North Coast Cafe, South

Food Shortage, Food Prices & Corporate Greed p

The Wall Street Journal today reports on the massive profits of companies dealing in grain processing (high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol and others), fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, pesticides and other food- and farm-related products and services.

In the last quarter alone, the six most profitable companies in this sector have earned more than $4 billion. Here's how they might spend a bit of their windfall:

Those profits make the United Nations Food Program's emergency request for $755 million to feed the 73 million people at risk of starvation look tiny. It amounts to 20% of the profits from those companies over the last three months. And remember, these companies – Monsanto, Cargill, Mosaic, ADM, Deere and Bunge – have for the most part been raking it in for at least a couple years, as they ride (or is that drive?) the congressional mandate for ethanol.

Food prices, according to one index, are up 57% in a year.

More

The Fall of Rome xxx the US

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, "It will never be as it was before."

"I think the magic is over"

The Surge is Working ?

Source

Iraq Conflict Has Killed A Million Iraqis

A new survey conducted by Opinion Research Business, one of Britain's leading polling groups.  found that 20 percent of Iraqis  had had at least one death in their household as a result of the he conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Why We Fight? Please, Tell Me Again.

I must have missed something. Didn't Dubya tell us we were invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iran to bring them freedom and democracy ?

The New York Times today reports an Afghan court  sentenced a journalism student to death for blasphemy for distributing an article from the Internet that was considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad.      

Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, 23,  is a student at the faculty of journalism in Mazar-i-Sharif and also works for a daily paper, Jahan-e-Naw, as a reporter.

He was accused of downloading a controversial article and adding some of his own paragraphs about the ignorance of the Prophet Muhammad on women’s rights.

The case follows two previous incidents of journalists being accused of blasphemy in Afghanistan since 2001 and the installation of the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

Ayatollah Huckabee

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god.

And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

This presidential campaign gets curiouser and curiouser.  Am I the only observer who worries about the direction of contemporary political discourse?  Huckabee proudly proposes to amend the U. S.
constitution to create a fundamentalist religious state. 

Time to cull the herd. Ding this dingbat back to Arkansas.

Ron Paul

Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee have released a report on the total costs of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan , including "hidden costs" such as interest on the money we're borrowing, and long term healthcare for vets.

The bill comes to $3.5 trillion.

If $3.5 trillion is the true cost of these military adventures, $11,500 is the amount every man, woman and child in this country pays.

So, a family of four would pay $46,000 just for this war.

What about the impact of these costs on education, the very thing that so often helps to increase earnings?

$46,000 would cover 90% of the tuition costs to attend a four year public university in Texas for both children in that family of four.

But, instead of sending kids to college, too often we’re sending them to Iraq , where the best news in a long time is they aren't killing our men and women as fast as they were last month.  More

Gulliani's Fragile Candidacy

Desperate Republicans frantically looking for a presidential candidate with even a faint chance of holding the White House despite the mess made by the Bush/Cheney cabal seemingly have allowed Rudi Gulliani to assume the lead at this early start of the 2008 race.

I'm impressed with the focus my former TV colleagues at UK Channel 4 have taken on Rudi's supposed front-runner status.  If the GOP masterminds think they can win with this tainted sow's ear they are in for a surprise.

Have a look.

Secularism by Robert Ingersoll

       

Secularism is the religion of humanity; it embraces the affairs of this world; it is interested in everything that touchesthe welfare of a sentient being; it advocates attention to the

particular planet in which we happen to live; it means that each
individual counts for something; it is a declaration of
intellectual independence; it means that the pew is superior to the
pulpit, that those who bear the burdens shall have the profits and
that they who fill the purse shall hold the strings. It is a
protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical 
tyranny, against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom,
or of the priest of any phantom. It is a protest against wasting
this life for the sake of one that we know not of. It proposes to
let the gods take care of themselves. It is another name for common
sense; that is to say, the adaptation of means to such ends as are
desired and understood.

     Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It
trusts to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to
observation and experience rather than to the unknown and the
supernatural. It desires to be happy on this side of the grave.

     Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment,
reasonable work and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the
tastes, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts,
and it promises for the human race comfort, independence,
intelligence, and above all liberty. It means the abolition of
sectarian feuds, of theological hatreds. It means the cultivation
of friendship and intellectual hospitality. It means the living for
ourselves and each other; for the present instead of the past, for
this world rather than for another. It means the right to express
your thought in spite of popes, priests, and gods. It means that
impudent idleness shall no longer live upon the labor of honest
men. It means the destruction of the business of those who trade in
fear. It proposes to give serenity and content to the human soul.
It will put out the fires of eternal pain. It is striving to do
away with violence and vice, with ignorance, poverty and disease.
It lives for the ever present to-day, and the ever coming to-
morrow. It does not believe in praying and receiving, but in
earning and deserving. It regards work as worship, labor as prayer,
and wisdom as the savior of mankind. It says to every human being,
Take care of yourself so that you may be able to help others; adorn
your life with the gems called good deeds; illumine your path with
the sunlight called friendship and love.

     Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It
has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no
falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions. It considers the
lilies of the field, and takes thought for the morrow. It says to
the whole world, Work that you may eat, drink, and be clothed; work
that you may enjoy; work that you may not want; work that you may
give and never need.
                  Robert Ingersoll  The Independent Pulpit, Waco, Texas, 1887.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders, Independent senator from Vermont is one of very few legislators in Washington worthy of support and admiration.  Here's why.