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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
US citizens: sign this petition for Congress to finish enacting a whistleblower protection law.
As 100 people protested Bush forces recruiting in Washington DC, the police tried to stop the march through harassment and lies.
The US and other powers are trying to pressure Zimbabwe in the UN.
Bush, who has stolen two presidential elections, is no real supporter of democracy. So the US support for democracy in Zimbabwe is probably motivated by someone's greedy plan. But whatever it is, it can't be as bad as Mugabe's terror regime. So we should be glad that, for once, this amoral giant is doing something good. We should reserve our condemnation for when it does evil.
I'm sure it will give us plenty of opportunities.
The Swedish Pirate Party will sue to overturn the new Swedish surveillance law.
More and more private jets are being sold — even some jumbo jets normally used as airliners. They spew out CO2, and US tax law subsidizes their use.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose extension of oil drilling (offshore, ANWR), and sign this petition with the same point.
The oil will be much more valuable in 50 years (for uses other than combustion) than it is today. For now, let's leave it in the ground.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
NASA climatologist Hansen says: put oil company executives ontrial for endangering humanity by lying about global warming.
High officials connected with Cheney took the initiative in instituting torture policies.
Tsvangirai pulled out of the Zimbabwe runoff election, saying that Mugabe's violence was too great. He will not ask people to die voting for him.
Some have criticized Tsvangirai for this decision, but I will not. There is a level of violence at which peaceful resistance becomes impossible, and if he says Zimbabwe has reached it, I will take his word for it. If foreign pressure cannot force Mugabe out, I think armed resistance is called for.
Many former US officials have said that the official story about 9/11 is bullshit, and the investigation was a sham.
A U.S. school district wants to put RFIDs in students's schoolbags.
The Bush regime's torture policies were instigated from the top.
Obama supports the FISA bill to authorize warrantless wiretapping in the future, while saying he will "try" to remove the retroactive immunity provision.
That shows how enthusiastically he will defend our rights: he will sign them away for the future, while trying ineffectively to legitimize their violation in the past.
Three years ago, Bush forces Marines massacred Iraqis in Haditha. Their relatives have got no justice.
It's not unusual for the Bush forces fighters to kill Iraqis. What's rare is to have enough attention and evidence to build a case about it — most of the time it was quietly forgotten. But even with attention and evidence, it's no use. The treaty that Bush demands from the "Iraqi" government is designed to allow this to continue.
This year's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will be the biggest ever.
I wonder if there is a way to provide nitrates for plants without having so much of them wash away into the river.
The UK has proposed a vigorous plan for renewable energy.
But it fails to limit the burning of fossil fuel.
US voters: find out whether your representatives and senators are supported by the oil companies.
US citizens: sign Kucinich's petition supporting his effort to impeach Bush.
Mugabe has admitted that his election is a sham, saying he will not give up power no matter what the voters say.
That article says that Tsvangirai did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, but there is every reason to believe that those figures were falsified by Mugabe too.
Most of Zimbabwe's neighbors have condemned Mugabe's tyranny. President Mbeki of South Africa is his last shield.
Mbeki is also responsible for millions of HIV infections, due to his persistent opposition to all the effective measures to prevent them. He also supports the policies of the empire of the megacorporations. His existence is a pestilence.
The Bush forces cancelled the case against an officer who did not investigate the killing of prisoners on a technicality: the wrong man was present in certain meetings.
Command influence is a big danger in military "justice", because it is built into the system. The judges take orders from the military command, and so does the prosecutor, and so does the defense attorney.
I won't say that the improper meetings that occurred are ok; perhaps they were a real problem. But command influence does not always manifest itself so explicitly. The judge in this trial doesn't need to meet with Bush to know that Bush would rather have the blame limited to as low ranks as possible.
The Veterans Administration is testing drugs improperly on veterans, and putting them at risk.
I agree with Obama that the VA should respect the rights of experimental subjects when treating veterans. But when he describes those who fought in the occupation of Iraq as having "sacrificed...for our country", he legitimizes an unjust war of aggression. This is part of why I do not support Obama for president.
Amnesty International implored the European Union not to be cruel to rejected asylum seekers. The EU did not listen.
Samina Malik's conviction was overturned on appeal, but UK law continues to prohibit the mere possession of books that explain methods that "terrorists" might use.
In effect, it is a system of censorship that only applies to those that the authorities see fit to persecute.
Several major US ISPs agreed to censor Internet access.
The first target of this censorship is sites and newsgroups that supposedly contain "child pornography". This term is dishonest, since the law defines "child" as "anyone under 18". For instance, Americans of age 16 are hardly children. They are sexually mature, almost half of them have had sex, and any normal adult will find them attractive. But our government calls them "children", with the implication that being attracted to them makes you a pervert.
The danger of censorship goes far beyond this specific instance of censorship. Once ISPs agree to censor the Internet for one kind of thing, they can easily censor other things. In effect, they have now constituted the Great Firewall of the US.
The editors of Uruknet report that Google has repeatedly dropped its pages from the index.
European governments are starting to recognize the harm done by biofuel made from food crops.
Ireland's no vote on the European constitution-in-disguise is so uncomfortable for Europe's leaders that they don't want to accept it. They are trying to demand that Ireland must vote again and say yes this time.
This resembles what Mugabe did after he lost the election.
A truce between Israel and Hamas has begun. If it holds, Israel has promised to relax the siege of Gaza.
Burmese paramilitaries attacked protestors who demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Pro-government militias" under a military regime do not arise spontaneously from public enthusiasm. They are organized by the government, and their members get some sort of rewards or privileges. Thus, calling them "paramilitaries" seems appropriate.
A Turkish publisher has been sentenced to prison for publishing a book that acknowledges the genocide of the Armenians.
One of the causes of the food shortage in Africa is that the US, the IMF and the World Bank forces African governments to adopt policies damaging to the millions of small farms.
Clorox is raking in money after corrupting the Sierra Club into advertising Clorox chemical products.
Rep. Conyers is under strong public pressure to hold impeachment hearings but still refuses.
