"move to counter voter apathy"

"Should the PES extend membership to individuals?"

"India shows strong economic progress – hopefully now also to the benefit of the poor people in the rural districts – and also something of what we understand by sustainability.

Europe must take advantage of this situation – revitalising not only trade negotations but also more actively seeking to improve working conditions and ensuring ILO minimum working standards for the Indian workforce.

In the globalisation era, we need Europe to be a frontrunner for a better agenda for all workers. This is also a signal in the context of the present trend of outsourcing. We are not against international work-sharing as a result of free trade. This has given us much growth and wealth – but the time has come to work for the creation of fairer conditions so that one day we will compete on the best working conditions and not on the worst."

" Voor Europa is het een uitdaging om - omringd door bureaucratie, religieus fundamentalisme en stalinistische naschokken - een democratische weg te gaan, die bestaande spanningen wegneemt en dialogen op gang brengt. Is dat links, is dat rechts? Laten we liever spreken in termen van eerlijkheid versus bedrog. Honderd procent eensgezindheid is een utopie. Altijd zullen belangen en meningen met elkaar botsen, maar laten we onze besluiten ten minste nemen op basis van complete en betrouwbare informatie. Alleen dan is zo'n besluit ook iets waard."

"The failure of the media to expose the torture story earlier, even as Pentagon sources and soldiers' families leaked information about the torture, reveals much about the balance in this story. It suggests that it came about less as a result of campaigning journalism and more as a result of pushiness on the part of aggrieved elements in the military or close to the military."

"Clarke was replaced by General Wayne Downing, a pro-Iraq war hawk. Nonetheless, he had a similar experience, lasting a total of 10 months before abruptly resigning in frustration at how the White House bureaucracy was responding to the terrorist threat. Downing was replaced by two men, General [John] Gordon, who lasted ten months before moving on to his homeland security job, and Rand Beers, who resigned in disgust over the Iraq war after seven months in his post. His experience was searing enough that he immediately joined the Kerry campaign. Beers was replaced by Townsend, who has now been tapped to replace Gordon, who is apparently resigning under circumstances similar to Clarke and Beers. "

"Pollsters have become our modern soothsayers, interpreting public opinion surveys with the gravity with which their predecessors read chicken entrails. Of course polls, k\like chicken entrails, can be ambiguous or people can change their minds -which happens from time to time- at wi\hich point there is a lemminglike rush to the newly popular view."

"regular people defending their homes and neighbourhoods[/div] the way Naomi Klein did. They are out for violence to show their adherence to their group. They compete in barbarism: they make a video of beheading an American civilian in response to the reports of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. You can hear these immatures screaming “they started” implying: “we are not responsible for our acts”.
But the similarities go on. The teachers on the school with the theatre apparently reasoned that they had little influence on their pupils: they can not compensate for the (lack of) upbringing at home. They are right in some way like it is absurd to suppose that foreigners in Iraq could stamp out the awkward consequences of literally centuries of glorifying martyrdom and conserving victimhood.
Should the teachers of the visiting school have used real violence to protect the pupil under their responsibility or could this have worked out as (another) bad example?
The dilemmas concerning Iraq, -actually the decision to extend the presence of Dutch troops or not-, are terrible. Now that a Dutchman is killed, -even though I have and never had family members or friends in the armed forces-, it feels much more difficult to make up my mind. I don’t think the Netherlands should withdraw as soon as possible. But writing that not just means I actually endorse the possibility of more Dutch to be killed but somehow contributes to the position of the US government as well. In my mind they don’t deserve it. We are definitely in need of a stronger and more independent European position.
In Europe I think I have to use my little influence to urge the candidates for the election of the European parliament to at least speak out on international affairs including military ones.

"the Common Agricultural Policy, whose funds have long been directed to supporting farmers from prices which were considered to be too low, may find them increasingly committed towards protecting urban consumers from the consequences of world foodstuff prices which are considered to be too high. In the process the whole debate about farm subsidies may take a new and unexpected turn."

""Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.
"I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.
"And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody."

"But first, let's retire this man from public life. "

"Now, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to know -- I'd like you to give the committee the chain of command from the guards to you, all the way up the chain of command. I'd like to know..."

"Well, the -- as the chief of staff of the Army can tell you, the guards are trained to guard people. They're not trained to interrogate, they're not -- and their instructions are to, in the case of Iraq, adhere to the Geneva Convention.

