How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions.

Steaming video or audio of an hour with Amy Goodman and John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies.

www.democracynow.org

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Remains a wish, like, say, I wish upon a star…

Commitment to acheiving Peace remains an elusive quality in our world…

In this, the season for celebrating “the Prince of Peace”, this predominently Christian nation is responsible for the “collateral damage” to thousands of Iraqi women and children, in a war to bring the blessings of Democracy to “the Iraqi People”. I do not believe that Jesus had that in mind when he was preaching peace in Palestine 2,000 years ago.

We are mired in a stuggle between tribal factions that has it’s roots in a thousand years of history, and in the “war on terror” which is, at it’s core, a conflict of religious beliefs and fundamental values.

Since about half of U.S. citizens voted to keep the current administration in power,and both candidates were in favor of supporting the ongoing war effort, it is apparent to me that here in the good old U.S.A, at least, no consensus of Peace exists, no good will towards man (not to mention women, children and babies in their cribs, especially if their skin is brown, and they are poor). No brotherly love.

Christian love and compassion apparently does not extend to the body politic of this age. Maybe we will need to wait for the Second Coming to see what Jesus has to say about this… maybe then we will see the real Shock and Awe.

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We have a physically objective world, and then after a while we learn to measure in this world, and we gain experience with this world, through our senses. That is the objective world, and then we pass in to the mathematical world. In the mathematical world there are mathematical entities – “x”, “y”, numbers, and things of that kind. And we bring this mathematical world into isomorphism, or equality in structure with the objective world, so we can manipulate the mathematics and tell what the objective world is going to do; or, as Dirac – a great theoretical physicist – said, to calculate numbers which can be compared with experience, and such is the meaning of all mathematics.

The theoretical physicist, or the mathematical physicist, or the physicist, in the more elementary sense, is merely an artist and he’s attempting to depict the external world in terms of these formulations of which I speak, and the question is, if the theory is real. Take Newton, Newton did this; he was a great painter and he painted the field of mechanics for us in certain equational form. Now, the interesting thing is, and the powerful thing is that if you manipulate these equations, they behave in an analogy with the physical world so that by examining these equations, you can tell what the physical world is doing or should do.

Now, suppose it doesn’t do it? Why then you have a case where the theory in question has broken down. And when I spoke of Einstein, I was speaking of certain slight deficiencies in Newton’s world. Newton did it first, then along came Einstein and Einstein noticed certain discrepancies in the world described by Newton, so he tried a new formulation, generated a new formulation for the theory of relativity, and his theory also is subject to criticism as time goes on.

Point Source = John Vincent Atanasoff

Viewing Point — The place where you are, your eye level.

Viewing Angle — The place where you are, your eye level and the angle from your point of view.

Viewing Height — The place where you are, at your eye level and height or elevation.

Horizon Line — That place where the land and the sky meet.

Picture Plane — A make believe paper or canvas between you and what you are illustrating.

Vanishing Point — The single point on the horizon where all the lines on the ground level seem to be coming together.

Single Point Perspective — A single vanishing point on the horizon line.

Double Point Perspective — Two separate vanishing points on the horizon line.

Triple Point Perspective — Two vanishing points on the horizon and one in the sky or on the ground.

Light Reference — The point where your light source comes from for example the sun or a lamp.

Shadow Vanishing Point — A point directly under your light reference and on the horizon line or on the ground.

Foreshortening — To shorten the lines of (an object) in a drawing or other representation so as to produce an illusion of projection or extension in space.

In the past few weeks, the USDA has once again attempted to weaken the federal organics standards that so many Americans have worked hard to enshrine into federal law. These changes would have allowed food labeled as “USDA Organic” to contain hormones and antibiotics in dairy cattle, pesticides on produce and potentially contaminated fishmeal as feed for livestock. As happened with a number of other outrageous recent USDA actions, citizens groups and the organic food industry rallied in opposition, and were successful in reversing the proposed changes.

The newest round of protests against such changes reminds us of the more than 200,000 letters Americans sent to the USDA back in 1997/98 pleading with the agency to not allow toxic sludge, irradiated food, and GMOs to be included in a list of allowable food growing practices for the then-new federal organic food regulations. The USDA backed down then as well, in the face of the outpouring of public opinion. It seems we have won again. Or have we?

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By Roger Brownlie

12 November 2003 – Nitto Denko Corporation of Japan has produced what it claims is an optical grade polymer with the highest refractive index in the world.

Compared with previous polymers, the refractive index has risen by 10-15% to 1.76. The thermosetting polymer also has good thermal resistance and processing properties.

By adding titania, zirconia, and other metal oxide nanoparticles with a high refractive index it is possible to design new materials with even higher refraction, the company said.

Optical materials with high refraction indexes help to lower power consumption and size by improving the light emission and reception efficiency of equipment. For example, a mobile phone display can be optimised to increase its luminescence or reduce its power consumption. The thickness of lenses and displays can also be decreased.