An open letter to Conyers explaining why impeachment is necessary.
Environmentalists disagree over whether it is safe to dispose of CO2 in the deep ocean, where it would remain for hundreds of years.
It seems to me that if the total amount that could be disposed of there only equals 16 years of human production, this method is at best a stopgap. We may have need for a stopgap as part of a real solution. However, today's governments, subservient to the megacorporate empire, will seize on any stopgap as an excuse to put off real solutions.
Russia has accused four men including an ex-cop and a member of the spy agency of the murder of journalist Politkovskaya.
McCain wants to drill for oil at the expense of the environment, supposedly to reduce oil prices.
The world is burning too much oil already.
It's not just the government that censors the internet in China. PR corporations do it too, as in the US.
The European Parliament voted to imprison rejected asylum-seekers for up to 18 months before deporting them.
When so many governments around the world trample human rights to maintain the control of the megacorporations over their countries, there is a large population of people that have valid grounds for political asylum. Hence the pressure on governments to deny asylum even to people that qualify, often by denying plain facts about oppressive regimes.
At the same time, many people wish to move to Europe for economic reasons — for instance, to escape the poverty that the megacorporate empire spreads. It is legitimate in principle for a country to reject such migrants, but this carries with it the duty to help those countries resist and escape the harmful influence of the empire; for instance, to abolish the sweatshop treaties which do the dirty work.
The sweatshop treaties are usually called "free trade" treaties, but that name is dishonest. These treaties typically impose requirements for patents and copyrights, requirements that restrict trade. The purpose of these treaties is rather to transfer power from (possibly democratic) governments to business. Thus, they are designed to reduce governments' power to control business, and to in some cases to increase the megacorporations' power to do so.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, told the EU that Bolivia would pull out of negotiations on a new sweatshop treaty if this directive is approved.
I hope he follows through on this. My only criticism is that he was willing to entertain such negotiations in the first place. On trade issues, the EU is just as bad as the US; any trade treaty that the EU of today is willing to sign is surely harmful.
Canada's president apologized for the policy of forcing native children to attend church boarding schools. Canada will pay compensation to the survivors.
The US had a similar schools policy, with disastrous results. (Many books describe the strife that this caused in the Hopi tribe.) These schools, which were designed for assimilation, must have played a big role in the loss of many of the native languages.
A large fund has been set up to support projects that reduce the destruction of the Congo rainforest.
Even if some of these projects are effective, I doubt they can overcome the profitability of logging. So I think more is needed. I wonder if it is possible to identify through biological tests which part of the world some wood originated in.
Hundreds of homosexual couples have married in California, but Christian fanatics find the idea offensive and have arranged for a referendum to ban the practice.
Although the Bible says that Jesus preached people should love each other, Christianity often manifests itself as hatred.
Egypt says it has brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Israel seems to cast some doubt on whether this is real.
The US response speaks of Hamas' "loaded gun" and does not mention Israel's loaded cannons pointing in the other direction. This reflects the extreme bias of the US government in the matter.
Protesters against Bush's imperial procession in London clashed with police as they tried to reach Whitehall, the street where the UK's government buildings are located.
I am glad to read that the protestors condemned Bush's temporary occupation of London as well as his "temporary but forever" occupation of Iraq.
Everyone, but especially US citizens:
Three Palestinians from Gaza received Fulbright scholarships to study in the US, but Israel would not allow them to go. Write to Ms Rice saying the US should pressure Israel to let them travel and study.
Former governor Jesse Ventura, who has demolition experience, says that he is convinced that 9/11 was an inside job.
Nader's entry into the presidential race has made Obama talk a little more progressive, but it's just talk so far.
A part of Australia is creating a centralized data base of all students, and many parents are angry.
Those who are debating the danger of unauthorized misuse are being distracted from the bigger danger: authorized misuse, by the government and its agents. Collecting data about people while they are young gives the government a head start on total information about everyone, and governments do not always use this information for good.
Teachers don't need a database to recognize their students. If schools need some of these data, they should keep only what is needed, in a decentralized way, and discard it when no longer needed.
US Citizens: The Senate is making another attempt to retroactively legalize the phone companies' illegal surveillance. Phone your congresscritter, thank the House for blocking this a few months ago, and ask him/her to do block it this time too.
You can also send an email, but phone calls carry more weight.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Bush wants the "Iraqi" government to agree that Bush can decide arbitrarily whether Iraq has been "attacked", and then retaliate. This appears designed as a legalistic excuse for attacking Iran.
Lithuania proposes to let people vote through their cell phones.
This would make it easy for the election administration to record how you vote, delete your vote, change your vote, etc. The phone company could do these things too, unless something I don't see prevents it.
Write a letter to the government of Afghanistan on behalf of reporter Sayed Kambakhsh, who is facing the death penalty for "blasphemy" for redistributing to fellow students a document he obtained from the net. In the UK, Hicham Yezza is also being punished for downloading information from the net.
In Stockholm: Join the protest outside parliament against the Swedish surveillance law on Wednesday, June 18, at 8 a.m. when the parliament votes on it.
Sweden is about to pass a surveillance law that would let the government listen to nearly all phone calls and read nearly all emails, without any court supervision. The proponents describe it with lies, of course.
Uri Avnery's program for peace between Israel and Palestine starts with an apology.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who helped negotiate the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, condemned the influence of the Israeli Hawk Lobby in the US, and says it falsely accuses people of "anti-Semitism".
Now the supporters of the Israeli Hawk lobby are proving Brzezinski's point by doing that very thing to him.
Note how this article refers to Brzezinski as "Obama's advisor". They don't care about Brzezinski as such; what they want is to make Obama toe the line.
Two Iraqis accused of shooting prisoners have been held prisoner since 2003, without trial. They smuggled out a letter asking to be released or given a trial.
A major ISP in the UK has taken the side of the music factories against its customers, the public.
Virgin's customers should cut off their service. But, more than that, this shows that we must organize to loudly condemn and oppose the very idea of stopping people from sharing — no matter how it is done.
