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[ 2006 July - October | 2006 March - June | 2005 November - February | 2005 July - October | 2005 March - June | 2004 November - February | 2004 July - October | 2004 March - June | 2003 November - February | 2003 July - October | 2003 March - June | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 ]
Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean are now almost
extinct due to
overfishing, but the agency that is supposed to regulate the fishing
remains ineffective
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
World scientific bodies unite to combat creationism
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
A witness says
Germany knew that a German citizen had been kidnapped
by
the CIA.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
There is
a large student uprising in Greek universities
against business-oriented reform plans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Human activities have destroyed most coastal wildlife in Europe.
200,000 babies are born every year
as a result of fertility
treatments.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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!
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
The Iraqi government
wants peace talks with the resistance
as part of a plan to tell the Bush forces to leave.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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!
Britons never never will be slaves.
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[References updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old
links
were broken.]
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Greenland also
wants to hunt humpback whales
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
The Earth is
hotter now than at any time in the past 2,000 years,
and perhaps for several millenia.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
CEOs get bigger and bigger retirement plans, as they gut the workers' retirement plans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Three Bush forces soldiers have been charged with
murdering Iraqi
civilians
who were "shot while trying to escape".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
"Plan B",
a plan for restructuring the Earth's economy
to avoid
global warming and end poverty, requires spending $160 billion per year.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
The US military budget is $490 billion per year.
Paul Larudee:
Israel needs to promote harmony in pianos, politics.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Global warming is melting the permafrost in Siberia, and this could lead
to the
release of lots of stored CO2
, greatly increasing global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
10% of the British troops in the
Bush forces
suffer mental illness
as a result.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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...
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
I consider him a hero.
Iraqi women are being attacked, even killed, by religious fanatics
for not dressing and acting as the fanatics demand
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Chinese leaders
are on trial in Spain
, for killing and torturing
Tibetans and others.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Four Egyptian bloggers
remain in prison for supporting
freedom of speech
. They have been tortured.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
(Does anyone know precisely how "the tropics" are defined?)
The cleric abducted in Italy by the CIA was "
tortured from the moment
of seizure
".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Two NYC police detectives have been
convicted of assassinations for the
Mafia
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Workers
Face
Growing Violence
for Demanding Rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Israel is trying to
starve the
population
of Gaza into submission.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Alaska
recriminalized marijuana
, disregarding its Supreme Court's ruling.
The ACLU has sued to overturn the law.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Iraqi Leaders Assail U.S.
on Civilian Deaths.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Nuclear reactor lobbyists bought access to Labor Party leaders with gifts.
No wonder Blair is now pushing nuclear power.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Uri Avnery: Meeting Hamas
Prejudice is killing Aids victims
, warns Annan.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Union efforts are
improving working conditions
at many restaurants.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Carefully limited legalization of heroin in Zurich resulted in an
80%
drop in use of heroin
there.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
The Taliban
become Pakistan's instrument
to control Afghanistan once again.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
A
Pentagon investigation into the killing of refugees during the
Korean War
denied the orders that the soldiers had received.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Some large investors in ExxonMobil, including pension funds,
have
criticized the company's management
for failing to recognize the
danger of global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Leaking radioactive waste (from a storage dump that supposedly would
not leak at all)
threatens to contaminate
the vineyards from which
champagne is made.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Gush Shalom says:
Israel
is violating its international commitments
by trying to exile Jerusalem residents who have been
elected to the P.A. as Hamas members.
How the US is
establishing a police state
-- in many ways at once.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
10 signs
of an impending police state.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Support Amnesty International's campaign
against Internet censorship.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Oil companies are
still putting lies on TV
about global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Private water supply companies are
causing trouble in the US
, not just
in South America and Africa.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Bumblebees in Britain are endangered
-- some species are already
extinct. Their loss could wipe out many plant species.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
In Blair's prisons for refugees,
people fleeing torture
can't even get
to see a doctor for treatment for their wounds.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Bush rejected that overture
, and this year he canceled another
promising initiative for negotiations.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Activists are campaigning in the World Health Organization
to
break the grip of the big drug companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Traditional tuna fishermen in the Mediterranean find their catch is
down by 80% from last year, which indicates that
overfishing has
reached a crisis
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Here's a report from PEN observers
at some of these cases.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
Iraq is disintegrating
as ethnic cleansing takes hold.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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).
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Basra is
falling into chaos
,
with one person being killed each hour.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
Minister Okonjo-Iweala is
making great strides
against corruption in
Nigeria.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-14 because the
old link
was broken.]
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
.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-25 because the
old link
was broken.]
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 done 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.
18 very wealthy US families
have funded a dishonest campaign for 10
years
to repeal the estate tax, so that they can save billions.
Human Rights Watch
says that 600 Bush regime employees are implicated
in acts of torture
, but only 300 have been investigated, and only 40
punished with prison sentences--mostly short.
But there is on positive step:
a lieutenant colonel faces criminal
charges
for torture in Abu Ghraib.
This is good, but they should offer him a plea bargain if he
testifies against the higher-ups that must have given the orders.
China is starting to recognize the need for environmental protection,
planning a new "green city"
near Shanghai.
However, they will have to work on greenhouse gas emissions
if they don't want this city to go under water in a few decades.
Poor countries
rejected a plan for UN reforms
, saying that it was
really a power grab by the rich countries to control UN spending.
The UN's problems are real, and more control over spending is needed.
However, hijacking such reforms in order to get themselves more power
is exactly the sort of things that the US and EU would do.
Perhaps what is needed now is for the poor countries to draw up their
own plan--to implement better financial controls over the UN's money
while still allowing the General Assembly to decide its budget.
When the record companies ask for nasty laws to restrict the public,
they say this is on behalf of the musicians. At the same time, they
screw the musicians, over and over.
Now some musicians are suing
.
Since the record companies like to refer to themselves
as the "music industry", I call them "music factories".
These factories press money into hype and call it music.
Duplicity and arrogance are standard for them.
We don't need music made in factories. Let's shut them down!
Bush
was warned there were no WMD
, says former CIA man. Bush didn't
care, because the WMD claims were only an excuse anyway.
The Burmese military rulers have
started a campaign of destroying villages
,
forcing thousands to flee.
(This is small compared with what Bush has done in Iraq, or New Orleans,
but Burma isn't as big as the US either.)
AOL
blocked email to its customers from a group that criticized AOL
.
AOL says it was an accident, and maybe it was. But whether accidental
or not, it shows that ISPs should not be given any more power to
decide what mail or web pages to deliver, or to deliver more reliably,
or faster, or whatever.
Robert Fisk: the academics who exposed the Israel lobby tactics
are now
meeting false accusations of "anti-semitism"
.
As for the claim that non-Jews do the same kind of lobbying, I say
that the kind of lobbying they reported on is wrong no matter who does
it. No foreign country, and no business, should ever have that much
influence on the policies of a democratic state--and when they do,
it means that democracy is in danger.
Texaco
poisoned part of Ecuador
with its oil operations,
callously disregarding public health to reduce its costs.
Bush, responding to foolish Americans who are angry about the price of gasoline, is trying to lower the price
. I'm pleased to see that Democrats are focusing on the long view--fuel economy, etc.
Japan's parliament is planning to pass a law
requiring teachers to teach "patriotism"
. This further undermines one of the great achievements made at the end of World War II.
Bush has taken another leaf from Stalin's book, by
systematically trying to distort science to fit his goals
.
The chief of Al-Jazeera's Cairo bureau has been arrested for "
reporting false news
" (about an explosion in Egypt).
I have no information about whether the report was really false.
Furthering his War on the Constitution, Bush is
implementing a budget bill that was not properly passed by Congress
.
The Bush forces
benefit from unit cohesion
to the point that even soldiers that condemn the war
are unwilling to resist it
.
This case of misplaced loyalties resembles what you might
find in a street gang. The problem is how to overcome it.
The IRS
investigates churches that criticize Bush policy
,
but does nothing to churches that support Republican candidates.
This must be part of Bush's War on Integrity.
Iran's president formerly denied the holocaust.
Now he recognizes it
,
and blames Europe for causing it and the creation of Israel. Well,
it's a step forward.
Senator Feinstein, a persistent enemy of freedom on many fronts, has proposed a
law to require DRM on all webcasting
.
New York Mayor Bloomberg announced new
plans for surprise searches in New York High Schools
; students have already protested the existing search policy, which goes beyond searching for weapons.
Bloomberg's attitude towards searching people is that we "all have to get used" to having no rights.
Ethiopia has kept
political opposition leaders and journalists in prison for a year on absurd charges of genocide
.
They could be worse--they could label these leaders "enemy combatants", as Bush has done, and imprison them for years without any charges or trial.
There is
a proposal to replace FEMA with a new agency
that would be able to talk directly to the president in an emergency.
