ENΩ ΥΦΥΠΟΥΡΓΟΙ ΦΟΡΟΔΙΑΦΕΥΓΟΥΝ ΣΤΑ ΝΗΣΙΑ ΜΑΡΣΑΛ ΚΑΡΔΙΟΠΑΘΗΣ ΜΕΝΕΙ ΣΕ ΑΥΤΟΚΙΝΗΤΟ. ΤΡΩΕΙ ΑΠΟ ΣΥΣΙΤΙΟ

Ο 55χρονος Κωνσταντίνος από τη Θεσσαλονίκη, άνεργος και καρδιοπαθής, έκανε σπίτι του το αυτοκίνητο γιατί δεν είχε χρήματα!
Όπως τονίζει ο ίδιος, έχει κάνει πολλές δουλειές στη ζωή του: από ιχθυοπώλης μέχρι συμβασιούχος στο Δήμο Θεσσαλονίκης Αν και έχει κάνει 3 εγχειρήσεις bypass στην καρδιά του και έχει χαρακτηριστεί ανάπηρος σε ποσοστό 67%, ο ίδιος -καθώς είχε δουλειά- δε ζήτησε ποτέ επίδομα αναπηρίας από το κράτος.
Πλέον, όμως, δεν έχει ούτε δουλειά ούτε επίδομα και δεν μπορεί να ζήσει. «Η οικογένεια μου πάει, καταστράφηκε» τονίζει με απογοήτευση, προσθέτοντας ότι το μόνο ζητά είναι δουλειά όχι ελεημοσύνη.
«Η ζωή μέσα σε 1,5 τ.μ. είναι δύσκολη» λέει ο άνθρωπος που ζει μέσα στο αυτοκίνητό του τους τελευταίους 11 μήνες. Δυστυχώς, δεν έχει την «πολυτέλεια» ούτε για τα βασικά. «Ευτυχώς που μας δίνουν ένα πιάτο φαγητό από τα συσσίτια. Μόνο αυτό έχω» εξομολογείται με απόγνωση
Read more: http://www.seleo.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60579:2012-06-23-09-51-22&catid=74:sites&Itemid=54#ixzz1ycD9lajt 
Seleo.gr News 
ΠΡΕΖΑ TV
http://prezatv.blogspot.com/2012/06/2012_23.html

Αυτές είναι μόνο δύο από τις εικόνες που μπορεί να δει κανείς καθημερινά στο νοσοκομείο "Α.Συγγρός". 'Οπως γράφει ο "Ελεύθερος Τύπος" οι ασθενείς είναι αναγκασμένοι να περιμένουν από τα ξημερώματα έως τις 08.30 για να πάρουν σειρά προτεραιότητας και μετά να ξαναστηθούν στην ουρά περιμένοντας.

 http://www.enikos.gr/society/55739,Oi_a8lies_eikones_ths_ygeias_mas.html

H "EΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΤΥΠΙΑ" ΞΑΝΑ ΣΤΑ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΕΡΑ ΓΙΑ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟΚΥΡΙΑΚΟ

                ... Mε στόχο τις 50.000 (σε πωλήσεις) ξανά στα περίπτερα η ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΤΥΠΙΑ σε   
               απεργιακή έκδοση των εργαζόμενων.  Στηρίξτε την! Δημοκρατία σημαίνει πολυφωνία.

BEAUTIFUL GREECE PANORAMA: VISIT GREECE THIS SUMMER

    METEORA, THESSALIA

    KOKKARI BEACH , SAMOS, AEGEAN ISLANDS

    CAPE SOUNION, TEMPLE OF POSEIDON, ATTIKI

    ZAKYNTHOS NAUAGIO (IONIAN ISLANDS)

THE CRITERION COLLECTION RESTORED CHARLIE CHAPLIN'S "THE GOLD RUSH" (1925 VERSION)

Director Charlie Chaplin got the idea for The Gold Rush during a visit to Pickfair, the Beverly Hills home of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. While viewing the couple’s collection of stereoscopic cards, he came across one depicting the Chilkoot Pass, which prospectors had to cross to get to the goldfields of the Klondike. This and the story of the Donner party inspired his film.

FILM CRITIC ANDREW SARRIS (1928-2012): HIGHLIGHTS FROM HIS "VILLAGE VOICE" YEARS

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/06/andew_sarris_19.php
We're very saddened to hear about the death of film critic Andrew Sarris at the age of 83. He spent some of his best years tilting with Pauline Kael here at the Voice, and while we're putting together an actual obit, we wanted to highlight some of the best things he did at this newspaper.

A few years ago, we had a project we called "Clip Job" whose aim was to get onto the web some of the Voice's best material from its pre-Internet archives.

Naturally, Sarris's column was often one we chose to republish. Please look them over now, and remember (or discover for the first time) what an important influence he was on American cinema, and what a great read, as well.

