#12: 04.12.31=5: Russia-China-Taiwan-US #2: Russia-India

"Indo-Russian partnership builds democracy: Putin" Friday, 31 December , 2004, 08:09 http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13640094

#11: 04.12.30=5: Oh, Iraq! #2

1) Oh, Iraq! #2 (1) "Civilization versus Barbarism? : An Interview with Noam Chomsky", [by] M. Junaid Alam with Noam Chomsky, Dec. 27, 2004's Left Hook, "A Radical Youth Journal Based in the US: December marks the first full year of publication...": http://www.lefthook.org/Interviews/AlamChomsky122304.html "" On December 17th, Left Hook co-editor M. Junaid Alam met with Professor Noam Chomsky at his MIT office to get his thoughts on the ideological justifications and historical realities behind America's "war on terror." Professor Chomsky spent a half-hour taking apart the framework of "civilization" versus "barbarism," pointing to Western and particularly US state-sponsored atrocities, laying out the grave nature of war crimes committed in Iraq, attacking the intellectual culture which sanctions massive suffering, and explaining the elite's knowledge of the roots of terrorism. Below is the audio link and then the transcript for the interview. "" "" Alam: Professor Chomsky, thank you for doing this interview with Left Hook. In the time we have, I wanted to discuss with you the consequences and implications of America's current war stance, how some of its programs or objectives might be interrelated. The first thing I wanted to bring up is, it seems that the general ideological picture painted for us by the administration and conservative outlets is that the overall so-called war on terror is about the "civilized" world combating "barbarism," a position Business Week recently voiced. In what ways do you think is - in what ways do you think this is historically or politically inaccurate, in terms of the scale and intensity of the crimes committed by ourselves versus the "barbarians," presumably Islamists and nationalists in Iraq and Palestine? Chomsky: Well, it doesn't even come close. I mean, the level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups. I mean just take, say, Iraq. The best current estimate of deaths after the invasion is 100,000 maybe more, maybe less. Take a long time for Islamic terrorists to kill 100,000 people. Take say, the most extensive terrorist act attributed to Islamic terrorists, 9-11. About 3,000 people killed, which is a pretty horrible atrocity. But as atrocities go, it doesn't rank very high. Take for example, what south of the Rio Grande is often called the other 9-11. September 11th, 1973, in which the United States was very heavily involved -- that's the bombing of the presidential palace, the military coup, the death of the president, the destruction of the leading democracy, the oldest democracy, in Latin America. The official death toll for that 9-11 is - the official death toll is over 3,000, but that's just the bodies they can actually count. The estimated toll is probably twice that. If you give that number in comparative terms, comparative population terms, that'd be the equivalent of about 50 to 100,000 people killed in the United States. We've just learned recently the detailed numbers of people tortured -- it's 30,000, that's 700,000 in the United States, thousands of cases of rapes and other abuse, and many people just lost, disappeared, who knows what happened to them. It also set up international terrorist operations, under the rubric of what was called Operation Condor, which brought together similar state terrorist organizations in neighboring countries which the US also had a major role in establishing -- The US intelligence compared DINA, the Chilean state terror organization, compared them to the Gestapo and KGB. They didn't fool around, and that's the way they were viewed by the United States while the US was supporting them, and Britain was supporting them enthusiastically, and so on. In fact their international terror activities only stopped when they went one step too far. They murdered a well-known diplomat in Washington DC, and that's not allowed, so they were sort of called off and stayed pretty brutal, but not that bad. ""

#10: 04.12.28=2: Secess.#6:Voluntaryists; Russia-China-Taiwan-US #1; Oh, Iraq!

