We have yet another example of the difference in expectations between Americans and voters in other countries. We have politicians who disappeared for months from office, solicit prostitutes from the Senate floor, and call workers “wetbacks.” Yet, they remain in office. However, New Zealand’s National Party MP Aaron Gilmore has resigned after calling a waiter a “dickhead.”
Continue reading “New Zealand Politician Resigns After Insulting Waiter In Drunken Exchange”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
Recently, the ICIJ, better known as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released a report detailing hundreds of thousands of off-shore companies whose sole product or service is to hide income from many countries tax authorities. “A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.
The secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lay bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways.
They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program.” ICIJ.org Continue reading “Tax Havens For the Wealthy, But What About the Rest of Us?”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Sometimes I’ll be watching something and a thought will occur to me and it will stick in my mind and lead me into a meditation on a more global idea that remains with me as I try to puzzle it out. A train of thought set off this week was a TV program in which a person had to deal with aging and it was clear that their fear of their own mortality that controlled their actions. The program is forgotten and unimportant in this piece, but it did start me spending much time extrapolating the implications from that situation. This represents the rude beginnings of a theory I’ve developed, sans research, on why many people respond the way they do to the world, especially in a sociopolitical sense. Feel free to attack it, because it is merely a product of my tangled thought processes and in truth I don’t even know if it is particularly original, or the result of my synthesis of much I’ve learned and read through the years.
Noticeable human development began at least a million years ago in an apelike creature that was small and relatively weak, considering the predatory creatures that surrounded it. Life was a tricky proposition for that creature and the act of merely staying alive consumed its time. I would think that almost all of its day was spent in a state of fear, causing adrenalin rushes and hyper sensitivity to its environment. Those with the most fear, sensitivity and intelligence survived enough to pass on their genes to the coming generations, thus continuing the evolutionary cycle. As time and evolution passed enormous changes in brain size and other factors turned this fragile being into an omnivore predator that mastered the food chain. Yet still remaining were the instincts of fear and hyper-vigilance, since life even at the top of the food chain remained brutal and short. Those instincts protected us well until a next evolutionary step that took us to a whole new level, leaving us as unquestioned masters of life on this planet. That step is what some are calling a social evolutionary process. When humans began to band together into larger groups their place in the world increased exponentially. This “social evolution” changed the Earth and continues today, but nevertheless we are still primarily ruled by fear and by hyper-vigilance. Let me take you where this thought has led me and perhaps you can show me the flaws in my nascent “theory” and provide me with respite from its repetition in my brain. Continue reading “A Meditation on Fear”
Leading Physicist Stephen Hawking has created an international stir by joining a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and travel to Israel after sending a letter declining an invitation to attend the President’s Conference. While Cambridge originally claimed that Hawking was not attending due to his health, Hawking sent a letter to Israeli President Shimon Peres saying that he was in fact boycotting Israel due to its Palestinian policies.
Continue reading “Stephen Hawking Joins Academic Boycott Of Israel”
Recently, a video emerged showing a Canadian police officer in Durham threatening a man in 2011 with planting drugs on him and saying that he has done so before. The profanity laced tirade of the officer was posted on YouTube in which he not only threatens to plant drugs but to beat up the man. The police, however, say that the officer was “disciplined” . . . and then returned to duty. It is unclear what it takes to be fired as a police officer in Durham. The police seem more upset with the profanity than the fact that the officer is captured admitting to planting drugs and threatening an illegal act. The Toronto Star identified the officer as Constable Jamie Ebdon. Here is the punishment . . . he was docked two days’ pay. [Warning both the transcript and the video contain graphic language]
There are some helicopter stunts that capture our attention for their bravery and skill as with the recent mountain rescue in Norway. The Rio police in this video present a far less admirable side to helicopter operations. The video shows a helicopter spraying a street in Rio with machine gun bullets — continuing to fire even as pedestrians are shown near the ricocheting bullets.
We previously discussed how the CIA has delivered millions in cash in bags to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai’s family and friends are have been denounced as openly corrupt. Despite these reports of grotesque corruption, the money continues to flow into Karzai’s pockets even as he attacks the U.S. and Americans as “demons”, and moves to shift alliances to Iran and China. The news of the CIA’s bag men produced outrage among many, but once again the objections over the corruption and waste in this country has no effect on the CIA. Karzai insisted that the cash keep flowing and even went public to say that the CIA assured him that the deliveries to him would continue regardless of the objections of U.S. citizens.
