By Darren Weeks

Just to let everyone know, I will not be on the air next week. Jackie Patru called this evening and said she has some important information to share with the listeners.

So Jackie will be hosting all of next week, January 30th, 31st, and February 1st.

Tonight, Wednesday, January 25th, Alan Watt will be in the "anchor" chair for Sweet Liberty. He will do the broadcast solo.

As things currently stand, I'll be back February 6th.

By Darren Weeks

Tired of talking to fellow Americans? Want a break from the usual routine? Wonder what the weather is like in other parts of the world?

Just call "tech support".

Whether it's a cell phone, your Internet Service Provider, or that handy little doo dad you got for Christmas, a foreigner is only a phone call away to take your call, offer you advice, and ask for your private information including your social security number, phone number (area code first, of course) and the rest of your life's history to "validate" and "authenticate" your account.

You may have forgotten a password. Maybe you don't know how to work a feature. Or perhaps your little marvel of technology has decided to zig when it's supposed to zag.

Never fear, my friend. There's a voice, waiting to speak with you that will sound as close as the phone is to your face. Keep in mind, you must listen carefully. Your new acquaintance is still learning to speak your language. Feel free to ask them to repeat what they say. This may be necessary to do, seven or eight times.

Remember to reciprocate, and talk very slowly. Don't become agitated or angry. Remember what Mom used to say. "Patience is a virtue."

Don't forget, you had to navigate your way through an hour of classical hold music, and a formidable maze of automated options to achieve the honor of interacting with your customer care representative. A sudden disconnect can send you back into the abyss of the touch-tone hell from which you've just emerged. Now, we wouldn't want that, would we?

A call to tech support is — in the words of Forest Gump — "like a box of chocolates". You never know what country you may get. But you can rest pretty darn sure that it won't be America.

So while you have your foreign "techie" on the line, be sure to ask them where they are and how they like the weather. After all, you might consider relocating there. If food and shelter are staples you're not willing to give up, you might not have a choice.

The "global economy" offers us many wonderful opportunities.

Chief among them, is the ability to phone a total stranger in a foreign land, have them page through a book, looking for the answer you need. If they can't find it, relax. They'll be sure to transfer you to a few other of their comrades who you'll struggle even harder to understand.

By the time you hang up your receiver, you're blood pressure will be so high from the excitement of talking to your foreign conversationalists, you'll have forgotten the reason you called. Problem solved!

If, by chance, you happen to remember your problem, feel free to call again. In fact, call any time you find yourself in need. They're there to serve you; your call is important to them. Stay on the line, enjoy the music, pour yourself a beverage, your call will be answered in the order it was received.

Isn't having a high-tech "global economy" wonderful? Thank you, WTO!

By Paul Craig Roberts

President George W. Bush has destroyed America's economy, along with America's reputation as a truthful, compassionate, peace-loving nation that values civil liberties and human rights.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes have calculated the cost to Americans of Bush's Iraq war to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. This figure is five to 10 times higher than the $200 billion Bush's economic adviser Larry Lindsey estimated.

Lindsey was fired by Bush because his estimate was three times higher than the $70 billion figure that the Bush administration used to mislead Congress and the American voters about the burden of the war. You can't work in the Bush administration unless you are willing to lie for Dub-ya.

Americans need to ask themselves if the White House is in competent hands when a $70 billion war becomes a $2 trillion war. Bush sold his war by understating its cost by a factor of 28.57. Any financial officer anywhere in the world whose project was 2,857 percent over budget would instantly be fired for utter incompetence.

Bush's war cost almost 30 times more than he said it would because the moronic neoconservatives that he stupidly appointed to policy positions told him the invasion would be a cakewalk. Neocons promised minimal U.S. casualties. Iraq already has cost 2,200 dead Americans and 16,000 seriously wounded - and Bush's war is not over yet. The cost of lifetime care and disability payments for the thousands of U.S. troops who have suffered brain and spinal damage was not part of the unrealistic rosy picture that Bush painted.

Stiglitz's $2 trillion estimate is OK as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. My own estimate is a multiple of Stiglitz's.

