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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Congressman Pete Stark dared to tell the truth about Bush, whereupon
cowardly Democrats joined Republicans to pressure him to apologize. Thus is
the official lie maintained with Democratic collusion.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Stark was mistaken on one point: the occupation of Iraq has motivations far more weighty than mere amusement. They probably include control of oil, enrichment of cronies, and justifying attacks on our freedom.
It is hard to calculate the economic costs of climate change, but
a new report tries to identify many of them in the US. It looks like they
will amount to hundreds of billions a year in the US alone.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
For the full report.
CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than predicted, because the
Earth's CO2 sinks have been overloaded or degraded.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
A new method shows that high temperatures in the geological past correlate
with high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Some interesting proposals to discourage unhealthy practices (smoking, and
eating too much salt) without banning them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
New Zealand police arrested 17 "terrorist plotters", but
it looks like a big mistake.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Being on a hair-trigger systematically leads to mistakes like this. Consider Star Simpson, and the runners in New Haven that face charges for leaving a trail of baking soda.
An Iraqi parliament report says that the Bush forces helped a terrorist
attack on Oct 15.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
A new weather pattern has appeared in the Arctic, blowing in warm air from further south.
This is probably caused by the considerable Arctic warming that has already taken place. It will surely combine with other positive feedback systems to warm the Arctic faster in the future — making the possible catastrophic melting of Greenland more likely than was previously forecast.
Bluefin tuna are drastically overfished, and the fishery is on its way to collapse. Governmental institutions are too weak to take action against short-sighted, greedy fishermen who are abolishing their own renewable resources.
The short term inconvenience of dislocation of ex-fishermen from shutting down the fishery is nothing compared with what will happen if those fools are allowed to destroy it. Overfishing causes permanent damage to the resource, because the fish evolve to mature younger and not grow as large.
Given fishermen's propensity to cheat on quotas, merely reducing the allowed catch might have no practical effect. When a fishery is shrinking this fast, it's time to shut it down completely and see if the fish can recover.
I've been informed by experts that part of the reason the cod do not recover is that a certain amount of fishing for cod is still allowed. Stupid!
A new idea for fighting the Burmese generals: put pressure on sale of
rubies. Nearly all rubies come from Burma, and the generals make money from
selling them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The UK regularly denies asylum and medical care to survivors of torture,
then leaves them destitute in the hope they will go back for more.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
If the UK wants fewer people to seek asylum, it should dedicate its foreign policy to opposing countries like the US that promote and use torture.
The contending armies in the Eastern Congo rape women and then mutilate
them as an act of war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
If what Bush said about Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq had been sincere, he would have wanted to do something a about the Congo too.
Fred Thompson helped a dishonest mining company in Tennessee by getting a
mining inspector removed from its case.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is especially interesting that Thompson did not deserve the good reputation he got from the Watergate investigation.
Michigan residents: sign the MPP's initiative petition for medical marijuana, or help collect signatures.
See mpp.org.
US citizens: phone your senators and say, don't excuse the companies that illegally cooperated with Bush's spying.
You can also sign
this petition, but do the phone call also. A phone call carries more
weight.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
World trade rules have made farming inefficient as well as unjust.
Transporting food (and other goods) around the world in "sweatships" is also a major and growing contribution to global warming.
The California fires that have driven hundreds of thousands to evacuate
are a man-made "natural" disaster.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Global warming is expected to reduce rainfall in the American southwest. That will probably make this problem worse.
Now that the US treats foreign visitors like criminals, and has formally
denied their human rights, many wisely do not go there. The US hopes that
a soothing Disney video will overcome their rational fears.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The "Iraqi" government says it will shut down the PKK Kurdish guerilla groups
that attack Turkey, but
it has no power to do so.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Amnesty International accuses both Hamas and Fatah of torturing
Palestinian prisoners, and carrying out military attacks in the midst of
civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Both of these crimes imitate the usual Israeli practice.
A major author of the "Iraqi" constitution says that the Iraqi goverment is just a pretense.
Bil'in won an incomplete victory against the annexation wall in the
Israeli Supreme Court, but the soldiers disobey the part of the decision which
says the inhabitants can use a gate to go to their fields.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Palestinians trying to harvest their olives face
systematic violence from Israeli colonists.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It may be a hopeful sign that
Israeli police protected the Jabri family from settler attacks, so it
could harvest its olive trees.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
However, the settlements from which the harassment comes are themselves illegal; why are they allowed to remain?
OneVoice concerts aimed to link Israelis and Palestinians in favor of peace.
They were canceled under pressure from Israelis and Palestinians that opposed
the plan.
Here is a debate about the matter.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans in Mississippi prosecuted only Democrats for common sorts of
vaguely shady practices, and thus wiped out the Democratic party in that state.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The last of the US native prairie is being plowed under to grow corn to
make ethanol.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Replacing petroleum with corn cannot solve the problem of greenhouse gases. Conservation, using energy more efficiently, is much better.
Bombers, presumably Islamic extremists,
killed 120 people while trying to get Benazir Bhutto.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Putin called on Bush to name a date to pull out of Iraq, because it is "absolutely pointless to fight with a people".
Putin's regime is more harsh and tyrannical than Bush's, apparently killing journalists even at home, whereas Bush does that only in Iraq. (Bush does more evil in total because he has more power to do it with.) Nonetheless, Putin can tell the truth about the US while the politicians of "friendly" (i.e., subservient) countries don't dare admit it.
Clinton has taken pay from the arms industry, and talks about launching a
war with Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Is this supposed to be better than Bush? I do not see it.
Water privatization has been very profitable, with the help of a little
dishonesty here and there. But it has not resulted in the investment that was
supposed to be the motive.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I believe in charging market rates for irrigation water for agribusiness, but poor people should not be cut off from water.
Brian Haw won in court the right to continue his protest in front of
Parliament, along with 19 supporters. However, the government hired private
security guards to attack him, and the police watch and do not intervene.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call your congresscritter and senators in support of repeal of Bush's global gag rule on family planning aid.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and senators to say NO to "free trade" sweatshop treaty with Peru.
In addition to the evils described here, the treaty probably attacks democracy directly by requiring the state to pay if its policies reduce any company's income. It also probably requires software patents and a law like the DMCA that would ban free software to access media with Digital Restrictions Management.
Turkey's parliament
voted to authorize an invasion of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
President Erdogan is entirely right to compare the proposed Turkish invasion of Iraq with Bush's invasion of Iraq. One was wrong, and the other would be wrong too.
Turkey would deserve support against Kurdish terrorists, if they are terrorists (since attacking Turkish troops is not terrorism), were it not for the fact that Turkey still denies its Kurdish citizens basic rights. Likewise, Turkey is in no position to rebuke foreign legislatures for making statements about the genocide of the Armenians as long as Turkey prosecutes its own citizens for making such statements.
The UK police were accused in court of altering a photo of Mr de Menezes
to heighten the resemblance to the terrorist suspect they mistook him for.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is standard practice for police to lie to justify their mistakes.
Some former officers say Bush must use conscription to continue the
occupation of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Perhaps they intend this to function as an argument for ending the occupation. But given how totally unwilling Congress is to stop Bush from continuing the occupation, and how willing it is to defy public demand to end the war, I think it is more likely to use a draft.
In general, the US government deals with every challenge or difficulty by attacking Americans' and others' human rights.
FBI Puts Antiwar Protesters on Criminal Database; Canada Uses It To Ban Protesters From Entry.
Both governments deserve condemnation for using this trash excuse to prevent people from meeting. It is interesting that the Canadian mainstream media are prepared to cover the events. Those in the US have a general policy of pretending dissent does not exist.
The US wants to apply in Afghanistan the aerial chemical spraying that
didn't succeed in eliminating coca in Colombia.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
While the US government continues to insist that the chemicals do not hurt humans or animals, the government of Ecuador disagrees. It protested to Colombia about US-operated spraying planes that crossed the border, after Ecuadorians said the sprays had hurt them.
If Colombian "security forces" are training Afghan police, torture and disappearance techniques are probably part of the subject matter.
In Colombia, the son of a Coca-Cola union leader was kidnapped and tortured as a threat against the union.
This continues a long-standing pattern, which is the reason for the world-wide boycott of Coca-Cola Company.
Khaled al-Mudallal, trapped in Gaza,
lost his lawsuit to be allowed to return to the UK to study.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The court's reasons are absurd, and since he cannot possibly hurt anyone in Israel if he is bussed to Egypt, there are no valid grounds for denying his human right to travel. The travel blockade is a collective punishment, and as such violates international law.
The Chinese regime has arrested many opposition figures and human rights
activists, torturing them in prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Democrats Who Enable Bush — including the main presidential candidates.
It is an interesting paradox that most Democrats are against the war and yet most support Clinton, who will probably continue it. Why don't they support someone like Kucinich who will really end it? I speculate this is because they believe that the most important thing is that some Democrat should win. But what good is that, if the Democrat who wins is like Clinton?
The Israeli Army's excuses for killing Palestinian children reflect bias.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Sick Palestinians are forced to become informers or they are denied
medical treatment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
An Israeli psychologist has studied the patterns of cruelty towards
civilians that she observed around her when she a soldier. She reported on a
company in which most soldiers mutilated and murdered civilians, and were
callous about it. Some did this for kicks, while others did it to revel in
power over other people. Some did it as an insane overreaction to minor
threats. Some just followed their commanders' example. And even those who
retained enough humanity to recognize that this wanton violence is wrong
mostly did not want the other soldiers to be punished for it, and helped cover
it up. Soldiers who did try to stop the brutality, or report it as a crime,
faced punishment from the rest of their unit and opposition from most of their
officers.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is surely even worse in the Bush forces, since they face a populace even more hostile, and a substantial chance of being killed or wounded themselves (quite rare for the Israeli troops occupying Palestine). The soldiers whose "honor and integrity" we are not supposed to "impugn" are busy converting each other into monsters.
An Israeli resister describes the army experience that convinced him that
"serving his country" is a pernicious deception.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone entering an army of occupation should know he faces being turned into a monster, and has the moral responsibility to plan how to protect his own decency from the monsters in his own unit. The first step has to be to tell them, "If you engage in wanton violence, don't expect me to defend you. I don't want to be the buddy of a monster."
If you know someone thinking of entering the US Army, show him this article and ask, "Do you want this to happen to you?"
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations appear to continue those of the
90s, but the context has changed, making agreement much harder.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It should be noted that the reason Abbas has little power is that Israel wrecked the Palestinian Authority's power. And the reason that the annexation strip makes agreement on territory nearly impossible is Israel's policy of taking over the Palestinians' land. Both of these are Israel's direct responsibility, so it cannot cite them as an excuse.
Israeli forces continue destroying Palestinian homes and taking
Palestinian land.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The settlers continue to attack Palestinians, and the Israeli police don't
try to stop them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces marines that murdered civilians in Haditha seem likely to escape prosecution, for reasons built into the system.
In other words, the supposed intention to prosecute atrocities is a pretty face on a policy that ensures this will hardly ever happen.
The privatized deportation police in the UK frequently torture the
asylum-seekers they deport — sometimes worse than the tortures that
drove them to flee their homelands. If they get a reprieve from deportation,
they get beaten anyway before they are released. The conscious motive seems
to be to teach people facing torture not to think of the UK as a place of
refuge.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The privatization introduces an extra level into the chain of responsibility, allowing the government to deny responsibility (although surely vague statements like "Who will rid us of those inconvenient refugees" helped make it happen). The lax supervision gave free rein to the desire to hurt someone. Then the government denies the crimes, thus sheltering the thugs who are doing its unacknowledged bidding.
After the Great Depression, the FDR set up financial regulations to prevent the speculation that produced the crash. These regulations have been corroded by decades of "free market" ideology, together with the use of computers to create financial instruments so complex that regulators cannot understand them, bringing back the vulnerability.
The US top generals now consider the occupation of Iraq harmful to US
security.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Their idea of "US security" includes a legitimate understanding of security such as would apply to a nation that treats others ethically, but may also include unjust wars to preserve the economic "security" of the corporate empire's stockholders. As a consequence, reduced US "security" is only partly a bad thing. And if it helps push the US to abandon its unjust war, that's entirely to the good.
A retired US officer, now a professor, explains how the US military runs on a system that systematically distorts its picture of reality making it hard to admit failure other than sudden defeat.
I reject some of his assumptions. Participation in a crime can merit condemnation (when it is intentional) or pity (for those duped into it), but not gratitude or respect. Soldiers do not deserve Americans' respect because they say or think they are "defending their country". Only when they really are.
"Betrayus" is entirely appropriate as a description of a man who willingly acts to provide Bush with a mask of supposed authority. General Petraeus helped to hoodwink his country and perpetuate a crime. Being a general is no excuse.
The Bush regime blamed the loss of 5 million presidential emails on an
unnamed IT contractor that was supposed to manage the system. But these
systems are not managed by a company. It was simply a lie.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime's approach to its crimes is to defend old lies with new lies, figuring they can fabricate lies faster than courts or congress or anyone can disprove them or bypass them. Ultimately the only way to treat such an entity is to say, "I don't trust you; I won't believe any claim of yours unless you prove it!"
The US congress condemned MoveOn for "impugning the honor and integrity of ... all the members of the United States Armed Force". I don't know that MoveOn really did so, but Rush Limbaugh came pretty close. He called soldiers who oppose the war "phony soldiers".
Congress, preferring in its majority lies to truth, is unwilling to pass aresolution condemning Rush Limbaugh for this, but some Democratic senators have started a pressure campaign against him.
I decline to impugn the integrity of all members of the US military. I will say that every soldier who says that the Bush forces are "defending their country" is either a liar or a dupe. As Daniel Ellsberg put it, Ehren Watada is the only one carrying out his oath to defend the Constitution.
The Amazon rain forest was set on fire by cattle ranchers, and due to
global warming, the rain is inadequate to put it out.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Cattle ranching makes a big contribution to global warming. Not only through destroying forests, but also through the methane produced by the cows.
Clinton has developed a commanding lead for the Democratic nomination.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This reinforces my pessimism that the 2008 election will make any real change in the Bush regime's evil policies: conquest, torture, and disrespect for human rights.
The UK deports people back to places such as Darfur, even though they face
torture. Now some have escaped from Sudan to testify about how they were
tortured after their deportation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Some cities in the US are banning smoking even in people's homes.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I disapprove of these laws. Even dangerous drugs such as tobacco should not be prohibited in private places.
Meanwhile,
Americans are already persecuted for using a less dangerous drug,
marijuana. Leonard French uses a wheelchair because his legs are paralized.
New Mexico legalized his medical use of marijuana, but the US government
raided his house and seized his plants.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The US may try him and seek to put him in prison. It might also seize his house without a trial. However, what it has already done is tantamount to torture.
North Korean nuclear disarmament is
making progress.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Satellite images show that the Burmese military is burning minority group
villages and driving the population to flee.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The French oil company Total faces charges in Belgium that it used forced
labor to build a pipeline in Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Belgian law was changed to prevent its being used against US officials who were responsible for attacks on human rights.
A few herbal remedies are effective, but
most are worthless or even harmful.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The response by Jill Davies is fundametally incorrect. It is easy to convince people that a useless medical treatments cured them. Almost anything can be sold that way. This works with the naturally gullible, of course; but when society fails to apply scientific scrutiny, lots more people can fall into the trap.
Bush's climate change greenwash conference failed to distract the diplomats of other countries. Even China and India agreed that binding limits are needed, leaving Bush the only holdout for not really trying to solve the problem.
Arctic lake 'boils' with methane.
The oceans are likely to rise one meter due to gas emissions already made.
The US will lose 25,000 square miles of land, including many historical sites
and valuable properties.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
That's even if Greenland does not melt.
Expected CO2 emissions will make ocean more acidic, to the point of
violating EPA standards.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I wonder if this can be used to block the construction of coal-fired power plants.
Help fund Greg Palast's investigative journalism.
Ethiopia is attacking a separatist movement through rape and murder, forcing civilians to move much as the US one did in Vietnam.
Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern condemns Bush for corrupting his profession to make it justify the war Bush wanted.
The former chief prison inspector of the UK endorsed the call for legalizing drugs.
The head of the police team that shot de Menezies, anonymous, broke down in tears praising the killers from the witness stand.
What this "Ralph" says is not false, but it is dangerously one-sided. But it is normal for police, as buddies in a team, to stand up for each other right or wrong. This is why we must not trust to let police be judged by other police.
The UK says Bush promised not to use Diego Garcia island for secret prisons or torture. But some Britons doubt the honesty of this promise.
Since Bush doesn't admit that torture is torture, his claim not to do it in Diego Garcia (or Guantanamo, or anywhere) is meaningless.
The Bush regime punished Qwest for not cooperating with illegal NSA spying.
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert hinted that he might agree to dividing Jerusalem with a Palestinian state. That would be a major concession, if really made, but the hint might be just be a feint.
Canada nominally offers universal health care, but the requirement for a "health card" means many homeless people are excluded.
The usual requirement for obtaining a health card includes proof of address and a govermment photo ID. This requirement is gratuitous and unjust.
Mark Glover, accused of filming the killing of seal pups in Canada from an illegally close distance, vows to go to prison rather than pay a fine.
The 10-meter limit has no possible motive except censorship. Whatever one thinks of the question of animal rights, the Canadian government is clearly trampling human rights.
The EU approved an incremental increase in sanctions against Burma.
I don't think that mild sanctions are likely bring down a dictatorship. These sanctions do not interfere with the rulers' ability to hang on to power, and they won't give it up merely because they are a little less rich. Much more is needed.
New witnesses confirm that the Blackwater mercenaries shot Iraqis for no reason, and that their story is false.
