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thinkahol *

Now That David Koch Is Gone From NIH Cancer Board, Formaldehyde Is Finally Classified A... - 0 views

crooksandliars.com/...id-koch-gone-nih-cancer-board-

Now That David Koch Is Gone From NIH Cancer Board Formaldehyde Finally Classified As A Carcinogen | Crooks and Liars

shared by thinkahol * on 12 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 12 Jun 11
     
    What's that word they use for a society where the group of those with money and power are above the law? Oh, that's right: Oligarchy! While this regulatory capture continued, how many of us filled up our homes with these toxic products? Via Think Progress: Large manufacturers and chemical producers have lobbied ferociously to stop the National Institutes of Health from classifying formaldehyde as a carcinogen. A wide body of research has linked the chemical to cancer, but industrial polluters have stymied regulators from action. Last year, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported that billionaire David Koch, whose company Georgia Pacific (a subsidiary of Koch Industries) is one of the country's top producers of formaldehyde, was appointed to the NIH cancer board at a time when the NIH delayed action on the chemical. The news was met with protests from environmental groups. Faced with mounting pressure from Greenpeace and the scientific community, Koch offered an early resignation from the board in October. Yesterday, the NIH finally handed down a report officially classifying formaldehyde as a carcinogen: Government scientists listed formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and said it is found in worrisome quantities in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. They also said that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer but is generally found in such low levels in consumer products that risks are low. Frequent and intense exposures in manufacturing plants are far more worrisome than the intermittent contact that most consumers have, but government scientists said that consumers should still avoid contact with formaldehyde and styrene along with six other chemicals that were added Friday to the government's official Report on Carcinogens. Its release was delayed for years because of intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which disputed its findings. An investigation by ProPublica found th
thinkahol *

To Occupy and Rise - 0 views

c4ss.org/8511

To Occupy and Rise

shared by thinkahol * on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 30 Sep 11
     
    The Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second week of operation, and is now getting more attention from media as well as from people planning similar actions across the country. This is a promising populist mobilization with a clear message against domination by political and economic elites. Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can't work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions. In general, the occupiers see themselves as having more to gain than to lose in creating a new political situation - something that few who run the current system will help deliver. They are not eager for violence, and have shown admirable restraint in the face of attack by police. There may be no single clear agenda, but there is a clear message: that people will have a say in their political and economic lives, regardless of what those in charge want. Occupy Wall Street is a kind of protest that Americans are not accustomed to seeing. There was no permit to protest, and it has been able to keep going on through unofficial understandings between protestors and police. It is not run by professional politicians, astroturfers, or front groups with barely-hidden agendas. Though some organizations and political figures have promoted it, Occupy Wall Street is not driven by any political party or protest organization. It is a kind of protest that shows people have power when they are determined to use it. Occupy Wall Street could be characterized as an example of a new type of mass politics, which has been seen in
thinkahol *

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson - YouTube

shared by thinkahol * on 05 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 05 Oct 11
     
    One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from? With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward. Beginning with Charles Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines. Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.
Muslim Academy

burma today-What is Happening Now - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/urma-and-what-is-happening-now

burma today burma muslim killing burma news

shared by Muslim Academy on 30 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 30 Dec 12
     
    In the midst of fast-moving events in Syria and in the shadows of tyranny, oppression, lethality and massacres practiced by the Syrian regime, the Nation of Islam has been stabbed once again. Another waterfall of Muslim blood has been shed without any humanity. These stabs have been hurting the Muslim nation often and raise many questions about our disbanding and enemy's plots and plans from all sides. In the past weeks, Muslim advocates have been exposed to a gruesome massacre after being attacked by a Buddhist group that killed many Muslims. The media have posted terrible images of the victims of this massacre. The Myanmar government turned a blind eye, and it seems that they agree with the criminal killers. Things did not stop at this massacre but transcended to burn homes and farms of a large number of Muslims and killed dozens by fire. All this happened with the help of police junta Buddhism. On July 10, 2012 a curfew was imposed on villages that was inhabited by the Muslim minority, then the Buddhist groups covered by the Myanmar government started a campaign of ethnic cleansing and religious preference that killed 100 Muslims and injured about 300 people and burned nearly a thousand homes. Also, in this awful campaign they have been targeting scientists, doctors and intellectuals. Away from these events and tension, the main thing that everyone knows is that the Muslims there have been suffering for decades from the oppression and persecution of Buddhists via systematic violations. The group of Buddhists are committed against the Muslims there at different intervals, and force displacement, removal of citizenship, and the sophistication in the torture and "ethnic cleansing." Unjust arrests and the demolition of mosques and Islamic schools have deprived Muslims from the lowest human rights.
Muslim Academy

A Death Threat Letter to Imam in France - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/hreat-letter-to-imam-in-france

Imam in France Death Threat Letter to Imam in France miseries of muslims

shared by Muslim Academy on 25 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 25 Aug 12
     
