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Sana ulHaq

Christina Applegate engaged to rocker beau - 0 views

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    Christina Applegate is engaged to marry musician Martyn Lenoble. Applegate's publicist, Ame Van Iden, said Friday that the couple of two years became betrothed on Valentine's Day.
Arabica Robusta

Bloggers are Africa's new rebels - Chicago Tribune - 0 views

  • Dagem, as he chose to be called, was a new type of African revolutionary: a blogger.
  • The U.S. should take note. As it prepares to engage with Africa more intensely than at any time since the Cold War, in part by the Pentagon’s establishment of a new Africa Command headquarters to coordinate military and security interests, the U.S. will be competing on an increasingly flat information playing field.
  • Gone are the days when Washington could control its messages in client states. The scruffy cyber cafes of Chad and the man in Congo who rents his cell phone by the minute – sometimes climbing atop a tree to improve reception – ensure that Washington’s voice will have to vie with those of the resource-hungry Chinese, or with the designs of Al Qaeda recruiters.
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    "The U.S. should take note. As it prepares to engage with Africa more intensely than at any time since the Cold War, in part by the Pentagon's establishment of a new Africa Command headquarters to coordinate military and security interests, the U.S. will be competing on an increasingly flat information playing field."
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    This older article highlights the immorality of much that is called U.S. foreign policy and journalism. The lesson learned here is not what it should be, that people on the grassroots are fighting against authoritarian violent governments funded by the U.S. Rather it is a bland, neoimperialist comment about what the U.S. propaganda machine has to deal with in future interventions.
Michael Haltman

Hef does it again! - 1 views

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    Hugh Hefner engaged to 24-year old Crystal Harris.
Muslim Academy

Islamic Organizations in Russia - 0 views

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    Islamic organizations in Russia The first official Islamic organization in Russia appeared in 1788, when by decree of Catherine II was created by the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, engaged in the construction of mosques and marital affairs. However, after the revolution of a mosque in 1917, as the Orthodox Church, were closed, and the clergy was subjected to repression. Many Muslim organizations formed in Central Asia and the North Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War were split during the "perestroika" (1980-1990). In 1994 was created by the Supreme Coordinating Center of Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUMR private commercial enterprise), which lasted four years and in 1998 joined the newly formed Council of Muftis of Russia. On the territory of European Russia and Siberia after the collapse of the Soviet Union announced the creation of new autonomous organizations. In 1996 the First Congress of the leaders of the Muslim Board of Russia, where it was decided to set up the Council of Muftis of Russia. A year later the organization was established Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Asian part of Russia. In 1998, the Conference North spiritual offices in Nazran, it was decided to establish the Higher Coordination Centre of North Caucasus Muslims, some of whose members initially included, also a member of the Council of Muftis of Russia. However, because of the differences, was forced to leave. In 2009-2010, decided to join forces to achieve unity of Russian Muslims and strengthen the traditional Islamic religious principles of the Muslim nation. However, by the great success it has not resulted. To date, the Russian equivalent approved two Muslim organizations that claim to the national character: TsDUM (Central Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia) and CMP (Council of Muftis of Russia). Each of them combines a number of relatively independent of the Spiritual Board of Muslims, based on the principle of administrative division. Beyo
thinkahol *

Bradley Manning Support Network » Deception sustains unjust wars - honesty en... - 0 views

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    Troops are coming home from Iraq despite the best efforts of the Obama administration to keep them there. "We're relieved to know all the troops will be home at the end of the year. This would not have been possible without the courageous actions of Wikileaks and the alleged participation of Bradley Manning" says Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Jose Vasquez. Until their abrupt reversal a few weeks ago, the Obama administration had been working hard to maintain between 8000 and 20,000 troops in Iraq after the current Status of Forces agreement was set to expire at the end of this year. Fortunately, the Iraqi government refused to renew the judicial immunity, under which the U.S. Armed Forces had been operating. Establishment news outlets have largely ignored the reason for this sudden change of plans. A few weeks before the negotiations between Washington and Baghdad reached an impasse, WikiLeaks released a cable providing clear evidence that U.S. forces had been engaged in a cover up of the heinous execution of civilian non-combatants following a raid of a suspected insurgent stronghold. "A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." (link)
thinkahol *