This in itself might be a good idea--but keep in mind the reports that FEMA is building camps which could imprison millions of Americans.
Also, don't forget that Bush's sabotage of New Orleans began long before the hurricane hit--when he took away the funds to reinforce the levees, and spent it on aggression in Iraq.
One reason FEMA is ineffective is that
Bush has been sabotaging it
ever since he captured the White House.
Alexander Milinkevich, leader of the opposition in Belarus, has been
imprisoned for protesting vote fraud
.
Nepal's king agrees to recall the parliament he dismissed
, but many of the people now want to end the monarchy.
In the US, dissent is not formally illegal--but the government has
plenty of ways to prosecute anyone
who dissents in a way that someone
might actually see.
The government of Sudan is
increasing its atrocities
against
non-Muslims in the south, as the UN is tied up and unable to act.
The European Parliament says that
the CIA has flown 1000 flights
through the EU
in recent years--flights suspected of carrying
prisoners to be tortured.
All governments should insist on inspecting every CIA flight for
prisoners, even if the flight is run by an Air America-style front
company.
It is not unusual for police to tell lies about protestors. It is nice to have a video to prove it was a lie. But it is not enough to refute the police lies. Policemen who bring false charges must be charged with perjury.
Blair has imposed a series of laws that attack human rights in the UK, and he's not through yet. Now
he accuses the people who defend freedom as "out of touch with modern Britain"
. Which is to say, their ideas of freedom are out of fashion.
Blair is doing his best to make civil liberties unfashionable.
Wisconsin is considering
a bill to prohibit companies from requiring people to get chip implants.
Egyptian police attacked a sit-in strike by judges
protesting the prosecution of other judges who want to investigate election fraud.
The World Bank
lied about spending money to fight malaria
, and falsified results to make the non-program look like a success.
Uri Avnery: on the Israel lobby in the US:
Who's the dog? Who's the tail?
Blair is planning further attacks on human rights by imposing many permanent parole-like restrictions on people who have served prison sentences.
Once in a while, a convicted murderer who has been released from prison and isn't a mobster commits another murder--but it is rare. The magnitude of this danger to citizens is so tiny that it cannot justify any harm to people's rights. The harmful effect of decreased liberty due to this plan must outweigh any good it does, simply because the scope to do good is so small.
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005.
China is accused of removing organs from Falun Gong practitioners, then killing them
.
The
US Congress is drafting a bill that can endanger the neutrality of
the Internet
, letting ISPs large and small decide what sites can come in
quickly and which ones to slow down.
The Bush regime is eliminating an internal check previously required
before launching commando/terror raids against other countries--they
will not ask the US ambassador first.
With this change, it will be easier for Bush to attack anyone he wants
to attack. It will also be easier to make disastrous mistakes, as
Bush cuts out people with local knowledge who might warn him first.
It is feasible to convert electric generation entirely to renewable
energy sources
in just a few decades
. Building new nuclear power
plants is unnecessary.
Note that if new nuclear plants were planned now, they would not be
operating until 2020 or so.
Illegal logging threatens forests in many countries
,
but activists have been able to stop it in some places.
Slavery is formally illegal nowadays,
but in fact it is a massive problem
.
Iran offered negotiations in 2003 about its nuclear program,
but Cheney et al. rejected them
.
Karl Rove's replacement, Joel Kaplan,
orchestrated a phony protest of
phony citizens of Florida
, as part of preventing a recount in Florida
in 2000.
The lone woman who shouted criticism of Hu Jintao was not in a
position to intimidate him, but she faces charges of "threatening"
him. This "riot" was designed to intimidate officials, and did so.
Yet the perpetrators have not been charged with a crime.
The Bush regime has
released the names of 558 Guantanao prisoners
. Other sources say the list is not complete.
The statement that they will release 100 of these prisoners is interesting. Though meant to sound magnanimous, it is hardly adequate: every prisoner deserves to be given a fair trial or else released.
Moreover experience with the Bush regime suggests a possible deception in that claim. I wonder how long these 100 prisoners are likely to have to wait for their "home countries" to be "ready to receive them". I wonder if the Bush regime knows this will never occur. Did it designate them for possible release precisely because it knows this will never occur? Did the Bush regime explicitly ask those countries to promise they will not be "ready", so that the Bush regime can falsely look better?
I lack the necessary resources and skill to investigate the answers. I can only pose the questions.
Blair is so servile towards Bush
that he talks of supporting an attack against Iran, even though many in his own cabinet and party are against it.
A protestor in the US
faces 6 months in prison
for verbally criticizing Hu Jintao for China's repressive policies.
She is facing the false accusation of "threatening" Mr Hu; the Bush regime equates denunciation with threats. In China all criticism of the government is illegal. Perhaps Bush is consulting with Mr Hu about how to achieve the same result in the US.
The Bush regime isn't the slightest bit ashamed of violating treaties by keeping prisoners secretly. But the person who told the public about this
faces prosecution
.
Vietnam, which fought for years to escape from the explicit colonial rule of France, and the implicit colonial rule of the US, now
begs for the colonial rule of Microsoft
.
Although Congress killed the funding for development of nuclear weapons for attacking bunkers,
Bush plans to develop it anyway
.
Various lines of evidence
suggest official collusion in the London subway bombings.
These arguments are not conclusive. For instance, eyewitnesses often get things wrong. And I don't see that the shooting of Menezes, bad as it was, proves anything about the bombings themselves.
But this is plenty of reason to have a thorough public investigation. Bliar's refusal to have one adds to the reasons to suspect him of wrongdoing associated with the events.
Skype censors text messages in China
--and defends the practice saying it's "just obeying the law".
Skype software is non-free; in general, it takes away the other freedoms you should have as a user of software.
A review of Overthrow:
America's Century of Regime Change.
Bonfire of the hypocrisies: Muslims around the world don't riot as
Saudis
systematically burn and destroy their history.
Colombia's President Uribe
is getting in trouble for his support of death squads.
His response is to condemn journalists that probe into his crimes.
A newly appointed Palestinian Authority minister
leads a group that has tried to attack Israeli civilians
. Israel says it will continue trying to kill him, even though he is a minister.
What about ministers in Israel that have organized and tolerated attacks that predictably will kill Palestinian civilians?
US greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase every year.
Congressman
Kucinich demanded
Bush explain his support for terrorist groups in Iran.
The European car manufacturers made a commitment to increase fuel efficiency, but
they have not met it
, because they are making larger cars instead.
When confronted with the failure, they say "We're doing the best we can, given our other priorities." (If they gave their commitment to fuel efficiency insufficient priority, that's their fault.) When people suggest a legal requirement for higher efficiency, they respond, "Self-regulation works better." But as we see it is not working. What they want is regulation they can ignore.
They must think they are talking to idiots who can't keep the whole issue in mind--or else, to sell-out politicians who only want an excuse to obey.
These run-arounds are typical of the contempt business shows to the public, and this is why self-regulation is a foolish policy for an issue important for public safety. We will know that democracy is strong when we officials respond derisively to the suggestion of replacing crucial regulations with self-regulation.
Bush has received the Jefferson Muzzle award
for opposition to freedom
of speech.
A suicide bombing, not carried out by Hamas,
was seized on by Israel
as an excuse to condemn Hamas while escalating its own campaign of violence.
Can anyone find me the figures of how many Palestinians have been
killed by Israelis in the past 6 months or year, and how many Israelis
by Palestinians?
The Smithsonian Institution
has sold all film rights to use of its
collections, en masse
, to Showtime. The Smithsonian spokesman defends
this policy by calling it "a signed contract" that must therefore be
obeyed--evading the issue of whether it was proper, or even legal,
to sign it at all.
The protests for democracy in Nepal
continue even though police have shot and killed protestors again.
I think there is a good chance of establishing democracy in Nepal.
Reestablishing democracy in the US seems more difficult.
Berlusconi refuses to recognize his election defeat
, and the outgoing president of Italy has decided to delay the formation of the new government for his successor.
I think the motive for Berlusconi's delaying tactics has to do with the law Berlusconi adopted to protect himself from prosecution for corruption. His law shortened the period of time during which the prosecution and all appeals must be carried out. The deadline in his case comes later this year. I think he is trying to deny the opposition time to pass a new law to reverse his law.
Human Rights Watch says it has
evidence
tying Rumsfeld directly to torture in Guantanamo, and calls for a special prosecutor to investigate him.
The retired generals
criticizing
Rumsfeld reflect the views of many generals on active duty, who are afraid his policies are crushing the morale of the US Army.
Although Rumsfeld has been in charge of details, the broad outline of what he has done (torture in Guantanamo, invasion in Iraq) is what Bush told him to do. Indicting him will be a step towards justice, but replacing him alone won't solve the problem.
