Students and university lecturers are to be encouraged to join the Freemasons as part of a drive to increase membership.
The organisation, more popularly connected with policemen, lawyers, and businessmen, has changed its constitution - lowering the age limit of candidates from 21 to 18 - and established the Universities Scheme.
Seven universities across England have been targeted, with lodges in the respective cities agreeing to "promote and encourage freemasonry ... (more)
Those who, like me, supported the removal of Saddam Hussein by force now have to face up to the awkward task of deciding what can be salvaged from the mess. I have joined a new and independent Iraq study group, the Iraq Commission, with Tom King and Margaret Jay, to do this in front of Channel 4 cameras. We will be concentrating on the future, but it is important not to forget the lessons of the past.
The tragedy is that the military invasion was not a failure. It was a success. B... (more)
If you once scoffed at those e-mails warning of an e-mail tax, brace yourself: you may soon be paying a lot more to use the Internet. The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed
Early last month, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) released a declassified version of a Pentagon Inspector General report that found that in Sept. 2002, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith gave a briefing entitled “Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al-Qaida” to Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff.
In this “alternative” intelligence assessment, Feit... (more)
This was going to be a happy story about how two of my nephews love the french fries on the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson Ferry. “Ferry fries,” they call them. But that story went out the window Sunday night, when I took the photograph below and was threatened with arrest by the Ferry Fascists for doing so.
I was heading back to Connecticut after a weekend with the family when I took the photo. I’d eaten the fries on the way over, but couldn’t stomach another r... (more)
Four years ago Democrats in Congress "trusted" that George W. Bush would use their vote authorizing him to use force against Iraq as a negotiating tool, and that he would only actually use force as an absolute last resort.
Instead he took the money and ran with it. Suckers!
Now, four years and a hundred thousand plus deaths later, Democrats in Congress say they are ready to trust the serial liar in the White ... (more)
Congress has demonstrated its unconditional love for the Bush administration by handing the war profiteers another $100 billion worth of good reasons to keep the war in Iraq rolling along at full-throttle.
And today there was the President, whose only military experience consists of draft-dodging, going AWOL from a cushy stint in the National Guard set up by daddy, and finishing his term of duty as grounded fighter pilot, calling ... (more)
After several months of empty posturing against the war in Iraq, politicians in Washington have made what Democratic congressman James P. Moran called a "concession to reality" by agreeing to give President Bush virtually everything he wanted in funding and unrestricted license to continue waging the increasingly detested war that has made Bush the most unpopular president since Richard Nixon.
The Democrats have "surrendered" on Iraq. Liberals are "shocked." And all the innocents who didn't know any better, didn't see it coming, feel "betrayed."
Poor Duncan Black, better known as "Atrios," is nearly at a loss for words: "People hate Bush, hate Republicans, and hate this war," he protests, and yet the Democrats caved!
In the face of withering pressure from the oil industry, the Democrats in the House, led by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), have reportedly castrated their own legislation.
Stupak's original bill--HR 1252--would make it unlawful to sell crude oil, gasoline, natural ... (more)
As so often happens with some new sickening outrage, words fail me in confronting the base cowardice of the Democratic "opposition" in completely caving to the deeply unpopular Bush Administration and giving Little Caligula a blank check to continue his reeking slaughter in Iraq. Fortunately for us all, words did not fail the ever-incandescent Arthur Silber, who has written with blazing fury about this latest sell... (more)
In 1954, the most powerful men in the world met for the first time under the auspices of the Dutch royal crown and the Rockefeller family in the luxurious Hotel Bilderberg of the small Dutch town of Oosterbeck. For an entire weekend they debated the future of the world. When it was over, they decided to meet once every year to exchange ideas and analyze international affairs. They named themselves the Bilderberg Club. Since then, they have gathered yearly in a luxurious hotel somewhere in the wo... (more)
Like hundreds of his fellow firefighters, Sal Princiotta ran to the rescue when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11. Months later, he was one of five men who rode bikes from New York to Pasadena, Calif., in a salute to those who lost their lives that day.
Among the dead was his uncle, legendary New York City firefighter and rescue expert Dep. Chief Ray Downey.
His family, still aching from Downey's death, is reeling again... (more)
Recently I read several articles where the whole idea of a North American Union was labeled a conspiracy theory and called some sort of modern rumor. Now I commend those who blog and write articles on issues they feel strongly about, but these articles appear to be a clear attempt at disinformation. It shows the level of desperation that those trying to implement it must feel. Unfortunately, the dumbed-down public will read these articles and believe the lies without checking ... (more)
Members of the public could be handed huge cash rewards for grassing on people or companies defrauding the Government, under proposals published by the Home Office today.
Informants would win a share of assets confiscated by the courts if they turned whistleblower against a fraudster such as someone cheating on benefits, a cigarette smuggler or a company dodging VAT.
The system would be based on what the Home Office describes as a "stri... (more)
Conventional medicine has, for decades, preyed upon the "symptoms of womanhood" and attempted to transform every female activity from childbirth to menstruation into a disease requiring chemical treatment. Today, the FDA approved Lybrel, a daily pill for women that stops periods... forever.
The concept behind such a pill is based on the false idea that menstruation is a disease requiring a medical fix. Most sane people would agree that menstruation is, in fact, a natural biologica... (more)
Anti-sweatshop activist Jeffrey Ballinger says that corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs such as codes of conduct for contractors are undermining worker rights.
Ten years ago, Ballinger and his group Press for Change led the charge against Nike's mistreatment of workers in southeast Asia.
The anti-sweatshop movement had Nike and the shoe industry on the run.
The former hostage John McCarthy has criticised the television industry and in particular the makers of the American show 24, for portraying torture as an "acceptable weapon" to obtain information that might avert a terrorist attack.
Writing for The Independent, Mr McCarthy, who was held hostage in Lebanon for more than five years and suffered physical and mental abuse from his captors, says television may be encouraging the use of torture techniques by... (more)
Developer Larry Silverstein and seven insurance companies agreed to a $2 billion settlement to end an almost six-year dispute over the value of the insurance policies covering the World Trade Center.
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo announced the settlement at a news conference in lower Manhattan. The agreement will bring to about $4.55 billion the total insurance proceeds Silverstein and the Port Authority of New ... (more)
American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.
The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.
Nearly four million families have 'Big Brother' microchips fitted in their bins, it was revealed yesterday. A massive expansion of the 'spies in the bin' technology has taken place by stealth in preparation for a shake-up in rubbish collections.
A survey shows one in seven councils has introduced the chips - affecting 3.7million households.
It was previously thought only around 250,000 families were affected - meaning many homeowners pro... (more)
When Ron Paul told a packed TV studio and the watching world that "They attack us because we attack them over there" he was making an extremely cogent and informed point about US foreign policy on more than one level.
Though it is clear Ron Paul was undermining the fallacy the American people have been sold in the shape of the "war on terror", Paul was also repeating an assertion he has made many times before that the agenda of those in the White House now is a... (more)
A sheriff's deputy arrested in a drug sting has a dark past as a Neo-Nazi.
12 News has learned that Yavapai County Sheriff’s Deputy Justin Dwyer was not only a member, but also a former leader with the Aryan Nation in Washington State.
Deputy Justin Dwyer was arrested for trying to buy cocaine, and accused of sending his 15-year old son to a drug dealer to score the drug. It turns out he's also a former Aryan Nation leader, 12 Ne... (more)
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with U.S. on law enforcement.
The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend Mexico's constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases.
