What more is there to say?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17184.htm

First and foremost that Iran is not in breach of any international conventions or agreements. Processing of uranium is entirely within the guidelines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has accounted for all fissile material and confirmed that none have been diverted to prohibited activities.

Tags: Iran

Well, my goodness! Thank you VT christians for reminding us of the plight of 100s of people addicted to porn in this country, wandering the streets, unable to function, looking like heroine addicts, or alcoholics.

Shouldn't we be talking about some more important things? Like the fact that 1000s of Christians in this country voted for George 'Evil Motherfucker' Bush, the man who wants to send YOUr children to war for absolutely no useful reason at all?

In a democratic society, i think you'd agree, dear reader, that it is ok for mature people to enjoy porn responsibly. It is entirely irresponsible, however, for people to make fear mongering arguments about people who enjoy porn in a mature and democratic manner.

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone02062007.html

CounterPunch February 6, 2007

Pre-emptive strike against Chirac

Frenzy in France Over "Iranian Threat"

By Diana Johnstone

The Socialists can find nothing better to do than to crow over Chirac's "blunder". The French left in general has never seen the point of supporting Chirac's action in keeping France out of the Iraq quagmire. From the viewpoint of the sectarian left (and the French left, in its countless splinters, is incurably sectarian), what matters is not to do the right thing but to do whatever one does for the right motives -- and aconservative politician like Chirac is by definition incapable of doing anything for the right motives.

I write this in a cafe where the radio station is tuned to a satellite station that is playing endlessly that horrid shit that passes for rock music these days. I don't know the name of the band, and I don't care - they all sound the same. Do people really buy this crap?

To the topic at hand: When it comes to global warming, capitalism is the 800 pound gorilla in the debating chamber. This article reminds us of the power of Marx's critique of technology in the production process and how, ultimately, there is still reason to think that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction.

http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/02/capitalism-creates-global-warming.html

It is this centralization of capitalism that allows for the centralization of administration and planning through the governance of a self managed society which is what socialism is. And only with the socialization of production and consumption can we solve this ultimate crisis of capitalism which is the challenge of living without producing waste and its resulting environmental and ecological imprint which is what global warming is.

This reads too much like Michael Ignatieff for me... but, then again, I've not agreed with Hitchens about much at all in recent times.

Appointment in Mesopotamia
Iraq's problems existed long before 2003.
By Christopher Hitchens

Iraq was in our future. The specter, not just of a failed state, but of a failed society, was already before us in what we saw from the consequences of sanctions and the consequences of aggressive Sunni fascism at the center of the state. Nobody has ever even tried to make a case for doing nothing about Iraq: Even those who foresaw sectarian strife were going by a road map that was already valid and had been traveled before. Thus it seems to me quite futile to be arguing about whether to blame the Iraqis—or indeed whether to blame the coalition. Until recently, no Iraqi was allowed to have any opinion about the future of his or her country. How long did we imagine that such a status quo would have remained "stable"?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/3003/

In You More Than Yourself

The revolutionary potential of the Internet is far from self-evident

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

The actual couple of man and woman are thus haunted by the bizarre figure of a frog embracing a bottle of beer. What modern art stages is precisely this underlying spectre: One can easily imagine a Magritte painting of a frog embracing a bottle of beer, with a title “A man and a woman” or “The ideal couple.” (The association here with surrealist Luis Bunuel’s famous “dead donkey on a piano” is fully justified.) Therein resides the threat of cyberspace gaming at its most elementary: When a man and a woman interact in it, they do so under the spectre of a frog embracing a bottle of beer. Since neither of them is aware of it, these discrepancies between what “you” really are and what “you” appear to be in digital space can lead to murderous violence. After all, when you suddenly discover that the man you are embracing is really a frog, aren’t you tempted to squash the slimy creature?

From the Guardian
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2004397,00.html

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.