1) Secessionism #6: Voluntaryists "" Statement of Purpose: Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends. "" http://www.voluntaryist.com/ "" "Your Papers, Please!" The Origin and Evolution of Official Identity in the United States, by Carl Watner, From Issue Number 121 The chief principle of a well-regulated police state is this: That each citizen shall be at all times and places ... recognized as this or that particular person. No one must remain unknown to the police. This can be attained with certainty only in the following manner: Each one must always carry a pass with him, signed by his immediate government official, in which his person is accurately described. There must be no exception to this rule. "" http://www.voluntaryist.com/articles/121a.php 2) Russia-China-Taiwan-US #2 (1) "U.S., Russian nuclear missiles remain on hair-trigger alert", Knight Ridder News http://shorterlink.com/?808H6Z Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration's refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request - since defeated in the Senate - for about $500 million for research on a so-called "bunker buster'' nuclear weapon and low-yield "mini-nukes.'' Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing "the newest nuclear missile systems ... that other nuclear states do not have.'' He offered no further details about the weapons. A number of political analysts believe Putin's comments - which were unprepared remarks made to a group of senior commanders at the Ministry of Defense - were intended to boost military morale and for domestic political consumption. "I'm sure it was nothing surprising to the U.S.,'' said Kobyakov, noting that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty obliges each side to provide technical data on any new nuclear weapons. Kobyakov and others believe Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M missile, which has long been in the Russian pipeline, and a sea-launched missile that's being developed. There are rumors in military circles in Moscow that the new missile could be maneuvered in flight, unlike current ballistic missiles, to foil the Bush administration's planned national missile defense system. One senior Russian general cryptically called it "a hypersonic flying vehicle.'' Government officials in both countries are keen to point out that they've stopped targeting each other with their nuclear missiles, although experts say this "detargeting'' is political hokum. The old targeting data and missile trajectories are stored in command computers, Kobyakov said. And missiles can be retargeted in a matter of seconds: A couple of mouse clicks on a computer would put Washington, Miami or Moscow back in the nuclear crosshairs. But it's the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses. "The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless,'' said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology. Holes in Russia's satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean that U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all. Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system "may never be in place.'' Stanislav Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol's assessment. "That's right, not enough satellites,'' he said. "We never had enough.'' Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. "" (2) "Russia and China plan war games", BBC News, UK edition. "" Russia and China - former Cold War foes - will hold an unprecedented military exercise in the second half of 2005. "" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4128337.stm "" The war game, involving naval ships and aircraft, will take place on Chinese territory, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said. Main supplier Russian observers say that China gets half of Russia's weapons exports. Mr Ivanov visited China earlier and described his discussions on Russian weapons deliveries as "record-breaking". Moscow and Beijing share the concept of a multi-polar world - opposing what they see as US global dominance. Mr Ivanov said that in 2005 Russia would also hold joint exercises with other former Soviet countries, Nato and, separately, with France. "" (3) "China Expands. Europe Rises. And the United States . . .", by Fred Kaplan, The New York Times, Sunday 26 December 2004 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122804F.shtml "" On March 1, the European Union announced that it was raising import tariffs on a long list of American products, and would go on raising them each month until Congress repealed a subsidy for American exporters that had been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Congressmen railed against this intrusion but finally gave in. Americans realized that, in the global economy they largely created and for 60 years dominated, they could no longer do whatever they wanted. Last month, China's president, Hu Jintao, embarked on a 12-day tour of Latin America, and wound up making commitments to invest $30 billion in the region. China is now Brazil's second largest trading partner and Chile's largest export market. In trade, technology, investment, education and culture, China has been displacing the United States all across Asia, and is now starting to do the same in America's backyard. There is nothing necessarily alarming about an expansive China or an emergent Europe, except perhaps that they coincide with a growing American dependence on both "" (4) "China Backs Iran Against The Great Satan" Combine China's recent Iranian energy mega-deal with Vladimir Putin's new strategic coalition, which includes nuclear-capable Brazil, and it rapidly becomes clear that New York's "Fortress Americas" fallback initiative is already dead in the water Copyright: Joe Vialls, 22 December 2004 http://www.vialls.com/myahudi/greatsatan.html "" Twenty years ago 'The Great Satan' referred only to a collection of murderous Zionist Jews who illegally invaded Palestine in the 1940s, to butcher the residents and steal their land for Ben Gurion's "Yisrael". But as Zionists later took firm control of the United States, and forced the use of American soldiers in the 1990 Gulf War against Iraq, a subtle change slowly took place. In the minds of about 70 percent of the global population, America had simply become Zionist Headquarters, and was thus itself anointed 'The Great Satan'. Nowadays the contempt and hatred of the civilized world is being directed against ordinary American citizens, who in the future will pay a heavy price for failing to remove a handful of Zionist madmen from Wall Street while they still had the chance to do so. The rest of the world will no longer tolerate the megalomanic 'New Zion', and is now taking active steps to destroy it. "" (5) "Democracy in the Former Soviet Union: 1991-2004", Report Drafted by:Yevgeny Bendersky, PINR, 28 Dec. 2004: "" The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is a global organization that provides analyses of conflicts and other international events. PINR seeks to provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. We approach a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. "" "" What did not happen from the start, and what is only now slowly becoming apparent, is that civil society in the F.S.U. lacked proper education on even basic democratic principles. Newly found political freedom roughly translated into free elections for the majority of the people, but they knew next to nothing about other principles that are so crucial to a vibrant, working democracy. The importance of properly prepared civil society was demonstrated repeatedly in U.S. and U.N. efforts at establishing the rule of law in post conflict societies around the world after 1991. In countries as diverse as East Timor and Bosnia, properly prepared civil society was the keystone that determined the success or failure of a given international mission. Its importance was crucial to the F.S.U. as well, but there, democracy became a process that was largely instituted from the top-down, with the masses sidelined in crucial decision-making or policy-setting agendas. "" 3) Oh, Iraq! http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5092438-103550,00.html "" Comment "Yes, you must pull out - but also pay for the damag: The US isn't protecting or feeding Iraqis, it's stoking violence and hardship", Naomi Klein, Monday, December 27, 2004 Guardian "" http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/10/981009-in.htm "" Senate Unanimously Passes Iraq Liberation Act, Oct 7 Iraq News, October 9, 1998 By Laurie Mylroie ""

#9: 04.12.24=5: Secessionism #5: New England, "Unemployment".

1) Secessionism #5 From: "kipplezone" Sat, 25 Dec 2004 02:24:13 -0000 Subject: [secession] New England Sucession Greetings! Here is a blog I started. It is new...thus, nocomments have been posted by others yet...and I havesome ideas of my own still in draft. I hope to postmy essay and do some promoting of the blog after thenew year .http://newenglandsecession.blogspot.com/ It is not my intent to "take-away" members of this Yahoo! Group.Having global connections is very important. And we can ALL learn fromone another. My specific agenda is the New England sucession. Ifthere are others of this region amongst us I encourage yourparticipation and knowledge that will lead to an active, andcentralized site. For the education and discussion of thepossibilities of the New England states seceding from the union. Thrive! 2) "Unemployment" Problem: "" War_and_Politics@yahoogroups.com [Tsai 04.12.24=5 #1] It's too long to reply, so I compose here. Ron's idea is one way of solving the U.P. caused by the rapid mechanization and automation, beyond the expansion of service employment, etc. I assume that is to re-define or replace "employment" with something else. It's actually absurd to have serious problems of over-production, beyond waste and destruction our precious nature. ================================ ""

#8: 04.12.23=4: China-Taiwan-USA.

