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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 06:53
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Harper Conquers Canada, One Robocall at a Time

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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jim-harris/robocalls-scandal_b_1305397.html?ref=canada

Huffington
Post
02/27/2012

Harper Conquers Canada, One Robocall at a Time

Jim Harris
Management consultant; Bestselling author*

The widening "robocall scandal" is deeply disturbing -- as is its media
coverage.

The language we use to describe a situation, the words that a journalist
uses in their coverage of an issue, literally frame the issue and how we
think about it.

This isn't a story about "dirty tricks," it's about election fraud. This
isn't "stupid," it's illegal. This isn't "folly," it was a deliberate,
systematic, strategic, targeted campaign to steal the election. This isn't
"voter suppression," it's stealing democracy.

We should not treat this as some petty misdemeanor. This is a grave threat
to our very basic freedom. This is a threat to our democracy. This is
corruption.

You would expect this in some tin-pot dictatorship--not in Canada.
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 19:32
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KNOWING TOO MUCH: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/its-the-most-ambitious-book-i-have-ever-written-norman-finkelstein/

<http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Knowing_3D_HiRes5.jpg>

Dear Reader,

I just completed a new book on the Israel-Palestine conflict, *KNOWING TOO
MUCH: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an
End<http://orbooks.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6180a1909cdc59a9df25c1a94&id=bde0aaab92&e=80369e0f82>
. *

The book focuses on the break-up of American Jewish support for Israel.
Its central argument is that the mostly liberal  American Jewish community
now knows too much about the historical, human rights and diplomatic record
of the Israel-Palestine conflict to lend Israel blind support.

It is the most ambitious book I have ever written, covering everything from
American Jewish liberalism and Jewish neoconservatives, to what really
happened during the June 1967 war and the July 2000 Camp David peace summit.

Along the way, I critically examine Mearsheimer and Walt’s influential
study of the Israel lobby, dissect the “pro”-Israel propaganda of  Michael
Oren, Jeffrey Goldberg, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris, and—for those who
like my forensic scholarship—expose a hoax on the June 1967 war published
by Yale University Press and praised by leading academics.

I have endeavored to bring lots of new information to light, but also to
present it in an accessible non-academic style interspersed with irony and
humor.
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 19:59
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A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants

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http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/netanyahu-seeks-iran-conflict-extremist-reaction-to-knock-out-obama.html

Mondoweiss
February 29, 2012
**Netanyahu seeks Iran conflict, extremist reaction to knock out Obama*
*by Philip Weiss <http://mondoweiss.net/author/philweiss> *

Brilliant post by Andrew
Sullivan<http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/obamas-most-dangerous-gop-opponent-netanyahu.html>off
the report by
AP<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/27/ap-source-israel-wont-warn-us-before-iran-strike/#ixzz1nn1NmK3L>that
Israel has told the US that it would attack Iran without any warning
to the US. A sinister read, but given Israel's record during the "clash of
civilizations" era, it's hard to argue with. Extended excerpts:

So Israel would, without warning, put US troops and Western civilians at
direct risk of terrorist assaults, would likely tip Pakistan into even more
outright hostility to any cooperation with the West, and rally the Iranian
opposition to its foul regime.... My own fear is that global recruitment
for Jihad would boom as well - reversing all the gains of the last three
years. The war would also galvanize Islamist parties in the new Arab
democracies, giving Israel more ammunition in blocking any rapprochement
between the US and the Muslim world. And following this essential
blackmail, the Israeli government would doubtless rally much of the US
Congress, the entire GOP, its media outlets (like Fox, and the Washington
Post), and a key part of the Democratic fundraising machinery to side
entirely with Israel against the US president.

I don't think you can understand the Republican strategy for this election
(Continue reading)

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tchilds | 1 Mar 2012 20:21
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Throwing Out the Free Market Playbook: An Interview with Naomi Klein | Solutions


http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/1053

~tc
www.pasifik.ca
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

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Rad-Green <at> greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 20:50
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Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/13/road-to-damascus-and-on-to-armageddon/
*

*CounterPunch
February 13, 2012

*
*“Western politicians and media are not yet fighting World War III, but
they are talking themselves into it.” *
*
Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?