The politicians and executives that support draconian laws against copying do not expect to face widespread condemnation from the people they have attacked. We need to teach them a different expectation. We need to show them that anyone who attacks sharing will be considered the enemy of society.
Ireland's referendum rejected the EU constitution-in-disguise.
Voters were right to distrust any treaty drawn up by today's politicians to "reform" the EU. The EU needs reform, but they will try to make it worse, not better. Most EU governments and politicians are subservient to business, and any constitution they propose had better be studied long and hard for booby traps. If it is hard to read, that is a very good reason to reject it. This treaty in printed form was 269 pages long, thus almost impossible to understand.
It is no surprise that these same politicians are trying to insist that the constitution is not dead. They know what their bosses want, and they are very persistent.
A spectacular Taliban attack freed nearly all the prisoners in Kandahar prison.
CO2 pollution protestors seized and stopped a coal train in the UK.
A Maoist movement that believes in multiparty democracy won the elections in Nepal, but now faces the threat of a coup by the Western-armed royalist army.
Mao was a disaster for China, so I am skeptical of anyone who calls himself Maoist. It sounds like this movement is a lot better than Mao, but I do not know enough to think about whether I could support it.
McCain tries to hide the fact that he is a neocon, and that he supported the lies that were used as the excuse to invade Iraq.
We used to call these people "cons", and subsequently "ex-cons".
Ethiopia is using a brutal terror campaign to defeat rebels in the Ogaden region.
The Bush regime treats Ethiopia as an ally, using Ethopia as a proxy for the Iraq-style occupation of Somalia. In effect, the "War on Terror" only applies to terrorists that Bush does not find useful.
A major leader of the UK Conservative party resigned his position to campaign against increases in pretrial detention.
Many others think he made a tactical error. Perhaps they are right; I do not know enough to judge that. But I agree with everything he said about the issue itself.
Mugabe arrested the main Zimbabwean opposition leaders, charging one of them with treason.
The Ethiopian government did something similar.
A doctor in the US was sentenced to prison for collecting body parts from corpses and making them available for medical purposes.
The failure to screen these body parts for diseases was a dangerous act of negligence: it exposed people gratuitously to the risk of infection. This should be punished. But the rest of what he did was not wrong.
This doctor saved, for the most meritorious possible use, parts of corpses which would otherwise have been thrown away. Is that "plunder"? Relatives of the deceased people claim to be "victims", but they are guilty of something much worse: they sought to deny others needed medical care, apparently for no reason except corpse fetishism. They deserve no sympathy.
There ought to be a law that relatives of a dead person who wish to veto taking organs for transplantation must first have a face-to-face conversation with someone that needs a transplant and is so far down the list that he probably won't get one. He will ask them questions such as, "Why is burying that heart (liver, kidney, tendon, whatever) in a grave so important that it should keep me from getting the operation I need? Is something hidden inside a corpse more important than a living person's health?"
Or just legislate that everyone's body is available for transplantation. I don't think many corpses will object.
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, NATO has started to say "We must win this fight for the sake of NATO."
This means that (1) what's good for Afghanis is no longer the point, and (2) NATO has adopted the Bush regime's attitude that it must never allow anything to fail, because that would mean admitting fallibility.
The US Supreme Court restored the right of habeas corpus for the prisoners in Guantanamo.
But how can the thousands of secret prisoners elsewhere, whose captivity is not acknowledged, exercise this right?
A judge dismissed the trumped-up charges against artist Steven Kurtz.
The Bush regime prosecutors could not have failed to know that these charges were unjust. I think they were implementing the regime's arrogant attitude toward the public: "The Government Is Never Wrong." Anyone who the regime accuses, even by mistake or through confusion, must be convicted of something, by hook or by crook.
Grinding people down persistently for years often succeeds in crushing them, innocent or not. It worked with Kurtz' colleague, who pled guilty to some of the same charges that were now dismissed. It takes physical stamina as well as mental firmness to stand up to the pitiless attacks of an evil machine.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter to support the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which would stop the federal government from arresting patients who are using medical marijuana legally under state law.
Marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol, so it should not be more illegal. This is just a first step, but it is an important step.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
After a conference in Bil'in on peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation, the attendees went to a nonviolent protest at the annexation wall, and were attacked by Israeli troops.
The protestors included European officials. Perhaps this will have an effect.
The anti-abortion movement has come out in the open with its real aims: prohibition of contraception.
This shows that their real concern is not a matter of "right to life" for embryos that have no brain, or fetuses whose brains are not yet wired up to function. Their aim is to force everyone to live according to their perverse religion.
Tyson Foods lied to the public and to the government when it said its chickens were not given antibiotics.
Both McCain and Obama are supporting Bush's exaggerated claims about Iran.
Music sharing is not only good for society, and ethical. It can even benefit the musicians.
Harvard Professor Matory reports on the censorship pressure that has "disinvited" three visiting academic speakers who were known for supporting the Palestinian cause. His faculty resolution to reaffirm academic freedom was defeated.
A museum exhibit showing maps of Palestine was closed under pressure from the Israeli Hawks lobby. The exhibit has reopened allowing admittance only with guided visits.
I call it the "Israeli Hawks lobby", rather than the "Israel lobby", because it represents only one side of Israeli politics, and does not represent all Israelis or Israel's real interests. It is easier to oppose these hawks in Israel than in the US where the Israeli Hawks lobby reigns supreme.
Gordon Clown got his 42-day-detention law through the House of Commons, just barely.
The law is likely to be blocked by the House of Lords, but this vote is still a loss for Britain. It shows that Clown is determined to crush the last shreds of the Rights of Englishmen.
It was predictable, after the compromise that extended pre-charge detention to 30 days when B'liar wanted 90, that the B'liar/Clown regime would come back later saying "meet me half-way again". Compromise with fascists is self-delusion; the only thing to do is oppose them.
The Bush regime is protecting companies and Iraqis that ran off with 23 billion of unaccounted funds.
Did the Bush forces use phosphorus bombs in Mosul?
Protestors against Bush plan to march in London even though the Clown regime has banned the march.
www.kucinich.org was sabotaged shortly after Kucinich introduced his articles of impeachment. These articles can be found in http://www.democrats.com/files/amomentoftruth.pdf.
