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^#1

Gay-bashing woman humiliated for wearing hideous skirt

An angry loser (right) came to Syracuse University to make a fool of herself by spreading pathetic hatred and was treated to a... more

unimatrix0
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Two Homeless Brothers Living In A Cave Inherit 4 Billion Dollars

Unbelievable. Imagine that. Going from from cave dwellers to having everything in the world at your disposal.

keithponder
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Iraq: Women forced into sex slavery

Rising numbers of Iraqi women are being sold into sexual slavery every year because of the waning economy and dire security... more

TravG73
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George Carlin’s Rebuttal to the Nobel ‘War’ Prize Laureate’s (Obama’s) Speech

George Carlin’s Rebuttal to the Nobel ‘War’ Prize Laureate’s (Obama’s) Speech... more

unimatrix0
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Impasse ends in Senate, votes on health bill ammendments set

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell finally reached an agreement Wednesday on how and when to... more

current89
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Ron Paul On Kudlow Report 12/1/2009 “We Should Look To The Fed For An Apology, Not Help”

12/1/2009 Ron Paul on Kudlow Report ***This article has been chosen as a discussion topic on PFP Movement Radio,... more

shanklinmike
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Yahoo: Our spying policy would ’shock’ customers

A little-noticed letter from Yahoo! to the US Marshals Service offers troubling insight into the surveillance policies of one of... more

bansheewail
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Teen convicted of murder for setting girlfriend on fire

An 18-year-old man who killed his 17-year-old girfriend by soaking her in petrol and throwing a match at her has been found guilty... more

richjm
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Judge rejects RNC bid to end minority voter protections

A federal judge in New Jersey on Tuesday rejected an attempt by the Republican National Committee to end nearly three-decade-old restrictions on GOP "ballot security" programs that historically discriminated against minority voters.

In a ruling that extended the restrictions for at least another eight years, but also slightly narrowed the consent decree containing them, U.S. District Court Judge Dickinson Debevoise of Newark asserted that “voter intimidation presents an ongoing threat to the participation of minority individuals in the political process.”

The consent decree stems from a lawsuit brought in the early 1980s in New Jersey by the Democratic National Committee, which accused the Republican National Committee of suppressing minority voters under the guise of guarding against voter fraud, partly by challenging their registrations if mail sent to their residences was returned as undeliverable, and by stationing off-duty police around polling places in minority neighborhoods.

The resulting consent decree, which barred the RNC from launching any ballot security programs without prior court approval, was expanded in 1987 to cover the entire country.

But the RNC, in a motion filed with little fanfare the day before Barack Obama’s historic presidential election victory, argued that since the 1980s, the risk of fraud has increased, while the need for minority voter protection measures has decreased.

The DNC countered that the RNC was exaggerating the danger of voter fraud and said the potential for such fraud is outweighed by the risk of voter intimidation efforts by Republican groups, pointing to a recent decision by the New Jersey court that the RNC had engaged in illegal voter challenges as recently as the 2004 presidential election.

The RNC contended that the consent decree had been interpreted too broadly and made it tougher for Republicans to ensure an even electoral playing field. Plus, it said it had no incentive to intimidate minority voters, pointing to its own election of Michael Steele, who is African-American, as chairman, and asserting that Obama’s election meant existing voting rights laws would be adequate to protect minority voters without the decree.A federal judge in New Jersey on Tuesday rejected an attempt by the Republican National Committee to end nearly three-decade-old... more

current89
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5 comments

16 hours ago

^#10

New GMO labelling website provides information on hard to find products

Thus making the job of avoiding GMOs all the more easier. Thank you to the Institute for Responsible Technology! Boycott GMOs... more

JanforGore
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15 comments

16 hours ago

^#11

A "necessary war"- for a gas pipeline

The U.S. intervened indirectly in Afghanistan in the ‘80s, with no thought for the welfare of the Afghan people and with tragic consequences for them, in order to fight the Soviets and the imagined menace of “communism.” To do that it nurtured a ferocious Islamist extremist trend. There’s never been any acknowledgement of error or apology and don’t expect one. It all made sense at the time from a U.S. imperialist point of view.

