Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
Fernando Solanas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fernando Solanas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Fernando Ezequiel 'Pino' Solanas (born 16 February 1936) is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and politician. His films include La hora de los hornos (1968), Tangos: el exilio de Gardel (1985), Sur (1988), El viaje (1992), La nube (1998) and Memorias del saqueo (2004), among many others."
'via Blog this'
"Fernando Ezequiel 'Pino' Solanas (born 16 February 1936) is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and politician. His films include La hora de los hornos (1968), Tangos: el exilio de Gardel (1985), Sur (1988), El viaje (1992), La nube (1998) and Memorias del saqueo (2004), among many others."
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Sunday, October 27, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
How the Sunni-Shia schism is dividing the world - World Politics - World - The Independent
How the Sunni-Shia schism is dividing the world - World Politics - World - The Independent:
"The unprecedented Saudi refusal to take up its Security Council seat is not just about Syria but a response to the Iranian threat"
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"The unprecedented Saudi refusal to take up its Security Council seat is not just about Syria but a response to the Iranian threat"
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Worst weather since the Great Storm of 1987? UK braces for hurricane-strength winds - Home News - UK - The Independent
Worst weather since the Great Storm of 1987? UK braces for hurricane-strength winds - Home News - UK - The Independent:
"A powerful weather system developing over the Atlantic could see Britain battered with some of the worst weather conditions since the Great Storm of 1987, forecasters are predicting."
'via Blog this'
"A powerful weather system developing over the Atlantic could see Britain battered with some of the worst weather conditions since the Great Storm of 1987, forecasters are predicting."
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Friday, October 25, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Perlan Project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Perlan Project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The Perlan Project is a current research project to fly a sailplane to an altitude of 90,000 feet (27,432meters)."
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'via Blog this'
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal - NYTimes.com
Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal - NYTimes.com:
"I’ve been remiss in not writing anything about Janet Yellen’s nomination to head the Fed; partly that was because I wasn’t sure exactly what to say, and how to explain why I and so many other economists are really happy with her selection."
'via Blog this'
"I’ve been remiss in not writing anything about Janet Yellen’s nomination to head the Fed; partly that was because I wasn’t sure exactly what to say, and how to explain why I and so many other economists are really happy with her selection."
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Che Guevara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Che Guevara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe É£eˈβaɾa];[7] June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.[8]"
'via Blog this'
"Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe É£eˈβaɾa];[7] June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.[8]"
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Egyptian ultras’ fight for existence is a struggle for public space
The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Egyptian ultras’ fight for existence is a struggle for public space:
Militant Egyptian soccer fans, a key player in Egypt’s almost three year-old political rollercoaster, are fighting a battle for their existence in the shadow of the military’s campaign to repress the Muslim Brotherhood. At the core of the battle is the military’s desire to crack down on one of the country’s largest civic groups and assert control of stadia in advance of a resumption later this month of the country’s suspended premier league.
'via Blog this'
Militant Egyptian soccer fans, a key player in Egypt’s almost three year-old political rollercoaster, are fighting a battle for their existence in the shadow of the military’s campaign to repress the Muslim Brotherhood. At the core of the battle is the military’s desire to crack down on one of the country’s largest civic groups and assert control of stadia in advance of a resumption later this month of the country’s suspended premier league.
'via Blog this'
Power Vacuum in Washington
I am a Mexican American, I know the History of my country of origin, and now, I make an analogy with Hitler's ascend to power, and Ted Cruz's shenanigans; together with the recent collapse of the state in Mexico, when the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), lost power to Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), in 2000.
Let's start with what I know better.
At October 2, 1968, forty five years ago, I almost died. When I saw tanks from the balcony of our apartment in Mexico City, I decided not to go to the "Plaza de Tlatelolco", and so, saved my life.
Vacuum is abhorred by Nature, said the Greeks. Power Vacuum, is abhorred by men, I say.
When President Gustavo DÃaz Ordaz, sent troops in response to student protests, he definitely sealed the fate of PRI. Many students of my generation did not vote for that party anymore. Thirty two years later, they lost the presidential election to PAN's Vicente Fox. There was a problem though, this conservative party had never governed Mexico, and a Power Vacuum developed. Now Chapo Guzmán, controls big swats of territory, in Mexico.