Kucinich again introduced articles of impeachment against Bush.
In order for this to have an effect, the rest of the house must support it.
The Bush regime admits it may have trouble imposing the colonization treaty it wants on Iraq.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter and demand that he/she support Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Bush.
Here's one person's open letter to the House Judiciary Committee: http://erispress.com/Open_Letter-HJC.html.
Star Simpson, arrested by police nincompoops that mistook lights on her shirt for a bomb, avoided prosecution by taking blame for the police's mistake.
To be forced to apologize and praise those who wronged her must have been humiliating, and clearly was unfair, but what is more important is how it affects the rest of us. This confirms the police's idea that they must never be blamed for mistakes. If they make a mistake about you, that is your fault; you should have known better than to do anything they might be confused about.
As long as police get away with blaming their mistakes on the victims, they will continue to treat the public with contempt.
Ten years from now, Lake Mead may be mostly empty and the Hoover Dam may produce no electricity. Scripps researchers predict a 50% chance that will happen by 2017.
Global warming is part of the cause.
The TSA has abruptly abolished the right to board a plane without showing ID.
As the article explains, this and the "no fly" list are "security theater", with results that are unjust.
The people of Afghanistan seem to have given up hope for the Afghan government, which cannot provide security.
The high price of oil has made geothermal electric generation economically feasible.
Bush wants a treaty to station the Bush forces permanently in Iraq, with power to arrest and imprison people, exempt from Iraqi law. In effect, it would make Iraq a permanent colony.
B'liar's first attack on the Rights of Englishment was a law making it easy for any level of government to spy on people without a warrant. This law was supposed to be for the sake of stopping "terrorism", but in fact it is used for matters as small as putting out garbage on the wrong day.
This same law makes it a crime not to hand over your encryption keys on demand.
Uri Avnery on why Obama bowed down to the Israeli hawks.
It may not be just a pretense.
Obama has a solid record as a pro-business Democrat — what we would have called "right-wing Democrat" in the 70s.
Bush wants a treaty to station the Bushg forces permanently in Iraq,with power to arrest and imprison people, exempt from Iraqi law. In effect, it would make Iraq a permanent colony.
1/3 of the CO2 we put into the atmosphere goes into the oceans, making them more acidic. This will eventually kill the plankton and coral, eliminating the rest of the food chain.
The Bush regime is trying to admit only its supporters to the kangaroo trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The 9/11 victims' families are being kept out; apparently Bush does not want them to see what's happening.
Bush's War on the Constitution puts every American in danger.
Anyone who has sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution has the duty to protect the country from public enemy number one: Bush.
How much change would Obama make in US Middle East policy? Probably not much.
I am not very impressed when politicians say that will give us "change". Bush gave us lots of change...for the worse.
US citizens: call your senators' offices and say, either fix the Lieberman/Warner global warming bill, or drop it.
You can also sign this petition (which also leads to more information), but a phone call has more impact.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Obama partially backed off from his statement that Jerusalem should belong to Israel only.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers gained a major concession from Burger King, which will now pay agricultural workers an additional penny for each pound of tomatoes.
This extra cost is tiny (one pound of tomatoes is enough for probably 20 burgers) for Burger King; the fact that Burger King resisted so long and hard is an indication of intends greed and callousness.
The "Iraqi" government, trying to act with independence, says it will not permit unrestricted movement of the Bush forces troops in the future.
The Iraqi government is sovereign only in Bush's pretense. It exists only because Bush set it up, and cannot maintain itself in power. For it to defend any sort of real sovereignty will be difficult.
Everyone: sign this petition rebuking McCain and Obama for going overboard in supporting Israel and disregarding the Palestinians.
Republican opposition killed the Senate's climate change bill.
Disney World is teaching children to insist that "everyone must be fingerprinted".
Supermarket discount cards have a similar effect.
The mass extinction now begining could be disastrous for the world. Every species' extinction means the loss of something irreplaceable. Sometimes what is lost is a way to cure diseases.
This shows another reason not to make biofuels from food crops or on land that could be used for food crops.
It is also a reason to press hard to end human population growth.
Mugabe's troops attack opposition supporters at the grass-roots level, while denying food to everyone tagged as an opposition supporter.
Israel has explicitly threatened to attack Iran.
I read elsewhere that one of Ahmadinejad's supposed threats to destroy Israel had been misinterpreted, and that his actual words were a prediction that Israel would disappear sooner or later. Predicting someone's demise is unfriendly, but it is not as bad as a threat. Israel, which already has nuclear weapons, is the one that is doing the threatening.
It seems to me that Olmert may be trying to start another war so that he won't be indicted for corruption for all the money he received from Talansky.
New Zealand has released Amir Mohebbi and Ali Panah from prison. But it still wants to deport them to Iran, where they might face execution for converting to Christianity.
Here's more info on the proposed Iranian law that would make conversion a capital crime.
Bush wants the "Iraqi" government to allow US attacks against any country from permanent bases in Iraq.
US citizens: sign the petition in favor of equal rights for marriage regardless of gender.
Sweden is about to pass a nasty bill authorizing effectively total surveillance of Internet communication.
Mugabe has banned international food aid organizations, claiming that they help the opposition, whose members and leaders he is attacking and arresting.
Since Mugabe is trying to use starvation as a weapon against the opposition, any food aid not under his control tends to defeat that tactic, and thus could be said to help the opposition. But there is nothing wrong with that. The rest of the world should be giving the opposition in Zimbabwe a lot more help, including military help. A few divisions would suffice to make it possible to have a free election.
It is interesting to compare this case with Iraq. Iraq was kept hungry for 12 years by US-imposed sanctions, and did not have a real internal opposition to Saddam Hussein. Yet Bush claimed his invasion was meant to help the Iraqis. If he were really moved by such concerns, he would have refrained from invading Iraq, and would invade Zimbabwe now.
The Bush regime doesn't mind doing business with people that the US has accused of corruption.
That's because Bush's motto is, Corruption R Us.