What makes sense now, from a U.S. imperialist point of view? Just look at the map. Realize that Afghanistan has no products the U.S. corporate world wants or needs. During the Cold War, Iran, Iraq, Turkey sometimes played crucial roles in U.S. geostrategic thinking but Afghanistan was practically conceded to the Soviet camp even before 1978. It only acquired significance as a Cold War battleground when U.S. strategists realized (in Brzezinski’s words) that they could “bleed the Soviets…the way they did us in Vietnam.” More recently, it has acquired significance as U.S. energy corporations do global battle with the Russians over access to Caspian Sea natural gas.

At present Europe is dependent on the supply of gas via Russia from the Caspian Sea, principally from Turkmenistan. This gives Moscow enormous political leverage when it comes to such matters as NATO’s decision to admit Georgia or Ukraine. U.S. policy has been to build pipelines from the Caspian avoiding Russia or Iran. Construction of the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline which will pump the gas straight to the Indian Ocean and on to world markets has been long delayed due to the fighting in Afghanistan.

The pipeline will run through Helmand province, then into Pakistan’s Balochistan. If it all works out, this will represent a highly significant improvement in the geostrategic position of the U.S. in the region, including in the event of another world war (such as might be provoked by a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and unpredictable repercussions of such action).

But Obama will not be talking about the history of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, or the feelings of the Afghan people about occupation, or the reactions of the Pakistanis to the unmitigated disaster on their doorstep, or the real geopolitical reasons for U.S. interest in this backward impoverished Central Asian nation that has been “the graveyard of empires” since the time of Alexander the Great.

He will say it’s still a necessary war to defend Americans from terrorist attack. We should recall, once again, the observation of Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering during the Nuremburg trial that while “naturally the common people don’t want war … the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

We should respond: No it’s not necessary! in the streets that day and those following---until we force Obama to end what are now unmistakably his criminal imperialist wars.

end of excerpt.The U.S. intervened indirectly in Afghanistan in the ‘80s, with no thought for the welfare of the Afghan people and with... more

JanforGore
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8 comments

13 hours ago

^#12

The "Little Ice Age" 12,800 Years Ago was Triggered in Months, Not Decades

William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini 'ice age' in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.

Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by a mini ice-age, known by scientists as the Younger Dryas, and nicknamed the 'Big Freeze', which lasted around 1300 years. Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt.

Without the warming influence of this ocean circulation temperatures across the Northern hemisphere plummeted, ice sheets grew and human civilisation fell apart.

Previous evidence from Greenland ice cores has indicated that this sudden change in climate occurred over the space of a decade or so. Now new data shows that the change was amazingly abrupt, taking place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.

Patterson and his colleagues have created the highest resolution record of the 'Big Freeze' event to date, from a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland. Using a scalpel layers were sliced from the core, just 0.5mm thick, representing a time period of one to three months.

Carbon isotopes in each slice reveal how productive the lake was, while oxygen isotopes give a picture of temperature and rainfall. At the start of the 'Big Freeze' their new record shows that temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped over the course of just a few years. "It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard, creating icy conditions in a very short period of time," says Patterson, who presented the findings at the European Science Foundation BOREAS conference on humans in the Arctic, in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Meanwhile, their isotope record from the end of the Big Freeze shows that it took around two centuries for the lake and climate to recover, rather than the abrupt decade or so that ice cores indicate. "This makes sense because it would take time for the ocean and atmospheric circulation to turn on again," says Patterson.

Looking ahead to the future Patterson says there is no reason why a 'Big Freeze' shouldn't happen again. "If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic," he says.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/12/little-ice-age-12800-years-ago-was-triggered-in-months-not-decades.htmlWilliam Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North... more