March 23, 1961: "L'Avventura...is an intellectual adventure or it is nothing."

The plot, such as it is, will infuriate audiences who still demand plotted cinema and potted climaxes. A group of bored Italian socialites disembark from their yacht on a deserted island. After wandering about a while, they discover that one of their number, a perverse girl named Anna, is missing. Up to that time, Anna (Lea Massari) had been the protagonist. Not only does she never reappear; the mystery of her disappearance is never solved.

August 5, 1965: Sarris defends What's New Pussycat?

I have now seen "Pussycat" four times, and each time I find new nuances in the direction, the writing, the playing, and, above all, the music. This is one movie that is not what it seems at first glance. It has been attacked for tastelessness, and yet I have never seen a more tasteful sex comedy. For one thing, Allen has written a whole script about sex without once baiting a homosexual, and this is quite a feat these days when homosexuals are considered more hilarious than ever.

December 9, 1965: Sarris considers Andy Warhol

If Hawks has represented much of what I like in the cinema, Warhol represents much of what I resist. We live in an era when many people are as pathologically frightened of being put on as of being put down. Magazine articles are written to warn us of the perils of alleged artists who do not take their audience seriously, and Warhol is usually cited as the worst offender. I have found in the past that with me a little Warholian cinema goes a long way, but it suddenly strikes me that I have never seen anything by Warhol entirely lacking in interest.

July 28, 1966: Sarris takes apart Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Nichols has actually committed all the classic errors of the sophisticated stage director let loose on the unsophisticated movies. For starters, he has underestimated the power of the spoken word in his search for visual pyrotechnics. Albee's script is pretty strong stuff. There is no need to jump up and down with the camera every time a character suggests humping the hostess or getting the guests or humiliating the host. Nor is there any need to take the action outside where the hypnotic spell of an alcoholic mood can be dispelled by the fakey-emptiness of exteriors.

June 15, 1967: Sarris assassinates Casino Royale

"Casino Royale" tries to capitalize both on the James Bond name and the "What's New, Pussycat?" art nouveau nuttiness. I liked "Pussycat," but I don't like "Casino Royale," particularly when John Huston is flaunting the hardened arteries of David Niven and Deborah Kerr in a Scottish castle. Things pick up a little bit when Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen stumble into the scene, but the total experience remains boringly incoherent.

July 25, 1968: Sarris on why Rosemary Baby is so damned scary

What is frightening about Rosemary's condition is her suspicion that she is being used by other people for ulterior purposes. She has no family of her own to turn to, but must rely on a husband who seems insensitive to her pain, neighbors who seem suspiciously solicitous, a doctor whose manner seems more reassuring than his medicine, and a world that seems curiously indifferent to her plight. When she tells her story to a disinterested doctor, he dismisses it as pure paranoia as most doctors would if a pregnant woman walked into their office and told them the plot of "Rosemary's Baby." The disinterested doctor calls the witch doctor and Rosemary is delivered to her satanic destiny. After spitting in her husband's face, Rosemary approaches the rocker where her yellow-eyed baby is crying and by slowly rocking the infant to sleep acknowledges her maternal responsibility toward a being that is after all a baby and ultimately HER baby.

Thus two universal fears run through "Rosemary's Baby," the fear of pregnancy, particularly as it consumes personality, and the fear of a deformed offspring with all the attendant moral and emotional complications.

January 15, 1970: Sarris picks the best films of 1969

There were close to 300 regular releases in 1969, and I would estimate about as many more hard-core sexploitation attractions although the latter figure might be even higher. Actually, the bottom is creeping up to the top these days insofar as production values are concerned. Hollywood has all but ceased to exist as a production center, and the old days of studio trademarks are gone forever. Still, the movie beat remains busy enough to endure that in any given year there will be critical slippage.

February 4, 1971: Sarris: Heteros Have Problems Too

I am 42, going on 43, and I have never had a homosexual experience. Thus, if only by the process of elimination (and an ecstatically happy marriage), I must qualify as a male heterosexual. I am not bragging, mind you, or complaining either, but merely stating a banal fact. I am not suggesting that I have resisted the blandishments of hordes of homosexuals over the years. Nor am I suggesting that there is anything heroic about being heterosexual. Or even anything special. But I do feel the time has come in my intellectual life to draw the line against any additional accretions of guilt.

April 15, 1971: Sarris vs. Kael on Citizen Kane

Pauline Kael's two-part article on "Citizen Kane" ("Raising Kane" -- the New Yorker, February 20 and 27, 197[1]) reportedly began as a brief introduction to the published screenplay, but, like Topsy, it just growed and grower into a 50,000-word digression from "Kane" itself into the life and times and loves and hates and love-hates of Pauline Kael.

