Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, May 22, 2012
London 2012 Olympics of Cronyism, Vested Interests Selling Torches on Ebay / Politics / UK Politics
The Olympics are coming home to the birth place of Crony Capitalism, and nothings more crony than 900 vested interests lining up to run a a few hundred yards to grab themselves as much as a £145,000 bounty by near immediately selling their 'precious' replica torches on ebay.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Australia's War Waging Strategy Despite Lack of Threats and Enemies / Politics / Austrailia
Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, ranked in the top 10 in gross domestic product per capita. It is one of the most isolated major countries in the world; it occupies an entire united continent, is difficult to invade and rarely is threatened. Normally, we would not expect a relatively well-off and isolated country to have been involved in many wars. This has not been the case for Australia and, more interesting, it has persistently not been the case, even under a variety of governments. Ideology does not explain the phenomenon in this instance.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Euro-zone Politicians Polishing the Brass on the Titanic / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
France and other, weaker EU members have begun pushing for “growth.” This in of itself reveals how clueless the political elite in the EU are (economic growth in Europe is synonymous with living beyond one’s means and/or living off of others… the very policies that have lead to the EU Crisis).
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The New York Times and the End of Simple Economic Logic / Politics / Economic Theory
Years ago, Murray N. Rothbard wrote that modern egalitarianism constituted a "revolt against nature," and Rothbard provided the intellectual ammunition to prove his point well. The modern Progressive "revolt against nature" is not limited to just egalitarianism, however, as Progressives long have tried to convince everyone that if they could just direct enough government resources at something, they could undo the very laws of economics.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
G8 Crisis and Growth Summit / Politics / Global Debt Crisis 2012
Why Read: To once again focus on the importance of 'real' economic growth going forward to developed and developing economies.
Featured Article: A May 19 article that appeared in the China.org Blog reported on a Friday meeting of U.S. President Obama and just elected French President Francois Hollande held in advance of the G8 Summit meeting held this past weekend. The article quotes President Obama as saying, following that meeting:
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Ron Paul On Indefinite Detention: The Tyranny Continues / Politics / US Politics
The bad news from last week's passage of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act is that Americans can still be arrested on US soil and detained indefinitely without trial. Some of my colleagues would like us to believe that they fixed last year's infamous Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA, which codified into law the unconstitutional notion that some Americans are not subject to the protections of the Constitution. However, nothing in this year's bill or amendments to the bill restored those constitutional rights.
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Monday, May 21, 2012
Full-Fledged European Bank Run Underway; Monetarist Fools are Everywhere; Believe in Gold / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
One chart is all it takes to prove a full-fledged European bank run on the banks is well underway in the Club-Med countries and Ireland.
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Monday, May 21, 2012
The Pacific Ocean Is Dying: Special Report On Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe / Politics / Environmental Issues
Just prior to the Supermoon of March 18th, 2011, the world witnessed a natural and manmade disaster of epic proportions. What transpired off the coast of Honshu Island, Japan on March 11 has forever altered the planet and irremediably affected the global environment. Whereas the earthquake and tsunami proved to be truly apocalyptic events for the people of Japan, the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima is proving to be cataclysmic for the entire world.
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Monday, May 21, 2012
Are Homo Sapiens an Endangered Species? / Politics / Social Issues
Read full article... Read full article...The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") is the federal agency in charge of "listing" most species under the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"). This legislation was passed in 1973 and explicitly stated its goal was "to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a 'consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation'...". The general purpose and specific language of the ESA has been broadly construed by federal courts over the years.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Euro-zone Sovereign Debt Crisis Solution - Europeans it's Time To Wake Up! / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Since 2008, EU27 sovereign debt has grown at least 3500 billion euros, most Eurozone countries and many other EU countries are in recession, over 50% of young Spaniards are out of work, and over 25% are out of work in most other EU27 countries. Elections across Europe for at least the past 12 months only show the rejection of any incumbent government, and major growth of voter support for both extreme right and extreme left parties and programmes.
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
Looming Reversal of Centralization as Empires Disintegrate / Politics / Social Issues
"Centralization induces apoplexy at the center and anemia at the extremities." ~ Lamenais
The present political system is clearly insane. It suffers from schizophrenia. Around the world, almost no one trusts the politicians, yet almost everyone votes for incumbent politicians who promise to reform the government.
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
Phlogging Phlogiston: The Real Origins Of Global Warming Hysteria / Politics / Climate Change
Global warming lives on in the minds, or at least the somber pronouncements of leading politicians, corporate chiefs and some opinion manipulators, but is now essentially dead.
