The Calling It is Time to Wake Up part 1of7

http://www.realnews24.com/the-calling-it-is-time-to-wake-up/

Occupy Wall Street The Media is the Message

The Invisible 99%: Sunday Morning Talk Shows Ignore Occupy Wall Street

PoliticsUSA October 2, 2011

By Jason Easley

The five Sunday morning talk shows on CBS, Fox, CNN, NBC, and ABC devoted zero segments with zero guests to Occupy Wall Street today. To the media inside the Beltway, the 99% do not exist.

A day after over 700 protesters were arrested during a march over the Brooklyn Bridge, the five network Sunday morning news shows virtually ignored the story. The only program that the arrests were even mentioned on was ABC’s This Week, “More than 700 demonstrators protesting corporate greed, among other issues, were arrested last night on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. The grassroots movement has swamped Wall Street for more than two weeks now.”

What was more important than thousands of Americans taking to the street to protest greed and corruption?

CNN’s State of the Union spent their time allowing Dick and Liz Cheney to rewrite the history of both 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Fox News and This Week were hyping up the latest corporate media creation, the revived presidential candidacy of Herman Cain. The media created the rebirth of Cain story after the candidate won a non-binding Florida straw poll, which became a story after the corporate media decided that the meaningless poll did in fact, mean something.

The other media generated story is the speculation over a potential Chris Christie 2012 presidential campaign. All the talk shows spent some time talking about Christie even though he isn’t even running. CBS’ Face The Nation trotted out John McCain to talk about Chris Christie, Libya, and DADT, and Meet The Press gave us a couple of governors and a roundtable discussing the 2012 election.

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"Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us."

Chris Hedges at Truthdig

Identified: NYPD Officer Who Maced Peaceful Protesters

Common Dreams
Tuesday, September 27, 2011

A photographer has identified the cruel and cowardly NYPD supervisor who point blank maced a penned in group of young women and then slinks away Saturday at the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Deputy Inspector Anthony V. Bologna of the NYPD Patrol Borough Manhattan South.

Source: Common Dreams

Friends of Libya; Globalist's meet to carve up the spoils of war

AlterNet

03 Sep 2011

CERNOBBIO, Italy, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A second "Friends of Libya" conference will be held in New York on Sept. 20 to help with reconstruction after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Saturday.

Western powers met Libya's new interim leadership, the National Transitional Council (NTC), in Paris on Thursday in a first "Friends of Libya" conference. They handed over $15 billion of Gaddafi's foreign assets.

                               Fair and Balanced News

CNN

We've been talking all along about the importance of ultimately establishing democratic, inclusive, legitimate government in Libya

Uruknet

“Friends of Libya” meet in Paris for imperialist carve-up"

VOA

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council, and Mahmoud Jibril, the head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council"

The Telegraph

David Cameron hails new dawn for Libya as countries jockey for oil contracts

NASA Scientist, Religious Leaders Arrested in Tar Sands Protest

Environment News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, August 29, 2011 (ENS) - NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen was arrested today in front of the White House where he was demonstrating in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would bring thick crude oil from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Dr. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and is a climate research scientist at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Arrests are continuing at the White House, where about 140 people gathered on the sidewalk as part of a two-week long sit-in to protest TransCanada's proposed 1,700 mile pipeline.
Dr. James Hansen is arrested protesting the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House, August 29, 2011 (Photo by Ben Powless)

The protest has led to the arrest of 521 people since August 20, when protestors began the Tar Sands Action sit-in at the White House. The protest will continue until September 3.

Because the proposed pipeline would cross the United States-Canada border, a Presidential Permit issued by the U.S. State Department is required for the project to proceed. The protestors are demanding that President Barack Obama decline to issue a permit for the pipeline because of the environmental damage it would cause.

The rest of the story
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Standing up to the Corporatocracy

Three Things That Must Happen for Us to Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy

Truthout Friday 26 August 2011

by: Bruce E. Levine, Alternet | Op-Ed

Most Americans oppose rule by the corporatocracy but don't have the tools to fight back. Here are three things we need to create a real people's movement.

Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.”

The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness. It is the two other requirements that can empower, energize, and activate Team Democracy— a team that is currently at the bottom of the standings in the American Political League.

Read article at Truthout

Debt Ceiling Deal All Cuts No Taxes

Here's a link to a documentory based on Tom Ferguson's book

This film is based on Thomas Ferguson's book Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems. Many people appear in it, but it is based primarily on a 5 hour interview I conducted with Ferguson (with the help of 2 fellow youtubers), and on numerous appearances & interviews with Noam Chomsky. The film offers an in depth look at the influence of money in politics--analyzing social forces and events that the mainstream media and scholarship have largely distorted or kept hidden. It also analyzes the meaning of democracy.

Hat tip to  the director and publishers of this excellent documentory

Has America Become a Nation of Psychotics? You'd Certainly Think So, Based on the Medications We're Taking

Alternet

By James Ridgeway July 15, 2011

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry's development of a new class of medications known as "atypical antipsychotics." Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs - in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

The atypical anti-psychotics were the bright new stars in the pharmaceutical industry's roster of psychotropic drugs - costly, patented medications that made people feel and behave better without any shaking or drooling. Sales grew steadily, until by 2009 Seroquel and Abilify numbered fifth and sixth in annual drug sales, and prescriptions written for the top three atypical antipsychotics totaled more than 20 million.  Suddenly, antipsychotics weren't just for psychotics any more.

