News (Page 2) -- April 19, 2006

The Worst President in History? - "George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history."

America meets the new superpower - "China is rising fast and is expected to eclipse the United States economically in the future - its gross domestic product is tipped to overtake that of America by 2045. ... The rise of China is posing awkward questions for the US, along with the realisation that its days as the world's economic superpower are numbered. Some analysts see America entering a period of "managed decline" not unlike that which Britain has experienced since the end of the Second World War and the end of empire."

Chavez taking decisive steps to turn off oil taps to the United States of America - "Venezuela's state owned oil company PDVSA has inked a key deal with India, taking the first key step away from the U.S. as its major oil buyer. At the same time, PDVSA has announced that it will no longer reveal oil statistics to the SEC after paying off its debts. The India deal and the refusal to disclose information are not just strategic, but also send a message to the US about Venezuela's future plans with regard to supplying the US with oil."

Venezuela denies USA accusations over Iran nuclear missiles stockpile deal - "Venezuela defends the peaceful use of nuclear energy, such as that of Iran, Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez affirmed Tuesday."

Bush declines to exclude nuclear strike on Iran - "President Bush refused on Tuesday to rule out nuclear strikes against Iran if diplomacy fails to curb the Islamic Republic's atomic ambitions." -- My dick is bigger than your dick.

Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Letter to President Bush - " Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”"

Can You Keep A Secret? Bush Plans To Nuke Nevada - "If every single camera that's available in the media -- cable- wide, network-wide -- is not in Nevada at the nuclear test site on June 2nd to watch 1.4 millions pounds of explosives be blown up so they can do the math and figure out how to make a tactical nuke, a smaller nuclear weapon that will represent that much firepower for Iran -- if we don't show America this mushroom cloud that will explode in Nevada on the 2nd of June, there is no hope for the American people, there is no hope for the media.You asked me last time I was here, Who's fault is it? And I said, "It's our fault; it's the media's fault." We have to tell this story. This president is manifestly insane. Donald Rumsfeld is insane."

Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map - Does He Deny The Holocaust? - " To raze Israel to the ground, to batter down, to destroy, to annihilate, to liquidate, to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map - this is what Iran's President demanded - at least this is what we read about or heard of at the end of October 2005. Spreading the news was very effective. This is a declaration of war they said. Obviously government and media were at one with their indignation. It goes around the world.But let's take a closer look at what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. It is a merit of the 'New York Times' that they placed the complete speech at our disposal. Here's an excerpt from the publication dated 2005-10-30:"

Sex and money bought Iraq contracts - "A CONTRACTOR in Iraq has pleaded guilty to providing money, sex and designer watches to US officials in exchange for more than $US8 million ($10.8 million) in reconstruction contracts. Philip Bloom faces up to 40 years in prison after admitting paying more than $US2 million in bribes to US officials with the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003."

Bush rocked by resignations - "White House press secretary Scott McClellan and senior advisor Karl Rove have announced their resignation from the Bush administration."

Stop Us Before We Kill Again! - "The essence of Bush&Co. strategy, from January 2001 to today, can be boiled down to this: We'll continue doing whatever we want to do until someone stops us. So, if you're wondering whether the U.S. will back off from attacking Iran, or whether corporations will no longer be given the ability to dictate Administration environmental policy, or whether domestic spying on U.S. citizens will cease, or whether Scalia might recuse himself on cases he's already pre-judged -- if you still harbor any or all of those illusions, forget about it. Since Bush&Co. openly carry out the most reprehensible crimes, with nobody being able to prevent them from moving on to even worse atrocities, it's almost as if their unconscious is screaming out for a political intervention, reminiscent of that old plea from a tormented serial-killer: "Stop Me Before I Kill Again!" But consciously, as they sense their time in power may be coming to an inglorious end and as they read their quickly-sinking poll numbers, they can't help themselves from issuing their traditional, in-your-face dare: "Stop me if you can, losers!""

How Big Is Bush's Big Government? - "We, in the United States, live under the rule of the largest civil government, measured in budgetary terms, in history. Federal spending alone in fiscal year 2006 is expected to be over $2.7 trillion, which means the federal government spends $7.4 billion a day or $5.1 million in every minute of the year. This is 815 times the level of federal spending in 1930. Things have been getting worse recently. In the first five years of the Bush regime, federal spending increased 45%."

