REAL BUT AIN'T EXACTLY THERE

PASSOU ESSA ÉPOCA!

2011-04-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

DITADURA MILITAR BRASILEIRA

Chico Buarque - Cálice - Clip Ditadura

Brasil: Ame-o ou Deixe-o

Ditadura Militar no Brasil, onde tudo começou Parte 1 de 3

Ditadura Militar no Brasil, onde tudo começou Parte 2 de 3

Ditadura Militar no Brasil, onde tudo começou Parte 3 de 3

A Ditadura Militar(golpe de 64)

Roda Viva - Chico Buarque

Chico Buarque - Vai Passar (Ditadura militar)

DEMOCRACY NOW! APRIL 4, 2011

2011-04-04T15:23:00.001-07:00

African American Historian Manning Marable Dies Days Before Publication of His Biography of Malcolm X

FOR MY YIDDISH FRIENDS, I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU

2011-04-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

MY FIRST FRIENDS IN NYC ALL WORKED IN THE GARMENT CENTER
I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL AND I HAD GOTTEN A JOB FOR A FEW HOURS AFTER SCHOOL
THIS COMMUNITY SHOWED TOTAL STRANGERS LOVE, CARE, FRIENDSHIP, PROTECTION, AND BEING IN AMERICA AS AN
IMMIGRANT WAS A NORMAL THING, THEY EVEN TAUGHT ME SOME OF THEIR LANGUAGE, YIDDISH, EVEN THOUGH THEY CAME FROM
POLAND, GERMANY, RUSSIA, EVEN AS FAR AS SHANGHAI
THIS IS DEDICATED TO THEM, AND TO THANK THEM FOR ALL SORTS OF THINGS BUT MOST OF ALL FOR THE WARMEST WELCOME I
RECEIVED ANYWHERE

LEO FULD " The king of yiddish songs"

Kinderjohren yiddish song from Cracow

Yiddish Song "Geven Amol Iz A Shtetl"

A Yiddishe Fox-Trot "Tzu Bin Ich Mishuger?"

Bei mir bist du schejn "original" yiddish version

Vi Bist Du Gevein? - Yiddish Song - Misha Marmar

JULIE ANDREWS IN YIDDISH

Yiddish Dance: Freylakhs led by Helene Domergue (Cher is practicing Freylakhs)

OY GEWALT

ENTREVISTA DE MIGUEL SOUSA TAVARES A JOSÉ SÓCRATES

2011-04-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

Entrevista de Miguel Sousa Tavares a José Sócrates (1/5)

Entrevista de Miguel Sousa Tavares a José Sócrates (2/5)

Entrevista de Miguel Sousa Tavares a José Sócrates (3/5)

Entrevista de Miguel Sousa Tavares a José Sócrates (4/5)

Entrevista de Miguel Sousa Tavares a José Sócrates (5/5)

BIRTHRIGHTS - CAUGHT IN THE CRADLE

2011-04-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

Birthrights - Caught in the Cradle

O RECLAME DISSE 'O TEXAS NÃO É SÓ ISTO'

2011-04-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

MAS DIGO EU, A ÁFRICA É QUE NÃO É SÓ ISTO

Francis Kingsley & Emitais - Assalam Aleikoum Africa / From : Assalam Aleikoum Africa: Vol.

CHICO BUARQUE " ASSENTAMENTO "

Bob Ohiri and his Uhuru Sounds - Ariwo Yaa

Brian Eno & David Byrne "Regiment"

Le printemps berbère de Libye

AYAAN HIRSI ALI

2011-04-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Q TV

DEMOCRACY NOW! APRIL 1, 2011

2011-04-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Rep. Kucinich: Lack of Congressional Approval Could Make Obama’s Libya Attack "Impeachable Offense"

'UPDATE' DILMA

2011-04-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

Hebe visita Dilma - COMPLETO - 15/03/11

Chegada da presidenta Dilma em Lisboa Portugal

A presidente Dilma Rousseff entrevistada por Miguel Sousa Tavares

Jornal Nacional 29 03 2011 Parte 1 terça feira

Jornal Nacional 29 03 2011 Parte 2 terça feira

Jornal Nacional 29 03 2011 Parte 3 terça feira

Jornal Nacional 29 03 2011 Parte 4 FINAL terça feira

TO THE SO CALLED MEDICAL PROFFESIONALS IN SF AND THE REST OF AMERIKA

2011-03-31T05:56:00.000-07:00

WHEN YOU DO COME UP WITH A SYSTEM THAT ACTUALLY 'CARES' ABOUT 'PATIENTS' WHO REMEMBER,
DO SUFFER FROM A MYRIAD OF HEALTH ISSUES, ALONGSIDE THOSE ISSUES YOU HAVE CONVENIENTLY
INVENTED FOR THEM (FOR FINANCIAL REMUNERATION OF COURSE, MEANING NOT PAYMENT FOR KNOWLEDGE,
TIME, OR SERVICE, BUT AS DEEP A GOUGING OF THEIR POCKETBOOKS YOU CAN MANAGE)
WELL, DO NOTIFY ME, AND ALLOW ME MORE GUFFAWS AT YOUR EXPENSE INSTEAD OF MINE
WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY SECOND POINT: APPARENTLY IT DOES NOT SATISFY YOUR ENDLESS GREED, TO BILK PATIENTS
INTO THEIR GRAVES, BUT YOU'D LOVE TO SADDLE THEIR 'DEPENDENTS' FOR GENERATIONS ALSO
HEY, I'M NOT CRITICISING YOU, MERELY POINTING OUT SOME SORE TRUTHS
IF YOU WANT A CRITICISM, ALLOW ME A FEW WEEKS TO TRANSCRIBE THE 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' STORIES I'VE COLLECTED, Y'ALL SURE COULD TEACH A FEW MENGELES SOME 'HEALTH CARE TRICKS'
ICH LIEBE DICH,
O SAPIENT GODS GIFTED TO THIS WORLD OF SUFFERING MEN
ONE CAN ONLY HOPE OUR CATHOLIC UPBRINGING WILL DELIVER YOU TO YOUR JUST REWARDS
HERR DOKTOR MENGELE WAS A CONSUMATE GENTLEMAN, COMPARED TO THE LIKES OF YOU!

STEVE WOZNIAK

2011-03-31T04:09:00.000-07:00

Authors@Google: Steve Wozniak

MICHAEL KRASNY

2011-03-31T03:23:00.000-07:00

Authors@Google: Michael Krasny

RIP FARLEY GRANGER

2011-03-29T11:10:00.001-07:00

Hitchcock star Farley Granger dies at 85

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 29, 2011

2011-03-29T07:28:00.001-07:00

"We Have Intervened to Stop A Massacre”: Obama Defends the U.S.-Led Military Action in Libya

BIRTHRIGHTS - HARD LABOR IN HUNGARY

2011-03-28T12:06:00.001-07:00

Birthrights - Hard Labour in Hungary

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 28, 2011

2011-03-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

Obama Administration Relents and Grants Visa to Leading Afghan Antiwar Campaigner Malalai Joya Into U.S.

ARRIVEDERCI BUNGA BUNGA?

2011-03-25T10:24:00.001-07:00

How Italy Forced NATO's Hand on Libya

By MICHAEL LEONARDI

Silvio Berlusconi has come out on top once again as Gadaffi's closest and largest trading partner has forced NATO's hand into taking the lead in the military intervention in Libya. Libya supplies 1/3 of Italy's oil and almost 15 % of Europe's. They are one of the gateways of immigrants to the Italian island of Lampedusa. This NATO military intervention, like the one in Afghanistan, will be using the "humanitarian" cover to seize control of key resource rich and geopolitical areas. This intervention will also provide a foothold to the Western powers for the strangling of a true peoples revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. The hypocrisy of the U.S.'s foreign policy was made clear on Thursday March 24th by the U.S. defense minister Robert Gates as he called Israel's resumed bombing of the civilian population in Gaza a legitimate use of force. In regards to Libya, Italy's cooperation with a NATO led intervention is beyond the pale of hypocritical.

Berlusconi's Italy has much more to preserve than any of its western allies from the latest so-called "humanitarian mission" in Libya. Over the past decade Berlusconi has worked to solidify his relationship with Gadaffi and to create a close-knit economic and political partnership between Italy and this former colony of Mussolini's fascist regime. Gadaffi and Berlusconi have been, until very recently, close friends. As well as being business and political partners, they share the common practice of being surrounded by harems of young women. They also share joint interest in media and ownership of a satellite TV station in Libya.

Fearing reprisals from their former colony and more recently closest business partner, Italy has managed to force the NATO takeover of military operations in Libya. This provides Italy the cover they so desperately needed as they have allowed usage of seven Italian bases for sorties being flown by France, Britain and the United States. After making threats to halt their cooperation with the mission, the Italian neo-fascists now have the Alliance poised to do their dirty work in blocking immigrants at the North African coast from fleeing to the Italian island of Lampedusa off the coast of Sicily. Lampedusa has become destination number uno for immigrants seeking a safe-haven and larger economic crumbs in fortress Europe as they attempt their journeys from North Africa by Sea. Italy's xenophobic anti-immigrant fervor has been at a fever pitch as the North African uprisings have opened the floodgates of migrants desperately seeking survival in trying to reach Europe's shores. Those that have reached the shores of Lampedusa are now being housed in horrid conditions in refugee camps on the island.

In 2008 Berlusconi and Gadaffi signed the Italy/Libya treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation in Benghazi with much fanfare. This treaty created an exclusive partnership between Italy and Libya on the agreement that Italy would pay the Libyan government 5 billion dollars that would be largely spent on business partnerships with Italian firms for construction and infrastructure projects. The agreement also ensured that Gadaffi would hold African immigrants trying to reach Italy in horrid refugee camps on the Libyan coast. In 2009 the colonel showed up to Rome in one of his more flamboyant military uniforms to mark the one year anniversary of this historic agreement. Gadaffi donned a colorfully decorated uniform with a large photo of the Libyan resistance leader Omar Mukhtar pinned to his lapel when he arrived. Berlusconi and Gadaffi had a good time during the visit with late night extravagance fitting of the hedonism for which Rome is famed. Gadaffi pitched his tent in one of Rome's beautiful parks, Villa Pamphilli, and was provided an audience of 1000 women by the premier that he tried to convert to Islam. They put on a flamboyant show for the cameras as these business partners worked out their slimy deals to enrich themselves and closest partners.

Berlusconi and Gadaffi have shared investments in the media company called Quinta communications which owns a recently launched satellite tv station in Maghreb called Nessma TV. Through a variety on investment firms Gadaffi had about ten percent interest and Berlusconi about 40 % in this media venture. When Berlusconi visited this station on his trip to celebrate the second anniversary of the Italian/Libyan friendship agreement he visited one of the satellite station's outlets. Most so called democratic countries would call this a conflict of interest, in Italy it was barely reported in the media.

Headlines across Italy are now decrying an end to Berlusconi's and Gadaffi's bunga bunga, relationship in reference to the wild parties the two shared and their keen interest in younger women. Berlusconi is due to be facing charges for his alleged paying of a 16 year old Moroccan prostitute to attend wild sex parties at one of his Mansions. Berlusconi has voiced dismay over the uncomfortable situation he has been forced into with his friend and colleague stating that "this hits him on a personal level." Gadaffi has said that he is deeply hurt and dismayed by his good friend and partner in crime turning his back on him and that all deals with Italy are off until Berlusconi is gone. Italy's defense minister and member of the racist Northern League, Ignazio La Russa, announced a little over a week ago that the Italy/Libya friendship deal was off until further notice leaving Italian contractors poised to profit from the deal with some unforeseen economic misfortune.

