The book bazaar stands just opposite the main gates of Tehran University, a line of "libraries" of Persian poetry, American obstetrics manuals, English literature and novels translated from Russian, French and Italian authors.

It's a good place to while away a hot afternoon – far from the ladies and gentlemen of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance. This used to be a place of tear gas and stones and government thugs smashing their way into university dormitories after the presidential elections which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won – or did not win – in June of 2009. Now it's a place to sup of the cream of education, to understand the Iranian desire to learn, to prowl the books.

I buy a volume of 100 years of Persian poetry and another, smaller work by Fereydoon Moshiri. "All the sparrows/blaming me in your absence,/keep calling your name." I buy a comparatively new Oxford translation of Chekhov's About Love and Other Stories, some of which I have read before, but now I realise why Chekhov is so popular in Iran. His stories and plays capture all too well the doomed pessimism of a society whose fate is inevitable, of individuals whose fates are equally predestined. Chekhov's Gusev fits the necrocracy element of the Iranian regime rather well, its protagonist – a dying Russian serviceman, taken sick on his journey home from the Far East to Odessa – confiding to us his last memories. Continue reading the article by link....

India is said to be one of the great economic success stories of modern times: an emerging power and the world's biggest democracy.

But the Booker Prize-winning author and anti-globalisation activist Arundhati Roy tells a different story.

Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight, she says tens of thousands of the country's poorest people are suffering at the hands of corrupt governments bought and sold by big corporations. Please view the video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13624077

Somalia was a pastoral economy based on "exchange" between nomadic herdsmen and small agriculturalists. Nomadic pastoralists accounted for 50 percent of the population. In the 1970s, resettlement programs led to the development of a sizeable sector of commercial pastoralism. Livestock contributed to 80 percent of export earnings until 1983. Despite recurrent droughts, Somalia remained virtually self-sufficient in food until the 1970s.

The IMF-World Bank intervention in the early 1980s contributed to exacerbating the crisis of Somali agriculture. The economic reforms undermined the fragile exchange relationship between the "nomadic economy" and the "sedentary economy" - i.e. between pastoralists and small farmers characterized by money transactions as well as traditional barter. A very tight austerity program was imposed on the government largely to release the funds required to service Somalia's debt with the Paris Club. In fact, a large share of the external debt was held by the Washington-based financial institutions.' According to an ILO mission report:

[T]he Fund alone among Somalia's major recipients of debt service payments, refuses to reschedule. (...) De facto it is helping to finance an adjustment program, one of whose major goals is to repay the IMF itself. Read article:

A little girl seen in India shares a resemblance of little Madeleine McCann.  A DNA test is underway to determine if in fact she is little Madeleine. 

In Israel, people are protesting due to the high prices of apartments. Tens-of-thousands of students and other activists, have been protesting in this month. Against the high prices of apartments, especially in the popular areas like the capital city.

Israelis Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised, that the government does program that aloud selling cheap land to people. Besides that there will be a production of more affordable rent-apartments, for students and otherwise poor people. All this should start as soon as next week.

There has also been talks about 'Arab Spring' spreading in to Israel too. Problems like that are not a anything strange with all the inflation in the world.

A meeting of representatives from cultural foundations and associations convened by the Nicolás Guillén Foundation, to commemorate its first two decades, demonstrated the undeniable contributions – and above all, the undeveloped potential – of these entities, which are part of Cuba’s socialist civil society.

Emphasizing this last concept is important. As part of tendentious manipulations disseminated by enemies of the Revolution, some communications media have echoed the presumed existence of a civil society which lies outside of the country’s legal margins, and which is counterpoised to popular values and aspirations. In fact, they play into the desperate attempts of the U.S. government and its intelligence services to undermine Cuba’s social fabric from within and turn back the clock.

The skies around me are getting blacker, and blacker. The wind is howling, the trees are shuddering. The birds are silent. The other kinds of birds, well, they won't stop tweeting for anything.

I opened my MSN page today to the headline "Singer Amy Winehouse Dead at 27". As a person who watches the news carefully (and makes up some of his own from time to time), I'm quite used to deaths and disaster. But this one strikes me on a much deeper chord than your average celebrity death.

Today is the day following the twin attacks in Norway, the day that a madman killed 85 people in a youth camp. He stood there and mowed people my age down while others tried, and failed to escape. Some survived by playing dead or hiding. They were the lucky ones. Some played dead, only to be shot again. Some never knew what happened. The first ones to go were the lucky ones, the ones who were last were not.

Today, a singer that was only 27 is dead. She isn't the first celebrity to die, but she's one of the first to grow and become famous in my generation's era. Amy Winehouse had one hit, "Rehab", that was played over and over again on the radio to and from school, on my friend's iPods, and on the TV shows that we watched at home. And now she is gone.

Today is the day that a high-speed bullet train derailed, killing eleven. Today is the day after an 18 year old was killed by the heatwave that struck our country. Today is the day a few weeks after a boy was brutally murdered in New York, and another was struck by a car and killed in MA. Six years ago on this day, 88 people were killed by three bombs in Egypt. Six hours ago, the sky grew even darker.

Today is a day of mourning. My mother often says "Everything happens for a reason." Today is not a day for reason. Death is rarely positive, and to lose so many in such a short span of time makes us all try to look for it, yet when we do, we do not find it.

Maybe the sun will shine, but not until tomorrow. Even then, we can only hope that it shines at all.

Rest in Peace Amy, Oslo, and Leiby.

The Italian Parliament has given final approval to a package of austerity measures meant to cut the nation's budget deficit by €70 billion ($93 billion) over three years.

 

The lower house voted 316 to 284 for the plan, in what politicians called the fastest approval of a budget bill in modern Italian history.

The bill was originally supposed to be debated later in the summer

The Italian austerity package aims to eliminate the country's budget deficit by 2014. The deficit is now 4.6 per cent of gross domestic product, below the average for the euro zone.

The package includes €40 billion in spending cuts. It also increases taxes, including those on petrol, and some trading accounts; introduces a co-payment for some healthcare services; raises the retirement age; and cuts some high-level pensions.

The majority of the bill's provisions take effect in 2013 and 2014, after the government's term ends.

n the latest stress test of 91 European institutions, the authority found a system that would be rocked by a mild recession and a spike in unemployment rates to levels some European nations already have been experiencing. While only eight of the 91 banks failed outright - another 16 barely passed.

The eight banks that failed, for example, were estimated to only need about $4 billion in additional capital, a relatively modest amount, and about the same as found in a previous stress test, conducted a year ago.

It is great if this thing goes now as planned, by fixing this problem now. Italy solves it's own problems and at least narrows them down in the worst-case scenario. Raising retirement age is common sense reality as we humans live longer and longer all the time. Also with all these problems with retirement savings (the lack of them), that is good and natural solution. Cutting high level pensions is good thing, those have been ridiculesly high for way too long now. Spending cuts in general were also a wise thing to use in this problem solving decision. Some cutting and some more revenue is good combination, less harmful as well. I might desagree with some of those tax raises, but it's not really my problem anyhow.

What comes to that bank testing, I'm glad to see that the money needed to fix the problem is so small, and there is a time to make it. In general, it would be good, if the hole banking culture could be changed for the better. Not just try to keep things up by other means.

'East Africa has two post-colonial traditions of citizenship', writes Mahmood Mamdani: territorial and ethnic. If the region is to have a political federation, it will need to be based on a common citizenship, he argues: 'Which one will it be?'

News of the World reporters tried to hack the voicemails of dead 9/11 victims, a former New York policeman claimed last night.

The ex-officer from New York alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.

A News International insider said that claims an estimated 4,000 phones may have been targeted could tell only part of the story. There are suggestions that the paper was interested in as many as 80,000 phone numbers over the past decade. How many were hacked or bugged is a subject for the police investigation, but by the mid-1990s it appears hacking had become endemic and no one was considered out of bounds. From the families of 7/7 victims to Milly Dowler, all were targets. John Cooper, a barrister who represents the families of soldiers killed in the Nimrod disaster in Afghanistan and the RAF Hercules explosion in Iraq, as well as those who died at Deepcut barracks, confirmed on Saturday night that his clients were concerned that they may have been the victims of telephone hacking.

The crisis engulfing David Cameron over phone hacking deepened on Saturday as Paddy Ashdown revealed that he had warned No 10 only days after the general election of "terrible damage" to the coalition if he employed Andy Coulson in Downing Street.

The former Liberal Democrat leader, who had been extensively briefed on details that had not been made public for legal reasons, was so convinced that the truth would eventually emerge that he contacted the prime minister's office.

Suddenly, Rupert Murdoch seems much less a global mogul, much more a diminished man of glass. He flies into London this weekend from Sun Valley, Idaho, in time for the last rites of the most successful Sunday newspaper in Britain, the News of the World. One hundred and sixty-eight years ago, it pledged: "Our motto is the truth, our practice is fearless advocacy of the truth." After today, the tabloid will appear no more, felled not by one royal rogue reporter but by the arrogance, ambition and apparent tolerance of systemic criminal behaviour by members of the senior News International management.

Pakistan—a country with more than 170 million people and a deteriorating economy—has been in the eye of the storm since its inception in 1947. Democracy and development are two sham words when one looks at its turbulent history—frequent military coups and violations of basic human rights at the hands of security agencies and armed groups.

Voices of dissent are most often silenced and forgotten in Pakistan’s power corridors, which are dominated by military generals, landed aristocrats, industrialists and religious leaders. Practically, in their view, you have to maintain the ‘status quo.’

First they threaten you, and if you don’t follow the line there is every possibility that you will be abducted and then killed in cold blood. This is especially the case for journalists. You don’t know when your reports annoy a militant or criminal group—or make you the target of security agencies that want to shape the course of history according to their own whims.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that 51 journalists and two media workers have been killed in Pakistan since 1992.

The region most affected, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Pak-Afghan border, is in the grip of unprecedented violence and religious terrorism.

In May 2011 I traveled to Pakistan under a fellowship from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting on a month-long reporting trip. As I reached Peshawar, a colleague informed me that Nasrullah Khan Afridi, a journalist from Khyber tribal agency, had been killed when an explosive device ripped through his car. Afridi was a courageous soul who exposed the brutalities of a militant group on the PAK-AFGHAN border.

I received the news with deep shock as I knew Afridi as a journalist for the last five years. In 2007 he moved his family to Hayatabad, a posh area in Peshawar, after the militants threatened him. On several occasions he informed his colleagues that a militant commander wanted him either to leave the area or face his wrath. He shifted his family to a relatively safe place but still he was not spared.

From Waziristan to Swat Valley journalists have to make choices about what to report and what topics should be avoided. It becomes more challenging when the two sides of the conflict—the Taliban and the security forces—want their own version of the story and as a journalist you have to uphold journalistic values of objectivity and impartiality.
The journalists are not provided the freedom and protection to report on the conflict as it is unfolding—that’s why there is so much confusion and uncertainty in the Pak-Afghan region after a decade-long war against terrorism and the sacrifices of thousands of innocent people.

In 2009 Pakistan deployed 25,000 security forces in Swat Valley to fight against the militants of Taliban commander Fazlullah. About 2.5 million people were displaced by the military operation. However, in a time when it was very important that the public should be informed and updated about the progress of the fighting, all the journalists including me were asked to leave the area. I wondered why, if the Pakistan Army really wanted to eradicate the menace of terrorism, it was so opposed to the presence of journalists in the region. In the early days of the military action Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) of Pakistan Army was the only source of information on the conflict. It issued press releases about the number of militants killed in the operation with no mention of the civilian casualties and destruction of public property.

