GAIA AND HOMOSAPIENS

Video ***** | US - Sen. Banking Cmte. sends Bernanke nomination to senate floor
C-Span - Thursday, December 17, 2009
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The Senate Banking Cmte. voted 16-7 to send the nomination of Ben Benanke to continue as Chairman of the Federal Reserve to the Senate floor. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced yesterday that he will place a hold on Mr. Bernanke’s nomination.

***** Film - 60 min. | Canada | A Sense of Family
This one-hour film charts East Indian immigration from the early 1900s to the present day. The families profiled relate their immigration experiences, as well as their struggle to integrate themselves economically and socially into Canada. These families also talk about their culture and its traditions, throwing the problems of their emigration to Canada into sharp relief.
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***** Video | "A People’s History of American Empire " by Howard Zinn
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***** Video | Howard Zinn’s “Three Holy Wars”
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Listen and learn.

***** Video | The Richard Dimbleby Lecture by HRH Prince Charles, titled “Facing the Future”
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Film Trailer | Creation - The True Story of Charles Darwin - Movie Coming Soon
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CBC Hourly News
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CBC World at Six News - A Major Roundup of 'What's Out There'
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NoteThe symbol ^ denotes that that article can be read in full at the link. Articles with titles in italics are from last issue.

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Imaging Life

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. — Patrick Henry

Editorial | Haiti's earthquake a global challenge
San Francisco Gate - Wednesday, January 13, 2010
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There were no saving graces in the devastation. The earthquake leveled schools, hospitals, the cathedral, U.N. peacekeeping headquarters, countless homes and the presidential palace. It destroyed a prison, allowing inmates to escape, the last thing needed in a country reeling in chaos, grief and trepidation. Haiti's capacity to rebuild from this earthquake is as weak as its ability to prepare for it. This is a human challenge for all the world.

Every now and then, a disaster strikes with such consequence that nations around the world confront their common humanity. Such is the case with the earthquake in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. As the magnitude of the destruction became more apparent with each hour, the estimates of fatalities varied wildly, ranging from horrific to cataclysmic.

Alert - US | Podcast - Interview with American who exposed the illegal wiretapping of all phone calls and emails in the US in clear violation of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution
Peter B. Collins Show - Published on 29 December 2009
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Mark Klein on Barak Obama’s continuation of Bush’s massive domestic wiretapping/spying operations. Klein is the heroic phone technician who exposed the secret room in San Francisco where the NSA diverts all phone calls and emails in clear violation of the 4th Amendment. This is another installment in the Boiling Frogs series, co-hosted by Sibel Edmonds. Klein talks about how he learned of the eavesdropping and its huge scope, how the media and Senators took his confidential information to the government, and how the Obama administration continues the interceptions and obstruction of justice. Please share this with as many people as you can, and visit Sibel’s new website, www.boilingfrogspost.com Klein’s book, Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine…and Fighting It is available only at amazon.com

Breaking News

Haiti quake: The worst of places for a big tremor
BBC News - By Jonathan Amos, Science Correspondent - January 13, 2010
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It was immediately obvious that Tuesday's quake in Haiti would be an appalling natural disaster. A large tremor centred on an impoverished country with little recent experience or preparedness for such a major event of this kind.

The buildings in the quake zones of major industrialised nations sit on damping systems that allow them to ride out tremors that not only shake them back and forth but also twist them in the same movement. The simplest concrete structures in the capital of Port-au-Prince will have crumpled under the same strain.

Seismometers recorded a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 at 1653 local time (2153 GMT). The epicentre's proximity to Port-au-Prince - 15km (10 miles) - and the focus (or depth) of just 8km (5 miles) will have ensured the destructive forces were at their most intense. "Closeness to the surface is a major factor contributing to the severity of ground shaking caused by an earthquake of any given magnitude," said Dr David Rothery, a planetary scientist with the Open University, UK. "Furthermore, shaking tends to be greatest directly above the source. In this case the epicentre was only 15 km from the centre of the capital, Port au Prince, which therefore suffered very heavily." A series of strong aftershocks - several larger than Magnitude 5.0 - will have compounded the devastation.