Clean air: You'll know it when you see it

The Smirking Chimp

by Jane Stillwater | July 15, 2011 - 3:18pm

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According to recent articles that have been published in such various sources as Counterpunch, NucNews, the Huffington Post and Fox News, there's been a 35% spike in infant mortality in the Pacific northwest since the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima began last March. Not only that but there are approximately 600 coal-fired power plants now operating in America that are pumping out pollution that is slowly but surely destroying a whole lot of people's lungs. Plus we still have to deal with old-fashioned vehicle-produced smog. Clean air is getting harder and harder to find!
But I found some.
I happened to stumble across a very small pocket of clean air while visiting the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minneapolis recently, over in Wirth Park. I had gone to Minneapolis in order to attend the 2011 Netroots Nation convention for progressive bloggers, and one of the convention's features was a "Day of Service" which involved getting conference participants away from their keyboards and actually luring us out into the local wildflower garden to pull weeds. I want to pull weeds! I'll try anything once.
Well, the garden turned out to be more than just a garden. It was also a forest, a wetland, a bog and a bird sanctuary. "Look!" cried one bird-watching blogger. "There's an Indigo Bunting!" A what?
And as we walked deeper into the woodland, that's where I found it -- actual, real, honest-to-goodness clean air. Not even manufactured or bottled. This was the real stuff. Trust me. You will know it when you see it. It smelled wonderful. I was in awe.
Suddenly, I wanted this stuff! I want MORE of this magical stuff. I lusted after more of this wonderful stuff. I wanted to own it, to love it, to take it home with me in my suitcase. Clean air is amazing, better than fine wine or drugs.

The Smirking Chimp

Bankster Wars

The Ultimate Goal of the Bankster-led Political-economic Warfare Being Waged Against Us Is . . . ?

opednews.com July 14, 2011

by Richard Clark

As economist Michael Hudson points out, the European debt crisis is really the product of financial warfare instigated by big banks.   Yes, these banks are engaged in warfare against the rest of society.   What's going on in Greece is exactly what's going to happen in America very shortly.   Why?   Because in every industrialized country, the big banks are in the process of offloading their bad debts onto governments.   They are then forcing these governments to sell off national assets so that the bankers can be paid what they consider to be their due.   (For more about this, see the linked video at this web site, about Greece being a dress rehearsal for the US.)
In a nutshell, what it says is that the world is being prepared for the kind of "neo-feudalism" that these banksters (intent on ever more completely becoming our masters and lords) intend to implement.   And so it is that America is in the early stages of being subjected to the same type of plundering as Greece and Ireland.

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Monsanto and Gates Foundation Push Genetically Engineered Crops on Africa

Global Research July 12, 2011

by Mike Ludwig

Skimming the Agricultural Development section of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation web site [5] is a feel-good experience: African farmers smile in a bright slide show of images amid descriptions of the foundation's fight against poverty and hunger. But biosafety activists in South Africa are calling a program funded by the Gates Foundation a "Trojan horse" to open the door for private agribusiness and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, including a drought-resistant corn that Monsanto hopes to have approved in the United States and abroad.

The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) program [6] was launched in 2008 with a $47 million grant from mega-rich philanthropists Warren Buffet [7] and Bill Gates. The program is supposed to help farmers in several African countries increase their yields with drought- and heat-tolerant corn varieties, but a report released last month by the African Centre for Biosafety [8] claims WEMA is threatening Africa's food sovereignty and opening new markets for agribusiness giants like Monsanto.

The Gates Foundation claims that biotechnology, GE crops and Western agricultural methods are needed to feed the world's growing population and programs like WEMA will help end poverty and hunger in the developing world. Critics say the foundation is using its billions to shape the global food agenda and the motivations behind WEMA were recently called into question when activists discovered [9] the Gates foundation had spent $27.6 million on 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock between April and June 2010.

Water shortages in parts of Africa and beyond have created a market for "climate ready" crops worth an estimated $2.7 billion. Leading biotech companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow are currently racing to develop crops that will grow in drought conditions caused by climate change, and by participating in the WEMA program, Monsanto is gaining a leg up by establishing new markets and regulatory approvals for its patented transgenes in five Sub-Saharan African countries, according to the Centre's report.

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Universal Health Care: Can We Afford Anything Less?

Truthout Tuesday 5 July 2011
by: Gerald Friedman, Dollars & Sense

Why only a single-payer system can solve America’s health-care mess.

America’s broken health-care system suffers from what appear to be two separate problems. From the right, a chorus warns of the dangers of rising costs; we on the left focus on the growing number of people going without health care because they lack adequate insurance. This division of labor allows the right to dismiss attempts to extend coverage while crying crocodile tears for the 40 million uninsured. But the division between problem of cost and the problem of coverage is misguided. It is founded on the assumption, common among neoclassical economists, that the current market system is efficient. Instead, however, the current system is inherently inefficient; it is the very source of the rising cost pressures. In fact, the only way we can control health-care costs and avoid fiscal and economic catastrophe is to establish a single-payer system with universal coverage.

The rising cost of health care threatens the U.S. economy. For decades, the cost of health insurance has been rising at over twice the general rate of inflation; the share of American income going to pay for health care has more than doubled since 1970 from 7% to 17%. By driving up costs for employees, retirees, the needy, the young, and the old, rising health-care costs have become a major problem for governments at every level. Health costs are squeezing public spending needed for education and infrastructure. Rising costs threaten all Americans by squeezing the income available for other activities. Indeed, if current trends continued, the entire economy would be absorbed by health care by the 2050's.

