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GAIA AND HOMOSAPIENS

***** The Richard Dimbleby Lecture by HRH Prince Charles, titled “Facing the Future”
St James’s Palace State Apartments, London, 7th July 2009 - An Exceptional In-Depth Holistic Call to Wake Up and Act Before It Is Too Late
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US | Surviving the Dust Bowl - A Documentary Film on Climate Change in the 1930s
It Happened Before, It Could Happen Again - An environmental and human catastrophe in mid-America that prompted FDR's New Deal in the midst of the Depression.
- THE AMERICAN 'SAHARA' - ^

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Imaging Life / The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen

The earth is suffering its hottest decade on record
Warning that 2009 was also the fifth warmest year since records began, the World Meteorogical Organisation report may add to mounting pressure on policital leaders to accept the changes needed to reduce emissions and slow global warming.
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Warning that 2009 was also the fifth warmest year since records began, the World Meteorogical Organisation report may add to mounting pressure on policital leaders to accept the changes needed to reduce emissions and slow global warming.

Climate Warming will 'wipe out billions' - We're talking about humans, you know.
MOST of the world's population will be wiped out if political leaders fail to agree a method of stopping current rates of global warming, one of the UK's most senior climate scientists has warned.
Scotsman - By Jenny Fyall - November 29, 2009
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Global warming could displace millions of Bangladeshis'
Presstv.ir - December 9, 2009
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Bangladeshi Environment Minister Hasan Mahmud has said that millions of his countrymen will be displaced if the sea level rises. Mahmud told reporters at a press conference in Dhaka that 20 million Bangladeshis will be displaced if the sea rises by one meter, the BBC reported on Tuesday. He added that many more would be affected if glaciers in the Himalayas melted due to global warming. He went on to say that Bangladesh is entitled to a large share of the funds developed countries have pledged to donate to tackle the problem. He made the remarks as discussions are underway on a climate adaption fund at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Bangladesh is said to be the country most vulnerable to climate change.

Video | Day Two of Climate Talks in Copenhagen
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Video | Maldives fighting to stay afloat
Al Jazeera - December 8, 2009
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Rising global temperatures may be melting the Earth's ice caps in the far north and south, but the effects are already being felt all over the globe. The millions of tonnes of fresh water flowing into the oceans have a huge impact on communities thousands of kilometres away. Al Jazeera's Stephen Cole reports from the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, where global warming is the biggest topic of conversation. This according to the UN's weather agency on the second day of climate talks in Copenhagen.

US rules greenhouse gases 'hazards'
Al Jazeera - December 8, 2009
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The US government has declared greenhouse gases a human health hazard, meaning Barack Obama can sidestep congress to order cuts in emissions. The announcement by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was clearly timed to build momentum towards an agreement at the international conference on climate change that opened in the Danish capital Copenhagen on Monday. Lisa Jackson, who heads up the Epa, signed orders on Monday declaring six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, to be pollutants that are subject to government regulation. The EPA "is now authorised and obligated to make reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants", Jackson told a news conference in Washington DC.

***** Breaking News Alert

***** EU backs Jerusalem as joint capital
The European Union said it had 'never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem'
Al Jazeera - December 8, 2009
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European Union foreign ministers have agreed that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state following two days of talks in Brussels. The ministers dropped an earlier proposal by the Swedish EU presidency to explicitly support the idea of East Jerusalem as the eventual capital of Palestine.

Obama's speech on Afghanistan
The Full text of the U.S. President's remarks delivered at West Point military academy Iuesday, December 1, 2009
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Video | Obama's hard sell of war policy
Al Jazeera - December 1, 2009
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Commentary | Afghanistan is now Obama's war
The Guardian - y Olivia Hampton - December 2, 2009
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Univers-al

Opinion | Copenhagen Won't Be Enough -- Only a 'Human Movement' Can Save Civilization from the Climate Crisis
A strange cloud envelops human civilization as its leaders fail to take the measures to protect it in Copenhagen that they themselves endorsed just five months ago.
Alternet / Sacramento News & Review - By Fred Branfman, . December 9, 2009.
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To be or not to be, that is the question.
--William Shakespeare, Hamlet

A strange cloud envelops human civilization as its leaders fail to take the measures to protect it that they themselves endorsed just five months ago. It is oddly fitting that the latest act in humanity's climate-crisis drama will occur . . . in the city where history's most famous Dane, brooding in his fog-enshrouded castle, failed to act decisively upon the very question hanging over the upcoming conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
It will not be on the agenda. But whether civilization is or is not to be will be the real question haunting the shadow play about to ensue at the United Nations-sponsored talks.

