October 2009 Archives
Richard Falk, a special UN rapporteur, talked about the possibility of Israeli officials being tried in countries which abide to rules of international justice.
The top UN official, however, predicted that the United States will try its best to influence the International Criminal Court not to bring Israeli officials to the dock.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has meanwhile demanded that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights drop support for Goldstone Gaza report and spare no efforts to convince his European counterparts to oppose its adoption. His attempts have however proved futile.
Tel Aviv is worried that charges could be lodged against politicians and army officers for war crimes committed during Israel's 22-day offensive against long-blockaded Gaza Strip. Top officials who would be in the judicial cross-hairs could include former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni as well as current Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
The UN-ordered Goldstone report on Israel's offensive in Gaza details what investigators call Israeli actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity." The 575-page account asserts seven incidents in which Palestinian civilians were shot while leaving their homes, trying to run for safety or waving white flags.
The report says Israel targeted a mosque at prayer time, killing 15 people, and shelled a Gaza City house where soldiers had forced Palestinian civilians to assemble. These attacks constituted war crimes, the report pointed out.
The probe also found Israel violated international humanitarian law in several ways. Dozens of Palestinian policemen were killed at the start of Gaza onslaught when Israel bombed their stations. The security agents were not involved in hostilities and should have been treated as civilians. Palestinians in addition were forced to walk ahead of Israeli soldiers searching civilian neighborhoods.
More than 1,500 Palestinians, a large number of then women and children, were killed during three weeks of Israel's land, sea and air assault, Operation Cast Lead , in the Palestinian impoverished coastal sliver. The offensive also inflicted $ 1.6 billion damage to Gaza economy.
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"Pop Song 89" was the third single released from R.E.M.'s sixth studio album Green. It peaked at #86 on the Hot 100, and in the UK "Stand" was re-released instead.
In the music video, MTV asked Stipe, who directed it himself, to censor the three topless women with whom he was dancing in the video. Instead, Stipe superimposed black bars on the chests of all four dancers, himself included, and stated, "a nipple is a nipple."
The acoustic version that was used as the single's b-side was also included on the bonus disc of the limited two-disc edition of In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 in 2003.
"Pop Song 89" was covered by Motion City Soundtrack for Punk Goes 80's and by Rockfour for their record For Fans Only!.
MTV (censored) version:
Один из очевидцев пишет, что получил комментарии по поводу этого облака в Гидрометцентре. Там ему сообщили, что над Москвой зарождался смерч, но потом рассеялся. На облет "странного" облака вылетал вертолет МЧС.
Video captured on Oct. 7th, 2009, the west of the capital of Russia. In the skies over Moscow visible cloud of unusual shape. The video was shot at the Moscow Ring Road in moving from Volokolamsky to Novorizhskoe highway.
One eyewitness wrote that he had received comments about this cloud in the weather center. There he was informed that over Moscow sprang a tornado, but later cleared. On the fly "strange" clouds flew helicopter Ministry of Emergency Situations.
REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL
The bells are tolling for the dollar
(Taken from CubaDebate)
THE Empire dominated the world more through the economy and lies than by force. It obtained the privilege of printing convertible currency at the end of World War II; it had a monopoly of nuclear weapons; it had virtually all the gold in the world; and was the only large-scale producer of productive equipment, consumer goods, food and services at global level. However, it did have a limit on printing paper money: the backing of gold, at the constant price of $35 per troy ounce. That was the case for more than 25 years until, on August 15, 1971, via a presidential order from Richard Nixon, the United States unilaterally broke that international commitment by defrauding the world. I shall insist on repeating that. In that way it launched on the world economy its rearmament costs and military adventures - in particular the Vietnam war - which, in line with conservative calculations, cost no less than $200 billion and the lives of more than 45,000 young Americans.
More bombs were dropped on this little Third World country than all of those used in the last world war. Millions of people died or were mutilated. When the conversion rate was suspended, the dollar became a currency that could be printed at the will of the U.S. government without the backing of a constant value.
