the United States. In addition, hopefully this article will inspire many of you to lend a hand to those that are truly in need.
Tonight, there are more than 20 million Americans that are living in extreme poverty. This number increases a little bit more every single day. The following statistics that were mentioned in an article in The Daily Mail should be very sobering for all of us....
About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 per cent or less of the official poverty level.
Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.
Wednesday
Nov092011
NewsMax.com - White House Says No Evidence of Extraterrestrials
November 9, 2011 NewsMax.com Monday, 07 Nov 2011
WASHINGTON — Sorry, E.T. lovers — the White House says it has no evidence that extraterrestrials exist.
The White House made the unusual declaration in response to a feature on its website that allows people to submit petitions that administration officials must respond to if enough people sign on.
In this case, more than 5,000 people signed a petition demanding that the White House disclose the government's knowledge of extraterrestrial beings, and more than 12,000 signed another petition seeking formal acknowledgement of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
In response, Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote that the U.S. government has no evidence that life exists outside Earth, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted any member of the human race.
"In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye," Larson wrote.
But he didn't close the door entirely on a close encounter of an alien kind, noting that many scientists and mathematicians believe that, statistically speaking, odds are high that there is life somewhere among the "trillions and trillions of stars in the universe" — although odds of making contact with non-humans are remote.
It's not the first petition to force the White House to engage on a somewhat off-beat topic since the "We the People" webpage was unveiled in September. The White House also has been forced to explain why it can't comment in response to a petition demanding "Try Casey Anthony in Federal Court for Lying to the FBI Investigators" (because it's a law enforcement matter).
And various petitions demanding legalization of marijuana have gathered more than 100,000 names, to which the White House argues that marijuana is associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment, and legalizing it would not be the answer.
The White House also has addressed topics including gay marriage and student loan debt.
When the website debuted, the White House promised to respond to any petition that garnered 5,000 or more signatures within 30 days, but it's now raised that threshold to 25,000.
Wednesday
Nov092011
David Morgan - New Census Data Raise Number of Poor to 49 Million
November 9, 2011 Published on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 by Reuters
by David Morgan
WASHINGTON - The number of poor Americans hit a record 49 million in 2010, or 16 percent, according to new data released on Monday that showed poverty rates for the elderly, Asians and Hispanics higher than previously known.
The figures were calculated by the Census Bureau under a broad new measure intended to supplement the official standard with a fuller picture of poverty in the United States. Results contrast with official poverty data, released in September, that put the number of poor Americans at 46.2 million.
The biggest rise occurred among people aged 65 and older who are being driven into poverty by out-of-pocket medical expenses, including premiums and co-pays from the federal government's Medicare program for the elderly.
The poverty rate for the elderly jumped to 15.9 percent, or a roughly 1 in 6 senior citizens, versus 9 percent under the official count.
The findings highlight the challenges facing Republicans and Democrats on a special congressional "super committee" charged with cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years.
Wednesday
Nov092011
Gareth Porter - Dissecting the Iran ‘Terror Plot’
November 9, 2011 By Gareth Porter
Global Research, November 7, 2011
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27525
As Israel again ratchets up its threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, anti-Iran propaganda, which could rally the American people behind another Middle East war, becomes critical. At this key moment, Gareth Porter takes a deeper look at an alleged Iranian assassination plot.
At a press conference on Oct. 11, the Obama administration unveiled a spectacular charge against the government of Iran: The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, right in Washington, DC, in a place where large numbers of innocent bystanders could have been killed.
High-level officials of the Qods Force were said to be involved, the only question being how far up in the Iranian government the complicity went.
The U.S. tale of the Iranian plot was greeted with unusual skepticism on the part of Iran specialists and independent policy analysts, and even elements of the mainstream media. The critics observed that the alleged assassination scheme was not in Iran’s interest, and that it bore scant resemblance to past operations attributed to the foreign special operations branch of Iranian intelligence.
The Qods Force, it was widely believed, would not send a person like Iranian-American used-car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, known to friends in Corpus Christi, Texas, as forgetful and disorganized, to hire the hit squad for such a sensitive covert action.
But administration officials claimed they had hard evidence to back up the charge. They cited a 21-page deposition by a supervising FBI agent in the “amended criminal complaint” filed against Arbabsiar and an accomplice who remains at large, Gholam Shakuri. [1]
Wednesday
Nov092011
Joseph Stiglitz - The Globalization of Protest
November 9, 2011 Monday, November 7, 2011 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz144/English
Joseph Stiglitz
NEW YORK – The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right – at least not without strong pressure from the street.
In May, I went to the site of the Tunisian protests; in July, I talked to Spain’s indignados; from there, I went to meet the young Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo’s Tahrir Square; and, a few weeks ago, I talked with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. There is a common theme, expressed by the OWS movement in a simple phrase: “We are the 99%.”
That slogan echoes the title of an article that I recently published, entitled “Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%,” describing the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: 1% of the population controls more than 40% of the wealth and receives more than 20% of the income. And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society – bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality – but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) rent-seekers.
