[ 2008 May - August | 2008 January - April | 2007 September - December | 2007 May - August | 2007 January - April | 2006 September - December | 2006 May - August | 2006 January - April | 2005 September - December | 2005 May - August | 2005 January - April | 2004 September - December | 2004 May - August | 2004 January - April | 2003 September - December | 2003 May - August | 2003 January - April | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 ]
Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
A Brazilian scientist has been sentenced to prison for caring for rescued orphan baby monkeys. People suspect there are nasty motives behind this obvious injustice.
The concept of "biopiracy" is completely misguided, because it endorses the idea of patenting life-saving drugs and raises an argument only about who ought to get the loot.
The Bush regime broke the law by not publishing legally mandated reports on the danger of global warming.
The NIH is trying to track its workers' communication with members of Congress, apparently to intimidate them.
Muqtada al Sadr has asked his militia to cease fire for 6 months to reduce the violence in Iraq.
The book Inside Spin explains how PR companies pervasively slant our "journalism". I hope to read it some day.
If you buy it, please don't get it through Amazon.
Meat-eating causes more global warming than cars, protestors are starting to point out.
Eating less meat is important.
Christine Todd Whitman had a bad environmental record as governor of New Jersey, but fabricated a "green" image. As head of the EPA, she made most of the 9/11 rescue workers ill, by falsely telling them the air was safe to breath; but she gave the impression that she wanted to do that job honestly and only Bush stopped her.
Now she lobbies for nuclear power plants.
I see no contradiction between the statements that Whitman as head of EPA set out to weaken environmental protection, and that she tried to do more than Bush would allow. Perhaps both are true.
In Britain, the Liberal Democratic party supports taxes on CO2-emitting activities and binding annual CO2 emission targets.
The Burmese military government recruits non-political prisoners into a secret force to attack protestors.
The genocide of the Armenians inspired was inspiration for the later genocide of the Jews.
The UK plans to increase the flood defenses of London due to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Global warming is good for the construction industry. As they build more runways, we pay them to build flood defenses. And as buildings get flooded and washed away, we have to replace them.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and say, "Don't let the DEA stall medical marijuana research." (And use the web site, but a phone call tends to carry more weight.)
Torture Gonzales' evil legacy will endure after his resignation, until it is explicitly abolished.
Attorney General "Torture" Gonzales has resigned.
He must not be allowed to escape responsibility for his crimes with just this! And Bush, who ordered them, must be charged as well.
Around the world we are seeing record heat, record rain, record drought.
Opium production in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is booming.
As long as prohibition keeps the prices high, it will be impossible to suppress production. The only solution is to allow heroin addicts to get cheap, safe injections in doctors' offices.
The US government has imprisoned whistleblowers for reporting corruption. The Bush regime is corrupt at the root: its main goal is to hand out taxpayers' money to certain companies. They probably don't really care about Shield Group or Custer Battles, but in order to protect their own thefts from being stopped or punished, they must establish barriers to prevent interference with such theft. The same barriers then protect the other, smaller thieves.
Police that crushed a harmless large party in the UK by confiscating its sound system got more than they bargained for — so they wantonly destroyed property and attacked people. But this is an example of a bigger problem: regulations that effectively eliminate freedom of assembly in the UK.
FEMA and the White House knew, very early, that New Orleans' levees had broken, but kept this secret from the state police and other state personnel. People died from this. And then they covered it up.
Bush has tripled the size of Federal no-bid contracts.
For the specific case of the War on Drugs, what we need is not competitive bidding. When a war is on drugs, it attacks everyone, indiscriminately. We need to help that war get off drugs.
Canadian protestors accuse police infiltrators of acting as provocateurs.
A right wing organization plans to spread lies about Iraq and al Qa'ida to support Bush.
This is clear proof that they have rejected the idea of truth.
The weekly Bil'in protests against the Israeli annexation strip continue; the police attacked protestors who were sitting down to avoid any appearance of threat.
There is a proposal in the UK to put GPS tracking devices in school uniforms.
Parents tend to exaggerate the size of real but small dangers to their children, so such dangers are commonly used as excuses for government censorship. Now they are to be used as excuses for total surveillance as well.
Bush, Vietnam, and the Bloodbath: Good for Business.
The Great Iraq Swindle: corruption isn't the exception, it is the whole system.
These crimes should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the war itself was a crime.
Scott McCausland, as a parole condition, has been ordered to install Windows on his computer so that the government can monitor him.
We always knew Windows was designed to spy on you.
Most Iraqis can't get safe water to drink.
The only rational conclusion Iraqis can draw is that they should be ready to give their lives to kick out the Bush forces, because otherwise they will die anyway.
The Burmese military are cracking down on large protests in Rangoon.
("Yangon" is the military regime's name for Rangoon, just as they call Burma "Myanmar".)
The government of Sudan is still sending arms to Darfur.
Bush always lies about Iraq. When Bush compares Iraq with Vietnam, he misrepresents the history of the Vietnam War, too.
The UK government is not on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020, just as it will miss them for 2010.
Declaring long-range targets is an easy way to postpone dealing with the issue and avoid real (and thus uncomfortable) solutions. The government can pretend it will meet the targets until it gets so close that there is no hope of meeting them, at which point it can set another long-range target, further in the future.
Bush's support for Fatah, together with its willingness to make one-sided concessions to Israel, has cut its support among Palestinians.
The only way to encourage moderate and secular Muslims is to enable them to get something for their people. If the US makes them all knuckle under, only Islamists can benefit.
US citizens: oppose the $30 billion military aid package to Israel.
If Israel were threatened with a real attack, I would support aid for its defense. However, in recent years it is Israel that does the attacking, and there is no reason to support that.
Especially if the real use of these funds will be to attack Iran.
A freed prisoner of a Russian "mental hospital" says that many of the patients seemed normal but the staff frequently tortured them.
She was forcibly drugged while in the hospital and does not know what the drugs were.
Freedom of association is also being suffocated in Russia.
