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Unfortunately the implementation is screwed, and a serious newspaper like Le Monde Diplomatique gets less money than Mickey's newspaper.

Le Monde Diplomatique has many international editions, including in english

If I had mod points, I would rate your comment interesting, but not informative.

I know it is almost impossible to get fair coverage on Venezuela from mainstream press. Most Slashdot readers are fed by anti-Chavez propaganda, and are hence convinced Venezuela is some kind of USSR-like totalitarian regime. They forget that Chavez and Maduro won election that were recognized as fair by everyone.

News favorable to the Venezuelian government are therefore interesting because they tend to balance the bullshit we read everywhere. On the other hand, it is so hard to verify that it is almost not informative. Fortunately, there are rare news outlet that keep doing decent journalism. My favourite is Le Monde Diplomatique, and I will wait for its next issue to get some news about what is going on in Venezuela today.

In order to make real-world use of this model, the health care industry would have us load catapults with doctors and medicines and fling them into Africa.

They're on the right track but with their health care model they're backing the wrong horse. How and when exactly did that endemic sickness that must be countered, arise?

Let's take a look at the world according to cholera [cases reported to WHO 2007-2009]. Cholera flourishes where masses of people have converged on areas without sufficient infrastructure to support them. They often do this in an attempt to escape rural poverty. It also flourishes along major rivers, such as the Ganges and historically the Thames, again where infrastructure for water filtration and sewage treatment is lacking.

Now look at the world according to (lack of) access to electricity [Numbers in Millions and % of People without access to Electricity, 2008. Source: WHO & UNDP]

Electricity means clean water and waste processing.
Cholera hates electricity.

That is because with electricity comes deeper wells, better filtration, distribution, active media filtration of surface sources and sewage treatment with water effluent ready for discharge into rivers -- along with the basics such as refrigeration for food and medicine. It was infrastructure and not better health care that eliminated the threat of cholera in North America, and other diseases besides.

And by electricity I mean real base load electricity, the power to run distribution and filtration plants and whole villages and cities. A full square meal of energy, not the 'energy happy meal toys' that are too often envisioned by North Americans as gifts to Africans -- a solar panel here or a wind turbine there, to run some tiny apartment fridge in some clinic somewhere, or a single LED light, sometimes. Solutions we could not and would not tolerate for ourselves.

The human race (at our favored levels of population density) has evolved past the point where a natural state of good health can be maintained without access to bulk electricity, which equates to drinkable tap water. This is a greater factor than access to doctors or medicine.

Obama is making the right noises about Africa with his $7 billion pledge to help Africa lift itself out of darkness with new sub-Saharan infrastructure. Remember -- this $7 billion is is NOT your hard-earned taxpayer dollars, which are all going toward repayment of interest on our national debt. This is magical unicorn money that will come from World Investment Funds and Bank perpetual money machine that is backed by International Corporate Banks that bought shitloads of worthless paper that were bailed out by Bushobama with the Fed minting virtual money that saved the banks' balance sheets from ruin, and Treasury Bonds purchased by the Chinese who have said fuck-it and have decided to give Africa their time and especially their money directly, some of which would ultimately come from us as repayment on debt to China with China becoming Africa's direct partner in infrastructure instead. This does not make sense on so many levels.

I think the United States is presently screwed on Energy but not in the conspiracy sense. It is this awful mental condition where we have lost sight of 'big electric' and 'big water' infrastructure as something we are truly vested in, regardless of whether we personally own stock in it.

I think it is why discussants in these forums never seem to discuss topics of coal, nuclear and natural gas production of electricity at any length -- and spend so much more time on the minutia

French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique (also known as the "diplo"). International editions are available, including english edition.

I have a few unusual news sources that tend to complete or contradict the stories given by main stream medias: the two most important are le Monde Diplomatique, which now even have an english edition. arretsurimages.net, which is only in french.

It is worth pointing that I pay for that information. None of these two sources are free for the reader and paid by advertising. I am convinced this is a key point for an independent point of view.