The Twilight of Capitalism - "Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry once made an astute observation about the profound flaw underlying both communism and capitalism as systems of human organization: both force humans to be subservient to a colossal institution – in the case of communism it is the state and in the case of capitalism it is the “free market”—a market run by anonymous and unaccountable piles of money voraciously seeking to acquire still bigger piles of money, otherwise known as corporations. (1) Economic analyst David Korten took this observation about the nature of capitalism a step further. He described how capitalism is eerily comparable to the disease of cancer in that the economic players in a “free market” economy that is run capitalistically will forget that they are one unit of a larger network of units that comprise a systemic whole, all of which are ultimately dependent upon each other for survival. When this forgetfulness occurs in a cell in the human body, and the body’s various lines of defense against it are overridden, a tumor will develop as the cell seeks endless growth by dividing itself incessantly, eventually destroying major organs and killing the host through its selfish consumption of resources. (2) Korten, however, does not advocate for the replacement of one form of suffocating and unsustainable control with another as is the case with traditional Marxism. He instead shows that the problem is not with markets as a vehicle for the exchange of goods and services to meet human needs but, more specifically, with capitalism as the means of organizing those markets. The market was not originally intended to be organized as the money-worshipping corporate nightmare it has become."

Yahoo accused of helping jail China Internet writer - "Yahoo Inc. may have helped Chinese police to identify an Internet writer who was subsequently jailed for four years for subversion in the third such case, an advocacy group for journalists said on Wednesday."

The Biggest, Most Successful and Most Dangerous Spin of All - "For anti-spin doctors of all faiths and none, Problem Number One (I’ll be addressing three problems in this posting) is that most Gentiles and, it seems, many Jews, either have no idea or a wrong idea about what Zionism actually is. The wrong idea exists because of Zionism’s breathtaking success in convincing pretty much all of the Judeo-Christian world that Judaism, the religion of Jews, and Zionism are somehow one and the same thing. And it’s because of this success that Zionist spin doctors, feeding off the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust (a Gentile not a Moslem crime), are able to play their blackmail card – the false and malicious charge of anti-Semitism – to silence critics of Israel right or wrong and suppress debate. The truth, which Zionism does not want the world to know, is in two related parts. The first is that Zionism and Judaism are not one and the same thing. The second is that knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism is the key to understanding why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic."

History shows Jews and Christians killed more Muslims than Muslims killed Jews and Christians - "I must begin by saying I am among those who firmly believe that any planned killing by a nation state or political group is motivated not by religion, but by power politics. Given this qualification, historical facts tell us that Jews and Christians have, tragically, killed many more Muslims than the other way around. Now this assertion may seem to go against the current tide of public opinion, but a little basic research will prove the point."

CIA mines 'rich' content from blogs - "The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin."

US ‘very rich’ list grows at fastest pace in a decade - "The number of very rich people in the US grew last year at the fastest pace in at least a decade as their moves into international stockmarkets, real estate and alternative investments paid off."

New Jobs Will Go To India, Bush Warns - "President George W Bush has warned the country's schoolchildren that if they did not have the skills needed to compete with their counterparts from India and China, new jobs would go to those countries. The President was addressing a magnet school in Rockville, Maryland, on Tuesday, stressing among other things, the criticality of such subjects as Mathematics and Science." -- I wonder how much mathematical ability Bush has? I'm betting very little.

Wal-Mart vows to keep growing despite opposition - "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will not bow to opponents who say the world's largest retailer is too big, and will continue to grow as long as customers keep coming to stores, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said on Wednesday."

100 Years - "Why is it that we do not remember most things about just a hundred years ago? Is it that nothing significant happened in that decade? ... Think about that which is important to you; your ideology, your ideals, your likes, your dislikes. What will matter in a hundred years? Will you matter in a hundred years?And does a hundred years, either forwards or backwards, matter to you today?"

Hiccups a possible sign of cancer: study - "Persistent hiccupping in addition to weight-loss and difficulty swallowing could be a warning sign of cancer of the esophagus, an Irish researcher said on Wednesday."

U.S. Records Drastic Decline in Death Rate - "In what appears to be an amazing success for American medicine, preliminary government figures released Wednesday showed that the annual number of deaths in the U.S. dropped by nearly 50,000 in 2004 - the biggest decline in nearly 70 years. The 2 percent decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, came as a shock to many, because the U.S. is aging, growing in population and getting fatter. In fact, some experts said they suspect the numbers may not hold up when a final report is released later this year."

Global sex survey shows men get more satisfaction - "Roughly four out of five middle-aged to older Austrians, for instance, rated their sex lives highly, while considerably fewer adults in France and Sweden shared that sentiment. In the United States, about three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women reported they were very satisfied with the physical and emotional aspects of their sex lives. In Japan, by contrast, just 18 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women answered positively about their sex lives. And in Taiwan, only 7 percent of the women said sex was very important in their lives."

Porn Industry Again at the Tech Forefront - "A top producer of hard-core porn will start selling downloadable movies that customers can burn to DVD and watch on their TVs, illustrating how Southern California's multibillion-dollar adult entertainment industry may again set the technological pace for Hollywood."

Lingerie makes hagglers happy-go-lucky - "It seems that the more macho a man is — at least according to his hormones — the more the sight of an attractive woman will affect his judgement."