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Tom Orlik reported HERE that on Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew met with China's Premier Li Keqiang, a crucial first meeting between new representatives of the world's two biggest economic powers. Lew's interlocutor sits at the top of the world's second-largest economy -- a country whose GDP reached approximately $8.3 trillion in 2012. But how accurate are the statistics that illuminate China's growth? Even Li himself has said (as quoted in a U.S. State Department cable published by WikiLeaks) that China's GDP figures are "man-made" and therefore unreliable.

CLICK HERE to read this excerpt from Wall Street Journal China reporter Tom Orlik's book book, Understanding China's Economic Indicators,  where he explains how to get to grips with China's data.

According to Huffington Post: Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock declared Tuesday night he opposes aborting pregnancies conceived in rape because "it is something that God intended to happen."

Debating Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) in their final Senate race showdown, a questioner asked them and Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning to explain their views on abortion.

All three said they were anti-abortion. But Mourdock went the further, putting himself in territory near Missouri GOP Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin, the anti-abortion congressman who infamously asserted that women don't get pregnant from "legitimate rape."

"The only exception I have to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother," said Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed state treasurer. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

Mourdock unseated veteran Republican Sen. Richard Lugar in the May primary, and has battled Donnelly for the longtime senator's supporters since. Abortion has been a touchy issue for the candidates, with Mourdock accusing Donnelly of lacking strength on the issue because Donnelly backed the health care reform law. Donnelly has criticized a requirement that ensures women can get birth control, even when their employer objects to contraception.

"I believe in pro-life," Donnelly said, carving out somewhat more moderate anti-abortion stance. "I believe that life begins at conception. The only exceptions I believe in are for rape, incest and the life a mother."

CLICK HERE for the rest of the entry.

One of my favourite New York Times columnist and writer is none other than Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat. Born on July 20, 1953, hewrites a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues and has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.

Two days ago, he wrote Obama's Best Kept Secrets in The New York Times which made me wishhe was writing about something happening in Malaysia. For the record, I remain ambivalent with regards to the Obama-Romney race. Anyway, here's what Friedman wrote:

ONE thing that has struck me about the debates so far is how little President Obama has conveyed about what I think are his two most innovative domestic programs. While I don’t know how Obamacare will turn out, I’m certain that my two favorite Obama initiatives will be transformative. His Race to the Top program in education has already set off a nationwide wave of school reform, and his Race to the Top in vehicles — raising the mileage standards for American-made car and truck fleets from 27.5 miles per gallon to 54.5 m.p.g. between now and 2025 — is already spurring a wave of innovation in auto materials, engines and software. Obama mentioned both briefly in the last debate, but I want to talk about them more, because I think they are the future of progressive politics in this age of austerity: government using its limited funds and steadily rising performance standards to stimulate states and businesses to innovate better economic, educational and environmental practices. While it is too scary for Obama to tell people in so many words, his races to the top in schools and cars are both based on one brutal fact: “The high-wage, medium-skilled job is over,” as Stefanie Sanford, a senior education expert at the Gates Foundation, puts it. The only high-wage jobs, whether in manufacturing or services, will be high-skilled ones, requiring more and better education, and Obama’s two races to the top aim to produce both more high-skill jobs and more high-skilled workers. In the Race to the Top in schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has built on the good works of his predecessor, Margaret Spellings, and President George W. Bush, who put in place No Child Left Behind. Though never perfect, No Child Left Behind was still a game-changer for education reform because it gave us the data to see not only how individual schools were doing but how the most at-risk students were doing within those schools. Without that, educational reform based on accountability of teachers and principals could never start. The purpose of Race to the Top, Secretary Duncan explained to me, was basically to say that if we now live in a world where every good high-wage job requires more skill, we need to get as many of our schools as possible educating their students “to college- and career-ready standards,” measured against the best in the world, because that is whom our kids will be competing against. “We have to educate our way to a better economy,” Duncan argues. “The path to the middle class today runs straight through the classroom.” So, Race to the Top said to all 50 states, we have a $4.35 billion fund that Washington will invest in the states that come up with the best four-year education reform plans that have these components: 1) systems for data-gathering on student performance, dropout rates, graduation rates and post-graduation college and vocational school success, so schools are held accountable for what happens to their students; 2) systems for teacher and principal evaluation and support, as well as systems to reward great teachers, learn from their best practices and move out those at the bottom — essentially systems that help elevate teaching into an attractive profession; 3) systems that propose turning around failing schools by changing the management and culture; 4) systems that set college- and career-ready, internationally benchmarked standards for reading and math. IT is too early to draw any firm conclusions, but Duncan points to some early positives. Some 4,500 state and local teachers’ union affiliates have signed onto their state’s reform proposals, showing they want to be partners. Roughly 25 percent of the turnaround schools, Duncan said, “have already showed double-digit increases in reading or math in their first year and about two-thirds showed gains.” There have also been “huge reductions of discipline incidents.” Although, over the two years of the program, 46 states submitted reform blueprints — and only the 12 best won grants from $70 million to $700 million, depending on the size of their student populations — even states that did not win have been implementing their proposals anyway. And because 45 states and the District of Columbia adopted similar higher academic standards (known as the “common core”) for reading and math, “for the first time in our history a kid in Massachusetts and a kid in Mississippi are now being measured by the same yardstick,” said Duncan.

