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A NYC firefighter says he helped the FBI find three "black boxes" from the crashed airliners--boxes that the FBI says were never found.
I would trust his word more than the FBI's word.
There is no doubt that FBI officials will lie when ordered to.
Israel and the Palestinian olive harvest.
Brutal Trap of Nepal's Civil War.
12 ways Bush is trying to steal the vote in Ohio.
Michael Moore criticized repressive copyright laws, saying he believes it is legitimate to share videos nomcommercially, including his own Fahrenheit 9/11.
Bush whitewashes the crimes of the dictatorship of Uzbekistan, to avoid the embarrassment of being seen to support a dictator.
When the US government wants to destabilize a country, it says that government doesn't respect human rights. When it wants to support a dictatorship, it denies the dictator's crimes. They are both lies, and they reflect a propensity to lie which can be compared with the Soviet Union.
Kerry did this too in his "lesson for Latin-American democracy". I wish I could believe he would be more honest if elected.
A nonviolent political activist in the UK faces losing her home--as if being gravely injured by a policeman wasn't enough punishment for participating in democracy.
Julian Bond, head of the NAACP, speaks about voter suppression, in the past and today.
The NAACP is being investigated by the IRS for posting a speech criticizing Bush policies.
Perhaps the NAACP should not have done this. However, ISTR that there have been many churches which campaigned heavily for Republican candidates, and the IRS has not been very eager to make them stop. Bush wouldn't be the first Republican president to politicize the IRS.
Terror Alerts vs. Bush's poll numbers.
An election report from Florida, where early voting is already set up to be unfair.
Halliburton has a long series of corrupt deals with the Cheney regime.
The Health Care Crisis in America--Clinton's historic surrender made it worse.
Arguing that the "bin Laden video" is a fraud; that is, propaganda from the Bush regime.
That a communication from bin Laden would help Bush does not, in my view, prove it is fake or that he made a mistake. Bush helps bin Laden gain support, just as bin Laden helps Bush gain support; I don't know whether Bush is smart enough to see this, but bin Laden surely is.
However, some of the text as reported so far seems to be designed for US domestic consumption. It makes no sense that bin Laden would say such things.
There is a lot of talk about al-Zarqawi, but no evidence connecting him to any of the things he is supposed to have done, or even showing that he is still alive.
The UN condemns US policies of mistreating prisoners.
The US Army disregarded regulations and its own officials to give Halliburton a big contract extension. Now the FBI is investigating what happened.
It may be hard to tie this corruption directly to Cheney, but he is surely responsible for it.
100 prominent Americans and 40 relatives of 9/11 victims now call for a thorough investigation of how the attacks took place.
Bush is trying to help overseas military personnel vote, while not helping civilians.
He thinks the military personnel will vote for him, but they may not. He has a pattern of treating them very badly.
This soldier reports that most of the troops he knows want Bush out.
My absentee ballot has not come, so it appears I can't vote this year. This web site will be my only contribution to the election.
Support the Simultaneous Policy.
I disagree with their pessimism about the prospects for one country to resist corporate pressure. As Venezuela shows, sometimes countries can do this; they only need leaders with spine. However, it can't do any harm to push for simultaneous adoption of globally beneficial policies in parallel with local adoption.
Computerized voting systems in Florida lose votes of Blacks but not those of Whites. This is due to differences in equipment and training in places where mainly Whites live and places where mainly Blacks live.
How the explosives in Iraq were looted after the invasion.
Iraq is full of arms caches, and Bush only has enough troops to guard a few of them.
As a result, there is no practical way of preventing the resistance from getting as much explosives as it can possibly use.
The resistance is gaining even now in some areas of Iraq.
It is not surprising that resistance is tied in sometimes with criminals. Plenty of Iraqis would like a government to control criminals, but no government could do so if it is perceived as a stooge of an occupying colonizing foreign power.
The CIA secretly moved prisoners out of Iraq, which violates the Geneva Conventions.
As usual, Bush negates US commitments to human rights by reinterpreting them in a way that is vacuous. When Bush says that he upholds the Geneva Conventions, it is a meaningless statement.
The Bush forces have allowed looting in Iraq--of ministries, of museums, of archeological sites...and also of explosives useful for terrorists.
When Bush found out, he first tried to keep it secret.
Yes Bush Can changes its mind and opposes Bush.
(I think this is related to our friends the Yes Men.)
Papers presented in court in the UK show that Bush planned the date for invading Iraq 5 months in advance, when there was still a debate about whether the UN weapons inspectors were finishing the job, and an attempt to get support from other countries, and when the public was told that the attack was waiting for this.
100,000 Iraqis have been killed by the Bush's war.
This autumn, Israelis are again helping Palestinians harvest olives. But the annexation wall has prevented many of them from tending their trees, so they have few olives to harvest.
A number of prominent Republican women are publicly opposing Bush.
Public Citizen reports that Bush has paid little or no attention to real security vulnerabilities involving dangerous chemicals and nuclear power plants.
I think the reason is that the goal of Bush security measures is to look tough while eliminate human rights. He will spend millions to do that; but security measures that would prevent threats without trampling freedom are of no interest to him.
On the other hand, maybe Bush knows there is no plan to attack these vulnerable spots, so protecting them would be a waste of money. I can imagine various ways that might be true.
Most Bush supporters still believe discredited Bush lies about Iraq.
This show why Bush continues to follow the big lie strategy: because he does not get punished for lying. With the help of the supportive mass media, he can drown out the truth.