A cycle of stupidity - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    RNC Chairman Michael Steele today lashed out at President Obama by saying: "if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?" Of course it's absurd for Steele to voice that criticism without mentioning that it is his own Party which started that war and waged it for 8 years -- as well as the fact that virtually every Congressional member of his Party continues to support the war -- but Steele was right in the substance of what he said. In response, look at this truly repellent and classically Rovian statement issued by the DNC condemning Steele:
thinkahol *

Deleuze, Marx and Politics « Learning Change - 0 views

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    A critical and provocative exploration of the political, conceptual and cultural points of resonance between Deleuze's minor politics and Marx's critique of capitalist dynamics, Deleuze, Marx and Politics is the first book to engage with Deleuze's missing work, The Grandeur of Marx.
thinkahol *

Will Paul Krugman be Shamed Into Debating an Austrian Economics Wunderkind? - CNBC - 0 views

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    Libertarians frustrated by what they view as the lack of engagement by arch-Keynesian Paul Krugman with their arguments have come up with a clever ploy: they're promising to donate $100,000 to the Fresh Food Program of FoodBankNYC.org if Krugman will debate one of their stars.
Skeptical Debunker

Marshall Auerback: Memo to Greece: Make War Not Love with Goldman Sachs - 0 views

  • We know that the Obama administration will not go after the banksters that created this global financial calamity. It has been thoroughly co-opted by Wall Street's fifth column, who hold most of the important posts in the administration. Europe has even more at stake and has shown somewhat more willingness to take action. Perhaps our only hope for retribution lies there.
  • Some might believe the term "banksters" is too mean. Surely Wall Street was just doing its job -- providing the financial services wanted by the world. Yes, it all turned out a tad unfortunate but no one could have foreseen that so many of the financial innovations would turn into black swans. And hasn't Wall Street learned its lesson and changed its practices? Fat chance. We know from internal emails that everyone on Wall Street saw this coming -- indeed, they sold trash assets and placed bets that they would crater. The crisis was not a mistake -- it was the foregone conclusion. The FBI warned of an epidemic of fraud back in 2004 -- with 80% of the fraud on the part of lenders. As Bill Black has been warning since the days of the Saving and Loan crisis, the most devastating kind of fraud is the "control fraud," perpetrated by the financial institution's management. Wall Street is, and was, run by control frauds. Not only were they busy defrauding the borrowers, like Greece, but they were simultaneously defrauding the owners of the firms they ran. Now add to that list the taxpayers that bailed out the firms. And Goldman is front and center when it comes to bad apples. Lest anyone believe that Goldman's executives were somehow unaware of bad deals done by rogue traders, William Cohan reports that top management unloaded their Goldman stocks in March 2008 when Bear crashed, and again when Lehman collapsed in September 2008. Why? Quite simple: they knew the firm was full of toxic waste that it would not be able to continue to unload on suckers -- and the only protection it had came from AIG, which it knew to be a bad counterparty. Hence on March 19, Jack Levy (co-chair of M&As) sold over $5 million of Goldman's stock and bet against 60,000 more shares; Gerald Corrigan (former head of the NY Fed who was rewarded for that tenure with a position as managing director of Goldman) sold 15,000 shares in March; Jon Winkelried (Goldman's co-president) sold 20,000 shares. After the Lehman fiasco, Levy sold over $6 million of Goldman shares and Masanori Mochida (head of Goldman in Japan) sold $56 million worth. The bloodletting by top management only stopped when Goldman got Geithner's NYFed to produce a bail-out for AIG, which of course turned around and funneled government money to Goldman. With the government rescue, the control frauds decided it was safe to stop betting against their firm. So much for the "savvy businessmen" that President Obama believes to be in charge of Wall Street firms like Goldman.
