Devolution

 I find it tragic and not just a bit abhorrent that, we as Americans pander to a political civil war and abject unrest.  Politics encompasses so many of the “Shades of Grey” that the Constitution has been reinterpreted to accommodate, that, left unchecked has created a situation in our very fabric that has become untenable as well as inexcusable…

Andrew

National Tragedy
Three years ago, I began a national campaign for academic freedom designed to promote the restoration of academic standards, including intellectual diversity, in institutions of higher learning. I did so having visited more than three hundred campuses in the previous fifteen years and having interviewed several thousand students during these visits. In the course of these visits, I came to be familiar with the massive corruption of the academic enterprise that had occurred since I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, which had transformed large segments of the liberal arts schools into political parties of the academic left. This corruption was the result of a determined campaign by Gramscian radicals to use the universities as a platform for their “transformative” agendas of radical social change. In pursuit of their goals, they had created entire academic departments and fields, while subverting others in order to institute programs of study that were ideological rather than scholarly in content and design. To further these goals, they had instituted a system of intolerance (“political correctness”) to de-legitimize alternative intellectual paradigms and ideas, and had put in place the largest and most effective blacklist in the history of the country, whose purpose was to rid faculties of independent-minded professors, who might interfere with their designs.
General Introduction to the “Indoctrination Studies” Section
By David Horowitz
September 15, 2006
Frontpage
magaazine

Border B_ _ _ _ _
Let’s take a look at the man who spoke these words, and who was entrusted by Mrs. Clinton to fill one of the most vital positions in her campaign.
Hillary’s Open Borders
Disgrace
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 24, 2007
Frontpage Magazine

A Democrat Love Affair
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (April 24) – Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells toward Israel on Tuesday and said they considered a five-month truce with Israel to have come to an end.
Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel
Muslim Militant Group Declares Truce Over
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
AP

Tax Hike
“I propose we eliminate 500,000 government contracting positions . . . and that we insist on competitive bidding for the remaining contracts,” Clinton declared
Hillary: I’ll Terminate Federal Contractors
From the NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story…
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:29 a.m. EDT

Devolution
Crow has suggested using “only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required”.
Crow calls for limit on loo paper
BBC News

Bacon on the Hill
When she couldn’t tally enough votes, she added $24 billion in pork – much in the form of agricultural subsidies helpful to rural Democratic lawmakers.
Pelosi insisted the spending wasn’t pork.
It’s unknown whether the non-partisan CRS would have made the same determination.
Transparency in Government Takes a Hit
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Based on content analysis of global media and interviews with many diplomats and journalists,
this paper describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate,
becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare. The paper also shows how an open society,
Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost
total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda.
“The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media As A Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict”

Manifesto
Perhaps the most serious charge made by the media throughout the war was that Israel was indiscriminately targeting civilians. Groups such as Human Rights Watch made the allegation, which was then publicized uncritically by reporters. Although Israel underscored that it was Hezbollah that was using civilians as shields, the media relied on the allegations of Kenneth Roth, the executive director of HRW, who charged, falsely, that Israel’s military showed “disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians.”
The Media’s War on Israel
By Mitchell Bard
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 24, 2007

Misconduct! Or Not…

Comedians have complete ‘Comedic License’ which gives them the qualification and freedom to say whatever they want, professors can outright lie and claim it as truth or even hide behind the auspice of opinion, but radio announcers who by nature and industry are premised to be controversial , become targeted by a specific political agenda, and are absolutely ostracized for just speaking in the arena of comedy and opinion. Forgiveness seems no longer to be existential, but has become more a question of the evolution of a culture of prevaricated declaration.

Andrew

Don’t dismiss him

By RACHEL BERNS Colorado Daily Staff
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:53 PM MDT

For the past two years, Professor Ward Churchill has faced an ongoing battle with his employers at CU. Now, almost a year after being recommended for dismissal by former Chancellor Phil DiStefano, powerful scholars from across the nation are speaking out to reverse Churchill’s discharge.