Only in this particular debate, the actual scientists agree with Unnamed Democrat. That doesn't quite have the symmetry you were going for, though, right?

That really depends on the debate, doesn't it? We keep hearing that there is "Consensus" about man-made global warming being a fact in shrill tones, with accusations of being anti-science, or a "denier" if you disagree or have reservations. But the simple fact is that there has never been a genuine consensus among all scientists, not even all climatologists, that global warming, to the extent that it exists, is man-made. (Indeed, how often do you see tens of thousands of people agree about anything with no dissenting or differing views at all? I don't think that there are even many dictatorships that claim the vote is 100% for the ruling party anymore.) The faux "consensus" is in fact a means of control and a way to provide an opening for punishing dissent by denying publication, tenure, grants, and damaging reputations. The stakes are enormous: billons of dollars in green energy funding, carbon exchanges, direct government and bureaucratic control of much of the economy and daily life with the proffered goal of controlling carbon emissions. Progressives and leftists have always wanted more government power to regulate the economy. No wonder the Communists march about global warming - ironic given the Soviet record on the environment.

The Climategate emails are quite revealing.

Peer-Review Thuggery

Climategate 2.0

Consider an email written by Mr. Mann in August 2007. "I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests. Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy." Doug Keenan is a skeptic and gadfly of the climate-change establishment. Steve McIntyre is the tenacious Canadian ex-mining engineer whose dogged research helped expose flaws in Mr. Mann's "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures.

One can understand Mr. Mann's irritation. His hockey stick, which purported to demonstrate the link between man-made carbon emissions and catastrophic global warming, was the central pillar of the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report, and it brought him near-legendary status in his community. Naturally he wanted to put Mr. McIntyre in his place.

The sensible way to do so is to prove Mr. McIntyre wrong using facts and evidence and improved data. Instead the email reveals Mr. Mann casting about for a way to smear him. If the case for man-made global warming is really as strong as the so-called consensus claims it is, why do the climategate emails show scientists attempting to stamp out dissenting points of view? Why must they manipulate data, such as Mr. Jones's infamous effort (revealed in the first batch of climategate emails) to "hide the decline," deliberately concealing an inconvenient divergence, post-1960, between real-world, observed temperature data and scientists' preferred proxies derived from analyzing tree rings?

This is the real significance of the climategate emails. They show that major scientists who inform the IPCC can't be trusted to stick to the science and avoid political activism. This, in turn, has very worrying implications for the major international policy decisions adopted on the basis of their research.

Taliban was never a "big" enemy.

Sure, it depends on how you define "big" - they may have never actually gone to war, but certain events suggest that there was a lot of bad blood and covert ops between them, and war was never far off:

1) The Taliban's harsh treatment of Afghanistan's Shi'a minority outraged Iran

2) Iran materially and financially supported the Northern Alliance fighting against the Taliban in the Afghan civil war. It is alleged that, as well as supplying them with millions of dollars of weapons and ammunition, plus training, Iran also allowed friendly militias to cross the border and shelter in Iran.

3) The Taliban seized the Iranian consulate and executed Iranian diplomats and intelligence officers. This brought Iran and the Taliban very close to all out war (it was reported that something like a quarter million Iranian troops were massed on the border ready for war, though later reports revise that figure down). 1998_Iranian_diplomats_assassination_in_Afghanistan

4) The ongoing drugs war between Taliban smugglers and Iranian security forces, a war in which thousands of Iranians have been killed (this article claims 3 Iranians are killed every day). The Iranian government is firmly opposed to drugs, and the Taliban gets the majority of its funding from drugs, of which the transit route to Europe through Iran is of particular importance. There has been little space for compromise here.

I assumed the OP was alluding to the past, since he used that "history" word. But if you want to talk about now, please do so.... how exactly has Iran tried to "expand its borders" in the last couple of years? I really would like to know. As far as I can see (and contrary to the images portrayed by some Western media) the Iranian government hasn't invaded anyone, hasn't "settled" or captured any land, and has in fact been praised by the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq for being a good and helpful neighbor.