This summer when I visited Swat Valley I hoped journalists would be able to report the truth about the emergence of religious militancy and outcomes of the military action:

• When and how Taliban chief Fazlullah escaped when there was military presence in almost every nook and corner of the valley?
• Why the security forces failed to protect the houses and properties of the people when they left their homes on a short notice?
• What hinders the security establishment to expose security personnel responsible for extra-judicial killings in the valley?
• Why the reconstruction and rehabilitation process is so dismally slow and where the aid money is being spent?
• If the military action is a success then why are political activists and civil society workers being killed with impunity?
• What action is being taken against the officials and religious groups who allegedly supported the spread of Talibanization in the valley?

There are so many important questions that need to be addressed.

During my trip I visited office of a daily newspaper to meet some friends. What I witnessed was a shock: a senior military official dictating news to the journalists working there.

I recalled the period before the launch of military operations when statements and interviews of Taliban commanders and so-called spokesmen of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were published on the front pages of the local dailies and given much space in news bulletins and talks shows on the TV channels.

At that time a senior journalist in Mingora told me if he failed to give more coverage to Taliban they would dub him as an American spy and would cut his throat.

Where are the public voices? Where are the stories of the people who lost everything that they had in this conflict? Where does our journalism stand? And what a serious dilemma is this when free flow of information has become a crime?
When I walked out of the office I saw a poster commemorating the sacrifices of journalists who laid their lives in the line of duty during the conflict. I saw the photo of my friend Qari Shoib, who was killed in 2008 –in the view of many, by security forces—while returning in his car from a local hospital with his ailing daughter.

I also spot the photo of Musa Khankhel a journalist for a private TV channel who was killed by armed men in 2009 when he was covering a peace rally organized by chief of the movement for the enforcement of Shariah (TNSM) in Matta town of Upper Swat. There are journalists who were killed in bomb attacks and there is one journalist Abdul Aziz Shaheen who was abducted by Taliban and later on killed in military shelling when the Army targeted a Taliban hideout where he was kept.

During my stay in Pakistan a suicide bomber attacked a restaurant frequented by journalists close to the military cantonment in Peshawar killing 34 people including two journalists—Asfandyar Khan and Shafiullah Khan. Local journalists say that on several occasions militants from the nearby Bara area of Khyber Agency visited the place and threatened journalists for not reporting in their favor.

The attacks continue.

This June journalist Saleem Shehzad was abducted, tortured and allegedly killed by Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Journalist groups held protest demonstrations across the country expressing their shock and anger over his killing.

The government has constituted a commission to probe the murder but history shows scant cause for confidence that those guilty will be punished. Such commissions seldom even release their reports—and when they do, no action is taken to bring the people responsible to justice.

(Shaheen Buneri reported from Pakistan as a Pulitzer Center Miel Fellow.)

http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/pakistan-swat-valley-fazlullah-taliban-security-forces-kill-journalists-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-province-democracy

Some time ago Muammar Gaddafi offered for a second time a possibility of free elections in Libya, the point is to find out whether residents want him to stay in power or not. That is actually quite good offer, and in a way, it would be reasonable solution for all this.

I mean that Gaddafi still has a plenty of potential supporters in a different parts of Libya. He really might win fair elections, and as he offered - There would be people from various organizations to make sure that those elections would be a honest ones.

The rebels have also come to the more reasonable way, with they're resent offer in which Gaddafi can stay in Libya for a rest of hes life. All he needs to do, is give up all the power, after immediately withdrawing his forces from all fronts. - Then he could stay in Libya.

Big problem in this one is, that givin up the power would leave Gaddafi in a helpless position. Trust is the big issue here, also hes life would not be the same without all the things he does now. All this makes it pretty hard to accomplish the rebels offer in a  reasonable way.

In Gaddafi's offer, there is that problem whether rebels trust him or not. Maybe not, and that one is big problem in his good offer.

There has been a dialectical and organic link between the class question and the race question in South Africa from the period since the inception of capitalism to the present post-settler colonial era of the country. Capitalism since its inception in South Africa has constituted the primary or irreconcilable contradiction with the masses of its exploited people. This work deals with the dialectical and organic link between the class question and the race question in the country and the fundamental need not to depart from the importance of the racial factor in South African politics for revolutionary socio-economic change. It ends with an analysis of the nature of the relationship between black capital and white capital in the present South Africa from the structural socio-economic transformation perspective.

Food insecurity, loss of food sovereignty, the displacement of small farmers, conflict, environmental devastation, water loss, and the further impoverishment and political instability of African nations – these are among the consequences of large-scale investments in land in Africa, a special investigation by the Oakland Institute has revealed. Pambazuka News spoke to Anuradha Mittal, Jeff Furman and Frederic Mousseau about what prompted their research and what they discovered.

'Erstwhile colonies of the world unite!' sounds a loud call. Nevertheless, the loudness of the call does not undermine its relevance and legitimacy. The politics of colonization has been such that countries that had been close historically and culturally in the past, have now been distanced. Countries that would have been natural friends have become enemies. For example, Thailand, Mammyar and Singapore are very near to Indian culture and ethos. But the significant part of their trade and bilateral dealing are with Europe. The fact that our colonizers were the same people and they exploited and ransacked our different lands should actually kindle sympathy. Ironically, it is not so. 

MINGORA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan -- The worn-out burqa covering her from head to toe fails to conceal Rekhmina's sense of loss and uncertainty.

The mother of four has come to the Khpal Kor Foundation, an orphanage located in Swat District's largest city, Mingora, in the belief that it offers the best chance of keeping her children off the streets.

To gain admission for her three daughters and one son, however, she must answer the very question she has spent months trying to answer herself: "Where is your husband?"

Muhammad Ali, principal of the Khpal Kor Foundation, poses the question. The orphanage, supported by local philanthropists and organizations, has become a lifeline for hundreds of children orphaned or separated from their parents when the Pakistani government launched a massive military operation in Swat Valley in the spring of 2009.

The operation was intended to sweep militants loyal to Pakistani Taliban commander Mullah Fazlullah from the scenic but restive region of northwest Pakistan. But as Ali notes, there were many innocent victims.

"There has been a 15-20 percent increase in the number of orphans in Swat after the war," he says. And with this come fears that unless a way can be found to mend their lives, they face a future of crime, or worse, as militants.

No Father, No Future

"In the context of Pashtun society, real orphans are those who have lost their fathers," Muhammad Ali explains as we walk toward the main building of the orphanage.

In traditional Pashtun society, males are responsible for all of their family's expenses. When a male family member is lost, the social and economic status of the family is weakened.

As a result, many families are no longer able to cover the most basic expenses for books and clothes. And even if children are properly equipped, the destruction of hundreds of schools in Swat leaves them with no place to study.

Swat District, and the broader Malakand Region of which it is a part, was devastated by the 2009 operation. After the military declared victory within a few short months, 3 million displaced persons returned to see their former lives in ruins.

A survey conducted by the Khpal Kor Foundation in urban areas of Swat District alone revealed that 700 boys and girls, aged four to 12, had been left fatherless and at the mercy of a society shattered by conflict and humanitarian and natural crises.

Ali explains that his orphanage houses children orphaned when family members were killed by the Taliban, and those whose fathers and brothers were targeted by the military as Taliban militants.

The Khpal Kor Foundation provides 180 students with an education, food, and shelter. Of these, 37 lost fathers to combat action in Swat. The rest lost family members to bomb explosions, police violence, or even to sunstroke as they waited in line for hours for humanitarian aid.

Six-year-old Hamza tells how his father, a fruit seller who often plied his trade in Mingora, was killed by the Taliban.

"He was on his way home," Hamaz explains forlornly. "In the town of Dargai the Taliban intercepted the vehicle and shot him dead."

The Taliban ordered him to step out of the vehicle for inspection. He delayed, and they shot him. This was the account given to him by his mother.

Ten-year-old Shoib Zada hails from Khwazakhela, a village in Swat. His uncle was a Taliban commander well known by locals and security agencies for his militant activities.

As government troops entered the district, Shoib's uncle fled, but left his family vulnerable. When security forces conducted house to house searches, Shoib's father, a farmer who had serious differences with his brother and his militant activities, was arrested.

"Later on we were informed that my father had been killed by the military," Shoib says. He cries while recalling his father's death. But he quickly composes himself and says he would forgive the killers if it meant the fighting would end.

The Sword Cuts Both Ways

Every child at the orphanage is encouraged tell their stories. But opening their hearts is not easy, even with the help of two psychologists hired by the orphanage to provide support.

"They cry, faint, and are unable to concentrate on their studies," says psychologist Niaz Muhammad, 35, who has worked with the children for 1 1/2 years. "You can build houses and schools, but the wounds from the violence will take a long time to heal."

Muhammad says some children exhibit aggressive behavior and seek to avenge their loss.

He cites the example of a child whose father was killed by the Taliban right before his eyes.

The child, he says, exhibits great enthusiasm to learn military skills. In a very short time, Muhammad says, the boy became commander of the school assembly.

"He strikes his feet very forcefully on the ground during the parade to express his crushed emotions," the psychologist observes.

For the children who are accepted into Khpal Kor Foundation, or a handful of similar orphanages, there is at least a chance. Less so for hundreds of Swat's orphans of war who are forced to eke out an existence on the streets, scavenging through garbage for food or paper to sell.

Caught In The Crossfire

Rekhmina, the mother or four, is aware of the opportunity offered by the orphanage, and is intent on convincing Ali to admit her children. But first she must answer the question: "Where is your husband?"

She explains that before government troops moved in, she and her children fled Mingora, leaving her husband behind.

His job as a watchman for a government-run girls' school would have placed him at great risk. Even before the operation, schools were a popular target for Taliban militants.

Once the operation began, many civilians were caught up in the crossfire.

"I asked the military officials, and they say he is not in their custody," Rekhmina says. "My neighbors suspect he might have been killed in the conflict."

Life on their own has been difficult. She pleads to Ali that she and her children must share a single room, and depend on others to provide them with alms to pay for rent and other expenses.

"I am tired of searching for my husband," she says. "In the past two years I have heard nothing from him. He is dead to us."

"I just want my children to be educated," she concludes, in a wavering voice.

But Ali has to refuse. There is noting he can do without a death certificate.

Shaheen Buneri is a Prague-based correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal. He recently concluded a month-long reporting trip to Pakistan under a fellowship with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

http://www.rferl.org/content/swats_orphans_of_war/24249366.html

(In the memory of Sobia Khanum -- a daughter, mother, a woman - who was killed 'in the name of honour', on June 6th, 2011 in Pindi Gaib village -Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

In the Name of Honour

Her corpse silently arrested
by the dictation of commandments
hung between parentheses.
And, blood had lost its melody.
Lips clotted
on the words held back...
The palm outstretched to God,
the subdued colour of gasping breath.

The abandoned torn body, cold as clay
a desolute sculpture;
under the canopy of kaleidoscopic light,
between two stones,
the wind pitches madness
in the cracks of dark branches and shivering leaves
of Pindi Gaib village,
her soul still screaming beneath the ground.

She, alone,
drank blood through her pores
when the weapons aimed
in the name of honour;
tearing flesh,
splintered by the rapacious --
pounding her secret surfaces'.
Perhaps, her lips formed the words of God,
shuderring,
at the suture of a crimson red wound;
swinging in the void like a skeleton,
blood splurts, a final wail...
A statement crumpled into
circle of silence.

Inside the dropped eyelids,
dreams once danced, lived.
Suspending categories of disbelief.
Dare you touch the depths of justice!

Cracked in the inner
walls of her teeth,
silenced, flattened --
to cover the secret of death.

"Sobia Khanum. Honour killing. Case dismissed".

Under the sun's dominance,
we can abolish time;
continue lamenting on too many bones --
where the foam of time swells
in our room of closed shutters...
wandering in our luxurious reverie.
Time repositions itself
withdrawing finger-prints from
the flesh and bones we slaughtered,
oblivious to the accordian of memory.
You and I,
the predator
and
the spectator.

In the name of honour,
curse and kill the 'evil' -
she, that is woman
with machetes and sin.
She - with the swelling of her womb,
proof of humanity...her terrified children exist in bruised skies,
motherless.

