1. Hawaii is where the U.S. 1st interfered in another country’s internal affairs, and killed those who stood in the way:
“The Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in 1893 when a group of white businessmen forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate while U.S. Marines came ashore.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090821/ap_on_re_us/hawaii_at50
2. “This view of the destruction of the South Tower of the World Trade Center displays a remarkable number of features that support the interpretation that it was destroyed by explosives. I want to acknowledge the tremendous service provided by Nate Flach who serves as the defacto “video archivist” for AE911Truth. He is the one who first called this video to my attention, because of the huge number of simultaneous squibs on the west side of the building above the impact point.
The projectile at the end of the video that changes directions is a remarkable find. I haven’t seen this item commented on before, nor have others I have spoken to. A change in any component of momentum requires an impulse. Regardless of perspective effects, this projectile underwent a sudden loss of horizontal and simultaneous gain in vertical momentum. The fact that the white smoke trail intensifies at the turning point strongly suggests thermite (which produces white aluminum oxide smoke) as the source of the impulse. One debunker argument I can anticipate already is that the projectile was affected by the air flow from the falling debris. My response is that if that were the case the entire smoke trail would have been swept downward. Instead, you can see it make a sharp turn.
Another point that became clearer to me while making this video is the fact of the disintegration of the top of the South Tower and the utter incompatibility of this fact with a gravity collapse. Tony Szamboti, in a conversation with me, earlier this summer expressed the fact that an extended object in freefall has no internal stress. This is obvious upon reflection, but it is a concise statement of an important principle. He had another collapse in mind, but this principle underlines the smoking gun significance of the disintegration of the top 30 floors of the South Tower.”
http://www.911blogger.com/node/20938
3. “Will The Wall Street Journal Denounce Alvaro Uribe?
These critics denied any partisan motive, insisting that their only concern was for democratic institutions and constitutional procedure. Mary Anastasia O’Grady, the Wall Street Journal editorial writer who has been the most ardent American defender of the Honduran coup, proclaimed in its wake that “The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators.”
But when Uribe takes identical steps? Not a peep. The message is clear: the term-limits issue is fair game when it can be used to foster hysteria about chavismo and paint every left-of-center Latin American leader as a would-be totalitarian. When the leader in question is a right-wing U.S. ally, however, there is no need to worry about such procedural niceties. An enemy of Hugo Chavez is a friend of ours, regardless of how he stays in power.
The hypocrisy on display is noteworthy, if not particularly surprising. Although they may wax rhapsodic about democracy promotion, American hawks have never really gotten over their soft spot for right-wing Latin American authoritarians. (Recall that the neoconservatives cut their teeth in the 1980s as supporters of Pinochet, the Contras, and any number of other murderous military juntas.) Still, if rightists want their denunciations of Chavez and his allies to be taken seriously, they should try to exercise a little more consistency.”
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/08/20/will-the-wall-street-journal-denounce-alvaro-uribe/
4. “
The only calculation that matters is maximizing political power. The only “change” that’s meaningful is converting more Republican seats into Democratic ones. A legislative “win” is determined by whether Democrats can claim victory, not by whether anything constructive was achieved. The smart approach is to serve and thus curry favor with the most powerful corporate factions, not change the rules to make them less powerful. The primary tactic of Democrats should be to be more indispensable to corporate interests so as to deny the GOP that money and instead direct it to Democrats.
…
But that isn’t what Obama pledged he would do when he campaigned. He repeatedly vowed he would do the opposite — that he would reject that thinking and battle aggressively against domination by what he called “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have ”run Washington far too long” – and he convinced millions of people that he was serious, people who, as a result, became fervent devotees to his cause.
…
“trust” is appropriate for one’s friends, loved ones, family members and the like — but not for politicians. That’s what John Adams meant when he said: ”There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” ”All” means “all” and ”none” means “none.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