The first time I sang "Blowing in the Wind" was in the privacy of my bedroom as a little girl because the refrain was so catchy but I did not think much about the lyrics until I was in primary school. My penchant for his music was revived during Brownie meetings and singalong sessions especially during campfires. From then, my fascination about Bob Dylan began. By the time I learnt to play the guitar at the age of 12, "Blowing in the Wind", "The Times They Are A-Changing" and hit singles by other artistes were my firm favorites. As I moved into my teens, his music and works had an impact on me and I thoroughly enjoyed studying about him, his works, philosophy and its significance while in university and later teaching about his role in counter culture in my courses.

I find Bob Dylan to be one of the most fascinating artistes of the 20th/21st century. Not many would be aware that he is such a gifted American singer-songwriter, author, poet, and painter, who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Dylan was nominated four consecutive times for the Nobel Prize in Literature (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and you can read more over HERE). Bob Dylan's lyrics have been the subject of university literature courses and countless scholarly discourses. Even my older boy, a 2nd year music student was dumbfounded when he discovered in one of his major courses that it was Dylan who had a profound influence on the Fab Four (Beatles) not just in their music but also as the one who introduced them to cannabis! Now, my boy and I share even more similarities in our musical taste and we have had many interesting discussions on Dylan.

Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of both the civil rights movements and of those opposed to the Vietnam War.

According to Wikipedia:

Dylan's early lyrics incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has explored many traditions of American song, from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing. Dylan performs with the guitar, piano and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the "Never Ending Tour". Although his accomplishments as performer and recording artist have been central to his career, his songwriting is generally regarded as his greatest contribution.

Throughout his career, Dylan has won many awards for his songwriting, performing, and recording. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a "Cultural Pathway" was named in Dylan's honor in his birthplace, Duluth. In 2008, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

His Legacy

Bob Dylan has been described as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally. Dylan was included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". In 2004, he was ranked number two in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "Greatest Artists of All Time". Dylan biographer Howard Sounes placed him in even more exalted company when he said, "There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists."

Initially modelling his style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, and lessons learnt from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. "Blowin' in the Wind" has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."

When Dylan made his move from acoustic music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex. For many critics, Dylan's greatest achievement was the cultural synthesis exemplified by his mid-'60s trilogy of albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In Mike Marqusee's words: "Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console."