    The Imam of Lyon Grand Mosque, Kamel Kabtane, in eastern France revealed that he had received a letter containing death threats, pointing out that he would file a case against the sender. Imam Kabtane said that the death threat letter he received was written in four pages and included the words" personal "and" confidential" and it was sent to him at the mosque. He added that he received the day before at his home another threat letter from an unknown sender but apparently this death letter was also issued from the same person. In a copy of the death threat letter that was obtained by "Agence France Presse" the theater had written: a bomb will explode and you will not find a pig's head in front of the mosque but your head. The imam of the mosque said: we get about once a month threats from the same person but they did not include the same tone. The imam mentioned that he files a complaint every time to the Counter Terrorism Department of the police in Paris. The imam of the Grand Mosque showed his great concerns from the tone that was in the last threat letter he received.
Skeptical Debunker

Arne Duncan: Move Our Money From Banks to Students - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...money-from-banks_b_471038.html

student loans banks subsidies change

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The president's student aid reform plan will save tens of billions over the next decade. We'll use these savings to make college more affordable for the next generation of engineers, teachers, and scientists who will become the backbone of the new economy. The House has passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. This legislation will end bank subsidies and invest in students directly. The Senate is still working on its bill. The House bill will increase Pell Grant scholarships to $5,710 in the next fiscal year. It will guarantee that Pell Grants keep pace with the rate of inflation. It will eliminate unnecessary questions from the financial aid forms, making it faster and easier for students to qualify for federal grants and loans. This legislation also promises an historic investment in community colleges, helping these essential schools take Americans from all backgrounds and equip them to succeed. Finally, it will improve the quality of early learning programs, which are critical to America's educational success. All of this will be possible by eliminating the student loan subsidies. We will end the loans under the Federal Family Education Program and make them directly to students -- just as economist Milton Friedman proposed 50 years ago, and just as the Department of Education has been doing since 1993 through the Direct Loan Program. For future lending, we have hired experienced companies to service all new student loans and collect them for us. We selected these companies through a competitive process. The shift is underway, and it is proving to be a remarkably smooth transition. In the past two years, our Department has issued more than $50 billion in student loans. Over 2,300 colleges and universities participate in the direct lending program -- an increase of 1,300 over the past three years. It's time to do what's right for taxpayers -- move our money from bankers to students.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    President Obama has a plan to move our money from banks to students. Every year, taxpayers subsidize student loans to the tune of $9 billion. Banks service these loans, collect the debt, keep the interest, and turn a profit. When borrowers default on their loans, taxpayers foot the bill, and banks still reap the interest. It's a great deal for banks and a terrible one for taxpayers.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    Yet another government sponsored "socialistic" "redistribution of wealth" from taxpayers to big business. It's time to do away with it.
Skeptical Debunker