The government of Iran were also a major regional enemy of the Taliban - after declaring opium unlawful, the Iranian government eradicated the domestic trade in 18 months, and started fighting the Taliban smugglers who use Iran as a transit route to Europe. Three Iranian security agents are killed every day in this "war"; the total killed numbers in the thousands, and they almost went to war with the Taliban when they governed Afghanistan. This is something that our media forget to mention when they try to to convince us that Iran is the bad guy allied with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

I am no apologist for the Iranian government. From our liberal west point of view, we may not like the religious society that they want to create, but compared to ourselves their territorial ambitions seem to have been remarkably limited. Are they the ones that have invaded our neighbors? Are they the ones with soldiers deployed along our borders? Are they the ones constantly meddling in the politics of north America or Europe? Did they ever overthrow a western government and install a dictator? No. And yet, we have done all of these things to them. No wonder they dislike us.

Disagreeing with a government is not a reason to go to war:

"Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems."

"War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships."

It would be helpful to know that although those tv stations were directly linked to the 2002 coup Chavez had not gone after them at the time.

I would also like to inform me about another dictator that has gained 70% of the votes at the elections that the US said that were 100% legitimate,or another dictator that has eliminated iliteracy in his country, that has brought cheap sate food shops to the starving from free market people thus eliminating hunger, and has provided the poorest with free quality healthcare.

I think you mean Jerry Pournelle. He's definitely not entirely innocent of the SDI debacle.

Especially if you think CNN is as left as Fox is right. If you want to balance Fox, try Le Monde Diplomatique.

Are you still reading newpapers? On the Web? Do you prefer watching news?

Personally, I m only reading newspaper on the web (http://www.lemonde.fr http://www.liberation.fr/ http://www.lalibre.be/ http://www.lesoir.be/ and less http://www.lefigaro.fr/ http://www.letemps.ch./ Even if people describes me to be more on the right (for Belgium, translate as communist in the USA :) ), i prefer leftish newspaper. But I like to be able to read different point of view and then make an opinion about myself. Still i find the quality of the writing to be weaker than before. If you now a subject well, you see obvious errors.

Now, i still buy 2 papers every month : "le monde diplomatique" (in http://mondediplo.com/) and "foreign affairs" ( http://www.foreignaffairs.com/) both are very interessing and they are following high standard, I also read the Economist from time to time. I wouldnt want to read them on the web because each article is quite dense and asl myself to focus on it. I would like to have the same depth into classical newpaper but alas :(.

I think Democracy needs Journalism. In democracy, voters must vote for the best candidate. And how would you do without knowing? I think that both Education and Information need to be analyse in the light of how good they are to Democracy

To come back to the proposition, I think is not neccesaraly wrong, this could allow some smaller publication to exist and that will bring more diversity where before the News Conglomerate were tending to uniformity.

First paragraph is true and most people see that.

The bit about MEMRI is also true, and unfortunately not a lot of people know how that organisation selectively and misleadingly translates documents.

http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/15069/135/
http://mondediplo.com/2005/10/15propaganda (subscription required)

And there's more that I can't be arsed to link to.

JG

and a couple of other SF Writers-nutjobs were advisers to Reagan on Star Wars - see assorted nutjobs advise another on the conquest of space and look how well that's going. What can go wrong?

argue that corporations as a class gave support to any particular political movement is something that needs more rigorous research - and I haven't seen it so far in this case.

German history of the NSDAP is full of research about this. The NSDAP was funded by the German (and international) business world, full stop. And the NSDAP delivered in exchange what the corporations wanted: fear, submission, and slave labor.