In the US, voting computers are already failing in early voting. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying dirty tricks to stop people from voting and to prevent recounts, often using absurd interpretations of election laws.
There remains the danger that the Supreme Court will use this as an excuse to select its own candidate.
Arguing that what is happening in the Sudan is real genocide.
Sgt Frederick has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Since he blew the whistle on this widespread practice, I think he should get a lesser sentence--in exchange for helping to convict the higher-ups who asked the soldiers to do this. If the Army fails to prosecute anyone higher up, it will mean Frederick is a scapegoat for them.
Long before Bush invaded Iraq, his men were planning how to rewrite all its laws and steal all its assets.
Large US bases have been established in many countries near Afghanistan, under secret agreements.
One of these countries is Uzbekistan, whose practices of tyranny and torture were critized by the UK ambassador (who was recently removed for doing so). Why doesn't Bush want to oust this dictator?
Greg Palast, who broke the story on how Bush blocked some 50,000 Florida voters from voting, now reports on additional voter-suppression practices.
It is clear that the Republican Party hired people to brainstorm every possible way they could block Democrats from voting. By my book, this makes them the enemies of Democracy.
First Amendment Does Not Exist
The First Amendment to the American Constitution cannot be found.
There are times when police need to use force. And usually-nonlethan weapons such as pepper spray will sometimes kill people even when not deliberately aimed at someone's eyes. But the bigger danger is that police will shoot pepper spray or live bullets when there was no reason to do so. Police have a constant tendency to do this, so the job of public officials is to hold them firmly and constantly in check.
We can't afford to have mayors that are soft on police.
The Israeli officer who callously murdered a Palestinian child has been excused for this by the Israeli government. They ruled he had real grounds to suspect she was a threat. How can a wounded girl lying on the ground be a threat to anyone? The Israeli army has contempt for truth.
You could hardly have a clearer example of wanton and unjustified murder than this. But it is not unique. It is part of a systematic and clear pattern.
Comparison of media reports shows conflicts in the reports about who perished in flight AA 11 on September 11.
A real investigation has to include reporting the complete passenger list.
The Israeli High Court made a judgment that merely being Palestinian is grounds for suspicion that someone is a terrorist, and that their rights can be taken away on these grounds alone.
This makes a mockery of the concept of rights. It shows how Israel has established a system of apartheid (as many have already said) in which Palestinians have no rights.
Paid Republican political activists systematically tricked students into registering as Republican.
This in itself has no direct effect on election results, but it is a sign of the systematic dishonesty of the religious fanatics that now make up much of the Republican Party. They have convinced themselves that they cannot be wrong, and that any form of lying or violence is justified as long as it serves their cause.
I predict that they won't feel the slightest bit of guilt, they will just support one lie with another.
William Rodriguez saved hundreds of lives in the World Trade Center after the attacks. Now he has sued Bush and others accusing them of complicity in the attacks.
The Bush regime has increased its harrassment of political opposition this month.
1/3 of all species of amphibians are endangered, mostly because of pollution caused by humans.
Global warming is now one of the principal threats to the world's poor.
Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest
These police work for the gangsters that Bush put in charge in Haiti.
The making of the terror myth: a BBC TV program dares to question the basic assumptions about Islamic terrorism and Al Qa'ida.
Is Bush planning a sudden attack on Iran as a way to manipulate the election?
This report might be just a rumor, but I would not put it past Dubya to start another war for purposes such as this. I've been expecting Dubya to do something drastic to manipulate the election, and why not this? But if people place enough heat on this plan, it may dissuade them.
Official statements about fighter interception on September 11 conflict with each other, are incomplete, contradict known facts, and contain clues suggesting fabrication.
In Israel the religious fanatics are preparing for civil war if the state tries to rein in their attacks on Palestinians.
The conflict between the religious fanatics and secular Jews in Israel has existed for a long time, but in the past it was mostly carried out peacefully, demographically. I used to joke about looking for a homeland for non-fanatic Jews, once the religious fanatics take over Israel and impose their way of life there. I didn't expect it to turn into violence.
I have a speculation. Perhaps the talk about civil war is being spread by the fanatics themselves as a form of intimidation: "Allow us to attack and conquer in your name, or else we'll shoot you too." This is the way fanatics in Japan forced their country into a war of aggression--they assassinated several civilian leaders until the rest were too scared to oppose them.
"Support Our Mercenaries"--how's that for a bumper sticker?
The reason I refer to the "Bush forces" in Iraq is to resist the attempt to manipulate Americans through our patriotism into supporting an immoral war of aggression. Some of the people in the Bush forces are American, and some of them are in the US Army, but they're not "our troops". They are Bush's troops and Bush's alone.
In the book 1984, past news reports were altered to fit the lie of the day. In today's US, the media simply disregard them to print official false history instead. They know they wil rarely pay a penalty for repeating official lies, even if those lies are caught out.
The Islamic fanatic Abu Hamza has been charged with incitement to murder non-Muslims. He was also charged with possessing a book with information "likely to be useful for terrorism".
To make it a crime to possess such a book is an act of tyranny, since it criminalizes a wide range of public information--and offers an easy excuse to arrest almost anyone. Don't you have some information that could be "useful to a person preparing" some kind of terrorism? A map of your town, for instance?
Abu Hamza may deserve to be imprisoned, but laws like this one are more dangerous than he is.
A US-government-supported Arabic propaganda station applies the propaganda methods pioneered by Faux News and the New York Times.