Now let's jump to Germany in the 30s, Franz Von Papen, let Hitler in, thinking he would control the left, he did, but then he took everything else, even the cultural artifacts, as you can see in the upcoming movie, The Monuments Men.
Ted Cruz, could be the next Adolf Hitler.
Let's start with what I know better.
At October 2, 1968, forty five years ago, I almost died. When I saw tanks from the balcony of our apartment in Mexico City, I decided not to go to the "Plaza de Tlatelolco", and so, saved my life.
Vacuum is abhorred by Nature, said the Greeks. Power Vacuum, is abhorred by men, I say.
When President Gustavo DÃaz Ordaz, sent troops in response to student protests, he definitely sealed the fate of PRI. Many students of my generation did not vote for that party anymore. Thirty two years later, they lost the presidential election to PAN's Vicente Fox. There was a problem though, this conservative party had never governed Mexico, and a Power Vacuum developed. Now Chapo Guzmán, controls big swats of territory, in Mexico.
Now let's jump to Germany in the 30s, Franz Von Papen, let Hitler in, thinking he would control the left, he did, but then he took everything else, even the cultural artifacts, as you can see in the upcoming movie, The Monuments Men.
Ted Cruz, could be the next Adolf Hitler.
Franz von Papen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franz von Papen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen ( listen (help·info)) (29 October 1879 – 2 May 1969) was a German nobleman, General Staff officer and politician. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934. He belonged to the group of close advisers to president Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalised by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which some of his confidantes were killed by the Nazis."
'via Blog this'
"Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen ( listen (help·info)) (29 October 1879 – 2 May 1969) was a German nobleman, General Staff officer and politician. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934. He belonged to the group of close advisers to president Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalised by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which some of his confidantes were killed by the Nazis."
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Saturday, October 5, 2013
Welcome to Ted Cruz's Thunderdorme
Warner Bros, via Everette Collection
The nation’s capital in the future is not a pretty sight after having been destroyed in The Political Fight of 2013.
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: October 5, 2013 20 Comments
A PLACE ONCE CALLED WASHINGTON
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
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AN ape sits where Abe sat.
The year is 2084, in the capital of the land formerly called North America.
The peeling columns of the Lincoln Memorial, and Abe’s majestic head, elegant hands and big feet are partially submerged in sludge. Animals that escaped from the National Zoo after zookeepers were furloughed seven decades ago migrated to the memorials, hunting for food left by tourists.
The white marble monuments are now covered in ash, Greek tragedy ruins overrun with weeds. Tea Party zombies, thrilled with the dark destruction they have wreaked on the planet, continue to maraud around the Hill, eager to chomp on humanity some more.
Dead cherry blossom trees litter the bleak landscape. Trash blows through L’Enfant’s once beautiful boulevards, now strewn with the detritus of democracy, scraps of the original Constitution, corroded White House ID cards, stacks of worthless bills tumbling out of the Treasury Department.
The BlackBerrys that were pried from the hands of White House employees in 2013 are now piled up on the Potomac as a flood barrier against the ever-rising tide from melting ice caps. Their owners, unable to check their messages, went insane long ago.
Because there was no endgame, the capital’s hunger games ended in a gray void. Because there was no clean bill, now there is only a filthy stench. Because there was no wisdom, now there is only rot. The instigators, it turned out, didn’t even know what they were arguing for. Macho thrusts and feints, competing to win while the country lost.
Thomas Jefferson’s utopia devolved into Ted Cruz’s dystopia.
Law and order broke down as police, who were not getting paid, eventually decided to stay home. The fanatics barricaded in the Capitol dug in, determined to tear down what their idols, the founding fathers, had built. Darkness soon devoured the rest of the country.
Unlike Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games,” where the capital thrived as the nation withered, here, the capital withered first, as the federal city shriveled without federal funds. But, in other ways, it mirrors the fantasy dystopias depicted by Hollywood and Cormac McCarthy in his novel “The Road,” “bloodcults” consuming one another in “an ashen scabland,” a “cold illucid world.”