One legacy of Dylan’s verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks published a 500 page analysis of Dylan’s work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. The poet laureate of Great Britain, Andrew Motion, argued that Bob Dylan’s lyrics should be studied in schools. Dylan has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dylan’s voice was, in some ways, as startling as his lyrics. New York Times critic Robert Shelton described Dylan's early vocal style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie's old performances, etched in gravel like Dave Van Ronk's."When the young Bobby Womack told Sam Cooke he didn’t understand Dylan’s vocal style, Cooke explained that: “from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth.” Rolling Stone magazine ranked Dylan at number seven in their 2008 listing of “The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time”. Bono commented that “Dylan has tried out so many personas in his singing because it is the way he inhabits his subject matter.”

Dylan's influence has been felt in several musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in USA Today: "Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Syd Barrett, Nick Cave, Patti Smith Joni Mitchell,Cat Stevens and Tom Waits.

If Dylan’s legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, as Dylan advances into his sixties, he is today described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. As J. Hoberman wrote in The Village Voice, "Elvis might never have been born, but someone else would surely have brought the world rock 'n' roll. No such logic accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of history demanded that a would-be Elvis from Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through the Greenwich Village folk revival to become the world's first and greatest rock 'n' roll beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into a folk tradition of his own making."

Please read the whole entry about Bob Dylan in Wikipedia and A Bob Dylan timeline to appreciate the life and works of this exceptional man.

I wish I could have been like Dylan to write such beautiful, passionate works and music. The fact that his music and his repute has survived decades speaks volumes about his giftings. To write this post, I spent the whole of Saturday evening and Sunday morning reading and listening to his works and I am just awestruck by the timelessness of his messages, perspective and interpretation of his own compositions.

I honestly hope that you will click on the following links that I have put together, you can appreciate how while the lyrics of his songs remain unchanged, his interpretation in terms of his vocal delivery and musical orchestration matures through time. Do you agree with my views of the different versions? I would love to hear from you.

My all-time favorite is of course Blowing in the Wind.

* 1963 version of this song is over here and you can see the naivety and innocence in his voice, immaturity in his strumming and musical form of the whole song. It almost seems as though all he wants to do is to sing it out - his lyrics and music for all to hear - the simple innocence of a man with a social conscience with his boyish demeanour and typical 1960's hairstyle.

* 1971 version as performed in Madison Square in the Concert for Bangladesh is at this link. You can see the strumming is in a different style and even his prowess with the harmonica is more superior moving in and out of folk, rock and jazz.The same nasal voice is evident but this time, there is an almost yodelling effect in the way he sings the chorus.

* My favorite version is the 1978 version as performed at The Budokan. Please click the video and then read the following section.



Ohhhh the sensual background vocals in such beautiful harmony, his mellow, melancholic voice at his most expressive mode and mood, and how he takes liberty to ad lib with the original melody gradually even right from the first note and building into a crescendo in synch with the back-up musicians - I could not ask for more but just to drink in the enigma of Bob Dylan!!!!

We don't get musicians like him any more - one who pays so much attention to minute details e.g. the solid guitar solo starting at 2:13 and entry of the other guitars interweaving (2:30) with the beautiful vocals crooning the refrain(2:45) before he unwinds in the last part of the song in a different tone (from 3:09). Man oh man - the way he sings the last refrain in 4:05 has an almost desperate cry from Dylan as to how urgent it is for us to see reality which is right before our eyes! Yup! Only Dylan dares to break barriers and NOT to conform to how his audience expects him to deliver the typical Dylan treatment of this song. Well, he dared to step beyond what is normal and performed LIVE this marvellous magical version of Blowing in the Wind.

Knocking on Heaven's Door is my No. 2 favorite and this version over here is the most popular link but it does not have an accompanying video but this version at this link is also not too bad, especially if you dig the twanging of the electric guitar and a more upbeat feel. Dylan started to use electric instruments in 1965 whereas previously, he was most at home with the acoustic guitar and harmonica. I cannot deny that the Guns N' Roses version is more powerful especially in the guitars and percussion as seen at this link but to me, nothing is better than a song performed by the composer himself for only he knows the correct interpretation and feel to the song; after all, he is the one who put it all together!