Stiglitz correctly includes the cost of lifetime care of the wounded, the economic value of destroyed and lost lives, and the opportunity cost of the resources diverted to war destruction. What he leaves out is the war's diversion of the nation's attention away from the ongoing erosion of the U.S. economy. War and the accompanying domestic police state have filled the attention span of Americans and their government. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has been rapidly deteriorating.

In 2005, for the first time on record, consumer, business and government spending exceeded the total income of the country.

America can consume more than it produces only if foreigners supply the difference. China recently announced that it intends to diversify its foreign exchange holdings away from the U.S. dollar. If this is not merely a threat in order to extort even more concessions from Bush, Americans' ability to consume will be brought up short by a fall in the dollar's value, as China ceases to be a sponge that is absorbing an excessive outpouring of dollars. Oil-producing countries might follow China's lead.

Now that Americans are dependent on imports for their clothing, manufactured goods and even high technology products, a decline in the dollar's value will make all these products much more expensive. American living standards, which have been treading water, will sink.

A decline in living standards is an enormous cost and will make existing debt burdens unbearable. Stiglitz did not include this cost in his estimate.

Even more serious is the war's diversion of attention from the disappearance of middle-class jobs for university graduates. The ladders of upward mobility are being rapidly dismantled by offshore production for U.S. markets, job outsourcing and importation of foreign professionals on work visas. In almost every U.S. corporation, U.S. employees are being dismissed and replaced by foreigners who work for lower pay. Even American public school teachers and hospital nurses are being replaced by foreigners imported on work visas.

The American Dream has become a nightmare for college graduates who cannot find meaningful work.

This fact is made abundantly clear from the payroll jobs data over the past five years. December's numbers, released on Jan. 6, show the same pattern that I have reported each month for years. Under pressure from offshore outsourcing, the U.S. economy only creates low-productivity jobs in low-pay domestic services.

Only a paltry number of private sector jobs were created - 94,000. Of these 94,000 jobs, 35,800 - or 38 percent - are for waitresses and bartenders. Health care and social assistance account for 28 percent of the new jobs, and temporary workers account for 10 percent. These three categories of low-tech, nontradable domestic services account for 76 percent of the new jobs. This is the jobs pattern of a poor Third World economy that consumes more than it produces.

America's so-called First World superpower economy was only able to create in December a measly 12,000 jobs in goods-producing industries, of which 77 percent are accounted for by wood products and fabricated metal products - the furniture and roofing metal of the housing boom that has now come to an end. U.S. employment declined in machinery, electronic instruments, and motor vehicles and parts.

Two thousand six hundred jobs were created in computer systems design and related services, depressing news for the several hundred thousand unemployed American computer and software engineers.

When manufacturing leaves a country, engineering, R&D and innovation rapidly follow. Now that outsourcing has killed employment opportunities for U.S. citizens and even General Motors and Ford are failing, U.S. economic growth depends on how much longer the rest of the world will absorb our debt and finance our consumption.

How much longer will it be before "the world's only remaining superpower" is universally acknowledged as a debt-ridden, hollowed-out economy desperately in need of IMF bailout?

---

Paul Craig Roberts, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writes for Creators Syndicate.

Vermont Guardian

"Parents cannot remove their children’s names from a Pentagon database that includes highly personal information used to attract military recruits, the Vermont Guardian has learned.The Pentagon has spent more than $70.5 million on market research, national advertising, website development, and management of the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) database -- a storehouse of questionable legality that includes the names and personal details of more than 30 million U.S. children and young people between the ages of 16 and 23. The database is separate from information collected from schools that receive federal education money. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to report the names, addresses, and phone numbers of secondary school students to recruiters, but the law also specifies that parents or guardians may write a letter to the school asking that their children’s names not be released.However, many parents have reported being surprised that their children are contacted anyway .... Parents must contact the Pentagon directly to ask that their children’s information not be released to recruiters, but the data is not removed from the JAMRS database, according to Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Instead, the information is moved to a suppression file, where it is continuously updated with new data from private and government sources and still made available to recruiters, Krenke said." [more...]