Wednesday
Nov092011
ScienceDaily - It Takes Two: Brains Come Wired for Cooperation, Neuroscientists Discover
November 9, 2011 |
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111103190351.htm |
ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — When Nancy Grace and her partner danced a lively rumba to Spandau Ballet's 1980's hit, "True," on a recent "Dancing With the Stars," more was going on in the legal commentator's brain than worry over a possible wardrobe malfunction.
Deep in Grace's cortex, millions of neurons were hard at work doing what they apparently had been built to do: act and react to partner Tristan MacManus's movements to create a pas de deux that had the dancers functioning together (for the most part) like a well-oiled machine.
That is because the brain was built for cooperative activity, whether it be dancing on a reality television show, constructing a skyscraper or working in an office, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins behavioral neuroscientist Eric Fortune and published in the November 4 issue of the journal Science.
"What we learned is that when it comes to the brain and cooperation, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts," said Fortune, of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "We found that the brain of each individual participant prefers the combined activity over his or her own part."
In addition to shedding light on ourselves as social and cooperative beings, the results have important implications for engineers who want to be able to program autonomous robots to work effectively as teams in settings such as bomb squads and combat.
But Fortune's work didn't involve androids or take place on a battlefield. Instead, he and his team took to the cloud forests of Ecuador, on the slopes of the active Antisana Volcano. Why? It's one of the only places in the world where you can find plain-tailed wrens. These chubby-breasted rust-and-gray birds, who don't fly so much as hop and flit through the area's bamboo thickets, are famous for their unusual duets. Their songs -- sung by one male and one female -- take an ABCD form, with the male singing the A and C phrases and the female (who seems to be the song leader) singing B and D.
Wednesday
Nov092011
Charly Wegman - Israel's Peres Warns Attack on Iran Getting 'Closer'
November 9, 2011 Published on Sunday, November 6, 2011 by Agence France Presse
by Charly Wegman
Israeli President Shimon Peres warned on Sunday that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely, days before a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear programme is due.
"The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option," Peres told the Israel Hayom daily.
"We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative," he added.
"I don't think that any decision has already been made, but there is an impression that Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons."
His comments came after he warned in an interview aired by Israel's privately-owned Channel Two television on Saturday that an attack on Iran was becoming "more and more likely."
"The intelligence services of the different countries that are keeping an eye on (Iran) are worried and putting pressure on their leaders to warn that Iran is ready to obtain the nuclear weapon," he said.
In France meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned that an attack on Iran would be disastrous.
Wednesday
Nov092011
César Chelala - Israeli Doctors Are Complicit in the Torture of Palestinian Prisoners
November 9, 2011 Published on Saturday, November 5, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Two Israeli human rights organizations, the Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have released a report, Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim, in which they claim that medical professionals in Israel fail to document and report injuries caused by the ill-treatment and torture of detainees by security personnel. The report states that the doctors’ behavior is a violation of their ethical code.
The report, based on 100 cases of Palestinian prisoners brought to PCAT since 2007, “reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the torturers.”
Although the Israeli government denies torturing or ill-treating prisoners, included in the report are evidence of beatings, being held for long periods in stress positions, sleep deprivation and threats. In addition, doctors are accused of not keeping proper medical records of injuries caused during interrogations. In this regard, the report notes “countless cases wherein individuals testified to injuries inflicted upon them during detention or in interrogation, and yet the medical record from the hospital or the prison service makes no mention at all.”
Wednesday
Nov092011
Ann Wright - Israeli Hijacking Of Gaza Freedom Waves Boats "Violent And Dangerous"
November 9, 2011 http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israeli-Hijacking-Of-Gaza-by-Ann-Wright-111106-780.html
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November 6, 2011 By Ann Wright Despite very clear protests from the occupants of the two boats that they did not want to be taken to Israel, they were forcibly removed from the boats in a violent manner. Activists Badly Treated by Israeli Authorities A press release from Irish Ship to Gaza reported that National Coordinator Fintan Lane was able to make a phone call Sunday afternoon, November 6, 2011, from the Israeli prison in which he and 13 other Irish citizens are being held.Israeli attack on freedom waves ships "violent and dangerous" Lane told the Irish Ship to Gaza team in Dublin, "The takeover of the MV Saoirse was violent and dangerous. Despite very clear protests from the occupants of the two boats that they did not want to be taken to Israel, they were forcibly removed from the boats in a violent manner. The whole takeover took about three hours." Lane said Israeli forces hosed down the two boats with high pressure water hoses and pointed guns at the passengers through the windows. Lane himself was hosed down the stairs of the boat. Israelis forced boats to collide and Saoirse almost caught fire |
Wednesday
Nov092011
Medea Benjamin & Robert Naiman - Jailed for Sailing to Gaza, Challenging the Blockade
November 9, 2011 By Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman, AlterNet
Posted on November 4, 2011, Printed on November 6, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152966/jailed_for_sailing_to_gaza%2C_challenging_the_blockade
Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, November 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on November 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they might be boarded by Israeli commandos intent on stopping them—perhaps violently, as the Israeli military did in 2010 when they killed nine humanitarian aid workers on the Turkish boat named Mavi Marmara.
