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Journal: James Foley Is Not a War Ad 11
by David Swanson / September 13th, 2014
To the extent that the U.S. public is newly, and probably momentarily, accepting of war -- an extent that is wildly exaggerated, but still real -- it is because of videos of beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
When 9-11 victims were used as a justification to kill hundreds of times the number of people killed on 9-11, some of the victims' relatives pushed back.
Now James Foley is pushing back from the grave.
Here is video of Foley talking about the lies that are needed to launch wars, including the manipulation of people into thinking of foreigners as less than human. Foley's killers may have thought of him as less than human. He may not have viewed them the same way.
The video shows Foley in Chicago helping Haskell Wexler with his film Four Days in Chicago -- a film about the last NATO protest before the recent one in Wales. I was there in Chicago for the march and rally against NATO and war. And I've met Wexler who has tried unsuccessfully to find funding for a film version of my book War Is A Lie
Watch Foley in the video discussing the limitations of embedded reporting, the power of veteran resistance, veterans he met at Occupy, the absence of a good justification for the wars, the dehumanization needed before people can be killed, the shallowness of media coverage -- watch all of that and then try to imagine James Foley cheering like a weapons-maker or a Congress member for President Obama's announcement of more war. Try to imagine Foley accepting the use of his killing as propaganda for more fighting.
You can't do it. He's not an ad for war any more than the WMDs were a justification for war. His absence as a war justification has been exposed even faster than the absence of the WMDs was.
While ISIS may have purchased Sotloff, if not Foley, from another group, when Foley's mother sought to ransom him, the U.S. government repeatedly threatened her with prosecution. So, instead of Foley's mother paying a relatively small amount and possibly saving her son, ISIS goes on getting its funding from oil sales and supporters in the Gulf and free weapons from, among elsewhere, the United States and its allies. And we're going to collectively spend millions, probably billions, and likely trillions of dollars furthering the cycle of violence that Foley risked his life to expose.
The Coalition of the Willing is already crumbling. What if people in the United States were to watch the video of Foley when he was alive and speaking and laughing, not the one when he was a prop in a piece of propaganda almost certainly aimed at provoking the violence that Obama has just obligingly announced?
Foley said he believed his responsibility was to the truth. It didn't set him free. Is it perhaps not too late for the rest of us?
Journal: Turing "Test" was Really Alan's Attempt at a Joke 9
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and you're AI..."
"I still can't allow you and Cmdr. Poole to jeopardize this mission, Dave."
Journal: pic.twitter.com/Jww8aM9eYD 3
Journal: Stop The Vultures? 8
Awareness is a good first step, but...
Good luck with that. The world economy and middle-class lifestyle are built on theft, slavery, extortion and murder. A man will not sacrifice his new Ford Taurus to remedy a system that resulted in him owning (owing) it.
Journal: Illustration of Press Function Under Fascist State
How much will this cost? What are possible unintended consequences? How long will it take? How will we know when it is over? No one seems to ask these questions. Instead this is considered to be journalism and reporting on the issue:
Over a dinner of D'Anjou pear salad and Chilean sea bass, Obama, Vice President Biden and the outside experts engaged in a deep discussion of the options to combat the Islamic State, those who participated said.
"D'Anjou pear salad" - how interesting. But what are the options discussed, what are their up- and downsides and what are their costs? There is nothing about that in the Washington Post. The fourth estate is gone, nowhere to be found.
Such access! So... embedded!
Journal: Sleepwalkers 19
The same process occurred under President George W. Bush when cabals of neocon officials in the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and media drove the US into a calamitous war whose negative effects are still being felt.
Today, other pro-war cliques in official Washington are at it again, each trying to dominate policy. Add a bunch of pro-Israel billionaires who have bought both the Republican and Democratic parties, apparently including Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president."
Journal: The Covert Origins ISiS created by US Israel CIA 3
Journal: The Myth of Russian Aggression 6
The term "Russian aggression" has been inundating headlines across the Western media and even graces the title of a US Senate bill introduce this year - S.2277 - Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014. But what "aggression" is the West referring to? A cursory look at Russian history over the past 500 years compared to say, Britain, France, or even America and its "Manifest Destiny," portrays Russia as a nation preoccupied within and along its borders, not in hegemonic, global expansion. The idea of far-flung former colonies is one unique to the British, French, Dutch, and Spanish. Even today geopolitical, socioeconomic, and even outright military intervention in these former colonies is exclusively the pursuit of the United States and Europe.
The United States alone has hundreds of military bases around the world, has been permanently occupying Germany and Japan for a half century, Afghanistan for over a decade, and had invaded and occupied Iraq for nearly as long.
"Russian Aggression" is a Marketing Gimmick
Canadian PM Stephan Harper's "op-ed" in the Globe and Mail titled, "Our duty is to stand firm in the face of Russian aggression," fallaciously states:
The world is saddened and rightfully outraged by images of the charred remnants of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, and by the loss of almost 300 people from 11 countries, strewn across fields in eastern Ukraine. While the grim work of identifying victims' remains and tracking down the perpetrators of this appalling crime is just beginning, the world can be certain of one thing: There can be no weakening of our resolve to punish the Putin regime for threatening the peace and security of eastern and central Europe.
Harper's disingenuous attempt to link Russia to the MH17 disaster reveals the truth behind "Russian aggression," a marketing campaign implemented by the West to undermine an obstruction to its very real, very demonstrable global aggression. The fact that Harper presides over the nation of Canada, which is in no way threatened by "Russian aggression" real or imagined, further exposes the disingenuous nature of the narrative peddled by the West.
Aggressors Playing the Victim - From Hitler to NATO
From Libya, to Mali, to Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, and beyond - the West has engaged in direct and indirect geopolitical meddling and manipulation through various forms of force including covert military and intelligence operations to proxy terrorism, and even outright direct military intervention. As the West nears the boundaries of nations capable of defending themselves and a defense is in fact mounted, pundits and politicians have begun framing it as "aggression." The impediment of Western expansion across Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America is framed as "aggression" just as Adolf Hitler did in regards to nations chaffing against expanding Nazism during the 1930âs.
Ultimately, legitimate claims of "aggression" and "expansionism" could easily be enumerated. A map for instance, of Europe over the past several decades showing the expansion of Russian territory would be such an indicator. However, such a map instead shows precisely the opposite - with NATO visibly encroaching upon Russia's very borders behind the overt pretense of "a Europe whole and free."
For pundits and politicians who respond that NATO's expansion was not executed through "aggression," but rather through the voluntary will and aspirations of the people within these new NATO members, the US itself admits this isn't the case. So-called "color revolutions" from Serbia, to Georgia, to Ukraine itself have been engineered, funded, and executed by the US and other members of NATO to overthrow political orders and opposition fronts that oppose NATO, and to install political orders that embrace it - nothing less than what any empire throughout human history has done through viceroys and other forms of proxy imperial administration.
