@dustcirclenews - Free DOCUMENTARIES: Stephen Hawking's Universe, Wikileaks, Battle of the Brains, Climate Shift, Preppers UK, Osama Bin Laden, How Hackers Changed the World, Future Energy, Broken by Battle, Superbrands Secrets, New York Streets, Citizen USA.

It has come to my attention that some of the VIDEO digests don't show some of the videos in the mailings. These are accessible on the website. http://www.dustcircle.com

Stephen Hawking’s Universe
Stephen Hawking’s Universe is a 1997 documentary astronomical fact for public service broadcasting with the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The author of the bestseller A Brief History of Time, here are some of the most astonishing scientific advances in cosmological thought.

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WikiLeaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower
It was the biggest information leak in US diplomatic history – over 250,000 US diplomatic messages or “cables” between the US State Department and US embassies all over the world – turned into a global sensation by the website WikiLeaks.


Battle of The Brains
Horizon takes seven people who are some of the highest flyers in their field – a musical prodigy, a quantum physicist, an artist, a dramatist, an RAF fighter pilot, a chess grandmaster and a Wall Street trader. Each is put through a series of tests to discover who is the most intelligent?


Shift: Beyond the Numbers of the Climate Crisis
Shift is a journey. In an ever worsening natural world we feel that inaction is not an option. We’re not claiming to be climate scientist or journalist trying to tell a plain story, just a brother and sister out to see what all the fuss is about. We accept, and thus firmly believe, that climate change is real, man caused, and a horribly big mess. Our goals are really two fold, one to educate people about climate change (you know the really scary numbers and facts that can be hard to stomach) and two, to offer solutions that help curb our emissions and make a healthier planet. We want to offer solutions from an individual basis all the way to neighborhood, city, and nationwide solutions as well. It can start with each one of us, but we need to work together to make real change. Shift is beyond shorter showers and efficient light bulbs, its a commitment to making real lifestyle changes


Preppers UK
Preppers UK introduces you to local preppers, each with their own unique fears and personal plans to survive a catastrophe.


The Last Days of Osama Bin Laden
After the United States successfully mounted a covert mission to eliminate America’s number one terrorist target, celebration turned to mounting questions. How did the terrorist mastermind elude capture for nearly a decade, only to be discovered hiding in plain sight just yards away from Pakistan’s most prestigious military academy? Peter Bergen, the famed journalist and author on Islamist terrorism who also produced bin Laden’s first television interview, obtains rare access to interview former CIA agents, Navy SEAL operatives and a Black Hawk pilot who reveal how the U.S. gathered the intelligence needed to pull off the surprise attack. He’ll talk to White House and Pakistani intelligence officials as well as neighbors of the Pakistani compound and eyewitnesses to the raid.


How Hackers Changed the World
Storyville: Documentary that goes inside the complex network and history of Anonymous, the radical online ‘hacktivist‘ collective. Through interviews with current members – some recently returned from prison, others still awaiting trial – as well as writers, academics and major players in various ‘raids’, the film traces the collective’s breathtaking evolution from merry pranksters to a full-blown global movement, one armed with new weapons of civil disobedience for an online world.


Future Energy
The world is subjected to an acute energy crisis in the modern times. Renewable sources of energy are being exploited by the most advanced technological systems to save the planet’s highly diminished traditional energy sources. This year marks the deployment of clean energy resources by industries and governments all across the world, which is sure to put a smile on your face.


Broken by Battle
Over the course of a year, reporter Toby Harnden set out to discover how many soldiers, both former and serving, took their own lives in 2012. He talks to families who have lost their sons and ex-soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who are desperately seeking help. 


Secrets of the Superbrands
Alex Riley thinks he’s immune to brands. When it comes to fashion, technology and food brands he just goes for the cheapest and what works for him. He’s convinced he’s not seduced by the advertising, celebrity endorsements and hype which surrounds the big global brands. So how did that pair of Adidas trainers get in his wardrobe? And how did that can of Heinz Baked Beans make it into his shopping trolley? And why does he have a Nokia mobile phone in his pocket rather than any other make? With the help of marketeers, brain scientists and exclusive access to the world of the superbrands Alex sets out to find out why we buy them, trust them, even idolise them.