I'm sure some bourgeois sons and daughters sponsored the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the same time as the combined political and economic power of their daddies' corporations fed the NSDAP. But the two phenomenons are not comparable. Industrialists like Thyssen and Krupp (of the steel corporations) poured money and reputation into the NSDAP, and the money contributions were institutionalized as Adolf-Hitler-Spende der deutschen Wirtschaft (Adolf Hitler Donation of the German Industry). The German Wikipedia article on the NSDAP has a section about support of the NSDAP by the German industry and commerce. For starters, read the history of Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Volkswagen, and German banks.

If you haven't found evidence, then you haven't looked. Numerous German and Austrian corporations finally got around to (or had to, in some cases) pay reparations for their crimes over recent years.

Have you ever wondered why the third world is poor compared to the first world? ... The primary reason that the third world is not the first world is because the governments of the third world fail miserably at defining and protecting private property rights.

No, the primary reason is a legacy of colonialism and exploitation from the age of European empires. (The opportunity to form such empires being largely a result of geographic advantages.)

Inf fact, modern third-world governments do a fine job of protecting property rights - of multinational corporations. It's actual citizens who lose out.

Property rights are useful tool for ensuring that primary natural rights are respected and fulfilled. Human beings need homes and tools and toys. We need the ability to make private decisions, and without some private property, we can't do that; if i don't own my guitar, I can't choose what songs to play.

All well and good. But when property becomes destructive of those ends, when property becomes a tool for hoarding the resources of the planet, for concentrating control of capital into the hands of a state-backed owning and ruling class, then we need to realize that ideas that can usefully be applied to guitars, cannot necessarily be usefully applied to large tracts of land, natural resources, or ideas - and certainly not to shares in control of, and profit from, the actions of immortal fictitious citizens created by government fiat.

Mistaking property as a primary right is the fundamental error of most strains of "libertarian capitalism".

The corporation is responsible for the economic growth of the last three hundred years

Growth that has left us with half the planet living on two dollars a day or less; that has the richest handful of human beings controlling more wealth than the combined GDP of a quarter of all the world's nations; has left a large part of the human race feeling that subsistence vegetable farming would be a step up.

This strikes me as a highly suboptimal result.

Especially as the price of WMDs comes down, we cannot safely sustain such a bizarre arrangement.

You are suggesting that we should remove from our legal framework the very structures that permit us to define and adjudicate those property rights most efficiently...The government does not "interfere" in the marketplace by allowing certain legal constructs to exist that facilitate its role in adjudicating private property disputes through the civil judicial system.

Creating modern publicly-traded corporations is not "adjudicating private property disputes"; it is the state giving birth to immortal sociopaths, with all the rights and almost none of the responsibilities of actual human citizens.

Just a note for those who don't click through everything: I believe that the fourth article ("Intensify the witch-hunt") in lixee's post is far more interesting and far-reaching than the others. Don't miss it!

racism by the majority is rightfully condemned, but some minorities seem to be able to get away with inciting hatred.

At this point, it's fairly evident that people will listen to the media of their choosing. If a large segment of the population is out of touch with reality because they think one source has it right and alllll the others are insane, it's really their fault, and our obligation to have to defend their right to speak and vote in a free society where their votes count just as much as ours. We just have to deal with it.

The politicians can try, but I don't see the solution coming from Washington no matter how well-intentioned its proponents may be. Do you want fair and balanced coverage and have some time to spare? Read a larger variety of news sources, from multiple countries, from multiple points of view. You will gain a sense of who's biased how, and make first-hand decisions about who is being more reasonable and honest.

I have my own sites that I follow. Some air a specific point of view, but listening only to the echo chamber will weaken your perspective. Here is one site that I think does a fantastic job of presenting a wide range of views for your consideration.

And then, here are the rounds I usually make:

BBC world news
Google News
The Daily Star, an English-language Lebanese newspaper
The New York Times
The Guardian, a British news source
Le Monde, the English edition
Al Jazeera's English language page, like it or hate it
World Net Daily, if you want to know what the Christian Right is up to

Now, good luck.