Then there is The Times They Are A-Changing which Dylan wrote in 1964 which reflected his political inclination and cynicism as a result of his involvement in the civil rights movements. You can see it at this link here and the 1978 Budokan version over HERE.

I could go on endlessly and wax lyrical about Dylan or Beatles or Hollies etc. but I will end this post with one of his lesser known songs called Union Sundown (available at this link) from the Infidels album released in 1983 which mentions MALAYSIA in the third line!!!! Dylan is a man beyond his time. He correctly prophesied the downfall of USA and failure of democracy in Union Sundown which was written 27 years ago!!!! Consider the lyrics of the song and then perhaps you may realize why I am a die hard Dylan fan!!! Please leave a comment if you wish. Thanks and have a nice day.

ABOUT THIS FILM

(Note: This film is relevant not only to America, but to all citizens globally, including Australia, the UK. It is happening everywhere.)

The Obama Deception disassembles the carefully contrived myth surrounding Obama, a fable engineered by the captains of the New World Order and foisted upon us by the corporate media.

Obama is a meticulously crafted fraud designed to pacify a gullible public as the global elite work to institute their plan for world government, beginning with the implementation of a North American Union and a new Bank of the World that will dominate the planet through carbon taxes and brutal military force.

The Obama Deception reveals how Obama, as a front man for the global elite, is moving America toward fascism and trashing our cherished constitutional republic - severely eroded under the reign of his predecessor- by destroying the Second Amendment, unleashing domestic civilian spies, engaging in warrantless wiretaps, and moving the nation toward martial law.

The Obama Deception also reveals how the international bankers engineered the global economic crisis and deviously plan to use this catastrophe to consolidate wealth and bring about their long sought after goal of world government and a prison planet.

If you value liberty and the future of the republic — indeed, the future of humanity — it is crucial you see this film and tell others about it. Until all are made aware, humanity will remain captive to the masters of the New World Order. (You can read my posts on The New World Order over here.)

This film was produced by Alex Jones at InfoWars. it is not only available for free distribution but it is encouraged. please pass this on to everyone you know.....

written by Jim Kouri and posted on January 11, 2008 in Renew America

The maverick attorneys at Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, recently released their list of Washington DC's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians of 2007." The list being circulated in alphabetical order includes several presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani and Barack Obama. The list also includes leaders from both major political parties.

1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 — and rightly so — for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary's top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

2. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): Judicial Watch accuses Conyers of repeatedly violating the law and House ethics rules, forcing his staff to serve as his personal servants, babysitters, valets and campaign workers while on the government payroll. While the House Ethics Committee investigated these allegations in 2006, and substantiated a number of the accusations against Conyers, the committee blamed the staff and required additional administrative record-keeping and employee training. Judicial Watch obtained documentation in 2007 from a former Conyers staffer that sheds new light on the activities and conduct on the part of the Michigan congressman, which appear to be at a minimum inappropriate and likely unlawful. Judicial Watch called on the Attorney General in 2007 to investigate the matter.

3. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID): In one of the most shocking scandals of 2007, Senator Craig was caught by police attempting to solicit sex in a Minneapolis International Airport men's bathroom during the summer. Senator Craig reportedly "sent signals" to a police officer in an adjacent stall that he wanted to engage in sexual activity. When the police officer showed Craig his police identification under the bathroom stall divider and pointed toward the exit, the senator reportedly exclaimed 'No!'" When asked to produce identification, Craig presented police his U.S. Senate business card and said, "What do you think of that?" The power play didn't work. Craig was arrested, charged and entered a guilty plea. Despite enormous pressure from his Republican colleagues to resign from the Senate, Craig refused.

4. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on military construction, Feinstein reviewed military construction government contracts, some of which were ultimately awarded to URS Corporation and Perini, companies then owned by Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum. While the Pentagon ultimately awards military contracts, there is a reason for the review process. The Senate's subcommittee on Military Construction's approval carries weight. Sen. Feinstein, therefore, likely had influence over the decision making process. Senator Feinstein also attempted to undermine ethics reform in 2007, arguing in favor of a perk that allows members of Congress to book multiple airline flights and then cancel them without financial penalty. Judicial Watch's investigation into this matter is ongoing.

5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Giuliani came under fire in late 2007 after it was discovered the former New York mayor's office "billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons..." ABC News also reported that Giuliani provided Nathan with a police vehicle and a city driver at taxpayer expense. All of this news came on the heels of the federal indictment on corruption charges of Giuliani's former Police Chief and business partner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to accepting a $165,000 bribe in the form of renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company attempting to land city contracts.

6. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: "[Huckabee's] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor's office." And what was Governor Huckabee's response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

7. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby: Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 for lying and obstructing the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. Libby was found guilty of four felonies — two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements to the FBI and one count of obstructing justice — all serious crimes. Unfortunately, Libby was largely let off the hook. In an appalling lack of judgment, President Bush issued "Executive Clemency" to Libby and commuted the sentence.

8. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A "Dishonorable Mention" last year, Senator Obama moves onto the "ten most wanted" list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company's shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

9. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promised a new era of ethics enforcement in the House of Representatives, snuck a $25 million gift to her husband, Paul Pelosi, in a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act recently passed by Congress. The pet project involved renovating ports in Speaker Pelosi's home base of San Francisco. Pelosi just happens to own apartment buildings near the areas targeted for improvement, and will almost certainly experience a significant boost in property value as a result of Pelosi's earmark. Earlier in the year, Pelosi found herself in hot water for demanding access to a luxury Air Force jet to ferry the Speaker and her entourage back and forth from San Francisco non-stop, in unprecedented request which was wisely rejected by the Pentagon. And under Pelosi's leadership, the House ethics process remains essentially shut down — which protects members in both parties from accountability.

10. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): Over the last few years, Reid has been embroiled in a series of scandals that cast serious doubt on his credibility as a self-professed champion of government ethics, and 2007 was no different. According to The Los Angeles Times, over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help a developer, Havey Whittemore, clear obstacles for a profitable real estate deal. As the project advanced, the Times reported, "Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore." Whittemore also hired one of Reid's sons (Leif) as his personal lawyer and then promptly handed the junior Reid the responsibility of negotiating the real estate deal with federal officials. Leif Reid even called his father's office to talk about how to obtain the proper EPA permits, a clear conflict of interest.

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About the Author

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.

Jim writes for many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and can be ordered at local bookstores.

Jim holds a bachelor of science in criminal justice and master of arts in public administration and he's a board certified protection professional.

This morning, I came across this article which was published on 27th February 2007. I am posting it here because the contents therein are excellent.
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DELUSION DESTROYS DEMOCRACY - written by Joel Hirschhorn

President Bush is deeply delusional, and so are millions of Americans. So much delusional thinking is detroying American democracy. We need more direct democracy opportunities.
Will Americans learn to trust their fellow citizens or stay stuck on stupidly backing serial political betrayers?

I have been watching films from the 1940s and 1950s about World War II. It was well known that Adolph Hitler was truly delusional. His delusions prevented him from accepting wisdom and facts from experienced military officers and others, and caused millions to suffer and die. Surely George W. Bush resembles Hitler psychologically. His obsessive delusions about his Iraq war are also causing incredible suffering and death, as well as squandering our nation’s wealth.

Our constitutional democracy makes it nearly impossible to free the nation from the grip of a seemingly sane but deeply delusional president. The present constitutional provision for impeachment is clearly inadequate. As with Hitler and other delusional tyrants, Bush has surrounded himself with sycophants that share his delusions, and perhaps nurtured them, and refuse to tell the emperor that he has no clothes. Congress, even under Democratic control, commits negligent cowardice. And our mainstream press has not rallied the nation to free itself from misused presidential power.