US | Sarah Palin signs up as political commentator for Fox News
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Global Regions

Postcards from the Revolution - US combat plane stationed at the military base in Curaçao violated Venezuelan airspace Saturday
The Chaves Code.com - By Eva Golinger - January 9, 2009Curaçao | The Third Frontier of the United States
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Caracas, - Yesterday’s violation of Venezuelan airspace by a P-3 US military combat plane is another example of the escalation in provocations against Venezuela and evidence of the danger US military presence in the region represents. During a live television broadcast on the evening of January 8, President Hugo Chávez revealed that at approximately 12:55pm earlier that day, a US P3 combat plane took off from the air base in neighboring Curaçao and entered Venezuelan airspace during a 15-minute period. Two Venezuelan F-16 planes intercepted the foreign military aircraft, prepared to escort it outside Venezuelan territory. “When the F-16 planes attempted communication with the US aircraft, it immediately took off towards the north, but later it returned”, announced President Chávez. He said that at 1:37pm Venezuelan time, the combat plane returned and flew for about 19 minutes inside Venezuelan territory. “It was escorted out and pressured by our F-16s, we didn’t have to bring in the Sukhois”, added Chávez. The Pentagon has denied violation of Venezuelan airspace, yet the Venezuelan military has video and photographic images of the US combat plane incursion yesterday.

Video | US to attack Venezuela?
Chavez Code.com | By Eva Golinger - Jsnuary 9, 2010
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National News

Afghan Dirty War" Escalates
Consortium News - By Douglas Valentine - January 4, 2010
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On Dec. 31, I listened in dismay as an NPR “terrorism” expert condemned the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan as especially hideous because the CIA victims were spreading economic development and democracy in the area as members of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). On New Year’s Day, Washington Post staff writers Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable began to fill in some of the blanks that the initial propaganda had ignored. Warrick and Constable reported that the CIA officers were “at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”

Canada | Video - The Third Heaven - The heritage of Chinese contributions to Vancouver, B.C. and Canada
Discussed by several people, including former British Columbia premiers Glen Clark and Bill Vander Zalm.
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Click highlighted 'Full Screen' for video.
Hong Kong's 1997 reversion to China had an impact on Canada. Michael Lam, a Canadian businessman of Chinese origin, and professor of Chinese history René Goldman discuss Hong Kong entrepreneurs' development plans in Vancouver.

Iran Move to Defrock Dissident Ayatollah Opens Rifts in Theocracy
Truthout / The Christian Science Monitor - By Iason Athanasiadis - Wednesday 06 January 2010
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Istanbul, Turkey - The decision to defrock a dissident ayatollah – widely considered to wear the mantle of spiritual leader of the opposition – has pried open conflicts within the Islamic Republic’s religious core.

The Qom Theological Lecturers Association, a regime-aligned grouping of clerics, mandated Saturday that Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei’s edicts are no longer religiously binding. The ruling was furiously disputed by the rival Association of the Lecturers and Scholars of Qom Theological Seminary and the Association of Combatant Clerics.

“It’ll be tough work [defrocking Sanei],” says Nicola Pedde, director of the Rome-based Institute for Global Studies and a frequent visitor to Iran. “It’ll provoke a massive movement from the clerical side and, possibly, totally and completely religiously delegitimize the regime.

United States Government

National Poll | Americans give Obama mixed report card on his first year
Christrian Science Monitor - By Dave Cook Washington Bureau Chief - January 13, 2010
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Some 45 percent of those surveyed in a nationwide Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday said the president’s first year was a success, and an equal percentage thought it had been a failure. “He is getting a passing grade, but the report card is not that good that his mother is going to put it up on the refrigerator,” says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Americans are split and that is not surprising; they were split about George Bush, they were split about Bill Clinton."

Opinion | Breaking With Obama?
Dandelion Salad / Nader.org - By Ralph Nader - January 1, 2010
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Those long-hoping, long-enduring members of the liberal intelligentsia are starting to break away from the least-worst mindset that muted their criticisms of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.

They still believe that the President is far better than his Republican counterpart would have been. Some still believe that sometime, somewhere, Obama will show his liberal stripes. But they no longer believe they should stay loyally silent in the face of the escalating war in Afghanistan, the near collapse of key provisions in the health insurance legislation, the likely anemic financial regulation bill, or the obeisance to the bailed out Wall Street gamblers. Remember this Administration more easily embraces bonuses for fat cats than adequate investment in public jobs.

Of all the loyalists, among the first to stray was Bob Herbert, columnist for The New York Times. He wondered about his friends telling him that Obama treats their causes and them “as if they have nowhere to go.” Then there was the stalwart Obamaist, the brainy Gary Wills, who broke with Obama over Afghanistan in a stern essay of admonition.

If you read the biweekly compilation of progressive and liberal columnists and pundits in The Progressive Populist, one of my favorite publications, the velvet verbal gloves are coming off.

Jim Hightower writes that “Obama is sinking us into ‘Absurdistan.’” He bewails: “I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.”

Wonder where good ol’ Jim got that impression—certainly not from anything Obama said or did not say in 2008. But hope dims the memory of the awful truth which is that Obama signed on to the Wall Street and military-industrial complex from the getgo. He got their message and is going after their campaign contributions and advisors big time!

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Topical News

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Activism at the Groud Level

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
-- Mark Twain

Alert | Take Action

US | Petition to President Obama on Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
Democracy in Action
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Economy and Finance

Bloomberg Economic News
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Bloomberg Current Worldwide Financial News
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Health and Fitness

US | Maine to Consider Putting Warnings on Cellphones
The New York Times - By Katie Zezima - January 1, 2010
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BOSTON — Maine legislators this month will take up the question of whether cellphones sold in the state must contain warnings that they may cause brain cancer, despite a lack of scientific consensus on the issue.

NY considers list of 85 chemicals to avoid buying
Salon / AP - By Michael Virtanen - January 4, 2010
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New York is poised to create a list of 85 chemicals for state agencies to avoid buying, a measure short of a ban but which could still drive industry to produce fewer products with toxins and carcinogens. The proposal would leverage the state's extensive buying power amid a debate pitting health advocates against business representatives over the best way to comply with Gov. David Paterson's 2008 executive order to buy environmentally friendly products.

center>Legal and Constitutional Issues

Bloomberg Index of Current Legal News
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Media and Freedom of Expression

US | Fiscal Times Scandal: 21 Experts Seek Meeting with WaPost Chair Don Graham
Our Future - By Roger Hickey - January 4, 2010
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The group noted that while The Fiscal Times article focused on the Peterson-promoted Conrad-Gregg budget commission—and quoted several Peterson-supported "experts"—it ignored the views of those who oppose that approach to the deficit, includinga coaltion of 40 groups representing workers, women, seniors and workers, women, seniors and others.

center>Science & Technology

Bloomberg Index of Current Science News
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Violence - Civil

US | Essay About Life's Lessons | "Mass Casualties" And "avatar"
Veterans for Commn Sense - By Paul Sullivan - January 11, 2010
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January 11, 2010 - In 1990, while serving as an Army cavalry scout right before the first invasion of Iraq, I briefly asked myself what impact the impending war might have upon me spiritually and physically. The following two decades have been, without a doubt, the best years of my life, but at a terrible and high cost. Watching the devastating lethality of our military and the suffering of civilians while driving through minefields and inhaling heavy doses of oil well fire pollution and radioactive waste left indelible marks on my body and soul.

With that vivid and visceral perspective on my front burner, I recently read an excellent book, Mass Casualties, and watched a superb and highly popular movie, “Avatar.” Combined, they convey timeless stories about love, war, personal betrayal, political betrayal, and redemption.

Both the book and the movie are written to entertain, yet both excel by informing the world about the physical and spiritual devastation wrought by two wars on the 2.2 million individuals deployed repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan. More importantly, for the more than 300 million Americans ignorant of realities of war, the book and film tell us volumes about our Nation’s challenges and aspiration.

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Sound and Fury

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