Streets of New York
Nowhere in America do poverty and wealth exist so closely to one another as in New York City. Even from the darkest corners of Brooklyn, one need only look up and across the East River to see the great temples of Wall Street wealth looming over the night. Since the birth of the city, New York’s poorest residents, whether Irish, Jewish, black, or Puerto Rican, have made their own gold from the streets of the city. Sometimes the elements of crime were needed to harvest this gold.



















Citizen USA: A 50 State Road Trip
Eight years ago Alexandra Pelosi’s husband, Michiel, was just one in millions of immigrants who came to America legally. Since he married her, and she was born in USA, he had no problem getting a green card. He was happy as a resident alien, until his son was born. Suddenly he realized he really had to become an American, so he started down the path to citizenship.

@dustcirclenews - Free DOCUMENTARIES: Do the Math, Vatican Inc., Fiefdom of Speech, Children for Sale, Crack House USA, Radical Islam's War Against the West, Rise of Artificial Intelligence, Hawking Paradox, Battered and Bruised, Iran and the Bomb

If videos aren't visible in your email provider, follow this link: http://www.dustcircle.com

Do the Math

Like most people, Bill (environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org), is not an activist by nature. There’s really not that many people whose greatest desire it to go out and fight the system. His theory of change was that he’ll write his book, people will read it and they’ll change. But that’s not how change happens. What is required is to make a little noise, be a little uncomfortable, and push other people to be a little uncomfortable. The moment has come where we have to take a real stance, because we’re reaching limits.

Vatican Inc.

Every Sunday worshipers crowd the Saint Peter’s colonnades in square and from its balcony the Pope imparts a sacrament and the latest behavioral guidelines. Over one billion Catholics look to the pontiff for guidance and donate their money to the Catholic Church. A large portion of this money makes its way to the Vatican and into the vaults of the IOR, the Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican’s Bank.

Fiefdom of Speech

The right to freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Children for Sale

From slums and misery in Brazil, hundreds of children and teenagers leave each day in search of tourists. At home there is no food on the table. On the beaches of Fortaleza there are plenty of men eager for easy and cheap bodies. Left to themselves or encouraged by their parents into prostitution, many children try to survive with what the night of Fortaleza has to offer – sex and drugs. 

Crack House USA

Summer 2005: federal agents and police record over a thousand hours of surveillance footage inside a crack house in Rockford Illinois. For six weeks the gang smoke weed, play with guns and sell crack and heroin, unaware that their every move is being filmed. The customers come and go with no clue that their secret lives would be exposed. This is an intimate portrait of the rise and fall of a crack house and of an American urban community brought down by drugs. Interviews with gang members, their families and cops reveal the inescapable tragedy – and occasional dark comedy – of a world that lies hidden within every modern city.

Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West

Today, we find ourselves confronted by a new enemy, also engaged in a violent struggle to transform our world. As we sleep in the comfort of our homes, a new evil rises against us. A new menace is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western Civilization under the yoke of its values. That enemy is Radical Islam.

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is an ever evolving goal for researchers, and the object of endless fascination for writers, filmmakers, and the general public. But despite our best science fiction visions, creating digital intelligence is incredibly difficult. The universe is a very complicated place, and humans have had millions of years to evolve the ability to navigate and make sense of it. Contemporary attempts to create AI have us looking more at how our own brains work to see how a computer could simulate the core activities that create our intelligence. No matter how we get there, it is certain that artificial intelligence will have tremendous impact on our society and economy, and lead us down a path towards evolving our own definitions of humanity.

The Hawking Paradox

Stephen Hawking is the most famous scientist on the planet. His popular science book A Brief History of Time was a publishing sensation, staying at the top of the bestseller lists longer than any other book in recent history. But behind the public face lies an argument that has been raging for almost 30 years.

Battered And Bruised

In PNG’s Western Highlands Provinces, 97 per cent of women surveyed by an NGO said they had been attacked by male family members. From middle-class households in the capital Port Moresby to villages where tribal law rules an estimated one million children live in volatile family environments.

Iran And The Bomb

The West says Iran is making a nuclear bomb. Tehran says they’re treating cancer. This compelling investigation gets right to the heart of the maelstrom, interrogating facts, falsehoods and shocking allegations.

