By Emily Spence

What an enjoyable summer many Americans experienced! Living in their own small air conditioned bubbles, they confirmed that whatever happened in the outside environment could be of little concern. Detached from the natural world, they passed between various cool zones with relative ease and no discomfort.

So for many, did it matter, for instance, that it was the hottest July on record for Wyoming, Montana and Idaho according to the NOAA National Weather Service? Who cared that Boise, Idaho’s average high temperature, a blistering 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C), was more than nine degrees F (five degrees C) above average so that July 2007 was Boise's hottest month ever documented? What difference did it make that drought conditions worsened in parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic while more than 5 million parched acres burned in the contiguous U.S. by early August according to the National Interagency Fire Center? So what that August, for the most part, was even worse [1]? Likewise, so it goes relative to the floods, hurricanes, droughts and other weather related extremes being faced in Europe, Australia, Africa, and all other land masses. So what if countless species are slowly being destroyed in the process while a vastly increasing amount of terrain is rendered unusable for any life [2]?

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Gilad Atzmon

There is an old Jewish joke that tells the story of a dying Jewish merchant who calls his son to his sickbed just before he perishes. He tells him, “Listen to me Moisha’le, life is not just about money… you can also do gold and diamonds.”

Monitoring Israeli and Jewish news reveals a devastating fact, it is not ‘just’ about money. It may also be about human organs. A few weeks ago we learned about a ring of American Rabbis who had been arrested in New Jersey upon suspicion of human organs trafficking (amongst many other crimes). Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, we read, enticed “vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000." Not too bad, I thought to myself then. We are living in hard times, financial melt down, credit crunch, Wall Street is licking its wounds, the car industry is evaporating. Seemingly, kidney trafficking is still booming.

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Pepe Escobar

As for the sham election, who cares who's the winner - Pashtun President Hamid Karzai, aka "the kebab seller", Tajik Abdullah Abdullah or anyone else? Afghanistan will be ruled by Barack Hussein Obama anyway.

America's convoluted, Alice-in-Wonderland interpretation of this summer's top political show - the "free expression of the people" in the Afghanistan election - reads like an opium dream. In fact, it is actually a pipe dream - as in Pipelineistan. With the added twist that no one's saying a word about the pipe that's delivering the opium dream.

As in an opium dream, delusion reigns. The chances of United States President Barack Obama actually elaborating what his AfPak strategy really is are as likely as having his super-envoy Richard Holbrooke share a pipe with explosive uber-guerrilla warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Obama says "success in Afghanistan" involves "diplomacy, development and good governance" - but all dazed and confused world public opinion sees are packs of extra marines being deployed to "fight the Taliban".

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by Rita Inklovich

They come in their thousands, waiting up to 36 hours to receive the only free medical care in America from Remote Area Medical, founded to provide basic free medical care in the 'third world' by Englishman/angel Stan Brock, shown holding the megaphone.

I am English (and a dual citizen of England and the United States) and I am increasingly frustrated with the misinformation reported regarding socialized medicine. Several opponents of health care reform--including major conservative radio and TV commentators and several republican politicians--claim that in England major surgery is not given to those over 59. This simply is NOT TRUE!

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by Stephen Lendman

Part II continues Petras' analysis of the global depression, regional wars, and the decline of America's empire.

Obama's Latin American Policy

At all times under all administrations, policy, not rhetoric, defines priorities, and it's no different for Obama. With regards to Latin America and its people, he's been hostile and dismissive by:

-- allocating half a billion dollars "in military and related aid" to aid the right wing Calderon regime and militarizing the US - Mexican border;

-- on the pretext of fighting drugs trafficking and regional security, funding to Mexico and Colombia goes for military purposes; Colombia gets the most - billions under Plan Colombia; economic aid is ignored;

-- beyond the timeline of Petras' book, Hugo Chavez and other regional leaders voiced concern over Washington's intention to supply Colombia with new weapons and technology, continued billions for the hardline "Uribe doctrine," and of greatest concern the plan to access seven new military bases - three airfields, two naval installations, and two army bases besides nine others currently stationing US forces all supplemented by the reactivated Fourth Fleet in April 2008;

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Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

The place where you live and the circumstances surround your daily life force you sometimes to endure great pain that overwhelmed you squash your heart, conquer your mind, and swallow your soul you to the darkest sides in your life. With such feelings, and state of mind you will be standing helplessly, paralyzed, unable to do any thing, or to make any kind of reaction, expect of a voiceless scream that even increases your pain, and leaving you in a great loss of time, place, and even your own humanity.

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Eric Walberg

Georgia is to Russia as Columbia is to Venezuela, and Kaidanow spells trouble, analyses:

War clouds refuse to disperse a year after Georgia waged war against Russia. On the anniversary of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's ill-fated invasion of South Ossetia 8 August, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned: "Georgia does not stop threatening to restore its 'territorial integrity' by force. Armed forces are concentrated at the borders near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and provocations are committed," including renewed Georgian shelling of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

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Peter Chamberlin

[Photo: RFID cattle ear tags] Have we really become “We the sheeple” or are we still human beings? The planet is dying under the thrall of a small minority of men who think of the rest of the human race as “cattle,” livestock for them to buy and sell.

The ruling class behaves much like a spoiled child, if they don’t get to have everything their way all of the time, they throw this massive temper tantrum and threaten to upset the whole game. They have gotten their way in everything for so long that they have fallen under the spell of their own propaganda. They believe that we are sub-human animals, who should be herded into the best outcome possible. But, have the rest of us begun to accept this as well?

As members of the human herd, most of us recoil at the “bovinian” suggestion, but consider just how much we do behave like a herd. We willingly accept being treated like a herd, trusting our lives to politicians because we appreciate not having to make hard decisions for ourselves, being contented as cows, as our leaders and their hired hands drive us down a path to destruction, for the sake of them making a few dollars more in profit.

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by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the wake of Bush's utter failures, lies, and crimes, the left-wing, by rights, should be tucking tail and seeking cover! Not so --Rush Limbaugh, to be expected of a crooked idiot has said he hopes Obama fails. Others have picked up the mantra!

It has been my experience in life, journalism and politics that two things among all others makes one miserable: 1) just wanting to stay alive, and 2) wishing failure or hardship upon someone else upon one's on evil, vile motives. My response: the GOP does not deserve to survive as a party, and, secondly, the GOP rise upon the backs of all those people for whom the GOP wish and, in fact, inflicted hardships.

The GOP shares this much with Nazis and other parties totalitarian inclined: the GOP cannot tell the truth and the truth is that it does not represent the electorate but a shrinking elite which amounts --last time I checked --to some 1 percent of the entire population and shrinking. They make up the rest by lying about their real intentions. Even then, they are a minority of about 30 to 40 percent hardcore who share two characteristics:

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Paul Craig Roberts

"In a little time [there will be] no middling sort. We shall have a few, and but a very few Lords, and all the rest beggars."—R.L. Bushman

"Rapidly you are dividing into two classes--extreme rich and extreme poor."—"Brutus"

Americans think that they have "freedom and democracy" and that politicians are held accountable by elections. The fact of the matter is that the US is ruled by powerful interest groups who control politicians with campaign contributions. Our real rulers are an oligarchy of financial and military/security interests and AIPAC, which influences US foreign policy for the benefit of Israel. -Have a look at economic policy. It is being run for the benefit of large financial concerns, such as Goldman Sachs.

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