1) "U.S. at War With Beijing, Reports Cite China as No. 1 Threat", by Charles R. Smith, Thursday, June 17, 2004 http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/17/135930.shtml "" The U.S. government has cited China as the No. 1 threat to global security for the second time in less than a month. Both the Pentagon and the Commission on U.S-China Economic and Security Review cited Beijing as a major threat to U.S. national security. The two reports noted the growing military capability of China combined with its predatory economic policy is aimed directly at the United States. The latest report released by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission "" Economic War ... ... the Chinese yuan is undervalued ... ... ... ... China is violating its pledges to the World Trade Organization and that U.S. investors may actually be investing in the PLA military expansion. "China has deliberately frustrated the effectiveness and debased the value of the WTO's TRM (Transitional Review Mechanism) which was intended to be a robust mechanism for assessing China's WTO compliance and for placing multilateral pressure on China to address compliance shortfalls." Weapons for Oil ... ... China continues to proliferate advanced weapons to many of its client states including North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. ... ... "China has sought energy cooperation with countries of concern to the United States, including Iran and Sudan, which are inaccessible by U.S. and other western firms. Some analysts have voiced suspicions that China may have offered WMD-related transfers as a component of some of its energy deals," noted the Commission. New Weapons ... ... Russia has sold China a more advanced version of the deadly SUNBURN (3M83 Moskit) cruise missile. Nikolay Shcherbakov, adviser to the director general of the Altair Naval Scientific Research Institute of Electronic Engineering, is reported as saying that "we are supplying China with new-generation equipment. We have been allowed to supply MOSKIT supersonic antiship cruise missiles with twice the range - 240km instead of the existing 120." The Commission also noted a growing concern that China would use nuclear weapons to attack and defeat U.S. forces in the event of a war over Taiwan. "Recognizing the possible involvement of the U.S. military, the current scholarship on China's R & D finds that PRC strategists believe that a superior navy could be defeated through the disabling of its space-based systems, as for example, by exo-atmospheric detonation of a nuclear warhead to generate an electromagnetic pulse," stated the report. In addition, the Commission noted that China is pursuing an advanced laser weapon for use against Taiwanese and U.S. forces. "It has recently been reported that China has successfully developed a laser cannon with a range of more than one hundred kilometers and might have already deployed it in Fujian Province facing Taiwan." Shooting War in 2005 ... ... "The China Affairs Department of the Democratic Progressive Party published a report on China's basic military capabilities in which it said that Beijing had developed a 'sudden strike' strategy to attack Taiwan. This story discussed a scenario in which an attack would consist of an initial seven-minute shock and strike missile barrage that would paralyze Taiwan's command system, followed by seventeen minutes in which Taiwan's air space will be invaded by fighter jets. Within twenty-four hours of the strike, 258,000 Chinese troops could be deployed in Taiwan. China's fast-growing military modernization and expansion is aimed at a possible war between 2005 and 2010, according to the report," stated the Commission report In early June the Pentagon released a Congressionally mandated report on Chinese military developments. ... ... ... ... According to the report, the Chinese build-up of ballistic missiles has changed the balance of power in the Pacific, threatening to start a war over Taiwan. China currently has an estimated 550 short-range missiles opposite Taiwan. "China most likely will be able to cause significant damage to all of Taiwan's airfields and quickly degrade Taiwan's ground based air-defenses and associated command and control through a combination of SRBMs (short range ballistic missiles), land-attack cruise missiles, special operation forces and other assets," stated the Pentagon report. The Pentagon report noted that China is increasing its long-range missile capability and is expected to expand its inventory to 30 such missiles by the end of 2005. The Pentagon anticipates the Chinese long-range nuclear missile force will exceed 60 before the end of the decade. Nuclear War The Pentagon report also warned that Chinese military strategists are considering the use of nuclear weapons against U.S. and Taiwanese forces. According to the Pentagon, a nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude would create an "electromagnetic" shock wave that will disrupt U.S. communications and scramble sophisticated military computers. "PLA theorists who have become aware of these electromagnetic effects may have considered using a nuclear weapon as an unconventional attack option," stated the Pentagon report. Chinese authorities have reacted explosively to the recent reports, especially over the U.S. commitment to Taiwan. ... ... 2) From "The Future of China & the Communist Party" forum, by The Epoch Times: http://english.epochtimes.com/ "Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal", by Ethan Gutmann: on China of "" the world's greatest Big Brother Internet "" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/189355483X/qid=1103854322/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-3647300-9952135 "" From Book News, Inc. Beginning in 1998, Gutmann (a visiting fellow at Project for the New American Century) spent three years in Beijing working on television documentaries for a Chinese company. His position provided him with a discomforting insider's view of the commercial world of Chinese elites and American expatriates. In this memoir of those years he criticizes America's "engagement" with China as being guided solely by commercial concerns and worries that this has allowed China to neglect political reforms while building up its economic and military base in a process that will inevitable threaten American interests. Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Product Description: Arriving in Beijing in 1998 along with other Americans searching for the riches of the new China, Ethan Gutmann rapidly made his way into the expatriate community of American entrepreneurs. For them, Beijing was an Open City inside a controlled world. Entering this well-catered equivalent of a corporate boot camp, Gutmann was indoctrinated in the creed that China's growing strength presented untapped opportunities for profit and expansion. American entrepreneurs might say -- and even believe -- that they were bringing freedom to China, but they were actually engaged in what Gutmann calls "climbing the Gold Mountain." Over the next three years, as Gutmann worked his way into comfortable positions at a Chinese television documentary company and a public affairs firm conducting U.S. politicians on carefully choreographed tours of the New China, he became an insider. But above all, this book is a carefully documented report on a commercial world without moral landmarks or boundaries, where actions have unintended consequences. Writing from the ground zero of his daily experience, Gutmann shows how massive American investment generated prosperity -- but also a feverish new nationalism which surged into China's universities, the dot.coms, and the entrepreneurial centers. Beginning with the riots over the 1999 Belgrade embassy bombing, he witnessed an eruption of anti-Americanism and a spurning of democracy even as U.S. technology and communication companies executed wholesale transfer of America's most sophisticated technologies to the Chinese market. With the full cooperation of companies such as Cisco, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!, Chinese authorities used American technology to monitor, sanitize, and ultimately isolate the Chinese web, creating the world's greatest Big Brother Internet. ""

#7: 04.12.18=6: Secessionism #4: Groups, N.Am. community, Vice Versa.