Destroying the morale of the US Army is a good thing, as long as the US government remains evil. Bush may be replaced by a Democrat, but that Democrat will probably continue to support low-wage treaties that transfer power from democracy to global business--such as NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO. And the US Army will serve to threaten and potentially overthrow democratic governments that resist lesser pressures to betray their citizens to globalization. I despair of ever seeing a US government that can be trusted with its military power.
Refugees seeking asylum in the UK are regularly imprisoned for years. Many of them are now on
hunger strike
because they are desperate. But I think that Blair's sadism will not care
if they die.
A hunger strike convinced India's Supreme Court
to insist that poor people whose lands are to be flooded by a dam get real compensation.
East Timorese endured torture and massacre by Indonesian forces until they won independence. Now their own police have
copied that behavior.
Greenpeace says
that the casualties from Chernobyl have been greatly underestimated, and predicts 250,000 cases of cancer, and around 200,000 total deaths.
US nuclear plants, and the government agency that is supposed to regulate them, have systematically underestimated the
danger and probability of nuclear accidents.
Blair is planning
to drop the practice of compensating victims of miscarriage of justice.
This is a reflection of his general position that his government should not be held responsible for its mistakes.
The number of refugees around the world is decreasing, due to fewer wars. But the countries that refugees can flee to are
treating them worse and worse
, so as to drive them away.
What the war in Iraq is doing to Iraq's children.
Al Gore is campaigning again--to halt global warming. And he has
made a movie
about it.
I am not sure I could support Al Gore for a public office. He is clearly better than Bush, but he supported the subordiation of democracy to global business, which was done by the Clinton/Gore administration.
There is a report
that the Bush regime is supporting an Iranian exile group, which is officially labeled as "terrorist", to carry out acts of terror in Iran.
A retired US officer
confirms
this story.
Comparing Bush with Nixon:
two cases for impeachment
.
The Lancet
calls for more research on psychedelic drugs
,
saying that the demonization of these drugs has shut off
an important area of medical research.
Bush is
keeping two innocent men prisoner in Guantanamo
because they
"might face persecution" if they were returned to China. Guantanamo
isn't persecution?
Greg Palast:
Why Rumsfeld Should Not Resign.
One of Macchiavelli's suggestions for how princes
should deal with conquered countries is to appoint a governor
who would be nasty, and crush all resistance; then sack him
and cast oneself as the friend of the people.
Important Afghan governors and officials
are linked with drug
smuggling and/or the Taliban.
The planned Iranian oil trading market is
not ready to open
,
and probably won't trade only in euros when it does open.
So maybe this isn't a path to ending global US hegemony.
Israel has
destroyed the crops of the Bedouin of the Negev
.
Israel refuses to recognize their rights to their ancestral lands,
so it calls all their farming "illegal".
A merger of two offices in the "Defense" Department
could have the effect of
providing a police force that
could be used secretly to investigate protestors
.
Prohibition of cocaine makes cocaine
so profitable that it finances
civil war
in Colombia, even as it destroys the rainforests there.
Israel is firing artillery close to homes in Gaza
, in effect holding
the civilian population hostage for occasional firing of qassam
rockets at Israel. (Qassam rockets are capable of killing people, but
very rarely hit anything.)
Gay men in Iraq
are being systematically murdered
by Shi'ite fanatics.
The UK High Court
ruled that the "control orders" for house-arrest
without trial are unfair and violate the Human Rights Act
. However,
Bliar remains determined to destroy human rights no matter what it
takes.
A British computer cracker is
fighting extradition to the US
on the
grounds that the US cannot be trusted to give him a trial.
The US has refused to make a promise, and expects to be trusted,
like a deadbeat that expects credit to be granted without question.
Police are fond of calling animal rights activists "terrorists" when
they threaten property. But when hunters
threaten the lives of reporters
who want to film the treatment of animals, what's that?
In a rare positive step for human rights, Burundi has
abolished a general nighttime curfew
.
South Park was
censored from showing a picture of Mohammed
,
showing the weakness of freedom of expression in the US.
6 retired generals now
call for replacement of Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld
. They say that the war was "mismanaged", disregarding
the question of whether it was justified at all.
Bush as usual, simply ignores the opposition.
Iran is
becoming increasingly isolated
, and increasingly stubborn,
in the stand-off over its apparent plan to develop nuclear weapons.
I do not trust Iran's statements about "peaceful uses only", any more
than I would trust Bush. At the same time, I can't see how a
nuclear-armed Iran is any worse than a nuclear-armed US. Both are
ruled by religious fanatics that spit on human rights. The US won't
even promise not to use its own nuclear weapons to launch a war.
It appears that fetuses cannot feel pain
, especially not before 6
months. And antiabortionists agree, when pressed, that the question
of whether a fetus can feel pain is rationally irrelevant to the
ethics of abortion. So why do they push for laws that concern
this irrelevant possibility?
The reason is, they simply want to associate abortion, (whether
rationally or irrationally, they don't care), with something people
won't like.
Remember the "mobile biolab trailers" found in Iraq? Even as Bush
talked about how they were Saddam's fabled bioweapons program,
the Pentagon knew it was not true
.
Canada's new government wants to scrap the Kyoto agreement because
Canada has not come close to meeting the targets. That, of course, is
because Canada has not tried very hard
. Actually trying to reduce
greenhouse gas emission might be uncomfortable.
The talk about "long term measures" is probably an excuse never to
actually begin doing anything. They'll wait for Vancouver to be
drowned.
Biodiversity "hot spots" are now
threatened with mass extinctions
,
because species hurt by climate change will have nowhere to move to.
Some 15000 people now suffer medical problems traced to the fumes
from the burning World Trade Center, and they are suing the government
for lying to them and saying it was safe to breath.
Teachers in the UK
took a stand against privatization of the
educational system
.
Many activities are best done by the state, and privatizing them is
typically an excuse for a few to enrich themselves to the detriment of
the public.
The European Union suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority,
demanding that its elected HAMAS government abjure violence and
recognize Israel
.
This sounds legitimate when considered in isolation--but it is not
legitimate to make these demands of the Palestinian Authority and fail
to hold Israel to the same standard.
Dr Kendall-Smith was sentenced to prison
, by a judge who was obviously
hostile; but he refuses to apologize. (He does plan to appeal the
decision.)
The prosecutor's claim that soldiers cannot "pick and choose" orders
to obey is flat-out wrong: military law says that soldiers are
required to identify illegal orders, and reject them. But this judge
refused to consider the question of the illegality of Bush's war.
The Iraqi puppet government was established by the
Bush forces
. Just
like the Russian puppet governments that once ruled in Eastern Europe,
this one is not really given a choice about whether to "ask" for their
"help" from the
Bush forces
.
New Orleans rebuilding rules require many buildings to be raised by
amounts up to three feet. That is
a small step in the right
direction
, but totally inadequate; sea level is projected to rise
by up to 20 feet in this century.
200 lawyers protested for democracy in Nepal.
3 of them were shot.
A new "anti-terrorist" laws in the UK
makes it a crime to say things
that "glorify terrorism", a term that could include any support for
violent "regime change" anywhere in the world.
If this law were applied fairly, Bush and Blair would be arrested.
We can be sure it will not be applied fairly.
In Slovenia,
a human rights monitor faces charges with a prison
sentence
for "slandering" the country--by reporting video of shootings
by the police.
Berlusconi's opponents won the election, just barely.
Will they be
able to undo the law he designed to enable him to evade prosecution
for corruption? And break up his media monopoly?
A jury in the UK ruled
that Tom Hurndall "was shot intentionally with
the intention of killing him" by the Israeli army.
In El Salvador
, women have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison
for having abortions, and doctors are legally required to save fetuses
even at the expense of the mothers' lives.
The French government bowed to massive protests and
agreed to withdraw
the law
that weakened young workers' rights.
Did the Federal Reserve know about the London bombings before they
occurred? There are
other suspicious points in the official story
.
Berlusconi's regime
committed one last blow for torture
, by blocking
the Italian prosecutors' request to extradite and prosecute the CIA
kidnapers who sent Mr Hassan to Egypt to be tortured.
British courts are
in disagreement about deportation
to Zimbabwe,
whose dictator forced tens of thousands of people out of the capital
by razing their housing.
Does anyone know why these people "can only be identified as AA and
LK"? Is the UK government protecting their privacy, or is it gagging
them?
The Taliban have
taken over part of Pakistan
, which is effectively
in rebellion.
There are
large protests in Nepal
, demanding democracy, and the police
shot and killed some protestors.
Bush and Cheney committed several felonies
when they withheld material
information from the Plamegate grand jury.
On the day of the London subway bombings
, a company was running an
response exercise that involved fictitious bombings at the same place.
Since this would be an incredible coincidence, if it were just a
coincidence, it strongly suggests that the UK government had a part in
organizing the actual bombings.