On February 21st just after the uprisings in Libya began, the Italian stock market lost 3.6 percentage in a veritable free fall. A "coincidental technical glitch" shut down the Italian markets on the 22nd of February for seven hours halting a more devastating crash. The Libyan's hold a 40 billion dollar investment in one of Italy's largest banks, Unicredit so it is not just oil, construction, and immigration where the countries' economic interests have been intertwined. Now it is Italy's hope that NATO will preserve their investments and thus work to uphold these criminal assets of the European economy, if not it could only spell trouble for all.

This conflict is being seized upon to grab geopolitical and economic turf. Italy and Libya have a despicable economic partnership and the benefits from it are what Berlusconi is interested in preserving, nothing else. Many Libyans too want a piece of this destructive and racist pie. The United States, France and Britain share similar goals as the release of the Lockerbie bomber to ensure a deal for British Petroleum prove. Hopefully it is becoming common knowledge that British Petroleum is set to construct the largest and deepest offshore oil rig in the Mediterranean, much like "deep horizon", in Libyan waters off the coast of North Africa. Gadaffi will have a very hard surviving and would have without this military expansionism in the Mediterranean. This military expansion is only going to ensure profits for Berlusconi's cronies, British Petroleum and other factions of Libyan capitalists that will plunder in place of Gadaffi.

The hypocrisy is glaring, almost blinding. Companies like Haliburton, British Petroleum, the Italian energy giant Eni, and a host of others will have plenty of jobs to dole out to middle and upper middle class Libyans that have benefited from slimy recent dealings between Gadaffi and Berlusconi, now they'll have direct bidding to European and American corporate colonialists and maybe a little larger slice of the pie. British Petroleum drilling in the Mediterranean, wouldn't it be better to see British Petroleum eliminated completely from the face of the earth? Wouldn't it be great to see Libya develop sustainably and not be run by corporate parasites, to me that is what real revolution would look like, and it is definitely not going to happen now with NATO leading this "humanitarian" mission to protect the innocent civilians.

Michael Leonardi is currently living in Toledo, Ohio and can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 25, 2011

2011-03-25T07:52:00.001-07:00

100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

LIZ FOREVER

2011-03-25T02:54:00.001-07:00

LIZ FOREVER.wmv

Elizabeth Taylor winning Best Actress for "Butterfield 8"

Elizabeth Taylor tribute by Paul Newman

REMEMBERING ELIZABETH TAYLOR

2011-03-25T02:14:00.000-07:00

A Lustrous Pinnacle of Hollywood Glamour

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 24, 2011

2011-03-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Thousands Protest in Syria After Gov’t Forces Kill Scores of Demonstrators

RIP ELIZABETH TAYLOR

2011-03-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

SCREEN ICON ELIZABETH TAYLOR DIES

By Anthony Barnes and Robert Dex, PA
Wednesday March 23, 2011

Screen siren Dame Elizabeth Taylor, whose dazzling beauty and turbulent life made her one of the most famous stars in the world, has died at the age of 79.

She was hailed as "a Hollywood giant" and "the last of the great glamour stars" as friends and admirers paid tribute.
And the Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? actress was remembered for not only her movie work and her star quality but also her dedication to charity achievements, chiefly her Aids work.

She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles this morning from congestive heart failure.

Dame Elizabeth, who lived almost her entire life in the spotlight after finding fame as a child star, had been plagued by ill-health for many years and had been in hospital for six weeks with heart problems.

Her son, Michael Wilding - one of four children - said: "My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humour, and love.

"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

Sir Elton John, a long-time friend, said: "We have just lost a Hollywood giant. More importantly, we have lost an incredible human being."

The Oscar-winning star was renowned for her tumultuous personal life, as well as her mesmerising performances.

She was married eight times - twice to the Welsh acting titan Richard Burton - and had a lengthy battle with substance abuse.

The smouldering screen star was also one of the world's leading sex symbols, at one time her fragile beauty was rivalled only by Marilyn Monroe. She went on to become a gay icon.

Fan George Michael said: "Elizabeth Taylor was the last of the Hollywood greats, and a fantastically charming woman.

"She was also the only person I've ever met that had violet eyes. They were genuinely violet. So beautiful."

Veteran film-maker Michael Winner said: "Elizabeth Taylor was the last of the great glamour stars. She was the longest-running soap opera in history, and represented all the allure and tragedy that attracts people to Hollywood."

Mike Nichols, who directed Burton and Dame Elizabeth in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, said: "She is singular and indelible on film and in our hearts."

Dame Elizabeth was born in Hampstead, north London, to American parents who took her back to the US when she was a child at the outbreak of the Second World War.

She first found major movie fame with Lassie Come Home in 1943 and by the following year she had appeared in one of her most famous roles, as Velvet Brown in National Velvet.

Dame Elizabeth later became the first to receive one million dollars for a film role, and her movie career spanned more than 50 productions, including her sultry role in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

She was also noted for a lengthy and close friendship with the singer Michael Jackson, who died in June 2009.

He accompanied her to a gala tribute evening in her honour at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2000 and for many years onlookers speculated that the singer's repeated cosmetic surgery was to make him look like her.

Although her film work was long behind her - due to her frailty - she continued to remain in the public eye for her charitable work. She was a spokeswoman and fundraiser for many causes, most notably Aids research, and one of her three Oscars was to honour her humanitarian work.

There were continual health scares but she fought back time and again. Her first serious battle with illness flared up in 1961 - a near-fatal battle with pneumonia. Another followed in 1990, while a respiratory infection left her depleted in 1992.

Both hips were replaced within three years and she had a brain tumour removed in 1997.

Her congestive heart failure was diagnosed in 2004 and she revealed she needed surgery on Twitter in 2009.

For many years her public appearances had seen her using a wheelchair.

Dame Elizabeth's most celebrated relationship was with Burton, whom she met on the set of one of her defining movies, Cleopatra, when he played Mark Antony. Their romance captivated the world and she once declared: "If Richard and I divorce, I swear I will never marry anyone again. I love him insanely."

Divorce they did in 1974 after 10 years, and they remarried the following year, only to divorce once more in 1976.

They were reunited on stage in a 1982 touring production of Noel Coward's Private Lives and were close until Burton's death two years later.

Film critic and broadcaster Barry Norman had befriended her and said: "She was an extremely nice woman and wore her great fame very lightly. She certainly did not swagger about."

Others to speak highly of Dame Elizabeth included former chat host Larry King who said: "Elizabeth Taylor was a great friend, a great star and one gutsy woman. She was so special. You won't see the likes of her again."

Sir Michael Caine said: "She was a great human being."

Veteran actress Angela Lansbury - a contemporary of the star - said: "Elizabeth and I began our careers about the same time at MGM. Throughout her tumultuous life, she will be remembered for some unique and memorable work."

FROM THE INDEPENDENT, UK

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 23, 2011

2011-03-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

Debating Intervention: Is U.S.-Led Military Action the Best Solution to Libya Crisis?

MORE FAVORITES: NEIL YOUNG

2011-03-23T10:26:00.001-07:00

Neil Young-"Philadelphia" (Studio Version+Lyrics)

Neil Young Like A Hurricane Hammersmith Odeon March 1976

Neil Young - Cortez The Killer

Neil Young Rockin' In The Free World

Bruce Springsteen & Neil Young - All Along The Watchtower

Neil Young w/Willie Nelson Farmer's Song

Four Strong Winds

Neil Young - Comes A Time (1986)

Neil Young - Mother Earth (Hasselt, 1995)

NEIL YOUNG

2011-03-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

NO MUSIC 'CRITIC' THESE SAYS, I THINK, REALLY KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'IMAGE'
AND WHAT IS 'REAL', OR GOES BEYOND THAT, UNSPARINGLY (AND QUITE HUMOROUSLY) PORTRAYING
MEMBERS OF THE 'ROCK SCENE' AS THE PEOPLE THEY REALLY ARE
THAT IS JUST TOO BAD, IT MAKES FOR A COTERIE OF ASS-LICKERS, IN WITH THE 'MUSIC BUSINESS',
AND NOT INTERESTED IN TELLING THEIR READERS WHAT THOSE READERS HAVE BOUGHT THE BOOKS,
OR READ THE ARTICLES: THE REAL 'DIRT' IS WHAT
ANYWAY I JUST READ ON MY KINDLE FOR PC NICK KENT'S 'THE DARK STUFF: SELECTED WRITINGS ON ROCK MUSIC',
WITH A PREFACE BY IGGY POP, THANK YOU NICK, IT WAS EVERYTHING (AND MORE) THAT I WAS HOPING IT TO BE
THE WHOLE THING WAS 'GRRREAT!'
THE PARTS I RELISHED THE MOST WERE THOSE ON THE ROLLING STONES, IGGY POP, ROY ORBISON, AND NEIL
YOUNG (I'VE GOT AS FAR AS NEIL SO FAR)
BEING AN AVID FAN OF R&R ALL MY LIFE, I NEVER BOUGHT THAT 'IMAGE', SO DEFTLY MANUFACTURED IN THE
SOLE INTEREST OF RECORD SALES
NOW THAT I AM 64 YEARS OLD AND (PRETTY MUCH) CONFINED TO MY APARTMENT (I REALLY LIKE IT THAT WAY) ALL
OF THE TIME, I HAVE NOT (APPARENTLY) FORGOTTEN WHAT 'GOT ME OFF' ABOUT ROCK AND ROLL, THANK YOU
YEAH, I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!
THANKS AGAIN, NICK!

CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG Helpless 1974

CSNY 2000-03-30 Toronto - "Ohio"

Neil Young - Needle and the Damage Done

Neil Young - Heart Of Gold

Neil Young in Spokane - Tonight's the Night

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 22, 2011

2011-03-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

Jeremy Scahill: As Mass Uprising Threatens the Regime, A Look at the Covert U.S. War in Yemen

BIENVENU AU HAÏTI

2011-03-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

CITOYEN JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE, VOTRE PEUPLE VOUS AIME BEAUCOUP, ET VOUS MANQUE!

VOUS AVEZ ICI UN FORT AMI!

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 21, 2011

2011-03-21T09:27:00.001-07:00

Libyan Citizen Journalist Mohammed Nabbous Killed by Gunfire While Reporting on the Battle for Benghazi

2ND DAY VS LYBIA

2011-03-20T23:01:00.001-07:00

U.S. Official Qadaffi's Air Defenses 'Severely Disabled' - Fox News Video - FoxNews.com.flv

Breaking news- riots in Libya- but: WHERE IS MUAMMAR AL GADDAFI?

CNN - Libyan ruler defiant as airstrikes by coalition forces enter 2nd day

US v. Gaddafi Operation Odyssey Dawn USS Kearsarge Bombers v. Lybia 20/3/11 P.3

Break Down of "Odyssey Dawn" US-EU Military Operation Against Libya - Dawn of Another World Crisis

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI AFTERMATH

2011-03-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Thousands missing in Japanese city

Al Jazeera Steve Chow reports from Natori, Japan

Japan disaster child volunteers

Sea Knight helicopters delivering supplies to earthquake and tsunami victims north of Sendai Japan

Raw Video: Two Rescued 9 Days After Japan Quake

Japan doctor boosts morale

FIRST STRIKES AGAINST LIBYA, CONTINUED

2011-03-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

WAR IN LIBYA:Britain And Allies Unleash Missiles On Libya (MAR,19 2011)

Ambassadors Discuss Libya

LİBYA WAR►►112 tomahawk missiles was in Libya

LiBYA Under ATTACK by ALLiES 03-19-2011.wmv

U.S. FIRES TOMAHAWK MISSILES AT LIBYA

11 U.S. Warships Off Coast of Libya, Targets Primarily Around Tripoli

Operation Odyssey Dawn: Libya Air Strikes Begin

RIP MICHAEL GOUGH

2011-03-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Michael Gough: Actor who rounded off a long career with his best-known role, Bruce Wayne's butler in the 'Batman' films

RIP KNUT THE POLAR BEAR

2011-03-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

WIKIPEDIA: Knut (polar bear)

KNUT SEPT 2010

FIRST STRIKES AGAINST LIBYA

2011-03-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Target Libya: Video of French fighter jets headed for Benghazi

First Air strike against Libya

International forces begin Libya strikes

US & Brits Fire Missiles At Libya

BBC NEWS - Coalition launches Libya attacks - March 19, 2011, GMT 22.00

'NO-TOUCH' TORTURE AT QUANTICO

2011-03-19T00:43:00.000-07:00

The Shameful Abuse of Bradley Manning

By DANIEL ELLSBERG

President Obama tells us that he's asked the Pentagon whether the conditions of confinement of Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with leaking state secrets, "are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are."