(1) Groups: 1. Cascadian National Party: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/therepublicofcascadia/ "" We are a new progressive political party that is calling for the independence of Washington State and Oregon from the United States to create the Republic of Cascadia. "" 2. Cascadia Confederacy: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cascadiaconfederacy/ "" The bedrock of this idea of Cascadia springs from the desire for full sovereignty and self determination for all people and peoples to organize themselves into communities and other social groupings as they see fit. In particular, we hope to fully support and link up in a confederated fashion with the many indigenous peoples of the region in order to gaurantee full cultural and political autonomy and sovereignty - attributes that are repressed under the current nation-state arrangement of Canada and the United States. Further, we look forward to moving away from the nation-state and capitalism into a social organizational form that allows for autonomous direct democracies and the flourishing of indigenous culture; all based on a decentralized confederation-type model in which communities will work together for the mutual benefit of all. In other words, we are working on the beginnings of a sovereign society free from the oppressive systems and values of capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, xenophobia, and all other authoritarian forms of organizing our world. "" 3. Cascadian Bioregionalism: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cascadian_Bioregionalism/ "" the mid 1970s Ernest Callenbach envisioned an emergence of environmental awareness that would lead the Pacific NorthWest to form the country of Ecotopia. The 1990s David McCloskey formed the Cascadia Institute. "" "" As an emerging identity "Cascadian" may evolve into a "nation", but the terms "national" & "nationalism" are limited & chauvinistic in their regards to the Cascadian love for diversity. This new approach to identity through diversity in thinking, in human experience & ecology is bioregionalism. "Bioregions are geographic areas having common characteristics of soil, watershed, climate, native plants & animals...A bioregion refers to both the geographical terrain & a terrain of consciousness -- to a place & the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place." Peter Berg. "" 4. alberta_secession · Secession, State and Liberty: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alberta_secession/ "" Secession, State and Liberty is a discussion group dedicated to a book by the same title edited by David Gordon and published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The purpose of this group is to explore the political, legal and philosophical aspects of secession with a particular focus on the growing secessionist movement in Alberta. "": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1560003626/002-0024018-0148027?v=glance "" Secession is rooted in individual liberty and any opposition ultimately requires an outright act of force. It is this crucial fact that much of this book is based upon. Issues of secession, past, present, and future are all dealt with accordingly. This book should be on the bookshelf of every individual with a serious interest in libertarian political philosophy. "" : by Reviewer: Will Murphy (chesterfield, missouri USA). 5. The Republic of California: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/republicofcalifornia/ "" Being part of the United States, with a majority conservative political base, will stifle California growth in freedom and economy. It is time to begin the discussion of secession. "" 6. Breakaway USA: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/breakawayusa/ "" This group provides a forum for different US-based secessionist groups to discuss issues of secession in, build alliances, and confer on strategy. "" (2) Pacifica: North American community 1. "Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:16:09 -0000 From: "Collin" Subject: Re: inland additions "" what I have learned from a book called "Identities in North America," Edited by Robert L. Earle and John D. Wirth, is that Cascadia is a region including Alaska, B.C., Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and N. California. And, after the passage of NAFTA, many regional trade groups using the name "Cascadia" have been working to represent these states and provinces. "" 2. NEWS RELEASE, 04/01/93: CONTACT: Stanford University News Service, (415) 723-2558 "NORTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY WON'T REPLACE NATIONAL IDENTITIES" http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/93/930401Arc3342.html "" STANFORD -- Canada, the United States and Mexico are in the process of creating a new regional identity and institutions - a counterpart to the European Community but with a small "c" on community, says Stanford University historian John Wirth. Wirth and Robert Earle, a career foreign service officer and visiting scholar at the North American Institute in Santa Fe, N.M., spoke recently to a Stanford audience about their efforts to gather a group of prominent authors, politicians and scholars to speculate about the possible shapes of a future North American identity. "Three separate countries are creating a new, larger community. This is virtually inevitable, although few people have ideas yet on what it will be like," said Wirth, president of the institute. ... ... After a February colloquium on the environment, the North American Institute issued a report endorsing the idea of a new North American Commission on the Environment, which was announced in vague terms in September 1992 by the environmental ministers of the three countries. Colloquium participants from the three countries agreed that "supra-national enforcement powers were not necessary to assure the kind of public and political accountability which asserts a powerful force in its own right," their report said. Instead they will recommend to their own governments that they negotiate an agreement for "data exchange, technical training and public information which [will] form the basis of environmental laws." ... ... The "key dynamic" to a North American identity involves "the relationship between individual and group identities," Earle said. The book's authors discussed this dynamic at a recent 14-hour brainstorming session. Mexico has a "counter-reformation collectivist past," he said, whereas the United States places a high value on individual liberties and "Canada is in its perpetual, permanent massive struggle" between individual and group rights. Despite these different histories, Wirth said, the authors' discussions and drafts suggest that "a pluralism across a range of institutions and places is possible. We tend to see it coming together in a sense of community." "" 3. "Identities in North America: The Search for Community (Comparative Studies in History, Institutions, and Public Policy)", by Robert L. Earle, John D. Wirth: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804724873/qid=1103400633/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1816846-8566231?v=glance&s=books (3) Vice Versa: 1. "State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Centuryby", Francis Fukuyama http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801442923/qid=1103408847/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-0024018-0148027 "" From Publishers Weekly: This slim volume, derived from lectures Fukuyama presented at Cornell in 2003, picks up one of the loose threads from his decade-old The End of History and the Last Man. He asserts that the lack of "organizational tradition" in "failed or weak" nations such as Afghanistan and Haiti represents the greatest threat to an orderly world. "" 2. "Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society", by Robert Higgs http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0945999968/qid=1103410351/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-0024018-0148027 Amazon.com: "" What is fundamentally wrong with government today? In "Against Leviathan", economist and historian Robert Higgs offers an unflinching critical analysis of government power. This book combines an economist's analytical scrutiny, an historian's respect for the facts, and a refusal to accept the standard excuses and cruelties of government officialdom. Topics include such programs as Social Security, the paternalism of the FDA and the War on Drugs, the nature of political leadership, civil liberties and the conduct of the national surveillance state, and governmental responses to a continuing stream of "crises," including domestic economic busts and foreign wars both hot and cold. "Against Leviathan" is a thorough and penetrating critique, and a significant contribution in this current time of crisis and unchecked expansion of government power. "" ------------------------------ A Homerun, October 6, 2004 Reviewer: Alexander E. Paulsen "AlexP" (Jacksonville, Fl United States): "" The best thing about this book is that Higgs exposes the underlying issues without his own poitical axe to grind, and he is willing to give credit where credit is due. Overall his attack is relentless and his arguments very convincing. Even the most rabid Demo-publican will not be able to factually dispute anything presented here. Like Bovards works, this book is meticulously researched. Read this and it will become intuitively obvious to the most casual observer the futility of government action. Think of this book as a bull$h** vaccine. After digesting this work any reader will be more likely to pick out and filter the BS coming from DC and their media lapdogs. ""