An Israeli army captain is under investigation for shooting his whole magazine into the body of a Palestinian child.
This is surely just one instance of a widespread practice which usually goes unpunished. The authorities only take notice when compelled to do so.
The spirit of bullying, against anyone who departs from the usual patterns, breaks out in surprising places.
A gene that promotes male homosexuality survives through evolution because it also leads females to have more children.
Various civilian prison guards sent to run prisons in Iraq were associated with acts of torture extending as far as murder. The Iraqi police torture Iraqis too--and the Bush forces officials cover up for them.
The US is pushing the UN to ban therapeutic cloning. But it is running into opposition.
I don't think a treaty to ban reproductive cloning is right either. Present-day cloning technology is flawed, and the individuals that result tend to have defects. Using this on humans would be wrong. But if the technology improves in 20 years, why should it be forbidden? Meanwhile, in the mean time there is no problem that needs to be solved.
Once people realize that a cloned human is less similar to the original human than two identical twins are similar to each other, most of the motivation for wanting to clone anyone will disappear anyway.
A leaked email shows that the Republicans in Florida have continued trying to disenfranchize Democratic voters.
A Russian journalist in Belarus, who criticized the president for election fraud, was attacked on the street, then arrested and blamed for the attack.
Blaming the victim for being attacked is a commonly-used technique for suppressing unwanted views. However, in the US, journalists aren't usually attacked or arrested, other than by police when they are covering a protest. Instead, they just know their jobs don't allow publishing certain sorts of things.
Sinclair Broadcasting Company's history of political bias and smear.
Bush told a supporter there would be no casualties in the war in Iraq.
I can believe Bush believed this. Not only because he and his coterie believed there would be no opposition, but because he thought "god" would make sure of it.
Afghanistan is making little progress.
The CIA is hiding a report that details US government shortcomings in preventing the 9/11 attacks, in an apparent attempt to shield Bush from blame.
More dishonest Republican voter registration practices: a company hired by the RNC claimed to be nonpartisan in order to get permission to set up tables, then acted in a partisan way.
How military recruiters prey on students. Peer pressure is no longer the most dangerous pressure that they face.
Organizing parents to resist teach their children to resist this could be both useful now, and a good start towards resisting the draft if Bush or Kerry reintroduces it.
Witnesses report on Republican dirty tricks, such as throwing away voter registration forms for potential Democratic voters.
A rich businessman was convicted of murder in a trial where his defense was conducted inadequately.
If even rich people get ridiculous trials, imagine what happens to everyone else.
Bush versus the "reality-based community". The article is far too gentle with this liar, but it explains some Bush's appeal to his fellow religious fanatics.
Greenpeace is protesting the shipment of plutonium to be mixed with uranium for use in nuclear power plants.
Election workers in part of California are being told not to offer voters the option of voting on paper.
The Republican leaders in Congress exerted all their political muscle to defeat a bill that would repeal one small part of the USA PAT RIOT act, the part that authorizes the FBI to spy on records of what you read.
Their opposition to this demonstrates that their agenda includes complete, totalitarian surveillance. Unfortunately, many Democrats support it too in all the other areas of life.
A former British diplomant, who resigned recently, says that the Prime Minister's office "did not tell the whole truth" about Iraq.
The seizure of Indymedia servers can viewed as a trial balloon for plans to suppress the use of the Internet as a way to bypass the controlled corporate media.
Vietnam is persecuting Christians, who are mostly minority peoples whose lands were taken away for plantations.
The US would be in a better position to criticize this double oppression if it were behaving in an upright way itself.
The UK government admitted its claims about Saddam Hussain's chemical weapons were false--but meanwhile it is trying to undermine Hans Blix by publishing half-truths.
Bush claims to have deployed an ABM system, but its developers have never conducted a realistic test. Perhaps they know the system would fail if it were ever really tested.
I think that missile defense systems are a good idea in principle, assuming the country that deploys them is not bent on aggression. However, that's no excuse for squandering money on ineffective systems.
Anarchists protested at the European Social Forum, claiming that government sponsorship had tamed it as an opposition force.
A leaked email shows that the Republicans in Florida have continued trying to disenfranchize Democratic voters.
Human Rights Watch says that the systematic Israeli demolition of homes in Gaza is not only against international human rights treaties, it is also unnecessary and ineffective in its own terms.
There is new, conclusive evidence that Bush gets prompting through his earphone.
I am not sure this is necessarily something to criticize, except in debates where it is the equivalent of cheating in a sport. However, the lack of attention given to the story in the US media is a good measure of how effectively controlled it is.
Updates on several instances of Bush's trampling civil liberties. One conviction was overturned because the FBI's evidence was fraudulent. Aside from that, little has changed for the better.
When Bush released Yaser Hamdi to Saudi Arabia, the regime not only showed that its previous claims that he was somehow dangerous. But by taking away his US citizenship, it showed its true spirit. Hamdi was guilty, in their eyes, of being stubbornly innocent. Once he came under suspicion, they could not let him go without punishing him somehow, because that would be admitting they are wrong.
When it comes to killing children, the Israeli army outdoes the Palestinians 5 to 1.
(I think killing adults is just as bad as killing children, when there's no special reason to justify it.)
Bush has imposed US-style plant variety patents in Iraq, and is pushing genetically modified plants there.
This is just one of many ways that Bush plans to permanently suck money out of Iraq for his friends. (I've mentioned others here.)