My disagreement with her position begins with her very first sentence:

"'Citizen Kane' is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened." I can think of hundreds of "American talking pictures" that seem as fresh now as the day they opened. Even fresher.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/movies/andrew-sarris-film-critic-dies-at-83.html?src=me&ref=general

(...)Andrew Sarris was born in Brooklyn on Oct. 31, 1928, to Greek immigrant parents, George and Themis Sarris, and grew up in Ozone Park, Queens. His romance with movies was near to imprinted on his DNA. He remembered sitting in a darkened theater at the age of 3 or 4 entranced by a movie based on a Jules Verne story. “The liquidity of the scene and the film,” he recalled, “was truly magical, especially to someone not many years out of the womb himself.”

He attended John Adams High School in Queens, his time there overlapping for a year or two with the newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin’s. But his concerns lay elsewhere. He recalled, as a teenager, sitting in his Queens aerie, listening to the Academy Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle award ceremonies, and developing his ideas, idiosyncratic and polemical, on film.

He graduated from Columbia College in 1951 and served three years in the Army Signal Corps. He returned to live with his mother — his father had died — in Queens, passing his post-college years in “flight from the laborious realities of careerism,” as he put it.

On a footloose outing he passed a year in Paris, drinking coffee and talking with the New Wave directors Mr. Godard and Mr. Truffaut, who were the first to champion auteur theory. (Later, in the United States, he would edit an English-language edition of the influential auteurist magazine Cahiers du Cinéma.) Always his love affair with movies sustained him. He recalled sitting through four dozen showings of “Gone With the Wind,”as besotted with Vivien Leigh on the 48th viewing as on the first.  (...)

MEΛΟΣ ΤΩΝ ΝΕΟΝΑΖΙ ΤΗΣ "ΧΡΥΣΗΣ ΑΥΓΗΣ" ΒΙΑΣΕ ΑΝΗΛΙΚΗ...

 TO ΡΑΤΣΙΣΜΟ KAI TH ΞΕΝΟΦΟΒΙΑ ΧΡΗΣΙΜΟΠΟΙΟΥΝ ΤΑ ΜΕΛΗ ΤΗΣ "ΧΡΥΣΗΣ ΑΥΓΗΣ" ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΚΑΛΥΨΟΥΝ ΕΓΚΛΗΜΑΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΚΟΙΝΟΥ ΠΟΙΝΙΚΟΥ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ...

Μέλος της «Χρυσής Αυγής» κατηγορείται για βιασμό ανήλικης αλβανίδας και δημιουργεί «ρατσιστικό» ντελίριο εναντίον της οικογένειας του θύματος προκειμένου να έχει καλύτερη δικαστική τύχη!

Μπροστά σε μια πρωτοφανή περίπτωση βρίσκονται, τα τελευταία 24ωρα, οι αστυνομικοί αλλά και κάτοικοι περιοχής στην βορειοανατολική Αττική.

Ενας 45χρονος δημοτικός υπάλληλος που δηλώνει μέλος της «Χρυσής Αυγής» συνελήφθη προ τετραημέρου για τον βιασμό μιας 15χρονης αλβανίδας που ήταν μαθήτρια σε τοπικό σχολείο και η οποία έμεινε έγκυος!

Ο 45χρονος, που ήταν παντρεμένος με τρία παιδιά, ανέφερε στους αστυνομικούς ότι «διατηρούσε ερωτικές σχέσεις με την ανήλικη Αλβανίδα -παρά βέβαια τις αντιλήψεις του κατά των μεταναστών- και υπήρξε η πλήρης συγκατάθεσή της σε ό,τι συνέβη μεταξύ τους».

Ωστόσο, σύμφωνα με αναφορές των συγγενών της ανήλικης αλλοδαπής, ο κατηγορούμενος, μαζί με άλλα άγνωστα πρόσωπα, τους απείλησε με επιθέσεις της «Χρυσής Αυγής» αν επέμειναν στις κατηγορίες τους για την κακοποίηση του κοριτσιού. Ταυτόχρονα τους ζήτησε να αποσιωπήσουν το συμβάν.

Ολα ξεκίνησαν προ μερικών μηνών όταν ο 45χρονος υπάλληλος συμμετείχε σε δημοτικά έργα, σε σχολείο της περιοχής. Εκεί φέρεται να γνώρισε την 15χρονη μαθήτρια, αλβανικής καταγωγής -η οικογένειά της διαμένει 20 χρόνια στην Ελλάδα- και της πρότεινε να εργασθεί στο γραφείο μίας μικρής εταιρείας που πραγματοποιούσε τεχνικά έργα.