#6: 04.12.17=5: Secessionism #3

Secessionism #3: (1) Free State Project: http://www.freestateproject.org/ http://www4.fosters.com/December_2004/12.11.04/news/ap_nh1211b.asp "" "Free State ad campaign targeting unhappy Connecticut homeowners", by BEVERLEY WANG, Associated Press Writer. CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The Free State Project is hungry forrecruits andis again casting its net in troubled waters. Through December, the libertarian group is running onlineadvertisements in The Day, a daily newspaper in New London, Conn.,where a group of homeowners has taken an eminent domain dispute to theU.S. Supreme Court. Homeowners in New London's Fort Trumbull neighborhood say thecity'sattempt to seize their land to build tax-rich properties isunconstitutional because it does not adequately demonstrate "publicuse," a condition of eminent domain. The New London DevelopmentCorporation wants to build a hotel, health club and offices on thesite of the homes, bringing in more tax dollars. On Friday, an ad for the Free State Project appeared on thepaper'sWeb site next to an article about the land dispute. "Taking away private property to give to a large corporation is likeRobin Hood in reverse. Come with us to where this doesn't happenandhelp us win even more freedom," the ad read. A click on the ad takes Web surfers to a press release on the FreeState Project site. It announces the group's intention to recruit"displaced" New London residents. That site links to the Institute forJustice, a libertarian public interest law firm representing the sevenhomeowners involved ."Most people recognize that eminent domain is one of the greatestabuses of government power in this country," said James Maynard, aFree State Project spokesman. "It does upset a lot of people, and wewant to give them another option. "The New London homeowners so far have not lost their homes. LawyerScott Bullock says it's not likely his clients will join the FreeState Project, which aims to recruit 20,000 freedom-minded people by2006. The ad has gotten 200 hits since it started running, said FreeState Project President Amanda Phillips. "It's nice that the Free State Project is supportive of the FortTrumbull homeowners, but right now we're focused on keeping theminFort Trumbull and New London," said Bullock, who said the instituteand the Free State Project are not affiliated. "These people don't even know us, and they're inviting us tolivethere. It's kind of refreshing," said Fort Trumbull homeowner MattDery, who said he has no intention of moving. This is the third time Free Staters have sought recruits from towns inturmoil. Earlier this year, the Free State Project ran print andtelevision ads in Killington, Vt., where town officials proposedseceding from the state and joining New Hampshire for tax reasons.Free Staters also advertised in South Carolina in the aftermath of ahigh-school drug raid. The Free State Project chose New Hampshire as its promised landbecause of the state's lack of a personal income and sales taxand its"Live Free or Die" motto. The group supports restricting government tothe protection of life, liberty and property rights. Individualmembers support a grab-bag of issues including home-schooling, secondamendment rights and the legalization of "victimless" crimes likemarijuana possession. It's unlikely the group will make its goal of 7,000 members bythe endof 2004, said project founder Jason Sorens. There were 6,250 memberson Friday, 317 in New Hampshire, according to its Web site. Sorens said the group is experimenting with different recruitingtactics to bring up numbers. "If we don't get things moving faster, then I guess we'll have to reevaluate the 20,000 goal," he said. A splinter group, known as the Free Town Project, sparked a panic insparsely populated Grafton, N.H. Rumors surfaced that group memberswanted to take over the town. "" (2) Institute for Justice, "the nation’s premier libertarian public interest law firm": http://www.ij.org/index.shtml "" IJ litigates in courts across the country preserving freedom of opportunity and challenging government’s control over individuals’ lives. "" (3)

#5: 04.12.16(4): Secessionism #2: Foundations, EU & Turkey, Media & Nuclear threats, US Economy, US Patriot Act, Linux