Ah, but...the God's won't punish us!
We have nations to build,
don't we?

(Sobia and the countless other women, dead...case dismissed...next!)

Two articles in the Middle East Forum explain to the Western Mind much about the how the Arab Mind works and fails to deal with our modern, technologically advanced world.

By the Arab Mind, we must understand that this means the ideological mindset promoted by Islam, but not inclusively, since tribal and clans figure in this too. So it is not unique to Saudi Arabia, but includes all the countries under the influence of Islam and tribalism. The authors of these articles are not inimical to Arabs or even to Islam.

Some of these books referred to are used to help our military and diplomats and others deal with a culture that seems illogical and very foreign to Western ways of thinking. I'm just going to make a few points, as both of these articles are lengthy, and I just wish to inspire you to read them.

I think it might be beneficial to many, and not just in the West.

The first one is 'Why Arabs Lose Wars', by Norvell De Atkine, a U.S. Army retired colonel with eight years residence in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, and a graduate degree in Arab studies from the American University of Beirut, .. instructing U.S. Army personnel assigned to Middle Eastern areas. The opinions expressed here are strictly his own.

http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

In every society information is a means of making a living or wielding power, but Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly. U.S. trainers have often been surprised over the years by the fact that information provided to key personnel does not get much further than them. Having learned to perform some complicated procedure, an Arab technician knows that he is invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to have that knowledge; once he dispenses it to others he no longer is the only font of knowledge and his power dissipates. This explains the commonplace hoarding of manuals, books, training pamphlets, and other training or logistics literature.
------

Training tends to be unimaginative, cut and dried, and not challenging. Because the Arab educational system is predicated on rote memorization, officers have a phenomenal ability to commit vast amounts of knowledge to memory. The learning system tends to consist of on-high lectures, with students taking voluminous notes and being examined on what they were told. (It also has interesting implications for foreign instructors; for example, his credibility is diminished if he must resort to a book.) The emphasis on memorization has a price, and that is in diminished ability to reason or engage in analysis based upon general principles. Thinking outside the box is not encouraged; doing so in public can damage a career. Instructors are not challenged and neither, in the end, are students.
Head-to-head competition among individuals is generally avoided, at least openly, for it means that someone wins and someone else loses, with the loser humiliated. This taboo has particular import when a class contains mixed ranks. (Heaven forbid a class with mixed sexes!)
--------

Arab junior officers are well trained on the technical aspects of their weapons and tactical know-how, but not in leadership, a subject given little attention. For example, as General Sa'd ash-Shazli, the Egyptian chief of staff, noted in his assessment of the army he inherited prior to the 1973 war, they were not trained to seize the initiative or volunteer original concepts or new ideas.20 Indeed, leadership may be the greatest weakness of Arab training systems. This problem results from two main factors: a highly accentuated class system bordering on a caste system, and lack of a non-commissioned-officer development program.

Most Arab officers treat enlisted soldiers like sub-humans. When the winds in Egypt one day carried biting sand particles from the desert during a demonstration for visiting U.S. dignitaries, I watched as a contingent of soldiers marched in and formed a single rank to shield the Americans; Egyptian soldiers, in other words, are used on occasion as nothing more than a windbreak. The idea of taking care of one's men is found only among the most elite units in the Egyptian military.

The social and professional gap between officers and enlisted men is present in all armies, but in the United States and other Western forces, the noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps bridges it. Indeed, a professional NCO corps has been critical for the American military to work at its best; as the primary trainers in a professional army, NCOs are critical to training programs and to the enlisted men's sense of unit esprit. Most of the Arab world either has no NCO corps or it is non-functional, severely handicapping the military's effectiveness.

---
The military price for this is very high. Without the cohesion supplied by NCOs, units tend to disintegrate in the stress of combat. This is primarily a function of the fact that the enlisted soldiers simply do not trust their officers. Once officers depart the training areas, training begins to fall apart as soldiers begin drifting off.

----------
The politicized nature of the Arab militaries means that political factors weigh heavily and frequently override military considerations. Officers with initiative and a predilection for unilateral action pose a threat to the regime. This can be seen not just at the level of national strategy but in every aspect of military operations and training.Taking responsibility for a policy, operation, status, or training program rarely occurs. U.S. trainers can find it very frustrating when they repeatedly encounter Arab officers placing blame for unsuccessful operations or programs on the U.S. equipment or some other outside source. A high rate of non-operational U.S. equipment is blamed on a "lack of spare parts"—pointing a finger at an unresponsive U.S. supply system despite the fact that American trainers can document ample supplies arriving in country and disappearing in a malfunctioning supply system. (Such criticism was never caustic or personal and often so indirect and politely delivered that it wasn't until after a meeting that oblique references were understood.)

---------
As for equipment, a vast cultural gap exists between the U.S. and Arab maintenance and logistics systems. The Arab difficulties with U.S. equipment are not, as sometimes simplistically believed, a matter of "Arabs don't do maintenance," but something much deeper. The American concept of a weapons system does not convey easily. A weapons system brings with it specific maintenance and logistics procedures, policies, and even a philosophy, all of them based on U.S. culture, with its expectations of a certain educational level, sense of small unit responsibility, tool allocation, and doctrine. Tools that would be allocated to a U.S. battalion (a unit of some 600-800 personnel) would most likely be found at a much higher level—probably two or three echelons higher—in an Arab army.

I have observed many in-country U.S. survey teams: invariably, hosts make the case for acquiring the most modern of military hardware and do everything to avoid issues of maintenance, logistics, and training. They obfuscate and mislead to such an extent that U.S. teams, no matter how earnest their sense of mission, find it nearly impossible to help.

------

--
A lack of cooperation is most apparent in the failure of all Arab armies to succeed at combined arms operations. A regular Jordanian army infantry company, for example, is man-for-man as good as a comparable Israeli company; at battalion level, however, the coordination required for combined arms operations, with artillery, air, and logistics support, is simply absent. Indeed, the higher the echelon, the greater the disparity.

Three factors;

First, the well-known lack of trust among Arabs for anyone outside their own family adversely affects offensive operations.

Second, the complex mosaic system of peoples creates additional problems for training, as rulers in the Middle East make use of the sectarian and tribal loyalties to maintain power.

Third, Middle Eastern rulers routinely rely on balance-of-power techniques to maintain their authority. They use competing organizations, duplicate agencies, and coercive structures dependent upon the ruler's whim. This makes building any form of personal power base difficult, if not impossible, and keeps the leadership apprehensive and off-balance, never secure in its careers or social position. The same applies within the military; a powerful chairman of the joint chiefs is inconceivable.

More on Security and Paranoia, Indifference to Safety, in article.

in conclusion: Until Arab politics begin to change at fundamental levels, Arab armies, whatever the courage or proficiency of individual officers and men, are unlikely to acquire the range of qualities which modern fighting forces require for success on the battlefield. For these qualities depend on inculcating respect, trust, and openness among the members of the armed forces at all levels, and this is the marching music of modern warfare that Arab armies, no matter how much they emulate the corresponding steps, do not want to hear

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE ARAB MIND REVISITED: a review by the same author, Norvell De Atkine, of The Arab Mind, by the cultural anthropologist Raphael Patai (1910-96)

http://www.meforum.org/636/the-arab-mind-revisited

The officers returning from the Arab world describe the cultural barriers they encounter as by far the most difficult to navigate, far beyond those of political perceptions. Thinking back on it, I recall many occasions on which I was perplexed by actions or behavior on the part of my Arab hosts—actions and behavior that would have been perfectly understandable had I read The Arab Mind. I have hence emphasized to my students that there must be a combination of observation and study to begin a process of understanding another culture. Simply observing a culture through the prism of our own beliefs and cultural worldview leads to many misconceptions. More often than not, this results in a form of cultural shock that can be totally debilitating to a foreigner working with Arabs. Less common, but equally non-productive, is the soldier who becomes caught up in a culture he views as idyllic and "goes native." Inevitably there will come a time (usually during a political crisis) when the cultural chasm will force unpleasant reality to resurface.
-----------

Patai devoted a large portion of this book to the Arabic language, its powerful appeal, as well as its inhibiting effects. The proneness to exaggeration he describes was amply displayed in the Gulf war by the exhortations of Saddam Hussein to the Arabs in the "mother of all battles." This penchant for rhetoric and use of hyperbole were a feature of the Arab press during the war. The ferocity of the Arab depiction of Iraqi prowess had American experts convinced that there would be thousands of American casualties. Even when the war was turning into a humiliating rout, the "Arab street" was loath to accept this reality as fact.

(But is it unique to just the Arab language?)

Sinister West

Perhaps the section of this book most relevant to today's political and social environment is the chapter on the psychology of Westernization. After centuries of certitude that their civilization was superior—a belief evolving from the very poor impression the European crusaders made on the Arabs and fully justified by the reality—the Arab self-image was rudely shattered by the easy French conquest of Egypt in 1798. A declining Middle East had been far surpassed by a revitalized Europe. The initial shock among the Arab elite was followed by a period of limited emulation, at least in the form of Western political and social values.

In his section on the "sinister West," Patai gets to the heart of the burning hatred that seems to drive brutal acts of terrorism against Americans. Despite its lack of a colonial past in the Middle East, America, as the most powerful representative of the "West," has inherited primary enemy status, in place of the French and British. Patai points out the Arabs' tendency to blame others for the problems evident in their political systems, quality of life, and economic power.

The Arab media and Arab intellectuals, invoking the staple mantras against colonialism, Zionism, and imperialism, provide convenient outside culprits for every corrupt or dysfunctional system or event in the Arab world. Moreover, this is often magnified and supported by a number of the newer generation of Western scholars inculcated with Marxist teaching who, unwittingly perhaps, help Arab intellectuals to avoid ever having to come to grips with the very real domestic issues that must be confronted.

The Arab world combines a rejection of Western values with a penchant for carrying around historical baggage of doubtful utility. At the same time, there is a simplistic, if understandable, yearning for return to a more glorious and pristine past that would enable the Arabs once again to confront the West on equal terms. This particular belief has found many Arab adherents in the past decade.

(and this is where the Ghost Dancing take place)

Patai also delves into the extremely sensitive issue of the nature of Islam in a particularly prescient manner. He views the fatalistic element inherit in Islam as an important factor in providing great strength to Muslims in times of stress or tragedy; in normal or better times, however, it acts as an impediment. Given their pervasive belief that God provides and disposes of all human activity, Muslims tend to reject the Western concept of man creating his own environment as an intrusion on God's realm. This includes any attempt to change God's plan for the fate of the individual.

Certainly one can point to numerous exceptions. But, having worked for long periods with Arab military units, I can attest to their often cavalier attitude toward safety precautions, perhaps reflecting a Qur'anic saying, heard in various forms, that "death will overtake you even if you be inside a fortress." Just observing how few Arabs use seat belts in their automobiles can be a revelation. This manifestation of Arab fatalism is often misconstrued as a lesser value put on human life.

(and it's one thing to be cavalier and fatalistic regarding a seatbelt in an automobile, and quite another to exhibit that same attitude in a multi-million dollar jet fighter, especially one that might not be adequately cared for and maintained.)

-----------

Say I:
There's more, and I hope I have intrigued you enough to explore further.
Just one point of humor here, somehow the Arabs have ascribed Western culture and technology with 'jinn'. We are the genies they don't want to be let out of the bottle. and if anything goes wrong, they blame it on the 'jinn'.

-------

Ghost Dancin'.
the Greeks did it.
the Native Americans did it.
and now the Arabs and Islams.
Some of you might get it.

