28.Dec.2012 - Syria Invasion, FBI Monitored OWS, Frontier Mentality, Next Financial Crisis, Female Troop Rapes, Nones Taking Over, Against Veterans, CIA's Secret Force, Obamacare Contraception Requirement, Occupied Territory, Gaza Without Water, Florida Homeowners Foreclose, 41 Palestinian Children Killed, Science and Faith Incompatible

US preparing for Military Invasion in Syria: Israel
A senior Israeli official says the United States is gearing up for a possible military intervention in Syria to prevent Syria's alleged chemical weapons from being used against civilians or falling into wrong hands.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33452.htm

Another US Senator Makes a Pilgrimage To Israel


FBI Monitored Occupy Wall Street and Treated the Movement as a Potential Terrorist Threat


America’s Frontier Mentality
Here is part of an Associated Press article from Dec. 20: “Declaring the time for action overdue, President Obama promised … to send Congress broad proposals in January for tightening gun laws and curbing violence after last week’s schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33449.htm

Reality Check: The Next Financial Crisis

The calm before the storm?

The Price of Revolutionary Illusions

he 20 school kids slaughtered in their classrooms in Connecticut - and many other children who die of gun violence every day - are a sacrifice that some Americans feel is "worth it" for their personal dreams of waging some violent revolution sometime in the future, whether from the Right or the Left.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15254-focus-the-price-of-revolutionary-illusions

Almost a quarter of female troops become victims of sex assaults in combat zones

Almost half of all US women deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan say they were sexually harassed, while nearly one-quarter claim they were sexually assaulted. The findings shed light on the additional stress military women face when they work abroad.

http://rebel-institute.org/politics/americas/126-united-states/336438-almost-a-quarter-of-female-troops-become-victims-of-sex-assaults-in-combat-zones

2013: The Year Americans Realize They Cannot Afford Any More Wars For Israel

I met a US Marine Corps colonel who had killed a lot of men up close and personal in two of America’s many wars. It did not take more than a minute for him to absorb the truth after I started talking. I recently remarked that Great Britain fought two Opium Wars against China to benefit the Rothschilds and their business partners in the City of London. America is now fighting its second Opium War. The Rothschild Crime Network and its Gentile allies has an annual gross of one trillion dollars a year in illegal drugs and weapons sales. And that is why President Obama was told to keep American troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan until 2024.

http://rebel-institute.org/opinion/tyranny/335091-2013-the-year-americans-realize-they-cannot-afford-any-more-wars-for-israel

Consumer Confidence Plunges, Unadjusted New Homes Sales Slide To Lowest Since February

Just as we saw with UMich, it appears the hope for change is wearing thin among the people. Today's Consumer Confidence data missed by its biggest margin in 7 months, dropped below the year's average, and saw the largest 2-month drop in over 15 months. All age cohorts lost confidence with the eldest most and it appears those earning over $35k are also beginning to worry (as those between $35k and $15k seem more confident). Over 40% expect stock prices to decline and it is expectations that have plummeted from a hope-filled 80.9 to a 13-month low of 66.5.

http://rebel-institute.org/opinion/money/335475-consumer-confidence-plunges-unadjusted-new-homes-sales-slide-to-lowest-since-february

Which stories did the media ignore this year?

The Nones are Taking Over!

When the US set the military against veterans

80 years ago - and no one noticed

Higgs boson theorist criticizes Richard Dawkins over anti-religious ‘fundamentalism’

On one side is Richard Dawkins, the celebrated biologist who has made a second career demonstrating his epic disdain for religion. On the other is the theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, who this year became a shoo-in for a future Nobel prize after scientists at Cern in Geneva showed that his theory about how fundamental particles get their mass was correct.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/27/higgs-boson-theorist-criticizes-richard-dawkins-over-anti-religious-fundamentalism

Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to Obamacare contraception requirement

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a request by the Hobby Lobby chain of arts and crafts stores to temporarily block a provision in the Affordable Care Act making employers responsible for covering the insurance costs of their employees’ birth control, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/26/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-challenge-to-obamacare-contraception-requirement