Gordon Clown backed down and authorized the anti-war march in London, after the Stop the War Coalition said it would march anyway. But reporters who "didn't want to have their picture taken" were arrested under "anti-terrorist" laws.
Using these laws against real terrorists (or people seriously mistaken for real terrorists) is the exception. Using terrorism as an excuse to attack other people is the usual case.
The official Bush forces troops face contemptuous treatment from Blackwater mercenaries.
It gives them a taste of what they give Iraqis.
A maverick
police chief in the UK advocates an end to the prohibition of drugs, which
is more harmful than the drugs themselves would be.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Loggers are cutting down the forests where African Pygmies live. The Pygmies have gone to court to fight back.
Everyone in the US: join the protests against the war on October 27 in 11 cities.
Robert Ferrell, who faced false accusations of terrorism and later fraud for a bio-art project, accepted a plea bargain to avoid the threat of 20 years in prison on a frame-up.
This history shows how the rulers persecute people rather than admit a mistake. If they make an accusation and it doesn't stick, they invent something else, and something else, until they contrive an excuse to say, "He was guilty after all."
It is hard to demand heroism of others, since we who have not been in a similar situation do not know if we could do any better than he did. But it is clear that the cause of human freedom has been diminished by his plea bargain.
I partly disagree with one of Avnery's points. There is a clash of civilizations, albeit not the same one that the Bushmen refer to. Religious fanatics of all stripes (such as Christian theocrats and al Qa'ida) are on one side, and supporters of secular values and human rights are on the other.
Talabani, official President of Iraq, said that most Bush force troops should be pulled out next year.
I am not sure whether Talabani has any power over what happens in Iraq.
Israel has cut off all commerce with Gaza, which is ruining most businesses.
In any society, middle-class people such as shopkeepers are the ones that try to restrain violence by those who have nothing to lose. So if the shopkeepers are all ruined, what happens then?
It also brought about a run on the banks.
It would make perfect sense for Gaza to make its own currency. But it is not easy to make currency that is hard to counterfeit, and Gaza probably does not have the technology for it. I suspect that Israel doesn't have it either: many countries contract out the production of their currency to foreign companies.
(I wonder how they can be sure that the same companies won't produce more on the side. It might not even be legally considered counterfeiting, since it would not be an imitation of their own country's currency.)
The European Parliament voted to call for an end to the blockade.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The European Parliament has no power to affect European pressure on Israel, but this might translate into public opinion.
Torture: What's in a Name?
The Internet helped the Burmese resistance, until the military rulers switched it off completely.
The most interesting point in the article is that many other countries have temporarily shut off web sites at crucial times and pretended that the problem was due to technical difficulties. The US government may do this, too: uruknet.info has had a lot of technical difficulties, which they suspect were due to attacks by supporters of the Bush regime.
The editors' decision to call Burma "Myanmar" is an act of support for the military government. The legitimate president of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, asks people to call the country "Burma".
The US House of Representatives has passed bills to impose legal responsibility under US law on contractors operating
in other countries, such as Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This won't directly end the crime of the war, but it hits the Bush regime in the place it cares about the most: the bank accounts of the cronies it aims to enrich.
A popular Spanish singer, Alejandro Sanz, was denied use of a stadium in Caracas for a concert, because he criticized Chavez 3 years ago.
In a formal sense, this is not censorship, since nobody has a presumptive right to hold an event in a government-owned stadium. But it has an aspect of censorship, if normal policy allows singers to hire that venue, to make an exception for political reasons. Also, it seems that Sanz is not particularly interested in politics; to reach so far to punish people for dissent is not good.
On my last visit to Venezuela, I strongly criticized the law that requires people to identify themselves whenever they buy anything.
Nuclear power plants in the US are supposed to require approval before
construction starts. Now the builders have found a way to cheat this
requirement, by redefining "construction".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It will be a lot harder to say no to an application if the company says, "Look how much we already spent on work on the site that wasn't construction."
When the Bush forces were told about the Blackwater massacre, its first report on the event was outsourced to a Blackwater employee, who (of course) reported things Blackwater's way.
Outsourcing government activities is inviting corruption. But that's not the only way businesses corrupt government activities. Joseph Schmitz, chosen by Bush to head investigation of abuses in DOD contracting, quit after being accused of blocking criminal investigations — and went to Blackwater.
These practices are common, and add up to massive collusion between the government and many companies to cheat the public. Under Bush, corruption is not an underground practice that continues despite best efforts to stamp it out. Corruption is the heart and soul of his regime.
The Israeli Supreme Court showed it has no concern for the Palestinians
that Israel blocks from returning to the UK to resume their studies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Blocking the movement of civilians in this way violates international standards of human rights, and since it does nothing to protect anyone from anything, it can only be understood as an act of collective punishment — which also violates international standards of human rights.
The Marine Stewardship Council made a controversial decision and certified the fishery for New Zealand hoki as sustainable. The management plan they approved allowed too much fishing, and the population of hoki crashed.
A Europe-wide ban on smoking in public places has cut tobacco usage by
over 10%.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Since cancer tends to be proportional to the dose of carcinogen, that probably means 10% less lung cancer will be caused starting now.
A right-wing congressman has introduced a bill to punish Columbia University for allowing Iran's President Ahmadinejad to speak.
Aboriginal people in Argentina are losing their livelihoods and their
lives as the forest is cut down.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It's nothing unusual in Egypt to punish journalists for criticizing the
president. Now an editor is on trial just
for reporting that the president was ill.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Metropolitan Police as an organization is
on trial in London for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. The police
confused him with a possible suicide bomber, followed him from his house for
half an hour till he entered a train. Rather than stop him during that time
to see if he had a bomb, they waited till he got on the train and then shot
him 7 times.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Buddhist monks have vanished from Rangoon. Thousands have been arrested.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The regime's attack on monks has taken the people from resenting the regime to hating it. This pressure will surely be felt by the soldiers, and maybe they will start to rebel. But I wonder why they have not done so yet.
Meanwhile,
the UK continues to deny asylum to Burmese refugees and deport them back
to Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush forces planes killed many civilians. As usual, the Bush forces
claim the victims were resistance fighters.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Many suspect that Bush has killed a large number of civilians by aerial bombing. What is unusual about this incident is that we found out about it. Killings in Baghdad get most of the coverage, because it is easier for journalists to find out about them. The deaths from aerial attacks usually go unreported.
Radiohead, a prominent band, has released an album on the Internet, inviting people to pay whatever they think it is worth.
I would be glad to pay for downloading music I like, or pay the musicians just to support them after having obtained a copy in another way, if only I could do so anonymously. I generally refuse to buy anything with a credit card simply to avoid feeding Big Brother.
If you are a Radiohead fan, please try to contact them and ask them to release the same songs in Ogg Vorbis also.
The Bush forces hold almost 25,000 prisoners in Iraq.
A US court blocked the deportation of a prisoner from Guantanamo to Tunisia, where he faces torture or death.
The Tunisian government is known for its disregard for human rights. Conviction in a Tunisian court is as meaningless for someone's guilt or innocence as being sent to Guantanamo.
Argentinian priest Von Wernich received the confessions of tortured dissidents, and handed them to the secret police. He has been sentenced to life in prison.
Burmese soldiers come in the night to arrest and torture civilians by
the thousands, often just because government videocameras recorded
them as having shown even slight sympathy for protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Remember this when you see a surveillance video camera.
Iraqis are
suing Blackwater for indiscriminate killings.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush is planning to use Kurdish troops for the occupation of Arab parts of Iraq. If you want to create more civil war in Iraq, that's the way to do it.
The main point is that Turkey is threatening to attack the
Iraqi Kurds. This is a retaliation for a US congressional committee's
acknowledgment of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Prosecution for "belittling Turkishness", which has happened over and over, shows that country's disrespect for freedom of expression as well.
Turkey's denial of the genocide extends even to the
persecution of scholars who demonstrate what happened.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens support the campaign against fake news on TV.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
More information here, http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews3/summary.
The IMF's president
resigned in disgrace when it became known
that the IMF was forcing poor countries to divert foreign aid
(meant for health care) into payments to the IMF.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The new president is being pressured to reform the institution, but abolishing it might be better. I think that the powers that set it up won't allow reform sufficient to make the IMF's existence a beneficial thing.
Support the Burmese democracy movement.
The
US military illegally assisted fanatical Christian organizations
to prosyletize among troops, with apparent official backing.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your senators (888-818-6641 or 888-355-3588) to oppose retroactive immunity for AT&T for its illegal spying.
The
Russian secret police have taken control of the country, operating
almost like a mafia. Now a former one of them says they are falling
out among themselves.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It's conceivable that Cherkesov is lying, but I don't think so. He must have put himself in danger by publishing this letter, and I don't think he would dare fabricate such accusations. The men arrested from his agency might be guilty of the charges against them, but that doesn't contradict what he says about the larger situation.
Aung San Suu Kyi refused to drop her request for international
sanctions against Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is usually a mistake to make any real concession in exchange for a mere chance to negotiate — especially when that negotiation is unlikely to result in any agreement.
23% decrease in permanent arctic sea ice, in just two years.
The loss of sea ice causes the sea to absorb more light and heat up even more.
Iraq's Manicheans, last survivors of an ancient religion, have been scattered into exile in many different countries. This may destroy their culture.
Tasmanian devils are being wiped out by a new disease to which they have no immunity. The genetic diversity of this species is very low, and there are none that resist the disease.
Humans are driving many species to extinction. Sometimes we try to rescue them at the last minute, and sometimes that succeeds — but the success is likely to be temporary. The genetic bottleneck of a small population means these species will remain vulnerable to many kinds of disasters for thousands of years.
Spain
plans a law to condemn Franco's dictatorship, and officially
pardon the people he punished for defending democracy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The continued admiration for Franco in the right wing shows the need to remind Spain of the great evil he committed.
Mercenaries in Iraq again shot bystanders — this time, employees of a company other than Blackwater. (Soldiers officially in the Bush forces do this too.)
I do not believe the company's excuse, because that is what they always say. It isn't plausible that unarmed Iraqis would, on so many occasions, drive at high speed towards a convoy of occupying troops. Iraqis know the occupying troops are likely to shoot randomly, and are terrified of them. However, the excuse works: it is sufficient to protect the killers from prosecution by a government that doesn't really mind if its troops kill Iraqis.
Reporters talk with Buddhist monks in Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Police in Pakistan attacked protesting lawyers first, then the journalists
covering the protests, then others who were passing by.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
France will hold a referendum on a few specific conservation proposals.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Foreign employees are suing Firestone and Chiquita in US courts
for nasty working conditions.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Security guards in an LA public school
attacked a student and broke
her arm, then they had her arrested. Then they attacked the student
who made a video of the first attack, and had him arrested. They had
the first victim's mother arrested.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The danger that "security personnel" will bully people and make false accusations is everpresent, but here we see something bigger and worse.
The security guards could attack a student and break her arm, but they could not arrest her. Only police could do that, but the police were happy to help. The guards could not suspend her from school; only officials could do that, but the officials were happy to do so. They could not make her mother lose her job; only the school system could do that, but its officials did it.
What we see is a machine, a system, which is organized to support the aggressions and lies of any part. As the article explains, this system was made possible by the institutionalized paranoia and panic that the US government and media have worked to instill, using the 9/11 attacks as an excuse.
Some US cities make announcements in buses telling passengers to watch out for bombs. Nobody has found any bombs, but several people have been unjustly accused. If the aim is to promote public safety, we would do better with announcements warning not to believe accusations made by "security personnel" without proof.
Stephen Zunes met with Iran's president Ahmadinejad, and found him an
unimpressive conservative bigot,
but that is as far as the resemblance
to Bush extends. Unlike Bush, he does not have enough power to launch
a war, and unlike Bush, he shows no sign of wanting to launch a war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
We should distrust Bush regime exaggerations designed to justify an attack against Iran.
A Bush forces soldier was
ordered to shoot a prisoner in cold blood,
he said in court. The motive was that higher-ups demand a higher
body count.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
Tell yor congress critter to stop the DEA from raiding medical marijuana providers.
Buy t-shirts to support Star Simpson's legal defense.
Ship transport of freight, pretty much unregulated, is a big contributor to global warming and other kinds of pollution.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Massive shipping is also the basis of the global sweatshop economy. Since these ships are making the globe hotter, perhaps we should call them "sweatships".
Iranian students managed to bypass security measures to protest
against President Ahmadinejad.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush uses similar measures to suppress protests at his events.
An
Iranian journalist was arrested by US forces in Afghanistan
and tortured.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Conservatives
laugh at the hunger and sickness of the poor.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Costa Rica voted to cripple its democracy by signing a treaty with the US. Although the state will continue to be democratic in form, it will be unable in practice to adopt policies that business does not like. The treaty also directly attacks the freedom of computer users by imposing software patents and something like the DMCA.
Stop
The War Coalition says it will protest in central London in
defiance of a ban on demonstrations. It defies the UK government to
show whether it is like that of Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
A new contract for Blackwater shows what Bush thinks of shooting Iraqi civilians.
The UK is under pressure to end its military support for Uribe's regime with its murderous paramilitaries.
The Netherlands has decertified all computerized voting machine and will keep all votes on paper.
The Bush regime is trying to shut down the EFF's lawsuit against phone
companies, such as AT&T, that cooperated with illegal government spying. It
also has proposed an amnesty for these companies, and has failed to answer
questions about how the companies lobbied for an amnesty.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
"The government working together with companies to trample your rights" is a good brief definition of fascism.
Uri Avnery:
If Cheney uses Israel as an excuse to attack Iraq, both the US and Israel
are likely to regret it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The British academic union that had called for an academic boycott of
Israeli universities canceled it after concluding that such boycotts are
illegal in the UK. Israeli officials then dishonestly commended the union,
falsely claiming it had changed its views on the ethical legitimacy of such a
boycott.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: sign this petition in support of the Burmese protestors, addressed to the leaders of China and the UN.
The police in Brazil's special police unit to release workers from debt
slavery have shut it down,
complaining of political interference with their work.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Blackwater mercenaries frequently kill civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Uninsured Kids Are Protecting Bush's Ego.
The Montreal treaty banned chlorofluorocarbons and will ban other similar
chemicals. Now there is an agreement to speed up that ban, which will reduce
global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
More killings by soldiers, and hundreds of arrests of monks, have not
stopped the protests in Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Burmese soldiers killed a Japanese TV journalist who was covering the
protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Killing and imprisoning journalists is the hallmark of an evil regime. The Bush forces killed journalists during the during the conquest of Iraq, and one al Jazeera journalist is a prisoner in Guantanamo.
The Burmese government is propped up by India and China in exchange for
access to its oil.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
If India and China were to pull the plug on the military regime, a democratic Burma would be just as glad to sell them oil. But it might charge them more, since it would be less desperate for their support. In other words, China and India are supporting tyranny and murder for nothing more than money.
Bush's attitude towards freedom and democracy at home shows he cannot appreciate them in Burma, so his policy must be motivated by something else. Oil is what I would guess. I am sure the oil figures into the US policy of sanctions against Burma. Perhaps the US figures that with the military regime a client of China and India, it has no chance of wresting Burma's oil away from them under the military regime, so maybe opposing that regime seems like a better bet.
Wine production in Europe is moving north and uphill to escape the effects
of global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
If the effects were limited to luxuries such as wine, it would not be a catastrophe.
Officers in the Bush forces are pushing for applying some sort of law to
Blackwater mercenaries.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Any country that uses mercenary companies has a responsibility to apply to them the same laws that apply to official soldiers. But Bush won't do it; one of he people quoted in this article indicates the regime's continued unwillingness. That is no surprise, because Bush set up the situation so that they could not be held accountable to anyone for what they do.
Perhaps the Iraqi government should take away the immunity that Bremmer granted them, so they can be tried in Iraqi courts. That would be fun to see.
Email Chinese government officials calling on them to put pressure on the
Burmese military government.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Email the EU president to demand action against the Burmese military
government.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming.
Some Bush forces soldiers leave weapons lying around, shoot any Iraqi that
picks them up, and add him to their body count of "enemies" killed. They also
plant evidence on other Iraqi victims in order to lie about them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Any Iraqi is likely to pick up a weapon on the street. It can be sold for good money!
Punishing individual soldier is of course correct, but I don't think these are isolated incidents. They support lies which are high priority for Bush, and I am sure every officer in the Bush forces sends down the message, "Give us a high body count of 'insurgents' and don't be too fussy about how."
Bush has organized a climate change summit designed to resolve nothing,
and thus to forestall the pressure to actually do anything about climate
change.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
One month before Bush invaded Iraq Saddam Hussein offered to go into exile, expecting he would lose the war. But Bush was not interested. Only conquest would satisfy him.
Burmese continue massive protests even after the army shot and arrested
monks.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Former environmentalists hired to lobby for the nuclear industry succeed because journalists rarely ask who pays them.
Bush and the US media have
banished reality.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This is not unprecedented, however. Every fascist government sets up a tissue of myth in place of reality. Denying science is often part of it: the Soviet Union under Stalin denied genetics.
A First for the FCC: Fining Fake News.
In ordinary times, this would be a sign of government's working correctly against corruption of the media. However, in today's context it is a small exception, too small to alter the overall picture of corruption.
Josh Gaines was in the Bush forces and received a medal supposedly for
fighting terrorism and defending his country.
He will mail it to Rumsfeld as a protest, because he is sure that his
presence in Iraq did neither of those things.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Daniel Ellsberg says that Bush and Cheney have carried out a quiet coup, nullifying the US Constitution and establishing government by decree. The courts and congress are impotent to check him.