Congressional Democrats are bowing to pressure from Bush and failing to really oppose the war, or his surveillance plans. In effect, electing them did no good.
Recall that among the Democrats' demands for conditions for al Maliki to fulfill was that of passing the law to hand over Iraq's oil to US companies.
When Israel closed the case on the murder of 10-year-old Abir Aramin, apparently shot by Israeli police, ex-soldiers joined Palestinians to protest.
Bush wants to claim his troop increase has done some sort of good for Iraqis, but the facts say no. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has actually increased since then.
To try to prevent the partition of Iraq into Sunni and Shi'ite areas (and perhaps into smaller groups as well) is impossible, so it is pure nonsense to claim that Bush's occupation is justified by that purpose.
The "democratic" leaders that Bush selects for Iraq have a pattern of being replaced when they no longer suit him.
Another Republican plan to manipulate the 2008 presidential election.
This is if they can't do it using computerized voting machines or by stopping Democrats from voting — both of which they will surely try.
When Dr Steven Nissen reported harmful side effects for avandia (a rather new drug), an FDA spokesman tried to smear him with lies.
As part of Bush's War on Integrity, the FDA considers the defense and support of the big drug companies to be its mission.
Several Republican presidential candidates want to ban contraceptive pills by classifying them as "abortion". Bush has been trying to suppress contraception for years.
As the British prepare to pull out of the Bush forces, Bush continues to insist he is winning in Iraq.
I think Bush figures that a certain fraction of the US will believe whatever he says, and that this fraction can ensure the war continues. He doesn't care whether Iraq suffers increasing violence, or attains the peace of the grave, as long as he doesn't openly lose his war.
By the way, the Khmer Rouge (once in power) were supported by the US and China, and were eventually overthrown by Vietnam.
The Bushmen are still insanely planning to attack Iran.
Cheney in particular seems to be pushing for this, and Cheney usually decides what Bush will do.
I would support a war to liberate Iran from the cruel regime of the religious extremists, provided that (1) the Iranian people wanted to be liberated in this way and (2) we could count on the new regime to establish human rights and democracy. But everything we know says that neither one is true. Bush has never respected either freedom or democracy — neither in his own country, nor anywhere else in the world. It is absurd to think he would do so in Iran.
The ethics were the same for the invasion of Iraq.
Philip Morris is pushing a law for weak FDA regulation of tobacco, which it helped to write, so as to prevent anything that might really reduce tobacco smoking.
Tobacco, like alcohol, heroin, cocaine and other dangerous, addictive drugs, must not be prohibited — prohibition tramples individual freedom and causes more harm than the drugs. But we should adopt strong measures short of prohibition to discourage its use.
The privatization of the occupation of Iraq even includes intelligence analysis.
Senator Levin wants to oust "Iraqi" PM al Maliki unless he does his job: to hand over Iraq's oil to the occupying forces. Al Maliki is nearly powerless, but it seems there is still one thing he can do for his country.
Potentially deadly stinging jellyfish, usually found closer to the equator, have shown up off Britain. I would expect this is a result of global warming.
9 gorillas in the Congo were killed by humans this year. That is over 1% of the world population of gorillas.
Congressional Democrats are pushing for lots of "green" initiatives, but the most obvious conservation measures have been vetoed by big business.
Many cosmetics and body creams contain estrogen mimics that can feminize boys, increase risk of breast cancer for girls, and also damage fish once they get into sewage.
Nir Rosen says that "Iraq does not exist anymore". It has been turned into a battleground for warlords, like Mogadishu, and Bush has no power to alter the situation.
President Chavez has proposed changes to 33 articles of the constitution of Venezuela.
I don't know enough to judge the merits of most these changes, but the one about declaring "special military zones" doesn't sound good. We are scared of what Bush might do with similar emergency powers. Even if Chavez never succumbs to such temptation, what about a future president of Venezuela?
As Congress works to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Bush is trying to change the rules so fewer children can get in.
A Russian activist who criticized conditions in mental hospitals just won her release from one.
The Brazilian government made a corrupt deal with loggers to provide land to poor people through deforestation.
It was easier than seizing illegally deforested land.
The Liberal Democratic Party plans to directly attack Brown's "surveillance society".
Gilded Age Crime: Poor Go Homeless, Wealthy Get Bailouts.
I wish I could share his confidence that a Democratic victory in 2008 will make a difference in this. I cannot imagine that Hillary Clinton would serve the poor rather than the rich.
As US influence weakens, other powers are creating a multipolar world.
Given how the US uses its dominion, weakening that dominion is good. Unfortunately, all the rivals want to have a 19-century military competition, and none champions human rights.
Karl Rove did leak the information about Valerie Plame.
The US Army claims it restricts soldiers' blogs for military security reasons, but we all knew the motives are political. Journalists found that the worst security leaks in soldiers blogs were mild compared with what the Army publishes in its own sites.
Putin is rewriting Russia's history textbooks to rehabilitate Stalin.
Rewriting history follows Stalin's example.
Israel will send 2000 refugees from Darfur back to their deaths.
Protestors at Hearthow Airport tried to blockade BAA's offices, but were attacked by police before they got there.
Here's an analysis of the mind set that leads some people to disregard the danger of global warming.
However, that picture is incomplete. Imagine if a few rich people are paying a fraction of the public — including lots of politians, of course — to ignore the problem for as long as possible. Then you get the whole situation.
Muqtada al-Sadr is trying to form an alliance of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'tes against "foreign elements" -- the Bush forces and Al Qa'ida.
This is the first plan I have heard that makes sense.
If such an alliance takes over the non-Kurdish parts of Iraq, it will probably oppress women terribly. It could be worse than Saddam Hussein. But it will not be a big step up from occupation by the Bush forces.
The FBI deleted information from the Wikipedia article about Guantanamo.
US residents: ask the state of Texas not to execute Kenneth Foster.
For more information, see this.
The death penalty is always unjust, even for intentional murders; even for mass-murderers such as Saddam Hussein and George Bush. What this case shows is the bloodthirsty nature of support for the death penalty.
