War is a racket

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 June 21, 1940), nicknamed “The Fighting Quaker” and “Old Gimlet Eye,” was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. In his 1935 book, War Is a Racket, Butler presented an exposé and trenchant condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. His views …

“Really a war of resources”

05.03.2008 Interview with Dr. Abulhay Y. Zalloum about the history of oil and its importance for the 20th century “Really a war of resources”Dr. Zalloum: Let us not forget that I lost my country, Palestine, because it was promised by a British Lord to another British Lord. I was always intrigued to find out about the …

A $3 trillion dollar war with $615 billion in interest

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/stiglitz200804?printable=true&currentPage=all“8. Add interest. The U.S. has borrowed most of the funds used to wage the Iraq war. We will have to repay this debt with interest. If we include in our tally the interest payable on what we are borrowing over only the next 10 years, this adds another $615 billion to the price tag, and brings …

A hypnotic trance

What explains mankind’s rush to extinction and to destruction of the biosphere if not hypnotic trance? Allah, exalted is He, says in Surat al-A’raf about the magicians of Pharaoh:  “And when they threw,  they cast a spell on the people’s eyes and caused them to feel great fear of them. They produced an extremely powerful …

The dollar versus gold? No contest

“As a medium of exchange, money needs to have convertibility and liquidity. Paper currencies have these qualities, so does gold. To add to the store of value, money needs to retain its value over long periods. “Gold has retained its value, though with fluctuations, over centuries. Even now its purchasing power in terms of physical …

Den gavmilde Qur’an

Koen – Al-Baqara I Allahs navn, Den AlnÃ¥dige, Den NÃ¥defulde 1       Alif Lam Mim.        Det er Bogen uden tvivl.        Den indeholder vejledning for de som vogter sig; 2              de som tror pÃ¥ det usete og iværksætter bønnen               og giver ud af det som Vi har forsørget dem med; 3              de som tror pÃ¥ det som er blevet sendt ned …

Appalling level of public discourse

What the affair of the Archbishop and his thoughtful talk on the Shari’a has underlined is the appalling level of public discourse in the media today. This applies to parliamentarians, journalists and writers, intellectuals, artists, and a wide range of public figures. They were simply incapable of handling his nuanced arguments, and I am not …

Information and knowledge

One of the vital matters for the information age is to know the difference between information and knowledge. If one is informed of something that someone else knows then that is information. When one knows it oneself with genuine knowing then it is knowledge. Quite properly in every culture there are means to verify information. …

The LAT points out that it was the fifth school shooting in a week.

Lecture Nightmare   By Daniel Politi Posted Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at 6:17 AM ET USA Today and the Los Angeles Times lead with the shooting at Northern Illinois University, where a gunman walked into a geology class and began firing. The gunman, who was identified as a former graduate student, killed five students and injured 16 others (at …