René O'Deay

The Bilderberg Group, formed in 1954, was founded in the Netherlands as a secretive meeting held once a year, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.”[2] Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairman of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world.[3] The Bilderberg Group acts as a “secretive global think-tank,” with an original intent to “to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.”[4]

In the early 1950s, top European elites worked with selected American elites to form the Bilderberg Group in an effort to bring together the most influential people from both sides of the Atlantic to advance the cause of ‘Atlanticism’ and ‘globalism.’ The list of attendees were the usual suspects: top politicians, international businessmen, bankers, leaders of think tanks and foundations, top academics and university leaders, diplomats, media moguls, military officials, and Bilderberg also included several heads of state, monarchs, as well as senior intelligence officials, including top officials of the CIA, which was the main financier for the first meeting in 1954.[5]

In this caption, Mr. Firoze Manji talks about America and imperialism -- "Is it a real democracy you are living?"

The folowing lengthy video is an important discourse of the challenges facing Africa. Panelist(s) Firoze Manji defines the challenges and addresses grassroot issues and consequences currently being faced. I urge those of you interested in Africa and African studies to view the video -- it is of great importance.

May 25, 2011 discussion with Firoze Manji and Molly Kane of Pambazuka News and Pius Adesanmi of Carleton University: “African Awakenings and New Visions of Solidarity” to celebrate Africa Liberation Day.  Video-taping by Wangui Kimari (Carleton).

Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and once a central city of the ancient Kingdom of Gandhara, is becoming known as one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Bombings, targeted killings, and kidnappings have left behind an acute feeling of insecurity. But in this resilient city of 1.5 million, a new reality is being born. As one local told me, "We can’t stop living out of fear of the Taliban."

The main road that links Peshawar with Hayatabad and then stretches ahead to Afghanistan via the Khyber Tribal Agency reflects the courage and perseverance of a city racked by militancy.

The road is home to the best restaurants and wedding halls in the city -- Shiraz, Balana, University Tikka, Jalil Kabad, Masoom, and the Sham Hotel, to name a few. These food outlets and gathering halls have become spaces of refuge for students, NGO workers, businessmen, and families, places to come together and celebrate with dance and music in defiance of a resurgent wave of crime and terrorism.

Over food, the conversation inevitably turns to the security, political, and economic situations in the region and in Pakistan broadly. Many of the people at the gatherings are noticeably middle- and upper-class citizens, relatively economically secure -- for now -- and, above all, engaged. 

Lively discussions about issues like the global war on terror, Taliban brutalities, U.S. policy in the region, the role of the Pakistani security apparatus in state affairs, and the security situation dance around the room.

Cultural Wasteland

It’s not clear if this is a reaction to events or a newfound love by Pashtuns for their cultural heritage, but almost every educational institute has been transformed into a hub of cultural activities. In some cases, groups of young people have banded together to contribute funds for concerts, food festivals, sporting events, and fashion shows.

The people of Peshawar have learned how to live in the shadow of death and are trying to take back their city.

For the last decade, the city has slowly turned into a cultural wasteland. It started when the Mutahida Majlas-e-Amal (MMA) religious government banned music on public transport and closed Nishtar Hall --  the only cultural center in the city -- and devolved slowly from there.

Now, the provincial government has taken the initiative and opened Nishtar Hall. Every weekend, one can see city residents gather in their traditional shalwar kameez, passing through the security barriers, and enjoying music and shows with their friends and families.

There are also steps being taken to revive the area’s intellectual heritage.

I recently visited the Institute of Management Sciences in Hayatabad. Housed in a well-designed building mixing traditional and modern architecture, the institute is located on the border of the Khyber Tribal Agency, from where various militant groups coordinate their activities.

One wouldn’t know the institute lies in such a volatile region by looking at the courage and hope on the faces of the students and teachers of the organization. With two dozen Ph.D.s and 3,000 students, the institute focuses on socio-economic and cultural development in the volatile tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

It strives to produce indigenous professionals in the fields of development studies, public health, applied economics, business management, and the liberal arts, and regularly hosts video conferences with international scholars on the burning issues of the day.

"Despite bomb explosions and instability, we refused to close our institute for a single day," Javed Iqbal, coordinator of the Center of Public Policy and Research at the institute, tells me. "The institute is the first line of defense against religious extremism. Our spirits are high. We believe that we are contributing to our society in a positive manner."

Life Returns

As militant commanders bent on destruction roam the area, students and staff at the institute try to organize art exhibitions, poetry competitions, and fashion shows.

The ring road that leads from the main city to Afghanistan is the primary route for transporting food and building materials into Afghanistan. It is also the shortest route for NATO supplies. The road is regularly in the media due to the attacks on NATO oil tankers.

But the ring road has also transformed into a bustling marketplace. On both sides of the road one can see restaurants, kebab shops, and shopping malls dealing in Western dresses, cosmetics, and perfumes.

And due to a boom in media, combined with people’s interest in the lighter aspects of life, there are now six FM stations broadcasting music, live call-in shows, and debates on topics of general interest.

This is a big change from the days when militant leaders propagated fundamentalism through their FM radio channels in different areas of the province. According to one estimate, there were once more than 80 FM channels in Malakand and the adjoining areas of Peshawar city.

The vigor and enthusiasm of Peshawar is as alive as ever. The only thing this resilient city needs now is peace.

-- Shaheen Buneri

Shaheen Buneri is a journalist with RFE/RL’s Pakistan service, Radio Mashaal. He is on a monthlong reporting trip to Pakistan as a Pulitzer Center fellow

http://www.rferl.org/content/gandhara_shaeen_buneri_peshawar/24225810.html

By Andrew Gavin Marshall

Introduction

As the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden has placed the focus on Pakistan, it is vital to assess the changing role of Pakistan in broad geostrategic terms, and in particular, of the changing American strategy toward Pakistan. The recently reported assassination was a propaganda ploy aimed at targeting Pakistan. To understand this, it is necessary to examine how America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistan’s growing military and strategic ties to China, America’s primary global strategic rival. In the ‘Great Game’ for global hegemony, any country that impedes America’s world primacy – even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan – may be sacrificed upon the altar of war.

Part 1 of ‘Pakistan in Pieces’ examines the changing views of the American strategic community – particularly the military and intelligence circles – towards Pakistan. In particular, there is a general acknowledgement that Pakistan will very likely continue to be destabilized and ultimately collapse. What is not mentioned in these assessments, however, is the role of the military and intelligence communities in making this a reality; a veritable self-fulfilling prophecy. This part also examines the active on the ground changes in American strategy in Pakistan, with increasing military incursions into the country.

Reflections of Fidel

A fire which could burn everyone

(Taken from CubaDebate)

ONE can be in agreement or not with Gaddafi’s political ideas, but nobody has the right to question the existence of Libya as an independent state and a member of the United Nations.

The world has still not accomplished what, from my point of view, constitutes an elemental question for the survival of our species today: the access of all peoples to the material resources of this planet. There is none other within the solar system which possesses the most elemental conditions of life as we know it.

The United States has always tried to be a melting pot of all races, creeds and nations: Caucasians, Africans, Asians, Indian and people of mixed race, with no differences other than those of master and slave, rich and poor; but all within the limits of its borders: Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic to the east, and the Pacific to the west. Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii were simple historical accidents.

The complicated aspect of the matter is that it is not about a noble desire of those fighting for a better world, which is as worthy of respect as the religious beliefs of the peoples. Just a few types of radioactive isotopes emanating from enriched uranium consumed by electronuclear plants in relatively small quantities – given that they do not exist in nature – would suffice to put an end to the fragile existence of our species.

Burying those growing volumes of nuclear waste under sarcophaguses of cement and steel, is one of the greatest challenges of technology.

Incidents such as the Chernobyl accident or the Japanese earthquake have exposed those mortal risks.

The issue I wish to approach today is not that, but the shock with which I observed yesterday, via Walter Martínez’ Dossier program on Venezuelan television, the footage of the meeting between Robert Gates, chief of the Department of Defense, and British Defense Minister Liam Fox, who visited the United States to discuss the criminal war unleashed by NATO on Libya. It was almost hard to believe, the British minister took the Oscar; he was a bundle of nerves, he was tense, he spoke like a madman, he gave the impression that he was spitting out words.

Of course, first he arrived at the Pentagon entrance, where a smiling Gates was waiting for him. The flags of the two countries, that of the former colonial British Empire and that of its stepchild, the empire of the United States, fluttered on high on both sides while the anthems were played. The right hand on the chest, the rigorous and solemn military salute of the host country’s ceremony. That was Act I. After that the two ministers entered the U.S. Defense department. One would imagine that they talked at length given the footage I saw when each one returned with a speech in his hands, doubtless previously drafted.

The framework of this whole spectacle was constituted by military personnel. From the left hand angle one could see a young soldier, tall, slim, seemingly red-haired, shaven head, a cap with a black visor rammed on almost to his neck, presenting a rifle with a bayonet, unblinking and apparently not breathing, the very stamp of a soldier ready to fire a bullet or a nuclear missile with a destructive capacity of 100,000 tone of TNT. Gates spoke with the smile and naturalness of a lord and master. The Briton, on the other hand, did so in the way that I detailed.

It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen; he exhibited hatred, frustration, rage and threatening language toward the Libyan leader, demanding his unconditional surrender. He seemed to be indignant because NATO’s powerful aircraft had been unable to crush the Libyan resistance in 72 hours.

He only needed to exclaim, "Blood, toil, tears and sweat!" like Winston Churchill did when calculating the price to be paid by his country for fighting Nazi aircraft. In this case the Nazi-fascist role is being played by NATO with its thousands of bombing missions with the most modern fighter planes that the world has ever known.

The last straw was the U.S. government decision authorizing the use of drone aircraft to kill Libyan men, women and children, as in Afghanistan, thousands of kilometers distant from Western Europe, but this time against an Arab and African people, right in front of the eyes of hundreds of millions of Europeans and no less than in the name of the United Nations.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated yesterday that such acts of war were illegal and exceeded the framework of the United Nations Security Council agreements.

The gross attacks on the Libyan people, which are acquiring a Nazi-fascist nature, could be utilized against any Third World nation.

The resistance that Libya has put up really amazes me.

Now that bellicose organization is dependent on Gaddafi. If he resists and does not comply with its demands, he will go down in history as one of the great figures of the Arab countries.

NATO is fanning a fire which could burn everyone!

Fidel Castro Ruz

April 27, 2011

7:34 p.m.

First, there was the pornography discovered in Osama bin Laden’s computers —and herbal Viagra found among his medicines.

A week has flown by since Osama was escorted off the stage.
A week of immense chatter from those in and out of the know-
A week of reflection.

Long ago in that dark September I walked into the bedroom to gently roust my friend, who was claiming a few more minutes of sleep before she faced the world. While sitting on the edge of the bed, combing her hair with my fingers, I looked at the screen the moment the network replayed the first plane hitting the tower. I don’t recall what I said but it brought her out of that in-between place where she was nesting. As she sat up asking about what had happened the second plane hit the towers. Silence.

Over the last week I have wrestled with what I feel about all of it. I watched cheering people outside of the White House, Ground Zero and on the streets of Seattle. I didn’t feel like cheering though I am happy this decade of searching for Osama is over.

I’ve been thinking more about the events in my families lives since grandma climbed on a boat in Waterford, in the late 1800’s, and set sail for the new world. I never knew my grandmother or my grandfather. They had come and gone before I arrived.

Grandma, my father’s mum, lived through the fears of immigration and assimilation. She lived while the British rolled into Dublin to put down the Easter rebellion. She saw what they did days later hanging the patriots whose lives became the battle cry that finally ushered in the Republic of Ireland. She witnessed WWl, flappers, the depression, WWll…

Closer to home, my mother, daughter of another set of immigrants, from Ireland, was born on the border of sand dunes stretching across the southern boundary of the Presidio in San Francisco. As a three year old she was taken with her family to the Golden Gate Park to camp out in order to avoid the spreading fires and after shocks of the great 1906 earthquake. She lived while WWl raged, flapped with the flappers, survived the depression with an out of work husband and two young children, endured WWll with all its fears. The oldest kids were sent to day camp south of San Francisco to be out of the way in case the Japanese invaded. Those of us on the bottom of the birth curve were not yet here to witness any of these events. We arrived later-
We, the younger kids, missed the villains of the first half of the twentieth century. The trials, executions, rebuilding of ruined cities... Big name villains who sought to rule the world and eradicate swaths of humanity. We never knew the heroes who stopped them other than the small band of relatives who rarely spoke a word about the wars.

