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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Laura Bush told a whopper even Dubya can't bring himself to say. Just " one bombing a day-- this discourages everybody".
Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents. Next step -- figure out who they were.
Given the extent collusion between European goverments and the CIA over this, there may be people in the German government that know the answer.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation challenges the constitutionality of Bush's "faith-based initiatives".
I think we have an excess of faith-based initiatives in recent years.
Bush has made both legal preparations and rehearsals for establishing martial law in the US-- disguised.
I won't say that nationwide police cooperation to arrest criminal suspects is necessarily unjust, or that there is no possibly use for it. I am skeptical of the article's claim that murder suspects were deliberately "left on the street" to be arrested in this sweep. Before accepting that conclusion, I'd want to see if a large sweep has practical advantages as a means for arresting them.
Nonetheless, the lack of clear information about why these people were arrested makes these FALCON raids are suspect, and need to be investigated to see if it is justified. Were all the people arrested the subject of arrest warrants? How many of them have been charged with crimes? What is the complete breakdown of offenses? If those answers are not forthcoming, that would be a sign of guilt.
Meanwhile, given the legal changes that increased Bush's power, the possibility that this is a rehearsal for martial law, and for mass arrests of dissidents is very threatening, even if these FALCON sweeps did nothing actually wrong.
The US government is supporting terrorists in Iran.
They can't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but they could create chaos and suffering there.
The suspicious death of Dr. Kelly, who exposed the falsehoods about Saddam's weapons, was not properly investigated; the B'liar regime assumed it was suicide, but did not demonstrate this. Many in the UK, including an investigating opposition MP, have concluded it was murder, but they are reluctant to consider the suspect with the most obvious motive: the British government.
I do not know who killed Dr. Kelly, but an investigationt hat fails to consider this plausible suspect is a sham investigation.
B'liar has given in to public pressure to remove British troops slowly from the Bush forces, while claiming that this is because things are going so well there.
Other countries plan to pull out of the Bush forces too.
The Great Barrier Reef, already in danger from global warming, is being polluted by pesticides.
8 former Black Panthers are being charged with murder based on confessions extracted through torture.
A US appeals court has dismissed all the habias corpus lawsuits of Guantanamo prisoners, thus accepting and implementing the official transformation of the US into a state that does not respect the most basic human rights.
The Israeli Supreme Planning Council for occupied Palestine retroactively legalized a large construction project on stolen Palestinian land.
Americans grossly underestimate the number of Iraqis killed by Bush's invasion of Iraq.
The Bush forces shot and killed an Iraqi family that was fleeing from the death squads that the Bush forces unleashed.
Some US generals "will quit" if Bush orders them to attack Iran.
Noam Chomsky analyzes US policy towards Iran, North Korea, South America, etc. "It all comes down to control".
The Iraqi government official who wanted to prosecute Shi'ite police for raping a Sunni woman has been fired.
A human rights activist who investigates corporate abuses in Angola's oil industry has been accused of spying.
She has been released on bail, but the charges are still in effect.
Israeli soldiers and politicians are already talking about "the next war", but not talking about the most likely target -- Iran.
The Japanese whale meat factory ship is sailing away from the penguin rookery that could have been damaged by an oil spill.
The refusal to be towed away by Greenpeace prolonged the danger, unnecessarily.
The UK government has decided to require immigrants to learn English -- and to cut the funds for the classes to teach them.
Many poor countries suffer from deforestation, and planting trees can be helpful. But tree planting won't make up for the damage done by CO2 emissions.
Oral histories given by firefighters provide evidence that the WTC towers were destroyed by explosives planted inside them.
A NIST report argues against some of these conclusions, but I find that answer number 6 does not present enough of an argument to be convincing.
1500 Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners protested in the second anniversary of the nonviolent movement at Bil'in against the confiscation of their land by the annexation wall. Soldiers attacked the protestors and some were seriously injured.
Meanwhile Israeli soldiers, mistaken for prowlers in a Palestinian building, shot two Palestinian cops who came to investigate. One was shot in the back walking to his car.
Two articles explore both sides of one difficult dispute: about whether Palestinians should have the right to return to live in Israel.