Iraq's developing civil war has made it the
most dangerous
place in the world
.
AT&T
secretly gave the NSA total access
to all its customers' phone
calls and internet traffic.
A new peace group made up of former Israeli and Palestinian fighters
has to brave the prohibitions of the Israeli government
merely in
order to meet.
Megacorporations are pushing for strong action
against global warming
in Australia, too.
It is good news that these private entities that enjoy unjust power,
to the detriment of democracy, are starting to support the measures
necessary to prevent global catastrophe. We should not take that as
granting any legitimacy to their power. (Meanwhile, it is opposition
from other megacorporations that has prevented action from being taken
until now, and still prevents it in the US.)
The US military is preparing
to put many kinds of weapons in space.
Meanwhile, it collaborates with NASA to spy on civilian peace groups.
Il Ducino is on the defensive against opposition
galvanized by a new
campaign against the Mafia.
The US witch hunt against progressive teachers
is proceeding
on many fronts in parallel
.
The EU put a travel ban on 31 officials of Belarus
,
including the president, after he stole an election
and persecuted protestors.
Why don't they do this to Bush and his ministers?
Another plan to impose software patents on Europe:
by instituting a
new special court with hand-picked judges for all patent issues.
Proved: that Bush knowingly lied about Saddam Hussein's nuclear
weapons plans. And then there was a
carefully orchestrated coverup
and scapegoat campaign
so he would not be caught.
A panel of scientists
ridiculed Blair's plans to build new nuclear
power plants, pointing out that it is wind power or solar power are
much more practical, as well as avoiding many grave problems.
Surely Blair's advisors know that; they must have some ulterior motive
to build new nuclear plants. Some corrupt deal with business, I would
suppose.
Many large US companies asked Congress to put limits on CO2 emission.
They are starting to recognize that we are staring disaster in the
face.
Through 1990,
increasing air pollution canceled out global warming
.
But now the air pollution is being reduced, and the result is
to increase global warming.
Could we cancel out global warming by causing a mini-nuclear-winter?
Maybe it could be done without nuclear explosions. Is it feasible to
blast tons of dirt up where it will block enough sun to cancel out the
CO2?
Massachusetts adopted a law
requiring every resident to carry health
insurance.
I support universal heath care, but this way of doing it is wasteful,
(since it doesn't cut insurance company profits out of the loop) and
probably injurious to people's privacy, given the weak laws that the
US has to protect the privacy of medical records.
The Bush-run Iraqi government is
cutting the food budget
by 25%.
Many Iraqis are poor and depend on government food rations,
but the Iraqi government is required to hand its money to Bush.
Bush directly approved the plot
to discredit Ambassador Wilson
by blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame.
Thus, Bush has become the
Leaker in Chief
.
Aid to Africa:
comparing action with talk.
Exposing Valerie Plame was
discussed by officials in a meeting
"in
Cheney's office". (Does this imply that Cheney was present?)
Soldiers injured in basic training
are kept in basic training
--even
for years, as they get incompetent surgery. They are treated like
prisoners and worse, even being forced to stand at attention on crutches.
Some go crazy, and some die from this.
Three professors who were seized in Africa and handed over to
the Bush regime give a
glimpse into
Bush's secret prisons
and their cruelty.
Here's the
full Amnesty International report
.
The film Sir, No Sir
describes the resistance within the US Army
that helped end the Vietnam War
. I wish I could see it.
A UK inquest concluded that a British journalist was murdered when he
was gratuitously shot by an Israeli soldier. His family calls it a
"war crime".
Israel decided not to prosecute the soldier.
Blair wants to "
update
"
the Geneva Convention to permit pre-emptive
war--now that the US (with its faithful sidekick, the UK) is the only
country powerful enough to do that.
Thai prime minister Thaksin
has resigned
. His snap election,
designed to give the opposition no chance to campaign, didn't wash.
Two British grannies face charges of terrorism
for crossing the
boundary of a military base.
A campaigner
faces jail for anti-war tea party
outside Parliament.
This is part of Bliar's war on dissent.
Robert Dreyfuss:
Lebanon as a model for understanding Iraq today.
The US and some European countries are inflating their foreign aid
figures
by counting debt forgiveness to the puppet government of
Iraq
--which is really a handout to Bush.
An unknown parrot and an unknown mouse, found on Camiguin Island in
the Philippines,
are likely to be extinct when humans finish
deforesting the island
.
What do Nelson Mandela, Moses and George Washington
all have in common
?
A British court
rejected an opportunistic attempt to extend copyright
powers
, in which the authors of nonfiction book sued claiming that the
Da Vinci Code infringed their copyright by using historical ideas
presented in their book. Copyright is not supposed to cover ideas,
such as theories of history.
In the area around Chernobyl, now uninhabited,
wildlife has made a
comeback.
Wild animals rarely live long enough to get cancer from the
radiation. But I wonder what happens to trees after 100 years of
radiation.
Scientists have grown bladders from humans' own cells
for transplantation into them
.
If this can be extended to other organs,
the Chinese executioners will
lose their markets
.
Poor women in India are bought and sold as sex slaves
, due to the
comparative shortage of women that results from selective abortion.
This is the flip side of the custom of demanding doweries from
brides--both being reflections of a general attitude that treats women
more or less as property. The sex ratio that results from selective
abortion is just a scapegoat.
The term "feticide" plays into the hands of antiabortionists, and its
use in any circumstances is a threat to women's rights.
Charles Taylor, who sent Liberia and Sierra Leone into civil war, is
now
on trial for war crimes
.
The war in Sierra Leone killed some 50,000 civilians. The War in Iraq
has probably killed three of four times that, by now, and it was
started based on lies through and through. Bush should be the next
to stand trial.
Argentina's president
says that Argentina's invasion of the
Falkland islands was a cowardly act
of dictators.
I hope to hear a US president someday say the same thing about Iraq.
Diplomats
witnessed the Israeli Army attack peaceful protestors
in
Bil'in, after viewing the olive trees and the wall that cuts them off
from their trees.
Many Americans would see a scandal in the DHS spokesman who has been
arrested for proposing sex to a 14-year-old girl
through the Internet.
I too see a scandal, but not the same one. I think the scandal is
that this man is going to face a prison sentence when he has not
done wrong to anyone.
Sometimes adults are in a position of power over teenagers (or even
children) and use that power to pressure them into sex. That is wrong
because it is coercion. Sometimes they manipulate or trick
inexperienced people into sex they didn't want. That's not right
because it is not honest.
But this man seems to have done none of those things. He was chatting
with a stranger, clearly not dependent on him in any way. The report
gives no reason to think he was pressuring or tricking her. For all
we can tell, he was making an honest request. Supposing his
interlocutor had been a real girl, if she had not wanted to have sex
with him, she would have had no trouble saying "no thanks". And
supposing she had voluntarily had sex with him, presuming that they
used a condom and suitable contraception, it would have done no harm
to either of them.
MI5
was directly involved
in sending some UK residents to Guantanamo.
Freedom of Expression: No Ifs And Buts
.
How unbridled capitalism threatens your health
.
Solving this problem does not mean communism or a "command economy".
There is no need to abolish inequality, just reduce it.
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, says:
Defense of Abdul Rahman Misses the Mark
!
A Just Peace Or No Peace,
says the newly elected Hamas
.
I don't support all of what Hamas asks for, but I agree with the basic
point: the world must demand that Israel stop its violence and give
back the land it has seized outside its borders, just as strongly as
it demands that Palestinians stop their violence.
Women in Iraq had more rights when Saddam was in power.
Africa is
depleting its soil
through overuse.
An Islamic charity that Bush spied on, disregarding the law,
is suing
the US government
to make it stop.
Former Majority Leader Tom Delay
has called it quits
.
However, the harm he did through redistricting in Texas
lives on.
Bruce Lehman, the former US patent commissioner,
seems to have admitted
that the WTO's "TRIPS" agreement was a bad idea
.
Officially, TRIPS stands for Trade-Related Intellectual Property
somethingorother. But since the term "Intellectual Property" is
misleading and
should never be used
, I prefer to call it "TRIPES", for
"Trade-Restricting Impediments to Production, Education and Science".
Niger has
forbidden the BBC to report
on hunger there.
Meanwhile, Sudan
blocked a UN official from visiting Darfur
.
Bush forces propaganda fed to the press in Iraq
is regularly based on
lies
, says an insider.
Dr Susan Wood resigned from the FDA in protest, after
political interference
in its decision about non-prescription sale of emergency contraception.
The need for a prescription is especially dangerous since
many pharmacists refuse
to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception,
leaving women unable to prevent pregnancy.
I read elsewhere that some pharmacists have even destroyed these prescriptions.
In Mosul,
the "Iraqi police" commit acts of terror
on two sides: for Bush, and against Bush.