Also clear to some of us is that the delusional Bush has survived because delusion runs rampant across the nation, blocking populist actions in the national interest. Here are the main states of American delusion:

Millions of Americans persist in believing, contrary to all historical evidence, that changing control of Congress and the Executive Branch between Democrats and Republicans produces sorely needed reforms. But mainstream politicians are serial betrayers. Thus, people suffer from delusional political faith.

Millions of non-wealthy Americans believe that the economy works for them. This persists despite reams of facts that show how working- and middle-class people are not receiving their fair share of national income and wealth. They keep running on a debt treadmill that will not take them to the proverbial American dream. What they get is economic insecurity, inequality and injustice. Consumer confidence is an oxymoron. This is delusional prosperity.

Viral delusional thinking is that America sets the gold standard for democracies. The rest of the world, however, to its credit sees an arrogant nation with a government that uses its military strength foolishly and sees its policies rewarding the rich at the expense of all others. People from Finland to New Zealand question why Americans do not receive universal health care, why its workers are sacrificed for global trade and corporate powers, why millions of its citizens go hungry and homeless, why so few people bother to vote, why so many politicians are convicted of crimes, and why there are more people in prisons than in all other countries combined. Yet Americans by and large keep thinking that their constitutional republic gives them first class democracy. This is delusional patriotism.

So, what are we to do? Keep expressing dissent by marching and protesting in the streets? Keep signing petitions on the Internet? Keep demanding impeachment of Bush? Keep reading and writing angry diatribes on progressive websites? Keep voting for mainstream politicians from the two major parties, hoping for a political messiah? Keep obeying Bush by borrowing, spending, shopping and consuming to keep our debt-ridden nation afloat?

Such activities release anger, but are largely placebo self-medications, unlikely to provide the permanent solutions our nation needs. Protests serve more as entertainment for the nation than a force to tear down the rotten system. Scale is a problem. Maybe if one million angry Americans sat down peacefully in the streets all around the White House, defying police action for many days, just maybe the system would crack. Protests must have a revolutionary character. They must induce fear into the hearts of smug and delusional power elites – like Dick Cheney.

The real needs are structural reforms that combat the major societal delusions that are driving America downhill. We must attack the root causes of problems rather than provide temporary relief or cover-up of symptoms.

Delusional political faith and delusional prosperity require profound reforms in our political system. A new competitive political party is needed. One that is guided by a set of principles that both mainstream Democrats and Republicans can not opportunistically accept, because the principles clearly conflict with their rotten behavior. A recent New America Foundation survey of Californians found that "seven in 10 voters say they often feel they must choose the lesser of two evils; more than half the voters say California needs another major political party."

Delusional patriotism is tougher to remedy. To revitalize American democracy we must have a national dialogue. Heed the words of the great John Marshall: "The people made the constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will." And James Madison: "the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their Government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution." Thomas Jefferson believed that the constitution-drafting process should be repeated by each generation of Americans. That’s what real freedom is all about. A great democracy must be much more than stable – it must be self-correcting.

When a political system no longer deserves trust, citizens must trust themselves. Considering how doggedly our unrepresentative democracy stays under the grip of moneyed special interests and fails large fractions of Americans, more direct democracy aimed squarely at major reforms is desperately needed. That requires a lot more than protesting and ranting. Some urge citizens’ assemblies (see http://www.cusdi.org/ and http://www.healthydemocracy.org/), or national initiative elections (see https://votep2.us/). I and others believe that we have a constitutional right to Article V Conventions (see http://www.foavc.org). However, elitist status quo forces have made the population afraid of such activities – a sick delusional, status quo bias belief. If it persists, Americans will not set themselves free of the oppressive forces that have hijacked their nation. They will keep venting their anger as dissenters or stay distractive consumers rather than work to return power to the people.