Read article at Truthout

Christ Rice: Ca$hing in on hard times

Click pic to enlarge

A coleague  just resently recieved this in the mail from the future CEO of this company. We're excited about moving forward on this and anticipate putting food on the table on a global basis. and as far as promotion goes, all options will be on the table.

When the times get tough, the Oregonians get tougher. This is a sure candidate for a small business loan because it will involve the defense industries that are already in place in the Middle East. They should be able to supply plenty of camel meat with Monsanto's help. With the genes of rabbits, and a little genetic engineering, there should be plenty of Dromedaries to go around. Monsanto is probably already working on some drought and radiation resistant strains of wadi brush to feed them.

This is our call, fellow Oregonians. We can form cottage industries in all aspects of  this unique food production, from the field to the final market. We will need experts in processing, packaging, advertizing, and delivery of the products. Shouldn't take long to get this off the ground, with all the rain lately, we might still get in a crop of rice. There will be more on this after our first board meeting. We will also, no doubt, need some executives ...G:

Obama's Hypocrisy - Whistleblowers Line Up to Take Back Transparency Award

Boiling Frogs Monday, 13. June

2011 by Sibel Edmonds

Exclusive Boiling Frogs Video with James Corbett

Here is an exclusive video by James Corbett with the inaugural edition of the EyeOpener, a new weekly video series produced in conjunction with Boiling Frogs Post, on Obama’s Secret Transparency Award. This news clip is a prelude to our petition, ‘Rescind Obama’s “Transparency Award” Now!,’ co-written by Coleen Rowley and me, and signed by more than 25 high-profile government whistleblowers and over 20 organizations, which will be launched tomorrow morning. We are going to need every single one of you, your signatures, your support, and your voices to get these organizations to take back the undeserved and hypocritical award. Please watch this video. Maybe watch it again. Think about it. Get angry. Share this with everyone you know. Help up disseminate this and encourage others to watch think, get angry, and take action. We are counting on you; on us.

Here's a link to Sibel Edmunds whistle blowing experiences...  Killing the Messenger

Electromagnetic effects on Honeybees confirmed in scientific studies

Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping

Daniel FAVRE

Scientific collaborator in the Laboratory of Cellular Biotechnology (LBTC), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology(EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Abstract
–
The worldwide maintenance of the honeybee has major ecological, economic, and politicalimplications. In the present study, electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for potential effects on honeybee behavior. Mobile phone handsets were placed in the close vicinity of honeybees.The sound made by the bees was recorded and analyzed. The audiograms and spectrograms revealed that activemobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker piping signal. In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or is a signal of a disturbed bee colony.

More on Scribd

EMF-Effects-on-Wild-Life

WEINERGATE

Keith Olbermann on Bin Ladin

Keith Olbermann will be back on television on June 20, 2011 on Current TV. He also has a blog called FOK News Channel (FOK means Friends of Keith).

Current TV is found on these channels: ``` DIRECTV channel 358 ``` Comcast channel 107 ```Time Warner Cable 103 NY and 142 LA ```DISH Network channel 196 ``` VERIZON FiOS channel 192 ``` AT&T U-Verse channel 189

....zzzzZZZZ

...zzzZZZ* News

                                            CLICK
~MAIN STREAM NEWS~

The Real News
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Julian Assange: "The number one enemy is ego"

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange rails against Facebook, says it's a spy tool for US government

NY Daily News May 2nd 2011

BY Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Maybe he's a MySpace guy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called Facebook "the most appalling spying machine ever invented" in an interview with Russia Today, pointing to the popular social networking site as one of the top tools for the U.S. to spy on its citizens.

"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence," he said. "Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in infaces for US intelligence.

"Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook they are doing free work for the United States intelligence agencies," he added.

The rest of the story

Globalization for the Elite~Same Stage Different Actors

The Corporate State Wins Again

Posted on Apr 25, 2011

truthdig

By Chris Hedges

When did our democracy die? When did it irrevocably transform itself into a lifeless farce and absurd political theater? When did the press, labor, universities and the Democratic Party—which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible—wither and atrophy? When did reform through electoral politics become a form of magical thinking? When did the dead hand of the corporate state become unassailable?
The body politic was mortally wounded during the long, slow strangulation of ideas and priorities during the Red Scare and the Cold War. Its bastard child, the war on terror, inherited the iconography and language of permanent war and fear. The battle against internal and external enemies became the excuse to funnel trillions in taxpayer funds and government resources to the war industry, curtail civil liberties and abandon social welfare. Skeptics, critics and dissenters were ridiculed and ignored. The FBI, Homeland Security and the CIA enforced ideological conformity. Debate over the expansion of empire became taboo. Secrecy, the anointing of specialized elites to run our affairs and the steady intrusion of the state into the private lives of citizens conditioned us to totalitarian practices. Sheldon Wolin points out in “Democracy Incorporated” that this configuration of corporate power, which he calls “inverted totalitarianism,” is not like “Mein Kampf” or “The Communist Manifesto,” the result of a premeditated plot. It grew, Wolin writes, from “a set of effects produced by actions or practices undertaken in ignorance of their lasting consequences.” 
Corporate capitalism—because it was trumpeted throughout the Cold War as a bulwark against communism—expanded with fewer and fewer government regulations and legal impediments. Capitalism was seen as an unalloyed good. It was not required to be socially responsible. Any impediment to its growth, whether in the form of trust-busting, union activity or regulation, was condemned as a step toward socialism and capitulation. Every corporation is a despotic fiefdom, a mini-dictatorship. And by the end Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs had grafted their totalitarian structures onto the state.
The Cold War also bequeathed to us the species of the neoliberal. The neoliberal enthusiastically embraces “national security” as the highest good.  The neoliberal—composed of the gullible and cynical careerists—parrots back the mantra of endless war and corporate capitalism as an inevitable form of human progress. Globalization, the neoliberal assures us, is the route to a worldwide utopia. Empire and war are vehicles for lofty human values. Greg Mortenson, the disgraced author of “Three Cups of Tea,” tapped into this formula. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq or Afghanistan are ignored or dismissed as the cost of progress. We are bringing democracy to Iraq, liberating the women of Afghanistan, defying the evil clerics in Iran, ridding the world of terrorists and protecting Israel. Those who oppose us do not have legitimate grievances. They need to be educated. It is a fantasy. But to name our own evil is to be banished. 
We continue to talk about personalities—Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama—although the heads of state or elected officials in Congress have become largely irrelevant. Lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed. Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office. Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, in their book “Winner-Take-All Politics,” point out that the share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent. One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions. But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.

