Just discovered The Real News Network. WOW! It's a group of people doing intelligent reporting that is non-corporate and non-partisan. They're offering their reports on youtube for now, and begging for money so that they can get a television slot. I would LOVE to see this kind of news broadcast into homes across the US. I may actually send money. I watched three broadcasts this morning, all on foreign policy, and the best was this one. The main commentator has a thick accent, just get what you can. I was able to comprehend a lot of what he has to say, and it's a real education on the midle east. I will take in more of the Real News Network.

Aside: I just can't get over the fact that we now have a president who is enjoyable to listen to. Though in this clip when he starts talking about how we are going to help them "grow their economy" it gives me chills. In one of the other programs I watched they had a Pulizer prize winner saying that he thinks Obama has the rudiments of a real strategy for the middle east, and that it is a good one. That was reassuring. I still think Obama's pretty darn good, even though I disagree completely with the bailouts.

China now has more citizens with internet access than America, 253 million to 223.1 million.
The Hispanic population in America will outnumber whites in less than 100 years, if census trends continue.

In response to something I read on my FL (about a Canadian mother who put a swastika on her child's arm and lost custody of her children), I googled "neonazi", and then "swastika". I discovered the story "Swastika tops Google searches" from Sunday, July 13, 2008. When swastika searches are a "Hot Trend", you have to wonder what is going on. The google-watchers say that there was not a single big swastika-related news story or blog post that morning.
( explorations in the news )

Looking around at some of the utube recordings of Sunday's tea party re-enactments gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I am not the only one. The mass media and polls are not coming close to representing Dr Paul's base. The grass roots are actually sending up shoots! There is HOPE.
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This video contains sound footage of Ron Paul speaking, combined with photographs instead of video, so it is quick to download. It mainly concerns the fact that the mass corporate media is still studiously ignoring RP, andn the fact that the campaign is going surprisingly well, in spite of the media boycot. Not only is RP popular on the web, but he is being covered by more independent media sources. Young people are showing a strong interest in what RP has to say, which to me is not a surprise since they are the ones getting screwed by our current system. They stand to gain the most from a change of course. Here's the vid:



So one friend of mine recently heard RP speak and said that he is a "nut". He had in fact said that RP was a nut, then retracted it when I said I like RP, then restated the "nut" claim after another exposure. Because RP sounds so reasonable to me, I know that some of my most basic assumptions must be completely different from this friend. So my question to you: what is nutty about RP? From your point of view?

It turns out that the Shrub Regime thinks that we are dangerous. They want to regulate and influence the WEB in such a way as to support their corrupt practices worldwide. Check out what they're up to:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0127-04.htm