1) Secessionism #2: Some foundations: (1) Democracy: http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/kreptul.pdf 1. Ancient Greece: http://www.twq.com/spring00/232karamanlis.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml 2. European Switzerland: http://www.iniref.org/swissdemocracy.html http://www.swissworld.org/dvd_rom/eng/direct_democracy_2004/content/history/history.html 3. Iroquois Confederacy: http://democraciaparticipativa.net/documentos/OldestLiving.htm http://www.campton.sau48.k12.nh.us/iroqconf.htm 4. American movement: http://www.sidis.net/TSChap17.htm http://ni4d.us/press/20020224.htm 5. EU evolution: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/AUD/s6.htm http://www.europeanforum.net/index.php 6. Iraq: http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1396 (2) Phylosophy: http://www.southerncaucus.org/sj1.htm 1. "Small is beautiful": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Small+is+beautiful 2. Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia 3. James C. Scott, Max Webber, and Michel Foucault (3) Community: http://www.buildfreedom.com/portal/category.php/216 1. Pacifican States and Provinces 2. Second Virginia Republic 3. Texas: http://www.pinette.net/chris/flags/texas/texflags.html 4. Internet: http://www.hicsocial.org/Social2003Proceedings/Lucia%20Clark.pdf 2) EU & Turkey: (1) From openDemocracy: http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp "Turkey and the hypocrisies of Europe", Fred Halliday, 16 - 12 - 2004 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-123-2271.jsp "Turkey’s European problem", Gilles Kepel, 14 - 12 - 2004 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-109-2264.jsp "Turkey and Shakespeare", Gönül Bakay, 16 - 12 - 2004 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-1-111-2273.jsp (2) From International Relations and Security Network, ISN: "Old rivals Russia, Turkey forge new relations": http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=10315 3) Media & Nuclear threats: "" Media Beat ( http://www.fair.org/media-beat/ ) is the insightful weekly syndicated column on media and politics written by FAIR associate Norman Solomon. It runs in newspapers across the country. Until 1996, the column was co-written by Jeff Cohen, then FAIR's executive director "" "" Norman Solomon's latest book, co-authored with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, is Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You. "": http://www.fair.org/media-beat/041129.html "KILLING OUR OWN: Chronicling the Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation, 1945-1982", by Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, 1982: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/ 4) US Economy: (1) " Economic 'Armageddon' predicted ", by Brett Arends, On State StreetTuesday, November 23, 2004: http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=55356 "" Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he's saying in private. Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity. His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ``armageddon.'' Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, ``it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.'' Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ``we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.'' The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe. In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants. The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded. Less a case of ``Armageddon,'' maybe, than of a ``Perfect Storm.'' "" (2) " The Dollar's Decline Does MatterLONDON ", Dec. 6, 2004: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/opinion/fenton/main659179.shtml "" (CBS) Tom Fenton, in his fourth decade with CBS News, has been the network's Senior European Correspondent since 1979. He comments on international events from his "Listening Post" in London, and other parts of the world as well. "" "" Since the end of the Clinton administration - or to put it another way, since the beginning of the Bush administration - the dollar has been heading south at an alarming rate. Against the Euro, a relatively new currency backed by a European economy that is bigger than America's, the dollar has lost more than a third of its value. The same thing has happened to its value against the British pound. What's going on here? Economists can give you a lot of arguments and counter arguments, most of them complex and some a little dodgy, but the simple answer is that America is living beyond its means. "" "" in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was the British pound that was the world's reserve currency, and before that, the Dutch guilder, etc., all the way back to the Roman dinarius. Currencies come and go, like empires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when it ran a costly empire that spanned the world, Britain was the world's biggest creditor. Within a generation, both the British Empire and the pound were shattered by two world wars and economic mismanagement. America has not yet reached that point, of course, but we ignore the lessons of history at our peril. Unless we put our economic house in order and stop living beyond our means, we could go the way of the British. And by the way, if the dollar were to lose its status as the world's reserve currency, what could replace it? Possibly the euro, and a combination of the currencies of the Asian giants who make all those toys and gadgets you have been buying for Christmas. "" 5) US Patriot Act: http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm "" 1) How the Patriot Act Compares to the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) 2) A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and The Patriot Act 3) Ten Key Dangers of the Patriot Act 4) Bill Moyer's NOW Comments on the Patriot Act 5) The USA Patriot Act, A Legal Analysis by Charles Doyle (link to PDA document) "" "A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003 Also Known as USA Patriot Act II": http://www.rickieleejones.com/political/patriotact.htm "Citizens for Legitimate Government, CLG": http://legitgov.org/ "National Lawyers Guild, NLG": http://nlg.org/ "Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF": http://eff.org/ "portland independant media center": http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/303979.shtml "" News Gathering Illegal Under New Patriot Act ll, Sec. 102, author: Alex Jones SECTION 102 of the new Patriot Act ll states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal. A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, Also Known as USA Patriot Act II "" 6) Linux Survey: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3019628054.html

#4: 04.12.15(3): US Secession, VT from US: Bush Adm's 9/11? NetGovernance

1) SECESSION.NET: ""Creating a worldwide Secession Network Right to Secede - Community-Based Secession - Libertarian/Decentralist Political Processes - Nonviolent Secession and Institutions"" http://www.secession.net/ US Right of Secession Amendment, by Committee to Ratify the Right of Secession Amendment: "The sovereign authority of any State to withdraw by law from the United States shall not be questioned, and the United States shall recognize it as a sovereign and independent country." http://secessionamendment.bravehost.com/ "" The Committee to Ratify the Right Of Secession Amendment, or ROSA, is a group of Americans who believe that the right to secession is an inalienable human right, as fundamental and necessary to a free society as the rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. While we believe that this right is implicit in the US Constitution, we feel that it should be made explicit with a constitutional amendment, in order avoid unnecessary confusion. "" ROSA State Committees: NJ, NC: http://secessionamendment.bravehost.com/committees.html 2) 2nd Vermont Republic: Original independence, Jan. 15, 1777 - Mar. 4, 1791: http://www.vermontindependenceday.org/pages/1/index.htm Second independence: The Middlebury Declaration, November 7, 2004 Middlebury, Vermont: http://www.vermontrepublic.org/writings/middleburydeclaration.html 2nd "VERMONT INDEPENDENCE RESOLUTION" by James R. Hogue, Thomas Naylor and, posthumously, Thomas Jefferson: http://www.vermontrepublic.org/ "Thomas Naylor on Vermont, George Bush, and Secession", by Andrew Woods: http://www.vermontcynic.com/news/2003/10/14/News/Thomas.Naylor.On.Vermont.George.Bush.And.Secession-526880.shtml 3) Bush Administration's 9/11? - D. R. Griffin, "The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11" "" David Ray Griffin is one of the most respected philosophers of religion in North America. He is the author or editor of more than 24 academic books, including works co-written with the deans of worldreligions, Huston Smith and Martin Marty. "", from "A Theologian Asks the Hard Questions About 9/11" by Douglas Todd, Vancouver, Sun, Saturday, Dec 11, 2004: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-1409702-3336929 "" Griffin is one of those profiled in the prestigious volume, A Handbook of Christian Theologians. He's painstakingly probed countless philosophical challenges, from the question of why there is evil to the relationship between science and religion, for which he'swon numerous awards. So why did this soft-spoken professor from the high-ranking Methodist-rooted School of Theology at Claremont, Calif., feel it necessary torisk his hard-earned reputation as a religion scholar to write one of the most incredible -- in all senses of the word -- political booksof 2004? Because no one else in mainstream America seemed prepared to do it... The result? Griffin's book, The New Pearl Harbour: DisturbingQuestions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 (InterlinkPublishing, $22.50) has already sold an astonishing 80,000 copies. "" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1566565529/qid=1103142011/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-1409702-3336929 "" Griffin's unflinching analysis of the unanswered questions surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York andWashington has made Amazon.com's bestseller list despite receiving virtually no reviews in North America's mainstream media. That's unlike in Britain, where he's had solid coverage, including a three-page spread in London's mass-circulation Daily Mail. "" "" In effect, The New Pearl Harbour fleshes out in 214 pages the question asked in the final moment of Michael Moore's Academy-award-winning documentary, Fahrenheit 911. That's when the filmmaker wonders aloud: What exactly was Bush thinking as he sat in front of abunch of school children reading a book titled My Pet Goat, knowing two jetliners had been flown into the World Trade Center? Griffin's book is titled The New Pearl Harbor for two reasons. One, because that's what Bush wrote in his diary on the evening of Sept. 11: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today." But also because members of the Bush administration in 2000 helped author the document, Project for the New American Century, which opined it would be difficult to galvanize Americans to support military expansion in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere unless a "new Pearl Harbor" occurred. "" "" In the past month, Harper's Magazine and the New York Times have tentatively started to catch up with Griffin's questions. Harper's, for instance, published a cover feature titled, "Whitewash as public service: How the 9/11 Commission Report defrauds the nation," byBenjamin DeMott, which also asks whether it was sheer incompetence orsomething else that made the attacks possible. "" ... ... "" Two weeks ago he released a follow-up book with the same publisher, titled The9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. "" The above amazon.com quotes Publishers Weekly: "" Griffin draws heavily on three similarly skeptical examinations, by Nafeez Ahmed, Paul Thompson and Thierry Meyssan, whose The Big Lie was a bestseller in France, and which the New Republic has called "thinâ€"and thinly argued." "", Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 4) NetGovernance "" every time I find a story or blog post or online story about WSIS, ICANN or internet governance issues generally, I'm now tagging it indel.icio.us as "netgovernance." Feel free to do the same and then we can all subscribe to one big tag-feed: http://del.icio.us/tag/netgovernance "" From Rebecca:- RE: [DDN] WSISblogs.org: an idea worth developing? Wed, 15 Dec 2004 14:57:12 -0500