Read article on truthdig

Predator Drones and B-2 Bombers in Libya

Optimism in the defense of our country is no vice

Bill Moyers Journal March 27, 2009

BILL MOYERS: As you know, earlier this week Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed a vast expansion of government authority that would crack down hard on Wall Street's reckless behavior.

Just in time, it seems. You could almost hear the mob in the streets of Washington as he spoke. Popular anger was beginning to evoke unhappy images among Washington elites of the French Revolution, guillotine and all.

On the Op-Ed page of Sunday's "Washington Post" William Greider, the veteran political reporter of four decades, suggested a glass half full. He wrote that the public's rage "has great potential for restoring a functioning democracy. Timely intervention by the people could save the country from some truly bad ideas now circulating in Washington and on Wall Street."

Perhaps no journalist better understands the intertwining twists and turns of government and money, the collision of capitalism and democracy, than William Greider. He wrote the definitive account of the Federal Reserve system, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE. In the spirit of Thomas Paine he produced, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE? Followed it with, THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM. And now, COME HOME, AMERICA: THE RISE AND FALL (AND REDEEMING PROMISE) OF OUR COUNTRY.

Watch Video Here

Wall Street Trades in Political Currency

WILLIAM GREIDER: Unfortunately, Secretary Geithner, has a record- which we know about. When he was President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. And he was at the table, in many of the bailout transactions. First Bear Stearns then A.I.G. and others. And this is, again, not my opinion, but people on Wall Street talk about it all the time. He got spun around again and again by the big Wall Street players. The bailout of Bear Stearns was really about protecting J.P. Morgan Chase.

The story was told backwards in the press, basically, because it's a story the government told that J.P. Morgan came in to buy Bear Stearns at the behest of the government. But in fact, if Bear Stearns had gone down, J.P. Morgan Chase was vulnerable itself to a wave of derivative crashing crisis. When they bailed out A.I.G., the chief executive of Goldman Sachs was in the room. Why was he in the room? Well, because he had big exposure to- through derivatives, to A.I.G. So, when they pump money into A.I.G., it sends the same dollars out and buys back these derivative contracts at par value, not even discounted, to the banks and others who hold them. Goldman Sachs gets $12 billion out of that transaction. This is another scandal waiting to surface. And I trust good, smart reporters are already on the case. And following the dollars that moved around among the leading financial institutions in ways that politicians could not have not known about it. It defies reason to think that Washington didn't know this was happening.

BILL MOYERS: "The New York Times" on Thursday had this remarkable full page graph, based upon the excellent work of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group you're familiar with-

WILLIAM GREIDER: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: That monitors money and politics. They said, where Wall Street trades in political currency, and if you look at this you realize that political connections may be the new currency for deal makers. Right? And it shows which of the financial elites have contributed to which elite politicians.

click to enlarge

Flashback to 1981, Ronny Raygun, and Trickle Down Economics

William Geider

The Education of David Stockman
About a similar situation during the Ronny Raygun administration where Stockman, as his finacial advisor, was spinning the numbers to boost the economy

All things change, but the stage remains the same

Needless to mention, the Lewis & Clark Centennial was a big thing in 1905 but things have changed a lot since those times. Indeed, 2005, passed by without any signifigant celebrations, with most of the recognition being cultural and educational, and most of that was on the innertubes. The American people, whats left of the natives included, watched CNN and Fox News for entertainment, while discovering that the real News was not to be found on the main stream media. There is still information on the tubes, but I  seriously doubt that it will be there for long. Senator Joe Lieberweinerman is pushing for the Internet Kill Switch as we speak, like...in order to keep "We The Sheeple" safe it is going to be necessary to control all of this information that folks are getting from non corporate sources. The information will still be there, but available on a "need to know" basis, which will be fine for Obama's Blackberry or most large corporations, defence industies etc, but for the rest of us; we might as well go back to using short wave radio. So, realising that I am drifting off subject, I would like to share some interesting stuff I ran across this morning. Believe it or not this is not political...zzzZZZ er not contemporary politics anyway.