Treasury bonds and bills continued to circulate as convertible currency; state reserves continued nourishing themselves on those bills which, on the one hand, served to acquire raw materials, properties, goods and services from every part of the world and, on the other, privileged U.S. exports in the face of other economies of the planet. Time and time again, politicians and academics refer to the real cost of that suicidal war, admirably described in the film by Oliver Stone. People tend to make calculations as if the millions were the same. They do not usually take note of the fact that the millions of dollars of 1971 are not the same as the millions of 2009.
One million dollars today, when gold - a metal whose value has been the most stable throughout the centuries - has a price in excess of $1,000 per troy ounce, is worth approximately 30 times what it was worth when Nixon suspended the conversion rate. In 2009, $6 trillion is equivalent to $200 billion in 1971. If this is not taken into consideration, the new generations will have no idea of imperialist barbarism.
In the same way, when one speaks of the $20 billion invested in Europe at the end of World War II - in virtue of the Marshall Plan for reconstructing and controlling the principal European powers that had the necessary workforce and technical culture for the rapid development of goods and services - people usually ignore the fact that the real value of what was invested at that time by the empire is equivalent to a current value of $600 billion. They do not note that today, $20 billion would barely stretch to building three large oil refineries capable of supplying 800,000 barrels of gasoline per day, in addition to other oil derivatives.
The consumer societies, the absurd and capricious waste of energy and natural resources that are currently threatening the survival of the species, would not be explicable in such a brief historical period if one is unaware of the irresponsible manner in which developed capitalism, in its superior phase, has ruled the destinies of the world.
That astounding waste explains why the two most industrialized countries of the world, the United States and Japan, are indebted to approximately $20 trillion.
Of course the U.S. economy has an annual gross domestic product of $15 trillion. The crises of capitalism are cyclical, as the history of the system irrefutably demonstrates, but this time it is about something more: a structural crisis, as Professor Jorge Giordani, Venezuelan minister of planning and development, explained to Walter Martínez in the latter's Telesur program last night.
News agency reports circulated today, Friday October 9, add irrefutable data. An AFP cable from Washington notes that the budget deficit of the United States in the fiscal year 2009 is rising to $1.4 trillion, 9.9% of the GDP, "something unseen since 1945, at the end of World War II," it adds.
The deficit in 2007 was one third of that figure. High deficit figures are expected for the years 2001, 2011 and 2012. That huge deficit is fundamentally determined by the U.S. Congress, to save that country's major banks, to prevent unemployment rising above 10% and to pull the United States out of recession. It is logical that if they flood the nation with dollars, the large commercial chains will sell more merchandise, industries will increase production, fewer citizens will lose their homes, the unemployment tide will stop rising, and Wall Street shares will increase in value. However, the world can no longer return to what it was. The economist Paul Krugman, an eminent Nobel Prize winner, has just affirmed that international trade has suffered its greatest fall, worse than that of the Great Depression, and has expressed doubts on its recovery in the short term.
Nor can the world be inundated with dollars and think that those bills without backing in gold will maintain their value. Other economies, today more solid, have emerged. The dollar is no longer the hard currency reserve of all states; on the contrary, its holders wish to move away from that currency, while as far as possible avoiding its devaluation before they can get rid of it.
The European Union euro, the Chinese yuan, the Swiss franc, the Japanese yen - despite that country's debts - even the pound sterling, together with other hard currencies, have moved to take the place of the dollar in international trade. Gold metal is once again becoming an important international reserve currency.
This is not a capricious personal opinion, nor do I wish to slander that currency.
Another Nobel Prize winner in economy, Joseph Stiglitz, commented, according to one news agency, that the most likely thing is that the green bill will continue its decline. He stated this on October 6 at the IMF World Bank Joint Annual Meeting in Istanbul. Violent repression could be noted in that city. The event was greeted with broken windows in the commercial sector and fires from Molotov cocktails.
Other agencies talked of the fact that the European countries are fearful of the negative effect of the weakness of the dollar compared to the euro and the consequences of that on European exports. The U.S. treasury secretary stated that his country "was interested in a strong dollar." Stiglitz made fun of an official statement and stated, according to EFE: "In the case of the United States money has been squandered and the reason has been the multimillion rescue of the banks and defraying the cost of wars like that of Afghanistan." EFE reported that the Nobel Prize winner "insisted that instead of investing $700 billion to help bankers, the United States should have directed part of that money into helping the developing countries which, at the same time, would have stimulated global demand."
Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, raised the alarm a few days earlier, warning that the dollar could not maintain its status as a reserve currency indefinitely.
Kenneth Rogoff, an eminent professor of economics at Harvard, stated that the next major financial crisis will be that of "public deficits."
The World Bank declared that "the International Monetary Fund has demonstrated that the central banks of the world accumulated fewer dollars during the second half of 2009 than at any other point in the last 10 years and increased their euro holdings."
That very same October 6, AFP reported that gold reached the record figure of $1,045 per ounce, prompted by the weakening of the dollar and fears of inflation.
The Independent newspaper of London published that a group of oil producing countries were studying the possibility of replacing the dollar in commercial transactions with a basket of currencies including the yen, the yuan, the euro, gold and a new unified currency.
The news leaked or deduced with impressive logic was refuted by some of the countries presumably interested in that protection measure. They do not want it [the dollar] to collapse, but neither do they want to continue accumulating a currency that has lost its value thirty-fold in less than 30 years.
I must mention a cable from the EFE agency, which cannot be accused of being anti-imperialist and which, in the current circumstances, includes opinions of particular interest:
"Experts in economy and finance were in agreement today in New York in affirming that the worst crisis since the Great Depression has resulted in this country playing a less significant role in the world economy."
"The recession has led to the world changing its way of looking at the United States. Our country is now less significant than before and that is something that we have to recognize," affirmed David Rubenstein, president and founder of the Carlyle Group, the largest risk capital company in the world, addressing the World Business Forum."
"The financial world is going to be less centered in the United States... New York is never again going to be the world financial capital and that role will be shared with London, Shanghai, Dubai, Sao Paulo and other cities," he noted.
"...sort out the problems that the U.S. will confront when it comes out of the 'great recession,' which will probably go another month or two."
"...'enormous public debt, inflation, unemployment, loss in value of the dollar as a reserve currency, energy prices..."
"The government must reduce public spending in order to confront the debt problem and do something that it doesn't much like: increase taxes."
"Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at the University of Columbia and UN special adviser, agreed with Rubenstein that the economic and financial predominance of the U.S. 'is fading.'"
"We have left a system centered in the U.S. for a multilateral one..."
"...'20 years of irresponsibility by the first part of the Bill Clinton administration and then that of George W. Bush,' yielded to the pressures of Wall Street..."
"...the banks negotiated with 'toxic assets to obtain easy money,' Sachs explained."
"'The important thing now is to recognize the unprecedented challenge that supposes achieving sustainable economic development in line with the basic physical and biological rules of this planet'..."
On the other hand, the direct news from our delegation in Bangkok, capital of Thailand, was not at all encouraging:
"The essential issue being discussed - our minister of foreign affairs noted textually - is the ratification or not of the concept of shared but differentiated responsibilities between the industrialized countries and the so-called emerging economies, basically China, Brazil, India and South Africa, and the underdeveloped countries.
"China, Brazil, India, South Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the ALBA are the most active. In general terms, the majority of the Group of 77, are holding to firm and correct positions.
"Figures being negotiated for the reduction of carbon emissions do not correspond to those calculated by scientists for keeping temperature increases to a level below 2 degrees Celsius, 25-40%. At this point, negotiations are moving around a reduction of 11-18%.
"The United States is not making any real effort. It is only accepting a 4% reduction in relation to the year 1990."
In the morning of today, October 9, the world awoke to the news that the "good Obama" of the enigma explained by the Bolivarian President Hugo Chávez at the United Nations, has received the Nobel Peace prize. I do not always agree with the positions of that institution but I am obliged to acknowledge at this moment in time, that - in my view - it was a positive measure. It compensates for the setback that Obama suffered in Copenhagen when Rio de Janeiro and not Chicago was chosen as the venue for the 2016 Olympics, which prompted irate attacks from the extreme right.
Many people will say that he has not as yet won the right to receive such a distinction. We would like to see in the decision, more than a prize to the president of the United States, a criticism of the genocidal policy followed by more than a few presidents of that country, who have brought the world to the crossroads where it finds itself today; an exhortation to peace, and the search for solutions that will lead to the survival of the species.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 9, 2009
6.11 p.m.
