Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Codex Alimentarius Commission Meeting Schedule


Codex Committee meeting dates, locations and provisional agendas are posted on the Codex Alimentarius Web site.

Forthcoming Codex Meetings


REFERENCE
TITLE
DATE
PLACE


CX-716-26
Codex Committee on General Principles
26 Session
From: 12/04/2010
To: 16/04/2010
Paris
(France)
Link to Agenda


CX-718-42
Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues
42 Session
From: 19/04/2010
To: 24/04/2010
Xian
(China)
Link to Agenda


CX-735-04
Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods
4 Session
From: 26/04/2010
To: 30/04/2010
Izmir
(Turkey)
Link to Agenda


CX-714-38
Codex Committee on Food Labelling
38 Session
From: 03/05/2010
To: 07/05/2010
Quebec City
(Canada)
Link to Agenda


CX-702-64
Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission
64 Session
From: 29/06/2010
To: 02/07/2010
Geneva
(Switzerland)
Link to Agenda
Link to Arabic Agenda


CX-701-33
Codex Alimentarius Commission
33 Session
From: 05/07/2010
To: 09/07/2010
Geneva
(Switzerland)
Link to Agenda
Link to Arabic Agenda
Link to Chinese Agenda


CX-730-19
Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods
19 Session
From: 30/08/2010
To: 03/09/2010
TBA
(United States of America)


CX-732-11
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for North America and South West Pacific
11 Session
From: 28/09/2010
To: 01/10/2010
Nuku'alofa
(Tonga)


CX-706-27
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Europe
27 Session
From: 05/10/2010
To: 08/10/2010
TBA
(Poland)


CX-804-04
Ad hoc Codex Intergovernmental Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance
4 Session
From: 18/10/2010
To: 22/10/2010
TBA
(Republic of Korea)


CX-713-25
Codex Committee on Processed Fruits and Vegetables
25 Session
From: 25/10/2010
To: 29/10/2010
Bali
(Indonesia)


CX-720-32
Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses
32 Session
From: 01/11/2010
To: 05/11/2010
Santiago
(Chile)


CX-725-17
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean
17 Session
From: 08/11/2010
To: 12/11/2010
Acapulco
(Mexico)


CX-727-17
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Asia
17 Session
From: 22/11/2010
To: 26/11/2010
TBA
(Indonesia)


CX-712-42
Codex Committee on Food Hygiene
42 Session
From: 29/11/2010
To: 03/12/2010
TBA
(United States of America)


CX-734-06
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Near East
6 Session
From: 25/01/2011
To: 29/01/2011
Tunis
(Tunisia)


CX-707-19
FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Africa
19 Session
From: 01/02/2011
To: 04/02/2011
Accra
(Ghana)


CX-709-22
Codex Committee on Fats and Oils
22 Session
From: 21/02/2011
To: 25/02/2011
TBA
(Malaysia)


CX-715-32
Codex Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling
32 Session
From: 07/03/2011
To: 11/03/2011
Budapest
(Hungary)


CX-711-43
Codex Committee on Food Additives
43 Session
From: 14/03/2011
To: 18/03/2011
TBA
(China)


CX-735-05
Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods
5 Session
From: 24/03/2011
To: 28/03/2011
TBA
(Netherlands)


CX-716-27
Codex Committee on General Principles
27 Session
From: 04/04/2011
To: 08/04/2011
TBA
(Mali)


CX-722-31
Codex Committee on Fish and Fishery Products
31 Session
From: 11/04/2011
To: 15/04/2011
Tromso
(Norway)


CX-718-43
Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues
43 Session
From: 18/04/2011
To: 23/04/2011
TBA
(China)


CX-731-16
Codex Committee on Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
16 Session
From: 02/05/2011
To: 06/05/2011
TBA
(Mexico)


CX-714-39
Codex Committee on Food Labelling
39 Session
From: 09/05/2011
To: 13/05/2011
TBA
(Canada)


CX-702-66
Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission
66 Session
From: 28/06/2011
To: 01/07/2011
Geneva
(Switzerland)


CX-701-34
Codex Alimentarius Commission
34 Session
From: 04/07/2011
To: 08/07/2011
Geneva
(Switzerland)


CX-733-19
Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems
19 Session
From: 17/10/2011
To: 21/10/2011
TBA
(Australia)


CX-720-33
Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses
33 Session
From: 14/11/2011
To: 18/11/2011
TBA
(Germany)


CX-712-43
Codex Committee on Food Hygiene
43 Session
From: 21/11/2011
To: 25/11/2011
TBA
(United States of America)


CX-702-67
Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission
67 Session
From: 07/12/2011
To: 09/12/2011
Rome
(Italy)
.
.
Source: http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/current.jsp
.

Empire State Building jumper identified as Yale student

Last Updated: 2:34 PM, March 31, 2010

Posted: 11:46 AM, March 31, 2010


The man who jumped from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building's observation deck was identified as Yale University student Cameron Dabaghi, school officials said today.

Dabaghi, a junior from Austin, Texas, plunged from the deck in an apparent suicide on Tuesday shortly before 6:30 p.m.

"We are all deeply distressed by this news," wrote Yale College Dean Mary Miller in a message to students issued this morning.

Dabaghi, who was expected to graduate in 2011 was majoring in East Asian studies, according to the student newspaper the Yale Daily News.

Before Tuesday's incident, the most recent suicide at the landdmark building is believed to have been four years ago when a man jumped from a vacant office on the 66th floor.



















Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/empire_state_building_jumper_was_s9vPP9Ae9exNxlwRw4NHJM .

James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

In his first in-depth interview since the theft of UEA emails, the scientist blames inertia and democracy for lack of action

Read the full transcript of James Lovelock's G2 interview with Leo Hickman
The G2 interview

Leo Hickman
guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 March 2010 13.15 BST
Article history



Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change, according to the British scientist James Lovelock. Illustration: Murdo Macleod


Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

"That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion," he said. "Or a return of the dust bowl in the mid-west. Another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough. We'll just argue over it like now." The IPCC's 2007 report concluded that there was a 90% chance that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing global warming, but the panel has been criticised over a mistaken claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

Lovelock says the events of the recent months have seen him warming to the efforts of the "good" climate sceptics: "What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. You need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic."