Businesses are
planning to build "green buildings"
that don't produce
greenhouse gases.
However, 2050 is too late for this to be the solution to global warming.
China's consumption of wood is
destroying the ancient forests of Asia
.
Jill Carroll, journalist hostage, was
freed by her captors after 3
months
. She does not know why they captured her, or why they freed
her.
Olmert plans to withdraw unilaterally from a few settlements
, as an
excuse to make most of them a permanent land-grab. He demands that the
Palestinians agree to renounced violence and carry out old
agreements.
Will Israel agree to end its violence and carry out old agreements?
The UK is considering
putting brakes on economic growth
,
because "No amount of economic growth is going to pay for the cost
of the damage caused by a new and unstable climate".
The battle over ID cards in the UK continues
, as a compromise delays
the requirement until after the next election.
Whether to impose mandatory ID cards will be one of the main issues of
that election.
Closing in on proof
that Bush knowingly lied about Iraqi weapons
plans.
If we can prove he directly lied, will it do any good? It is proved
that Bush lied to us all about spying on us, and even the Democrats in
Congress show little will to denounce Bush this.
Bush is
privatizing the development of nuclear weapons
.
One can envision that this will increase the pressure
to develop them, and reduce the already weakened barriers
to using them in wars of aggression.
The Bush regime's arguments to the Supreme Court in regard to
imprisonment in Guantanamo
reveal its total contempt for the concept of human rights
--and its willingness to be as dishonest as necessary
to crush them.
To save the Amazon rainforest,
greater efforts will be needed
.
An Indian doctor was
sentenced to prison
for telling a pregnant woman
that the fetus was female.
This misguided law, based on confusedly blaming the practice of
selective abortion for the long-standing prejudice against women, will
increase population growth and perpetuate poverty.
The Internet approach to recycling
all sorts of things.
Iraq Veterans Against The War
held a joint protest march
with
survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Some veterans begged Iraqis to
forgive the horrible things they did in Iraq.
The facts cited demonstrate that the practice of killing Iraqis
haphazardly, and then lying about it, was widespread in the Bush
forces. One former soldier says he got "instructions" to do so. I
wonder who gave those instructions.
A Republican candidate
used a faked photo
to "prove" that Baghdad isn't violent.
Protesters outside the neoliberal "World Water Forum" say that
water wars are already deadly for the poor
.
Bush's attempts to promote "freedom and democracy" in Iraq has
given
them a bad name in the Arab world
.
If all the apples you've seen are rotten, you might be skeptical
that there is such a thing as a good one.
Bush is trying to
reject the outcome of the Iraqi elections
, which
gave Sh'ites and Kurds the power, and this is contributing to
increased conflict with the Shi'ites.
Bush's policy of trying not to exclude Sunnis from power could be a
just policy, taken in isolation. But the only reason he has got the
Shi'ites not to rebel (much) is that they expected to take over power.
In Germany,
file sharing has been made a felony
.
This is what happens when governments take the side of
companies against the public.
This article uses the propaganda term "piracy" to refer to sharing;
please
do not adopt that practice.
The German "music industry" has said cruel things to the public,
such as
The music factories deserve to be completely wiped out
for attacking the public's freedom.
The Bush forces
killed 37 worshipers in a mosque
, after the resistance
shot at them from somewhere else in the neighborhood. The result is to
increase conflict between the Shi'ites and the
Bush forces
.
Iraq has become an unstable roller coaster. I don't think Bush can
stay on top of it for long.
Brian Haw, who has protested the conquest of Iraq for 3 years,
has been arrested
, completing Bliar's repression of all protest held where
Parliament can see it.
Europe is
coming to recognize that it has failed to cut greenhouse gas
emissions
from transportation. Improvements in energy efficiency have
been cancelled out by growth in volume.
The Bliar regime does not torture, but it has now been proved to
participate in torture campaigns,
such as providing questions for
foreign torturers to ask
.
UN arms embargoes have been a failure
, frequently ignored.
An Afghan man who was sentenced to death for converting to
Christianity seems
likely to be freed
, but the law that denies people
religious freedom will not be abolished.
Pakistan has sentenced several people to death for "blasphemy", while
Malaysia makes it illegal to convert from Islam to any other religion.
Muslims who dislike it when people connect their religion with
violence should work to end Islam's violence towards people that don't
want to be Muslims.
The MPAA (Malicious Power Attacking All) is
trying to claim that use of Bittorrent is illegal
.
Sharing music and movies on the Internet ought to be explicitly
legalized. Sharing is friendship; to attack sharing is to attack
friendship.
The US Supreme Court is
hearing a case
about trying Guantanamo
prisoners in military courts.
A million people are now
protesting in France
against the law
that undermines workers' rights.
600
rallied in London for freedom of speech
, including but not limited
to the freedom to print cartoons that make fun of Mohammed. One of
them faces criminal charges for "offending" someone; I read elsewhere
this was for carrying a sign with one of those cartoons on it. This
illustrates how fragile freedom of speech is in the UK.
China has put a
tax on wood
, to discourage deforestation. And on
luxury cars that use a lot of energy.
Chopsticks don't have to be disposable--that is a modern practice.
They can be washed just like forks.
A man
placed under punitive sanctions
in the UK, without trial of
course, says he would rather face torture in than subject his family
to this continued punishment.
I sympathize with his desire to spare his family; but if he lets the
UK use them as hostages to make him accept torture, what side has won?
I think a person's duty is to make sure that terrorists who take
hostages do not gain anything thereby. Especially when the hostage
takers work for a government.
Three Christian Peacemaker Teams hostages in Iraq were
freed
by a raid by the Bush forces
,
based on information from a prisoner who was connected with the
kidnapers.
I am very curious about the motive for the kidnaping. Perhaps the
ex-hostages will be able to tell us.
Water Activists Turn On The Taps And Turn Up The Pressure.
Given the scarcity of water, I think that some sort of market for
water is needed to bring about conservation--especially when the water
is used by business. But every person should have a guaranteed right
to a certain amount of water per day, gratis.
A big utility privatization in Thailand was
canceled by a court decision
.
A play made from the words of Rachel Corrie
, who was killed by Israeli
forces as she protected a Palestinian's house from demolition, has had
great success in London. In New York, however, people do not dare
produce it.
Perhaps they should make a movie of it.
An Israeli soldier who shot a girl of 13
was prosecuted, but not very
hard. Instead of punishment, he will now receive compensation, around
$17,000.
How the Israel Lobby
shapes US foreign policy
, including Bush's
conquest of Iraq.
I disagree with one minor point: it is incorrect to conclude that oil
was not a major reason for Bush's war of conquest, merely because
support for Israel was a major reason. People often have multiple
reasons for doing one thing, and there's plenty of evidence that Bush
wanted to control the oil.
Here's
an Israeli reaction to the article
.
I learned about both from an Israeli peace group.
Israel continues its policy of demolishing Arab houses.
In the past,
sometimes houses have been demolished with people inside them. This
time, they threw children out the window first.
The US public wants its beef tested for BSE.
Creekstone Farms wants to test its cattle for BSE.
The US government says it is not allowed to do so.
Glacial earthquakes in Greenland
's
ice sheet have more than doubled in ten years--a sign that the ice sheet is starting to break up.
A group of Iraqi exiles
face the threat of persecution
by supporting
the Iraqi resistance, and calling for the
Bush forces
to pull out of
Iraq.
Bush's mother found a clever way to give his brother a gift and evade
gift taxes. She gave it to a charity,
with a requirement to spend it
on licenses for proprietary software distributed by his company
. In
other words, an unethical "product" which actually costs him next to
nothing to "produce".
Bush's latest "signing statements" indicate
a Humpty Dumpty approach
to laws
: they mean whatever he says they mean.
Iran, Iraq
Crises Converge Despite U.S. Hardliners
.
It will be hard for Bush to attack Iran while depending on Iran for
cooperation in regard to Iraq--cooperation which could be canceled at
any time. However, it would be a shame if Iran helps Bush to
subjugate Iraq in exchange for not itself being attacked.
The Australian government
secretly intervened to shut down
a web site that satirized the Prime Minister
.
The satire is
still available
.
If Melbourne IT is serious about the excuses that they give for having
turned off the domain name, then now that they know the facts, they
should turn it on again--right? They can easily verify that it does
not in fact do phishing. Have they tried to check?
The article uses the propaganda term "intellectual property", a term
that should never be used, because it misleadingly implies that
copyright law, patent law, trademark law, and various others, are
variations on a theme. In fact, these laws have nothing in common, in
terms of what they forbid you to do. See
this article
.
This event illustrates why the hoopla about "internet governance" is a
distraction. It is merely a matter of which governments control which
parts of a complicated system for maintaining domain names. The
".org" domain is one of those officially controlled by ICANN for the
US, but this did not stop the Australian government from taking away
Neville's satirical domain. He used an Australian company to manage
the domain.
