Julianne Escobedo Shepherd - Why 'Liberal Hollywood' Is a Myth

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, AlterNet

Posted on November 10, 2011, Printed on November 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153041/why_%27liberal_hollywood%27_is_a_myth

This week the film director Brett Ratner, known for his high-speed movies and extravagant lifestyle, angered people all over the country with his unflappable mouth. First: during a screening of his latest film, Tower Heist, Ratner responded to the question, “How do you rehearse your actors?” with the answer that “rehearsals are for fags.” His use of the pejorative term was the spark of a week-long outrage, which eventually led him to make a public apology and resign as producer of this year’s Oscars. (Eddie Murphy, the star of Tower Heistwho agreed to host at Ratner’s prodding, also resigned.)

His exit from the awards show wasn’t solely about his gay slurs: this week, Ratner appeared on the Howard Stern show and spoke quite disgustingly about very specific parts of his sex life (and his sexual anatomy), making comments that “appalled” the president of the Academy. And if that wasn’t enough, he smeared his ex-girlfriend, actress Olivia Munn,telling “Attack of the Show” that “I banged her a few times, but I forgot her.” So, homophobia, misogyny and displays of alpha masculinity that are both cavemanish and juvenile? Check, check and check. Our creep radar is going bananas.

As the conservative mainstream media frames it, Hollywood is a place festering with pinkos and radicals, or at least where the bulk of America’s artsy liberals go to live and work. This narrative has been so pervasive that even progressives think of Tinseltown as a place where our allies reside, and indeed many do: actors like Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, Danny Glover, and Matt Damon all participate in hands-on activism and deliver speeches that inspire us to greatness.

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ABC News - Mystery Radiation Detected 'Across Europe'

Published on Friday, November 11, 2011 by ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mystery-radiation-detected-europe/story

ABC News

The hunt is on for the source of low level radiation detected in the atmosphere "across Europe" over the past weeks, nuclear officials said today.

Trace amounts of iodine-131, a type of radiation created during the operation of nuclear reactors or in the detonation of a nuclear weapon, were detected as early as three weeks ago by Austrian authorities and then two weeks ago by the Czech Republic's State Office for Nuclear Safety. Today the International Atomic Energy Agency released a statement revealing similar detections had been made "in other locations across Europe."

The IAEA said the current levels of iodine-131 are far too low to warrant a public health risk, but the agency still does not know the origin of the apparent leak and an official with the agency would not say where else it has been detected. Considering iodine-131 has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days, continued detection means the leak occurred over a period of several days at least and is possibly ongoing.

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Global Research - Western Militarization of the Arctic

Voice of Russia

Global Research, November 12, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27626

Part I A monumental struggle for the Arctic is taking place almost unnoticed amid the on-going geo-political upheavals in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  The world was used to the fact that major intrigues are invariably related to the Arctic Council, which was set up back in 1996 to settle territorial disputes between the northern countries, namely Russia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the United States and Iceland. Things have changed other countries now seem to resent this approach, for they would also like to take part in the division of the Arctic pie. Following in the footsteps of the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Poland are India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil and China, which are knocking at the Council door, insisting that the Arctic should belong to everyone.  The Chinese proved the quickest in taking action. They launched several polar expeditions, set up a polar station on Spitsbergen Island and got an icebreaker of their own.

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Bob Chapman - Towards Economic Collapse: Europe’s Debt Crisis has Spiraled out of Control

By Bob Chapman

Global Research, November 12, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27623

