I was lucky enough to see the Loose Change, Final Cut Premiere on Sunday night. The producers did a great job tightening up the script and presenting the key ideas that demonstrate why 9/11 was an "inside job."

Even my 92 year old grandmother gasped when she heard that BBC announced the collapse of WTC7 before it happened and while WTC7 could be seen in a live feed from ground zero!

Most of the truthers were supportive of progressive presidential candidate Ron Paul but others were rooting for Cynthia McKinney.

It was a great show, the one-on-one with one of the of movies producers was great and I recommend the flick to everyone! Apparently, 80% of Koreans have watched one of the previous releases! So this film is international gold!

"BBC Cancels Climate Change TV Special

Environmentalists are criticizing the BBC for canceling a TV special on climate change called Planet Relief. Executives at the BBC said they scrapped plans for the show because it was not the role of the BBC to lead opinion on global warming. Newsnight editor Peter Barron recently said: 'It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet.'"

I liked the NyTimes possibly punny headline "Rising Pressure From G.O.P. Led Senator to Quit."

it certainly was all about rising pressure, for sure!

Isn't it great when there's some honesty in the headlines?

Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protesters [MORE]

MSNBC had this to say about the new hell that credit cards are promoting.

The other day, someone compared the domestic credit card problems to the works of economic hitmen ("Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.")

While folks like Ms. Warren suggest that tweaking the law would solve the problem, I tend to be more cynical and wonder if the government is in cahoots with the credit industry and secretly wants to "destroy the middle class"

The truth about "governments," I guess, is that you "Can't Live With 'em and You Can't Live Without 'em."

Charles Hugh Smith had this to say on his blog:

I read something today I thought to be profound and quite accurate; The past shows that great civilizations last approx. 200 years and the reasons given for their demise is as follows;

They go From bondage to spiritual faith

From government dependency to bondage

God help us, each and every one of us! And, please: "just say no to debt."

I understand Chris Dodd's sentiment here (source) :

"All Americans should serve our country," the Connecticut senator said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday. "Endowed as we are with so many gifts, is it too much to ask that we each give something back to this remarkable place?"

but serving your country can simply mean "being a positive part of your community" too.

During the past 10 years, I've probably become too cynical but the term public servant doesn't seem to mean much any more because it's far too easy to see the revolving door and corruption which has given Congress its low approval ratings.

Like many Americans, I believe that our politicians should model what they preach first and then impose their whims on the rest of us after that...

So Yes, Senator Dodd, you're asking too much since when our children work, they should earn a good days pay, not a pittance and a pat on the head, because economic equality comes before charity!

From the Guardian (source):

All national exams should be abolished for children under 16 because the stress caused by over-testing is poisoning attitudes towards education, according to an influential teaching body.

I found this piece interesting because, when I recently went back to the university, I felt a great deal of anxiety and was happy when everything was over-- I even lost 70 lbs! Why? I don't know because I was an A/A- student as an undergraduate.

I know that testing can be helpful but, especially in college, it's used, seemingly, to filter out the "good students" from "the bad" students. i.e. I don't see tests as being used to diagnose and remedy personal learning issues.

Because I am starting to become fully commited to self-led study, I find myself taking "self created tests" a lot more often because I'm aware of what goals I want to achieve and I see and evaluate the type of progress I am making.

I can argue both sides of this issue because I can understand why we test (the community's stamp of approval) and why we don't (learning is non-linear).

Does anyone else think we can survive in a world without a testing bureaucracy?

Since there have been a lot of postings on empirical economics, I thought it was appropriate to post this snippet from today's WallStreet Journal:

"Thomas Schoewe, Wal-Mart's chief financial officer, told investors at its annual meeting here that the company would repurchase up to $15 billion in shares through an undefined period. It will fund the buybacks with new borrowings with savings from the fewer store openings."

Essentially, Wal-Mart-- and a slew of other companies, are using leverage (borrowing money) to buy back stock.

Reportedly:

• this pushes down the company's P/E and encourages people to buy what looks like a great deal;

• the insiders have an opportunity to sell and "become rich"

• the stock becomes worthless since more earnings are used to pay debt;

• a visit to bankruptcy court? a place where the stockholders' wealth is taken away (similar to eminent domain) and the stock is later "recapitolized" and makes a different set of "early investors" rich;

Anyway, Enron accounting seems to be alive, so, to the empiricists out there: "measure garbage, and you'll predict garbage!"

The more I think about this duplicity, the more I wonder: "will the next generation become the next sucker? or will it refuse-- knowing that stocks are really an IOU and not worth a dime?"

These are interesting times!

"I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party," wrote Cindy Sheehan, but became a target of attacks from liberals when [I] "started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party."

Today, Cindy Sheehan announced in her blog that she is giving up her role as an anti-war protester and going home.

It seems to me that Cindy Sheehan is beginning to understand the dysfunctionality of politics.

There was an article today in the LaTimes (Read It) that tries to defend Hillary's tenure on the Wal-Mart board.

So, the LaTimes is trying to convince us that Hillary went to Wal-Mart and chatted about the Environment (recyclable packaging) and "bringing women into Wal-Mart."