Η 15χρονη δέχθηκε την πρόσκληση. Ομως όπως κατήγγειλε η 15χρονη και οι γονείς της στην ΕΛ.ΑΣ. «στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου ο 45χρονος την παρέσυρε σε ερημική περιοχή και τη βίασε. Σύμφωνα με την ίδια καταγγελία ο 45χρονος πρότεινε αμέσως μετά στην 15χρονη να της δώσει περίπου 100 ευρώ, για να εξασφαλίσει τη σιωπή της αλλά και για να συνευρεθεί κι άλλες φορές μαζί της».

Ομως η 15χρονη, προ μερικών εβδομάδων, έμεινε έγκυος και κατέφυγε σε τοπικό ιατρείο προκειμένου να προχωρήσει σε έκτρωση. Οι Αλβανοί γονείς του κοριτσιού ζήτησαν από τον 45χρονο εξηγήσεις για την εγκυμοσύνη της κόρης τους, και εκείνος αρχικά υποστήριξε ότι είχε ερωτικές σχέσεις μαζί της ένας από τους γιους του.

Ομως οι γονείς φέρεται να συγκέντρωσαν και άλλες πληροφορίες για τις ενέργειες του 45χρονου και υπέβαλαν σχετική μήνυση στο τοπικό αστυνομικό τμήμα. Αμέσως μετά οι αστυνομικοί προχώρησαν στη σύλληψη του δημοτικού υπαλλήλου, ο οποίος αφέθηκε ελεύθερος λίγα 24ωρα αργότερα με περιοριστικούς όρους και εγγύηση 30.0000 ευρώ.

Το «Βήμα» επικοινώνησε με τους συγγενείς της κοπέλας που επιβεβαίωσαν τις απειλές που είχαν δεχθεί εν ονόματι της «Χρυσής Αυγής». Ακόμη μίλησαν και για «παρουσία μπράβων όταν εμφανίσθηκαν ενώπιον των δικαστικών αρχών». Από την άλλη πλευρά ο 45χρονος αρνείται τις κατηγορίες και υποστήριξε ότι «θα αποδείξει την αθωότητά του».
Για την υπόθεση ήδη ενημερώθηκαν από υψηλόβαθμους αξιωματικούς της Ασφάλειας Αττικής εκπρόσωποι της τοπικής αυτοδιοίκησης στην βορειοανατολική Αττική.

ΠΗΓΗ:tovima.gr

                                                                    ***

http://www.erea.gr/ereahome/index.php/forum/242-2012-06-19-09-31-19

ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΑ ΣΟΚ ΓΙΑ ΤΙΣ ΔΡΑΣΕΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΧΡΥΣΗΣ ΑΥΓΗΣ

• 
• 

Δημοσιεύτηκε Τρίτη, 19 Ιούνιος 2012 09:31

Συντάχθηκε από τον/την teo

Προβολές: 10415

Λάβαμε ενα μειλ με μαρτυρία για την δράση της χ.α για ευνοήτους λόγους δεν αποκαλύπτουμε το όνομα του αποστολέα που μας περιγράφει τα εξης:

Μαρτυρία - σοκ για τη Χρυσή Αυγή!

"Σήμερα είδα ράμματα στο κεφάλι ενός γνωστού μου Ρωσοπόντιου και τον ρώτησα τι του συνέβη. Η απάντηση ήταν απίστευτη... Συμμετείχε σε ένα ντου της Χ.Α σε ένα σπίτι όπου διέμεναν Πακιστανοί υπήκοοι στον... Ασπρόπυργο και κυριολεκτικά τους θέρισαν!

Το'παιξα ανήξερος-σχεδόν γοητευμένος- και άρχισα να τον ρωτάω τι γίνεται εκεί.

Όποιος λοιπόν συμμετέχει ενεργά σε τέτοιες επιχειρήσεις έχει πρώτα απ' ολα δωρεάν ρουχισμό(μπλουζάκια-παντελόνια-αρβύλες) της χ.α αλλά και εξοπλισμό(στιλέτα-ρόπαλα ακόμα και πιστόλια).

Επίσης έχουν έκπτωση 40% σε συγκεκριμένα Σούπερ μάρκετ και 65% έκπτωση σε πρατήρια της nike και της addidas!!!

Φυσικά δεν τελειώνει εδώ...όποιος συμμετέχει σε επιχειρήσεις μετά τις 10 το βράδυ(οι οποίες μου άφησε να εννοηθεί οτι είναι δολοφονικές από τους σκληρούς πυρήνες) λαμβάνει ένα bonus το μήνα περί τα 500 ευρώ!!!

Οι επιθέσεις είναι πολύ καλά οργανωμένες με τσιλιαδόρους και σε συνεννόηση με τις αστυνομικές αρχές!!!

Στις επιχειρήσεις αυτές η πλειοψηφία που λαμβάνει μέρος είναι αλλοδαποί μετανάστες(Ρώσοι-Αλβανοί κ.α.)και οι"Έλληνες" που συμμετέχουν κάνουν χρήση κοκαΐνης η οποία κι αυτή είναι δωρεάν φυσικά... "ελα να δεις πως είναι..περνάμε πολύ ωραία...", μου είπε...