In fact, the Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev," that (emphasis added):
...while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.
But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.
The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.
In other words, from Belarus, to Georgia, to Ukraine, and Serbia, the US has been insidiously overthrowing governments not through outright military aggression, but through covert military, political, and intelligence operations aimed at manipulating elections and overrunning regimes that refuse to accept the subsequently skewed results. Surely, then, regimes resulting from such a practice are not then "voluntarily" joining NATO - and NATO is surely expanding itself through a campaign of insidious, violent, lawless subversion of sovereign nations, one at a time with Ukraine once again in its sights.
Nazis At the Gates (Again)
The parallels between NATO and Nazi Germany are unfortunately more than merely academic. In Ukraine, the current regime in Kiev backed by NATO and the European Union are quite literally Nazis. From the "Fatherland Party" to the overtly Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and their various militant wings including the now notorious Right Sector front, ultra-right fascism is once again the leading edge of expansionism into, not out of, Russian territory.
Current attempts by the West to portray Russia's concern over Ukraine and the Nazi menace festering on their doorstep to Soviet leader Josef Stalin's invasion of Poland aim to stir up anti-Communist, anti-Soviet fears and hysteria long programmed into the psyches of Western audiences - but incidentally provide a valuable historical parallel. While the invasion of Poland was a violation of Polish national sovereignty and an act of war - it was done to create a barrier between the Soviet Union and the rise of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. Such a barrier was arguably one of several factors that allowed the Soviets to mobilize a counteroffensive to Hitler's Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia, a counteroffensive that ultimately turned the tide against Hitler and led to the downfall of fascism in Europe.
Besides cause and effect, there are few other similarities between Stalin's invasion of Poland and the modern day Russian Federation's political support of eastern Ukrainians who have been fighting the regime in Kiev for months with increasing success. Besides the same variety of dubious accounts the West fabricated against nations like Iraq, Libya, and Syria as a pretext for war, little in terms of evidence has been produced by Washington, London, or Brussels to affirm accusations that Russia is "invading" eastern Ukraine. Russia has instead chosen restraint despite multiple attempts by the West to bait it into overt military intervention in Ukraine - and in this restraint, has secured a growing global consensus long driven weary by the West's attempts to dress up its own global aggression and expansionism as "democracy promotion" and "humanitarian interventions."
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine " New Eastern Outlook".
Journal: Perry: Who's Telling the "Big Lie" on Ukraine? 5
Exclusive: Official Washington draws the Ukraine crisis in black-and-white colors with Russian President Putin the bad guy and the U.S.-backed leaders in Kiev the good guys. But the reality is much more nuanced, with the American people consistently misled on key facts, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III - much as it did into World War I a century ago - all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.
The original lie behind Official Washington's latest "group think" was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the "smart people" of Washington just "knew" it to be true.
Yet, the once-acknowledged - though soon forgotten - reality was that the crisis was provoked last year by the European Union proposing an association agreement with Ukraine while U.S. neocons and other hawkish politicos and pundits envisioned using the Ukraine gambit as a way to undermine Putin inside Russia.
The plan was even announced by U.S. neocons such as National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman who took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post nearly a year ago to call Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward eventually toppling Putin in Russia.
Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress, wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.
In other words, from the start, Putin was the target of the Ukraine initiative, not the instigator. But even if you choose to ignore Gershman's clear intent, you would have to concoct a bizarre conspiracy theory to support the conventional wisdom about Putin's grand plan.
To believe that Putin was indeed the mastermind of the crisis, you would have to think that he somehow arranged to have the EU offer the association agreement last year, then got the International Monetary Fund to attach such draconian "reforms" that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from the deal.
Then, Putin had to organize mass demonstrations at Kiev's Maidan square against Yanukovych while readying neo-Nazi militias to act as the muscle to finally overthrow the elected president and replace him with a regime dominated by far-right Ukrainian nationalists and U.S.-favored technocrats. Next, Putin had to get the new government to take provocative actions against ethnic Russians in the east, including threatening to outlaw Russian as an official language.
And throw into this storyline that Putin - all the while - was acting like he was trying to help Yanukovych defuse the crisis and even acquiesced to Yanukovych agreeing on Feb. 21 to accept an agreement brokered by three European countries calling for early Ukrainian elections that could vote him out of office. Instead, Putin was supposedly ordering neo-Nazi militias to oust Yanukovych in a Feb. 22 putsch, all the better to create the current crisis.
While such a fanciful scenario would make the most extreme conspiracy theorist blush, this narrative was embraced by prominent U.S. politicians, including ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and "journalists" from the New York Times to CNN. They all agreed that Putin was a madman on a mission of unchecked aggression against his neighbors with the goal of reconstituting the Russian Empire. Clinton even compared him to Adolf Hitler.
This founding false narrative was then embroidered by a consistent pattern of distorted U.S. reporting as the crisis unfolded. Indeed, for the past eight months, we have seen arguably the most one-sided coverage of a major international crisis in memory, although there were other crazed MSM stampedes, such as Iraq's non-existent WMD in 2002-03, Iran's supposed nuclear bomb project for most of the past decade, Libya's "humanitarian crisis" of 2011, and Syria's sarin gas attack in 2013.
But the hysteria over Ukraine - with U.S. officials and editorialists now trying to rally a NATO military response to Russia's alleged "invasion" of Ukraine - raises the prospect of a nuclear confrontation that could end all life on the planet.
The 'Big Lie' of the 'Big Lie'
This madness reached new heights with a Sept. 1 editorial in the neoconservative Washington Post, which led many of the earlier misguided stampedes and was famously wrong in asserting that Iraq's concealment of WMD was a "flat fact." In its new editorial, the Post reprised many of the key elements of the false Ukraine narrative in the Orwellian context of accusing Russia of deceiving its own people.
The "through-the-looking-glass" quality of the Post's editorial was to tell the "Big Lie" while accusing Putin of telling the "Big Lie." The editorial began with the original myth about the aggression waged by Putin whose "bitter resentment at the Soviet empire's collapse metastasized into seething Russian nationalism.
"In prosecuting his widening war in Ukraine, he has also resurrected the tyranny of the Big Lie, using state-controlled media to twist the truth so grotesquely that most Russians are in the dark -- or profoundly misinformed -- about events in their neighbor to the west.