The Burmese government has
shot and arrested protesting monks.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Iranian academics have published a list of questions for Columbia
president Bollinger.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I do not like Iran's government very much. It restricts candidates for public office to Islamists, it tramples women's rights, and it tramples the rights of non-Muslims. But that does not excuse US wrongdoing, and it does not diminish the validity of the points made by these ten questions.
What does religion have to do with scientific literacy?
Bush: war is peace, freedom is slavery, and arbitrary arrest is human rights.
The Burmese military dictatorship finances itself from multinational
companies that take advantage of the nasty working conditions it has
established.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Several leading
Israeli writers call for negotiations with Hamas, without preconditions.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Regev's response shows the sort of irreality that government officials use to defend absurd policies. It is ridiculous to think that Israeling dealings with Hamas could undermine "Palestinian moderates" (i.e., Fatah). What undermined Fatah was that it was unable to get any concessions from Israel in exchange for the concessions it made.
The world-wide disturbing phenomenon of deformed frogs, a sign of the
ecological damage humans are causing, has been traced to fertilizer run-off.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Repordedly the US Senate is considering
a plan to divide Iraq between Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'its.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The article warns that this will cause ethnic cleansing. But that is happening already, and nobody can stop it. At least this division has a chance of ending the killing.
It should be noted that Bush's idea for Baghdad is much more drastic than a division of jurisdiction. The Bush forces have build physical walls blocking movement in and out of some neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are already segregated on sectarian lines, but the inhabitants do not want the walls.
After Dan Rather covered the story about AWOL Bush, CBS retracted it. We now find that Rather had solid evidence for the story, and that he could have defended it. He agreed not to do this in a deal with CBS, which promised to extend his contract. But CBS cheated him.
I would sympathize with Rather, but what really matters is that he and CBS together agreed to cheat the public of the truth.
A Palestinian student trapped in Gaza, and unable to return to his
university in Britain, is suing Israel over its arbitrary blockage of the
freedom of movement.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Support MoveOn's denunciation of the shameful senate resolution.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Runners in New Haven left a trail of flour for their friends to race along. Jittery people and officials mistook this for some kind of ill-defined attack, and didn't care about the facts. The prosecutors refuse to dismiss felony charges which they know to be groundless.
This is part of a national pattern. This week,
an MIT electrical engineering student was arrested for wearing a circuit
board with LEDs on her shirt. The prosecutor called this a "hoax bomb", which
is absurd since it does not resemble real bombs.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The statements of officials in these cases reflect a warped idea of moral responsibility, according to which officials cannot be wrong, so the blame always falls on the citizen. Once police suspect you, rightly or wrongly, you must be guilty. If they were right, then you're guilty; if they were wrong, you must still be guilty of something. Whatever innocent act was misunderstood by the police, they put the blame for their misunderstanding on you.
The police sometimes must act immediately on the limited knowledge available. As long as they do nothing drastic, they could acknowledge the mistake and ask for our understanding. But they don't do this; they insist the citizen victim is wrong. The prosecutors, by contrast, have no possible excuse. They did not have to act in haste, and they know the charges are false. There is no possible excuse for what they have done.
Many Guantanamo prisoners have been forbidden to communicate with their lawyers. One of them is in danger of being sent to Libya where he may be tortured.
The US Senate tried to restore the right of habeas corpus, but failed to block a Republican filibuster. They hate our freedoms.
Since Bush is dead set against human rights, this needs to be made into an amendment in a vital bill. However, that would take courage. Will Congress show courage in defense of our freedom?
Bush is demanding that Congress make his unsupervised wiretap powers
permanent.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The US Senate passed a resolution condemning MoveOn for its ad that criticized General Petraeus.
It has been widely reported that that general has worked closely with Bush on public relations strategy to promote continued work in Iraq. On that grounds I doubt his honor and his integrity.
Senator Boxer's resolution, which failed but was supported by Clinton and Obama, is even worse. It attempts to distort politics by giving people in the US military immunity from criticism. We know that many of them, while serving in the Bush forces. have repeatedly carried out vicious acts ranging from torture to casual murder.
Giving anyone immunity from criticism is a danger to democracy. The war began because the US Senate treated Bush's integrity as beyond question, and did not dare say "Bullshit!" to his absurd arguments for war, when less credulous people (I'm proud to be one) recognized them as suspect.
US
citizens: tell your senators and congressmen to stop
authorizing the formerly illegal spying that Bush was caught in.
Best, phone their offices, but you can also use this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The US
Senate voted to nearly endorse war with Iran, and in favor of
labeling part of the Iranian army a "terrorist group".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The arbitrary declaration of groups as "terrorist", without a trial, is obviously unjust. In this case, it is an obvious lie.
The Bush forces accuse Iran of supplying anti-vehicular mines to the Iraqi resistance. The evidence for this is not convincing, and I suspect the Bushmen made it up as an excuse to attack Iran. But even if it is true, it is not terrorism, it is simply war. It is quite similar to what the US did in the 80s, arming Afghan resistance groups that fought the Soviet occupation of their country. Aiding them was justified, and aiding the Iraqi resistance is justified today for the same reason.
This vote demonstrates that Clinton will not be much different from Bush. Don't fool yourself that a victory for her, even if the Republicans don't steal the election, will change anything important. The US will still be an aggressive tyranny, the opposite of the principles of the US constitution.
Iran accuses the US of supporting a terrorist organization which carries out attacks in Iranian territory: the Mujahedin Khalq. It is based in Iraq.
The US government keeps track of lots of information about Americans who travel — including what books you read, and the size of your hotel bed, if they can find it out.
To search all air passengers for bombs and weapons is legitimate provided the search does nothing else. When the government uses this search as an excuse to take note of anything other than bombs and weapons, that is dishonest, and therefore unjust.
Yesh Gvul has obtained a court order to investigate why the Israeli air
force dropped a one-ton bomb in a Palestinian town, causing 150 civilian
casualties.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
When Palestinians in Hebron wouldn't sell their house to Israeli settlers,
the settlers began persistently attacking them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Israel promised the UN it would remove roadblocks in Palestine, but in
fact has in fact added more.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush is supporting a Kurdish militia which bombards Iran with artillery.
Its parent group, the PKK, is classified by Bush as a terrorist organization, but this militia is not. That makes an interesting contrast with the treatment of various Islamic charities, which tend to be condemned by the US for the slightest hint of a connection with armed resistance causes that the US calls terrorist.
The oil in Basra has become a prize that contending tribes and militias are fighting over.
Most of these contending parties are Iraqi, but the Bush forces are also one of them. (I admire the union members that have threatened to go on strike if the Iraqi government hands over its oil.)
It is clear that Basra needs order restored. This can't be done by the Bush forces, and it can't easily be done by any tribe (since each tribe is too small a fraction of the populace). A militia such as Muqtada Sadr's might be able to do it, with help.
Digitizing national school exams has allowed the UK to institute a computerized system to make graders work in a hurry. The result, which should not surprise anyone, is a lot of errors.
It should also be no surprise that the people in charge of this deny the problem and say their systems are just wonderful. It's the attitude of an arrogant government.
Imagine nuclear power plants regulated by an agency with equally low integrity. That's why I am against nuclear power.
Cholera has spread to southern Iraq, and chlorine shipments have been held
up on suspicion of military uses.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Under the UN sanctions regime, many goods needed for public health were blocked on similar grounds.
Here's a somewhat hostile account of how police attacked Andrew Meyer as he was asking John Kerry a question.
Note how President Machens' statement, which asks whether the police can "keep the campus safe", avoids the real issue: is whether they can be prevented from making it dangerous.
Note also that even this hostile description of Meyer's actions does not come close justifying the charges against him. Those charges are, therefore, malicious lies — standard practice for police against protestors. The university did right to suspend the policemen, but above all its duty is to thwart their malice, by dropping the charges.
New study supports the theory that the "hobbits" of Flores were truly a different species.
Flores was not connected to Asia even at times of lower sea levels. To reach Flores, they must have been able to build boats. Modern humans were traveling through Indonesia on boats as much as 25,000 years ago, when these "hobbits" still lived, which means they survived for thousands of years alongside us. What a shame they are not still here.
But this also shows the fragility of a species that survives only in a small enclave or reserve. It is easy for a localized accident to wipe it out.
Some African rulers support Mugabe because he is African, and demand he be
allowed to attend the EU-African summit, or they won't go. The summit could
take place without the UK, but some cowards in the EU are trying to wheedle
the UK to drop its stand.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Others have criticized Britain for adopting a "double standard" because it did not boycott an ASEAN meeting in which Burma was invited. Perhaps they are right; if so, the conclusion would be that Britain should have boycotted that meeting too. There is no connection between Burma and Zimbabwe except that they both reflect the outside world's unwillingness to oppose tyrants. For anyone in outside world to increase the pressure, even on just one of the two tyrants, is a step towards correcting that problem.
And if it does derail a summit, that's a small price to pay. Regime change in Zimbabwe is as important as anything else the summit might consider.
Tens of thousands of Americans protested against the actions of a DA who
told black high school students, "I could take away your lives with a stroke
of my pen" — and then tried to do it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Here's how Blackwater mercenaries killed 28 Iraqis for no reason.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I'm not the only one that believes
the "Iraqi" government lacks the strength and independence to carry out
its decision to expel Blackwater.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Due to global warming, the Adriatic Sea may soon be a salt lake.
It appears Bush has organized death squads in the US Army. Soldiers say they have been authorized to kill certain people, even when they are unarmed and prisoners.
Bush is a worse terrorist than anyone whose name is on his death list. But even a monster like Bush should not be shot while a prisoner.
How Monsanto's patented seeds have pushed thousands of Indian farmers to suicide. And could do the same in Iraq.
With the present violence in Iraq, I doubt this scenario can develop in Iraq at present. But it could, if Bush ever succeeds in clamping down. I hope that the Iraqi resistance will cancel all of Bush's decrees when it takes power.
Meanwhile, any Indian farmer that has despaired to the point of suicide should instead take up arms against Monsanto and those that uphold it. Better to go down fighting than go down without a fight.
The "breadbasket of Turkey" is
turning itself into a desert by draining its aquifer.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Arizona is doing the same thing, and may have trouble getting water even for drinking.
The "Iraqi" government has backed down from banning Blackwater mercenaries, as many expected. It does not have the strength to defend Iraqis from Bush.
I predict that the joint inquiry will not lead to any meaningful changes in the way Blackwater operates or in the impunity of its unofficial soldiers.
The Italian government tells fishermen:
leave people to drown, or we will put you in prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Air travellers in the US are demanding the right not to be imprisoned in
planes without food, water or toilet facilities.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Keeping passengers prisoner is the quintessential expression of the airlines' pervasive contempt for their passengers. Airline employees are trained to put the passenger in the wrong at the first hint of a dispute; they are ready at any moment to fill the role of prison guard.
Buddhist monks in Burma have excommunicated the military rulers and are
marching in the streets to protest their regime.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Israel has cut off fuel and electricity to Gaza — an act of
collective punishment that endangers people's lives.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This act of collective punishment is supposedly retaliation for the annoying Qassam rocket attacks that occasionally hit someone. Collective punishment against civilians is against the Geneva conventions, regardless of the provocation, but US allies believe the Geneva conventions are not for them.
The UK is taking action against "honor killings" in which women are
murdered by their own families.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is interesting that the killers in this case were Sikhs. It seems this form of evil is not limited to Muslims.
Gordon Brown will boycott a summit meeting because Mugabe plans to attend.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This is the right thing to do, and other European leaders ought to do the same. However, the Clown really ought to apply the same principles to summit meetings where Bush will be present.
Global warming is melting permafrost in the Arctic. This produces methane
and CO2, which leads to more global warming. The result could be a runaway
warming disaster that no conservation measures can prevent.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Methane released from bogs may have caused disastrous warming 55 million
years ago.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
We have no idea where the point of no return is. We may already be too late to avert catastrophe. Or maybe not. Would you like to gamble on it? Bush would.
Tomas Young is paralyzed from the waist down, but
he won't let that stop him from protesting against the war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
So next time you are about to say that it's too hard to take political action to stand up for freedom and justice, remember him.
A lawsuit seeks to impose on "God" an injunction against catastrophic
"acts of God", and terrorist threats. (Many terrorists say they are operating
on behalf of that hypothetical being.)
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I often wear a button that says "Impeach God". If you want to put God on trial, don't you have to impeach him first?
New evidence suggests that the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period was caused by an episode of global warming.
That episode was due to CO2 released by volcanic eruptions, but human-produced CO2 can do the same damage.
The land in Southern Louisiana is sinking due to geological processes that
cannot be stopped. Thus, rebuilding New Orleans in situ would be futile even
without global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
New Orleans is worth preserving, but we must move it to high ground.
The EPA allowed people with Exxon affiliations to review a proposal to
deregulate the burning of toxic waste (such as Exxon produces).
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Contracting out these reviews to companies seems like a bad policy in the first place — asking for dishonesty.
US newspapers' conservative bias is demonstrated by an exhaustive study.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Former environmentalists that support nuclear power have financial ties to
the nuclear industry.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I do not oppose nuclear power as a matter of principle. Maybe nuclear power plants could be safe, if built and operated honestly and carefully. But I do not trust corporations to be honest, and if they build and run nuclear power plants, they will corrupt the safety regulations.
Flooding caused by global warming is likely to drive millions of Egyptians
from their homes by the Mediterranean, as well as wipe out much of Egypt's
agriculture.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The human wave of exctinction is spreading to the sea, with
240 more threatened marine species listed.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
What Iraqis and other mercenaries say about Blackwater.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Blackwater is not the source of this problem. Blackwater mercenaries act with impunity because the Bush forces gave them impunity.
I'm not sure it is true that mercenaries from other companies are better than those of Blackwater. Perhaps Blackwater mercenaries would say the others are more callously violent.
There are Atheists in the foxholes in Iraq, and
some of them are suing because their officers tried to pressure them to
become Christians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Boycott Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, and WebTV for political censorship.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
In Nova Scotia, after a student was bullied for wearing pink,
many other students responded by wearing pink to support him. This put a
quick end to the bullying.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush supporters say he is determined to start a war with Iran.
They suggest he plans to start it with a small act of war, so that Iran will justifiably respond, which he will mislabel as an act of aggression. In other words, it's lies all the way.
Now WebTV and Yahoo are blocking mail from truthout to its subscribers, as
well as AOL and Hotmail.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Volunteers in Iraq bury hundreds of unclaimed, unidentified bodies every month.
Massachusetts residents: call your state senator and assembly representative and say you are against any plan to track all cars on highways — whether it is for taxation or any other purpose. If they need more money for road repair, they should get it from the gas tax.
US citizens: phone your senators and say they should (1) support the Webb-Hagel troop readiness amendment (which is designed indirectly to reduce the number of troops in the Bush forces), and (2) not vote for continued funding for the occupation of Iraq.
The Webb-Hagel amendment may be the best we can practically hope to get from this congress; but if you support it as if it were ideal, you have been tricked into legitimizing the occupation.
Greg Palast presents evidence that Abu Risha was not a real Iraqi tribal leader, just a stooge Bush paid to pretend to be one.
Palast draws the conclusion that Al Qa'ida in Iraq is just a front for extortion by the tribal sheiks. If that is true, that would mean one additional argument used by Bush to continue the occupation is entirely bogus. However, that argument is misguided even if Al Qa'ida in Iraq is real, because Iraqis will kick it out when the occupation ends.
The Microsoft "black screen of death" warning was a hoax.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
"Reduced Functionality Mode" does exist, and it does shut off the computer after an hour, but it does not render the computer totally unusable during that hour. Unauthorized copying exists too, but calling it "piracy" is propaganda, so please don't.
What conclusion should we draw from this? The crucial fact is that Vista is designed for Microsoft to force updates on the user. Microsoft can do whatever it wishes to any computer that runs Vista, if it is on the Internet. Microsoft has not done what was described in the hoax, but it has grabbed so much power that it could do this (or anything else) to users at any time. That in itself is the real problem.
The occupation of Iraq turns old friends into violent enemies.
Alan Greenspan condemned Bush and the Republican Party for reckless
spending.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Of course, the bulk of this reckless spending was on the occupation of Iraq.
Global warming is causing big changes for Greenland as the ice retreats.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
When Bush invaded Iraq, the national museum was plundered. Now
all the archeological sites of the nation are being plundered down to
bedrock, and Bush has done nothing to control it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Iraqi government says it has banned the Blackwater mercenary company from operating in Iraq — for firing randomly on civilians.
I expect that Bush will order the Iraqi government to change its mind.
Today I got a survey letter in the mail from the Democratic Party. On a lark, I opened it. There is a question about what the party's priorities should be. Restoring fundamental human rights was not even in the list.
I won't send it back.
Greenspan and Kissinger acknowledge: the invasion of Iraq was meant to
gain control of its oil, and if Bush attacks Iran, that too will be meant to
gain control of its oil.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
AOL and Hotmail are blocking mail from truthout to its subscribers, and
Hotmail admitted it is political censorship.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
13 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill,
the company has not paid its fine, and now wants it dropped.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime will be sued for political interference with the
Endangered Species Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
A British poll estimates
1.2 million Iraqi civilians have been killed by the occupation of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
FBI documents about the flights that carried the bin Laden family out of
the US in September 2001 fuel suspicions.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Microsoft has given users a graphic reminder of the fundamental nature of
Window Vista, by sending
a command ordering certain copies to shut down.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
In this instance, Microsoft shut down copies that had been copied without authorization. But the reason it can do this is that any computer that runs Vista is under Microsoft's total control. Microsoft can alter the software in any way it wishes, or make the machine inoperable. It can do this to any user, at any time, for any reason.