Πίσω απ' αυτή τη μάστιγα που ονομάζεται Χ.Α υπάρχουν όπως διαφαίνεται εύποροι μεγαλοκαταστηματάρχες και μεγαλοκαρχαρίες οι οποίοι πριμοδοτούν την οργάνωση αυτή με σκοπό άλλου είδους οφέλη ενώ οι θεσμοί και οι νόμοι του κράτους δεν ισχύουν γι' αυτούς αφού η αστυνομία τους προστατεύει πολύ καλά!!!

Μετανάστες για λίγα χρήματα χτυπούν και σκοτώνουν μετανάστες...Κραμερ εναντίον Κραμερ και η τρέλα αυτή που θα καταλήξει?

Όμως το χειρότερο είναι ότι όλοι εμείς τους παρακολουθούμε αποσβολωμένοι ενώ αυτοί γιγαντώνονται μέσα στην ελλειπή δημοκρατικής παιδείας αστική τάξη η οποία προκειμένου να διαφυλάξει τη περιουσία και την εκμετάλλευση της, αλλά και τα τόσα χρόνια ανοχής σ' ένα ατελείωτο πολιτικό αλισβερίσι τώρα εναποθέτει τις ελπίδες της στη βία, στην επιβολή, στην τρομοκρατία και τον φασισμό της εγκληματικής οργάνωσης που ονομάζεται Χ.Α.

Φεύγοντας μου ψυθίρισε: "ό,τι πρόβλημα έχεις πάρε με τηλέφωνο...."

http://24wro.blogspot.gr/2012/06/blog-post_3855.html

http://prezatv.blogspot.gr/2012/06/blog-post_9080.html
http://www.left.gr/article.php?id=2857
http://www.inews.gr/88/martyria---sok-gia-ti-chrysi-avgi-dernoume-kai-echoume-ekptoseis-sta-magazia.htm
http://www.axortagos.gr/martiria-sok-gia-xrisi-avgi.html

15-YEAR OLD'S INEXPENSIVE DIAGNOSTIC BREAKTHROUGH ON CANCER GIVES HOPE TO PATIENTS WORLDWIDE

(...) I first saw Andraka present his discovery at a TED worldwide talent search inNew York two weeks ago. In only three minutes he had the audience dumbfounded with the results of his work: a paper test strip that uses minute changes in conductivity to detect targeted viruses or antigens faster, cheaper and more accurately than today’s standard diagnostics.  It seems too good to be true, but the panel of judges at the Intel science fair are not rubes. For a teenager he is disarmingly forthright and direct in talking about complex chemistry, but he’s also good at making it understandable to the lay person.

Andraka’s diagnostic breakthrough is a humble piece of filter paper, except that it is dipped in a solution of carbon nanotubes, which are hollow cylinders with walls the thickness of a single atom, coated with a specific antibody designed to bind with the virus or protein you’re looking for. Andraka’s key insight is that there are noticeable changes in the electrical conductivity of the nanotubes when the distances between them changes. When the antibodies on the surface of the nanotubes come in contact with a target protein, the proteins bind to the tubes and spread them apart a tiny bit. That shift in the spaces between tubes can be detected by an electrical meter. Andraka used a $50 meter from the Home Depot to do the trick but, he says, doctors can just as easily insert his test-strips into the kinds of devices used by millions of diabetics around the world.

Andraka’s paper sensor is extremely sensitive. In a single-blinded test of 100 patient samples, it spotted the presence of mesothelin, a protein commonly used as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer, at a limit of 0.156 nano grams per milliliter, well below the 10 ng/mL considered an overexpression of mesothelin consistent with pancreatic cancer. It’s also 100 times more selective than existing diagnostic tests, which means no false positives or false negatives. It ignored healthy patient samples as well as those with mere pancreatitis. Compared with the 60-year-old diagnostic technique called enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (or ELISA), used in pregnancy test strips and viral checks for HIV, West Nile and hepatitis B, Andraka’s sensor is 168 times faster, 26,667 times less expensive, and 400 times more sensitive. It can spot the presence of the cancer-linked protein well before the cancer itself becomes invasive. This could save the lives of thousands of pancreatic cancer victims each year. The sensor costs $3 (ELISA can cost up to $800) (...)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/06/18/wait-did-this-15-year-old-from-maryland-just-change-cancer-treatment/

ALEX PRUD'HOMME: THE FIGHT FOR (CLEAN) WATER AND THE RIPPLE EFFECT

THE AUTHOR OF THE RIPPLE EFFECT DELIVERS A GRIM WARNING ABOUT THE WORLD’S PRECIOUS RESOURCE

Alex Prud’homme interviewed by Maeve  Vanessa Scanlon

At a time when we are concerned about the diminishing reserves of petroleum and other fossil fuels, Alex Prud’homme’s book The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century sheds light on a natural resource that is becoming equally as scarce. In the following exclusive interview, Prud’homme discusses the depletion of our water supply, the potential for worldwide “water wars” and how we can all reduce our own ripple effect.

HUSTLER: First and foremost, what is the “ripple effect”?

ALEX PRUD’HOMME: This is essentially a series of consequences that impact water supply in ways most of us don’t understand. Sometimes those ripples are unintentional effects. Even the simplest things like washing your hands, watering your lawn or powering up your computer can have great ramifications that we’re not aware of. If you wash your hands with antibacterial soap, a chemical in there can survive the treatment process and get into waterways and can negatively impact fish. Same with herbicides that we use on our lawns to get rid of dandelions. There’s a substance [in herbicides] that inhibits the fishes’ ability to ward off disease. It may even be causing “intersex,” meaning that male bass fish are developing eggs through their testes.

That’s science fiction stuff.

It’s really spooky. I was down in Chesapeake Bay, near Washington, D.C., studying this with scientists. It’s really troubling because it turns out that the endocrine system in fish is very similar to that in humans.

Humans can be affected by these substances in the same way as fish?

Scientists are very concerned. There’s the potential that it could be turning humans into intersexes at some point in the future. That’s one set of ripple effects [just from] washing our hands or spraying our lawns to keep the weeds away.

[Editor’s Note: Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and consumers have legally released into this country’s drinking water more than 271 million pounds of drugs and chemicals, including lithium, nitroglycerin, copper, antibiotics, anticonvulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones. At least 51 million Americans are drinking pharmaceutical- tainted water, and the federal government has chosen to turn a blind eye to this.]

You claim that using electrical power, like turning on a computer, can have a similar ripple effect.

That confuses a lot of people. When you leave a light on, you’re using up a lot of energy. Whether it’s nuclear or ethanol or solar or coal or gas, all of those power sources require lots of water. Every energy source has to run on industrial works or giant cooling towers or processing plants of some sort. Not only do they use lots of water in these processes, but they have to dispose of their waste. Often, this seeps into the water supply. We don’t really think about the impact that getting energy to our homes has on the water supply, so we never connect those dots. But power is a huge water user.

It’s a strange dot to connect.

I started looking at this all across the country and started noticing this pattern. There are so many pressures on our limited water supplies—population, climate change, shifting diets, shifting demographics, all these new ways of using water—that we can no longer afford the luxury of being ignorant. We can no longer stick our heads in the sand and say, “Well, we don’t know the impacts.” Now we do know the impacts, and we have to start paying attention to this and start thinking about water in a new way and value it as a limited resource.

http://larryflynt.com/the-q-a/alex-prud%E2%80%99-homme-saving-water-drop-by-drop/

LOUIS WOODHILL: THE GREEK ELECTION IS A WARNING FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/06/20/the-greek-election-is-a-warning-for-president-obama/2/ 

(...) From the standpoint of getting the Greek economy growing again, the election was extremely frustrating for Greek voters.  There were no pro-growth parties on the ballot.  No one running for office seemed to realize that Greece’s only hope for economic recovery is income tax rate cuts large enough to cause the current capital outflows to reverse, and induce people to start investing in the Greek economy once again.

At this point, the entire Greek political establishment seems to be infected with the Keynes virus, a pathogen that alters brain chemistry in a way that makes people believe that it is government spending (and only government spending) that produces economic growth.  Keynesianism, which is the name of the mental illness caused by this virus, has been claiming victims worldwide, including Francois Hollende in France and Barack Obama, Larry Summers, and Paul Krugman in the U.S.

Oddly enough, ordinary people seem to be immune to the Keynes virus.  They retain the ability to see that high taxes discourage economic activity, and that a bankrupt nation cannot spend its way to prosperity.

Given the choices presented, all the Greek electorate could do was to play for time and hope for some kind of pro-growth miracle.

The election results created some likelihood that the “Troika” (the EU, the ECB, and the IMF) will deliver on the promised €130 billion second tranche of bailout funds.  Unfortunately, without tax cuts to revive investment and production, this money will be sucked into the black hole of Greece’s imploding economy, never to be seen again.  This was the fate of the first tranche of bailout money (nominally, €110 billion).

Perhaps even more important to ordinary Greek citizens, buying time allows the “silent bailout” of Greek bank deposit holders by the European Central Bank (ECB) to continue.