We have drunk in the horrors of multiple assassinations, the loss of our sixties flower power to the stink of a Vietnamese jungle. We have been assaulted by a non-stop conflict in the Middle East. The insanity of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland and a slew of villains rocking our sensibility with their craven desire to make us adhere to their view of how things should be-

Perhaps, now is the time to lean back and construct a world of equity where no one is intoxicated by the alternatives offered to them by dissatisfied, broken and angry merchants of death?

It would be wonderful if my grandson’s world could be constructed by more positive memories than those that have infiltrated our lives.

I just can’t get it out of my head….

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

(C'mon)

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters,
Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

(Let me tell you now)

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,
Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna
Hare Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

I have invested most of every wakeful hour in the last 25 years in front of a computer. My company bought one of the very first useful desktop PC's ever, the 1983 model IBM PC XT, followed closely in 1985 by our purchase of a second PC, the IBM PC AT 3270 with terminal emulation, a faster, smaller futuristic gem.

I quickly migrated all of my work onto the near-paperless infrastructure we built, teaching myself to use popular word processing and relational database building software. I taught myself to to write SQL programs to extract data in any form I desired, and quickly took on writing programs that generated linear and multiple regression, as well as chi-square analyses.   By 1987, I was a whiz at analyzing large volumes of data. We hired data entry operators to enter ever paper record we had on hand or in storage, some dating back to my grandfather's shipments of bauxite and coal in 1947. By the time we finished electronically collecting our history, our mainframe computer held no fewer than 250,000 records of company transactions, with every field coded and given values. We became so proficient at analyzing every aspect of our business processes that we reduced our operating costs by nearly 60%, because we took the early leap, and gambled on those investments in PC's. 

Today, all but retired from that business, I still find myself in front of either of my 2 PC's most of every day (one is a Media Center for great access to giant screen TV, Internet, & Radio). But I have amassed, over the last 5 years, no less than 6 terabytes of data, including video footage, photos, emails, word documents, PDF's, music (mp3, wav, CD), and a few recorded TV shows. I have all this stored on four (4) internal hard drives and four (4) external hard drives. Additionally, I have everything deemed critical backed up on DVD's. The data, family videos, travel photos, etc., spans more than three (3) decades.

Now, we know the Bin Laden Family's history with the Bush Family spans far more time than the time span of my records do. And Dick Cheney has quite a long history within the world of the Bush/Bin Laden relationships, and within the world of Pakistan's recent leader, Pervez Musharraf.

I would have to believe that Osama Bin Laden had some of the same type files and data that I did. I'm guessing even the most hardened criminal has a soft spot for his or her children, mother, and maybe a favorite sister or brother. Bin Laden probably had some photos, some video clips, and letters from Aunt Salome.

But Osama Bin Laden didn't have as many hard drives as he did to store family memorabilia. No. Bin Laden had important data, and he had a plan to use it if required.

I am almost certain Bin Laden used some of those hard drives to "back-up" others, and even that would suggest that Bin Laden was not lying around waiting for the Grim Reaper.

I can only guess what events filled Bin Laden's final 4 or 5 minutes. But I would bet he did not destroy any of the data from the hard drives. And I may go as far as to suggest he was certain the U.S. Navy Seals were able to secure every bit of media completely intact.

And so, as I learned in the early 1980's, hard drive searches can be executed very quickly; and I learned you really cannot completely delete files from hard drives without some fairly complex software.

But then, why would Bin Laden have that many hard drives if his plan was to delete files?

Rest well, Dick Cheney and George Bush, while we await the results of those searches.

None of the potential candidates in the Republican presidential field breaks the 20% mark, according to a poll released Wednesday on the eve of the first official debate among some contenders.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads the pack, with 18% among Republicans and independent voters leaning toward the party, the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll shows. Tied for second are former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, with 15% each, followed by celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump, with 12%  

The path of the Republican party is far from promising. The people have responded saying "they would never vote for Sarah Palin or Trump.

More bad signs for Trump and Palin: In interviews with registered voters of various political stripes, 58% said they would never consider voting for either in a general election.

This was published by Detroit Free Press, all the You Betcha's in the world could not help her be elected. Fake is Fake and Palin with Trump hovering alongside are making a impact with republican peoples decision, they are going to vote Democrat. I take it the President's birth certificate was raped by Trump associates, and he has not mentioned it since. I could of sworn last time i checked Trump was leading the polls now he leads with 12% how silly. Being negative will not get you into the White House, credibility on proven facts is what those (thief's) Republicans need.

I do not believe the World would be a safe nor going down a positive road with Republicans leading. the polls demonstrate it honestly.

No potential GOP hopeful lands big support, poll finds

Only the darkest of cynics would take pleasure in ridiculing you and William as you enjoy your day in the sun.
Your wedding is not the time to wax philosophically about the value of the monarchy or the costs attributed to your wedding ceremony and celebrations.
You and William have presented the perfect escape, if just for a few moments, away from whatever personal struggles grind the rest of us in our daily dance.
That step away from our realities has value way beyond the cost of the day.
Thank you for sharing part of your dream with us.

It often feels as if we live in cultures that continually find something wrong with everything, and everybody, within shouting distance of the one pointing the crooked finger.
Some find it necessary to denigrate the royal family, presidents, prime ministers, the cabinets, all members of government, unions, teachers, students, and of course, those that are unable to fend for themselves-
The poor, homeless, aged, sick are often portrayed as people taking from the system rather than contributing to it in some meaningful fashion, according to those who judge such things-

Your momentary transcendence from all the swirling of reality offers a pathway into that part of us that wants to feel what you are sharing with the world. A dream, a hope, a kind look, a fleeting bashful kiss, a hand reaching out to change a life-

The world would engulf us with its grayness of regularity without moments of fantasy that become as real, for moments, as anything else we experience. Without ceremonies that tie us to some sense of history we would ricochet off the walls of reality.

World cups, super bowls, lottery winnings will never reach in to touch the happy little parts of our hearts that scurry around looking for a way to cry in joy.

May your happiness wrap us all in the hope that there is more than what radiates off the front pages of the newspapers.

Thank you.

"It really is the responsibility of the author to write the truth," said David Black, a literary agent. "If a publisher were to establish a fact-checking department the way a magazine fact checks, given the length of the works and the number of books they are dealing with, it would become very difficult to publish a lot of nonfiction."

William Zinsser, who is the author of "Writing About Your Life: A Journey Into the Past," said on Sunday that publishers have had a "slippery" standard for accuracy in memoirs.

"I don't think they much care whether it's true or not," Mr. Zinsser said. "To me, the essence of memoir writing is absolute truth because I think everybody gains that way."

There are all kind of logical flaws here that Bercovici's mythic Journalism 1.0 editors presumably would have caught.

The big, whopping one is that it's unclear what "Journalism 2.0" had to do with this at all. The college student was a stringer for AFP, which is about as Journalism 1.0 as you can get (as in, older than the AP). Bercovici tries to get around that by saying the stringer is "the sort of freelance pieceworker media companies have been leaning on to make up for the downsizing of their professional workforces."

Calling out the artists, the intellectual elite, the free thinkers,and social critics,we need you desperately now more than ever !

You dudes have done a bang up job, No sacred cows left, the criticism of religion has largely cowered the voice of dissent in the theocratic community,to attacks on any and all beliefs,as fair game. Sun light is the best disinfectant. Holding religious beliefs or concepts of belief,up to ridicule,helps others, less"enlightened" than you, see the error of their ways.

Which brings me to one of the most important works of art in the twentieth century,Andros Serrano Esoteric "Piss Christ", truly a ground breaking achievement, it shook the world to it's core. In unconfined reports,priests in Italy,were said to be randomly killing Baptists,as they think of all Americans as Baptists.

yes,I love art that is meant to provoke a response in those viewing it.

I can think of nothing better, but we need to remember diversity,whats the world without that, hey ?

could we see a "maggot Mohammad" any time soon ? we have seen a piss Christ, and an Elephant dung virgin Mary.diversity,diversity,diversity,that is the job of government. If it that is not the job of government,what is ?

Where is the Maggot Mohammad. Simply in the interests of DIVERSITY, I demand it.

I, or my group ( a poorly funded,and under-represented,underground "black Irish" pagan movement) want a grant from the national endowment for the arts. Please call your congressmen now, and help make my dream become a reality.

I call it performance art ( or interactive, you see it,smell it, and want to puke)

I feel that the national endowment for the arts, in the interests of diversity,you understand, should lavishly found my project.

in an attempt to show my utter contempt ,for the disgusting acts committed in the name of Islam ( the ideology of submission). be-headings,ethnic cleanings in Africa,the continuation of the slave trade,gender apartheid,contempt to such a degree, leading to murder ( the Iranian hangings) for same sex relationships.

I purpose, to publicly display, the rotting four day old, dead carcass of a pig, named ( pig prophet - Mohammad) covered in millions of freshly hatched blow fly larva.Housed in a glass tank,with a screen cover,letting the aroma of death permeate the crowd.

It would be a multi -sensory experience,and no one under the age of 16 would be admitted.

I call it simply,"Maggot Mohammad" a crystalline moment caught in time.

posters could be made available for sale, to help defray the costs of my changing my name, and moving back to Alaska. (LOL)

does any one think that such a suggestion, would lead to death threats ?

any chance of my gaining government funding ?

Here we go!

10. The apostrophe: Is it April Fool's day or April Fools' day or April Fools day? Get rid of it!

9. French Fries: Those frenchies across the pond take credit for things they had nothing to do with. Off with their heads!

8. Though/Through: End the same but pronounced totally different... fix it please!

7. I read it, I've read it: Should be I reade it, I've read it.

6. gh/ph=f: Do I need to say anything?

5. Eggplants: Do not contain any eggs. It is not an eggplant. Same with faceplants, they do not contain faces.

4. Ewe: Should be pronounced "ew", not "you".

3. Cwm: Is actually a word, in which the w serves as a vowel. Pronounced "kroom", though shouldn't exist at all in my book.