Thanks to the World Trade Organization,
our clothes are made by people who don't get paid enough to live on.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
To correct this, we need to do more than shame clothing brands. We need to reject the idea that the WTO makes sweatshops legitimate.
Bush is once again threatening lawyers that represent prisoners in
Guantanamo.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, suggests that this practice is part of a broad strategy to effectively abolish legal rights.
200 thousand Israeli Arabs live in
"unrecognized villages". In 1965, Israel declared the entire villages
illegal, which means that their homes can be demolished.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli troops attacked a peaceful protest of Palestinians and Israelis in
al Walaja, a village which will be totally surrounded by the annexation wall.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Palestinian prisoners in Israel
face various kinds of torture.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Israel's policy towards Palestinians is
a steady campaign of ethnic cleansing, using terrorism (which it greatly
exaggerates) as an excuse.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Leishmaniasis is now a danger in Texas, due to global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
New York City voters:
sign the petition to demand a real investigation of what happened on 9/11.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces' main Iraqi Sunni ally was killed, perhaps by al Qa'ida.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Iraqi Sunnis ought to kick out al Qa'ida and make peace with the Shi'ites. However, when they do this by allying with the Bush forces, they become traitors too, which weakens them. Ending the unjust occupation of Iraq would enable Sunnis and Shi'ites to make peace and drive out al Qa'ida without betraying Iraq to another enemy.
Ice loss in the Arctic was already going fast. This year it's even faster: ice decreased by 400 thousand square miles.
A right-wing ad campaign is calculated to make Americans think that the
invasion of Iraq was a direct response to the US 9/11 attacks. And 1/3 of
Americans believe the lie that Saddam Hussein was responsible for them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
When Bush is caught in a false statement, he doesn't admit it's false, because he counts on his PR apparatus to make it pass for truth. And that apparatus is so strong that his strategy may work.
Profiteering from disasters is old hat. Today's capitalists
create disasters in order to profit from them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Democratic governments care what the people think of them; democratic governments don't abandon their people in disasters. As the US response to Katrina showed, the US government is no longer democratic. The people are so disempowered that it doesn't have to care.
Bush is still planning how to consummate the conquest of Iraq: by carving
up the Iraqi economy and selling it to foreign companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
However, the
Iraqi government continues its passive resistance. One of the
"reconciliation" measures that it has been ordered to adopt, but has not
adopted, is the law to privatize Iraq's oil.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Israeli blockade has made Palestinians so poor that some work
scavanging garbage dumps. It's a living, unless you get stuck by the wrong
syringe.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Women in Saudi Arabia have publicly started a
movement for the right to drive.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
200 more species were added to the list of threatened species this year.
1/4 of mammal species, and 1/3 of amphibian species, are in danger.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
High gasoline prices are pushing some Americans to take mass transit, and
the result is a decrease in obesity.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Sami al-Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman in Guantanamo,
has been on hunger strike for 250 days, and now seems to be dying.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This shows what the Bush regime thinks of freedom of the press.
The US has lost much of its influence in the world, largely as a result of Bush's attempt to conquer Iraq.
This is not a bad thing, because the US government as it is today is not likely to use its influence for the good.
In the UK, more than a year in prison for drawing grafitti.
The Bush regime shipped about 12 billion dollars of US currency to its occupying forces in Iraq. They handed it out without keeping track. Nearly everyone involved responded with corruption.
General Petraeus has operated explicitly as a lobbyist for Bush policies,
and his superior officer considers him a sycophant.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Office politics like this is not very important in and of itself, but this shows that Petraeus's status report is not his first exercise in lobbying on behalf of Bush.
US citizens: tell your senators to vote for S. 185, the amendment to restore habeas corpus. The vote will be Monday, so contact them through this web site: http://actforchange.workingassets.com/campaign/restore_habeas_Sept07/.
Usually phone calls tend to have more effect, but there may not be much chance to phone them before the vote.
Fanatical views that lead to terrorism are no more common among Muslims than among other groups.
1/3 of Americans believe Bush's propaganda which says that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.
The first comment tries to hold Saddam Hussein responsible for 9/11 through a chain of unpredictable consequences: that his invasion of Kuwait led to the first Gulf war, which led to stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia, which was perhaps a motive for the attacks.
Bush I may be responsible for Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. There was a report that US ambassador April Glaspie told Hussein, shortly before the invasion, that the US would not care if he did invade Kuwait.
So that argument could be extended to justify the claim that Bush I is really responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Birth control pills protect against breast cancer.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Due to pollution,
some arctic peoples have very few male babies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Palestinians attacked an Israeli army base with missiles and wounded many
soldiers.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Attacking enemy fighters is not terrorism. Palestinians ought to stop attacking civilians (which is a war crime), and direct their attacks at soldiers.
A number of Democrats in the Senate
took note of the logical flaws behind the Bush/Petraeus plan to buy more
Iraq occupation time on the installment plan.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Veterans Administration is distorting the facts to pretend it isn't
collapsing under the overload caused by casualties from Bush's war of conquest.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It's standard practice in the War on Integrity.
Most Americans
expect the Iraq war to be a failure. Even 1/3 of Republicans think so.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
However, unless more Congresscritters are willing to call Bush a liar straight out, he will keep on jerking them around.
Faux News, a Bush regime supporter, says that the regime has all but decided to bomb Iran.
Brett Darrow caught a policeman on video doing what cops do best: threatening, for no reason at all, to arrest him and make false accusations against him.
Most Iraqis believe that Bush's troop increase has done no good for Iraq. More interesting: all Iraqis disapprove of Qa'ida, except for one thing: that it attacks Bush's occupying army.
So if you want to wipe out al Qa'ida in Iraq, it's simple. Pull out the occupying army, and Iraqis will kick out Qa'ida.
The Bush regime is distorting the facts to pretend that its troop increase
has increased security in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
General Petraeus saw progress happening in Iraq, years ago. He sees progress happening again today, even though things are much worse.
Amnesty International produced a film to demonstrate the pain caused
by the torture techniques that Bush has authorized.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Surprise, surprise! Bush says his troop increase is a success. And
he dangles the possibility of tiny reductions in the Bush forces, to
divert public pressure to end the war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
What Bush says is like a play or a fantasy. It does not need to have any relationship to the truth.
Bombings in Baghdad are somewhat fewer, because the city has been
divided up with prison walls.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Venezuelan president Chavez has agreed to mediate between Colombia and the FARC guerrilla force.
A Colombian friend said she thinks Uribe is not sincere in this, and is just trying to distract attention from the recent proof of his ties to the right-wing paramilitary terrorists.
There is so little crime in the US that the police spend their time
arresting prostitutes and clients that meet on the Internet, bothering
nobody.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush is dangling hints of possible troop cuts which wouldn't really change anything.
The number of troops in the Bush forces varies as units enter and leave Iraq, so it will be easy to present some unit's departure as a "troop cut" without really changing any plans. It will mean nothing, but Bush He must hope the public will mistake it for an end to the war.
Iceland has cancelled its whale hunting program, though not for the sake
of the whales.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
However, the danger to whales from hunting is just a part of the danger that they, and thousands of marine species, face. The threat comes from overfishing, boats, plastic waste, chemicals, and man-made noise.
Taxi drivers in NYC went on strike against plans to require tracking and video advertising in taxicabs.
It is too bad that their focus is on the cost of the system. Nowadays, in the US, important issues of freedom don't motivate most people to make an effort.
NYC has another nasty plan: to require all cabs to transmit photos of the passengers to the police.
The Israeli court recognizes that Israeli settlers built housing
illegally on the land of the Palestinians of Bil'in, but says that
the settlers can keep the houses anyway.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
That's the kind of "justice" that motivates people to take up arms.
Ever-increasing suffering in Gaza can't stop Palestinians' homemade
missiles (which only occasionally hit anyone). Israel should instead
try reducing its own violence and harmful activities towards
Palestinians. It's not only right, it might also bring benefits.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Microsoft just barely lost the vote to make its patented and partly secret documentation format, OOXML, an ISO standard. This after corrupting the standardization process in several countries.
The article errs in describing OOXML as an "open document format". It isn't really one, but Microsoft wants ISO to label it as one.
Clinton's Secretary of Labor acknowledges: Capitalism is killing
Democracy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Reich is right in saying that societies can well legislate to compel businesses to treat their workers and the rest of society better. However, he sets up a false choice between regulating business practices and condemning business for practicing them. In fact, those two go hand in hand: in a democracy, condemning a certain practice as "irresponsible" is the first step to prohibiting it.
It is right and proper to condemn antisocial businesses, just as we do antisocial individuals. We cannot accept "I'm doing this for a profit" as a universal excuse for mistreating others, and we have to reject the idea that a corporation excuses its participants from their moral duty. The idea that corporate executives "should" make profit their only goal is the root of the problem, so we have to reject that too.
The article also doesn't recognize the extent to which the weakness of democracy today was deliberately created through the sweatshop treaties promoted by business-serving politicians such as Bill Clinton. The "global economy" only benefits a fraction of the people it affects, so there is no reason we shouldn't make it somewhat less global than it is now.
A new "bin Laden" video has only a still photo of Osama bin Laden.
This seems like a good reason to suspect it is a fake.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Human Rights Watch says that civilian casualties in Lebanon were
mostly due to "indiscriminate Israeli air strikes", and that Hezbollah
did not use civilians as cover.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
British and American followers of Bush are blaming each other
for the decision not to reestablish the old Iraqi army.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
To focus discussion on "mismanagement" of the occupation is to miss the point. First of all, the dynamics that made Iraqis hate the occupation were mostly inevitable. Secondly, the war was a crime whose motive was theft.
An international campaign condemns US doctors and US medical boards
over doctors' participation in torture and force-feeding of prisoners.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Israeli blockade of Gaza has reduced everyone there to poverty.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I'm sure this increases the support for Hamas.
Preliminary results suggest a virus is responsible for the
US honeybee epidemic.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
(I mention this because I've mentioned this epidemic before.)
As Nelson Mandela came to London to see his statue unveiled,
police prevented people from protesting where he could see it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Three Marine officers who were serving in the Bush forces have been censured for failing to investigate charges of murder of civilians.
This is what an honest army does. I fear there is not much of this integrity in the US armed forces today, but with the proper effort, it could be nurtured to grow again.
In the UK that B'liar made, railway passengers are charged in court for putting their feet on the seats.
People should not put dirty shoes on the seats, but making such tiny things a crime is much worse than dirty seats.
The city of Sydney was locked down and cut in two as "security" for Bush, which is nasty to begin with. (Bush visits are meant to illustrate the submission of the country being visited.) Now Australian journalists who demonstrated the weakness of security arrangements were arrested, and face imprisonment.
Note the twisted argument that this act of flagrant journalism should be punished because it was "dangerous" — for the journalists themselves. This is blaming the victim: standard logic for the Bushmen.
A study reports that a good school is not usually enough to overcome the educationally stunting effects of growing up in poverty.
A book analyzes the powerful US lobby in support of the Israeli right-wing.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I disagree with the position that the US (or any other country) should choose its foreign policy solely based on "national interests". Nations, like individuals, have a responsibility to support justice, not merely their own interests. However, that has to include Palestinians as well as Israelis.
One can argue that Cuban exiles in the US have warped US foreign policy about as much as the Israeli-right-wing lobby, but that's just nitpicking.
The CIA's torture practices are secret, but CIA staff fear prosecution if they become known. To prevent this, Bush argues that prisoner Majid Khan must never be allowed to see a lawyer. He might leak the "state secret" of how he was tortured.
The practice of covering up crimes by inventing motives of national interest is standard practice for the Bush regime, so we must presume any and every secret it holds conceals crime or corruption. Perhaps half of them are legitimate, but there's no way to tell which except by investigating them all.
The Axis of Evil starts in Washington.
A judge in the UK proposed to demand DNA samples from everyone
visiting there, because the current DNA data base policy is not fair.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
By speaking of fairness, this judge implicitly acknowledges that retaining your DNA information is bad treatment of you. If some people are being mistreated, is the solution to mistreat everyone "fairly"? That is absurd.
But government ministers appear to be really thinking about doing this — just not right away. Perhaps they plan to get there by stages.
An independent report by retired generals says that the "Iraqi"
army is unlikely to be able to "provide security" on its own,
even in 18 months.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush will probably use this as an excuse to continue occupation by foreign forces, even though they can't and don't provide security either.
A moderate was elected leader of Iran's committee that decides
who can run for office.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The last time Iranians tried to vote for moderates, democracy was sabotaged by not allowing them to run. Next time, Iranians could have more of a chance.
The town of Bil'in won a victory in the Israeli supreme court
against the loss of its farmland to the annexation wall.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It impossible to measure directly what effect the weekly nonviolent protests had on this verdict. I would not assume that the verdict would have been the same without them. Now the challenge is to get the army to obey it. That may require protests too.
Islamic fanatics carried out suicide bombings against the Pakistani
army.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The words of the British Bush force soldiers who evacuated Basra.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Philip Morris deleted negative information about it from Wikipedia.
Former Bush forces troops are often treated very badly in the US.
When Bush demands that we support "our" troops in the Bush forces, it just means suspending our ordinary moral judgment of their acts.
Cory Doctorow's experience says: free sharing of electronic copies increases sales of his books. Others report similar results, in practice and theoretically.
Police repeatedly attacked a completely innocuous Critical Mass
bicycle ride, apparently as a way of preemptively intimidating protest
against the Republican Convention next year.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The police in the US, as in many countries, use law as a weapon, but respect it themselves only when forced to.
The baby-formula industry gutted a US ad campaign to promote
breast-feeding for the sake of health. They pushed it to adopt
methods already discarded as ineffective.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: read The End of America, by Naomi Wolf.
This book lays out how the Bush regime has imposed the same sort of measures generally used to establish a police state, and has gone most of the way along the path. (Making most people really scared only occurs in the next stage.)
(Please don't make Amazon your way to get it.)
Then support the American Freedom Campaign.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The rain forests where orang-utans live are being cut down to
grow palm oil, used in many cosmetics, and foolishly burnt
under the false pretense of being green.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Bush is talking about reducing the Bush forces — saying that
it's because they are winning.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Why not just declare victory and pull all the troops out?
The Church of Scientology and some members face prosecution in Belgium for crimes such as blackmail and swindling.
Floods and droughts are no longer natural disasters.
They result from a series of human activities, which are
shaped by government policies. These recommendations
for the UK probably make sense for other wealthy countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Since plastic objects are now choking large parts of the ocean and
killing sea animals, we need to make big reductions in their
production. But we are charging full speed ahead.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The plastic bags used for packing items are just a fraction of the plastic packaging used for food. To make a large reduction, we need to tackle all kinds. Even designing plastic packages and products so they are sure to sink in the ocean could be an improvement — so they will be buried in sediment instead of killing animals.
An ambitious campaign hopes to save 21 bird species
that otherwise face extinction within five years.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
But US wildlife refuges are being starved by Bush,
part of his War on the Environment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli and Palestinian protestors blocked the entrance to Karmei
Tzur settlement with razor wire, temporarily, to give them a taste
of what they have done to all Palestinians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Representatives of major Iraqi Sunni and Shi'ite groups have agreed
on a plan to end the violence between them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This agreement looks like a real attempt to me, since Bush was not involved. Still, there is a long way to go from an agreement like this to peace in Iraq. In addition to the civil war, Iraq also has to cope with the Bush occupation, and with the privatization/theft Bush has tried to commit.
The CIA brainwashed Jose Padilla with 3 years of solitary confinement,
to the point where thought the US government would "help him" if he is
"good". Anyone who believes that has got to be crazy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Then he was convicted of "conspiracy" with no evidence to show he ever planned to do anything.
In effect, Padilla was convicted of sharing with two other men a general antagonism to the US government — a political viewpoint is now a crime in the US.
The Bush regime will surely pretend that it was necessary to arrest these people immediately and try them for their political inclinations, lest they have carried out some sort of attack. That is absurd as well as unjust, because it takes time to plan and set up such an act. If the police are competent, they need only keep watch on the suspects (with court orders, which they would easily get in such a case), and arrest them if they really start to plan a crime.
The latest Bush excuse for continuing the occupation of Iraq:
"Otherwise, gasoline will cost 9 dollars per gallon."
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It's unlikely that the end of the occupation would reduce Iraqi oil exports, since the resistance has been attacking oil pipelines for years. But even if it did, could conquest be justified by stealing their oil?
The rest of their bogeymen are equally exaggerated. This should be a warning not to believe what they say.
The UK has taken its Bush forces troops out of the city of Basra. It
seems that Brown really intends to withdraw the British troops from
the Bush forces.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
It is amusing to read of the arguments between the Bush regime and the Brown regime, with both sides saying nonsense, pretending that the invasion of Iraq was noble and good and that Iraqis will defend the occupation of their country.
Torture Gonzales was also Traitor Gonzales — a willing
participant in a scheme to destroy rule of law in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime's attack on rule of law is not limited to spying on people without court orders, imprisoning people without trial, and torturing people to get confessions. Trying people on vague "conspiracy" charges is also a part.
Sequoia Voting Systems deliberately sold ballots made from invalid paper in Florida in 2000.
Was this just a corrupt attempt to win adoption for even more dangerous computerized voting machines? Or did they plan where these ballots would be used?
Privatizing military intelligence — like privatizing soldiering
— is part of an ideology of greed that has stealthily undermined
ideals of service and citizenship in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Business does not practice honesty except when outside pressure compels it to do so. Privatized government is therefore dishonest government.
The war department plans to privatize intelligence gathering.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
I won't reject the possibility that this is motivated by a desire to cook the intelligence. But I suspect there is another motive too: that they plan to use the private contractors to evade some sort of legal limitation or congressional scrutiny.