Translated by Granma International
More examples of hyperbole: |
- "Your sister's so skinny, she has to run around in the shower to get wet" Cliff, from Valley View Elementary School, in Richmond, California, USA
- "Your sister is so dumb, she walked by the YMCA and thought they spelled MACY'S wrong" Alicia, from Shannon Elementary School, in Pinole, California, USA
- "My history teacher's so old, he lived through everything we've learned about ancient Greece" Ryan, CFS, Willingboro, USA
- "I think of you a million times a day" Vern Sal, from Jose Rizal Memorial State College, in Dipolog City, the Philippines
- "The test was so hard, by the time I finished it I was 100 years old!" Ranada, from Larose M.S., Larose, Louisiana, USA
- "Saskatchewan is so flat, you can see your dog run away for 4 days!" Jenna, from Olympic Heights School, Calgary
- "Your momma is so dumb, she got locked in the grocery store and starved to death!" Vicky Moreno, from T.C. Marsh M.S., Dallas, Texas, USA
- "Your momma is so dumb, she thought TACO BELL was a Mexican phone company." Mrs. Jonas' 4th Period Class, T.C. Marsh M.S., Dallas, Texas, USA
- "It was so cold, even the polar bears were wearing jackets." Elizabeth, from Covington, USA
- "Our library is so old, its book pages are numbered with roman numarals ... written by the Romans!" Bobby W.
- "My girlfreind is so popular, she has her own 900 number." Ed, from Lebanon, USA
- "That boy's eyes are so big, they look like they're going to jump out and grab you! Ashley Clarke
- "My best friend is so forgetful, I sometimes have to remind her what her name is!" Katie Holmes
- "The Eiffel Tower is so big, when I looked up I nearly got whiplashed!" Kerri, from Dexter, Missouri
Pelosi Adds Voice
to Open Source Voting Systems Momentum
Christine Pelosi discusses open source voting systems
with Open Voting Consortium founder Alan Dechert
during a fundraiser last week in San Francisco.
Photos by Luke Thomas
By Luke Thomas
October 7, 2009
The famous quote, "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes," has been attributed to the infamous soviet-era dictator, Joseph Stalin, a premise Christine Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agrees with.
"Everywhere I go, no matter what else people have to say, they ultimately ask one question: 'Why should we work our hearts out if the fix is already in?'" Pelosi said during a keynote speech at a fundraiser last week held to benefit Open Voting Consortium (OVC). "When we look at the elections and look at how close everything is, you know that there's something happening in that machine that we need to know about."
Pelosi was, of course, referring to paperless proprietary electronic voting systems whose inaccessible software renders them unreliable and vulnerable to electoral manipulation. By contrast, an election conducted solely by paper ballot, though desirable, is resource intensive, subject to human error and is time consuming.
OVC founder and CEO Alan Dechert believes OVC's solution, a non-tabulating open source system that generates an encoded paper ballot using inexpensive off-the-shelf computer components, provides the advantages of automated electronic voting systems without the costs and trust concerns associated with proprietary voting systems.
A former computer programmer for Sacramento County, Dechert said the idea to develop an open source voting system occurred to him when the State of California in 2001 began discussing using proprietary paperless touch screen electronic voting systems. "That was the idea that was floating around in the State legislature at the time, and I, like a lot of computer geeks I talked to, thought that was a crazy idea."
"We want a paper ballot that's unambiguous," Dechert said during a demonstration of OVC's system. The free open source software, which runs from a read-only CD, cycled through a pre-programmed language-selected menu of ballot choices. Upon ballot selection completion, a paper ballot containing Dechert's selections in plain text as well as matrix code, was printed, code that can be scanned and tabulated by a code reader.
Dechert has been advocating for open source systems since the questionable 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. He said momentum is now building to replace proprietary systems with open source systems. Los Angeles County is OVC's most promising prospect and is considering using OVC's system by 2012, he said.
Adding to the momentum for more reliable and secure voting systems, Secretary of State Debra Bowen in 2007 conducted a top-to-bottom review of several voting systems certified for use in California which resulted in the decertification and conditional re-approval of some Diebold and Sequoia proprietary voting systems.