By Jim Beers


Ever notice the vegetation in "our" National Parks? Here in the East, the vast majority of vegetation is grasses that are periodically mowed, and timber stands that are never cut. Sure, there is the exception, like "The Cornfield" at Antietam where a vicious battle was fought in a cornfield that is replanted each year, and the grain fields at Gettysburg through which Pickett and his men marched to the "copse of trees," and into history.

Out West, the average vegetation picture is different, but basically similar. Uncut tree stands, either overgrazed (by totally "protected" wildlife) or ungrazed (by prohibited domestic animals) grasslands, and (as with all other National Parks) an eclectic mix of plants that are either touted or condemned, as suits U.S. National Park budget purposes.

In and around all National Parks, the wild animal populations are a disgraceful mix of harmful predators (wolves, bears, cougars, coyotes, raccoons), that are unmanaged and bold due to pet-like treatment in the Park, and over-populations of grazing/browsing animals, that decimate park vegetation and decrease other wildlife, from songbirds to amphibians and reptiles, by destroying their habitat. None of these animals or plants is managed in any real sense by the AA (Arrogant Agency), known as the National Park Service. While the nation is well-populated by hunters who would pay to take prescribed numbers of the deer and elk, and trappers that would, likewise, pay to take the predators, in ways and places that would not endanger any visitors or undesignated wildlife, such common sense management and revenue generation is never spoken.

And, the National Park Service gets more lands, more people, and bigger budgets each year. Entrance fees (for lands "saved" with our tax money and employing people, likewise, paid with our taxes) do not supplement annual appropriations "enough." The lists of proposed National Parks is limited only by opportunity and imagination. This 'AA' is credited with the novel (and tyrannical) concept of their vested interest in surrounding private property, known as their "viewshed." As one headline in a national paper read last week, National Parks seek ways to raise funds.

All of these issues are, in one way or another, emerging in the other federal land managing agencies that, together with the Parks, control over 40 percent of the nation, and are increasing this share daily. The U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management are, increasingly, erasing from their policies and practices the management of renewable natural resources (wildlife, fish, trees, grass, water), and reducing uses of such resources by people (hunters, fishermen, trappers, ranchers, farmers, loggers, pet owners, campers, and visitors of all stripes). Along with "viewsheds," such unforeseen rural assaults as road closures, wilderness designations, critical habitats, forcible predator insertions, area closures, area permits, and "native ecosystem/invasive species" mysticism are replacing the written purposes in authorizing legislation, for which each area was authorized for acquisition by Congress. All of these 'AA's have come to believe that the parks, refuges, or forests are "their fiefdom."

Increasingly, we see billionaire landowners "partnering" (through their own scientists) with neighboring 'AA's to close down access, allow predators to decimate huntable wildlife species, stop fishery management of surrounding streams, and eliminate all grazing and timbering, to enhance the value of their estates (or dukedom or earldom, as the case may be) while eliminating rural towns, rural families, rural economies, rural lifestyles, and American freedoms and traditions, for all but the rich.

But, back to the "grass" and uncut woodlands on the National Parks. Does anyone believe that, when these battles were fought on the Park sites, that the vegetation, grass stands, or uncut woodlands looked anything like they do today? They were cutting trees for construction, cooking, and heating. They were burning slash (unused twigs and gnarly branches). Those folks were growing crops and grazing stock that were (pardon me) pooping all over the pastures and around the barns. They were growing (shhh) tobacco! They had horses, dirt roads, and manure piles. Picture that when you stand at the "copse of trees," and don't forget the smell. No, they didn't eat grass, and they cut down trees: they ate, slept, built, raised families, and died there, not in the urban enclaves we are increasingly forcing rural residents to move to. And, my point is?

My point is, that the National Park Service has been foisting off a caricature environment for years. Simultaneously, they condemn hunting, fishing, trapping, timber management, and grazing as evil practices. Urbanites, suburbanites, exurbanites, professionals, and other manners of unaffected citizens accept this hokum as "science," when, in fact, it is thinly-veiled environmental evangelism. All this while the National Parks whine for money, and the plant and animal communities become more bizarre each year. Bizarre doesn't have anything to do with "native" or "invasive" species, it has everything to do with the political, budget, and power agendas of these 'AA's, their "partners," and the politicians who feed them for their own purposes (re-election).