I say this as someone who really likes Kucinich and would vote for him anyday.

I think that most 'true' hard-core geeks tend to be very liberal, perhaps having something to do with reading/watching Science Fiction stories, as the best of them often emphasize compassion, understanding and attempt to acknowledge society's ills.

Compassion and acknowledging society's ills are hardly limited to liberals.

Slashdot has a strong Libertarian trend, and the Left is well represented as well, especially when the Europeans and expatriates start chiming in.

If you caught idiots such as them on an honest day, you will find that they intentionally push their 'views' farther 'right' than they themselves believe, as many foolish people cling to the idea that 'the truth is in the middle', and by pushing their slander they hope to shove the public to their view points. I don't believe that kind of posturing is possible on the 'left' as liberals don't seem to stand for it.

You don't have to look hard on the left to find vitriol, nutters, all manner of other ideas, various troubling developments and unbalanced views. That isn't even starting to scratch the surface.

"Their [wealthy individuals'] hold on the benefits of economic growth, which keeps on increasing, has become a key characteristic of US society. A study by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert J Gordon of Northwestern University confirms this trend, without even taking into account capital gains. Between 1966 and 2001 the median salary in the US increased by only 11% in real terms. But the 10% of workers who are the highest-paid registered a 58% increase in income, and the curve climbed ever more steeply to reach a 121% gain for the top 1%, 256% more for the 0.1% richest and 617% more for the 0.01% most prosperous (7). Sharing is a thing of the past. The winner now takes all (8)."

"This was not always the case: "Historically," wrote Clive Crook, "rising productivity has been a tide that lifted nearly all boats. For more than 20 years during the long surge of productivity growth that followed the second world war, median incomes in the United States rose as quickly as the highest incomes" (9)."

This would seem to say that while there may not be a "step backwards", the median US salary is stagnant. So perhaps all these poor people with cell phones and ipods are buying them in place of what they used to buy.

Indeed! http://mondediplo.com/2006/05/16bigpharma

• If Israel lessens the restrictions on the checkpoints, experience proves this results in many Israeli terrorist casualties.
  
• If Israel lets humanitarian causes through (Ambulances, Pregnant women, wheelchaired people) this results in many Israeli casualties (Hamas has hidden explosives in Ambulances, fake pregnant bellies, and in wheel chairs).
  
• If Israel removes checkpoints and gives up control of territories (which it is wants to very much), these become sources of terrorists and result in many Israeli casualties.
  

Saying Israel is a "de-facto Apartheid" is a little, tad, bit, extreme. People of different backgrounds and cultures chose to live separately, and set up different residential areas. Jews and Arabs live side by side in Israel, without a forced segregation.

So maybe you should snap out of this illusion that peace is right around the corner, and it only takes some Israeli gut to make it. There's a lot more to do in the Arab nations for peace than there is in Israel.

It is not cheap although it sometimes appears to be through heavy governemental subventions.

It is not safe, and without even touching the waste problem, warnings come on a regular basis to remind us this fact. And of course it won't last forever.

To the problem of energy and the closely linked water consumption, there is but one solution : to lower and rationalize.

Nothing new here. Banks are under pressure from the US to prevent the democratically elected government of Palestine from getting vital foreign aid money. http://mondediplo.com/2006/06/03hamas/

You may also do some searches on Google Scholar.

As far as I know, before British and Jewish occupation Palestinians have been a peaceful nation.
Your argument makes sense if we assume that there's nothing wrong with the Jewish settlement in the middle-east. How would've you liked it if instead of rellocating them to Palestine, the U.N. decided in 1947 to put them right next to wherever you live? (I know it's impossible as you probably are from the U.S., but just think about it). I, for one, would have resisted the occupation by all means.
I highly recommend this excellent article in this month issue of "Le monde diplomatique" http://mondediplo.com/2006/03/02islam

"Learn some facts before you start spouting crap like that."

    Dude, I'm gonna try and be nice and avoid the rabid insults. I'm even also going to provide you with facts that you are obviously unaware of.