Lovelock, who 40 years ago originated the idea that the planet is a giant, self-regulating organism – the so-called Gaia theory – added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails – "I felt reluctant to pry" – but that their reported content had left him feeling "utterly disgusted".
"Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards."


Read the full transcript of the interview

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change
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Hananiah's False Prophecy


Jeremiah 28

1And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, and in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying,

2Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

3Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon:

4And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

5Then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the LORD,

6Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD's house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place.

7Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people;

8The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

9The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him.

10Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it.

11And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

12Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the prophet, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

13Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron.

14For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the beasts of the field also.

15Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.

16Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD.

17So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

King James Version (KJV)

Public Domain
.

Bomb Rocks Town in Russia’s Dagestan


By REUTERS
Published: March 31, 2010

Filed at 3:51 a.m. ET

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - Two blasts, one set off by a suicide bomber, rocked Kizlyar in Russia's Dagestan region on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people just two days after twin bombs hit Moscow, officials told Reuters.

Investigators said a suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform set off the second of the blasts in Dagestan, which followed the two bombings in Moscow that killed 39 people and which authorities blamed on female suicide attackers with links to insurgents in the turbulent North Caucasus.

In Kizlyar, a police official said a car parked near a school in the center of town blew up as a traffic police patrol was driving by, killing two police officers.

He said the second bomb was set off shortly after police and onlookers gathered at the scene.

The provincial police spokesman said Kizlyar police chief Vitaly Vedernikov was among the dead. At least six other police officers, an investigator and a civilian were killed, Russian news agencies cited police as saying.

Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim province adjacent to war-scarred Chechnya along Russia's southern border, is plagued by frequent attacks targeting police and government officials.

ONE BOMB FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER

Drawing police to the scene of an initial blast and then setting off another bomb is a common tactic used by militants in the North Caucasus.

Attacks linked to the insurgency that persists nearly a decade after the second post-Soviet separatist war in Chechnya had been limited mostly to the North Caucasus in recent years before the Monday bombings on Moscow's metro.

Agency reports said there were no children in the school in Kizlyar at the time of the explosions.

The deadliest attack in the Russian capital in six years fueled fears of a broader offensive by rebels based in the North Caucasus and underscored the Kremlin's failure to keep militants in check.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who led Moscow into a war against Chechen separatists in 1999 that sealed his rise to power, said on Tuesday that those behind the bombings must be scraped "from the bottom of the sewers" and exposed.

Moscow observed a day of mourning on Tuesday for the victims of the blasts, which authorities said were set off by female suicide bombers linked to the North Caucasus -- a string of heavily Muslim provinces that includes Chechnya.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Peter Millership)

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COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS


Shadow Government


This excerpt from Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope was transcribed after we read and formatted for posting the article from the New York Times on 12-03-01, titled Calls for a New Push Into Iraq Gain Power in Washington. The Globalists become ever more emboldened as they lay their puppet minions and their plans in the faces of elected officials, both federal and state and no effort is made to reign in the "outsiders" - as that article labels them.

Thus, we are once again reminded of the Protocols, better known as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Whoever its author - having been first published in London in 1906 - we must notice a projected outcome and method that is clearly visible today. The description and mission of the 'outsider group', as described in the article mentioned above is articulated clearly in Protocol No.9

"It is from us that the all-engulfing terror proceeds.

We have in our service persons of all opinions, of all doctrines... demagogues, socialists, communists, and utopian dreamers of every kind.

We have harnessed them all to the task; each one of them on his own account is boring away at the last remnants of authority, is striving to overthrow all established form of order.

By these acts all States are in torture; they exhort to tranquility, are ready to sacrifice everything for peace: but we will not give them peace until they openly acknowledge our international Super-Government, and with submissiveness."

We notice with Carroll Quigley, either a subtle deceptiveness or naivete' when describing some of the named minions of the International Priesthood. He died soon after the publication of Tragedy and Hope. Read and take heed. -- Jackie -- 2-11-01


TRAGEDY AND HOPE

by: Carroll Quigley

Excerpted from pp. 950 - 955 - detailing the establishment of the "New York branch of the ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS". . . the:

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Group has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, of any other groups, and frequently does so.

I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments.

I have objected, but in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe), but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wished to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.

The Round Table Groups have already been mentioned in this book several times, notably in connection with the formation of the British Commonwealth in chapter 4 and in the discussion of appeasement in chapter 12 ("the Cliveden Set").

At the risk of some repetition, the story will be summarized here, because the American branch of this oganization (sometimes called the "Eastern Establishment") has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.

The Round Table Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr (Lord Lothian), and (Sir) William S. Marris in 1908-1911. This was done on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust in the two decades 1905-1925.

The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) and William T. Stead, (1840-1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust.

By 1915 Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippman, Frank Avdelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others).

The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well-informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine, The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.

The leaders of this group were: Milner, until his death in 1915, followed by Curtis (1872-1955), Robert H. (Lord) Brand -- brother-in-law of Lady Astor -- until his death in 1963, and now Adam D. Marris, son of Sir William and Brand's successor as managing director of Lazard Brothers bank. The original intention had been to have collegial leadership, but Milner was too secretive and headstrong to share the role.

He did so only in the period 1913-1919 when he held regular meetings with some of his closest friends to coordinate their activities as a pressure group in the struggle with Wilhelmine Germany. This they called their "Ginger Group". After Milner's death in 1925, the leadership was largely shared by the survivors of Milner's 'Kindergarten', that is, the group of young Oxford men whom he used as civil servants in his reconstruction of South Africa in 1901-1910.

Brand was the last survivor of the "Kindergarten", since his death, the greatly reduced activities of the organization have been exercised largely through the Editorial Committee of The Round Table magazine under Adam Marris.

Money for the widely ramified activities of this organization came originally from the associates and followers of Cecil Rhodes, chiefly from the Rhodes Trust itself, and from wealthy associates such as the Beit brothers, from Sir Abe Bailey, and (after 1915) from the Astor family.