If Obama believes that, he'll believe anything. I would hope he would know better than to ask the perpetrators whether they've been behaving appropriately. I can just hear President Nixon saying to a press conference the same thing: "I was assured by the White House Plumbers that their burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's doctor in Los Angeles was appropriate and met basic standards."

When that criminal behaviour ordered from the Oval Office came out, Nixon faced impeachment and had to resign. Well, times have changed. But if President Obama really doesn't yet know the actual conditions of Manning's detention – if he really believes, as he's said, that "some of this [nudity, isolation, harassment, sleep-deprivation] has to do with Private Manning's wellbeing", despite the contrary judgments of the prison psychologist – then he's being lied to, and he needs to get a grip on his administration.

If he does know, and agrees that it's appropriate or even legal, that doesn't speak well for his memory of the courses he taught on constitutional law.

The president refused to comment on PJ Crowley's statement that the treatment of Manning is "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid". Those words are true enough as far as they go – which is probably about as far as a state department spokesperson can allow himself to go in condemning actions of the defence department. But at least two other words are called for: abusive and illegal.

Crowley was responding to a question about the "torturing" of an American citizen, and, creditably, he didn't rebut that description. Prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity – that's right out of the manual of the CIA for "enhanced interrogation". We've seen it applied in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. It's what the CIA calls "no-touch torture", and its purpose there, as in this case, is very clear: to demoralise someone to the point of offering a desired confession. That's what they are after, I suspect, with Manning. They don't care if the confession is true or false, so long as it implicates WikiLeaks in a way that will help them prosecute Julian Assange.

That's just my guess, as to their motives. But it does not affect the illegality of the behaviour. If I'm right, it's likely that such harsh treatment wasn't ordered at the level of a warrant officer or the brig commander. The fact that they have continued to inflict such suffering on the prisoner despite weeks of complaint from his defence counsel, harsh publicity and condemnation from organisations such as Amnesty International, suggests to me that it might have come from high levels of the defence department or the justice department, if not from the White House itself.

It's no coincidence that it's someone from the state department who has gone off-message to speak out about this. When a branch of the US government makes a mockery of our pretensions to honour the rule of law, specifically our obligation not to use torture, the state department bears the brunt of that, as it affects our standing in the world.

The fact that Manning's abusive mistreatment is going on at Quantico – where I spent nine months as a Marine officer in basic school – and that Marines are lying about it, makes me feel ashamed for the Corps. Just three years as an infantry officer was more than enough time for me to know that what is going on there is illegal behaviour that must be stopped and disciplined.

Daniel Ellsberg is a former US military analyst who in 1971 leaked the
Pentagon Papers, which revealed how the US public had been misled about
the Vietnam war. His latest book is Secrets.

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

MINUTE OF SILENCE FOR JAPAN

2011-03-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

Minute of silence in Japan - no comment

Europe mourns with Japan - no comment

FC Porto vs Cska Moscow - One minute silence for the victims of Tsunami Earthquake in Japan

MAGNUMMAXIM: JAPAN CRISIS -- MINUTE of SILENCE for VICTIMS -- UNITED NATIONS G-A

#prayforjapan Manchester United - Marseille 15/03/11 Minute's silence @ Old Trafford

UPDATE ON JAPAN

2011-03-18T11:21:00.001-07:00

Fears over supplies in quake-hit Japan

Hunt continues for Japan survivors

Japan's nuclear crisis deepens

DEMOCRACY MOW! MARCH 18, 2011

2011-03-18T08:19:00.001-07:00

"Underestimating the Seriousness of the Problem": Experts Urge Japan to Raise Nuclear Alert and Evacuate Wider Area

UNSC RESOLUTION 1973

2011-03-17T16:22:00.001-07:00

THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL ALLOWS THE USE OF ALL NECESSARY MEASURES TO
PROTECT THE LIBYAN PEOPLE FROM ALL HARM AT THE HANDS OF FORCES
LOYAL TO COL MUAMMAR EL-QADDAFI
IT ALSO INFORMS THE WORLD THERE IS NOW A NO-FLY ZONE OVER LIBYA
IT CALLS FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASE-FIRE

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 17, 2011

2011-03-17T09:45:00.001-07:00

“Serious Danger of a Full Core Meltdown”: Update on Japan’s Nuclear Catastrophe

BAHRAIN

2011-03-17T05:44:00.001-07:00

THIS IS JUST SHAMEFUL, FIRING ON YOUR OWN CITIZENS IN MURDEROUS REPRESSION,
THESE ARE THE ACTS OF A SAVAGE REGIME WITH NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE

Bahrain Police Forces move to disperse protesters from GCC Roundabout - 16 March 2011

Video of violent police crackdown on Bahrain protesters

Bahrain cracks down on protesters

Bahrain violence intensifies

Bahrain's brutal crackdown

Bahrain Uprising-News Analysis-03-15-2011-(Part1)

Bahrain Uprising-News Analysis-03-15-2011-(Part2)

News Analysis-Bahrain Uprising-03-15-2011-(Part3)

Bahrain Security Forces Surround Hospital & Will Not Allow Wounded In Or Doctors To Treat Them

RIP NATE DOGG

2011-03-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

Nate Dogg, Hip-Hop Collaborator, Dies at 41

REQUIEM

2011-03-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

Mozart - Requiem

I'M NOT A RELIGIOUS PERSON, BUT REGARDLESS, BECAUSE THIS IS A MASTERPIECE, AND IT
DOES GIVE ME THE CHILLS, AND GOOSEBUMPS EVERY TIME I LISTEN TO IT, I DEDICATE IT
IN MEMORIAM OF ALL THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FATAL VICTIMS OF THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI
WHO WERE RUDELY SWEPT AWAY TO THEIR DEATHS, MAY THEY REST IN PEACE

Requiem Mass in D Minor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's final Masterpiece was commissioned in mid 1791 by the Austrian count Franz Von Walsegg, as a Tribute to the passing of his young wife Anna. Mozart began his final composition in Prague, suffering from an undetermined illness, which would eventually take his life and rob him of the chance to see the completion of his Magnum Opus. After Mozart's death, his understudy 'Franz Xaver Süssmayr', at the behest of Mozart's wife, completed the missing parts of the Requiem.

Requiem Mass was first performed on January 2, 1793, in a private concert for the benefit of Mozart's grieving wife, Constanze Mozart.

The Following are the lyrics, translated from their Original Latin

Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.
You are praised, God, in Zion,
and homage will be paid to You in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer,
to You all flesh will come.
Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Day of wrath, day of anger
will dissolve the world in ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sibyl.
Great trembling there will be
when the Judge descends from heaven
to examine all things closely.

The trumpet will send its wondrous sound
throughout earth's sepulchres
and gather all before the throne.
Death and nature will be astounded,
when all creation rises again,
to answer the judgment.
A book will be brought forth,
in which all will be written,
by which the world will be judged.
When the judge takes his place,
what is hidden will be revealed,
nothing will remain unavenged.
What shall a wretch like me say?
Who shall intercede for me,
when the just ones need mercy?

King of tremendous majesty,
who freely saves those worthy ones,
save me, source of mercy.

Remember, kind Jesus,
my salvation caused your suffering;
do not forsake me on that day.

Faint and weary you have sought me,
redeemed me, suffering on the cross;
may such great effort not be in vain.

Righteous judge of vengeance,
grant me the gift of absolution
before the day of retribution.

I moan as one who is guilty:
owning my shame with a red face;
suppliant before you, Lord.

You, who absolved Mary,
and listened to the thief,
give me hope also.

My prayers are unworthy,
but, good Lord, have mercy,
and rescue me from eternal fire.

Provide me a place among the sheep,
and separate me from the goats,
guiding me to Your right hand.

When the accused are confounded,
and doomed to flames of woe,
call me among the blessed.

I kneel with submissive heart,
my contrition is like ashes,
help me in my final condition.

That day of tears and mourning,
when from the ashes shall arise,
all humanity to be judged.
Spare us by your mercy, Lord,
gentle Lord Jesus,
grant them eternal rest. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
liberate the souls of the faithful,
departed from the pains of hell
and from the bottomless pit.
Deliver them from the lion's mouth,
lest hell swallow them up,
lest they fall into darkness.

Let the standard-bearer, holy Michael,
bring them into holy light.

Which was promised to Abraham
and his descendants.

Sacrifices and prayers of praise, Lord,
we offer to You.
Receive them in behalf of those souls
we commemorate today.
And let them, Lord,
pass from death to life,
which was promised to Abraham
and his descendants.

Lamb of God, who takes away
the sins of the world,
grant them eternal rest.
Lamb of God, who takes away
the sins of the world,
Grant them eternal rest.
Lamb of God, who takes away
the sins of the world,
grant them eternal rest forever.

Let eternal light shine on them, Lord,
as with Your saints in eternity,
because You are merciful.
Grant them eternal rest, Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them,
as with Your saints in eternity,
because You are merciful.

IN EVENTS LIKE THIS ONE, PEOPLE ARE TRULY POWERLESS IN THE FACE OF NATURE
BUT THE REACTOR ISSUE CANNOT BE BLAMED ON NATURE, ONLY ON THOSE
ARROGANT AND GREEDY OR FOOLHARDY ENOUGH TO PRESENT THE NUCLEAR ISSUE AS
PRACTICALLY RISK FREE, EVEN THOUGH OPPOSED BY THOUSANDS ON THE GROUNDS OF
THIS BEING THE WRONG PLACE FOR REACTORS, BECAUSE IT IS UNDENIABLY PRONE TO FREQUENT
EARTHQUAKES (AND ANY FOOL WOULD SECOND THAT OPINION)
THE SAME THOUSANDS ARE GONE NOW, SWEPT AWAY IN THE PATH OF ONE TSUNAMI, PROVING THAT
THE POTENTIAL VICTIMS OF A SCHEME, ARE INDEED THE REAL VICTIMS IN THIS CASE, AS WE
SUSPECTED ALL ALONG

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THIS COMMERCIAL?

70s Mother Nature *Chiffon* Margarine Commercial

JAPAN

2011-03-16T10:50:00.001-07:00

16.03.2011. Japan's emperor addresses nation in crisis.BBC

NHK: The Emperor of Japan Akihito addresses the Fukushima Crisis.

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 16, 2011

2011-03-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

Amy Goodman Reports From South Africa on Aristide’s Planned Return Trip to Haiti After Seven Years in Exile

BIRTHRIGHTS

2011-03-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Birthrights - Fistula Hospital: Healing and Hope

Birthrights - Fistula Hospital: Reaching out

Birthrights - Fistula Hospital: Facing the Future

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 15, 2011

2011-03-15T08:20:00.001-07:00

“This Could Become Chernobyl on Steroids”: Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen on Japan’s Growing Nuclear Crisis

TERREMOTO E TSUNAMI NO JAPÃO

2011-03-14T17:53:00.001-07:00

tsunami japao 11 março 2011.wmv (TV CHINESA)

terremoto japao dentro do escritorio 11 de março 2011.wmv

terremoto tremor japao 11 março 2011.wmv

Imagem da Tsunami chegando no Japão e os impactos.wmv

TERREMOTO E TSUNAMI NO JAPÃO 11/03/2011 - Edição do Jornal Hoje

TERREMOTO E TSUNAMI NO JAPÃO 14/03/2011 - Fantástico

Tsunami no Japão 2011 - Imagens mostram família dentro de carro arrastado pela água.

tsunami japao NEWS WORLD chocante!!.

