The 9/11 attacks were planned in Hamburg, Germany and, apparently, Madrid, Spain, not by al-Qaida in Afghanistan, as the US claimed. The planners and executors of the attacks were mostly Saudis, not Afghans.
Frankness and honesty are vices in politics, for they bring down rulers from their thrones more effectively and more certainly than the most powerful enemy.
Bibi Netanyahu owes his entire political career to the Henry Kissinger group in the U.S. who financed his education, got him a job on Wall Street and guided his rise in Israeli politics.
The more the corrupt western politicians and media whores demonized [Hugo] Chavez, the more Venezuelans loved him. They understood completely that anyone damned by Washington was God’s gift to the world.
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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Let us then come to a preliminary finding, to the effect that the past lends itself all too readily to use by those who have a political axe to grind. Nothing works better to further a cause—good or bad—than to lend it legitimacy by supplying it with a long heritage.
I am frankly opposed to this war criminal stuff. It is not cricket and is Semitic. I am also opposed to sending POW's to work as slaves in foreign lands (i.e., sent by the US to the USSR's Gulags, France), where many will be starved to death.
Genl George S Patton, Sep 14, 1945 (The Patton Papers, vol 2, p 750)
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There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
All Hawaii citizens should read Ben, particularly to make themselves aware of the kind of power plays and pressures that take place in our legislature.
They're [Congress] so far removed from admitting the seriousness of this ["Fiscal Cliff" budget] crisis and if they don’t admit it, they can’t solve the problem.
NEW YORK -- Chrysler LLC dealers launched a long-shot bid to save their businesses Thursday, complaining that the auto maker's plan to shut them down was in some cases retaliation for butting heads with the company.
The dealers, testifying at a court hearing about Chrysler's plans to cut ties with about a quarter of its dealerships, cited awards and strong sales and questioned the auto maker's methodology for choosing which ones would be shut down.
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
In NY, LA, and SF theaters June 12, but not in Hawaii.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed on Friday arguments that Israel and the Bush administration had an understanding under which Israel could keep expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Dov Weisglass, chief of staff to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said in an op-ed piece published this week in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that the Bush administration and Israel had an understanding under which Israel could expand settlements within their existing boundaries.
Barack Obama, the U.S. President, in a speech in Cairo on Thursday said his aim was to seek a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world".
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr gauges reaction to his speech in Afghanistan, a country at the heart of the United States' war against extremism.
Niccolò Machiavelli, who was a sort of Karl Rove of his day, though with more integrity, said of the Swiss that they were "the most free and most armed people" of Europe. Get it? The connection between arms and freedom?
That statement is still true of the Swiss. Many people know that they practice neutrality, but not many know that they practice armed neutrality. If the gun controllers' claim that the mere presence of arms leads to mayhem were true, the Swiss would have wiped themselves out years ago. There are guns and gun ranges all over the place. You would be hard-pressed to find a Swiss home without a firearm and ammunition. Yet, the Swiss have a very low crime rate.
HPI note: What is enacted initially in one state is often copied by other states, so it’s entirely possible that a recent tax change in New York will spread.
The new tax law takes aim at franchising. Franchising is a huge part of the American economy and includes such companies as McDonald’s, Burger King, Baskin-Robbins and Fantastic Sams.
Franchisors are the corporations that control a franchise chain, and franchisees are those who buy the rights to own and run units from the franchisor. For example, Burger King’s head office in Miami, Florida is the location of the franchisor and your cousin Joe who owns five Burger King restaurants in California would be a franchisee.
New York State has notified franchisors that a law change requires that they release franchisee revenue figures directly and electronically to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.
From the introduction to this three-part video on YouTube:
“In this old TV show, ‘At Issue’ (from The National Endowment For Liberty), Ron Paul is joined by a panel of experts to discuss the power of the jury and to expose the judge's dirty little secret.
"’Jury nullification’ is the power of the jury to overturn bad laws (of which, we have MANY). It is an important tool guaranteed to citizens serving on jury duty. Jury nullification enables us to declare laws unjust, if we are so inclined.
“Most judges do not want you to know about this power. Juries are only told they can rule "guilty" or "not guilty." They are never told of their third option, "the law is bad."
“Shame on bad judges covering up this power and the corrupt system which allow these arrogant judges to remain on the bench.
“Learn your rights and DO NOT try to get out of jury duty.
“As citizens we only have two real powers to keep the government in check:
1) The power to vote
2) The power of the jury
“Your rights: Use them or lose them. With rumors of the American Bar Association working to eliminate juries in the future. And with the PROVEN vulnerability of the electronic voting machines, what voice will we have left? Welcome to Slavery, population: YOU!“
Glenn Beck and Thomas Sowell look back on what led to the housing bubble. Sowell talks about the numerous warnings that went unheeded, how our politicians have no incentive to learn from what has happened, when this downward cycle might stop and how, contrary to what’s taught in our schools, FDR’s actions prolonged the Great Depression by years, yet was given credit he didn’t deserve for shortening it. He says the same thing may happen with President Obama.
President Obama has really been able to disrupt the negative trend in US–Arab relations, says political analyst from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Aleksandr Pikaev.
“By starting his Middle East trip at the birthplace of Islam, Saudi Arabia, and not in Israel, which is very unusual for a president of the US, Barack Obama wanted to show not only his respect to the holy Arab places, but to America’s, if not ally, then most important partner in the Arab world – Saudi Arabia.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed on Friday arguments that Israel and the Bush administration had an understanding under which Israel could keep expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
HPI note: What is enacted initially in one state is often copied by other states, so it’s entirely possible that a recent tax change in New York will spread. 