2. Queuing: The only word that has five vowels in a row. I hate it.

~~~

1. Meese: the plural of moose shouldn't be moose. Or mooses. It should be meese.

A state in western India has banned Pulitzer-prize-winning Joseph Lelyveld's new book about Mahatma Gandhi after reviews said it hints that the father of India's independence had a homosexual relationship.

Honesty seems like such a no-brainer of a requirement. But it's caused a great deal of controversy in Canada over the past few weeks--controversy heightened by the upcoming launch of a new, politically conservative Canadian television channel called Sun TV.

The regulatory committee reviewing extensions pointed to stress cracks in the backup diesel-powered generators at Reactor No. 1 at the Daiichi plant, according to a summary of its deliberations that was posted on the Web site of Japan's nuclear regulatory agency after each meeting. The cracks made the engines vulnerable to corrosion from seawater and rainwater. The generators are thought to have been knocked out by the tsunami, shutting down the reactor's vital cooling system.

Two Britain-based, USAF F-15 pilots are safe after an 'equipment malfunction' causes their fighter jet to crash in northeast Libya while conducting a night-time strike on Qaddafi-regime air defenses.

The military dispatched two Marine Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft from the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, which is currently about 100 miles off the coast of Libya, to pick up one of the downed pilots. The other ejected and "was recovered by the people of Libya," said Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of US Naval Forces in Europe and Africa. "He was treated with dignity and respect, and is now in the care of the United States."

Both sustained only minor injuries, according to Admiral Locklear.

Events such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan have a tendency to fill the human heart with fear and dread. Few populated areas can be said to be safe from some sort of geological or atmospheric threat. Whenever they occur, no matter how remote from our location, we are reminded of the irresistible forces at play in our immovable world and imagine ourselves as victims.

Life is both a constant and elusive premise. Each being can feel their own heartbeat, knowing instinctively, in that moment, of their individual existence while the moment passes on to the next, and the next, until such moments cease. On the larger stage, players become interchangeable – life goes on, so to speak. The greater idea of existence involves the interaction of specie and the juggling act required to maintain a continual march to the next moment. In earlier times, humans and other animals migrated in order to relieve pressure on local resources. Other species, displaced by the movement, found new ground, engaged in new symbioses, or died out from a lack of purpose.

There are fewer places remaining to handle the overflow. When the white-tailed deer population on the east end of Long Island grows too large for the area to sustain, the herds are thinned through controlled hunting. Similar activities take place throughout the world. It is a question of balance from the viewpoint of scientific reasoning. Natural predators were driven to extinction, so humans must intervene to a greater degree in constricting the deer census. For the deer, it’s a period of fear and dread, a disaster as natural to them as a tornado or hurricane, resulting from similar planetary forces and aimed toward the ultimate goal of system balancing.

Wars among peoples fall under the category of natural disaster when root causes are uncovered. Whatever triggered the fight, the surrounding conditions usually involve some element of nature, from the distribution of resources such as water, food, precious metals or fuel to differences in racial appearance and predisposition. War is the ultimate herd thinner, its casualties appearing random at the micro scale, yet balanced in its overall net effect on the planet.

Historically, the scale of warfare inversely reflects other planetary conditions. In times of minor natural duress, when the planet is inflicting mere discomforts in certain regions, wars tend to involve large groups of combatants and heavy losses. Conversely, when the planet is angry and expressing itself through a large human toll, any fights, along with the overall body counts, grow smaller. The cause and effect may be argued, but the results are consistent in that the momentary pressure resulting from overpopulation finds some proportionate relief.

Forests burn in order to allow new growth. Mud slides, storms fly and mountains rise through a confluence of seemingly unrelated events, yet the planet continues to operate as a perpetuator of life. There is no precaution sufficient to override the requirement for planetary balance, no wall high enough to stem the tide, no root cellar deep enough to avoid the effect of a furious wind. There can be no moment when the plague on our house is totally absent.

During the outset of the disaster in Japan, CNBC interviewed countless economic experts regarding the possible effects on business. Each talking head, without exception, began (often clumsily) by stating sympathy and condolences for the human suffering involved before proceeding into the analytics of the situation. The exhibition proved a reminder of the emptiness possible from the formation of words and the deeper meaning of the fear that punctuates the sentence.

We are each dispensable as individuals, hosts only to our personal thoughts and fuel for the larger engine. This is not a pleasant idea, in which we are mostly helpless to prevent the consumption of ourselves and our loved ones to stoke the perpetual flame. When we offer sympathy for those injured, we do so in thanks for being spared. When we mourn the dead, we also mourn a demise that lay ahead.

To the Dear President of Libya,

Nice jokes you pulled over the last 24 hours! I'm impressed, I didn't think you had any humor at all, but I guess I can't judge you over some photographs. The way you sent some ambassadors to the opposition, who now control most of your country, and asked for immunity was a very nice joke. I mean, seriously, do you think you're going to get it?

You probably own billions of dollars, hidden inside your country's finances. You have killed thousands of people and have run your country not as a democracy, even a little one. It's been a solid dictatorship. You're approaching the levels near Hitler, your highness. That's right. Your highness. King Gadhafi the terrible.

Learn this: your assets overseas have been frozen and will return to Libya. Your family, especially you, will never be welcome in Libya for the next few generations. You have divided your country and treated your citizens like cattle for the last 41 years. You are never going to gain immunity. You are going to die.

So, you escape Libya. Where are you going to go? Turkey seems to be after you, they're offering your head in exchange for an EU membership. And do you think the United States will ever forget Pan Am 103? Your own citizens will never forget their hardships in their quest for freedom. No one is going to let you go quietly, much less honorably. Forget about your safety, Gadhafi. We will find you. You cannot escape, you've already passed that point of no return. You have lost all legitimacy to rule and demand things of others. What control do you have anymore, Tripoli? If your country were to divide today, you're new Libya would be the smaller of the two countries. My friend, it's too late.

Save yourself while you can, for now. Get out of Libya. Step down, because you've used your free pass last week. No one will help you now. No one is ever going to forget your reign of terror.

Signed,

LeafyDebater

Now that the we have safely evacuated the Americans from Libya, the US is free to speak our minds, and start taking steps to help the Libyans protect themselves from the brutality of Muammar al Qaddafi. But what should we do? Should we do anything?

Many think, rather than put boots on the ground under the flag of NATO, we should establish a "No Fly Zone" (NFZ) in an attempt to keep Qaddafi from straffing and bombing his people. There seems to be an impression that this is a "softer" less intrusive approach to helping the Libyan people.

However it is much more complicated than that.

To establish a NFZ we will need a UN Security Council Resolution, that will enable us (or the Britts) to go in and bomb all the Libyan radar, SAMs and anti-aircraft installations, which is a necessary precursor to establishing the no fly zone. That action, in affect is invading the country, and I don't think the rest of the Arab world really wants to see the west invading any more of their countries.

IMO, the best approach is to quietly arm the people, move in as much ordnance and munitions as possible and send in NATO advisers in plain clothes to help organize forces, plan strategy and deploy tactics. Otherwise Qaddafi or his sons could conceivably regain control of the country or it could fall into the hands of people that are just as dangerous or even more dangerous than Qaddafi!

However, the problem may be getting the resolution in the first place. Any permanent member of the Security Council can veto a resolution. China and Russia are permanent members, and it is not likely that China will want to limit its options in dealing with the rebellious country of Nepal, and Russia is in the same situation with Georgia. Setting the precedent of a no fly over Libya might make it a little dicey for them if they find a need to get rough with their possessions.

So, the problem of a No Fly Zone is a lot more complicated than it seems. Anyway, do we really want to get militarily involved? That whole Middle East is a tinder box right now, if we keep playing with matches over there we're liable to blow up the whole place.

On the other hand, if we stay out if it in the hope the people will be able to overthrow Qaddafi, and they are successful, we could find that there is a very serious power vacuum, as there no establishments in Libya that are able to restore order and run the business of the country. In that case the concern is that al Qaeda or other terrorist leaders will be able to take over control of the country.

It is important to keep in mind that the economic stability and well being of the free world, particularly the West, rest on who and what control the leadership of the Middle Eastern counties falls into. Keep in mind that the Suez Canal is in the middle of all this chaos. If terrorist or national forces hostile to the free world seized control of the Suez, we all would be in serious trouble.

Over 22,000 vessels pass through the canal every year, carrying approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil and about 8% of the worlds sea trade. Receipts from the canal total over $5.5 Billion every year! If the free world loses control over events in the Middle East, we could find ourselves with terrorist or a dictator imposing their will on the Libyan people, and holding the free World hostage, by threatening to shut down the Suez Canal.

What should NATO do? What should the UN do? What should President Obama do? You see, there is no simple solution, but you can be sure there will be an outcome.

So, what should we do? (See poll)

As press releases and hoax stories flood newsrooms, the Media Standards Trust has found a way to sift fact from fluff

Hosni Mubarak has resigned his office as President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, effective immediately, and turned his authority over to the highest level of Egyptian military leaders, who in turn have turn the ruling power over to the Republics' Supreme Court. Mubarak had been Vice President of Egypt under Anwar Sadat for 6 years when Sadat was assassinated in October of 1981, elevating Mubarak to the Presidency, where he has served for the past 30 years, making him the longest sitting Egyptian ruler since Ali Pasha, the founder of Egypt .

Mubaraks' resignation has come after a tumultuous 17 days of rising and falling emotions, as events move forward toward what could have been a violent and bloody revolution. However, the Egyptian people, by protesting in massive demonstrations, much to their credit, were able to bring about a peaceful revolution, resulting in the resignation of their Dictatorial President. The overthrow did not come about completely without bloodshed, as over 300 people died for their cause. However their lives were not lost in vein, because what they helped people of Egypt accomplish will go down in history as one of the greatest revolutions of our times.

The next question is what will happen regarding the Egyptian alliance with the United States. I am sure there was much behind the scenes diplomatic negotiations going on prior to Mubaraks' announcement. Hopefully the Egyptian Army will co-operate and the transition will keep the alliance in place. Because IMO, Mubarak himself was not the ally of the United States, the people of Egypt have been the ally of the United States. Mubarak has just been the Head of State who we had to deal with in maintaining the alliance.

The outcome of this uprising will have enormous impact on our Mid Eastern Foreign Policy, because Egypt is the cultural and political anchor of the Middle East, and the Egyptian Army is arguably the most potent force in the region. The stability and security of Israel and the extremely critical Suez canal is at stake and if events do not go well our national interest could very well be compromised.

I congratulate the people of Egypt.

See CNN videos of Vice President Omar Suleimans announcement of the resignation and videos of the demonstrators celebration.

Supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attacked pro-democracy protesters and targeted journalists in Cairo on Wednesday. The Cutline reported yesterday on pro-Mubarak mobs going after journalists from CNN, CBS, ABC and numerous international news outlets.

Like all newspapers, yesterday's Palm Beach Post was filled with reports of the civil unrest in Egypt. Two well-known and respected journalists offered their commentary on the situation and a member of the readership, Rabbi Richard Yellin, added his voice by sending a letter to the editor. Of these three contributors, Rabbi Yellin's words were most interesting so I will save him for last.

Jackson Diehl, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote an article entitled, "Can U.S. get on the right side?"

Mr. Diehl referenced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2009 visit to Egypt, during which she was asked whether the Egyptian government's human rights violations -- documented by the State Department -- would cause the White House to consider rescinding an invitation proffered to Hosni Mubarak. Bear in mind that President Mubarak had not been to the United States in five years due to his "disagreements" with the Bush Administration over his repressive policies.

Mrs. Clinton's response was: "It is not in anyway connected. I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family, so I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States."

Mr. Diehl expands upon Mrs. Clinton's comments by stating: "Thus began what may be remembered as one of the most shortsighted and wrongheaded policies the United States ever has pursued in the Middle East." His reasoning is that the Obama Administration erred in assuming that President Bush's stand on the need to liberalize policy in Egypt had harmed international relations and that President Obama's advisors underestimated the growing civilian opposition to current policy, which was spreading like wildfire. Additionally, when, in November 2010, Mr. Mubarak "fixed" a parliamentary election to guarantee his hold on the presidency, the White House voiced no opposition.