#3: 04.12.14(2): God, Education, Ecology, Music, & Culture [Walter Pater(Thoemmes Continuum)]

1) God's Clock by James Carroll, Boston Globe : "" As America dives into debates about religion, the liberal Catholic columnist counsels that religion and science are to reality what a clock is to time. "" From TomPaine.com: http://www.tompaine.com/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/14/gods_clock/ 2) WWWEDU [we do]: 10th anniversary. "" The Internet's largest and longest-running forum on the use of the World Wide Web in education. Founded and moderated by Andy Carvin of the EDC Center for Media & Community. "" "" Founded following my publishing of EdWeb: Exploring Technology and School Reform... in October 1994, which focused on the potential of the Web as an educational tool. "" http://www.edwebproject.org/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwwedu/ 3) Eco-warrior? Former US Pres. Bill Clinton "License to Bill", by Amanda Griscom Little, 13 Dec 2004: http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/12/13/little-clinton/ 4) Music: http://www.angelfire.com/music4/mclub/artsnx.html 5) Culture: "" The Reception of Walter Pater in Europe, edited by Stephen Bann CBE, University of Bristol Publication Details Just over a century after his death, Walter Pater's critical reputation is at its height. In the English-speaking world, this has involved recovery from the widespread neglect and indifference that attended his work in the first half of the twentieth century. In Europe, however, the story has been a different one. Enthusiastic disciples such as Hugo von Hofmannsthal in the German-speaking world, and Charles Du Bos in France, helped to fuel a growing awareness of his writings as central to the emergence of modernist literature. Translations of works like Imaginary Portraits, of which German, French and Italian versions already existed before the First World War, established his distinctive voice as an aesthetic critic. His novel Marius the Epicurean, acclaimed early by von Hofmannsthal, was enthusiastically received in Paris in the 1920s, and published in Turin, with an introduction by Mario Praz, on the eve of the Second World War. Besides tracing the fortunes of Pater's writings in these three major literatures, this collection looks at the surprising and fascinating record of their reception in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Pater was a major Victorian critic of literature and the arts and a key figure in the aesthetics and decadence movements of the fin-de-si鋃le Covers the reception of Pater across the Continent, including eastern Europe Records Pater influence on theory, figures and movements in literature and the visual arts. About the Author Stephen Bann is Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol. He has recently been made C.B.E.. "" "" Publication Details December 2004 / February 2005 (USA) ISBN 0 08264 6848 2 1 volume c.320 pp: 234 x 156 mmSeries: The Reception of British Authors in Europe Price: ?25.00 / $225.00 "" www.thoemmes.com/literary/pater.htm

