"Vultures' Picnic" - Greg Palast (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

On April 20, 2010, British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and spilling countless barrels of crude oil into the sea.

Days later a confidential cable from a terrified insider arrived on investigative reporter Greg Palast's desk. He had the real, hushed-up facts of the disaster -- facts that can only be found buried in the files of a Central Asian dictatorship.

Vultures' Picnic charts the course of Palast's quest to bring the truth of the BP disaster to light as he and his team of journalist-detectives go from the streets of Baku, where Palast searches for a brown valise full of... More



(KnewWorldNoing) Libya a victim of the giant US investment bank Goldman Sachs? The bank is being investigated for its part in the financial crisis. It lost a billion dollar investment made by Libya three years ago.

Greek Buddhism (video)

Opensourcebuddhism.org, Wisdom Quarterly
(Open Source Buddhism) Mike Watters through Professor Rev. Dr. James Kenneth Powell II

Buddhism was a beloved Greek/Bactrian/Scythian tradition influencing the Dharma and toga-sporting depictions of the Buddha as East met West in Alexander's expansive Indo-Greek empire, which encompassed parts of northwest frontier India (Gandhara, Afghanistan, Indus River valley).

This detailed study of the intriguing interactions of the ancient Greeks, Indians, and Buddhists as greater Greece became a major conduit of communication.

Greek Skeptics and Stoics were greatly influenced by their connections with Buddhism, but not the Cynics. Diogenes was certainly a Buddhist man in the West. The contrast between his view and that of Socrates and Plato is well articulated. He is far more in agreement with the Buddha than the others.

Watters' chronicle of the origins and development of the Alexandrian then Ashokan civilizations is concise yet replete with details. The travels of the two Greek Dharmaraksitas is a fascinating revelation following Greco-Buddhism to Sri Lanka.

The study of King Menander (Milinda) pushes home how Buddhism took root in Central Asia and the philosopher-monk Nagasena's arguments in Greek court were historically pivotal.

Destroying Our Economy on Purpose

Wisdom Quarterly

A one hundred trillion dollar note (jimgottuso.wordpress.com). What happened to Zimbabwe when its economy collapsed and hyperinflation set in (cato.org)?

Remember, "Obama" is just a figurehead. He neither makes decisions nor chooses the course of events. His job is to make things sound palatable by wielding a carrot rather than Cheney-Bush's stick. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner goes along as well. Their scripts are written for them. And money is moved from wherever it is (e.g., US real estate, pension holdings, civil servants' salaries) into the personal accounts of corporations and individuals that will rule in the future. The "movers and shakers" remain unseen.

BREAKING NEWS! Lady Gaga no longer Number 1 on Facebook, overtaken by superstar Rihanna

Bankers, Pentagon officials, CIA agents, billionaires, nagas, asuras, "Illuminati," dynasties, royal bloodlines, members of secret societies, moguls -- it hardly matters who sits at the throne, the helm of any country's economy. Banker A.M. Rothschild put it succinctly: "Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws." While we argue left/right, Republican/Democrat, heathen/Christian, conservative/liberal, our country is being undermined. Our experiment in democracy has gone from the hands of the people to a government of the powerful, by the powerful (Koch Brothers, etc.), for the powerful.

What is the Obama Administration Planning for the Dollar?

Economist: US collapse driven by "fraud," Geithner covering up bank insolvency

(Dl.PrisonPlanet.TV) In an explosive interview on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal, professor of economics and law with the University of Missouri William K. Black alleged that American banks and credit agencies conspired to create a system in which so-called “liars loans” could receive AAA ratings and zero oversight, amounting to a massive “fraud” at the epicenter of US finance. [It was done on purpose to create a massive transfer of wealth.] More

Prison Planet's Alex Jones interviews Megadeth's Dave Mustaine

•Michigan considers banning TSA groping
Scientists find active "super-thermite" in WTC dust
•Fake Liberal Gun Grabbers Seize On Pittsburgh Shootings
•Black Bloc Provocateurs Set Strasbourg Hotel on Fire
• North Korea rocket launch "provocative": Obama
•Thousands flee bomb attacks by US drones
•Obama Wants to Control the Banks
•Stiglitz: Bank Plan Makes Taxpayers Suckers
•Mass protest in Rome over financial crisis
• How José Manuel Barroso (Bilderberg Member) quietly transformed the world’s financial future G20 summit
• Toxic Asset Plan Will Leave The Same Amount Of Toxic Assets In The System, But With the Taxpayers Now Liable For Most Of The Losses
• Infowars Story on Illegal Tenn Checkpoint Prompts Action by Gov
• Hawaiians May Need Special ID to Buy Gas in 2010
• Suspected US strike kills 13 in Pakistan
• Anti-NATO protests continue in France
• Minister: Britain should not fear asking for IMF cash
• Biden vows to tackle gun violence after NY massacre

The Cost of US war on the World

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)
(costsofwar.org)

Even if Pres. Obama came to office promising to pull out of Afghanistan, he changed his mind. Almost immediately, he sent in more invading and occupying troops. There was more than one major surges. He recently reluctantly said he would bring a fraction of them back.

• Gates pushed out of Pentagon, replaced with CIA chief
• CIA chief Panetta becomes new US Secretary of War
  
• Afghan war chief Patraeus confirmed as new head of CIA
  

But the fact is, there are more soldiers there now than there ever have been. This will be true even if he gets around to withdrawing some a year from now as he promised. How many soldiers in the field? There are a quarter US million soldiers in Afghanistan, it is said, but that must also include Iraq, CIA boots in Libya, and elsewhere. Why are there any in Afghanistan? No one knows. The Russians were greatly interested, so interested that it became their "Vietnam."

Robert Gates, Secretary of War, before presidential award and passing the job off to CIA head (csmonitor.com)

More shocking and less well known is the sad truth that even as poorly paid, PTSD-suffering "soldiers" are withdrawn, "private contractors" are sent in. There are more boots on the ground and more entering all the time.

The same happened -- thanks to Halliburton and Blackwater and Xe and other private-corporate armies -- in Iraq. Paid mercenaries do more and cost much more than regular military service personnel.

• Senate unanimously confirms Panetta as US warlord
• Senate confirms David Petraeus as CIA director
• Why was Petraeus sent to CIA, not Pentagon?
• Amazon stops hosting WikiLeaks website
• Congress denies war authorization, keeps funding
  
• A world overwhelmed by Western hypocrisy
• While Libyan War, Obama team denies it's a "war"
  

So even if all US soldiers were brought home, the secret, publicly-funded private-war would rage on. Pres. Obama is a hypocrite, and now he's a warmonger. Gates, the former head of the Pentagon (today being his last day) was not cooperating. But Leon Panetta, former CIA chief, should do as told, using his clandestine skills to promote corporate interests sitting in his new Pentagon office.

We argue and worry about gay marriage, gay soldiers, Washington sex scandals. Meanwhile, ultra-violence plays out all over the world sponsored by US taxpayers and secret sources of money (like the lucrative illegal drug trade):

• Libya (an illegal war, but Obama doesn't mind that)
• Yemen
• Egypt
• Pakistan (those drones have to prove they were worth it)
• Iraq (the forgotten war)
• secret conflicts (in China, space, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Bahrain, and who can forget the war on our homeland) plus the
  
• United States' longest running war ever, Afghanistan.