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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
European car manufacturers asked to be allowed to manage their own reduction in CO2 emissions -- but then they didn't do it.
This happens over and over: an industry is faced with regulation to solve an urgent problem, and says "Please don't pass a law; we will regulate ourselves and achieve the same result more efficiently." And then it is left on its own and fails to do the job. Those businessmen make a monkey out of us time and again.
It is good to see that the EU has enough strength to respond by threatening to do the job by regulation after all. But I think the right thing to do, if we want to give an industry the chance to correct a problem through self-regulation, is to pass a law that will kick automatically in if the problem is not solved that way.
The oil spill in Lebanon is still spreading.
It was caused by Israeli bombing of a civilian target, which is supposed to be a war crime.
The Iraqi civil war now extends to killing patients in hospitals.
I think the only solution is to divide Iraq, and divide Baghdad, into zones that can be protected by each side, with foreign troops to support each side. The Bush forces and their "Iraqi government" won't allow this, so they have to get out first.
Western Union blocks lots of money transfers by Muslims, and often won't give them a straight story about why.
Olmert "accepts responsibility" for the war, as an excuse for rejecting the demand for an investigation.
This is just lip service. If he really took responsibility for a giant failure, he would resign.
The brutal campaign of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
may be ended by a cease fire and an amnesty.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
This army kidnaped children and forced them to become fighters -- so that many of the perpetrators of these crimes are former victims. But there are some clear exceptions.
This army kidnaped children and forced them to become fighters -- so that many of the perpetrators of these crimes are former victims. But there are some clear exceptions.
The amnesty may be the only way to end the rampage, given the limited resources available. If the US had sent an army there instead of to Iraq, it could probably have defeated the LRA, which was feared rather than supported by the people among whom it operated.
Bush is now using the argument that the occupation of Iraq
should continue because of how badly it has messed things up
thus far.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
This article criticizes the Bush regime at a practical level, but at a deeper level the article does not dare to doubt. It takes Bush's lies about "moral clarity" seriously. It presumes that Bush is a supporter of democracy--and that Hugo Chavez is its enemy. When it says that Chavez's continuance in office is a "symptom of administration distraction", it presumes in effect that a less distracted Bush regime would have overthrown Chavez, and it does not raise any ethical question about whether an unelected regime has a right to depose an elected one.
Robert Kennedy Jr. charges that the "Help America Vote Act"
was designed, through Diebold lobbying, to encourage the
use of easily corruptible voting machines that would make it
easy to steal future elections. Meanwhile, minorities
are now being disenfranchised across the nation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
By using Bush as a front,
Cheney gets less scrutiny than he would get
if he were officially president.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Jimmy Carter denounces the
Bush regime as un-American.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
And he denounces Bliar for being "so compliant and subservient"
to Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
A city in the US offers free censored internet access, Chinese style.
Greg Palast reveals how Republican cronies were paid for producing a "plan" for evacuating New Orleans, but no one can find any copy of it. Louisiana's best hurricane expert complained that poor people without cars were being ignored, so they threatened his job. He refused to be silenced, but they ignored him anyway.
Although I agree with Palast's point that we shouldn't let this "natural" disaster excuse the wrongdoing, I disagree with his way of putting it. It would be more rational to say that a hurricane had to arrive sooner or later, so the lack of preparation (remember that Bush cut funds to strengthen the levies in order to pay for war in Iraq) was sure to cause its harm sooner or later.
A British soldier killed himself rather than serve in the Bush forces in Iraq. He had been told he would have to shoot young children on suspicion of carrying suicide bombs.
Private Chelsea is a hero, for the sacrifice that he made in order to avoid doing evil. I would have urged him to make the smaller sacrifice of going to prison, which would also have done the job. But maybe for him that would have been a bigger sacrifice.
The Yes Men struck again in New Orleans: a speaker pretending to represent the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced many new policies that would benefit the city's residents.
In response, real government officials angrily denounced the hoaxer for giving the poor false hopes of receiving the help that the government of a democratic state would give them.
George Lakoff describes how different ideas of "freedom" frame
today's political debates for both sides.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Lakoff's point about framing issues of "freedom" is valid overall, in my opinion, but he falls prey to various confusions in the details.
I reject the concept of "positive freedom" as a distortion of the
meaning of the word "freedom". Also, we must not reject as a
progressive anyone who ever did anything which wasn't progressive.
Carter's domestic policies were very progressive when compared with
today's Democrats, and supporting a dictator such as the Shah, while
wrong, is a small wrong by today's standards.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
All across Europe, the pattern is the same:
due to global warming, animals and plants begin spring several days
earlier than they did a few years ago. (This includes parasites that can wipe
out other species which are under stress.)
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
A Chinese lawyer who exposed forced abortions in China has been
sentenced on trumped-up charges after a fake trial.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Ten months after Katrina:
Gutting New Orleans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I don't think that New Orleans should be rebuild in the same place--I think it should be moved to high ground. But wherever it is located, it should be run as a livable city.
Israel has finally given permission to try to clean up the Lebanese oil
spill which was caused by bombardment of a power plant (a non-military target).
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Oil spill cleanups are at best partially effective, and this one, delayed for a month by Israel, will be even less so.
The US Department of Energy is starting to talk about
peak oil, but with the soothing suggestion that it might not occur for
20 years -- hardly the thing to encourage necessary action.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
When 12 Indian passengers on a KLM flight disobeyed rules about seat belts and cell phones, the plane landed and they were arrested and held incommunicado.
I read elsewhere that the Indian consulate was not allowed to visit them and was given misleading information about them.
I am not surprised that they kicked Antunius Slotboom off the plane for criticizing what he saw; something like this has happened to me, too. Cabin staff have arbitrary power to kick passengers out, and they do this arbitrarily like littled like despots. Obedience is not enough; they demand uncomplaining, sheeplike obedience. I feel that every time I go through an airport I am being taught to be the obedient subject of a despotic regime.
I don't agree with all the opinions expressed in that article; for instance, I think that banning liquids on board, in India or wherever, is justified if it is not feasible to check them for explosives. I also don't see that SPOT is particularly likely to finger Muslims; at least, not more often than it fingers me. I often rub or scratch my chin when I am thinking about a difficult problem.
A contraceptive outreach campaign has cut teen pregnancies by over 20% in a part of England. Christian fanatics are aghast, but others in the UK plan to copy the campaign. Three cheers for them!
Israel dropped cluster bombs over inhabited areas. The bomblets are
still killing people. Amazingly, the Bush regime says it objects to
this.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
"Bush regime does (or at least says) the right thing" is certainly news.
The Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni shrine is part of a larger phenomenon: whitewashing the Japanese aggression of World War II and forgetting the lessons of peace that Japanese learned after the war.
I've read that these new Japanese nationalists even try to excuse the enslavement of women from conquered countries as prostitutes for soldiers.
Amnesty International calls for immediate investigation of Israel's
war crimes that killed a thousand Lebanese civilians, and Hezbollah's
war crimes that killed some 40 Israelis civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli forces have turned the
Palestinian town of Nablus into a prison.
Men aged less than 32 are simply forbidden to leave; and when they try,
they are shot on the spot for nothing more than trying to travel.
And that is just the icing on the cake of the occupation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Here's what it is like for Palestinians trying to go through
Israeli checkpoints.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery writes about what Bashar Assad has noted that Israelis don't want to see.
The horse chestnut trees of Britain are being wiped out by pathogens, aided by the long drought that is due to global warming.
Iran is the chief beneficiary of Bush's supposed "war on terror", says a respected think tank.
We've seen for years that Bush's foreign policy has played into the hands of al Qa'ida. Perhaps this is stupidity, or perhaps it is an intentional plan (since al Qa'ida gives Bush the excuse to attack our freedom). What's news here is that the hostile state that Bush loves to hate is getting a similar boost from Bush's policies.
Bush's judges have found all-purposes excuses to authorize Bush to do whatever he likes for his cronies, and do whatever he likes to you.
The term for such a regime is
'despotism'.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
An MEP (Member of the European Parliament) of Asian descent says he was
'treated like a terrorist while travelling'.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Lebanon ceasefire is fragile, warns the UN.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
The US FDA agreed to let adults buy emergency contraception without a prescription. Maybe this will eliminate the widespread problem of pharmacists that refuse to fill the prescriptions.
However, the new policy is not fully adequate, since women under 18 will still face obstacles that may lead to their having unwanted babies. The opposition of many "right to life" groups to this pill, which would eliminate the need for abortions, reveals the real agenda of most abortion opponents. As Christian fanatics, they consider sex evil, and they want to pregnancy to be a punishment for sex.
The Israeli army is crushing joint non-violent protests in Bil'in before they start.
Apparently Israel would prefer that Palestinians practice violent resistance.
A natural gas pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic sea threatens to stir up 60,000 tons of old chemical weapons dumped there.
I've read elsewhere that the locations of many of these weapons dumps are unknown--and the pipeline proponents respond, with invincible illogic, that they have avoided the known dump sites and isn't that enough?
Bush is forcing retired Marines back onto active duty.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I guess not enough people are volunteering to fight for him. Iraqis "didn't want to die for Saddam", and Americans don't want to die for Bush's war profiteer cronies.
Massachusetts voters: support Jill Stein's campaign for Secretary of State.
State Farm insurance company systematically destroyed and distorted
damage reports so as to avoid paying claims.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I can understand how insurance company executives, if they do not mind committing fraud, would feel the need to do this. In the long run, private insurance companies will be overwhelmed by the series of billion-dollar disasters that rising seas and increasingly powerful and numerous hurricanes will cause. They will either cheat their clients, or go broke, or stop insuring anyone in coastal areas and cities. One way or another, the victims of these man-made disasters won't get insurance payments.
In the Philippines, it's not proved that the government is behind the wave of assassinations of opposition figures. But it certainly uses violence against the student protestors who oppose this, and that substantiates the accusations.
California has established a large coastal marine reserve area where no fishing is allowed.
A series of disasters shows that a strictly calculated approach to protecting fish from overfishing is asking for trouble. There is a lot we don't know about marine ecosystems, and fishing practices; as a result, attempts to calculate a safely sustainable level of fishing often drastically overestimate that level. Due caution today calls for drastic steps.
2/3 of Katrina reconstruction contracts were given out without
proper bidding to contractors that wasted money.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans work for their business cronies, and their principal aim is to benefit those cronies. The sad thing is that the Democrats are on the path towards similar conduct.
Michael Scheuer, former chief of CIA's bin Laden unit, agrees
that Bush's invasion of Iraq and unquestioning support of Israel
has been a disaster for the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
(He doesn't address the question of the morality of Bush's activities.)
The Bush regime pulled the rug out from negotiations with Iran
in June, paving the way for the war he wants.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Israel refuses to explain why it attacked the refugee convoy from Marjayoun.
How the Taliban have all but conquered Kandahar.
Ray McGovery (ex CIA agent) explains how the people referred to as ' the crazies' by most of the first Bush administration subsequently
took over the US government.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Six prisoners in Guantanamo, handed over illegally by the government of Bosnia in response to bullying by the US, remain imprisoned even though the US now admits the accusations against them were false.
The Bush regime's series of bullshit excuses for keeping these men in prison reminds me of the series of bullshit excuses for invading Iraq. The unwillingness ever to admit a mistake reminds me of the Soviet Union.
Joel Salatin has developed organic farming into a 21-st century
process that uses sophistication rather than the brute force
industrial methods of factory farms.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Although the article does not say this 100%, I would expect this method is efficient than conventional farming in regard to most inputs -- perhaps even land (a battery chicken farm is very compact, but it depends on lots more space to grow feed for those chickens). The two big exceptions are human labor and skill; Salatin's method needs a lot of them.
So if we are forced, by global warming and/or peak oil, to move to making our food this way, many more people will have to become farmers. Many people might like this, but not me. I hope I am not one of them.
Salatin writes about how many regulations combine to prevent his farm from doing useful things. For instance, the farm is not allowed to slaughter its own cattle, nor to sell the meat when the cattle are slaughtered elsewhere.
Some of the regulations he objects to are necessary in some form. For instance, we don't want real Wal-Mart stores to set up on farm land and sell a little bit of vegetables that they grow in a greenhouse as an excuse to reduce their taxes. We don't want to make it easy for children's labor to be exploited by a social system that makes the option of not "volunteering" impractical. Lots of factory farms exist, so they must be regulated for safety.
But I am sure there is a way to relax some of these rules for real small farms, so that could have more flexibility.
Unions in Colombia are facing illegal police raids, death threats, and
assassination. It is done by paramilitaries that work for Uribe, who
works for Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: tell your congressmen to support the REAL (Responsible Education About Life) Act, to promote useful sex education that helps
teens avoid pregnancy and diseases, without the perverse goal
of celibacy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Here is more information about that bill.
Bush and Bliar have a pattern of saving us from "terrorist plots" that
were never more than vague ideas promoted by a government provocateur.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The civil war in Iraq could spread to neighboring countries, potentially destabilizing the whole region.
This article argues against withdrawing the Bush forces, but it doesn't present any clearly superior course of action. It is right that simply withdrawing them will not necessarily lead to peace, let alone freedom and democracy. But continuing the occupation won't either. Given the Iraqi hatred of the occupiers, and their hatred of all Iraqis, I don't believe that the Bush forces can achieve any good at all in Iraq. If there is a job that needs to be done by foreign troops, the Bush forces are the last ones that should try it.
The PCHR weekly report shows how the Israeli attack against the Palestinians, their homes, their land, their food, etc.,
continues.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Bush admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, contradicting his previous claims which he made to try to justify invading Iraq.
But Bush continues to pretend that Iraq was going to be a threat to the US. Which was nonsense.
Joe Darby tells about revealing the torture at Abu Ghraib, and how he
was subsequently afraid of reprisals--which did arrive: he driven out
of his town by military personnel and their relatives who believed
that torture should not be punished.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Darby says that these men were not ordered to commit torture by their commanders, and I believe him; but this does not mean that higher-ups aren't directly responsible. They are responsible for the general military attitude which supports torturers (and we can see the public statements that supported this it). They are also responsible for sending in the interrogators from unnamed other government agencies.
While Lebanon occupied the world's attention, Israeli tanks occupied
part of Gaza for a month, destroying and killing. Over 200 Palestinians
have been killed in Gaza, including 58 children.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Here's a description of how some of those civilians were killed.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Palestinian fighters surely know that firing from a school puts Palestinian children at risk. And the Israeli fighters surely know that, if they shoot at a launcher half an hour after a missile is fired, the only people they are likely to hit are civilians. Neither of these wrongs excuses the other.
An Israeli complains that Israeli fighters also lurk among civilians
in cities.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
It has been many years since Israeli leaders attempted to talk about
peace with Palestinians. Unilateralism has been Israel's firm policy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Now Israel needs to reconsider not just its war plan, but its
eager preference for war over peace.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
What is the ethical responsibility for "unintended" casualties
caused by war?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Burning ethanol made from corn is not a feasible solution to global warming, because it needs too much corn. The entire US corn crop would only provide 1/6 of the US consumption of automobile fuel.
I see another danger: too much demand for ethanol for cars could result in cutting down the rainforests to grow crops for fuel.
Much of the US corn crop is used for growing beef. Eating less meat is therefore an effective way to free up corn either for human food or for conversion into fuel. It's worth doing, but we have to do lots of other things too. We need policies that systematically encourage conservation. The US could cut out a large fraction of its fuel use just by adopting the policies that have already worked in Europe.
Human activities are running out of fresh water supplies. Comsumption
is growing faster than anticipated.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The oil spill in Lebanon caused by Israeli bombing is likely to harm humans, fish, and turtles for 10 years.
The oil tanks were not a military target, so bombing them had no possible motivation except to make Lebanese civilians suffer. It will do that, and make the whole ecosystem suffer as well.
US rice is contaminated with a genetically engineered strain which was never approved for human consumption.
Companies that cannot be trusted to prevent use of strains that haven't been approved should not be allowed to do genetic engineering at all.
Sudan is blocking the UN from protecting southern civilians from the
Janjaweed militia it supports to kill them, and has charged a European
journalist with "spying" for publishing that he had found mass graves.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
If Bush were serious about humanitarian concern, he would have intervened here, rather than in Iraq.
All-Night Queues as Baghdad Runs Out of Petrol.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni shrine is part of
a larger trend: whitewashing the Japanese aggression of World War II,
even up to the enslavement of women from conquered countries as
prostitutes for soldiers. The danger here is that Japan will unlearn
the lessons that it learned from the war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Many US companies have been caught lying about stock options
as a way of falsifying their profits.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Although attention focuses on the Bush prisoners in Guantanamo, Bush and his proxies have kept prisoners in Haiti too, for years, for no reason.
The Bush forces that murdered civilians in Haditha appear to have doctored evidence to cover it up.
The military operates by making troops loyal to their buddies, so when your buddy murders a civilian, you lie for him. (It's just like the cops.)
Such violence against civilians is the norm, not the exception.
American journalist Nir Rosen, who is often mistaken for an Iraqi by
the Bush forces, reports on how they treat perceived Iraqis (including
him). Misunderstandings are frequent between people who don't speak
the same language, and the Bush forces interpret them all as evidence
of an attack.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
A friend was looking for free sound samples, free in the sense of free
software (see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), and he came
across freesound.iua.upf.edu.
On checking further, he found that the
samples in your site are in fact not free in this sense. This is
because of the license that you have used does not allow commercial
redistribution.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
It's a confusing state of affairs that a site called "freedsound" holds sounds which are not free. The best solution would be to make them free.
So how about it?
The Iraqi civil war has escalated to use of rockets and mortars.
Bush's final gamble: giving Iraq a dictator?
Some would say Iraq has never stopped having a dictator; but if the Bush regime acknowledges imposing one, it will be the final nail in the coffin of his third false excuse for the war. However, at this point I think it would be difficult for a dictator to rule Iraq, even if he did not have the handicap of being associated with foreign aggressors.
Bush has given arms manufacturers a bonanza -- even aside from the war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Two engineers who uncovered illegal US activities in Europe were found dead in apparent suicides. Were they murdered at US instigation?
Various Bush forces veterans state their support for Lt Watada.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces are setting up walls to separate neighborhoods in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
This has a resemblance to my recommendation of allowing the Iraqi groups to divide up that country. However, I think walls alone will not suffice while the Bush forces remain in occupation.
Lopez Obrador's supporters in Mexico refuse to concede the election.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
US troops in South Vietnam were investigated for 320 war crimes:
torture, rape, and murder. Few were convicted, even fewer punished,
and the worst punishment was a few months imprisonment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Such conduct is nearly inevitable in the occupation of a hostile populace, even if it is prohibited: when the troops think of the civilians as the enemy, this is how they vent their anger.
Kurdish guerrilla movements are operating in Turkey and Iran from bases in the effectively independent Kurdish region of Iraq. Turkey and Iran both seem to be on the verge of invading.
How the US can improve disaster management: eliminate FEMA and bring in Hezbollah.
The US agency that regulates experimental genetically engineered plants does not bother to enforce its own rules, says a judge.
A temperature rise of 2C, now inevitable, will cause 30% loss of
forests in Europe, as well as floods and droughts there and elsewhere.
One additional degree is likely to mean 60% loss of the world's
forests. And any more is likely to cause positive feedback leading to
total disaster.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Congress poised to uuravel the
Internet.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Blair regime's favorite activity is prohibiting things. It is introducing new crimes faster than one per day.
Uri Avnery: Israel's last-minute enlarged offensive was a publicity stunt which backfired in its aim of showing the Israeli army triumphant. So it is being diverted into pressure for renewed war.
Disaster profiteers are getting a windfall from reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, while local companies are frozen out, or do not get paid.
Plasma TV screens cause a big increase in electricity demand. (TV is nearly all crap anyway; I'd recommend not having a TV at all.)