100,000 people's movements were tracked through their cell phones for a scientific study.
This is a reminder that Big Brother can track anyone's cell phone. Do you want all your movements to be tracked?
Remember that the only way to stop most cell phones from reporting their whereabous is to take the batteries out.
Bush plans to turn the occupation of Iraq over to mercenaries. This will allow him to pretend to have withdrawn US troops from the Bush forces, because he pretends that the mercenaries are not troops.
Mercenaries in Iraq are subject to no laws at all. If official soldiers kill prisoners, they are subject to military justice. Even though that is a parody of justice, biased in these cases in favor of the soldiers, it is better than nothing. However, mercenaries in Iraq regularly go unpunished even when they rape other mercenaries.
In Washington DC, people are now forced to show their papers to travel around the city.
Exxon said, for the second time, that it has stopped funding organizations that lie about global warming. Apparently it wasn't true the first time. And it isn't true this time either.
A reporter at MSNBC says that the staff was systematically pressured to slant stories in favor of attacking Iraq.
Slacktivism can result from the human tendency to laziness, but it can also be organized by companies.
Remembering the massacres of 19 years ago, when China crushed its democracy movement.
This is not mere history: the resulting injustice still operates today, since China continues to suppress democracy in the same way. All the more reason to keep the heat on.
To keep the memory of the massacre alive, we should stop calling that place Tienan Mén (gate of heavenly peace). If you are going to Beijing, ask for directions to Sha Xuésheng Mén (gate of killing students). The x is pronounced like "ch" in German "ich", the acute accent indicates a rising tone, and the second and third e's are pronounced like "u" in "put".
Readers have posted several comments on the article that express extreme cynicism: "You can't criticize China since your country's government is bad too." Such cynicism is made to order for despots in all countries, since it sets a threshold for criticism that nobody can meet. It despises humanity and gives up on making anything better.
Amnesty International is equally aware that every government can violate human rights, and nearly all of them do. Unlike the cynics, it aims to make things better. So it organizes pressure on every country from people in other countries.
Venice has launched a campaign against bottled water.
Bush's political appointees in NASA altered reports to cover up global warming, says an official investigation.
The investigation found no proof that Bush or his men specifically told them to do this, but that signifies nothing. If they were given their instructions orally, there would be no proof to find.
Plamegate isn't over: there is new evidence touching Cheney.
China has added a bunch of nasty reasons to the usual reasons you should stay away from places where Olympic games are being held.
The production of biofuels in the US and Brazil was attacked at the FAO summit.
Lula's response was a distractive irrationality. There are plenty of other scandals in use of oil and coal, but that doesn't address the question; people can't eat them.
The problems with biofuels made from food crops have been published for over a year now, as you can see from previous links here. Yet I'm no expert on this field: all I did was keep my eyes open, which anyone can do. So what can we say about politicians who have kept their eyes shut?
The occupation of Palestine costs Israel dearly, stunting economic growth.
This is small potatoes compared with the injustcie it does to the Palestinians, but if it helps convince Israelis to end the occupation, it matters.
Can anyone hear the voices of the poor and hungry?
I think the answer is, "Yes, if the mainstream media don't distract us from them."
As Colombia presents possibly fabricated evidence connecting Chávez to the FARC guerrillas, Uribe uses this to distract attention from the his own much better documented ties to Colombia's terrorist paramilitaries.
High oil prices have renewed interest in space solar power, which would be safe and produce no chemical or radioactive pollution on Earth.
This is one of many reasons why we are not compelled to build nuclear power plants.
An ice shelf in the Arctic is starting to disintegrate. Scientists predict that there will be no ice in the Arctic in summer a few decades from now.
Every decrease in Arctic ice causes more absorption of sunlight and more warming — a dangeroust positive feedback system.
Another dangerous positive feedback system is release of methane from permafrost. Research shows this is increasing.
Global warming will enable crabs and sharks to return to the waters around Antarctica, where they could wipe out many species that have been protected from them for millions of years.
Russia and China support a treaty against deploying arms in space. Who opposes this? The US, of course.
Venezuelan President Chávez has proposed a law along similar lines to the unjust U SAP AT RIOT Act.
Withholding evidence from defendants is the road to unjust convictions. The other provisions sound bad too. The Bush regime is in no position to criticize, but those who have opposed the PAT RIOT Act and supported Chávez should implore him to drop this plan.
Israel has apparently relented on letting Palestinian students leave Gaza to study in the US.
Israeli agents harrassed and tried to intimidate the Physicians for Human Rights.
Mohammad Qatanani, fighting deportation to Palestine, told a US court of his torture in an Israeli prison.
They also threatened his family, a tactic used also by the Bush regime in Iraq.
The world's major ISPs are accused of planning (and signing secret contracts) to make Internet users pay for access to all but a few favored web sites.
I have no objection in principle to charging users for total bandwidth of downloads as long as it is done without discrimination based on what is downloaded. However, someone pointed out to me that this might lead more people to put passwords on their WiFi. That would be a bad result.
It may be possible to avoid that result through neighborhood-based campaigns urging people not to lock each other out. I wonder if there are any unlocked WiFi activists in the area of Texas where this is being tested.
An airline security bully threatened to arrest a man in Heathrow Airport for wearing a shirt with a picture of a cartoon robot with a gun.
If the bully were so stupid that he believed the cartoon robot could actually shoot someone, it would be hard to be a angry at him. Someone so badly retarded is not fit for the job, but it's not his fault that he is retarded.
However, what really happened is much worse. That bully was perfectly aware that the cartoon robot could not shoot anyone. But he thinks he should forbid it anyway, because he has lost all sense of proportion.
An open letter to Admiral Fallon (recently retired) implores him in the name of his oath to the constitution to denounce the lies Bush is now using to excuse attacking Iran.
Oppose the deportation of Hicham Yezza, who is being punished for being innocent of "terrorism" charges.
Yezza was originally accused simply for having printed a document he obtained from a US government web site. This reveals the tyranny of the UK's laws.
If you sweat while in a plane because you are afraid of flying, you may get fingered as a terrorist.