(http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp_cap) Notice Israels GDP/capita is just above Guam in spot 34. THIRTY FOUR!!! I would say that makes my statement correct that Israel is a second rate economy no?

    As for MRI it was developed by Lauterbur and Mansfield (who won the Noble prize for it) and who to my knowledge are American and British. Check again.

The 8088 was created mostly in the good old USA by Intel (a nobrainer). But hey it's a global marketplace and who knows maybe some of it was designed in Israel too. (OK I'm right there too)

Israeli "democracy demographics at work

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demo graphy/traubman.html

http://mondediplo.com/2003/11/04apartheid (this second article mentions how DESMOND TUTU (Noble winner) makes the direct connection between apartheid and Israel. My usage was not an extremist view unless you view Noble peace prize winners as extremists too! I would recommend a search of google "demographics israel" and see what pops up.

      I'm reporting the news not making it. You obviously need to learn the difference between supporting your ideology and examining all the facts--not just the ones that fit your politics. Slashdot is not a place to argue anything without facts. Poker bluffs and grandstanding won't cut it here. I would seriously review your opinions on the middle east situation as well. The facts I provided in the post are accurate and I'm not going to be drawn into a debate with you on the questionable ethics of Israel. Your hot headed personal insults likely indicates very strong biases.

Volkswagen, literally "people's car," has been producing vehicles in Germany since its original founder, Adolf Hitler, brainstormed their first concept. Their niche was once to build a car that the everyday Aryan could afford, and to bring strength by empowering their people to commute cheaply and effectively where they needed to go. Today, Volkswagen is much more, representing an entry-level German nameplate for automobile owners to get the trademarks set by every German automobile: great styling, great handling, and prohibitively expensive repairs.

Their product repertoire includes several historical namesakes from previous generations, as well as modern day contenders in the 21st century automobile market. The New Beetle and the Jetta are Volkswagen's entry level vehicles for German beginners. Moving up the chain brings you the Passat and the Golf, for European luxury in midsize prices. At the top of the chain brings the near-luxury Touareg (German for "SUV") and Phaeton (German for "German Luxury"). What Volkswagen wants you to forget, however, is their rich lineage which spawned today's vehicles.

Founded in 1932 by the famed Nazi leader, his first project was to design a vehicle which would aid in building the strength of the fascist state. The car would be built to mimic the symbolic ideals of the cult-like ruling Nazi party. The Beetle, it was to be called, would be Volkswagen's first foray into enabling the Nazi leaders to commute to battle meetings to coordinate the death of the Allies. Throughout the War of Europe and subsequently World War II, Volkswagen earned the Nazi regime heavy profits due to its rapid expansion and slave labor. This, in turn, allowed Volkswagen to expand plants to newly-acquired German territory in Russia, as well as Czechoslovakia.

After the crumbling of the Nazi party, and effectively the entire German social structure in 1945, Volkswagen was left without its founder and entire management structure. Influenced by the opportunity of quick expansion, wealthy British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Sr. invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the plants to retool them for postwar production throughout Europe. Volkswagen was then reborn to make models that would carry its rich heritage to nations left unaffected by its founder.

Throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's, the world went through major changes as a global economy started trickling into every nation.

• Service is available to everyone, rich or poor, profitable area or not.
• Seamless. The same service is everywhere in the region, not a patchwork quilt of services like we see offered by private enterprise today.
• Everyone benefits. Even non-users benefit from the increased access, communication, and education that others derive. I don't have to drive on a road myself to benefit from it: perhaps my mail, food, and books are delivered by trucks that use it.

Long Term Capital Managment had Nobel Prize winners doing their risk management and look where that ended, a nice multi-billion dollar tax-payer funded bail-out:

LTCM, a hedge fund above suspicion
Wikipedia entry

hard hitting journalisim (sic) backed up with facts and the reputation of a corporation

Errr, hate to burst your bubble, but since when has "corporate reputation" ever had anything to do with facts?

