Katie Makkai - Pretty

Katie Makkai, a veteran poetry slammer - defining the word "pretty".

Arresting Impunity

"Arresting Impunity" is a documentary about the attempts of citizens in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to uphold the rule of law when faced with a culture of impunity. After the attempted citizen's arrest by Splitting the Sky on George W. Bush in Calgary on March 17, 2009, Calgary became the focus of a citizens movement to hold Canadian law enforcement officials to account for their failure to arrest Bush when he visited Calgary, in his first visit without diplomatic immunity to a foreign country. Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney, Anthony Hall and Splitting the Sky feature prominently in the film. Such figures sought to draw attention to the international organized crime which has arisen since the fraudulent events of 9/11.

This documentary also hones in on the Conservative minority government of Canada which was asked by various legal analysts to arrest Bush when he came to Canada invoking the laws enshrined in Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (2000).

This film is produced and edited by Joshua Blakeney.

Watch this film:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1guceLXwXo
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42r0vv9Y4u4
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE8D3d_F1l0
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9aEfq1uCgg
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LHqaZAQNE0
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESGqPFzFGrM
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97XrqfB0NuM

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Julian Assange to RT: WikiLeaks gives 'most accurate picture of war'

The shocking WikiLeaks release, which has revealed thousands of unreported civilian casualties in Iraq, is the most accurate picture of war ever made, and it is food for thought, says the website's editor-in-chief. The report, condemned by the Pentagon, claims that US commanders in Iraq ignored evidence of torture and the murder of civilians. "This material has revealed 15,000 previously unreported, undocumented civilian casualties. That's an extraordinary number of people who have never been spoken about before," Julian Assange said. "We also see that the cover up of torture by coalition forces well after Abu Ghraib was a concrete policy, a secret policy: to not intervene with torture conducted by the fledgling Iraqi government," he added. "This is the most accurate description of a war that has ever been released into the historic record. There is nothing comparable. It is the details of the deaths of 109,000 people, the wounding of 170,000 people, the detaining of nearly 200,000 people during a course of six years. Of course, that is only about a half the military action that went on during that period, because it is only the US view on things, but even so we see that there is nearly no street corner in Baghdad that did not have a body found that had been killed through violence in one form or another," he said. "We should start imagining it or stop supporting it. It is not good to support things that you do not understand," he pointed out. "We need to understand what the reality of war is, if we are going to choose to engage in it." Assange said that WikiLeaks was now expecting some kind of response from the Pentagon, a counter-attack that follows each of the website's releases. "Last time it was names appearing in the material, which the Pentagon managed to successfully fool the press into believing was going to be a great big assassination list for the Taliban. But in fact, nearly all of those names were right to appear; they were the names of governors who were taking bribes by the US military, or the names of the radio stations that were taking bribes to put on propaganda content... As recently as last week, NATO officials in Kabul said they could not find a single person that needed protecting or moving... And a letter has come out that was originally written on August 16th by Defense Secretary Gates stating that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods were revealed in that material, but of course, this was not the public line," he said.




U.S. commanders in Iraq ignored evidence of torture and often failed to investigate the killing of civilians. These are the major findings from the leak of 400,000 secret American military files from the whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks. The data describes widespread brutal torture of detainees by Iraqi troops - with some documents showing American authorities often turned a blind eye. The files also reveal that 66,000 civilians were killed in Iraq since the U.S. invaded - even though Washington had denied it kept any such record. The Pentagon's condemned what is the largest-ever leak of classified documents - saying it will only serve to help America's enemies.

Colgate Accused of Stealing Thousand-Year-Old Toothpaste

A legal dispute between the U.S. and India over a herbal toothpaste was leaving a bitter aftertaste between the two countries Thursday, with Colgate Palmolive accused of filing a bogus patent.

Colgate, the world's largest producer of toothpaste, patented a toothcleaning powder in the hope that it would take the multibillion-dollar Indian oral hygiene market by storm.

However, Indian activists claim that the patent is bogus because the ingredients -- including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint -- have been used for the same purpose for hundreds, “if not thousands,” of years on the subcontinent.

The dispute is likely to become a test case for who owns India's folk medicines -- a repository potentially worth billions.

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Iraq War Veteran Returns His Medals in Protest

Army Specialist Mike Sanger unpinned his medals and stuck it to Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore not supporting the troops.

Supporting the troops and destroying the war at http://www.michaelmoore.com/

This Aborted Earth: The Quest Begins

This Aborted Earth' immerses the viewer in a surreal retro-Gilliam world composed entirely of animated black and white engravings from the 19th & early 20th century. The result: an incredible misfit earth skewed violently from, yet oddly related to, our own reality. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution: all failures. Chaos, desolation and destruction abound. And so, from a tyrannical church-state, one of the only remaining bastions of "civilization," a sacred quest goes forth. A holy - albeit bloodthirsty - knight, General Thaddeus Twer, must seek the last good man on this ruined world (for reasons murky at best.) Accompanying him: Saint Gluestick, a sarcastic skinless horse, unwillingly canonized and drafted for the mission.

This video has been shortlisted for YouTube Play. See the shortlist at youtube.com/play. Official Selection of the 2010 LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival.

'It is unique in journalistic history'

From WikiLeaks expanded collaboration with media to 'maximise exposure' for Iraq War Logs sources by Rachel McAthy, Journalism.co.uk

WikiLeaks expanded its media collaborations for the release of the Iraq War Logs in order to maximise the exposure of the documents' contents for the sources behind the leaks.

Almost 400,000 military documents were released to media outlets across the world in what WikiLeaks is claiming to be the biggest leak of military documents in history.

According to WikiLeaks, the 391,832 reports document the war and occupation in Iraq from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2009, excluding the months of May 2004 and March 2009, “as told by soldiers in the United States Army”.

“Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.”

Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for the whistleblowing website, seen in interview in this video at the Frontline Club, said WikiLeaks worked with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to ensure maximum coverage.

“We thought and believed that we should expand this group to include more media in this process,” he said.

“Through the Bureau of Investigative Journalism we have achieved that. This is all in line with the promise made to sources to maximise the impact of the material that they leak to WikiLeaks.

“It is unique in journalistic history, I think, to have so many media outlets working on the same material at the same time. The media outlets are not used to these kinds of projects, they are not used to cooperating on a basis such as this one. We relied pretty much on the expertise and skill that was provided by the news outlets. There were probably 40 or 50 professional journalists working on the material and with researchers and additional people there were probably up to 100 people.”

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Musical Innerlube: Wandering Pixie Gypsy Life V2 (original by Green of Avalon Roots) - The Shaken Oak Sessions

Pixie Gypsy Life - Inspired by Green and Avalon Roots original version, title and concept by Green, lyrics by KP.

The Hang melody is based on Basra, a Russian folk song. Daniel Waples on PanART Hang Drum, KP Kev the Poet on vocals, Rainbo Ninjah on percussion, Meinl Ibo and Menl Cahon and backing vocals, Mike Stanton on high vibration (and guitar!)

Potential footage for the forthcoming Synchroflow TV Show...

Will The Riots Spread To England?

October 21, 2010 BBC World News
http://MOXNews.com

And a video from France:

Will the Federal Reserve Cause a Civil War?

Stephen Gandel comments on TIME magazine's The curious Capitalist Blog:

Usually, there is generally a consensus about what the Federal Reserve should do. When the economy is weak, the Fed cuts short-term interest rates to spur borrowing and economic activity. When the economy is strong and inflation is rising, it does the opposite. But nearly two years after the Fed cut short-term interest rates to basically zero, more and more economists are questioning whether the US central bank is making the right moves. The economy is still very weak and unemployment seems stubbornly stuck near 10%.

The problem is the Fed only directly sets short-term interest rates. And they are already about as close to zero as you can go. That's why Ben Bernanke has been recently talking about something called "quantitative easing." That's when the Fed basically creates money to buy the long-term bonds that it doesn't directly control, and drive down those interest rates as well. That should further reduce the cost of borrowing for large companies and homeowners. Some people are calling this "QE2" because the Fed made a similar move during the height of the financial crisis when it bought mortgage bonds. (See photos of the Tea Party movement)

Not everyone agrees this is a good move. In fact, a number of presidents of regional Fed banks, not all of which get to vote at Fed policy meetings, have recently come out against Bernanke's plans. Some say it sets bad policy. Others think it will stoke inflation, which might be the point. Few, though, have warned of armed conflict. Here's how Zerohedge justifies its prediction of why the Fed's Nov. 3rd meeting will lead to violence:

In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs - on purpose. He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled instead of being abused by the kleptocrats he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic.

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