All together, they mean that the only patriotic candidates in the coming Iraqi elections will be those that set out to eliminate the permanent bondage Bush has imposed on their country. However, to do that they would probably first have to tell Bush to take his troops out.
Bush lives in a never-never land, shielded from bad news, and appears to be gradually cracking up.
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World.
It occurs to me that one other factor that may have contributed to Edwards' bias in the debate was that he too has been misled by the prevailing media bias, which gives a lot of publicity to the occasional Israeli children that are murdered, and much less to the many Palestinian children that are murdered.
Pharmaceutical companies misrepresent drug side effects when bribing researchers to keep them quiet does not work. They systematically distort science.
Next time someone tells you that drug companies must have patents to make big money to do research, show them this article about what kind of research they do.
This article, by an author who is Christian and does not like abortion, points out how Bush has increased the rate of abortions in the US with policies that impose hardship on most Americans.
I am generally in favor of abortion, and one reason is because the overpopulation of the Earth threatens to cause billions to die in pain while civilization and half the species of life die too. If the increased rate of abortions means slower population growth in the most resource-guzzling country on Earth, that could be the only good result of Bush's cruelty. It doesn't justify the cruelty, but it could partially compensate.
Remember the Supreme Court ruling that said Guantanamo detainees had the right to a court hearing? Bush is carrying this out in a way designed to sabotage the decision.
I think his prestige is so wrapped up in the claim that these people are dangerous terrorists, and that he is protecting America from them, that he can't ever admit they are not.
How companies are planning to raid pension benefits.
A government of the people, by the people, for the people could vigilantly block such moves, and ensure that companies put aside money in good years to cover their future pensions even if things go bad.
The CIA is still holding prisoners that it refuses to let the ICRC visit, and holding their children hostage.
By the way, I wonder whether the anonymous sources quoted in the Editor's Note are people we ought to place credibility in. If they work for Bush, or Al Qa'ida, or both, should we expect them to tell the truth?
The sorry state of Iraqi hospitals and public health.
Israeli police arrested peace activists who wanted to help Palestinians harvest their olives. They said they were afraid that settlers would attack the peace activists.
Given the violence documented in this article, that concern may be well-founded. But wouldn't an honest police force protect the peace activists, and arrest the settlers?
Here's a small sample of what Israeli terror raids do.
America has lost this election. What we should do to have a chance of winning one some day?
Cockpit recordings show that Bush forces fighter pilots fired at Iraqis without even trying to find out who they were. By luck, they were unarmed civilians. Oops!
Burma's dancing dolphins are endangered--due to fishnets, and captures for display to the public.
The low morale of the Bush forces shows when supply troops refused to carry out orders which they term suicidal.
Arrested war protestor Rosemarie Jackowski speaks to the court.
Where Did These Conservatives Come From?
The puppet government of Iraq is borrowing money to pay reparations to various multinational corporations. The money being spent on "reconstructing Iraq" is less than what Iraq is being forced to pay out.
Afghan warlords with bloody pasts may get posts in the new government, as part of wheeling and dealing organized by the US.
The UK ambassador to Uzbekistan says the Uzbek government uses torture to get false confessions for the CIA and MI6--false evidence designed to convince them of what the Uzbek rulers want them to believe.
The European Commission held a hearing on Digital Restrictions Management--and arranged it so that the representatives of the public ended up with zero minutes to speak. Only the media companies were allowed to speak. This shows who side they're on, and it's not the public's side.
DRM is Theft!
Indymedia's servers were returned, without any answers as to why they were seized. Which means, in effect, that any journalistic web site could be seized at any time.
The EFF will go to court to try to get answers.
The Republican Party has paid a company to pretend to register voters--then throw the registration forms in the trash, so they will be unable to vote.
Corporations are paying tax-exempt organizations to do election campaigning for them. (It is illegal for tax-exempt organizations to campaign for or against a candidate.)
More evidence that Bush gets tips through an earphone on what to say.
I don't find this especially scandalous, personally. If presidents can have speechwriters, why not prompters? The problem with Bush is not that his speeches or policies were suggested to him by someone else. It is what those policies are. If he had thought of them all on his own, that would hardly be an excuse.
The fine print in a bill now in congress would exempt the FBI, the Energy Department and the Treasury department (among others) from the Freedom of Information Act.
The UK imprisoned an animal rights protestor for shouting at a person who works at a company that is the target of a protest campaign.
I do not support the animal rights movement; for instance, I eat meat and intend to continue doing so. But whether you or I agree with this protestor is a side issue. The issue is whether peaceful protest is allowed. This case is not unique, it is part of a pattern. When the UK treats peaceful protest as "crime", and imposes orders on the protestors that permanently forbid them to participate in the protest campaign, the effect is to harrass democracy. The UK government ought to take out an "antisocial behavior order" on itself.
The Taliban failed to disrupt Afghanistan's election, but there are accusations that the election was unfair.
Before Bush invaded Iraq, some equipment that could be used for making nuclear weapons was kept under watch by the UN. But Bush kicked out the UN weapons inspectors, and since the Bush invasion, this equipment has been disappearing. Nobody knows where it is now.
Israel admits that withdrawal from Gaza is an excuse to forget about peace in the west bank.
Uri Avnery has been saying this all along. Here he analyzes this, and how the photo-analyst's mistaking a stretcher for a rocket is just one example of a practice that frequently leads to shooting a rocket at civilians.
CO2 levels are rising faster and faster, suggesting some positive feedback system is accelerating global warming.
