the/diseased/republik

remarks made by Mr. Putin @ the Speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy 02/10/2007: (The speech was held in Russian. Find the English excerpts translation below.) " I am truly grateful to be invited to such a representative conference that has assembled politicians, military officials, entrepreneurs and experts from more than 40 nations. This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And if my comments seem unduly polemical, pointed or inexact to our colleagues, then I would ask you not to get angry with me. After all, this is only a conference. And I hope that after the first two or three minutes of my speech Mr Teltschik will not turn on the red light over there. Therefore. It is well known that international security comprises much more than issues relating to...

Fantastic Lad sends us to Wired for a story on the upside of nicotine. Researchers are developing drugs based on nicotine that may prove beneficial for [ 0 ]brains, bowels, blood vessels and immune systems. "Nicotine acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain, stimulating and regulating the release of a slew of brain chemicals, including seratonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Now drugs derived from nicotine and the research on nicotine receptors are in clinical trials for everything from helping to heal wounds, to depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, anger management and anxiety." A separate story talks about [ 1 ]nicotine warding off Parkinson's disease. source -- slashdot

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 09, @04:07PM Researchers in Madrid are claiming that they have discovered that a type of wax found in olive skin can help to slow the spread of HIV . "Their work shows that maslinic acid - a natural product extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills - inhibits serin-protease, an enzyme used by HIV to release itself from the infected cell into the extracellular environment and, consequently, to spread the infection into the whole body. These scientists from Granada determined that the use of olive-pomace oil can produce an 80% slowing down in AIDS spreading in the body."

"You want a toe? I can get you a toe. Believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't want to know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon. With nail polish."

In a move that stunned most of the world, Putin proffered want amounts to a NATO/EASTERN-BLOC Defence Force! FTA: Putin proposes joint US-Russian base to overcome missile crisis Published: 6/7/2007 HEILIGENDAMM - President Vladimir Putin on Thursday offered to set up a joint Russian-US anti-missile base to end a crisis between the two countries as Group of Eight leaders agreed a face-saving compromise on climate change. Putin made the startling proposal for a base to be located in Azerbaijan during talks with US President George W. Bush aimed at rescuing relations between the two countries from a post-Cold War low. The two met on the sidelines of the G8 summit in the German resort of Heiligendamm where police arrested another 300 demonstrators and police vessels rammed two Greenpeace boats that entered a maritime exclusion zone around the summit venue. Russia angrily opposes a US proposal to set up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and Putin had previously threa...

Mr Bush, en route to the G8 summit in Germany, is visiting the Czech Republic and then Poland - two countries where the US seeks to build a missile shield. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to aim weapons at Europe if the US sets up a missile shield. Correspondents say the rhetoric has echoes of Cold War rivalry. White House officials insist that President Bush's speech is not about Russia but rather renewing his commitment to spreading freedom and democracy. See map of US missile defence bases However, the BBC's Jonathan Beale , who is travelling with Mr Bush, says the president is expected to talk about the difficulties of promoting democracy in countries such as Russia and highlight concerns about the Kremlin's tightening grip on power. Washington has dismissed talk of a new Cold War but says the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin has worrying echoes belonging to that era and wants the words toned down. Any criticism will not be welcomed by Moscow and can o...

Removal from office Article II of the Constitution provides that the president may be removed from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors " through impeachment and subsequent conviction. Article I gives the power of impeachment to a majority of the House of Representatives and conviction to two-thirds of the Senate . Two presidents, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, have been impeached. Neither was subsequently convicted by the Senate; however, Johnson was acquitted by just one vote. By Act of Congress, the president may resign if his written resignation is delivered to the Secretary of State . [9] The only president to resign was Richard Nixon , on August 9 , 1974 , facing articles of impeachment being reported on favorably by the House Judiciary Committee and probable subsequent Senate conviction. If the office of President becomes vacant, whether through death, impeachment, or resignation of the sitting president, or throu...

o the rot within… the time of american hegemony is over. the fractured state of american society and bilateral disfunction of the political apparatus are the main contributing factors. collective guilt, bankrupt corporate ethics and the lack of personal accountability fuel the disease that is killing the amerikan republik. the global neighborhood has caught a whiff of the decay and the buzzards are starting to circle. the potential for increased societal control of a mistrustful and mutually fearing population already divided by class and economics is at hand. fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by a mass media who wishes to create a culture of fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad). a few techniques the fearmonger uses to distract the public’s attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like: * careful selection and omission ...

Beginning January 2006, a movement to revive the SDS took shape. A small group of SDS veterans (Robert Alan Haber, Tom Good, Paul Buhle) have joined with high school students, Jessica Rapchick and Pat Korte, to call for a new formation of SDS in to build a multi-issue organization that could re-envision a student movement in the United States. Several chapters at various colleges were subsequently formed. On Martin Luther King Day of 2006, these chapters banded together to issue a press release that stated their intentions to reform the national SDS organization.[4] In the press release, the SDS called for the organization's first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 and to have it preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring during the Memorial Day weekend. These regional conferences would not also be the first of their kind to be held since 1969, however, as on April 23, 2006, the SDS held a northeast regional conference at Brown University. F...

The AP is reporting that a military judge has thrown out terrorism charges against Omar Khadr, a detainee at Guantanamo that could undo the whole War Crimes trials system. However, what may be more stunning is that this ruling could throw out THE ENTIRE WAR-CRIMES TRIAL SYSTEM. And how? Because of a technicality which appears to have been caused by circumventing the Constitution and other deceptive practices. The Geneva Convention, which is US law, requires a legal entity (e.g., a court) to first determine that a prisoner is an UNLAWFUL enemy combatant before we can abandon the military-POW-specific elements of the convention. In that case, however, the prisoner should be tried according to international or civilian (e.g., US, or local) law. If the prisoner is a LAWFUL combatant, then the Geneva Convention's POW provisions apply. There are only those two options, and BushCo had to choose one or the other. They chose neither. Bush has so far only vaguely claimed these men are unlaw...

For good reason, many of us have become cynical about what politics can achieve in this country. And as many Americans have turned away from Washington, we know all too well what's filled the void. It's the lobbyists and influence-peddlers with the cash and the connections -- the ones who've turned government into a game only they can afford to play. They write the checks and we all get stuck with the bills. They think they own this government. But today, we're here to tell them it's not for sale. So far, just this month, over 40,000 people have stepped up to own a piece of this campaign and prove them wrong. But the special interests and Washington insiders believe that they can still use their power and influence to control politics. They do not understand the power of the American people's will to change. They do not understand that when ordinary people come together, they can do extraordinary things. They believe that hope is a fleeting feeling, and that peo...