Since 1925 there have been substantial contributions from wealthy individuals and from foundations and firms associated with the international banking fraternity, especially the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and other organizations associated with J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families, and the associates of Lazard Brothers and of Morgan, Grenfell, and Company.

The chief backbone of this organization grew up along the already existing financial cooperation running from the Morgan Bank in New York to a group of international financiers in London led by Lazard Brothers.

Milner himself in 1901 had refused a fabulous offer, worth up to 100,000 a year, to become one of the three partners of the Morgan Bank in London, in succession to the younger J.P. Morgan who moved from London to join his father in New York (eventually the vacancy went to E.C. Grenfell, so that the London affiliate of Morgan became known as Morgan, Grenfell, and Company).

Instead, Milner became director of a number of public banks, chiefly the London Joint Stock Bank, corporate precursor of the Midland Bank. He became one of the greatest political and financial powers in England, with his disciples strategically placed throughout England in significant places, such as the editorship of The Times, the editorship of The Observer, the managing directorship of Lazard Brothers, various administrative posts, and even Cabinet positions.

Ramifications were established in politics, high finance, Oxford and London universities, periodicals, the civil service, and tax exempt foundations.

At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. Once again the task was entrusted to Lionel Curtis who established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group.

This front organization, called the royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group.

The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan "experts", including Lamont and Beer, who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English "experts" which had been recruited by the Milner group.

In fact, the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris.

The Council of the RIIA (which, by Curtis's energy came to be housed in Chatham House, across St. James's Square from the Astors, and was soon known by the name of the headquarters) and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin.

Until 1960 the council at Chatham House was dominated by the dwindling group of Milner's associates, while the paid staff members were largely the agents of Lionel Curtis. The Round Table for years (until 1960) was edited from the back door of Chatham House grounds in Ormond Yard, and its telephone came through the Chatham House switchboard.

The New York branch was dominated by the associates of the Morgan Bank. For example, in 1928 the Council on Foreign relations had John W. Davis as president, Paul Cravath as vice-president, and a council of thirteen others, which included Owen D. Young, russell C. Leffingwell, Norman Davis, Allen Dulles, George W. Wickersham, Frank L. Polk, Whitney Shepardson, Isaiah Bowman, Stephen P. Duggan, and Otto Kahn.

Throughout its history, the council has been associated with the American Round Tablers, such as Beer, Lippmann, Shepardson, and Jerome Greene.

The academic figures have been those linked to Morgan, such as James T. Shotwell, Charles Seymour, Joseph P. Chamberlain, Philip Jessup, Isaiah Bowman and, more recently, Philip Moseley, Grayson L. Kirk, and Henry W. Wriston.

The Wall Street contracts with these were created originally from Morgan's influence in handling large academic endowments. In the case of the largest of these endowments, that at Harvard, the influence was usually exercised indirectly through "State Street", Boston, which, for much of the twentieth century, came through the Boston banker Thomas Nelson Perkins.

Closely allied with this Morgan influence were a small group of Wall Street law firms, whose chief figures were Elihu Root, John W. Davis, Paul D. Cravath, Russell Leffingwell, the Dulles brothers and, more recently, Arthur H. Dean, Philip D. Reed, and John J. McCloy. Other nonlegal agents of Morgan included men like Owen D. Young and Norman H. Davis.

On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy.

In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

Some rather incidental examples of the operations of this structure are very revealing, just because they are incidental. For example, it set up in Princeton a reasonable copy of the Round Table Group's chief Oxford headquarters, All Souls College.

This copy, called the Institute for Advanced Study, and best known, perhaps, as the refuge of Einstein, Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, and George F. Kennan, was organized by Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller's General Education Board after he had experienced the delights of All Souls while serving as Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford. The plans were largely drawn by Tom Jones, one of the Round Table's most active intriguers and foundation administrators.

The American branch of this "English Establishment" exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript )

In fact, the editor of the Christian Science Monitor was the chief American correspondent (anonymously) of The Round Table, and Lord Lothian, the original editor of The Round Table and later secretary of the Rhodes Trust (1925-1939) and ambassador to Washington, was a frequent writer in the Monitor.

It might be mentioned that the existence of this Wall Street Anglo-American axis is quite obvious once it is pointed out.

It is reflected in the fact that such Wall Street luminaries as John W. Davis, Lewis Douglas, Jock Whitney, and Douglas Dillon were appointed to be American ambassadors in London.

This double international network in which the Round Table groups formed the semi-secret or secret nuclei of the Institutes of International Affairs was extended into a third network in 1935, organized by the same people for the same motives.

Once again the mastermind was Lionel Curtis, and the earlier Round Table Groups and Institutes of International Affairs were used as nuclei for the new network.

However, this new organization for Pacific affairs was extended to ten countries, while the Round Table Groups existed only in seven. The new additions, ultimately China, Japan, France, the Netherlands, and Soviet Russia, had Pacific councils set up from scratch.

In Canada, australia, and New Zealand, Pacific councils, interlocked and dominated by the Institutes of International Affairs, were set up.

In England, Chatham House served as the English center for both nets, while in the United States the two were parallel creations (not subordinate) of the Wall Street allies of the Morgan Bank. The financing came from the same international banking groups and their subsidiary commercial and industrial firms.

In England, Chatham House was financed for both networks by the contributions of Sir Abe Bailey, the Astor family, and additional funds largely acquired by the persuasive powers of Lionel Curtis. The financial difficulties of the IPR Councils in the British Dominions in the depression of 1929-1935 resulted in a very revealing effort to save money, when the local Institute of International Affairs absorbed the local Pacific Council, both of which were, in a way, expensive and needless fronts for the local Round Table groups.

The chief aims of this elaborate, semi-secret organization were largely commendable: to coordinate the international activities and outlooks of all the English-speaking world into one (which would largely, it is true, be that of the London group); to work to maintain the peace; to help backward, colonial, and underdeveloped areas to advance toward stability, law and order, and prosperity along lines somewhat similar to those taught at Oxford and the University of London (especially the School of Economics and the Schools of African and Oriental Studies).

These organizations and their financial backers were in no sense reactionary or Fascistic persons, as Communist propaganda would like to depict them. Quite the contrary.

They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies.

