General News News

By Sheila Pratt

Two Edmonton artists are shocked that part of their internationally renowned work, The Gun Sculpture, was subject to censorship at a United Nations exhibition in Vienna this summer after pressure from the Chinese delegation.

NEAL CONAN, host:

We'd like to believe that most of what we know is accurate and that if presented with facts to prove we're wrong, we would sheepishly accept the truth and change our views accordingly.

A new body of research out of the University of Michigan suggests that's not what happens, that we base our opinions on beliefs and when presented with contradictory facts, we adhere to our original belief even more strongly.

The phenomenon is called backfire, and it plays an especially important role in how we shape and solidify our beliefs on immigration, the president's place of birth, welfare and other highly partisan issues.

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.

Vince Li has been found not criminally responsible for the gruesome murder and beheading of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus last summer because he is mentally ill.

Li's trial took only two days and heard from only two witnesses. Both were psychiatrists who testified Li suffers from schizophrenia. They testified Li heard what he thought was the voice of God

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates?

A United Nations human rights treaty that could prohibit children from being spanked or homeschooled, ban youngsters from facing the death penalty and forbid parents from deciding their families' religion is on America's doorstep, a legal expert warns.

Michael Farris of Purcellville, Va., is president of ParentalRights.org, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association and chancellor of Patrick Henry College. He told WND that under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC, every decision a parent makes can be reviewed by the government to determine whether it is in the child's best interest.

Recent falls in food prices are no more than a temporary reprieve and are set to resume their upward trend once the world emerges from the current economic downturn.

This is one of the conclusions of a new Chatham House report, The Feeding of the Nine Billion: Global Food Security for the 21st Century, which urges policymakers to start planning now for a future 'food crunch'.

The report assesses the outlook for global food supply in a long term context of expanding population, increasing affluence, climate change concerns and growing resource scarcity.

The report's author, Alex Evans, says:

'The 20th century Green Revolution made incredible advances in improving crop yields. Now, we need a 21st century Green Revolution to repeat that success. Although enough food is produced today to feed everyone, nearly a billion people are undernourished - about the same number as are overweight.

Mike Sunnucks, writing for the Phoenix Business Journal, exposes details of a recent report released by the Pentagon. According to the report, globalization and urbanization will fuel “social unrest, as well as a potential collapse of the Mexican government as that country deals with violence and corruption induced by drug cartels and organized crime.”

On the surface, the Joint Operating Environment 2008 report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command is a self-serving document. It predicts multiple crises “if there are major reductions in U.S. defense spending,” including “terrorist networks obtaining nuclear and biological weapons, as well as instability and aggressiveness involving China, India, Pakistan, India and the Middle East.” On the other hand, the report may be seen as a blueprint for the establishment of a North American Union.

The Canadian people woke up 15 October to a new government that looked remarkably like the old government.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3905.shtml

You have learned well, Grasshopper......

 This hard-hitting, fast-paced Canadian information video, packed with graphs, statistics Canada figures, OECD comparison studies, produced by John Riddell, is based on Mel Hurtig's "The Truth About Canada".

"No sharp line can be drawn between scientific technique and traditional arts and crafts. The essential characteristic of scientific technique is the utilization of natural forces in ways not evident to the totally uninstructed." - Bertrand Russell, 1931 (p137)

This article will describe the creation of two artificial societies including the design and implementation of a new religion specifically for that new planned society as discussed in Bertrand Russell's 1931 book The Scientific Outlook. The two societies described are: Japan following their 1867 revolution and Russia following the Bolshevik revolution.

"Education in a scientific society may, I think, be best conceived after the analogy of the education provided by the Jesuits. The Jesuits provided one sort of education for the boys who were to become ordinary men of the world, and another for those who were to become members of the Society of Jesus. In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play." - Bertrand Russell, 1931

"Equality, like liberty, is difficult to reconcile with scientific technique, since this involves a great apparatus of experts and officials inspiring and controlling vast organizations. Democratic forms may be preserved in politics, but they will not have as much reality as in a community of small peasant proprietors. Officials unavoidably have power. And where many vital questions are so technical that the ordinary man cannot hope to understand them, experts must inevitably acquire a considerable measure of control." - Bertrand Russell, 1931