Note: The top link in this entry is to a form asking the State of Texas to stay the execution. That form is intended for U.S. citizens and requires input of a U.S. state and zip code.
Israeli settlers cut a Palestinian water supply to fill a swimming pool, and sent along the dirty water from the pool for Palestinians to drink.
A report from the Heathrow protest camp. Police confiscate banners, pretending they are weapons, and force protestors to march around by threatening them with trucks. Meanwhile, right-wing papers lie about them and the state pretends they are terrorists.
The police and the government, grinning liars, are the enemy of everyone's freedom, and risk destroying civilization too.
53% of Americans expect General Petraeus' report to be a whitewash.
At least they are learning something about Bush. Bush will not allow a general to make an honest report, any more than he allows NASA or EPA scientists to do so. Note how Bush's spokesman tries to deflect attention from Bush's honesty by pretending that the issue is Petraeus' honesty.
However, Americans need to learn to distrust Bush about more than just success or failure. His claimed reasons for the war (and other actions) are deceptions too.
A proposed new place for advertisements: on radio in school buses, with students as captive audiences.
Projects like these are encouraged by the general attitude of governments at all levels that "Everything is for sale." When stadiums are named after companies that paid to use them as advertising, entrepreneurs might well expect that radio on school buses will also be offered.
If governments need more money, then rather than selling off everything, they should tax businesses more. Anything other problem that impedes this, such as "free trade" treaties, needs to be corrected.
CARE says that the US food aid policy is hurts both the poor and the farmers of Africa.
This article isn't precise enough for me to form a conclusion about that question, but it is clear that food subsidies in the US waste scarce petroleum (for fertilizer) and water.
The US voting machines that ruined an election were made in a sweatshop in Manila.
The British government sneakily gave funds to oil drilling in the ocean off Sakhalin, leaving the environmental study to be done later (once the project was finished). The noise is driving western gray whales to extinction.
US citizens and residents: comment on Bush's new plan to speed up executions, by cutting the federal courts out of the loop.
US states often execute innocent people, athat Joe Amrine should be executed even though he was innocent.
In addition to the main Sunni-Shi'a civil war, Iraq is full of other battles between sects, ethnic groups, and parties. And the violence is getting worse everywhere.
No western army of occupation has any chance of putting things back together. I doubt that anything else can stop the multiple civil wars, either. Force alone can't stop people from fighting if they are prepared to die. For anyone to end the fighting in Iraq, he would have to somehow change the attitudes of those who are now fighting each other—to suggest a different direction of loyalty.
The global-warming-denial PR machine is still campaigning desperately to stop us from saving our planet. It represents businesses whose only concern is to make as much money as possible in the next few years.
Political systems need to develop ways to neutralize such conspiracies, if they are to qualify as "democratic".
AT&T censored criticism of Bush during a Pearl Jam concert. When the band complained, AT&T said that the censor made a mistake.
Despite a smear campaign, the Heathrow Airport protests are strengthening public opinion in favor of a green tax on flying.
However, with a government whose main goal is to please business, public opinion isn't always enough to change anything. Clown's "Labour Party", like other parties that have sold their soul to business, do what big business wants unless practically forced by the public not to. Whether or not they directly take bribes, they are corrupt.
To restore democracy, we have to replace them with people whose first loyalty is to the public good, and who give business much lower priority.
Bush plans to let the police use spy satellites to monitor everyone in the US.
In the short term, we won't know what the police can see with these satellites, but the police will find out. In the medium term, as this knowledge spreads through the police, organized crime will find out the satellites' capabilities from police that are on the take. Eventually we will all know, more or less. Then their capabilities will not be secret any more. But we will still face a government that becomes increasingly powerful as it becomes increasingly illegitimate and cruel.
We're headed for another record year for disappearance of Arctic ice.
A movement for better treatment of egg-laying hens is gaining strength in the US.
It doesn't seem plausible that they could afford to import eggs from Asia. Wouldn't it cost too much to import them fast enough to be fresh?
However, this is an example of a general point that is important for all social issues.
When companies say, "Don't try to make us act ethically or we will move to Asia", our response should be, "If you move, we won't let you sell here." Rather than a law requiring local egg-producers to treat hens humanely, countries and states should adopt laws requiring all eggs sold there to be produced humanely.
"Free trade" treaties such as NAFTA and the WTO eliminate this option. And they do the same thing for a host of other issues. That makes the treaties evil. For the sake of human rights, for humane treatment of animals, for protection of the environment, and for all democratic values, we must abolish those treaties.
The US prison system is barbaric, and continues growing from its own momentum.
The US govt spent $1.6 billion in propaganda in 2003/4.
Human Rights Watch says that all sides in Somalia are violating human rights.
The Ethiopian intervention was supposed to be quick, and leave the "interim government" in power. That "interim government" was a creation of foreigners and never had any popular support, and being installed by a foreign army didn't win any support for it. Now that the intervention is dragging on, we don't hear much about it.
Wolfowitz made the World Bank disregard climate change. The topic was not supposed to be mentioned.
The World Bank's "investments" often hurt the poor, and impose antidemocratic conditions, while their benefits go mainly to the rich. If these investments fail due to climate change, they still hurt the poor and democracy, but they don't benefit anyone.
Police are trying to interfere with construction of the Heathrow Airport protest camp.
The Yearly Kos meeting of Democratic activists excluded the issue of Iraq. Bloggers organized their own session, off the grounds, and then had to publicize it themselves.
The Bush forces find themselves fighting all sides in Iraq.
It's a mistake to think they preserve a balance of power, because there isn't one.
The UK government shamelessly ordered police to use "anti-terror" laws against protestors at Heathrow Airport, and takes the position that any protest which "distracts the attention of the police" is illegal. This clearly puts the UK government in the camp of the enemies of freedom.
Although Heathrow Airport did not get an injunction against all the 5 million people that it asked for, it did get one against all the members of the organization Plane Stupid. Thus, the forces of tyranny have advanced another step.