*
*by DIANA JOHNSTONE *

*Paris*

What if pollsters put this question to citizens of the United States and
the European Union :

“Which is more important, ensuring disgruntled Islamists freedom to
overthrow the secular regime in Syria, or avoiding World War Three?”

I’ll bet that there might be a majority for avoiding World War III.

But of course, the question is never framed like that.

That would be a “realistic” question, and we Westerners from the heights of
our moral superiority have no time for vulgar “realism” in foreign policy
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 21:02
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IBM at Auschwitz, New Documents

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/328-121/10198-focus-ibm-at-auschwitz-new-documents

Reader Supported News
28 February 12

[image: Auschwitz survivor Leon Greenman displays his number tattoo.
(photo: Ian Waldie/Getty Images)]
Auschwitz survivor Leon Greenman displays his number tattoo. (photo: Ian
Waldie/Getty Images)
IBM at Auschwitz, New Documents

Edwin Black

[image: http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-N.jpg]ewly-released
documents expose more explicitly the details of IBM's pivotal role in the
Holocaust - all six phases: identification, expulsion from society,
confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination. Moreover,
the documents portray with crystal clarity the personal involvement and
micro-management of IBM president Thomas J. Watson in the company's
co-planning and co-organizing of Hitler's campaign to destroy the Jews.

IBM's twelve-year alliance with the Third Reich was first revealed in my
book IBM and the Holocaust, published simultaneously in 40 countries in
February 2001. It was based on some 20,000 documents drawn from archives in
seven countries. IBM never denied any of the information in the book; and
despite thousands of media and communal requests, as well as published
articles, the company has remained silent.

The new "expanded edition" contains 32 pages of never-before-published
internal IBM correspondence, State Department and Justice Department memos,
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 21:15
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Follow the money ... and you can't go far wrong -- Robocall Scandal Mystery: Who Stood To Benefit?

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Follow+money+wrong/6232522/story.html

  Vancouver
Sun
March 1, 2012
Follow the money ... and you can't go far wrong
Robocall Scandal Mystery: Who Stood To Benefit?
By Andrew Coyne, Postmedia News

A week after the story of the fraudulent robocalls first broke - or rather
re-broke, the rudiments of the story having been reported at the time of
the last election - the scandal remains a puzzle.

On the one hand, the allegations are too widespread, the technical capacity
required too great, for this to be a simple matter of human error, or a few
overzealous volunteers, even allowing for the probability that many of the
reports of fraudulent calls are themselves bogus. For example, Aaron Wherry
of Maclean's magazine has compiled a list of 21 ridings in which voters
were given false information on poll locations, in suspicious
circumstances. In some cases the calls purported to come from Elections
Canada, in others from one party or another, but falsely in either event.

In dozens of other ridings there have been reports of people supposedly
calling on behalf of, say, the Liberals doing everything they can to
discredit them: calling at odd hours, or on holy days, or otherwise going
out of their way to annoy their recipients. As with the phoney poll
locations, the vast majority of these calls have been reported by the
opposition parties.

Though that is not necessarily proof that anyone in the Conservative party
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 21:18
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Far from the Tahrir dream

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/far-from-the-tahrir-dream/article2354375/

Globe and Mail
Mar. 01, 2012
Far from the Tahrir dream
 The biggest, most immediate obstacle to freedom in Egypt today, the force
that’s actively trying to roll back the revolution, is not the Muslim
Brotherhood but the military-dominated security state that has run Egypt
for 60 years and is now identified with the acronym SCAF, for Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces.Timothy Garton Ash  CAIRO

There are two sharply contrasting Western cliché images attached to the
Egyptian revolution and, more broadly, to the Arab Spring. One is
beautiful, young Facebook and Twitter-using women revolutionaries,
explaining in perfect English their immaculate secular, liberal goals.
Hurrah, hurrah. The other is swarthy, hatchet-bearded Islamist men,
exploiting a brief moment of semi-democracy to impose their violent,
theocratic, misogynist oppression. Boo, boo. Arab Spring, Arab Fall.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-tahrir-celebrates-mubarak-ouster-anniversary/article2335202/?from=2354375>

As so often, there’s a grain of truth in each cliché. There are fantastic,
brave, bright young women and men here who have faced down extreme
intimidation of many kinds (from police bullets to sexual harassment) and
deserve our total, unstinting solidarity and support. And there are,
indeed, some Islamist monsters. But the cliché images miss two larger and
more important truths.