Lt. Ehren Watada asks Americans to show all the soldiers that they
will support whoever refuses to participate in the occupation of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Eating less meat is an important way to reduce global warming.
Fumes from school buses damage children's lungs and can cause asthma.
A federal judge ruled that the NSA's surveillance program is unconstitutional.
It is too early to celebrate a victory. I am sure Bush will appeal this decision, and he is already talking about asking Congress to override it.
The UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon faces conflicting expectations.
Venezuela is leading the race for a UN Security Council seat, as a result of world-wide organizing efforts for power blocs to resist US government power. But the US is still trying to prevent this, using that same power in favor of the brutal client government in Guatemala.
After British Muslim leaders sent a letter criticizing Blair
for foreign policy that encourages terrorism, the Blair regime has reacted
by trying to look tough, and saying "That's no reason to stop."
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The letter is weak for two reasons. One, that it says it comes specifically from Muslims. If it were presented as the statement of a group people who love freedom and hate mass murder, regardless of their religious views, it would weigh more.
Two, that it pulls its punches: it is too soft on Blair. The letter should have said that all the terrorist plots put together, both the successful ones and the failed ones, would have been small compared with the mass murder Bush and Blair have committed.
That UK foreign policy makes enemies is not necessarily enough reason to change it (though it does count). That it is a heinous crime and makes enemies is plenty of reason.
The Bush forces raided the Iraqi health minister's office, arresting pits guards. The minister is connect with al Sadr's militia, which fought the Bush forces when they attacked it.
The ministry of health in Iraq today is an absurdity in itself; the main threat to Iraqis' health comes from the Bush occupation and its effects. If a health minister cannot change that, his job is prima facie impossible.
Airplane bombers hoped to destroy 10 airplanes over a period of months, which could have killed up to 2800 people.
I might have been one of them--I was going to be flying through London--but I refuse to exaggerate this danger into "Mass murder on an unimaginable scale". Some 100,000 had been killed by the invasion and occupation of Iraq as of a year and a half ago, so we can easily imagine it might be 150,000 by now.
Bush "viewed war in
Lebanon as a curtain-raiser for attack on Iran".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Senator Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, who criticizes Bush's conduct of the war.
I've read elsewhere that polls suggest that Lieberman can beat Lamont and the Republican candidate in a three-way race. This means there is still ways to go to knock him out.
The weekly nonviolent Palestinian/Israeli protests at Bil'in continue,
but only the protestors are nonviolent -- not the soldiers. This
week, soldiers took advantage of the distraction of the war in Lebanon
to begin shooting protestors. They shot one protestor in the head at
close range with a plastic-coated metal bullet, which broke his
skull, entered his brain, and caused injuries that may be permanent.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The corruption of the Afghan government, as well as its inability to
dominate the warlords, leads Afghans to calculate that it can't shield
them from the Taliban either.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Robert Fisk: Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure.
Robert Fisk warns that the UN cease fire is unlikely to hold, saying that the real guerrilla is likely to start now with the renewed Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
As soon as Israel saw the UN cease fire resolution coming,
it complied with the call to end "offensive military operations"
by launching a bigger invasion and calling it "defensive".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Brazil's indigenous peoples are policing the rainforest
against
illegal logging.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I am, however, worried by their apparently very high rate of population growth. There may be no immediate problem, since their population is still pretty small. But rapid population growth is a dangerous habit for any group to get into.
A new kind of car engine
uses boron for energy storage. It reacts the
boron with water to make hydrogen and then oxidizes the hydrogen to
make water again. The boron gets oxidized by this and eventually
needs to be replenished.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Storing boron sounds much safer than trying to distribute and store hydrogen itself. If you could exchange your oxidized boron container for a fresh container quickly at a filling station, this system could be convenient enough to gain public acceptance.
But this is at best part of a complete solution for the pollution and global warming problems. You still have to get the energy to recycle the oxidized oxide into pure boron.
Greenland's ice is melting
3 times as fast as it was 5 years ago.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
10 more years of warming might increase this rate by a further factor of 2, or 10, or 100 -- nobody can predict it. When the world plays with Greenland's icecap, it is playing with fire.
Bush wants Congress to define a new kind of war crime -- "conspiracy" -- which would have very low standards of proof. However, international standards do not recognize such a war crime.
US government employees are lucky that this is so, because it means they can't all be swept up in a charge of conspiracy when the leaders of the Bush regime are prosecuted for the war crimes that they ordered.
The Lebanon war: a failure for Bush, and for hawks in Israel, leaves the US and Israel worse off than before, while causing great suffering to Lebanese (though not on the scale of Iraq).
The vote in the Congo is falling into chaos, with ballots being burnt.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Donated tents helped shame Paris into helping its homeless people.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Bush now wants to be selective about which of the war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions can be prosecuted in the US.
Two Arab-Americans face charges of terrorism for buying a lot of cell phones. It seems those phones can also serve as detonators for bombs. They say that they want to resell the phones in Dallas, where these phones are in short supply.
It's possible the police have some other evidence against these men, which they have not disclosed. But it is also possible that this is an example of a common phenomenon: imprisonment on mere suspicion of people whose background contributes to that suspicion.
The UK cleverly did this by making it illegal to be suspected. "Reasonably" suspected, that is. A suspect's religious background can easily play a part in deciding how "reasonable" the suspicion is, so just possessing the cell phones could be legal grounds to sentence a Muslim to prison.
The US hasn't defined suspicion as a crime; instead it relies on the application of very low standards in court.
Hezbollah and Israel seem prepared to accept the UN call for a cease fire
starting Monday, but this does not mean Israel will entirely stop attacking.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
(I have not yet seen the full text of the resolution.)
Depleted (i.e. dirty) uranium is a prime candidate for the mysterious problems that affect some 30% of veterans of the first Gulf War.
What it's doing to Iraqis, present and future, would be horrible if the Bush-inspired civil war weren't even worse.
Was the thwarted airplane bomb plot real?
I do not reject the claims as that article does, but I am skeptical about them for most of the same reasons. Islamic fanatics do carry out bombings, and have already attacked airliners. On the other hand, Bush and Bliar do lie, and the US and UK have already sentenced people to prison as "terrorists" who never planned to do anything in particular. It is up to the Bush and Blair regimes to show us, not just tell us, that this plot was real. And they must stop arresting people for vague talk, if they want our trust.
As Israel expands the war while the UN calls for a cease fire, the war shows that Israel's leaders are incompetent as well as murderous.
UK police foiled a
plot to blow up airplanes.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Blair regime will surely find this useful for its persistent campaign to abolish the very idea that there should be any human rights that the government cannot take away by a decree.
They want their subjects to give the state total power and blind
faith, in the name of safety from terrorism. But safety can never be
perfect; even totalitarian regimes had crime, and resistance. So they
can always claim, "With more power, we can keep you (a tiny bit)
safer"--but human rights are more important.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
BP covered up corrosion in the Alaska Pipeline for a decade, then "discovered" it just when shutting the pipeline provides them a windfall.
Iran has banned Shirin Ebadi's legal counseling group for dissidents, and has already sentenced one of its founders to prison on charges of "revealing state secrets".
Charges of "revealing state secrets" are typically a sign of a repressive regime.
Iraqi PM al Maliki condemned the Bush forces for killing civilians in its attack on a Shi'ite militia. This reflects the contradictory demands on him: he depends on the Bush forces to stay in power, but he can only gain any stature by condemning their atrocities.
The Sadr militia might well be guilty of practicing torture, and also guilty of murdering Sunnis. I would not put it past them. But I suspect that the main reason the Bush forces attacked it was for its long history of hostility to the Bush forces.
Drought-stricken Europe verging on 'natural disaster'.
Except that this disaster is not natural. It is caused by burning fossil fuel.
Israel, frustrated by its inability to defeat the Hezbollah guerrilla army, dropped leaflets threatening civilians in large areas near Beirut.
Halliburton is being investigated by the UK for plans for bribery.
(They say "A subsidiary of Halliburton", but that's like saying that someone's trigger finger is under investigation for shooting a person.)
A lawsuit in California calls for a ban on use of Diebold touch-screen voting machines.
Since the Israeli attack, even Lebanese Christians now state their
support for Hezbollah.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Halliburton is being investigated by the UK for plans for bribery.
(They say "A subsidiary of Halliburton", but that's like saying that someone's trigger finger is under investigation for shooting a person.)
How the US Super-Rich 'dodge' taxes -- perhaps illegally.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Hezbollah and Israel both commit war crimes by attacking civilians. A week ago, Hezbollah proposed that both sides stop doing so. Israel rejected the offer, saying it wants to wipe out Hezbollah.
Imagine what people would say if Hezbollah rejected such an offer and said it was determined to proceed to wipe out Israel. Now turn it around.
A few days ago I posted a link to an article explaining that Hezbollah isn't a "terrorist organization"--that it has not been connected with planning acts of terrorism for a long time. Someone responded, "What about firing Katyusha rockets at Israel?"
Is that terrorism?
It is certainly an atrocity, just as Israel's bombing of houses, airports, ambulances, and aid convoys is an atrocity. However, military operations targeting civilians in time of war are not the sort of act that we usually think of as "terrorism". I responded that it seemed useful to make the distinction.
However, after I sent that response, I started to have second thoughts. Even though the two are distinguishable, how much does it really matter? People do refer to military actions as "state-sponsored terrorism". Here's an article which makes the comparison very powerfully.
Now I am not sure where I stand on that question of terminology. Both Israel and Hezbollah have planned and prepared these attacks for years. Perhaps both should be added to the international list of "terrorist organizations".
Jan Egeland of the UN says Hezbollah does commit "cowardly blending"
among civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
However, even if this were an excuse for Israeli air attacks, for many of them it would be entirely inapplicable, as Robert Fisk's articles show.
The ACLU is fighting a town in Missouri that wants to stop an unmarried couple from living with their children in their own house.
Massachusetts residents: help the campaign for pharmacies to provide
emergency contraception.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
UNHCR and MSF confirm that Israel's "secure corridors" for
humanitarian assistance in southern Lebanon are mere fiction;
the area is a free fire zone.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
US troops in Kabul shot unarmed angry civilians, and then covered it
up.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I supported the invasion of Afghanistan to liberate that country from the Taliban, and nearly all of Afghanistan seemed to support it too. Probably most of Afghanistan still does, but a substantial fraction now supports the Taliban. Where does that leave us?
Even under the best of circumstances, soldiers stationed in a foreign country occasionally rape and kill civilians. The people of that country will put up with such events if they regard the soldiers' presence as vitally necessary to protect them. Otherwise, these events generate hostility towards the soldiers, hostility which in Afghanistan will be exploited by the Taliban.
There is no hope of defeating the Taliban except by defeating the Taliban's campaign for support among the people of Afghanistan. And I do not see any plan in motion which plausibly aims at doing so.
Mexico's court ordered a recount, but only for those 9% of polling places for which evidence of fraud was specifically found. Lopez Obrador's supporters intend to continue their massive protests demanding a full recount.
Israel has destroyed all the bridges into southern Lebanon and refuses safe-conduct for humanitarian aid. Red Cross aid convoys have been attacked from the air.
Americans: Host a "Press for Truth" house party
to support the pressure for a real and thorough investigation
of what happened on 9/11.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Although Iraq is a desert, not a jungle, the Bush policies largely follow the same path as Nixon followed in Vietnam.
Vietnamization failed as a way to win the Vietnam war, but Nixon did not admit failure, and instead used it as an excuse to pull American troops out. Two years later, as South Vietnam collapsed, few in the US suggested sending them back. Thus, Vietnamization eventually succeeded in ending the war. I hope that Iraqization succeeds likewise.
One major difference between the two wars is that Iraqis are divided into groups that are slaughtering each other with hatred. The Vietnamese had no such divisions.
The forests of Indonesia are being cut so fast that the lowlands of Sumatra and Borneo will be completely denuded in 4 years.
As exponential population growth reaches its limits, the end can come very quickly.
How global warming makes itself felt today in North America.
The degree of warming projected in coming decades is much more than has occurred so far. The effects so far are a small taste of what is coming.
Fortunately, the increased growth of poison ivy may not go too far. More CO2 in the air generally spurs plant growth; but, according to a study I read about in Science News, the effect on plants in wild settings is limited because they typically encounter some other resource limit. They grow faster only temporarily.
Alas, this means we cannot expect increased plant growth to absorb the carbon dioxide we produce.
A number of books cast light on aspects of the Bushmen's incompetence, and their dishonesty, in the invasion of Iraq.
Arguments continue, among those who supported the invasion, about "debaathification": some claim it was a disaster, while others claim that not doing it was a disaster. I think that both arguments are valid--that keeping the baathists in government was insupportable, and that firing them was insupportable. There was, it seems, no path between those two disasters.
The Iraqi government is too weak, even with Bush's support, to end the civil war. Nobody in it has any stature. Most of the politicians in it are sectarian, and associated with the militias that are fighting it; hardly anyone rises above hatred for the other side.
I believe that division of Iraq, even if it is division into a mosaic of neighborhoods within Baghdad, is the only way to end this war other than through mass killing.
Bush tried to persuade Israel to attack Syria, but Israel refused, say reports from Israel.
Uri Avnery: as Israel fails to win anything by attacking Lebanon,
it will begin the
War of the Generals.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Camerman Josh Wolf faces prison for contempt of court for refusing to turn over his own unedited video footage of a protest.
I agree with the judge in this case: if we suppose an honest and democratic state, it would be right, I think, to base the decision on whether confidential sources' identity would be revealed.
At the same time, it could well be true that the government only wants to make life difficult for dissidents. The Bush regime has on occasion tried to claim that anyone opposing it is "helping terrorists". If Josh Wolf thought that parts of his video would have mainly been useful for that, I think he ought to have erased those parts long ago, to make sure they would never cause such harm.
Israel has driven the Palestinian Authority government underground by
trying to arrest them all.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
This is how Israel makes sure it has no partner to negotiate peace with.
A UK police investigation decided that a policeman shot Mr Kahar by accident while breaking into his home at night without warning.
I have no faith in the honesty of that conclusion, since police frequently lie about such things, and their buddies back them up. However, even if it is true, it remains the case that they make such accidents far more likely by not identifying themselves as police.
One of Bush's ways to pay for the war: cut pay for air traffic controllers, and harrass some into early retirement.
I don't object to automating the weather briefings, though; that is a different issue.
Republican "welfare reform" makes it difficult for poor single mothers to study to get a good job. Is this how they're protecting the family -- by keeping children poor?
The best way to keep welfare costs down is to make birth control and abortion easy to get -- and offer good sex education classes which don't aim for the sick goal of abstinence.
The Republican Party, which claims to support states' rights and reduced federal government power, wants to allow the president to take control of state national guard units without permission of state governors.
Israeli bombing in Lebanon caused a large and damaging oil spill which is causing its own disaster.
US environmental organizations tend not to confront the effects
of US population growth on the environment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
A British scientists says that some sort of rationing scheme for
carbon consumption is needed to halt global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I agree that there should be stronger measures to reduce consumption, but I don't see a need for rationing -- simply taxing fossil fuels heavily ought to cut consumption more or less the same way, with much less bureaucratic intrusion.
I can see one motive for having a limited rationing system as an add-on: it might be desirable to give every person a limited quantity of certain important commodities (such as gasoline) without the added taxes, so as to reduce the impact of these taxes on the poor. This would require rationing for those who participate in it -- but no one would be required to buy anything that way.
However, I think it would be wiser simply to give poor who might need to drive to work a sum of money sufficient to cover the cost of gasoline for doing so. This way they have an incentive to try to get to work in a more fuel-efficient way so they can spend that money on something else.
Meanwhile, an electric company in Colorado is funding attempts to
pretend there is no global warming. It apparently worries attempts to
prevent global disaster might involve interference with its business.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
THE BOMBS OF AUGUST: In Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with relation to the present day.
Creating districts that concentrate minority voters is a policy meant
to prevent their votes from being made irrelevant. But nowadays it
tends to have the opposite effect: it functions as
gerrymandering to help conservative candidates.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery compares Israel's war aims with likely prospects for the outcome.
Iraqi gays are fleeing rampant murder which is not even illegal.
A Cuban dissident, Oswaldo Paya, shows his patriotism by refusing to support Washington's harsh policies towards Cuba -- nor the privatization policies Washington wants to force onto Cuba.
Mr Paya is right that good health care does not substitute for democracy and freedom to oppose the government. I hope that if Cuba recovers the latter from Castro, it doesn't lose them both to Washington afterward.
The idea that non-state-sponsored terrorists might poison America's water is just speculation.
The military is really doing it.
US natural gas production is likely to start dropping soon. If the decrease is large, it could lead to conflict between Canada and the US.
The Bush regime claims Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, but
the EU won't go along, because there is no sign the claim is true.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
One might well disagree with some of the aims of Hezbollah, but that doesn't justify the label "terrorist".
Supporters of candidate Lopez Obrador have camped in the middle of Mexico City as a protest, saying that that Bush-style fraud robbed them of victory. They do not demand that the election be handed to him, only that the votes be counted carefully.
The Somali Islamists (who aim to impose cruel Islamic law) are on the
verge of taking over all of Somalia, as their opposition, the "interim
government" which was supported mainly by foreign countries such as
the US, is collapsing.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Meanwhile,
a woman in Iran awaits a decision on whether to execute her
by stoning for committing adultery. They already have Islamic law.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Blair has begun to criticize Bush's Mideast position in public, but in
private he still supports Dubya 101%.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
In effect, he has made a small apparent concession as a way to deflect the pressure so he can continue his slavish support for Bush.
"Torture" Gonzales says
the Bush regime can hold Guantanamo prisoners forever, and wants congress
to allow the regime able to define crimes for military tribunals ad lib.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
China censored a Tibetan activist's blogs. (Her poetry had already been banned.)
People speak of AIPAC and similar organizations as the "Israel lobby" or the "Jewish lobby", but those terms are misleading. It is really the Israeli hawks lobby, opposing initiatives for peace no matter where their origin, even if it is the Israeli government.
Human Rights Watch says Israel used cluster bombs on a village
in Lebanon. They
killed civilians hiding in their basements.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
7% of US tax revenue is lost to cheating, mostly to rich taxpayers.
Bush has encouraged this cheating by cutting down on auditing of rich
taxpayers. He works for them, they want reduced taxes, so he will
give it to them by hook or by crook.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
How the right-wing political/media complex helps right-wing candidates win elections: they can usually get away with blunders, but their opponents are crucified for even the smallest misstep.
Human Rights Watch: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon.
Israeli fighters attacked a hospital in Baalbek, Lebanon, hoping to capture wounded Hezbollah fighters. For prisoner exchanges? But they came up essentially empty handed.
A 70-mile stretch of Oregon coast has become a "dead zone" where fish die. It is due to global warming.
A call by concerned SA Jews
The outgoing UK ambassador to Bush's
Iraq predicts more civil war, and division of the country.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans are hoping to use a small increase in minimum wage as an excuse to permanently cut the estate tax.
The bill is even worse than described above; it eliminates all minimum wage for waiters in many states.
What the article says about a "reversal of roles" is pure hokum; it's nothing new for the Democrats to oppose tax cuts for the rich, and no shock they would continue to oppose them so even when an increase in minimum wage for some workers is offered as an inducement. Well-informed Liberal voters would find it entirely understandable -- but well-informed voters are the exception with the US media as they are today. The Republicans plat to tell the voters, "Those Democrats voted against a minimum wage increase", and expect the voters to be so misinformed that they will fall for it.
'No Hezbollah Rockets Fired from Qana', say residents and Red Cross
workers.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Republican politicians depend on the support of religious nuts that want to attack Iran so as to destroy the Earth. Literally!