To quickly reach the status of a Great Cause it was necessary to decorate the "theory" of global warming with scientific credentials, and above all make it idiot-friendly. At its most basic, global warming theory (called "anthropogenic global warming" theory or AGWT) is as idiot-friendly as the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001 in the USA. We are told that five airplanes were hijacked by dangerous Islamic fundamentalists by order of Afghanistan's Taliban or only with their friendly help. They flew around for rather a long time but America was so terrified no fighter planes were sent to bring down the hijacked planes. Two of the planes disappeared, but three were crashed into carefully chosen targets, not including nuclear power plants, oil refineries, pesticide factories, the White House or suchlike. Three immense tower blocks in New York then collapsed, one of them without being hit by an airplane at all, and the Pentagon was slightly damaged, probably not by an airplane. Afghanistan was then invaded in a colonial war rampage, by the USA and some other countries described as "democratic".
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
From the Chilean Winter to the Maple Spring, Solidarity and the Student Movements in Chile and Quebec / Politics / Canada
On the night of May 16, thousands of Montréal students and supporters took to the streets for the 23rd consecutive night of protests, this time spurred on by the Government of Québec’s announcement that it would legislate an end to the 14-week student strike which has gripped Quebec for the past three months. The government’s proposed bill would “impose strict conditions on students wanting to demonstrate against the planned tuition fee hikes,” which could “include stiff fines against anyone attempting to block entrances to the colleges and universities.” Québec Premier Jean Charest announced that the current school session will be postponed by the government, “We are suspending the session. We are not cancelling it … This will allow us to finish the session in August and September.” Students warned that they would challenge the law in court “if the legislation limits their right to demonstrate and to block classes if the majority of members of a school or student association votes to do so.”
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
Destroy Greece to Save the Euro as Merkel Makes 'Growth Proposals' Whilst Asking for Referendum on Euro / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
...Elections Provide Yet Another Attempt to Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory; New Democracy Leads Latest Poll
Greek elections are set for June 17th following the impasse of the last election where no majority government formed.
The "Destroy Greece to Save the Euro" clowns led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel are out in force hoping to turn the vote into a direct referendum on the Euro. The election is of course a direct referendum on the Euro, but Greek citizens are under three Fantasyland ideas.
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Sunday, May 20, 2012
South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Labour Candidates / Politics / Sheffield
The Labour party has short listed four candidates as the potential Labour candidate for South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner whom some 5,000 Labour party members will vote on in a June postal ballot as their representative in the public vote on November 15th, 2012.
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
Elites Deterrence is Dead / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
With Greece potentially on the brink of exit from the Eurozone before year's end, a lot of analysis out there has turned to what the consequences of such an event would be, and, specifically, what punishment Greece would receive from the EU and other international organizations, such as the IMF and perhaps even NATO. The general line of thinking here is that Europe will make such a devastating example out of Greece that no one else will dare to question the status quo setup ever again. While Greece is dragged down the Green Mile in shackles to its final destination, all the other prisoners will watch with an unmistakable sense of dread, and the ceiling lights will ominously flicker as the "juice" is turned on, electro-frying Greece into a crispy black corpse.
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Friday, May 18, 2012
Greece: Dump the EU Now For An Economic Recovery! / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
"Attempts to form a government in Greece collapsed on Tuesday, jolting financial markets at the prospect leftists opposed to the terms of an EU bailout could sweep to victory in a June election and nudge the euro zone crisis into a dangerous new phase." – CNBC
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Friday, May 18, 2012
We Need A Media War On All Fronts / Politics / Mainstream Media
When do you feel like you are over the hill?
When you get letters like this one from Jose Hevia after writing an op ed featuring an essay (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...) from your recent book Blogothon, (http://www.1888pressrelease.com/...) recounting your experiences as a network TV insider turned independent media outsider. The essay offered a case study of how the nominally non-commercial network, PBS, turned its back on a human rights TV series I co-produced. It is about the challenges progressives face in offering a counter-narrative to parochial mainstream thinking.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Global Implications Of French Presidential Election / Politics / Euro-Zone
Forget the anemic latest US jobs report - the world is in play, and the election of Francois Hollande as the President of France may do more to determine US unemployment rates (and global investment results) in the next year than anything that Ben Bernanke and US government policies will accomplish.
There is a near-term risk that a process has been set in motion that could plunge the entire globe into currency chaos and economic depression within the next year, with the failure to form a government in Greece acting as only one of a number of possible triggers.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Demystifying Global Warming / Politics / Climate Change
At its simplest and most basic, global warming theory (called "anthropogenic global warming" theory or AGWT) is as idiot-friendly as the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001 in the USA. Five airplanes were hijacked by dangerous Islamic fundamentalists by order of Afghanistan's Taliban or only with their friendly help. They flew around for rather a long time but America was so terrified no fighter planes were sent to bring down the hijacked planes. Two of the planes disappeared, but three were crashed into carefully chosen targets, not including nuclear power plants, oil refineries, pesticide factories, the White House or suchlike. Three immense tower blocks in New York then collapsed, one of them without being hit by an airplane and the Pentagon was slightly damaged, possibly not by an airplane. Afghanistan was then invaded in a colonial war rampage, by the USA and some other countries described as "democratic".
Read full article... Read full article...