Enron? The Insurance Industry? Banking?

Well written blogs can easily be as well researched as corporate news - with the added bonus that they don't have to pander to their bosses, or ignore certain issues altogether. When was the last time you read about meetings of the Bilderberg group? The BBC's the only article I can find right now on a reputable website. But, if you can stand the paranoia, you can find a lot more on Bilderberg.org.

OK, let's rephrase that. Perhaps they check their facts, but they are also selective about which facts to report. If it isn't reported, is it news?

I live in LA, and I just can't read the local news. Le Monde Diplomatique fills my depth of news worries, and the BBC is the only online source I have reasonable faith in :)

Blogs are are an excellent addition and, especially in the US, often the only voice of sanity.

The recent presidential campaign provides an ideal illustration. When were either of the candidates seriously challenged by the media? (for the Brits out there) Can anyone imagine what it would be like if Bush or Kerry were being interviewed on Newsnight by Paxman. Carnage!

Rant inconclusive, incomplete, but run out of steam.

cLive ;-)

America is the home of the egotistical, the hypocrites, the polluters of the world.

1. Denmark: 5.1% (optimal)
   
2. USA: 5.6% (near optimal, same as our "peak" in the 90s).
   
3. Canada: 7.2% and improving, probably partially thanks to the improving U.S. economy. People would want to see heads rolling at this rate in the U.S., though.
   
4. France: a miserable 9.6%. Apparently that 35 hour work week was a wonderful idea.
   
5. Germany: 10.6%.
   

"Everybody see

But this page shows the change in holdings of U.S. Treasury Securities for the year 2003. I noticed a huge spike for China and I wonder if that is debt we are accumulating from within the U.S., or if they are buying the debt from other countries. As it stands now, they probably own about 25% (roughly) of the total debt. (Pause for reflection.)

I find it sadly ironic that the biggest communist country, China, owns one quarter of the bastion of capitalism, the U.S. (Using the "popular" definitions of the systems we have, respectively.)

What do you all think would happen if they bought up ALL of our debt?

If you respond to this post, please try arguing with the points and opinions I have actually expressed, rather than the points and opinions you imagine I should hold.

The fact is that Iraq was not uncooperative to the point that war was the only solution... In reality, it did cooperate, but US deliberatly did not want to give credit to this (hence not lifting the embargo and the like), logically setting back Iraq's efforts. The US-Iraq war will stay in history as a war provocated by the US because the US did not want Saddam to stay in power.

From this:

"Baghdad's tough line was predictable. The Iraqi leaders had run into a dead end. UN sanctions had already lasted almost seven and a half years and they could see no way of getting them lifted in the foreseeable future. UNSCOM had carried out almost seven hundred inspections, only half a dozen of which had given rise to incidents. But despite the endless checks, and countless operations involving the destruction, neutralisation and dismantling of Iraqi facilities, the Security Council had still not lifted the sanctions. UNSCOM reports had stated repeatedly that Iraq's potential to manufacture weapons of mass destruction had been demolished and that the possibilities of concealment were very limited. But on each occasion, the reports were deemed to justify extension of the UNSCOM mandate and the continuation of sanctions. The previous chairman of the commission, Rolf Ekeus, had even been known to alter the content of a report after intervention by the State Department.

The Iraqi leaders no longer had any reason to believe that implementation of the UN resolutions would provide a way out of the impasse. Indeed, most observers of American policy in the region are convinced that Washington's real aim is to keep Iraq permanently weakened, both physically and politically. Baghdad concluded that its only option, even at the cost of a major crisis, was to focus attention directly on America's exclusive use of UNSCOM for its own foreign policy purposes. "

Oh yes, and it was in december 1997.

There is also foreign concerns about the US ownership concentrations. The highly respectable newspaper Le Monde diplomatique, has the following article United States: an unfree press describing the results of US ownership structure.