Police in Philadelphia arrested Neftaly Cruz for taking pictures of an arrest that was occurring on a public street, on trumped-up accusations of "conspiracy".
If the Philadelphia police department claims to respect human rights, it should fire these policemen as an example to the others.
The marines accused of shooting civilians in their custody threatened to kill another soldier if he told. What's more, the word about a "competition for kills" is especially disturbing.
Iran's leading dissident Akbar Ganji refused to meet with Bush regime
officials while he visited the US. He said, "You cannot bring
democracy to a country by attacking it".
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Iran has partial democracy: the people elect their government, within a limited range of views. But it does not respect the human rights of those with views outside that range, including their right to run for office, or express them at all.
The full record of what happened in NORAD on 9/11/2001 has been
published.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
They seem to have done their job as well as was possible with the few fighter planes and old equipment that they had--except for two fighter pilots, who screwed up and perhaps missed the chance to watch the plane that hit the Pentagon. But even if they had been right on top of it, they could not have done anything; these pilots were not authorized to shoot.
It appears that the FAA took half an hour or more to tell NORAD about each of the highjackings.
The NORAD tapes show no sign of Bush regime involvement in the attacks, but this absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The lack of authorization for fighter planes to shoot down hijacked planes was enough to make anything NORAD might have done irrelevant. It is possible that someone made sure they would not get this authorization in time. It could also have happened innocently.
Diebold voting machines hold two different programs. Diebold can certify the machine using one of them, then steal the election by switching to the other setting, then set it back -- and no one can ever tell.
Several kinds of evidence point to fraud in Mexico's presidential election. Candidate Lopez Obrador believes he won, but he demands only a careful recount, and says he will abide by the results of that recount.
Nutrients from agricultural runoff are helping bacteria and jellyfish
kill off coral, fish, etc. in the ocean.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Scientists in the UK have rated various drugs in terms of the harm
they do to society. They
found that marijuana is less dangerous than
tobacco or alcohol.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces
sent more Americans to Baghdad, saying this will check
the violence of the civil war that they have provoked.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
When Sunnis regard Americans in the Bush forces as protectors, despite all the murder and torture they have done, we can draw three conclusions. First, that the civil war is horrible. Second, that Iraqis are fools to fight each other instead of their common enemy. Three, that this may have been part of the Bush forces' plan--as I wondered a year or two ago.
Nothing could enable Bush to hold Iraq except to divide the Iraqis. I am not in a position to know which aspects of the present situation were specifically planned and arranged by the Bush forces, and which ones occurred by accident, but it is clear they intentionally played on and exacerbated Iraquis' preexisting hostilities. It is possible that the death squads that have been murdering Sunnis for a year, and appear to be part of the "Iraqi" police, were part of this plan.
I also wonder whether Zarqawi was encouraged by the Bush forces. What could be more useful for Bush than to encourage Iraqi Sunnis to kill Iraqi Shi'ites instead of the occupiers?
Put this together with the fact that the "bin Laden tapes" were just ideal for helping Bush in US domestic politics, that Al Qa'ida was started by the Pakistani ISI working with the US, and that the bin Laden family has been friends with the Bush family for decades, and one must wonder whether the cooperation and the plan go deeper. This is another reason why there must be a thorough and independent investigation of what led up to th 9/11 attacks -- one that makes sure Bush & friends cannot conceal evidence of their possible involvement in the name of government secrecy.
Bush and Blair propose to have NATO invade Lebanon as a proxy for Israel.
The FDA has been totally corrupted from the top down by its
links with drug companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
How can the children of the holocaust mete out the same racist rage?
Although Bush said he wants to close Guantanamo prison, in fact he is
expanding it. What he said was probably pure lie.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Tom Hayden: I Was Israel's Dupe.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Bush is sabotaging the enforcement of civil rights laws
by selectively hiring right-wing lawyers to do the job.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime
has been planning to invade Iran ever since 2001.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Global warming is responsible for record temperatures in Europe,
say scientists. It accompanies a drought, and together they
have damaged harvests.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Many US national parks are threatened by the effects of global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Israel's foreign minister confirms what people had
concluded: that Bush and Blair were protecting their invasion of Lebanon.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Calling Blair "Bush's guide dog" is interesting. A guide dog is a servant that helps a blind person get wherever he wants to go.
Senate Republicans, under strong pressure, agreed to investigate the "intelligence failures" that led to the invasion of Iraq. Now they are delaying the report.
A serious investigation would find that these errors were not failures, but rather a deliberate plan to fabricate excuses for war. The Republicans don't want to find that.
Since the Supreme Court ruled that Bush cannot imprison citizens
without due process,
Bush has proposed a law to authorize just that.
This law would allow the government to keep anyone in prison
indefinitely on mere suspicion of "aiding the enemy".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Since the worst enemy of the US is Dubya, this law would theoretically allow anyone who works for or helps Dubya to be imprisoned. But I doubt it will be used that way. I suspect it will be used to imprison anyone who is rumored to know someone who knows someone thought to be in Al Qa'ida. Or perhaps anyone who speaks in favor of the Iraqi resistance or condemns Bush's war. Republican officials have already called such conduct "aiding the enemy".
60% of the US has a drought.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
While a single drought is not simply and directly caused by global warming, we can be sure global warming will cause changes in rainfall patterns, so that some areas will generally get more than they used to, and others will generally get much less. Either way, the change can cause big problems.
Israel claims to attack civilians because Hezbollah fighters mingle with civilians; but they don't.
Bush and co. are trying to pass laws to save themselves from capital punishment, which they could face under US law for violating the Geneva Conventions.
I think it is wrong to execute criminals, even criminals who have killed hundreds of thousands of people as Bush has. Bush should be sentenced to life in prison, with Saddam Hussein as his cellmate.
Chinese activist 'broke his own neck',
say the police who
systematically harrassed him before.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
An agreement among businesses aims at limiting the cutting of the rain
forest to grow more soy beans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
However, such agreements are often undermined by cheating.
The
American Bar Association denounces Bush's use of signing statements
to disregard parts of laws.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Former Republican congressman McCloskey
calls for the defeat
of today's Republicans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
If they will allow votes against them to be counted, I think they don't have a chance.
US politics today show
disturbing similarities to Germany in the 1920s.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
However, the parallels are not complete; as far as I know, the Weimar Republic did count the votes honestly.
Paul Bremer knew in advance that his shock-privatization and imposed right-wing laws would make Iraqis angry. This stimulated to the resistance, which could still defeat Bush if only Iraqis will stop fighting each other.
Robert Fisk reports from an ambulance under Israeli air attack. Some Lebanese are now scared to have Red Cross ambulances near their homes, because Israel might attack them.
A
proposed US law would require most schools and libraries to block
access to blogging and "social networking" sites.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
There's one good side: this would protect students from being lured by myspace.com into a dangerous liaison with the US military.
In the US, people are reported as "terrorist suspects" just to fill quotas.
Israeli fighters bombarded Gaza with hundreds of shells, killing two babies, and various other civilians, as well as Palestinian fighters.
Israel's attack on Lebanon was planned more than a year ago. Israel confirms this now, but the plan was discovered by Hezbollah, which published it in June.
US citizens: sign the
Voters for Peace pledge.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Robert Fisk reports from Lebanon on the Israeli attacks that targeted the well-marked UN observer post for a whole day, and the smart bombs aimed at the red crosses on the top of ambulances.
The US and Russia signed a treaty to protect polar bears. But since the main threat is due to melting polar ice, it is not clear how the treaty could achieve its goal.
Tanya Reinhart: Why Bush and Israel used the opportunity to start a major war in Lebanon.
In Northern Europe, bees and the wildflowers they pollinate have
declined precipitously.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Big decreases in biodiversity are dangerous; we never know which one might wipe us out.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon has resulted in heavy ground fighting.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Greg Palast speculates that the Bush regime and Iran share an interest in nuclear worries that drive up the price oil.
WTO talks collapsed,
sparing poor countries further control
by the megacorporations.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Since Bush couldn't abolish the estate tax, he now plans to facilitate cheating on it.
While Bush rants about the (not entirely fictitious) danger of
possible future Iranian nuclear weapons, he hypocritically brushes over
Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons production expansion plans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Israel is using new weapons
to attack bomb shelters
which are full of refugees.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Israel attacked a UN base repeatedly for hours, ignoring UN complaints,
and eventually killed 4 UN observers. Kofi Annan went so far
as to say this was "apparently deliberate".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Those who are drunk on power sometimes practice visible cruelty simply as a means of intimidation. Is that what happened here?
An ex-CIA officer says that the Bush regime is planning to send troops to occupy Lebanon.
Israeli planes hit an ambulance in Lebanon with missile fire. They have shot at others but missed them.
The response makes it clear that Israel has no plans to try to avoid shooting at ambulances.
An unsafely run US railroad wants a government handout so it can
transport hazardous cargoes at high speed right past the Mayo Clinic.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
It sounds like a comedy version of government corruption, but corruption has gone so far in the US that it has become self-parody.
The US is supplying more bombs to Israel for attacking Lebanon.
Israel, Iran and the US: Who Will be Blamed for Nuclear War?
The Bush forces made a show of starting to "hand over control" to Iraqi quislings
However, events have shown that neither of them has much control over anything in Iraq.
As long as the "Iraqi government" cannot make its own decisions about the privatization and laws that Bush imposed, it is not really the Iraqi government.
The EU voted to fund stem cell research, overcoming resistance from
religious fanatics that believe little balls of human cells (which
have formed no organs) are sacred.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Parents now have a real reason to worry that their children may make dangerous acquaintances on the Internet.
Gay activists in Latvia were attacked by a mob of bigots. The police declined to protect them.
The excuse given for banning the Gay Pride march is instructive. Since the marchers have no intention of attacking anyone, the only possible "security" concern could be that bigots might attack them. To deny people their rights because they are threatened by bigots is itself an act of bigotry.
When Japanese officials go to the Yasukuni shrine,
just what are they celebrating?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Turkey's Kurdish insurgency is heating up again and
Turkey plans to
send troops into northern Iraq, defying Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Bush continues to "fight" Islamic extremism
in ways that make it
stronger.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Where could this lead?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Unnamed "senior Iraqi officials" now recognize that it is
impossible
to prevent Iraq from breaking up.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The
second article shows how the Bush forces aggravate the civil war,
preventing the militias from protecting Sunni-Shi'ite dividing lines
in order to keep the violence down.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Bush cannot prevent the breakup of Iraq, but he can still make it slower and bloodier.
How Israel "
minimizes civilian casualties": Step 1, order civilians
to flee their homes. Step 2, fire missiles at their cars.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Many of Earth's great rivers are running dry, due
directly or
indirectly to human activity.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
The government of Pakistan is unable to shut down Islamic subversive
and terrorist activities, because they have too much popular support.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Afghanistan is close to anarchy, says a British general there.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I supported the war against the Taliban, but I have to admit that the results have turned out very bad (although they looked better for a while). I am not in a position to judge whether this outcome could have been avoided by sending more reconstruction money after the war, money that in fact was diverted to invading Iraq.
It was easy to defeat the Taliban in 2001-2002 because their oppressive rule had made them unpopular. It is impossible to suppress the Taliban militarily in areas where they have popular support. To he extent that this support comes down to money from opium, this supports the Taliban only because the Afghan government tries to forbid it.
Bush and Blair protected the Israeli offensive from UN interference.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The neocons that dominate Bush have a history of giving Israel unconditional backing, which enables Israel to steal the Palestinians' land and commit repeated war crimes.
100 Iraqis being killed each day, says UN. That's the equivalent of one 9/11 attack each month, all caused directly or indirectly by Bush's invasion of that country.
The Bush regime isn't satisfied with media concentration in America. Now the FCC wants to increase it yet again.
Uri Avnery on the fighting in Lebanon (and Gaza).
The Bliar regime decided not to prosecute the police who shot Menezes.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The speaker of Iraq's parliament demanded that the Bush forces leave Iraq, calling their occupation "butchery", and praised the Iraqi resistence.
Bush forces soldiers on trial for murdering Iraqis say they were ordered to kill all young men.
Following such orders is no excuse -- but it means that the crime extends further up.
Iraqi democracy will be meaningful if and when it kicks out the foreign occupation force and their imposed privatization of their country's resources. The sad thing is, Iraq may now be too far gone into civil war to survive as a united country no matter what.
Papers from Columbus' trial show the tyranny and torture for which he was tried.
Japan adds to the cruelty of the
death penalty by springing it as a surprise -- so that prisoners condemned
to death, and their families, fear each day that the execution will occur
that day.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Japan's war-time emperor left a memo condemning visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. This undercuts the jingoistic campaign of Prime Minister Koizumi and other politicians.
Soldiers in El Salvador shot protesting students, and attacked
journalists who took pictures of them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Many states in the US have passed laws that hinder poor people from voting, and block voter registration activities.
The Florida regulations appear to respond to a real problem. In 2004, Republican groups were accused of tricking poor (probably Democratic) voters by offering to help them register, then throwing their forms away. These requirements, if they were enforced in such a case, could dissuade such swindlers. But the regulations as written are much more effective at stopping honest voter registration drives than at stopping dishonest ones.
China
exports arms to many brutal governments: Burma, Sudan, Nepal,
etc.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Senate proposes to give Bush unlimited spying powers, effectively nullifying the Fourth Amendment.
The Bush regime wants to sells public forests to energy companies at a low price.
The excuse, a shortage of money, is obvious bullshit. It's true that the US government has tremendous deficits, but that is due to other Bush regime policies (recall that the US government had a surplus before the first time Bush stole an election). It's part of a long-term policy of taking money (and public goods) from Americans and giving them to business.
Humans are causing the biggest mass exctinction since the asteroid
that killed the dinosaurs.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Patrick Cockburn: Iraq's violence resembles that of Rwanda just before
the genocide.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Grassroots political organizations have outsourced their outreach
to corporations -- which turns them into
empty shells.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Electricity deregulation leads to power shortages, as if the ghost of Ken Lay were still at work.
Note, however, that simply building enough reserve generating capacity is no longer an isolated issue in a world threatened by global warming.
Soya beans are destroying the Amazon rain forest.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Neo-con see Israel's attacks as an opportunity to attack their enemies.
Neo-cons should become ordinary cons, and finally, some day, ex-cons.
The Indian government refuses to acknowledge ordering ISPs to block access to major blog sites.
Police intervention in US schools, often cruel, violent, and unjust, has turned them into a "pipeline to prison".
When I was young, there was a word for police that act like this. They were called pigs.
The relatives of a Canadian family killed by Israeli fighters demand an inquiry into the massacre.
US Gives Israel a Blank Check to Wage War.
When civilians become targets: The Israeli destruction of Lebanon and Gaza.
" We are all part of an American society that continues to silently watch as our government pursues a foreign policy that threatens the very future of our democracy."
Meanwhile,
some Israelis are demonstrating for peace.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
India has imposed censorship on the Internet, blocking access to sites
accused of promoting religious fanaticism.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Much of the ire has focused on the thousands of blogs that were censored as "collateral damage" due to sharing a site with the intended target. Do not be led astray by this side issue. Censorship is wrong even if it is done carefully. State-imposed censorship of political views, even when they are Muslim and Hindu fanatic views, even when they are Christian fanatic views held by many supporters of Bush, is as much a threat to freedom as any non-state-sponsored terrorist.
Italian spy chief faces sack over alleged role in CIA kidnapping.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Valerie Plame has sued Cheney and Rove for
destroying her career.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I predict they will give the court a run-around or in some other way prevent her from having her case heard.
Why Israel Is Back in Gaza?
If Israel has the Right to Use Force in Self Defence, so do its
neighbours.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The Bliar regime plans to "attack organized crime" by imposing punishments without a real trial.
I expect that most of the people that these punishments are imposed on will be dissidents and organizers rather than mafiosi.
One side point stuck out for me: the quote, "We also know that financial criminals are experts at exploiting and using information held by agencies which is why we are focusing on improved date sharing."
In other words, if a criminal has a way to get data from agency XYZ, he will be able to use it it to get all the data shared with agency XYZ by the agencies. Just brilliant.
In Cynthia McKinney's election, Diebold voting machines refuse to properly
record their votes for her. (Her opponents' supporters have no trouble.)
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
The US evacuation of American civilians from Lebanon -- who have no connection
with Hezbollah -- is tacit acknowledgement that Israel is attacking
civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
How tobacco companies arrange to give the impression that they have
reformed, while still trying to encourage more people to smoke.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Global warming is causing mountains in the Alps to break up.
Some deaths have already resulted.
Terrorist bombings in Mumbai have united Hindus and Moslems.
"Range voting" is
a new proposal for how to carry out
democratic elections.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Bliar says that terrorist attacks in Britain are "highly likely", and
has been saying so for a year. But there hasn't been an attack for a
year; therefore, retrospectively, we know this was not true for
the past year.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Occasional attacks may occur in the future--we cannot rule that out--but occasional instances don't make a phenomenon "highly likely".
Or perhaps he just means that it is highly likely there will be at least one more terrorist attack in Britain some day. If so, I agree, but so what?
A congressional by-election was stolen in California by fiddling with
voting machines. The officials refuse to do a hand-recount. (Some
elections in Ohio were stolen, and reversed by hand recounts.)
Finally the Democratic Party has made a strong statement.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I applaud the statement, but if citizens want their votes to be counted, they may need to take to the streets.
An Israeli bomb killed 9 Palestinian civilians. This attack, together
with others that have killed dozens (maybe over a hundred) Palestinian
civilians in recent months, is supposedly justified as a way to
discourage Palestinian missile attacks that have killed 5 Israelis in
5 years.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Hezbollah fighters, acting to support the Palestinains, attacked
Israeli fighters, killing and capturing some, Israel retaliated,
attacking roads and the Beirut airport, and killing dozens of Lebanese
civilians.
Hezbollah retaliated by attacking Israeli civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Israel justifies its attacks on civilian infrastructure targets, such as roads and airports and power stations, on the grounds that fighters make use of them. I presume that the Israeli army uses oil refined in Haifa, so it would be equally valid for whoever fired the missiles at Haifa to say that they are aiming at the oil refinery there. But such excuses don't carry moral weight when the likely victims are civilians. I would expect that they don't carry any weight under the Geneva Conventions either, and that the attacks of both sides are war crimes.
Both sides ought to stop these attacks; but since Israel is the main perpetrator, international efforts to end the fighting must focus on Israel or they will be hypocritical.
The Taliban Use Beheadings And Beatings to Keep Afghanistan's Schools
Closed.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
It is possible to defeat the Taliban only if the people of Afghanistan oppose them enough to fight against them. So far the Taliban seem to be gaining support; if Afghans want schools open, they don't want it badly enough to fight the Taliban for it.
If the Taliban's strength comes from drug income, the only way to defeat them is to end prohibition and thus cut the profits made from drugs.
Hollywood and the music factories (*) have already used the DMCA to kill off many kinds of consumer products. Now they want more laws to kill off other kinds.
That article is weakened by the use of the propaganda terms "piracy" and "protection", which are designed to irrationally evoke support for the restrictions that the article seeks to oppose. See Words to Avoid - Piracy and Words to Avoid -Protection.
(*) They call themselves the "music industry", which implies that they are factories. They manufacture music, or what they call music, out of money which they first convert into hype.
Google advertising is being used for a highly funded campaign to convince you to accept RFID surveillance in your life.
Greg Palast: Obrador shows what US democrats should have done when Bush stole two elections.
Blair's chief fund-raiser has been arrested under anti-corruption laws
for the
loans-for-peerages scandal.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
Iranians in exile have begun a
hunger strike on behalf of Iranian
political prisoners.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
Putin told Bush: "We certainly would not want the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq".
