In their quest to convince voters that America is in danger, Republicans are lying about 9/11 and baldly denying history

Megan Carpentier – Guardian

More than 150 years ago, a disparate group of anti-immigrant, conspiracy-minded Americans became sick of traditional politicians and started a grassroots movement to take political power from the hands of those they no longer trusted. When asked by outsiders what their movement was called, they were ordered to answer, “I know nothing,” leading others to call them the Know Nothing party. The movement, however, was co-opted by the traditional parties and undermined by policy disagreements, and many members eventually folded into the Republican party. Some things, apparently, don’t change as much as we’d like to believe.

Republican leaders, and the 20-somethings crafting their made-for-television talking points, are apparently counting on the fact that their base still knows nothing, or is at least willing to forget what they do know. Not content to blame the Bush-led Wall Street bailouts on President Obama, or the shoe-bomber reprise on Obama’s security and intelligence policies that were nonetheless instituted by his predecessors, Republican thought-leaders like Mary Matalin, former White House press secretary Dana Perino and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani have decided that there is one big thing that just couldn’t have happened on the Republicans’ watch: 9/11.

Read it all >

http://www.lowanthem.com

Knut Haugland, the Norwegian commando and explorer who died on Christmas Day aged 92, took part in two of the most adventurous and celebrated exploits of the last century – a daring raid on a suspected Nazi atomic weapons plant in war, and Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition in peace.

Haugland, who was the last survivor of the six-man Kon-Tiki crew, had met Heyerdahl in 1944 at a special forces training camp in England, and was selected to join the expedition on the basis of the experience he acquired during the conflict as a radio operator.

In typically nonchalant fashion, Heyerdahl had written to Haugland, whom he thought was bound to be “fed up hanging around at home by now, and would be glad to go for a little trip on a wooden raft”, to invite him on board.

“Am going to cross the Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru,” the invitation ran. “Will you come? Reply at once.” The response was positive”.

Continue Reading »