The Global Good Neighbor initiative
.
Founder of Liberation Theology says:
A New Ethics is Needed to Save
Life on Earth.
The Basque independence group Eta, known for bombings of civilian
targets,
has agreed to stop fighting permanently
.
FBI agent Samit's testimony at the Moussaoui trial shows that the FBI
management was dead set against investigating suspected terrorists
before 9/11. It even blocked Samit from notifying the FAA.
How religion kills
: the Bush regime is keeping millions of young
people around the world ignorant about safe sex practices, in the name
of the perverse idea of sexual abstinence.
The US military's
top generals wanted in 1962 to launch
a war with Cuba
by attacking the US or friendly countries
and blaming it on Cuba.
That was published in 2001. Now it has been admitted that the Gulf of
Tonkin incident was faked--so the spirit of Operation Northwoods did
live on in Vietnam.
Farmers in India
struggle under impossible debts
that make
them effectively slaves to the moneylenders.
It's
not too much better in the US
. The Alliance for Fair Food
campaigns to improve the working conditions and pay of farm laborers
in the US, who are paid very little for working very hard.
Bush wants to
allow tax preparers to sell your tax return
.
Research now suggests sea level will rise 6 meters
, around 20 feet, in
this century, putting many of the world's major cities under water.
Torture in Iraq was not limited to Abu Ghraib,
but secrecy protects
Task Force 6-26 from proper investigation
.
There are massive protests in Ecuador
against signing a "free trade"
treaty with the US.
These treaties put limits on democracy while keeping wages down. The
leaders who want them are working for global business, not for their
own people. I hope the opposition drives this president out of power.
The Bliar regime has been forced to take the part of al-Rawi
, their
former agent who is imprisoned in Guantanamo because they disowned
him.
It will be a good thing to win his freedom, but what about the other
500 prisoners being tortured in Guantanamo?
Operation Swarmer--
a P.R. exercise in Iraq
.
There are many reports that the
Bush forces
massacre civilians and lie
to excuse it.
Evidence has been found to prove this in two cases
,
which has led to investigations.
What remains to be seen is whether the
Bush forces
take this crime
seriously and punish it seriously.
As the Labour Party's loans from millionaires are revealed, the public
rightly concludes it is just as sleazy as as its predecessor
.
The dishonesty of these secret loans obscures the deeper issue: how
can a party which receives loans from tycoons possibly represent
labor? If its policies are such as to make tycoons want to lend it
money, they surely don't strongly support those tycoons' employees.
Organs from people executed in China
are being sold for transplant
purposes.
This could lead China to start executing people in order to sell their
organs, as in Larry Niven's stories.
The idea of "fair trade", often seen in certain food products such as
coffee, is
now being applied to cotton clothing
.
To make this really effective, it has to be a legal requirement.
Uzbekistan has made the UNHCR close its office there,
after the UNHCR
warned that deporting refugees there could lead
to their being
tortured.
The Bliar regime has been forced
to take the part of al-Rawi, their former agent who is imprisoned in Guantanamo
because they disowned him.
It will be a good thing to win his freedom, but what about the other
500 prisoners being tortured in Guantanamo?
Operation Swarmer
--a P.R. exercise in Iraq.
As the Labour Party's loans from
millionaires are revealed
, the public rightly concludes it is just as sleazy as as its predecessor.
The dishonesty of these secret loans obscures the deeper issue: how
can a party which receives loans from tycoons possibly represent
labor? If its policies are such as to make tycoons want to lend it
money, they surely don't strongly support those tycoons' employees.
Hundreds of people from the political opposition
have been murdered
,
or disappeared, by the US-backed president of the Philippines, who
labels them as "terrorists".
Disaster recovery funds in the US
are a boondoggle for the middlemen,
while the people who really do the work get just a pittance. And Bush
has made it even worse.
Uri Avnery:
How Olmert sent the army to attack Jericho
for his election campaign.
Bush's plan to promote conservation of petroleum:
by making his
cronies rich at your expense
.
UK victims of house-arrest without trial
suffer a life of constant
threats
. They required to phone every night between 3am and 4am, and
if they can't wake up to do so, the police raid the house. Long-term
sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
The US Supreme Court will rule on a patent
covering doctor's thought
processes. The appeals court ruled that doctors commit patent
infringement "merely by thinking".
Even economics recognizes
that present day "free trade" policies
are really recipes for low wages.
I tend to think these suggested remedies will not be sufficient,
however.
Several states sued the US government
to overturn an absurd
Bush interpretation of environmental law, and won.
A European Union project
for requirements for corporations' social
responsibility has been hijacked by the corporations whose conduct it
is supposed to regulate.
It's not clear whether the Three Gorges Dam is an ecological disaster
or a benefit, but
people have been imprisoned for criticizing it
.
Pacifist teachers in Japan
still resist government pressure to sing
the militarist national anthem
, but their numbers are dwindling under
harsh pressure.
A Chinese dissident,
kept for 13 years in a mental hospital
, proves to
be sane. Several prominent Chinese dissidents have been released
recently as part of a campaign to distract attention from the
thousands that are still imprisoned.
Senator Feingold introduced a resolution
to censure Bush.
I think it is already time to call specifically for impeachment.
A RAF doctor who claims the invasion and occupation of Iraq are
illegal
seems likely to face a court martial.
The US is guilty of many violations of treaties
on labor rights.
Arctic sea ice melted drastically last summer.
The new ice
this winter is small and thin.
Thailand's
prime minister Thaksin
, who has had the police kill poor
people in the streets, now faces an uprising from the middle class
because of his corruption.
New Zealand released Ahmed Zaoui from imprisonment without trial, but
now threatens him with deportation to a regime which had sentenced
him to death in absentia
.
The House of Lords continues to block Blair's
plans to impose
mandatory national ID cards on the UK
.
Bliar was caught handing out
peerages to people who had secretly lent
money to the Labor Party. His response: "it was just a coincidence
that I gave them this after they paid"!
1/4 million French youths are protesting, recognizing that a
proposed
labor law
, supposedly intended to encourage hiring youth, is really
just a way to weaken the rights of labor.
If this law does reduce youth unemployment, in the long run it will do
so by increasing unemployment among older workers. To shift the
problem from one age bracket to another is not a solution. A real solution
has to be based on taking away the political power of business
and restoring democracy.
British MI5 officials
handed over UK residents for torture and
imprisonment
--including people who worked for them!
I don't think even Stalin ever was more cruel.
Professor Miguel Tinker-Salas was visited at his college office by police
who sought to intimidate him,
apparently because he has been interviewed
by the media a few times lately to comment about President Chavez
.
The UN General Assembly established a new human rights agency,
disregarded the objections of the US
, which claimed it was too
easy for rogue states to get seats on it.
It remains to be seen whether the rules are strong enough to prevent
the world's worst rogue state, the US, from getting a seat. and
sabotaging the agency's work. It also remains to be seen whether any
countries can be found that respect and support human rights enough to
deserve a seat.
EU regulations that pointlessly restrict generic drugs
--even in a
medical emergency. They did this to please the major drug companies,
of course.
The RIAA, MPAA, BSA etc.
have asked the US government to protect their
Digital Restrictions Management schemes even when they threaten
people's lives
.
Officially, "MPAA" stands for "Motion Picture Association of America",
but I think MPAA stands for Malicious Power Against All. And RIAA
stands for Really Intends to Assassinate the Audience.
What BSA stands for is left as an exercise for the reader.
The president of the Afghan senate
accused the Pakistani intelligence
service
(ISI) of organizing a Taliban suicide bombing to kill him.
The idea is not absurd, since the ISI organized the Taliban in the
first place, and has always had close links with it.
The Republicans are trying to gut the Endangered Species Act.
6,000 biologists are asking the Senate to reject this.
A large oil spill
on land in Alaska
shows that there's always danger
of contamination where there are oil pipelines.
The worst possible outcome
for the Milosevic war crimes tribunal.
A Turkish general has been accused of planting bombs
so as to
aggravate tensions between Turks and Kurds.
We have seen such conduct from many governments, including some in
Western Europe, and the US. The idea that the Bush regime had
something to do with the planning of the 9/11 cannot be dismissed.
Poor people in Los Angeles farm a plot of land in the middle of the
city. The city sold the land to a developer for 1/3 its value, and
the developer now wants to evict them to build a warehouse for
Wal-Mart
.
Pakistan's intelligence agency has been
accused of giving the Taliban
batteries for portable missiles
, which they can use to shoot at
airplanes.
It is quite interesting to compare the way the US treats Pakistan,
which has supported the Taliban and given away nuclear weapons
information, with the threats of war against Iran, which is merely
suspected of wanting to develop nuclear weapons.