Their desire to win over the opposition by cooperation worked with Smuts but failed with Hertzog, worked with Gandhi but failed with Menon, worked with Stresemann but failed with Hitler, and has shown little chance of working with any Soviet leader. If their failures now loom larger than their successes, this should not be allowed to conceal the high motives with which they attempted both.

It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the frame-work of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's.

It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers.

Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chamber, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations.

The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the "most respected" newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions.

An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of the interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly. Four years later, the Reece committee's general counsel, Rene A. Wormser wrote a shocked, but not shocking, book on the subject called Foundations: Their Power and Influence.

One of the most interesting members of this Anglo-American power structure was Jerome D. Greene (1874-1959). Born in Japan of missionary parents, Greene graduated from Harvard's college and law school by 1899 and became secretary to Harvard's president and corporation in 1901-1910. This gave him contacts with Wall Street which made him general manager of the Rockefeller Institute (1910-1012), assistant to John d. Rockefeller in philanthropic work for two years, then trustee to the Rockefeller Institute, to the Rockefeller foundation, and to the Rockefeller General Education Board until 1939.

For fifteen years (1917-1932) he was with the Boston investment banking firm of Lee, Higginson, and Company, most of the period as its chief officer, as well as with its London branch. As executive secretary of the American section of the Allied Maritime Transport Council, stationed in London in 1918, he lived in Toynbee Hall, the world's first settlement house, which has been founded by Alfred Milner and his friends in 1984.

This brought him in contact with the Round Table Group in England, a contact which was strengthened in 1919 when he was secretary to the Reparations Commission at the Paris Peace Conference. Accordingly, on his return to the United States he was one of the early figures in the establishment of the Council on Foreign Relations, which served as the New York branch of Lionel Curtis's Institute of International Affairs.

As an investment banker, Greene is chiefly remembered for his sales of millions of dollars of the fraudulent securities of the Swedish match king, Ivar Kreuger. That Greene offered these to the American investing public in good faith is evident from the fact that he put a substantial part of his own fortune in the same investments. As a consequence, Kreuger's suicide in Paris in April 1932 left Greene with little money and no job. He wrote to Lionel Curtis, asking for help, and was given, for two years, a professorship of international relations at Aberystwyth, Wales.

- End Excerpt -

See also:

Excerpts from pp 324 - 327 discussing the "powers of financial capitalism"

Ordering info for the book, Tragedy and Hope by Carol Quigley

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Indian Jesuits develop Afghan education system


Indian Jesuits develop Afghan education system
Published Date: March 31, 2010



Afghanistan’s government has appointed an Indian Jesuit as a ‘councilor for technical education’ in the latest sign of recognition of the order’s contribution to the country’s education system.

The work of education of young people is one of the basic ways to ensure progress and development of a nation, especially in an Afghanistan for decades plagued by wars and internal conflicts, which now seeks its way to stability and peace, Fides reports.

This is what Indian Jesuits, in particular from the Province of Calcutta, told Fides in describing their work in education in Afghanistan, which has increased gradually in recent years through training of teachers and students.

The contribution of the Jesuits is recognized by the Afghan Government. A Jesuit has even been appointed by the Ministry of Education as “Councilor for Technical Education,” while several religious leaders organized a program for students in the teaching of technical material and English.

There is also an important training program underway that provides technical preparation of 1,000 teachers over the next five years.

The commitment of the Society of Jesus in Afghanistan dates back to May 2002, but was interrupted due to insecurity reigning in the country. In 2005, it returned, at the University of Herat, with 65 students and teaching technical subjects.

Today, the Jesuits now have 400 students. There are three universities involved and the Jesuits have been commissioned to take care of the National Institute of Management in Kabul. Soon, there will also be the opening of the National Institute of Computer Technology in Kabul, as well. “Education in Afghanistan has suffered many years of war and strife.

There is a shortage of teachers, a gap that the Jesuits are doing their best to fill,” said Fr George Pattery SJ, Provincial of the Jesuits in Calcutta.

The aim is to contribute to the progress and development of the population, helping to create conditions conducive to respect for human rights and freedom, in light of the Christian message.

SOURCE
Indian Jesuits working on progress and development (Fides)
LINK AND PHOTO
Education in Afghanistan (Wikipedia)

Source: http://www.cathnewsasia.com/2010/03/31/indian-jesuits-develop-afghan-education-system/
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Note: Highlights added.
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The Coulter visit: What would St. Ignatius say?

Richard Handler
The Coulter visit: What would St. Ignatius say?
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 2:50 PM ET
By Richard Handler CBC News

With a toss of her long blond hair, Ann Coulter, the American mistress of bombast, came to Canada and departed.

She certainly attracted much attention, indeed, much more than she gets in her own country these days, as more than one commentator observed.

It's a nice, small country, she told the CBC's Evan Solomon, standing outside in the Calgary sunshine in her dark sunglasses.

"It isn't so small." Solomon said. Oh well, how would she know?

Coulter had just flown in from Ottawa, where she had been booked to give a speech she never gave, above the heads apparently of the "whiny" liberals and the "crybabies" who lived down below.

As Neil Macdonald so correctly pointed out, Coulter is not so much a pundit as an entertainer. She's part of what conservative commentator David Frum calls America's right-wing entertainment industry.

Though perhaps entertainment complex is a better term because it works on so many levels.

As Frum told Peter Mansbridge on The National, this industry is fueled by anger. Talk jocks like Coulter or Rush Limbaugh realize that anger sells, so they do what they can to keep the fires burning.

No safe place
The truckloads of commentary surrounding Coulter's visit and her cancelled speech at the University of Ottawa centered on the role of free speech in Canada and in universities in particular.





Protestors outside the Calgar venue where Ann Coulter gave a talk on political correctness, media bias and freedom of speech in March 2010. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)




The upshot was all the usual talk about how there's not enough here, at least when compared to the U.S., where they seem to make a fetish of saying nasty things about each other.

The headlines in the National Post last Thursday blared "Mob rule 1, free speech 0." While the Globe and Mail's lead editorial proclaimed "a university fails in its mission."

This was followed with a commentary by Ian Hunter, a professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario, proclaiming: "Universities are bastions of free speech? Not in Canada."