So shortsighted were the "people in the know," that just hours before chaos erupted in Cairo last week, Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Mubarak's policies were vested in the "legitimate needs and interests of the people" and claimed the Egyptian government was "stable." She is now being forced to eat her words made all the more bitter by her public embarrassment.

Those in opposition to President Mubarak's leadership are demanding that the United States support the demands of the people. They are insistent that a transitional government replaces him and his followers while a new constitution is written. President Mubarak has countered that, should secular forces rise to positions of power, Islamic extremists will gain control.

That was yesterday. Today, President Mubarak has agreed not to run for re-election. The "wait and see" has begun.

A differing opinion was offered by Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times. His commentary was entitled "The devil we know."

Mr. Douthat questions whether the policy of suppression adhered to by President Mubarak's regime might actually be responsible for the growth of Islamic radicalism. He suggests the possibility that, as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood was pushed out of the country, they were absorbed into a more widespread and dangerous international movement. To that possibility he adds America's financial support of Egyptian leaders despite human rights violations and the understandable transference of the people's hate for Mubarek's regime to the United States.

The question he asks is whether the push for democracy will open the door for America's enemies to gain more power. His commentary gives credence to two well-known idioms: "politics makes strange bedfellows" and "damned if you do/damned if you don't." Without a crystal ball, no one really knows what is going to happen, but one thing history has taught us is sometimes "The devil we know" looks a lot less menacing than the one we haven't met yet.

Again, the "wait and see" has begun – but waiting, in and of itself, is fraught with danger.

Now we have Richard Yellin, the former rabbi of Temple Emeth in Delray Beach. Rabbi Yellin presently lives in Israel, where he feels threatened by the potential for anarchy in the streets of Cairo. He asks the question: "Are democratic rights more important than lives?"

We all think we understand the meaning of democracy, but Rabbi Yellin questions how the word democracy has been put into practice in certain regions of the world. He fears that a democratic election in Egypt could result in Hamas or Hezbollah ascending into power. Should that happen, the thirty-year peace between Israel and Egypt could/would be quickly shattered and Israel will move from asylum state to death trap. On the other hand, if Hosni Mubarak were to remain in power, Yellin believes there is a good chance peace between the two countries will reign.

Rabbi Yellin thinks, and rightly so, that the world beyond the Middle East does not understand the Arab mindset and fears that our ignorance will allow extremists to erode humanity until we are nothing more than dust in the desert. He expressed that belief quite succinctly in his letter when he wrote: "If human life is less important than human rights, then democracy, too, becomes a subtle tool in terrorist plots."

So, how do we answer Richard Yellin's original question: "Are democratic rights more important than lives?"

Would that there was an easy answer, but here, too, we must wait and see.

In a rare public interview, the younger brother of late Swedish author Stieg Larsson rejected claims that he and his father have jealously guarded the author's inheritance from his longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson.

Exclusive rough-cut of first in-depth documentary on WikiLeaks and the people behind it!

From summer 2010 until now, Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network WikiLeaks and its enigmatic Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange.

Reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist have traveled to key countries where WikiLeaks operates, interviewing top members, such as Assange, new Spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, as well as people like Daniel Domscheit-Berg who now is starting his own version - Openleaks.org!

Where is the secretive organization heading? Stronger than ever, or broken by the US? Who is Assange: champion of freedom, spy or rapist? What are his objectives? What are the consequences for the internet?

Twenty years after the fall of the Stalinist regime in Hungary, the government has abolished freedom of the press.

A group of major German newspapers and a human rights advocacy group Thursday published an appeal against the criminalisation of whistleblower website Wikileaks, saying the site deserved as much protection as traditional media.

Dailies Der Tagesspiegel, Frankfurter Rundschau, and Die Tageszeitung, along with weekly Der Freitag, online magazine Perlentaucher and the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and human Rights (ECCHR) all simultaneously released the plea.

"The internet is a new form of spreading information," it said. "It must enjoy the same protection as traditional media."

A British actress has accused Hollywood of penis worship. Helen Mirren blasted Hollywood for worshipping "at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis," as she received an award for women in entertainment.

Jemima Khan, John Pilger were among those who came to post sureties for Julian Assange, but he was denied bail. In stead of unsafe sex with two Swedish prostitutes, he should be charged with rubbing the rears of the world's most powerful without lubrication!

The United States and South Korea staged a potent show of naval strength Sunday as residents of a border island bombarded last week by North Korea scurried for shelter for fear of a new attack.

A "crush fetishists" group has caused an online storm in China by uploading graphic videos showing attractive Chinese women crushing small rabbits.

The son of former Taiwanese Vice President Lien Chan was shot in the head and critically wounded while speaking Friday at a campaign rally in suburban Taipei, local media have reported

Despite the fact that South Korea admits it fired the first shots that prompted the North to retaliate, the vast majority of the establishment press are feverishly blaming North Korea for a new escalation in the crisis, while failing completely to acknowledge the fact that the whole fiasco was generated as a direct result of Uncle Sam's policy through two separate administrations to ensure hereditary dictator Kim Jong-Il and his successors acquired the atom bomb.

From Saudi Arabia, we see an article speaking of a renewal of hostilities within the Sudan. That is one way to put it. The practice known as an Islamic jihad, is, in deed, and action, hostile. Vote may reignite Sudan war: Saud

November 11, 1918. Eleven o' clock in the morning. For the first time in four years, all was quiet on the western front, and the war which was supposed end all wars finally came to a bloody end. The soldiers went home and the celebrations began.

A British exhibit focusing on the African Bible "Book of the Dead" follows ancient Egyptians' journey from death to the afterlife. The West continues to improve its understanding of Classical African Civilization, Kemet (Ancient Egypt) Spirituality and Religion with this exhibit.

A Tibetan blogger under constant Chinese surveillance, a Colombian radio journalist who was abducted twice and faces constant threats, and a Tanzanian freelancer who went undercover to investigate the killings of albinos received Courage in Journalism Awards Tuesday from the International Women's Media Foundation.

More than 600 people attended the awards luncheon honouring the women — but Tsering Woeser was unable to attend because the Chinese government had confiscated her passport.

The most successful hunger solutions today are increasingly home-grown, the product of national governments and aid agencies working together to plan and implement projects tailored to the realities on the ground.

Here are four case studies to mark World Food Day.

Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world, a man of letters who also braved the violence and political divisions of his homeland to run for president, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.

At 5pm EST, you can watch Secretary Hillary Clinton accept the George McGovern Leadership Award, which recognizes policymakers and other leaders for their efforts to end global hunger.

World Food Program USA (WFP USA) will honor Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for her leadership in advancing the international community's efforts to address global hunger at its 9th annual awards ceremony.

According to the July 21, 2010 issue of U.S. News and World Report, the conservative pollsters at Rasmussen stated that 59% of those whom they surveyed felt the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable or were undecided on that possibility.

Can We End World Hunger? Yes We Can...

"We can end hunger. Many hungry nations have defeated hunger. It doesn't require some new scientific breakthrough. It's not rocket science," said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

Here are 10 ways to feed the world.

"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation.

Returning refugees present a different set of aid assistance challenges - in the case of Burundi, discreet ration card instead of a large package of food, beneficiaries are protected against risks associated with carrying large quantities of food over long distances.

Award-winning NBC reporter, Edwin Newman died on August 13, 2010, at the age of 91 as a result of pneumonia in Oxford, England according to United Press International.

"Dog, your titles are gettin outta hand here fella'!"

Yeah, so what. This here is the big howl, the LalaalalApalooozer of the running voice of the goat dog.

The INTERNATIONAL Coastal Clean-up Day, September 25 2010. This year, comin' up, soon, a whole day of it and I am callin' everyone in this country to 'BE' international for an hour ON THIS DAY!

Internationals here, your're already international, Just get more people to help you do this in your countries. :)

This is the 25th anniversary of the International Coastal Clean-up.

Last year, 100 countries and 44 states in our country participated, together, and picked up 6.8 million POUNDS of trash.

They also documented the amount, the type and the impact of this TRASH. Health, environment, food supply, water, existence People, OUR EXISTENCE ON THIS PlaNeT! Earth, the first frontier BABY!

6.8 million sounds good, don't it?

Hell NOOOO PEOPLE, that is just a drop in the $15,000.00 waste basket of your mind.

I stand here today on my fake Brillo Pad box (a tip of the hat to fellow Pittsburghian Andy Warhola) and scream louder than Andy ever would. PICK UP YOUR TRASH. Do it every day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For more information on this day Visit Ocean Conservancy at their site.

But, please do participate in this fine International day of Clean-up. It is a small step and all you have to do is step out and clean up even if it is just your street corner, your neighbors side walk, those napkins floating down the city street, the plastic bags in the tree tops, the little american flags lying on the side of the road, the beer cans floating in the puddle, the refuse of society is the refuse in our lives and in our minds.

CLEAN IT UP!

Does anyone realize that the United States was just handed the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card by the Muslim world yesterday?

You heard it here first, boys and girls. The nutball pastor in Florida who claimed that God told him to burn the Quran said earlier today that God told him to stop. His excuse?

Problems in Mexico with migrant workers and the hatred just seems to be spreading, everywhere.

Anyone who knows anything about American history (which means just about no one who was born in the United States!) knew the importance of yesterday. Can you tell me what yesterday was? Does the date September 2, 1945 mean anything to you? It should.

The title speaks for itself.

A spirit such as mine runs on a serendipious force that leads me toward a myriad of unexpected situations. The intensity of such experiences ranges in degree from interesting fodder for Newsvine Articles to life-alterning moments that rock me to my core. It is yet to be seen which this will be, but I believe it's worth taking notes...

Two weeks ago the occult hand of fate made itself apparent when my husband received an unexpected call from an international home-visit (foreign exchange student) program that we had learned about briefly during a street fair. The head of the program seemed very eager to speak with us. Lisa, the program director, was was 7 days away from placing a Thai student with an American host-family, but the home that was going to take him in had suddenly dropped from the program. Apparently were the only other family in our small town that had expressed interest in serving as a host. And by "interested" I mean we had filled out a card on a whim that expressed approval for being added to their email newsletter.

The fair (hitherto known as the "fair of destiny") had taken place the week we moved into town, any my globetrotting husband (who had spent a semester overseas and often regrets not having taught English in Japan) thought it would be interesting to learn more about hosting a student. It was a passing fancy, or a long-term vision, and certainly one that we both suspected would take a deal of planning.

Needless to say we were both a bit surprised to find out that a student needed a home in no more than a week's time, and that we appeared to be the only immediate solution.

More disconcerting was the fact that the program's alternative method for recruiting a replacement family was handing out flyers at the local food store. Since my husband and I are the hospitable (and adventurous) sort, we decided it was at least worth a discussion. After all, according to the transcripts and applications hastily emailed to us by Lisa, the student "Pon" seemed like a decent and deserving fellow. His transcripts demonstrated strong character, high academic achievement (and reassuringly- a clean criminal record). He had planned this trip since January and was already enrolled in the local high school. We were the only thing standing between him and a very disappointing school year. It didn't take much to empathize with the kid.

Of course, the sudden nature of the request did make us both raise an eyebrow. Was the program even going to screen us? How did they know we weren't serial killers, or had plans to sell him to a sneaker factory? I was somewhat reassured when we both were sent application forms, were asked to provide two references, and were given background checks. Still, it was a whirlwind process that took no more than two days. And we we to be given training beyond a pamphlet that read "Your Foreign Teenager and You"? Heck no!

After asking 30 minutes worth of questions regarding liability and expenses, we decided to take the plunge. So... armed only with a briefing patched together from the Internet about Thai culture, and a Liberal Arts education including a minor in "Intercultural Communications" my husband, daughter and I are following Fate and have welcomed Pon into our home.

It should be a very interesting year...

The case of the Afghanistan war logs and the hounding of Julian Assange prove that there's never been greater need to speak truth to power than today.
On 26 July, WikiLeaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past.