Putin is validly criticized for not respecting human rights, such as those of political opposition and dissidents. But when this criticism comes from the US, it is laughable, given the nonsense Bush says about Iraq.
From the quoted transcript, it occurred to me that Bush's final words "Just wait" can be understood as a threat. "Just wait; we will give you Iraqi 'democracy' by and by." I have not seen the video, and I am not sure if this interpretation really fits. But I would not put this past Bush.
The real aim (of Israel's attacks on Gaza and Lebanon).
[Reference updated on 2018-08-05 because the old link was broken.]
It is often said by many Americans, who won't dare to admit that the
invasion of Iraq is a crime, that the Bush forces must remain in order
to "prevent civil war". Now open civil war is breaking out across
Baghdad.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
It is horribly stupid for Iraqis to fight each other instead of their common enemy.
The Bush forces admit they are losing control over violence
in Baghdad.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-26 because the old link was broken.]
I think that they intentionally tried to play Sunnis and Shi'ites against each other -- for example, recruiting Shi'ites for the army and police to occupy Sunni areas -- but perhaps did not realize their approach would lead to results such as these.
Israel has escalated its attacks on Beirut and the rest of Lebanon.
Israel is retaliating for Hezbolla's attacks which retaliated for Israel's killing of dozens of Palestinians.
A town in Israel is in shock after a missile attack killed a civilian
woman. Casualties like these can be shocking because they are rare.
Magic mushrooms can induce mystical effects, study finds.
Prison labor in Louisiana: sheriffs exploit the prisoners, and it
keeps wages down for everyone else.
How curious that the furore over immigrant workers, and what they
might do to wages, doesn't extend to prisoner workers. Perhaps this
is the sign that this furore is part of a campaign that uses people's
economic anxieties for other ends.
Fallujans report how a Bush forces death squad came in helicopters to
kill a man and arrest his 13-year-old son. The son was mutilated by
their dogs.
Bush accepts the Geneva Conventions for prisoners in Guantanamo and
elsewhere.
However, when the Bush regime claims that its actions so far are
adequate to follow these conventions, it shows that it isn't really
going to obey them -- only pretend to do so.
Obrador presents
videos showing evidence of election fraud.
Russian police
cracked down on an anti-Putin conference operating in
parallel with the G8. Clearly Russia is no democracy now.
Israeli missiles
killed more civilians in Gaza.
In 1991, Iraq's people had a high standard of living, education,
health care--everything one might want except democracy and freedom.
Today they have none of these things, because the Bush invasion handed
over their country's wealth to US corporations.
Militarism and the Corporate Welfare State
Global warming will wipe out California wine.
Ethanol made from plants is
just a little less damaging to the environment
than gasoline. For real benefit, biodiesel is needed.
Pakistan has abolished one of its unjust Islamic laws, which denied
bail to women accused of crimes.
Even half a can of tuna per week can give you unsafe levels of mercury
if the tuna is from Ecuador. For other kinds of tuna, maybe one
can a week is safe, if your body is big enough.
Global warming is forgotten in this year's G8 agenda.
The FBI says it foiled a "plot to flood lower Manhattan".
Bombing the tunnels could have killed thousands, but if you really
want to flood lower Manhattan, you need more subtle means--such as
burning lots of oil for decades. Who's going to foil Bush's plot to
flood Manhattan?
Entire counties in the US have remained all-white, sometimes for over a
century, as the result of the violence of mobs of white racists.
Obrador
prepares to present evidence of vote fraud in Mexico's
election, demanding a recount.
A computer game presents Hugo Chavez as a tyrant and
appears designed
to accustom its users to the idea of an invasion of Venezuela.
A world survey shows that the
wealth of a society has little
to do with the happiness of its people.
Israeli human rights groups
went to court demanding the end
of the starvation of Gaza.
ppBritish Muslims have formed an organization to oppose Islamic
extremism.
It is good to oppose such extremism, but this organization should not
overlook the other threats to human rights in the UK, such as Bliar.
The Center for Constitutional Rights
reports on torture and violations
of human rights at Guantánamo Prison.
Escalating sectarian attacks in Iraq killed dozens of people.
Some Americans who can't bring themselves to advocate pulling the Bush
forces out of Iraq like to tell themselves that the Bush forces are
preventing all hell from breaking loose. But that is true only in a
short-term sense; in the long term, what they do is create the
pressure that makes things steadily worse.
Ury Avneri:
The One-Sided War
Hate groups are infiltrating the US military,
says the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which has fought the Ku Klux Klan and neonazis.
Italian government agents
face arrest for the CIA kidnaping
of an Egyptian who was sent to Egypt for torture.
It is amazing that conservatives dare to speak in favor of these
agents and what they did. If Osama bin Laden is happy because our
societies respect human rights, that is no reason to discard them.
Video declarations by the accused London suicide bombers make it
pretty certain that the bombing was done by them.
Some evidence seemed to cast doubt on that theory, including
indications that the bombs were below the floor of the train. If that
wasn't so, what is the explanation for that evidence? How can we
reconcile all the facts? A public investigation is still called for.
Health care in Basra has deteriorated to the point that children
die from easily curable diseases. Medicine is not available,
and doctors and nurses are afraid to go to work.
Basra is one of the stabler parts of Iraq. Things must be worse
in other cities.
Berlusconi faces new fraud charges
He has been saved before by the statute of limitations, which is
why he adopted a law reducing the allowable time for prosecution.
The European Parliament voted to demand information about
SWIFT's participation in US government spying.
Instead of being prosecuted for its crimes, Bush gave Boeing a deal
saying it can commit more crimes as long as its executives are not
involved.
A former prisoner tells of torture in secret US prisons.
China plans to fine news reports of "incidents" such as disasters and riots.
Supposedly the fines are to be imposed only if the report is false;
but journalists are rightly worried anyway. We can't rely on Chinese
courts to enforce this honestly.
A myth is circulating that building a car releases more CO2 than
driving the car. This myth is being used to dismiss plans to make
cars use less fuel.
Here's information that corrects the myth.
Notwithstanding this, I'd always rather live in a place where
I don't need to own a car.
Are Israeli lives worth more than Palestinian?
Palestinian land and water is worth quite a lot to businesses that export products and label them "made in Israel".
Churches convinced UK doctors to oppose assisted suicide.
It is not just the terminally ill who ought to have the right to help
dying. Some people are totally crippled by chronic diseases, and have
no reasonable prospect of anything to live for. Forcing them to go on
living is tantamount to torture. They ask for help in suicide from
relatives, doctors, lovers, whoever they are close to. Have a heart!
The status quo in the division of Palestine, which Olmert intends to
unilaterally make permanent, is the result of 30 years of robbery.
For instance, Israeli settlements have taken 3/4 of the water. They
use it for flower gardens, while Palestinians sometimes get no water
for weeks.
Ex-prisoners from Guantanamo now face imprisonment in France for guilt by association. The crime they are accused of is literally just
"association".
If prosecutors say in court that these men's relatives of these men
were convicted of crimes, that seems to violate their right to a fair trial.
Daniel Ellsberg calls on today's government flunkies to do as he did:
release to the public the secrets behind Bush's lies.
Bliar demands that British Muslims hand over the "extremists in their
midst", while doing nothing to address the causes of their
suspicions--let alone apologize for mistreatment of innocent people.
If I were in Britain, Muslim or not, and I had information that
suggested someone else might possibly be a terrorist, I would have to
think twice or more before telling the police. What if he were
innocent, and the police shot him without giving him a chance to
explain? What if he were convicted of the "crime" of possessing some
object that the court considered suspicious? If I had any doubts
about what I had seen, my duty would be to say nothing about it.
The UK government must recognize its responsibilities to respect
everyone's rights in order to win their support and cooperation.
Until it does, British Muslims should respond by demanding that the
police hand over the extremists in their midst.
French agents visited Guantanamo prison to question prisoners there.
In effect, they participated in the unjust imprisonment of various
people.
The mere fact that "associating with wrong-doers" is considered a
crime indicates a lack of respect for human rights on the part
of the French government.
Abramoff's relationship with Ashcroft.
A congressional committee has subpoena'd Rumsfeld, accusing the Pentagon of trying to suppress reports of torture in Abu Ghraib.
Caribbean waters have reached record temperatures two months before the usual annual peak. This threatens to kill all the coral reefs.
A bill to require chemical plants to improve security against
terrorist attacks is being blocked by conservative Senator Inhofe.
The Bush regime makes perverse choices of "security" measures because
its priority isn't reducing danger, but making its claim to "protect"
us appear justified. Measures that intrude on citizens' lives are
desirable; measures that inconvenience some businesses but won't be
seen by the public are not.
Police in Cali, Colombia, attacked and beat the people in a shanty
town, then set fire to their houses (with all their belongings inside)
and bulldozed what was left. A baby died in the attack. The
survivors remain homeless.
Lt Kendall-Smith, convicted of defying the illegal order to
participate in the occupation of Iraq was kept, for no stated reason,
in a maximum-security prison. But now he is in house arrest as he
appeals his conviction. He refuses to apologize or grant Bliar any
legitimacy. Three cheers!
A former Bush forces soldier faces charges of raping and murdering a young Iraqi girl.
The dynamics of an occupation in which the soldiers hate
the civilians produce such events, and even assiduous prosecution
can't eliminate them.
What the Israeli attacks on Gaza are doing to life there.
Schwarzenegger has set California's "anti-terrorist" office to
tracking anti-war political groups. The information they use
often comes from the Department of Homeland Security (Committee
for Public Safety).
Mike Ferner was arrested for wearing the wrong shirt
as he drank coffee in a V.A. Medical Center.
Terrorizing Gaza's children with sonic booms.
Presenting the occupation of Iraq as a "war" helps Bush dupe Americans
into supporting it.
The danger from terrorism is small compared with the danger of nuclear
annihilation during the cold war--but that doesn't stop Bush (and Blair)
from presenting it as a reason to abolish human rights.
The last remaining large group of tigers could be wiped out by a tide
power plant. This plant would provide only enough electricity for
15,000 homes -- a drop in the bucket.
The Iraqi army claims to have captured the man who bombed a famous
mosque a few months ago.
He may really be guilty, or he may have been tortured into confessing.
If he's guilty, I'm glad he has been caught.
When bombings of mosques (and other targets that have nothing to do
with the occupying forces) began in Iraq, many wondered who was really
behind them. It was clear that creating hostilities between Iraqi
groups could only help Bush. Disunity weakens the Iraqi resistance,
while intercommunal violence provides a retroactive excuse for
continuing the occupation. Were the Bush forces carrying out these
bombings as provocations?
There's some evidence for that. There is also a fair amount of
evidence that there really are Sunnis that hate Shi'ites, and Shi'ites
that hate Sunnis, enough to massacre them. This includes foreigners
associated with Al Qa'ida, such as Zarqawi.
So we have to ask: is Al Qa'ida once again working to keep Bush and
his nasty activities going? They help Al Qa'ida recruiting as nothing
else could.
There have been plenty of reasons to suspect some sort of hidden
cooperation, including the long-standing relationship between Bush and
the bin Ladens, including the way Bush let some bin Ladens leave the
US just after 9/11 when nobody else was allowed to fly in the US, and
including all the evidence that some in the Bush regime were complicit
in the 9/11 attacks.
And then there are the "bin Laden tapes", which seem to be designed to
help Bush. Even some CIA agents thought that's what they were meant
to do.
Israel's attack on Gaza will soon leave no food for the inhabitants --
and no clean water. Thousands could die from this. In response,
world governments timidly ask Israel to "exercise restraint".
Tibetan dissident to accuse Chinese of torture and genocide.
Opium eradication is producing the anger that fuels the Taliban.
In other words, the absurd "War on Drugs" may be responsible for the
victory of militant Islam in Afghanistan, in addition to all the other
harm that it does.
Addictive drugs can be harmful, but prohibition is not a good solution
to that problem.
Uri Avnery: Israel's present policy towards the Palestinians repeats
the British policy towards the Jews in Israel in 1946. Israel ought
to recognize that the Palestinians will not respond by surrender, any
more than the Jews did then.
Drug companies promote the use of drugs, for their own profit,
in ways that are medically unethical and corrupt the medical system.
The Bush regime says that 9/11 was the reason for illegal domestic
spying, but the plans were started months before.
So either the Bush regime is lying about the reason, or it was
planning for 9/11 in advance.
A Republican plan to gradually end farm subsidies turned into an even bigger subsidy.
Republicans are always torn between their ideology of the free market,
which would not allow subsidies to business, and the fact that they
work for business, which wants subsidies (and cites the "free market"
only when it suits them).
The UK office in charge of handling the Freedom of Information Act is
itself not obeying that law.
Bush wants to close the EPA's research libraries. That will foil
those meddlesome scientists!
Blair's campaign against human rights hit a setback; a court ruled
that the "control orders" (permanent house arrest without trial)
violate human rights.
Israel sent the air force to cut bridges and electricity in
Gaza--punishing the civilian population for a resistance attack on
soldiers.
The German occupiers of Europe used to shoot many civilians every time
the resistance killed a German soldier. Israel seems to be on the
path to behaving likewise.
This happens just as Hamas has signed on
to the imprisoned leaders' compromise, which includes agreeing to
recognize Israel.
In 2001, the Bush regime told the CIA not to investigate Khan Labs.
That is Pakistani the organization which sold a-bomb information to
various other countries.
Abramoff used a secret FBI document for his lobbying.
Haaretz: The Israeli government is losing its reason.
Alaska Supreme Court strikes down forced psychiatric drugging procedures.
The UN HCR criticized the UK for rejecting refugees' claims for asylum on spurious grounds, and for being racist about it.
US citizens: support Michael Berg's campaign for Congress.
The big drug companies claim they need patents even in poor countries
so they can get money for research; but they don't do much research
on the diseases that kill millions. The World Health Organization
is now working towards a new system for medical research.
The nastiest copyright law in Europe has been adopted by France.
The government used dirty maneuvers to force through the law
that Vivendi-Universal demanded.
Never buy media that you don't have the means to copy!
And never buy anything from Vivendi-Universal. The money
they get from you, they will use to attack your freedom.
The Bush regime has been tracking financial transactions world-wide,
and now that this has been revealed, Cheney is angry.
I have a feeling that their surveillance is not limited to real
terrorists.
Amnesty International: Israel's attacks on civilians are
war crimes.
British Bush forces are facing rising violence in Basra,
and cannot control it.
In Basra, people are developing multiple cancers at once.
Surely due to Dirty Uranium.
Did Bush and Choicepoint work together to try to steal the election in Mexico?
The Bush forces song 'Hadji Girl' expresses the hatred that
the occupying troops feel towards the Iraqis they are supposed
to be helping.
This hatred, which is justly reciprocated by Iraqis, is why
the Bush occupation of Iraq can only do harm.
Israel attacked the Palestinian prime minister's office, as well
as a school.
After Palestinian fighters killed some Israeli fighters and took one
prisoner, Israel retaliated with massive attacks against the civilian
population and its infrastructure, destroying bridges and the only
electric power plant in Gaza.
The Israeli government holds Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas government
"responsible" for the attack on Israeli soldiers. That is true, just
as the Israeli government is responsible for attacks that kill
Palestinian fighters and civilians.
Mahmoud Abbas points out, correctly, that attacking civilian targets
violates the Geneva Convention.
Meanwhile, Israel's arresting the Palestinian Authority ministers is
tantamount to a refusal to recognize the Palestinian Authority -- just
as Hamas expressed willingness to recognize Israel as part of a deal.
So now the situation is symmetrical: neither side recognizes the other.
The rest of the world should now pressure both sides alike.
Some Israelis protested the invasion of Gaza.
In a recent protest in London, on behalf of Gary McKinnon and reform
of the unjust extradition policy, the police ordered protestors to
"wear business dress". No protesting without a tie!
Here are quotes from the instructions that were posted
by Janis McKinnon.
The Spanish government took the side of the media companies
against its citizens, making peer-to-peer downloading illegal.
When a government makes laws to serve the megacorporations by
punishing the public, it betrays its own people, and becomes no better
than a satrap of those companies. These companies' regime may pretend
to be democratic, but it is designed to prevent the people from having
any real control over their laws. It is a dictatorship in disguise.
Massachusetts residents: collect signatures to put Jill Stein,
Green/Rainbow party candidate, on the ballot for Secretary of State.
The Republicans in the US Senate Committee on the Environment worked
with global warming deniers to try to discredit journalist Seth
Borenstein, based on twisting the facts of course.
The Profit: the Movie Scientology Won't Let You See
Tony Blair's 9-year stealth campaign to turn the UK into a "control state".
A year ago, the G8 promised a lot of aid to poor countries. They have
not kept the promises.
The US Supreme Court ruled that Bush cannot try certain Guantanamo prisoners in military kangaroo courts. However, this does not mean that the prisoners will ever have the chance for a fair trial, or that they will ever be freed.
The Irish police force, the Garda, have a history of killing prisoners, then lying about what happened. Here's what happened to Terence Wheelock.
Male homosexuality seems to be partly caused by events during
gestation, perhaps an immune reaction triggered by the gestation of
previous male siblings.
This does not mean that male homosexuality is genetic in the sense
that gay males have a special gene; but it could be that there is a
selective advantage to genes that tend to lead to a certain number of
gay males in a large family.
A Pentagon report tries to blame prisoners for their torture.
Italians in a referendum defeated Berlusconi's plan to reward his secessionist allies, while increasing the power of the prime minister (which he expected to continue to be).
Part of the US government is trying to shut down the sale
of many kinds of chemicals to the public, on the grounds that
people could possibly use them to make bombs.
If you do chemistry, please send letters
to educate the regulators.
Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean are now almost extinct due to
overfishing, but the agency that is supposed to regulate the fishing
remains ineffective.
World scientific bodies unite to combat creationism.
Iraqi PM Maliki's reconciliation plan offers "amnesty" to the
resistance -- but only those who have not really fought. And it says
nothing specific about making the Bush forces leave.
I don't see how any patriotic Iraqi could accept this plan, but at
least it is a first step in negotiation.
A constitutional amendment to allow a ban on burning the US flag was just barely blocked in the US senate.
The people who support this amendment do not really understand the concept
of freedom of speech.
Until June 29:
Protest in London on June 29 against the unequal treaty for
extradition from the UK to the US, and against the extradition of Gary
McKinnon. The protest will start at 5pm at the Institute of Directors
(Pall Mall) then march to St James' Park and the Home Office.
Until July 26:
Citizens of the EU:
You can answer a survey about public opinion about ID cards.
The Israeli Supreme Court rules that the army must protect Palestinians from the violence of settlers--and not by restricting the
legitimate movements of the Palestinians.
This ruling is clearly the right response. If enforced, it would
address one substantial way in which the Palestinians are oppressed,
though there are many others. But I expect we will see that it is
followed unenthusiastically by the Israeli Army.
Republicans in Congress are working on a plan for elimination of all the regulations that protect the environment and public health.
They have always been in favor of letting business trample the public.
But after getting away with trashing the Geneva Conventions and the
Bill of Rights, they think they can get away with it wholesale.
The Republicans want to eliminate the Voting Rights Act so
that they can get away with systematically blocking Black voters.
Dan Rather critized Bush's personal war-avoidance record, and was
pilloried. Greg Palast has published even stronger charges, and stronger
evidence; Bush refuses even to respond.
CIA officials tried to stop the Bush administration from using
unreliable reports about hypothetical Iraqi mobile chemical weapons
labs. They were overridden at a higher level. Subsequently, the CIA
chief and deputy chief denied any memory of the meeting where they
were told. Hmmm.
Some in the US Congress are trying to distort the evidence to justify
Bush's claims that Iraq posed a chemical weapons threat. They just
won't give up.
