Summerhill

There is a good background article in the Scotsman this weekend on Scotlands own libertarian educator; A.S. Neil and his Summerhill school.

So when a young idealist from Scotland, Alexander Neill, opened a school where attending classes was optional and all the rules were decided in weekly meetings with pupils and teachers having an equal say, it was written off as a short-lived libertarian experiment of the fairly eccentric 1920s. Predictably the Establishment and right-wing press had a field day, deriding Neill as a "corrupting influence" on children and labelling his establishment the "Do As You Please School".

Alexander Sutherland Neill.

Neill's philosophy was simple. He believed that the happiness of the child was paramount and that self-respect and respect for others would result. "There is more true education in making a snowball than in listening to an hour's lecture on grammar," he once said.

Summerhill, the school he established between the world wars, far from being a passing fancy, is still being run to this day in rural Suffolk, with a greater pupil roll than ever, a testament to its progressive founder.

Arguably, outside a few interested circles - education, libertarianism and various branches of psychology - the Summerhill project is little known.

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Pluto Gone Dog Gone It

Which of these would you say is a dog: a German Shepherd or a Chihuahua? This is the kind of question put before delegates of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly who powwowed in Prague over Pluto's planet-hood. No wonder hardly 300 of the 2,700 astronomers at the meet even bothered to vote for, or against, stripping the ninth rock from the Sun of its planetary status and making it a 'planet dwarf' instead.Plot against Pluto Hindustan Times

Cute Pluto as a dog....wait he is.
Of course in India Astrology is a science.


"Indian astrology did not include Pluto as a planet and the latest announcement by leading global astronomers after a marathon week-long meeting at Prague yesterday only endorsed the Indian mathematical astrology of Aryabhatta and Varahamihira in the sixth century," eminent mathematical Astrologer Mangal Prasad told today. Aryabhatta, Varahamihira's mathematical science vindicated

And European and North American astrologers have stated they will still keep
Pluto in their charts.

Now of course the naming of planets is older than current industrial science,
it originated in what was once called natural science or as we know it magick.
In particular the naming of things is the source of our power over them, as
Fraser defines it; sympathetic magic.

Astrology and Alchemy are the mothers of the later sciences.
Though dismissed by current empirical materialist industrialized scientism.

But wait didn't this group of astronomers vote on a definition of a planet.
Giving things names. And taking them away.

Hmm what does Fraser say about that in his work on natural magick
the Golden Bough....

UNABLE to discriminate clearly between words and things, the savage commonly fancies that the link between a name and the person or thing denominated by it is not a mere arbitrary and ideal association, but a real and substantial bond which unites the two in such a way that magic may be wrought on a man just as easily through his name as through his hair, his nails, or any other material part of his person. In fact, primitive man regards his name as a vital portion of himself and takes care of it accordingly. Chapter XXII.Tabooed Words

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Historical Amnesia

Best quote on the American position on a Nuclear Iran.....Yet the reasoning of U.S. officials now struggling to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions is clouded by a kind of historical amnesia,

See

Iran

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Kim Jong il Bush

Only the strong can defend justice in the world today where the jungle law prevails. Neither the UN nor anyone else can protect us. The past history and the present reality show that only a country with its powerful force can defend the national dignity and its sovereignty and independence. It is a day-dream to calculate that our principle will alter due to the change of the world. We have already clarified that we will have no option but to take stronger physical actions should someone take issue with our army's training of missile launches for self-defence and put pressure on it.

Sounds like something George W or John Bolton would say about the UN and the need for America to have the right to pre-emptive self defense in a Post 9/11 world.....but read on.........

The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK is authorized to clarify as follows in view of the grave situation prevailing on the [Korean] peninsula:

First, our Republic vehemently denounces and roundly refutes the UNSC "resolution", a product of the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK, and will not be bound to it in the least. Second, our Republic will bolster its war deterrent for self-defence in every way by all means and methods now that the situation has reached the worst phase due to the extremely hostile act of the U.S.


Oh that Kim he is such a clever fellow using American policy and American arguments. And the Americans will denounce North Korea as in violation of international law, kettle, pot, black.

This strategy is based on a conception of preemptive self-defense.10 Preemptive selfdefense,
however, is clearly unlawful under international law.The Myth of Preemptive Self-Defense


Along with this American Defense Policy Kim has made a recent foray into religion, funding a Russian Orthodox Church (from funds given by Russia, gee just like that Katrina disaster relief) and now inviting the American Evangelist of the Hour; Rick Warren to speak at an open air evangelical rally next spring.

Records from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom show that North Korea has one Catholic and two Protestant churches in addition to the new Russian Orthodox church.

Kim is appealing to the Bush Republican base with his policies.
And it is working. Evangelicals break with Bush on North Korea


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McGuinty Corporate Welfare

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you, guess it was a good thing Daltons pal Buzz missed this photo op.....