Bush's Iraqi government has almost finished its law to allow foreign oil companies to take over Iraq's oil assets.
The Iraqi Resistance denies the validity of the Iraqi government and all its acts; it will certainly reject this law.
Israel is reportedly asking the US permission for an air attack on Iran.
I think that statement presents the Israel-US relationship in a strange way, as if the desire for an attack came from Israel and the US had to be persuaded to go along. But it does not seem that Bush is reluctant to attack.
The Bush forces raided the union of Iraqi journalists.
The EU agreed on a 20% further cut in CO2 emissions, but has not decided how to achieve this.
The fact that the poorer Eastern countries get to count the decreases that have already occurred is probably a good idea, because they are disadvantaged and probably don't make a large fraction of the emissions.
The plan to reduce by 20% unilaterally, and increase it to 30% if the rest of the world joins in, seems wise to me, because that both shows leadership and encourages the rest of the world.
The UN envoy to the Philippines accuses the army of killing many political activists.
B'liar is accused of trying to undermine efforts to develop a treaty against cluster bombs.
Australia has decided to ban incandescent bulbs, as a conservation measure. However, they will take 3 years to phase them out.
Fanatical prudes are threatening to cut the funds for a public library unless it imposes complete censorship of porn, even on adults.
The people running this library should say, "Shut us down if you want, but you can't make us endorse your policy."
Saudi Arabia convicted four foreigners of robbery and sentenced them to prison. Then -- surprise -- they were executed.
The trial wasn't fair either.
Almost half of Palestinian families are in danger of being unable to get enough food.
First there was news that a US representative had told the Palestinian Authority it would continue the boycott against the national unity government. Then Condoleezza Rice said that this statement was an erroroneous report. Then she made the same statement herself.
What see-saws!
A UN envoy, who is South African and an expert on the apartheid system, is the latest prominent person to point out how the Israeli occupation of Palestine resembles that.
The reason his report may appear to one-sided, paying much less attention to Palestinian violence against Israelis, is that the latter is much less in both quantity and quality, and thus deserves less attention.
Under the harsh, pro-business policies of the UK, a charity finds that many poor people are condemned to a lifetime of debt.
A Muslim fanatic says he assassinated a Pakistani female politician acting on his religious beliefs.
Illegal production of strawberries in part of Spain, using illegal wells, is drying up the rivers, and threatens to cause an irreversible environmental disaster before the shortage of water forces the growing to stop.
Greenpeace activists protested the company that makes Kleenex for cutting virgin forests, which is unsustainable.
Scientists call for an end to government subsidies for unsustainable deep-sea fishing, which uses very destructive methods.
Here's more information on what they destroy.
Hugo Chavez' program of democratic socialism with human rights, explained in detail and contrasted with the Bush regime.
More troops are being sent to Afghanistan, but facing a guerilla, it is unlikely to do any good.
UK's police chief calls for prescribing heroin to long-term addicts. He recognizes that this is the humane way to prevent the crime that many addicts commit.
Allowing heroin addicts to get injected in doctors' offices can lead to big decreases in use of the drug.
The civil war in Iraq has led to food shortages.
Vermont passed a resolution calling for withdrawal of the Bush forces from Iraq.
Bush's "Iraqi" police are accused of raping an Iraqi Sunni woman.
This is a step up from what they usually do to Sunnis (kill them).
US legislators and representatives of other major countries reached a tentative agreement on a plan for a CO2-limitation treaty, which could perhaps be adopted once Bush is no longer in a position to interfere.
Will it come in time to save civilization? Or will Bush block the rescue mission until it is too late?
If Bush uses nuclear weapons against Iran, all the current members of Congress could be held liable by the International Criminal Court, if they were ever to go to places such as Europe which support the court.
Spring arrived in the UK, several weeks early.
The corporate empire's economy compared to a tapeworm.
I am not sure whether the suggested measures would be beneficial, or feasible; but the issue is worth thinking about.
Rapidly moving rivers under the antarctic ice could enable the ice to melt more rapidly than people previously knew-- meaning that previous estimates of the danger of rising seas are too low.
The UK is 'one of the most stressed nations in Europe'.
The reason could be that people there work more hours than anywhere in Europe except Latvia.