@dustcirclenews - 22 Free DOCUMENTARIES: Trading into Thin Air, My Brother the Islamist, Money and Life, Craig Venter: Designing Life, This is What Winning Looks Like, Young Kids; Hard Time, Shadows of Liberty, Inside the Klan, Money Lobby, Colour of War, Great Culling: Our Water, America's Medicated Kids, Spy Satellite Hunter, Sex & Death and the Gods, River of Waste: Factory Farms Truths, Codes of Gender, Tomorrow's World, Deportee Purgatory, Rise of the Superbugs, Unveiled and Lifted, Sext Up Kids, This "Illegal" American Life.

If the videos don't show up in the emails, they are viewable at: http://www.dustcircle.com

Trading on Thin Air

Trading on Thin Air explains the methods used by the financial oligarchy in the past to extract the wealth of the nation and shows how the same strategy is being used today to subvert a movement for conservation and sustainability and harness it in order to create the next big bubble.

My Brother the Islamist

Barking, East London, patriotic crowds gather as a regiment of soldiers from the 1st Battalion of Royal Anglians return home from Afghanistan. The author of the documentary, Robb Leech, is there to see a soldier too.

Money and Life

Money and Life is a passionate and inspirational essay-style documentary that asks a provocative question: can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity?

Craig Venter: Designing life

Some regard him as the most important scientist since Darwin. But he himself is only a little more modest. For the first time now, he can actually design life in a computer, make the DNA software, and create new life forms that have never existed before.

This Is What Winning Looks Like

This is a disturbing, new documentary about the ineptitude, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and corruption of the Afghan security forces as well as the reduced role of US Marines due to the troop withdrawal.

Young Kids, Hard Time

Behind every crime headline there is mountain of tragedy for everyone involved. Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Southwestern Indiana is a vault for these headlines. Twenty one hundred prisoners locked up for everything from rape to murder.


















SHADOWS OF LIBERTY
Shadows of Liberty reveals the phenomenal truth behind the news media: censorship, cover-ups and corporate control. The documentary takes a journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global conglomerates exercise extraordinary political, social, and economic power.

INSIDE THE KLAN
The KKK has had a surge in popularity, mostly because of the US’s first black president. The Klan claim to have softened, but can an organisation racist to its core really be as benign as they make out?

THE MONEY LOBBY
They say money is the root of all evil. Well, nowhere is this more true than in US politics. The 2012 US presidential and congressional elections were the most expensive in history, costing six billion dollars.

COLOUR OF WAR
Colour of War is a very good documentary about WWII and how it affected life around the world between 1940 and 1945. The entire documentary is a collection of authentic images, all in colour, of which a lot have been previously unreleased. Some images can be quite shocking at times and no doubt leave you with a bitter impression on how horrible war can be. The commentator also reads out a lot of letters or diary fragments from people who lived or died during World War II. Knowing this, you might think that the documentary in a whole would loose coherence but it’s quite the opposite because even though “Colour of War” is mainly a collection of authentic images and letters it felt like everything fitted together very well.

THE GREAT CULLING: OUR WATER

The Great Culling of the human race already has begun. Covertly, insidiously, mercilessly, a global depopulation agenda has been launched. As this plays out, the vast majority of the human race will be removed from the gene pool. Genetically annihilated. Will you and your genetic lineage survive?

America’s Medicated Kids

In America’s Medicated Kids, Louis Theroux travels to one of America’s leading children’s psychiatric treatment centres, in Pennsylvania, to learn and understand what drives parents to put their kids on drugs.

The Man Who Hunts Spy Satellites

Thierry Legault is not your average amateur astronomer, inviting the kids over and pointing a dinky backyard telescope at the Big Dipper. He’s a renowned astrophotographer, painstakingly chronicling the orbits of planets, distant galaxies, spaceships, and—to the chagrin of the intelligence community—of the spy satellites we’re not supposed to see.

Sex, Death And The Gods

This BBC documentary focuses on the Devadasi young Indian girls denied the chance to marry after being ‘dedicated’ to a deity or temple. Many spend the remainder of their lives involved in prostitution despite laws which make the practice illegal.

A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms

A heart-stopping new documentary, A RIVER OF WASTE exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. Some scientists have gone so far as to call the condemned current factory farm practices as “mini Chernobyls.” In the U.S. and elsewhere, the meat and poultry industry is dominated by dangerous uses of arsenic, antibiotics, growth hormones and by the dumping of massive amounts of sewage in fragile waterways and environments. The film documents the vast catastrophic impact on the environment and public health as well as focuses on the individual lives damaged and destroyed.

The Codes of Gender

The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman’s ground-breaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture’s most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

Tomorrow’s World

Tomorrow’s World delves in to the world of invention, revealing the people and technologies set to transform all our lives. Liz Bonnin examines the conditions that are promising to make the 21st century a golden age of innovation and meets some of the world’s foremost visionaries, mavericks and dreamers.

Deportee Purgatory

Each year, more than 30 million people flow between the US and Mexico through the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest land-border crossing in the world. Situated between San Diego and Tijuana, at one time the area around San Ysidro was a prime spot to cross illegally into the US. But in 1994, Operation Gatekeeper expanded the border wall and increased the number of checkpoints. With the more recent addition of unmanned drone patrols along the border, Tijuana has become one of the most fortified border points in the Americas. Border crossers have been forced to turn to alternative sites of crossing, such as the Sonoran Desert, where hundreds of people die each year.

Rise of the Superbugs

Antibiotics are the wonder drugs of modern medicine. They’ve allowed doctors to save and extend life by killing infection and enabling ground breaking surgery. But imagine a world where antibiotics don’t work – that would be a place dominated by superbugs, bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotics. Scientists say this would end many modern medical procedures and they claim the threat is greater than we realise. Rampant use of antibiotics coupled with an explosion in global travel has led to superbugs spreading worldwide. Rise of the Superbugs steps into the lab with leading experts on antibiotic resistance, and listen to shocking stories of the health implications. Let’s face up to the horror of antibiotic resistance before it’s too late.

Unveiled and Lifted

In the current anxiety concerning overpopulation, pollution, ecological imbalance, and the potential of disasters of nuclear fusion, it is only seldom recognized that governed nations have become self destroying institutions, paralyzed and bogged in their own complications, and suffocated beneath mountains of paper.

Sext Up Kids

In Sext Up Kids, teens and pre-teens show and tell what they are doing and why they are doing it. Experts reveal startling new research, tracking how the pressure to be sexy is changing teen and sexual behaviour in alarming ways, as “anal becomes the new oral.”

This (Illegal) American Life

From a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico, and from a kitchen table in East Los Angeles, from a flophouse in a coastal farming town, to a strip-mall in Phoenix, Arizona, these are snapshots of illegal immigration in America. It’s estimated that as many as 12 million people are living in United States illegally, but this story is about just two.

@dustcirclenews - DOCUMENTARIES: How the US Government Rules the World, Great Financial Crisis, Cancer's Forbidden Cures, US History Crash Course, Slavery by Consent, Is Exorcism Real? Global Graffiti, Iraq's Secret War Files, Nuclear Waste Disposal Dilemma, Can Hackers Be Heroes?

It has come to my attention that some of the VIDEO digests don't show some of the videos in the mailings. These are accessible on the website. The Video-related content I send out will have a link to the website so you can view the videos, instead of seeing just a list: http://www.dustcircle.com

Wikileaks: How the United States Government Runs the World
Wikileaks has risen to fame when it leaked the highly private series of conversations between the US government and its diplomats stationed all over the world. It’s not yet clear how the security was breached but everybody is more interested to know the secret thoughts of those people in power in Washington. The series of leaks revealed the hidden intention and action of those people with power to protect their own interests.


The Great Financial Crisis: Explanations and Trend PredictionsIt’s not without a doubt that America is currently experiencing one of the greatest financial crises of its history. Some experts say that the worst has passed and that the country’s economy is slowly gaining its ground. For those people who invested in stocks and mutual funds, the crisis is still not over. This documentary carefully studies the events that triggered the crisis and the possible aftermath of this in the future.


Cancer: The Forbidden Cures
Over the last century, several natural cancer treatments have been developed and used to treat patients in the US and in other developed countries.



















Crash Course: US History
John talks about the Native Americans who lived in what is now the US prior to European contact. The Spanish have a long history with the natives of the Americas, and not all of it was positive.



















Slavery by Consent
This documentary highlights the nature and history of our enslavement, the absurdity of an all-powerful governing (controlling) class to a free human race and the philosophy of liberty which we all need to adopt if we are to ever be a free species on this planet living in balance with the natural world.



















IS IT REAL? Exorcism
This documentary goes over the real story behind the 1973 horror film ‘The Exorcist’. Meet some of the people who claim to have exorcised evil spirits from their victims, objects, places and animals. The episode also reveals the likely explanations for the behavior of those suspected of being possessed.

Bomb It – Global Graffiti
Through interviews and guerrilla footage of graffiti writers in action on 5 continents, BOMB IT tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70′s and 80′s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe. Featuring old school legends and current favorites such as Taki 183, Cornbread, Stay High 149, T-Kid, Cope 2, Zephyr, Revs, Os Gemeos, KET, Chino, Shepard Fairey, Revok, and Mear One. This cutting edge documentary tracks down today’s most innovative and pervasive street artists as they battle for control over the urban visual landscape. You’ll never look at public space the same way again.

IRAQ’S SECRET WAR FILES (2010)

The only TV doc to have advance access to the biggest Wikileaks release ever. This is what really happened during the Iraq war, not what the US PR machine of the time wanted us to believe. The reality behind the civilian death count; al-Qaeda’s fictitious presence; torture, torture and more torture. A wall of truth revealing unprecedented levels of unwarranted aggression.

DISPOSAL DILEMMA – NUCLEAR WASTE

How to dispose of nuclear waste is an issue that’s divided opinion for years. And as the world’s most dangerous waste takes thousands of years to become safe, it’s a debate that’s not going to go away.

CAN HACKERS BE HEROES?

Some define hacking as “finding creative solutions to technical problems.” To them, hacking means having an exploratory mindset about technology, and a willingness to “get under the hood” to tinker and see what happens. Other groups, like Anonymous, employ more subversive hacking practices to forward social and political causes, embedding a social consciousness into the traditionally murky dark-side of security hacking. Looking beyond the media hype and scare tactics, it is clear that “hacking” is a term whose meaning should be up for debate, and that some hackers could in fact be heroes, and not just villains.

13.Feb.2013 - DOCUMENTARIES: Networked Society, Supersize Me, Bad Behavior Online, Clean Technology Future, Food Speculator

Life in a Networked Society

Technologies enable people to interact, innovate and share information in totally new ways. People are empowered, business is liberated and the society is more transparent. But how to take advantage of all this? And what does it take to become a networked society?

Supersize Me – Morgan Spurlock vs McDonald’s Fastfood

While examining the influence of the fast food industry, Morgan Spurlock personally explores the consequences on his health of a diet of solely McDonald’s food for one month.
Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock’s film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he ate only McDonald’s food. The film documents this lifestyle’s drastic effect on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry’s corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.
Spurlock dined at McDonald’s restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain’s menu at least once. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.
As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment using a vegan diet supervised by his future wife, a chef who specializes in gourmet vegan dishes.
The reason for Spurlock’s investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared “epidemic,” and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald’s on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald’s food.
The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Bad Behavior Online: Bullying, Trolling and Free Speech

The internet is a powerful tool for communication, but it can sometimes be a double-edged sword. As most of us have seen or experienced, the internet can bring out the worst behavior in people, highlighting some of the cruelest and most hurtful aspects of humanity. Issues such as bullying online and trolling have garnered a lot of attention recently, prompting questions about who does, and should, regulate the internet, and what free speech means online.

The Clean Technology Future

What if we could live in a clean world?A world in which energy would be 100% renewable, water no longer polluted, transportation truly green and production methods clean and regenerative? There will be such a world. This documentary explores the unprecedented possibilities of a new industrial revolution: Cleantech.
Signs of a new future are visible everywhere, from China to the US and from Europe to Thailand. Green mobility powered by sustainable energy, clean drinking water for all thanks to nanotechnology, dyeing textiles using recycled CO2. All of this is possible and is happening successfully now! Working together with Cleantech-founder Nick Parker, this film shows what our world will be like in the decades to come. The film team travels the world in search of a clean future.

The Food Speculator

The film examines the global commodities futures markets and aims to understand the role of speculation on food prices.
Assuming the role of a speculator, director Kees Brouwer tries to find out whether he is merely taking advantage of the opportunity offered to investors by the food scarcity, or that, through this abstract world of financial products, he is drastically interfering in poor people’s lives.
Increasing food prices are increasingly causing unrest in the world. It was no coincidence that when the Arab Spring first began Tunisian protesters attacked the order police with baguettes. Is there just not enough food for so many people, or are the price increases caused by speculators, looking for quick profits? Backlight tries to find an answer by doing a little food speculation of its own. A quest that leads us to places including the streets of Tunisia and the Chicago Stock Exchange.

25.Dec.2012 - Democracy Doomed? NRA Suggests Police State, Global Persecution of Nonbelievers, Uncover-ed Religion, Old Views of Evolution, Get Rid of Electoral College? Unraveling the Welfare State 1+2, Sabotage of Democracy, Ditching Fossil Fuels, War on Christmas? and more.

Is Democracy Doomed? New Report Shows Tectonic Shifts in Campaign Spending

In a short period of time since the passage of Citizens United, the political funding landscape has dramatically changed.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/democracy-doomed-new-report-shows-tectonic-shifts-campaign-spending

NRA Suggests a Police State
f one follows the "logic" of the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre, the United States should become an armed camp with armored-up police carrying high-powered weapons stationed at virtually every location where children might congregate and where a crazy person might show up with a semi-automatic assault rifle.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/416-gun-control-/15198-nra-suggests-a-police-state

For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall

Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where a third of the girls’ class failed to graduate on schedule. But by the time the triplets donned mortarboards in the class of 2008, their story seemed to validate the promise of education as the great equalizer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html

Self-Compassion is More Important to Success than Self-Esteem

Being proud of your work and showing some self-esteem and confidence will get you a long way in life, but at the office, sometimes it's the ability to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes that's more valuable than pure ego. Self-compassion can help you learn and grow, which is key to succeeding in any career.

http://lifehacker.com/5970594/self+compassion-is-more-important-to-success-than-self+esteem

Obama Backed FSA/Al Qaeda Terrorists Using Chemical Weapons in Syria

Militants fighting against the Syrian government have used chemical weapons against the army in Daraya near the capital, Damascus, military sources say.

http://rebel-institute.org/opinion/mena/313630-obama-backed-fsa-al-qaeda-terrorists-using-chemical-weapons-in-syria

Sacred Mysteries : Life After Death, Ancient Texts & the Vril

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

According to Egypt News Daily, the prosecution first sought to charge him in connection with disseminating Innocence of Muslims but when this accusation was proven false, they revised their strategy to target the content of Saber’s video blog. Though sentenced to three years and released on bail he was subsequently locked up due to a clerical error before being released on December 17.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/6704/new_reports_reveal_global_persecution_of_nonbelievers

Undercover-ed Religion: 13 Stories That Went Missing in 2012

Storm and flood, bad bishops, nones on the bus, vegan leather queens, God’s mom: in this list Peter Laarman plots the angles that were largely invisible in mainstream religion coverage this past year—and likely in our own. A road map for 2013—and a sign to us that there might be more important things to focus on this year than the launch of our signature fragrance, RD’s Apocalypse-Begone (subtle notes of ash, hints of ocean breeze, a wisp of sulphur...). 

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/6680/undercover_ed_religion__13_stories_that_went_missing_in_2012

Rep. John Lewis, Civil Rights Icon, on the Struggle to Win, and Now Protect, Voting Rights in U.S.

DOWNLOAD:  VIDEOAUDIOGET CD/DVDMORE FORMATS

Biden: If Obama Comes for my Beretta, He's Got a Problem

The hidden size of nonbelievers

The people who are nonbelievers in any religion sometimes feel like a small minority. But this is purely a local illusion. When it comes to religions, different ones dominate different parts of the world. But when it comes to nonbelievers, we are all pretty much the same everywhere. We are the true uniters, not dividers, our shared unbelief uniting us across nations, races, and ethnicities.

http://machineslikeus.com/news/hidden-size-nonbelievers

New data challenge old views about evolution of early life

A research team led by biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has tested a popular hypothesis in paleo-ocean chemistry, and proved it false

http://machineslikeus.com/news/new-data-challenge-old-views-about-evolution-early-life

Question: Get Rid of Electoral College?