As Chancellor Merkel and PM Sarkozy search for a solution that doesn’t exist they continue to lose credibility. Nothing of substance has been agreed upon that is legal and can be implemented. At the IMF Christina LeGarde is frantically waving her arms like a cheerleader telling anyone that will listen that if the six sovereigns in financial trouble are not aided the euro will fail and peace in Europe will disappear. The elitists are frantic because they cannot find a solution. LeGarde says without help there will be ten years of depression. She obviously hasn’t done her homework. Try 30 or more years. Sarkozy, Merkel and Jans Weidmann council member of the ECB has said the ECB cannot bail out governments by printing money. He is also head of the Bundesbank and said a key lesson of what is being proposed is the hyperinflation in Weimer Republic, which followed WWI. Over in Italy PM Berlusconi, who looks and acts like Benito Mussolini has been unseated and as a result the Italian bond market is on the edge of collapse. There is big pressure downward in stock and bond markets as a result and the US Treasury again attacks gold and silver hoping they can keep gold from breaking about $1,800. The PPT’s ability to achieve this is more than questionable. At Cannes PM Sarkozy and President Obama discuss what a liar Israel’s PM Netanyahu is. Their candor was accidentally picked up by a supposedly muted speaker. What is now realized is that euro zone government bonds contain unexpected credit risks. All the European politicians and bureaucrats want to save the euro, but their promises and solutions are not worth the paper they are written on. They are so believable that China won’t lend them money. These characters have been kicking the can down the road since last spring with little or no long-term solutions, and no solutions to affect a recovery and create jobs. Austerity has replaced growth and that is expediting a failing economy, even in Germany. If economies don’t grow tax receipts fall and the ability to service debt is impaired. Big euro zone banks are broke just as their counterparts in NYC are. As this proceeds we ask how long can the ECB buy Italian and Spanish bonds?

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Firmin DeBrabander - The Wrath of Rand -- The Boundaries of Individualism

WEEKEND EDITION NOVEMBER 11-13, 2011

The Boundaries of Individualism

by FIRMIN DeBRABANDER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/11/the-wrath-of-rand/

Many have commented on the remarkable callousness fashioned by this Republican presidential field. Most prominently, Herman Cain maintained that the poor and unemployed are responsible for their own plight; Ron Paul claimed that people who refrain from buying health insurance but become debilitated should not be bailed out by government healthcare—they should just die instead, his audience helpfully suggested (or hollered, rather); and just about all the candidates have recommended ever harsher, ever more absurd measures to keep out poor immigrants on our border with Mexico: double fences, electric fences, even soldiers with ‘real guns and real bullets,’ as Herman Cain put it.

What’s driving this show of meanness? You might say it’s just what the electorate—or some loud part thereof—wants. It seems like there are some seriously angry voters out there these days, and I’m sure the recession is taking a toll on people’s patience and generosity. And yet, I suspect this is no fleeting trend, but something with deeper ideological roots. In short, I sense Ayn Rand.

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Sam Pizzigati - The Global Super-Rich Stash Now at $25 Trillion

By Sam Pizzigati

 http://www.nationofchange.org/global-super-rich-stash-now-25-trillion-1321201867

Another super-slick global financial analysis firm has just tallied how much net worth is sloshing around in the pockets of the world’s most spectacularly wealthy. So when will the time finally come to stop the counting — and start the taxing?

In today’s astoundingly unequal global economy, banks can go either of two routes — or both — to bag ever bigger returns. They can squeeze the 99 percent with nuisance fees and penalties. Or they can cater to the richest of the rich.

But both routes have bumps. The 99 percent can squeeze back, as they did earlier this month when Americans by the tens of thousands shut down their Bank of America accounts to protest the bank’s $5 debit card greed grab. And the richest of the rich? To cater to these fortunates, you have to first find them.

That can be difficult. Fortunately, financial industry consulting firms have stepped up to help. These firms have started publishing annual global wealth surveys that pinpoint where banks — and luxury retailers and anyone else who wants in on top 1 percent action — can find “high” and “ultra high” net-worth individuals.

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Mark Hertsgaard - ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and Obama

By Mark Hertsgaard

http://www.nationofchange.org/occupy-wall-street-and-obama-1321196346

The bursting to life of the Occupy Wall Street movement is the most hopeful development in American politics since Barack Obama was elected president three years ago this month. Obama's election has turned out to be largely a false hope. But that false hope might still be redeemed - and the president motivated to become the reformer he once pledged to be - if the Occupy movement grows into the kind of massive, broad-based, relentless movement no president can afford to ignore.