You can imagine the whole country nodding their heads in agreement. Even Coulter's "whiny" liberals would probably agree with these sentiments.

But in the midst of all this happy piling on, one comment by an anti-Coulter protester, which was noted in the Globe editorial, caught my attention.

She was a second-year student of sociology and women's studies at the University of Ottawa and reportedly said she was worried that what Coulter might say "would make students feel unsafe and very uncomfortable."

"We promise our students here at the university of Ottawa a safe, positive place," this young woman said. To which the Globe noted sarcastically that this was "a new standard" for Canadian universities.

In fact, this standard has been in place for some time, with speech codes at universities insisting on nothing hurtful reaching the ears of their students. Queen's University even tried to put minders in the dorms at one point to gently correct untoward comments by students.

But notice the "we" in the quote above.

Our young woman uses "we" not as a faculty member or an administrator, but as a student who is part of a shared collective and appears to be expecting from her university a degree of protection and security, even, you might say, consolation.

Consolation prize
The notion that universities should be "safe places" — emotional cocoons, if you will — never seems to make it into the polemics of free-speech punditry.

Maybe that's because, as a society, "we" ourselves are divided.

We say we want free speech. But as good, tolerant people, we also want a good, tolerant environment for our not quite grown-up children.

For some time now, we have let universities become the places for lifestyle experiments, where students can inhabit the grey zone between childhood and full-blown maturity.

One small example: We parents, for the most part, pay their bills but we are not allowed to see their grades for reasons of privacy. So all of us, parents and students are tossed into an arena of dependence and confusing adult role models.

Yes, we want our university-bound children to learn the right things, like critical inquiry, but we also want them to learn to be co-operative.

In most cases, it seems as if teamwork is more important than needless intellectuality. Team workers, after all, are more employable.

Besides learning stuff they'll hardly ever need, students go to university to learn to play the angles, which is a viable political skill, perhaps the most important they'll ever learn.

And if we promise them emotional and even intellectual comfort, they seem to be holding us to that promise.

Why should they have to hear a woman like Coulter say unpleasant things about angry Muslims, whiny liberals and people who may be their friends?

Church of the safe haven
Some time ago, when I was a producer on a CBC Radio arts show, we interviewed a poet who was known to have said a few contentious things in her time.

But when she was asked about them, she was offended. She had wanted the interview to be a safe place and was astonished by these tough questions.

She didn't want free speech. She was someone else who wanted to be affirmed in her stance and who was seeking consolation from the institution that she was dealing with.

You can see the role of consolation in many institutions. Indeed, it probably comes out of a religious, missionary spirit.

For the Jesuits, for example, the role of consolation was crucial, particularly in terms of personal struggle.

Consolation brings you closer to God where "we feel more alive and connected to others," according to the order's founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

On the other hand, desolation, the spiritual opposite, is said to be an experience of the soul in heavy darkness and turmoil, banished from the sight of God.

So why do I smuggle in St. Ignatius in a column about Ann Coulter?

Because when you replay his spiritual exercises in an updated, non-religious light, you end up with the modern feel-good university as a kind of secular church — a place where only goodness should shine while evil is banished. Including, apparently Ann Coulter.

Is it possible that we don't think our children resilient enough to suffer the slings and arrows of rough talk? If so, whose fault is that? Not the university's.

Isn't this what the Ottawa university provost thought when he wrote his warning to Coulter before her visit?

Wasn't he telling her that we guardians of the academy must keep our children safe from physical and emotional trauma? Better we spare them the desolation of critical inquiry and offensive speech than to hurt their feelings.
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Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/03/30/f-vp-handler.html
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Jaime Escalante dies - top East L.A. teacher

Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 31, 2010



AP
Jaime Escalante is shown teaching math at Garfield High in 1988.






(03-30) 04:00 PDT Los Angeles - --

Jaime Escalante, the charismatic former East Los Angeles high school teacher who taught the nation that inner-city students could master subjects as demanding as calculus, died Tuesday. He was 79.

The subject of the 1988 box-office hit "Stand and Deliver," Mr. Escalante died at his son's home in Roseville (Placer County), said actor Edward James Olmos, who portrayed the teacher in the film. Mr. Escalante had bladder cancer.

"Jaime didn't just teach math. Like all great teachers, he changed lives," Olmos said this month when he organized an appeal for funds to help pay Escalante's mounting medical bills.

Mr. Escalante gained national prominence in the aftermath of a 1982 scandal surrounding 14 of his Garfield High School students who passed the strenuous Advanced Placement calculus exam only to be accused later of cheating.

The story of their eventual triumph - and of Escalante's battle to raise standards at a struggling campus of working-class, largely Mexican American students - became the subject of the movie, which turned the balding, middle-aged Bolivian immigrant into the most famous teacher in America.

Mr. Escalante's rise came during an era decried by experts as one of alarming mediocrity in the nation's schools. He pushed for tougher standards and accountability for students and educators, often nettling colleagues and parents along the way with his brusque manner and uncompromising stands.

Backed Prop. 227
He was called a traitor for his opposition to bilingual education. He said the hate mail he received for championing Proposition 227, the successful 1997 ballot measure to dismantle bilingual programs in California, was a factor in his decision to retire in 1998 after leaving Garfield and teaching at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento for seven years.

Mr. Escalante was born Dec. 31, 1930, in La Paz, Bolivia, and was raised by his mother after his parents, both teachers, broke up when he was about 9. He attended a well-regarded Jesuit high school, San Calixto, where his quick mind and penchant for mischief often got him into trouble.

After high school he served in the army during a short-lived Bolivian rebellion. Although he had toyed with the idea of engineering school in Argentina, he wound up enrolling at the state teachers college, Normal Superior. Before he graduated he was teaching at three top-rated Bolivian schools. He also married Fabiola Tapia, a fellow student at the college.

At his wife's urging, Mr. Escalante gave up his teaching posts for the promise of a brighter future in America for their firstborn, Jaime Jr. (A second son, Fernando, would follow.) With $3,000 in his pocket and little more than "yes" and "no" in his English vocabulary, Mr. Escalante flew alone to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, 1963.