Unraveling the Welfare State

hat do you think the use of technocratic governments in Europe says about European democracy? There are two problems with it. First of all it shouldn’t happen, at least if anybody believes in democracy. Secondly, the policies that they’re following are just driving Europe into deeper and deeper problems. The idea of imposing austerity during a recession makes no sense whatsoever. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/15193-unraveling-the-welfare-state

Unraveling the Welfare State (Part Two)
urope should have agreed to Palestine's observer status at the United Nations being upgraded, but they were, as you know, split on this. The US, of course, was strongly opposed. The reasons are very explicit and it's worth looking at them. They were discussed again in the New York Times last week where, of course, the newspaper took the same position as Washington almost reflexively. There are two problems, they say.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/15209-unraveling-the-welfare-state-part-2

The GOP's Sabotage of Democracy

eally, what is to be done about this Republican Party? What force can change it—can stop Republicans from being ideological saboteurs and convert at least a workable minority of them into people interested in governing rather than sabotage? With the failed Plan B vote, we have reached the undeniable crisis point. Actually we’ve been at a crisis point for years, but this is really the all-upper-case Undeniable Crisis Point. They are a direct threat to the economy, which could slip back into recession next year if the government doesn’t, well, govern.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15192-the-gops-sabotage-of-democracy

How a Country With One of the World's Largest Economies Is Ditching Fossil Fuels

The country is headed for 80 percent renewable energy and has complete buy-in from all political parties.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-country-one-worlds-largest-economies-ditching-fossil-fuels

There Really Is a War on Christmas -- It's Being Fought by Brave Atheists in the Heartland

There is a growing contingent of atheists from the American heartland who live surrounded by the faithful.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/there-really-war-christmas-its-being-fought-brave-atheists-heartland

The 7 Worst Things About McDonald's

Forcing employees to work on Christmas without overtime pay is just the beginning.

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/7-worst-things-about-mcdonalds

The Spy State Tightens its Grip

Americans are paying an ever-increasing price, both in dollars and the loss of personal privacy, to maintain the spy state.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/spy-state-tightens-its-grip

Human Rights Watch: Israel’s justifications for killing journalists are "evidence of war crimes"

Bank Rate Fixing Scandals Reveal the Rotten Heart of Capitalism

his is the year the consensus changed. Around the world, policy-makers, regulators and bankers recognised that the legacy of the 20-year credit boom up to 2008 is more corrosive than all but a few realised at the time. The bankers - and the theorists who justified their actions - made a millennial mistake. Navigating a way out of the mess was never likely to be easy, but it is made harder still by not recognising the magnitude of the disaster and the necessary radicalism involved if things are to be put right.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/304-justice/15211-bank-rate-fixing-scandals-reveal-the-rotten-heart-of-capitalism

Sneaky Apps that Track Cellphones

A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps" - precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users - is increasingly a matter of national concern, particularly for domestic abuse victims. No less threatening is the routine monitoring of children's locales and phone habits for commercial purposes while parents are kept in the dark. Stealth apps even stoop to cyber-leering through the now notorious app called Girls Around Me, which allows men to search out women, unbeknown to them, by cross-matching GPS technology with information and photo sites like Facebook.

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/183-183/15212-sneaky-apps-that-track-cellphones

Lieberman would have ‘some really serious questions’ to ask Hagel ‘not just about Israel’ but about (Israel’s enemy du jour) Iran

Will the Internet End Up Controlled by Big Business and Politicians?

t's all about control. Of course, nobody uses that particular term. The talk is always about "governance" or "regulation", but really it's about control. Ever since the internet burst into public consciousness in 1993, the big question has been whether the most disruptive communications technology since print would be captured by the established power structures - nation states and giant corporations - that dominate our world and shape its development. And since then, virtually every newsworthy event in the evolution of the network has really just been another skirmish in the ongoing war to control the internet.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/15206-will-the-internet-end-up-controlled-by-big-business-and-politicians

Atheists vs. Christians: Inside One of America's Bitterest Nativity Scene Battles

Santa Monica is ground zero in the fault lines between Christian tradition, separation of church and state, and the First Amendment.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/atheists-vs-christians-inside-one-americas-bitterest-nativity-scene-battles
Michael Moore: 3 Reasons America Is Falling Apart -- And How We Can Save Ourselves

This holiday season, it is important to reflect on the root causes of America's slide.

http://www.alternet.org/michael-moore-3-reasons-america-falling-apart-and-how-we-can-save-ourselves