  • From 2001 through November 2009 (note the date -- a full year after Lehman) Goldman created financial instruments to hide European government debt, for example through currency trades or by pushing debt into the future. But not only did Goldman and other financial firms help and encourage Greece to take on more debt, they also brokered credit default swaps on Greece's debt-making income on bets that Greece would default. No doubt they also took positions as the financial conditions deteriorated-betting on default and driving up CDS spreads. But it gets even worse: An article by the German newspaper, Handelsblatt, ("Die Fieberkurve der griechischen Schuldenkrise", Feb. 20, 2010) strongly indicates that AIG, everybody's favorite poster boy for financial deviancy, may have been the party which sold the credit default swaps on Greece (English translation here). Generally, speaking, these CDSs lead to credit downgrades by ratings agencies, which drive spreads higher. In other words, Wall Street, led here by Goldman and AIG, helped to create the debt, then helped to create the hysteria about possible defaults. As CDS prices rise and Greece's credit rating collapses, the interest rate it must pay on bonds rises-fueling a death spiral because it cannot cut spending or raise taxes sufficiently to reduce its deficit. Having been bailed out by the Obama Administration, Wall Street firms are already eyeing other victims (and for allowing these kinds of activities to continue, the US Treasury remains indirectly complicit, another good reason why one shouldn't expect any action coming out of Washington). Since the economic collapse is causing all Euronations to run larger budget deficits and at the same time is raising CDS prices and interest rates, it is easy to pick off nation after nation. This will not stop with Greece, so it is in the interest of Euroland to stop the vampires now. With Washington unlikely to do anything to constrain Goldman, it looks like the European Union, which is launching a major audit, just might banish the bank from dealing in government debt. The problem is that CDS markets are essentially unregulated so such a ban will not prevent Wall Street from bringing down more countries-because they do not have to hold debt in order to bet against it using CDSs. These kinds of derivatives have already brought down an entire continent -- Asia -- in the late 1990s , and yet authorities are still standing by and basically doing nothing when CDSs are being used again to speculatively attack Euroland. The absence of sanctions last year, when we had a chance to deal with this problem once and for all, has simply induced even more outrageous and fundamentally anti-social behavior. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor -- with, for example, Germany and Greece lobbing insults at one another (Greece has requested reparations for WWII damages; Germany has complained about subsidizing what it perceives to be excessive social spending in Greece). Of course, as far as Greece goes, the claim now is that these types of off balance sheet transactions in which Goldman and others engaged were not strictly "illegal" under EU law. But these are precisely the kinds of "shadow banking transactions" that almost brought down the global financial system 18 months ago. Literally a year after the Lehman bankruptcy -- MONTHS after Goldman itself was saved from total ruin, it was again engaging in these kinds of deals. And it wasn't exactly a low-level functionary or "rogue trader" who was carrying out these transactions on behalf of Goldman. Gary Cohn is Lloyd "We're doing God's work" Blankfein's number 2 man. So it's hard to believe that St. Lloyd did not sanction the activities as well in advance of collecting his "modest" $9m bonus for last year's work.
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    Ok, if a literal armed attack on Goldman is too far-fetched, then go after the firm using the full force of the regulatory and legal systems. Close the offices and go through the files with a fine-tooth comb. Issue subpoenas to all non-clerical staff for court appearances. Make the internal emails public. Post the names of all managers and traders on Interpol. Arrest anyone who tries to board a plane, train, or boat; confiscate their passports; revoke their visas and work permits; and put a hold on their bank accounts until culpability can be assessed. Make life at least as miserable for them as it now is for Europe's tens of millions of unemployed workers.
cysko cysko

[食品公司].Food.Inc._在线视频观看_土豆网视频 食品公司 Food Inc. 电影 内幕 英语 - 0 views

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    Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner.[2] The film examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise have many hidden costs and are unhealthy and environmentally-harmful. The film is narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, two long-time critics of the industrial production of food.[3][4] The documentary generated extensive controversy in that it was heavily criticized by large American corporations engaged in industrial food production.[2]
rich hilts

Government Control Legislation? - 0 views

shared by rich hilts on 13 Jan 11 - No Cached
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    Control this, don't get too close, don't say that. Don't touch this, don't use that word, don't own this, don't use that. Don't argue too loud, don't get too emotional, don't engage in rhetoric. It's the left, it's the right, it's the speech, it's the radio, it's the tv, it's the politicians, it's the economy, it's the healthcare, it's the currency, it's the movies, it's the music. What is coming down the pike and is there any stop to it?
thinkahol *

I am not a "global warming denialist" - War Room - Salon.com - 0 views

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    In his thoughtful criticism of my essay on the future of fossil fuels and the poor prospects for renewable energy, Andrew Leonard characterizes my message as one that "we have nothing to worry about." This may be partly the fault of my presentation, because in the course of being provocative I did not make it sufficiently clear that I was engaged in analysis, not advocacy. I made the prediction that, even in the presence of global warming, the countries of the world are unlikely to allow the vast stores of fossil fuels in the earth's crust to lie there undisturbed, when technology is making many of them ever more accessible and cheaper than the renewable energy alternatives. For the record, I personally wish that greenhouse gas emissions would stop immediately, and I personally would prefer a world of harmonious international cooperation for all time. Neither of my personal preferences is going to be fulfilled and neither affects the accuracy of my analysis.
thinkahol *

In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war - Glenn Greenw... - 0 views

  • As usual, the ideas stigmatized with the most potent taboos are the ones that are the most obviously true.
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    When the war in Libya began, the U.S. government convinced a large number of war supporters that we were there to achieve the very limited goal of creating a no-fly zone in Benghazi to protect civilians from air attacks, while President Obama specifically vowed that "broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."  This no-fly zone was created in the first week, yet now, almost three months later, the war drags on without any end in sight, and NATO is no longer even hiding what has long been obvious: that its real goal is exactly the one Obama vowed would not be pursued -- regime change through the use of military force.  We're in Libya to forcibly remove Gaddafi from power and replace him with a regime that we like better, i.e., one that is more accommodating to the interests of the West.  That's not even a debatable proposition at this point. What I suppose is debatable, in the most generous sense of that term, is our motive in doing this.  Why -- at a time when American political leaders feel compelled to advocate politically radioactive budget cuts to reduce the deficit and when polls show Americans solidly and increasingly opposed to the war -- would the U.S. Government continue to spend huge sums of money to fight this war?  Why is President Obama willing to endure self-evidently valid accusations -- even from his own Party -- that he's fighting an illegal war by brazenly flouting the requirements for Congressional approval?  Why would Defense Secretary Gates risk fissures by so angrily and publicly chiding NATO allies for failing to build more Freedom Bombs to devote to the war?  And why would we, to use the President's phrase, "stand idly by" while numerous other regimes -- including our close allies in Bahrain and Yemen and the one in Syria -- engage in attacks on their own people at least as heinous as those threatened by Gaddafi, yet be so devoted to targeting the Libyan leader?
thinkahol *

Is This the Way the World Ends? | Truthout - 0 views

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    The world is not, however, out of the woods if you read Peter Nolan's superb book, "Crossroads: The End of Wild Capitalism and the Future of Humanity." Nolan's thesis is that unrestrained capitalism, its extremes and its contradictions, have put China, the United States and the world of Islam on a collision course that gives the world "the choice of no choice." Either these three models of culture and capitalism will find constructive engagement, or the world as we know it is in extreme peril - either from economic instability and social reaction, military conflict, or environmental destruction, or all of the above.
thinkahol *

The administration's stated budget priorities - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    As the U.S. continues to spend almost more than the rest of the world combined on its military while it wages and escalates war in multiple Muslim countries around the world -- to say nothing of the dozens of nations in which it continuously engages in lower-level covert military action -- the very idea that American security would be gravely jeopardized by these cuts is absurd on its face.  If anything, American security is far more endangered by continuing on this path of unbridled militarism and aggression.  Yet here we have the bizarre spectacle of a Democratic administration demanding cuts to Social Security and Medicare in order to protect the defense industry from cuts that are, in any event, far less meaningful than are being depicted.  Given how public they're being with these statements, does anyone have any remaining doubt about the constituencies to which they're actually loyal?
thinkahol *