Rough Water - 0 views

www.earthisland.org/...roughwater

Klamath River dams agreement negotiation controversy protest violence

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 03 Mar 10 - Cached
  • For most of the last 1,500 years, the river supported a sustainable salmon economy. Salmon were at the heart of all the Klamath’s tribal cultures, and Indians were careful not to over-harvest them. Each summer, the lower Klamath’s Yurok and Hoopa tribes blocked the upstream paths of spawning salmon with barriers; then, after ten days of fishing, they removed the barriers, allowing upstream tribes to take their share. As the salmon completed their lifecycle, dying in the waters where they’d been spawned, they enriched the watershed with nutrients ingested during years in the ocean. Among the beneficiaries were at least 22 species of mammals and birds that eat salmon. Even the salmon carcasses that bears left behind on the riverbanks fertilized trees that provided shade along the river’s banks, cooling its waters so that the next generation of vulnerable juvenile salmon could survive. “We tried to go to court, to go through the political process, but it didn’t work. …The big issues were still out there, and we still had to resolve them.” Salmon’s biological family may have started in the age of dinosaurs a hundred million years ago. They’ve survived through heat waves and droughts, in rivers of varying flow, temperature, and nutrient load – but they were as ill-prepared for Europeans’ arrival as the Indians themselves. Gold miners who showed up in the mid-nineteenth century washed entire hillsides into the river with high-pressure hoses and scoured the river’s bed with dredges. Loggers dragged trees down streambeds, causing massive erosion, and dumped sawdust into the river, smothering incubating salmon eggs. Cattle grazed at the river’s edge, causing soil erosion and destroying shade-giving vegetation. Farmers diverted water to feed their crops. The dams were the crowning blows. Between 1908 and 1962, six dams were built on the Klamath. The tallest, the 173-foot-high Iron Gate, is the farthest downstream, and definitively blocked salmon from the river’s upper quarter – after it was built, the river’s salmon population plummeted. In addition, the dams devastated water quality by promoting thick growths of toxic algae in the reservoirs. For Klamath basin farmers, however, the dams were deemed indispensable, as they generated hydropower that made pumping of their irrigation water possible.To the farmers, the potential loss of the dams’ hydropower was considered no less crippling than an end to Klamath-supplied irrigation.
  • For most of the last century, the farmers were oblivious to the damage that dams and water diversions caused downstream, while the tribes and commercial fishermen quietly seethed. The annual salmon run, once so abundant that people caught fish with their hands, was roughly pegged at more than a million fish at its peak; in recent years it has dropped to perhaps 200,000 in good years, and as low as 12,000 – below the minimum believed necessary to sustain the runs – in bad years. Spring Chinook, which once comprised the river’s dominant salmon run, entirely disappeared. Two fish species – the Lost River sucker and the shortnose sucker – that once supported a commercial fishery, were listed as endangered in 1988. Coho salmon were listed as threatened nine years later. All this has had a devastating impact on the tribes. Traditionally able to sustain themselves throughout the year on seasonal migrations of the river’s salmon, trout, and candlefish, tribal members suffered greatly as the runs declined or went extinct. For four decades beginning in 1933, the tribes were barred from fishing the river even as commercial fishermen went unrestricted. Members of the Karuk tribe once consumed an estimated average of 450 pounds of salmon a year; a 2004 survey found that the average had dropped to five pounds a year. The survey linked salmon’s absence to epidemics of diabetes and heart disease that now plague the Karuk. The 2001 cutoff left farmers without irrigated water for the first time in the Klamath Project’s history. Over the next four months, many farmers performed repeated acts of civil disobedience, most notably when a bucket brigade passed pails of banned water from its lake storage to an irrigation canal while thousands of onlookers cheered. The protests attracted Christian-fundamentalist, anti-government, and property rights advocates from throughout the West; former Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage likened the farmers’ struggle to the American Revolution.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A year later, it was the tribes’ and fishermen’s turn to experience calamity. According to a Washington Post report, Vice President Dick Cheney ordered Interior Department officials to deliver Klamath water to Project farmers in 2002, even though federal law seemed to favor the fish. Interior Secretary Gale Norton herself opened the head gates launching the 2002 release of water to the Project, while approving farmers chanted, “Let the water flow!” Six months later, the carcasses of tens of thousands of Chinook and Coho salmon washed up on the riverbanks near the Klamath’s mouth, in what is considered the largest adult salmon die-off in the history of the American West. The immediate cause was a parasitic disease called ich, or “white spot disease,” commonly triggered when fish are overcrowded. Given the presence of an unusually large fall Chinook run in 2002 and a paucity of Klamath flow, the 2002 water diversion probably caused the die-off. Yurok representatives said that months earlier they begged government officials to release more water into the lower river to support the salmon, but were ignored. photo courtesy Earthjustice In 2002, low water levels on the Klamath led to the largest adult salmon die-off in the history of the American West. The die-off deprived many tribes-people of salmon and abruptly ended the river’s sport-fishing season, but its impact didn’t fully register until four years later, when the offspring of the prematurely deceased 2002 salmon would have made their spawning run. By then the Klamath stock was so depleted that the federal government placed 700 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline, from San Francisco to central Oregon, off limits to commercial salmon fishing for most of the 2006 fishing season. As a result, commercial ocean fishermen lost about $100 million in income, forcing many into bankruptcy. Even more devastating, a precipitous decline in Sacramento River salmon led to the cancellation of the entire Pacific salmon fishing season in both 2008 and 2009. The Klamath basin was in a permanent crisis. It turned out that desperation and frustration were perfect preconditions for negotiations. “Every one of us would have rolled the others if we could have,” Fletcher, the Yurok leader, says. “We all tried to go to court, to go through the political process, but it didn’t work – we might win one battle today and lose one tomorrow, so nothing was resolved. We spent millions of dollars on attorneys, plane tickets to Washington, political donations, but it didn’t make any of us sleep any better, because the big issues were still out there, and we still had to resolve them.”
  • In January 2008, the negotiators announced the first of two breakthrough Klamath pacts: the 255-page Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. In it, most of the parties – farmers, three of the four tribes, a commercial fishermen’s group, seven federal and state agencies, and nine environmental groups – agreed to a basic plan. It includes measures to take down the four dams, divert some water from Project farmers to the river in return for guaranteeing the farmers’ right to a smaller amount, restore fisheries habitat, reintroduce salmon to the upper basin, develop renewable energy to make up for the loss of the dams, and support the Klamath Tribes of Oregon’s effort to regain some land lost when Congress “terminated” its reservation in 1962. This was a seminal moment, a genuine reconciliation among tribal and agricultural leaders who discovered that the hatred they’d nursed was unfounded. “Trust is the key,” says Kandra, the Project farmer who went from litigant to negotiator. “We took little baby steps, giving each other opportunities to build trust, and then we got to a place where we could have some really candid discussions, without screaming and yelling – it was like, ‘Here’s how I see the world.’ Pretty valuable stuff. The folks that developed those kinds of relationships got along pretty good.” Still, one crucial ingredient was missing: Unless PacifiCorp agreed to dismantle the dams, river restoration was impossible, and the pact was a well-intentioned, empty exercise. But PacifiCorp now had compelling reasons to consider dam removal. Not only was relicensing going to be expensive, but Klamath tribespeople were becoming an embarrassing irritant, in two consecutive years interrupting Berkshire Hathaway’s annual-meeting/Buffett-lovefests in Omaha with nonviolent protests that won media attention. Also, the Bush administration, customarily no friend of dam removal, signaled its support for a basin-wide agreement. Negotiations between PacifiCorp and mid-level government officials began in January 2008, but made little progress until a meeting in Shepherdstown, West Virginia four months later, when for the first time Senior Interior Department Counselor Michael Bogert presided. As Bogert recently explained, President Bush himself took an interest in the Klamath “because it was early on in his watch that the Klamath became almost a symbol” of river basin dysfunction. To Bush, the decision to support dam removal was a business decision, not an environmental one: The “game-changer,” Bogert said, was the realization that because of the high cost of relicensing, dam removal made good fiscal sense for PacifiCorp. That fact distinguished the Klamath from other dam removal controversies such as the battle over four dams on Idaho’s Snake River, whose removal the Bush administration continued to oppose.
  • In November 2008, when then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced a detailed agreement in principle with PacifiCorp to take down the dams, he acknowledged that he customarily opposed dam removal, but that the Klamath had taught him “to evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis.” In September 2009, Kempthorne’s successor, Ken Salazar, announced that PacifiCorp and government officials had reached a final agreement. PacifiCorp and the many signers of the earlier Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement then ironed out inconsistencies between the two pacts in a final negotiation that ended with a final deal in January 2010.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 03 Mar 10
     