How neoliberalism took over the world by co-opting the language of freedom to serve the rich.
If we strip corporations of their unjust power, they will scream that the sky is falling. Therefore, any political program which doesn't lead to cries that the sky is falling on business must not be a solution to the problem.
Marines are being prosecuted for shooting civilians in Haditha,
but the defense argues that this shouldn't be considered a crime.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Hundreds of residents of New Orleans have been locked out of their homes for years, even though those homes are in good condition.
Others restored uninhabitable houses, only to be deceitfully evicted
afterwards.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Even after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated,
the FBI kept spying on his widow for 4 years.
This was purely because of their political activity.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
To the Americans who fell prey to the risky mortgages that were
offered in the last decade, Bush offers a false image of help. He
asks banks to "work with homeowners to adjust their mortgages"; but
the loan contracts don't allow banks to do that, so this suggestion
cannot have any effect.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this statement to your congresscritter to
demand a real investigation of the September 11 attacks and to repeal some
of the laws that took away Americans' freedom.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say you want a firm and strong gas-milage requirement for vehicles, not a bogus requirement with a gaping loophole.
You can also communicate thru that web site, but phone calls and paper letters generally carry more weight with US elected representatives.
The lack of clean water in Iraq has caused an outbreak of cholera. The
lack of medicine and hospital facilities means that the victims cannot be
saved.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This should not be a surprise. Bush is morally responsible for it.
Kenneth Foster's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
Life imprisonment is a fitting punishment for murderers, but Kenneth Foster was no murderer. Given the facts, it is wrong to hold him responsible for the murder that took place. He should be sentenced for what he actually did: driving a car with friends that committed robberies.
The Law of Parties is valid up to a point. Someone who starts violence is properly held co-responsible for the ensuing casualties, even those he did not directly cause. This is why Bush is responsible for all the deaths in Iraq, of Iraqis and foreigners, that result from his invasion.
Everyone in the US: turn Sep 11 into a day of action to end the Iraq war, impeach Bush, and restore democracy in the US.
The IMF is imposing even worse hardship on Iraq, with the help of the "Iraqi" government. But that government still refuses to privatize Iraq's oil.
In Mexico,
police attack natives and foreigners -- even foreign journalists.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
In Chile, an Argentine journalist was arrested covering a protest. The protest was against the former Pinochet-regime official who ordered the assassination of another Argentine journalist, Leonardo Henrichsen, and was never punished.
A secret Bush Regime report says, corruption is the "norm" in the Iraqi
government.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
This is no surprise, because corruption is the norm in the Bush regime, too.
Katrina rebuilding funds are subject to the same abuses of corruption as
Iraq occupation funds, but Bush is slow to spend the Katrina funds.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-20 because the old link was broken.]
When Torture Gonzales asked prosecutors to start bogus cases, that was a felony. The aim is to intimidate voters in 2008. Bush specifically approved punishing those that refused, which probably means he participated in the felony.
A Brazilian scientist has been sentenced to prison for caring for rescued orphan baby monkeys. People suspect there are nasty motives behind this obvious injustice.
The concept of "biopiracy" is completely misguided, because it endorses the idea of patenting life-saving drugs and raises an argument only about who ought to get the loot.
The Bush regime broke the law by not publishing legally mandated reports on the danger of global warming.
The NIH is trying to track its workers' communication with members of
Congress, apparently to intimidate them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Muqtada al Sadr has asked his militia to cease fire for 6 months to reduce
the violence in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The book Inside Spin explains how PR companies pervasively slant our "journalism". I hope to read it some day.
If you buy it, please don't get it through Amazon.
Meat-eating causes more global warming than cars, protestors are starting
to point out.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Eating less meat is important.
Christine Todd Whitman had a bad environmental record as governor of New Jersey, but fabricated a "green" image. As head of the EPA, she made most of the 9/11 rescue workers ill, by falsely telling them the air was safe to breath; but she gave the impression that she wanted to do that job honestly and only Bush stopped her.
Now she lobbies for nuclear power plants.
I see no contradiction between the statements that Whitman as head of EPA set out to weaken environmental protection, and that she tried to do more than Bush would allow. Perhaps both are true.
In Britain, the Liberal Democratic party supports taxes on CO2-emitting
activities and binding annual CO2 emission targets.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Burmese military government recruits non-political prisoners into a
secret force to attack protestors.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The genocide of the Armenians inspired was inspiration for the later
genocide of the Jews.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The UK plans to increase the flood defenses of London
due to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Global warming is good for the construction industry. As they build more runways, we pay them to build flood defenses. And as buildings get flooded and washed away, we have to replace them.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and say, "Don't let the DEA stall medical marijuana research." (And use the web site, but a phone call tends to carry more weight.)
Torture Gonzales' evil legacy will endure after his resignation, until it is explicitly abolished.
Attorney General "Torture" Gonzales
has resigned.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
He must not be allowed to escape responsibility for his crimes with just this! And Bush, who ordered them, must be charged as well.
Around the world we are seeing record heat, record rain, record
drought.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Opium production in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is booming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
As long as prohibition keeps the prices high, it will be impossible to suppress production. The only solution is to allow heroin addicts to get cheap, safe injections in doctors' offices.
The US government has imprisoned whistleblowers for reporting corruption. The Bush regime is corrupt at the root: its main goal is to hand out taxpayers' money to certain companies. They probably don't really care about Shield Group or Custer Battles, but in order to protect their own thefts from being stopped or punished, they must establish barriers to prevent interference with such theft. The same barriers then protect the other, smaller thieves.
Police that crushed a harmless large party in the UK by confiscating
its sound system got more than they bargained for — so they
wantonly destroyed property and attacked people. But this is an
example of a bigger problem: regulations that effectively eliminate
freedom of assembly in the UK.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
FEMA and the White House knew, very early, that New Orleans' levees had broken, but kept this secret from the state police and other state personnel. People died from this. And then they covered it up.
Bush has tripled the size of Federal no-bid contracts.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
For the specific case of the War on Drugs, what we need is not competitive bidding. When a war is on drugs, it attacks everyone, indiscriminately. We need to help that war get off drugs.
Canadian protestors accuse police infiltrators of acting as provocateurs.
A right wing organization plans to spread lies about Iraq and al Qa'ida to
support Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This is clear proof that they have rejected the idea of truth.
The weekly Bil'in protests against the Israeli annexation strip
continue; the police attacked protestors who were sitting down
to avoid any appearance of threat.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
There is a proposal in the UK to put GPS tracking devices in school uniforms.
Parents tend to exaggerate the size of real but small dangers to their children, so such dangers are commonly used as excuses for government censorship. Now they are to be used as excuses for total surveillance as well.
Bush, Vietnam, and the Bloodbath: Good for Business.
The Great Iraq Swindle: corruption isn't the exception, it is the whole system.
These crimes should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the war itself was a crime.
Scott McCausland, as a parole condition, has been ordered to install Windows on his computer so that the government can monitor him.
We always knew Windows was designed to spy on you.
Most Iraqis
can't get safe water to drink.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The only rational conclusion Iraqis can draw is that they should be ready to give their lives to kick out the Bush forces, because otherwise they will die anyway.
The Burmese military are cracking down on large protests in Rangoon.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
("Yangon" is the military regime's name for Rangoon, just as they call Burma "Myanmar".)
The government of Sudan is still sending arms to Darfur.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Bush always lies about Iraq. When Bush compares Iraq with Vietnam,
he misrepresents the history of the Vietnam War, too.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government is not on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction
targets for 2020, just as it will miss them for 2010.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Declaring long-range targets is an easy way to postpone dealing with the issue and avoid real (and thus uncomfortable) solutions. The government can pretend it will meet the targets until it gets so close that there is no hope of meeting them, at which point it can set another long-range target, further in the future.
Bush's support for Fatah, together with its willingness to make one-sided
concessions to Israel, has cut its support among Palestinians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The only way to encourage moderate and secular Muslims is to enable them to get something for their people. If the US makes them all knuckle under, only Islamists can benefit.
US citizens:
oppose the $30 billion military aid package to Israel.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
If Israel were threatened with a real attack, I would support aid for its defense. However, in recent years it is Israel that does the attacking, and there is no reason to support that.
Especially if the real use of these funds will be to attack Iran.
A freed prisoner of a Russian "mental hospital" says that many of the
patients seemed normal but the staff frequently tortured them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
She was forcibly drugged while in the hospital and does not know what the drugs were.
Freedom of association is also being suffocated in Russia.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Congressional Democrats are bowing to pressure from Bush and failing to really oppose the war, or his surveillance plans. In effect, electing them did no good.
Recall that among the Democrats' demands for conditions for al Maliki to fulfill was that of passing the law to hand over Iraq's oil to US companies.
When Israel closed the case on the murder of 10-year-old Abir Aramin,
apparently shot by Israeli police, ex-soldiers joined Palestinians to
protest.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Bush wants to claim his troop increase has done some sort of good for Iraqis, but the facts say no. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has actually increased since then.
To try to prevent the partition of Iraq into Sunni and Shi'ite areas (and perhaps into smaller groups as well) is impossible, so it is pure nonsense to claim that Bush's occupation is justified by that purpose.
The "democratic" leaders that Bush selects for Iraq have a pattern of
being replaced when they no longer suit him.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Another Republican plan to manipulate the 2008 presidential election.
This is if they can't do it using computerized voting machines or by stopping Democrats from voting — both of which they will surely try.
When Dr Steven Nissen reported harmful side effects for avandia (a
rather new drug), an FDA spokesman tried to smear him with lies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
As part of Bush's War on Integrity, the FDA considers the defense and support of the big drug companies to be its mission.
Several Republican presidential candidates want to ban contraceptive
pills by classifying them as "abortion". Bush has been trying to
suppress contraception for years.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
As the British prepare to pull out of the Bush forces,
Bush continues to insist he is winning in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
I think Bush figures that a certain fraction of the US will believe whatever he says, and that this fraction can ensure the war continues. He doesn't care whether Iraq suffers increasing violence, or attains the peace of the grave, as long as he doesn't openly lose his war.
By the way, the Khmer Rouge (once in power) were supported by the US and China, and were eventually overthrown by Vietnam.
The Bushmen are still insanely planning to attack Iran.
Cheney in particular seems to be pushing for this, and Cheney
usually decides what Bush will do.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
I would support a war to liberate Iran from the cruel regime of the religious extremists, provided that (1) the Iranian people wanted to be liberated in this way and (2) we could count on the new regime to establish human rights and democracy. But everything we know says that neither one is true. Bush has never respected either freedom or democracy — neither in his own country, nor anywhere else in the world. It is absurd to think he would do so in Iran.
The ethics were the same for the invasion of Iraq.
Philip Morris is pushing a law for weak FDA regulation of tobacco, which it helped to write, so as to prevent anything that might really reduce tobacco smoking.
Tobacco, like alcohol, heroin, cocaine and other dangerous, addictive drugs, must not be prohibited — prohibition tramples individual freedom and causes more harm than the drugs. But we should adopt strong measures short of prohibition to discourage its use.
The privatization of the occupation of Iraq even includes intelligence analysis.
Senator Levin wants to oust "Iraqi" PM al Maliki unless he does his
job: to hand over Iraq's oil to the occupying forces. Al Maliki is nearly powerless, but it seems there is still one thing
he can do for his country.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Potentially deadly stinging jellyfish, usually found closer to the equator,
have shown up off Britain. I would expect this is a result of global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
9 gorillas in the Congo were killed by humans this year.
That is over 1% of the world population of gorillas.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Congressional Democrats are pushing for lots of "green" initiatives,
but the most obvious conservation measures have been vetoed by big
business.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Many cosmetics and body creams contain estrogen mimics
that can feminize boys, increase risk of breast cancer for girls,
and also damage fish once they get into sewage.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Nir Rosen says that "Iraq does not exist anymore". It has been turned
into a battleground for warlords, like Mogadishu, and Bush has no power to
alter the situation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
President Chavez has proposed changes to 33 articles of the constitution of Venezuela.
I don't know enough to judge the merits of most these changes, but the one about declaring "special military zones" doesn't sound good. We are scared of what Bush might do with similar emergency powers. Even if Chavez never succumbs to such temptation, what about a future president of Venezuela?
As Congress works to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program,
Bush is trying to change the rules so fewer children can get in.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
A Russian activist who criticized conditions in mental hospitals
just won her release from one.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Brazilian government made a corrupt deal with loggers to provide land
to poor people through deforestation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
It was easier than seizing illegally deforested land.
The Liberal Democratic Party plans to directly attack Brown's
"surveillance society".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Gilded Age Crime:
Poor Go Homeless, Wealthy Get Bailouts.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
I wish I could share his confidence that a Democratic victory in 2008 will make a difference in this. I cannot imagine that Hillary Clinton would serve the poor rather than the rich.
As US influence weakens, other powers are creating a multipolar world.
Given how the US uses its dominion, weakening that dominion is good. Unfortunately, all the rivals want to have a 19-century military competition, and none champions human rights.
Karl Rove did leak the information about Valerie Plame.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The US Army claims it restricts soldiers' blogs for military security reasons, but we all knew the motives are political. Journalists found that the worst security leaks in soldiers blogs were mild compared with what the Army publishes in its own sites.
Putin is rewriting Russia's history textbooks to rehabilitate Stalin.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Rewriting history follows Stalin's example.
Israel will send 2000 refugees from Darfur
back to their deaths.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Protestors at Hearthow Airport tried to blockade BAA's offices, but were
attacked by police before they got there.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Here's an analysis of the mind set that leads some people to disregard the
danger of global warming.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
However, that picture is incomplete. Imagine if a few rich people are paying a fraction of the public — including lots of politians, of course — to ignore the problem for as long as possible. Then you get the whole situation.
Muqtada al-Sadr is trying to form an alliance of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'tes
against "foreign elements" -- the Bush forces and Al Qa'ida.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This is the first plan I have heard that makes sense.
If such an alliance takes over the non-Kurdish parts of Iraq, it will probably oppress women terribly. It could be worse than Saddam Hussein. But it will not be a big step up from occupation by the Bush forces.
The FBI deleted information from the Wikipedia article about Guantanamo.
US residents:
ask the state of Texas not to execute Kenneth Foster.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
For more information,
see this.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The death penalty is always unjust, even for intentional murders; even for mass-murderers such as Saddam Hussein and George Bush. What this case shows is the bloodthirsty nature of support for the death penalty.
Note: The top link in this entry is to a form asking the State of Texas to stay the execution. That form is intended for U.S. citizens and requires input of a U.S. state and zip code.
Israeli settlers cut a Palestinian water supply to fill a swimming pool, and sent along the dirty water from the pool for Palestinians to drink.
A report from the Heathrow protest camp. Police confiscate banners,
pretending they are weapons, and force protestors to march around by
threatening them with trucks. Meanwhile, right-wing papers lie about
them and the state pretends they are terrorists.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The police and the government, grinning liars, are the enemy of everyone's freedom, and risk destroying civilization too.
53% of Americans expect General Petraeus' report to be a whitewash.
At least they are learning something about Bush. Bush will not allow a general to make an honest report, any more than he allows NASA or EPA scientists to do so. Note how Bush's spokesman tries to deflect attention from Bush's honesty by pretending that the issue is Petraeus' honesty.
However, Americans need to learn to distrust Bush about more than just success or failure. His claimed reasons for the war (and other actions) are deceptions too.
A proposed new place for advertisements: on radio in school buses, with students as captive audiences.
Projects like these are encouraged by the general attitude of governments at all levels that "Everything is for sale." When stadiums are named after companies that paid to use them as advertising, entrepreneurs might well expect that radio on school buses will also be offered.
If governments need more money, then rather than selling off everything, they should tax businesses more. Anything other problem that impedes this, such as "free trade" treaties, needs to be corrected.
CARE says that the US food aid policy is hurts both the poor
and the farmers of Africa.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This article isn't precise enough for me to form a conclusion about that question, but it is clear that food subsidies in the US waste scarce petroleum (for fertilizer) and water.
The US voting machines that ruined an election were made in a sweatshop in Manila.
The British government sneakily gave funds to oil drilling in the
ocean off Sakhalin, leaving the environmental study to be done later
(once the project was finished). The noise is driving western gray
whales to extinction.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens and residents: comment on Bush's new plan to speed up executions, by cutting the federal courts out of the loop.
US states often execute innocent people, athat Joe Amrine should be executed even though he was innocent.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
In addition to the main Sunni-Shi'a civil war, Iraq is full of other
battles between sects, ethnic groups, and parties. And the violence
is getting worse everywhere.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
No western army of occupation has any chance of putting things back together. I doubt that anything else can stop the multiple civil wars, either. Force alone can't stop people from fighting if they are prepared to die. For anyone to end the fighting in Iraq, he would have to somehow change the attitudes of those who are now fighting each other—to suggest a different direction of loyalty.
The global-warming-denial PR machine is still campaigning desperately
to stop us from saving our planet. It represents businesses whose
only concern is to make as much money as possible in the next few years.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Political systems need to develop ways to neutralize such conspiracies, if they are to qualify as "democratic".
AT&T censored criticism of Bush during a Pearl Jam concert. When the band complained, AT&T said that the censor made a mistake.
Despite a smear campaign, the Heathrow Airport protests are
strengthening public opinion in favor of a green tax on flying.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
However, with a government whose main goal is to please business, public opinion isn't always enough to change anything. Clown's "Labour Party", like other parties that have sold their soul to business, do what big business wants unless practically forced by the public not to. Whether or not they directly take bribes, they are corrupt.
To restore democracy, we have to replace them with people whose first loyalty is to the public good, and who give business much lower priority.
Bush plans to let the police use spy satellites to monitor everyone in the US.