Bliar hopes
that a 10% reduction in troops in the Bush forces will
reconcile the UK to keeping the remaining 90% in Iraq.
Two detectives in New York were mafia killers for decades.
These policemen could get away with killing because of the same
effective immunity that normally shields most police from punishment
for lesser crimes.
Burmese activist Bo Kyi talks about how he prevented the Burmese
military regime's torture from breaking his spirit. And about
the
guide that provides advice for the family members of people who have
survived torture
.
The same guide should be translated now into Arabic, to help the
family members of victims of the Bush regime's torture.
Rio's poor are being terrorised as police use "big skull" tanks to
enter slums,
where they shoot people at random
--even children.
As Congress prepares to legalize Bush's illegal spying,
the law also seems
to prohibit reporters from saying anything about government spying
.
Pakistan's lobbyists purchased changes in the 9/11 commission report
to absolve Pakistan and its citizens of involvement
.
No US officials would sell their mothers for a dollar--they expect at
least $50,000 for that.
San Francisco has joined many US cities
in calling for the impeachment
of Bush.
Philippine President Arroyo is meeting some resistance to her
practice of
arresting opposition leaders without warrants
.
Christian fanatics in the US
propose to imprison doctors
that
perform abortions.
An international doctors' campaign
condemns the US practice of
force-feeding
of prisoners on hunger strike in Guantanamo, which is
effectively torture.
Guantanamo's forms of torture
leave lasting scars
.
The warming of the ocean
is devastating the ecology of the Bering Straits.
The Kyoto Agreement
, represents the first, weak steps to slow global
warming, is too much for Canada's new government, which represents oil
companies.
The
Secret War Against the Defenseless People
of West Papua
Several members of Parliament in the Philippines
are threatened with
arrest if they step out of their offices, as part of the president's
crackdown on democracy.
Bush plans to close the Abu Ghraib prison
and move the prisoners to
other prisons.
Perhaps he hopes that torturing people in other prisons, whose names
are not linked with torture in the public mind, will cause the issue
of continuing torture to be forgotten.
As Bush falsely calls Chavez a dictator
, people in Latin America know
better, and Chavez' influence rises.
Afghan women are fighting for basic human rights
despite the Taliban,
but their support from the Afghan government is rather weak.
Muslims in India demonstrated the peaceful nature of their religion
by setting off bombs at a Hindu temple
.
Olmert has overtly declared the intention
to annex large parts of
Palestine, unilaterally.
Will the world tolerate this blatant defiance of UN resolutions by
Israel?
Many of the neo-cons who led the Bush regime to invade Iraq
now admit
it was mistaken
, or foolish, perhaps even wrong.
But although the neo-cons in a strict sense may have failed world
conquest, they leave a lasting legacy in the US govenment: the
abolition of human rights, honesty, and even minimal human decency.
Even if Americans don't vote for Bush's party next time, and even if
their votes are correctly counted, it is hard to see today's Democrats
reestablishing the liberties they have mostly joined in abolishing.
A plan hatched by Bush and Congress
would give Bush carte blanche
for spying.
Following Bush's War on Integrity, this plan is being presented as a
limitation on government spying.
The UN wants to replace the Human Rights Council with a
new body
that would be more effective in supporting human rights
.
The major human rights groups approve the plan.
Only one country opposes it: the US, which has a lot to be afraid
of if the UN becomes effective in criticizing human rights violations
around the world.
Wal Mart is using trademark law to try to silence
criticism in the US.
Public Citizen is defending the activist they have sued.
The PAT RIOT act prohibits entry
to the US to all those who have
supported any armed rebellion, including General Washington's armed
rebellion. It also prohibits entry to anyone who has been robbed or
conscripted by such a group.
This sweeping exclusion would at least have the virtue of being
uniform. It would, for instance, have excluded Osama bin Laden,
because he aided the armed rebellion in Afghanistan against the Soviet
occupation. (He was working for Pakistan and the US at the time.)
However, that uniformity will be spoiled by making exceptions. The
result is that millions of future immigrants will have to cover up
small relationships with some sort of resistance group, and will then
be in danger all their lives if it is ever discovered.
Most of the "irregular armed groups" in Colombia work for the
government.
Iraqi Sunni and Shi'ite leaders are
trying to heal the violence
between them
. They recognize that fighting between them aids their
common enemy.
Buddhism as a social revolution
against India's caste system.
China is making a push
for energy efficiency.
The Bush regime imitates China's authoritarian policies, but not this
one.
Milan Babic, a Croatian Serb general who is a confessed war criminal,
committed suicide in prison. He had
previously expressed a great
sense of shame for his participation in the inter-ethnic injustice
.
I wish I could have been there to beg him not to kill himself. When
someone has realized he has participated a great wrong, he is in a
position to do substantial good by teaching others not to commit
similar crimes (crimes which are quite popular today). If those who
feel shame commit suicide, only the unrepentant war criminals will be
left.
The first study of leakage of genetically modified crops
show that they spread beyond control
.
Ion Sancho is fighting back against Diebold
, even as the governor of
Florida and the voting machine companies combine to punish him
for doing his duty to ensure that elections are honest.
It is no surprise that Jeb Bush does not want honest elections in
Florida. What is most noteworthy of how this resembles other
instances where the powerful demand that people elect officials that
the powerful will approve of--for instance, Israel and Palestine.
The House of Lords continues to resist Blair's plan to
impose ID cards
on the UK
.
3 demonstrations
against the Apartheid Wall - Bil'in/Beit Sira, Abud,
Tulkarem
Torture as Policy
--From Guantanamo to Iraq
The FBI admitted, in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui,
that it knew quite a bit about Al Qa'ida plans for 9/11,
contradicting previous claims of ignorance
.
Conservatives held a meeting and denounced Bush, and challenged
someone to defend him. (No one tried very hard.) They said that
most
conservatives are silent because of a campaign of intimidation
by the
Bushmen.
Some of their criticisms are based on conservative goals that I
disagree with. For instance, I think that "entitlements" are good,
when they create a social safety net. However, the bulk of their
criticisms are such as any opponent of tyranny could make.
You have read about how the
Bush forces
were sent to invade Iraq
without giving everyone armor
. This might seem like a side issue,
given that the war was itself a crime. But it turns out that this
minor failure provides a perfect example of the Bush regime's general
attitude towards citizens: shaft them, cover it up, and punish anyone
who reveals the truth.
Compare this with the Chinese government's approach to its citizens.
Not very different.
Europe is wide open for foreign spy organizations
such as the CIA to
operate. The laws to control them are weak.
New Jersey is
considering a bill to prohibit anonymous posting
on the Internet.
The Supreme Court ruled, once upon a time, that the right to speak
anonymously is essential to political freedom. (Can anyone find a
reference?) In more honest times we might have counted on such a bill
to be struck down.
Eradication of the opium crop
in Afghanistan is causing lots of anger,
which the Taliban exploit.
The Taliban are being hypocritical about this, since when in power
they completely wiped out opium production, using much harsher
policies.
Stephen Heller, who exposed Diebold's illegal, untrustworthy voting machines
in California,
has been rewarded with felony charges
--for showing the public
the Diebold's secret papers that demonstrate wrongdoing.
This cases demonstrates two aspects of why I call the US system
"fascist." Corporations are so powerful that the government does not
dare prosecute them even when their crimes are proved. And people who
expose these crimes are punished instead. Government of the people,
by the flunkies, for the corporations.
The UK government is
responding to pressure to remove its troops
from
the
Bush forces
by saying it will soon begin the long slow process of
doing so, provided everything is fine in Iraq.
This seems like talk meant to substitute for action.
Ion Sancho, an elections supervisor in Florida, allowed an
investigation that proved the electronic voting machines cannot be
trusted
. The state of Florida, under the control of Bush's brother,
is now trying to punish him--together with the makers of the machines
that he showed cannot be trusted.
Florida's corrupt election law
prohibits checking corrupt voting
machines
with hand-counting.
Former Congressman Cunningham was sentenced
to 8 years prison for
bribery.
Will Bush pardon him?
There were massive protests in Bali against an Indonesian bill
to
prohibit pornography--and lewdness, such as showing a navel in public
or kissing on the lips.
Foreign oil companies have done a good job of keeping the wealth from
Nigeria's oil to themselves (plus a few Nigerians). The result was to
start a guerrilla uprising
.
Bush is developing a weapon designed to cause
unbearable pain to
people over a mile away
.
No weapon could be more appropriate for the Bush regime than one that
works by torture. Soldiers will soon have shielding against this, but
it will work great against the protestors and prisoners that Bush really
wants to attack.
Another world is possible for baboons.
Perhaps there is hope for
humans too.
The UN notes that Israel plans
to starve the Palestinians into voting
for leaders that Israel likes. That is to say, leaders who will give
Israel what it wants, while Palestinians get only what Israel wants to
give them.
