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Crisis changes spectrum of political debate
Rick Salutin: While elections limit the scope of discussion, financial crisis is blowing it wide open.
In the second part of their interview, Senior Editor Paul Jay and Rick Salutin discuss the degree by which political discourse is affected by both elections and moments of crisis. Rick believes that the two events are competing forces, with the election campaigns providing a very shallow analysis and the crisis forcing people to consider ideas normally outside the realm of acceptable discussion. For the first time in recent memory, we are hearing words like capitalism and socialism in the mainstream grammar.
Rick Salutin is an novelist, playwright and freelance journalist based in Toronto, Canada. He has written columns for Canadian Business, Toronto Life, TV Times, Rabble.ca and This Magazine, of which he is a founding editor, as well as a series of plays, novels and books. He was The Globe and Mail media columnist from 1991 to 1999 and is now an op-ed columnist with that paper.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89393921_the_campaigns_to_stop... Rick Salutin: While elections limit the scope of discussion, financial crisis is blowing it wide open. ... more -
ANP: Blood in the streets
While presidential candidates focus on foreign wars, many neighborhoods have turned into war zones.
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Russia Bolivia ink helicopter deal
Forrest Hylton: There used to be a recognition of US spheres of influence - all that is over.
Russia and Bolivia strengthened their ties this week. With Moscow concluding a deal with La Paz to purchase five Russian civil defence helicopters. The deal also forms part of a strategy of Latin American integration, sidelining the United States, as countries like Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina among others, attempt to re assert control over their own progress. Forrest Hylton states that "there used to be a recognition of spheres of influence all that is over."
Forrest Hylton is the the author of Evil Hour in Colombia (Verso, 2006), and with Sinclair Thomson, co-author of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (Verso, 2007). He is a regular contributor to New Left Review and NACLA Report on the Americas. Forrest Hylton: There used to be a recognition of US spheres of influence - all that is over. ... more -
Strategic voting in Canada
Barry Kay: Without splitting the left-of-centre vote, Conservatives could not form the government.
With the Canadian election approaching, incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears destined to remain in power, with the only question remaining being: How much power will he attain? Senior Editor Paul Jay sat down with Barry Kay, who's own seat distribution forecast at http://www.wlu.ca/lispop shows Harper's Conservative Party just two seats away from forming a majority government. This despite the fact that the vast majority of Canadians support parties that campaign to the political left of Harper's policies. Barry explains both the reasons for this phenomenon in Canadian politics, and the sort of strategy which would be required to ensure an electoral outcome more reflective of the Canadian populace.
Dr. Barry Kay is a Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research focuses on the topics of elections and public opinion. He is a past member of the Canadian National Election Study team, and recent publications pertain to electoral systems, public opinion polling, and the impact of single-issue interest groups. He has developed a model for projecting parliamentary seat distributions from popular vote or opinion polls, which is updated regularly and can be found at www.wlu.ca/lispop. He is also a political analyst with Global Television, for their national election coverage.
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89382638_strategic_voting_in_c...
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89400173_canadians_want_to_kee... Barry Kay: Without splitting the left-of-centre vote, Conservatives could not form the government. ... more -
Humiliation and child abuse at Israeli checkpoints strip-searching children
Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens.
While organizations that focus on Israel-Palestine have long been aware that Israeli border officials regularly strip search men and women, If Americans Knew appears to be the first organization that has specifically investigated the policy of strip searching women. In the course of its investigation, If Americans Knew was astonished to learn that Israeli officials have also been strip searching young girls as young as seven and below.
According to interviews with women in the United States, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli border officials periodically force Christian and Muslim females of all ages to remove their clothing and submit to searches. In some cases the children are then "felt" by Israeli officials.
Sometimes mothers and children are strip-searched together, at other times little girls are taken from their parents and strip-searched alone. Women are required to remove sanitary napkins, sometimes with small daughters at their side. Sometimes women are strip searched in the presence of their young sons.