LET’S NOT DELUDE OURSELVES THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AFTER BUSH IS GONE. AS AWFUL AS BUSH IS, HE IS A SYMPTOM OF WHAT AILS OUR NATION. Our nation will remain in need of deep reforms. Millions of dissidents must wake up to what is really needed and rally around a revolutionary strategy.

written by Joel Hirschhorn


[Check out the author’s solutions for fixing the nation at www.delusionaldemocracy.com; for information on the Article V Convention concept contact him at articlevATgmailDOTcom.]

I came across this interesting article in the archives of The New York Times this afternoon about the selection of judges.

Believe me. It is a very good article that as many people should read. Only snag - its length. With a little patience, lots of peanuts/fruits, you should be able to make it *grins*.

Happy reading and have a nice day!
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Rendering Justice, With One Eye on Re-election

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: May 25, 2008, The New York Times

Last month, Wisconsin voters did something that is routine in the United States but virtually unknown in the rest of the world: They elected a judge.

The vote came after a bitter $5 million campaign in which a small-town trial judge with thin credentials ran a television advertisement falsely suggesting that the only black justice on the state Supreme Court had helped free a black rapist. The challenger unseated the justice with 51 percent of the vote, and will join the court in August.

The election was unusually hard-fought, with caustic advertisements on both sides, many from independent groups.

Contrast that distinctively American method of selecting judges with the path to the bench of Jean-Marc Baissus, a judge on the Tribunal de Grand Instance, a district court, in Toulouse, France. He still recalls the four-day written test he had to pass in 1984 to enter the 27-month training program at the École Nationale de la Magistrature, the elite academy in Bordeaux that trains judges in France.

“It gives you nightmares for years afterwards,” Judge Baissus said of the test, which is open to people who already have a law degree, and the oral examinations that followed it. In some years, as few as 5 percent of the applicants survive. “You come out of this completely shattered,” Judge Baissus said.

The question of how best to select judges has baffled lawyers and political scientists for centuries, but in the United States most states have made their choice in favor of popular election. The tradition goes back to Jacksonian populism, and supporters say it has the advantage of making judges accountable to the will of the people. A judge who makes a series of unpopular decisions can be challenged in an election and removed from the bench.

“If you want judges to be responsive to public opinion, then having elected judges is the way to do that,” said Sean Parnell, the president of the Center for Competitive Politics, an advocacy group that opposes most campaign finance regulation.

Nationwide, 87 percent of all state court judges face elections, and 39 states elect at least some of their judges, according to the National Center for State Courts.

In the rest of the world, the usual selection methods emphasize technical skill and insulate judges from the popular will, tilting in the direction of independence. The most common methods of judicial selection abroad are appointment by an executive branch official, which is how federal judges in the United States are chosen, and a sort of civil service made up of career professionals.

Outside of the United States, experts in comparative judicial selection say, there are only two nations that have judicial elections, and then only in limited fashion. Smaller Swiss cantons elect judges, and appointed justices on the Japanese Supreme Court must sometimes face retention elections, though scholars there say those elections are a formality.

“To the rest of the world,” Hans A. Linde, a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, since retired, said at a 1988 symposium on judicial selection, “American adherence to judicial elections is as incomprehensible as our rejection of the metric system.”

Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, has condemned the practice of electing judges.

“No other nation in the world does that,” she said at a conference on judicial independence at Fordham Law School in April, “because they realize you’re not going to get fair and impartial judges that way.”

Please click here to read the rest of the article. Thanks and have a nice day!

In the New York Times today, President Obama announced that "he would send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, putting his stamp firmly on a war that he has long complained is going in the wrong direction."

This directive will add nearly 50 percent to the 36,000 American troops already there. According to White House officials, a further decision on sending more troops will come after the administration completes a broader review of Afghanistan policy.