The punch line of all this, of course, was that "after hillary left," things went back to normal so, obviously, she wasn't brought onto the board to "reform wal-mart" or clarify their "views on women."

And the LaTimes had to note Hillary's failure because, if you look at wal-mart today, there is no evidence that she cared about the rank-and-file workers or their communities and I was left to believe that the board's committes acted like smoke screens which smelled like nice incense but hid hillary's true function: a lobbyist and, just like Cheney, who invited his energy buddies over, Bill Clinton, most likely, knew exactly what Wal-Mart wanted and, in the end, he delivered NAFTA and China to them and proved just how little the environment, labor and women actually mattered.

For Hillary to gain popularity, I think that this pseudo-journalism-- a sort of "soft porn," has to be discarded and the real Hillary has to come through because, otherwise, the blogosphere will burn those false images to the ground and we'll have a president with 40% support again.

Specifically, if Hillary wasn't able to embed a positive legacy into wal-mart-- with regards to labor, environment, health care and women, why would her presidential legacy be any different?

With none of the democrats exciting anyone, Ron Paul is looking better all the time. New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who the Clintons have always liked, is now talking about a billion dollar independent run.

so, does anyone think that either Ron Paul or Bloomberg could cause an upset or even become "major contenders?"

what I find interesting is the "new conspiracy theory" about MySpace blocking Ron Paul's message: YouTube Ron Paul Conspiracy Video and I think that more oddball stories can be found on google, digg and other blogs as well (from what I can tell, they're multiplying like rabbits).

What I found wierd? CNBC (source) had this to say about where Ron Paul ranked:

"9. Ron Paul, Texas congressman, Last Ranking: -- "

"The anti-war Republican stood out, and his answers were the talk of the spin room -- well, parts of it, anyway. Our problem: until he starts to take votes from someone else, we don't know where to place him."

Since when did a politician become "unrankable?" Is CNBC simply not ranking Paul because he's an uncontrolable first place contender? and prefering to ignore poll data by debasing and adulterating it in the same way they do with exit poll data these days?

all I know is, I gave a few bucks to Ron Paul for his courage!

but, for all I know, Ron Paul was there to simply get people to turn on their TV's and meet the others.

update from national review: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it,” Paul said. “They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there. source

go ron paul, go! this is the first time i've heard someone brilliantly topple the "fight them before they come hear" argument by Bush.

I don't know what 150,000 lost IBM jobs means to the American economy, its workers and America but 150,000 is a breathtaking number and most certainly a staggering number. Other reports on the web place this number at 10,000 layoffs so PBS's integrity is on the line here!

• READ ABOUT IT HERE

so what's the future of America about?

we used to think that we could give away money to help those in poverty but now the means of doing that is being taken away from many Americans...

things are going to get different around here I think!

not only is the world getting flatter but paychecks will probably be getting flatter too and make us all brothers and sisters.

wow.

just like Dennis Kucinich stood out in MoveOn's poll in 2004-- only to be ignored and rejected by the MSM every day after that, Ron Paul-- another politician with a lot of common sense, seems to have won the MSNBC poll.

To me, he's almost like the "Democrat's Democrat."

Watch his debate answers

I found this innuendo to be quite disturbing:

The study found that soldiers who had high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat or screened positive for a mental health symptom were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants as those who reported low levels of anger, said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general.

in my mind, why should the media blame the emotional state of our troops for the chaos in Iraq? because, after all, aren't our troops, first and foremost, trained to dispose of the enemy efficiently and without regret?

to absolve "higher ups" from war crimes by blaming the mental state of their subordinates seems totally disingenuous.

what's even more surprising is that, asides from linking mental illness and stress to inhumane acts, instead of a war plan, the article also refuses to defend or discuss the right of every soldier to decline the order to redeploy!

because, after all, if mental illess and stress cause our soldiers to act inhumanely, then shouldn't our military's redeployment policy, which redeploys soldiers as quickly as possible, before they have any regrets, be addressed as well?

in my mind, if the "higher ups" in the military know that they can reduce the scope of inhumane acts simply by allowing soldiers to refuse redeployment, then shouldn't top brass change current policy or take the moral responsibility for what happens?

Story In LaTimes

"WASHINGTON — Government and community leaders aren't doing enough to counter multimedia-savvy terrorists from using flashy websites, provocative video games, hip-hop music and gruesome images of bloodied Muslim children to recruit young people online, according to a new report that says the Internet may be extremists' most powerful frontier."

"There's only one side on the battlefield, and it isn't us," says Frank Cilluffo, director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, who will testify Thursday on the Internet-Facilitated Radicalization report in the Senate. "We've created this global village — the Internet — without a police department."

this made me laugh since every US written story, about people dying in bagdahd, seems to say: "heads cut off and body tortured."

and what does our good friend Joe say?

"The Internet is a weapon in the hands of our extremist enemies," says Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee

what a hoot. i'd love it if Joe started talking about what happens when the wrong people become president and what that does to a country.

source: usatoday, Report says Internet a key tool for extremists