All report deep feelings of humiliation. Many describe weeping at the degradation they felt.
"I remember crying and pleading with my mother," Gaza journalist Laila El-Haddad recalls of an experience when she was 12-years-old, hoping that her mother could convince the Israeli official to allow her to keep her undershirt on. But parents are unable to shield their children, El-Haddad and others report.
"They had machine guns," El-Haddad explains. "We just had to submit." El-Haddad, who holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, believes that the intention of the strip searches is to humiliate Palestinians so that they won't return to Palestine.
Oregon attorney Hala Gores remembers being strip-searched at the age of 10. Her family, Palestinian Christians from Nazareth, were leaving Israel because of Israeli discrimination against Christians. Gores has never returned to her family's ancestral home in Nazareth, she says, in part because she does not want to repeat the experience of having no control over what is done to her.
The Israeli policy appears to target only Christian and Muslim children, and is equally applied to those with Israeli citizenship and citizenship in other countries, including native-born Americans. There are no reports of Jewish children being strip-searched.
New Jersey stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid describes being strip-searched at Ben Gurion Airport when she was "seven, eight, nine years old" on family trips to visit her parents' original home in Palestine. On her most recent trip in July 2006, Maysoon, an American citizen, had her sanitary pad taken by officials in Ben Gurion Airport. When the search was completed, she says, the Israeli official in charge, Inbal Sharon, then refused to return her pad or allow her to get another.
Zayid, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair, was then forced to bleed publicly for hours while she waited for her flight.
-----------------more Israeli child abuse at link
This is probably one of the sickest articles I've read on the human rights violations by Israeli government..... Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens. ... more -
Peaceful coexistence of different communities in Switzerland can be model for Leba...
Switzerland talks to all to help Lebanese reconciliation.The peaceful coexistence of different communities in Switzerland could be a model for Lebanon, the Lebanese social affairs minister believes.
Mario Aoun made the comment in the context of the three-day visit to Lebanon of Swiss President Pascal Couchepin, which ended on Sunday.
Couchepin told his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Sleimane, that Switzerland supports Lebanon in its efforts to achieve national reconciliation and was ready to give assistance if requested.
Sleimane came to office just over four months ago after a lengthy period of tension between the parliamentary majority and the opposition, and now presides a government of national unity tasked with creating the conditions for greater stability.
Among the major players represented in this government is Hezbollah, regarded by the US as a terrorist organisation.
But for the Swiss embassy in Beirut contacts with the group form part of its normal diplomatic work.
"We are in regular contact with their members of parliament or their ministers in the context of various dossiers we are dealing with," Swiss ambassador François Barras told swissinfo. "We have no problem with this since the party is one of the political forces in Lebanon."
In any case, Switzerland does not share the US evaluation.
"Our country does not regard Hezbollah as a terrorist group," Swiss chargé d'affaires Carine Carey explained to swissinfo. "Unlike al-Qaida, for example, there is no UN resolution to this effect. In this case Switzerland follows no recommendations other than those coming from the United Nations."
Dual role
Sheikh Naim Kassem, the deputy head of Hezbollah, and one of its founders, told swissinfo about the group's aims and policies.
For him, there is no contradiction between being a resistance movement and a political party.
"We have to differentiate between the two main lines of our action, namely resistance to Israel and our political work," he told swissinfo.
"Our resistance made it possible to liberate southern Lebanon in 2000 and we drove the enemy back in 2006. But we have never used our weapons to further our policies."
Kassem described the military action launched by Hezbollah in Beirut and its suburbs last May as "an isolated incident". He accused the pro-government Future Movement of bringing armed men into Beirut to provoke clashes, in order to use this as a pretext to call for general disarmament.
"We decided on a preventative operation," he explained.
No Islamic state
Many of Hezbollah's enemies in Lebanon accuse it of having a hidden agenda, namely to establish an Islamic state in the country – something Kassem categorically rejects.