Amnesty International has decided to uphold abortion as a human right for rape victims, despite attempts by the Vatican to discourage this.
Police in North Providence attacked a protest directed against a restaurant, injuring some protestors (one perhaps permanently) and then charging them with "assaulting an officer".
It's amazing how often protestors hit policemen's sticks with their heads, or break their bones on policemen's bodies.
Most Democratic presidential candidates are in no hurry to end the occupation of Iraq.
I expect that the cited facts are accurate, but it is also worth noting what the article does not say. It does not mention Dennis Kucinich, for instance.
The control of Congress by the Democratic Party has not had much effect because a substantial right-wing bloc of Democrats supports Bush.
Omar Deghayes, who may soon get to leave Guantanamo prison, reports that he has been repeatedly tortured there.
Rescue workers in New York are outraged by Giuliani's exaggeration of what he did on 9/11.
Dalit children face segregation in school, and sometimes are driven out of school by systematic insults from the teachers. And that's just the beginning. They are excluded from food stores, from wells, from government offices, from having mail delivered, from voting.
The politicians and celebrities that supported the attempted conquest of Iraq must be held accountable. They must not be allowed to get away with saying "Let's move on."
Christian cruelty extends even to the dead.
I wouldn't refuse to hold a funeral even for someone as evil as Bush. I would just turn it into a celebration.
The British Bush forces are retreating from Basra, abandoning it to Shi'a militias.
Rule by militias is horrible, but the heavy hand that would be needed to maintain permanent occupation is even worse.
To protect its good reputation from the consequences of its errors — and its crimes — the British Army now forbids soldiers from blogging.
Congress seems headed for spending money to protect the Everglades.
This is good, but we must not neglect the long-term threat that the Everglades will be inundated by rising sea levels. The Everglades slope very gradually down into the ocean. How high above sea level is the highest point in them? If the Greenland ice cap melts, will they entirely disappear?
Operation Straight Up, with US government support, is sending the Bush forces in Iraq a video game in which Christians fight to exterminate everyone else.
The head of US Army chaplains is an apocalyptic religious fanatic too.
Because hedge funds operate in secret, they create the risk of an economic crash.
The crash of 1929 occurred because investors came to treat inherently risky leveraged investments as if they were safe. Years of rising stock prices had led them suppose that losing was not a possibility. So they sought the investments which would give them the biggest profit if the market continued to rise, which also were the riskiest investments in the case of a downturn.
Hedge funds could be today's equivalent. And our government is about as vigilant for us as that of Herbert Hoover.
Bush is adamant against increasing educational benefits for veterans.
If the US Army were engaged in legitimately defending the US, or simply standing prepared to do so if needed, I would be in favor of "increasing the quality" of its recruits. However, given that it has been hijacked by Bush for an unjust war of conquest, I cannot consider that goal to be desirable.
Starbucks has been very effective at faking "social responsibility", but its treatment of workers is as bad as WalMart. Now it is on trial for union busting.
PR companies help corporations and government deceive and manipulate the public more than we usually realize.
The Democrats in the US Senate lacked the guts to increase taxes on hedge funds.
The UK has finally decided to rescue its residents who are imprisoned in Guantanamo.
B'liar made excuses to let them languish. Perhaps he was more concerned with displeasing Bush than with imprisoning people without trial.
Roadside bomb attacks in Iraq reached an all-time high in July. This proves that Dubya's troop increase has not done him any good.
German journalists face prosecution for publishing information from leaked German government documents that indicated knowledge of kidnappings by the US.
If anyone is prosecuted, it should be the German officials who knew about these kidnappings and failed to act to stop them.
When corporations advertise themselves as environmentally friendly, are they lying? Saab is.
George Monbiot: Ethical shopping is just a way of saying I'm rich.
Individual action can create a demonstration of feasibility — for fair trade, for conservation, for any matter of ethical or sustainable business practices. To extend those demonstrations to a real solution requires laws to ensure the practices are generally followed.
But the mass media generally focus on individual action rather than collective action. Once I listened to an NPR talk show about how people could improve their working conditions. I called in and suggested that workers could do this by forming a union. The host said, "We only want to talk about individual action here."
The Yangtze river dolphin is now officially considered extinct. It was wiped out by accidental fishing and by noise from boats.
The Bush forces are arming Sunni militias to fight against al Qa'ida. It's logical, but self-defeating, because the presence of the occupying army in Iraq provides the impetus for al Qa'ida.
Bush's "surge" troop increase has clearly failed to win the war, but it has achieved its real goal: buying Bush more time to continue it.
Long-suppressed film footage of the effects and victims of the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will now be broadcast.
US citizens: sign the petition to Congress saying to reverse the gift of additional spying powers to King George.
Brian Haw continues to defy the UK government's attempt to suppress his vigil against the war.
Shame on his wife for abandoning him. If he has the courage to do this, she should at least have had the courage to be supportive.
Human rights campaigners are making use of the Olympics to pressure China, which continues to trample human rights.
Heathrow Airport failed to gain the injunction against millions of Britons who are potential protestors.
This attempted protest-suppression gives Plane Stupid a boost with which to tackle the real struggle: to prevent airport expansion that would increase global warming.
But it is just a small step towards restoring freedom of speech in the UK.
The Bush forces handed out 190,000 guns to "Iraqi" troops who have since "lost" them, perhaps to Iraqi patriots.
The Bush forces are trying to ally themselves with Sunni militias to fight against al Qa'ida. It's logical in a narrow sense, but self-defeating, because presence of the occupying Bush forces in Iraq is what enables al Qa'ida to recruit.
The propaganda in this article is in the background: it calls the sheikhs that agree to work for Bush "America's allies", as if Bush were on America's side.
China is modernizing the slogans that promote the one-child rule, but the program continues.
The practice of choosing to have boys instead of girls probably contributes to the effectiveness of the policy, since the excess men mostly won't have any children.
After Israeli troops killed British filmmaker James Miller, the Israeli army covered it up with lies. The UK calls his death murder and demands they prosecute the killers, but Israel continues to lie to shield them.
