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New article - just one example of Left Media attacks - and it was only 2 days into the new Congress. Learn how we on the right have a "secret code language"

After eating a bowl of oatmeal and drafting ten talking points, Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) spoke for nine hours in opposition to the tax-cut deal struck between President Obama and congressional Republicans. "We should be embarrassed," he said, "that we are for one second talking about a proposal that gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class."1 2 3 Mark Madoff, son of Bernard L. Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment while his toddler slept in a nearby bedroom; court documents filed last year suggest that Mark Madoff made almost $67 million through his father's Ponzi scheme.4 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on charges of sexual assault. "That sounds like good news to me," said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.5 State Department cables leaked this week revealed that Saudi media executives, over coffee in a Jeddah Starbucks, extolled the power of American television in the fight against Islamic extremism, while Saudi diplomats expressed their admiration for the movies Insomnia and Michael Clayton.6 Taymour Abdelwahab, a Swedish citizen, set off a car bomb and then blew himself up in Stockholm on Saturday, injuring two in what authorities believe was a botched attempt at a larger attack, and imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Online discussion of the chair symbolizing his absence from the ceremony in Oslo prompted authorities in China to censor the phrases "empty chair," "empty seat," "empty stool" and "empty table" from the country's major social networking sites.7 8 9

To know what the most important virtue of our age is we need to have at least a basic understanding of our age. Our era is becoming increasingly characterized by uncertainty. Fortunately or unfortunately, more than a cursory elucidation of our situation is beyond the scope of this essay. There are geopolitical, economic, technological and environmental trends worth mentioning. When the more philosophical portion of this  discourse arrives I will argue that the virtue of wisdom underlies the meaningfulness and efficacy of all other virtues, and this in broad strokes is primarily due to (1) the aforementioned instability in our surroundings ; (2) the relationship between the deontological and virtue; and (3) the nature of agency itself.  Whether uncertainty itself can provide an ethical foundation for us to elaborate on will be a separate question, and finally I speculate on where wisdom leads us in the context of a philosophy that is politically active and not doomed to irrelevance to and by the larger population.

Well, 2011, it's been nice. But I think we've worked enough already. In any case, we've already made enough money. Time to call it a year. This is a ridiculous idea, right? Yet, as the Canadian Financial Post reported at the beginning of the week, "Top CEOs will have earned average workers' full annual pay by 2:30 p.m. today." The "today" in question was Monday, January 3, the first business day of the year. Here's their explanation:

What impact do the incredible salaries of superstars have on the rest of us? What has changed, technologically and socially, to precipitate these inequities? This article also offers a brief look at the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, comparing the US throughout its history and the US vis a vis several European countries. (Part 1 of 2)

What are they thinking? November 2010 didn't count? That we really don't care if we bankrupt everything? That it's all ok to keep adding to what we know is a problem and have them poo poo us like it isn't really there? Do you feel the patronizing pat on the head? Does it make you angry? Special note: You see who is proposing this - 2 just reelected and one who feels safe in his state.

This is the Official Online (Youtube) Release of "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward" by Peter Joseph. [30 subtitles ADDED!] On Jan. 15th, 2011, "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward" was released theatrically to sold out crowds in 60 countries; 31 languages; 295 cities and 341 Venues. It has been noted as the largest non-profit independent film release in history. This is a non-commercial work and is available online for free viewing and no restrictions apply to uploading/download/posting/linking - as long as no money is exchanged. A Free DVD Torrent of the full 2 hr and 42 min film in 30 languages is also made available through the main website [below], with instructions on how one can download and burn the movie to DVD themselves. His other films are also freely available in this format.

In the next week the action moves from Wisconsin to Washington, where the deadline looms for a possible government shutdown over the federal budget. President Obama has to take a more direct and personal role in that budget battle - both for the economy's sake and for the sake of his re-election. But will he? Don't count on it. Worried congressional Democrats say the President needs to use his bully pulpit to counter defections in Democatic ranks, such as the ten Democrats and one allied Independent who on Wednesday voted against a Senate leadership plan to cut $6.2 billion from the federal budget over the rest of fiscal year 2011. They want Obama to grab the initiative and push a plan to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies and for companies that move manufacturing facilities out of the country, and a proposal for a surtax on millionaires. Most importantly, they're worried the President's absence from the debate will result in Republicans winning large budget cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year - large enough to imperil the fragile recovery. But Obama won't actively fight the budget battle if the current White House view of how he wins in 2012 continues to prevail. Shortly after the Democrats' "shellacking" last November, I phoned a friend in the White House who had served in the Clinton administration. "It's 1994 all over again," he said. "Now we move to the center."