When it comes to relations with Israel, Kassem is intransigent.
---------more at link-----------------this proves that progress can be made if communication is opened up. Just because one country says their political organization is a terrorist, doesn't mean that they are, in fact terrorists. It seems like putting that tag on anything will instantly make people hate or dislike that country/person/organization. If you want to get down to brass tacks....The Israeli intelligence community are terrorists, having carried out many missions to blow up vehicles, assassinate people and cause harm to certain societies. If it sounds like a duck, walks like a duck it IS a duck! Israel can, in fact, change their ways and seriously start to build a true peace with Palestine. But they need to get rid of their selfish, greedy infrastructure of a government that is making this world a more dangerous place to live. We of the world will not take it any more and let Israel take, take and take for themselves. We all need to live on this planet, not just Israel Switzerland talks to all to help Lebanese reconciliation.The peaceful coexistence of different communities in Switzerland could be a m... more -
Georgia's Saakashvili: freedom fighter or rights abuser?
An influential group of Georgian opposition leaders has mounted a blistering political campaign against U.S.-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili, accusing his government of running an autocratic regime that tramples human rights and stifles democracy.
The timing could embarrass the Bush administration, which is pressing NATO members to approve an action plan for Georgia — a key step toward full membership — at the organization's meeting in December.
The claims by many in the opposition, some of which have been affirmed by a top Georgian human-rights official, go to the heart of Washington's rationale for backing Saakashvili as a democratic force in a region where Russia is trying to re-establish dominance.
Saakashvili had widespread support even among the opposition immediately after the August war with Russia, but the country's domestic problems were quick to resurface, said Salome Zurabishvili, who previously served as foreign minister under Saakashvili.
"The balance has shifted," she said. "The main problem for Georgia is a lack of democracy."
Zurabishvili, like other opposition leaders, emphasized that she's pro-Western and doesn't support Russia, which seized two Georgian rebel enclaves and marched its forces within 25 miles of Tbilisi during the invasion.
"I think the big confusion in the American policy . . . is to confuse support for a country and its democracy with the support for a small group of people," Zurabishvili said of Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, and his allies.
The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, which monitors the government's human rights record, had no comment for this story.
Other opposition members, especially those in parliament, strike a softer tone.
"Of course we disagree about a lot of things with the president's party, but we agree about" the need to maintain cooperation with Saakashvili after the war with Russia, said Gia Tortladze, an opposition member in parliament.
Saakashvili has said repeatedly that he's committed to building a democratic state. He told the U.N. General Assembly last month that his government is launching "expanded democratic initiatives" that include greater independence for the parliament and judiciary, greater funding for opposition parties and a series of legal reforms including jury trials and lifetime judicial appointments. It will amount to a "Second Rose Revolution," he said, referring to the 2003 movement that ousted pro-Russian leadership.
His opponents are unconvinced, however.
While Georgians have more freedoms today than they did under Soviet rule, Saakashvili's critics say that in the years since the Rose Revolution, he's dramatically consolidated state power under his office, taken control of national television and demonized his opponents.
"He is building an authoritarian regime here," said Levan Gachechiladze, an opposition candidate for president earlier this year who finished second with about 25 percent of the vote. "The West closed its eyes because they were not ready . . . to change their so-called democratic star."
Saakashvili's unchecked centralization of power, people such as Gachechiladze maintain, allowed the president to launch an ill-advised military strike against the separatist region of North Ossetia in August. That move led to a five-day war with Russia that ended in crushing defeat.
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More at link. An influential group of Georgian opposition leaders has mounted a blistering political campaign against U.S.-backed President Mikheil ... more -
What do the Taliban want in Pakistan?
Dr. Tariq Amin-Khan: Taliban seek to gain popular support by inciting Pakistani military. Part 4
The US military has increased the frequency of drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, resulting in high numbers of civilian casualties. Furthermore, they have been accused of conducting special operation missions within Pakistan, the Pakistani military even stating that they fired warning shots at a US helicopter found flying inside the border. The US denies this claim. Dr. Amin-Khan discusses how neither the US nor the Pakistani government can hope for success in defeating the Taliban through military action alone.
Tariq Amin-Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. In addition to a PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University in Toronto, he holds a Master’s degree in South Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Karachi in Pakistan. The title of his doctoral thesis is Theorizing the Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalism.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89339338_pakistan_on_the_brink
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89351852_is_pakistan_s_zardari...
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89361227_global_meltdown_pakis...
See Part 5 at: http://current.com/items/89382601_pakistan_s_future_tie... Dr. Tariq Amin-Khan: Taliban seek to gain popular support by inciting Pakistani military. Part 4 ... more -
U.S. is 42nd in the World for Infant Mortality
There’s a problem with today’s health care debate in America. It’s way too focused on health care.
It’s true that the American health care system is on life-support. Priced at nearly $8,000 a year per American, and soon to be 20 percent of our GDP, it’s more expensive by 40-60 percent than health care systems in any other industrial country and totals nearly half the health care budget of the entire world. Yet it leaves 48 million Americans uncovered by health insurance and produces remarkably poor results.
Americans rank 45th in life expectancy, right there with Albania. After age 50, they are nearly twice as likely as western Europeans to suffer from chronic illnesses. Even in the hospital, US patients face unusual dangers. As many as 275,000 of them die each year from “healthcare” itself--errors or infections during treatment. So the system is broken. But fixing it will require a far more holistic approach than has been discussed in the health care debate. There’s a problem with today’s health care debate in America. It’s way too focused on health care. ... more -
Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Heroin Trade
(Photo: Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, in 2001. Both say accusations of drug trafficking are politically motivated.)
When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.
Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.
Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.
The assertions about the involvement of the president’s brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.
Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan’s second largest city, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.
“I am not a drug dealer, I never was and I never will be,” the president’s brother said in a recent phone interview. “I am a victim of vicious politics.”
But the assertions about him have deeply worried top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money, several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have intensified as American troops have been deployed tto the country in growing numbers.
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More at link - it might require registration (which is free).
I lived in Afghanistan for a while in 1971-1972. Already then, the CIA was deeply involved in drug trafficking - opium (at the time, there was not much heroin there, the labs being situated in Pakistan) and hashish, and active in rooting-out and eliminating competition by either killing the people involved if they were Afghans, or having them jailed by paying the already very corrupt Afghan police to arrest and throw them in jail if they were foreigners (so as not to draw unwanted attraction to its shenaningans by killing them). I used to visit two young women in the Kabul prison - a Belgian woman and a French woman - who had fallen victim to the CIA's denunciation. The Afghan government was, at that time, not at all concerned about Europeans and Americans buying hashish and opium and taking it out of the country. After all, it was business, it brought much foreign currency to the country. The CIA hated the amateur competition, though, especially as it brought the street-prices down in Europe and the USA.
I reckon that, today, the CIA regards the Taliban as competition in the drug business... it is, after all, a multi-billion dollar business. (Photo: Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, in 2001. Both say accusations of drug trafficking are politically motivat... more -
Are Canadians mostly progressive or conservative?
Murray Dobbin: The right has convinced Canadians that their values will never become public policy.
As Canadians prepare to go to the polls on October 14th. The question of a majority conservative government continues to play in the minds of voters. Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated last week that Canadians have grown more accepting of conservative ideas. Journalist and Author Murray Dobbin does not agree.
Murray Dobbin, Vancouver based, has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over thirty five years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, he has written five studies for the centre including an expose of charter schools and ten myths about the Canadian tax system. He has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press, contributes to the Globe and Mail and other Canadian dailies and now writes a column for the Vancouver on-line paper The Tyee. He has written five books, three of them critical profiles of Canadian politicians. His latest book, Paul Martin: CEO for Canada? exposes Martin’s corporate agenda for the country. Murray Dobbin: The right has convinced Canadians that their values will never become public policy. ... more -
New head of ISI; Karzai calls for Taliban talks
Eric Margolis: Political stability is unattainable in Afghanistan without dialog with the Taliban.
As the ongoing conflict in Pakistan and Afghanistan continue with coalition forces taking a beating, Eric Margolis believes that "there will never be stability in Afghanistan until the largest ethnic group is brought into the political process."
Eric Margolis is a journalist born in New York City and holding degrees from Georgetown the University of Geneva, and New York University. During the Vietnam War he served as a US Army infantryman. Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World –- The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Mainichi Shimbun and US Naval Institute Proceedings. Margolis is an expert of military affairs, a former instructor in strategy and tactics in the US Army, and a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan. Eric Margolis' books have been published in the US, Canada, Britain, and India. He often appears and contributes to national and international news items for outlets such as CNN, ABC,CBC and Voice of America to the Wall Street Journal and Maninichi-Tokyo. He broadcasts regularly on foreign affairs for Canadian TV (TV Ontario and CBC), radio, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, and PBS. Eric Margolis: Political stability is unattainable in Afghanistan without dialog with the Taliban. ... more -
Global meltdown: Pakistan and the Taliban
Tariq Kahn: Pakistan on the brink - the economic crisis. Part 3
Tariq Amin-Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. In addition to a PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University in Toronto, he holds a Master’s degree in South Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Karachi in Pakistan. The title of his doctoral thesis is Theorizing the Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalism.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89339338_pakistan_on_the_brink
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89351852_is_pakistan_s_zardari...
See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89373446_what_do_the_taliban_w...
See Part 5 at: http://current.com/items/89382601_pakistan_s_future_tie... Tariq Kahn: Pakistan on the brink - the economic crisis. Part 3 ... more -
Maher: McCain, Obama ‘lying’ about their religious faith (VIDEO)
Comedian Bill Maher’s new documentary film, “Religulous,” pokes fun at religious belief by encouraging people of various faiths to speak freely about what they really believe.
“When you’re a child, you don’t question,” Maher told CNN’s Kiran Chetry, “and that’s part of the problem. They stuff it into your head before you’re old enough to fight back.”
Maher denied that he had specifically focused on Christianity in the film, saying, “It’s the whole idea of people who think magically and in terms of stuff that’s just not rational. … We’ve had eight years of a faith-based presidency, and you saw how well that turned out.”
When Chetry pointed out that both Obama and McCain have made a big deal of the role of religion in their lives during the campaign, Maher immediately replied, “They’re lying. That’s okay. I don’t mind fake piety, and I’m sure this is what these gentlemen are talking about.”
“What really worries me is when somebody really believes it,” Maher continued. “Sarah Palin really believes it. … This is dangerous. George Bush, same way. … They believe the world is going to come to an end, probably in their lifetime. This makes me a little nervous.”
“If they are lying, it’s because people want religious leaders,” Chetry suggested.
“Exactly. That’s the problem,” laughed Maher. “60% of this country believes the Noah’s Ark story is literally true.”
“We’re like the last of the Western democracies to be thinking this way,” Maher concluded. “It’s very hard to get anything done. It’s very hard for this country to advance, to progress. This is a skin I truly believe that we need to shed if mankind is going to go forward.” Comedian Bill Maher’s new documentary film, “Religulous,” pokes fun at religious belief by encouraging people of various faiths to spe... more -
Kerry faces off with O’Reilly over bailout bill
“Many of us have been warning about these problems,” Senator John Kerry told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly during a discussion of Monday’s failed $700 billion Wall Street bailout vote in the House of Representatives. “And, if you go back and look at the record, you’ll see it very clearly. In 2004, as a presidential candidate, I personally talked about how we needed to have stronger oversight on [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac], about the housing market, about deregulation and the excess of deregulation.” Senator Kerry also said that efforts to prosecute predatory lending have been blocked since the turn of the century.
While 61% of House Democrats voted for the legislation, 66% of Republicans voted against it, with a total tally of 205-228. “And just because their feelings were hurt by something that [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi said, is not an excuse to screw the guy on Main Street and his savings account, to screw small businesses, to screw companies across the country. It was an act of cowardice and selfishness and pure politics.”
“This is not a rescue of Wall Street, this is a rescue of Main Street,” Kerry closed.
This video is from Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, broadcast September 29, 2008 “Many of us have been warning about these problems,” Senator John Kerry told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly during a discussion of Monday’s faile... more -
One-in-four chance McCain may not survive 2nd term
If John McCain is elected and goes on to win a second term, there's as much as a one-in-four chance America could see its first woman president _ Sarah Palin.
It's actuarial math.
The odds highly favor either McCain or Barack Obama completing a first term in good health. After that, McCain's odds still are still fairly solid, but his chances of dying or being in poor health go up faster than Obama's, mainly because of his age.
An Atlanta actuarial company specializing in individualized estimates of life and health expectancy has run the numbers for McCain, 72, and Obama, 47. The firm, Bragg Associates, calculated the odds of the candidates dying in office, adjusted for their known health problems.
McCain would be the oldest president to begin a first term in office. By the end of a second term, Jan. 20, 2017, he would have a 24.44 percent chance of dying, compared with 5.76 percent for Obama, the firm estimates.
"Can either candidate expect to serve two terms in a healthy state? The answer is yes," says James C. Brooks, Jr., an actuary with the firm. "They're both in outstanding health for people of their age."
Illness is another issue.
Because chances of developing a serious ailment are higher for any person than are the chances of dying, Bragg used the candidates' medical information to estimate how many years of good health might be in store for each. After all, a debilitating illness could force a president to step down. If John McCain is elected and goes on to win a second term, there's as much as a one-in-four chance America could see its first w... more -
Palin, a journalism major, can't name a news source she reads
Sarah Palin said she does not support the morning after pill as a form of contraception, strongly implied that homosexuality was a choice, and could not name a single source of news that she turns to for information, in yet another installment of her interview series with Katie Couric.
Appearing on CBS Evening News, the Alaska Governor seemed calmer than she had been in previous sit downs. But while she only occasionally provided the type of befuddled responses that had even conservatives scratching their heads, her interview was nevertheless shaky.
Asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, Palin - a journalism major in college - could not name one publication.
"I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media," she said at first. Couric responded, "What, specifically?"
"Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."
"Can you name a few?"
"I have a vast variety of source where we get our news," Palin said. "Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, 'wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America." Sarah Palin said she does not support the morning after pill as a form of contraception, strongly implied that homosexuality was a cho... more -
Colbert: The free market is ‘a blindly vengeful god’(VIDEO)
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert was prepared in his fake-pundit persona to cheer on the House Republicans who, he explained, had said, “Thanks but no thanks on that bailout to nowhere.”
But even Colbert had to acknowledge that “the supporters of this bill wouldn’t shut up about how this is the end of the world.”
“So just why did a free market president like Bush propose a government bailout in the first place?” asked Colbert.
“The market is not functioning properly,” Bush stated in a recent appearance.
“The market is fine,” Colbert objected. “We are the ones who are not functioning properly.” He went on to explain that “the free market is not just some economic theory we can abandon when things get rough. It requires faith.”
Colbert continued expanding on the idea of faith, saying, “It is a lot like believing in another all-powerful being — God. The market is all around us. … It guides us with an invisible hand. … Like God, if we have faith in it, the free market is the answer to all our problems — but if we doubt it, it will withhold its precious gifts.”
“Some out there, folks, are going to say that this financial meltdown shows the market is fallible — that it is, in fact, not God,” cautioned Colbert. However, he insisted, “It does not mean that the market is not God. It means that the market is just a dangerous and destructive god. …Maybe the market isn’t like the Judaeo-Christian god at all. It might be a blindly vengeful god, with a thousand hungry mouths.”
“We must believe even harder!” thundered Colbert in a sermon-like conclusion. “Our god demands sacrifice! And I don’t mean regulation, I mean human flesh!”
“It’s gobbling Wall Street firm by firm, and it’s still hungry,” he proclaimed. “I say we feed it Main Street! … Being eaten alive by the market is better than admitting the government should have any role!”
“Thanks to the House Republicans, we are in the market’s hands,” concluded Colbert, “and it will take care of us only if we trust it.”
This video is from Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, broadcast September 29, 2008 Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert was prepared in his fake-pundit persona to cheer on the House Republicans who, he explained, had said... more -
Russian nuclear bomber flies undetected to within 20 miles of Hull
A Russian nuclear stealth bomber was able to fly within 90 seconds of the British coast without being picked up by radar, it was revealed today.
The supersonic ‘Blackjack’ jet flew completely undetected to within just 20 miles from Hull in one of the worst breaches of British security since the end of the Cold War.
RAF radar eventually picked up the plane, but the only two pairs of fighter jets used for air alerts were on other duties.
The embarrassing breach late last year has called into question Britain's defence capabilities after four jet squadrons were cut from the RAF’s budget four years ago.
One senior RAF pilot told The Sun: ‘The Russians made us look helpless. It was a disaster - it basically gave the Russians the green light to fly wherever they want.’
The supersonic jet had taken off from Engel's Air Base near Saratov on Russia's Volga delta.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the incursion took place but said it had a ‘multi-layered’ approach to deterring enemy aircraft.
A spokesman said in a statement: ‘We are satisfied we have the flexibility to launch as many aircraft as the situation requires.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1064713/Russian...
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This is a clear warning to the EU with regard to their accepting US anti-missile missile bases in Poland and the Ukraine. Better go the diplomatic way and mend fences with Russia rather than continue in the present Bush-driven aggressive and threatening paradigm. A Russian nuclear stealth bomber was able to fly within 90 seconds of the British coast without being picked up by radar, it was revea... more -
GOP IT expert: McCain/Palin will win by theft.
Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime's election fraud, past, present and--if we don't spread the word right now--to come. Since he's the only whistle-blower out there who knows the perps themselves, and how they operate, we have to send this new piece far and wide.
Here Spoon tells us that McBush's team--i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons-- have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.
He also talks about the major role played by the Christianist far right in the electronic rigging of the vote.
And he defines our electronic voting system as a major threat to US national security, calling for it to be junked ASAP, in favor of hand-counted paper ballots.
Since Spoon is a Republican and erstwhile McCain supporter, as well as a noted specialist in nosing out computer fraud, his testimony is essential--not only for its expertise, but, no less, for the impact that his views will surely have on those Republicans who have been loath to see what Bush & Co. has done to our election system.
That whole story's just about to break. In fact, tomorrow there will be a number of articles appearing, on a recent breakthrough in the lawsuit that Spoon's testimony has enabled, and on other aspects of that all-important case.
MCM
9/26/08: New Spoonamore Interview - E-voting Machines are a National Security Threat
Last week, VR interviewed GOP Cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore about the upcoming election and his testimony in the new Ohio litigation to take depositions of Karl Rove and others.
The video is posted in full below with ten short clips for You Tube viewing. This interview is so important and explosive that we urge everyone to watch it.
Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but now foreign governments will be hacking and the winner will be determined by the best hackers. He says that if the GOP wins the hacking competition, McCain will win 51.2 percent with three electoral votes over Obama, and it will be a stolen election.
Spoon also makes a crucial point about the people who have been implicated in much of the election theft: "They are religious extremists." He names those who know about stolen elections, and he insists that the only way to protect this election is with paper ballots, hand-counted. Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime's election fraud, pas... more
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