Why aren't logged (selectively, renewably, sustainably) woodlands found on National Parks, and why are they disappearing on the other AA's fiefdoms? Why aren't animal populations managed by hunting, to maintain diverse plant communities on National Parks, and why is this decreasing on the other AA's fiefdoms? Why aren't domestic animals allowed to graze under permits on National Parks, and why is this beneficial practice being eliminated on the other 'AA's fiefdoms? Why aren't fishing and trapping allowed on National Parks, and why are management programs for and activity levels for such activities not being maintained on other 'AA's fiefdoms? Why isn't all the revenue such activities would generate for "our" public lands, and the benefit to local communities from such activities considered, as all of these 'AA's cry on their bellies and pound their fists on the floor, for more of our tax dollars to further remove American lands from American use?

The answer, of course, is known to all. The agencies are "too big" and "too powerful" for anyone, including our elected officials, to rein in. All of the "friends" of the 'AA's know it. All of the clubs, societies, councils, institutes, unlimiteds, federations, and other assorted ne'er-do-wells not only know it, they smile as they read this. All of the politicians on both sides of the "divide" (pro-'AA' or anti-'AA') know this all too well.

Well, the "answer" is wrong! The answer is divestiture. Most (the majority) of the lands controlled by these 'AA's would be better maintained (biologically, culturally, and economically) if they were transferred to state or private ownership, with conditions that assure the maintenance of open space, managed woodlands, or natural wetland, on which basis, the federal government purchased or set aside the land.

Think of the initial revenue from the sale of the land. Think of the annual savings from all the grandiose requirements dreamed up annually by 'AA's. Think of the roads and access reopened, and kept open. Think of the economic benefit to local communities. Think of the business and recreational opportunities provided to outdoor recreation-starved urbanites. Think of state and local elected officials, once again, controlling our communities, and lifestyles. Think of the possible rural "style-of-living" we could once more establish, without the federal 800-pound gorilla overshadowing everything we do, or want to do.

I plan to write more on divestiture, but for now, just think about a percent target. Say, 20 percent divested from each agency, in each state, by 2008. Think about your Governor having a say in what lands are to be divested. Think about the message of a long-forgotten fact (that the agencies work for the politicians we elect) this would send to an increasingly out-of-control bureaucracy. For now, just think about it.

---

Jim Beers is a retired Refuge Manager, Special Agent, & Wildlife Biologist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

By Darren Weeks

I really wish people would do some research prior to mindlessly forwarding e-mails on the Internet. Nearly all hoaxes are very easily dispelled, when entered into a search engine.

I'm sorry to say that any of you who may have forwarded the email below, have been had.

Subject: FW: National DO NOT CALL list for cell phones [PMX:]

JUST A REMINDER...20 days from today,
cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies
and you will start to receive sale calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THE CALLS...

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 1-888-382-1222.

It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.
It blocks your number for five (5) years.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS

Read.....

E-mail hoax sparks 'Do Not Call' stampede
"A hoax e-mail circulating the Internet has millions of Americans scurrying to add their cell phones to a national Do Not Call list to avoid telemarketers...."

The current national "Do Not Call" list is the ONLY one, and they accept all numbers -- including cell numbers. I entered mine into their data base about three years ago, along with my house number.

Here's another one for you...

'Do Not Call' List for Cell Phone Users?
"While it's true that the major wireless phone providers (Verizon excepted) have announced their intention to establish a 411 directory of customers' cell phone numbers beginning in 2006, it is not true that they plan to "publish" said directory for any and all to read.... In fact, per FCC regulations, telemarketers are already prohibited from calling cell phone numbers using automated dialers, which are standard in the industry."

While it's probably not a bad idea to register your numbers with the REAL "Do Not Call" registry, I'd be very careful about calling a number circulated in an e-mail and entering ANY personal info. The number in the message above is the correct "Do Not Call" number, but you cannot count on that being the case, unless you looked it up beforehand, as I did. I wouldn't put it past telemarketers to start up an e-mail hoax for the purpose of harvesting numbers to call.

