Archive for February, 2010
Posted by seumasach on February 23, 2010
David Gosset
Asia Times
24th February, 2010
At the end of his life, Jacques Delille (1738-1813), known for his translations in French of Virgil and Milton, composed The Conversation, a long poem whose preface begins with a penetrating observation which also stands as a philosophy:
A group of intelligent and polite persons gathered to discuss and instruct each other through the communication of their ideas and feelings in a pleasant conversation, always seemed to me the best illustration of the humankind and of social perfection.[2]
At a time when misunderstandings between cultures are rampant, when walls of fear, prejudice and hatred divide the members of the human family, it is urgent to intensify the dialogue between civilizations. Under the new leadership of its Director-General Irina Bokova, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared 2010 as the “Year for the rapprochement of cultures”. In this context, the concerted reflection and action of Europe and China can be highly meaningful.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 22, 2010
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: eurasian project, eurozone crisis | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 22, 2010
Wayne Madsen
Voltairenet
22nd February, 2010
Columnist Wayne Madsen takes us behind the scenes of two momentous events in recent US history where General Alexander Haig played a pivotal role by twice foiling an attempt against the constitutional order. First, during the Watergate scandal when Haig anticipated that Richard Nixon might mobilize the military in order to stay to power. Then, as Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, Haig did not go for the official story of the assassination attempt, pinned on a love-sick boy whose father just happened to have very close links with Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Had Reagan been killed, Bush would have immediately ascended to the presidency. According to Madsen, it is thanks to Haig that he had to await his constitutional turn.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Al Haig, Hinckley, Reagan assassination attempt | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 21, 2010
Despite Britain’s wholehearted commitment to destroying the Euro the pound is once again falling against that currency. To compare Britain’s financial situation to that of Greece is flattering: Goldman Sach’s machinations in Greece notwithstanding, Britain is second to none in the art of off the books accounting. We are running major wars out of a secret contingency fund, printing money to shore up our banks as off the books emergency funds and deferring costs on infrastructural projects of dubious quality and great expense run for the benefit of friends of New Labour. No one knows the true state of our finances: we know only that they are unimaginably bad. To add to our woes we are outside the Eurozone and face an Iceland style collapse, including debts owed in foreign currencies which we can never conceivably cover. Unlike Greece we have no political will to remedy the situation unless you consider a war against our creditors to be such a remedy.
Sean O’Grady
Independent
19th February, 2010
Britain’s public finances are in a worse position than those of Greece, according to the latest figures on government borrowing. The Office for National Statistics said yesterday that January alone saw a net shortfall of £4.3bn, far worse than City forecasts and in a month which has always previously shown a healthy surplus. It puts the UK on track for a deficit of £180bn this year, or 12.8 per cent of GDP, economists said, shading the Greek figure, hitherto the worst in the European Union, of 12.7 per cent. In the pre-Budget report the Chancellor forecast a deficit of £178bn for the current year. Warnings that the UK could face a Greek-style crisis of confidence have been building for some weeks, and yesterday saw a sell-off of sterling and British government securities, or gilts, on the disappointing news.
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Posted in Financial crisis, UK economy | Tagged: End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 21, 2010
Argentina’s Foreign Minister, Jorge Taiana, will meet and ask his counterparts at the Rio Group summit in Cancun, Mexico, next week to condemn what he called Britain’s “unilateral and illegal” exploration in the islands. The left-wing Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, pledged his support for Argentina, saying Britain was “violating international law”. “Get out of there; give the Malvinas back to the Argentine people. Enough already with the empire,” he said.
Independent
21st February, 2010
War is not an option in resolving Argentina’s dispute with Britain over the potentially oil-rich Falkland Islands, a senior Argentinian minister said yesterday. “War is excluded from our horizon,” the Deputy Foreign Minister, Victorio Taccetti, said. But he insisted Buenos Aires would not give up its claims to the islands it calls Las Malvinas.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: End of empire, Las Malvinas son de Argentina | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 20, 2010
effedieffe.com
20th february, 2010
How U.S. Credit Card Companies Are Sucking The Financial Life Out Of The American Consumer
There have been very few things more damaging to American consumers over the past couple of decades than credit card debt. Easy credit has enabled many of us to live absolutely fabulous lifestyles, but outrageously high interest rates, ridiculous penalties and predatory fees have sucked the financial life out of millions of American families. It is very easy to blame the rapidly exploding debt of the U.S. government for the economic collapse that we are now experiencing, but the truth is that tens of millions of Americans have created their own personal economic disasters by overusing credit cards. The temptation of easy credit has been too much for millions of Americans to resist, but now all of that easy credit is proving to be incredibly difficult to pay back, and massive debt problems are literally tearing many American families apart.
It is hard to underestimate how devastating credit card debt can be to a family.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: credit cards | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 20, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
Vdare
15th February, 2010
The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent (“the recession is over”), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean?
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: dollar collapse, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
Op-Ed News
18th February, 2010
Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail. He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: End of empire, looting pension funds | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2010
The amount of weapons grade uranium Iran has is directly proportional to US desire to start a war. Back in the “idealistic” phase of Obamism the US was “reaching out’, favouring diplomacy over war and, therefore, Iran had no weapons grade uranium.
BBC
10th March, 2009
Iran has no weapons-grade uranium, US military officials have said in an attempt to clarify recent statements from Washington and Israel.
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Posted by seumasach on February 19, 2010
DU-deceptions
18th February, 2010
What follows is the continuation, in serial form, of a central chapter from my book A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science.
Exhibit C continued
The country that dropped the atomic bomb is the same country that funds and controls the Life Span Study. In 1950, five years after the bombing of Hiroshima, an excessive incidence of leukemia began appearing in the exposed population. In response, the Government of the United States established the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) with the mandate of monitoring the health of the surviving population. In 1975, control of the study was passed to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan. Continued funding is divided between the government of Japan and the government of the United States through the National Academy of Sciences under contract with the Department of Energy.
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Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis | Tagged: ICRP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2010
David DeGraw
Silver Bear Cafe
18th February, 2010
The economic elite have robbed us all. The amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity.
“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.” – Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not
We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: economic collapse, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 