Law Professor Derrick Bell of New York University’s School of Law, Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other prominent professors are involved in this effort and published a letter in the recent edition of the New York Review of Books.

“The New York Review of Books is the most widely read periodical by intellectuals in America and other parts of the world,” said Reggie Dylan on April 2, who worked with Professor Richard Falk in drafting the letter. “(The letter’s) purpose is to draw attention and to make people aware of the gravity of the case and to call on them to do everything they can to challenge the administration.”

In early 2005, Churchill’s Internet-published essay regarding the 9/11 terrorist attacks became a source of criticism. In it, he questioned the innocence of many killed that day and caused an outrage. While Interim Chancellor DiStefano supported Churchill’s right to freedom of speech, he publicly condemned the statements made in the essay.

After over a year of review and investigation, the University’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct recommended that Churchill be penalized for repeated acts of “serious research misconduct” in June of 2006. In August of that year, the University of Colorado Student Union (UCSU) passed a resolution supporting the university’s decision to fire Professor Churchill.

Shortly after, scholars from across the country began showing their support for Churchill. Dylan said that the opposition for the case has been kept out of the public eye until recently and that there are a growing number of scholars from around the country who support the reversal of the pending dismissal. The publication of the letter is meant to encourage more people to speak out.

He said that the letter is just the beginning of a new wave of outrage and that newspapers from around the country are asking that copies of the letter be printed in their papers.

The letter states, in part, “The relentless pursuit of and punitive approach of the University of Colorado at Boulder to Professor Ward Churchill is a revealing instance of the ethos that is currently threatening academic freedom. The voice of the university and intellectual community needs to be heard strongly and unequivocally in defense of dissent and critical thinking. And one concrete expression of such a resolve is to oppose the recommended dismissal of Ward Churchill from his position as a senior tenured faculty member.”

The bigger issue, Dylan claimed, is the way CU President Hank Brown was hired (he recently announced his plans to retire in 2008). He said that Brown, a former Republican senator, is a co-founder of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), which claimed that American universities are the “weak link” in the country’s defense of terrorism. Brown replaced former CU President Elizabeth Hoffman almost immediately after she stated that Churchill’s case resembled McCarthyism.

“Brown is now in a position to decide whether Churchill will be fired,” Dylan said. “He claims he is an honest broker and (that) he hasn’t made a decision. This is an absolute lie. Brown was brought into the university to get rid of Churchill.”

Ken Mcconnellogue, the associate vice president for university relations, said this claim is false. He said that President Brown was brought to the university to do the job of a president and that the notion he was brought to CU for “this one expressed purpose is ridiculous.

“People are free to express their opinions and if they want to do that through a paid advertisement, that’s their prerogative,” Mcconnellogue said in regard to the letter.

Former CU professional research assistant Ernesto Vigil, who was employed with the Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA) from 1989-1990, delivered a notarized document consisting of 30 pages about Churchill to Regent Hall in April 2005. According to Colorado Daily archives, Vigil believed the paper proved that Churchill was not an American Indian and that he committed academic fraud on multiple occasions.

“Ward Churchill is a fake and this has been known for a long time,” Vigil told the Colorado Daily in 2005. “This stuff is not new. These aren’t new revelations.”

According to the article, several professors have doubted some of Churchill’s research on Native American history. Professor Fay G. Cohen of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia reported that Churchill plagiarized an essay she wrote about Indian fishing treaty rights.

CU alumnus and director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project, a higher education policy center dedicated to free speech, individual rights and fiscal accountability Jessica Peck Corry authored a report on legal standards for inquiry in the Churchill investigation. In the report, she stated that not only does CU have the legal right to dismiss Professor Churchill, but also the legal responsibility.

“Education is about honoring truth, always and everywhere,” the report states. “Tenure is about keeping your word, a two-way contractual obligation. Hence academic freedom confers no license to lie. By this standard, and nothing less, must all our universities and all their professors be judged.”

She states that in order for the university to withhold its “professional integrity and academic legitimacy,” CU should terminate the Churchill’s position as a tenured professor. Corry acknowledges the professor’s right to the First Amendment, but believes that there are grounds for dismissal due to his actions that concur with the Laws of the Regents provisions for the termination of tenured faculty including “his demonstrable professional incompetence, his neglect of duty, and his flagrant, persistent failure to meet minimum standards of professional integrity.”

“At this point, any defense of Ward Churchill is simply a defense of bad scholarship and bad ethics,” Corry said in an e-mail Wednesday. “While three years have passed since thousands of people across America called for Churchill’s resignation, CU is still trying to fire him at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.”

Many university students and officials continue to stand behind Professor Churchill and believe in the reversal of his dismissal. Throughout the remainder of the week, the Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom (STAF) will hold numerous local events in support of him.

Contact Rachel Berns about this story at (303) 443-6272, ext. 113, or at editor@coloradodaily.com.

Misconduct! Or Not…

Comedians have complete ‘Comedic License’ which gives them the qualification and freedom to say whatever they want, professors can outright lie and claim it as truth or even hide behind the auspice of opinion, but radio announcers who by nature and industry are premised to be controversial , become targeted by a specific political agenda, and are absolutely ostracized for just speaking in the arena of comedy and opinion. Forgiveness seems no longer to be existential, but has become more a question of the evolution of a culture of prevaricated declaration.

Andrew

Don’t dismiss him

By RACHEL BERNS Colorado Daily Staff
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:53 PM MDT

For the past two years, Professor Ward Churchill has faced an ongoing battle with his employers at CU. Now, almost a year after being recommended for dismissal by former Chancellor Phil DiStefano, powerful scholars from across the nation are speaking out to reverse Churchill’s discharge.

Law Professor Derrick Bell of New York University’s School of Law, Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other prominent professors are involved in this effort and published a letter in the recent edition of the New York Review of Books.

“The New York Review of Books is the most widely read periodical by intellectuals in America and other parts of the world,” said Reggie Dylan on April 2, who worked with Professor Richard Falk in drafting the letter. “(The letter’s) purpose is to draw attention and to make people aware of the gravity of the case and to call on them to do everything they can to challenge the administration.”

In early 2005, Churchill’s Internet-published essay regarding the 9/11 terrorist attacks became a source of criticism. In it, he questioned the innocence of many killed that day and caused an outrage. While Interim Chancellor DiStefano supported Churchill’s right to freedom of speech, he publicly condemned the statements made in the essay.

After over a year of review and investigation, the University’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct recommended that Churchill be penalized for repeated acts of “serious research misconduct” in June of 2006. In August of that year, the University of Colorado Student Union (UCSU) passed a resolution supporting the university’s decision to fire Professor Churchill.

Shortly after, scholars from across the country began showing their support for Churchill. Dylan said that the opposition for the case has been kept out of the public eye until recently and that there are a growing number of scholars from around the country who support the reversal of the pending dismissal. The publication of the letter is meant to encourage more people to speak out.

He said that the letter is just the beginning of a new wave of outrage and that newspapers from around the country are asking that copies of the letter be printed in their papers.

The letter states, in part, “The relentless pursuit of and punitive approach of the University of Colorado at Boulder to Professor Ward Churchill is a revealing instance of the ethos that is currently threatening academic freedom. The voice of the university and intellectual community needs to be heard strongly and unequivocally in defense of dissent and critical thinking. And one concrete expression of such a resolve is to oppose the recommended dismissal of Ward Churchill from his position as a senior tenured faculty member.”

The bigger issue, Dylan claimed, is the way CU President Hank Brown was hired (he recently announced his plans to retire in 2008). He said that Brown, a former Republican senator, is a co-founder of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), which claimed that American universities are the “weak link” in the country’s defense of terrorism. Brown replaced former CU President Elizabeth Hoffman almost immediately after she stated that Churchill’s case resembled McCarthyism.