Why "business needs certainty" is destructive - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    Businesses have had at least 25 to 30 years near complete certainty -- certainty that they will pay lower and lower taxes, that they' will face less and less regulation, that they can outsource to their hearts' content (which when it does produce savings, comes at a loss of control, increased business system rigidity, and loss of critical know how). They have also been certain that unions will be weak to powerless, that states and municipalities will give them huge subsidies to relocate, that boards of directors will put top executives on the up escalator for more and more compensation because director pay benefits from this cozy collusion, that the financial markets will always look to short term earnings no matter how dodgy the accounting, that the accounting firms will provide plenty of cover, that the SEC will never investigate anything more serious than insider trading (Enron being the exception that proved the rule). So this haranguing about certainty simply reveals how warped big commerce has become in the US. Top management of supposedly capitalist enterprises want a high degree of certainty in their own profits and pay. Rather than earn their returns the old fashioned way, by serving customers well, by innovating, by expanding into new markets, their 'certainty' amounts to being paid handsomely for doing things that carry no risk. But since risk and uncertainty are inherent to the human condition, what they instead have engaged in is a massive scheme of risk transfer, of increasing rewards to themselves to the long term detriment of their enterprises and ultimately society as a whole.
Ian Schlom

Statement of the IWA- Secretariat concerning the mobilizations against the present capi... - 0 views

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    Below is full text: For the International Workers Association (IWA) class struggle is not a theoretical abstraction but a fact in the daily lives of workers. Our way of organizing is expressed through democratic federalist structures based on recallable delegates. The IWA rejects class collaboration in all its forms. Works councils and other corporatist bodies based on social partnership are means of undermining class struggle. State funding is designed to undermine independent working class action and organization. For us the only relationship between worker and boss can be class struggle. And class struggle must grow until capitalism and the state is swept away by the solidarity of the international working class - to be replaced by the free federation of workers associations based on libertarian communism! In recent years the IWA has organized countless international campaigns in support of workers worldwide. The attacks come in many fields and in Spain by the various labour reforms, cuts in the pension system, reform of collective bargaining and social cuts. On September 29 , the CNT-AIT with other unions and social organizations will take to the street, in the process of building towards a general strike! It is in this anarchosyndicalist spirit that the IWA-Secretariat sends its greetings and support to the Spanish CNT-AIT and all workers who by self- activity, protests, direct actions and solidarity are engaged in the fight against the capitalist offensive! Oslo, September 27th 2011 IWA-Secretariat
thinkahol *

Cable Details Israeli Army's Planned Abuse of Civilian Protesters -- News from Antiwar.com - 0 views

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    Whenever Israeli troops rough up civilian protesters, it is shrugged off as an isolated incident. One of the WikiLeaks cables, however, shows that it was explicit military policy to abuse civilians engaged in non-violent protests. During a 2010 meeting, the cable notes, Israeli officials informed the US of their intention to be "more assertive" against peaceful demonstrations, with the US ambassador noting that the Israeli government believed any demonstration warranted military response. An Israeli commander, Avi Mizrachi, insisted there was no reason for the Palestinians to protest and that they were organized by "suspicious people." He added that since the protests "serve no purposes" anyone caught demonstrating would be arrested. The position takes on a whole new perspective, however, in the face of massive protests later this month aimed at independence. The Israeli military's abuse of human rights has also been a topic of discussion in the US Senate, though most in the Senate seem unwilling to oppose it.
thinkahol *

Environmental Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline - 0 views

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    This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age - it's serious stuff. The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested.
thinkahol *

The Right's '53 Percent' Solution to Occupy Wall Street -- Daily Intel - 0 views

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    In the last few days, the conservative movement has formed its response to Occupy Wall Street. The mere fact of conservative opposition isn't very surprising - obviously, conservatives aren't going to love a left-wing movement filled with counterculture types assailing the rich and big business. What's more interesting is the nature of the conservative response. There is hardly any direct intellectual engagement or forceful restatement of pro-market principles. Instead what we see is a series of evasions.
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