Since the start of 2010, Greeks have withdrawn about €80 billion from Greek banks.  This is about a third of total deposits.  A large portion of the assets of the Greek banking system consists of Greek government bonds, which cannot be sold for anything close to book value, and which are not acceptable collateral at the ECB discount window.  Accordingly, Greek banks have been obtaining the euros required to meet customer redemptions from the Greek Central Bank (GSB) via the ECB’s “Emergency Liquidity Assistance” (ELA) program.  The ELA amounts to a line of credit from the ECB to the GSB, with repayment guaranteed by…the Greek government.

The ECB has been secretive about the magnitude of ELA loans outstanding and the identities of the borrowing national central banks, but it is clear from the data available that the total ELA loan balance has been rising rapidly.

Because Germany is ultimately “on the hook” for the economic value of ELA loans, it will be interesting to see how long they are willing to allow this “silent bailout” to continue.  However, without ELA, the Greek banking system would collapse, taking what remains of the Greek economy with it.

When Americans go to the polls in November, they will have Greece as a stark reminder of the consequences of tax increases and out-of-control government spending.  Fortunately, it appears that, unlike Greece in the June 17 election, the U.S. will have a party to vote for, the Republicans, that is at least nominally “pro-growth”.

Because Mitt Romney’s platform calls for tax cuts, and Obama is promising tax hikes and more Keynesian stimulus, Jude Wanniski’s political model would predict that Romney must win.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/06/20/the-greek-election-is-a-warning-for-president-obama/2/

BRAVO, MALAKA!

"I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."

-- Agent Smith, The Matrix 

STRATFOR: GREEK ELECTIONS SETTLED NOTHING...

(...)The Greek vote has settled nothing. In fact, it may not even lead to the formation of a government; the last election failed to produce a government and forced this election. That the European crisis most severely affected a country so politically fractious could be seen as pitiable. On the other hand, one could argue that the crisis inevitably would be most severe in the most divided country -- not because the divisions caused the crisis, but because the crisis caused the divisions. 

The pressure brought on by the circumstances in Greece undermined whatever political order was in place; the choices for policymakers were so limited and so frightening that coherent responses were difficult. Greece has options, but it is unable to choose one. More than anything, Europe wants a decision on its future, whatever that decision might be. On June 17, Greece disappointed Europe not because of the choice it made but because it was crippled with indecision.

Crisis Management

Greece's indecisions are at the ground level of Europe. Another and more significant framework for indecision is emerging in Franco-German relations. The French Socialist Party won an absolute majority the same day that the Greeks entered another gridlock. This makes it possible for France's Socialists to form a government without the Greens, giving Hollande a strong and coherent platform from which to operate.

France's position on managing the sovereign debt crisis differs fundamentally from Germany's. Germany has said it will not agree to proposed solutions that would essentially turn the eurozone into a transfer union until the rest of Europe can balance their budgets through austerity measures. Germany believes this must be the first step to further EU and eurozone integration. Hollande takes a different position. He, too, wants greater European and eurozone integration. However, Hollande advocates economic stimulus alongside austerity measures as a means to rebalance the finances of European governments.

Read more: The Futility of European Elections | Stratfor 
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/futility-european-elections?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120619&utm_term=gweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=215e8c932b1b42309a17ce90953d86c1

GREEK VOTERS ARE TRUE PSYCHOPATHS WITH LOW-SELF ESTEEM:CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD

Greek voters are true psychopaths with low-self esteem. They think that if there's an accident on the highway, a car crashing on the extreme left lane with 200 m.p.h., there must be another car on the extreme right (read neonazi) lane also crashing with 200 m.p.h.  to match the first car. For many decades now the so called ..."Communist" party wants to throw back the country to the Dark Ages of Soviet Union (nowadays Russia) communism. So they want to transform Greece to Cuba, or North Korea! Even Russia has transformed itself into a capitalistic oligarchy. Greek "Communist" party members kids go to exclusive private schools, their fathers and mothers are mostly public employees (read big, fat, lazy cats making lots of mola, thousands of euros, from taxpayers).   During daytime are accusing the US for all the faults  and wrongs of this world. From asphalt on the Greek highways to the bank interest rates, from high temperatures in the summer to the autumn floods. When night falls they are meeting ambassadors from US, UK, Germany and are asking for favors, favors, favors...  The Greek "communist" party's role  is to distract from the money that Communist party supporters like Germanos, Bobolas,  are making on the backs of the poor Greek people and blame Pax Americana for anzthing and everything. The trick worked for more than 60 years. But even one bunch of morons is not enough for Greeks. They need the opposite team to wreak havoc on my home country. Guess what? The opposite party is the Neonazi party of "Golden Dawn". So get  prepared for more episodes of slapping, cursing, punching, spitting, cursing and blaming everybody else on the face of the planet, any living and breathing organism, except themselves. Enough said!
 I found it rather disgusting and insulting when you have 2.000 suicides the last two years, to have 40%  of the voters on Sunday June 17th go swimming and not voting at all ,especially when pension benefits and minimum wages are slashed down to Bulgaria and Romania levels and the whole country is impoverished. Now from June 18th on their arses are going to be on fire. But they don't really care!