Rape As Weapon of Domination

http://www.countercurrents.org/abubacker271212.htm

O Little Town In Occupied Territory

http://www.countercurrents.org/fleming271212.htm

Julian Assange, Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali

Thousands remain without water, power one month after attack on Gaza

 On 17 November, four days into Israel’s eight-day assault on the Gaza Strip, deputy Israeli Prime Minister Eli Yishai publicly called for the Israeli army to “blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”

http://electronicintifada.net/content/thousands-remain-without-water-power-one-month-after-attack-gaza/12040

Tables Turn As Florida Homeowners Foreclose On Banks

When the housing bubble burst in Florida, about 400,000 homeowners had their mortgages foreclosed on by the banks and lenders that held them. But now the banks are in trouble for not paying dues and other expenses on those repossessed properties. The homeowners and condo associations are now turning the tables on them.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/12/26/tables-turn-as-florida-homeowners-foreclose-on-banks/

41 Palestinian children killed during the Israeli aggression on Gaza

The report issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory of Human Rights today, pointed out that the Israeli forces killed 41 Palestinian children, including seven infants and 21 under the age of ten, during the military operation which was launched on 14 November following the assassination of a military commander in the armed wing of Hamas.

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/41-palestinian-children-killed-during-the-israeli-aggression-on-gaza/

Why science and faith are incompatible

23.Dec.2012 - Open Shame Letter to Americans, Torture Doesn't Work, 900 Children Kidnapped by Israeli Soldiers (2012), Gun Violence, Killer Children, Moral Urgency of Action, New Vanguard of Transparent Journalism, US Solo in Blocking UN Resolution, Antiwar Activists Can Sue Government Spies, Million+ Documents Will Be Released by Wikileaks, Reasons to Quit the Catholic Church, Drone Pilot's Guilty Conscience, Faith on Trial, more.

An Open Letter To All Americans: Shame On You!
The Sandy Hook shooting should not have surprised you. It’s simply the most recent in a series of multiple murders. Since 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed into a tower on the University of Texas campus in Austin and started picking off random victims, the pattern has been depressingly familiar. The list of massacres rolls off the tongue like a litany: Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Fort Hood, Nickel Mines, Oak Ridge, Sandy Hook…
http://www.countercurrents.org/taylor231212.htm

If more guns will make us as safe as the NRA claims - then why isn't America already the safest nation on earth?

The USA in general and the NRA in particular have reached a new low with the insane claim that more guns will make us safer and we should have armed guards at the doors of every schoolhouse across the nation. If such a ridiculous statement were true then why isn't our country the safest on the planet, given that we already own the majority of weapons?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-more-guns-will-make-us-by-Ted-Newcomen-121222-243.html

Why "Torture Doesn't Work" Doesn't Work: Dealing with "Zero Dark Thirty"

I have visited this major blot upon the US escutcheon a number of times over the past five years (1-3). (Why there are so many blots one could visit and re-visit is a topic for another time.) One would have thought that it was dead and buried, along with the Cheney-Bush regime. In 2005 Bush himself had actually said that torture would not be included in the US armamentarium for dealing with enemies, perceived and real, (not a policy endorsed by the arch torture-facilitator Cheney), and President Obama had announced the renunciation as official US government policy. But now we are forced to revisit the subject by the new propaganda-shtick, Ooops, sorry, I mean movie, "Zero Dark Thirty." For what she has done in re-justifying the use of torture, some have even compared Kathryn Bigelow apparently from the technical side a fine film-maker, to Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi-era photographer, who was indeed a fine photographer.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Torture-Doesn-t-Work-by-Steven-Jonas-121223-558.html

Julian Assange: My work will not be cowed

Israeli Soldiers Kidnapped 900 Children In 2012

The Palestinian Ministry Of Detainees reported that this year witnessed a sharp increase in Israeli violations against Palestinian children, and said that Israeli soldiers kidnapped this year 900 Palestinian children comparing to 700 kidnapped last year.