The whole idea is absurd, because even if the system works, what good could it do? Whatever the crew could do to oppose a would-be hijacker with a little advance warning, they could just as well do when he starts to act. Only when there are armed police in the plane (and that's a small fraction of the time) would the advance warning be useful.
McCain is defending the lies that Bush told to justify conquering Iraq.
The Bush regime is holding least 26,000 "disappeared" prisoners whose whereabouts are secret. Some are kept on ships, where they are beaten.
The ships can also hand them over to other evil governments where they can be tortured and Bush can pretend not to be responsible. Bush said he stopped doing this, but he lied.
Americans that close their eyes to the evil of the Bush regime make themselves co-responsible for it.
Republicans are planning to steal the 2008 election by stopping many Democrats from voting.
A hunger striker outside McCain's office in Phoenix demands the truth about the 9/11 attacks.
Virginia Commonwealth University got research funds from Philip Morris by allowing that company total control over releasing the results. The university officials who signed the contract are not even allowed to talk about it.
The article obscures some of the facts by using the vague term "intellectual property". That term potentially refers to a large set of diverse laws — but most places where it is used really mean only one or two of them. We cannot tell which of these laws are actually meant here, because the term hides that.
It is always a mistake to use the term "intellectual property". See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.
Participate in the Day of Action against Starbucks on July 5.
Chinese parents protested the faulty construction of schools, which caused the death of their children in the earthquake.
Even after 60,000 dead, the Chinese official's primary wish is to try to deny and bury problems. That is why they were not corrected in the first place.
The same thing occurred during the SARS outbreak several years ago: Chinese officials denied the scope of the problem until that was impossible.
It happened again a couple of years ago when a toxic chemical spill menaced the water for a city. As long as this continues, the inhabitants of China will have lousy government. So can Americans, if Bush achieves his aim of making the US government follow the Chinese model.
There are nonviolent protests against the annexation wall in the Palestinian village of Ni'ilin. The wall threatens to surround that region completely and cut it off.
Uri Avnery: Olmert is part and parcel of corruption that spreads from conquest and occupation of Arab lands.
The Bush regime acknowledged paying other countries to contribute troops to the occupation of Iraq.
That is not immoral in itself; in a just war, this would not be an unjust way to fight it. But it shows the regime's claims of support from other countries are part fake.
Why Gaza has to pump sewage into the sea: to avoid overflows like this one which killed 5 people.
In Kurdish Iraq, cell phone cameras have led to the death of hundreds of women.
It is plausible that this happens in the rest of Iraq too, but it may be too dangerous there to collect any statistics.
Why Gaza has to pump sewage into the sea: to avoid overflows like this one which killed 5 people.
The Bush regime acknowledged paying other countries to contribute troops to the occupation of Iraq.
That is not immoral in itself; in a just war, this would not be an unjust way to fight it. But it shows the regime's claims of support from other countries are part fake.
In Kurdish Iraq, cell phone cameras have led to the death of hundreds of women.
It is plausible that this happens in the rest of Iraq too, but it may be too dangerous there to collect any statistics.
Gaza lacks fuel to run sewage treatment plants, so it has to pump sewage into the Mediterranean, which kills the fish and makes the sea dangerous to swim in.
The Israeli government probably considers this a plus, since it impedes any attempt to swim to a ship, and contributes to the starvation of everyone in Gaza.
President Carter called Israel's starvation of Gaza one of the worst human rights crimes.
The Isreali representative thinks it is irresponsible to admit the facts about Israel's nuclear weapons because that might lead people to compare the international attitude towards possible Iranian nuclear weapons with the international attitude towards actual Israeli nuclear weapons.
Israeli soldiers shot protestors in Gaza, killing one of them and wounding many.
The arrest of Hicham Yezza and the plan to deport him has ignited protests at the University of Nottingham against the unjust UK "anti-terrorism" laws, that make it a crime to read a book (if the government claims you are doing it for "terrorism").
The CIA has admitted using drowning torture, but continues concealing when it has done so.
A campaign to break the siege of Gaza, by delivering relief supplies by ship, asks for various kinds of support.
The Union of Concerned Scientists warns the US: act now to reduce global warming drastically, or it will soon be too late.
The Bush regime removed a judge from the phony trial of a Guantanamo prisoner because the judge tried to make the trial fairer.
The fact that this is even possible illustrates one reason these military courts are fundamentally unjust: the judge works for the prosecution.
Polluters can easily get awards for being good to the environment, when big companies dominate the organizations that give the awards.
Many US restaurant chains misrepresented the calories in various dishes — sometimes giving values only half the real ones.
I don't believe their claim that this was because the investigators just happened to receive oversize portions. These chains must carefully manage the portion sizes.
An organization funded by coal companies called senators to oppose a bill to reduce global warming, and pretended to be a citizens' group.
Airline security idiots told Marnina Norys she could not board a plane with her necklace, which had a 2" pendant in the shape of a gun.
The arguments offered to defend them show the insane frame of mind of the security state: grasp at straws to justify whatever they do, rather than admit being mistaken. That insanity is much more dangerous than any non-state-sponsored terrorists.
George Monbiot tried to arrest John Bolton (a Bush regime official and neocon) for war crimes. Bolton escaped with the help of his bodyguard.
Here's what Monbiot said about it.
Note how the Hay festival's response misses the point. Monbiot attempted to arrest Bolton after his speech, thus respecting freedom of expression. However, freedom of expression is not an excuse for mass murderers to escape punishment for their crimes.
100 nations agreed to a treaty to ban cluster bombs.
The states that refuse to ban them are the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. Shame on them all!
Photographer Bill Henson faces prosecution in Australia for nude photos seized from an art exhibition. Many respected artists have come to his defense.
This shows where the perverse crusade against "child pornography" naturally leads.
Global warming will cause reduced rainfall in the US southwest, which will make it hard to find water for the growing population.
The US Congress voted to investigate the Pentagon Paid Propaganda Pundit Program. The US TV networks, which were used by these "military experts" to prevent propaganda for attacking Iraq, continue to refuse to recognize it.