First, the biggest, most immediate obstacle to freedom in Egypt today, the
force that’s actively trying to roll back the revolution, is not the Muslim
Brotherhood but the military-dominated security state that has run Egypt
(Continue reading)

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Sid Shniad | 1 Mar 2012 21:25
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The robo-call scandal and the curious case of Saanich-Gulf Islands

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/the-curious-case-of-saanich-gulf-islands/article2354592/
Globe and Mail
                                       Mar. 01, 2012 The curious case of
Saanich-Gulf Islands
 LAWRENCE MARTIN

The robo-call jury is still out. The story might be overblown. It’s not
Robogate unless more evidence is forthcoming.

What fuels suspicion, however, is the trend line of controversial actions
and allegations of dirty tricks by this government. That’s why it’s not so
easy to believe Conservative protests of innocence in the robo-calling
scandal. In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Stephen Harper, a hands-on
prime minister with a history of warring with Elections Canada, dismissed
the affair as “a smear campaign” by sore losers.

To cast a bit of light, let’s go back to the 2008 election in the closely
contested B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. The incumbent was the
apple-cheeked Conservative Gary Lunn. Midway through that campaign, Julian
West, the NDP candidate, dropped out owing to revelations of a public
nudity scandal from years earlier. But his withdrawal didn’t come in time
to get his name off the ballot.

The federal election was on Oct. 14. At dinnertime on Oct. 13, an automated
phone message went out urging constituents, strangely enough, to vote for
Mr. West. And it appeared to have some effect: He received 3,667 votes,
almost 6 per cent of the total. A poll a few days earlier had showed him at
1 per cent. This was good news for Mr. Lunn. The bulk of those votes might
otherwise have gone to the Liberal candidate, who lost to Mr. Lunn by 2,625
votes.
(Continue reading)

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Bill Totten | 2 Mar 2012 00:55
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[BillTottenWeblog] Climate change will shake the Earth

A changing climate isn't just about floods, droughts and heatwaves. It brings erupting volcanoes and
catastrophic earthquakes too

by Bill McGuire

guardian.co.uk (February 26 2012) 19.59 GMT

As the Earth's crust buckles, volcanic activity will increase: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/2/24/1330108042031/As-the-Earths-crust-buckl-007.jpg

The idea that a changing climate can persuade the ground to shake, volcanoes to rumble and tsunamis to crash
on to unsuspecting coastlines seems, at first, to be bordering on the insane. How can what happens in the
thin envelope of gas that shrouds and protects our world possibly influence the potentially
Earth-shattering processes that operate deep beneath the surface? The fact that it does reflects a
failure of our imagination and a limited understanding of the manner in which the different physical
components of our planet - the atmosphere, the oceans, and the solid Earth, or geosphere - intertwine and interact.

If we think about climate change at all, most of us do so in a very simplistic way: so, the weather might get a
bit warmer; floods and droughts may become more of a problem and sea levels will slowly creep upwards.
Evidence reveals, however, that our planet is an almost unimaginably complicated beast, which reacts to
a dramatically changing climate in all manner of different ways; a few - like the aforementioned -
straightforward and predictable; some surprising and others downright implausible. Into the latter
category fall the manifold responses of the geosphere.

The world we inhabit has an outer rind that is extraordinarily sensitive to change. While the Earth's crust
may seem safe and secure, the geological calamities that happen with alarming regularity confirm that
this is not the case. Here in the UK, we only have to go back a couple years to April 2010, when the word on
everyone's lips was Eyjafjallajokull - the ice-covered Icelandic volcano that brought UK and European
air traffic to a grinding halt. Less than a year ago, our planet's ability to shock and awe headed the news
once again as the east coast of Japan was bludgeoned by a cataclysmic combination of megaquake and
tsunami, resulting - at a quarter of a trillion dollars or so - in the biggest natural-catastrophe bill ever.
(Continue reading)

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