Drawn to classroom
His first job was mopping floors in a coffee shop across the street from Pasadena City College, where he enrolled in English classes. But the classroom still beckoned to the teacher inside him. He earned a scholarship to California State University, Los Angeles, to pursue a teaching credential. In the fall of 1974, when he was 43, he took a pay cut to begin teaching at Garfield High for $13,000 a year.

Mr. Escalante soon developed a reputation for turning around hard-to-motivate students. By 1978, he had 14 students enrolled in his first AP calculus class. Of the five who survived his stiff homework and attendance demands, only two earned passing scores on the exam. But in 1980, seven of nine students passed the exam; in 1981, 14 of 15 passed.

In 1982, he had 18 students to prepare for the academic challenge of their young lives.

Mr. Escalante was hospitalized twice in the months leading up to the AP exam. He had a heart attack while teaching night school but ignored doctors' orders to rest and was back at Garfield the next day.

The Advanced Placement program qualifies students for college credit if they pass the exam with a score of 3 or higher. For many years it was a tool of the elite; the calculus exam, for example, was taken by only about 3 percent of American high school math students when Mr. Escalante revived the program at Garfield in the late 1970s.

Trying AP exams
In 1982, a record 69 Garfield students were taking AP exams in various subjects, including Spanish and history. Escalante's calculus students took their exam in May under the watchful eye of the school's head counselor.

The results, released over the summer, were stunning: All 18 of his students passed, with seven earning the highest score of 5. But the good news quickly turned bad.

The Educational Testing Service, which administers the exam, said it had found suspicious similarities in the solutions given on 14 exams. It invalidated those scores.

Vindication came in a retest. Of the 14 accused of wrongdoing, 12 took the exam again and passed.

After that, the numbers of Garfield students taking calculus and other Advanced Placement classes soared. By 1987, only four high schools in the country had more students taking and passing the AP calculus exam than Garfield.


This article appeared on page C - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle


Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/30/MNJ71CNKM8.DTL
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Former Jesuit Discusses Using Ignatian Discernment as a Congressman


US Representative Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-LA) recently spoke with National Jesuit News about the process of discernment that he uses in reaching decisions as a US congressman, how those decisions are grounded in his background in Ignatian spirituality, and why he didn't choose the party line in voting for health care reform.

A Vietnamese-born lawyer, the first Vietnamese-American to be elected to Congress, and a former Jesuit seminarian, Cao is the current US Representative from Louisiana's 2nd congressional district and was the lone Republican congressman to vote for health care reform on November 7, 2009.

To read NJN's interview with Cao go to http://tiny.cc/cao. [National Jesuit News]

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Note: Bolds and Highlights added.
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Cry-Baby Congressmen/women; Shame on you!


"They called me the 'N' word".

"They spat at me".

"I received a life-threatening telephone call".


All these lame complaints from cunning, but childish Congresspeople become irrelevant when compared to the vast number of adolescents, children that are regularly bullied and abused in America's schools. How can these shrewd politicians pretend to be more "valuable" than the constituents they serve? How can they have the FBI, and the Capitol Police, etc., provide them with protection that our children don't get, or are able to receive?

How do you justify this disparity? Career political opportunists warrant iron clad protection? While school children have to rely on the PTA, 911, or face more hazing and violence?

Which brings to mind the latest case of school bullying which tragically led to 15-year-old Phoebe Prince's suicide in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors launch criminal crackdown on mean Massachusetts teens

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Arsenio.
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3 killed, 6 hurt in Washington, D.C. shooting

4 police officers injured in pursuit of suspect's vehicle; 3 arrested

updated 28 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Three people were killed in a drive-by shooting that wounded six others in the nation's capital, officials said late Tuesday.

One shooting victim died at the scene in southeastern Washington, D.C., one was dead on arrival at the hospital, and the third died in the operating room, said Carolyn Hammond, spokeswoman for Washington Hospital Center. She said a fourth person was in critical condition late Tuesday.

The shootings of six men and three women happened about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the area around the 4000 block of South Capitol Street, said D.C. Police Department spokesman Officer Hugh Carew. Fire Department spokesman Pete Piringer says all were in their 20s and 30s, except for one teenager.

Police say three people have been arrested and a weapon was recovered. Police said they had no motive for the shootings is known.

Four D.C. officers were slightly injured while pursuing a suspect's vehicle into neighboring Prince George's County, authorities said.

The neighborhood is near a water treatment plant and sections of southeastern D.C. have problems with crime.
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36107950/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
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Police State - The Militarization of the Police Force in USA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k5y3fBH9Oghttp://

z00mVision
October 24, 2008

Police State - The Militarization of the Police Force in USAI was not the one who made this excellent video, just uploaded it.

Credits go to PuppetGov w/ Billy Vegas.

You can visit their sites at:
- http://blog.puppetgov.com/
- http://www.youtube.com/user/puppetgovcom

NEWS:
- Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1/2008:http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09...
- Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/...
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Group arrested not Christian or militia, insider says


March 30, 2010
Group arrested not Christian or militia, insider says
Posted: 12:00 PM ET


American Morning - amFIX blog
Filed under: U.S.

(CNN) – Members of a militia charged with plotting to kill police were not Christian or a militia, a man acquainted with the group said Tuesday.

"This is a group that I would classify as neither a militia or a Christian group," said Michael Lackomar, a member of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia. "They're really a fringe group outside of anything we do.

They're more of a private army or a terrorist organization or really just a criminal organization."

Federal authorities on Monday charged nine members of a group called the Hutaree militia with conspiring to kill a Michigan law enforcement officer and then kill other officers at the funeral.

The group says on its Web site that Hutaree means "Christian warrior." Its home page said it is "Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive."

Lackomar told CNN's "American Morning" on Tuesday that five Hutaree members sought refuge over the weekend with a Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia leader because federal authorities were looking for them. Lackomar said the member of his militia advised the Hutaree members to turn themselves in so no one would get hurt. FULL STORY


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P.S.
Yet again, another falsely titled "Christian" obscure motley crew of wingnuts. However, the underwear bomber, and the Muslim extremist soldier psycho at Fort Hood weren't so readily called "terrorists". I wonder why?