In the short term, we won't know what the police can see with these satellites, but the police will find out. In the medium term, as this knowledge spreads through the police, organized crime will find out the satellites' capabilities from police that are on the take. Eventually we will all know, more or less. Then their capabilities will not be secret any more. But we will still face a government that becomes increasingly powerful as it becomes increasingly illegitimate and cruel.
We're headed for another record year for disappearance of Arctic ice.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
A movement for better treatment of egg-laying hens is gaining strength
in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
It doesn't seem plausible that they could afford to import eggs from Asia. Wouldn't it cost too much to import them fast enough to be fresh?
However, this is an example of a general point that is important for all social issues.
When companies say, "Don't try to make us act ethically or we will move to Asia", our response should be, "If you move, we won't let you sell here." Rather than a law requiring local egg-producers to treat hens humanely, countries and states should adopt laws requiring all eggs sold there to be produced humanely.
"Free trade" treaties such as NAFTA and the WTO eliminate this option. And they do the same thing for a host of other issues. That makes the treaties evil. For the sake of human rights, for humane treatment of animals, for protection of the environment, and for all democratic values, we must abolish those treaties.
The US prison system is barbaric, and continues growing from its own
momentum.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The US govt spent $1.6 billion in propaganda in 2003/4.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Human Rights Watch says that all sides in Somalia are
violating human rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Ethiopian intervention was supposed to be quick, and leave the "interim government" in power. That "interim government" was a creation of foreigners and never had any popular support, and being installed by a foreign army didn't win any support for it. Now that the intervention is dragging on, we don't hear much about it.
Wolfowitz made the World Bank disregard climate change.
The topic was not supposed to be mentioned.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The World Bank's "investments" often hurt the poor, and impose antidemocratic conditions, while their benefits go mainly to the rich. If these investments fail due to climate change, they still hurt the poor and democracy, but they don't benefit anyone.
Police are trying to interfere with construction of the Heathrow
Airport protest camp.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Yearly Kos meeting of Democratic activists excluded the issue of Iraq. Bloggers organized their own session, off the grounds, and then had to publicize it themselves.
The Bush forces find themselves fighting all sides in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
It's a mistake to think they preserve a balance of power, because there isn't one.
The UK government shamelessly ordered police to use "anti-terror" laws
against protestors at Heathrow Airport, and takes the position that
any protest which "distracts the attention of the police" is illegal.
This clearly puts the UK government in the camp of the enemies of
freedom.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Although Heathrow Airport did not get an injunction against all the 5 million people that it asked for, it did get one against all the members of the organization Plane Stupid. Thus, the forces of tyranny have advanced another step.
Amnesty International has decided to uphold abortion
as a human right for rape victims, despite attempts
by the Vatican to discourage this.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Police in North Providence attacked a protest directed
against a restaurant,
injuring some protestors (one perhaps permanently) and then
charging them with "assaulting an officer".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
It's amazing how often protestors hit policemen's sticks with their heads, or break their bones on policemen's bodies.
Most Democratic presidential candidates are in no hurry to end the
occupation of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
I expect that the cited facts are accurate, but it is also worth noting what the article does not say. It does not mention Dennis Kucinich, for instance.
The control of Congress by the Democratic Party has not had much
effect because a substantial right-wing bloc of Democrats supports
Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Omar Deghayes, who may soon get to leave Guantanamo prison, reports that he has been repeatedly tortured there.
Rescue workers in New York are outraged by Giuliani's exaggeration of what he did on 9/11.
Dalit children face segregation in school, and sometimes are driven
out of school by systematic insults from the teachers. And that's
just the beginning. They are excluded from food stores, from wells,
from government offices, from having mail delivered, from voting.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The politicians and celebrities that supported the attempted conquest of Iraq must be held accountable. They must not be allowed to get away with saying "Let's move on."
Christian cruelty extends even to the dead.
I wouldn't refuse to hold a funeral even for someone as evil as Bush. I would just turn it into a celebration.
The British Bush forces are retreating from Basra,
abandoning it to Shi'a militias.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Rule by militias is horrible, but the heavy hand that would be needed to maintain permanent occupation is even worse.
To protect its good reputation from the consequences of its errors —
and its crimes — the British Army now forbids soldiers from blogging.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Congress seems headed for spending money to protect the Everglades.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This is good, but we must not neglect the long-term threat that the Everglades will be inundated by rising sea levels. The Everglades slope very gradually down into the ocean. How high above sea level is the highest point in them? If the Greenland ice cap melts, will they entirely disappear?
Operation Straight Up, with US government support, is sending the Bush
forces in Iraq a video game in which Christians fight to exterminate
everyone else.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The head of US Army chaplains is an apocalyptic religious fanatic
too.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Because hedge funds operate in secret, they create the risk of an
economic crash.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The crash of 1929 occurred because investors came to treat inherently risky leveraged investments as if they were safe. Years of rising stock prices had led them suppose that losing was not a possibility. So they sought the investments which would give them the biggest profit if the market continued to rise, which also were the riskiest investments in the case of a downturn.
Hedge funds could be today's equivalent. And our government is about as vigilant for us as that of Herbert Hoover.
Bush is adamant against increasing educational benefits for veterans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
If the US Army were engaged in legitimately defending the US, or simply standing prepared to do so if needed, I would be in favor of "increasing the quality" of its recruits. However, given that it has been hijacked by Bush for an unjust war of conquest, I cannot consider that goal to be desirable.
Starbucks has been very effective at faking "social responsibility",
but its treatment of workers is as bad as WalMart. Now it is on trial
for union busting.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
PR companies help corporations and government deceive and manipulate the public more than we usually realize.
The Democrats in the US Senate lacked the guts to increase taxes on
hedge funds.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The UK has finally decided to rescue its residents who are imprisoned
in Guantanamo.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
B'liar made excuses to let them languish. Perhaps he was more concerned with displeasing Bush than with imprisoning people without trial.
Roadside bomb attacks in Iraq reached an all-time high in July. This
proves that Dubya's troop increase has not done him any good.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
German journalists face prosecution for publishing information from
leaked German government documents that indicated knowledge of
kidnappings by the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
If anyone is prosecuted, it should be the German officials who knew about these kidnappings and failed to act to stop them.
When corporations advertise themselves as environmentally friendly, are they lying? Saab is.
George Monbiot: Ethical shopping is just a way of saying I'm rich.
Individual action can create a demonstration of feasibility — for fair trade, for conservation, for any matter of ethical or sustainable business practices. To extend those demonstrations to a real solution requires laws to ensure the practices are generally followed.
But the mass media generally focus on individual action rather than collective action. Once I listened to an NPR talk show about how people could improve their working conditions. I called in and suggested that workers could do this by forming a union. The host said, "We only want to talk about individual action here."
The Yangtze river dolphin is
now officially considered extinct. It was wiped out by accidental fishing
and by noise from boats.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces are arming Sunni militias to fight against al Qa'ida. It's
logical, but self-defeating, because the presence of the occupying army in Iraq
provides the impetus for al Qa'ida.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Bush's "surge" troop increase has clearly failed to win the war, but it
has achieved its real goal: buying Bush more time to continue it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Long-suppressed film footage of the effects and victims of the A-bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will now be broadcast.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign the petition to Congress saying to
reverse the gift of additional spying powers to King George.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Brian Haw continues to defy the UK government's attempt to suppress his
vigil against the war.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Shame on his wife for abandoning him. If he has the courage to do this, she should at least have had the courage to be supportive.
Human rights campaigners are making use of the Olympics to pressure China,
which continues to trample human rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Heathrow Airport failed to gain the injunction against millions of Britons
who are potential protestors.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This attempted protest-suppression gives Plane Stupid a boost with which to tackle the real struggle: to prevent airport expansion that would increase global warming.
But it is just a small step towards
restoring freedom of speech in the UK.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces handed out 190,000 guns to "Iraqi" troops who have since "lost" them, perhaps to Iraqi patriots.
The Bush forces are trying to ally themselves with Sunni militias to fight against al Qa'ida. It's logical in a narrow sense, but self-defeating, because presence of the occupying Bush forces in Iraq is what enables al Qa'ida to recruit.
The propaganda in
this article is in the background: it calls the sheikhs that agree to work
for Bush "America's allies", as if Bush were on America's side.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
China is modernizing the slogans that promote the one-child rule, but the
program continues.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The practice of choosing to have boys instead of girls probably contributes to the effectiveness of the policy, since the excess men mostly won't have any children.
After Israeli troops killed British filmmaker James Miller, the Israeli
army covered it up with lies. The UK calls his death murder and demands they
prosecute the killers, but Israel continues to lie to shield them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
The Senate voted to
give Bush more surveillance power, in a display of
spinelessness. The fox said his power to watch the henhouse was
insufficient, so they increased it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
David Sugar faces a criminal investigaton for writing an article.
Here it is.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
This report says that Fatah never really fought against Hamas in Gaza
— that there was a political decision, high up, not to fight
back.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
I am not sure what to make of the report or how to reconcile it with other information.
Orangutans display awareness of what others do or do not understand.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Long-lived Greenland sharks have very high concentrations PCBs and
dioxin, showing that this contamination has spread around the world.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery: White Elephants.
How Israel treats its Palestinian prisoners.
(That page was posted by an Israeli peace group.)
Many of these prisoners were never charged with a crime.
The average number of Atlantic cyclones per year has just about doubled
since the early 1900s.
International Energy Agency's latest report says that the price of oil
will rise greatly in 2010-2012, confirming the basic idea of peak oil.
If the price temporarily falls in 2008-2009, governments will face the
tempation to give people a quick fix of cheap gasoline. What they
ought to do is increase taxes to provide impetus for conservation, so that
the blow won't hit as hard. Which do you think the US will do?
Is it a long drought in the Southwest, or just the end of an abnormally
wet century?
Palestinians lost their case to prevent Israel's annexation wall from
being built through their farm lands. Supposedly this is necessary to protect
a Jewish colony which shouldn't be there in the first place.
One land grab is the excuse for another.
The words "wall" and "fence" give the wrong impression, because
this strip is over 60 yeards wide. It destroys a broad swath of farmland.
The Iraqi government has little power, but what little it has is
enough for police to sue journalists for their news reporting.
The "brown clouds" of Asian cooking fires are a substantial
contribution to global warming.
Most of the UK public is opposed to placing US missile defense
facilities there, and Clown is facing some heat.
A report says that the head of Scotland Yard was kept in the dark by
his senior subordinates about the fact that police had shot an
innocent man through overeagerness.
I have to suspect that this was due to some sort of general or
specific request that they not tell him what he would rather not know.
NSA's spying on Americans was even bigger than previously
announced,
and we don't know how big.
Bush is now asking Congress to extend his power for spying without
court orders. His power ought to be reduced, not extended.
Officers in the Bush forces say Bush is wrong in claiming that their
enemy is al Qa'ida.
In fact, all Iraqis are enemies of the Bush regime, except the Kurds,
who are content with their de-facto independence.
The Bush regime has ordered that the CIA can kidnap anyone that
it believes has a vague, indirect relationship with al Qa'ida. That could
be interpreted to mean, essentially, anyone in the world.
This is part of Cheney's general policy of making the US just as evil
as its adversaries.
Greg Palast's investigative fund needs money.
Palast informed us about how the Bushmen stole the 2000
election, how they planned in advance to steal the 2004
election, and how they are now planning to steal the 2008 election.
The Republicans in Ohio have illegally destroyed most of the 2004
election ballots, defying a court order to preserve them.
They probably figure that they can break laws with impunity
because Republican state officials will protect them.
Journalist Wendy Williams was attacked with an anonymous lawsuit
threat, as well as lies, for writing a book that praises the proposed
Cape Wind project.
GE has a new greenwashing technique: a credit card that puts 1%
of the spending into carbon offseting projects.
If the carbon offseting really worked, 1% would be too small to solve
the problem. So this would tend to lull the public into thinking they
have solved the problem with a tiny sacrifice.
However, it's worse than that: many so-called carbon offseting
projects, such as tree planting, don't accomplish much to reduce
global warming.
Those gaping flaws are the reason this credit card must be considered
greenwashing rather than a real step towards a solution.
In a rare victory against Bush's War on Integrity, the Fish and
Wildlife Service has agreed to review 8 edangered species decisions.
This is out of over 200 decisions that may have been corrupted.
The history of the CIA is a series of absurd failures of intelligence.
Its successes have been assassinations, coups, and bought elections.
Bush is already preparing to disregard any legal requirement established
by Congress to withdraw the Bush forces from Iraq.
There's a solution to this: impeach Bush and Cheney too! It should
have been done years ago, but it isn't too late.
The main Sunni party has pulled its ministers out of
Bush's Iraqi government, much as al Sadr's party did
a couple of months ago.
Their complaints reflect the fact that the Iraqi government
is basically impotent.
I expect Bush to lose his war in Iraq, but he may well succeed in
ruining two countries in the process.
The Bush forces say they want to keep occupying Iraq for years,
and the cost in money keeps increasing.
Thus, the only way to end the occupation will be through a
confrontation with Bush.
The UN will send a substantial force of peacekeepers to Darfur.
Hospitals in Gaza lack drugs, even plaster for casts, because of the
Israeli blockade.
A blockade is a less spectacular way of killing innocent people than
dropping bombs, but it kills them just as dead. The same thing
happened in Iraq under the US-imposed sanctions
Heathrow Airport seeks an injunction to forbid protestors' taking
the subway to get to the airport, but London will fight against it
in court.
Clown says that expanding airports is needed for economic growth.
What will be left of this economic growth after flooding, heat waves,
dying seas, and failing agriculture?
The boss of a concentration camp in Cambodia, who presided over
many executions, now will face charges.
The Khmer Rouge killed between one million and three million.
Bush's war has killed around a million. Making him pretty
much comparable to Pol Pot. When will Bush face a court
for his mass murder?
The Bush forces have blocked all car traffic into some areas of
Baghdad, so the people there cannot get food and cannot get to
hospitals.
Gordon Clown is not the poodle that B'liar was: he says he will
pull British troops out of the Bush forces whether Bush likes it or not.
Gordon Clown's agenda for tyranny: increased power and increased
surveillance.
The Bush forces met with Iranian representatives, and say they agreed to
talk more -- but they seem to be more interested in cursing Iran than
cooperating.
The supposed evidence of Iranian support for Iraqi militias is doubted by
everyone that doesn't support the Bush regime.
Anti-arms-trade dissidents in the UK were grabbed by police just for
asking whether an anonymous factory was in fact the Nottingham Small Arms
Factory.
As B'liar postures as a peace negotiator,
James Wolfensohn explains how his efforts to work for peace were undercut
politically.
Russia has resumed the Soviet practice of
imprisoning dissidents in mental hospitals.
1/7 of the inhabitants of Iraq—four million people—have become
refugees, a disaster which is the result of Bush's crime.
Despite the violence in Iraq,
Britain sends back nearly all Iraqis that ask for asylum there.
1/3 of iraqis "need urgent aid", according to Oxfam.
The reason MI5 refused to help al-Rawi get out of Guantanamo is that
they put him there—by lying about him. And his interrogation by
the US was based on what he had freely told MI5 while helping them.
General Petraeus and al Maliki can't get along with each other even though
they are ostensibly working for the same boss.
Genetically engineered crops produce lots of unusual proteins in
addition to the ones they were intended to make. Both companies
and regulators are careless about ensuring their safety.
Evidence says Pat Tillman was shot from behind at a range of 30 feet
while no combat was going on. Was he murdered so he couldn't oppose
the war?
MI5 promised al-Rawi, for his help, to protect him; but when Bush
decided to kidnap him, MI5 made excuses. He was taken to Afghanistan
and Guantanamo for torture; MI5 says, "I know nothing, nothing!"
Bush has claimed the power to freeze the assets of anyone he considers
to be "undermining" the occupation of Iraq — by fiat. This is
another blow against the rule of law in the US, which continues its
slide into tyranny.
The Bush regime's general tendency is to interpret its powers in the
broadest possible way. "Undermining" could be stretched to include
criticizing Halliburton, suing Halliburton, agitating politically to
end the occupation — almost anything that opposes the war.
From - Tue
Polls late last year found that 2/3 of Iraqis want the Bush forces to
pull out.
The 2 million Americans in prison have been
turned
into a slave labor force, and the businesses involved pressure to
imprison more people.
Pepsi admits that Aquafina is tap water.
Dasani from Coca Cola Corporation is also tap water. The difference
is, it is sold by a company that murders union organizers.
Machsom Watch, the organization of Israelis that keep track of human
rights abuses at Israeli checkpoints in Palestine, must be doing a
good job: the army is starting to harass and arrest their members.
The recent meeting between some Israeli and Arab officials
shows there is no prospect for any kind of agreement.
Bush wants to create an appearance of progress
to distract attention from reality-based criticism.
The FDA's inspection procedures are clownishly inept, so
businesses regularly evade them.
I suspect this is not coincidence. For instance, the FDA officials
who expect to get good jobs with food importers could choose the more
lax option when those importers request it. And these importers have
lots of ways to lobby for reductions in inspection activity, presented
as "ways to economize".
Gorbachev, who dismantled the Soviet Empire, rebukes the US for
creating another empire.
However, the empire that we must fight is not ruled by the US.
It is ruled by the megacorporations, with governments such as that
of the US used to keep each other in line.
Carol Wallace, age 63, accused the police of harassing people in her
housing project. Four days later, police raided her home.
There is the Big Brother: Workplace Control and Workforce Surveillance.
U.S. House votes 262-165 to continue funding DEA's war on medical
marijuana patients — but the opposition increases each time.
Oppressing Iraqis is not enough for the Bush forces; they even
abuse their own construction workers.
