According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees the number of Syrian refugees is now over
2.3 million. The UNHCR also says that within Syria there are 4.2 displaced people as a result of the civil war that has been going
on between Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad and primarily an al- Quida lead rebel force, with both sides allowing and engaging in
attacks on civilian targets. The Kurds, who are about 9% of the Syrian population and traditionally have had a role in (…)
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Syrian Refugee Crisis results in UN’s Largest Emergency Appeal
25 December 2013 -
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: AN "ENDANGERED SPECIES"
24 December 2013Although most Americans claim to venerate the ideal of “freedom of speech,” when it comes to actual practice there are few purists. “Free speech” purists recognize that defending the right to freedom of speech is not the same as endorsing what a speaker has said; therefore, purists recognize that viewpoints they disagree with should be just as zealously protected as viewpoints they embrace.
Unfortunately, most so-called advocates of “freedom of speech” in America subscribe to four basic (…) -
‘Slaughtered like sheep’: Eyewitnesses recount massacre in Adra, Syria
23 December 2013New details of atrocities carried out by Islamist rebel fighters in the town of Adra, 20 kilometers north of Damascus, continue to pour in from survivors of the massacre there, in which reportedly at least 80 people lost their lives.
"The decapitators" is how the Adra residents, who managed to flee the violence there, now call the people who currently have the town under their control. Adra, a town with a population of 20,000, was captured by Islamist rebels from the Al-Nusra (…) -
Raw sewage from Gaza polluting Ashkelon beaches
23 December 2013The Gaza Strip’s sewage treatment plants reportedly suffering frequent blackouts due to a dispute between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Repeated failures of sewage treatment plants in the Gaza Strip has caused significant beach pollution in and around Ashkelon and endangered water quality in the Mediterranean Sea, recent testing by Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry has found.
The agency ordered the tests in the wake of reports of the discharge of raw sewage from the Gaza (…) -
’Historic’: US Scholars Stand with Palestinians in Boycott of Israel
23 December 2013’This stance in solidarity with Palestinian freedom is historic and signals a new era of engagement with colonized populations’
An association of 5,000 academics on Monday became the largest U.S. scholarly organization ever to join the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
The American Studies Association, which calls itself "the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history," announced Monday that its membership passed (…) -
All Hands on Deck: The World Has Not Gone to Hell in a Handbasket—Yet
21 December 2013This is the first All Hands On Deck meeting on this Ship’s Log page at http://www.effectivelearning.net/Business_Voyages_Ships.html since March 13, 2013. A good bit of water has gone under the bridge since then. Obama got elected again in November 2012 and we have now sailed almost five years with his administration. He got us out of Iraq as promised, and, as I understand it we are pulling troops out of Afghanistan as promised, although not as many as promised, if our military and the (…)
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Republican Class War Reparations
18 December 2013Whereas, Republicans in high places in the US in or about 1980 declared an unofficial class war on the middle and lower classes of the US, which they have waged unabated up to now in 2013, significantly lowering the after loophole effective tax rates of large corporations and the elite rich, outsourcing the jobs of the US lower and middle classes to foreign countries, thereby reducing the economic security and prospects of said classes, while improving the security and prospects of the elite (…)
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ON GETTING RICH, FREE AND FRIENDLY
17 December 2013The motto of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1799, and to a great extent the American Revolution from 1765-1783, was Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite, a good motto, still relevant today, still unachieved, probably more a reality in France than in the US.
One can build the case the reason many people vote for Republican politicians in the US is they are not rich and free enough. Many have to work for Republican corporations and the elite rich, and given the unemployment problems of the (…) -
Catch a Bloody Knife
16 December 2013The US military will no longer report on the hunger strikers it holds at the concentration camp in Guantanamo. Tick, tock and open up a fresh barrel of ugliness, let us become intoxicated on money liquor and madness. A police officer murders an unarmed bible college honor student; the chief offers the officer has an extensive background in law enforcement, having worked eight different jobs in nine years. The dead shed tears for the living as the living don’t know they’re dead yet.
The (…) -
Missing US citizen in Iran identified as CIA spy
14 December 2013A former FBI agent missing in Iran since 2007 has been identified as a covert CIA spy, exposing as lies US claims that he went to the country on private business.
The Associated Press revealed that it had held the story about the CIA connections of Robert Levinson three times at the US government’s requests. ABC News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and other news media also indicated that they had known that Levinson was working for the CIA as early as 2007, but had kept the story (…)