Already, the Occupy Wall Street website claims that the movement has spread to 100 cities in the United States and inspired sympathy actions in 1,500 cities around the world. Momentum appears to be building in other ways as well. Activists in other progressive movements - environment, labour, anti-poverty and housing - are beginning to collaborate with Occupy. TV commercials are airing on mainstream media outlets, even Fox News, spreading Occupy's message that the US political and economic system is rigged in favour of the top one per cent. And opinion polls are indicating that a sizeable majority of Americans agree with this analysis, though there seems to be less support for the Occupy activists themselves.

The latest big protest targeted the White House itself, when an estimated 12,000 people physically surrounded the home of the US president last Sunday to urge rejection of a proposed climate-killing oil pipeline. Stretching 1,700 miles from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, the Keystone XL Pipeline would transport tar sands, an extremely dirty and carbon intensive form of oil, to refineries in Texas. Environmentalists have portrayed it as a make-or-break moment for President Obama to live up to his promise as a candidate in 2008 to fight climate change and kick the US addiction to oil. The crowd surrounding the White House on Sunday turned candidate Obama's famous campaign slogan back on the president, chanting, "Stop the Pipeline, Yes We Can". There were also expressions of solidarity with the Occupy movement, including a massive sign reading "OCCUPY EARTH", and shouts of, "We are the 99 per cent".

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Tim Mak - Going Backwards: Gallup Poll Shows Uninsured Adults Rising

Published on Saturday, November 12, 2011 by Politico

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/12-1

by Tim Mak

None of the components of President Obama’s health care law that have taken effect appear to be affecting insurance coverage of adults over 26, according to a new poll Friday.

The percentage of adults with no health insurance is the highest on record, with 17.3 percent of adults being uninsured in the third quarter of 2011, statistically tying the high set in the second quarter, Gallup found. Three years ago, in the third quarter of 2008, only 14.4 percent of adults lacked health insurance.

Gallup cautions, however, that the record high coincides with a methodological change that samples cell-phone only respondents, which tend to be younger and thus more likely to be uninsured. Thus, some of the increase in the figure could be linked to this change.

One part of Obama’s health care reform that has already drawn results is the change allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health care plan until they are 26. This has lead to an uninsured rate of only 24.2 percent for 18-25 year olds, down from 28 percent in mid-2010, according to an earlier Gallup poll.

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Brian Montopoli - Poll: Americans' views on foreign policy

By Brian Montopoli CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto. Ahead of the CBS News/National Journal Republican presidential debate on national security and foreign policy taking place on Saturday night in South Carolina, CBS News surveyed Americans to find out their views on Iran, China, Israel, North Korea and other countries; their feelings about whether the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been worth the cost; and which of the Republican candidates are most ready to serve as commander-in-chief and to handle an international crisis. Preview: GOP candidates ready for CBS News/National Journal debate Here are highlights from the poll:

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Steven Mufson - Keystone Delay Unlikely to Stall Giant Oil Companies

Published on Saturday, November 12, 2011 by the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/keystone-delay-unlikely-to-stall-big-oil-companies/2011/11/11/gIQAKzPiDN_story.html

by Steven Mufson

With the Keystone XL pipeline on hold, the giant companies tapping Canada’s oil sands will turn to Plan B — existing pipelines to the United States.

Those pipelines, which now carry slightly more than 1 million barrels a day from Canada’s oil sands to the United States, can be expanded by adding pumping stations. Some companies, notably Enbridge, already have plans to boost the capacity of their lines and speed the journey of crude from Alberta to Texas.

“It’s inevitable that it will get here. This oil will have to find a market,” said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. “All these competing pipelines are going to rethink their strategy.”

That would disappoint foes of the Keystone XL pipeline, who hope that the delay or defeat of the project would impede the growth in output from the oil sands, whose exploitation releases 5 to 15 percent more greenhouse gases than the average crude used in the United States.

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