McCain is trying to turn a global warming bill into a subsidy for nuclear power.
The US and EU and Canada want border guards to check everyone's laptops for unauthorized copies. They are trying to impose this nasty law through a treaty, secretly negotiated, so as to bypass democracy.
The prohibition of sharing can only be enforced with draconian cruelty. This shows that prohibiting sharing is wrong.
The copyright companies keep asking for draconian cruelty, and corporocratic governments keep proposing to give it to them. This illustrates why corporocratic governments are unjust and their actions are illegitimate.
Israeli police order Palestinians to come for an interrogation, then make them wait in line days without talking to them, effectively ruining their lives.
Since imprisonment without trial is normal in Palestine, nobody there has any rights, and any Palestinian could be punished for anything, up to and including summary execution, at any time.
A US businessman gave $150k to Olmert, under the table.
Whether this was a bribe, or a secret campaign contribution, either way it was corrupt.
Israel tried to block Desmond Tutu from starting the UN investigation of the shelling that killed 18 sleeping Palestinians in their home. But he has finally arrived in Gaza to begin.
But that was far from unique. Israeli forces are destroying farms and businesses in Gaza, making a substantial fraction uninhabitable, and thus exacerbating the poverty and starvation even worse.
The shelling might have been an accident, but these raids certainly are no accident.
Burma's military rulers decided to imprison Aung San Suu Kyi for 5 more years. The UN ignored this issue because it was begging them to allow aid to the Burmese cyclone survivors.
In effect, it used those survivors as hostages.
Palestinian students in Gaza have been blocked from traveling to Europe to study — some for up to 7 years.
Other Gazans die, because Israel blocks them from traveling to hospitals for treatment.
Palestinians have to lie down in front of bulldozers to stop illegal Israeli settlements from stealing their land.
Bush has resumed the FBI's spying on political opposition, as in the 60s.
Bush and McCain are trying to justify war by pretending that Iran is a military threat to the US. Or will be. Does that sound familiar?
Chinese whose children died in collapsed school buildings are protesting to the government even though officials begged them not to.
Carter called on Europe to stop following the US and start talking with Hamas.
Ancient City of Babylon Destroyed by US Occupation Base.
The plans for "stabilization" of CO2 at levels such as 550ppm are fundamentally impossible, since that level of warming would melt lots of permafrost, releasing a lot more greenhouse gas. Thus, it is absolutely essential to cap CO2 at a lower level.
1/3 to 2/3 of the subsidies for carbon emission reduction are going to projects that would have been done anyway.
This does not necessarily mean the subsidy has no good effect. Rather, it is an inefficiency in the subsidy, which might or might not make another method better.
I tend to favor taxes on emissions, because that would affect all parts of the economy. For instance, how do we reduce the long-distance transport of food, but only when its pollution is more?
A tax would have this effect.
The Bush forces are still not accounting for their spending, so billions just disappear.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the RISE Act, which would abolish the law that denies financial aid to students who were convicted of possession of drugs.
You can also send an email, but phone calls have more effect.
The government of Portugal has admitted that the CIA flew prisoners through Portugal. Such prisoners were typically headed to be tortured by the US or other countries.
The State of Oregon is trying to copyright its laws, and giving a nasty company preferential access to them.
I think this same company, Thomson West, is the same one that has a virtual monopoly over access to many US court decisions.
The Dalai Lama says that China is planning massive colonization of Tibet — after the Olympic Games.
UK police arrested a graduate student for downloading an al Qa'ida manual to study for his research. He got it from a US government web site.
Although that student has been released, the UK officials continue to claim that this is an "illegal document" which you "should not send to any Tom, Dick or Harry", in effect announcing their intention to imprison people for what they read.
These tyrants are the real threat. Britons, don't let the tyrants distract you by pointing at other minor enemies, while they attack your freedom.
Obama and Clinton propose to tax just 20% of the windfall profits that oil companies have obtained through cartels and war. That's not enough! The tax should be at least 80% of this windfall.
Of course, the companies pretend that the world will end if they are taxed at all. But that's backwards. To let them have money with which to fund lies about global warming is more likely to end the world.
Burma's military rulers have finally agreed to allow foreign aid and aid workers to help the victims of the cyclone.
The Dalai Lama keeps trying to reach out to China, and China in response keeps lying about him.
This persistent dishonesty of the Chinese regime seems to be the model for the Bush regime. These regimes continue lying because many people believe the lies. China has fooled many Chinese about the Dalai Lama, just has Bush has fooled many Americans about Saddam Hussein.
Both of these regimes manipulate people by appealing to their patriotism, but loving your country does not mean loving or obeying the corrupt, dishonest people that control it. Mencius pointed out 2500 years ago that such regimes have no legitimacy.
McCain happily accepted the endorsement of John Hagee, who believes that Hitler was divinely ordained to make Jews move to Israel to fulfill prophesies. Hagee now wants Israel to get into a war with Iran, so as to fulfill more prophesies, and end the world.
This sort of "friendship for Israel" might well cause more war. And these insane Christians have been very influential over US policy towards Israel under all recent presidents, the only exception being Bush I.
Hagee's claim that the Catholic Church (at least at the level of the pope) helped Hitler might be valid; it probably is based on the book Hitler's Pope. It puzzles me, however, that Hagee doesn't consider this a reason to praise the Catholic Church.
This article describes the Bush family's long-term ties with Nazi Germany in detail.
The high price of oil is making driving more expensive.
That is a good thing, since oil will get more scarce in the future. High prices will motivate people to change their arrangements to use less. Reducing taxes would mean trading society's present discomfor for future agony.
The high price of oil is causing increases in air ticket costs and reduction in flights.
That is good too, in the long run.
Perhaps speculation is responsible for the current high price. In a few months, who knows, it might be back down to $100 a barrel. But looking at a period of years, oil will get more expensive, and people will fly less.
So if your city is thinking of investing in airport expansion, preparing for flights that won't arrive, make sure to prevent this folly. Invest in conservation instead!
Many airports are not far above sea level. Expanding them is even stupider.