    Maybe the Klamath River basin would have turned itself around without Jeff Mitchell. Back in 2001, at the pinnacle of the conflict over the river's fate, when the Klamath earned its reputation as the most contentious river basin in the country, Mitchell planted a seed. Thanks to a drought and a resulting Interior Department decision to protect the river's endangered fish stocks, delivery of Klamath water to California and Oregon farmers was cut off mid-season, and they were livid. They blamed the Endangered Species Act, the federal government that enforced it, and the basin's salmon-centric Indians who considered irrigation a death sentence for their cultures. The basin divided up, farmers and ranchers on one side, Indians and commercial fishermen on the other. They sued one another, denounced one another in the press, and hired lobbyists to pass legislation undermining one another. Drunken goose-hunters discharged shotguns over the heads of Indians and shot up storefronts in the largely tribal town of Chiloquin, Oregon. An alcohol-fueled argument over water there prompted a white boy to kick in the head of a young Indian, killing him.
thinkahol *

Bin Laden's Death: Much More to Say - 0 views

readersupportednews.org/...-ladens-death-much-more-to-say

Bin Laden's Death: Much More to Say

shared by thinkahol * on 22 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 22 May 11
     
    After the assassination of bin Laden I received such a deluge of requests for comment that I was unable to respond individually, and on May 4 and later I sent an unedited form response instead, not intending for it to be posted, and expecting to write it up more fully and carefully later on. But it was posted, then circulated. It can now be found, reposted, here.  That was followed by a deluge of reactions from all over the world. It is far from a scientific sample of course, but nevertheless, the tendencies may be of some interest. Overwhelmingly, those from the "third world" were on the order of "thanks for saying what we think." There were similar ones from the US, but many others were infuriated, often virtually hysterical, with almost no relation to the actual content of the posted form letter. That was true in particular of the posted or published responses brought to my attention. I have received a few requests to comment on several of these. Frankly, it seems to me superfluous. If there is any interest, I'll nevertheless find some time to do so.  The original letter ends with the comment that "There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about." Here I will fill in some of the gaps, leaving the original otherwise unchanged in all essentials.  Noam Chomsky  May 2011
thinkahol *

Will US Mayors Vote Against War? - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...ill-us-mayors-vote-against-war

Will US Mayors Vote Against War?

shared by thinkahol * on 20 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 20 Jun 11
     
    But Barry's words ring true. The city of Detroit stands as a mirror to the United States' battered economy and failing wars. Our nation's continued military exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan are fueling Detroit's destruction. Taxpayers from Detroit shell out over two billion dollars a year for war, money that could cover healthcare for over 150,000 children or the payment of some 3,000 teachers' salaries. While Senator Levin might not want to make the link between war funding and the financial woes of our cities, mayors around the country are doing just that. At this year's annual US Conference of Mayors, to be held from June 17-21 in Baltimore, hundreds of mayors will gather to discuss diverse issues from job growth to homeland security. One of the issues they will vote on is the Bring Our War Dollars Home resolution, introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy from Eugene, Oregon, which calls on Congress to redirect military spending to domestic priorities.
thinkahol *

Dailymotion - GasLand 1 - une vidéo Life & Style - 0 views

www.dailymotion.com/...xgm3pb_gasland-1_lifestyle

Dailymotion - GasLand 1 une vidéo Life & Style

shared by thinkahol * on 16 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 16 Aug 11
     
    In May 2008, Josh Fox received a letter from a natural gas company offering to lease his family's land in Milanville, Pennsylvania for $100,000 to drill for gas.[1]Following the lease offer, he looked for information about natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale under large parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. He visited Dimock, Pennsylvania where natural gas drilling was already taking place. In Dimock, he met families able to light their tap water on fire as well as suffering from numerous health issues and fearing their well water had been contaminated.Fox then set out to see how communities are being affected in the west where a natural gas drilling boom has been underway for the last decade. He spent time with citizens in their homes and on their land as they relayed their stories of natural gas drilling in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Texas, among others. He spoke with residents who have experienced a variety of chronic health problems as well as contamination of their air, water wells or surface water. In some instances, the residents are reporting that they obtained a court injunction or settlement monies from gas companies to replace the affected water supplies with potable water or water purification kits.[2]Throughout the documentary, Fox reached out to scientists, politicians and gas industry executives and ultimately found himself in the halls of Congress as a subcommittee was discussing the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, "a bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing."[3] Hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.[4]Making appearances in the film are Dr. Theo Colborn, founder of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX); John Hanger, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); Dr. Al Armendariz, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator for Region 6; W
thinkahol *