National Bicentennial Exhibition

This is the pipe tomahawk of Meriweather Lewis. An artifact unique to the American frontier, this highly decorated one was reserved for diplomatic gifts and high status individuals. Lewis still had this with him when he died. Click image to enlarge, it's almost like touching it

Girandoni military model repeating air rifle invented by Bartholomäus Girandoni, Vienna, Model of 1780

This interesting gun belonged to Meriweather Lewis, and was also important in the history of the settlement of the Northwest. It was known that he possesed an air rifle, but it is only in recent years that the identity of the gun was discovered. The Shoshone Indians were well aware that the long rifles had to be reloaded between shots, so were in awe of the rifle that didn't run out of shots. Lewis demonstrated the rifle in front of the Indians as he met them going across the country.

sources:

http://www.lewisandclarkexhibit.org/index_flash.html
http://www.beemans.net/lewis-assault-rifle.htm
http://www.shoshoneindian.com/chief_washakie.htm

With or Without a Government Shutdown - Republicans have Already Won the Debate

Published on Friday, April 8, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Thom Hartmann

With or without a government shutdown, Republicans have already won the debate on our nation's budget. Why? Because the corporate media is on their side.

Make the wealthy pay their fair share.

A budget shouldn’t just focus on spending cuts directed at the poor and middle-class - it should also include revenue raisers like closing corporate loopholes and asking millionaires and billionaires to cough up a few extra bucks a year. Let’s cut some wasteful spending, but let’s also raise a few taxes. But this common sense narrative has been lost inside the main stream corporate media - where there’s only one question that’s being asked today, and that is “how much spending needs to be cut?”

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EPA assures us No radiation hazard on the West Coast

KVAL News

Risk low in Northwest for radiation contamination from Japan

Summary
Even with the jet stream that goes over Japan, across the Pacific and often over the Northwest, state health experts say if there is a radiation leak in Japan we have nothing to worry about.

That is, unless you have questions about the integrity of the Corporate Gubmint. Not long after 911, George Duhbya Bu$h signed a presidential directive, HSPD-5 in order to provide a consistent, coordinated, nation-wide approach for emergency operations across all levels of government, HSPD-5 directed DHS to develop and administer a National Incident Management System (NIMS) and a National Response Plan. Together, NIMS and the NRP provide an approach for federal, state, and local governments to effectively prepare for, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity.

RadNet is a national network of monitoring stations that regularly collect air, precipitation, drinking water, and milk samples for analysis of radioactivity. The RadNet network, which has stations in each State, has been used to track environmental releases of radioactivity from nuclear weapons tests and nuclear accidents. Data generated from RadNet provide the information base for making decisions necessary to ensure the protection of public health. The system helps EPA determine whether additional sampling or other actions are needed in response to particular releases of radioactivity to the environment.

IMO, it would be conforting to see some independent studies as a check on what is coming down in the rain

cellphonereviews.com

Is my cell phone tapped?

How do you find out if your cell phone is tapped? Well, someone who is wondering why the battery life on that newly purchased cell phone is shorter than expected or suspecting that weird sound the phone makes has something to do with privacy meaning their cell phone being tapped, they have hit the nail on the head!

Unless that person is involved in a crime, breach of trust, unpleasant activities or feeling some discomfort, there is nothing to worry about but to stay cool and get going.

Of course, no one really wants their cell phone to be tapped so here is some more information on how you can tell if your cell phone is tapped and what exactly you can do about it.

What to Look for When SuspiciousAlthough it is illegal to tap someone’s cell phone without their consent, the advent of high-tech has shown those culprits who are looking into intruding personal space of an unsuspecting victim in order to steal that critical information or call records, various sophisticated ways to do it without leaving a trace. Following is a list of signs to look for, that might indicate that the cell phone security has been compromised.

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Earthquake Swarms

Could happen in Oregon

According to studies there is an 8.5 quake offshore roughly every 500 years.

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Seismic Cluster Strikes Offshore Oregon
Posted by feww on May 8, 2010

Larger Shocks May Occur

Cluster of at least 9 shocks strike offshore Oregon
Earthquake measuring about 5.4Mw struck the offshore Oregon about 500km west of Eugene on Friday, May 07, 2010 at 17:46:15UTC.

Epicenter of the earthquake was located near 44.396°N, 129.437°W and occurred at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). The initial shock was followed by at least 8 other events [aftershocks] measuring a mean magnitude of about 4.4Mw.

Center of the cluster was about 1,000km (600 miles) south of a magnitude 8.1 shock that occurred on the Queen Charlotte Fault off Queen Charlotte Island on August 22, 1949. That event was Canada’s largest earthquake since 1700.

Banker plows through critical mass bikers

Suzie-Q's post about the banksters and A99 led me to  the world of finance and...

Freedom On Sale

March 15th, 2011 by maxkeiser

MK: Suicidal bankers are buying US dollars and shorting paper Silver. We know who they are and we’re coming for them.

This is a clip taken from a RT video of an interview with Max Kaiser. Why haven't I heard about this guy before? Maybe because I don't follow business and finance, but I will now. Max has taken the world of finance and banking to a whole new level. His concept of  KARMAbANQUE is brilliant. One thing that I have gleaned from this is that silver is indeed a precious metal, Being of modest income, I am not a buyer of gold, but I do have some silver around and I guess that it's time to stash it away where the bank$ters don't find it.

Rep. Kucinich Fires Up Madison Workers' Rights Rally

From: UpTakeVideo Mar 12, 2011

Representative Dennis Kucinich, (D- Ohio) attacks Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for his trashing of workers' rights. The Governor signed a bill that eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public employees. This "Speak Up For Workers' Rights" rally happened after a massive protest at Wisconsin's state capitol.