The Geneva Conventions apply to all of the individuals there in one way or another. They apply to the prisoners of war, and they are written out and they're instructed and the people in the Army train them to that and the people in the Central Command have the responsibility of seeing that, in fact, their conduct is consistent with the Geneva Conventions.

The criminals in the same detention facility are handled under a different provision of the Geneva Convention -- I believe it's the fourth and the prior one's the third. "

"The English landed elite took a leading role in modernizing agriculture. Through the enclosure system, a brutal process of asserting their rights over the pastures and commons of their estates, they forced the peasants and farmers who had lived off these lands into more specialized and efficient labors”

"Earlier this month, four Italians were kidnapped near Falluja. One was murdered. His last words, caught on video, seconds before he was shot in the head, were apparently: "Now I'm going to show you how an Italian dies." His captors have since demanded that Italians demonstrate against their government. The hostages' relatives have called a march in Rome. But it is clearly billed as being in support of peace rather than the withdrawal of troops. The reaction of virtually all Italy's politicians has been to say the government must not give in to blackmail."

"The terrorists are getting desparate and making strategic mistakes. If they had painted this as a war against the U.S., they could have played to a sympathetic audience in many places. Now they're revealing this war for what it is: a war against Western values, democracy, equality for women under the law, and constitutional, non-theocratic governments."

"he is damaging UK (and western) interests by backing George W. Bush's misguided policies in the Middle East." and ...

"The diplomats were shocked into action not just by gathering signs of implosion in Iraq but by US backing for the decision of Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, to keep most Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank - and Mr Blair's endorsement of this "one-sided and illegal" new policy. Downing Street insists it has not abandoned the principle of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and the internationally underwritten "roadmap" to it. But Mr Sharon's strategy tramples on several United Nations Security Council resolutions, and Washington and London's support for it has inflamed Arab opinion to the point where it sees Palestine and Iraq as two fronts in a war of resistance against the west - the optimal outcome for the fanatics who follow Osama bin Laden.

In Iraq itself, the letter says, the indiscriminate use of force and heavy weapons "have built up rather than isolated the opposition", while there "was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement". The critique is trenchant and almost wholly accurate.

Detractors say the diplomats propose no alternative. But the problem is that the mishandling of Iraq (and Israel-Palestine) has gradually closed off any plausible path forward. What this letter warns is that this is an accelerating downward spiral with no brake - and that Britain's duty as an ally is to use such influence as it has in Washington as "a matter of the highest urgency". Though the letter does not say it, it is hard to see how that meagre influence would not augment, were London to co-ordinate its position more closely with its European partners."

"The British FP people you (-that is not Brad deLong himself but someone else reacting-; fg) are criticizing advocate careful, restrained, targetted use of violence. They think what the US is doing in Iraq is like a dentist with a Sledge-Hammer, and they'd prefer to an alliance that acts like a surgeon with a scalpel. Calling such people pacifists shows either desperate ignorance on your part (have you never met a real pacifist?), or a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue.

The British didn't edge towards peace over Northern Ireland by invading Dublin, or by sending SAS special forces teams into the US to kill those rich Americans who were funding the Provo IRA. Defusing a terrorist movement requires a very careful balance between violence and restraint."

"...de software waar onze sites mee worden gebouwd is eigenlijk nauwelijks gebouwd voor interactie, dus dit hebben ze niet.
Continue redactie uitvoeren is voor een Kamerlid met een halve medewerker simpelweg niet mogelijk. Misschien probeer ik het over een tijdje nog eens..."

"While Moqtada's religious credentials are weak, his family's political standing is as deep as the modern history of Iraq. His grandfather was the prime minister in 1932. And this young, militant cleric didn't spontaneously emerge after the fall of Saddam Hussein. US forces now entering the city of Najaf, are up against a man who has donned the well-cultivated mantle of his father (Sadek al-Sadr), the leading Shiite thorn in the side of the Hussein regime in the 1990s."

"But Sadr's men have also turned their sights on other targets, most specifically their domestic Shiite political opponents. US officials say Sadr was behind the murder of Abdel Majid al-Khoei in Najaf last April. Imam Khoei was close to the US, and had returned from exile with US funding to win supporters in Najaf. After Khoei's muder, Sadr militiamen surrounded the house of Sistani, who was briefly forced into hiding.

These incidents demonstrate Sadr's long-term aims go far beyond simply getting the US to leave Iraq. "What's happening now has more to do with the dynamics between Sistani and Sadr than it does between either of them and the coalition,'' says Patel."