The Senate voted to give Bush more surveillance power, in a display of spinelessness. The fox said his power to watch the henhouse was insufficient, so they increased it.
David Sugar faces a criminal investigaton for writing an article. Here it is.
This report says that Fatah never really fought against Hamas in Gaza — that there was a political decision, high up, not to fight back.
I am not sure what to make of the report or how to reconcile it with other information.
Orangutans display awareness of what others do or do not understand.
Long-lived Greenland sharks have very high concentrations PCBs and dioxin, showing that this contamination has spread around the world.
Uri Avnery: White Elephants.
How Israel treats its Palestinian prisoners.
(That page was posted by an Israeli peace group.)
Many of these prisoners were never charged with a crime.
The average number of Atlantic cyclones per year has just about doubled
since the early 1900s.
International Energy Agency's latest report says that the price of oil
will rise greatly in 2010-2012, confirming the basic idea of peak oil.
If the price temporarily falls in 2008-2009, governments will face the
tempation to give people a quick fix of cheap gasoline. What they
ought to do is increase taxes to provide impetus for conservation, so that
the blow won't hit as hard. Which do you think the US will do?
Is it a long drought in the Southwest, or just the end of an abnormally
wet century?
Palestinians lost their case to prevent Israel's annexation wall from
being built through their farm lands. Supposedly this is necessary to protect
a Jewish colony which shouldn't be there in the first place.
One land grab is the excuse for another.
The words "wall" and "fence" give the wrong impression, because
this strip is over 60 yeards wide. It destroys a broad swath of farmland.
The Iraqi government has little power, but what little it has is
enough for police to sue journalists for their news reporting.
The "brown clouds" of Asian cooking fires are a substantial
contribution to global warming.
Most of the UK public is opposed to placing US missile defense
facilities there, and Clown is facing some heat.
A report says that the head of Scotland Yard was kept in the dark by
his senior subordinates about the fact that police had shot an
innocent man through overeagerness.
I have to suspect that this was due to some sort of general or
specific request that they not tell him what he would rather not know.
NSA's spying on Americans was even bigger than previously
announced,
and we don't know how big.
Bush is now asking Congress to extend his power for spying without
court orders. His power ought to be reduced, not extended.
Officers in the Bush forces say Bush is wrong in claiming that their
enemy is al Qa'ida.
In fact, all Iraqis are enemies of the Bush regime, except the Kurds,
who are content with their de-facto independence.
The Bush regime has ordered that the CIA can kidnap anyone that
it believes has a vague, indirect relationship with al Qa'ida. That could
be interpreted to mean, essentially, anyone in the world.
This is part of Cheney's general policy of making the US just as evil
as its adversaries.
Greg Palast's investigative fund needs money.
Palast informed us about how the Bushmen stole the 2000
election, how they planned in advance to steal the 2004
election, and how they are now planning to steal the 2008 election.
The Republicans in Ohio have illegally destroyed most of the 2004
election ballots, defying a court order to preserve them.
They probably figure that they can break laws with impunity
because Republican state officials will protect them.
Journalist Wendy Williams was attacked with an anonymous lawsuit
threat, as well as lies, for writing a book that praises the proposed
Cape Wind project.
GE has a new greenwashing technique: a credit card that puts 1%
of the spending into carbon offseting projects.
If the carbon offseting really worked, 1% would be too small to solve
the problem. So this would tend to lull the public into thinking they
have solved the problem with a tiny sacrifice.
However, it's worse than that: many so-called carbon offseting
projects, such as tree planting, don't accomplish much to reduce
global warming.
Those gaping flaws are the reason this credit card must be considered
greenwashing rather than a real step towards a solution.
In a rare victory against Bush's War on Integrity, the Fish and
Wildlife Service has agreed to review 8 edangered species decisions.
This is out of over 200 decisions that may have been corrupted.
The history of the CIA is a series of absurd failures of intelligence.
Its successes have been assassinations, coups, and bought elections.
Bush is already preparing to disregard any legal requirement established
by Congress to withdraw the Bush forces from Iraq.
There's a solution to this: impeach Bush and Cheney too! It should
have been done years ago, but it isn't too late.
The main Sunni party has pulled its ministers out of
Bush's Iraqi government, much as al Sadr's party did
a couple of months ago.
Their complaints reflect the fact that the Iraqi government
is basically impotent.
I expect Bush to lose his war in Iraq, but he may well succeed in
ruining two countries in the process.
The Bush forces say they want to keep occupying Iraq for years,
and the cost in money keeps increasing.
Thus, the only way to end the occupation will be through a
confrontation with Bush.
The UN will send a substantial force of peacekeepers to Darfur.
Hospitals in Gaza lack drugs, even plaster for casts, because of the
Israeli blockade.
A blockade is a less spectacular way of killing innocent people than
dropping bombs, but it kills them just as dead. The same thing
happened in Iraq under the US-imposed sanctions
Heathrow Airport seeks an injunction to forbid protestors' taking
the subway to get to the airport, but London will fight against it
in court.
Clown says that expanding airports is needed for economic growth.
What will be left of this economic growth after flooding, heat waves,
dying seas, and failing agriculture?
The boss of a concentration camp in Cambodia, who presided over
many executions, now will face charges.
The Khmer Rouge killed between one million and three million.
Bush's war has killed around a million. Making him pretty
much comparable to Pol Pot. When will Bush face a court
for his mass murder?
The Bush forces have blocked all car traffic into some areas of
Baghdad, so the people there cannot get food and cannot get to
hospitals.
Gordon Clown is not the poodle that B'liar was: he says he will
pull British troops out of the Bush forces whether Bush likes it or not.
Gordon Clown's agenda for tyranny: increased power and increased
surveillance.
The Bush forces met with Iranian representatives, and say they agreed to
talk more -- but they seem to be more interested in cursing Iran than
cooperating.
The supposed evidence of Iranian support for Iraqi militias is doubted by
everyone that doesn't support the Bush regime.