In 2084, there’s little sign of life in the godless and barren lost world. The insurance exchanges are open and the kinks are almost ironed out. But there is no one to sign up. Koch brother drones patrol the skies. A Mad Max motorcycle gang wielding hacksaws roars through the C.I.A., now a field of dead cornstalks, and the fetid hole that was once Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden. Will Smith and Brad Pitt are here, hunting aliens and monsters.
The Navy-Air Force game goes on, somehow, and there are annual CrossFit games on the Mall, led by flesh-eating Dark Seeker Paul Ryan, now 114 years old. CrossFit is still fighting the Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid, even though there’s no Department of Agriculture and no food.
A gaunt man and sickly boy, wrapped in blue tarps, trudge toward the blighted spot that was once the World War II monument, scene of the first shutdown skirmishes. They know they may not survive the winter.
“How did this happen, Papa?” the boy asks.
“Americans had been filled with existential dread since the 9/11 attacks, but they didn’t realize the real danger was coming from inside the government,” the man says. “It started very small with a petty fight over a six-week spending bill but quickly mushroomed out of control.”
“Whose fault was it, Papa?” the boy presses.
The man tries to explain: “The Grand Old Party, the proud haven of patriots who believed in a strong national security and fiscal responsibility, was infected with a mutant form of ideology. It was named the Sarahcuda Strain after the earliest carrier. Remember when you saw that old science fiction movie, ‘I Am Legend’? A scientist described the virus that burned through civilization as being like ‘a very fast car driven by a very bad man.’ That’s what happened: In the infected Tea Party politicians, brain function decreased and social de-evolution occurred. They began ignoring their basic survival instincts.
“It’s hard to believe now, but they were fixated on stopping an effort to get health care to those who couldn’t afford it. It eventually led them to destroy all the things they said they held most dear.”
The boy is confused. “They killed America because they didn’t care about keeping Americans alive?” he asks.
The man sits down. His voice grows faint. “Well, they didn’t seem to understand themselves or what they were doing,” he continues. “In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many of the feverish pols believed they were waging the right and moral fight even as G.O.P. party elders like Jeb Bush, John McCain, Karl Rove and James Baker warned them that they were dragging the country toward catastrophe. The Tea Party leaders liked to refer to themselves as the Children of Reagan. But as Baker told Peggy Noonan, Reagan always said, ‘I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.’ ”
The boy frowns. “But Papa, didn’t the healthy Republicans realize the infected ones had lower brain functions?”
“Well, son, they knew there was something creepy about the ringleader, Ted Cruz,” the man replies. “His face looked pinched, like a puzzle that had not been put together quite right. He was always launching into orations with a weird cadence and self-consciously throwing folksy phrases into his speeches, like ‘Let me tell ya,’ to make himself seem Texan, when he was really a Canadian.”
The boy looks alarmed. “A Canadian destroyed the world, Papa?”
“Once the government shut down, a plague came, because they had closed the Center for Disease Control,” the man says. “Storms, floods and wildfires raged after FEMA was closed down and the National Guard got decimated.
“Once we went into default, the globe got sucked into the economic vortex. With a lot of the Defense Department, F.B.I., and intelligence community on forced leave, the country became vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Without the C.I.A. to train the moderate Syrian rebels, Syria fell to Al Qaeda.
“After the final American president, Barack Obama, canceled his trip to Asia, that part of the world decided we were weak. China moved quickly to fill the vacuum. Obama grew so disgusted, he spent his final years in office isolated in the White House residence. When he stopped returning the calls of Hassan Rouhani and Bibi Netanyahu, it was only a matter of time before the Middle East went up in flames.
“What is left of the world is being run by Julian Assange from what is left of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and by some right-wing nut in a cabin in Idaho.”
The boy begins to cry. “Papa, stop. You’re making me sad. Are all the good guys gone?”
Looking through the gray skies toward the ashen Lincoln Memorial, where an ape sits in Abe’s chair, the man replies sadly, “Yes, son.”
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
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