Executive Summary:"Public Opinion and Democratic Responsiveness: Who Gets What They Wan... - 0 views

www.russellsage.org/...lens-democratic-responsiveness

Executive Summary:"Public Opinion and Democratic Responsiveness: Who Gets What They Want From Government?" by Martin Gilens | Russell Sage Foundation

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11
     
    Gilens examines the extent to which different social groups find their policy preferences reflected in actual government policy and the variation in these patterns across time and policy domains. For example, when Americans with low and high incomes disagree on policy, are policy outcomes more likely to reflect the preferences of affluent Americans? If so, does the advantage of more affluent Americans differ over time (e.g., depending on which party controls the congress and presidency) or across policy domains? Similarly, are Republicans or Democrats in the population more likely to get the policies they prefer when their party is in control of national political institutions? Because his database contains policy preferences broken down by income, education, partisanship, sex, race, region, religion, and union/non-union status, Gilens will be able to address a multitude of questions concerning government responsiveness to public preferences. For this study, Gilens uses data on public preferences and policy outcomes based on 754 national survey questions from 1992 through 1998 and restrict his attention to divergent policy preferences of low- and high-income Americans. Each of these survey questions asks respondents whether they support or oppose some proposed change in U.S. national policy, and he has used historical information sources to determine whether each proposed change occurred or not (within a four-year coding window from the date of the survey question). When Gilens looks separately at respondents with different incomes, he finds that the higher an individual's income, the more likely it is that government policy will reflect his or her preferences. This relationship, however, does not increase in a linear fashion: the difference between poor and middle-income Americans is modest compared with the difference between those with middle and high incomes. In other words, it is not that the poor are especially less likely than middle-income Americans to get
Bakari Chavanu

Michael Moore Kills Capitalism with Kool-Aid - Michael W. Covel - Mises Institute - 0 views

mises.org/3751

capitalism micheal moore review

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Oh sure, in theory I would like to see everyone with their own homestead, money in their pocket for regular shopping frenzies, and no health worries despite eating at Burger King 24/7, but arriving at those goals is not exactly doable unless government robs Peter to pay Paul and/or starts up the printing press.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      This analysis totally overlooks where real wealth originates from: not from dollars printed by the government or even the redistribution of taxes. It originates from what working class people produce, and what capialist thugs mainly profit off of.
  • And that view of course puts me in opposition to Moore since he has no problem with government as his and our father figure. That is his utopia. He truly believes that warehouses of federal workers, in Washington, D.C., remotely running our lives is the optimal plan. He is an unapologetic socialist who really doesn't care why the poor are poor or the rich are rich, he just wants it fixed. So not surprisingly — and with some generalization as I proffer this — Democrats like Moore and Republicans don't.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      This is not the point he made in the movie. He makes the argument that workers should control and profite from what they produce.
  • I don't care one way or the other that he has that view and I am not knocking union workers, but Moore sees the world through a class-warfare lens resulting in a certain agenda: force wealth to be spread amongst everyone regardless of effort.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      So you think it's perfectly okay for individuals to have a net worth of millions and billions of dollars while the people who produce the wealth should not profit from their work?
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • We listen to heartbreaking stories of foreclosed families across America — but we don't learn why the foreclosures happened. Did these people treat their homes as piggy banks? Was there refinancing on top of refinancing just to keep buying mall trinkets and other goodies with no respect to risk or logic? We don't find out.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      Yes, we do learn the source of foreclosures. It's banks raising interest rates that people can't possibly pay. It's people making huge amounts of money off the misfortunes of others.
  • $1,000 for cleaning out the house that they were just evicted from. Was it sad? Yes. But should we end capitalism due to this one family in Peoria, IL?
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      He presents this as represenetive example.
  • There is a lengthy dissertation on the evils of Goldman Sachs. He rips Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson big time, and I agree with him. In fact, I said to myself, "Moore, you should have done your whole film on Goldman Sachs!"
  • As FDR concluded and the film ended, I was shocked at the reaction. The theater of 400-plus spectators stood and cheered wildly at FDR's 1944 proposal. The questions running through my head were immediate: how does one legislate words like useful, enough, recreation, adequate, decent, and good? Who decides all of this and to what degree?
  • So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
  • Friedman's logic was what I was remembering as a theater full of people cheered wildly for a second Bill of Rights. How did this film crowd actually think FDR's 1944 vision could be executed? Frankly, it was clear to me at that moment that capitalism is on shaky ground. From Bush "abandoning" capitalism to bailouts for everyone, to Obama gifting away the future, we seriously might be past the point of no return toward a socialization of America.
  • This film did not make me angry, but it did punch me in the gut. The people in that theater with me, including Moore, were not bad people. They just seem to all have consumed a lethal dose of Kool-Aid.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
       
      What Kool-aid are you talking about? What other system is really challenging capitalism? Not even the government is the real kool-aid when you've already noted that it works on behalf of the corporate class.
  • Moore sees Reagan entering the scene as a shill for corporate-banking interests.
  • Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09
     
    I include my reacations to this review in which I think Covel misleads readers about Moore's movie.
Skeptical Debunker