Anti-arms-trade dissidents in the UK were grabbed by police just for
asking whether an anonymous factory was in fact the Nottingham Small Arms
Factory.
As B'liar postures as a peace negotiator,
James Wolfensohn explains how his efforts to work for peace were undercut
politically.
Russia has resumed the Soviet practice of
imprisoning dissidents in mental hospitals.
1/7 of the inhabitants of Iraq—four million people—have become
refugees, a disaster which is the result of Bush's crime.
Despite the violence in Iraq,
Britain sends back nearly all Iraqis that ask for asylum there.
1/3 of iraqis "need urgent aid", according to Oxfam.
The reason MI5 refused to help al-Rawi get out of Guantanamo is that
they put him there—by lying about him. And his interrogation by
the US was based on what he had freely told MI5 while helping them.
General Petraeus and al Maliki can't get along with each other even though
they are ostensibly working for the same boss.
Genetically engineered crops produce lots of unusual proteins in
addition to the ones they were intended to make. Both companies
and regulators are careless about ensuring their safety.
Evidence says Pat Tillman was shot from behind at a range of 30 feet
while no combat was going on. Was he murdered so he couldn't oppose
the war?
MI5 promised al-Rawi, for his help, to protect him; but when Bush
decided to kidnap him, MI5 made excuses. He was taken to Afghanistan
and Guantanamo for torture; MI5 says, "I know nothing, nothing!"
Bush has claimed the power to freeze the assets of anyone he considers
to be "undermining" the occupation of Iraq — by fiat. This is
another blow against the rule of law in the US, which continues its
slide into tyranny.
The Bush regime's general tendency is to interpret its powers in the
broadest possible way. "Undermining" could be stretched to include
criticizing Halliburton, suing Halliburton, agitating politically to
end the occupation — almost anything that opposes the war.
From - Tue
Polls late last year found that 2/3 of Iraqis want the Bush forces to
pull out.
The 2 million Americans in prison have been turned into a slave labor
force, and the businesses involved pressure to imprison more people.
Pepsi admits that Aquafina is tap water.
Dasani from Coca Cola Corporation is also tap water. The difference
is, it is sold by a company that murders union organizers.
Machsom Watch, the organization of Israelis that keep track of human
rights abuses at Israeli checkpoints in Palestine, must be doing a
good job: the army is starting to harass and arrest their members.
The recent meeting between some Israeli and Arab officials
shows there is no prospect for any kind of agreement.
Bush wants to create an appearance of progress
to distract attention from reality-based criticism.
The FDA's inspection procedures are clownishly inept, so
businesses regularly evade them.
I suspect this is not coincidence. For instance, the FDA officials
who expect to get good jobs with food importers could choose the more
lax option when those importers request it. And these importers have
lots of ways to lobby for reductions in inspection activity, presented
as "ways to economize".
Gorbachev, who dismantled the Soviet Empire, rebukes the US for
creating another empire.
However, the empire that we must fight is not ruled by the US.
It is ruled by the megacorporations, with governments such as that
of the US used to keep each other in line.
Carol Wallace, age 63, accused the police of harassing people in her
housing project. Four days later, police raided her home.
There is the Big Brother: Workplace Control and Workforce Surveillance.
U.S. House votes 262-165 to continue funding DEA's war on medical
marijuana patients — but the opposition increases each time.
Oppressing Iraqis is not enough for the Bush forces; they even
abuse their own construction workers.
Damning proof of Republican efforts to steal the 2004
election through voter suppression.
The most dangerous criminals in the US work for Bush, and were
rewarded by him for this crime.
Senators have demanded an independent prosecutor to investigate
Torture Gonzales for lying to them.
Bush will surely continue to protect his team of liars. Congress
should stop farting around and impeach both Bush and Cheney.
Charges against Mohamed Haneef have been dropped,
but he still faces arbitrary expulsion from Australia
for no reason except that he was falsely suspected.
President Chavez plans to require cable TV channels (such as RCTV)
to drop their programming for his speeches.
When RCTV broadcast on the airwaves, it must have been required to
carry these speeches. This won't lead to more interruptions of its
programming than it had before.
On the other hand, citizens of Venezuela have plenty of access to
Chavez's speeches, so there is no public need to make any more
channels distribute them. They are not about emergencies. If his
motive is just to punish RCTV a second time, that seems immature.
B'liar promised to put sanctions on Burma, but didn't, and now the UK
government protects companies that do business with Burma.
The Bush regime now recognizes Jamil el-Banna was arrested by mistake,
but he is still held in Guantanamo because the UK won't let him back.
The UK took years to admit that his companion, al-Rawi, was in fact
helping UK intelligence. I am sure it wasn't because they didn't
know; it was sheer treachery. Why anyone would willingly spy on Al
Qa'ida for US or UK intelligence beats me.
The American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids are
supporting Philip Morris, aiming to weaken a bill designed to help the
FDA regulate cigarettes.
I wonder whether they have got money from the tobacco companies.
Heathrow Airport plans to suppress protests.
It wants an injunction against over 5 million Britons that could subject them to arrest for
anything that vaguely resembles a protest, anywhere near the airport.
This is an arrogant attack on human rights.
Australia arrested Mohammed Haneef suspecting he helped the failed UK
bomb plot. However, as the evidence for his participation crumbles,
the government refuses to recognize he was not involved.
Governments often tend to behave like this, but the more they are
based on lies, the more they cannot admit any sort of mistake.
US government agencies have stalled for up to 15 years on FOIA
requests.
In Burma, children watch as the government shoots their parents,
and parents watch as the government shoots their children.
If Bush had been at all honest about intervening in Iraq
for the sake of Iraqis, he would have chosen Burma first.
Gordon Clown tried to distance himself from Bush, until Bush pulled
him back into line. How pathetic.
And it transpires that Clown has allowed Bush to use the UK
for the antimissile system, a provocation aimed at Russia.
Israel and the Arab League are talking about peace talks.
It sounds good; however, as Uri Avnery has pointed out, the mere fact
that Arab League representatives went to Israel is a big victory for
Israel — and the Palestinians got nothing for it.