In a written statement, President Obama said that "the increase was necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”

On the surface, Mr. Obama’s decision gives American commanders in Afghanistan most but not all of the troops they had asked for. It is most alarming to know that this decision also carries political risk for a president who will be sending more troops to Afghanistan before he has begun to fulfill a promised rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

According to New York Times:

Many experts worry that Afghanistan presents an even more formidable challenge for the United States than Iraq does, particularly with neighboring Pakistan providing sanctuary for insurgents of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Under Mr. Obama’s plan, a unit of 8,000 marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., will be deployed in the next few weeks, aiming to be in Afghanistan by late spring, administration officials said, while an Army brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash., composed of 4,000 soldiers, will be sent in the summer. An additional 5,000 Army support troops will also be deployed in the summer.

It is no surprise that many antiwar groups criticized Mr. Obama’s decision even before the White House announced it.

According to The New York Times:

“The president is committing these troops before he’s determined what the mission is,” said Tom Andrews, director of the coalition organization Win Without War. “We need to avoid the slippery slope of military escalation.”

Mr. Obama said in his statement that “the fact that we are going to responsibly draw down our forces in Iraq allows us the flexibility to increase our presence in Afghanistan.”

American generals in Afghanistan had been pressing for additional forces to be in place by late spring or early summer to help counter growing violence and chaos in the country. Of the 30,000 additional troops that the commanders had initially sought, some 6,000 arrived in January after being sent by President Bush.

For more, please click here.

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Incidentally, Jill Abramson, the Managing Editor of The New York Times, in collaboration with the reporters and editors of the Times who covered Mr. Obama's campaign have just released a new book called "OBAMA: The Historic Journey."

An excerpt from the book:

OVERVIEW

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. The son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, he is the first African-American to ascend to the highest office in the land.

He is also the first new president since terrorists attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the first to use the Internet to decisive political advantage, the first to insist on handling a personal smartphone while in the White House. So striking was the novelty of his rise that he embraced it himself: as a candidate he called himself “a skinny kid with a funny name” and the theme for his campaign was “change.”

It was a theme with deep resonance for a country enmeshed in what was widely believed to be the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Abroad, many challenges loomed: the war in Iraq, the worsening conflict in Afghanistan, the repercussions from Israel's broad assault on Gaza, the threat of terrorism and the increasing signs that the economic woes that began on Wall Street had spread across the global economy.

Mr. Obama arrived at the White House with a resume that appeared short by presidential standards: eight years in the Illinois State Senate, four years as a senator in Washington. He had managed to wrest the Democratic nomination from a field of far more experienced competitors, most notably Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he outlasted in what became an epic primary battle. And he defeated Senator John McCain, the Republican of Arizona, by an electoral margin of 365 to 173, while outpolling him by more than eight million votes.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama laid out a set of large promises that were solidly within the traditional agenda of the Democratic Party, with plans to offer health insurance to all and reduce carbon emissions at the top of the list. At the same time, he proposed moving toward what was sometimes called a post-partisan landscape, appealing to voters of all stripes to come together. As he took office, voters seemed cautiously optimistic, with high hopes for the Obama presidency mixed with a sense that complicated problems would take years to resolve.

Republicans attributed Mr. Obama's victory primarily to a dismal trifecta: the cratering economy, an incumbent president, George W. Bush, with near-record disapproval ratings and a series of stumbles by Mr. McCain's campaign. But even his opponents acknowledged that Mr. Obama had run a remarkable campaign, highly disciplined in its message, relentlessly focused on building a field organization that was second to none and unprecedentedly successful in fundraising, particularly over the Internet.

In the weeks after the election, the Obama team tried to bring the same level of focus to the transition, moving rapidly to name a large roster of nominees to posts large and small. He dipped deeply into the pool of Clinton-era officials, beginning with his former rival, naming Mrs. Clinton to be his secretary of state. While he resisted calls to involve himself publicly in many of the pressing issues of the moment, declaring repeatedly that "we only have one president at a time," Mr. Obama began negotiations with congressional leaders on a massive economic stimulus package and hit the road for campaign-style events to build support for the $825 billion bill introduced by the House on Jan. 15, 2009.

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