A woman with an attack of flatulence recently forced a commercial airliner to the ground after other passengers began to complain of sulphur fumes in the cabin! True story, but I wouldn’t attempt to convince the sceptics, too hard! [See link.] There is power in them thar farts, and you’d better believe it – for more reasons than would be immediately apparent.

Corporate power and rulership in western societies is complete, governments either conform to corporate dictates or are quickly replaced by compliant political alternatives. The management of information via the monopolised mass media and the complete domination of the economy maintain and sustain corporate supremacy. The masses suffer increased subjection (debt slavery) and vulnerability (limited options) as a result of decreased representation by governments. Corporate rule has reduced the real status of the public to servility and subservience, not dissimilar to the ancient Roman model of kept house-slaves. The belief that Roman slaves were constantly maltreated is based on erroneous images (whipped galley-slaves) that Hollywood and the entertainment industry have popularised. Ancient Roman slaves lived in basic but tolerable conditions, similar (in relative terms) to the servile masses of today.

The Iraq Study Group didn't just advise Bush to change strategy in Iraq. It also urged the president to stop lying to the American people.

Manning Marable delivered the Chancellor's Distinguished Lecture at University of North Carolina, Fayetteville in November. He discussed African Americans, the criminal justice system, and the new racial domain in the United States. Marable is author of many books including 'W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Radical Democrat' and 'Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990'.

Washington today is characterised by neo-cons running for cover as reality presses in on their delusional world. It’s every psychopath and criminal for him/herself as uncertainty grips the culpable. Neo-cons and their support networks are abandoning the new American century (delusion) for the hard reality of rapid American decline and the very real prospect of facing war crimes tribunals. The recent utterings of arch-neocon, Richard Perle, attempting to lay blame on the imbecile, Bush, reveals panic at the highest levels; but it’s far too late to evade responsibility, the world is very familiar with the criminal perpetrators of the whole neo-con fiasco.

Is anyone surprised? When first we heard the simplistic binary logic of “wanted dead or alive” or “you're either with us or with the terrorists” and “mission accomplished” (no connection to the real world whatsoever); WE KNEW IT WOULD BE A DISASTER. Many intelligent articles were written at that time sounding a warning, testifying to the fact – peruse this site and read for yourselves! But let’s not stop with the above lest it HAPPEN AGAIN; the moronic comment of Wolfowitz, that the Iraqi people would welcome invaders with “bouquets of flowers”, signals either total lunacy or the worst criminal liar of all time? Not to be outdone by Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld offers his ‘poetry of insanity’ for idiots and Americans, quatrains of pathology expressed in the ‘known-unknown-knowns’ of criminal deception. Not to be excluded from the unadulterated INSANITY and INCOMPETENCE is the war-whore herself, Condoleezza (status quo) Rice, of Lebanon infamy who believes that peace equates with war!

The National Action Party's Felipe Calderon has been installed by the media and military as president of Mexico. However, the new Mexican president ends up on the losing side in Latin America—the election of Raul Correa in Ecuador is just the latest milestone in the pendulum swing to the left on the southern continent. Calderon represents a last losing gasp for US hegemony in the hemisphere. It is not just of passing significance that virtually all of Latin America's heads of state with the notable exception of Alvaro Uribe, Washington's puppet in Colombia, chose to absent themselves from the inauguration. Read more by John Ross about the Mexican elections and the concerted PRI-PAN plan to crush the self-designated "Commune of Oaxaca."

The US seems not to understand that its current global 'war on terrorism' is an asymmetrical war, and that the military superpower is losing its engagements. The resistance in occupied and bombarded lands can still claim victory when the US fails to impose its will. Al-Qaida and similar groups have profited from the war against them over the past five years. Their power lies in their ability to attract support and recruits from among disenfranchised, angry Muslims who feel victimised by the US global war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. The US is stuck in the quicksands of the broader Middle East, sinking deeper with every move because the Bush administration has refused to learn any lessons about asymmetrical warfare in the region. Read more…