Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
Stephan: When the Constitutional Convention was underway, the Founders, particularly Jefferson talked about Cyrus II,(c. 600 BC or 576 BC-530 BC) the king of Persia, known to history as Cyrus the Great. They drew guidance from the success of his approach to government, and it shaped our own. How many Congresspersons in today's Congress do you think would know who Cyrus the Great was, or why his governance guided them.
Here is the fascinating story of the Cyrus cylinder. Click through to see the excellent video.
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2013/03/the-cyrus-cylinder-goes-on-view-at-the-sackler-gallery/#ixzz2NIxSCVXG
When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., he encountered the same problem many political leaders face today: How do rulers keep the peace?
Cyrus, the King of Persia, was in the midst of building the largest empire that the world had ever seen. By his death in 550 B.C., his reign would extend from present-day Turkey to India.
For Cyrus, establishing control over vast miles of land with peoples of different cultures, languages and faiths created numerous obstacles in unifying his kingdom. The king sought order, not more war. ‘It is the first time anyone has had to address that challenge,
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Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
PETER VAN BUREN, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: I completely agree with this. I think history is going to be merciless when it comes to evaluating American foreign policy over the past 30 years. These wars were based on almost deranged fact-free thinking, certainly one with no reference to the Islamic culture, or its political dynamics. I think the leadership that created and continued these wars should be held accountable.
I was there. And ‘there
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Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
SARAH BOSELEY, Health Editor - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: I have covered this before, for several years actually. I do not know why anyone who believes in evolution could find any of this surprising, or unanticipated. It seems patently obvious that this would happen.
Once again, this is all driven by profit as the first priority, not wellness. This is the result. And we could be in serious trouble.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose ‘a catastrophic threat’ to the population, the chief medical officer for Britain warns in a report calling for urgent action worldwide.
If tough measures are not taken to restrict the use of antibiotics and no new ones are discovered, said Dame Sally Davies, ‘we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar to the early 19th century at some point’.
While antibiotics are failing, new bacterial diseases are on the rise. Although the ‘superbugs’ MRSA and C difficile have been reduced to low numbers in hospitals, there has been an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia.
These so-called ‘gram negative’ bacteria, which are found in the gut instead of on the skin, are highly dangerous to older and frailer people and few antibiotics remain effective against drug-resistant strains.
As many as 5,000 patients die each year in the UK of gram negative sepsis – where the bacterium gets into the bloodstream – and in half the cases the bacterium is resistant to drugs.
‘Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat,’ said Davies. ‘If we don’t act now, any one of us could go […]
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Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
BRAD JOHNSON, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts. - grist
Stephan: Yet more evidence of the corruption that is so rife in the American government. This is an example of a disinformation campaign in which the government is complicit. The political process has become the servant of the Virtual Corporate States -- with one exception, the vote.
I cannot over-emphasize the importance of a large vote in 2014. That's going to be the last chance to get off the crash train. By 2015 the die of climate change will be cast, the momentum in the system so great as to be functionally irreversible.
The State Department’s ‘don’t worry
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Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
JOSH ISRAEL, - ThinkProgress - Economy
Stephan: This is an almost literary example of the unholy linkage between special interests and government. It reads like something in F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Gaius Petronius Arbiter, before him. It is the iconic story of corruption of the state.
During his nearly three years in the U.S. Senate, Scott Brown (R-MA) frequently came to the aid of the financial sector - watering down the Dodd-Frank bill and working to weaken it after its passage - and accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash from the industry. Now, the man Forbes Magazine called one of ‘Wall Street’s Favorite Congressmen
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