RAY BRADBURY'S 7 RULES FOR WRITERS

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/ray-bradburys-7-rules-for-writers/

(...) my favorite of Bradbury’s books is Zen in the Art of Writing, his collection of short essays on the craft of writing. Throughout the book — which is part memoir, part writing seminar — Bradbury makes several strong claims about writing and creativity, claims that I believe can serve as helpful advice, if not iron-clad rules, for the beginning writer (and for even the more advanced scribe). Here are seven that I thought stood out:

1. Write with gusto. If there was one quality Bradbury prized above all others in a writer, it was gusto. And it was a quality that Bradbury had in spades. A writer might be a brilliant stylist, his plot might be complex, his subject matter intriguing — but if the writing lacks gusto, then by Bradbury’s standards, it’s not fully alive: “[If] you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping your eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is — excited.”

2. In quickness is truth. Bradbury believed that when it comes to first drafts, don’t think, just write. Long before cognitive neuroscience proved him right, Bradbury understood the importance of short-circuiting one’s Inner Critic during the initial phase of creative work: “The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling and tiger-trapping.” Let speed (though perhaps not the chemical kind) be your friend. Just get it down. Fast. Even if it’s crap. Don’t worry, you can always invite your Inner Critic back to the party during the revision phase.

3.Write who you are. One of the most popular (and perhaps clichéd) pieces of advice to writers is “write what you know.” But if all writers rigidly followed that rule, it would limit them to the world of everyday experience (nor would there be such a thing as science fiction). For Bradbury, a writer should draw inspiration not only from the world he lives in, but from the world(s) he can imagine, as well as from his own personal interests and enthusiasms: “Do not, for the vanity of intellectual publications, turn away from what you are — the material within you that makes you individual, and therefore indispensable to others.” A book like The Martian Chroniclesundoubtedly owes something to the world Bradbury grew up in — but it owes a great deal more to Bradbury’s unique alchemy of experience, imagination, and life-long passions. Or, to put it another way: who you areis what you know. So don’t be afraid to write that.

4. Don’t write for money or fame. Not that money and fame are bad in themselves. But for Bradbury, they shouldn’t be your primary reason for writing. Indeed, he cautions that the pursuit of these twin allures has undone many a talented writer: “If only we could remember that fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with our best, our lonely, our individual truths.” External rewards are nice, but they must remain secondary to the internal rewards of the creative work itself.

5. Feed the muse daily. Some people find “the muse” to be an antiquated concept of artistic inspiration, but it was one that Bradbury took quite seriously. However, for Bradbury, the muse doesn’t simply offer up her services for free; instead, they must be purchased with daily, consistent effort. You must write daily, read daily, and train one’s creative muscles in much the same way as athletes train their physical muscles: “By living well, by observing as you live, by reading and observing as you read, you have fed your most original self. By training in writing, by repetitious exercise, imitation, good example, you have made a clean, well-lighted place to keep the Muse. You have given her, him, it, or whatever, room to turn around in. And through training, you have relaxed yourself enough not to stare discourteously when inspiration comes into the room” (p.45-46). A well-fed muse is a happy muse. A starved muse—well, she’ll just be pissed off, and most likely too tired to come to your rescue when you most need it.

6. Don’t be afraid to explore the attic. Bradbury — who had a life-long fascination with the subconscious — firmly believed that each of us has a “dark attic” inside our minds, one filled with secrets and terrors we’re often too scared to face. But according to Bradbury, this is precisely where a writer can find his most useful material. Our fears hold the key to our originality, and only by facing that “Thing at the top of the stairs” can we ever hope to create something authentic and new. Bradbury suggests coming up with a list of nouns to jump-start this process, writing them down stream-of-conscious style: “Conjure the nouns, alert the secret self, taste the darkness. Your own Thing stands waiting ‘way up there’ in the attic shadows. If you speak softly, and write any old word that wants to jump out of your nerves onto the page… Your Thing at the top of your stairs in your own private night… may well come down.”

7. Surprise yourself. Many books on writing advise you to plan every detail of your story in advance. But Bradbury believed it’s better to discover your story as you’re creating it and surprise yourself. “Dandelion Wine, like most of my books, was a surprise… I simply got out of bed each morning, walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head” (p. 85). Again, Bradbury places more faith in the subconscious than in conscious over-planning. Not that he doesn’t believe in plot. But for Bradbury, plot is secondary to, and determined by, character: “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact, not before” (p. 139). In short: if you want to surprise your readers, perhaps you should first try to surprise yourself. Just follow the footprints — and see where they lead.

Bonus Rule: Do the work you were born to do — and no one else’s.