This could mean that the chances of a catastrophic 100-foot rise in sea level is increased. How many feet above sea level do you live?
Is the UK government training Colombian military units to kill union organizers and political activists?
At every turn, Indymedia is getting stonewalled about why its disks were seized. Here are some reports that have been published about possible reasons, and treaties that make it easy to attack the press globally.
Perhaps the reason why the corporate media do not fear that these treaties will be turned against them is that they are already so in bed with government that they know it will never want to do so.
Zelikow, who led the 9/11 commission's investigation, is now complaining that people disbelieve the commission's report.
The first step in winning people's trust in the report is to have an honest and thorough investigation and publish all the evidence.
Republicans in Ohio are trying many methods of "voter suppression".
US forces in Afghanistan are now saying it isn't important to capture Osama bin Laden, the exact opposite of their previous position.
I agree that one shouldn't overestimate the importance of that one person; however, there's something orwellian about making a big fuss about a goal and then, after it is not achieved, pretending it was never presented as a priority.
An interview with James Kunstler about what peak oil might do to suburbia.
Mexico's biggest oil field, the world's second largest, is gradually going down in production, due to depletion.
Most US TV networks distorted coverage of the presidential debate in favor of Bush, on specific items that are precisely documented.
Bush has intensified the closure of unlicensed radio stations.
This fits in with a general policy of encouraging consolidation of the mass media, which increases the capability to suppress opposing views.
Abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo has provided little useful intelligence, say some in the Pentagon and the FBI. But it has persuaded some prisoners to make false confessions.
Stanley Hilton is suing the US government on behalf of 400 relatives of 9/11 victims, alleging that the Bush administration planned the hijackings and the attacks. He is using subpoena power to give soldiers a legal basis to spill the secrets they have been ordered to keep, and facing government threats in return.
The election is being held in Afghanistan, but some warlords are trying to intimidate the voters--and they run the polling places too.
How pollution was illegal in the US until business changed the law...back in 1876. And lots more.
A new book gives information about Operation Northwoods, the plan for faking attacks by Cuba against the US so as to excuse an attack on Cuba. The plan was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and rejected by President Kennedy.
It took decades for this information to become known. Will it take decades to learn what really happened on September 11?
The UK's detention-on-suspicion law is challenged in court.
British hostage Bigley was pleading for Blair to negotiate.
If a nation is fighting a justified and necessary war, against an enemy that has done things that make war necessary, it would be ludicrous to forfeit any military advantage to save the life of a hostage. A British division in World War II would not have retreated because Nazis threatened to kill some civilians. But Blair cannot appeal to this principle, because people know his war was never justified, and far from being necessary to continue, it is a futile quagmire.
A conclusive determination that Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
The FBI seized Indymedia servers in the UK, through a subpoena to its ISP's US office, and refuses to say why.
Fortunately, Indymedia had backups (they had probably planned for such harrassment).
A car powered by compressed air is going on sale in Spain.
Compressing the air to run the car will use energy, of course, but it can easily be electricity, and that electricity can come from renewable sources.
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Dubya's rhetoric about "god" resembles that of another leader who launched wars of conquest.
The conquest of Iraq would fulfill a 30-year-old dream, if it succeeds.
Instead of asking how Dan Rather got those documents about Bush, let's demand Bush give a straight answer about those facts.
In India, even when Dalits manage to go to college, they face such strong prejudice that no one will hire them.
Bigoted businessmen faced with affirmative action proposals often pretend this would prevent them from hiring based on merit. However, the problem exists because they don't really judge these people on merit.
The UK Tory leader accused Blair of lying about Iraq, and others are calling on him to resign.
US publishers sue to print works from Iran and Cuba. http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_3930.shtml
In Samarra, the Bush forces pretend that everyone killed was a resistance fighter. In the morgue, the dead women and children pile up.
This is the persistent blatant lying of people who have learned to have no respect for truth.
Cat Stevens Slams U.S. Deportation.
My friend Nick Hill told me:
I suspect there is a feedback system where the amount of money pumped into the republican party by big business is related to how well the republican party are doing in the polls. If the republicans are ahead, business is un-inclined to pump money in. If republicans are lagging, they start pumping money in and turn up the propoganda. This explains how the parties are so often neck and neck in the polls.Therefore, a good democrat must tell pollsters he is voting republican or he is opening up the money tap to make more republicans to counteract his vote.
A peaceful protest against the annexation wall was met with violence from Israeli soldiers.
For statistics on the various forms of violence, see the B'Tselem web site.
Public Citizen beat Bush in court, requiring public rulemaking about nuclear plant rules.
More about a related case.
The Bush forces are gradually losing the war in Iraq.
North Korea's state religion worships the ruler, whose family is treated as divine, and natural disasters are blamed on the US.
They need not worry so much about letting Koreans have contact with the outside world. After all, a parallel system in the US manages to maintain itself even though many Americans openly denounce it.
With legal music downloading, the record companies get more than half the money, as pure profit for no work.
This result is symptomatic of the stranglehold that current copyright law has given the record companies over music listeners and musicians.
The Bush forces reoccupied Samarra, an Iraqi city.
The insurgents followed standard guerrilla tactics: when confronted with overwhelming force, they melt away so they can attack somewhere else later. Thus the occupying troops have really achieved nothing.
Voters chose Aung San Suu Kyi as "Asia's hero 2004".
A soldier who fought in the Bush forces committed suicide as a result of what he did there.
I would urge anyone who feels that bad about his life to lose it fighting for freedom rather than throwing it away.