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/israeli-soldiers-kidnapped-900-children-in-2012-dci_palestine-unicef-unocha-amnesty/

Gun Violence, Massacres, and "Other Developed Countries"

One evening in the spring of 1993 I took a bus across San Francisco, leaving the troubled, largely impoverished neighborhood of the Western Addition, populated mostly by the descendents of African slaves, in which I lived (representing, I suppose, the artistic hippie beginnings of the gentrification process which has since pushed most of San Francisco's Black population across the bay). My closest friend at the time was someone I met because we were housemates in a big apartment. He was a tall man with a long, thick red mane and beaming eyes named Eric Mark. A brilliant engineer with a promising career as such who quit his job and became a cab driver in the interest of experiencing life more fully. Eric and I, along with one friend and two of his acquaintances, were headed to the Mission District, another troubled, impoverished neighborhood, this one populated mostly by the refugees from the wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, generally known as "immigrants."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Gun-Violence-Massacres-a-by-David-Rovics-121222-11.html

Turning Children Into Killers: The Intolerable Pain Of Parental Neglect And Abuse

If you want to generate human wrath, just put a human being in an intolerably painful situation which they cannot resolve or escape. Do not be surprised if they lash out and kill, even many people, if it will end their powerlessness, isolation, and pain. I believe that this is the motivation in effect when these young adults, emotionally still children,
act to kill children.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Turning-Children-Into-Kil-by-Dr-Jay-Kantor-121223-906.html

From Sandy to Sandy Hook: The Moral Urgency of Action

The reason Obama's words at Sandy Hook also speak to the moral urgency of climate action is, I think, because the president has been thinking a great deal about his legacy since winning re-election, thinking about his second-term agenda in terms of how it affects future generations.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15182-from-sandy-to-sandy-hook-the-moral-urgency-of-action

Human Rights Watch: IDF violated laws of war by attacking journalists in GazaIsrael’s killing of two Palestinian journalists and attacks on media facilities during its Gaza offensive last month violated the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/human-rights-watch-idf-violated-laws-of-war-by-attacking-journalists-in-gaza/

The New Vanguard of Journalism and Transparency

hen, in late 2010, Wikileaks started releasing a trove of US diplomatic cables, lawmakers were dumbfounded. The whistleblowing organisation had previously raised ire within the US government for its release of its "Collateral Murder" video, but until the leak of the classified cables, requital seemed uncertain. Then, unable to take legal action against the site because of First Amendment protections, panicky legislators did the one thing they could: Pressure intermediaries to deny service to Wikileaks.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/15180-the-new-vanguard-of-journalism-and-transparency

US Alone in Blocking UN Resolution Opposing Israeli Settlements
But for US veto, Security Council would have passed legally binding resolution obligating Israel to stop settlement plan

http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/19/us-alone-in-blocking-un-resolution-opposing-israeli-settlements/

Court Rules Antiwar Activists Can Sue Government Spies
A federal appeals court involving antiwar activists who were secretly infiltrated by US military spies has ruled in favor of the activists, marking the first time a court has endorsed the people’s ability to sue the military for violating their First and Fourth Amendment rights.
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/18/court-rules-antiwar-activists-can-sue-government-spies/

Julian Assange's Christmas Present: 'Over A Million Documents' Will Be Released
Making a rare appearance on the balcony of Ecuador's London embassy where he has spent the last six months, Julian Assange lashed out against "war criminals," a corrupt media and "timid" academics. Assange also took the opportunity to salute Bradley Manning, jailed journalists and others "whose fates are linked to mine."
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/julian-assanges-christmas-present-over-a-million-documents-will-be-released

Reasons to Quit the Catholic Church: A Coda
Even though I just published a long list of reasons why good people should leave the Catholic church, it seems like new ones are piling up every time I turn around. Herewith are some of the latest arguments for all people of common sense and conscience to sever their association with this corrupt medieval dictatorship.

http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/reasons-to-quit-the-catholic-church-a-coda

10 Key Court Decisions That Prevent Right-Wing Christians from Controlling Your Sex Life

If the Christian Right had its way, the U.S. would be a theocracy.

http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/10-key-court-decisions-prevent-right-wing-christians-controlling-your-sex-life