Venezuela and Guatemala are competing for a seat on the UN Security
Council, effectively presenting a choice between the empire and the
opposition. The empire doesn't like this, and its demonization
machine is running full speed, calling Chavez a "threat to world peace".
European governments have failed to enforce the ban against driftnet
fishing, which kills lots of whales, turtles, etc.
The US Department of Energy predicts a 75% increase in CO2 emissions
by the year 2030. The projection is probably impossible, because it
assumes an increase in oil consumption, and the oil extraction rate is
going to decrease. Nonetheless, it shows the need for stern measures
if we are to prevent cities like New York from being drowned.
The European Union failed to implement its greenhouse gas targets.
And even those disappointing figures underestimate the true emission
of greenhouse gases in Europe.
Ethiopia has bought drought insurance -- a sum of about 6 million euros
(maybe 7 million dollars).
The idea may not be ridiculous, but that is surely far too little money
to do much good for Ethiopians in the event of a severe drought.
The US government is spending our money on propaganda in favor of more
restrictive copyright and patent laws, which they refer to by the
propaganda term "intellectual property".
A witness says Germany knew that a German citizen had been kidnapped by
the CIA.
The Iraqi government has declared an official state of emergency
because the resistance is fighting at the door of the Green Zone.
The mainstream US media show their subservience to the empire by how
much they don't talk about this.
How the Taliban are gaining popular support in part of Afghanistan.
There is a large student uprising in Greek universities against business-oriented reform plans.
Human activities have destroyed most coastal wildlife in Europe.
200,000 babies are born every year as a result of fertility
treatments.
Because the human population puts terrible stress on the
Earth's ecosystems, producing more humans at great expense is
stupid. National health services and insurance plans should not cover
fertility treatments.
The 1500 people who protested the violent police raid in London
demanded an apology for wrongdoing rather than just for "hurt", and
called the police terrorists. Right on!
Bush says Guantanamo prison must be closed (though by whom, since he
isn't doing so), but that some of the prisoners must be held to
protect them from torture in their home countries.
These countries, including Saudi Arabia, are places where Bush has previously
sent other people to be tortured, and he declines to promise he won't do that
again. Notwithstanding that, it is good to protect people from torture;
but is keeping them in prison really the right way to do that? And what about
the torture carried out by the Guantanamo prison itself?
Bush compared the war in Iraq to the Hungary's fight for freedom from
Soviet occupation in 1956. He thinks nobody will notice that the Bush
forces are playing the Soviet role.
But even when corrected in that way, the analogy fails to do justice
to the Iraqi armed resistance. It has been fighting for Iraq's
independence for three years now. The Hungarians only fought the
Russians for a few weeks.
Scientists studying the Greenland ice cap are detecting its
accelerated melting in many ways. The land that it rests on is below
sea level in places, and warmer sea water gets into the ice through a
system of tunnels.
The Iraqi government wants peace talks with the resistance as part of a plan to tell the Bush forces to leave.
If this works, it will be great--but I wonder how many laws Bush will
have been able to impose on Iraq, perhaps to take control of the oil,
perhaps to take control of other aspects of life.
Olmert justified killing additional Palestinian civilians by saying
Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives.
Considering that Qassam missiles are almost totally ineffective,
Israeli policy resembles that of a grown man who shoots children that
try to stab him with crayons.
A study says that social isolation is growing in the US.
The 9/11 attacks killed the accountants who were trying to trace a lot
of the Pentagon's money which had disappeared.
The "solid intelligence" that led to the raid in which Mohammed Abdul
Kahar was shot came from a man who had little intelligence. His
credibility was doubted by the police.
That man had been sentenced to prison for the crime of being a
suspect. (Specifically, he had someone's address, and the police
thought he might be planning to attack that person.) Defining
suspicion as a crime is fundamental injustice.
1500 protested the raid, including George Galloway.
I have a song to suggest for these protests:
(To the tune of "Rule Brittania")
Save our freedom from Bliar and his knaves!
Israel shows restraint in its attacks on Palestinians,
as usual.
The tobacco companies are funding fertility research as a way to
confuse the issue that smoking is bad for fertility (as well as likely
to kill its users).
Large companies and governments frequently run distraction campaigns
so that they can get away with abuses. When it's done in regard
to the environment, it is called "greenwashing".
The film "The Profit", which criticizes a fictional cult leader, has
been censored for many years at the behest of the Church of
Scientology, which feels that the shoe fits it.
If they had released the movie on the net right away, it would have been
impossible to censor it.
Japan plans to start killing humpback whales (a threatened species) as
well as fin whales (an endangered species).
Greenland also wants to hunt humpback whales.
James Joyce's heir is using copyright to stifle research into James Joyce's life by threatening professors with lawsuits.
(Another article, which we could not find on a publicly accessible site,
says that other professors have faced such obstacles in the past.)
The Blair regime plans to go ahead and prosecute the "terrorist"
grannies for their peaceful protest.
The Earth is hotter now than at any time in the past 2,000 years,
and perhaps for several millenia.
The US Congress used to have an agency to give it scientific advice:
the Office of Technology Assessment. The first thing the Republicans
did after taking control of Congress in 1994 was to abolish the OTA.
They didn't want reality-based advice to get in the way of their
plans.
EU has worked out a plan to aid Palestinians suffering from
Israel's cut-off of funds, food and medicine.
It should be noted that Hamas offers Israel a bilateral cease-fire,
and is amenable to recognizing Israel in exchange for less cruelty
towards Palestinians.
Guantanamo prison guards have coerced confessions they knew to be
false, beaten prisoners to the point of disability, and given
detainees psychotropic drugs they believed were for common physical
ailments, according to an account one former detainee gave RAW STORY.
Moving General Miller to Abu Ghraib follows a Bush regime pattern of
rewarding the people who have carried out the greatest abuses of
whatever kind. (Compare the move of General Hayden to the CIA, after
he carried out the illegal spying at the NSA.) By doing this, Bush mocks
those who criticize his crimes against the constitution and humanity.
LA police evicted protestors from the city land they had farmed for many years, at the behest of the man to whom the city sold
the land in a rather suspect fashion -- and just a few weeks before
a lawsuit to determine whether the sale was valid.
The Iraqi restistance set off 23 bombs in Baghdad, demonstrating that
the supposed "security" campaign in Baghdad has not affected them.
Meanwhile, the ACLU revealed additional cases of torture by the Bush
forces, including one prisoner who was tortured to death. Americans
must recognize that the war was not a mistake--it was a crime.
CEOs get bigger and bigger retirement plans, as they gut the workers' retirement plans.
Part of the reason for this is a "winner take all" phenomenon where
companies bid against each other for the best CEOs (or the ones that
appear best, for whatever reason). Perhaps if there were more
companies, and fewer merges, this phenomenon would be smaller.
The Israeli inhabitants of Sderot demand that unlimited force be used
to protect them from Palestinian rocket attacks, which have killed five
civilians over five years.
The Israeli attacks whose supposed purpose is to protect Sderot kill
far more Palestinian civilians--more than 10 this month. If we apply
the same logic from the other side, isn't protecting them higher
priority than protecting the civilians of Sderot?
With PBS Frontline, the semi-mass media dared to show how the Bush regime pressured the CIA to provide distorted "intelligence" to
support the war it wanted to launch for other reasons.
Subsequent appointments and restructuring have broken the CIA to
harness. The next time an administration wants the CIA to fabricate
an excuse for war, I don't think it will resist.
Faux News is running a campaign of character assassination against Representative Cynthia McKinney, who has had the courage to stand up to Bush and criticize his reign of terror.
CUPE, a Canadian labor union, has adopted a boycott of Israel. In
response, supporters of Israeli policy have made the usual accusations
of "anti-semitism". Here is the letter from Israelis in support of
CUPE, rejecting that accusation.
The Los Angeles police chief says, about flying camera drones, "Don't
complain about more surveillance, because you're already watched
everywhere". One must ask him, in response, whether it was legitimate
to make such a profound change without ever a public debate.
He is following a common tactic for preventing public debate on an
important change that can be imposed gradually on the public. The
tactic is to keep saying "It's too early to have a debate" until the
point is reached where they switch to "It's too late". We have to ask
him, "In which year do you think the debate should have been held, and
what did you do then to raise it?"
Of course, it is not too late. It never will be. The citizens of LA
should demand a law requiring the police, when using this drone to
observe private property, to get the owner's permission or else a
court order, just as they would for police to enter and search.
Bush announced plans to protect a substantial area of the Pacific
Ocean from fishing. The area contains coral reefs, full of fish.
Japan has paid various countries to join the International Whaling
Commission and support whaling. They now have a majority in the IWC,
which will let them start undermining the whaling moratorium.
Three Bush forces soldiers have been charged with murdering Iraqi
civilians who were "shot while trying to escape".
Placing charges against them is the right thing to do, when there is
solid evidence for such killings, but it is too little, too late. The
Bush forces have already had plenty of time to absorb the attitude
that Iraqis are there to be shot ad lib, and plenty of time to teach
Iraqis to hate them.
The UK asked Israeli prime minister Olmert to negotiate with the
Palestinians.
But Olmert rejected Abbas' plan for peace negotiations--which offers
Israel nearly all it is entitled to ask for--insisting on unilateral
annexation of large parts of already-colonized Palestinian territory.
Olmert's idea of a "partner for peace negotiations" is one who says
yes to whatever deal he is offered.
The renewed war in Afghanistan is heating up, with hundreds of air
strikes by the US against the Taliban. Sometimes these kill
civilians. Which raises such questions as: do the US forces really
try not to bomb civilians, or just say they try? And if they do try,
will Afghanis blame the US, or the Taliban, for the civilian
casualties that will occur despite the best efforts?
The article quotes commanders as saying that time is against the
Taliban, but experience shows such statements are just P.R., and
would be made regardless of the truth.
What is clear is that something makes many Afghanis want to fight for
the Taliban. Is it anger at foreign soldiers' presence? Religious
fanaticism? Money from opium? Whatever it is, it must be the
crucial point.
Massachusetts voters: phone your state representative and state
senator, and call on them to reject perverted "abstinence-only" sex
education in Massachusetts.
"Plan B", a plan for restructuring the Earth's economy to avoid
global warming and end poverty, requires spending $160 billion per year.
The US military budget is $490 billion per year.
Paul Larudee: Israel needs to promote harmony in pianos, politics.
Global warming is melting the permafrost in Siberia, and this could lead
to the release of lots of stored CO2, greatly increasing global warming.
Based on the numbers in the article, we can estimate that melting 10
feet of permafrost would release about 60 billion tons of CO2,
enough to increase the CO2 in the atmosphere an additional 8 percent.
Positive feedback phenomena of this kind create "tipping points"
where the climate could change rapidly and disastrously.
Several European fashion designers decided to highlight public safety
and support the REACH directive, by making a fashion show of clothes
made without toxic substances.
Only a tiny rich fraction of the public wears clothes made by famous
designers; the sweatshops that make most clothing are unlikely to copy
their idealism. The main way an initiative like this can be helpful
is if it encourages the adoption of general regulations.
As Bush says that things are getting better in Iraq, a leaked message
from Bush's ambassador shows how bad they are getting.
I am sad for the violence that Iraqis suffer, and for the religious
fanaticism that oppresses the men, and even worse the women. But I
have no sympathy for the Iraqi traitors that work in the US embassy.
The Bliar regime intervened to stop Britons from suing the
people in Saudi Arabia who tortured them.
Bliar is against torture, except when it occurs.
A large "Iraqi" army force, working for Bush of course, is supposedly
trying to make Baghdad "safe".
These soldiers are nearly all Kurds or Shi'ites, so Sunnis are not
likely to be safe around them. Prime Minister al-Maliki says, "No
mercy toward those who show no mercy to our people." However,
mysteriously this does not include Bush.
Is it possible for the bad guys to win in Iraq?
US citizens: phone your congressional representative and say, "Please
support the pledge to refuse oil industry campaign contributions."
(This is a MoveOn campaign.)
Russia is building nuclear power plant ships. People are worried about
what will happen if they sink.
NATO troops in Afghanistan are attacking the Taliban,
but such attacks on a guerrilla force rarely achieve much.
Meanwhile, the Taliban are starting a broader terror campaign.
I supported the war in Afghanistan when it was fought. This is not
because of 9/11 but rather so as to liberate Afghanistan from the
Taliban, cruel murderous religious fanatics. However, subsequent
events have shown that the outcome of the war was not good.
Afghanistan does not enjoy stability or human rights. And since the
Taliban are gaining strength, they must have support. Support for
murderous religious fanatics can't come entirely from religious
fanaticism--there must be other causes, other problems for which they
seem to be the solution.
It is possible that a better outcome could have been achieved if the
US had given Afghanistan the promised support instead of invading
Iraq.
Republicans used a dishonest tactic to challenge large numbers of
legitimate black voters. Among those systematically targeted were
soldiers in Iraq.
India's proposal for the Secretary General of the UN has a history of
supporting the superstition of fraudulent miracle-workers.
This might not have much consequences, if (supposing he is chosen) he
focuses on the international relations and management that the UN
Secretary General is supposed to do. But if he continues to patronize
religious frauds, from that position, it will be quite harmful.
World's
oceans reaching point of no return, says the UN Environment Program.
The plan to protect Venice from rising seas may
be derailed because of the costs.
Another article said that most of the inhabitants have moved to the
mainland, where they no longer face flooding--for the moment. So they
don't care about saving Venice.
But even the "mainland" may not be safe for long. Flooding in the
coming century will be much than one meter, if the Greenland ice
melts.
Is anyone designing a dam across the straits of Gibraltar? There are
hundreds, if not thousands, of old cities at the edge of the
Mediterranean.
Rare bumblebees in England have made a home in abandoned factories,
railways, etc., along the Thames. (The story refers to these as
"pockets of East Anglia".) If these pockets are redeveloped as
planned in the Thames Gateway, the two species
could be wiped out.
Of course, if the sea level rises in this century, they would be
flooded out anyway--along with that whole region (including London).
But that is another good reason not to build houses there.
Isn't anyone putting two and two together to get "under water
in 80 years"?
Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamists in Mogadishu have ended
the warlords' violence, which
wins them public support despite the fact that most Somalis do not really
want Islamic law. Businessmen who support the Islamists for stability's sake
asked the US to stop supporting the warlords and support them instead. The US
refused, so they turned to the Islamists.
10% of the British troops in the Bush forces suffer mental illness
as a result.
Fighting enemy soldiers is bad enough, but fighting to occupy a
country creates a conflict in the mind of anyone who believes in
justice.
Hamas
ended its 16-month unilateral truce against Israel because
Israel has killed so many Palestinian civilians. However, Hamas
offers a bilateral truce--Palestinian attacks will stop if Israel also
stops its attacks.
I've read elsewhere that Hamas offered to recognize Israel if Israel
accepts the UN-recognized 1967 borders. If that is true, this article
is wrong when it says that Hamas completely refuses to recognize
Israel. What it refuses to recognize is Israel's annexation plan.
But Israel is using
more than guns to kill Palestinians. It is using
starvation. Nearly the children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition
because of the Israeli siege. (And it is happening in Iraq too.)
Men accused of planning a bombing were convicted in France, based
partly on a confession
obtained by torture in Syria. I don't know whether these men are
guilty, but admitting evidence obtained by torture is a recipe for
convicting the innocent, and it is much more dangerous than a bomb.
The Israeli Army, embarrassed about killing a
Palestinian family on a beach, denies resposibility and proposes
other theories. The facts do not support them.
Lt. Eric Watada has taken great personal risk to denounce the war in
Iraq. The Army is capable of many kinds of retaliation.
Lawyers analyze the charges he is being investigated for, and how
the Army silences dissent.
According to a book I read, the soldiers in the "presidio mutiny"
were convicted of disregarding an order they could not possibly
even have heard.
The police who shot Mohammed Abdul Kahar apologized for the
hurt to the family.
That is one step closer to the right thing to do, but it misses the
main point. The police must promise not to shoot, kick, or even curse
at helpless nonresisting suspects when arresting them.
Palestinians
call for UN probe of Gaza killings.
Almost a million Iraqis are refugees in
Syria and Jordan, but those countries are refusing new refugees. I suspect that
this means Iraqis can't find anywhere they can go.
A bipartisan group of experts concluded that Bush regime policies
promote terrorism against the US. They think Iran is not a real
threat, just a distraction.
Chavez's support for Peruvian presidential candidate Humalla
backfired, and Peru
elected corrupt ex-president Garcia, even though many
Peruvians hate him.
I can understand Peruvian resentment of too pushy an attempt to
interfere in their decision. However, I suspect that the institutions
of the corporate empire (such as the US government) interfered in a
more powerful but subtler fashion, and that the corporate media
cooperated in helping Peruvians focus their resentment on Chavez
rather than the other side.
Fu Xiancai is an activist who has campaigned for years to win
compensation for the million Chinese who were displaced by the
Three Gorges Dam. He was recently attacked by thugs,
who broke his neck. He is now paralyzed, probably for the rest of his
life.
One must guess the thugs were sent by officials. But such a
determined man may find a way to campaign for justice even while
paralyzed.
1,800 sheep died
from grazing in genetically modified cotton fields in
a small area of India. Whether this is happening elsewhere is not
known; the problem could be far larger.
The shepherds graze the sheep on cotton crops after the cotton is
harvested, so they are not damaging the crop. If this becomes
unsafe, they won't do it; then their sheep won't die, but they will
have lost a source of food that could be very important.
The Center for Food Safety
sued the FDA calling for labeling of
genetically modified foods.
Food businesses oppose this labeling, just as they have opposed nearly
all sorts of nutritional labeling--because they do not want consumers
to have the informational basis to exercise a thoughtful choice.
How did Zarqawi die?
Some Iraqis say he was just wounded, and that the Bush
forces killed him after taking possession of him.
Mohammad Abdul Kahar describes how thugs broke into his home, shot
him, then kicked him, then grabbed him and tossed him in the street.
All without identifying themselves as police.
Several massacres by Americans in the Bush forces are now being
investigated.
Camilo Mejia, a Bush forces veteran, says that such massacres are
widespread. "This is the norm. These are not the exceptions."
Experience suggests that, even if soldiers are prosecuted for these
massacres, chances are they won't be convicted even if the evidence is
strong. Of course, most massacres leave no suitable evidence. So the
soldiers nearly always get away with it.
Veteran Garrett Reppenhagen says, "In these circumstances you would be
surprised at how any normal human being can see their morals
degenerate." The individuals must be held morally responsible for
their actions, but the main culpability falls on the people who put
soldiers in the situation where this was sure to happen: the
occupation of a conquered people who regard them as enemies.
Many British Muslims protested the police shooting, calling for the
police chief's resignation, and denouncing the prime minister for his
eagerness to support the police.
Some non-Muslims supported the protest, but I am disappointed there
were not more. The danger from police that recklessly endanger the
public is not limited to Muslims.
Solid evidence has appeared of another massacre by the Bush forces.
For any given instance of killing civilians, it is very unlikely for
clear evidence to appear. Therefore, we must regard the cases for
which we find proof as a small sample of a frequent practice.
Amnesty International rebuked Israel for its practices
that systematically kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Israel kills large numbers of Palestinians as "retaliation"
for the killing of few Israelis. Palestinians say their
attacks are "retaliation" too, and Sharon used to do
things that would instigate such "retaliation" whenever
there wasn't enough Palestinian violence to suit his political
intentions.
Not everyone in Israel is content with this situation.
When Amir Peretz became head of the Labor Party, he gave a speech
that suggested things would change. By accepting the Defense
Ministry, he put himself in a situation where he cannot change
anything but details, and where he will inevitably be under
pressure to show he is not "soft". I think it was a bad mistake.
Just a few weeks ago, the Israeli forces killed a Palestinian leader
by
shooting a missile at him in a crowded street. Predictably, there
were other casualties--five in one family. A little girl was
paralyzed for life. And it gets worse...