Indonesia is considering a law
that would sentence people to many
years in prison for publicly showing their genitals, breasts,
buttocks, thighs, hips, or navels
. Non-Muslims in Bali say that this
would prohibit their religious ceremonies, as well as their art,
customs, and livelihoods.
It is safe to say that this disgusting plan comes from Islamists,
meaning Muslims that wish to impose their idea of their religion's
values on everyone, including non-Muslims and less strict Muslims.
Kofi Annan supports the UN
experts' call to close the
Guantanamo prison and offer each prisoner a chance for justice.
The Bush regime criticized the report's authors for not visiting
Guantanamo, but this is disingenuous; they did not go because they
knew they would not really be allowed to see how prisoners are
treated. They refused a sham visit.
I was told, long ago, that Stalin once allowed distinguished
international guests to visit the political prison at Vorkuta. They
came away thinking that the prisoners were treated decently--it was a
hard life, but not torture. What they did not know was that they had
never seen the prisoners or their living quarters. They had seen the
guards instead.
Such a simple deception would not be possible in Guantanamo, but Bush
has lots of sophisticated and clever advisors to develop more subtle
ones.
The Republican Party in Minnesota
is handing out spy CDs to get
personal information from people who don't know they are sending it.
Bush's nuclear treaty with India
rewards India for doing exactly what
Bush is now threatening to invade Iran for
possibly planning to do.
The dictator of Belarus
arrested opposition politicians and
journalists
, as part of his reelection campaign.
He hasn't learned to rig the vote behind the scenes, like Bush.
Harper's Magazine:
The Case For Impeachment
.
The Bush forces
disregarded their own auditors
to pay Halliburton
around $250 million in suspicious charges. They sure go easy
on Cheney's company.
Partial victory over Wal-Mart: it will
stock emergency contraceptives
but will let individual pharmacists block access to them
.
Wal-Mart wants pretend that it is catering to the feelings of its
pharmacist employees, to pretend that one could hardly ask it to do
otherwise. This is an absurd facade; Wal-Mart would hardly allow
employees to decide personally to refuse to sell any other product.
(It's hard enough getting Wal-Mart to allow its employees to take
lunch breaks.)
Opponents of affirmative action
used a campaign of lies
to get people
to sign their initiative petition.
I am not sure I agree that the initiative should be thrown off the
ballot for that reason. Allowing excuses to reject an initiative
petition once enough people have signed it could be dangerous in
other situations. However, something should be done so that these lies
backfire on their perpetrators.
A Turkish film, Valley of the Wolves, shows what the
Bush forces
have
done in Iraq. After huge success in Turkey,
it faces censorship
threats in Europe
. Would-be censors damn it for portraying America as
"an evil, merciless power". That would be a nasty thing to say that
about America, if it weren't the truth.
This example shows why it is not just unjust, but stupid as well, for
those who are weak to try to censor verbal attacks. They will surely
be themselves threatened with censorship, and the strong are much more
likely to succeed in censoring their opposition than the weak are.
The only way to resist censorship of the weak is to oppose all
censorship. Freedom of expression must include all views. Kenan
Kolat is right when he says that "a democracy must be able to endure
even those films it doesn't approve of." And the same applies to
Islam.
Garett Reppenhagen, returned Iraq War Veteran
tells Congress
what it means to soldiers to find out that they were sent to fight
a war of aggression based on lies.
Reppenhagen mentions how veterans feel ashamed. To some extent, their
feeling of shame is irrational, but they have in fact done something
which they ought to feel ashamed of--fighting a war of aggression
However, those who have moral courage can redeem themselves, and
become heroes, if they do as Reppenhagen has done--to denounce the war
and try to end it.
Pakistan is
blocking bloggers from updating their blogs
. Is it for
Bush's visit, or is this simply an example of the "freedom and democracy"
that Bush wants to spread?
Berlusconi is being tried for corruption, but
a new statue of
limitations
(which he established) might get him off the hook.
A Chinese democracy activist was
disappeared after he started a hunger
strike
in protest of the beating he received from government
thugs
. Yahoo is accused of having helped the Chinese government arrest
him.
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'If you plan to continue protesting about future audio media
releases with copy protection, forget it; copy protection is
a reality, and within a matter of months more or less all
audio media worldwide are copy protected. And this is a good
thing for the music industry. In order to make this happen
we will do anything within our power - whether you like it
or not.'
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India has tossed aside its moral authority
by sucking up to the US.
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Uganda is draining Lake Victoria
to make electricity. This, combined with a long drought, is destroying the lake.
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Israel ' has annexed Jordan Valley and shut out Palestinians '.
Stacy Bannerman's testimony
to Congress about ending the war.
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Bush has a new plan to help the wealthy in the US:
health-savings accounts
.
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Bush personally received intelligence information that undermined or contradicted two of
his claimed reasons for invading Iraq
. Thus, he was personally lying.
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Condoleeza Rice later lied, saying that Bush had not received this information.
A collection of phone and cable companies in the US
wants to change
the Internet design to focus on giving them control and profits
instead of serving for citizens to communicate.
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Most civilian war deaths in Iraq are caused by Bush forces air raids. Often these raids occur in areas where there is no other fighting and no reporting.
Projecting from the 2004 Lancet study
, which then estimated 100,000
deaths, suggests that between 185,000 and 700,000 civilians have been
killed by now.
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If nearly all of those killed are Sunni, does this amount to genocide?
Many relatives of dead British
Bush forces
soldiers
published a blunt
letter
, saying the war was started by Bliar's lies, and that they will
join in a protest to say this in public because he refused to meet
with them in private.
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If Bliar remains true to form, he will never admit his lies, even when everyone around him recognizes them. He feels no shame about lying, or even being caught in a lie, as long as he things he can't be punished for it.
As killings between Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ites continue
, Bush tries to
blame them on Iran. When will Bush blame Iran for causing Hurricane
Katrina?
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This article omits to mention that the "US-trained iraqi forces" are all Shi'ites and Kurds, that the use of those troops to occupy Sunni areas was part of the cause of the inter-communal violence, and that the death squads that are killing Sunnis appear to be part of those forces. Token participation of Sunnis in a "national unity" government would do nothing to change this.
Israelis and Palestinians held a nonviolent protest against the annexation wall in Beit Sira, and Israeli border police shot activist Matan Cohen in the eye . He may lose the sight of that eye forever.
This was no accident; the police were shooting at people's heads. There is a fine art to using rubber bullets to cause permanent injury and even death.
Who Rules the World?
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"Free trade" is incompatible with democracy, with human rights, with preserving the environment, with public health, etc., because it gives business power to crush them at its convenience.
The Taliban are systematically attacking schools
in Afghanistan and
people who work in them.
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Bush was informed a few days before
Hurricane Katrina that New
Orleans' levees might fail. A few days later he lied directly, saying
no one had thought of it.
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It is just an example of a general pattern: Bush does not believe he should be responsible for his actions. He says whatever sounds good, regardless of the truth. Many other politicians are like this, too.
Shi'ite families living in Sunni areas of Iraq are being forced out by threats made by masked men.
It is impossible to tell who is really making these threats. It could be fanatical Sunnis, disobeying their own leadership, but it could also be anyone with an interest in stimulating the conflict between the ethnic groups.
A
leaked US report says that Germany provided the Bush forces
with
Iraqi defense plans that German spies had obtained. The German
government denies this.
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As early as October 2003, Bush was informed that the Iraqi resistance was made up of Iraqis who resented the occupation . But Bush and his coterie insisted it was led by foreigners and followers of Saddam Hussein, and refused to listen.
Iraq's death squads, operated by the Ministry of the Interior,
kill
around 1000 per month in Baghdad alone
, as Iraq moves toward civil
war, says the UN investigator.
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The article also makes an interesting point about the motives of the fanatical Sunnis who try to massacre Shi'ites. It is only partly because they consider Shi'ites heretics. Partly it is because they consider Iraqi Shi'ites to be allies of the Bush forces . This is yet another path by which the Bush occupation of Iraq is fomenting civil war.
Corporate-driven globalization has failed to deliver the benefits it promised --to anyone except the wealthy--but legislators increasingly give it their support.
The reason is that, directly or indirectly, those legislators have been bought.
Scott Ritter
points out precisely how
the Bush regime hid its
knowledge that Saddam Hussein had no connection with Al Qa'ida so that
Bush could go on pretending that he did. He also explains how the
Nuremberg trials rejected the justification of "preemption" which was
offered by Nazi leaders who were on trial. Bush uses the same excuse,
in an even weaker form.
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Bush in India:
Just Not Welcome
.
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Voting machines logs from Florida
show 100,000 malfunctions during the
2004 election, and some show records of votes which were not made on
election day.
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