#2: 04.12.9(4): openMedia

[I] 1) Media / Internet: for openDemocracy: [[ TaiwanNews: http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/Politics/2004/11/22/1101090702.htm http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0331/cover.chen.html ]] http://www.apc.org/english/about/index.shtml http://www.apc.org/english/about/members/index.shtml http://www.stanford.edu/group/gradethenews/ The Economist Group: http://www.economistgroup.com/MediaInformation/helen_alexander.html "" ...... filmmaker Danny Schechter and Media Alliance’s Executive Director Jeff Perlstein, Embarcadero Landmark Theatre, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco "": http://store.yahoo.com/media-alliance/grpagrinasyo1.html CounterPunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/ / http://www.alliance.org/ 2) "" Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala., and vice president of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, Cal., is an opponent of the central state, its wars and its socialism. A student and colleague of Murray N. Rothbard's, he is the editor of six books, most recently The Irrepressible Rothbard and Speaking of Liberty. For more on Rockwell, see his interview in Spintech Magazine. Also read his interview in the Slovakian magazine, OS as well as his interview in FrontPageMag. Here is a (slightly flawed) transcription of his interview with Bill Moyers. And here's the video. "": http://www.lewrockwell.com/about.html 3) Maureen Farrell's (a man's anti-Bush media): http://www.maureen.com/ "God Is With Us": Hitler's Rhetoric and the Lure of "Moral Values", Dec. 7, 2004: http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/12/far04041.html 4) openDemocracy: http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp "" openDemocracy.net is an online global magazine of politics and culture. We publish clarifying debates which help people make up their own minds. We seek the finest writing, the strongest arguments, the most compelling views and truthful voices on key issues, great and small. We use the web’s potential to build and map intelligent discussions which we accumulate and index in our back pages which now include over 1,500 articles. Written by and for people across the world, from South and North, from the powerless to the influential, we seek to bring together those who are not well-known with writers and thinkers of international repute. It’s in our name: openDemocracy.net is dedicated to opening up a democratic space - free thinking for the world. "" [II] Chinese+Hominid History: Shang Dynasty people are known as wine-loving ones: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/asian/1mac_winevessel.htmlhttp://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/china/dynasties/shang-3.cfm Shang Dynasty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Dynasty/dynasty-Shang.html http://faculty.vassar.edu/brvannor/bronzes.html Chinese dynasties: http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Dynasty/history-maps-dynasty.html http://www.humanities-interactive.org/ancient/bronze/brochure_bronze_age.htm Near Beijing (Peking) is a place of Peking Man with fire?: http://www.unesco.org/ext/field/beijing/whc/pkm-site.htm http://www.uiowa.edu/~bioanth/courses/Peking1.htm With a diagram of world-wide history of ancient ape-men: http://www.hominids.com/donsmaps/erectus.html

BBCWebblog: bbcweb

BBCWebblog from:------ http://www.bbcweb.net/ http://bbcweb.blogspot.com Blog http://www.storesonline.com/site/bbcweb Intang Tsai's art works.

Starting bbcwebblog

Here is my first blog, 04.12.7=2, Dec. 7, 2004, Tuesday, at my home in the USA, San Francisco Bay Area. http://www.bbcweb.net/ 1) My first book review by Amazon.com: Michael C. Ruppert's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/002-2954550-0352044 "Mike Ruppert is the Publisher/Editor of From the Wilderness, a newsletter read by more than 16,000 subscribers in 40 countries. A former LAPD narcotics investigator, he is widely known for his groundbreaking stories on US involvement in the drug trade, Peak Oil and 9/11." "" Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil "" http://www.fromthewilderness.com/store/index.shtml http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/wellen12062004/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865715408/qid=1102458239/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-2954550-0352044 "The attacks of September 11, 2001 were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies key suspects - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks produced the desired result. Crossing the Rubicon is unique not only for its case-breaking examination of 9/11, but for the breadth and depth of its world picture - an interdisciplinary analysis of petroleum, geopolitics, narco-traffic, intelligence and militarism - without which 9/11 cannot be understood. The US manufacturing sector has been mostly replaced by speculation on financial data whose underlying economic reality is a dark secret. Hundreds of billions of dollars in laundered drug money flow through Wall Street each year from opium and coca fields maintained by CIA-sponsored warlords and US-backed covert paramilitary violence. America's global dominance depends on a continually turning mill of guns, drugs, oil and money. Oil and natural gas - the fuels that make economic growth possible - are subsidized by American military force and foreign lending. In reality, 9/11 and the resulting "War on Terror" are parts of a massive authoritarian response to an emerging economic crisis of unprecedented scale. Peak Oil - the beginning of the end for our industrial civilization - is driving the elites of American power to implement unthinkably draconian measures of repression, warfare and population control. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which, together and alone, we are all now making our way." 2) An conspiracy ""ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC THREATS IN THE CURRENT DECADE (2000-2010) By Joel M. Skousen, Editor, World Affairs Brief Homepage: http://www.joelskousen.com/"" http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/threats.html "INTRODUCTION Strategic threats are carefully planned threats by predator nations or groups that transcend their own normal sphere of influence and threaten the entire world with conquest and/or control. In this analysis I will discuss three current strategic world powers, which constitute a premeditated threat to world liberty, and the complex tactical maneuvers between them as they position themselves for the coming, inevitable conflict. Two of these world powers are nations--Russia and China--and the third is a transnational conspiracy of power by a combination of individuals in the West attempting to maneuver the world into a New World Order (NWO) of global control, euphemistically masquerading as a "global democracy." I will refer to the latter as Western globalists. All less powerful nations in the world fall under the influence of one of these three powers, either as direct allies, client states for the purchase of arms, and/or diplomatic allies working in collusion to further strategic goals of global hegemony. There is one further complicating factor, however. The Western globalists are divided into two main factions: a US/British faction firmly in control of the financial means of the NWO, and a European faction of hard-core leftists, secretly aligned with Moscow, which controls the majority of votes in the General Assembly of the UN. I will attempt to describe each of the three power centers, their allies, and what I believe their individual strategy involves. THREE COMPETING PREDATOR CENTERS OF POWER "" pointing to Russia, China, and "WESTERN GLOBALISTS". 3) "America's 'Diên Biên Phu' Has Started in Iraq", Copyright Joe Vialls, 28 November 2004 http://joevialls.altermedia.info/iraq/internment.html "" As Republican Guard strategists suck U.S. combat troops further north into unwanted urban areas like Fallujah, Samarra, Kirkuk and Mosul, America's supply lines from Kuwait in the far south become longer and thinner. Eventually those supply lines will be attacked by the Shi'ite Mehdi Army and cut completely, thereby starving the U.S. combat troops into surrender. To understand how and why this will happen, we need to travel back in time to March 1954. "" 4) Scot landscape & New Year's Eve / Irish "Concret Isle": http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/fettercairn/fettercairn/index.html http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/blknow12.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1364782,00.html 5) For translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr