March 17, 2011

• Trump Rips Obama’s Lethargy
• House Rejects More EPA Regs
• St. Patrick’s Day Fact Tuneup
• “Super Moon” Not Cause of Japan’s Quake
• Obama’s Libyan Hypocrisy
• Radiation “Danger” Details
• One in 9 Americans Prefer Communism.
• Best Laid plans.
• Foreign Attack Lead to 2008 Economic Meltdown
• Navy Punts On China: Gates Fumbles
• The New Race / Religious Wars
• Muslims Battle Muslims In Northridge, California

Donald Trump finds it “incredible” that the United States is not moving forward with oil drilling considering the catastrophic events in Japan. Trump Tuesday also told Fox News’ Neal Cavuto that oil cartel OPEC is “absolutely salivating” as it watches U.S. reticence.

Japan has been a lynchpin - and it hasn’t been doing so well over the last 10 years, frankly - but it has been a strong player, and a big player,” Trump said. “And when you see what is happening, and ultimately what could happen to nuclear energy in terms of a worldwide feeling, it’s not a good thing.”

When Fox News’ Cavuto mentioned the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC) how it views the situation, and U.S. hesitancy to domestically drill for oil, Trump said: “They are absolutely salivating.”

A year since Tiger Woods announced he would make his competitive return to golf following months of tabloid scandal, 31% of American Adults share a favorable opinion of Woods, including just 12% who view him Very Favorably. Sixty percent (60%) regard the golfer unfavorably, with 27% who view him Very Unfavorably.

AU.S. House panel voted to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, a central tenet of President Obama’s climate agenda.

By a vote of 34-19, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill Tuesday that would strip the EPA of its authority under the Clean Air Act to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from power plants, oil refineries and other sources.

Obama has indicated he’d veto legislation to stop the EPA’s climate rules, the first of which went into effect in January. Business groups warns if applied the EPA regulations will cost tens of thousands of jobs.

Late one night a mugger wearing a ski mask jumped into a path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs “give me your money,” he demanded. Indignant, the affluent man replied, “you can’t do this - I am a United States congressman!” “In that case,” replied the mugger, “give me MY money.”

Patrick (Patricius or Padrig) was born around 386 AD to wealthy Roman parents. Patrick’s birthplace is in fact debatable, with many believing that he was born in the still Welsh-speaking Northern Kingdom of Strathclyde of Romano-Brythonic stock, at Bannavem Taberniae. As a teen he was captured and sold into slavery with “many thousands of people”¹ by a group of Irish marauders that raided his family estate.

Patrick escaped his enslavers, Patrick apparently experienced a revelation-an angel in a dream telling him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Shortly after this Patrick travelled to Gaul, were he studied religious instruction under Germanus, bishop of Auxerre. His course of study lasted for more than fifteen years and culminated with his ordination as a priest.  

He eventually returned to Ireland to join other early missionaries, probably settling in Armagh. Familiar with the Irish language and culture, he adapted traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity rather than attempting to eradicate nativepagan beliefs. He used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honouring their gods with fire, he also superimposed a sun, a powerful native symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross.

Upsetting local Celtic Druids Patrick was imprisoned on several occasions, but he managed to escape each time. He travelled extensively throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country, setting up the schools and churches that would aid him in his conversion of the Irish to Christianity.

Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He apparently used it to show how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing the shamrock on his feast day, and shamrock green remains the essential colour for today’s festivities and celebrations.

His death on 17 March, 493 has been and is commemorated as St, Patrick’s Day a bleary day for many instant Irishmen and those recently accepted into the tribie.

By the way scientists say snakes had disappeared long before Patrick. But, it’s still a nice story.

Contradistinguish (kon-truh-di-STING-gwish) verb tr.: To distinguish (one thing from another) by contrasting qualities. Etymology from Latin contra- (against) + distinguish, from Middle/Old French distinguer, from Latin distinguere (to pick or separate). Ultimately from the Indo-European root steig- (to stick; pointed), which is also the source of ticket, etiquette, instinct, stigma, thistle, tiger, and steak. Earliest documented use: 1622.

The “so-called” Super Moon did not cause the earthquake in Japan. The upcoming perigee of the Moon - where it is closer than usual in its orbit to Earth - had nothing to do with the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. But, you can bet some will try to connect it claiming the lunar connection.

Proponents deserve the term lunacy. But, we can imagine snooty ideas will propose and publish it as fact in any number of places and scientific illiterates will propound it.

China’s military satellite advances providing ‘near-real-time’ capability to ID, target ships. The only “target” ships are the U. S. Navy.

China is building up its military satellite capabilities to support increased intelligence-gathering and also to use in targeting its new anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, according to a new report. The report by the Project 2049 Institute, “China’s Electronic Intelligence and Satellite Developments,” warns that Beijing is bolstering its electronic forces to gain an edge in a future conflict.

Contrary to what most say it is the hypocritical Obama not G. W. Bush who requested military aid for Libya in 2011 despite massive human rights violations, a congressional report says. The Congressional Research Service reported that Obama had been preparing to relay military aid to Libya this year. In a report by Christopher Blanchard and Jim Zanotti, CRS cited plans to provide military education and training for Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s security forces.

The report said military education funds for Libya were first requested by the Bush administration for fiscal 2009, but was not provided. The report cited a 2009 State Department report on continuing rights abuses in Libya:

“Continuing problems included reported disappearances; torture; arbitrary arrest; lengthy pretrial and sometimes incommunicado detention; official impunity; and poor prison conditions. Denial of fair public trial by an independent judiciary, political prisoners and detainees, and the lack of judicial recourse for alleged human rights violations were also problems.”

This month, the administration has reported that the United States suspended military cooperation with Libya, Middle East Newsline reported. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the cooperation was not significant, but did not elaborate.

“For FY2010, the Obama administration requested $350,000 in International Military Education and Training funding for Libya to ’support education and training of Libyan security forces, creating vital linkages with Libyan officers after a 35-year break in contact,’ ” the report, titled “Libya: Background and U.S. Relations,” said.

CRS, which provides background to members of the House and Senate, said Libyan participation in the U.S. military education program would have paved the way for additional training.

Instead, Obama expanded military cooperation with Libya during his first year in office, the report said. CRS said the White House requested the Libya be eligible to receive weapons under the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program.

” Obama also requested Foreign Military Financing assistance for Libya for the first time in FY2010, with the goal of providing assistance to the Libyan Air Force in developing its air transport capabilities and to the Libyan Coast Guard in improving its coastal patrol and search and rescue operations,” the report said.

Obama also approved a Libyan request for the modernization of Gadhafi’s air transport fleet. Libya acquired 10 U.S.-origin C-130 aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, in 1970.

“FY2011 FMF assistance is being requested to support Libyan participation in a program that assists countries seeking to maintain and upgrade their U.S.-made C-130 air transport fleets,” the report said.

The report, completed in February, did not say whether the Gadhafi regime benefited from U.S. upgrades of his air force or navy. The administration has acknowledged that Congress blocked plans for an upgrade of Libya’s armored personnel carrier fleet.

The U.S. military has engaged the Gadhafi regime in a dialogue to upgrade Libyan forces, reported at less than 120,000. The report said Libya’s military remained poor and unable to acquire the huge amount of equipment it ordered from foreign contractors.

“Libya’s current military leadership presides over a largely stored and surplus catalogue of weaponry with poor maintenance records,” the report said. “The military also lacks sufficient numbers of trained personnel to operate the military equipment currently in its possession.”

In 2006, Washington lifted its arms embargo on Libya. While the United States was said to have banned lethal weapons for export, European Union states have offered Tripoli a range of aircraft and other combat platforms. The Libyan airforce is reported to have 374 warplanes including Russian-made MiG-17/19/25 fighters and Tu-22 bombers.

When Nuclear Magnetic Imagers (NMR) were first announced Americans refused to be scanned because of the word “nuclear” - so they changed the name to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and people flocked to them. Such is the abject collective scientific ignorance of the American public. Some cities then refused to have NMRs trailered into their limits. There were even protests by various troglodyte groups.

If a radiation cloud from Japan’s damaged nuclear reactors eventually reaches the western United States, it could pose a threat to American crops and the people who eat them. That has not happened and hopefully will not.

Radiation could pose a cancer risk, steps to take to protect against the damaging effects of radiation exposure.include staying in doors or in an unvented vehicle; showering and shampooing with hot water and soap disposing of clothing and jewelry,

Anything over 150 rads [a measurement of radiation] is going to produce radiation sickness. And some there are getting close to that level, from what I understand.

“The safety level is set at 5 rads per year which you can get from flying at high altitude dental xrays, etc. At about 100 to 400 rads you drastically increase death risk. Once you get above 600 rads, about 95 percent of people are going to die within two weeks. This is what they’re worried about.”

Radioactive elements Strontium 90 and Cesium 137, which can be released by a damaged reactor, “have a half-life of 30 years, so we’re talking about very long contamination, a hundred years or more. Radioactive iodine can pose the threat of tyroid cancer but by simply ingesting a postassium iodine tablet that chance can be greatly reduced.

Prevailing winds in the area of the stricken Japanese reactors have been heading east and south into the Pacific, toward the Western Hemisphere. If it gets swept upinto the jet stream it could encircle the globe. The U. S. Navy’s ships has moved to Japan’s westcoast,

Most of the health risks are not going to be due to acute radiation poisoning. It could be  to be a risk of increased cancer.  At Chernobyl there were a 1,000 cases of leukemia all but two were cured.

Because of Chernobyl, most of West Germany was heavily contaminated. Norway, Sweden. And especially Hungary was terribly contaminated. The radiation was taken up into the plants. The food was radioactive. They took the milk and turned it into cheese. The cheese became radioactive.

In Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine nearly 5 000 cases of thyroid cancer have now been diagnosed to date among children who were aged up to 18 years at the time of the accident. The incidence of other cancers has also increased. Between 1990 and 2000 cancer rates have risen by 40% overall, compared with rates before the catastrophe in April 1986. The actual consequence will not be known for 70-years — a lifetime.

Radiation dosage stickers to be affixed to the back of a driver’s license or something else you always carry can be purchased from a number of sources or you can just turn off the lights and see if you glow.

A snake that bit an Israeli model on the breast has died of silicone poisoning. The women received a tetnus shot and left the hospital requiring no further treatment.

11% of Likely U.S. Voters think communism is morally superior to the U.S. system of politics and economics, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But 77% disagree and say the U.S. system is morally superior. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

Communism calls for the elimination of all private property with everything owned in common, and voters even more emphatically reject it as an economic theory. Eighty-seven percent (87%) say, in practical terms, free market economies work better than communist economies. Only four percent (4%) say communist economies work better.

Similarly, 80% of voters say the U.S. system of politics and economics is better for middle class workers than communism is. Ten percent (10%) say communism is a better option, and another 10% are undecided.

Voters ages 18 to 29 are much less critical of communism as an ideology than their elders are. Conservative voters believe more strongly than moderates and liberals that communism is a failed ideology, but majorities of all three groups share that view.

In terms of world history, 85% of all voters nationwide believe that the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was at least somewhat important, with 71% who describe it as Very Important. Only eight percent (8%) say it was not very or not at all important.

While 87% of Mainstream voters rate the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe as important in terms of history, nearly one-in-three Political Class voters (32%) view it as unimportant historically. Generally speaking, however, there’s little difference of opinion between the two groups when it comes to comparing the U.S. economic and political system with communism.  

In November 2009, on the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 93% of Likely U.S. Voters said the fall of the wall and the collapse of communism were at least somewhat important in terms of world history. That included 70% who said they were Very Important.

The NFL and the players’ union are having a lot of trouble agreeing on things. One thing they do agree on is that the Super Bowl halftime show has got to be better. — LettermanLast weekend’s 9.0 earthquake in Japan tripped the automatic shutdown that scrammed all the reactors in Northern Japan shutting them down. Just as planned. Then the electricity went out shutting off the cooling pumps and that kicked in the auxiliary diesel powered generators, Just as planned. But, they were swamped by the Tsunami which switched on the batteries that lasted 8 hours. Just as planned. That was plenty of time for portable generators to arrive, and they did. Just as planned.

 

But nobody checked if those generators would plug in- which they did not.  That lead to more heating and the only option was to pump seawater into the reactor to keep its core covered, and prevent a meltdown. Unfortunately that wrecked the reactors ending their useful life. Not as planned.

Cabbage is Irish caviar

A Pentagon contracted study on economic warfare and financial terrorism lists the Chinese military as a likely suspect in clandestine attacks on the U.S. financial system that contributed to the 2008 economic crash.

The report by financial analyst Kevin Freeman says there is evidence that outside forces, and not just bogus mortgage lending and lack of regulation, caused the 2008 crash and that a three-phase plan including Sovereign Wealth Funds may be involved.