Is this any less evil than bombing a bus?
Lebanese who went to Iraq to fight the Bush forces are returning home
as Islamic radicals.
A leading Turkish writer, Perihan Magden,
faces criminal charges for
writing about conscientious objection.
After dozens of attempts,
some Guantanamo inmates succeeded in escape
through suicide.
The Bush regime describes this as "PR", because their killings and
torture are meant as public statements. It is possible that these men
did intend their deaths as a statement. However, committing suicide
as a public statement demonstrates great sincerity, precisely because
of the high cost the speaker must pay. The Bush regime's officials
pay for lies with money and the lives of other people. For them,
talk is cheap.
The Occupiers and the Worsening Plight of Iraqi Gays.
A Sea of Sand Is Threatening China's Heart.
The FBI has no hard evidence connecting Osama bin Laden to the 9/11
attacks--no basis to press charges against him, for instance.
Interesting that Bush had enough evidence to start a war.
Comments on Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse.
The Bushmen will try to make a great victory out of Al-Zarqawi's
death, just as they tried to make him out as the leader of the Iraqi
resistance. But he wasn't, and they will now have to invent another
"fanatical leader" to blame for the Iraqi resistance.
One statement in the article calls for clarification: attacking
recruits for Bush's police forces is not the same thing as "killing
Shi'a", even if those recruits happen to be Shi'ite. Iraqis who want
to join the Bush forces are collaborators, not bystanders.
Switching from oil to biofuels can damage the environment if these
biofuels are not produced sustainably.
A prize-winning film about the IRA and the British occupation of
Ireland in 1920 has
an unpleasant lesson for Britain today. A series
of critics have denounced the film without having seen it.
A former law lord denounced the UK's post-9/11 anti-terror laws,
saying they attack civil liberties and do not contribute to safety.
The danger from terrorism in the UK today is small compared to the
danger of terrorism in the 1970s and 80s. Such a small danger
cannot justify painful measures.
Republican talk radio host
says Bush may be the worst president
in US history.
I don't agree with that host's political ideas, but at least
he has the integrity to condemn lies.
Lieutenant Watada
has refused to go to Iraq, saying that the
occupation is illegal. He faces the threat of prison.
I consider him a hero.
Iraqi women are being attacked, even killed, by religious fanatics
for not dressing and acting as the fanatics demand.
Bush did not plan for this, but it was his conquest, creating a
situation where political Islam was a central part of opposition to
his occupation of Iraq, that paved the way for it.
Greg Palast traces the rise of Islamic fanatics in the Iraqi
resistance to the Bush regime's determination to take Iraq's oil.
The US has adopted a law
prohibiting protests in the vicinity of
national cemetaries -- a direct attack on freedom of speech.
The name of this law is the "Fallen Heroes Act", but
"Fallen Freedom Act" would be more fitting.
UK police
apologized for the upheaval caused by the raid where they
shot an unarmed man in his home. It appears they have not yet
apologized for shooting him, however.
Their apology is a false one because it doesn't admit doing anything
wrong. It is really just an attempt to silence the complaints.
Britons should reject government calls to "pull together" for
increased police power. They should insist that the government join
them in pulling together for the human rights of all Britons.
The Iraqi prime minister accused the Bush forces of killing civilians daily.
I'm surprised that the Iraqi government officials are showing this
much independence. Perhaps Iraqi democracy is not 100% sham.
However, given that nearly all Iraqis want the Bush forces out,
Iraqi democracy is mostly sham as long as it doesn't order them
to leave.
The House of Representatives rejected network neutrality.
This decision was the result of a lobbying battle between two groups
of companies. No matter which side had won, for decisions to be
made in this way is a failure of democracy.
A Russian human rights group has found proof that Russia operated a
Bush-style torture center in Chechnya. (The Russian government denies
this.)
A Palestinian family was killed on the beach by artillery fire.
We should not forget that the supposed justification for Israel's
checkpoints and wall, which divide Palestinians from their fields,
workplaces, schools, hospitals, and relatives, and for the financial
blockade of Palestine, is to prevent massacres like this. However, in
point of fact, nearly all the massacres in the region are massacres of
Palestinians.
The US canceled international talks on paying Palestinian Authority
employees, supporting Israel's starvation policy.
Chinese leaders are on trial in Spain, for killing and torturing
Tibetans and others.
Four Egyptian bloggers remain in prison for supporting
freedom of speech. They have been tortured.
Do you think the Bush regime is pressuring Egypt to stop this?
Or does it encourage the practice of torture, so as to have a place
to send prisoners?
Was the 2004 Election Stolen? by Robert Kennedy, Jr.
NASA has canceled or delayed various satellites that would provide
information about global warming. That will help Bush and his
corporate masters deny global warming.
Since global warming is likely to kill far more than 6 million people,
I think that global warming denial is akin to holocaust denial.
The borders of the tropics have advanced 140 miles away from the equator
in the past 25 years -- an effect of global warming.
(Does anyone know precisely how "the tropics" are defined?)
The cleric abducted in Italy by the CIA was "tortured from the moment
of seizure".
Robert Fisk writes about the
histories of some Palestinian
refugees who went to Iraq to fight, including suicide bombers.
Islamic fanaticism is dangerous; if today it fights to free a country
from murderous foreign occupation, tomorrow it could be turned against
women's rights, or unbelievers, or even other Muslims. However, any
situation where there is a just cause that Islamic fanatics can
support tends to encourage fanaticism.
Big Brother's next method for tracking the public's activities:
through social networking web sites.
Some British soldiers in the Bush forces killed a teenage looter--by
forcing him into the river, where he drowned.
They were actually
put on trial in a military court, which exonerated them.
Even when killing and cruelty are acknowledged, they are not punished.
The only way to stop the Bush forces from massacring civilians is to get
them out of Iraq.
Large protests attend Ukraine's welcome to US military bases,
which many Ukrainians don't like. The protest movement gets
support from Russia, which is taking a leaf from the US book.
6,000 corpses have been brought to the Baghdad morgue this year, and
it's
only 5 months into the year.
UK police shot a defenseless, unarmed "terror suspect" in his home.
He did not know they were police; he went downstairs after hearing
noises made by intruders in his house, and was shot. Fortunately he
lived, and will be able to denounce the police.
If the police had evidence he was preparing violence, they had grounds
to get a warrant and search the house, and perhaps to arrest him as
well. But there's no excuse for shooting unarmed people who are not
resisting.
Nonetheless,
Blair endorsed the police raid 101%. The shooting gives
him a chance to show how callous he is.
The Somali Islamists have captured Mogadishu
from the US-supported warlords.
Violating a UN arms embargo would not bother Bush, nor working with
the government of Ethiopia, which has put the opposition leaders on
trial for treason. That's what Bush calls "freedom and democracy".
Shirin Ebadi calls for real democracy in Iran as the solution to
various problems, including the nuclear crisis. Meanwhile, she
criticizes the US for its double standard in how it treats Iran and
Pakistan.
Two NYC police detectives have been
convicted of assassinations for the
Mafia.
To kill for organized crime is egregious for police in the US, but
lesser forms of cooperation between them are widespread. And police
typically stick together like mafiosi when one of them is caught in a
crime. Don't be led astray by the presumption that police testifying
against someone in court are less likely to lie than than the
defendant.
In Argentina,
more resistance against water privatization and its attendant
rip-offs.
Workers Face
Growing Violence for Demanding Rights.
Israel is trying to starve the
population of Gaza into submission.
Dick Marty's report says that several European countries have actively cooperated with CIA
torture flights, while others intentionally turned a blind eye to them.
Several European governments have denounced the accusations as "not
based on clear facts". If the facts are not clear, it is because
those governments have
blocked further investigation.
The Case of the Missing $21
Billion--Who's Following the Iraq Money?
(Nobody: the Bush regime decided to block the investigation, and then
cover up the fact that it was blocked.)
Many Pakistanis in the UK are now afraid the police will randomly arrest
or
shoot them.
The Ohio Secretary of State is running for governor,
and while doing so, is running the election in a way designed to
sabotage democratic voters.
Alaska
recriminalized marijuana, disregarding its Supreme Court's ruling.
The ACLU has sued to overturn the law.
Iraqi Leaders Assail U.S. on Civilian Deaths.
Nuclear reactor lobbyists bought access to Labor Party leaders with gifts.
No wonder Blair is now pushing nuclear power.
Uri Avnery: Meeting Hamas
Prejudice is killing Aids victims, warns Annan.
Waiters in a New York Chinese restaurant, and their union, have won a victory
over a restaurant that often refused to pay their wages and took their tips.
Union efforts are improving working conditions at many restaurants.
Banks are holding back efforts to conserve energy, failing to lend
money for conservation projects that would pay for themselves quickly
through savings in fuel.
When Cheney showed favor to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan immediately
after criticizing Russia for its lack of human rights and democracy,
the hypocrisy of the juxtaposition was so blatant that even the
corporate took note. What is behind this?
The US is aiding murderous warlords in Somalia to fight against an
equally murderous Taliban-like group. However, it isn't succeeding,
and meanwhile the strategy seems to kill mostly civilians.
The pope visited Auschwitz, and gave a speech designed to say that the
majority of Germans at the time were not to blame for the mass murder
of Jews and others. I refer people to the book "Hitler's Willing
Executioners".
Günter Grass condemns Bush, just as he condemns all dictators.
The Continuing Adventures of Private Infringer
The Bush regime concluded its troops were not at fault when they
killed a bunch of Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi prime minister says
this was a whitewash.
The Bush regime is working on new biological weapons,
which could start a new bio arms race.
The police raid that seized the web servers of a BitTorrent site, an
anti-copyright political organization, and many other organizations
and companies at the same hosting site, broke Swedish law in numerous
ways, aside from having no legal basis in the first place.
Carefully limited legalization of heroin in Zurich resulted in an 80%
drop in use of heroin there.
I am sure it reduced the number of people suffering imprisonment, too.
Marines will face charges for shooting civilians in Haditha.
The Swedish police seized the world's largest Bit-Torrent tracker
site, apparently at the behest of the Bush regime.
I understand the spirit of defiance that motivated the site's
operators to call it "pirate", but I think that is a bad mistake. The
term "pirate" presumes that sharing is the moral equivalent of
attacking a ship. Well, they're not equivalent, and we shouldn't let
that assumption pass unquestioned.
Names aside, I like the spirit of the Pirate Party, and I would
support it except for one grave and ironic error: in the area of
software, their policy of limiting copyright to 5 years would
backfire, hurting free software without helping the users.
Copyleft is based on copyright, so its effectiveness as a defense for
the user's freedom would be undermined if copyright for software is
reduced in a simple way. Meanwhile, most proprietary software
developers use EULAs, not just copyright, so this change would not
hamper them at all.
Reducing the length of copyright to 5 years is a good idea, but in
order for this to have right results in the software field, it needs
to be accompanied by a requirement to put the source code in escrow
for public domain release 5 years later. It won't do you much good if
a binary from 5 years ago is in the public domain, but you still can't
change it. And if its developer put in a time bomb, it might not run
at all.
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms
children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases
which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are
horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
[Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people
who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects.
These conversations
eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and
adults should not do it.]
As the Egyptian government arrests protestors and opposition bloggers,
it denounces the US for criticizing this crackdown.
But wait a minute--didn't Egypt get the idea of calling opposition
"terrorists" from the US?
Congress has passed a law that nearly eliminates environmental review
for building pipelines and electric power lines through national parks.
This follows the basic policy of giving priority to business over all else.
The Taliban become Pakistan's instrument to control Afghanistan once again.
A Pentagon investigation into the killing of refugees during the
Korean War denied the orders that the soldiers had received.
The claim that North Korean commandos had infiltrated groups of
refugees, and that it was necessary to shoot to keep them from
crossing the UN lines, was stated publicly decades ago, so I don't see
why the Pentagon would want to deny it now. Does anyone know if it
really happened, and what evidence there was for it at the time?
If it did happen (or if the UN forces had good reason to believe so),
why not cite it now as the reason, rather than lying?
America: failed state.
A hoax video in which an impostor pretends to be a Bush forces soldier
confessing to atrocities has been picked up as a tool to discredit
real evidence of real atrocities. Some wonder if this was an
intentional Bush regime disinformation campaign.
A defense witness in the trial of Saddam Hussein says that
the prosecution tried to bribe and threaten him.
Who are the enemies of Palestinian democracy?
Bush vs 1984: a point by point comparison.
Bush vs Haditha: a point-by-point comparison.
Iraq veterans fear they will be shunned by Americans just as many
Vietnam veterans were shunned.
There is a lot more of an ethical reason to criticize Iraq veterans
than Vietnam veterans--most of the latter were conscripts, but the former
all volunteered to join the armed forces.
I think that any Iraq veteran who wants to be treated as a hero should
do something heroic, such as joining Iraq Veterans Against the War.
If they claim they didn't know what they were getting into before they
did it, they ought to know by now. If they stand by these wrongs,
they have no excuse.
Another Republican dirty trick: jamming Democrats' phones
on election day.
Cheney's men have been systematically studying proposed legislation
looking for anything that might limit the autocratic power he believes
presidents should have.
Some large investors in ExxonMobil, including pension funds, have
criticized the company's management for failing to recognize the
danger of global warming.
I think that a real solution to the problem of the wrongdoing
of companies such as ExxonMobil is to eliminate the management's
excuse -- the principle of "fiduciary responsibility" which exempts
management from all responsibility other than to make the company rich.
Air pollution during pregnancy can cause permanent mental retardation
for child.
Leaking radioactive waste (from a storage dump that supposedly would
not leak at all) threatens to contaminate the vineyards from which
champagne is made.
Gush Shalom says:
How the US is establishing a police state -- in many ways at once.
10 signs of an impending police state.
Support Amnesty International's campaign against Internet censorship.
Amnesty International says,
Israeli soldiers, police and
settlers who committed unlawful killings, ill-treatment and other
attacks against Palestinians and their property commonly did so with
impunity. Investigations are rare, as were prosecutions of the
perpetrators, which in most cases did not lead to convictions.
By contrast, Israel used all means at its disposal, including
assassinations, collective punishment and other measures that violate
international law, against Palestinians who carried out attacks against
Israelis or who were suspected of direct or indirect involvement in such
attacks.
Here's the full report.
This is why I do not accept "self defense" as a justification for
Israeli policy. By any even-handed standard, Israel's crimes are
greater, so the Palestinians are the ones who can plead "self
defense". The Israeli state (like any other) has a duty to protect
its citizens from attacks by foreigners, and likewise a duty to
protect foreigners from attacks by its citizens. Using the
former duty as an excuse to disregard the latter duty is culpable.
A committee of MPs say that the Blair government is covering up
possible CIA torture flights by refusing to look into the matter.
Oil companies are still putting lies on TV about global warming.
The Bush regime has joined corporate America in producing propaganda
videos for US TV stations to broadcast as "news".
A victory for on-line journalists who published what Apple did
not want the public to know.
The Yangtze River may be completely dead in 5 years due to industrial
waste. Then the inhabitants of 200 nearby cities would lose their
source of drinking water.
President Toledo of Peru accused Chavez of "interfering" in Peru's
presidential election. (Chavez endorsed the candidate that Toledo does
not like.)
A few years ago, Microsoft paid Toledo's government not to adopt a law
preferring free software. On a bigger scale, Toledo's government has
negotiated a new "free trade" treaty with the US, sacrificing Peru's
sovereignty and democracy. Chavez is clearly right in saying that
Toledo is subordinate to US interests. Probably Garcia will be, too.
I hope Peruvians, and the OAS, will recognize that it is the US,
not Venezuela, whose interference in Peruvian affairs is dangerous.
The European Union's high court voided the EU's agreement
to violate its data protection laws at the demand of the US.
I hope that some politicians in Europe use this opportunity
for nationalistic opposition to US bullying.
Genetically engineered papaya
contaminated an organic papaya farm
in Hawai'i, ruining its crop.
The fact that the engineered genes spread where humans didn't want
them shows that this technology (at least when used in plants) is not
fully under human control. It must therefore be treated with distrust.
Blair's private ideas don't always agree with Bush,
but when he gives
a speech in public, he won't contradict his boss.
Some
chemicals used in making Teflon and Scotchgard are subtly toxic
to rat fetuses: when they grow up, they are infertile. They are
getting into wildlife in North America at levels that could be
dangerous. And into some human children, too.
Private water supply companies are
causing trouble in the US, not just
in South America and Africa.
We can draw interesting conclusions from the facts in the article that
the article does not choose to draw.
When these companies present snow jobs about their greater
capabilities, don't believe it. The usual way they try to cut costs
is by cutting corners with reliability and public safety. They do
things that a public agency could have done, but wouldn't have risked.
The risk falls on the public.
A $4000 fine, or even a $60,000 fine, is nothing for these large
companies. If they can save $100,000 by cutting corners on public
safety, and face the possibility of a $60,000 fine (but only if
caught, and they don't expect to be caught), they will do it--unless
the manager has a strong personal sense of integrity and public
responsibility. This is a recipe for malfeasance.
Water companies pretend that they can solve problems that cities can't
tackle, because they have money to invest. However, cities can raise
that money directly, with municipal bonds. All the water companies
add is a layer of privatizers who demand handsome profits.
Bush convinced Olmert to have negotiations with the Palestinian
Authority.
Since Olmert doesn't really want to reach a peace deal, he's unlikely
to negotiate in earnest. This can at cause a delay before he annexes
part of the West Bank in defiance of international law. Still, this
delay could create an opportunity for something else to happen.
The Democratic Party used to defend working people's rights and
interests, though not to an extreme. George McGovern's recent
column
illustrates how that has changed.
McGovern presents arguments that workers must accept
poverty--arguments which this article clearly refutes. But I do not
necessarily agree with the solution it recommends, of socialism.
There are many ways that the world could be globalized, if only we are
ever in a position to choose. Various solutions to the problem of
increasing economic disparity are possible, if we could try them. But
as long as business retains power over governments, making democracy a
sham, we can't try any of them.
In Los Angeles, Cop Watch reports on police harassment tactics.
The investigation of Bush forces marines for shooting helpless
Iraqis in Haditha is taking the lid off a widespread practice.
While individual soldiers are responsible for their personal acts of
murder, the Bush regime is responsible for the overall pattern of
murder.
I am skeptical of the Iraqi's claim that the Bush forces have ordered
troops to kill lots of Iraqis no matter who they are. (How would they
benefit?) However, if they measure success by body counts, as in
Vietnam, that would be enough to convince some troops to shoot any
available Iraqis so as to inflate the body counts. It produces the
same result, but those who set it up can deny responsibility even in
their own minds. Nonetheless the responsibility would still be
theirs.
I do not know whether such orders are in effect. It is possible that
the soldiers shoot civilians due solely to panic and anger, which are
only to be expected in a hated occupying force under attack from a
resistance movement. If so, the Bush regime is still responsible.
(Note how the first article speaks of Bush's "effort to rally support
at home", as if such efforts were legitimate and possible. Perhaps
the editors are still providing a lingering form of support to them.)
George Galloway is being condemned by bigoted politicians for saying
that, supposing that Blair were to be killed by a hypothetical suicide
bomber as revenge for Iraq, it would be morally equivalent to Blair's
killing of Iraqis. Galloway does not, however, think Blair should be
killed--he wants Blair to receive a fair trial for war crimes.
When other British political figures condemn Galloway for this, they
show their lack of moral objectivity. It is a double standard to
condemn a deadly bomb carried by a person (Iraqi style) more than a
deadly bomb dropped by an airplane (Bush or Blair style). It is a
double standard to condemn an enemy for (hypothetically) bombing your
leaders when your side has in fact tried to bomb their leaders. It is
a double standard to condemn terrorism only when it is not carried out
by the organized army of a state.