If you wish to register your numbers (including cell phones) you can go to www.donotcall.gov . It is the real (and ONLY) "Do Not Call" registry, and is administered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

All right. One more and I'm done. If you still have your doubts, read this right from the horse's mouth:

The Truth about Cell Phones and the National Do Not Call Registry
"If you've received an e-mail telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database, rest assured that this is not the case.... The federal government does not maintain a national cell phone registry. Personal cell phone users have always been able to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry — the same Registry consumers use to register their land lines — either online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll-free 1-888-382-1222 from the telephone number they wish to register."

In conclusion....

It took me less than 5 minutes to dig these up. The best policy is to investigate before forwarding these kinds of messages. If everyone did a search prior to forwarding these things, most e-mail hoaxes would have their lines cut, before they ever got off the ground.

CBS press release

NORTH KOREAN GENERAL SAYS HE IS WILLING TO USE HIS NUCLEAR WEAPONS IF THE US INVADES

***"60 MINUTES" SUNDAY****

North Korean Three-Star General Ri Chan Bok tells Dan Rather that if the U.S. invades his country, he will use nuclear weapons to defend it. Rather spoke to the general during a recent visit to the reclusive Communist dictatorship for a 60 MINUTES report to be broadcast Sunday Jan. 15 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

"Tell the American people that you met the general. If the United States invades our country and starts a war, the People’s Army will fight to the death and defend ourselves, taking appropriate revenge," says Gen. Bok.

Does the general think that the United States might attack North Korea?

"We firmly believe that the United States will carry out its policies on our country even if they have to use military means," Gen. Bok tells Rather. "What we can say to you definitely right now is that we currently have nuclear weapons," he threatens.

Bok wouldn’t show 60 MINUTES cameras any of his missiles, but did show Rather his troops at the border with South Korea. There are more than 30,000 American forces on the other side. The general said that the Americans and their South Korean allies have stepped up military and propaganda exercises recently. He said it’s because of what he calls the "neo-conservatives" in the Bush administration.

"[Neo-conservatives] are people who want to dominate the world, just like the Nazis of Germany. After striking Iraq they want North Korea," says Bok.

The U.S. State Department refused to discuss North Korea with 60 MINUTES.

Sunday’s report features a rare look behind the North Korean curtain, including the Navy ship U.S.S. Pueblo, which is now moored in Pyongyang and used as a tourist attraction. Rather and his camera crew paid $13 each to film their tour of the spy ship, whose capture in 1968 was one of the most visible and serious incidents of the Cold War.

Other footage captures the militaristic pageantry the government put on for the country’s 60th Birthday.

By Darren Weeks

It never ceases to amaze me how something can work for a number of months, then suddenly begin to cause conflicts.

If you tried to access this site yesterday, or today and found it impossible to do so, I found that the culprit was a perl script which generates the random quote. The random quote is currently (as of this writing) located below the news items on the right-hand side of this page.

For some reason and without warning, it began to act up late last night. I attributed the lack of site access to limited bandwidth availability on the computer network that I was using at the time. In other words, I dismissed the problem as not being one associated with the web site itself.

Then, upon checking on it again this evening, I discovered that the site was completely down. I pulled the files from the server and they loaded successfully via the file transfer protocol (ftp). They would just not load by way of the standard hypertext transfer protocol (http).

After a period of troubleshooting, I narrowed the problem down to the tiny line of code that executes the perl script. Bear in mind, this script has functioned just beautifully for several months. Why did it pick now to start acting up?

Regardless, I made a slight modification to the script and the code that calls it, and varoom! We're back up and running. Hopefully, for good.

It's just so weird how these computers almost seem to have a mind of their own.

By Darren Weeks

I have to confess that I was drawn in by the recent story of the mouse who allegedly burned down a house in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Resident Luciano Mares had supposedly captured the pesky little critter and decided to discard him in a fire.