Governments are not standing to the side anymore
We have seen for the past couple years the cyber wasteland become something that is not dominated by young ambitious hackers anymore. The age of the Wild West is over and the big boys want a piece of the action. With so many infrastructures connected to the web these days it is only natural for more powerful and interested concerns to take their skills to the web. We are seeing the beginnings of true cyber war and it is something that is not going to be stop anytime soon.
http://thehackernews.com/2012/12/governments-are-not-standing-to-side.html

Bankers Launder Billions in Drug Money, Get Slap on Wrist

The Guilty Conscience of a Drone Pilot Who Killed a Child

The German newspaper Der Spiegel has published a moving profile of an American drone pilot who flew armed, remotely piloted missions over Afghanistan, one country where the War on Terror is actually declared. Drone strikes there are run under the supervision of Air Force officers operating under military procedures. For those reasons, it is better hedged against abuse than the drone program run elsewhere by the CIA. The subject of the profile nevertheless lamented the fact that he sometimes had to kill “good daddies,” that he watched targets so thoroughly via drone surveillance that he even attended their funerals – interesting, that – and that as a consequence of the job he collapsed with stress-induced exhaustion and developed PTSD.

http://libertycrier.com/politics/foreign-policy/the-guilty-conscience-of-a-drone-pilot-who-killed-a-child

War on Drugs -a trillion dollars spent

Putting Faith On Trial: Is Religion a Force For Good Or Evil?
 

Thursday Digest [16 August 2012] Part 2

Fazaga v. FBI: Eroding democracy, in two dimensions at once

On Tuesday, August 14, a federal judge issued a disturbing ruling allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to evade public accountability for infiltrating faith institutions, monitoring law-abiding people, recording sexual encounters, and then lying about all of it. Carney’s decision erodes democracy in two dimensions at once, enabling ongoing constitutional violations by the executive branch while, at the same time, eroding judicial independence.

The ruling is especially surprising given the judge’s previous criticism of the FBI for lying to him in court.

http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=9569#.UC3PRallQn1

Seven Tax Return Questions Mitt Romney Left Unanswered Today

Mitt Romney said on Thursday on the campaign trail that he never paid less than a 13 percent tax rate, adding that continued calls for him to release his tax returns are “small-minded.” “I did go back and look at my taxes, and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent,” he said. “And if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/16/700611/romney-seve-tax-return-questions/

Report: US Tax Dollars Funding Exhorbitant CEO Pay

"Our nation’s tax code has become a powerful enabler of bloated CEO pay."

While austerity hits everyday Americans, seemingly scarce tax dollars are being squeezed from their pockets to fund exorbitant CEO pay, according to a report released Thursday from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/16-6

Study: News networks largely ignored climate change during hottest month ever

Media Matters found that ABC and CNN were the worst offenders, with just 2 percent and 4 percent of their extreme weather coverage carrying any mention of climate change, respectively. The left-leaning network MSNBC was the only network to discuss climate change in almost all of its segments on extreme weather during the month of July, the study added.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/16/study-news-networks-largely-ignored-climate-change-during-hottest-month-ever/

Occupy Wall St.: Year One

by dtrainorjr

A video I created with and for the OWS. Get off of the couch, and get into the streets.

Occupy Wall Street started a revolution. One year later, join us for three days of education, training, and protest in New York City. http://s17nyc.org

U.S. lawmakers accuse Walmart of tax evasion and money laundering

The congressmen, Elijah Cummings and Henry Waxman, made their claim in a letter to Walmart Chief Executive Michael Duke dated Tuesday, urging him to respond to requests for information about allegations that the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/15/u-s-lawmakers-accuse-walmart-of-tax-evasion-and-money-laundering/

Supreme Court Starts Giving Corporations Religious Rights, Too

You already knew that the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have First Amendment rights. Now the courts are working on giving them religion, too.

