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Thursday, July 25, 2002
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Good Morning, I am publishing the Thursday edition of SynEARTH network a little earlier. Big Strongend for Me. Pushing to finish my book...
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Paul Ray writes: Today’s politics is failing to deal with some of the most important issues of our time, and everyone knows it. National politicians deal with the few easy issues they can handle conventionally, while a growing number of issues are not handled at all. ... A new constituency is emerging that is at home in neither the Democratic or Republican parties. As this constituency grows, we are seeing the decline of both Left and Right, and of both political parties. ... The easiest way to describe this emerging political constituency is to say that they are at 90 degree angles to both the liberal Left and the social conservative Right, and they are directly opposed to big business conservatism. These “New Progressives” are not “the center” or mushy middle of Clinton lore. They tend to oppose corporate globalization and big business interests, and favor ecological sustainability, women’s issues, consciousness issues, national health care, national education, and an emerging concern for the planet and the future of our children and grandchildren on it. Many of their issues are claimed by the Left, and sworn at by the Right, but their stance departs from both liberal Left and religious Right, as do business conservatives’ stances. This group is nearly invisible in the mainstream press. But the New Progressives are the biggest of the four constituencies at 36 percent of population and 45 percent of likely voters. If the New Progressives were mobilized under a single political tent, they could replace one of the political parties and dominate American politics for the next generation or more. (07/25/02) | |
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Barry Carter writes: In the next several decades we shall likely see information technology expand social freedoms and individual power beyond the human regulation breakpoint—the point where individual humans cannot be controlled through laws and micro rules. Each individual at some point in the future will have the ability to literally destroy all of civilization. At the “human regulation breakpoint” and beyond humanity must have systems in place to operate a civilization from win-win-based norms and not win/lose-based regulation. “When mores are strong enough, laws are not needed and when mores are not strong enough laws are irrelevant.” The alternative to a win-win civilization is bleak, including a likely “road warrior era;” a second “dark ages,” as human knowledge and technology, for the second time in history, outpaces human maturity. We cannot grow in technology and knowledge without relative equal growth in wisdom and maturity. Nature will keep these two in balance even if it means a step back a thousand years, to get our technology to match our maturity. The balance between social and economic freedom is, therefore, not only critically important for peace and prosperity. It is the critical link to our maturity and the survival of our planet. We are not going back to the limited social freedoms of a pre-Information Age, unless information technology regresses fifty years or civilization crashes. The present cautious wait-and-see, go-slow, reactive, analytical and continuous improvement approach, therefore, must be discarded. We must move rapidly toward as much economic freedom as possible for the individual, in order to match the social freedoms being automatically granted through knowledge power. The only practical system with the power to expand economic freedom fast enough is Mass Privatization and Decentralized Wealth Creation in which individuals are free to control their own destiny and are motivated to heal themselves. (07/25/02) | |
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DRUDGE Report -- President Bush was hard at work at Camp David over the weekend. In an effort to understand the current political-economic crisis, Bush spent two hours studying the new Austin Powers' movie Goldmember. Apparently Bush considered the film so valuable that: "He already wants to see it again!" declared the well-placed source, ... At one point, according to the source, CIA agent Foxxy Cleopatra and crew had the Commander-in-Chief in total laughter. "He totally cracked up...loved it." (07/25/02) | |
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Washington Post -- This article describes spending increases by our Federal Government, that by my figuring, total about 57 billion. We will need all those Americans who currently pay taxes (~80 million) to each forward a check for their share to the White House. That would be $712.00. Thank you. Please stay ready for more spending soon. (07/25/02) | |
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DRUDGE Report -- Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed today. Mr Blair warned that in addition to his well-catalogued chemical weapons capability and his suspected biological weapons stockpiles, the Iraqi dictator has clear ambitions to add nuclear devices to his arsenal. Last week Mr Blair warned that Saddam's programme to develop weapons of mass destruction represented a "gathering threat", and that September 11 had demonstrated that some security threats are so grave that they have to be tackled pre-emptively. In an interview for next month's issue of the centre-left Prospect magazine, Mr Blair suggested that that threat could be nuclear as well as chemical or biological. Asked about suggestions that US President George Bush is preparing military action designed to oust Saddam, Mr Blair said: "If the time comes for action, people will have the evidence presented to them. (07/25/02) | |
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New York Times -- Albania: Five years ago, Flutorime Jani and her extended family settled on the grounds of an abandoned chemical plant. Fleeing from the barren, lawless mountains, they found a spot a few miles from this city, Albania's main port. At first they thought they were lucky. "The land was free," Mrs. Jani said. Bricks and tiles were also free. The men stripped them from the old factory buildings and created shacks. The word spread, and today the plant is a shantytown with more than 3,000 inhabitants. Today, it is also a place where experts say people are being collectively poisoned. Until 1990, this state factory made a range of hazardous chemicals, including chromium-6, used in leather tanning, and lindane, a pesticide so dangerous that many nations ban it. ... "We have no money to fence it off," said Miri Hoti, the mayor of Durres, shrugging. He implied that the foreign experts were overreacting. "These people come here voluntarily, though it's banned. There is no other housing." About 400 tons of chemicals are still stored on the 750-acre site, leaking from corroded steel barrels and spilling from torn bags. The acrid sting of lindane fills the air. Some residents keep vegetable patches. Cows and goats rummage among the rusting metal vats. Mrs. Jani's grandchildren, like the other children, play on the contaminated grounds and roll in the noxious dust. New homes are going up along the plant's open dumpsite, which holds 20,000 tons of hazardous waste. (07/25/02) | |
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KERNVILLE, California (CNN) -- A growing wildfire is burning about a half-mile from a stand of ancient sequoia trees in California Wednesday, as firefighters battle erratic and unpredictable conditions in an effort to contain part of the blaze, according to a United States Forest Service spokesman. The McNalley wildfire has charred 50,123 acres in the Sequoia National Forest, the spokesman said. The blaze, which began Sunday afternoon, is uncontained. The most threatened of the thousand-year-old sequoias are those within the Giant Sequoia National Monument. (07/24/02) | |
2:53:20 AM 
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© TrustMark
2002
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
7/31/2002; 3:04:46 PM.
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