Continue reading “Karzai’s Bag Men: CIA Promises To Continue Monthly Cash Deliveries To Karzai”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
Yesterday was the 43rd anniversary of the day when time stood still for me. As a freshmen in college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, I was stunned to learn of the killing of 4 young people by the Ohio National Guard during protests on the campus of Kent State University. The protestors were using their First Amendment rights to voice their opinion on the United States participation in the Vietnam War and the military’s recent incursion into Cambodia upon orders from then President Richard Nixon. Those events not only scarred me, but they also opened my eyes to the power of the government and more importantly, the power of the people. Continue reading “Kent State 43 Years Later”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
My opinion of the situation in this country is obviously grim if one looks at the themes I tend to write on. As I see it we are either fast becoming a Corporate Feudal Police State, or already have achieved that dubious distinction. I am in favor of a movement towards reversing this situation. There are some issues that can resonate with most Americans and any movement seeking to reverse the anti-Constitutional trends afoot in the U.S. today must find the means to go beyond the falseness of the Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative ideological inanity. We have a corporate two party system, run by an oligarchic elite, whose base disagreement is how to treat those 99% of us, who in their view are the American Peasantry. The Republican Corporatists in effect believe that the majority of Americans should be left to their own devices, while the Democratic Corporatists mildly look for palliatives that won’t disturb their benefactors who are really in charge. Some may say my viewpoint is a radical one and this is possibly so, though the definitions of “radical” have blurred through the years. In my life I’ve spent a number of years as a political activist in one form or another and as I approach the age of 70, I think that my experiences have taught me much about political activism and the potential dangers it brings to the people at large. Right now I find two issues that frighten me for the sake of the future and how my progeny will experience it. The first is the notion of a coming police state and the second is the prospect of a violent, revolutionary upheaval in reaction to it. In other words I see we the People of the United States being between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”. Continue reading “You Say You Want a Revolution?”
Just when you thought that you could not get more shocking news from China’s environmental and food safety scandals, like thousands of dead pigs floating down a major river, you stand corrected. Chinese officials have found dozens of traders in Eastern China selling huge amounts of rat and mink flesh as mutton. This is not a couple pounds. The meat was sold for $1.6 million. Six suspects in Guizhou Province were found with 8.8 tons of “toxic chicken feet.”
Continue reading “Chinese Traders Found To Be Selling Rat Meat As Mutton”
Various atheist sites are reporting that Moroccan student Imad Eddin Habib, 22, is in hiding from police who are seeking him for rejecting Islam and espousing atheism. A Pew poll just showed overwhelming support among many Muslims nations — and allies of the United States — for executing people like Habib for apostasy. The Casablanca paramedical student has gone public as an atheist and police have now interviewed his family on his whereabouts and any foreign connections.
Continue reading “Moroccan Student Reportedly In Hiding From Police After Posting With Sign Saying “I Am Proud To Be An Atheist.””
This video shows an extraordinary confrontation between cleric Yousuf Badri and host Riham Said over whether Riham Said needs to wear the veil. As Egypt becomes more radicalized, it takes considerable bravery to stand up in this way and charge a leading cleric with hypocrisy.
Continue reading “Egyptian TV Host Confronts Islamic Cleric On Veil”
The last 15 rhinoceroses have been shot by poachers in Mozambique allegedly with the help of the game rangers hired to protect the rhinoceroses. The rangers are believed to have used the tracking devices on the animals in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park to help poachers locate the animals and cut off their horns.
Continue reading “Last 15 Rhinos Shot In Mozambique For Their Horns”
The only problem that Qatar has with ancient history is that its pre-Islamic art falls to comply with Islamic sensibilities. An exhibit has been touring the world on the beauty and grace of “The Olympics — Past and Present.” Two ancient statues showed this expression in artistic form but the Islamic nation decided to obscure the statues behind a black screen because their naked bodies were considered indecent under Islamic values.
Mohammed Nisham appears to have as little concern for his children as he does for his luxury cars. Nisham has been charged with having his nine-year-old drive his sports car. It was not hard for Inspector M.V. Verghese to prove: Nisham filmed his son driving the car with his brother (neither with seatbelts on of course) and then posted it on YouTube.
Continue reading “Indian Father Charged After Posting Video Of Nine-Year-Old Son Driving Sports Car”