This is a clear precursor for the imminent declaration of a state of emergency, a scenario that President Bush codified in his recent Presidential Decision Directive of May 9th, which states in the event of a “catastrophic event” the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of [...]
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On the topic of a surveillance state; last post mainly focused on the government–remember, it’s not just them. (Of course, what happens when the government is basically being run by corporations?) (Click the image to go to the site with the video: http://www.aclu.org/pizza/) Government programs such as MATRIX and Carnivore are destroying our privacy. We [...]
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The ACLU has set a “Doomsday Clock” for the coming Surveillance State: ♦ Surveillance Society Clock I would have to think that Britain is closer to Midnight than the U.S., though: UK is a surveillance society. Lest you think the Surveillance Society is going to be completely at the hands of the government, the culture [...]
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Progressive feminist writer Naomi Wolf, has a new book out: ♦ The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot In it she discusses the “checklist” that nearly all fascisms and dictatorships seem to follow when eliminating democracy and instilling state control: 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. 2. Create [...]
READ MORE »Not long ago I was looking at the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar with the Canadian dollar, since my brother’s birthday is coming up and he lives in Canada. And I recall when he first moved up there a few years ago I could count on the US dollar buying one-and-a-half CAN dollars. Then [...]
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♦ First high school devoted to homeland security First, let’s establish general and unfocused fear so that people are always in a states of stress disorder and unable to question properly, then turn up the fascist surveillance state mechanisms, then start indoctrinating children into the culture of surveillance and then feed them to the capitalist [...]
READ MORE »Remember habeas corpus? That concept since the Magna Carta (1215 A.D.) where the accused has the right to know what the charges against them are and the state (or king) has to prove they have enough good reason to arrest someone? That concept that the Bush administration got rid of in order to “fight terrah”? [...]
READ MORE »“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could [...]
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It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, today! Arrrgh! ♦ http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
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I think you pretty much have to be blind and living in a cave to not see the “style” of leadership from this administration: loyalty above ability. Bush has put oil business friends in his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, made faithful campaign captains with no experience in charge of FEMA, campaign loyalists with Creationist and [...]
READ MORE »Going around the (non-major) news outlets yesterday: ♦ Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil Recent polls have shown that more than 40% of registered Republicans still believe Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11, and even nearly 30% of Democrats as well! This is a direct failure of the major news outlets [...]
READ MORE »25 millions people lived in Iraq. According to recent research, 1.2 million Iraqi civilians have been killed since the U.S. occupation. 2 million have been forced out of their homes, and another 2.5 million have become refugees and have left the country altogether. Yeah, lucky Iraqis have it so much better now that that dictator [...]
READ MORE »This is hilarious!! WARNING: Some language is not safe for work. Internet Commenter Business Meeting
READ MORE »In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. If the road between two villages is impassable, the peasant says, “There should be a law about parish roads.” If a park-keeper takes advantage of [...]
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This week’s Point of Inquiry has an interview with clinical psychologist Madeleine Van Kecke where she discusses her new book: Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things. ♦ Point of Inquiry: Madeleine Van Hecke – Why Smart People Do Dumb Things Some of the issues she discusses in the interview and the book involves [...]
READ MORE »A very shocking, no pun intended, short film by the director of Children of Men (well, it’s technically his film, but a relative of his is the writer/director. Anyway…) It’s a short movie based on the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein: “At the core of disaster capitalism is [...]
READ MORE »Please pardon my interruption in non-theistic posts by simply linking to this: ♦ Weisberger Evaluates the Loftus-Wood Debate on Evil It’s a rather fantastic summary and evaluation of the informative and thought-provoking debate between a former Christian apologist (educated under some of the “finest” theology schools and theologians) and current Christian apologist, regarding the existence [...]
READ MORE »First the good news: ♦ Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act U.S. District Court Judge has determined that it was unconstitutional for the Justice Department to demand an Internet Service Provider to hand over private records without a court order. Well, now the FBI needs court orders to get your private info from the [...]
READ MORE »“The Bush White House broke the law and erased our history by deleting those e-mail messages,” said National Security Archive director Tom Blanton. “The period of the missing email starts with the invasion of Iraq and runs through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” (emphasis mine) The National Security Archive in conjunction with Citizens for Responsibility [...]
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