There is also foreign concerns about the US ownership concentrations. The highly respectable newspaper Le Monde diplomatique, has the following article United States: an unfree press describing the results of US ownership structure.

How many political dissidents are in US prisons? I mean besides the people who are there because they ingested drugs or because they don't have the huge sum of money to pay bail even 'tho it's a good chance they are innocent. I mean actual dissidents - like someone who goes online at a widely read journal and calls the president a parasite.

Russia's only non-government controlled TV network has been dissolved by order of that government. In fact, Putin would like to have the head of the network "putin" jail despite the fact another court (outtside the jurisdiction of the kremlin) found he had commited no actual crime.

The other states are no longer part of the FSU, of course, but in other now "democratic" countries (like Ukraine) criticizng the government in the press may not even get you due process - instead you may be found hanging like a side of rotting beef. Or maybe even beaten to death in the street.

It's getting bad... but it's not nearly as bad here as it could get.

Since you are trolling, don't forget that other countries use and threaten to use nasty weapons.

It's interesting to note that this event did not make the papers or the television news broadcasts.

Perhaps your "media" are not interested in saying anything positive in favor of the government.

Here is an
interesting read.

No wonder the Venezualian "middle class" is one of the most brainwashed society in Latin america.

Maybe it's so forward looking that nobody really understood what was going on. Maybe nobody there believes in anything the government does (lots of good reasons exist for this).

Hmmm...

When you say "nobody", please specify that you are really saying nobody in the middle class of european descent (20% of the population) which is the only part of the population you seem to care about!

It's really revealing when a small group of the population try to hijack democracy while calling themselves "the civil society". Of course, the remaining 80% of the population is not civil society. They're just a mob of ignorant pro-Chavez. Anyway who gave them the right to elect a president we do not approve ?
Because we did not vote for him, he's a dictator.
That why we have the right to overthrow him.That's called democracy.

Hey don't feel bad. GWB thinks alike.

Have a nice coup.

Moral media isn't dead. You just have to look harder for it.

Now that the Sept 11th jingoism has died down and it's starting to be a non-terminal offence to express discontent versus the powers that be, you're starting to see the creepings of independent thought show up even in CNN. Up here in Canada, CTV's been doing it for a while. But even then there's a huge under-reporting of stories that would knock the comfort zone of the average person.

The basic problem is this -- any media outlet is a slave to the mandate of its publisher. This isn't really new, it's as old as newspapers themselves (it used to be that if you wanted to be a politician it was a shrewd move to found your own newspaper). So, if you've got nothing but biased media out there, the only way to really inform yourself is to (a) check up on all the biases and try to develop your own conclusions from them, and (b) realize that there's no substitute for actually being at the scene of the event, or at the very least talking to someone who is.

People who critique the media as having a bias often make the mistake of trying to sound like it's forced upon them, when really, you can choose to go out and find different information from a different source. Some options include:

ZNet

The Guardian

The Independent

Le Monde Diplomatique (English version here)

Tom Tommorow

It also helps in times of conflict to go to the media outlets or websites of your political enemies to see what they're saying. It's amazing how they often take as gospel a premise that is completely different from your own. It's also amazing how often the exact same coercive techniques are used by both sides. Makes you wonder if there are average citizens over there are pissed off at their media as much as some of us are at ours.

By the way, I know I went off on a bit of a tangent, but if you click on any of the links above you'll see minimal coverage of the Elizabeth Smart case. There might be a story in there at some point to tell everyone how it all turns out, but nothing like the usual CNN sensationalism. The point is, if you don't like your media, don't go back to it -- go elsewhere. It's not like we have battered wife syndrome or something.

(or maybe we do???)

By the way, Boutros is a variant of the name which is spelled Peter by us English speakers [1]. Gahli might be translated as [2]``Pumpkin-eater''. You can find other information about him by following these links. One can hope that information is more accurate than this.

[1] I believe that this is true.
[2] Alternatively, it might be translated as something else. But this is funny.