A child under 13 today can expect to live into the 2080s, by which time civilization as we know it will have disappeared if we continue to fail to reduce carbon emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050, according to our climate scientists. Although world leaders accept this recommendation, they are presently overseeing a steady increase projected to be more than double the maximum our climate scientists think safe. . . .

Copenhagen will fail because the great publics of the world have not been involved in the great human questions underlying the technical issues the scientists discuss. It is not only that the conference will fail to protect our young, but that the rest of us will barely notice.

International

Video | Brief History Of Australia
An animated history of australia, from european descovery to modern day australia. funny, slap-stick humour, with a little satire thrown in.
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US / Venezuela | Chavez prepares Venezuela for 'US-provoked war'
Presstv.ir - December 2009
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President Hugo Chavez says Venezuela must be ready to defend itself against what he called the US and Colombia's gearing up for initiating a military conflict. Chavez who accused Washington and Bogota of planning to stage war against his country announced that thousands of Russian missiles and rocket launchers were being received by Venezuela as the country is preparing for a possible military conflict. "They are preparing a war against us," Chavez was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it." "Thousands of missiles are arriving," Chavez said, adding Caracas's growing arsenal includes Russian-made Igla-1S surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Chavez added that Russian tanks, including T-72s, will be arriving to strengthen the country's armored divisions. The Venezuelan leftist leader's charges came after a deal between the United States and Colombia that would let Washington increase its presence at seven Colombian military bases.
Editor - ALERT - Press TV takes revolutionary steps as the first Iranian international news network, broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis.

United States Government

ALERT ***** Obama Far Outdoes Bush in Escalating War -- The Numbers Will Surprise You
Increasing numbers of deployed soldiers, mercenaries and drones all add up to Obama being more of a war president than Bush, in terms of hard numbers.
Alternet / Amped Status - By David DeGraw - December 9, 2009
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As Obama announced plans for escalating the war effort, it has become clear that the Obama Illusion has taken yet another horrifying turn. Before explaining how the Af-Pak surge is a direct attack on the US public, let’s peer through the illusion and look at the reality of the situation.

Now that the much despised George W. Bush is out of the way and a more popular figurehead is doing PR for Dick Cheney’s right-hand military leader Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is leading his second AF-Pak surge now, and with long time Bush family confidant Robert Gates still running the Defense Department, the masters of war have never had it so good.

Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate, has proven to be a perfect decoy for the military industrial complex. Consider all the opposition and bad press Bush received when he announced the surge in Iraq. Then consider this: . . .
Editor - You'll be surprised by the surprises.
- LINK ^

Obama Admistration Takes a New Approach to Biological Weapons
The New York Times - By Mark Landler - December 8, 2009
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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to announce a new policy on Wednesday to curb the spread of biological weapons, but it will reaffirm the Bush administration’s opposition to an international regimen for verifying stockpiles of anthrax, smallpox and other agents. The policy, to be disclosed in a speech in Geneva by the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, will focus on increasing health security to reduce the impact of outbreaks of infectious disease, whether natural or man-made, administration officials said Tuesday.

The United States, these officials said, will pledge to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, a 1975 treaty barring the development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. But Ms. Tauscher will declare that the Obama administration does not support efforts to create a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the treaty because, a senior administration official said, supplies of biological weapons are “too difficult to verify.”

Homeland Security Embarks on Big Brother Programs to Read Our Minds and Emotions
Half-baked Homeland Security is spending millions to develop sensors capable of detecting a person's level of 'malintent' as a counterterrorism tool.
Alternet - By Liliana Segura - December 9, 2009.
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In the sci-fi thriller Minority Report, Tom Cruise plays a D.C. police detective, circa 2054, in the department of "pre-crime," an experimental law enforcement unit whose mission -- to hunt down criminals before they strike -- relies on the psychic visions of mutant "pre-cogs" (short for precognition) who can see the future. It may be futuristic Hollywood fantasy, but the underlying premise -- that we can predict (if not see) a person's sinister plans before they follow through -- is already here.