Damning proof of Republican efforts to steal the 2004
election through voter suppression.
The most dangerous criminals in the US work for Bush, and were
rewarded by him for this crime.
Senators have demanded an independent prosecutor to investigate
Torture Gonzales for lying to them.
Bush will surely continue to protect his team of liars. Congress
should stop farting around and impeach both Bush and Cheney.
Charges against Mohamed Haneef have been dropped,
but he still faces arbitrary expulsion from Australia
for no reason except that he was falsely suspected.
President Chavez plans to require cable TV channels (such as RCTV)
to drop their programming for his speeches.
When RCTV broadcast on the airwaves, it must have been required to
carry these speeches. This won't lead to more interruptions of its
programming than it had before.
On the other hand, citizens of Venezuela have plenty of access to
Chavez's speeches, so there is no public need to make any more
channels distribute them. They are not about emergencies. If his
motive is just to punish RCTV a second time, that seems immature.
B'liar promised to put sanctions on Burma, but didn't, and now the UK
government protects companies that do business with Burma.
The Bush regime now recognizes Jamil el-Banna was arrested by mistake,
but he is still held in Guantanamo because the UK won't let him back.
The UK took years to admit that his companion, al-Rawi, was in fact
helping UK intelligence. I am sure it wasn't because they didn't
know; it was sheer treachery. Why anyone would willingly spy on Al
Qa'ida for US or UK intelligence beats me.
The American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids are
supporting Philip Morris, aiming to weaken a bill designed to help the
FDA regulate cigarettes.
I wonder whether they have got money from the tobacco companies.
Heathrow Airport plans to suppress protests.
It wants an injunction against over 5 million Britons that could subject them to arrest for
anything that vaguely resembles a protest, anywhere near the airport.
This is an arrogant attack on human rights.
Australia arrested Mohammed Haneef suspecting he helped the failed UK
bomb plot. However, as the evidence for his participation crumbles,
the government refuses to recognize he was not involved.
Governments often tend to behave like this, but the more they are
based on lies, the more they cannot admit any sort of mistake.
US government agencies have stalled for up to 15 years on FOIA
requests.
In Burma, children watch as the government shoots their parents,
and parents watch as the government shoots their children.
If Bush had been at all honest about intervening in Iraq
for the sake of Iraqis, he would have chosen Burma first.
Gordon Clown tried to distance himself from Bush, until Bush pulled
him back into line. How pathetic.
And it transpires that Clown has allowed Bush to use the UK
for the antimissile system, a provocation aimed at Russia.
Israel and the Arab League are talking about peace talks.
It sounds good; however, as Uri Avnery has pointed out, the mere fact
that Arab League representatives went to Israel is a big victory for
Israel — and the Palestinians got nothing for it.
The UK government said it didn't know Bush was transporting suspects
to be tortured, and wouldn't hand over anyone to be tortured.
This fails to address the question of transporting such suspects
through the UK or UK logistical support for their transport.
In addition, no country should hand over any suspects to the US
government without a careful and proper extradition procedure, which
considers the risk that the person will be tortured or not get a fair
trial.
Several states have passed harsh laws that make voter registration
drives so dangerous that no one dares do them.
Instead of extending SCHIP, Bush proposes a tax credit to pay for
private insurance. This is the most expensive and inefficient method
of giving health coverage, so the same money would cover fewer people;
and he proposes to spend less.
If Bush's proposal were adopted, it surely won't be funded enough to
do the whole job.
The UK government insanely plans to reduce rail subsidies.
It will fund increased train capacity with big fare increases.
This is supposed to be a plan to cut overcrowding, and it will surely
work, since it will push to CO2-belching cars and planes.
There is an international effort to protect the sturgeon in the
Caspian Sea, but illegal caviar fishing might ensure their extinction.
I do wonder if the low-quality black-market caviar comes from
somewhere else.
Be that as it may, to risk Caspian sturgeon's extinction just to
preserve a low level of caviar supply is just plain stupid, given the
rapid decline of the sturgeon population. It is very hard to
determine the sustainable level of fishing for any species unless you
can see that the population remains stable. Otherwise it involves
models in which many parameters can only be guessed at. Allowing some
legal caviar sales complicates enforcement, since it opens the door to
disguising illegal caviar as legal, and this practically guarantees
that the official program to preserve the species won't be properly
carried out.
Musharraf doesn't dare crack down on Al Qa'ida in the tribal areas
near Afghanistan, and also doesn't dare let the US do it.
Democrats in Congress want to extend the State Children's Health Insurance
Program so as to provide health insurance to many of the children that
don't have it.
As SiCKO shows, in the US today, having health insurance does not insure that
you get needed medical care.
Bush says he will defy Congress if it charges his officials with contempt.
The Bush forces have drawn up
a plan for Iraqization.
This plan is more realistic than previous plans in just one level: it
recognizes the nature of the sectarian war in Iraq. However, it continues to
inhabit a fantasy world when it disregards the fact that Iraqis generally hate
the Bush forces and want them out, and the concomitant fact that the Iraqi
government and its troops are all collaborators unless they are working
secretly to get the Bush forces out.
A town in Sweden provides electricity and central heating by burning wood
chips, causing zero CO2 emissions.
President Chavez threatened to deport foreign dignitaries that criticize
his policies.
I don't know what Espino said; given his party's policies, he may well have
lied like Faux News. However, this is the wrong way to respond to false
criticism.
I criticized one government policy last Friday while speaking in Venezuela:
the one where the SENIAT (the tax agency) requires people to give their names
and numbers whenever they buy anything (even a book or a meal). ¡Abajo
el SENIAT! I then said that even the SENIAT should use free software.
Later: I learned what Espino said: he criticized Chavez' closure of
RCTV and his plans to eliminate presidential term limits. These are
criticisms, not lies. People should not be punished for stating such
opinions.
The Bush forces arranged another meeting in Iraq with Iranian
representatives. However, things are still going badly for them.
I am particularly pleased that the law to hand over Iraq's oil to the
conquerors is blocked.
Libya has pardoned the foreign nurses who were tortured into confessing
that they had infected 400 childred with HIV.
I wonder how many prisoners in Guantanamo were tortured into false confessions.
The current flood in Britain has exceeded all historical records. It
surprised the public, but not scientists — they have warned for years
that global warming would bring increases in extreme weather.
Japan's biggest nuclear plant, now idled by earthquake damage, sits right
on top of an active fault. Its operators tried to deny the problem —
and falsified inspection records 200 times.
These lies were probably criminal acts. As punishment, the government should
confiscate the entire Tepco stock holdings of everyone convicted.
Pakistan's Supreme Court restored the chief justice that Musharraf had
sacked. Many Pakistanis celebrated this.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell previously told Stephen Hayes
that
the Bushmen had distorted intelligence reports to justify the invasion of
Iraq.
Journalist Shi Tao is imprisoned in China for criticizing government
policy, with Yahoo's help. His mother has sued Yahoo in the US for this.
Yahoo's response: to state its "dismay" to excuse its conduct.
Talk which changes nothing is cheap.
England has had two large floods this summer, and now research shows that
global warming has caused a steadily increasing rainfall there, as predicted.
I wonder if record floods in parts of China are an instance of the same
phenomenon.
Meanwhile, Southern Europe and parts of the American West will
face increasing drought.
Congressman DeFazio is on the "Homeland Security" committee, but
Bush won't let him see the plans for how to run the government after an
attack.
What is heartening here is his reaction: maybe people are right that this
hides a nasty conspiracy. The standard policy of the Bush regime is that the
mouth says "You have no proof we have done anything wrong" while the hands
stop you from checking for proof. On many occasions we later discovered that
this was a cover-up for corruption or worse. Now we must consider this
combination as a prima facie case to indict the regime.
El Salvador's government has arrested several opposition leaders during
a peaceful protest against water privatization.
Water privatization is imposed by the World Bank and IMF with US backing.
Thousands of Iraqi refugee families
have set up their own refugee camps, because the official camps are full.
Uri Avnery:
Bush has twisted the two-state solution into a rag to cover his nakedness.
Thousands of gays have fled Poland, where the government encourages
bigotry.
Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, destroying its economy. Food
aid is getting in, but no commerce is possible.
Israel always says that there is "no one to talk with", and makes sure it
remains true.
Bush and Europe support Israel completely, although they pretend it isn't
so. Thus, there is no prospect for peace or an end to the daily oppression of
Palestinias.
Guantanamo prisoners continue their hunger strike despite regular forced
feeding.
Clown in the UK plans to start arresting people for possession of marijuana
again.
This will only increase the harm done by the War on Drugs.
Sprint has a practice of canceling the accounts of people that complain too much, or ask too many questions, and puts the blame on
them.
This sounds almost like a government--and that makes sense, because
today's large corporations are accustomed to think they rule us.
An ancient tribe in Pakistan now faces the threat of forced
conversion to Islam.
Fanatical Muslims, those that advocate Islamic law, do not believe in
religious freedom. We must respect their personal right to hold their
views, but the views themselves deserve only criticism.
Not all Muslims are fanatical; there are Muslims who are tolerant and
decent. The human tendency to feel concern for others is universal,
and crops up in all places and circumstances. However, these people
are good despite religion, not because of it.
After police attacked a large protest in Oaxaca,
the protestors fought back. The protest intended to reclaim a
traditional festival that has been turned into a
corporate-sponsored tourist event.
State legislators in various states are starting to think about
how to stop companies from playing one state against another
for tax breaks and handouts.
I suggested many years ago that the states should form a union to
bargain collectively with these companies. We could call it "The
United States of America". This union could adopt a rule that
whenever a company starts negotiating with more than one state about
where to site any activity, none of the states can offer it any
discretionary tax breaks or incentives without the approval of all of
the states involved.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to support HR811 --
Rush Holt's bill to protect against electronic voting machine fraud --
as it was adopted by the committee, and reject the changes that have been
made to weaken the bill.
For more information follow this link.
Islamist suicide bombers in Pakistan took revenge for the storming
of the Red Mosque.
Non-extremists in Pakistan will have to organize and fight if they
don't want to be ruled by Taliban.
Cheney covered up proof of conspiracies to create power shortages in
California — then dishonestly blamed Governor Davis for the
consequences of these shortages.
Australia, the driest continent, faces increasing drought due to global warming.
Al Qa'ida uses lies in its PR, just like the Bush regime.
The Bush regime also falsifies Al Qa'ida PR. Mainstream Western media
outlets presented a "new" bin Laden tape which was made in 2001 and
had been aired twice before.
A Jewish chaplain has been labeled a "deserter" after his well
documented complaints about antisemitic harassment were ignored.
Veterans for Freedom pretends to be a "grass roots" pressure group
like the Iraq Veterans Against the War, but it is funded by
Republicans and works directly with the White House.
Each European country can decide whether to require ISPs to give
information to lawsuits by their equivalent of the RIAA, says the EU
Supreme Court.
This means that we will now see a new political battleground, in which
each country must take the side of millions of music-sharing citizens
or the record companies.
A study says that organic farming can produce more food in the
developing world — without more land.
This article presents ostensible proof that the Bush regime
fabricated a "bin Laden" tape.
George Galloway has been suspended temporarily from the UK parliament for
letting Iraqi oil-for-food funds flow into a political activity that he
chaired.
The UK government talks green, but its policies have encouraged cars (and
airplanes) over buses and trains.
Encouraging car travel leads to congestion, and congestion provides
an excuse for universal surveillance schemes, such as the one now
practiced in London and the one proposed by New York Mayor Bloomberg.
A simple increase in gas tax would eliminate these artificial problems while
also helping to save the planet.
The Mediterranean Sea and its bed are full of plastic trash, mainly bags
and food packaging. Future hurricanes are likely to stir it all up.
A general strike shut down the Dominican Republic for a day.
The Dominican Republic recently signed a new low-wage treaty with the US.
A general strike has spread across Peru, as its Bush-league president
makes investors happy while disregarding the poor.
Pharmaceuticals discarded by humans are causing illness for animals and
humans, as they get into the water we drink. Sewage treatment is not designed
to block them.
A number of organizations are pressuring Home Depot
to stop advertising on Fox News.
The fact that this campaign is necessary is a measure of how much our society
has fallen under the control of business. To restore democracy is to strip
business of its power.
KBR was going to charge the Bush forces $110 million for
maintaining bases that were already closed.
The Bush forces would object to this, if they wanted to save money.
The inter-group killing in Iraq continues to increase. The Bush forces are
unable to stop it, and their temporary alliances backfire.
Ethiopia's main opposition leaders have been
sentenced to life in prison.
An earthquake in Japan caused
a fire in a nuclear power plant. Due to the earthquake damage, the firemen
were busy elsewhere, so they could not come immediately to put out the fire.
Japan is building lots more nuclear power plants, and their plan seems like
foolish disregard for danger.
The insurance industry says that single-payer health care means long waits
to see a doctor and rationing of health care. Actually the US system is worse
on precisely these measures.
US citizens: phone your congressional reps and senators
to oppose Senator Coburn's amendment to increase the federal
penalties on medical marijuana users.
Jonathan Aponte had a man shoot him so he would not be sent back to Iraq.
Of foreigners fighting against the Bush forces,
nearly half are Saudis.
The Bush forces want to claim that they come from Syria and Iran, which seems
to be a matter of blaming the usual suspects.
President Chavez wants to amend the Venezuelan constitution so he can
run for president again.
This is not necessarily bad, but it is disturbing.
The FBI exceeded the sweeping surveillance power given to it by the USAP
AT RIOT to obtain people's phone records through requests that were obviously
illegal. These requests were signed by someone fairly high in the FBI.
The false information in these requests could make them a crime.
In 2001,
the Bush regime explicitly funded the Taliban.
Michael Moore lambastes CNN for absurd false statements about SiCKO.
Russia has canceled a treaty about reporting troop movements.
Elsewhere I read that this was a response to Bush's
provocative missile defense plans.
The deal to end North Korea's nuclear program is making tangible
progress.
The island nation of Tuvalu is slowly being drowned by global warming.
Most people there expect to emigrate.
It may be possible for 10,000 refugees to find a place to go. But if
climate change sends millions fleeing, a few decades from now, will
anyone let them in?
A Utah woman was attacked and then lied about by police who had come
to demand that she water her lawn.
Aside from the brutality, isn't it crazy to require
people to water lawns during a drought in a region
with a permanent water shortage that global warming will
keep making worse?
Interviews with 50 Bush forces veterans show a pattern of systematic
hatred and murderous violence towards Iraqi civilians — hardly
ever punished.
If someone says you should "support our troops", ask him if he
means supporting this.
As the US congress considers pulling the Bush forces out of Iraq,
"Iraqi" prime minister al Maliki says they can leave at any time.
The benchmarks that the "Iraqi" government is supposed to achieve
include passing the law handing over Iraq's oil wealth to foreigners.
Canada has prohibited protests in a wide area around a planned summit
with Bush. Even a meeting in a town hall in another town has been
prohibited. (I wonder how they can justify such a prohibition?)
They should hold the event anyway and dare the police to shut it down.
Various US companies are being sued for using paramilitaries
to kill union leaders in Colombia.
These companies plead they had no choice to pay off the paramilitaries
— that the paramilitaries would otherwise have attacked the
companies. That may be true, but it is a red herring. Just paying
off the paramilitaries to leave the companies alone would not have
motivated them to kill union leaders. The companies must have paid
extra for that.
One year after its abortive war with Hezbollah, Israel focuses on
asking why it didn't win, rather than on the most important question:
why did it fight a war?
If the United States Were A Free Country...
I agree with all except the part about firearms.
President Chavez wants to amend the Venezuelan constitution so he can
run for president again.
This is not necessarily bad, but it is disturbing.
The FBI exceeded the sweeping surveillance power given to it by the U
SAP AT RIOT to obtain people's phone records through requests that
were obviously illegal. These requests were signed by someone fairly
high in the FBI.
The false information in these requests could make them a crime.
In 2001, the Bush regime explicitly funded the Taliban.
Michael Moore lambasts CNN for absurd false statements about SiCKO.
Rep. Conyers talks of suspicion that half-pardoning Libby was a way to
keep him quiet so he would not implicate others in the Bush
administration.
Massachusetts governor Patrick vetoed plans to fund "sex education"
classes that only teach students not to have sex.
That is a step in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough. Sex
education should not spread the perverse idea that teens shouldn't
have sex. It should teach them how to have sex well.
France has admitted that a French judge was murdered in Djibouti, for
political reasons. Previously the French government covered this up and
called it suicide.
I have to recognize that in admitting this, Sarkozy (whose political policies
are detestable) is taking a step towards honesty.
The UK keeps deporting people to the Congo, refusing to recognize that
many of them are disappeared once they arrive.
The House of Representatives voted for withdrawal from Iraq by April, but
with a small margin that doesn't seriously threaten to stop Bush from doing
whatever he wants.
A Canadian court ruled that
prohibition of marijuana is unconstitutional.
A Florida Republican state representative was
arrested for soliciting for prostitution. Don't they pay representatives
enough?
I think he should be released, because prostitution and related activities
should not be prohibited -- just regulated for everyone's safety. However, as
a Republican, he deserves to be excoriated for his hypocrisy.
Global warming is
killing trout and salmon. They can't stand the higher temperatures. And
other fish are threatened by it too.
But this won't matter if we drive the fish to extinction through overfishing
quickly enough.
The Nation published reports by many Iraq veterans about the
systematically atrocities they witnessed or committed. "It's not individual
atrocity, it's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."
The systematic oppression, based on the attitude was that Iraqi lives counted
for nothing, is why I flatly reject any suggestion to "support" "our" troops.
The only support they deserve is to be pulled out of Iraq.