Those who start a war are not entitled to get huffy because the victim
fights back. Nonetheless, they often do, because bullies desire
excuses to put their victims in the wrong. "He's scum because he hit
me after I started beating him up" is typical reasoning for bullies,
both individual and national. The other politicians quoted are
encouraging the UK to adopt the attitudes of a bully. I salute
Galloway for refusing to go along.
I am disappointed, however, with Galloway's apparent endorsement of
the nondemocratic government of Cuba.
Kurdish militants claimed to have started a major fire in Istanbul
airport. It's not nice to set a building on fire, but this is nothing
to the way Turkey treats its Kurdish citizens.
Bumblebees in Britain are endangered -- some species are already
extinct. Their loss could wipe out many plant species.
60 minors, including children 14 years old, were prisoners
in Guantanamo. Some still are. Some were tortured.
A student in the US faces expulsion from school for posting on a web
site that he was angry that the school was trying to censor him.
James Yee, former chaplain at Guantanamo, describes the torture he saw there.
The Indian government is looking for ways to palliate
the objections of upper-caste students while preserving
their plan to increase affirmative action.
Even a mass movement does not deserve support
when it seeks to preserve the privilege of a minority.
I would offer these strikers a pledge to sign, promising to refuse to
participate in the common forms of abuse against the lower castes;
those who sign are worthy of being heard.
Iran-backed militia groups are in control of much of southern Iraq.
Hillary Clinton states her admiration and friend-ship for
prominent right-wingers--which should not be surprising,
since her focus for years has been
trying to become almost
as Republican as Republicans.
NASA has cut space research drastically, in favor of militarization of
space.
Don't believe
the propaganda saying that poverty is
increasing under President Chavez.
The Wall Street Journal shows the empire's intentions towards Chavez.
Famous running shoe manufacturers continue to buy from
sweatshops. While they claim to be trying to stop this,
their activity consists mainly of making excuses.
Here's a list of
senators that voted to confirm General Hayden.
Every one of them owes an apology to the public.
Palestinian Authority President Abbas
proposes a referendum of
Palestinians on a two-state solution (which includes recognizing
Israel).
Perhaps the Palestinian Authority should offer to follow old peace
agreements if Israel agrees to follow old UN resolutions.
Bush forces marines may face charges for wanton killing of Iraqi
civilians.
Israel captured a Hamas official who commanded attacks that
killed 78 civilians.
I can't blame them for capturing him -- and it is good that this time
they didn't shoot a missile at him and kill a dozen bystanders. But
there are Israeli officials whose orders have killed far more than 78
Palestinians. Shouldn't they too be arrested?
The Colombian paramilitaries that work for President Uribe
have
stepped up their attacks on union leaders. Some have been killed,
and others disappeared.
In a sad day for the US Constitution, the
Senate approved General
Hayden as head of the CIA--and in effect voted to condone his
illegal spying on Americans when working in the NSA.
300
Egyptian judges protested for judicial independence.
Latino Immigrant Workers File $1.5 Million Lawsuit Against Supermarket
Chain.
In Blair's prisons for refugees,
people fleeing torture can't even get
to see a doctor for treatment for their wounds.
Afraid now to kill their daughters and sisters, Turkish men now force
them to commit suicide, by locking them in a room with a gun or a rope.
The fact that these killers now must hide gives these woman an option,
though it requires great courage. If the woman says, "I will just sit
here and die of thirst -- and then the autopsy will convict you!", the
threat might compel her relatives to spare her life. If that doesn't
work, then I hope she contrives to shoot one of them instead of
herself. Better the would-be murderer should die, than the intended
victim.
Wild orangutans could be wiped out in 12 years
as the forests of
Borneo are burned and turned into palm oil plantations.
The easiest way to address this problem would be for importer
countries to ban the sale of palm oil made in plantations that were
recently burned out of the forest. But the WTO surely prohibits that,
just as it prohibits the old US law that tuna sold in the US had to be
caught in ways that protected dolphins.
French Army officers believe that the Taliban are getting
advice from the Iraqi resistance.
A new campaign calls on the House of Representatives to reject
"mystery bills" which are
submitted and then voted on without time for
proper study even by the house.
I think 72 hours is too little time anyway. It will be hard for
anyone to properly study and think about a bill hundreds of pages long
in that time. Bills should not be voted on in less than a month
except to respond to an emergency, and the bills that respond to
emergencies should be simple.
Turkey is moving towards confrontation between the secularists
and the Islamists, in the wake of the assassination of a judge
by one of the latter.
Telephone companies, sued for illegally releasing information
about customers' phone calls to the NSA, are
making cunning statements
that appear to deny the accusations -- but don't really say anything.
The US Border Patrol
shot and killed a driver who was transporting
some illegal Mexican immigrants...back to Mexico.
Even if you believe that stopping illegal immigration is worth killing
people, this makes no sense. Yet the Bush regime is not abashed. It
is proud and glad to have found an opportunity for killing, even a
senseless and absurd opportunity.
I have been silent on the immigration debate, partly because I have no
objection in principle to the prevention of unauthorized immigration,
and many of the proposed methods seem legitimate. I have no objection
to a fence at the border, for instance, or to more patrolling, as long
as it isn't murderous.
However, the
latest proposal sounds extremely cruel.
The part of these immigration bills that I hate most is the
requirement for new forms of identification and surveillance of US
citizens. I gather this is supported by nearly everyone in Congress.
Orwellian surveillance is not controversial in the US, where "Land of
the Free" has been replaced with "Let me see your papers."
When the US adopted a requirement for US citizens to prove their
citizenship in order to get a job, I vowed I would never do so. I
will never again be an employee in the US.
Iran in 2003 offered the US concessions on every issue
that an honest and sensible US government might have cared about.
Bush rejected that overture, and this year he canceled another
promising initiative for negotiations.
I guess Bush just wants a war.
US citizens: call your congressman to
oppose the free
trade treaty with Oman. In addition to the usual reasons
for opposing all modern free trade treaties (they subjugate
democracy to business power), this one is likely to encourage
specific kinds of human rights abuses practiced by Oman.
Blair's police are
escalating their battle to silence a years-long
vigil near Parliament. Blair does believes those who disagree with
him should be neither seen nor heard.
The Al Capone of electricity: Ken Lay's worst crimes are
bigger than what he is on trial for.
Activists are campaigning in the World Health Organization to
break the grip of the big drug companies.
These companies use patents (imposed by the WTO) to make drugs too
expensive for poor countries. They do this in the name of getting
money for research, but the they don't bother to do research on the
diseases that kill millions of people. Breakthrough drugs come from
government-funded research which the drug companies are not interested
in.
The Burmise military rulers are responding to foreign pressure by
hinting that they might relax the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi.
They probably hope that this talk, or perhaps a small change, will
relieve the pressure and really change nothing.
The "Iraqi" government, with which Bush pretends to have "united"
Iraq,
actually shows how divided Iraq really is.
Amnesty International says that Bush's "War on Terror" is creating
more terror, and stands by its statement that Guantanamo is the Gulag
of our time.
In Ramadi, Iraq,
Bush forces patrols move around occasionally and
return to base, missing some soldiers. The resistance controls the
city.
It is amusing to see how the story desperately tries to deny the
underlying reality which is the reason for the situation: the populace
hates the occupying Bush forces and supports the resistance. However,
it shows through nonetheless.
Uri Avnery writes about the peaceful protest in A-Ram, where Israelis
and Hamas leaders marched side by side, and were
repeatedly attacked by
police.
The US public is
divided almost equally between those who trust
Bush's story about 9/11 and those who want a new investigation
which will cover possible government complicity.
Now if only some Democrats in Congress would get on board.
Torture Gonzales says he has an obligation to prosecute journalists.
The Pentagon fears that the documentary Baghdad ER, which shows what
happens inside a military hospital, could strengthen Americans'
opposition to the war.
A record-breaking typhoon hit China, and
a million people had to be
evacuated.
This is further confirmation that global warming is making hurricanes bigger
(and more numerous).
Hamas is trying to smuggle cash into Gaza "for poor people", and the
PLO is trying to stop them, effectively acting as agents of Israeli
occupation.
Some might wonder whether this money is really meant for arms. I
think that is a spurious concern, because having money in Gaza
won't help get arms into Gaza. If the money were meant for arms,
it would have been spent elsewhere.
Here's
more information on how the US has blocked the transfer
of money to the Palestinian Authority by intimidating many banks.
The Prime Minister of Bush's Iraqi government
faces impossible
conflicting challenges, and says he will use "maximum force" on
terrorists--but the terrorists are not who he says.
When he speaks of "terrorists", he omits the worst ones: the Bush
forces. Meanwhile, killing collaborators, such as police or police
recruits, is not terrorism. It is a normal part of any war against an
occupying army.
A new bill proposed in the US Senate is a collection of
all the bad things
that Hollywood and the telephone companies would like to do -- including the
broadcast flag.
Traditional tuna fishermen in the Mediterranean find their catch is
down by 80% from last year, which indicates that
overfishing has
reached a crisis.
In the long-term problem of overfishing, the families and businesses
that currently get their income from fishing are just a side issue.
But they exert a lot of pressure on governments, which cater to their
short-term demands at the expense of the future. To preserve the
fishery, so that tuna can continue to exist and we can continue eating
tuna, governments must find the courage to tell the overfishermen to
go jump in the sea.
The
Australian government worked with the nuclear power companies and
phony environmentalists to destroy Australia's burgeoning wind power
industry.
Turkish publisher Fatih Tas is facing criminal charges for publishing
a translation a book by John Tirman about how US weapons have been
used in Turkey against the Kurds.
This is an example of a broad trend: many Turkish writers and
publishers face prosecution for criticizing the government.
Here's a report from PEN observers at some of these cases.
Here's an article by Fatih Tas about recent escalation by the Turkish
government in its attacks against the Kurds--including Turkish troops
caught in a false-flag operation where they threw grenades at a
bookstore, to be blamed on Kurdish secessionists.
An interview with John Dean, who says "I fear for the [democratic]
system. And I fear for our liberties."
Neo-nazi skinheads in Russia kill anyone that looks foreign, and also
kill human rights advocates that have prosecuted murderous skinheads.
This is the tip of an iceberg of racism.
Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold.
A last-ditch effort to track tigers in India so as to protect them
from poaching has failed. More than half of the 3600 tigers thought
to live in India may have been killed already.
Extinction of tigers would not wipe out civilization or even wildlife
in general, but the mentality of the people that buy tiger products
can easily do either or both.
The Taliban have mounted a large attack on a town in Afghanistan.
This might not have happened if Bush had carried through on promises
to rebuild Afghanistan, instead of diverting the money to demolishing
Iraq.
The Bulgarian nurses in Libya, accused of injecting patients with AIDS, were tortured
to get confessions.
The proposed Indonesian law that would prohibit kissing in public, and
nude statues of goddesses, has been held up, but it is not dead.
The House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which are supposed
to make sure that the NSA obeys the law and the constitution,
are willingly helping to shield it instead, winking even when they
are lied to.
The Palestinian Authority is on the edge of an armed split
between Hamas (whose Prime Minister was elected) and the Fatah (whose
president was elected).
Basra is falling into chaos,
with one person being killed each hour.
Minister Okonjo-Iweala is making great strides against corruption in
Nigeria.
There are substantial doubts about whether Iran can really produce
enriched uranium without imported raw materials that they can no
longer get.
The largest passenger airplane ever built could save fuel -- if it is
used in the most efficient way, and if it doesn't undercut those savings
by increasing the amount of flights.
More likely it will exacerbate global warming. But this is
self-limiting: eventually there will be so many hurricanes that flying
will be curtailed.
The US government, obeying agribusiness, is now trying to take away
state governments' power to require warnings about potentially
dangerous substances in foods.
MEPs who visited the US report that the CIA admitted to sending
between 30 and 50 prisoners to foreign countries for torture.
A secret US prison is operating in North Africa.
Zimbabwe has prohibited protests about the expulsion of hundreds
of thousands of people from Bulawayo, through the demolition of
their houses.
Deletion of the fatwa from Sistani's web site
has not ended the murder campaign against gay Iraqis.
Upper-caste medical doctors in India went on strike to oppose Indian
government plans to set up affirmative action in universities for
lower-caste students.
Prejudice against lower castes in India is not a thing of the past. It
continues actively, and with extreme cruelty. As an extreme example,
after the tsunami, upper-caste Indians drove away Dalits from
distribution of humanitarian aid. These doctors are fighting to
maintain an unjust privilege that is normally imposed by violence.
Government of the people, by the flunkies, for the corporations:
how it works in the area of health care to maintain a wasteful system
that most Americans want to replace.
The main general of the US Air Force is under investigation for
corruption: steering a contract towards a company belonging to his
friend.
When will they investigate how Halliburton got its contracts?
Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines: Iraq's "decisive" six months have
stretched on since 2003.
This is a good example of a common Bush regime confusion tactic. No
matter how badly things go, or for how long, they say "Just give us a
months more and you'll see we are winning." And later they will say
it again.
Another standard fallacy, used often by Tony Bliar, is to seek to
"draw a line under" past failure without correcting the policies that
caused it. It amounts to telling the public, "Move along, don't look
at what we're doing, don't hold us responsible for it."
Guantanamo prisoners fought with guards, trying to keep them away
from another prisoner...to make time for him to hang himself.
My heart goes out to them all. I don't know anything about them; I
don't know whether they are among the many Guantanamo prisoners who
have actually fought against the US, or the many Guantanamo prisoners
who have never done so. But I do know that, whatever they may have
done, it can't be worse than what the Bush regime does in Guantanamo
and Iraq.
Here's more commentary.
The assassination of a judge in Turkey by a religious fanatic
has galvanized support for the secular Turkish state.
Russia's human rights record is criticized as it takes over leadership of the UN's new human
rights council.
What Russia has done is bad--but when the US does the same things,
it has a bigger global effect.
Tropical diseases are arriving in Canada (as well
as the US) due to global warming. Many
devastating diseases are spreading in their ranges.
US citizens: tell your senators they should vote against General
Hayden for head of the CIA. With a track record of illegal spying on
Americans, he should be investigated for his fitness to stand trial,
not for a government job.
Overfishing is driving many fish stocks to extinction because
governments and regional regulatory organizations are failing in
their duties to prevent it.
The UN Committee on Torture called on the US to abolish secret
prisons, register all its prisoners, stop "rendition" of prisoners to
foreign torturers, and more.
It is up to us to make it difficult for the Bush regime to shrug off
international condemnation of its vicious acts.
African leaders are contributing to the spread of AIDS by
preaching "abstinence-only".
Abstinence as a strategy to avoid spread of AIDS is not just
unrealistic, it is also cruel. The idea that sex is a sin
is a standard cruelty that spreads from Christianity.
Congressman Murtha says that Bush forces marines "killed innocent
civilians in cold blood."
This happens often the time in Iraq. And even more often, the Bush
forces troops kill civilians because they are afraid those civilians
might be the enemy. The Bush forces troops are nearly always afraid
that nearly anyone might be the enemy, and with good reason: most
Iraqis want the occupying forces out.
This makes it understandable that the Bush forces kill so many
civilians. That does not make it excusable. Rather, it means that
these killings are part of the consequences of having the Bush forces
in Iraq, part of the reasons they should not remain there.
The new Italian prime minister Prodi says he plans to remove Italian troops
from the Bush forces, but did not give a timetable.
A Diebold spokesman says we shouldn't worry about whether voting
machines can be used to fiddle elections:
"For there to be a problem here,
you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and
nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece
of software. I don't believe these evil elections people exist."
This is not a mere assumption -- we know they exist.
Remember Katherine Harris?
A collection of US government decisions have saddled young American
college graduates with a life of debt from which they cannot escape.
I expected the massive increase in concentration of wealth, together
with the outsourcing of good jobs, to eventually result in widespread
poverty. This seems to be how it happens.
The Great Firewall of China now blocks access into China, too.
The US Army denies that its gratis (but not free) war game, "America's
Army", is meant to influence public opinion about war or convince
young men to enlist. Now it is hyping the stories of a few soldiers
through the game, trying to make young Americans admire them.
This suggests to me a response: to present the lives of real
people tortured or killed by the Bush regime in the same style.
An Islamist in Turkey assassinated a judge that had upheld rules
against wearing Islamist headgear in government institutions.
Tens of thousands protested on behalf of the secular Turkish state.
In general, I am opposed to laws telling anyone what clothing to wear,
but this sort of rule is an exception. Islamists in many countries
bully women to wear Islamist headgear by attacking women who do not.
These bans protect the rights of secular women, at the expense of the
rights of women who are religious.
Is there a way of protecting everyone's rights?
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his ministers, who have
systematically attacked human rights in Australia, are now shown to
have lied when they said they were ignorant about corporate bribes to
Saddam Hussein.
Large protests continue in support of the Egyptian judges now facing
criminal charges for criticizing government electoral fraud and calling
for an independent judiciary.
Accusations of "insulting the president/government/judiciary" are used
like "glorifying terrorism" as excuse for suppression of dissent.
The existence of laws criminalizing such "offenses" is an offense
against democracy.
The two judges eventually got little or no punishment, but outside the
police were systematically attacking protestors who were expressing
support for those judges.
The Muslim Brotherhood, while tame compared with some Islamist groups,
does not itself respect human rights in general. However, the support
for these judges is not limited to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Nepalese assembly voted to strip the king of his powers, but it is
just provisional until a constituent assembly is elected.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have learned about democracy
from Israeli TV in prison. Now the imprisoned leaders of the major
Palestinian parties -- including Hamas -- have made an agreement about
how to pursue peace with Israel.
The question is whether they have an Israeli partner to negotiate with.
The Bush regime has published a list of all prisoners ever held in
Guantanamo -- or so it says -- but still refuses to say which of them
are still held prisoner.
Ayatollah Sistani agreed to remove from his web site the fatwa
calling on people to kill gay men. He hasn't canceled it, just
deleted the file about it.
Meanwhile, the companion fatwa calling for killing of gay women
he would not even remove from the web site.
Bush has agreed to tell the congressional intelligence committees
about his surveillance programs.
I am concerned that he will use this rather small and select part
of Congress as a way to silence criticism from the rest of Congress,
without letting the rest know what he is doing.
Blair has another idea for cruelty
Turkey arrested (and has since deported) an observer from Human Rights
Watch who was investigating the way Kurds are being treated there.
When Israel demands that the Palestinians obey their commitments, it
is useful to consider that Israel remains in defiance of a long list
of UN resolutions that aim to apply the principles of international
law.
Ecuador has voided its contract with Occidental Petroleum. And,
wonder of wonders, Bush responded by canceling plans for a new
antidemocratic low-wage treaty with Ecuador. Thus, the government of
Ecuador, having solved one national problem, had the solution to
another national problem handed to them.
The Bush regime probably calculates that the rulers of Ecuador are so
desperate to subjugate their country to the empire that they will back
down in order to. Perhaps they are--but having given in to such
strong popular demand, I think they will find it difficult to go against it.
Polls show almost 2/3 of Americans say it was wrong to invade
Iraq.
The Republicans could be in trouble--if the votes are counted
honestly. However, Democrats are weak in taking advantage of this
because they don't stand for a position that is much better. Most of
them voted for invasion of Iraq, and for the USA PAT RIOT act.
Dahr Jamail: All of Us Participate in a New Iraq.
Blair plans to push ahead with unpopular nuclear plans, supposedly to
reduce CO2 output--but continuing to disregard arguments that it
would be cheaper (as well as safer) to build renewable generating
capacity.
This sort of persistent disregard suggests to me that he has made a
deal with someone, a deal that he would not want to admit to the
public.
President Uribe's newest attack on freedom: he proposes to inject
surveillance chips into Colombians who enter the US.