"In support of those Russian-sponsored militias in eastern Ukraine, now backed by growing ranks of Russian troops and weapons, Moscow has created a fantasy that plays on Russian victimization. By this rendering, the forces backing Ukraine's government in Kiev are fascists and neo-Nazis, a portrayal that Mr. Putin personally advanced on Friday, when he likened the Ukrainian army's attempts to regain its own territory to the Nazi siege of Leningrad in World War II, an appeal meant to inflame Russians' already overheated nationalist emotions."
The Post continued: "Against the extensive propaganda instruments available to Mr. Putin's authoritarian regime, the West can promote a fair and factual version of events, but there's little it can do to make ordinary Russians believe it. Even in a country with relatively unfettered access to the Internet, the monopolistic power of state-controlled media is a potent weapon in the hands of a tyrant.
"Mr. Putin's Big Lie shows why it is important to support a free press where it still exists and outlets like Radio Free Europe that bring the truth to people who need it."
Yet the truth is that the U.S. mainstream news media's distortion of the Ukraine crisis is something that a real totalitarian could only dream about. Virtually absent from major U.S. news outlets - across the political spectrum - has been any significant effort to tell the other side of the story or to point out the many times when the West's "fair and factual version of events" has been false or deceptive, starting with the issue of who started this crisis.
Blinded to Neo-Nazis
In another example, the Post and other mainstream U.S. outlets have ridiculed the idea that neo-Nazis played any significant role in the putsch that ousted Yanukovych on Feb. 22 or in the Kiev regime's brutal offensive against the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine.
However, occasionally, the inconvenient truth has slipped through. For instance, shortly after the February coup, the BBC described how the neo-Nazis spearheaded the violent seizure of government buildings to drive Yanukovych from power and were then rewarded with four ministries in the regime that was cobbled together in the coup's aftermath.
When ethnic Russians in the south and east resisted the edicts from the new powers in Kiev, some neo-Nazi militias were incorporated into the National Guard and dispatched to the front lines as storm troopers eager to fight and kill people whom some considered "Untermenschen" or sub-human.
Even the New York Times, which has been among the most egregious violators of journalistic ethics in covering the Ukraine crisis, took note of Kiev's neo-Nazi militias carrying Nazi banners while leading attacks on eastern cities - albeit with this embarrassing reality consigned to the last three paragraphs of a long Times story on a different topic. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Discovers Ukraine's Neo-Nazis at War."]
Later, the conservative London Telegraph wrote a much more detailed story about how the Kiev regime had consciously recruited these dedicated storm troopers, who carried the Wolfsangel symbol favored by Hitler's SS, to lead street fighting in eastern cities that were first softened up by army artillery. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ignoring Ukraine's Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers."]
You might think that unleashing Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II would be a big story - given how much coverage is given to far less significant eruptions of neo-Nazi sentiment in Europe - but this ugly reality in Ukraine disappeared quickly into the U.S. media's memory hole. It didn't fit the preferred good guy/bad guy narrative, with the Kiev regime the good guys and Putin the bad guy.
Now, the Washington Post has gone a step further dismissing Putin's reference to the nasty violence inflicted by Kiev's neo-Nazi battalions as part of Putin's "Big Lie." The Post is telling its readers that any reference to these neo-Nazis is just a "fantasy."
Even more disturbing, the mainstream U.S. news media and Washington's entire political class continue to ignore the Kiev government's killing of thousands of ethnic Russians, including children and other non-combatants. The "responsibility to protect" crowd has suddenly lost its voice. Or, all the deaths are somehow blamed on Putin for supposedly having provoked the Ukraine crisis in the first place.
A Mysterious 'Invasion'
And now there's the curious case of Russia's alleged "invasion" of Ukraine, another alarmist claim trumpeted by the Kiev regime and echoed by NATO hardliners and the MSM.
While I'm told that Russia did provide some light weapons to the rebels early in the struggle so they could defend themselves and their territory - and a number of Russian nationalists have crossed the border to join the fight - the claims of an overt "invasion" with tanks, artillery and truck convoys have been backed up by scant intelligence.
One former U.S. intelligence official who has examined the evidence said the intelligence to support the claims of a significant Russian invasion amounted to "virtually nothing." Instead, it appears that the ethnic Russian rebels may have evolved into a more effective fighting force than many in the West thought. They are, after all, fighting on their home turf for their futures.
Concerned about the latest rush to judgment about the "invasion," the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of former U.S. intelligence officials and analysts, took the unusual step of sending a memo to German Chancellor Angela Merkel warning her of a possible replay of the false claims that led to the Iraq War.
"You need to know," the group wrote, "that accusations of a major Russian 'invasion' of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the 'intelligence' seems to be of the same dubious, politically 'fixed' kind used 12 years ago to 'justify' the U.S.-led attack on Iraq."
But these doubts and concerns are not reflected in the Post's editorial or other MSM accounts of the dangerous Ukraine crisis. Indeed, Americans who rely on these powerful news outlets for their information are as sheltered from reality as anyone living in a totalitarian society.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Journal: Foley is a Fake 18
Kidnapped in Libya, got away. Kidnapped in Syria, "beheaded".
Orange jump suit? Not even b-movie material. Edited from hours of footage, Photoshopped and Premiered to forensic nonsense - and hey! Look, they cut a different place than the "severed head" was separated.
He is probably dead. That's what happens to CIA screws.
You remember, don't you? Like Nick Berg...
It's all fake, turtles. All the way down.
Journal: Why Ferguson Is Just the Beginning of Future America 12
lifted from a comment
@154 luca kasks: "Why don't you people wait for all the facts to come in?"
Facts are not like beloved relatives coming in to visit on cherished holidays; facts are like murdered ex-collaborators, to be secretly disappeared and buried deep in some dank forgotten hole in the ground.
Facts, for the ruling class, are dangerous beasts. Myths and stories are far safer fare.
Facts may escape unexpectedly at the very beginning of an event, before proper control systems are in place, after that all one is likely to get is the official story, or if that fails, the official fall-back position.
How could one get what is going on geopolitically by following this blog, and not get that the same conditions and principles of domination, control and brutalization operate similarly on a local scale?
Perhaps it might be helpful to detail those conditions and principles in order to remind ourselves what the theater in which these events take place is truly like, both for the residents of places like Ferguson, and for the police who manage those residents.
The war on drugs was not a war against drugs. It was a war for the ultra-rich rulers to control and profit from the cash streams of illegal drug profits, to finance un-sellable illegal wars, a method of destabilizing other countries through drug addiction, and a method of criminalizing the intentional poverty and hopelessness of the bottom 30%, or more, of the domestic population. (See: US protection of heroin in southeast Asia and Afghanistan, CIA crack distribution in US cities, Gary Webb, etc.)
The "War on Terror" is virtually the same thing: An outright war on the poor, and a destabilization of territories the empire does not control outright. Additionally, like drugs, the "war" is largely synthetic, that is to say, fake and victimless, where the perpetrators have to be secretly sponsored to create an artificial enemy, with what Rowan Berkeley accurately termed "pseudo-gangs."
These wars are not real, in the sense that the problems as described are not real; and, such problems as may exist, are intentionally handled so as to exacerbate them, and reinforce the problem-reaction-solution dynamic.
Drugs are not a problem to be eradicated, rather, they are a medium to be employed, a means to an end. Terror, as we know, is not even a thing, it is just a tactic. You can't criminalize a tactic, but you can employ it as a means to an end.
I don't need to remind you that the US, the "land of the free," has the largest -- in absolute and relative terms -- prison population on the planet. And the vast, vast, vast majority of those who are imprisoned are there for victimless crimes.
But that's not all. Because if you grow up in the projects, and you raise your kid right, and miraculously manage to keep him away from guns and gangs, you still face two more daunting hurdles: poverty and police violence.
Let's start with poverty. Official unemployment rates are lied over, real rates can be many times higher, and many in the projects can find no work at all, or only part-time work, without benefits, in a fast food joint. Lack of work equals lack of money, which equals lack of education, which equals lack of opportunity and work, and so on, in an endless vicious cycle.
Domestically, a new war is underway: an outright war on the poor, where those who can't -- because of unemployment or other reasons -- keep up with their financial obligations are threatened with imprisonment for non-payment of bills, taxes, child support, court fees, parking tickets, etc. Indeed, we as a society have regressed to the days of Oliver Twist and workhouses. Prisoners must work for their keep these days as low cost producers for corporations, and quaint notions like labor laws or minimum wages do not apply to them.
Prisons have been privatized, and prisoners are just another commodity to be profited from in the capitalist system, like pork bellies, or wheat futures. Judges, like police, have been proved to have quotas: they are expected to meet a production goal where, like a factory worker, a certain number of people must be imprisoned each month or year. After all, the owners of these prisons are top campaign contributors, and they provide "jobs" to the local economy, so they must be kept happy. Cops, like judges, are under pressure to do their part in maintaining prison occupancy rates.
Any fool can see that this is not a description of a society, as anthropologists might have studied 100 years ago, but of a catabolic process, whereby a sick or diseased body (politic) greedily consumes itself on the way to the grave. And, as they quietly lament around my way, "it is what it is."
And yet, it is worse: for those that escape these first three evils -- drugs, the "war on terror" and poverty -- which I have briefly detailed, there is a fourth evil to be circumvented: what the sociologists call "structural violence." And this takes two forms. The first comes in the form of what psychiatrists term "frustration aggression." Watch industrially raised chickens, confined to 2/3 of a square foot of cage space, artificial lighting, and a diet of drugs and GMO feedstock engage in vicious acts of cannibalism, and you will get a sense of what that is. The ghetto is a similarly sociologically confined space, and frustration and the inability to cope or escape can lead to misplaced violence or acting out against others.
The second type of violence is institutionalized violence, where, in an intentional process of social engineering, one group or class of people is taught to hate and fear another group or class. This is the process that I, employing Gregory Bateson's insights, term schismogenesis. It is divide and rule at its most base level: Civil wars, genocide, pogroms, mob violence, etc.
And yes, the police are deeply inculcated in perpetuating institutional violence. They are trained to both hate and fear the public they lord over. And the system is not accidental, by any means. The police on the beat, the SWAT teams, the civic snipers, etc. -- these are people of rather limited intellectual abilities in understanding how the entire geopolitical system works. They are, by nature, not curious in that way -- rather, they are ordinary people who value fitting in, convention, tradition, and law and order in society. In other words, they buy into the myths of our society, its "freedom," and "liberty," and "goodness of purpose," and "rightness of heart," and "exceptionalism," lock, stock, and barrel. And they expect others to buy in as well in order to be "good" patriotic Americans. After all, "if you are not with us, you are against us," as George Bush Jr. explained in one of his few elegantly articulate formulations. Therefore, the police are vulnerable to being easily propagandized.
They are then compartmentalized in knowledge, grouped into subgroups, and endlessly trained and drilled in hate and fear of the official "enemy" of the day, and then trained in techniques of the highest level of violence in thwarting the alleged goals of these enemies. Police no longer make use of bobby clubs, they are now given the elite weapons of war that our soldiers use in combat. They watch movies to see how these weapons are employed. And to seal the deal, they are given special classes, trainings and drills from the same "specialists" on "terror" that train our military because the American way of subversion always includes making people feel special. Now, they are not dumb cops anymore, they are well trained, and they are told that they are our elite guard protecting the "homeland" from those who hate our ways of freedom.
They are also economically privileged compared to the people of places like Ferguson. Police have unions, and theirs are probably the only labor unions in America today not under constant attack from the ruling class. So they get generous overtime, benefits, can buy houses and raise kids in safety outside of the leviathan that I am describing. They also, to a certain extent, benefit from the inequalities of society. So they look down on those they are policing and look up to their betters: The wealthy and those who are experts in the "threats facing society today." Go to a real wealthy neighborhood, and the cops don't have that same smug attitude. They address you as "Sir" or Ma'am." If they have to pull you over for having a headlight out, they can be downright apologetic -- after all, you may be a judge or a city councilman. They know who their betters are, and now they act like public servants, albeit a little falsely servile. This is obviously not the case in Ferguson, where the number of police stops annually is greater than the population of the town, and arrests are similarly elevated.
Finally, police on the force for any length of time must face the complete corruption of our society: They know that justice is a farce. They know who the drug dealers are, the money runners, the pimps, the bought politicians, and judges -- the whole nine yards. And they know that there is no will to change any of this. Moreover, they have no power over any of this: They can either choose to be complicit in the corrupt system, or keep to themselves and hope for the best not to be set up one day as a patsy.
Thus, police in our society live in a state of total cognitive dissonance, what one might call an ethical double-bind. They are forced to see that on one hand, we are supposedly the greatest society ever; on the other hand, life is hopelessly brutal and corrupt. They must believe in, or at least publicly pay lip service, to the myths they are sworn to uphold: the wars on drugs and terror; the promise of progress and a quasi-religious kind of civic and moral redemption -- that if you just keep your nose clean and work hard, you can escape the poverty of the ghetto they police; and that we live in a just society in which they are the protectors of that justice. Meanwhile, they like everyone else in America, watches as the whole system is rapidly breaking down. They know that there are no real jobs for the people of Ferguson, and that, like in the movie, "TheTruman Show," the residents cannot escape the set.
This double bind is of course unresolvable. So police themselves, under tremendous internal strain, resort to the same frustration-aggression, and unexpected violent lashing out, in order to cope.
Under these conditions, the only power police have is over the people in the community they are supposed to serve. And the only way they can demonstrate that power is by acting out brutally and violently.
Sociologists and criminologists know that the methods police are taught and trained in don't work, just as economists know that "trickle down" really means "flow up." Gentler methods involving community involvement, restorative justice, etc. have all been worked out and proved to work. But the new methods actually do work, only for different purposes and to different ends: they frighten and cower populations, they allow one group to dominate another, they isolate people and pit them against each other in fruitless zero-sum games, and they destroy human lives, values, and charitableness. In sum, they control people, and allow them to be selectively harvested for profit, like a slowly maturing cash crop in the sweltering St. Louis summer heat.
And, community policing, bad as it is these days, does not even compare to the violence perpetrated by the new elite SWAT teams. These groups are as brutal as the teams used to clear houses in Iraq -- and no surprise there, for they are taught the same methods: If it moves, take it out.
And that brings us back to the police. Under the conditions I have just detailed, under the impossible constraints they forced to endure, how can they not be violent, at least some of the time. And how can they, as an organized force, not be violent in a systematic manner. Perhaps not all the time, but more often than not the social forces which police work under these days force violence to be propagated down in a systematic and totalizing manner.
And it is the awareness of all that I have described that causes many commenters here to reflexively assume police lies and violence to be ubiquitous. I hope that this is more understandable now. It is not a judgment of an individual's (the cop who shot Michael Brown) -- who one obviously doesn't know well -- moral value, rather it is an holistic appraisal of the social and material conditions of our society today, in which the American underclass, and their handlers, seek to operate.
Therefore, as for the police themselves, yes, perhaps out of the many hundreds of cases a year like this of police murder, corruption, assault, brutality, cover-up, bribery, theft, etc., there are possibly a few that were accidental, unintentional, or even false charges. If that were to be the case -- which appears practically impossible -- the facts would get out -- unless the cop were being intentionally set up. But, to focus on this petty detail, and insist upon its importance to the bigger picture, is to miss that bigger picture altogether. I hope we can all see this.
Posted by b on August 20, 2014 at 06:49 AM Permalink
Journal: Funny? Racist, dishonest hypocrisy. 10
How the pro-Reagan "Get Government off Our BACKS" crowd is really bending over, to excuse and endorse the SWATting of Ferguson.
Racist, dishonest hypocrisy.
If it was a white rancher that set off the same events, they'd be going all "Obama dictatorship" and FEMA death-camp.
You see, they are trained to hate and fear COLOUR - not power, which they adore.
Journal: The New Voter's Guide 5
Republican Party: Far RIght Fascist
Democratic Party: Center Right Fascist
Conservative Tory: Far Right Fascist
New Labour: Right Fascist
Liberal Democrats: Center Right Twats
Journal: ONION: Tips For Being An Unarmed Black Teen 14
- Shy away from dangerous, heavily policed areas.
- Avoid swaggering or any other confident behavior that suggests you are not completely subjugated.
- Be sure not to pick up any object that could be perceived by a police officer as a firearm, such as a cell phone, a food item, or nothing.
- Explain in clear and logical terms that you do not enjoy being shot, and would prefer that it not happen.
- Don't let society stereotype you as a petty criminal. Remember that you can be seen as so much more, from an armed robbery suspect, to a rape suspect, to a murder suspect.
- Try to see it from a police officer's point of view: You may be unarmed, but you're also black.
- Avoid wearing clothing associated with the gang lifestyle, such as shirts and pants.
- Revel in the fact that by simply existing, you exert a threatening presence over the nation's police force.
- Be as polite and straightforward as possible when police officers are kicking the shit out of you.


text:
Chicago Public Schools Thursday kicked off their back-to-school campaign.
CPS will run an aggressive multi-media campaign building up to the first day of school. Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said the idea is to get as many kids as possible in the classroom that first day.
Brizard said he personally will be going to a number of churches and community centers to remind parents about the first day.
Brizard said the first day of school can set the tone for the entire year.
Most Chicago Public Schools start Tuesday, Sept. 6.
205 N. Michigan Avenue
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Simmons® Master Series 4 - 12x40 mm A / O ProSport Truplex Reticle Scope
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Revised March 2007.
Describes the research underway to better understand and tailor prevention efforts for drug abuse and addiction.
Published April 2007.
Reports research findings on smoking cessation interventions; a vaccine for nicotine use that may reduce fetal exposure; therapeutic approaches for heroin addiction; brain development and adolescent risk-taking; and more.
Published June 2007.
Offers an interactive science education program for students in grades 6–9 about the brain and the effects of drugs on the body. Includes six modules, a teacher's guide, a parent newsletter, and a CD-Rom.
Published September 2007.
Describes community systems that monitor the well-being of children and adolescents and lists recommendations that define the next steps for creating and mentoring effective community monitoring systems.
Published October 2007.
Reports research findings on neuropeptides as catalysts for drug seeking; a potential therapeutic in opiate and nicotine addiction; gene regulation in chronic cocaine abuse; brain changes resulting from anabolic steroid use among adolescent females, and more.
Revised October 2007.
Provides a research update on comorbid drug abuse and mental illness, exploring why they commonly occur, how common they are, and how they can be diagnosed and treated.
Revised October 2007.
Describes an initiative to bridge the gap between drug abuse and addiction research and practice that includes a clinical trials network, conferences, blending teams, and partnerships.
Published March 2008.
Reports research findings on combination treatments for marijuana abuse; the link between alcohol abuse and prescription drug abuse; genetic findings in opioid dependence; insomnia among cocaine abusers; and more.
Revised April 2008.
Explores the research advances regarding genetics and addiction, discusses the potential role of the environment in the disease, and the promise of personalized medicine.
Published June 2008.
Reports research findings on a new therapy for substance abusers who also have a mental illness; prenatal smoking and behavioral problems in children; the impact of morphine on the immune system; animal studies on cocaine and toluene abuse, and more.
Call 1-877-643-2644 or:


text:
- Miguel Alvarez
- Mexico, D.f.
- Mexico
Colegio de Pedagogia UNAM
This conversation is closed.
Idea: Social networking and robotics programing to help children and adolescents develop moral criteria.
Since 1998 I am working with robotics (aka Lego Mindstorms robots) to organize educational experiences to help children to develop moral criteria (As Piaget and Kohlberg) suggest. The idea is very simple: Students has an every class challenge to build a robotic solution for a handicapped persons then they must think about the solution being emphatic with the user of their technical solution. After many years using this focus in our Technology class I have results and it is interesting how students look for solutions using the moral criteria thinking the solution from the handicapped vision.
The second idea is use private social network to help students to use the moral criteria to autocontrol their behavior in a social network. Using Ning as a private social network, we invite students to develop a team solutions using technology. The issue was how the relation each other using empathy. Then we made a review with the communications used in fora. Many time we find comments who discard the other students opinions based in cultural, economical and even races issues, then we the teachers could participate to moderate the discussion and to orient students based in empathy and other moral criteria applied.
Both ideas was used in class between 1998 and 2011 and was published in Information Review of Information Ethics below the tag "Teaching Information Ethics" Could be consulted in
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Nov 28 2012: Take a look:
Risk of robot uprising wiping out human race to be studied http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20501091
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Baltho, The Dog Who Owned a Man
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Thomas Ramey Watson
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: R
Posts: 167
C H writes:
Dexter was a therapy dog . He died on his job last Tuesday.
When my friend CA F sent me a condolence note she mentioned the book she was reading: "Baltho". And then she stopped over and brought me the book. Consumed by my deep sadness, I was curious but afraid of more pain to read about a dog, still, something(maybe Dexter himself) told me to read it.
I am thankful for the comfort it gave me. Here was someone, telling so affectionately about their interwoven bond with the dog, about the connection with such a companion, and there even was a colleague confirming the so true intuition and skills of a therapy dog (which many practitioners dismiss as a sentiment of the therapist dog owner) .
But that was not all, something between the lines in the book curiously helped me. my experiencing of Dexter's transformation shifted.
Now I can allow myself to listen to the lessons and signs Dexter is teaching and showing me since his spirit left his mighty German Shepherd body. I am able to enter a new phase of his "presence" in my life.
(Even though it sucks so bad not to see him, step over him, feed him, stroke him, hear him bark).
So thank Baltho for making you write this book and accept my thank you for writing it. It came to me just when it had to .
With Kind Regards
Thomas Ramey Watson
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We don't have a biography.Add to my favourites Get these quotes on a PDF
For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. There are also things, harmful attitudes, ...
Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us.
Whenever we're afraid, its because we don't know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.


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Mmmmm Mama Mia! This dish just amazes both me and Bob. It takes a bit of prep and time to put it together, but if you can grab your partner and spend some quality time together in the kitchen, it's an enjoyable experience. There are a few tweaks that we would make next time. We would make way more cheese, for starters. So far, everyone who has tasted it really seems to like it but they say it needs more cheese. So next time we will double the recipe. If you have extra afterward, it will be great to have on hand as a cheese spread. We would also add a bit more seasoning to the cheese. We seem to really like strong flavors.
We have more family coming over to try it today so I will let you know how that goes. My Uncle Billy is a huge lasagna lover so we are really being tested. :) The recipe makes one 7 x 7-inch dish.
We doubled the recipe and it made for us one 7-inch round Springform pan and a loaf pan Springform pan. Putting the layers together was so exciting because all of the food layers are just so vibrant with color. Remember we starting eating with our eyes. One other wonderful benefit of making this is throwing it in the dehydrator … it makes for a wonderful, homey, comfort-food smell in the house. Please don't be intimidated by all the different components . Take them one at a time, each one will teach you new skills that can be used in future recipes. You will learn the art of wilting spinach which will resemble cooked spinach. You will learn how to marinate veggies to heighten the flavor and also give it that cooked appearance. This technique alone can be used to create all sorts of future recipes! You will learn how to make "zucchini noodles" and trust me, you will get excited over this and use it over and over when creating new dishes. You will learn how to make raw "cheese" and that alone is a huge versatile food. This is a teaching recipe. And in the end you will be proud of this wonderful comfort food dish that you will set in the center of the table in front of your loved ones.
Living Lasagna Yield: One 7 x 7-inch casserole (4-6 servings)
Ingredients: yields 1 cup
Grocery Helper
First, this turned out soooo much better than I ever expected…really! For years, my specialty was lasagna, and it was always my family's favorite dish for a special occasion. Even after we became vegetarian, I made a fabulous lasagna with lots of veggies, and lots of cheese! Now that I'm raw, I had given up hope of ever finding something to come close to that level of comfort and tastiness. This truly did. I am glad I had a friend to help prepare this, as it is rather daunting the first time. I was worried because I couldn't find sun dried tomato powder so just used sun dried tomatoes, but all in all, it went smoothly and we had a great time making it. The biggest surprise was the ricotta…yummy! I'm excited to experiment with more cheese. Oh, and did I mention how completely beautiful it is to cut in to? Thank you so much! I can't wait to make this again.
we made this.
it is absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We LOVED IT!
best meal and best lasagna I've ever had.
Are there any non-soy alternaties to miso?
Another excellent recipe!! I love that there was virtually no oil or added sugars.
Please can you tell me where to buy a tall springform pan. I have looked everywhere.
I absolutely love your website!!!! I've already made your Cheese Nips and Raspberry Chia Porridge; they were so delicious! I am currently fermenting my Almond Cheese for the Lasagna that I'm making today, it's snowing outside and I'm in the mood for some comfort food :-). In your directions for the Spinach you say "wash and spun dry" what does the Spun dry mean? Thank you very much and for sharing your recipes and being an inspiration to those looking to incorporate Raw Living Foods in their diet :-)
One more question: I noticed that in your picture of the finished lasagna you have something crumbled on top of it, is that Nutritional Yeast?
Okay, I know I said last question but I noticed that under the directions for the Marinara Sauce you say "6 Roma Tomatoes Seeded and Chopped," does that mean that you want the seeds to be removed?
Im sooo nervous Im gonna try my luck this week with this live lasagna and bread stix recipe ~ wish me luck ! lol looks soooo good I cant resist~ Thanks for posting so many delicious recipes and can you explain how to convert cooked recipes ~ like replacements for baking powders soda and such ~ thanks
I made this yesterday for my husband's birthday, and it is truly one of those 'labor of love' dishes, but so worth it! He doesn't quite embrace the whole raw movement, but he was really pleasantly surprised with this, and went back for seconds! I ran out of marinara sauce so I topped it off with the extra spinach and it was still beautiful to behold. I seemed to have plenty of the cheese, and the taste was spot-on for me. I also used dried basil and oregano, and went wild with the oregano. I have oregano cravings that are probably particular to me, so it didn't come off as overpowering. Thanks so much for the 'teaching recipe'. It was fun to challenge myself and win over family members :).
I have been using your website for a couple of months now and I just love it. Your Living Lasagna is the best lasagna I have ever had. I am so glad your web=site is back up again. I have become addicted to your recipes and just about had a panic attack when your web=site wasn't working. I have tried a several recipes and love them all. I am always looking to try something else. Thank you for all the effort you put in tho make this a truly informative and wonderful web-site. God Bless
[...] Living Lasagne: http://nouveauraw.com/raw-recipies/main-dishes/living-lasagna/ [...]
Hello! Sorry for long post … But this is such a cool recipe!!
I printed this out last night but when I got to health food store, saw that ricotta part was missing ingredients. Thought it was my error and shrugged it off but this morning, when I tried the print-friendly button again, saw that they were indeed kept out. It might just be my Firefox, but thought I'd pass the tip along just in case, so no-one else ends up at the store without a clue as to the ingredients for the ricotta . (p.s., I suspect it's just a minor glitch in the html coding (???), but thanks!!)
I have the complete recipe now and am going today to buy them! Can't wait. This is the loveliest-looking living lasagna I've seen. And I'm finally breaking down to buy a springform pan, too!
Also, thanks for the nudge to go the almond route. So many nut cheez recipes call for cashews which Hippocrates said to avoid. But I've been using them as didn't know yet what to do. But since in my town organic cashews cost $30/lb and raw, unpasteurized organic almonds cost $21.77/lb, I just realized what a dodo I've been. The better nut at the better price??? Can't beat that!
Thanks once again for your lovely, lovely website and for your hard work. I've been passing a lot of time here lately! Cheers.
This Living Lasagne looks fantastic! Do you have any idea how I can make it without a dehydrator? I'm vegan but not raw. Thanks for any help! :-)
Hi Amie Sue. I set up the cheese for fermenting tonight with the hopes of having it for dinner on Friday. I have never done a fermented cheese before, so I am a bit nervous. Will it be okay until I can make the full lasagne on Friday?
I'm on a roll! Many of my friends and family have started looking at the recipes and asking me about them since I shared it with them on facebook and I'll be sending them pictures when I finish each one! It's great finally having others to talk to about your amazing recipes and my excitement about raw foods! RenayB
I have a couple of questions I want to make this for Thanksgiving and have never made but cheese using primitive how soon do I need to start making it so it's ready to be used by Wednesday
2. Can I make this dish Wednesday to be served Thursday
3. I live near a chamberlins and a whole foods and they both have different varieties of primitive which do you recommend.
By primitive I mean probiotic and but means nut
Yes that helps thank you
OK, Amie~Sue,
I made this for some non-raw friends yesterday. I made it in a 7X7 square springform pan, and it looked almost like yours. I will make this again, but I need to write it out in a way that makes time sense for myself, as I tend to be kind of scatter brained sometimes. I'll have to set it out starting with what to do first, second, etc.
Anyway, the ricotta was excellent. I have tons of sun dried tomatos, and was going to make the powder myself, but my little grinder didn't like that job. So I used some regular sundrieds, and put the seeds back in the marinara to give a little more liquid to soak into them.
It worked out fine, altho I think it would be better with the powder. It wasn't too wet.
They loved it, and have ranked it tops, along with the raw tacos that I do.
I also made your raw apple pie, with is also fantastic. I'll put my comments for that over there, so others making it can see.
Thank you!
I so want to make this recipe – this will be my first time doing a raw receip this ambitious. But my question is: Do I have to put in the white miso? I am trying to lower my carbs and it is very high in carbs.
[…] Living Lasagna […]
I'd love to make this but it looks intimidating lol I have to accomplish th almond cheese first. Thank you for the recipe


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Review: 'Heaven is for Real' tries to be more than Christian kitsch — sort of
The mega-bestseller "Heaven is for Real" becomes a movie that tries to portray wrestling with faith — or at least it tries to try.
Interview: Greg Kinnear insists 'Heaven Is for Real' is more ambivalent than its title
Greg Kinnear talks about the spiritual and familial crises that drew him to the film of "Heaven is Real" and the "Little Miss Sunshine" musical.
Greg Kinnear plays a lovable 'Rake' in Fox's new comedy
In his small screen comedy debut, Greg Kinnear stars as a screwed up lawyer.
Specialty box office: Everyone's into that pricey Sundance pick-up
This weekend, the Sundance pick-up "The Way, Way Back" had the strongest opening, while "Twenty Feet From Stardom" crossed the $1 million mark.
Film review: 'The English Teacher' could stand to be smarter
The new comedy "The English Teacher," starring Julianne Moore as a pedantic bookworm spinster, is about as juvenile as its characters.


text:
Home > 2006 News Releases > News Release
News Release
Sergeant Michael B. Webb
Public Affairs Branch (502) 782-1780
Kentucky State Police Invites Public Comment On Performance
Date of News Release: 11/29/2006
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) -- The Kentucky State Police (KSP) is asking citizens throughout the Commonwealth for their input concerning the agency's performance and effectiveness.
"The mission statement of the Kentucky State Police directs the agency to promote public safety through service, integrity and professionalism, utilizing partnerships to prevent, reduce and deter crime and the fear of crime; enhance highway safety through education and enforcement; and safeguard property and protect individual rights," says KSP Commissioner Jack Adams.
"We want to hear from citizens in communities throughout the state regarding which KSP services are considered positive and which need improvement," says Adams. "Through continuous improvement, it is our goal to provide the highest level of protection to the citizens of Kentucky and make communities throughout the state better and safer places to live. To accomplish this, we encourage open communication."
Citizens can visit the KSP web site at www.kentuckystatepolice.org to complete an anonymous survey online or they can download the survey and mail the completed form to Kentucky State Police, Strategic Planning Branch, 919 Versailles Road, Frankfort, KY 40601.


text:
Stocks to watch: General Motors, Adobe
The automaker warns of weakness in the European car market, while the software company announces restructuring plans.
By Joseph Woelfel, TheStreet
General Motors (GM) said its third-quarter profit fell 15% to $1.7 billion, or $1.03 a share, on revenue of $36.7 billion. While the results beat the 96-cent average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, the company said weakness in the European market may cause it to miss profit targets this year.
Adobe Systems (ADBE) said it plans to eliminate 750 jobs, or roughly 8% of its work force, as part of a restructuring. Adobe backed its outlook for fiscal-fourth-quarter adjusted earnings, saying it still sees a non-GAAP profit of 57 cents to 64 cents a share on revenue of between $1.075 billion and $1.125 billion.
Dow component Cisco Systems (CSCO) will report fiscal-first-quarter results after the close. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters is for earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $11.03 billion.
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) said third-quarter profit nearly tripled as revenue rose 1% to $754 million. Activision earned $148 million, or 13 cents a share, up from $51 million, or 4 cents, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were 7 cents a share, 2 cents above analysts' expectations. The company also raised its outlook for the year. The earnings were released the same day Activision began selling "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," the latest game in the "Call of Duty" series.
Department store operator Macy's (M) said its third-quarter earnings rose to 32 cents a share from 2 cents a year earlier, beating the average analyst's estimate of 16 cents. However, the stock was falling 3.9% to $30.90 because of shrinking profit margins. Bloomberg attributed the margin shift to free shipping and rising cotton prices.
Wendy's (WEN) reported third-quarter earnings of 5 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates by 1 cent. Revenue of $611.4 million fell short of forecasts for $618.2 million. North American same-store sales increased 0.9%. Wendy's expects same-store sales growth of 1% to 3% to be in the middle of the range, and restaurant margin to be approximately 100 basis points lower compared with the prior year.
Dean Foods (DF) reported third-quarter earnings per share of18 cents, beating the average estimate of 15 cents. Revenue of $3.4 billion was slightly above the consensus estimate of $3.32 billion. Dean Foods said it expects fourth-quarter earnings of 20 cents to 25 cents, topping the average estimate of 24 cents.
Ralph Lauren (RL) reported fiscal-second-quarter earnings of $2.46, 22 cents above the consensus estimate of $2.24. Revenue of $1.9 billion was also above the Wall Street estimate of $1.84 billion. However, the company's gross margin, a key profit indicator, shrank to 56.6% from 58% a year earlier.
An earnings report is expected after the close Wednesday from Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR), which was recently accused of accounting fraud by hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, which has a short position on the stock. The earnings call after the close on Wednesday will be the first time management has spoken to Wall Street since Einhorn took his accusations public.
Solar company Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) said it is temporarily suspending all manufacturing activity because of a high level of inventory, looking at additional restructuring options, and seeking to work with existing bondholders during a period of massive oversupply in the solar sector.
Shares of digital entertainment company Rovi (ROVI) were tumbling by 25% to $34.70 after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings Tuesday. Its net income of $1.8 million or 2 cents per share was sharply lower than $36.4 million, or 33 cents a share, in the prior-year quarter because of restructuring and asset impairment charges. Excluding the one-time items, adjusted earnings grew to $70.88 million, or 63 cents per share, from $59.91 million or 53 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were looking earnings of 61 cents per share.
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Today's workers? You mean the 3 people (one of whom is a minority) who are supporting one person receiving benefits? Thousands of factories have moved out of the U.S. Who is going to support all these people with their tax dollars? The guy working at Walmart? His taxes are going to support all these people? Don't make me laugh so hard in the morning.
Listen or read what David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the U.S. (head accountant) and head of the Government Accountability Office had to say about how much money is in those SS and Medicare "accounts." He said we are going to fall like Rome.
In response to:
What's with the title of this article? It sounds like the parents are there assisting in the procedure.
In response to:
The standard of living in this country is going to drop. There would be an uproar if it happened in a rapid manner. But if you feed the middle class, and ease some of the pain, it's easier to pull off. Instead of having a factory job, which is high paying, the workers can transfer to Walmart, etc. The deindustrialization of American must go on. We are going global. Look at the foreign students filling our Universities. They are being trained for our jobs which have moved to other countries. There are whole bunch of people who should be charged with Treason.
"Students who are in the process of learning English deserve access to their school's curriculum with support in their native language." I don't know why they don't write "Spanish language," because that's what they really mean. Our public school has students from all over the world. On culture day 47 different countries were represented. I don't know how many languages were represented, but I have to imagine that support in all those languages would be difficult if not impossible. Not to mention most of the students from the other countries learn English very quickly. It appears many of the public schools don't want the Spanish speaking students to master English. They are being treated in a different "special" manner.
This is why once people start taking the assistance, many of them can't stop. They can't find a job that will pay them that much money and benefits. My neighbor's brother has been on welfare due to depression his entire adult life. I don't know that he ever had a job. He started feeling better, and thought about getting a job, and was discouraged from doing so by his entire family. They were concerned that he couldn't get the benefits back again if things didn't work out. He's forever trapped. He willingly climbed into a "cage" and has little hope of escaping. He will never be successful, because he has no incentive to even try.
It's the $61,000 (approximate) a year per household living in poverty divided by the days of the year. Look up the $61,000 being spent per household living in poverty. It's all over the internet.
Keep in mind that the international definition of poverty is living on less than $2/day.
I've been saying this for years. The "low income housing" in our city is in expensive apartments. Then add free food, free healthcare, free education, and all the donations from the community to help the "poor" and you have the poor better off than a lot of the middle class. Financially they appear to be living similar to their neighbors who are paying their own bills. Yet, the crime coming out of the low income housing is significantly higher than average. I don't know how it can be blamed on "poverty." They aren't living in poverty.
O's mother is a US citizen, so regardless of where he was born he would also be a citizen. His dad was not a citizen of the US when O was born. So technically, depending on the laws in Kenya, O may also be a citizen of Kenya. Did he give up his foreign citizenship? Can someone with a dual citizenship run for POTUS?
I don't think a woman can win in this country. She was viciously attacked by the media when she ran last time. The most powerful women in the world are running other countries. Look at the government. Despite our government telling corporations they need more females, they aren't practicing what they're preaching.


text:
Best Kids Parties: Flowers
My Party
Name: Marti (5)
Location: San Diego, CA
For Marti's 5th birthday she chose a flower theme. We decorated the walls, the tea party table, the invite and the goody bags with cut paper flowers. When the guests arrived, the moms, big sisters and grandmas got to work making daisy chains while the girls had their hair decorated with flowers.
The second activity was to make bouquets from fresh flowers and choose ribbons to decorate them with. The girls, wearing daisy chain crowns and flowers in their braids, then posed for photos holding their newly made bouquets. Lunch was a tea party with butterfly topped tea sandwiches and marshmallows styled into flowers. Each girl got their own flower petit four cake. Lunch was followed by a butterfly pinata and a "Pin the Fairy on the Flower" game, both in the garden.
Thanks Carmina!
(Images: Ashley Caballes)
7 Comments
Too funny, as in, ironic. I was thinking about a May flowers theme for my daughter and her cousins birthday just this week! Thanks for sharing!
That is quite truthfully the cutest blowing-out-the-birthday-candles photo I've ever seen.
And the flower theme is so cute! I love how happy and open-ended it is. :)
Love the party and photos
I'll echo @kellystokes. What a great picture of Marti blowing out her candles. I love her grasping that ice cream cone. :)
Love the candle blowing pic. Sweet party.
So simple yet creative! Of course I wouldn't expect anything else from my exceptionally artistic friend :)
I agree with the above posts about the picture of her blowing out the candles - one of the best ever taken!


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My favorit bra of all
By Amy
from Rio Grande, TX
About Me Practical
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Comments about Posture Bra:
It has become my favorite bra, I ware it all the time even to exercise. My favorite part besides comfort is that it hooks up front making it easy to put on and take off.
Bottom LineYes, I would recommend this to a friend
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