As the story goes, according to fire officials, the flaming rodent escaped the fire, and then high-tailed it back inside the house, where he set the fire which ultimately left Mares homeless.

I was drawn in, but I didn't report it.

The controlled media did, however. News outlets, spawned by the major wire services including the Associated Press and the French news service AFP, sported headlines such as "Fiery mouse burns the house" and "Mouse Gets Revenge: Sets Home Ablaze".

As I read the initial story, I remember thinking to myself, How do they KNOW the fire was caused by a mouse? Were there any witnesses? Or are they simply taking the man's word for it?

Now it surfaces that the whole story was nothing but B.S. It simply never happened. Mares, himself, appeared on a local television station and set the record straight.

Quoting from a MSNBC report, headlined, "Flaming Mouse Story Proven False",

"It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.

Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.

The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.

Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.

I picked this story as an example of what's wrong with media coverage today. This is especially true of local media coverage, of which I have had quite a lot of experience.

Our local media ran with this story, because it was reported as fact by the wire services and the networks. They never cited any of these services, however. They simply reported the story as if it had actually happened, never once questioning whether the man might be lying, delirious, or that there could be a misunderstanding. They never asked how, for instance, the mouse could re-enter the house. Was the door left open? Did he enter through a window? CNN reported that the mouse was caught in a glue trap. How did the mouse escape from the glue trap?

What likely happened was the man was so hysterical at seeing his house on fire, that he was trying to tell his story to the firefighters, but he jumbled it up so bad that they misunderstood and got the impression that the mouse had started the fire, when, in fact, it had apparently been the wind that blew the fire. The misled firefighters then repeated the erroneous story to the local media, who then passed it on to the national.

As with the fire, we'll never really know for sure how the rumor actually got started.

We do, however, know two things:

1. The house burned. We could probably be fairly certain of this, although even that should be questioned, at this point, if you haven't actually seen it.
   
2. The media blew it. Big time!

Any word of any public official, whether it's a fireman, police officer, government agent, etc., is taken at face value as gospel by the local media. This is a fact; I've seen it first-hand, as I've worked in media for many years. The only exception to this rule is if a certain official's credibility is in question due to a corruption scandal or a similar reason to doubt their word. So much for being a watchdog on corrupt government, as our founding fathers intended.

Any word of the national wire services or the major networks is also repeated without question. If they say the moon is made of green cheese, it will be treated as if God had said it.

Regardless of what I've previously mentioned, the reporting of the incident would have been all right with the proper attribution. Had they stated that "officials on the scene said..." or "according to the homeowner...", then technically they would have still been right.

None of the reports that I had seen, made that attribution. Now, they are following up the story by saying that the integrity of the story is either in question, or that it's untrue.

Of course, there's no apology for their error. There's no acknowledgement of their misleading the public. There's no remorse for their role in spreading an untrue rumor, which is a disgrace to real journalism.

The whole event serves as a perfect example of how the controlled media — so haughty and prideful, so ready to criticize independent researchers and characterize us as kooks who lack credibility — can blow it themselves and never really repent.

Indeed, they lie to the people every day.

BBC News
January 6, 2006

Solving the Earth's environmental problems means addressing the size of its human population, says the head of the UK's Antarctic research agency.

Professor Chris Rapley argues that the current global population of six billion is unsustainably high.

Writing for the BBC News website, he says population is the "Cinderella" issue of the environmental movement.

But unless it is addressed, the welfare and quality of life of future generations will suffer, he adds.

Professor Rapley's comments come in the first of a new series of environmental opinion pieces on the BBC News website entitled The Green Room.

"If we believe that the size of the human [ecological] 'footprint' is a serious problem, and there is much evidence for this," he writes, "then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed."

A number of studies suggest that humankind is consuming the Earth's resources at an unsustainably fast rate.

Even so, the issue of population is hardly ever discussed at environmental summits or raised by green lobby groups.

Professor Rapley, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, acknowledges it is a thorny question, invoking the spectre of forced population control and even eugenics.

He does not make suggestions about how the current upward trend, from the current six billion towards eight or nine billion by 2050, can be reversed.

