52
POPSPolitican Cartoons "The United States, some years back, found its new bogeyman "Islam" to replace its former imaginary enemy "Communism." And now the European press appears to have finally (?) found a replacement for the Jewish people that they used to malign and attack. Anti-Islam/Muslimism appears to now have officially replaced anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe. The roots of these attacks are the same: an inability to acknowledge and respect a diversity of people that might result in a Europe that is non-White and/or non-Christian. The anti-Muslim/Islam cartoons of today are little different than the anti-Jewish cartoons that were published by the Nazis during WW II."
46
POPSHow to Write Aphorisms Delacroix, Eugene (France, 1798-1863) To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty; to be a poet at forty is to be a poet. According to James Geary, editor of the compendium Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists , a truely memorable, quotable aphorism satisfies five laws: It must be brief. It must be definitive. It must be personal — that's the difference between an aphorism and a proverb. It must be philosophical — that's the difference between an aphorism and a platitude, which is not philosophical.... And the fifth law is it must have a twist. And that can be either a linguistic twist or a psychological twist or even a twist in logic that somehow flips the reader into a totally unexpected place. Now you know, so get to work! :)
43
POPSThe era of the American Internet is ending. “Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches.”
36
POPSAn Icelandic woman's experience visiting the US What is wrong with the United States of America? Is it the stimulus-response mechanism of experiencing terror → making war on terror → terrorizing ? Are the United States of America a hysteric or paranoid nation? I wonder if Erla Ósk Arnardóttir Lilliendahl (that's her correct name) will experience any excuse on the part of the U.S. administration, and I wonder if those responsible will be removed from office. If not, I would be inclined to declare the U.S.A. a closed mental hospital.
34
POPSWhy America Will Survive George W. Bush Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America. Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective. America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead. With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system. Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.
26
POPSPostcards from Auschwitz These photos teach us an important historical lesson: that there is no line separating humans from monsters, a single being can be both, simultaneously. Contrary to the common presumption, you do not lose your humanity simply because you dehumanize others. Even our worst enemies and the most hideous criminals are startlingly normal people. If there is a difference between the good and the bad, it must be that truly good people do not think themselves above being capable of true evil. When we lose sight of that, when we begin to presume our own righteousness, declare those who differ with us irredeemably mad or evil, and excuse our own transgressions on account of our own faultlessness, who is to say that we are any different from these people?
24
POPSThe Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century Tesla is my greatest hero. Given the right management I believe he could have achieved his goal of delivering power wirelessly to the world for free. He tapped into the electromagnetic field we are a part of... like almost no other.
22
POPSYour Private E-mail Messages And You It would be much easier if they just joined CM and followed us all. Hey maybe they already have! *LOL* You out there, Big Brother? Haha! The least you can do is pop my clip then and you really don't have to snoop through my emails to know exactly what I think of you either. Just follow me right here on CM. *LOL* :)
19
POPSCheney Orders Media To Sell Attack On Iran
MORE; The issuance of orders for Neo-Con mass media arms to push for an assault on Iran also puts the U.S. on red alert for a terror attack, whether real or manufactured, which Dick Cheney has already promised will immediately be blamed on Iran no matter who the real culprits are. On August 1st, 2005 the American Conservative reported that Cheney had tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan involved a massive air strike on Iran which included the use of nuclear weapons. The publication reported that, "The response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States," meaning that any such attack will immediately be blamed on Iran and any evidence to the contrary will be buried. The London Times reported on Sunday that the Pentagon had finalized plans for a 3 day blitz designed t