If we exclude the factor of virtual economy, the U.S. actual GDP is about 5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2009, per capita GDP about $ 15,000.

Pablo Neruda's Standard Oil Company poem:

Their obese emperors from New York
             are suave smiling assassins
             who buy silk, nylon, cigars
             petty tyrants and dictators.
             They buy countries, people, seas, police, county councils,
             distant regions where the poor hoard their corn
             like misers their gold . . .

According to the Vinogradov memo (to be published by us in full in the Russian weekly Expert next Monday), Anwar al-Sadat, holder of the titles of President, Prime Minister, ASU Chairman, Chief Commander, Supreme Military Ruler, entered into conspiracy with the Israelis, betrayed his ally Syria, condemned the Syrian army to destruction and Damascus to bombardment, allowed General Sharon’s tanks to cross without hindrance to the western bank of the Suez Canal, and actually planned a defeat of the Egyptian troops in the October War. Egyptian soldiers and officers bravely and successfully fought the Israeli enemy – too successfully for Sadat’s liking as he began the war in order to allow for the US comeback to the Middle East.

"World bankers, by pulling a few simple levers that control the flow of money, can make or break entire economies. By controlling press releases of economic strategies that shape national trends, the power elite are able to not only tighten their stranglehold on this nation's economic structure, but can extend that control world wide. Those possessing such power would logically want to remain in the background, invisible to the average citizen." (Aldous Huxley)

The Western governments did not understand this change of mood in Moscow when they demanded to vote on their draft Syrian resolution in the UN Security Council. They expected that the anti-Putin rally would frighten the Russian government and make it more pliable. They had a good reason: this was the general feeling in diplomatic circles.. When President Medvedev visited Moscow State U a few days earlier, a student (a Heath protester, apparently) asked him whether he was ready to meet the fate of Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein, or would he escape to his friendly North Korea. After the Hill demo this Saturday, he would not ask this question: it seems now too far-fetched. Nor will the Russian government feel it should give in to Western pressure on Syria: if the Hill speakers are to be judged by their rhetoric, Russia is now more likely to send its anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

If you live in America today and you are not in a television-induced coma, then you have probably had that feeling. It seems like almost everywhere you turn these days, there is someone that is seriously losing it.When paranoia, fear and delusional thinking are commonplace, it is very difficult for a society to function normally.

Until the passage of the 2005 Individuals with Disabilities Act, schools had the power to force children to take ADD drug, namely amphetamines, or bar them from classrooms, even when parents objected to the medication.

Tourists and imperialists do not come to be taught. They call things the way they call things at home. Then they realize that the names are not correct.

"Education is not the same as training. Plato made the distinction between techne (skill) and episteme (knowledge). Becoming an educated person goes beyond the acquisition of a technical skill. It requires an understanding of one’s place in the world—cultural as well as natural—in pursuit of a productive and meaningful life. And it requires historical perspective . . ."