But, he says population is one of a number of issues leading to environmental degradation of various forms, and needs a higher priority than it currently receives.

"Unless and until this changes," he writes, "summits such as [the recent climate change meeting] in Montreal which address only part of the problem will be limited to at best very modest success, with the welfare and quality of life of future generations the ineluctable casualty."

By Darren Weeks

I've been quite busy lately — and a bit discouraged.

Monday's ratings were way down. Tuesday's were a bit better, but whenever there's a dip in the listenership, it makes me wonder if I'm losing my effectiveness and whether it's time for me to hang it up.

I used to actually enjoy doing the broadcasts. It was fun to research and discover and share my findings with the listeners.

Now, it has become burdensome, with two of my days off given to wondering what I'm going to talk about that night. And it pulls me away from the family, which is always a challenge.

I don't want the children to grow up, remembering their father as an absentee Dad, secluded in the basement doing some obscure broadcast, trying to resurrect a dying republic that — as Niki Rapaana so adequately put it — "doesn't know it's dying".

I'll add to her words by saying that it doesn't even seem to care.

I'm never going to quit the fight to save our country. It's a calling. Until the day the Lord releases me from that calling I feel that I have to continue.

With the broadcast, I feel that I keep repeating the same points over and over. Refuting global warming is paramount to our cause as the lies keep going forth from the CONtrolled press. Weather modification needs to be exposed in regard to "global climate change".

Another of my pet subjects about which to talk is the never-ending war on terror.

It tears me up inside to know that men and women are coming back from Iraq, trying to adapt to a life of normalcy, after having witnessed the most diabolical and hellish side of humanity. Many, if not most, of these soldiers have had a mountainous challenge, trying to adapt back into civilian life. They mistrust people; some can't get the smell of death out of their head. They suffer mood swings, along with horrible, debilitating depression.

That's just the pyschological toll. That doesn't take into account the physical injuries.

I've made it no secret how I feel about the Pentagon's war casualty numbers. I strongly believe that the numbers are being manipulated to be very low, compared to the actual number of U.S. soldier deaths.

Indeed, others have pointed out how the media makes distinctions between combat fatalities versus soldiers who died by being blown up by bombs, or by other means.

However, even if the Pentagon numbers were correct, they don't take into account the countless youth who have had their innocence robbed by an imperialist government, that sends them to war for no other purpose than to build a despotism of the world.

I grieve for these men and women. I grieve for their families, who will pay the price, having a mother, father, sister, or brother that will never be the same. I grieve for the mothers and fathers who receive the notification that their baby won't be coming back. For these parents, the world ends. The emptiness in their hearts is as a quenchless thirst — a hunger that can never be satisfied. It's a void that will never be filled.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and next on the would-be despots' radar appears to be Iran.

All of it was pre-planned in the PNAC report, before Bush and his handlers ever took office.

What amazes me is that so few people are aware of the PNAC report. If you mention it to the average person, they think you're a conspiracy nut.

But they won't pry themselves away from the football game or their vulgar cartoons long enough to read it, when you offer it to them.

I've often wondered why it is that people don't want to know the true fate of their country. Could it be that their worried that I'm right? Or do they choose to remain ignorant because they'd rather not have to have the responsibility of saving what last remnants of liberty we have left?

By Darren Weeks

My wish for all this New Year's night
is a life of joy, full of delight
May you never know pain or despair
And may happiness greet you everywhere

May those who seek to do you ill
their plans be foiled, have a change of will
May your wounded heart learn to forgive
May your dying soul find strength to live

May those in turmoil soon find peace
The unjustly accused find sweet release
May the widow who mourns, weep no more
May the people arise, and put an end to war

May the new year bring to the deserving justice
The killer, the thief, the selfish, the gutless
Let them be cast down from their places high
to wander naked and thirsty in deserts dry

Let the poor be rich and the rich made humble
May you find your way and never stumble
May your path be bright, where'er you trod
May you always be led by the Spirit of God

What is a year, but the concept of time?

What is time, but the concept of man?

What is man, but the concept of God?

What is God? A concept of man? Or a Being without conception?