The UK government said it didn't know Bush was transporting suspects
to be tortured, and wouldn't hand over anyone to be tortured.
This fails to address the question of transporting such suspects
through the UK or UK logistical support for their transport.
In addition, no country should hand over any suspects to the US
government without a careful and proper extradition procedure, which
considers the risk that the person will be tortured or not get a fair
trial.
Several states have passed harsh laws that make voter registration
drives so dangerous that no one dares do them.
Instead of extending SCHIP, Bush proposes a tax credit to pay for
private insurance. This is the most expensive and inefficient method
of giving health coverage, so the same money would cover fewer people;
and he proposes to spend less.
If Bush's proposal were adopted, it surely won't be funded enough to
do the whole job.
The UK government insanely plans to reduce rail subsidies.
It will fund increased train capacity with big fare increases.
This is supposed to be a plan to cut overcrowding, and it will surely
work, since it will push to CO2-belching cars and planes.
There is an international effort to protect the sturgeon in the
Caspian Sea, but illegal caviar fishing might ensure their extinction.
I do wonder if the low-quality black-market caviar comes from
somewhere else.
Be that as it may, to risk Caspian sturgeon's extinction just to
preserve a low level of caviar supply is just plain stupid, given the
rapid decline of the sturgeon population. It is very hard to
determine the sustainable level of fishing for any species unless you
can see that the population remains stable. Otherwise it involves
models in which many parameters can only be guessed at. Allowing some
legal caviar sales complicates enforcement, since it opens the door to
disguising illegal caviar as legal, and this practically guarantees
that the official program to preserve the species won't be properly
carried out.
Musharraf doesn't dare crack down on Al Qa'ida in the tribal areas
near Afghanistan, and also doesn't dare let the US do it.
Democrats in Congress want to extend the State Children's Health Insurance
Program so as to provide health insurance to many of the children that
don't have it.
As SiCKO shows, in the US today, having health insurance does not insure that
you get needed medical care.
Bush says he will defy Congress if it charges his officials with contempt.
The Bush forces have drawn up
a plan for Iraqization.
This plan is more realistic than previous plans in just one level: it
recognizes the nature of the sectarian war in Iraq. However, it continues to
inhabit a fantasy world when it disregards the fact that Iraqis generally hate
the Bush forces and want them out, and the concomitant fact that the Iraqi
government and its troops are all collaborators unless they are working
secretly to get the Bush forces out.
A town in Sweden provides electricity and central heating by burning wood
chips, causing zero CO2 emissions.
President Chavez threatened to deport foreign dignitaries that criticize
his policies.
I don't know what Espino said; given his party's policies, he may well have
lied like Faux News. However, this is the wrong way to respond to false
criticism.
I criticized one government policy last Friday while speaking in Venezuela:
the one where the SENIAT (the tax agency) requires people to give their names
and numbers whenever they buy anything (even a book or a meal). ¡Abajo
el SENIAT! I then said that even the SENIAT should use free software.
Later: I learned what Espino said: he criticized Chavez' closure of
RCTV and his plans to eliminate presidential term limits. These are
criticisms, not lies. People should not be punished for stating such
opinions.
The Bush forces arranged another meeting in Iraq with Iranian
representatives. However, things are still going badly for them.
I am particularly pleased that the law to hand over Iraq's oil to the
conquerors is blocked.
Libya has pardoned the foreign nurses who were tortured into confessing
that they had infected 400 childred with HIV.
I wonder how many prisoners in Guantanamo were tortured into false confessions.
The current flood in Britain has exceeded all historical records. It
surprised the public, but not scientists — they have warned for years
that global warming would bring increases in extreme weather.
Japan's biggest nuclear plant, now idled by earthquake damage, sits right
on top of an active fault. Its operators tried to deny the problem —
and falsified inspection records 200 times.
These lies were probably criminal acts. As punishment, the government should
confiscate the entire Tepco stock holdings of everyone convicted.
Pakistan's Supreme Court restored the chief justice that Musharraf had
sacked. Many Pakistanis celebrated this.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell previously told Stephen Hayes
that
the Bushmen had distorted intelligence reports to justify the invasion of
Iraq.
Journalist Shi Tao is imprisoned in China for criticizing government
policy, with Yahoo's help. His mother has sued Yahoo in the US for this.
Yahoo's response: to state its "dismay" to excuse its conduct.
Talk which changes nothing is cheap.
England has had two large floods this summer, and now research shows that
global warming has caused a steadily increasing rainfall there, as predicted.
I wonder if record floods in parts of China are an instance of the same
phenomenon.
Meanwhile, Southern Europe and parts of the American West will
face increasing drought.
Congressman DeFazio is on the "Homeland Security" committee, but
Bush won't let him see the plans for how to run the government after an
attack.
What is heartening here is his reaction: maybe people are right that this
hides a nasty conspiracy. The standard policy of the Bush regime is that the
mouth says "You have no proof we have done anything wrong" while the hands
stop you from checking for proof. On many occasions we later discovered that
this was a cover-up for corruption or worse. Now we must consider this
combination as a prima facie case to indict the regime.
El Salvador's government has arrested several opposition leaders during
a peaceful protest against water privatization.
Water privatization is imposed by the World Bank and IMF with US backing.
Thousands of Iraqi refugee families
have set up their own refugee camps, because the official camps are full.
Uri Avnery:
Bush has twisted the two-state solution into a rag to cover his nakedness.
Thousands of gays have fled Poland, where the government encourages
bigotry.
Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, destroying its economy. Food
aid is getting in, but no commerce is possible.
Israel always says that there is "no one to talk with", and makes sure it
remains true.
Bush and Europe support Israel completely, although they pretend it isn't
so. Thus, there is no prospect for peace or an end to the daily oppression of
Palestinias.
Guantanamo prisoners continue their hunger strike despite regular forced
feeding.
Clown in the UK plans to start arresting people for possession of marijuana
again.
This will only increase the harm done by the War on Drugs.