Global warming threatens to destroy many coral reefs, which would
then cause a collapse (possibly extinction) of many marine species.
Muslims in India say that The Da Vinci Code "is an insult
to both Christians and Muslims".
This makes it an opportunity for both Christians and Muslims to learn
the vital lesson of freedom of speech: that they must tolerate
criticism, even ridicule, of their beliefs--like everyone else.
The EU's Energy Minister calls for a massive program to increase
energy efficiency while promoting renewable generation.
South Korea has rebuffed Catholic attempts to censor The Da Vinci Code,
but Thailand and India are still considering whether to censor it.
President Morales called foreign oil companies "pillagers",
and said that they may receive no compensation when their
assets are partially compensated, because their contracts were
never legally approved in the first place.
This article repeats the usual threats that not kowtowing to foreign
investors will "scare them away". The Bolivian experience shows why
such a result is nothing to be scared of -- since the foreign
investors don't do the country's people any good in the first place.
Saddam Hussein, who has been charged with ordering torture, illegal arrests
and killings, refused to enter a plea, saying the court cannot try him.
A person cannot be excused from prosecution from such crimes
merely because he was president of Iraq...or of the US.
A Syrian human rights activist has been arrested--though the
government won't confirm this--for signing a petition for human
rights.
The Taliban are heading for a bumper crop of opium.
Afghan drug magnates don't even bother to hide.
Perhaps legalization of drug production in the rest of the world is
the only way to wipe out the Taliban.
Former Israeli minister Shlomo Ben-Ami warns that driving
Hamas out of power could easily lead to more radicalism.
Abu Qatada, threatened with deportation from the UK, charges that the
evidence in support of deporting him from the UK was obtained by
torture.
If deported to Jordan, he himself may face torture.
Human rights groups point out that countries which practice torture
have already promised not to do so, by signing treaties about human
rights. If they are willing to break one promise not to torture, it
is absurd to expect them to keep another such promise.
Trials in absentia are also an injustice. If there is evidence
against Abu Qatada, will he get a fair trial on the evidence?
Probably not in Jordan.
The Chagos Islanders, whom the UK exiled from Diego Garcia and
surrounding islands so that the US could use them for a naval base,
have won another court victory in their quest to return home
to most of these islands.
Joint Palestinian-Israeli-Foreign nonviolent protests
continue every week at Bil'in, and Israeli police continue
to attack the protestors.
Political censorship in the UK: an
antiabortionist has been
imprisoned, and denied needed medical care, as a punishment for
mailing photos and videos of fetuses.
An "anti-social behaviour order" is a legalistic excuse for
imprisoning people without trial for breaking whatever rule a judge
chooses to impose--often for activities which are not actually crimes.
This system is a systematic attack on human rights for residents of
the UK.
I firmly support abortion rights, and firmly reject the views that
this man stands for. I would probably find an aborted fetus gruesome;
I would probably find a picture of my elbow during an operation
equally gruesome, and yet this does not convince me that it was wrong
for the surgeon to operate on my elbow. Likewise, the photos of
fetuses would not change my views on abortion. But has a right to
show them to people. We have a right to disagree with him, but we
have no right to silence him.
An NSA whistleblower says that the NSA under General Hayden engaged in
illegal spying far beyond what the public knows, and that he will
inform the Senate in secret.
He really ought to tell us: we have a right to know about government
wrongdoing, which is far more dangerous than whatever
non-state-sponsored terrorism it is supposedly protecting us from.
I also worry that the Bush regime will try to silence him before he
can talk to the senators. I hope he has left a copy in his lawyer's
safe--but he ought to have announced publicly that it was there.
A parliamentary
inquiry into the London subway bombings (which falls
short of the public investigation that is needed) concluded they were
inspired by the invasion of Iraq.
I wonder whether this inquiry address the questions raised (see
previous notes) about whether the bombs were really carried by the
four suspects, or hidden under the train floor.
Israel has now openly threatened the annexation of much of the
Palestinian territory--
thus proving the accusation that the
settlements were an excuse for future annexation.
The excuse of "not recognizing Israel" is no justification,
since Israel likewise refuses to recognize a sovereign
Palestinian state.
Israel's Supreme Court upheld a law that
forcibly separates families
when an Israeli marries a Palestinian. They are not allowed to live
together, neither in Israel (because of this law) nor in Palestine
(since Israel mostly forbids Israeli citizens to go there).
I think Israel should allow Israeli/Palestinian couples to live
together in Palestine. Forbidding them to live in Israel would be
acceptable by itself, if they could live together in Palestine.
Whether they can live in Palestine is none of Israel's business.
The US military's
accounting is so bad that it cannot be audited.
If a business were so bad, it would be a major scandal.
Compared with the evil of a war of aggression, wasting money is a side
issue. However, the lack of accountability facilitates the enrichment
of various kinds of war profiteers, and that probably relates to the
eagerness to invade other countries. Meanwhile, the point about
moving the expendature to other priorities is the most important one.
Chavez is visiting the UK, but has refused to meet with Blair,
calling him Bush's
pawn.
When Blair talks of using oil resources "responsibly", one must wonder
just what responsibility he has in mind. What does he think is the
primary responsibility of the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia?
The well-being and freedom of their people? The safety of the planet?
Or the profits of multinational investors?
The FBI is
using private companies such as choicepoint to collect
information about millions of Americans in ways that the FBI cannot
legally do. ChoicePoint, which stole the 2000 election for Bush, is
at the forefront of this.
The major US phone companies have been
handing over all phone call
records to the government, which has built a giant database.
Karl Rove has been charged with perjury.
An intentional back door has discovered in Diebold voting machines.
This would make it easy for anyone who knows the secret--such as Diebold
staff--to fiddle election results.
Computers are designed to facilitate changing the software, so using
computers to count votes means trusting people (including the
machine's makers, the election staff, and their janitors) not to
change the software. Studying the approved software carefully is
insufficient to prevent fraud, since you can't know whether the
software actually running for the election is the same program that
you studied. The solution is--don't depend on computers for vote
counting!
A court ruled that some Guantanamo prisoners can sue the US
government,
but only about insults to their religion, not about real
issues, such as torture, or the fact that they were denied the right
to a trial.
Do we need to found a church that makes the Bill of Rights part of its
scriptures?
In Basra, civilians cheered when British Bush forces troops were killed.
Bush said that he doesn't spy on "ordinary Americans".
Although he has lied outright about such things, he prefers
to tell half-truths.
What half-truths may be lurking here?
The Bush regime is starting to publicly condemn Russia and China.
Many of the criticisms are valid, though they would carry more
weight if the government making them were less hypocritical.
Bush is
proceeding with development of nuclear weapons for
fighting in a non-nuclear war.
A
retiring high CIA official is being investigated for corruption
in issuing contracts.
In regard to Iraq, the CIA showed more integrity than Bush wanted--for
instance, providing unbiased intelligence rather than reflecting the
administration's bias. If this corruption discredits the CIA further,
that might actually serve Bush's purposes.
Iran asked for comprehensive negotiations with the Bush regime
in 2002;
the Bush regime rejected them. This article argues that
Iran has pushed the issue of uranium isotope separation as a way
to make the US negotiate.
Alphonso Jackson, secretary of HUD,
says he was joking
when he told a story about canceling a contract with a business
because it doesn't like Bush.
It's possible that story was a joke but the point could still be true.
The ICRC condemned the US
for maintaining secret prisons
in which prisoners have been disappeared.
A Greek prosecutor supports criminal charges against the Greek
intelligence officers that kidnaped some Pakistanis in Greece. (MI6
was involved too.)
On May 18, join Cindy Sheehan for a protest at the White House and
Rumsfeld's house.
Bush may
try to stretch the UN charter to justify an attack on Iran
as "pre-emptive self-defense", but this would be totally invalid.
China has set up a censored alternative to Wikipedia.
I think people should refuse to contribute to it
except in ways that undermine its dishonest goal.
Shame on Google (and Yahoo, and other US companies) for complying
with Chinese censorship laws for there own mere profit!
Human Rights Watch calls on the West to put pressure on Uzbekistan,
whose government shot many protestors and put the rest on trial.
Public opposition convinced the National Park Service to drop a plan
to let private sponsors pay to put their names on facilities.
It is a mistake to consider issues such as this unimportant on the
grounds that names don't matter. Names convey meanings, and naming a
facility after someone is a way of honoring him. To honor people for
greatness (as we used to do) conveyed one message to the public.
To honor people for pay conveys another.
If businesses don't contribute enough to public works, we should not
sell them our parks and civic spaces. We should raise their taxes!
US citizens: tell your representatives to vote for amendments
directing military medical facilities to provide abortions
and emergency contraception.
You can use this web site, but phoning is probably more effective than email.
Now it's Catholics' turn to try to impose censorship--on the Da Vinci Code.
Colombia took a step forward on abortion rights--but only partly.
General Hayden, proposed head of the CIA, was in charge of Bush's
illegal spying program. His nomination is a slap in the face to the
Constitution and human rights.
Chemical industry lobbying prevents governments from doing the
research to identify chemicals that cause cancer.
Brian Haw has lost a court battle, but he says will not end his
peaceful protest. He would rather go to prison as a martyr for free
speech.
The WTO ruled against banning GMOs, but did so in a weaker way
than expected.
The WTO's mission is to transfer power from states (which may be
democratic) to business (which never tries to be). But sometimes
even the WTO is partially held in check by strong public opposition,
as is found in Europe.
Europe's policies regarding waste and hazardous chemicals are
encouraging the chemical industry to shift towards less waste and less
hazardous chemicals. The US should adopt similar policies.
Brazil has made a very profitable investment in using ethanol in cars,
which has created a million jobs while reducing global warming.
The US could do it too, if its leaders were statesmen. Such an
investment, accompanied by or incentivized by higher taxes on fossil
fuels, would help keep New York City from being flooded in a few
decades much as New Orleans has been.
Iranian President Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush is a list of criticisms
of the Bush regime, stated from an Islamo-Christian religious point of view.
The criticisms are valid, though some of them (involving weakness of
democracy and human rights) could be leveled at Iran also.
It's no wonder Bush rejected it--and I think it was intended for the
public rather than as a real diplomatic opening.
Police crushed protests in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, with massive
violence against the citizens and the press. Then they arrested and
violently injured many protest and opposition leaders.
Nepal will have an independent investigation of the king's repression
against recent protests.
The UN's new human rights body is better than the old one; flagrant
human rights violators such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, Syria, Nepal, Eritrea,
Ethiopia and the US are not on it. However, it includes China, Cuba,
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Russia, which are not particularly
supportive of human rights either.
With such general disregard for human rights today, it is hard to
envision any way for the UN to structure such a body based on member
states, and have it really do its job.
Halliburton's solution to global warming: the SurvivaBall.
The Israeli government expelled a small group of Israeli settlers from
the middle of Hebron; they had seized an Arab house from its
owners.
This is the right thing to do about that group, but it is part of a
broader strategy of tokenism: to evacuate a few stolen areas as an excuse
to keep the bulk of the looted land. We should not be fooled.
If British cracker Gary McKinnon is extradited to the US, he faces 70 years in prison for showing breaking the security of many US military computers. (That's if the US respects his right to a trial at all.)
Some say he is being made a scapegoat because he embarrassed the incompetent sysadmins who maintained poor security.
See Free Gary
Nearly 100 terrorist suspects have died suspiciously in US prisons. Some may have been guilty; surely some were innocent. None of them deserved to be killed in prison.
There is a shortage of food in Gaza because of Israel's cut-off of funds.
This includes customs duties that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, but won't deliver.
Iran sent a letter to Washington proposing talks about the issue of Iranian nuclear development plans. The Bush regime rejected the idea.
The US Government plans to put an end to the sales of chemicals for amateur fireworks.
It is possibly true that someone might use these chemicals to make a bomb--but any organized terrorist group won't be stopped by that. It's a ridiculous "security" measure which provides very little security at too high a price.
One of several nasty provisions of the WIPO Broadcast Treaty has been removed--but others remain.
There is no legitimate reason for a treaty even remotely like this. The supposed problem it is meant to address--broadcast stations rebroadcasting signals received from others--could be solved by a simple prohibition on rebroadcasting within a period of a week.
Alaa Ahmed Seif El Islam, an Egyptian activist for free speech and free software, was arrested after a protest in support of the Egyptian judges.
Read Egyptian police attacked judges in strike
Here is an interview he gave on the subject of free software.
Many dam construction projects are being blocked by the people who they would displace.
Dams can have severe ecological side effects regardless of the human population, but of displacement of people has become much worse because of human overpopulation. People live just about everywhere,
and when a dam displaces them, no new home is easy to offer them in exchange.
Gorbachov proposed a $50-billion global fund for solar energy, to be funded by cutting subsidies for polluting generation systems.
It is now feasible to produce ethanol from wild grass. This would eliminate many of the environmental burdens of farming corn.
Venezuela will increase taxes on oil companies again.
The
Thai Constitutional Court ruled that Thaksin's snap election
was invalid. (It was designed not to give the opposition time to
run a campaign, or even choose its candidates.)
An interview with John Dean and Daniel Ellsberg, about Watergate
and its lessons about Bush.
Bush says he wants to close the Guantanamo prison and give every
prisoner a trial.
This is the right thing to do, it must not be an excuse to replace
Guantanamo with secret prisons in which prisoners are disappeared.
The Blair regime got in hot water for years of failing to deport foreigners
who had committed crimes and were likely to be dangerous.
In response, the regime overreacted to the point where it now plans to
deport Ernesto Leal, a Chilean refugee who grew up since childhood in
the UK and was in a brawl in a pub. It would send him to Jamaica, a
place he has no memory of being in.
This kind of overreaction is typical of those who have no moral
compass, and are motivated only by a desire to appear tough where they
previously appeared weak.
Two rival political parties of the Iraqi Kurds, which have fought each
other in the past, have agreed to unify their two governments.
Amnesty International joins various diplomats to call for the release
of the Ethiopian opposition leaders, on trial for treason.
Israel
stopped the UNRWA staff from going to work in Jerusalem.
(And didn't even warn them.)
Israel continues killing and wounding Palestinians,
including its practice of killing people instead
of arresting them.
But
some US Jewish organizations are starting to organize
to oppose Israeli policies that are cruel to Arabs.
The Innocence Project
has refuted the evidence that Texas used to
convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham, and the result could be
trouble for the Bushite governor who had the sentence carried out
despite this information.
Bush as governor of Texas hid behind a clemency board so as
to block all requests to commute death sentences.
Experts fear Pakistan is losing the fight against an Islamist militant
revolt in its tribal belt.
Finally there is
an anti-piracy effort that people of good will
can support.
The
Iraqi Police are joining in the murder campaign against gays.
The Bush regime has released some prisoners from Guantanamo after
Albania had agreed to accept them.
It was correct to refuse to deport these people to China, where they
might face persecution. (Would that the Bush regime obeyed this
principle in general, rather than deporting people to Syria, Egypt and
Saudi Arabia to be tortured.) But that is no reason to keep them in
prison. Innocent refugees from a country where they are in danger for
their politics should receive political asylum.
Bush wants to develop new antisatellite laser weapons.
Congress is
worried about the consequences.
Fathi al-Jahmi, a political prisoner in Libya,
faces capital charges
for making a statement calling for democracy there.
The Bush regime responds to European criticism of torture flights:
"Don't criticize us, that's bad for your relations with us". It's
like the predatory family member who tries to use the relationship to
prevent criticism of his abuse.
The most basic policy of the Bush regime is its persistent refusal to
accept moral responsibility for anything it does.
The European Union is working on a directive to require many
industrial chemicals to be tested for safety. US business objects to
the plan because this may reduce some companies' profits--thus
demonstrating
their position that business deserves to rule the world.
The threat to use the WTO to attack Europe for protecting its citizens
illustrates how the WTO subordinates public health to business
interests. This is one of the reasons the WTO must be abolished.
Censorship of the Internet is
spreading around the world.
There have been big declines in child labor,
especially in South America.
Foolish Americans who failed to despise Bush for torture, wars of
aggression, imprisonment without trial, now finally despise him--for
the wrong reason:
because the price of gasoline has risen to 60% of
what it costs in Europe.
High gasoline prices are needed--forever--to make Americans move to a
way of life less dependent on burning fuel.
The
Bush forces have not really doen much to "rebuild Iraq",
but they are working full speed on a large "embassy"
from which to keep ruling the country.
Senator Specter says he will hold hearings about Bush "signing statements".
Amnesty International says Bush has created a climate which encourages
torture of prisoners--all
across the world.
A major Iranian philosopher (who appears to live in Canada), Ramin Jahanbegloo, was arrested when arriving on a visit to Iran.
In February it was Muslims; now Catholics are trying to censor a
cartoon show about a fictional pope.
No person, no opinion, no institution, no religion, has the right
to forbid ridicule!
The Yes Men: Giant corporation, Bhopal survivors need cash now.
President Morales of Bolivia has forced natural gas mines to pay large
taxes, canceling the previous contracts given by corrupt Bolivian
governments.
If the added income is spent wisely, it can lift many Bolivians out of
poverty.
Biodiversity is increasingly threatened, according to the
Red List of
Threatened Species. Around 500 more species are listed now than in
November 2004, making an increase of 3% in 18 months.
Somewhere in the US, Levi's jeans come with RFIDs tags. Out of "courtesy
to the customer", which means the store not you, they will not say where.
If you don't know it's not in your city, don't buy them!
Greenpeace blocked a ship from unloading soy beans grown by Cargill
on illegally-destroyed Amazon rainforest land.
An Iraqi refugee who became an Australian citizen, then returned to
Iraq after the Australian government said it was "safe" there, was
beaten up by Bush forces troops--who didn't even give him time to say
who he was.
The soldier's claims that they mistook him for a supporter of Saddam Hussein
is no excuse; even real supporters of Saddam Hussein should not be tortured.
Freedom of expression is in danger in Spain, as Basque leader Arnaldo Otegi is sentenced to prison for "praising terrorism". He stated admiration for a long-dead Basque nationalist, Miguel Benarain.
Elsewhere I read that the main "terrorist" act of Miguel Benarain was the assassination one of Franco's henchmen. Franco was a general who made himself dictator by overthrowing the elected government of Spain in a bloody civil war.
As terrorists go, Benarain is nothing compared with Franco. Yet Spain does not imprison people for praising Franco--which shows it is just an excuse to suppress certain political views.
One Guantanamo prisoner has tried 12 times to commit suicide.
Bush claims the authority to disregard laws--in effect, thumbing his nose at Congress and the Supreme Court.
Nepal is moving to redraw its constitution to reduce the power of the king.
Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia have signed a trade agreement directed at opposing US influence.
Rich Chinese are wiping out wildlife for conspicuous consumption, fueled also by Chinese traditional medicine, which is often pure superstition.
Don't forget the sharks. Shark's fin has little flavor, but it is fashionable to serve shark's fin soup at Chinese banquets as an act of conspicuous consumption. As a result, sharks are being caught for their fins alone (the rest thrown back into the sea), and they are being wiped out.
China's premier admits that China is destroying its environment for economic growth.
An Iraqi refugee who became an Australian citizen, then returned to Iraq after the Australian government said it was "safe" there, was beaten up by Bush forces troops--who didn't even give him time to say who he was.
The soldier's claims that they mistook him for a supporter of Saddam Hussein is no excuse; even real supporters of Saddam Hussein should not be tortured.
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Britons never never will be slaves.
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This is a good step, but should not distract us from Bush's general
policy of trashing the environment. If global warming melts the
Greenland icecap, all those reefs may be so far below sea level that
they will die anyway.
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Israel is violating its international commitments
by trying to exile Jerusalem residents who have been
elected to the P.A. as Hamas members.
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