EU arms export rules are failing to block exports to many countries with oppressive goverments.
Too bad that the US manufactures its own arms.
It can't be restrained from aggression this way.
Greg Palast evaluates the Bush-Kerry debate.
I think it's not just Saudis that need to be investigated carefully for connection with the 9/11 attacks, it's the Bushmen's cover-up.
The Bush forces are exaggerating their success at training Iraqi soldiers and police.
This shortfall may be just as well for them, since the Iraqi soldiers and police they train often fight or spy for the rebels. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48707-2004Sep24 for the background.
Several elite Israeli military commanders
condemned the army's activities in the occupied territory, and said that
razing of houses was immoral.
Judges in Nevada used legal
technicalities to reject the MPP's petition to legalize marijuana.
Republicans are pursuing
many parallel attempts to falsify Florida elections.
Prominent Colombian Sociologist Assassinated--
by pro-government gunmen, it seems.
State terrorism, as carried out by the US, UK, Israel, and Russia.
Bush and his cabinet are champions of flip-flop, on various issues.
A study finds that articles published in open-access journals
tend to have more research impact.
I've been pushing for free redistribution of scientific
articles for a decade.
With massive intimidation of voters, the election in Afghanistan
looks set to be a total failure.
The Human Rights Watch report is in
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghanistan0904/.
Neither Bush nor Kerry supports abortion
rights.
I am getting mailings urging me to "save the Supreme Court" by
supporting Kerry. I wish I could believe he would do so.
The Globalizer Who Came
In From the Cold.
In the UK, children are being kept indoors and denied the freedom to move about independently.
I've seen the same overprotectiveness in the US as well. It amazes me
to think that children 10 years old are typically forbidden to walk to
a park on their own. I walked to school in Manhatten at the age of 6,
and so did everyone else in my class. It was normal. There is no
reason it should not be normal today.
The death rate in Baghdad has more than doubled since the war,
and are rising still.
As Al Qa'ida become decentralized,
Bush doesn't have a clue about how
to fight it.
Democrats approve Bush tax breaks for corporations
Book review: Secret Evidence.
Only 30% of the "Iraq reconstruction" funds benefit Iraqis.
Cheney persistently tries to give a false impression that there was a
connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qa'ida, while avoiding
actually saying so (since he doesn't want people to be able to
catch him in a specific lie).
At Bush rallies, reporters are not
allowed to talk to the audience!
If I were his opponent, I would do the same thing too, putting
reporters in a cage, when the rally starts. But later, during my
speech, I would tell the reporters that it is wrong to keep them
locked up, and that they are free to leave the cage and mingle with
the crowd.
Who is more dangerous-- bin Laden or Dr
Khan?
Bangladesh is doing a
better job at health and education for the general public than India is,
partly because it has decided to spend more money on these things and less on
the army.
Amnesty International says the Sudan government is still supporting
the Janjaweed militias.
Amnesty International called for an arms embargo to
Sudan in July.
What would the actual conditions in Iraq look like if they were in the
US?
The FBI
never really tried to investigate the origin
of the forged documents that gave Bush "proof" that Saddam Hussein
was buying uranium.
We can guess why. We now know that the only uranium in Iraq is that
which was exploded there by the Bush forces during the war; Saddam was
not buying any. But Bush wanted an excuse for his war, and these
papers provided it. Perhaps that was no accident--perhaps the Bushmen
arranged for these papers to turn up. Perhaps the FBI is not
investigating their origin because Bush or Cheney told them "we
already know".
Bush's ten positions on Iraq
(nine flip-flops).
If it is true that Kerry voted for the war as an act of support for
Bush, I think that is discreditable in itself.
Al Qa'ida
boasts of controlling Afghanistan.
The UK released one of the aliens imprisoned without trial. He
never found out why he was imprisoned, and doesn't know why he was
released.
I am glad they are willing to release these people when they learn
more about the situation--it is better than if they were NOT willing
to consider that a past decision was mistaken. We often see that in
the US.
Diebold computerized voting systems have a back door in the central
tabulating system that makes it easy to
alter vote counts. This can be done remotely by telephone.
You can tell the real purpose of police from looking at
their priorities.
This was written about police in Ireland, and the examples cited are
from there, but I'd expect that it's the same for police in the US or
anywhere.
As Bush destroys the living population of Iraq with dirty uranium
bombs, looters and the Bush forces are
destroying the ancient cities of Sumer, where civilization began.
You could see a lot of irony in this, but the tragedy hurts me too
much for any sort of amusement.
Congressman DeLay's top aides were indicted
for illegal fund-raising.
Interview with Daniel Gross,
leading the Starbucks unionization effort.
A protest temporarily stopped construction of the Annexation Wall,
although
protestors were attacked with gas and other weapons.
Destroying the National Guard: morale is
crumbling among soldiers mobilized to fight a war they know is
unjust.
Civilian casualties in Iraq are caused 2/3 by the Bush
forces and 1/3 by the Iraqi resistance.
The Bush forces say, "We only kill civilians because the insurgents
are fighting us--it is their fault for not accepting the conquest of
their country." The resistance turns that around and says, "We only
kill civilians because the Bush forces are occupying our country--it
is their fault."
These statements are mirror images, but the situation is not
symmetrical. The Bush forces are fighting to conquer Iraq; the
resistance is fighting to liberate their country. Therefore, all these
casualties are the fault of the Bush forces.