Sprint has a practice of canceling the accounts of people that complain too much, or ask too many questions, and puts the blame on
them.
This sounds almost like a government--and that makes sense, because
today's large corporations are accustomed to think they rule us.
An ancient tribe in Pakistan now faces the threat of forced
conversion to Islam.
Fanatical Muslims, those that advocate Islamic law, do not believe in
religious freedom. We must respect their personal right to hold their
views, but the views themselves deserve only criticism.
Not all Muslims are fanatical; there are Muslims who are tolerant and
decent. The human tendency to feel concern for others is universal,
and crops up in all places and circumstances. However, these people
are good despite religion, not because of it.
After police attacked a large protest in Oaxaca,
the protestors fought back. The protest intended to reclaim a
traditional festival that has been turned into a
corporate-sponsored tourist event.
State legislators in various states are starting to think about
how to stop companies from playing one state against another
for tax breaks and handouts.
I suggested many years ago that the states should form a union to
bargain collectively with these companies. We could call it "The
United States of America". This union could adopt a rule that
whenever a company starts negotiating with more than one state about
where to site any activity, none of the states can offer it any
discretionary tax breaks or incentives without the approval of all of
the states involved.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to support HR811 --
Rush Holt's bill to protect against electronic voting machine fraud --
as it was adopted by the committee, and reject the changes that have been
made to weaken the bill.
For more information follow this link.
Islamist suicide bombers in Pakistan took revenge for the storming
of the Red Mosque.
Non-extremists in Pakistan will have to organize and fight if they
don't want to be ruled by Taliban.
Cheney covered up proof of conspiracies to create power shortages in
California — then dishonestly blamed Governor Davis for the
consequences of these shortages.
Australia, the driest continent, faces increasing drought due to global warming.
Al Qa'ida uses lies in its PR, just like the Bush regime.
The Bush regime also falsifies Al Qa'ida PR. Mainstream Western media
outlets presented a "new" bin Laden tape which was made in 2001 and
had been aired twice before.
A Jewish chaplain has been labeled a "deserter" after his well
documented complaints about antisemitic harassment were ignored.
Veterans for Freedom pretends to be a "grass roots" pressure group
like the Iraq Veterans Against the War, but it is funded by
Republicans and works directly with the White House.
Each European country can decide whether to require ISPs to give
information to lawsuits by their equivalent of the RIAA, says the EU
Supreme Court.
This means that we will now see a new political battleground, in which
each country must take the side of millions of music-sharing citizens
or the record companies.
A study says that organic farming can produce more food in the
developing world — without more land.
This article presents ostensible proof that the Bush regime
fabricated a "bin Laden" tape.
George Galloway has been suspended temporarily from the UK parliament for
letting Iraqi oil-for-food funds flow into a political activity that he
chaired.
The UK government talks green, but its policies have encouraged cars (and
airplanes) over buses and trains.
Encouraging car travel leads to congestion, and congestion provides
an excuse for universal surveillance schemes, such as the one now
practiced in London and the one proposed by New York Mayor Bloomberg.
A simple increase in gas tax would eliminate these artificial problems while
also helping to save the planet.
The Mediterranean Sea and its bed are full of plastic trash, mainly bags
and food packaging. Future hurricanes are likely to stir it all up.
A general strike shut down the Dominican Republic for a day.
The Dominican Republic recently signed a new low-wage treaty with the US.
A general strike has spread across Peru, as its Bush-league president
makes investors happy while disregarding the poor.
Pharmaceuticals discarded by humans are causing illness for animals and
humans, as they get into the water we drink. Sewage treatment is not designed
to block them.
A number of organizations are pressuring Home Depot
to stop advertising on Fox News.
The fact that this campaign is necessary is a measure of how much our society
has fallen under the control of business. To restore democracy is to strip
business of its power.
KBR was going to charge the Bush forces $110 million for
maintaining bases that were already closed.
The Bush forces would object to this, if they wanted to save money.
The inter-group killing in Iraq continues to increase. The Bush forces are
unable to stop it, and their temporary alliances backfire.
Ethiopia's main opposition leaders have been
sentenced to life in prison.
An earthquake in Japan caused
a fire in a nuclear power plant. Due to the earthquake damage, the firemen
were busy elsewhere, so they could not come immediately to put out the fire.
Japan is building lots more nuclear power plants, and their plan seems like
foolish disregard for danger.
The insurance industry says that single-payer health care means long waits
to see a doctor and rationing of health care. Actually the US system is worse
on precisely these measures.
US citizens: phone your congressional reps and senators
to oppose Senator Coburn's amendment to increase the federal
penalties on medical marijuana users.
Jonathan Aponte had a man shoot him so he would not be sent back to Iraq.
Of foreigners fighting against the Bush forces,
nearly half are Saudis.
The Bush forces want to claim that they come from Syria and Iran, which seems
to be a matter of blaming the usual suspects.
President Chavez wants to amend the Venezuelan constitution so he can
run for president again.
This is not necessarily bad, but it is disturbing.
The FBI exceeded the sweeping surveillance power given to it by the USAP
AT RIOT to obtain people's phone records through requests that were obviously
illegal. These requests were signed by someone fairly high in the FBI.
The false information in these requests could make them a crime.
In 2001,
the Bush regime explicitly funded the Taliban.
Michael Moore lambastes CNN for absurd false statements about SiCKO.
Russia has canceled a treaty about reporting troop movements.
Elsewhere I read that this was a response to Bush's
provocative missile defense plans.
The deal to end North Korea's nuclear program is making tangible
progress.
The island nation of Tuvalu is slowly being drowned by global warming.
Most people there expect to emigrate.
It may be possible for 10,000 refugees to find a place to go. But if
climate change sends millions fleeing, a few decades from now, will
anyone let them in?
A Utah woman was attacked and then lied about by police who had come
to demand that she water her lawn.
Aside from the brutality, isn't it crazy to require
people to water lawns during a drought in a region
with a permanent water shortage that global warming will
keep making worse?
Interviews with 50 Bush forces veterans