Luis Obrador, who was robbed of victory in Mexico's presidential election by
fraud,
continues to deny the legitimacy of President Calderon.
Six months ago, Bush supporters asked the public to
wait 6 months to judge the effects of his troop increase in Iraq (which he
called the "surge").
They have been saying similar things for three years or more, and they
probably are saying the same things now. They will keep saying forever,
"Don't judge yet." It's up to the people to refuse them any more time-outs.
The Australian government refused to publish a study about reaction to
changed labor laws, saying that providing this information to the citizens
would risk influencing how people vote in the next election.
Solar activity has been going down ever since 1980, so it can't be to
blame for global warming.
We are fortunate that a slightly cooling Sun has counteracted some of our CO2
and methane emissions, but the rising temperatures show that our emissions
outweigh the Sun's cooling.
The former Surgeon General says Bush politicized his job.
Bush proposes to replace him with
a religious fanatic who tries to "cure" gays.
China's former chief food and medicine regulator was executed for
corruptly authorizing unsafe products.
The death penalty is never justified; he should have been sentenced to many
years in prison. However, even strict punishment of a few leaders will not
alone suffice to make products safe. That requires an end to the culture of
secrecy which pervades China from the top down.
The conditions asked of the Iraqi government, for continued support from
the Bush regime, are impossible.
Maybe that is a good thing. To require these conditions is, in effect, a way
of cutting off support, which is what ought to be done.
A strange reversal:
Bush says that Bush forces troop levels "will be decided by commanders on
the ground, not by politicians in Washington DC".
If that's true, it will be the first time, since previously two politicians,
Bush and Cheney, have overruled the generals.
US citizens: phone your senators and say they should oppose Bush's nominee for
surgeon general. He is a religious fanatic that wants to "convert" gays.
See
this for more info.
Ethiopians who protested election fraud may face execution.
Iran has slowed down uranium enrichment, perhaps offering a deal.
I don't think Bush wants a deal; I think he wants an excuse for another war.
But maybe his support has eroded to the point where he will have to make the
deal.
South Africa is proposing a deal to rescue Zimbabwe from dictatorship and
collapse.
The Pakistani army stormed the mosque which was the base of fundamentalist
vigilantes.
New York's mayor wants 3,000 surveillance cameras, using terrorism as the
excuse. But the crucial part of the scheme is that they would record all
cars' license plates.
Having cameras to make recordings, that can be checked if crimes are committed
is useful, and I have nothing against it. Constant surveillance of everyone
is another matter: that must be fought.
As Republicans start to criticize Bush, he follows his usual strategy:
press on as if nothing had happened.
I predict that if laws require a reduction in the Bush forces in Iraq, he will
write a signing statement saying he doesn't have to obey them.
An ACLU lawsuit against Bush's illegal telephone surveillance was dismissed
on the grounds that none of the plaintiffs could prove he had been spied on.
Since the secret spy program doesn't say who it spies on, nobody can
demonstrate he was a target. Under this Kafkaesque legal doctrine, this means
nobody can ever sue, so secret spying can be done without limits.
Local opposition has blocked the expansion of several UK airports, thus
helping to make the government's supposed CO2 plans a reality.
But the Clown has plans to "streamline" the approval process, which would
strip local people of legal authority over all sorts of projects, from
airports to shopping malls.
US citizens: phone your congresscriter and say,
"Please vote for Rep. Hinchey's medical marijuana amendment
to the 'Justice' Department spending bill." This amendment
would prohibit the Dept of Injustice from spending money
arresting people that use medical marijuana in accord with
state law.
As Shell tramples the Irish, and ignores laws, to build a dangerous
natural gas refinery in Ireland, a broad-based protest campaign
continues to block construction, even though their government
is against them.
I'm sure that there is a safe way to build this refinery. I am sure
it would still be profitable if built safely. And I'm sure Shell's
attitude is that they want the maximum profits, and people's health be
damned.
2000 Chinese officials broke the one-child law in just one province. And
that counts only the ones who were investigated for corruption for other
reasons.
I wonder what fraction of the officials investagated had broken this law. But
it may not matter a lot, since the main point of the law is to cut down on
population growth. If it is only 90% enforced, that is still very effective.
The vice president of the "Iraqi" government called on citizens to arm
themselves, admitting the government can't protect them.
This is ironic because (1) Iraq is full of arms, (3) lots of Iraqis have arms,
and (3) the Bush forces have been trying to take them away.
Several Senate Republicans have called for a plan to reduce troops in the Bush forces.
It is a small step in the right direction. However, I think that Bush will stonewall them until pushed hard.
Police in Spokane attacked a man who was picknicking after a protest, after he asked for a policeman's badge number. Then they went wild and grabbed everyone they could get.
As Israel sentences Mordechai Vanunu to prison for giving interviews
that included no nuclear secrets, Pakistan is relaxing the restrictions
on AQ Khann,
whose old network may still be selling nuclear secrets.
While Bush calls himself "the decider",
Cheney often controls
the options among which he decides.
Note how he worked around Bush's opposition on the details of tax cuts
for the rich.
This makes the impeachment of Cheney important, just like the
impeachment of Bush.
Just after Israeli independence, the Israeli army carried out a
systematic campaign of destroying the (pre-Zionist) past. Antiquities
destroyed or sacked included mosques, synagogues, crusader fortresses,
museums and their collections, and carvings 3,000 years old.
90% of the Israeli settlements in Palestine have taken over land which
isn't officially theirs;
while leaving disused most of the
Palestinian land which the Israeli government says it gave them.
Temperate forests are less effective than thought at absorbing CO2,
while
tropical forests have been doing more than was previously realized.
This is bad news, because there is disastrous deforestation in many
tropical forests -- for instance, in Indonesia and Brazil.
Remember al-Zarqawi, who was supposed to be "the" leader of Al Qa'ida
in Iraq? The
Bush forces actively exaggerated his importance for
years -- and misleading Americans was part of the goal.
Meanwhile, internally they recognized that he and Al Qa'ida were a
small part of the Iraqi resistance.
Think about this when the Bush forces say that their enemies in Iraq
are "Al Qa'ida".
Arctic ponds are evaporating due to global warming.
Some areas have dried out to the point where plants can no longer grow
or absorb any CO2; and the next lightning could set them on fire,
releasing all their CO2 into the atmosphere.
Southern Greenland's ice sheet has survived previous warm periods
without melting.
This is good news, since it suggests we're not in danger of a total
melt soon. But a partial melt of up to half the sheet's thickness,
which is what the article says did happen,
would raise sea level 11
feet.
Global warming will increase death rates in the US.
China's test of an antisatellite weapon has raised
fears of conflict
in space. It also added to the dangerous inventory of space junk.
The exact same criticisms applied to the US test of an antisatellite
weapon, many years ago. At least China used an obsolete satellite as
a target. The target destroyed in the US test was in active use by
scientists, who were puzzled when it ceased transmitting.
Two wrongs don't make a right, and an arms race in space is not
safety. However, if the next US administration is more reality-based
than the present one, this test could perhaps provide it with an
incentive to agree to mutual ASAT disarmament.
Professor Fernandez-Armesto, while attending a conference in Atlanta,
was arrested for jaywalking,
then beaten up by the policeman.
The police investigation that tried to put the blame on the professor
is evidently dishonest. It says he "acted with belligerence", but
even supposing this really occurred, what could that have been? Only
verbal behavior is plausible, since if he had hit the policeman, more
serious charges would have been filed. And being verbally attacked is
no excuse to hit someone -- not even if you're a policeman.
So we see this is a distraction, an attempt to prejudice the real
issue by making the professor look bad. Since fabricating accusations
is standard police practice, I don't even believe it is true.
Global warming is rapidly melting the glaciers of Mount Everest. In
the short term,
new lakes threaten disastrous floods for the Sherpas
that live around it, if melting ice lets the water spills downhill.
In the long term, decreased rainfall in the area threatens drought for
hundreds of millions of people.
Berlusconi used Italy's military intelligence as a secret police
to spy on judges that did not support him politically.
An Australian minister made a mistake, and
admitted that the Bush
forces are occupying Iraq for the oil.
A victory for the Bush forces: they killed Said Hamza, an alleged Al
Qa'ida officer in Iraq --
for the second time!
Now we know why the war is going so badly: Bush's enemies are immortal.
Or do they have nine lives, like cats?
A youth of age 17 and another of age 15 had sex; for this exchange of
pleasure, the former has been
sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Humans at age 15 are sexually mature. To punish them, or their
partners, is insane prudery turned cruel. This sort of injustice is
not unusual; what is news is that there are protests against it.
I suspect that the underlying cause of this cruelty can be found in
the irrational tendency of most parents in our society towards denial
about the maturation of their offspring. However, Christianity
makes it worse.
US economic hit men have gun-wielding hit men to accompany them, and
their work is
not limited to foreign countries.
Former Ambassador Murray accuses the Bush regime of deliberately
fomenting intersectarian violence in Iraq. And Dennis Kucinich is
trying to investigate it.
I have no proof that the Bush forces directly carried out false-flag
massacres which were blamed on Iraqis. But I would not put this past
them. And some evidence is quite suggestive, such as that of the
British Bush forces troops who were arrested in Basra with supplies
for "terrorist" bombings. (The Bush forces attacked the jail to bust
them out, so that they could not confess.)
Meanwhile, simply recruiting an army of Shi'ites to occupy the Sunni
regions of Iraq was plenty of provocation for intersectarian violence.
If the Bush regime did this deliberately, what does that imply? It is
a shame to let such a tactic succeed, but Iraq is already coming
apart. It is too late to keep Iraq united, and trying to do so will
only prolong the civil war. Only defended boundaries can end the
killing.
The bald eagle has recovered from near extinction, and has been
removed from the list of threatened species.
This shows that we can prevent extinction; when we make
substantial efforts. Thousands of species face extinction, mostly due
to habitat destruction and pollution. We could save them too, if we
made it a priority.
UNESCO has
removed the Florida Everglades from its list of threatened sites,
but the Everglades are not safe.
However, if sea levels keep rising due to global warming, protecting the
Everglades may be as futile as protecting the rest of Florida.
Senator Spector introduced a
bill to instruct courts
to ignore presidential "signing statements".
France has moved to a free market for electricity --
a move that can
cause major problems.
An increase in the price of electricity is not necessarily a bad thing
in itself. But I would rather bring it about by taxing only
generators that burn fuel and emit pollution.
Government mistreatment of the citizens of New Orleans continues
and is much worse than we read about shortly after the hurricane.
This article puts it all together.
Christian fundamentalists are
openly scheming to impose Bible-based
law on the US--just as cruel and vicious as Islamic law.
Their lack of contact with reality can be seen in their claim that
secular culture has "deadly effects"--when all they mean is that we do
not execute homosexuals, etc. There is a part of our culture that has
the deadly effects: the part that worships the Invisible Hand. But these
fundamentalists don't care about that.
Iraqi Kurdistan may be mostly peaceful,
but its rule is not just.
Much like the Bush regime, it imprisons people without trial (even
taking hostages), and tortures them.
Bush hopes that allowing occasional television watching and gardening
for some prisoners in Guantanamo will make the world accept
imprisonment without charges or trial.
Several of the Bush regime's
nastiest policies were formulated by
Cheney, who handed them privately to Bush for signature, bypassing the
officials (even cabinet members) who thought they had the
responsibility.
Cheney was directly involved in
establishing policies of torture.
Cheney's secret influence has
led even Republican stalwarts to condemn
him.
That Ashcroft and Powell were bypassed does not absolve them of
responsibility for the policies that Cheney designed and Bush
approved. They did go along with the decisions once they were
imposed. If they had taken moral exception, they could have resigned
instead.
Rather than close the Guantanamo prison, let's make it over to house
Bush and Cheney, and other Bush regime officials who have betrayed the
freedom of the Land of the Free. But only after fair trials, of
course.
The Bush regime's policy of disinformation about climate change
was
set up directly by Cheney, and implemented by the White House.
Some Bush forces
marines may face murder charges for shooting helpless
prisoners in Fallujah.
It is right to hold those individuals responsible for their actions,
but that is not enough. The officers who established the spirit which
encouraged such crimes must also be held responsible. And since these
murders resulted from Bush's initial crime, the invasion of Iraq,
he must be held responsible too.
Germany takes the predatory cult of Scientology so seriously that it
has refused to cooperate with plans by Tom Cruise to make a movie,
saying that giving him this cooperation would be endorsing the cult.
Hear, hear!
Hillary Clinton's "key strategic adviser" worked for years to
improve
the image of tobacco companies.
Arnold Schwarzenegger poses as a champion of strong measures to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
In private, he has sabotaged their
implementation,
say people who used to be part of the committee in charge of them.
Pollution kills
750 thousand Chinese every year.
The Chinese government, following its typical culture of denial,
tried to publish a much smaller figure.
The
attempted bombings in London are attributed to
two Iraqis angry about the destruction of their country.
Proponents of the so-called "war on terror" say that fanatical
Islamists will be a threat regardless of what the West does. I am
sure there is a core group of which that is true. However, Western
atrocities -- such as the occupation of Iraq, which is a fresh
atrocity each day it continues -- make a big difference to how much
support those fanatics can attract.
Pakistan's Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhury, was fired by Musharraf
for investigating corruption.
He has since become the focus of
opposition to Musharraf from all sides.
Although the defense of certain human rights that his cause has
inspired is exciting, I wonder what the position of his supporters
would be on Pakistan's unjust laws, such as capital punishment for
blasphemy, and punishment of women for reporting they were raped.
The trial of the killers of Hrant Dink is
exposing the involvement
of the Turkish government in his killing.
The government of
France supported the genocidal Rwandan regime, on
the express orders of President Mitterand, who acted out of the
shallowest form of nationalistic rivalry.
There were several terrorist failed attacks in the UK recently. The
perpetrators had done nothing in advance to call attention to
themselves, but once the attacks failed, the whole ring was very
quickly caught.
Rationally speaking, these events oppose Brown's plans to further
weaken human rights in the UK. But I fear that Brown will use them to
increase the irrational pressure for his agenda.
As Bush labels the enemy in Iraq "Al Qa'ida",
he continues
boosting its strength.
Gordon Brown has proposed constitutional reforms in the UK
which look like improvements.
One of them, regarding the law that prohibits protests near
Parliament, proposes to reverse one of B'liar's nasty actions.
Now if only Brown wanted to reverse B'liar's other attacks on
human rights.
Bush half-pardoned Scooter Libby, by commuting his jail sentence.
Bending over backwards to be sympathetic to a person who lied to protect
Cheney from investigation illustrates Bush's attitude towards honesty
and towards justice.
Mordechai Vanunu has been sentenced to prison for the crime of
speaking to foreign journalists.
Vanunu says he knows no remaining nuclear secrets (and certainly his
interviews did not contain any). He says that this excuse masks a
desire to keep him from talking about how he was treated.
Students are organizing political education in campus "Tent State
University" projects, in the US and the UK.
Human Rights Watch says that both Israeli shelling and Palestinian rockets
violate the laws of war.
The Senate is ready to go to court if Bush and Cheney continue
refusing to turn over documents about the firing of federal prosecutors.
"Bush's Amazing Achievement": scholars of foreign policy agree his
presidency is a disaster.
However, the deeper disagreements are just as important as the
agreement. Right-wing scholars call the Bush presidency a disastrous
mistake, while others recognize that the problem goes beyond
mere execution, and extends to the goals.
How the Bush regime planned to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to
attack Iraq, as early as the following day -- and relentlessly pressured the CIA to endorse the lie.
NATO attacks in Afghanistan killed 45 civilians, creating anger and bringing a rebuke from President Karzai.
I will be surprised if the US obeys his command to get permission
before attacks.
In Bethlehem, nonviolent protestors trying to plant trees on their own
land were attacked.
One of the protestors at the regular Bil'in nonviolent protest
was an Israeli soldier, off duty.
Aaron Lapid reports on what he saw while visiting a checkpoint in Palestine,
which was even worse than what he saw as a soldier in the occupation.
An official in the "Iraqi" government accuses the Bush regime of organizing
a false-flag "terrorist" attack.
I cannot judge the plausibility of this accusation, but given that
al-Saberi has the job of negotiating with tribal leaders, the fact
that he makes this accusation is shocking whether it is true or false.
An ACLU lawsuit has obtained a manual produced by the Bush regime
giving directions for excluding opposition from government events.
The US government is fabricating "preexisting condition" excuses
to deny disability benefits to Iraq veterans with PTSD.
Enormous corruption is now visible in UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Bush pretends that the Iraqi resistance is Al Qa'ida.
The US Supreme Court ruled to allow manufacturers to set minimum retail prices -- sometimes. (It is not clear when.)
By tossing out a century of past Supreme Court precedent, for no
particular reason, this court shows it is on a political mission which
it will stop at nothing to achieve. That mission was given to it by
the Republican Party, so we can expect it to be for business, against
democracy, and against human rights.
Google is being sued for libel in the UK over the contents of web
pages that are indexed in the search engine.
UK's libel laws give insufficient weight to freedom of speech.
Attempts to globalize them to the entire net threaten the freedom of speech
Attempts to globalize them to the entire net threaten the freedom of speech
everywhere in the world.
Most US presidential candidates endorse protection for medical marijuana when
it is legalized by states. Details are given
here.
Among Democrats, the only exception is Hillary Clinton, by far the worst of
the Democratic candidates.
Around 120 women per year are killed in the UK by their relatives
for choosing the wrong man to love. Some are now saved by charities
that work to protect them.
US awareness of the threat of global warming is rising, but still lags
behind most of the world.
I see in this the effect of the corporate-controlled media in the US. That
problem is not unique to the US, but in most countries it is less complete.
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[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-19 because the old link was broken.]
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