t r u t h o u t | Patriot Act - Eight Years Later: "Patriot Act - Eight Years Later"

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Yahoo! News

Yahoo! News: "'Tea party' movement: Who are they and what do they want?
The Christian Science Monitor - Thu Feb 4th, 2010 3:20 PM EST

Of all the protest signs at all the rallies and town-hall meetings where people gathered last year to object to Washington's plans to save the US economy and reform healthcare, this hand-lettered one is memorable: 'You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out.'"

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News: "President Hugo Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last remaining privately run oil fields today, intensifying a decisive struggle with big oil over one of the world's most lucrative deposits. The companies giving up control include BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Chevron."

Venezuela Will Pull Out Of World Bank, IMF - WSJ.com

Venezuela Will Pull Out Of World Bank, IMF - WSJ.com: "CARACAS -- President Hugo Chavez said Monday he will pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in his bid to move the country away from capitalism."

Dear MoveOn member,

Exciting news! This Saturday will see the biggest demonstration on climate change in U.S. History. Our friends at Step It Up 2007 have organized over 1300 actions in all 50 states. On one day, tens of thousands of us will stand together and demand bold action from our leaders on climate change. Will you be there?

http://events.stepitup2007.org/ally/moveon

Finally, the politics of global warming have started changing faster than the climate. Speaker Pelosi has demanded a plan by June1. People are talking about climate change on college campuses, at the Academy Awards, and at hundreds of local town hall meetings where mayors are taking the lead. Even the Supreme Court has gotten involved—they just told the administration that they can't ignore global warming anymore. 2

But there are still big barriers to change. Only massive public pressure will overcome the formidable resistance put up by oil companies and their friends in DC.

There will be all kinds of actions all over the country—from educational forums to rallies to "human chains." Mayors and representatives are stepping up, and even presidential hopeful John Edwards will attend an event in his community. All of these actions have a common message to Congress: To avert disaster, we need to cut our carbon by 80 percent by 2050.

We still have a chance to turn things around if we demand action. The U.N. said last month that if we start to cut greenhouse gas emissions now, we can avoid the worst of future water shortages and species extinctions.3 But Congress and the president won't take the kind of bold action that's called for unless we're clear we mean business.

Bill McKibben, author and creator of Step It Up 2007, sent this message on the importance of this event:

...It's more important than ever that those of us who know enough and care enough to take action ratchet up the pressure. The oil companies and the coal barons read the newspapers too—they know that their days of a free ride are coming to a close, and the only question now is how high the fare is going to be. In every corner of the country, people are demanding real action. And they're starting to be heard.

This Saturday is the moment that everything begins to change on this issue. Click here to find an event in your community:

http://events.stepitup2007.org/ally/moveon

Thanks for all you do,

–Ilyse, Nita, Wes, Matt and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

BBC World Service | Heart and Soul

A program with Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, and the author of a couple of the course readings. She interviews a number of pro-creationism/ID advocates.

There is a 30 minute streaming sound file of her BBC radio program available on the Web at this link. Soon it will be removed -- BUT, I'll put it on the course website under password protection so you can listen to it later if you like. --RAE

"In scientific circles over the last 150 years, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has become the accepted explanation for how we and all other living things evolved from primitive, single-celled ancestors.

Click on the blue title to go to the whole article and sound file on the Web.

Geologists now have evidence that our planet's history dates back about 4.6 billion years and cosmologists will tell you that our universe came into being through a process known as the Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago.

In spite of that, many people are guided by a different set of beliefs, based on scripture. In the United States the incidence of such beliefs is particularly high. In a recent survey, more than 40% of Americans said they thought that humans and other creatures had been created in their present forms and have not evolved. Of those who did accept evolution, a third thought that it was guided by some supreme being."

E. J. Dionne Jr. - An Antiwar Tide on The Rise - washingtonpost.com

E. J. Dionne Jr. - An Antiwar Tide on The Rise - washingtonpost.com: "Within three weeks, the United States could face a constitutional crisis over President Bush's war policy in Iraq. The president and his allies seem to want this fight. Yet insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day."

Antiwar Students Rising: "At the January 27 peace march in Washington, an unlikely group of students paraded together. It was a lineup that would have been unthinkable four years ago: College Democrats, young socialist radicals, black and Latino students wearing Make Hip-Hop Not War T-shirts, representatives of the student wing of a DC think tank and a reborn Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)."

For the full story (apparently), see the following link:

Antiwar Students Rising