"I won't leap to any huge conclusions based on a single source, but Cole's basic argument is that al-Sadr represents a Khomeni-like devotion to full-blown theocracy, whereas Sistani's view is that clerics should not be involved directly in government. I'll judge both on their actions, but the perspective was useful..."

"So, a smart university press (or even trade press) would put me on their list for review copies of law books, or at least some subset of law books, such as legal history, constitutional law, and law and science, especially because their competitors aren't doing so yet. I'm not at all offended by the lack of attention, nor am I in any need of free books. I just find it interesting that book publishers have been so slow to recognize a new medium through which they can publicize their wares."

"Sterkte Chileen & de rest!
Dit is echt te triest voor woorden!! Ik hoop echt dat ze die k*nkerlijers te pakken krijgen, maar vooral dat hun namen vervolgens worden gepubliceerd."

"Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan have all denied top U.S. officials informed Bandar of the decision to go to war against Iraq before Powell had been informed of the plan.
Woodward Tuesday denied he had claimed Powell was left out of the war planning in his new book, "Plan of Attack."
"I never said that," he said on NBC's "Today" show. Secretary Powell, Woodward said, "is disputing things that I don't say."

"Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Monday ....... criticized President Bush over a report that he had struck a deal with Saudi officials to lower gasoline prices before the election.
"If ... it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people," Kerry said during a campaign stop in Florida. "If this sounds wrong to you, that's because it is fundamentally wrong."

"Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar bin Sultan said Monday that ex-President Clinton sought a secret deal to keep oil prices low before the 2000 election, explaining that the request was nothing unusual. ..
"We always want any president who is in office to be reelected," Bin Sultan explained, while stressing that his hope for lower oil prices was not a direct effort to influence the outcome of the U.S. election.”

"GlobalSecurity.org is focused on innovative approaches to the emerging security challenges of the new millennium. The organization seeks to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons and the risk of their use -- both by existing nuclear weapons states and those states seeking to acquire such capabilities. GlobalSecurity.org aims to shift American conventional military forces towards new capabilities aligned with the post-Cold War security environment, and to reduce the worldwide incidence of deadly conflict. The organization is working to improve the capabilities of the American intelligence community to respond to new and emerging threats, reducing the need to resort to the use of force, while enhancing the effectiveness of military forces when needed. GlobalSecurity.org also supports new initiatives utilizing space technology to enhance international peace and security.”

" I happened to cross the Khunjerab Pass into Kashmir during the same week that General Pervez Musharraf seized power via a military coup. Unbeknownst to me and most of the world, Musharraf's first act was to invite Taliban and Al Qaeda militias from neighboring Afghanistan into Pakistani Kashmir as surrogates to launch an offensive in his country's ongoing conflict against India.
Three Talibs, one of whom spoke fluent English ("NYU! Class of '83!" he beamed), pulled me off the bus at an improvised checkpoint outside a town where a minor battle was winding down. Taliban leader Mullah Omar had recently issued an edict directing that Americans, including diplomatic passport holders, were to be put to death if apprehended on Taliban territory. "We are sorry," the Talib said blandly, "but you are American. Therefore, we must execute you."...
"The worst thing about you Americans," I remember the Talib saying, "is that you never admit when you make mistakes. Last year, your President Clinton sent his cruise missile against a drug plant in Khartoum, Sudan. He killed many innocent people. Does he say he is sorry? No. The same day he sent cruise missiles against my country. Again: only innocent people were killed."
Actually, the Afghan strike had missed bin Laden--who had claimed responsibility for the bombings of the American embassies in East Africa--by hours. He was probably tipped off by intelligence officers of the Pakistani ISI. I didn't bring up these unpleasant facts.
"America causes misery everywhere--Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan--but not in America." His face brightened. "But no more. We are going to bring the war to you, so your country learns what it is like."
Bring the war to America: The same phrase bin Laden had used in interviews....
It wasn't, as Bush says, because radical Islamists are evil or because they hate our freedom. It was vengeance for 1998, for cruise missile attacks that scarcely raised an eyebrow in the United States even as they convulsions of rage surged through millions of Muslims. It's perfectly reasonable, therefore, to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11, but not because he didn't do enough. What led to 9/11 was a clumsy application of excessive military power and arrogance.
It's a lesson that the United States, so accustomed to swinging a sledgehammer to kill a fly, should take to heart in its dealings with the rest of humanity.

"..Can't we just run on the fact that the President is stupid? I mean we can debate policy, economics, outsourcing, terroism, the Iraq war, and whatever else you want. But, it is PAINFULLY clear that Bush is not all there."