Kucinich on Obama: "Where is he?"



From: UpTakeVideo | Mar 13, 2011

Rep. Dennis Kucinich spoke with The UpTake after a forum for worker's rights in Madison, Wisconsin. Asked about President Obama's absence in Madison, Kucinich said: "He should be here. Where is he? He made a statement that he's standing behind the workers - he should be standing in front of them. He's the President. Lead. Show people you're dedicated to worker's rights." Filmed at the Barrymore Theater in Madison, Wisconsin on 3/12/11.Interview by Jacob Wheeler for The UpTake

The Grinch aka Newt checks out the political water

        Gingrich virtually a candidate with new 2012 website

POLITICO

The just-launched website for Newt Gingrich’s presidential water testing is as thin as his minutes-long announcement at the Georgia state Capitol.

Paid for by Newt Exploratory 2012, the site offers little of the substance that Gingrich is known for - missing are the videos, statements, policy positions, and other information that usually fill a potential candidate’s web space.

Unveiled minutes after he finished speaking on Thursday, NewtExplore2012.com pictures a large photo of the former House Speaker and his wife, Callista, on the homepage.

Think Progress, a website from the Center for American Progress, reported that the stock photos of supporters Gingrich uses include a photo that was also used on the website of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Gingrich's wife receives prominent display on the site just days after the former House speaker, who has been married three times, was confronted by a Democratic student activist at the University of Pennsylvania about his admitted extramarital affair.

"We are a nation like no other. To remain so will require the dedicated participation of every citizen, of every neighborhood, of every background. This is the responsibility of a free people," reads a message from Gingrich and his wife, who serves as president of Gingrich Productions, posted on the site.

The Waxman Effect

When Henry Waxman speaks, it's like listening to my Uncle Henry in the old days. The message is straight forward, honest, and carries a sort of authority that is rarely seen in todays political theatre. I'm sure that he has an agenda, but it seems to be about accountability, a trait that is sorely lacking in most representatives of the people. If Steney Hoyer or, on the Repugnican side John Boehner, was on the podium, my thoughts would immediately turn to* "6 lobbyist's for every congre$$man". I'm sure that Waxman has a few hanging around too, but I bet they have plenty of respect, and maybe even a little bit of fear, when approaching the man who tells it like it is.


Fighting Back: Defending Our Public Health

Representative Henry A. Waxman

March 7, 2011, 10:00am – 11:00am

About This Event

The recent unrest in the Middle East has sent oil and gasoline prices up, yet another reminder of our vulnerability from imported oil. Oil and America's other persistent energy problems demand attention—reducing oil use, protecting our health by reducing air pollution, and boosting our economic competitiveness. Rather than address these challenges, however, House Republicans have substantially cut programs that safeguard public health and invest in clean technologies, and seek to strip the EPA's authority to limit mercury, smog, and carbon pollution. Their proposed disinvestments in energy efficiency and renewable technologies would wave the white flag of surrender in the international race to lead the clean-tech industry in the 21st century.

Full video of the event can be found... ~HERE~

Waxman: ‘All That Seems To Matter Is What Koch Industries Think’

Wisconsin: Capitol Camp-Out Continues

Madison protesters allowed by police to stay overnight

JSOnline Feb. 27, 2011

By Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel

Faced with several hundred drum-beating, dancing and chanting demonstrators who refused to leave the state Capitol after the doors were shut at 4 p.m. Sunday, police decided to let the crowd spend the night and continue the protest against Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill.

"The people who are in the building will be allowed to stay," Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs said Sunday night. "There will be no arrests unless people violate the law."

It was unclear how long the protesters might be able to maintain their nightly vigil. The policy will be reviewed, Tubbs said.

The state's Department of Administration had sought to bring a sense of business-as-usual to the Capitol by establishing regular hours.

Officials said they were trying to clean the building after nearly two weeks of continuous protests.

Tubbs announced the decision to let the protesters stay after he saw how they moved aside while work crews went about cleaning the Capitol, including mopping and polishing floors.

"People are very cooperative," Tubbs said. "I appreciate that."

It was yet another surreal moment in the continuing saga of political chaos at the Capitol.

"We delivered a message to Gov. Walker. We'll continue to be here to kill this bill," said Peter Rickman, 28, of Neenah, during a news conference held shortly before the doors shut.

Protesters said they were prepared to be peacefully arrested to make their point that the Capitol should remain open.



UPDATE:

The agency outlined rules for Monday:

* Visitors to the Capitol will enter only at the King St. entrance.

* Visitors will be admitted to meet with legislators and other officials, to attend committee hearings and to observe the state Assembly and Senate if they are in session.

* Protesters will be allowed in the building, but crowd size will be adjusted to accommodate the cleaning crews, the preparation for Tuesday's joint legislative session and the number of protesters who remained in the building.

* Police will continue the practice, begun on Saturday, of disallowing sleeping bags, blankets and animals (other than service animals) into the building.

Where the wild things are: Culinary delights in insects and plants

By G: 2-25-2011

Our ancesters here on planet Earth, it is said, existed as hunter gatherers and foragers, enjoying such enjoying such delacies as fruit, nuts, eggs, shellfish, and whatever protein they could glean. It wasn't until around 10,000 years ago that grain was cultivated which produced an agricultural society, which spread to most parts of the old planet.