The report concludes that those seeking economic gain through short-selling of stocks and other speculation may have been behind the financial terrorism of the crash. It also said other suspects seeking to subvert the U.S. financial system include the Chinese military, organized crime groups in Russia or hostile forces in Iran or Venezuela.

“While the emphasis has been on the Arab states, it should be noted that Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China also have substantial Sovereign Wealth Funds sufficient to have accomplished massive bear raids,” the report said.

As for China, the economic decline produced negative elements for Beijing, including but not limited to a decline in global consumption of Chinese produced goods. But there was also positive aspects such as lower raw materials prices and an enhanced long-term position.

The report said a report by Goldman Sachs also said the global crisis “means China and other emerging market powers will overtake developed world economies even more quickly.”

“This provides both a profit and political motive for China assuming a longer-term viewpoint, which is very compatible with the historical Chinese perspective,” the report said.

The report said that a recent criminal case by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau contains interesting elements involving Russia, China, Iran, and the global banking system.

“Morgenthau has brought a case that suggests that in the Iranian drive to obtain nuclear weaponry, presumably from Russian sources, a Chinese individual helped to launder funds through a variety of global banks,” the report said. “The significance is that this makes the key elements behind the hypothesis in this paper very realistic. There should be no doubt that when given the opportunity, a number of global players have the means and motive to pursue agendas that are very contrary to American interests.”

The report also stated that a North Korean general linked to Kim Jong-Il was part of a program to produce and distribute high-quality counterfeit $100 bills a fact that has been known and cost U. S. taxpayers billions to redesign, print and distribute new currency.

“There can no longer be doubt that an economic war already could be underway as this is written,” the report said.

“Unfortunately, unless proper action is taken immediately to uncover this potential risk, it may only be discovered too late.”

Defense officials said the Pentagon blocked further study of economic warfare and financial terrorism, claiming the subject was better left for the Treasury Department to study. Some say the White House intervened lest the backtracked trail lead right to the doorsteps of those Obama favors or at least curries favor with.

The recently-concluded Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was given a copy of the report but failed to pursue its findings.

In May 2010, Obama told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent “Tea Party.”

In congressional testimony senior Navy officers  dodged the threat posed by new Chinese missiles to U.S. warships in the western Pacific and the fact that China’s arms buildup is threatening the credibility of U.S. support for key allies in the region. Despite its mumbling the Navy plans to add 20 more Aegis-equipped missile-defense ships to its current fleet of 21 anti-missile destroyers and cruisers by 2016 saying that not directed at China’s new anti-ship ballistic missile. The Navy insisted the increase was not meant to counter the new Chinese DF-21D missile, a weapon Pacific Command chief Adm. Robert F. Willard and other leaders said recently is ready for use and threatens U.S. ships in the Western Pacific.

Instead the Navy insisted the threat of such missiles is “global” even though no other nation has a conventionally armed ballistic missile that can maneuver at ultra-high speed and hit a moving target the size of a ship at sea.

Simultaneously Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has sharply cut U.S. weapons purchases, defended his actions in a speech to the U.S. Air Force Academy last week. Critics of the secretary have said he is sacrificing advanced weaponry that must be funded and developed now to meet the threats posed by nations like China. Instead, Gates has shifted the focus and funding for weapons and forces to lower-end warfighting. Gates’ specific target was to defend is cutting out the F-22 and reducing F-35 purchases.

Critics point out that focusing onl;y on shields without spears is a prescription for retreat and inevitably defeat.

Jimmy Carter: No longer America’s Worst President: Bumper snicker

They marched on Washington to reclaim civil rights.

They complained of voter intimidation at the polls.

They called for ethnic studies programs to promote racial pride.

They are, some say, the new face of racial oppression in this nation — and their faces are white.

“We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims,” says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at La Salle University in Pennsylvania who researches white racial attitudes and was baffled to find that whites see themselves as a minority.

“You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Whites are the new minority group.”

Call it racial jujitsu: A growing number of white Americans are acting like a racially oppressed majority. They are adopting the language and protest tactics of an embattled minority group, scholars and commentators say.

They point to these signs of racial anxiety:

• A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 44% of Americans surveyed identify discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities. The poll found 61% of those identifying with the Tea Party held that view, as did 56% of Republicans and 57% of white evangelicals.
• More colleges are offering courses in “Whiteness Studies” as white Americans cope with becoming what one commentator calls a “dispossessed majority group.”
• A Texas group recently formed the “Former Majority Association for Equality” to offer college scholarships to needy white men. Colby Bohannan, the group’s president, says white men don’t have scholarship options available to minorities. “White males are definitely not a majority” anymore, he says.
• U.S. Census Bureau projections that whites will become a minority by 2050 are fueling fears that whiteness no longer represents the norm. This fear has been compounded by the recent recession, which hit whites hard.

You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority.
–Charles Gallagher, sociologist

• Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh argued in a radio show that Republicans are an “oppressed minority” in need of a “civil rights movement” because its members willingly sit in the “back of the bus” and “are afraid of the fire hoses and the dogs.”
• Fox talk-show host Glenn Beck led a march on Washington (attended primarily by white people) to “restore honor,” and once called President Obama a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture.” He later said he regretted making that comment.
• Conservative news outlets ran a number of stories last summer highlighting an incident from the 2008 elections, in which activists from the New Black Panther Party appeared to be intimidating voters at a polling place. Those claims were never proven.

Mass rallies in Washington, voter intimidation at the polls, creating ethnic studies programs at colleges to promote racial self-awareness — it sounds like a script from a civil rights documentary.

But not everyone buys that script. Mona Charen, a conservative columnist for the National Review, challenges that view with this question: If more white Americans feel like an embattled minority, why did they elect President Barack Obama?

“Did they become racist after electing the first black president?” she asks.

Charen says the United States today is “incredibly tolerant and open.”

Sure, she says, there are individuals who nurture racial animosity, but most Americans deserve praise for looking past race.

The proof, she says, isn’t just in the fact that the nation elected its first black president. She cites the rise of more interracial couples.

“When I grew up, it was incredibly rare to see interracial couples,” she says. “People would turn their heads on the streets. Now it’s so common that no one notices it anymore.”

When white is no longer the norm

Tim Wise says the recession hit blue-collar, white Americans hard, financially and psychologically.

The notion that many white Americans feel anxious about their race is not new. Today, however, economic anxieties are feeding those racial fears, says Tim Wise, author of “White Like Me.”

According to the 2010 census non-Hispanic whites account for 65% ; Black or African - Americans 12.9% and Hispanic - Latinos 16%, and Asians 4.6%.

Wise says the recession hit blue-collar, white Americans hard, financially and psychologically.

Many white Americans have lived under the assumption that if they worked hard, they would be rewarded. Now more white Americans are sharing unemployment lines with “those people” — black and brown, Wise says.

“For the first time since the Great Depression, white Americans have been confronted with a level of economic insecurity that we’re not used to,” he says. “It’s not so new for black and brown folks, but for white folks, this is something we haven’t seen since the Depression.”

Economic insecurity is what Colby Bohannan says convinced him to form the “Former Majority Association for Equality.” The association is awarding $500 scholarships to five deserving white men because they aren’t eligible for scholarships reserved for women and minorities, he says.

“Living in America, you hear about this minority or that minority, but it’s never been used in the same sense for Caucasian Americans,” Bohannan says. “There was no one for white males until we came around.”

Bohannan says the formation of his group was not motivated by racism, nor will it accept donations from hate groups.

“We’re not trying to promote racial bigotry,” Bohannan says. “All we’re about is helping college students trying to better their lives who happen to be white males.”

Some white Americans not only feel ignored in higher education; they feel excluded by popular culture.

The face of America is changing, says Wise, author of “White Like Me.” American culture has become so multicultural that many of the nation’s icons — including celebrities, sports heroes, and other leaders — are people of color.

“The very definition of being an American is going through a profound change,” Wise says. “We can no longer take it for granted that we (whites) are the dictionary definition of an American.”

This racial unease is more pronounced among older white Americans, who grew up in an era where America’s icons were virtually all white, Wise says.

“The idea that we’re losing our country is something that’s not going to have a lot of resonance for someone under 30,” Wise says. “These are white folks who don’t remember the country that their parents are talking about.”

With white no longer the norm, more white Americans are hitting the books to ask a question that few felt a need to ask before: What does it mean to be white?

“Whiteness Studies” began popping up in a few isolated academic institutions in the 1990s. Now such programs can be found in places such as the University of Wisconsin and the University of Utah. These courses examine what whiteness has meant during different periods of American history.

For many decades, white people saw themselves as individuals, not as members of a race, says Matt Wray, a sociologist at Temple University in Pennsylvania, who writes books about white studies.

“We are often offended if someone calls attention to our race as shaping how we view the world,” says Wray, author of “Not Quite White.” “We don’t like to be pigeon-holed that way. Non-white Americans are seldom afforded this luxury of seeing themselves as individuals, disconnected from any race.”

Still, Wray says anxiety among whites over their place in America is nothing new. Some 19th century whites worried about slave revolts. During segregation. some worried about blacks they labeled as “uppity Negroes.”

“Whites have never really felt terribly secure in their majority status,” he says. “It’s often said that it is lonely at the top, but it’s also an anxious place to be, because you live in constant fear of falling.”

‘Diversity is not strength’

Some white commentators are unapologetic about this racial anxiety.

Peter Brimelow, author of “Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster,” asserts that much of white America’s anxiety derives from living under a black president and changing demographics.

Diversity, he says, “is not strength.”

Brimelow’s website, VDARE.COM, has been described as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks extremist groups in the U.S.

Some may see him as extreme, but Brimelow argues in his columns that more white Americans are moving toward his stance on immigration and other issues.

He cites as proof the rise of the Tea Party movement and the racial makeup of Beck’s march on Washington. He says more whites recognize, even if it’s only on a subliminal level, that they have common interests to defend.

“Of course, they would deny this, quite sincerely, if you put it to them because the idea of whites defending their interests as whites is quite new,” he says. “Americans are trained to think that any explicit defense of white interests is ‘racist.’ ”

Sociologist Charles Gallagher says more whites regard themselves as an embattled minority group.

James Edwards, host of the “Political Cesspool” radio show, isn’t shy about naming those interests. He says white Americans have become the “dispossessed majority” and that coming demographic changes may turn the United States into a “Third-World flop-house.”

Edwards, who is considered a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, says whites must organize like other stigmatized groups.

“There is nothing wrong for Jewish organizations to promote the self-interest of Jews or black organizations to promote the interest of blacks,” he says. “There is no organization to stand up to advance the interests of the dispossessed majority.”

Those white interests have been compromised by what he sees as the “preferential treatment” blacks have received in the job market to compensate for slavery, Edwards says.

“Whatever mistakes might have been made in our pasts, they have not only been corrected, but they’ve been overcompensated for,” he says.

Now whites are victims of pervasive racism, Edwards says.

“They’re the victims of it every day. Anything a white conservative does that a liberal doesn’t like is called racism.”

Both Brimelow and Edwards reject outright the Southern Poverty Law Center’s description of their organizations as extremist.

‘It’s not a race issue, it’s a principle’

Ginger Howard is a white Southerner who doesn’t feel dispossessed. She attended Beck’s rally last summer and described it as a religious event, not a political one.

“It was such an amazing event to be with such like-minded people,” she says.

Beck says he held the rally to reclaim the civil rights movement “from politics.” He held the rally on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have Dream Speech.”

Howard says she attended because she wanted to raise money for U.S. troops and protest against government dependency.

“It’s not a race issue, it’s a principle issue,” says Howard, owner of the Ginger Howard Selections clothing store in Atlanta, Georgia.

Chris Plante, a conservative talk show host, says white racial anxiety isn’t a race issue but a smokescreen by leftists. Plante says they yell racism to avoid talking about Obama’s “unpopular liberal expansion” of the federal government.

Did [whites] become racist after electing the first black president?

Plante, who says he grew up in a Chicago home with a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. on the wall, attended both Beck’s rally and a follow-up rally by Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show.

Stewart and fellow Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert held their “March to Keep Fear Alive” on the National Mall two months after Beck’s rally. Stewart said he held the rally for people tired of the media portraying America as a divided country.

“The Beck crowd was no more white than the Jon Stewart rally, but nobody in the news media described the Stewart crowd as overwhelmingly white,” Plante says.

‘Hunkering down’

One prominent observer of American culture suggests all Americans — white, black and every other minority — should be concerned about the future.

Robert Putnam, author of the celebrated book, “Bowling Alone,” says his studies of multiracial neighborhoods in America suggest that more diversity doesn’t initially create more tolerance. It can erode community.

In his 2007 book, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century,” Putnam says his studies of diverse communities show that in the short run, its members tend to expect the worst, distrust neighbors and withdraw.

“Residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down,’ ” Putnam writes. “Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer.”

Is this America’s future?

Dueling mass rallies in Washington? Dueling complaints of racial persecution? Dueling versions of ethnic history?

