28 Aug 2007

U.S. Education

Statists, capitalists, murderers!

Only a few day after the most recent wave of fires, remaining forests fell prey to yet more of them, once again set by arsonists. The country is heading to a snap election and the government's proclamations of de-commissioning forest areas (thus allowing for building construction to take place) gave a golden opportunity to private capital and its arsonists to burn whole areas down to the last leaf.

This frenzy of burned forests has already left 53 dead, tens injured, missing, homeless; hundreds of thousands of burnt accres of land in the Peloponnese, Western Greece alone. The prefectures of Ilia, Arkadia and Messinia are still being destroyed by the fire. Up to this moment there are many still raging fires in the prefectures of Korinthia, Lakonia and Evoia.

The already extremely limited and hence priceless patches of green of Attica did not escape these "accidental" fires (including the neighborhoods of Cholargos, Papagou and Galatsi). Satellite image by NASA.

The whole state apparatus has long abandoned whatever pre-emptive forest protection there ever was. In March, PM Karamanlis falsely claimed that his government was prepared to deal with forests during the summer. With their consciously extremely few resources they limit themselves to the role of a spectator - simply documenting the disaster.

More here

21 Aug 2007

Seven-year-old terrorist Muslim

Seven-year-old Muslim boy stopped in US three times on suspicion of being a terrorist

For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.

But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.

The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.

The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid's passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.

More in the Daily Mail

19 Aug 2007

18 Aug 2007

George W. Bush should be a dictator for life

Family Security Matters a neo-conservative based think tank has published an article advocating that George W. Bush should be a dictator for life. The organization has since taken the article down, but is still viewable via this cached link.
Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy: By Philip Atkinson


The article written by Philip Atkinson states that Bush would fail his country by becoming an ex-President or can achieve greatness by becoming President-for-Life Bush in order to bring sense to Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Atkinson is bluntly advocating that Bush should become dictator for life with these outrageously anti-American statements.

From the article:

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

13 Aug 2007

Denoucing Intellectuals Statue

This is a fine example of the humulation intellectuals faced at the hands of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. A magnificent piece of propaganda from Communist China!
Price: US $75
Buy it here!

12 Aug 2007

Fox News needs another 9/11

Bykofsky: "I think it's going to take a lot of dead people to wake America up."

Europe's Roma Outsiders

The Roma are one of Europe's largest stateless communities. Estimates suggest up to eight and a half million people belong to the Roma.

They have no country to live in, and are consequently disadvantaged and marginalised. A significant number of Roma do not have citizenship of the countries they live in.


Emily is 19 and believes she may have tuberculosis. In the ghetto the disease is endemic.
She is pregnant and her family has yet to build the wooden shack where she will give birth and live with her new-born child. The children we meet are undernourished and vulnerable to abuse and disease.
Monika Milanova has five children. Three have pneumonia. Little Lieubeeka, her youngest child, is clearly undernourished. Her health worker says she has rickets.
"The children get sick and we have no supplies to look after them – in the winter it freezes and in the summer we are fried like chickens - we can't stand it," Milonova says.
There have been efforts at re-housing but they came to nothing. The stateless continue to be homeless.

More on Al Jazeera
For background see Wikipedia

10 Aug 2007

US sparks worldwide panic

Worldwide, investors started to panic after yet another financial institution announced it had lost money because of the low-end "subprime" US mortgage market and its widespread effect on the US credit market.

This time the alarm was sounded by France's largest bank, BNP Paribas, which froze three funds with subprime connections. BNP said the funds could not be properly valued because of the "complete evaporation" of liquidity in some parts of the market.

More on theage.com.au

and on CNN-Money:"Wall Street: down but not out!
Major gauges cut losses but still end in the red for day 2 as investors weigh Fed's $38 billion infusion into the banking system. Worries remain about tightening credit, subprime mortgage market."

Canada asserts Arctic sovereignty

>The Canadian prime minister has embarked on a three-day trip across the Arctic region to assert his country's sovereignty over the resource-rich territory. Stephen Harper vowed to pump in billions of dollars and increase military activity in the Arctic Circle to defend what he says is Canadian territory.

The trip, which had been planned for months, comes one week after a Russian research submarine planted a flag on the ocean floor, about 3km below the surface. Canada and the US have dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless. Peter McKay, the Canadian foreign minister, said last week: "Look this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'we are claiming this territory'."

more on Al Jazeera

9 Aug 2007

Free Tibet Olympics Protest at Great Wall of China

Six Tibet independence activists from the UK, US, and Canada were detained today after rappelling from the top of the Great Wall of China with a 450-square foot protest banner reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008" in English and Chinese. The dramatic action took place on the eve of the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Tibet advocacy groups assert that China is attempting to use the 2008 Games as a tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet. Chinese authorities removed the activists after two hours; their current whereabouts are unknown.