A long-term feedback mechanism controls the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, but it can't cope with the rapid emissions caused by human activity.
A review of the film War Inc.
(I have not seen it.)
Oxytocin sprayed into the air makes humans keep trusting those who betrayed them.
Will the Republicans and Democrats spray this into the air at voting booths next November?
Cisco considered Chinese censorship and internet surveillance "opportunities" for business.
Hillary removes Bill Clinton as first husband.
China imprisoned Guo Quan, apparently because he criticized the government's response to the earthquake.
I do not know whether the response to the earthquake deserves criticism, but I've seen claims that schools collapsed while private buildings nearby survived. Perhaps those schools were not built strongly enough to survive a big quake.
Charlie Black, McCain's campaign advisor, says it was ok for him to do PR work for dictators, because the US government approved of his choice of dictators.
Lebanon seems to have pulled back from the brink of civil war through an agreement between various factions.
In an overture to China, the Dalai Lama asked Tibetans to cease protests for a month out of concern for the earthquake.
Congress has given veto power to Philip Morris in writing a bill to regulate tobacco sales.
The FBI is trying to recruit infiltrators to spy on protest groups. They say it is because they suspect protestors are "terrorists".
Their definition of "terrorist" is much broader than yours or mine, but they don't really need to believe these protest groups include terrorists. That is just excuse is just cover for sabotaging protests.
Do you use Charter Communications as your ISP? Do you know anyone who does? Customers should write to denounce the plan to track users' web browsing for commercial purposes.
Carbon nanotubes could be dangerous like asbestos — nobody knows what will happen when objects made of them are put into landfills.
Global warming is likely to damage the growth of the plants that caribou eat.
Bush is afflicting the US with secret laws, secret even from Congress.
The claim that "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" is absurd in the US for many other reasons. Many activities (sharing music, smoking pot, talking about US government support for terrorism) are illegal even though they are not wrong. And if you don't do any of them, many police and prosecutors will happily lie to put you in prison if they consider you a threat to the state.
Republican Boehner wants protection from illegal wiretapping — but only for himself, not for you.
The Netherlands has banned electronic voting machines.
Canadians: call your MPs again to oppose your government's plans to give Hollywood new power over you.
China is using surveillance cameras and face recognition to set up Police State 2.0.
US companies are helping, and the rulers of countries such as the US and the UK want to follow the same path. Now the UK wants to make a data base of all phone calls and emails.
To talk about the possibility that this data may be "lost, traded or stolen" is missing the point. The worst danger is that the government which collected it will use it.
Former Alabama Governor Siegelman talks about Karl Rove's prosecution of Democrats such as himself.
The Pakistani army is using collective punishment to try to end suicide bombings by Taliban-like fanatics.
Aside from the general injustice of collective punishment, it is not likely to achieve a victory in the long term.
Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are facing violence from local people who think they are taking away jobs.
Perhaps one solution is to organize some of these refugees into an army, so they can return to Zimbabwe and kick out Mugabe.
The Bush regime seems to have a secret list of Americans to arrest in the event of a "national emergency". Even large protests could qualify.
Every patriotic American belongs on this list, so how can I find out if I have made the grade?
Iran claims it busted a US terror network.
Israeli politics is corrupted by foreign billionaires that fuel the electoral campaigns and turn the politicians into their pets.
The Democratic leadership in Congress wanted to fund the occupation of Iraq and avoid debate on the issue, but Republicans thwarted the move. Bush can still count on most Democrats to be scared to end the occupation.
So what good are those Democrats?
Agribusiness gets rich by shafting farmers and consumers, even as it leads the latter towards unhealthy eating.
Windows Vista gratuitously refused to record certain TV programs as a form of Digital Restrictions Management.
Chicago is following London's path in installing surveillance cameras everywhere along with software to analyze the video.
I hope that this "cost/benefit ratio" is not limited to considering the monetary cost. That would be tantamount to treating government surveillance, which is easily used to crush protests and dissent, as no cost.
Even places that no terrorist would bother with are subject to surveillance against people just taking photos.
I urge everyone to stop and take pictures of weigh stations. Saturate this pointless and harassing police surveillance.
Drug marketing: payola for doctors.
US citziens: Demand an investigation of Rep. Don Young, who secretly altered a bill after Congress had approve it and before passing it to Dubya for signing.
A massive study attributes 90% of the wildlife changes around the world to human-caused global warming.
Yet businesses are still funding global-warming-denial organizations.
Since this fake citizens' group conceals the source of its funds, we are entitled to suppose it is the oil companies.
McCain calls for more Reagan-style trickle down economics, and wants 4 more years to reduce Iraq to quivering submission.
The Bush regime dropped its phony trial against Mohammed al-Qahtani, apparently embarrassed that the case against him was based solely on confessions extracted by torture. Now al-Qahtani faces only life imprisonment without trial.
The UK will conduct an investigation into the killing of Iraqi prisoner Baha Mousa.
This is the first stage in what an ethical government does when its agents have killed prisoners. I hope the UK does the whole job.
People who have climbed Ayers Rock give bizarre credence to superstitious ideas that it must not be "polluted" by climbing it or taking away loose stones.
The article seems to confuse the isues of damaging the mountain and offending the aboriginal tribe. Real damage to the mountain seems unlikely as long as people don't use picks.
The Burmese junta has succeeded in blocking nearly all aid to the victims of the cyclone, in effect holding them hostage.
As long as the rest of the world is afraid of a military confrontation with the junta, it will tend to learn the twisted lessons that this article seems to recommend. I think the lesson to be learned is "Invade Burma". But that has to be part of a larger lesson, including "Don't invade Iraq".
US citizens: sign this letter calling for a GAO investigation of the Pentagon Paid Propaganda Pundit Program.
The US nuclear power plant manufacturers want government subsidies, and say that there should be nothing shameful about that. It has corrupted former environmentalists to work alongside the PR company that also worked for Clinton, Clinton, Berlusconi and B'liar.
I agree that "government subsidy" is not necessarily bad. Remember that when greedy right-wing jerks object to subsidies for things that help most people's lives.