RESEARCH: BEING ALONE ISN'T SO BAD

2011-03-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

THE POWER OF LONELY
What we do better without other people around

By Leon Neyfakh
March 6, 2011

You hear it all the time: We humans are social animals. We need to spend time together to be happy and functional, and we extract a vast array of benefits from maintaining intimate relationships and associating with groups. Collaborating on projects at work makes us smarter and more creative. Hanging out with friends makes us more emotionally mature and better able to deal with grief and stress.

Spending time alone, by contrast, can look a little suspect. In a world gone wild for wikis and interdisciplinary collaboration, those who prefer solitude and private noodling are seen as eccentric at best and defective at worst, and are often presumed to be suffering from social anxiety, boredom, and alienation.

But an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude experts say, so can being alone.

One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone. Another indicates that a certain amount of solitude can make a person more capable of empathy towards others. And while no one would dispute that too much isolation early in life can be unhealthy, a certain amount of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and earn good grades in school.

“There’s so much cultural anxiety about isolation in our country that we often fail to appreciate the benefits of solitude,” said Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University whose book “Alone in America,” in which he argues for a reevaluation of solitude, will be published next year. “There is something very liberating for people about being on their own. They’re able to establish some control over the way they spend their time. They’re able to decompress at the end of a busy day in a city...and experience a feeling of freedom.”

Figuring out what solitude is and how it affects our thoughts and feelings has never been more crucial. The latest Census figures indicate there are some 31 million Americans living alone, which accounts for more than a quarter of all US households. And at the same time, the experience of being alone is being transformed dramatically, as more and more people spend their days and nights permanently connected to the outside world through cellphones and computers. In an age when no one is ever more than a text message or an e-mail away from other people, the distinction between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry, even as the potential benefits of true solitude are starting to become clearer.

Solitude has long been linked with creativity, spirituality, and intellectual might. The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude. The poet James Russell Lowell identified solitude as “needful to the imagination;” in the 1988 book “Solitude: A Return to the Self,” the British psychiatrist Anthony Storr invoked Beethoven, Kafka, and Newton as examples of solitary genius.

But what actually happens to people’s minds when they are alone? As much as it’s been exalted, our understanding of how solitude actually works has remained rather abstract, and modern psychology — where you might expect the answers to lie — has tended to treat aloneness more as a problem than a solution. That was what Christopher Long found back in 1999, when as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst he started working on a project to precisely define solitude and isolate ways in which it could be experienced constructively. The project’s funding came from, of all places, the US Forest Service, an agency with a deep interest in figuring out once and for all what is meant by “solitude” and how the concept could be used to promote America’s wilderness preserves.

With his graduate adviser and a researcher from the Forest Service at his side, Long identified a number of different ways a person might experience solitude and undertook a series of studies to measure how common they were and how much people valued them. A 2003 survey of 320 UMass undergraduates led Long and his coauthors to conclude that people felt good about being alone more often than they felt bad about it, and that psychology’s conventional approach to solitude — an “almost exclusive emphasis on loneliness” — represented an artificially narrow view of what being alone was all about.

“Aloneness doesn’t have to be bad,” Long said by phone recently from Ouachita Baptist University, where he is an assistant professor. “There’s all this research on solitary confinement and sensory deprivation and astronauts and people in Antarctica — and we wanted to say, look, it’s not just about loneliness!”

Today other researchers are eagerly diving into that gap. Robert Coplan of Carleton University, who studies children who play alone, is so bullish on the emergence of solitude studies that he’s hoping to collect the best contemporary research into a book. Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, a leader in the world of positive psychology, has recently overseen an intriguing study that suggests memories are formed more effectively when people think they’re experiencing something individually.

That study, led by graduate student Bethany Burum, started with a simple experiment: Burum placed two individuals in a room and had them spend a few minutes getting to know each other. They then sat back to back, each facing a computer screen the other could not see. In some cases they were told they’d both be doing the same task, in other cases they were told they’d be doing different things. The computer screen scrolled through a set of drawings of common objects, such as a guitar, a clock, and a log. A few days later the participants returned and were asked to recall which drawings they’d been shown. Burum found that the participants who had been told the person behind them was doing a different task — namely, identifying sounds rather than looking at pictures — did a better job of remembering the pictures. In other words, they formed more solid memories when they believed they were the only ones doing the task.

The results, which Burum cautions are preliminary, are now part of a paper on “the coexperiencing mind” that was recently presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference. In the paper, Burum offers two possible theories to explain what she and Gilbert found in the study. The first invokes a well-known concept from social psychology called “social loafing,” which says that people tend not to try as hard if they think they can rely on others to pick up their slack. (If two people are pulling a rope, for example, neither will pull quite as hard as they would if they were pulling it alone.) But Burum leans toward a different explanation, which is that sharing an experience with someone is inherently distracting, because it compels us to expend energy on imagining what the other person is going through and how they’re reacting to it.

“People tend to engage quite automatically with thinking about the minds of other people,” Burum said in an interview. “We’re multitasking when we’re with other people in a way that we’re not when we just have an experience by ourselves.”

Perhaps this explains why seeing a movie alone feels so radically different than seeing it with friends: Sitting there in the theater with nobody next to you, you’re not wondering what anyone else thinks of it; you’re not anticipating the discussion that you’ll be having about it on the way home. All your mental energy can be directed at what’s happening on the screen. According to Greg Feist, an associate professor of psychology at the San Jose State University who has written about the connection between creativity and solitude, some version of that principle may also be at work when we simply let our minds wander: When we let our focus shift away from the people and things around us, we are better able to engage in what’s called meta-cognition, or the process of thinking critically and reflectively about our own thoughts.

Other psychologists have looked at what happens when other people’s minds don’t just take up our bandwidth, but actually influence our judgment. It’s well known that we’re prone to absorb or mimic the opinions and body language of others in all sorts of situations, including those that might seem the most intensely individual, such as who we’re attracted to. While psychologists don’t necessarily think of that sort of influence as “clouding” one’s judgment — most would say it’s a mechanism for learning, allowing us to benefit from information other people have access to that we don’t — it’s easy to see how being surrounded by other people could hamper a person’s efforts to figure out what he or she really thinks of something.

Teenagers, especially, whose personalities have not yet fully formed, have been shown to benefit from time spent apart from others, in part because it allows for a kind of introspection — and freedom from self-consciousness — that strengthens their sense of identity. Reed Larson, a professor of human development at the University of Illinois, conducted a study in the 1990s in which adolescents outfitted with beepers were prompted at irregular intervals to write down answers to questions about who they were with, what they were doing, and how they were feeling. Perhaps not surprisingly, he found that when the teens in his sample were alone, they reported feeling a lot less self-conscious. “They want to be in their bedrooms because they want to get away from the gaze of other people,” he said.

The teenagers weren’t necessarily happier when they were alone; adolescence, after all, can be a particularly tough time to be separated from the group. But Larson found something interesting: On average, the kids in his sample felt better after they spent some time alone than they did before. Furthermore, he found that kids who spent between 25 and 45 percent of their nonclass time alone tended to have more positive emotions over the course of the weeklong study than their more socially active peers, were more successful in school and were less likely to self-report depression.

“The paradox was that being alone was not a particularly happy state,” Larson said. “But there seemed to be kind of a rebound effect. It’s kind of like a bitter medicine.”

The nice thing about medicine is it comes with instructions. Not so with solitude, which may be tremendously good for one’s health when taken in the right doses, but is about as user-friendly as an unmarked white pill. Too much solitude is unequivocally harmful and broadly debilitating, decades of research show. But one person’s “too much” might be someone else’s “just enough,” and eyeballing the difference with any precision is next to impossible.

Research is still far from offering any concrete guidelines. Insofar as there is a consensus among solitude researchers, it’s that in order to get anything positive out of spending time alone, solitude should be a choice: People must feel like they’ve actively decided to take time apart from people, rather than being forced into it against their will.

Overextended parents might not need any encouragement to see time alone as a desirable luxury; the question for them is only how to build it into their frenzied lives. But for the millions of people living by themselves, making time spent alone time productive may require a different kind of effort. Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, argues in her new book, “Alone, Together,” that people should be mindfully setting aside chunks of every day when they are not engaged in so-called social snacking activities like texting, g-chatting, and talking on the phone. For teenagers, it may help to understand that feeling a little lonely at times may simply be the price of forging a clearer identity.

John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, whose 2008 book “Loneliness” with William Patrick summarized a career’s worth of research on all the negative things that happen to people who can’t establish connections with others, said recently that as long as it’s not motivated by fear or social anxiety, then spending time alone can be a crucially nourishing component of life. And it can have some counterintuitive effects: Adam Waytz in the Harvard psychology department, one of Cacioppo’s former students, recently completed a study indicating that people who are socially connected with others can have a hard time identifying with people who are more distant from them. Spending a certain amount of time alone, the study suggests, can make us less closed off from others and more capable of empathy — in other words, better social animals.

“People make this error, thinking that being alone means being lonely, and not being alone means being with other people,” Cacioppo said. “You need to be able to recharge on your own sometimes. Part of being able to connect is being available to other people, and no one can do that without a break.”

Leon Neyfakh is the staff writer for Ideas. E-mail lneyfakh@globe.com.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

FROM BOSTON.COM, VIA UNDERNEWS

GERAÇÃO À RASCA

2011-03-14T00:06:00.001-07:00

FOR NON-PORTUGUESE SPEAKERS:
GERAÇÃO À RASCA = GENERATION IN A FIX = THE NAME OF THE DEMONSTRATION VS THE GOVERNMENT

RIP MIKHAIL SIMONOV

2011-03-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Mikhail Simonov: Aircraft designer whose Su-27 is regarded as the best jet fighter of the 20th century

O HINO GERACIONAL

2011-03-12T20:36:00.000-08:00

Deolinda - Parva Que Sou [HQ]

Parva Que Eu Sou (Deolinda)

Sou da geração sem remuneração
E não me incomoda esta condição.
Que parva que eu sou!

Porque isto está mal e vai continuar,
Já é uma sorte eu poder estagiar.
Que parva que eu sou!
E fico a pensar,
Que mundo tão parvo
Onde para ser escravo é preciso estudar.

Sou da geração ‘casinha dos pais’,
Se já tenho tudo, pra quê querer mais?
Que parva que eu sou!
Filhos, marido, estou sempre a adiar
E ainda me falta o carro pagar,
Que parva que eu sou!
E fico a pensar
Que mundo tão parvo
Onde para ser escravo é preciso estudar.

Sou da geração ‘vou queixar-me pra quê?’
Há alguém bem pior do que eu na tv.
Que parva que eu sou!
Sou da geração ‘eu já não posso mais!’
Que esta situação dura há tempo demais
E parva não sou!
E fico a pensar,
Que mundo tão parvo
Onde para ser escravo é preciso estudar.

MANIFESTÃO GERAÇÃO À RASCA, LISBOA

2011-03-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Manifestação "Geração à Rasca" - RTP Noticias (Directo) 17H08

EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI IN JAPAN

2011-03-11T12:33:00.001-08:00

Scary footage: Tsunami waves raging, buildings burn after 8.9 Japan earthquake

8.9-magnitude Quake in Japan Triggers Devastating Japan Tsunami

Oil refinery ablaze after devastating Japan earthquake, tsunami

Video of cars, ships wrecked by tsunami waves after Japan earthquake

Tsunami Live from Japan - Live Visuals - 01

Breaking news: 8.9 earthquake and tsunami hits Japan,earthquake video Japan

Japan Earthquake 8.9 Tsunami hits (11 March 2011)

BBC NEWS VIDEO OF THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 11, 2011

2011-03-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

Japan Struck by One of Biggest Earthquakes in Recorded History, Tsunamis Threaten Pacific Basin

STEALING FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TO PAY FOR WARS AND BAILOUTS

2011-03-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

The Greatest Rip-Off

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The American Empire is failing. A number of its puppet rulers are being overthrown by popular protests, and the almighty dollar will not even buy one Swiss franc, one Canadian dollar, or one Australian dollar. Despite the sovereign debt problem that threatens EU members Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, it requires $1.38 dollars to buy one euro, a new currency that was issued at parity with the US dollar.

The US dollar's value is likely to fall further in terms of other currencies, because nothing is being done about the US budget and trade deficits. Obama's budget, if passed, doesn't reduce the deficit over the next ten years by enough to cover the projected deficit in the FY 2012 budget.

Indeed, the deficits are likely to be substantially larger than forecast. The military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans a half century ago, is more powerful than ever and shows no inclination to halt the wars for US hegemony.

The cost of these wars is enormous. The US media, being good servants for the government, only reports the out-of-pocket or current cost of the wars, which is only about one-third of the real cost. The current cost leaves out the cost of life-long care for the wounded and maimed, the cost of life-long military pensions of those who fought in the wars, the replacement costs of the destroyed equipment, the opportunity cost of the resources wasted in war, and other costs. The true cost of America's illegal Iraq invasion, which was based entirely on lies, fabrications and deceptions, is at least $3,000 billion according to economist Joseph Stiglitz and budget expert Linda Bilmes.

The same for the Afghan war, which is ongoing. If the Afghan war lasts as long as the Pentagon says it needs to, the cost will be a multiple of the cost of the Iraq war.

There is not enough non-military discretionary spending in the budget to cover the cost of the wars even if every dollar is cut. As long as the $1,200 billion ($1.2 trillion) annual budget for the military/security complex is off limits, nothing can be done about the U.S. budget deficit except to renege on obligations to the elderly, confiscate private assets, or print enough money to inflate away all debts.

The other great contribution to the US deficit is the offshoring of production for US markets. This practice has enriched corporate management, large shareholders, and Wall Street, but it has eroded the tax base, and thereby tax collections, of local, state, and federal government, halted the growth of real income for everyone but the rich, and disrupted the lives of those Americans whose jobs were sent abroad. When short-term and long-term discouraged workers are added to the U.3 measure of unemployment, the U.S. has an unemployment rate of 22%. A country with more than one-fourth of its work force unemployed has a shrunken tax base and feeble consumer purchasing power.

To put it bluntly, the $3 trillion cost of the Iraq war, as computed by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, is 20% of the size of the U.S. economy in 2010. In other words, the Iraq war alone cost Americans one-fifth of the year's gross domestic product. Instead of investing the resources, which would have produced income and jobs growth and solvency for state and local governments, the US government wasted the equivalent of 20% of the production of the economy in 2010 in blowing up infrastructure and people in foreign lands. The US government spent a huge sum of money committing war crimes, while millions of Americans were thrown out of their jobs and foreclosed out of their homes.

The bought-and-paid-for Congress had no qualms about unlimited funding for war, but used the resulting "debt crisis" to refuse help to American citizens who were out of work and out of their homes.

The obvious conclusion is that "our" government does not represent us.

The US government remains a champion of offshoring, which it calls "globalism." According to the US government and its shills among "free market" economists, destroying American manufacturing and the tax bases of cities, states, and the federal government by moving US jobs and GDP offshore is "good for the economy." It is "free trade."

It is the same sort of "good" that the US government brings to Iraq and Afghanistan by invading those countries and destroying lives, homes and infrastructures. Destruction is good. That's the way our government and its shills see things. In America destruction is done with jobs offshoring, financial deregulation, and fraudulent financial instruments. In Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) is it done with bombs and drones.

Where is all this leading?

It is leading to the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans have convinced a large percentage of voters that America is in trouble, not because it wastes 20% of the annual budget on wars of aggression and Homeland Security porn-scanners, but because of the poor and retirees.

Pundits scapegoat the middle class and blame the struggling middle along with the poor and retirees. Fareed Zakaria, for example, sees no extravagance in a trillion dollar military budget. The real money, he says, is in programs for the middle class, and the middle class "will immediately punish any [politician] who proposes spending cuts in any middle class program." What does Zakaria think the military/security complex will do to any politician who cuts the military budget? As a well-paid shill he had rather not say.

Andrew Sullivan also has no concept of reductions in military/security subsidies: "they're big babies I mean, people keep saying they don't want any tax increases, but they don't want to have their Medicare cut, they don't want to have their Medicaid [cut] or they don't want to have their Social Security touched one inch. Well, it's about time someone tells them,you can't have it, baby."

Niall Ferguson thinks that Americans are so addicted to wars that the U.S. government will default on Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans tell us that our grandchildren are being saddled with impossible debt burdens because of handouts to retirees and the poor. $3 trillion wars are necessary and have nothing to do with the growth of the public debt. The public debt is due to unnecessary "welfare" that workers paid for with a 15% payroll tax.

When you hear a Republican sneer "entitlement," he or she is referring to Social Security and Medicare, for which people have paid 15% of their wages for their working lifetime. But when a Republican sneers, he or she is saying "welfare." To the distorted mind of a Republican, Social Security and Medicare are undeserved welfare payments to people who over-consumed for a lifetime and did not save for their old age needs.

America can be strong again once we get rid of these welfare leeches.

Once we are rid of these leeches, we can really fight wars. And show people who is boss.

Republicans regard Social Security as an "unfunded liability," that is, a giveaway that is interfering with our war-making ability.

Alas, Social Security is an unfunded liability, because all the money working people put into it was stolen by Republicans and Democrats in order to pay for wars and bailouts for mega-rich bankers like Goldman Sachs.

What I am about to tell you might come as a shock, but it is the absolute truth, which you can verify for yourself by going online to the government's annual OASDI and HI reports. According to the official 2010 Social Security reports, between 1984 and 2009 the American people contributed $2 trillion, that is $2,000 billion, more to Social Security and Medicare in payroll taxes than was paid out in benefits.

What happened to the surplus $2,000 billion, or $2,000,000,000,000.

The government spent it.

Over the past quarter century, $2 trillion in Social Security and Medicare revenues have been used to finance wars and pork-barrel projects of the US government.

Depending on assumptions about population growth, income growth and other factors, Social Security continues to be in the black until after 2025 or 2035 under the "high cost" and "intermediate" assumptions and the current payroll tax rate of 15.3% based on the revenues paid in and the interest on those surplus revenues. Under the low cost scenario, Social Security (OASDI) will have produced surplus revenues of $31.6 trillion by 2085.

When I was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, Deputy Assistant Secretary Steve Entin worked out a way to put Social Security on a sound basis with the current rate of payroll tax without requiring one cent of general revenues. You can read about it in chapter 9 of my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, which Harvard University Press has kept in print for more than a quarter century. Entin's solution, or a variation of it, would still work, so Social Security can easily be saved within the current payroll tax rate. Instead of acknowledging this incontrovertible fact, the right-wing wants to terminate the program.

Treasury was blocked from putting Entin's plan into effect by the fact that other parts of the government and the Greenspan Social Security Commission had agendas different from ensuring a sound Social Security system.

Wall Street insisted that the Reagan tax rate reductions would explode consumer spending, cause inflation and destroy the values of stock and bond portfolios. When inflation collapsed instead of exploding, Wall Street said that the deficits, which resulted from inflation's collapse, would cause inflation and destroy the values of stock and bond portfolios. This didn't happen either.

Nevertheless, the Greenspan commission played to these mistaken fears. The "Reagan deficits" could not cause inflation, because they were the result of the unanticipated collapse of inflation (anticipated only by supply-side economists). As I demonstrated in a paper published in the 1980s in the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, and other countries, tax revenues were below the forecast amounts because inflation, and thus nominal GNP, were below forecast. The collapse of inflation also made real government spending higher than intended as the spending figures in the five-year budget were based on higher inflation than was realized.

The subsidy to the US government from the payroll tax is larger than the $2 trillion in excess revenue collections over payouts. The subsidy of the Social Security payroll tax to the government also includes the fact that $2.8 trillion of US government debt obligations are not in the market. If the national debt held by the public were $2.8 trillion larger, so would be the debt service costs and most likely also the interest rate.

The money left over for war would be even smaller. More would have to be borrowed or printed.

The difference between the $2 trillion in excess Social Security revenues and the $2.8 trillion figure is the $0.8 trillion that is the accumulated interest over the years on the mounting $2 trillion in debt, if the Treasury had had to issue bonds, instead of non-marketable IOUs, to the Social Security Trust Fund. When the budget is in deficit, the Treasury pays interest by issuing new bonds in the amount of the interest due. In other words, the interest on the debt adds to the debt outstanding.

The robbed Social Security Trust Fund can only be made good by the US Treasury issuing another $2.8 trillion in US government debt to pay off its IOUs to the fund.

When a government is faced with a $14 trillion public debt growing by trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, how does it add another $2.8 trillion to the mix?

Only with great difficulty.

Therefore, to avoid repaying the $2.8 trillion that the government has stolen for its wars and bailouts for mega-rich bankers, the right-wing has selected entitlements as the sacrificial lamb.

A government that runs a deficit too large to finance by borrowing will print money as long as it can. When the printing press begins to push up inflation and push down the exchange value of the dollar, the government will be tempted to reduce its debt by reneging on entitlements or by confiscating private assets such as pension funds. When it has confiscated private assets and reneged on public obligations, nothing is left but the printing press.

We owe the end-time situation that we face to open-ended wars and to an unregulated financial system concentrated in a few hands that produces financial crises by leveraging debt to irresponsible levels.

The government of the United States does not represent the American people. It represents the oligarchs. The way campaign finance and elections are structured, the American people cannot take back their government by voting. A once proud and free people have been reduced to serfdom.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

STOP BULLYING

2011-03-10T13:26:00.001-08:00

StopBullying.Gov

Stop Bullying Now

Stop Bullying Now - ASL

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 10, 2011

2011-03-10T08:03:00.001-08:00

Outrage in Wisconsin: Thousands Flood Capitol After GOP Strips Public Workers of Bargaining Rights in Surprise Senate Vote

THE INSURRECTION IN LIBYA

2011-03-09T13:17:00.001-08:00

Heavy shelling on Libyan front west of Ras Lanuf

Qaddafi's air strikes on Libyan civilians

Libyan battle for Zawiyah rages on

Video of fresh fights in Libya

Libya oil tanks seen as 'time bomb'

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 9, 2011

2011-03-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

Naomi Klein on Anti-Union Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style: "This is a Frontal Assault on Democracy, It’s a Kind of a Corporate Coup D’Etat"

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

2011-03-08T18:34:00.001-08:00

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it." - SECRETARY GATES

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 8, 2011

2011-03-08T07:35:00.001-08:00

“Women’s Rights are Worker’s Rights:” Kavita Ramdas on History of International Women’s Day and Challenges Women Face 100 Years Later

WILLIAM K BLACK ON BILL MOYERS JOURNAL

2011-03-07T20:46:00.001-08:00

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | William K. Black | PBS

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | William K. Black on Fraud | PBS

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 7, 2011

2011-03-07T07:32:00.001-08:00

Hopes of Peaceful Revolution in Libya End as Opposition Prepares for Long Battle Against Gaddafi Forces

BILL MOYERS AGAIN

2011-03-07T00:05:00.001-08:00

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Dr. Jane Goodall pt. 1 | PBS

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Dr. Jane Goodall pt. 2 | PBS

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Shahan Mufti and Juan Cole | PBS

Bill Moyer's Journal - Rising Inequality in America - Part 1

Bill Moyer's Journal - Rising Inequality in America - Part 2

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Kavita Ramdas | PBS

TORTURE Á LA CARTE: EVEN BEFORE BRADLEY MANNING

2011-03-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

From The Archives: Bush's Interrogators Stressed Nudity

By Robert Parry

Editor's Note: The disclosure that Army Pvt. Bradley Manning was subjected to seven hours of forced nudity on Wednesday -- amid new pressures aimed at getting him to identify others involved in the WikiLeaks case -- recalled how the Bush administration used nudity and other abusive tactics to break down "war on terror" detainees.

In 2004, the CIA told President George W. Bush's lawyers how useful forced nudity was for instilling "learned helplessness" in prisoners, though the repeated emphasis on nudity took on a lewd and sadistic quality, as Robert Parry reported in this article from the archives: (Originally published September 12, 2009)

The CIA shared with George W. Bush's Justice Department the details of how an interrogation strategy -- with an emphasis on forced nudity and physical abuse -- could train prisoners in "learned helplessness" and demonstrate "the complete control of Americans."

The 19-page document, entitled "Background Paper on CIA's Combined Use of Interrogation Techniques" and dated Dec. 30, 2004, contains repeated references to keeping suspected al-Qaeda captives -- called "high-value detainees" or HVDs -- naked as part of the strategy for breaking down their resistance.

The first of several "specific conditioning interrogation techniques" lists "Nudity. The HVD's clothes are taken and he remains nude until the interrogators provide clothes to him." [Underline in original.]

The CIA said the prisoner is kept nude (or occasionally dressed in a diaper) while being subjected to other "conditioning techniques," sleep deprivation and a bland diet of Ensure. Nudity continues while interrogators apply other more aggressive techniques designed to emphasize a prisoner's helplessness.

The background paper, which was prepared for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and released in August 2009 in response to an ACLU lawsuit, described in bureaucratic wording the process used to interrogate a suspected terrorist after his capture and "rendition" to a CIA-run "black site."
"During the flight, the detainee is securely shackled and is deprived of sight and sound through the use of blindfolds, earmuffs, and hoods," the report said. "There is no interaction with the HVD during this rendition movement except for periodic, discreet assessments by the on-board medical officer."

From the start, the goal was to dramatize the prisoner's vulnerability.

"The HVD is subjected to administrative procedures and medical assessment upon arrival at the Black Site," the report said. "The HVD finds himself in the complete control of Americans."

Initially, that control is underscored by an ominous coldness of the reception.

The report said: "The procedures he is subjected to are precise, quiet, and almost clinical; and no one is mistreating him. While each HVD is different, the rendition and reception process generally creates significant apprehension in the HVD because of the enormity and suddenness of the change in environment, the uncertainty about what will happen next, and the potential dread an HVD might have in US custody."

The prisoner is next subjected to a dehumanizing process in preparation for the interrogations.

"The HVD's head and face are shaved," the CIA report says. "A series of photographs are taken of the HVD while nude to document the physical condition of the HVD upon arrival. A Medical Officer interviews the HVD and a medical evaluation is conducted to assess the physical condition of the HVD. ... A Psychologist interviews the HVD to assess his mental state."

Then, if no "contraindications" are found, the interrogations begin, with continued emphasis on stripping the prisoner of his clothing, his self-respect and his ability to resist.

"Learned Helplessness"

"Effective interrogation is based on the concept of using both physical and psychological pressures in a comprehensive, systematic, and cumulative manner to influence HVD behavior, to overcome a detainee's resistance posture," the CIA report said.

"The goal of interrogation is to create a state of learned helplessness and dependence conducive to the collection of intelligence in a predictable, reliable, and sustainable manner."

The report said a typical "session one" would start as "the HVD is brought into the interrogation room, and under the direction of the interrogators, stripped of his clothes, and placed into shackles."

After a round of questioning -- that would include some slaps and slamming the prisoner against a wall -- sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation (which along with nudity are regarded as "conditioning techniques") are begun.

The report said: "The interrogators, assisted by security officers ... will place the HVD in the center of the interrogation room in the vertical shackling position and diaper the HVD to begin sleep deprivation. The HVD will be provided with Ensure Plus ... to begin dietary manipulation. The HVD remains nude." [Underlines in original.]

In the next session, "coercive techniques" are brought into play. The nude prisoner is doused with cold water, repeatedly slammed against a wall and forced into stress positions before being returned to the shackling position for more sleep deprivation and more dietary manipulation, with the recurring advice, "the HVD remains nude."

Summing up this second session, the CIA wrote, "the following techniques were used: sleep deprivation, nudity, dietary manipulation, walling, water dousing, attention grasp, insult slap, and abdominal slap. The three Conditioning Techniques were used to keep the HVD at a baseline, dependent state and to weaken his resolve and will to resist."
For session three, the CIA also noted that the prisoner "is nude" before more abusive techniques are added to the mix and then applied in combination. The report stated:

"Interrogators will often use one technique to support another. As an example, interrogators would tell an HVD in a stress position that he (HVD) is going back to the walling wall (for walling) if he fails to hold the stress position until told otherwise. ... This places additional stress on the HVD who typically will try to hold the stress position for as long as possible to avoid the walling wall."

According to the report, wall slamming, which involves putting a harness around a prisoner's neck and whipping him into a wall, "is one of the most effective interrogation techniques because it wears down the HVD physically, heightens uncertainty in the detainee about what the interrogator may do to him, and creates a sense of dread when the HVD knows he is about to be walled again. "

"An HVD may be walled one time (one impact with the wall) to make a point or twenty to thirty times consecutively when the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question. During an interrogation session that is designed to be intense, an HVD will be walled multiple times in the session."

After the end of the third session, the prisoner is put back "into the vertical shackling position to resume sleep deprivation. Dietary manipulation also continues, and the HVD remains nude," the report said.

Cramped Confinement

In later interrogations, the prisoner could also be locked in boxes for differing periods depending on the size of the box. Under guidance from the CIA's medical personnel, "the duration of cramped confinement limits confinement in the large box to no more than 8 hours at a time for no more than 18 hours a day, and confinement in the small box to 2 hours," the report said.

According to the report, "sleep deprivation may continue to the 70 to 120 hour range, or possibly beyond for the hardest resisters, but in no case exceed the 180-hour time limit."

Although "the entire interrogation process outlined above ... may last for thirty days," the report said, "if the interrogation team anticipates the potential need to use interrogation techniques beyond the 30-day approval period, it will submit a new interrogation plan to HQS for evaluation and approval."

The Bush administration insisted that its "enhanced interrogation techniques," which earlier also included the near-drowning of "waterboarding," were effective in eliciting valuable intelligence about al-Qaeda and its plans, but FBI and some military interrogators opposed the techniques as counterproductive.

As early as spring 2002, FBI agents objected to the CIA's brutal treatment of badly wounded al-Qaeda captive Abu Zubaydah, only to be informed that the tactics had been approved "at the highest levels," according to a Justice Department Inspector General's report that was released last year.

FBI interrogators claimed that they achieved better results from rapport-building and other non-violent techniques with Zubaydah than the CIA did later with its use of torture.

For instance, author Jane Mayer in her book The Dark Side wrote that the two FBI agents, Ali Soufan and Steve Gaudin, "sent back early cables [in 2002] describing Zubayda as revealing inside details of the [9/11] attacks on New York and Washington, including the nickname of its central planner, 'Mukhtar,' who was identified as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad ...

"During this period, Zubayda also described an Al Qaeda associate whose physical description matched that of Jose Padilla. The information led to the arrest of the slow-witted American gang member in May 2002, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. ...

"Abu Zubayda disclosed Padilla's role accidentally, apparently. While making small talk, he described an Al Qaeda associate he said had just visited the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. That scrap was enough for authorities to find and arrest Padilla.

"These early revelations were greeted with excitement by [CIA Director George] Tenet, until he was told they were extracted not by his officers but by the rival team at the FBI."
Soon, a CIA team arrived at the secret CIA detention center in Thailand where Zubaydah was being held and took command, adopting more aggressive interrogations tactics, Mayer wrote. The Bush administration approved the full battery of harsh tactics, including waterboarding, in mid-summer 2002.

Mayer's account was backed up by one of the FBI agents, Ali Soufan, who broke his long silence on the topic in an op-ed in the New York Times, citing Zubaydah's cooperation in providing information about Padilla and KSM before the CIA began the harsh tactics.

"It is inaccurate ... to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative," Soufan wrote. "Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence." [NYT, April 23, 2009]

After taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order closing the "black sites" and prohibiting the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques." The Obama administration also has released documents describing how Bush's Justice Department issued legal opinions that permitted waterboarding and other torture techniques.

In August 2009, the Obama administration released a 2004 CIA Inspector General's report, which was critical of the CIA's abusive interrogations. The CIA background paper detailing how the methods were used in combination was part of the package of documents made public at that time.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek.

SOURCE: From The Archives: Bush's Interrogators Stressed Nudity

BILL MOYERS

2011-03-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Ron Paul | PBS

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Hunger in America | PBS

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Dennis Kucinich | PBS

The People Speak: Howard Zinn on Moyers Journal (1/3)

The People Speak: Howard Zinn on Moyers Journal (2/3)

The People Speak: Howard Zinn on Moyers Journal (3/3)

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Web Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald on Afghanistan | PBS (part 1 of 3)

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Web Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald on the Beltway Elite | PBS (part 2 of 3)

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Web Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald on Government Secrecy | PBS (part 3 of 3)

CARNIVAL

2011-03-04T23:59:00.001-08:00

This is BRAZIL - Carnaval in RIO DE JANEIRO.avi

Brazilian Carnaval - Rio de Janeiro

'BLACK ORPHEUS' FOR CARNIVAL ('ORFEU NEGRO' PARA O CARNAVAL)

2011-03-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 1/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 2/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 3/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 4/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 5/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 6/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 7/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 8/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 9/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 10/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 11/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 12/13 Eng. Sub.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) 13/13 Eng. Sub.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE WEST, MR FRIEDMAN

2011-03-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

Distorting the Essence of the Great Arab Revolutions of 2011

By ESAM AL-AMIN

“Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West. . . As a cultural apparatus Orientalism is all aggression.”

~ Edward Said

In his book “Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky discusses the role of the mainstream, corporate media in conditioning the public to conform to the views and policies of society’s powerful ruling elite.

Regarding these media outlets- as supposed to independent ones- he argues that “their role is quite different, it's diversion.” He describes those who distort facts to suit the interests of the powerful as living “in a world of comforting illusion.” They present a narrative that is more fiction than fact, one of fantasy rather than analysis. It’s actually “a form of propaganda, which is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,” Chomsky argues.

One such enabler is New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. His frequently shallow and eccentric analysis of events in the Middle East has been noted for many years, whether it is his deliberate misrepresentation of the Camp David negotiations in July 2000, or his hyped columns regarding alleged – and as it turned out non-existent- weapons of mass destruction in Iraq on behalf of the Bush administration in the prelude to the 2003 war.

And now he’s at it again, with his incredible contention that the revolutions sweeping the Arab World, from Tunisia Egypt, and Libya, to Yemen, Bahrain, and beyond are due to external factors. In Friedman’s delusional world, the presence of decades-long repression, police state, corruption, poverty, economic strangulation, lack of infrastructure, or, in short, the collapse of the modern civil state in the Arab World for the benefit of thugs, thieves and Western underlings were not the real factors in the uprisings and revolutions of millions of Arabs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf.

In his column on March 2, 2011, Friedman gives five reasons for these great revolutions, none of which is true. He starts by ridiculously claiming that it was President Barack Obama who inspired the Youth in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries because of his race, middle name, and his 2009 Cairo speech. Clearly such opinion is an ethnocentric and distorted view of the Arab Middle East. Obama may inspire minorities in the West, but why would his skin color or the religion of his forefathers inspire people in the Middle East?

Former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice did not inspire the Arab masses although they were also African Americans occupying high positions in government. On the contrary these Secretaries attained the Arabs’ scorn because they represented a U.S. administration that invaded two Muslim countries, killing tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims, with millions more suffering. Their administration used torture, carried out unjust prosecutions, and abused its power against Arabs and Muslims not only in Guantanamo Bay and other prisons around the world, but also inside the U.S. against many Muslim leaders and charitable organizations. Arabs are not so naïve as to be inspired by the symbolism of skin color or middle name. It is a government’s policies and principles that inspire the oppressed whether in the U.S. or the Arab World.

Undoubtedly people around the world had hoped that the election of Obama would bring a new dawn of American foreign policy that would not only reverse much of the previous administration’s atrocious policies with regard to the Muslim World, but also institute pro-people policies against their dictators.

But Obama has broken nearly every meaningful promise he made in his June 2009 Cairo speech (see my article
Promises Made.. Promises Unkept.) If anything, Obama is perceived as a big disappointment across the Arab World. He exhibits the image of a weak and ineffective leader, as in the case of closing Guantanamo, as well as an unprincipled and hypocritical politician with regard to the illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

How could Obama inspire a small child, much less revolutionaries, when he has just vetoed in the U.N. Security Council his own declared policy that the Israeli settlements are illegal and must stop? During the 28 and 18 revolutionary days of continuous demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt respectively, not a single statement by any opposition figure had mentioned Obama in a positive light.

During the Tunisian revolution, Obama was MIA until the deposed Tunisian president left town on January 14. On Egypt, his administration kept wavering between asking Hosni Mubarak to leave and agreeing to keep him in power. In the beginning both his White House spokesperson and Secretary of State claimed that the Mubarak regime was stable before revising their assessment a few days later.

When Obama’s special envoy to Egypt Frank Wisner stated only days before Mubarak stepped down that he should stay as president until September, the following day Obama again reversed course to agree with Wisner. Freidman is fooling no one but himself if he thinks that Obama’s flip-flop on Mubarak was lost on the Egyptian people.

According to Friedman, the second factor that “fed the mass revolt” was Google Earth. This pitiful argument is based on a statement by a Bahraini man who supposedly looked at Google Earth and found out that Bahrain has “vast tracts of land” while he was living in a crowded home (at 257 square miles, Bahrain is one of the smallest countries in the world without really any vast tracts of land.)

In fact, the genesis of the uprising in Bahrain lies in the country’s repressive system in which a minority Sunni monarchy has been ruling with an iron fist a Shi’a majority for over two centuries. The fact that Bahrain serves as the headquarters of the U.S. navy’s Fifth Fleet, where foreigners living there are given many privileges, including significant tract of lands, over the oppressed population, clearly did not cross Friedman’s mind. People across the Arab world do not need Google Earth to know who has been looting their lands, resources, and wealth.

Friedman then claims Israel as the third cause for the Arab revolts. He argues that since Israel tried a former president, prime minster, and chief-of-staff on criminal conduct and corruption, then surely the Arabs must have been inspired by this Israeli “democracy” and “transparency.”

The foolishness of this argument is that it is presented in a vacuum. In every decade since Israel’s founding in 1948, scandals and investigations have forced many of its leaders out of office. David Ben Gurion, Pinhas Lavon, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and even the current PM Benjamin Netanyahu, had to resign or leave office under a cloud of suspicion or accusations. But such affairs never aroused the Arab masses.

Only an ignorant or depraved mind could even consider such factor to inspire the Arab collective mind. For the majority of Arabs Israel represents an illegitimate and a racist regime that has been illegally occupying Arab lands for decades while mercilessly oppressing their Palestinian brethren. In the Arab street Israeli leaders are considered war criminals perpetrating dozens of massacres (for the latest see the Goldstone report and last year’s Turkish flotilla). No revolutionary authority could seriously look up to Israel as an inspiring example.

Further in his column, Friedman contends that somehow the spectacular Olympic games organized by China in 2008 helped inspire Egyptians to take to the streets. One wonders whether he wrote this while sober. Indeed, Egyptians are proud people with great civilizations behind them, but their revolution was about restoring their freedom and dignity. The China model of state-controlled prosperity at the expense of political freedom and human rights is not an inspiration to any Arab.

But perhaps the greatest insult to the Arab revolutionaries is the last factor Friedman mentions as the source of inspiration to the Arab protesters, namely, the unelected Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Salam Fayyad

If anything Fayyad is viewed as a Western-imposed autocrat that could never be elected as a small town mayor. The only reason he is in power is due to the pressure applied on the president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas (whose term by the way has already expired), by the U.S. and Israel. During the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in January and February of this year, not once has Fayyad or any PA official said anything positive about the Arab revolutions in the streets. On the contrary, they continued to lament in the media the loss of Mubarak.

Since 2008 Fayyad has been coordinating with the Israeli occupation against his own citizens causing hundreds to be arrested and detained without charges, sometimes even tortured. In a speech before the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) in May 2009, Lt. General Keith Dayton, the former U.S. Security Coordinator in the West Bank, exposed the Palestinian PM when he said “I don't know how many of you are aware, but over the last year-and-a-half, the Palestinians have engaged upon a series of what they call security offensives throughout the West Bank, surprisingly well coordinated with the Israeli army.”

He further admitted that during the twenty-two day Israeli onslaught on Gaza in 2008/2009, Fayyad’s security forces prevented Palestinians in the West Bank from organizing mass protests against the Israeli army, which ironically allowed for the reduction of the Israeli military presence in the West Bank in order to redeploy those troops to Gaza. Dayton added, “As a matter of fact, a good portion of the Israeli army went off to Gaza from the West Bank— think about that for a minute, and the (Israeli military) commander (of the West Bank) was absent for eight straight days.”

Moreover, in February 2010 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised Fayyad for his security cooperation during a security conference in Herzliya. Incredibly he credited him with providing security for Israeli settlers in the illegal settlements in the West Bank. Barak told the conference, “The settlers are also saying that the security situation is better than ever, and that is thanks to the work of both sides."

In the Muslim World today there are two kinds of leaders despised by the public: autocrats and dictators supported by the West such as Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Ben Ali, and agents who were directly installed by the West like Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai. At the height of the Tunisian and Egyptian demonstrations, the Palestine Papers released by Al-Jazeera and comprising hundreds of confidential documents from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, portrayed Fayyad as another hireling for the West and Israel. In the Arab world he is neither respected nor inspiring.

One of the problems in Western media and political circles -as embodied by Friedman- is that great events somehow have to revolve around Western powerful elites in order for them to be meaningful. But the impressive Arab revolutions of 2011 are about the great awakening of the Arab people. It is their moment of glory. The sooner Western elites recognize this fact, the easier Orientalist stereotypes could be disposed of.

In his great work, Us and Them, Jim Carnes asks whether racism “is promoted by a sense of inferiority that makes us want to dominate others to protect our turf and to seek a status with no competition?”

Sadly Friedman’s explanation of the proliferation of the Arab revolutions of 2011 positively answers that question.

Esam Al-Amin can be reached at alamin1919@gmail.com

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

MARVIN GAYE

2011-03-04T07:23:00.000-08:00

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

Marvin Gaye "What's Going On / What's Happening Brother"

Marvin Gaye - Mercy, Mercy Me

Marvin Gaye sings American National Anthem

Marvin Gaye "Wholy Holy" (1971)

Marvin Gaye - Where Are We Going?

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 4, 2011

2011-03-04T07:22:00.001-08:00

Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher Found Guilty of Sabotaging Oil and Gas Auction; Faces Up To 10 Years in Jail

LORETTA ROSS

2011-03-04T02:47:00.001-08:00

The Origin of the phrase "Women of Color"

The Beauty of the Reproductive Justice Framework

Interview with Loretta Ross of SisterSong Part 1

Interview with Loretta Ross of SisterSong Part 2

Interview with Loretta Ross of SisterSong Part 3

Are Black Children an "Endangered Species"?

MORE ABUSE OF PRIVATE MANNING BY ARMY

2011-03-04T02:02:00.001-08:00

More abuse of Private Manning by Army

FROM UNDERNEWS

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 3, 2011

2011-03-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

As Gaddafi Forces Launch New Attacks, Reports on the Ground From a Divided Libya

'EGYPT BURNING'

2011-03-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

Egypt Burning

Egypt Burning - Standoff on the Nile

Egypt Burning - The fall of Mubarak

AMAZIGH (BERBER) LIBYA

2011-03-03T01:06:00.001-08:00

Amanai - Gugila (Chaoui / Aures / Libya Jadu landscapes)

Amazigh Nafusa (LIBYA)

Libya Tamort n Imazighen [ 2009 ]

The White Sea ♫♫Amazigh Libya♫♫

Ugur Amazigh N Libya [2009]

Amazigh Kalaa Yefren (Libya) We Imazighen Free

FIGHTING IN LIBYA

2011-03-03T00:36:00.001-08:00

The Battle For Brega Libya Today 02.03.11

Libyan Rebels Fend Off Pro-Gadhafi Forces; Refugees Still Flooding Borders

Libyan Opposition Fights Pro-Gadhafi Forces in Zawiya

Stacks Of Shoulder Fired Antiaircraft Missiles Captured By Libyan Rebels

Preparing for War: The Battle for Libya Rages On (Mar 1, 2011 - NBC)

ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTIONS

2011-03-02T21:33:00.001-08:00

Ahmet Ertegun and Mick Jagger induct Jann Wenner Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 2004

Jann Wenner accepts award Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 2004

Melissa Etheridge inducts Janis Joplin Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 1995

Laura and Michael Joplin accept forJanis Joplin Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions1995

Leonard Cohen's Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

John Landau inducts Carole King Gerry Goffin Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1990

Carole King performs Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions 1990

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremonies - Jan., 1990!

Keith Richards inducts Ronettes Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions 2007.mp4

Ronettes accept award Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions 2007.mp4

Ronettes perform Rock and Roll Hallof Fame Inductions 2007.mp4

BOB DYLAN

2011-03-02T19:55:00.001-08:00

Bob Dylan - Things Have Changed

Bob Dylan - Thunder On The Mountain

Bob Dylan - Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

Bob Dylan - Cold Irons Bound

Bob Dylan - When The Deal Goes Down

Bob Dylan - Shelter From the Storm

Bob Dylan - You Gotta Serve Somebody (Dylan on the Grammy's, 1980)

WARS COST $12 BILLION A MONTH

2011-03-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN COSTS REACH $12 BILLION A MONTH

ALL THIS, AFTER THE US TAXPAYER HAS BEEN SHAFTED, BEING PRESENTED AN OVER $700 BILLION BILL
FOR THE EVER SO KIND RIP-OFF OF THE CENTURY, PERPETRATED BY THE BANKSTERS AND WALL STREET
DOES ONE EVER WONDER WHY NOT A SINGLE FINANCIAL PERSON WILL FACE A MUCH DESERVED JAIL TIME?
AND JUST IMAGINE, $12 BILLION A MONTH WOULD GO A LONG, LONG WAY TO SOLVE THIS COUNTRY'S
'BUDGET DEFICITS', TO SOLVE THE HEALTH CARE IMPASSE, AND OUR FOURTH-WORLD CLASS EDUCATION SYSTEM,
AND THAT JUST TO BEGIN WITH!
OF COURSE, IF OUR GOVERNMENT WERE CONDUCTED WITH 1% LOGIC AND COMMON SENSE, AND ACTUALLY
CARED ABOUT ITS CITIZENS, INSTEAD OF BEING THE ENABLER OF THE BIGGEST CROOKS IN THE WORLD
SQUEEZING US FOR EVERY LAST CENT THEY CAN, UP TILL THE DAY WE DIE AND BEYOND,
IF IT JUST DROPPED THE HYPOCRITICAL WHO-HA ABOUT 'DEMOCRACY' AND STARTED FOLLOWING
THE CONSTITUTION, INSTEAD OF SHREDDING IT EVERY CHANCE IT GETS, WE WOULDN'T BE IN THIS
ECONOMIC MESS, WHILE THE USUAL SUSPECTS TRY TO DISMANTLE THE STRUCTURES OF OUR GOVERNMENT
THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO 'PROTECT' US
AND THE GENERAL POPULATION TWIDDLES ITS THUMBS, AND KEEPS VOTING AGAINST ITSELF, PASSING
CLEVER LAWS THAT SAY ONE THING, WHILE REALLY DOING THE OPPOSITE

BUT DON'T MIND ME, KEEP ON SPENDING $12 BILLION A MONTH ON A FAILED ENTERPRISE, TO THE DETRIMENT
OF LIFE ITSELF. . .

'AND GOD BLESS AMURIKA!'

WHO ELSE IS HELPING THE LIBYAN LEADER?

2011-03-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

Is Algeria Qadaffi's Ace in the Hole?

By ROB PRINCE

At this moment when it appears that Muammar Qaddafi’s days in power are numbered, the Libyan leader has made it clear repeatedly that he will stay and fight. So far he has. His domestic support is evaporating around him, leaders of the country’s 140 tribes siding with the rebels, military units siding with the rebellion in larger and larger numbers, air force pilots and naval vessels defecting to Malta. Much of his government, other than his sons, has abandoned him as well.

What is left?

Those heavily armed private militias controlled by his sons? The army of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa? Some Mirage jet fighter planes with, until now, pilots less than willing to bomb rebel strongholds? All that is true. Yet while the U.S. and Europe work to isolate Qaddafi, he is not completely alone and without allies.

Given his ever shrinking domestic base, one has to wonder how it is that Qaddafi can appear so defiant? It might come from the fact that he is not entirely isolated and alone. Indeed, the support that Qaddafi is garnering has stiffened the colonel’s backbone.

Qaddafi has the support of at least one important regional ally, the Algerian government, which has both militarily and diplomatically thrown its full (and substantial) weight behind his effort to retain power. In so doing, it would appear that Algeria, which has long cooperated with the US and NATO on its North and Sub-Saharan Africa anti-terrorism policies, is breaking ranks to protect its regime’s very survival.

Since its independence, Algeria has been controlled by its military which lives high off the country’s oil profits at the expense of its own people. Algeria’s leaders fear that if Qaddafi falls, their hold on power will be that much more fragile. Their support of Qaddafi is very much designed to save their own skins.

If Mubarak saw the writing on the wall as Ben Ali’s little castle in Tunisia crumbled, so the Algerian military leadership understands that if Qaddafi falls, it very likely is next in line, or if not, not very far down the list. Desperate to cling to power, the Algerian government is – while offering a few political and economic concessions – essentially reorganizing the state’s substantial repressive apparatus to weather the protest storm. But in addition, it is pulling out all stops to support Qaddafi’s increasingly feeble hold on power.

Maybe it is the support of its North African oil producing ally Algeria, that has given Qaddafi that confident appearance that he can indeed – with a little help from his friends – hold out longer. An alliance of two of Africa’s most important oil producing countries is nothing to sneeze at, and could have all kinds of consequences. Should the alliance between the two tighten, and they engage in a common front oil embargo, which some news outlets speculate could happen, oil prices could jump to as high as $220 a barrel.

Less than a week ago, an Algerian human rights group based in Germany, Algeria Watch,published a statement alleging that the Algerian government is providing material aid – in the form of armed military units – to Muammar Qaddafi to help prop up his shrinking (and sinking) regime.

The statement opens thus:

“It is with both sadness and anger that we have learned that the Algerian government has sent armed detachments to Libya to commit crimes against our Libyan brothers and sisters who have risen up against the bloody and corrupt regime of Muammar Kadhafi. These armed detachments were first identified in western Libya in the city of Zaouia where some among them have been arrested. This has been reported in the media and confirmed by eye witnesses.”

Zaouia is the site of fierce fire fights between the residents of Zaouia, now a zone liberated from Tripoli’s control and under the authority of rebel forces on the one hand, and the military elements still faithful to Qaddafi on the others. There were recent reports of a 6-8 hour battle in which Qaddafi’s forces, led by one of his sons tried to recapture the city but were repulsed by the city’s defenders and pushed back after fierce fighting.

Algeria Watch goes on to accuse the Algerian government of having provided the air transport planes that have carried sub-Saharan African mercenaries from Niger, Chad and the Dafur province of Sudan to Libya to strengthen Qaddafi’s position militarily. It goes on to add that Algeria had played a similar role in transporting troops to Somalia to support the U.S. directed government military offensive against rebellious Somali tribes.

The statement goes on to allege that on the diplomatic front the Algerian government has been lobbying different European powers (which are presumably France, Italy, German, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain) pressing them to continue to support Qaddafi. These diplomatic efforts are being led by Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian Minister of Maghrebian and African Affairs. On the all-European level, Amar Bendjama, Algerian ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Algeria’s representative to the European Union and NATO and Belkacem Belgaid, another Algerian diplomat whose responsibilities include NATO and the EU, have together opened up an active lobbying campaign in support of Qaddafi.

The political approach that Bendjama and Belgaid are pursuing echoes Qaddafi’s own statements – that if his government were to fall, Libya would fall into the hands of radical Islamic fundamentalists – all this nonsense about Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin being behind the national uprising. Qaddafi’s argument is identical to what Ben Ali and Mubarak have been arguing for decades: that they are the alternative to an Islamic take over. The West might not like them, but better Qaddafi than Osama. This kind of fear mongering – the threat of Islamic radicalism – has lost its appeal in the current protest wave in which the Islamic fundamentalist element has been marginalized or irrelevant.

The lobbying is similar to what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, where the first offer of concessions consists of ceding as little as possible. Bendjama and Belgaid appear to be pressing (unsuccessfully) for a solution that would see Qaddafi’s son, Saif, replace his father. It is not clear if they are asking for some kind of arrangement that would protect Qaddafi from prosecution in exchange for stepping down, but such an approach is more than likely. But as one of the first demands in the Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni protests was precisely that no family member (sons or family member) succeed these elder and now disgraced statement to power, it is not likely that such arguments or suggestions will carry much if any weight.

There is more.

Under the direction of Colonel Djamel Bouzghaia, an advisor to Algerian President Bouteflika on security matters, Algeria has, according to the statement, `embraced’ a large number of elements of disposed Tunisian president Zine Ben Ali’s private security force and republican guard. These are the same units that were used as snipers to assassinate demonstrators in Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid and Thala in Tunisia. Now in the employ of Algeria, they too have been sent to Libya to shore up Qaddafi’s regime. Bouzghaia works directly under Major General Rachid Laalali (alias Attafi), head of Algeria’s external relations bureau.

Who else is helping Qaddafi? It will be interesting to see what shakes out.

Rob Prince lectures in International Studies at the University of Denver. He can be reached at robertjprince@comcast.net

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 2, 2011

2011-03-02T07:34:00.001-08:00

Prof. Horace Campbell: Peace & Justice Movement Should Oppose U.S.-Led Intervention in Libya

LIBYA UPDATE

2011-03-02T00:14:00.000-08:00

LIBYAN OPPOSITION IS BENT ON TAKING TRIPOLI

Video of Libyan rebels preparing to clash with Gaddafi forces

Evidence of Libya torture emerges

Libyan Rebels Ready for a Long Fight

Libyan Rebels take up arms

Alert over refugees at Libya-Tunisia border

DEMOCRACY NOW! MARCH 1, 2011

2011-03-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

Terror in Tripoli: Libyan American Describes Country in State of Fear, But Hopeful of Gaddafi’s Ouster

RIP SUZE ROTOLO

2011-03-01T00:24:00.001-08:00

Suze Rotolo, a Face, With Bob Dylan, of ’60s Music, Is Dead at 67

RIP JANE RUSSELL

2011-03-01T00:15:00.001-08:00

Jane Russell, Sultry Star of 1940s and ’50s, Dies at 89

PROTEST FOR WORKERS RIGHTS IN WISCONSIN

2011-02-28T14:36:00.001-08:00

Wisconsin - Largest Protest Since Vietnam - Democracy NOW!

70 thousand Americans Protest

Union 101 for all of you total idiot liberals.

Protest Madison Wisconsin Day 13

Philly Loves Wisconsin Workers

Louisiana In Solidarity With Wisconsin

DEMOCRACY NOW! FEBRUARY 28, 2011

2011-02-28T14:10:00.001-08:00

Voices from the 100,000-Strong Protest for Workers’ Rights in Wisconsin

AMY GOODMAN INTERVIES MATT TAIBBI

2011-02-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Matt Taibbi: "Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?" (Complete Interview)

DEMOCRACY NOW! FEBRUARY 25, 2011

2011-02-25T07:54:00.001-08:00

Thousands Feared Dead in Gaddafi’s Crackdown on Libyan Uprising

LIBYA AGAIN

2011-02-24T12:46:00.001-08:00

Gaddafi loses more Libyan cities

Libya Revolt Spreads, Gadhafi Hold Whittled Away

Raw Video: Amateur Footage of Libyan Fighting

Libyan pilot refuses orders to bomb city

Exodus to leave Libya

Mosaic News - 02/23/11: Eastern Libya Celebrates Liberation

Expats tell of Libya hell

DEMOCRACY NOW! FEBRUARY 24, 2011

2011-02-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

Juan Gonzalez Wins 2010 George Polk Award For Exposing $80M CityTime Scandal

DEMOCRACY NOW! FEBRUARY 23, 2011

2011-02-23T07:41:00.001-08:00

“We’re Witnessing the Violent Lashings of a Dying Beast”: Libyan Novelist Hisham Matar on the Gaddafi’s Violent Crackdown in Libya

NEW ZEALAND EARTHQUAKE

2011-02-22T20:24:00.001-08:00

22nd Feb 2011 - Storyful - Earthquake New Zealand NZ Christchurch damage buildings rubble

Raw Video 6.3 Christchurch New Zealand Earthquake 2011

Chilling Video From Christchurch New Zealand Earthquake

New Zealand Earthquake 2011 - Helicopter footage from Lyttleton post-quake

Christchurch Quake: Multiple Deaths Confirmed

The 2011 New Zealand Earthquake - Network Seven Coverage

New zealand earthquake 2010 Video of Damage

FOR COVERAGE OF LIBYA

2011-02-22T09:28:00.000-08:00

WATCH AL JAZEERA ENGLISH LIVE STREAM
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

DEMOCRACY NOW! FEBRUARY 22, 2011

2011-02-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

“Gaddafi Cares More for Himself and His Power than He Cares for Anybody in Libya”: Libyan American Activist Abdulla Darrat on Bloody Crackdown on Protesters

YEMEN

2011-02-21T18:55:00.001-08:00

Yemen Aden Mansoura 18 22 011 live bullets and the fall of martyrs and wounded

Protests Rage in Sanaa, Yemen

Yemen: Saleh Calls for Talks, Protests Continue

BAHRAIN

2011-02-21T18:44:00.001-08:00

Anti government protests continue in Bahrain

"They didn't run away. They faced the bullets head-on" on Bahrain in 18th Feb 2011

Bahrain protest - Down Down Khalifa, we will not Give up [ 21/2/2011 ]

MOROCCO

2011-02-21T18:43:00.001-08:00

Morocco : Confrontation between police and protestors in Tangier - 20 Feb 2011

Morocco: Army Deployed in Tanger

Moroccans call for change