Some of the ancient sources of food would have been crayfish, crabs, and other crustecians, not to mention lobster, It's an expensive delicacy today that is being over harvested, and will eventually follow the abolone, which is almost exclusively grown artificially in sea farms.

That being said, I guess that the lowly insect can be mentioned as a probable source of food in ancient times and as an important source of protein in our near future. So along with learning about our native edible plants, it will probably be a good idea to learn the identification and preparation of our native insect species.

This from http://www.sustainablefootprint.org/:

"As early as 1885, the British entomologist Vincent M. Holt wrote a booklet with the title: "Why not eat insects?" It is a good question, as most of the world population does. More than 1000 insect species are eaten in the tropics, including caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, ants, bees, wasps, and true bugs. This is probably because insects in warmer climates are bigger and show more crowding behaviour than in temperate zones, making harvesting from nature easier. It is an erroneous Western assumption that people in the tropics eat insects because they are starving. To the contrary, an insect snack is often considered a delicacy."

It's not like we aren't already eating insects in our prepared foods, especially when they are canned or frozen. The FDA allows more in our food than we think.
According to the NY Times tomato paste and pizza sauces are allowed a densety of 30 or more fly eggs per 100 grams or 15 or more fly eggs and one or more maggots per 100 grams.

In case you’re curious: you’re probably ingesting one to two pounds of flies, maggots and mites each year without knowing it. So, even if your just a beer drinker, you might consider that just 10 grams of hops could have as many as 2,500 plant lice.

I don't know about you, but natural sources of protein look a lot better than factory food.

Food Inc. part 1

Wisconsin assembly approves budget repair bill

After rushed procedure, vote, Democrats shout ‘shame!’ at leaving Republican members

Badger Herald
Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:59 p.m.
Updated Friday, February 25, 2011 1:59:55 a.m.

by Andrew Averill

Republicans resorted to a surprise vote at 1:09 a.m. Friday morning to pass the governor’s controversial budget repair bill as Democrats leapt out of their chairs shouting “Shame! Shame!” at the exiting representatives.

Republicans had attempted the quick vote at least two other times earlier in the night, but Democrats, under the vocal leadership of Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, protested and demanded the speaker renounce the votes. The move came after around 61 hours of debate had taken place, largely due to Democrats taking liberty with the length of their speeches. The final count of the vote was 51-17.

Gov. Scott Walker introduced the bill two weeks ago today to address the $137 million budget shortfall. It contained provisions that would provide more executive control over medical assistance, increase state worker contributions to their pensions and health care premiums and severely limit public union members’ rights to collectively bargain.

Union leadership protesting around the Capitol and observing the rallies from across the state over the past two weeks have said they would accept the budget bill provision requiring them to pay more toward pensions and health care premiums, but would not accept losing collective bargaining rights for work conditions and benefits.

“Unions agreed to pay. It’s obvious this isn’t about money. This is about union busting plain and simple,” Rep. Christina Sinicki, D-Milwaukee, said.

More

Wisconsin: Union blood is stronger than a weak end patriots tea

                    DOUBLE FEATURE TODAY

                              WITH CARTOON

couldn't be my fault that the video don't play, must be Youtube

Union blood is stronger than tea, but the corporate masters believe that if a Tea Bagger carries a gun, he is a patriot. If a Union supporter carries a sign, he is a Socialist.

Is there really any reason that the so called, Tea Party Patriots should be concerned about what is happening in Wisconsin? Well, maybe if they are local, but most of them are being bussed in by such organisations as Freedom Works, which is a cooperative of Dick's Army and Gland Beck.

~o~

Here's an exerpt from Therearenosunglasses Weblog

It’s happening in Wisconsin. Its Labor–vs- anti-labor. It’s Ronald Reagan–vs- Mondale…It is the basic right to organize to defend one’s rights and to improve working conditions–vs- the corporations and their mobs for hire, like the Tea Party gang, or whatever they are called. It may be true that much of the anti-union opposition is real (the “unions have killed this country” crowd), but, I would think that many of them are there because someone with either money or power asked them to attend. Believe it or not, people, it is a fight between corporations and the rest of us. If you are not a paid part of some corporation, then you are part of the general population being targeted for some great rip-off. Unions and the fights for workers’ rights (which they have waged for all of us, down through the decades), are the reason that you cannot be worked like an abused animal, and your children cannot be forced to labor hard hours at dangerous jobs, whenever you can no longer work, or find work….and believe me, that day is just around the corner.

The rest of the story on No sun glasses excellent weblog.

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Tribal Nature vs Orwellian Reality

Dog Street Journal


Tom Shadyac visits the Kimball Theatre
Nov. 11, 2010 | By Morgan Barker , DSJ Style Editor

Tom Shadyac is a well know Hollywood director with films under his belt including: “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”, “Liar Liar”, “The Nutty Professor”, and “Bruce Almighty”. He also wrote the screenplays for “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “The Nutty Professor”. Shadyac is known for his comic genius and jumpstarting Jim Carrey’s career, but recently his switched to a more serious tone.

Shadyac describes his turn to the serious as the result of a biking accident; this accident left him with post-concussion syndrome. Many people with post-concussion syndrome experience depression. Shadyac says he was ready for death but felt he had another story to tell. He asks, “What did I want to say before I died?” Enter “I am.”

“I am” is Shadyac’s first venture into the documentary film business, and I feel he has a hit. The documentary tells Shadyac’s story but changes course and begins to tell the story of what is wrong with the world. After Shadyac’s accident he identified himself as personifying many of the problems with the world. So he traded his mansion in Hollywood, private plane and massive film crew for a trailer and a four-man crew. He traveled all over to answer the questions “What’s wrong with our world?” and “What can we do about it?”

To answer these questions he visits spiritual leaders, scientists, poets, writers, and even his father (founder of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital). Shadyac finds that the main things wrong with the world are consumerism and competition. He interviews many people who say that Darwin’s idea of survival of the fittest, ideas that we seem to be living by, is not a natural state for human beings. Instead, the natural state for humans to live in is a society that thrives on love and compassion. These aren’t particularly new ideas. They appear in the Sunday school lessons you attended as a child, the morals your parents and teachers taught you, and even in the lyrics of the Beatles, “All you need is love.” While we’ve heard these ideas, we rarely practice them in real life. The documentary sets out to remind us of these things and encourage us to practice them in life.

Shadyac gives an anecdote about a tribe that worked together in a cooperative society, each day the hunters went out and every night they returned with meat to feed the entire village, even the sick and elderly. One day a hunter declared himself to be the best and stated that it was unfair of him to have to share his meat with the town. So he went on top of a mountain and stored his meat and lived alone while others starved. Others gradually followed suit and eventually the society was consumed by greed. He finishes by pointing out that this tribe is us.

More about Tom Shadyac at iamthedoc.com

A Democratic Egypt? Look at what happened in Iraq

Adventure Capitalism - The Hidden 2001 Plan to Carve-up Iraq

Wednesday, October 27, 2004
by Greg Palast

Why were Iraqi elections delayed? Why was Jay Garner fired? Why are our troops still there? Investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovers new documents that answer these questions and more about the Bush administration's grand designs on Iraq. Like everything else issued during this administration, the plan to overhaul the Iraqi economy has corporate lobbyist fingerprints all over it.
In February 2003, a month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a 101-page document came my way from somewhere within the U.S. State Department. Titled pleasantly, "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Growth," it was part of a larger under-wraps program called "The Iraq Strategy."

The Economy Plan goes boldly where no invasion plan has gone before: the complete rewrite, it says, of a conquered state's "policies, laws and regulations." Here's what you'll find in the Plan: A highly detailed program, begun years before the tanks rolled, for imposing a new regime of low taxes on big business, and quick sales of Iraq's banks and bridges -- in fact, "ALL state enterprises" to foreign operators. There's more in the Plan, part of which became public when the State Department hired consulting firm to track the progress of the Iraq makeover. Example:This is likely history's first military assault plan appended to a program for toughening the target nation's copyright laws.

And when it comes to oil, the Plan leaves nothing to chance -- or to the Iraqis. Beginning on page 73, the secret drafters emphasized that Iraq would have to "privatize" (i.e., sell off) its "oil and supporting industries." The Plan makes it clear that -- even if we didn't go in for the oil -- we certainly won't leave without it.

gregpalast.com

Chris Hedges: US & Israel should change policies in Middle East

Chris Hedges, standing to the right of Daniel Ellsberg at the demonstration that didn't happen. Probably the most important news in recent times, because it  involved people, who were once in government, the CIA, and the media. They were here at the White House to give us a message and it was not to be found in the main stream media, not even in the NY Times, where Hedges was once the Middle East bureau chief. In 2002, Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism, and was a  foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).

This was reported in OpEdNews

Dec 16, 2010 ... Today, 131 rebels were arrested for civil disobedience at the snow covered ... Ray McGovern, Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Margaret Flowers, Coleen Rowley.

What Corruption and Force Have Wrought in Egypt



truthdig Posted on Jan 30, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The uprising in Egypt, although united around the nearly universal desire to rid the country of the military dictator Hosni Mubarak, also presages the inevitable shift within the Arab world away from secular regimes toward an embrace of Islamic rule. Don’t be fooled by the glib sloganeering about democracy or the facile reporting by Western reporters—few of whom speak Arabic or have experience in the region. Egyptians are not Americans. They have their own culture, their own sets of grievances and their own history. And it is not ours. They want, as we do, to have a say in their own governance, but that say will include widespread support—especially among Egypt’s poor, who make up more than half the country and live on about two dollars a day—for the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic parties. Any real opening of the political system in the Arab world’s most populated nation will see an empowering of these Islamic movements. And any attempt to close the system further—say a replacement of Mubarak with another military dictator—will ensure a deeper radicalization in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

The only way opposition to the U.S.-backed regime of Mubarak could be expressed for the past three decades was through Islamic movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to more radical Islamic groups, some of which embrace violence. And any replacement of Mubarak (which now seems almost certain) while it may initially be dominated by moderate, secular leaders will, once elections are held and popular will is expressed, have an Islamic coloring. A new government, to maintain credibility with the Egyptian population, will have to more actively defy demands from Washington and be more openly antagonistic to Israel. What is happening in Egypt, like what happened in Tunisia, tightens the noose that will—unless Israel and Washington radically change their policies toward the Palestinians and the Muslim world—threaten to strangle the Jewish state as well as dramatically curtail American influence in the Middle East.

Read the whole article at truthdig

Break Time

It was high time for a break from CNN and the media spin that has been generated all over the planet so... I gotta say, flipping the channel to OPB was a real, Oh Yeah, kind of moment...transported to a time of artistic expression and the freedom to do so.

it was the entire performance of the 1991 Rolling Stones
"At the Max" concert. I feel better now.,,G: