Of all the daily affirmations liberals tell themselves, none soothes me more than the one about how an Al Gore presidency would have spared us the Iraq War. Why, wasn’t Al suitably smug about Dubya’s “cowboy” act in 2002? Didn’t Michael Moore open Fahrenheit 9/11 with a long rehash of hanging-chad chicanery? Who among us doesn’t yearn for the invention of time travel so that someone might mow down a certain consumer advocate with a sporty Corvair?

And yet … well, there is this from the Oct. 11, 2000, presidential debate:

MODERATOR: Well, let’s stay on the subject for a moment. New question related to this. I figured this out; in the last 20 years there have been eight major actions that involved the introduction of U.S. ground, air or naval forces. Let me name them. Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo. If you had been president for any of those interventions, would any of those interventions not have happened?

GORE: Can you run through the list again?

MODERATOR: Sure. Lebanon.

GORE: I thought that was a mistake. [See below.]

MODERATOR: Grenada.

GORE: I supported that.

MODERATOR: Panama.

GORE: I supported that.

MODERATOR: Persian Gulf.

GORE: Yes, I voted for it, supported it.

MODERATOR: Somalia.

GORE: Of course, and that again — no, I think that that was ill-considered. I did support it at the time. It was in the previous administration, in the Bush-Quayle administration, and I think in retrospect the lessons there are ones that we should take very, very seriously.

MODERATOR: Bosnia.

GORE: Oh, yes.

MODERATOR: Haiti.

GORE: Yes.

MODERATOR: And then Kosovo.

GORE: Yes.

So Gore had supported seven of the eight “major” U.S. military actions of the preceding two decades. Oh, make that all eight; he must have forgotten that he supported the U.S. intervention in Lebanon too. Less than a week before the bombing that killed 241 American servicemen in Beirut, Rep. Albert Gore Jr. was the subject of a story in The New York Times. He was asked about Lebanon:

Why had he voted to continue the presence of United States troops in Lebanon for 18 months? “The decision to send troops to Lebanon was not well thought through,” Mr. Gore said, “but since they are there and there are now negotiations with the Syrians, it would be a mistake to remove them.

“It’s important to learn the right lessons of Vietnam,” he continued. “A cat that sits on a hot stove won’t sit on a hot stove again, but he won’t sit on a cold stove, either.”

Well, cold stoves can get hot mighty quickly, but that’s no reason for a cat to just steer clear of stoves, is it?

Why am I revisiting all this ancient history? Here’s Al’s old running mate in Tuesday’s USA Today:

No one doubts that the road ahead for Iraq, under even the most optimistic scenario, will continue to be challenging. There is a world of difference, however, between a future in which Iraq’s inspiring but fragile democracy perseveres, versus one in which the country collapses back into civil war, becoming a failed state in the heart of the Middle East.

There is likewise a huge difference between a future in which Iraqis can secure their country for themselves, versus one in which Iran seizes controlling influence over Iraq’s security and politics.

In order to decrease the risk of the worst case scenarios for Iraq and America, our military leaders have long argued that it is critical to keep a small U.S. force in Iraq after this year, since the Iraqi Security Forces still lack key capabilities and the country’s stability is not yet secured. In fact, every military leader I have spoken to in recent years with any responsibility for Iraq has told me we must keep at least 10,000 troops there after this year to ensure that our hard-won gains are not lost.

It is therefore profoundly disappointing that, after all America and Iraq have been through together, President Obama and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could not find the will or the way to reach agreement for a small U.S. force to remain in Iraq after this year, and instead gave up trying.

This decision stands in striking contrast with the spirit of the remarkable men and women in uniform who pulled Iraq back from the brink of chaos just a few years ago, and who refused to give up or accept failure even after all hope was seemingly lost.

This failure puts at greater risk all that so many Americans and Iraqis fought, sacrificed and, in thousands of cases, gave their lives to achieve. It also hands a crucial strategic opportunity to the fanatical regime that controls Iran and that threatens us all.

Rather than trying to portray the failure of these negotiations as a success, the Obama administration could still restart its efforts to reach agreement with the Iraqis to allow a small U.S. force to remain. For the sake of our national security, and all of the blood and treasure we have spent in Iraq, we should do so.

Don’t fret, Joe. Obama’s busy right now. But once he’s safely ensconced in a second term, he might be willing to have a beer summit with the 2000 Democratic vice-presidential nominee and reexamine this rare lapse in judgment.

bibleQuran [pitchinteractive.com] by datavis design firm Pitch Interactive reveals the frequency of word usage between two of the most important holy books: the Bible and the Quran.

The densely populated interactive visualization allows people to search for any word (and similar variations of that word) to explore its frequency in both texts. As each verse is always visible, one is able to compare the relative density of ideas and topics between both passages. For instance, one could select verbs that represent acts of 'terror' or 'love', and investigate which book discusses the topics more. The appropriate little rectangles, each representing an according verse, which include such this chosen word, are then highlighted, and can be read in detail by hovering the mouse over them.

Via @albertocairo.

See also:
. Vizualizing 340,000 Bible Cross References
. Visualizing the Bible
. Comparing the Holy Scriptures
. Bible Exegesis
. Bible Information Diagrams
. Bible Timeline
. Gospel Spectrum

Republicans that oppose reductions in military spending because they could make people depending on it unemployed are hypocritical and self-contradictory.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A novel experiment conducted by researchers at Idiap Research Institute and Johns Hopkins University highlights some of the limitations of automatic image analysis systems. Their results were recently published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Campaign finance reform is something of a tricky issue. It spotlights some of the problems of applying free market principles in an unsystematic way.

For many libertarians, efforts at campaign finance reform with an eye toward curbing the influence of corporate donors, are worrisome on their face. They seem to strike at the right of individuals, legal or actual, to do what they want with their money, including supporting political candidates in any amount they desire. Since a business entity is just a voluntarily assembled group of free individuals, the logic goes, it too — through its political action committee — ought to be able to donate as much or as little as its members see fit.

The problem with that position is that it trivializes, even ignores, the extent to which the power of big business, the inviolable “private sector,” hinges on state-granted or -protected contraventions of the free market. To the extent that corporate power and riches depend on special privilege, libertarians ought to be more circumspect in their endorsements of judicial decisions like Citizens United v. FEC.

When political commentators on the left talk about “getting money out of politics,” about tighter regulations on campaign contributions and spending, conscientious libertarians should take a moment to think about the big picture. As a matter of course, a free society means the freedom to direct the fruits of your labor where you will, but — it is important to point out — we aren’t living in anything like a free society.

Avoiding myopic, reflex reactions based on a pale excuse for our philosophy, libertarians ought to embrace a robust view that reaches out to those who see the problems with corporate dominance over the political process

Groups like Rootstrikers treat the Occupy protests as a chance to circulate a substantive message for reform. The underlying attitude of Rootstrikers, that the marriage of money and politics amounts to an extreme social evil, is dead on target. They accept that the formula of money plus politics is a recipe for disaster yet insist that only “corrupting money” ought to be removed from politics, that “good government” is possible given the right legal refinements.

What makes Rootstrikers frustrating is how close they come to fully understanding the problem and appreciating the nuances of the big picture. Rootstrikers is a project of Democracy Fund, a group dedicated to the worthy goal of “curb[ing] the undue influence of corporate lobbyists over the U.S. political process.”

In his book, Republic, Lost, Rootstrikers founder and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig writes that “the problem with Congress” is “the product of an economy of influence,” rigorously probing the issue of the revolving door connecting corporate lobbying to DC policymaking.

I recommend the book as an exhaustive, thoughtful study of the ways that intersecting and interconnected mechanisms of power create the abuse and injustice we see all around us. But for all of the accurate diagnoses and understanding contained in Lessig’s and Rootstrikers’ message, the ingenuous trust in government itself remains.

Rather than following the arguments regarding the capital/state nexus to their logical ends, Rootstrikers fail to recognize that — even assuming that publicly-funded campaigns would cut against the broad problem of special interest corruption — it is the state that is the ultimate source of the trouble.

As long as there are favors to dispense, privileges grounded in authority and force, a small, inner circle of the rich will purchase access to them at our loss and their advantage. This is not the nature of the current manifestation of the state, but of the state itself.

Market anarchists argue that economic decisions ought to be made by free individuals governing their own lives outside of violent imposition. Both the benefits and the costs of those decisions would be born by the people making them, not externalized upon unsuspecting and innocent taxpayers.

The state is, by definition, a vehicle for corruption. It allows a small group of people to use violence to stack the deck and constrain economic activity in their favor. If you want to strike the root, it is the intellectual and philosophical foundations of statism that you must attack.

In China the Ministry of Public Security has today announced that over 12,000 people have been arrested in what would be the worlds largest online drug operation. The operation which has been running for a few years now, was being run via private chat rooms and potential customers could often view the drugs they was enquiring [...]

Lake Maurepas, Louisiana, USA

As promised, here is the brand new mixtape from revolutionary rapper Immortal Technique. Immortal has stressed that everyone should burn this mixtape and spread it to as many people as possible. If you are familiar with Immortal’s music, then you should know what to expect from this.

In other news, Immortal will be touring the United States starting tomorrow and tour dates can be viewed after the break. Enjoy and be educated.

Download: Immortal Technique – The Martyr

Track Listing:

1. Burn This
2. The Martyr produced by Southpaw
3. Angels & Demons (feat. dead prez & Bazaar Royale) produced by Dj GreenLantern
4. Rich Man’s World (1%) produced by Shuko
5. Toast to the Dead produced by J.Dilla (with Cuts by Dj GreenLantern)
6. Eyes in the Sky (feat. Mojo of Dujeous) produced by Southpaw
7. Goonies (feat. Diabolic, Swave Sevah & Gomez) produced by Southpaw
8. Natural Beauty (feat. Mela Machinko) produced by Slimfass
9. Running Nowhere – interlude produced by Southpaw
10. Civil War (feat. Killer Mike, Brother Ali & Chuck D) produced by Southpaw
11. Mark of The Beast (feat. Akir & Beast 1333) with cuts by DJDPONE produced by The Molemen
12. Black Vikings (feat. StylesP, Vinnie Paz & Poison Pen) produced by Southpaw
13. Conquerors (with Dr. John Henrik Clarke) produced by Engineer
14. Young Lords (feat. Joell Ortiz, Pumpkinhead, CF & Panama Alba) produced by Southpaw
15. Ultimas Palabras produced by Immortal Technique & Southpaw
16. Sign of the Times (feat. Cetan Wanbli, Lockjaw Nakai & Cornel West) Produced by Southpaw

A Wood & Wires Session with Coeur de Pirate (Beatrice Martin).

Watch the performance below! What a voice!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Last week I decided to visit the Occupy Brisbane camp. One of many world-wide Occupy camps, setup in support of the original Occupy Wall Street camp and to sympathetically protest against corporate greed. What drew me there was the vitriol Occupy Brisbane was receiving online on Twitter and Facebook. I was curious to see for [...]

THIS.

With the bad news we've been talking about on the public broadcasting front, it's worth pointing out a bright spot: On Monday (10/24/11), Charlie Rose featured a discussion of Occupy Wall Street with Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman.

Goodman made an important point about media coverage of the protests:

CHARLIE ROSE: Does it have anything in common with the Tea Party?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it's interesting you ask that. When the people gathered on September 16 and 17--what, 2000 people--hardly any coverage they got. If it was 2000 Tea Party activists who gathered on Wall Street, I would dare said there would have been 2,000 reporters there, if not more.

Watch the segment on the Charlie Rose website. And you can leave a comment there--as others already have--noting that it's refreshing to see these voices on a show that doesn't usually feature such guests.

Just in time for Halloween, Fat Joe drops a sweet mixtape to compliment the holiday spirit. Tracklist + Download link after the jump…

1. Welcome To The Darkside f. French Montana
2. Dopeman f. Jadakiss & Dre
3. So Fly f. Arland
4. Big Business
5. Angels Say
6. Pushing Keys f. Raekwon
7. Drop A Body
8. My Lord
9. F**k Them Other Niggas
10. Around The World f. Arland

DOWNLOAD: Fat Joe – The Darkside v.2 (Mixtape)

This Is my website www.sauravkashyap.co.gp created by me.
the content in this website is collected from other websites.

plz visit this website and vote for it thnxxxx……

Occupy the Vatican.

Many physicists are great at figuring out how the world works, but less adept at describing those workings to a nontechnical audience. Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, is an exception to that stereotype. Greene is known for his popular books, which have exposed the complex ideas of string theory and quantum physics to a wide audience. With a new four-part Nova miniseries, The Fabric of the Cosmos , which begins airing November 2 at 9:00 P.M. on PBS, Greene ought to be able to reach even more curious folk. A DVD of the series goes on sale November 22.

In the clip below from the episode "What Is Space?" Greene takes on one of the hottest topics in physics: the Higgs boson. Physicists have long thought that the Higgs particle should exist but have yet to find it. With the aid of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, the elusive Higgs boson may finally come out of hiding. In the clip, Higgs, now an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, tells of his nerve-racking 1964 presentation at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., when his ideas still ran counter to conventional wisdom. Also featured in the video are physicists Joseph Lykken of Fermilab, Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley, and Leonard Susskind of Stanford University.

[More]

Nirvana was the American rock band that was organized by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Abeerden, Washington in 1987. The popular band gained unexpected success with “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, the first single from the group’s sophomore album in...

The Guardian (blog)

Boot up: A sister's eulogy for Steve Jobs, NYT's David Pogue on Windows Phone ... The Guardian (blog) GPUs are much better than regular CPUs at performing the mathematical calculations required for Bitcoin mining. Yes, this Mac malware is stealing computing time as well as data." The need for Mac anti-malware protection is, as Cluley says, ...

A study funded by the Koch brothers debunks Climategate, but the cable news media doesn't cover it.

Austin police confront demonstrators at City Hall, Oct. 29, 2011. Photo by Ann Harkness /Flickr.All trick no treat:Austin police take downfood table in midnight raidBy Greg Moses / The Rag Blog / October 31, 2011Police in Austin, Texas, made 39 arrests early Sunday as they moved to enforce a new rule banning food tables in the City Hall plaza where protesters have camped out. Some protesters

Photo Credit: Polyp

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic, satiric, parodic, and carnivalesque performances that are an important part of a vibrant democratic public culture.  These “gags” may not always be funny or represent a familiar point of view, but they attempt to cut through the lies, hypocrisy, shamelessness, stupidity, complacency, and other vices of democratic life.  Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think might deserve a laugh or at least a wry and rueful look by those who are thinking about the character of public life today.

Detroit stand up! Detroit’s avant-garde rap scene is producing some regressive-progressive sounding music. Black Milk’s production on the Random AXE LP had some of my favorite beats this year and Danny Brown sets fire to anything he raps on. Try on this EP titled ‘Black and Brown’… Black Milk and Danny Brown – Black and [...]

Days after the College Board announced that tuition at America’s public universities increased 8.3 percent this year, higher-education institutions quietly met a weekend deadline for reporting what students actually pay, after grants and other financial aid are taken into account.

The “net price” accounts for tuition minus scholarships, grants, and income from on-campus jobs, on average, for a full-time first-year undergraduate. It’s typically much lower than the so-called “sticker price.” But universities have been reluctant to disclose net prices, fearing that students and their parents would demand deeper discounts—and that many would resent learning that they pay more than some of their classmates.

“There’s some concern … that they will anticipate that that’s exactly what their financial aid will look like,” said Jane Brown, vice president of enrollment at Northeastern University in Boston.

The so-called “net price calculator” was required by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, but many universities waited until the October 29th deadline to post the data. A spot check showed that some still had not provided the information at all.

The College Board estimates that fewer than 12 percent of students at private colleges and universities—and about half of those at public universities—pay the full advertised price.

Advocates for providing net price data say that doing so is the only way students can know the real cost of college—including those who may be discouraged by the list price.

“It’s an incremental step,” said Jamie Merisotis, president of Lumina Foundation for Education, which advocates for higher enrollment and graduation rates and which is among the funders of The Hechinger Report.

“These efforts at transparency are very useful. We’re going to have to do more to better inform current and prospective students,” Merisotis said.