Opinion: Trudy Rubin: U.S. ignores health care successes in Europe, Japan - San Jose Me... - 0 views

www.mercurynews.com/...ci_14498573

healthcare conservative lies socialism myths

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    One of the most bewildering aspects of the current health care debate is the failure to learn key lessons from health systems abroad. Conservative talk show hosts decry the alleged evils of "socialized medicine" in countries with universal health coverage; they warn grimly of rationed health care. Yet there's nary a peep from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck - let alone Congress - about countries such as Germany, France, Switzerland or Japan, where coverage is universal, affordable, and top quality, and patients see private doctors with little or no waiting. And, oh yes, their health costs are a fraction of our bloated numbers: The French spend 10 percent of GDP on health care, the Germans 11 percent, and they cover every citizen. We spend a whopping 17 percent and leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured. If you want a very readable short course on how European systems really work, take a look at "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," by T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent. You might also watch a fascinating 2008 Frontline series, available online, in which Reid was an adviser: "Sick Around the World: Can the U.S. Learn Anything From the Rest of the World About How to Run a Health Care System?"
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    Article continued (Diigo would not highlight!?) - So far, the answer seems to be "no," not because there aren't valuable lessons, but because politicians won't relinquish their myths about European health Advertisement systems. Reid takes up that task. Myth No. 1, he says, is that foreign systems with universal coverage are all "socialized medicine." In countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, the coverage is universal while doctors and insurers are private. Individuals get their insurance through their workplace, sharing the premium with their employer as we do - and the government picks up the premium if they lose their job. Myth No. 2 - long waits and rationed care - is another whopper. "In many developed countries," Reid writes, "people have quicker access to care and more choice than Americans do." In France, Germany, and Japan, you can pick any provider or hospital in the country. Care is speedy and high quality, and no one is turned down. Myth No. 3 really grabs my attention: the delusion that countries with universal care "are wasteful systems run by bloated bureaucracies." In fact, the opposite is true. America's for-profit health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs of any developed country. Twenty percent or more of every premium dollar goes to nonmedical costs: paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. In developed countries with universal coverage, such as France and Germany, the administrative costs average about 5 percent. That's because every developed country but ours has decided health insurance should be a nonprofit operation. These countries also hold down costs by making coverage mandatory and by using a unified set of rules and payment schedules for all hospitals and doctors. This does not mean a single-payer system or a government-run health system. But it does sharply cut health costs by eliminating the mishmash of records and charges used by our myriad insurance firms, who use all kinds of gimmi
Skeptical Debunker

Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...us_rel_home_school_evolution

home schoolling Christian evolution propoganda

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction." "The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program." Those who don't, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs. Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press. "I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids," said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago. The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn't attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science. "Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling," says the introduction to "Biology: Third Edition" from Bob Jones University Press. "This book was not written for them." The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its "History of Life" chapter that a "Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10
     
    Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons. Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory. "I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!'"
  • Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10
     
    Home Fooling.
thinkahol *

Startling revelations from a Swiss banking insider | Dailycensored.com - 0 views

dailycensored.com/...s-from-a-swiss-banking-insider

Startling revelations from a Swiss banking insider | Dailycensored.com

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Jun 11
     
    (interview with a Swiss banker  done in Mosсow 30.05.2011)  Q: Can you tell us something about your involvement in the Swiss banking business?A: I have worked for Swiss banks for many years. I was designated as one of the top directors of one of the biggest Swiss banks. During my work I was involved in the payment, in the direct payment in cash to a person who killed the president of a foreign country. I was in the meeting where it was decided to give this cash money to the killer. This gave me dramatic headaches and troubled my conscience. It was not the only case that was really bad but it was the worst. It was a payment instruction on order of a foreign secret service written by hand giving the order to pay a certain amount to a person who killed the top leader of a foreign country. And it was not the only case. We received several such hand written letters coming from foreign secret services giving the order to payout cash from secret accounts to fund revolutions or for the killing of people. I can confirm what John Perkins has written in his book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". There really exists just a system and Swiss banks are involved in such cases.
Ahmad Al-Shagra

Saddam is Hanged for His Crimes, Who will Hang Bush/Blair for Theirs? - 0 views

www.paltelegraph.com/index.php

shared by Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Rumsfeld's famous hand shake with Saddam provides the proof on tha
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Ridiculous misinterpretation to back such a statement
  • Saddam was originally a CIA man recruited to assassinate the previous Iraqi president Abdel-Karim Qassem
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      First time I hear this one, also not substantiated with references, this article should be in the science-fiction section
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm Info on Saddam's relationship with the CIA
  • his war of aggression against Iran
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      From this I can safely say a Pro-Iran biased writer is the author
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 - partly instigated from a border dispute between the 2 countries - Iran was supplying the Kurds with weapons in the border areas. http://www.brucekelly.com/saddam-hussein-iran.html Both countries deployed chem weapons http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm The US supported Iraq against Iran. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/irq8-m29.shtml
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      From a Facebook commentor on the article: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in... Read More Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      From a commentator on the article on Facebook: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Why doesn't this diigo thingy remove my posts when I tell it too ... grrrrr
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • 700 thousands mostly civilian Iraqis during the last three years of American occupation
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      actually 6 years, and more than 1,000,000
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      The article refers to the past 3 years - the last estimate by Lancet (as we know the US doesn't count the results of its carnage) was in 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War 654,965 to 2006 - so a ballpark for the last 3 years around the 700000 mark is plausible if one accepts the Lancet methodology. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ OTOH says around 100,000 all told.
  • hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Millions in Syria Alone
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Which incident are you referring to here?
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Death counts from wars - good link is here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm
  • Saddam is just a "baby" ruthless dictator compared to Bush and Blair.
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      Is this still an article?
  • when he converted Iraq's reserve funds from Dollars to Euros
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      This happened in the 21st century, not the 80's, but its agreed on by many that it changed the game
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Saddam's fatal mistakes of trading oil in euros, not dollars happened twice - In 1999 and in November 2000. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Saddam's fatal mistake of switching to euros from dollars for oil happened in 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
  • that were used to bomb Kurdish Halabja
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      CIA published a report back in the 80's stating Iraq did not own the Chemical Weapons used in Halabja, yet, coincidently Iran did.
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Some still dispute the events, yet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack and see discussion.
  • last three years
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
      Ahmad Al-Shagra on 23 Apr 09
       