"Is LA ready, willing, and able to lead the way for the State?" Dechert asked. "As goes LA, so goes the State of California and, probably, the whole country."
Alan Dechert
'NICE PEOPLE TAKE DRUGS' T-SHIRTS
Due to popular demand, Release has now produced some exclusive Nice People Take Drugs t-shirts. The meaning behind the slogan - that drug use comes in all forms - is most effective when it is endorsed by all sorts of people. If we are to break through the public's preconceptions about drug use and drug users, then we need this slogan to be supportred by as many people as possible.
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2009
NICE MARKETING
Larry, buddy, let me give you a quick piece of advice. Don't advertise your autobody business on a crusty old 1988 red, white, and blue Dodge Caravan with missing hub caps. That would be like Gold's Gym passing out 6XL t-shirts.
Minnesota
Tomas Ayuso, a research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric affairs who spent the summer reporting on the crisis from Tegucigalpa, agrees. The members of Congress meeting with Micheletti "are in violation of the Logan Act," he said.
There have been three Republican trips to Honduras to meet with Micheletti: a July trip by House members Connie Mack (R-Florida) and Brian Bilbray (R-California); last week's trip by Senators Jim DeMint (R- South Carolina), Aaron Schock (R-Illinois), Peter Roskam (R-Illinois), and Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado); and Monday's visit by House members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Florida), and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida).
Gabriel came to the Lord and said, "I have to talk to you.. I have some Cajuns up here in Heaven who are causing some problems. They are swinging on The pearly gates, sliding down stairway to Heaven, and my horn is missing!
They play their accordions and dance all night! Crawfish shells and beer cans are all over the streets of gold and they're making sausage, boudin, and cracklins on every corner. There is rice all over the clouds! They have eaten almost every animal up here! Some folks are walking around with one wing missing. There is barbecue sauce all over their robes and some of them aren't even wearing their halos, saying they won't wear it because it doesn't have an LSU logo on it.
The Lord said, "I made them special, as I did you, my angel. Heaven is home to all my children. If you really want to know about problems, let's call the Devil and see how he is dealing with his Cajuns."
The Devil answered the phone, "Hello? Dang it, hold on!"
The Devil returned to the phone and said, "Hello God, what can I do for you?
God replied, "Tell me what kind of problems you are having down there with the Cajuns you have there."
The Devil said, "Wait a minute," and puts the Lord on hold...
After 5 minutes he returned to the phone, and said, "Okay, I'm back. What's the question?"
God asked again, "What kind of problems are you having with the Cajuns down there?"
The Devil said, "Man, I don't believe this... Hold on, God..."
This time, the Devil was gone for 15 minutes.
The Devil returned and said, "I'm sorry, God, I can't talk right now. These coonasses have done put out the fire, and are holding a benefit jambalaya dinner to install air conditioning!!"
************
Subject: Copper wire fact After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York Scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion, that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago. Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the LA Times read: ' California archaeologists, finding traces of 200 year old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.' One week later. A local newspaper in Louisiana reported the following: After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture near St. Martinville, Bubba Boudreaux, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Louisiana had already gone wireless.. Just makes you proud to live in Louisiana!
Exclusive report
The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
'Girlfriend' is an intriguing tease
Michael Blaiklock is one of the off-camera protagonist's friends in "Secret Girlfriend.'' (Mark Davis) |
The format of "Secret Girlfriend'' is pretty cool. The protagonist of this new Comedy Central series is the invisible guy who's holding the camera. We never see him, or hear from him; but all the other characters - his two buddies, his ex-girlfriend, his new love interest - look at him and talk to him and call him "you.'' And as they do that, they're breaking the fourth wall and addressing us. They pull us into the show as if we're at its center.
This technique in "Secret Girlfriend,'' which premieres tonight at 10:30, reminds me of Jay McInerney's use of the second-person voice in his novel "Bright Lights, Big City.'' By positioning the audience itself as a young, male character, both the novel and the TV show have an interactive, post-modern tone. We aren't just watching objectively as a story unfolds; we're pulled into a highly subjective situation, drawn inside the conflicts of the protagonist's mind. Each segment of "Secret Girl- friend'' opens with a subtitle worded in the second person, such as "You and Your Ex Call It Quits.''
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