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/supreme-court-starts-giving-corporations-religious-rights-too?akid=9224.219868.BVEIOD&rd=1&src=newsletter694302&t=7

Julian Assange Granted Asylum By Ecuador; Britain Vows To Extradite Him To Sweden

Greenland Sets New Summer Melt Record

Greenland's massive ice sheet has melted at a record-setting pace this year--and summer isn't over yet

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=greenland-sets-new-summer-melt-record&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20120816

Chick-fil-A Comes Home To Roost: Righteous Assassination Attempt At FRC Erupts In Finger Pointing ... And Hypocrisy

Floyd Corkins just handed the Family Research Council its next anti-gay polemic on a silver platter: "homosexual activists are domestic terrorists."   

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Chick-fil-A-Comes-Home-To-by-Rev-Dan-Vojir-120816-221.html

Atomized America of Late Capitalism

In short, approaching life and one's fellows from a mode of mind evincing aspects of the human condition that existed outside the realm of workplace expediency and consumer desire had been diminished to the point of being rendered all but absent. People seemed adrift -- bereft of the ability to cohabit public space. The will towards communal engagement had atrophied.

Essential qualities -- traits that are uniquely human -- had been lost. A wasteland of fragmented discourse and inarticulate rage howled between us.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Atomized-America-of-Late-C-by-Phil-Rockstroh-120815-615.html

Destroying The World For Profit

Whoever contributes to the destruction of the world has to live in the world that they have destroyed. Perhaps a short-term advantage can be gained; perhaps a small private Utopia can be created by acts that harm the general future; but all individual fates will sink like stones in a deep sea, if society as a whole sinks. There will be no protection for anyone, if the world as a whole goes to pieces.

http://www.countercurrents.org/avery160812.htm

Surveillance as a profit center

NYC teams up with Microsoft

The new technology is reminiscent of the Minority Report-style ‘Intellistreets’ talking surveillance camera system being implemented in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh; a system that records your conversations and barks orders at you.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/offensive-technology-1/surveillance-as-a-profit-center.html

GOP Campaign Rocked By Revelation That Mitt Romney is a Disney Robot

In a stunning announcement today, imagineers from Disney World in Orlando, FL have confirmed that presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in fact one of the theme parks' animatronic creations. Disney's animatronics are the lifelike creations that have thrilled parkgoers for years at attractions like the “It’s a Small World” ride, and the Country Bear Jamboree; Mitt Romney is the first animatronic creation known to have run for public office.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/12912/gop-campaign-rocked-by-revelation-that-mitt-romney-is-a-disney-robot

Should Lack Of Exercise Be Considered A Medical Condition?

At some point in the last few decades, the human race went from being a species that is active most of the time to one that is increasingly sedentary. The Lancetrecently called it an "inactivity pandemic," responsible for 1 in 10 deaths worldwide. That's a major shift, and a major public health problem, many researchers have pointed out. Inactivity is linked to heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/15/158831652/should-lack-of-exercise-be-considered-a-medical-condition?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20120816

Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on Marriage Equality?

HRC has just released a first-of-its-kind resource that shows the marriage equality positions of members of Congress.

The new resource is available on HRC’s website as a searchable database. It combines members’ marriage positions with their records on other critical LGBT issues.

The resource shows that 181 members of Congress, or 34 percent, support marriage equality.

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/where-do-your-members-of-congress-stand-on-marriage-equality

Court: Doctor can sue hospital as a whistleblower A doctor who says he’s blowing the whistle on procedures at a Central Valley hospital does not have to first exhaust administrative procedures before he can sue, the California 5th District Court of Appeal says.

“In two recent cases interpreting the California Whistleblower Protection Act … the California Supreme Court held that a state employee sanctioned by an agency need not file a mandate petition against the agency before suing it under the whistleblower statute. The court recognized the Legislature’s intent to encourage employees to report threats to public health without fear of retribution,” the appellate court says. “For the same reason, prior filing of writ proceedings also is not required here.”

http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=21696

Testifying against evictions

Rory Fanning reports on a town hall meeting that brought together Cook County residents personally affected by foreclosure and eviction.