Is there a concerted campaign to demean Christians, and at the same time ennoble Muslims? Is there a proclivity to use smear tactics against God fearing people?
A.
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Rail cops go great guns


Hit city subways after Russia terror
By LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT, MURRAY WEISS and LEONARD GREENE

Last Updated: 11:06 AM, March 30, 2010


Stand clear of the submachine guns.

In an unusual move, a heavily armed NYPD security battalion with enough firepower to wipe out Downtown Brooklyn descended onto the city's subway trains yesterday in response to suicide bombings in Russia that killed dozens of passengers in Moscow's subway.

Bleary-eyed New Yorkers began their work weeks with a morning rush hour that featured city cops in full military gear, including helmets, goggles, body armor, sidearms and M16 assault rifles.

The underground arsenal startled sleepy straphangers, many of whom wondered whether the extra security was overkill.

PHOTOS: ARMED GUARDS PATROL NYC
'WIDOWS' EYED IN MOSCOW BLASTS
PHOTOS: DOZENS KILLED IN MOSCOW BLASTS

"I think it's excessive," said Holly Celentang, 26, a rider from Queens. "It's Easter this week, and you have families with young kids on the subway, and I'm sure cops with machine guns would scare them.

"I feel there should have been a bit more of a thought process before they did this. We can't lose our heads over something that happened in another country and make New York City look like we are at war."

Torey Deprisest, 23, who was vacationing from Ohio, said he was stunned at the show of force.

"I think it's ridiculous," Deprisest said. "The attack happened in a different country and had nothing to do with Americans. I'd be nervous seeing cops with machine guns on the train. It makes people afraid when they don't need to be."

But other riders praised the heavily armed cop presence.

"I don't think it's overkill. We need to be protected -- you never know," said Renee Burke, 56, of Manhattan. "After 9/11, we learned the hard way that anything is possible. I feel protected when I see police riding the subway."

Joe Kerick, 46, of New Jersey, agreed, saying: "Better overkill than under-response. If the terrorists see an under-response, they may think we are vulnerable."

City and MTA officials dialed up security a few notches after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in twin attacks on the Moscow subway system early yesterday morning, killing at least 38 people.

Officials quickly said the coordinated attacks were isolated to tensions between Russia and dissident Chechens. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed Islamic separatists in the Caucasus region, where Russian forces fought the Chechens a decade ago.

Even so, New York City authorities said they were taking no chances. Officials doubled patrols of the subway system and dispatched NYPD's heavily armed Hercules units to several transit hubs, including Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal.

Regular NYPD cops usually assigned to the city's subways overnight also were held in place so they overlapped with the day tour.

Mayor Bloomberg said authorities "did ramp up our coverage a little bit this morning" after the Moscow bombings.

"We change it every day, and for security reasons, obviously, we're not going to tell anybody what we're doing," Bloomberg said. "But you can rest assured we have great interest in what goes on around the world."

An NYPD spokesman said there was no indication that the Moscow attacks were related to anything planned against the New York City subway system.

Officials said cops made similar armed forays after 9/11 and after attacks on London's transit system in 2005 killed 52 people.

But the presence of the heavily armed cops actually on trains is rare.

Several al Qaeda-linked subway bomb plots in the city have been foiled in recent years, including a plan by Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi to detonate a bomb on the system.

Local Russians followed the Moscow developments closely and denounced the attacks in their home country as senseless.

"I feel so terrible," said Vladimir Traynin, 51, of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach. "I lived five minutes from where it happened, and I know the area very well. I feel scared for people's safety. They are in shock."

Oleh Kachur, 46, also of Brighton Beach, said the attack did not surprise him.

"You can predict this for now and in the future," Kachur said. "It's a problem of religion. We have to treat people equally whether they are Chechen or Russian."

Additional reporting by Tom Namako, Rebecca Harshbarger and Michael Blaustein

leonard.greene@nypost.com


Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/rail_cops_umdUeMj91LgYvYe2LV3zTN#ixzz0jhFzNGSE
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Hacker Gets 7 Years for Stealing Credit Card Data


Tuesday, 30 Mar 2010 07:31 AM

A federal judge in Boston has sentenced a Florida man to seven years in prison for playing a key role in one of the largest theft of credit and debit card numbers in U.S. history.

Christopher Scott of Miami was also sentenced Monday to three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in September 2008 to conspiracy, unauthorized access to computer systems, access device fraud and identity theft.

Scott's expertise was hacking wireless networks. His sentencing came four days after Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading a scheme that cost companies, banks and insurers nearly $200 million.

He pleaded guilty last year to breaking into the computer networks of major retailers, including TJX Cos., BJ's Wholesale Club and the restaurant chain Dave & Buster's.

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Roof in Nero's Roman Gallery Collapses



Roof in Nero's Roman Gallery Collapses

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 8:47 AM

ROME – A huge chunk of a 2,000-year-old gallery in the complex that includes the infamous Emperor Nero's fabled Golden Palace collapsed Tuesday, Rome's art officials said.

Officials said they believed nobody was inside when the collapse took place at around 10 a.m., bringing down part of a garden above, but firefighters cordoned off the area as they checked no one was trapped. Nero's Palace had been closed as workers were doing repairs.

Built by Roman emperor Nero in the first century A.D., the sumptuous palace is known to many by its Latin name Domus Aurea. With its frescoed halls and gold-encrusted ceilings, it was meant as a fabled residence for one of Rome's most depraved emperors.

Umberto Broccoli of Rome's artistic superintendency said the vaulted ceiling collapsed because of water damage.

"Think 2,000 years of history, think of all the rain of the past couple of months," Broccoli told reporters at the scene.

The ANSA news agency said around 60 square meters (645 square feet) collapsed from the vault in one of the galleries inside the complex.

Another art official, Antonello Vodret, was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera that the collapse did not touch the main part of the palace but affected a gallery subsequently built at the site by Emperor Hadrian. Vodret said it was one of the biggest collapses in the area in the past 50 years, according to the Apcom news agency.

The site was reopened in 1999 following 18 years of closure because of structural concerns, and it soon became one of the capital's most popular tourist sites. But the monument remains plagued by structural problems and water infiltration, which have forced the monuments to shut down at times.