He left the family Honda at home, but Premier Dalton McGuinty was greeted by more jeers than cheers yesterday in the middle of an Oshawa General Motors assembly plant.This after being named "personality of the year" last week by Foreign Direct Investment magazine, a U.K. business publication, for his astute business acumen and passion for research and innovation.Some workers who joined in the catcalls said they were still angry with the premier for calling a 4,000-strong GM job cut "a little bit of contraction" in the auto industry last November. On hand yesterday to mark GM's plans to relaunch the Camaro, to be built in the plant for the 2009 model year, McGuinty was accused of taking advantage of a photo opportunity.Poor reception for McGuinty at GM

While amongst the right wing business types this corporate welfare is being denounced, quite humourously by Andrew Coyne, as another big tax hand out. Which it is and of course Coyne is right it's to produce the ultimate sixties gas guzzler; the Camaro.

So how come Dalton didn't tie his corporate welfare to production of hybrid and alternative energy automobiles, a green car? Oh because thats the NDP platform.....

Green backs for Green production...what a radical concept, it's called industrial ecology. A better environment plan than going nuke and banning coal...which is the other brilliant environmental policy of the McGuinty team in Canada's industrial heartland.


Also See:

GM

Social Ecology


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Katrina Mission Accomplished

A year after Katrina,just like Iraq, it is Mission Accomplished for the Bush team and their disaster/war profiteer pals....while they blame the victims for fraud.....
A review of congressional testimony and other documents by Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch found a total of at least $136.7 million in corporate fraud in Katrina-related contracts. In addition, government investigators have highlighted contracts cumulatively valued at $428.7 million that they found troubling because of lack of agency oversight or misappropriation.Profiting from Disaster: Greed Has Stallled Gulf Coast Recovery ...


Taxpayers around the nation who urged the federal government to pay for relief and reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina probably didn’t expect their money to be spent on $279 meals and $2,500 tarps. But according to a newly released report, corporations hired by the federal government have not only inflated costs but committed labor abuses and delayed the reconstruction process, making millions while local companies and workers have been left behind. Katrina Recovery Funds Wasted by Contractors, Govt.

Ever wonder what happened to all the foreign donations given to the United States in the aftermath of Katrina? It's not good news. It turns out that, like so much of the federal response to the crisis, the largest influx of foreign assistance to the US in memory was met with foot-dragging and clumsy bureaucracy. None of the donated funds has actually made its way to evacuees. What happened to the foreign cash for Katrina victims?

More Than Half of Congress' Katrina Money Unspent

Katrina Victims See Scant Evidence of Bush Funds in New Orleans


See Internationl Relief scams and scandals plaque the US just as they did the victims of the Tusanami in Indonesia and the earthquake in Pakistan. The difference is that under state capitalist regimes in Asia it is government inefficiency in the U.S. it is just the opposite.

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Post Katrina Monster Executed

This hundreds of years old behemoth, compare the size of the guy and the gator, arose from his/her slumbers awakened by the hurricane last year only to arise and surface to be killed for their efforts.

Some days it is better to not have gotten out of bed.

And while this photo and story about the gator in Texas circualte this is also claimed to be a photo from Flordia from a year ago.


Both versions of this story can't be true, obviously — the big gator couldn't have been shot in Texas and Florida — but the emailed image of game warden Joe Goff striding beside the hulking alligator he shot and killed in April 2005 is authentic.Giant Gator Bagged in Texas (or Florida) - Netlore Archive

Of course the reality is all about photoshop and perspective. Sort of like what the Tories have done on their webpage.


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Ignatieff NEP Lite

Liberal Leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff (The Man Who Would Be PET) has announced his Green Plan. Ignatieff proposes carbon tax at pump

In Alberta it reminds everyone, government and NDP opposition of the failed Trudeau NEP....not the NDP NEP which created PetroCanada and which rescued the declining petro industry in Calgary and Fort McMurray. But the Liberals tax and grab NEP....of course for Alberta Liberals, Ignatieff's plan reminds them of the NEP so they have been deafingly silent about it.


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Obama Misses The Real Crisis In Kenya

While lecturing Kenyans on AIDs the reality of poverty and famine in his familial homeland was overlooked by Democratic Senator Obama.

On his arrival earlier in Kisumu, he took an AIDS test at a local hospital with his wife Michelle, setting an example for the tens of thousands of Africans who fear the stigma of being tested for the disease ravaging sub-Saharan Africa

AIDs would be less of a problem if this was not happening;
Nightmare of Seeking Medical Care in N Kenya
or this;
The number of Kenyans in need of food aid has nearly doubled to almost four million,

Issues not addressed by the American Senator, showing that despite have his roots in Kenya, his focus is all American view that the only crisis in Africa is AIDS. Not the alarming poverty and cycle of famine that has succoured a mass of deadly tropical diseases, of which AIDS is only one.



U.S. Senator Barack Obama (C) gestures as holds his step grandmother Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama (R) as he returned to his ancestral rural village Kogelo August 26, 2006. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti
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Nuclear Chickens Come Home To Roost

US built major Iranian nuclear facility The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.

Iran was under the Shah whom the CIA put in place....and whose CIA trained secret police put opposition activists in jail. Of course that was the Cold War and as a result the CIA created the mess in Iran. Just as they created the situation the mess in Afghanistan; by arming the Mujahadin. Which through internecine conflicts ended up with the dominace of the Taliban and their support from and for Al-Qaeda.

The American occupation of Afghanistan is due to the failure of US Cold War Imperialism.

Also See

CIA

Afghanistan

Iran




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