http://socialistworker.org/2012/08/16/testifying-against-evictions

Trends in Party Identification of Religious Groups

As the 2012 presidential election approaches, the partisan affiliations of the electorate have shifted significantly since 2008. In 12 surveys conducted over the course of 2011 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press among a total of more than 15,000 registered voters, 34% described themselves as Democrats, down four points compared with 2008 (38%). Over the same period, the percentage of voters describing themselves as Republicans has held steady at 28%, while the total saying they are politically independent or have no partisan preference has risen four points (from 34% in 2008 to 38% in 2011).

http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Trends-in-Party-Identification-of-Religious-Groups.aspx

US Hypocritically Accuses Iran of Sending Pro-Regime Militias to Syria

Iranian meddling in Syria is condemned, while US-backed regime change by proxy is just.

http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/14/us-hypocritically-accuses-iran-of-sending-pro-regime-militias-to-syria/

Why Republicans Have to Lie

f I were writing a political novel about a presidential campaign, I would never dare have the government-hating, free-market, Rand-adulating vice presidential candidate of the right-wing party have inherited his fortune from a grandfather who made his money from government contracts. It's too obvious, too pat. A fiction editor would say, "Come on, Tomasky, this is just too heavy-handed."

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12962-why-republicans-have-to-lie

DOJ orders changes in Verizon-cable deals to foster competition 

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced Thursday that it will require Verizon [corporate website] and four cable companies to make changes in service agreements to ensure that the agreements do not suppress competition [press release]. In December, Verizon entered into an agreement with T-Mobile [corporate website] to transfer many of its wireless spectrum licenses to T-Mobile. At the same time, Verizon reached agreements with four cable companies—Cox Communications, Comcast,Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks [corporate websites]—in which the companies agreed to sell each other's products. The DOJ declared that while it will allow the deals between Verizon and the cable companies to go forward, it will limit the scope and duration of the agreements.

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2012/08/doj-orders-changes-in-verizon-cable-deals-to-foster-competition.php

Former “Baywatch” star Donna D’Errico fell down a mountain while searching for Noah’s Ark.

In March, Danger told you about Donna D’Errico’s, best known to perverts as Donna Marco on Baywatch (andBaywatch Nights and Baywatch: White Thunder at Glacier Bay) and to everyone else as the host of Battlebots and former wife of walking STD Nikki Sixx, quest to find Noah’s Ark. Well, she’s back. Let’s see how things went.

http://worldduh.com/2012/08/15/former-baywatch-star-donna-derrico-fell-down-a-mountain-while-searching-for-noahs-ark/

Polls Show 90% Of Americans Are Disgusted With Congressional Obstructionism

With Paul Ryan announced as the Vice Presidential candidate alongside of Mitt Romney, the Republicans were hoping to save a collapsing party ticket, catapulting the Republicans into both the White House, but also the Senate. However, instead the latest Gallup poll is demonstrating a general dislike with Congress, with approval in general down to 10%.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/08/15/polls-show-90-of-americans-are-disgusted-with-congressional-obstructionism/

Must the Poor Go Hungry Just So the Rich Can Drive?

We have been cautious about attributing such events to climate change: perhaps too cautious. A new paper by James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, shows that there has been a sharp increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers. Between 1951 and 1980 these events affected between 0.1 and 0.2% of the world's land surface each year. Now, on average, they affect 10%. Hansen explains that "the odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small". Both the droughts in the Sahel and the US crop failures are likely to be the result of climate change.

But this is not the only sense in which the rich world's use of fuel is causing the poor to starve. In the United Kingdom, in the rest of the European Union and in the United States, governments have chosen to deploy a cure as bad as the disease. Despite overwhelming evidence of the harm their policy is causing, none of them will change course.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/12944-must-the-poor-go-hungry-just-so-the-rich-can-drive

Science – the greatest story ever told

Posted on August 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Book Review: A Crisis of Faith – Atheism, Emerging Technologies and the Future of Humanity by Phil Torres

Price: 
Kindle Edition$5.99
Paperback: $19.95
File Size: 498 KB
Print Length: 174 pages
Publisher: Dangerous Little Books (July 18, 2012)
ASIN: B008N06VRK

The last chapter in this book is titled “The Greatest Story Ever Told?” And the rest of the book lays the groundwork for that story. It outlines the scientific approach, based on evidence and reason. Validated against reality.