Nicholas Kristof is not the kind of person you would expect to be a slave owner. As a columnist on that most august of newspapers, the New York Times, he belongs to an elite within an elite, the embodiment of journalistic seriousness. Yet there he was, in 2004, blithely forking out $150 (£96) for Srey Neth and $203 for another teenager, Srey Momm; handing over the money to a brothel keeper in exchange for a receipt and complete dispensation to do with the two girls as he would. Nick Kristof: double Pulitzer prize winner, bestselling author, slave owner. But that, as is made clear in his new book, written with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, is just the start of it.

In northern Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan, the long lines of tanker trucks carrying oil into Iran are under scrutiny.
Some observers say it represents smuggling that violates international sanctions and Iraq's own rules on the sale of oil. Others say it's perfectly legal.
Tanker Convoys On Iran-Iraq Border
On a recent day on the Iraqi side of the border with Iran, hundreds of trucks are lined up, waiting to cross into Iran.
Badr Ramsi's tanker has dark brown streaks down the side, like oil has been spilling over the sides as he rumbles up the mountain roads. Ramsi says the truck is carrying crude oil and that he will drive the oil across Iran.

A visit to the library has certainly changed. I first learned about the library through my grandmother, who took us with her when she was babysitting. It was a quiet, peaceful and solemn place where the shelves stretched endlessly forward and upward.

I feel Nizar Qabbani is one of the leading voices of freedom ever espoused in the Middle East. Nizar Qabbani's poetry epitomizes freedom and expression of love in its most expressive form.

Once again, it appears the Roman Catholic Church is speaking without the facts. This heinous creature that was released back to Libya on supposed humanitarian grounds has been founded to be a liar. The doctor lied about the severity of this creature's medical condition. This heinous creature killed well over a hundred people. This is a terrorist that was celebrated as a hero when he landed in Libya.

This Cardinal needs to ingest all the facts before speaking so boldly about something he is so clearly misinformed about.

Once again the Catholic Church feels it has the right to chime in on world affairs when its own house is in such disarray. Until this church stops protecting the very criminals that are molesting and raping children they really have no right to be critical of anyone else.

Pedophilia is the vilest of crimes and the protect the pedophile. For shame. Focus on your on house and leave all else to those who have a true moral conscience.

"Scan them @!$%#in' hills to the left!" I yell at my gunner. "Stay on the hardball!" (Army slang for pavement.) @!$%#. What the hell just happened? "Everyone okay!?!" Everyone is fine. We are still moving, our vehicle is intact. I undo my seat belt and twist around as best I can to look out the window despite all the equipment I am wearing. Behind us is a smoldering crater on the shoulder of the road. Body parts and pieces of the van are scattered everywhere. @!$%#. Holy @!$%#.

A soldier, known only by the name Alex, gives a first-hand account of the kinds of things our military witnesses on a daily basis.

Taliban claim capture of US sailor, killing of 2nd (AP)
A U.S. soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) chats with a driver during a search for the two missing U.S. Navy personnel at a joint check post with Afghan soldiers in Pul-e-alam, Logar province of Afghanistan on Sunday, July 25, 2010. The Taliban have offered to exchange the body of a U.S. Navy sailor they said was killed in an ambush two days ago in exchange for insurgent prisoners, an Afghan official said Sunday. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is getting the U.S. involved in a complex, international dispute over a chain of islands in the South China Sea. China and nearby Asian states have long made competing claims as to who controls the strategically located islands. Speaking at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation in Hanoi, Vietnam, Clinton said that the U.S. has a "national interest" in resolving the issue peacefully. Here's what's going on, why it matters, and what could happen next, according to key journalists and experts.
China's Aggressive Agenda"For decades, China has sparred with Southeast Asian nations over control of 200 tiny islands, rocks and spits of sand that dot these waters," The New York Times' Mark Landler explains. "China's maritime ambitions have expanded along with its military and economic muscle.

Conspiracies abound, that is a fact. Criminal Conspiracies are on going world wide, as are Terrorist Conspiracies. Then we have the whole Bilderbergers/CFR/Tri-Lateral one-world government dealio… now that the Bilderbergers and the rest have stepped pensively into shaded light (after decades of their denial and the poo-pooing of the idea by many) is it still a conspiracy?

Moving on we have the religious secret societies like “The Family” who Conspire to further whatever twisted beliefs they preach or the Scientific secret societies such as The Illuminati that hold powerful knowledge and fight the caustic effect of religious dogma. Whatever!

Next we come to the World Banking Conspiracy, Mass Market Manipulation, and National Central Banks. My favorite! This is the most vile of them all for these @!$%#s actually fractionally enslave folks to being little better than indentured servants to the bank, but in this Social Structure, completely legitimate and desired by many citizens (yes even smart ones).

So where am I going with all this? I will tell you.

While talking with my buddy Jamie about his newest favorite Conspiracy Theory a while ago, I had a serendipitous moment… I said "OH jamie, given that what you say is true, WTF are you proposing we do about it?" A- Uh.. I don't know, but doesn't it suck? To that I said a very dirty form of the following:

It all comes down to the Structure of our Society, that is what allows these Conspiracies to fester and that Structure has been built over generations by Social Engineering on a grand scale. Now I am an Engineer, and I love Engineering but I detest Social Engineers and their tools (mainly Mass One-way Communication Technologies). Interweaving and reinforcing Social Norms and Practices into a population’s Zeitgeist with these technologies goes back to the Gutenberg Bible (I suppose) and has only become progressively more powerful with the advent of Radio and T.V. Mass Control of people is the desired result of the Social Engineers… our cousins in Briton are well on the road to George Orwell’s vision of “Big-Brother” and a hard-n-fast grip on the populace.

How to fight this “Societal Structure” is the real Question for those who are concerned about any of the above Conspiracies… and if the question was posed to me, I would say Attack the Foundational support for the structure and let gravity finish the job (hey I’m a Combat Engineer, and Gravity is our destructive little friend). That means simply Stop doing what they want; Instead of getting a new Credit Card - Cut up two that are already in your wallet, Instead of signing a Mortgage or Renting - Build your Own Place, Instead of buying that New Car - Buy a Bike, basically Do Not Feed The Beast! Well you get the idea.

OK, maybe it was a lot dirtier than that...hehehe

Jeremy Harding has written the single most provocative piece I have read on the future of food supply – prompted by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, and the quick awareness it brought of the connectivity between food production in places like Kenya and food consumption in places like his own home in the UK.

Quote of the day: "I may not be as good-looking as some of the other ambassadors, or as famous, but I have learned a lot from the field.... my job is to share my experiences with people and help them understand that hunger is a disaster – like an earthquake or a tsunami – that strikes every single day."

Alex Jones breaks down the significant developments that have emerged from sources inside the 2010 Bilderberg meeting in Spain. There is a contentious and urgent atmosphere behind the scenes of the secret meeting. Attendees are reportedly concerned about the potential collapse of the Euro, war with Iran and the rise of political dissent against world government.

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The Vatican has hit the lowest point to date. AP has printed a statement from the Vatican saying that the bishops and priests are not their employees. Seriously, where is this cult's moral and ethical compass. These bishops and priests are the Vatican's messengers and therefore their employees.

Enough, is enough with this dysfunctional, lost and perverted entity. It is time for the law to take matters into their hands. These criminals in whatever country they may be in need to be arrested now and put in prison where they cannot rape another child and destroy another life.

As for the pope and the hierarchy they need to be served papers as accomplices and brought to trial and tossed in prison as well. They complied with the crimes of these pedophiles by sending them to other parishes and parts of the church where they were able to re-offend and the cycle in some cases was repeated over and over again for years.

Taken in isolation, these incidents may seem minor, but they are part of a much larger trend. As China's influence spreads throughout the world, so does a willingness to play by its rules. In March, Google shut down its Internet search service in mainland China, saying it no longer wanted to self-censor its search results to comply with "local" law. But these laws may not be local anymore. Interviews with a number of writers and China watchers suggest that Chinese censorship is becoming an increasingly borderless phenomenon.

"I remember clearly the days when you could safely assume that as long as you wrote something abroad, it was free and clear from repercussions within China," said Orville Schell, the director of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations (where I am a fellow) and author of nine books on China. One turning point, he said, was the growth of the Internet, which increasingly unites the once "discrete worlds" of Chinese and Western reading material. Another factor is the growing business entanglement between China and the rest of the world.

To all of the Warriors amongst us, for us and against us:

We get you. We are with you. We understand you and..........we love you.

You are why we (the Human Race) are still here breathing and surviving on this lowly Earthly plane. If it weren't for you and what you have done for (ALL of) us on this planet, we would be long gone. We would have gone the way of the Neanderthal and be mostly forgotten by now.

We cannot thank you and express our appreciation for you enough.

Now we need to say what must be said. Please take a deep and cleansing breathe.

It's time. Time for the break. Time for the coming down. Time for the big change. The change that you all have led the way for. Your work, your hard-@!$%#ing work, is done. This, my comrades and country-men, is what you have fought for all of your live(s).

The time for the real blood-shed is over. We love you and couldn't praise you more for what you have done. What you have done was so neccessary, it is to be so obvious that no one person can express the appropriateness of your work.

Yet...it is over.

Can you see that the stepping stone, for that is really all that it is, (I know that hurts) that you have helped us all to evolve to is now without need or want for violence any longer?

The laying down of Arms is the true calling now. Your brothers and sisters await your return and your loving understanding that the fight is not between human and human, it has always and continues to be between the puppeteers and the puppets.

Soldiers....warriors are not puppets any longer.

Know it.

Live it.

To be a true warrior now is to truly love ALL human beings, regardless of color, creed, place, time, heritage, political place, or family.

I am NOT saying anything that you (in your heart of hearts) don't already know to be true and honest.

Let's move ahead to the next reality.

We Humans need you Warriors to lead the way.

It's the ONLY way.

Are you up for the task?

A powerful quake with a magnitude of at least 7.2 hit the Indonesian province of Aceh on Sunday, causing panic in an area that was devastated by the killer waves of the 2004 tsunami.

It was recently announced that Egypt's Education Ministry, along with the Office of the Mufti and Al-Azhar, are to revise the religious studies curricula in the country's Muslim and Christian elementary, middle, and high schools. The move is aimed at removing erroneous interpretations and materials inciting to violence and extremism.

a little bit into the article, we find this..

Education Ministry sources reported that the main changes to be made to the curricula involve the elimination of all Koranic verses calling to jihad or the killing of polytheists.

what does Jihad mean ? get smarter here

Hi, I'm Kevin, and as that I am, an Irish pagan. I am considered a polytheist. This, for all of my life time, has made me, in the eyes of 1.5 billion people, which is quite a large percentage of the worlds population. Worthy of death.I thank you all for speaking out as you have done, in support of my right to live my life, without a death sentence upon my head.Not withstanding, the loud and constant liberal progressive support, this revolutionary human rights breakthrough, would not have been possible.

I wish to publicly thank Egypt, for talking a small step in the right direction. Might I humbly also add, people of the Jewish faith, to your list of humans that it is now, or will soon be, forbidden to kill.If you would be willing to talk to, your Jewish neighbours, you will find that they are no bettor or worse, that the Pagans you may soon grant the right to life to.

now on a side note, women are people too, fully developed human people with rights. Please stop cutting off their clitoritis. thank you.

The [custom of] applying the term 'infidel' to the followers of other faiths must be stopped, once and for all. This epithet is very dangerous, and constitutes license to kill [the members of other faiths]...

there are however, dissenting voices among the ummah. Reactionary, counter reform minded individuals, who falsely claim all progress beyond the seventh century is unproductive, and unIslamic in nature.Perpetual warfare is the way to go,is what they love to say. fight until there is no religion but Islam, and Mohammad is recognised as the prophet of Allah. Don't they know, that thinking this way is now, thought of as islamophbic.

Sheikh Hafez Al-Salame, a former advisor to the sheikh of Al-Azhar, attacked the Mufti for cooperating with the Education Ministry's initiative for a curricula reform. He characterized this reform as "playing with the Koran" and as "a Zionist-Crusader plot against Islamic Egypt, aimed at causing it to lose its faith and religion..." He added: "We expected the honorable [Mufti] not to take part in this plot... which is carried out by the Crusaders under the leadership of America, and by the Zionists under the leadership of Israel..."[5]

let's hope they dont get their way"ishna allah"as they say

Women in Islamic Nations are always treated as if they are the instigators/ perpetrators of the crimes even if they are so obviously the victim. Held as sex slaves and being held in prison. The sentences these women will be the severest, most punitive, violence laden and public. Most likely these women and girls will be stoned to death in the public square.

When will these backward nations learn that when mistreat, disrespect, rape and abuse women it is the man who is the criminal and not the woman? This injustice most be stopped.