      For the last time, 6 years - not 3
    • Jin Jirrie
      Jin Jirrie on 23 Apr 09
       
      Sure - the article refers to the last 3 years though. I can't find any stats that cover the last 3 years death toll, so it's a fuzzy figure to me also.
Bakari Chavanu

Capitalism's Self-inflicted Apocalypse - 0 views

www.michaelparenti.org/capitalism%20apocalypse.html

politics economy capitalism

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 16 Oct 09 - Cached
  •  The present economic crisis, however, has convinced even some prominent free-marketeers that something is gravely amiss. Truth be told, capitalism has yet to come to terms with several historical forces that cause it endless trouble: democracy, prosperity, and capitalism itself, the very entities that capitalist rulers claim to be fostering.
  • Some eighty  years ago Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis commented, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Moneyed interests have been opponents not proponents of democracy.
  • In the early days of the Republic the rich and well-born imposed property qualifications for voting and officeholding. They opposed the direct election of candidates (note, their Electoral College is still with us). And for decades they resisted extending the franchise to less favored groups such as propertyless working men, immigrants, racial minorities, and women.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The conservative plutocracy also seeks to rollback democracy’s social gains, such as public education, affordable housing, health care, collective bargaining, a living wage, safe work conditions, a non-toxic sustainable environment; the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, freedom from compulsory pregnancy, and the right to marry any consenting adult of one’s own choosing.
  • About a century ago, US labor leader Eugene Victor Debs was thrown into jail during a strike. Sitting in his cell he could not escape the conclusion that in disputes between two private interests, capital and labor, the state was not a neutral arbiter. The force of the state--with its police, militia, courts, and laws—was unequivocally on the side of the company bosses.
  • Any nation that is not “investor friendly,” that attempts to use its land, labor, capital, natural resources, and markets in a self-developing manner, outside  the dominion of transnational corporate hegemony, runs the risk of being demonized and targeted as “a threat to U.S. national security.”
  • Most of the world is capitalist, and most of the world is neither prosperous nor particularly democratic. One need only think of capitalist Nigeria, capitalist Indonesia, capitalist Thailand, capitalist Haiti, capitalist Colombia, capitalist Pakistan, capitalist South Africa, capitalist Latvia, and various other members of the Free World--more accurately, the Free Market World.
  • Corporate investors prefer poor populations. The poorer you are, the harder you will work—for less. The poorer you are, the less equipped you are to defend yourself against the abuses of wealth.
  • In the corporate world of “free-trade,” the number of billionaires is increasing faster than ever while the number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. Poverty spreads as wealth accumulates.
  • To the extent that life is bearable under the present U.S. economic order, it is because millions of people have waged bitter class struggles to advance their living standards and their rights as citizens, bringing  some measure of humanity to an otherwise heartless politico-economic order.
  • There is a third function of the capitalist state seldom mentioned. It consists of preventing the capitalist system from devouring itself.  Consider the core contradiction Karl Marx pointed to: the tendency toward overproduction and market crisis. An economy dedicated to speedups and wage cuts, to making workers produce more and more for less and less, is always in danger of a crash. To maximize profits, wages must be kept down. But someone has to buy the goods and services being produced. For that, wages must be kept up. There is a chronic tendency—as we are seeing today—toward overproduction of private sector goods and services and underconsumption of necessities by the working populace. 
  • Instead of trying to make money by the arduous task of producing and marketing goods and services, the marauders tap directly into the money streams of the economy itself. During the 1990s we witnessed the collapse of an entire economy in Argentina when unchecked free marketeers stripped enterprises, pocketed vast sums, and left the country’s productive capacity in shambles. The Argentine state, gorged on a heavy diet of free-market ideology, faltered in its function of saving capitalism from the capitalists.
  • These thieves were caught and convicted. Does that not show capitalism’s self-correcting capacity? Not really. The prosecution of such malfeasance— in any case coming too late—was a product of democracy’s accountability and transparency, not capitalism’s. Of itself the free market is an amoral system, with no strictures save caveat emptor.
  • Perhaps the premiere brigand was Bernard Madoff. Described as “a longstanding leader in the financial services industry,” Madoff ran a fraudulent fund that raked in $50 billion from wealthy investors, paying them back “with money that wasn’t there,” as he himself put it. The plutocracy devours its own children.
  • The classic laissez-faire theory is even more preposterous than Greenspan made it.  In fact, the theory claims that everyone should pursue their own selfish interests without restraint.
  • Capitalism breeds the venal perpetrators, and rewards the most unscrupulous among them.  The crimes and crises are not irrational departures from a rational system, but the converse: they are the rational outcomes of a basically irrational and amoral system.
  • Worse still, the ensuing multi-billion dollar government bailouts are themselves being turned into an opportunity for pillage. Not only does the state fail to regulate, it becomes itself a source of plunder, pulling vast sums from the federal money machine, leaving the taxpayers to bleed.
  • But the 2008-09 “rescue operation” offered a record feed at the public trough. More than $350 billion was dished out by a right-wing lame-duck Secretary of the Treasury to the biggest banks and financial houses without oversight--not to mention the more than $4 trillion that has come from the Federal Reserve.  Most of the banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon, stated that they had no intention of letting anyone know where the money was going.
  • In sum, free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen.
  • If the paladins of Corporate America want to know what really threatens “our way of life,” it is their way of life, their boundless way of pilfering their own system, destroying the very foundation on which they stand, the very community on which they so lavishly feed.
Muslim Academy