PART 2 of Threats to Freedom Series: Mechanization Makes it Logical for World's Oligarchs to Compete in Providing Industrial Output and Welfare

It's the perfect self-perpetuating cycle:  (1) They hate us and want to attack us because we're over there; therefore, (2) we have to stay and proliferate ourselves because they hate us and want to attack us; (3) our staying and proliferating ourselves makes them hate us and want to attack us more; therefore, (4) we can never leave, because of how much they hate us and want to attack us.  The beauty of this War on Terror -- and, as the last two weeks have demonstrated, War is the bipartisan consensus for what we are and should be doing to address Terrorism -- is that it forever sustains its own ostensible cause.

Richard Gage showing that Nano-Thermite was the explosive used to blow up WTC 1 2 and 7 on the Morning of 9/11. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth --- Check out more info at:http://www.ae911truth.org/

Robert Reich connects the dots on the economy, in less than 2 minutes and 15 seconds. Who knew he could draw!?!

$2.5 trillion deficit-reduction deal brokered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, and President Barack Obama is grotesquely unfair. It also is bad economic policy. In the midst of a terrible recession, it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The Boston Globe ran a chart last Sunday that I'd buy billboard space to reproduce in every decent-size city in America, if I were running the Democratic National Committee. The premise of it was very simple: It showed how many trillions each president since Ronald Reagan has added to the nation's debt. The debt was about $1 trillion when Reagan took office, and then: Reagan, $1.9 trillion; George H.W. Bush, $1.5 trillion (in just four years); Bill Clinton, $1.4 trillion; Obama, $2.4 trillion.Oh, wait. I skipped someone. George W. Bush ran up $6.4 trillion. That's nearly half-44.7 percent-of the $14.3 trillion total. We all know what did it-two massive tax cuts geared toward the rich (along with other similar measures, like slashing the capital gains and inheritance taxes), the off-the-books wars, the unfunded Medicare expansion, and so on. But the number is staggering and worth dwelling on. In a history covering 30 years, nearly half the debt was run up in eight. Even the allegedly socialist Obama at his most allegedly wanton doesn't compare to Dubya; and Obama's debt numbers, if he's reelected, will surely not double or even come close as we gambol down Austerity Lane.

When Perry accuses Ben Bernanke of treachery and treason, his violent rhetoric ("we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas") is scary in itself. But we shouldn't let that obscure Perry's substantive message - that neither Bernanke nor the Fed really deserve to exist, to control the US money supply, and to work towards a dual mandate of price stability and full employment. For the first time in living memory, someone with a non-negligible chance of winning the US presidency is arguing not over who should head the Fed, but whether the Fed should even exist in the first place. Looked at against this backdrop, the recent volatility in the stock market, not to mention the downgrade of the US from triple-A status, makes perfect sense. Global corporations are actually weirdly absent from the list of institutions in which the public has lost its trust, but the way in which they've quietly grown their earnings back above pre-crisis levels has definitely not been ratified by broad-based economic recovery, and therefore feels rather unsustainable. Meanwhile, the USA itself has undoubtedly been weakened by a shrinking tax base, a soaring national debt, a stretched military, and a legislature which has consistently demonstrated an inability to tackle the great tasks asked of it. It looks increasingly as though we're entering Phase 2 of the global crisis, with 2008-9 merely acting as the appetizer. In Phase 1, national and super-national treasuries and central banks managed to come to the rescue and stave off catastrophe. But in doing so, they weakened themselves to the point at which they're unable to rise to the occasion this time round. Our hearts want government to come through and save the economy. But our heads know that it's not going to happen. And that failure, in turn, is only going to further weaken institutional legitimacy across the US and the world. It's a vicious cycle, and I can't see how we're going to break out of it.

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

President Obama submitted three free trade agreements to Congress based on the flawed North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) model that has been devastating to our economy, American workers and to labor and environmental standards. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been displaced and outsourced as a result of our pursuit of trade policies which are adverse to the economic interests of the American people. My home State of Ohio is one of the top-ten states posting the biggest job losses since the passage of NAFTA. Unfortunately, the proposed free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama do nothing to address the significant flaws in the free trade model that prioritize the rights of multinational companies over the rights of workers and the American economy. The Korea-US and US-Colombia Free Trade Agreements are expected to increase our trade deficit by over $16 billion and result in the displacement or loss of over 200,000 jobs. This is on top of the over 2 million American jobs that have been displaced or eliminated over the past 10 years as a result of our increased trade deficit with China. The last thing American workers and our economy needs is more NAFTA-style free trade agreements.