The US Army is
developing video war games to attract young people to join up.
I don't think this is quite as sinister as the writer puts it--for
boys to play at war is nothing new. These games might have helped
recruiting in previous conditions, but I don't think that video games
will convince many people to risk their lives in an unjust war of
conquest.
I wish that the Army would release these games as free software, with
the source code. Then I could install them and play them myself.
Mothers of troops killed in the Bush forces are starting to
fight back against Bush.
Concealing Pakistani involvement in
the 9/11 attacks.
A Palestinian suicide bomber killed
two members of the Israeli Border Police. The Border Police have a
reputation for particular cruelty.
I don't know whether the woman's decision to the Border Police was a
last-minute expedient or a prior plan. If she decided from the
beginning to attack armed occupation forces, that is a very different
thing from attacking civilians.
An investigation in Iraq has
found many previously unknown Bush-run prisons, and evidence of torture
(including rape) throughout them.
Meanwhile, the Bush forces continue employing the company
whose employees ("contractors", according to the Bushmen)
were caught abusing prisoners.
Burmese exiles are on hunger strike in front of the UN, calling for the UN to
take action against the Burmese military dictatorship.
A former Northern Ireland police informer
plead guilty to murdering a lawyer who defended IRA suspects. The
police knew the murder was planned and did nothing to stop it. There
is pressure now for a public inquiry into the whole business.
Ashcroft's
phony war on terrorism.
How does Bush plan to get more
troops to feed into Iraq?
Only a few percent of these troops will be killed or wounded
in combat, but a large fraction of them are likely to get
sick from Dirty Uranium bombs.
How anti-trust law in the US has become
ineffective.
The case for impeachment:
There is no doubt Blair misled parliament over the war.
Indigenous protestors and trade union members were beaten by police,
then arrested, in Oaxaca.
Later I read that the police had published doctored photos trying to
hide how they had beaten the arrested people. This link points to an
article about the
police doctoring the photos.
The
NATO administration of Kosovo is imposing privatization. And
perhaps privatization was a secret motive for the NATO intervention in
Kosovo.
How millions of Black Americans are being
stopped from voting.
Some of the methods involve intimidation that plays on the consequences
of being poor in America.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is trying to hamper the use of absentee
ballots by Americans that are outside the US.
Doug Rokke commanded the US Army's Dirty Uranium decontamination team
after the first Gulf War. He found that
decontamination was nearly
impossible and said DU should be banning, so the army fired him.
Before Dubya attacked Iraq, he warned of the danger from DU.
30 of his 100-man team had already died in 2002, just 10 years after
they did their work. Rokke is badly sick from the uranium he inhaled.
Here is a
speech made by Rokke.
Warning: the US is moving towards imposing fingerprinting of everyone.
I love what the US used to stand for, but I would rather leave the
country and go into exile than submit to that demand.
Experience in other countries shows that such measures do not prevent
terrorist attacks, not even those which are not sponsored by a
government.
Edwards
promises no return to the draft.
There is a
new attempt to challenge the constitutionally of changes
in the US copyright law, that have made many out-of-print works
into orphans, unable to move forward to the computer age.
Double standards: documents about Bush that are not certainly
authentic, vs the documents Bush used for war that were certainly
fake.
Further injustice in the Moussaoui case.
Challenging Bush and his friends to take a vacation in Iraq.
Howard Dean challenges Bush to say
whether he will impose conscription.
Republican senators are criticizing Bush for "mistakes".
However,
they are not prepared to admit that attacking Iraq was a mistake (and
illegitimate), or that continuing the occupation is a mistake.
This article analyzes what would be needed for the Bush forces
to win.
It does not point out that this would be a cruel and inexcusable act
of imperial conquest.
Putin
accuses 'complicit' West of harbouring Chechen terrorists. A Chechen rebel
leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Beslan school.
Even though the Russian troops have committed many more atrocities
in Chechnya, that doesn't excuse the butchery of Beslan. Surely
Chechen rebels can find ways to fight Russia without murdering children.
Embarrassing find: comparing South Korea's WMD program with Iran's.
Bush pretends not to see global warming, but his brother can't
avoid the hurricanes.
How Bush is shifting
taxes from the rich to the middle class--step, so people won't realize
where it is leading.
A Republican proposal would use a forest fire as an
excuse to open a large wilderness area to logging.
Here's how I learned of the plan:
The Bushmen changed their story about the copters that fired at
the crowd in Baghdad, but the new story is false too.
Rumsfeld is reported to have had a secret plan drawn up for provoking
terrorist groups to carry out attacks against the US, so that they
would provide an occasion to attack these groups.
Secret papers show Blair was
warned a year in advance that invading Iraq would lead to chaos, and
that any new Iraqi government would be likely to get the same WMDs that
Saddam was claimed to have.
In other words, Bliar has been faking all along
when claiming that the invasion would improve things,
either for Iraqis or for the West.
Meanwhile, here's information on Allawi's
background of bombings in Iraq.
I don't think it was wrong to plant bombs to attack Saddam's
forces--he was a dictator, and a dictator is never legitimate. As
long as the bombs were not aimed at civilians, I would not call them
terrorism, just as bombing the Bush forces or Iraqi police
collaborators is not terrorism. The article gives conflicting
claims about whether Allawi's bombings included terrorism.
Former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali blames Bush for increasing
world terrorism, and says the Bush
forces should leave Iraq.
American Jews have started a
campaign to support the next US president in pushing for peace
between Israel and the Palestinians. Although they support Israel in
general, they reject the Israel-can-do-no-wrong lobby exemplified by
AIPAC.
Baghdad's Thriving
Kidnapping Industry.
Perhaps one of the reasons Bush has diverted "reconstruction" funds to
security is that it's impossible to do any reconstruction with the
situation as it is. However, no one working with the Bush forces
could ever restore security in Iraq, except through massive butchery.
Anyone attempting this would be despised by most Iraqis as a
collaborator.
Medical doctors
argue with the evidence that was
used to argue that David Kelly committed suicide.
The CIA has
fewer people searching for bin Laden now than on
11 Sep 2001.
Putin is
using terrorism as an excuse to eliminate election of
state governors. How would this make anyone safer?
Some would criticize Bush for this, since it is hypocritical given
Bush's own policies. I disagree; even though it is tragic that Bush
opposes democracy in the US, it remains better for him to support it
in Russia than oppose it there. Bush is indeed a hypocrite, but let's
criticize what he does that is wrong, rather than what he says that is
right.
A court decision in Alaska ruled that possession of small amounts of
marijuana is legal under state law. Meanwhile, the MPP, which
helped in this court case, has put a referendum on the ballot
to treat marijuana like alcohol.
The government of India has decided to
repeal the unjust "anti-terrorism" law.
The party now in power went to the mat to oppose this law when it was
passed by the previous government, and is prepared to act on its
opposition now that it is in power. I wish the US had an opposition
party that was committed this much to freedom and justice.
A study of
"friendly AI"--how to design artificial intelligence so
that it won't threaten humanity's freedom and existence.
Who really
kidnaped Italian and Iraqi aid workers in Baghdad?
Police in various parts of the UK have been authorized to impose
blanket curfews on people under 16,
with no recourse.
A teenager is going to court against this.
Police in London are stopping and questioning people
in the underground just because they look foreign.
Mordechai Vanunu has received the LennonOno
Grant for Peace.
An
Autopsy of the American Dream
Police in California attacked a nonviolent sit-in by
putting pepper in
the protestors' eyes, one person at a time. Now they are on trial.
The Pentagon's casualty counts of Americans in the Bush forces are an
undercount. They list 7000 wounded but do not count 17000 others who
were also wounded.
800 of them are psychotic--that's almost as large as the number that
have been killed.
More evidence that Bush fled his National Guard duty because
he was abusing drugs and would have failed the physical exam.
The Bush Drug Lottery
Flops.
Retired US generals and military strategists are saying that
Bush has
lost the war in Iraq--and they say that the commanders realize this.
One reports that Bush is planning to exterminate the population of Falluja, just after the election.
Soldiers understand keeping secrets or lying about tactics
in order to defeat an enemy. But when they are ordered to
lie to their country about whether they have won or lost,
the effect is to corrupt them--perhaps permanently.
Meanwhile, the US army reserve and national guard are
being used up.
Even Newsweek is starting to admit that Bush's plan is
falling apart--although it pretends that Iraqis "hate the
insurgents" and that the resistance is "unfortunate".
What's unfortunate in Iraq is that the country was invaded by a jerk
who is prepared to keep up the lie no matter how threadbare it gets.
Librarians are
organizing the largest opposition to the USA PAT RIOT act.
However, it is not enough to exempt libraries from unreasonable
searches for information about you. Your civil liberties should be
respected fully, not just when you're in a library.
Costa Rica asks to be
removed from the list of countries in the Bush
coalition. While this will not withdraw any troops from the Bush
forces, it is still good to reduce even symbolic support for wars of conquest.
California to Sue Diebold
over False Claims regarding electronic
voting machines.
The US Census Bureau
reports that poverty is rising in the US.
Bush is using
deceptive accounting measures to disguise the fact that
he is running the national debt past the limit approved by Congress.
He has added 1.3 trillion dollars to the debt in 4 years.
Palestinian and Jewish activist organizations have launched
a campaign for sanctions against Israel as long as the
occupation of the Palestinian territories continues.
The UN Secretary-General has said that the Bush
invasion of Iraq was illegal, and that he doubts the planned
elections can really be held.
The report says he has been saying similar things all along,
though in softer words.
Oil prices
continue to rise, as demand exceeds the maximum supply.
The coming new oil fields referred to here may be those described
elsewhere in another
article as the last few left to be developed.
The Clinton administration lied to Congress and
trained Indonesian army units that were connected with massacres
in East Timor.
The UK was also involved.
The ACLU has taken up the case of people who arrested for wearing
unfriendly shirts at a Bush rally.
There are many other instances of
silencing and punishing Americans for criticizing Bush.
Clarence Darrow is quoted as saying, "I have never killed a man, but I
have read many obituaries with pleasure." I don't think people should
be executed for crimes, even huge crimes such as Dubya's. However,
reading Dubya's obituary would be a pleasure, if it comes soon enough
to make a difference. Not as much as Cheney's, though!
Building a wall between Palestinian children and
their schools.
Polution from the burning World Trade Center 'could cause more
deaths than attack'.
Comparing Sudan
and other forms of terror.
(This article says that the victims in massacres in Darfur are
Muslim;--the other reports say they are non-Muslims and their
persecutors are Muslim. I don't think this changes the conclusions,
though.)
Israel has put a peace activist in prison without a trial, citing
"secret evidence" (which often means "lies"). This resembles the
practices of the apartheid government of South Africa.
For reference, see the third article in this page:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/09/1695695.php
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/archive