Genocide of Muslims in Burma - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/genocide-of-muslims-in-burma

Burma muslims killing Burma muslims miseries of muslims Genocide of Muslims in Burma

shared by Muslim Academy on 25 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 25 Aug 12
     
    Burma is a country with about 0.7 million Muslim population out of total 75 million population. Muslims in Burma have been suffering badly since the year 1962 after the military took over. Since then thousands of Muslims have been killed and thousands of women have been raped but the recent wave of violence is worse than all the previous incidents. Almost every family of Muslims is a victim of Buddhist led regime of Burma. Suffering from such deliberate genocide, many of the Muslims have been compelled to leave their houses and migrate to neighboring countries. The most sad and tragic aspect of this genocide is that nobody is willing to speak against this cruelty. The entire mainstream media is showing criminal silence upon this mass killing going on in Burma against Muslims. We are not seeing any projection for Burmese Muslims in British Broadcasting Corporation, Cable News Network; Fox New, Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and other mainstream print and electronic sections of the media. The response from various Human Rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others is also very tragic and disappointed. These human rights organizations have failed to project this inhuman genocide against Muslims which is going on in Burma. Like is the case with international platforms or so called representatives of the world. The United Nations Organizations also failed to show significant and powerful response against mass killings of Muslims in Burma. The only considerable response we have seen yet is from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and a few Islamic countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan etc. Similarly, social media campaigns are also projecting this inhuman incident effectively; there are a number of pages on Facebook and other social media websites that are raising voice for this cause.
Muslim Academy

ISLAMOPHOBIA IS A REAL DANGER FOR ISLAM - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/bia-is-a-real-danger-for-islam

ISLAMOPHOBIA enemies of islam

shared by Muslim Academy on 29 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 29 Aug 12
     
    Islam is a religion of peace and purity. No doubt every single word of love, affection and optimism can be used for this religion. It is that religion on the earth which is not difficult to follow. What makes a Muslim say that his religion is the best? What is it which attracts a non-Muslim to turn into a Muslim? Surely, there is something! A Jewish living in Australia himself carried a research on all the religions including Islam in depth and the reason for him being so curious about knowing Islam was his neighbor. He was really impressed by him. From the way he lived his life till the way he worshiped the one he believed. He stated, "Islam is the best religion." This was the first half of his sentence but the other half was quite disappointing for him as well as the stupendous Muslims. He stated in the next half sentence, "but unfortunately with majority of worst followers of it." Now what is supposed to be noticed are the words "worst people." These are those people of have ruined the reputation of Islam and are the main cause of American Islamophobia. Their brutal and cruel acts of spreading Islam in the modern era or taking revenge from the non-believers have simply dug the REAL image of the Islamic community, its ethics and culture. Islamophobia is a danger because many Muslims fear the day when rest of the world will completely boycott from them and they will not have any kind of support. No doubt, the religion permits to carry out "Jihad" which is a war in the way of Allah against the non-believers who do respect their religion. All they need is to live peacefully but what annoys them is when a non-believer who does not even know even a bit of their religion, insults them on being Muslims or underestimates their religion along with disobeying the one they worship. On the other way while we observed what the image that Muslims have throughout the world we find that Islamophobia is still having a severe affect on the lives of innocent Mu
Muslim Academy

Work and Faith Relationship in Islam - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/nd-faith-relationship-in-islam

faith in islam faith of islam work faith separation

shared by Muslim Academy on 03 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 03 Sep 12
     
    In our current hyper-productive, "time-is-money" motivated community, the idea of a "9 to 5″ working hours doesn't really are available any longer. The time spent at work, whether at the office or any other place, often competing the time spent targeted on anything else in our lifestyle. With the convenience of technology, work has crept into the sides of our everyday living and essentially obliterated the stability between the public and private dichotomies that were once clearly separated. From Islamic Point of View As Muslims, the fact that Islam is a way of lifestyle and not just a perception, punches an even greater wrench into the frustrating complexness of keeping personal perception levels and discussing work circumstances. From arranged wishes and guidelines of modesty, to a month of going on a fast and limited sex connections, God-consciousness prevails in all that a exercising Islamic does. So, when work seems to leak over into lifestyle and individuals are frustrated from providing perception into the office, how does a Islamic reunite the requirements of the office without limiting his or her faith?
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