Congress | Video | Michael Moore- The Awful Truth - Serving God or Mammon?
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Congress | Dems Reach Deal To Drop Health Care Public Option
Reuters - By John Whitesides - December 9, 2009
- LINK ^

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic healthcare negotiators said they agreed on Tuesday to replace a government-run insurance option with a scaled-back non-profit plan and would seek cost estimates on the deal. "We have a broad agreement," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told reporters, refusing to provide details of the healthcare proposals to be sent to the Congressional Budget Office. A team of 10 Senate Democrats -- five liberals and five moderates -- had worked for days to find a substitute to the government-run "public" insurance option included in the Senate healthcare bill after moderates voiced concerns about it. The government-run plan has been one of the biggest hurdles for the healthcare overhaul, which is President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

The Citizens / Civil Organizations / Activism

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"All suffering is caused by an obstacle in the path of a force. See that you are not your own obstacle." - Elbert Hubbard

Topical Sections

The Arts and Culture

Leonard Cohen | "First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin" | Music Video
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Turning Complaints Into Art
The New York Times - By Phyllis Korkki - December 8, 2009
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Life in Tokyo, as everywhere else in the world, is annoying and unfair. The good men are all married. Co-workers clip their fingernails at their desks. Laundry comes back from the cleaners still dirty. Society is too competitive. It is impossible to get enough sleep.
A complaints choir rehearsed in Tokyo before its performance at the Mori Art Museum last month. The group's litany of grievances focused on work more than those of choirs in other places. The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more. Join the discussion.

Recently a group of about 100 Tokyo residents put their complaints into a pile and a composer, Okuchi Shunsuke, turned them into a song. About 80 of the complainers (accompanied by an accordion, a bass cello and a tambourine) then performed the composition at various sites around the city, becoming the latest example of what has become known as a complaints choir.

The idea started in Finland, where there is a word for people who complain simultaneously, valituskuoro, which translates as complaints choir. About six years ago Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and his wife, Tellervo Kalleinen, both visual artists living in Helsinki, began discussing the possibility of turning this metaphorical concept into something quite literal. People spend so much energy complaining, they reasoned, so why not harness all that energy into something positive?

Climate Change / Global Warming

Global warming could displace millions of Bangladeshis'
Presstv.ir - December 9, 2009
- LINK ^

Environmental Minister Mahmud has said that millions of his countrymen will be displaced if the sea level rises. Mahmud told reporters at a press conference in Dhaka that 20 million Bangladeshis will be displaced if the sea rises by one meter, the BBC reported on Tuesday. He added that many more would be affected if glaciers in the Himalayas melted due to global warming. He went on to say that Bangladesh is entitled to a large share of the funds developed countries have pledged to donate to tackle the problem. He made the remarks as discussions are underway on a climate adaption fund at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Bangladesh is said to be the country most vulnerable to climate change.

Communities and Species

"Produce great people - the rest follows." - Epigram that graces the front door of the Roycroft Inn

Corporate "Crooks"

"The manner in which a man lies about a fact may be more interesting than the fact itself. - Elbert Hubbard

Video | Michael Moore- The Awful Truth- UPS
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Corporate Crime and Government - The Linkage

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
--- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-Nov-21, in a letter to Colonel E. Mandell House

Economy and Finance

Bloomberg Economic News
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Bloomberg Current Worldwide Financial News
- LINK ^

***** ALERT | US | Burning Money While the Planet Approaches Its Conflagration | Billions More in Easy Money for Wall Street -- Are We Too Ignorant About Finance to Stop It?
A permanent security blanket for big boys of finance will further inflame public opinion. Only the public isn't likely to know.
Alternet / The Nation - By William Greider - December 8, 2009.
- LINK ^

The sale pitch for financial-reform legislation pending in the House claims it would put a stop to "too big to fail" bailouts for the leading banks. The reality is the opposite. The federal government would instead be granted unlimited authority to spend whatever it takes to prop up the big boys when they get in trouble. Only in the next crisis, Congress won't have to be asked for the money. The financial rescues will be funded by the secretive Federal Reserve, not the Treasury, with money the Fed itself creates.

And the emergency lending could be pumped into any financial institution in trouble--not just behemoth commercial banks but investment houses like Goldman Sachs, insurance companies, hedge funds or any other pools of private capital whose failure regulators believe would threaten the system.
This sounds nutty and it is. A permanent security blanket for big boys of finance will further inflame public opinion. Only the public isn't likely to know. The crucial terms for Fed financing are set by an innocuous-sounding amendment offered by Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina. Any financial holding company designated as a "systemic risk" and subject to stricter regulatory standards "shall have the same access to the discount window lending of an appropriate Federal Reserve Bank as is available to a member bank of each Federal Reserve bank."

This last-minute amendment, if included on final passage, solves a huge problem for the Obama administration--how to pay for the next bailout if another financial calamity unfolds. In the House banking committee, the administration's legislation originally sought unlimited authority for the Treasury and the president. But committee members choked on the implications after Representative Brad Sherman of California denounced it as "TARP on steroids." TARP was the original $700 billion bailout jammed through Congress last year.

Humor in Humorless Political Times

"The man who says, " Money isn't everything," is probably in arrears to his landlady. - Elnert Hubbard

"Lovers: Unconscious comedians. - Elbert Hubbard

Journalism and Media\

"Who's making all that dam noise - Elbert Hubbard

Legal and Constitutional Issues

Bloomberg Index of Current Legal News
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Life Style

"Do not dump your woes upon people - keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them. - By Elbert Hubbard

"Fear not that your life should come to an end, but rather fear that it may never have a beginning. - Elbert Hubbard

"Don't be a passenger - get busy helping this craft along! - Elbert Hubbard

Political Systems

US | Has the GOP Collapse Begun? Hypothetical "Tea Party" Outpolls Republicans
Something is afoot among the conservative base -- voting Republican doesn't seem to cut it anymore, and incumbents are getting nervous.
AlterNet - By Adele M. Stan - December 8, 2009.
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Establishment Republicans, take notice. The Tea Party is about to steal your thunder. According to a poll by Rasmussen Reports, likely voters in the 2010 congressional elections would rather cast a ballot for a candidate bearing the Tea Party brand than one on the Republican line. In a national survey of likely voters, Rasmussen asked respondents to choose their favored political party for the congressional contests in what pollsters call a generic ballot. In a three-way contest, Democrats fared best, with 36 percent, while a hypothetical Tea Party came in second at 23 percent, and Republicans pulled up the rear with 18 percent. But there is one wrinkle in the Tea Party triumph scenario: There is no political party called the Tea Party, which might lead one to question whether Rasmussen is stirring the simmering pot of Republican Party politics.

Religion and Philosophies - The Crash with State

"Churches, like Department Stores, carry the wares that are asked for." - Elbert Hubbard

Rights and Freedom

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians."
--- Angelica Grimke - (1805-1879) Source: Anti-Slavery Examiner, September 1836

"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction."
--- Thomas Jefferson - (1743-1826), Source: in a letter to John Adams as quoted in John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason (Florissant, MO: Liberty Bell Press, 1964)

Video | Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
Banned from Corporate America in Rockefeller Center
- LINK ^

Science & Technology

Bloomberg Index of Current Science News
- LINK ^

US | Robobees: Insect-like robots are creating a buzz
RT - December 7, 2009
The US army hopes Micro Air Vehicle technology could save soldiers' lives.
- LINK ^

Social Issues

Michael Moore- Play Beat the Rich
- LINK ^

Violence - Civil and Governmental

Video | Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
Michael Moore sheds light on the fact that some cops have a hard time distinguishing a wallet from a gun - with lethal consequences for law-abiding citizens.
- LINK ^

Video | The Awful Truth: U.S. has been at war with Iraq for 18 years
- LINK ^

US | Gun Activists Take Aim at ObamaCare
Meet the far-right extremists who claim that health care reform threatens the Second Amendment.
Mother Jones - By James Ridgeway - December 8, 2009
- LINK ^

Right-wingers have long viewed health care reform as a cover for various dastardly liberal plots—from killing off grannies and unborn babies to ushering in a socialist state. Now, pro-gun activists see yet another hidden agenda: Health care legislation, they say, threatens their right to bear arms.

Sound and Fury

Photography - US | Photos from the Book, Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America
- Slide Show / Audio

Hip Hop | Maestro Fresh Wes - Drop The Needle
- Video

Bouncing barefoot on the sidewalk
- Video

A Song for the Times - Bing Crosby (1932) “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime”
- Audio

The History of A Great Depression-Era Anthem For Our Time
- Audio/Text

Yip Harburg (1970)
- Audio

The Internet Press Room

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Music Video | Leonard Cohen | "Democracy Is Coming to the USA"
- LINK

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