The boats—one from Canada and one from Ireland—were carrying 27 passengers, including press and peace activists from Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia and Palestine. They were unarmed, and the Israeli military knew that. They were simply peace activists wanting to connect with civilians in Gaza, and the Israeli military knew that. Yet naked aggression was used against them in international waters—something that is normally considered an act of piracy.
The passengers on the boats were sailing to Gaza to challenge the U.S.-supported Israeli blockade that is crippling the lives of 1.6 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They were sailing to stand up against unaccountable power—the power of the Israeli government—that has been violating the basic rights of the 5.5 million Palestinians that live inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders or in the Occupied Territories. They were sailing for us, civil society, who believe in human rights and the rule of law.
Tuesday
Nov082011
Wellaware1.com - Check this great website out. Very Powerful stuff.
November 8, 2011 WellAware1.com's Mission Statement
The objective of WellAware1 is to present the facts about current events that are used to manipulate the perception of the general public. Throughout history, we the people have been lied to by our leaders. This is fact. Lives have been lost due to these lies. That is also fact. When we see events unfold on TV, that are immediately used to further political agenda, unanswered questions about things that don't make sense must be answered before we can move forward as a nation.
The logo is a GOLDEN MEAN scale. It's a professional tool for measuring faces, due to the face follows the ratio 1:1.618 Golden Ratio or the Fibonacci rule.
In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989. Other names frequently used for the golden ratio are the golden section (Latin: section aurea) and golden mean.Other terms encountered include extreme and mean ratio, medial section,divine proportion, divine section (Latin: sectio divina), golden proportion, golden cut, golden number, and mean of Phidias. In this article the golden ratio is denoted by the Greek lowercase letter phi (
), while its reciprocal, 
or 
, is denoted by the uppercase variant Phi (
).
The figure on the right illustrates the geometric relationship that defines this constant. Expressed algebraically:
Tuesday
Nov082011
Gareth Porter - ISAF Data Show Night Raids Killed over 1,500 Afghan Civilians
November 8, 2011 Published on Friday, November 4, 2011 by Inter Press Service
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/04-0
by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on civilian casualties in 2010 had said the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) by insurgents was the leading cause of civilian deaths, with 904.
Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, the civilians who died in the raids were all adult males who were counted as insurgents in press releases and official data released by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The data on night raids, which were given to selected news media, cover three distinct 90-day night raid campaigns from May through July 2010, early August to early November, and mid-November to mid- February. The combined totals for the three periods indicate that a minimum of 2,599 rank and file insurgents were killed and an additional 723 "leaders" killed or captured in raids. [See Sidebar].
Tuesday
Nov082011
Alex Seitz-Wald - Glenn Beck-Approved Goldline Charged With 19 Criminal Counts Of Fraud And Theft
November 8, 2011 By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 2, 2011 at 10:30 am
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/02/359156/goldline-international-fraud/#
Goldline International, the precious metal retailer that has capitalized on conservatives’ anxiety about the economy by forging synergistic relationships with right wing TV and radio hosts, is facing a new series of legal challenges after authorities filed criminal charges against the company and its executives yesterday. Several major conservative talkers — including two former GOP presidential candidates — have endorsed and recommended Goldine, which critics have long contended is little more than a scam.
After more than a year of investigating, the city attorney in Santa Monica, California, where the company is based, has filed 19 criminal charges of fraud and theft against the company, in addition to charges against top executives and salesmen, ABC News reports:
The complaint alleges that Goldline “runs a bait and switch operation in which customers, seeking to invest in gold bullion, are switched to highly overpriced coins by using false and misleading claims,” according to a statement released by the consumer affairs division of the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office.
Tuesday
Nov082011
HOPE YEN and LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ - Poorest poor in US hits new record: 1 in 15 people
November 8, 2011 Poorest poor in US hits new record: 1 in 15 people
By HOPE YEN and LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ - Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high — 1 in 15 people — spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.
New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.
In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America.
"There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners," said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. "Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover."
Tuesday
Nov082011
Center for Constitutional Rights - Gaza-Bound Humanitarian Flotilla Reaches International Waters
November 8, 2011 NEW YORK - November 2 - Two boats carrying twenty-seven human rights activists from five countries, including the United States, have made it to international waters and are headed to Gaza. Today, the flotilla set sail unannounced from Turkey with the aim of ending the siege and isolation of Gaza. The boats are carrying letters from people in the United States to the people of Gaza, as well as medicine. This latest attempt comes less than six months after the “Stay Human Flotilla” was detained and sabotaged in Greece by local port authorities in response to mounting pressure from the United States and Israel.
In light of Israel’s attack on the May 2010 flotilla, which killed nine civilians including 18-year old U.S. citizen Furkan Doğan, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) calls on the international community to ensure the safe passage of the ships through international waters into Gaza and prevent a repetition of last year’s lethal assault by Israeli forces.