“Brown is now in a position to decide whether Churchill will be fired,” Dylan said. “He claims he is an honest broker and (that) he hasn’t made a decision. This is an absolute lie. Brown was brought into the university to get rid of Churchill.”

Ken Mcconnellogue, the associate vice president for university relations, said this claim is false. He said that President Brown was brought to the university to do the job of a president and that the notion he was brought to CU for “this one expressed purpose is ridiculous.

“People are free to express their opinions and if they want to do that through a paid advertisement, that’s their prerogative,” Mcconnellogue said in regard to the letter.

Former CU professional research assistant Ernesto Vigil, who was employed with the Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA) from 1989-1990, delivered a notarized document consisting of 30 pages about Churchill to Regent Hall in April 2005. According to Colorado Daily archives, Vigil believed the paper proved that Churchill was not an American Indian and that he committed academic fraud on multiple occasions.

“Ward Churchill is a fake and this has been known for a long time,” Vigil told the Colorado Daily in 2005. “This stuff is not new. These aren’t new revelations.”

According to the article, several professors have doubted some of Churchill’s research on Native American history. Professor Fay G. Cohen of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia reported that Churchill plagiarized an essay she wrote about Indian fishing treaty rights.

CU alumnus and director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project, a higher education policy center dedicated to free speech, individual rights and fiscal accountability Jessica Peck Corry authored a report on legal standards for inquiry in the Churchill investigation. In the report, she stated that not only does CU have the legal right to dismiss Professor Churchill, but also the legal responsibility.

“Education is about honoring truth, always and everywhere,” the report states. “Tenure is about keeping your word, a two-way contractual obligation. Hence academic freedom confers no license to lie. By this standard, and nothing less, must all our universities and all their professors be judged.”

She states that in order for the university to withhold its “professional integrity and academic legitimacy,” CU should terminate the Churchill’s position as a tenured professor. Corry acknowledges the professor’s right to the First Amendment, but believes that there are grounds for dismissal due to his actions that concur with the Laws of the Regents provisions for the termination of tenured faculty including “his demonstrable professional incompetence, his neglect of duty, and his flagrant, persistent failure to meet minimum standards of professional integrity.”

“At this point, any defense of Ward Churchill is simply a defense of bad scholarship and bad ethics,” Corry said in an e-mail Wednesday. “While three years have passed since thousands of people across America called for Churchill’s resignation, CU is still trying to fire him at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.”

Many university students and officials continue to stand behind Professor Churchill and believe in the reversal of his dismissal. Throughout the remainder of the week, the Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom (STAF) will hold numerous local events in support of him.

Contact Rachel Berns about this story at (303) 443-6272, ext. 113, or at editor@coloradodaily.com.

The Deception

The Arab League Initiative states that Israel must accept all terms and negotiate for re-determinations afterwards. It also states that The realization of a Palestinian state must be accomplished with the resurgence of boundaries claimed before 1967, yet there was no Palestinian border prior to 1967 that fits the stated criteria.

Security Council resolution 1435 (2002)

The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002

Moussa: No plans to modify Arab peace initiative

Hamas, the Arab Peace Initiative and reality

Ban Ki-moon lauds Arab League’s commitment to revitalize Middle East peace plan

19 April 2007 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the statement by a committee of League of Arab States regarding the resuscitation of the Arab Peace Initiative, which in the past he has called one of the pillars of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Yesterday’s announcement by the Arab Ministerial Committee for the Arab Peace Initiative “indicates increased engagement of the League of Arab States to reinvigorate the peace process,” according to a statement issued by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson.

The Initiative, adopted during the Beirut Arab Summit in March 2002, is based on the principle of land for peace.

The plan calls for Israeli withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied since 1967, recognition of an independent Palestinian State and provision of a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees. In return, Arab countries would recognize Israel, end their conflict and normalize relations.

Mr. Ban also “looks forward to meeting with” the Initiative’s Ministerial Committee, which was created by the League to promote the peace process.

In his opening address at the League of Arab States summit last month, Mr. Ban said that the Initiative “suggests a new way forward for the region” after decades of division over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ban Ki-moon lauds Arab League’s commitment to revitalize Middle East peace plan

If Not For Fear, Then What?

Russia builds new nuclear sub equipped with Bulava-M quasi-ballistic missiles

War against Iran is only one drop of blood away

Russia Plans World’s Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska

Al-Qaida Chief Appointed

Terror Group Posts Execution Video

Bush fears nuclear arms race in Middle East

Iran tells U.S. it has no details on ex-FBI agent

Muslim militants behead 7 captives in Philippines

U.S. calms allies on missile shield, but not Russia

German minister sparks row over anti-terror measures

Reporter’s Notebook: A New Kremlin Curtain Being Drawn

Pakistanis March Against Clerics Behind ‘Talibanization’

Ivanov: U.S. interfering in Russia

Taliban impersonating police

US takes firm line in nuclear negotiations with India

US favours diplomacy on Iran: Gates

Maliki sees ‘open battle’ for control of Iraq

UN agency confirms advances by Iran’s nuclear program

Bush: Iraq Must Not Become Terrorists’ Safe Haven

President Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror in Tipp City, Ohio

The New New World Order

Lessons to Learn (From Other Countries)

The secret police of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu recruited thousands of children to spy on schoolfriends, parents and teachers, according to communist-era archives. They show that the Securitate blackmailed children across Romania into becoming informers in the late 1980s, as the whiff of liberalisation in the Soviet bloc prompted Ceausescu to tighten his grip on the country.  More

Check out my Slide Show!

Any Which Way You Can

Country profile: Turkey
Timeline: Turkey

Turks wary of possible Islamist power play

Ralston: Turkey may cross Iraqi border late April

Turkish belligerence and Kurdish naiveté

US against possibility of cross-border operation

Tehran urges Ankara to implement energy deal

Merkel warns Erdoğan about Hamas

EU welcomes Turkey’s reform action plan

Political identity of PM is not clear, claims Baykal

Turkey expects actions from Iraq

Iraqi Turkmen Front seeks support for Kirkuk demonstration

Iran seeks united front against US dominance at Egypt meeting

Turkish Jews to appeal US Congress on resolution

Iraq, Kurds play hardball on expanding territory

Nothing is What it Seems

 Iraq’s Shiite political fissures widen 

Ahmadinejad: U.N. Sanctions Have No Effect on Iran Armed Forces

Iranian Weapons Intended for Taliban Intercepted in Afghanistan

Ahmadinejad: New U.N. Sanctions Will Mean More Nuclear Development

Olmert: No Syria attack plans

U.S. eyes Iran in Afghanistan

Bomb Kills 4 U.N. Guards in Afghanistan

US: ‘Iran weapons going to Taliban’

Qaeda group says Iraq a ‘university of terror’

U.N. Council Authorizes Lebanese Mission

Nigerian army attacks Islamists

U.N. council authorizes Lebanese mission

Russia could inspect Polish missile site : U.S

jus ad bellum

Explosions rock Algerian capital

Spy chief wants expanded powers

WORLD BRIEFINGS
By Suzan Fraser
ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 11, 2007

Moscow vexed by Iran air defense drills

Bush reprimands Democrats over delay in war financing

Ahmadinejad Bluffing to Hide His Weakness

World Condemns Iran’s Defiance Over Nuclear Program

Iraqis demand U.S. ouster

Extremists force women to hide under head scarves

Islamic Unity Conference Condemns Zionist Aggression against the Palestinian people

Member of US House of Representatives: “Syria Believes in Dialogue in its relations with America

THE NEW TOTALITARIANS:
SOCIAL IDENTITIES AND RADICAL ISLAMIST
POLITICAL GRAND STRATEGY