This latest incident rekindled doubts over its stability. Part of the ceiling already came crashing down a decade ago.

The palace originally sprawled across nearly 200 acres (80 hectares), occupying parts of four of Rome's seven ancient hills.

But Nero did not enjoy the palace for too long. It was completed in A.D. 68, the same year the emperor committed suicide.

The complex lay under tons of dirt in the bowels of a hill for centuries, before coming to light 500 years ago when Renaissance scholars began researching the imperial period.
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Asheville Mother Grove Goddess Temple to celebrate spring equinox


ASHEVILLE — After making it through the harsh winter, people in Western North Carolina are looking forward to the warm sun of spring. Some are preparing to celebrate the season's change with an ecumenical ritual.

Saturday officially marks the first day of spring, being the day of the spring equinox.

Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.

Saturday's event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn't a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said.

“Mother Grove is an outgrowth of the work of several people in the goddess/earth religions community,” Ballard said. “Its goal is to create a permanent sanctuary, where people of all faith traditions may openly and safely celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess.”

Wicca is a modern religion built on the ancient agricultural religions of Europe, she explained. “Wiccans may also refer to themselves as witches.”

Jill Boyer is a co-founder and priestess with Mother Grove. She says she looks forward to celebrating “with my celebrants and community, having time to celebrate something that is very important to me and the ritual aspects themselves.”

Boyer believes people have an ancient and human need for ritual and celebration in groups, and to acknowledge the changing of the seasons.

The celebration will consist of raising a circle, singing, “whistling up the wind” and flying prayers written on paper airplanes. Ballard will lead the ritual, explaining that it is a joyful expression of the beginning of spring and coming together as a community.

Nonperishable food items will be collected at the event for the Mother Grove Cornucopia Project food drive.

“Last year, as part of the celebration, we asked people to write a prayer or wish on a piece of paper and fold it into an airplane,” Ballard said. “We spent about five minutes flying planes around the room. Then we asked people to pick up a plane that was not theirs, take it home with them and pray for that person.”

Ballard said that “whistling up the wind” is an old English and Appalachian tradition. March is usually the windiest month, so the element of wind will be emphasized at the celebration. One person will whistle while three others honor the elements of earth, fire and water.

“It's a lovely holiday for children,” Ballard said. “The first chance to get out and see what's growing, to welcome baby chicks and lambs, to taste the first little green bits of chickweed. All pagan and wiccan holidays are family-friendly. Many Earth religionists choose to honor their spiritual traditions as a family group.”
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Source: http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100319/LIVING/303190029
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TEO 3000

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Episcopal Organization? Meet your future:

After making it through the harsh winter, people in Western North Carolina are looking forward to the warm sun of spring. Some are preparing to celebrate the season’s change with an ecumenical ritual.

You mean some kind of joint Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox thing? Nope.

Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.

And nothing says “Welcome, spring!” quite like a fake religion performing its strange ceremonies inside the cathedral of another fake religion.

Saturday’s event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn’t a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said.

Noted.

“Mother Grove is an outgrowth of the work of several people in the goddess/earth religions community,” Ballard said. “Its goal is to create a permanent sanctuary, where people of all faith traditions may openly and safely celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess.”

This is badly needed what with all the witches the Christian right burns in the United States all the time. What are you looking at me like that for? You know it’s true.

Anyway, exactly how are they going to celebrate Katharine Jefferts Schori the divine feminine, the goddess? With “ancient” rituals like these.

The celebration will consist of raising a circle, singing, “whistling up the wind” and flying prayers written on paper airplanes. Ballard will lead the ritual, explaining that it is a joyful expression of the beginning of spring and coming together as a community.

If I’m not mistaken, the pagan Celts used paper airplanes to pray to their gods. But why do all this in the first place?

Jill Boyer is a co-founder and priestess with Mother Grove. She says she looks forward to celebrating “with my celebrants and community, having time to celebrate something that is very important to me and the ritual aspects themselves.”

Boyer believes people have an ancient and human need for ritual and celebration in groups, and to acknowledge the changing of the seasons.

Inventing gods. Performing weird rituals devoid of meaningful content for no particular reason other than emotion. I’d say TEO’s just about there.

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Source: http://themcj.com/?p=10413.
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2 Rescued After Ride Gets Stuck In Air

Officials Say Riders Were Not In Danger
Posted: 1:21 pm CDT March 30,2010
Updated: 1:54 pm CDT March 30,2010



MIAMI -- Crews have rescued two passengers who were trapped on a ride that got stuck in the air at the Miami-Dade County Fair on Tuesday afternoon, WPLG-TV reported.

LIVE: Carnival Ride Passengers Trapped

The passengers were on a ride called the Space Roller when it got stuck.

Officials said the two people were not in danger.

The ride stalled about two hours after the fair had opened for the day. The fair began on Thursday and lasts until April 11.
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UPS Building Hit By Plane in Roanoke, Virginia

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
By Newsolio Editor



ROANOKE, Virginia- A small private plane has crashed into a UPS building near the Roanoke Regional Airport in Virginia, reports said.

Reports said the small private plane crashed around 12.50pm local time March 30, 2010.

One on board the Piper PA 46 private plane that crashed into the UPS Building in Roanoke died at the scene, a second person was pulled from the wreckage. Some media reports said the second person had also died.

Live video from a local TV news outlet showed thick black smoke rising from an area near the airport.

Post updates as information come in.
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Source: http://newsolio.com/ups-building-hit-by-plane-in-roanoke,7266

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Small plane crashes into UPS facility near Roanoke, Va., airport; at least 2 taken to hospital
By Associated Press

March 30, 2010 11:28 a.m.

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A small plane carrying two people has crashed into the side of a UPS freight facility near the Roanoke airport in western Virginia.

Virginia State Police Sgt. Bob Carpentieri says the plane struck the freight terminal just before 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Carpentieri did not know the condition of the people inside the plane, but said at least two people were transported to the hospital.

It was not immediately clear if the two injured were in the plane or on the ground.

Airport spokeswoman Sherry Wallace told The Roanoke Times that the pilot reported trouble to air traffic controllers shortly before the crash.
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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-virginia-plane-crash,0,1936596.story
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