It doesn’t have to be, says Gallagher, the La Salle University sociologist.

Gallagher points out that the United States has accommodated massive change before. Women were once thought too emotional to vote, interracial couples were outlawed, blacks enslaved.

He says his children won’t see race the same way that he or other generations did. They won’t see diversity as a weakness.

It’ll just be a way of life.

“Like it or not, the country is going to look more like it should — more brown folks, more yellow folks, more gay folks, more mixed folks,” he says.

It’s easy to be pessimistic, he says, but his profession teaches him to look past the headlines.

“When you take the long view of human history, change is slow, but change happens.”

I hate daylight saving time. I hate springing forward a lot more than I like falling back, which is the story of my life. — Kimmel

Two were arrested and four detained after Cal State Northridge police said they brought pistols to the campus Saturday evening, the latest incident in an ongoing feud between rival groups of Muslims vying for control of two San Fernando Valley mosques.

Members of the Muslim Assn. of San Fernando Valley had a permit to hold an event at one of the banquet rooms on the campus, said Capt. Scott G. Vanscoy of the Cal State Northridge Police Department. But rivals who said they were from the Islamic Center of Northridge showed up with security guards who allegedly tried to intimidate people from entering the gathering.

The incident took before the event at the banquet hall when a half-dozen people were found in the parking lot late Saturday afternoon passing out flyers and attempting to serve what appeared to be court documents on members of the rival group, Vanscoy said. A threat, which was not detailed by authorities, allegedly was made to one of the members of the group in the university parking lot.

Vanscoy said police investigators have learned there was ongoing friction between the groups but that there had not been past problems involving use of CSUN facilities.

The conflict between the two rival groups escalated about a year ago. LAPD  officers have been called several times to each of the rival groups’ mosques and have taken reports on accusations of battery, intimidation, trespassing, verbal threats and disturbing the peace but no criminal charges were filed in any of those cases.

In January, The Times detailed the bitter dispute between the two sides, each made up mainly of Pakistani and Afghan immigrants who are battling in court over leadership elections and greater openness at the Granada Hills mosque and an older satellite center in Northridge.

The fight has gotten increasingly bitter. Defendants in the court case are the Islamic Center’s two imams, along with board members and supporters, many of whom emigrated from Afghanistan or Pakistan’s Pashtun region. The plaintiffs are mainly from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and from the country’s Punjab region.

Almost 65 percent of Americans now believe that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting. The number is up 20 points from results in 2009 when 44 percent did not think the war worth fighting, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.Fire, scientists agree, helped give rise to a successful, thriving human population by providing heat for cooking and protection from the cold.

 

But they don’t agree exactly when humans began using fire. Some researchers argue that it occurred more than a million years ago when early humans made their way to Europe from Africa, and others say it happened much later. Now, a new study argues that humans did not master fire until about 400,000 years ago.

Two archaeologists, Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands and Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum in Boulder, report their findings in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The pair looked at excavation reports and studies from 141 sites in Europe that were between 1.2 million and 35,000 years old.

There is no clear evidence of habitual fire use until about 400,000 years ago, Dr. Villa said.

In Africa, while there are several sites where there was evidence of fire, those may have been natural fires that occurred in the African savanna.

Yet there are sites older than 400,000 years in Europe that indicate the presence of humans, with the oldest, in Spain, more than a million years old. This means that despite Europe’s extreme winter climates, early humans found a way to survive without the warmth of a fire.

The study reveals that early humans were both tenacious and resilient. “It means that the early hominids were very adaptable,” Dr. Villa said. “Try to go to England now without warm clothes.”

But that, too, is a puzzling explanation, said Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard who has conjectured that humans began using fire nearly two million years ago.

“It demands some serious thinking about how early Homo could have survived on a seasonally variable food supply despite having small teeth and small guts,” he said. “No one has solved this problem yet.”

The first cave painting can be set at 32,000 years ago and the first writing about 4,000 years ago as humans trasitioned from hunter gatherers to end needed to keep records of land, cattle and product.roughly coincident with the beginning of the bronze age.– when tin and cooper were smelted to make implements and dual-purpose weapons for hunting and fighting.. A thousand years later someone figured out how to smelt iron by finding out how to raise the temperature of fires, probably by using foung nickel-iron meteorites that eventually ushered in the Iron age. So much of it all having to do with the human use of fire.