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Scientists investigate phenomenon of the 'winter bees'

It is one of the sounds of summer, but now the buzz of the bumblebee is becoming increasingly familiar in deepest winter –... more

retro_Syl
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Bird Drops Baguette into Large Hadron Collider, Postpones Launch

It is the machine that scientists hope will recreate the conditions present at the beginning of time. But scientists at the... more

EmperorThan
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Have the mega-rich achieved victory in their class-war?

http://www.alternet.org/story/143678/have_the_very_wealthy_achieved_victory_in_their_class-war/

How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.

Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.

Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.

The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.

The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.

In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.

Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.

After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.

How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today? What has changed between the mid 20th century and the first decade of the 21st? We have lost, simply put, the economic checks and balances that so significantly discouraged grand concentrations of private wealth in the years right after World War II.

[more after the jump]http://www.alternet.org/story/143678/have_the_very_wealthy_achieved_victory_in_their_class-war/ How rich—and... more

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The Waiting Hour by Asia (Miami based Poet)

Miami based Poet, Asia, performs "The Waiting Hour" on Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry Season 6. He also host a... more

wilkinebrutus
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Kucinich: Why I Voted NO !

House Passes Weak Public Option Health Care Bill, Selling Out Women's Rights. Includes Democrats Who Voted Against Bill... more

WhiteNoise
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Genocide by Wilkine Brutus

Genocide performed in the renowned Ronnie Scotts in London.

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Shoot and Edit Video on Your iPhone

http://ronebreak.com/2009/11/08/shoot-and-edit-movie-clips-on-iphones/ A new app, Reel Director, allows you to be a walking... more

JaminDime
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Fort Hood attack is 3rd this year by antiwar radicals targeting military on U.S. soil

The Fort Hood attack is the third instance this year in which American military personnel in the United States have been targeted by people reportedly opposed to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism experts said.

Investigators are seeking to determine the motivations of the Fort Hood suspect, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, in part to understand whether his alleged actions fit in with what experts see as an emerging pattern of plots developed by U.S. citizens or residents rather than foreign attackers.

Federal prosecutors in September charged two North Carolina men for allegedly conspiring to kill personnel at the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, seeking to attack U.S. forces at home if they could not overseas. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, an American Muslim convert, allegedly shot and killed one soldier and wounded another at a military recruiting center at Little Rock, Ark., in what he said was retaliation for U.S. counterterrorism policies worldwide.

Also this year, the last of five men was sentenced in April to 33 years in prison for planning to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., a plot inspired by foreign terrorist groups.

Overall, U.S. authorities have disclosed at least 10 domestic terrorist cases in the last year -- the most since 2001 -- in what analysts say is a disturbing spike that suggests the likelihood of incidents is growing. The suspects range from unskilled individuals ensnared in FBI stings after trying to obtain guns and explosives to people allegedly trained in Pakistan by al-Qaeda and preparing homemade bombs like those used in terrorist attacks in London and Madrid.

Terrorism analysts say that the would-be assailants in such plots are not foreign infiltrators, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, but instead are U.S. citizens or residents motivated to violence on their own or by self-initiated contact with al-Qaeda and similar groups.

Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University, said the very diversity of cases and the complex stew of anger, fear or religious zeal said to inspire them makes it harder to define the problem and decide what to do about it, even as threats grow more common.

"I'm not saying it's part of an organized campaign or a systematic strategy, but we're seeing a sea change when we have once a month a plot that is related somehow to Afghanistan, Iraq or what these people see is a war against Islam," Hoffman said. "It's too easy to dismiss them as unstable individuals when they have expressed strong religious beliefs with politics. That's the essence of the radicalization we're facing."

Several U.S. counterterrorism officials contacted Thursday said it was too early to draw conclusions about the Fort Hood investigation.

One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was just beginning, played down the prospect of any broader initiative to weaken U.S. troop morale or Americans' support for the fighting, saying he did not think there were any specific warnings to military installations or similar facilities of this type of an attack.

Frank Cilluffo, a former Bush White House aide who now leads George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, drew a wide distinction between unsophisticated individuals who might want to attack U.S. interests -- such as four American Muslims who converted in prison and then allegedly asked FBI informants for explosives to bomb Jewish centers in the Bronx in April-- and those who engaged in detailed training and planning with al-Qaeda operatives overseas and sought to recruit others -- such as Najibullah Zazi, a Denver airport shuttle driver arrested Sept. 19 after allegedly assembling bombmaking materials and driving to New York City, or Bryant Neal Vinas, a New York native who pleaded guilty in January and is cooperating with U.S. authorities after being captured in Pakistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AThe Fort Hood attack is the third instance this year in which American military personnel in the United States have been targeted... more