The reason for this is almost 30 years of rule by parties that put business above people. (Their justification is a variant of Reagan's "trickle down" theory.)
Bush seems to be ready to attack Iran if he thinks that certain Iranian activities have been proved.
Given Bush's standard of proof, this means he could attack at any moment.
The costs of the Iraq war are deepening the cracks in the US economy.
I don't know whether the proposed solutions are good ideas, or whether they would be sufficient to solve this problem.
If we look at the Iraq war merely as a problem for Americans, it might be valid to say that low wages and high debt are a bigger problem. However, that way of looking at the occupation of Iraq misses the main point. The occupation is not merely burdensome, it is a crime.
There reports that major donors are trying to punish Brandeis University for inviting President Carter to speak.
Palestinian prisoners, imprisoned without trial, are on hunger strike because they have bad food and no blankets, and forced to urinate in their clothing.
The Bush regime denies previous reports about rejecting the Hamas/Fatah unity government.
The Japanese whaling factory ship caught fire. This will keep the whales safe whales for a year; but if oil leaks from the the ship, it could be a disaster for penguins.
Portugal will legalize early abortions.
The true cost of cotton includes poisoned farm workers.
"Free trade" treaties are the reason why governments of countries as powerful as India don't dare act to prevent use of these dangerous chemicals.
A new program of cheat offsetting shows what carbon-offsetting programs can turn into if you're not careful.
(This problem of "cheating" has a much better solution: polyamory.)
With the water shortage in Iraq, people have to walk long distances to get water from rivers-- water that can make them sick.
US legislators and representatives of other major countries reached a tentative agreement on a plan for a CO2-limitation treaty, which could perhaps be adopted once Bush is no longer in a position to interfere.
Will it come in time to save civilization? Or will Bush block the rescue mission until it is too late?
A UK court ruled that B'liar's "consultation" about building additional nuclear power plants was a "sham".
Drug companies have a practice of paying their competitors not to produce generic drugs.
Once upon a time, this would have been illegal. It should be illegal now.
Most countries don't ask other countries, even former enemies, to recognize "their right to exist". They only ask to be recognized as existing. But Israel makes a special demand of the Palestinians: part of a system of one-sided demands that ensure peace is impossible.
Illegal production of strawberries in part of Spain, using illegal wells, is drying up the rivers. This threatens to cause an irreversible environmental disaster long before the shortage of water forces the growers to stop.
The US House of Representatives adopted a non-binding resolution against Bush's troop increase in Iraq, and Democrats say binding measures will follow. This could perhaps lead to an end to the occupation.
A study found that nutrients in fish are important for babies. But, thanks to human pollution, eating fish can poison babies (and adults) with mercury.
If mothers do try to eat more fish, it will speed the depletion of the seas, which is already projected to be nearly complete in a few decades.
Palestinians are trying to resolve the violent dispute between Fatah and Hamas by forming a national unity government, but the Bush regime does not want them to succeed.
The fighting between Fatah and Hamas was provoked by the same outside pressure that is being continued here.
B'liar is dragging the Labour party down in the polls, while the Liberal Democrats are moving up. But they still have a ways to go to catch up.
Since the UK Labour Party came to power 10 years ago, its policies, friendly to business and rather unfriendly to working people, have increased poverty, especially among children, the old, and the ill.
This is the result of imitating US-style policies, which B'liar loves to do. The US government is like the parents of a dysfunctional family.
Scientists plan to try to preserve hundreds of frog species in captivity, as a fungus whose growth is boosted by global warming wipes them out in the wild.
New Zealand's PM proposes to make the country carbon-neutral, but the plan uses methods such as biofuels and tree-planting which have their own serious problems.
Anne Frank and her family were sent to Auschwitz because the US and other countries wouldn't let them in as refugees.
Today, once again, many refugees fleeing places of great danger can't find a country that will let them in.
A campaign of many MPs and other public figures opposes B'liar's plan to build expensive new nuclear missile submarines.
Ivory Coast made a multinational company pay almost $200 million for dumping toxic waste. (This happens commonly there.) But the poisoned victims say that is not enough.
The CIA spoke with Italy's spy chief, in general terms, about the idea of kidnaping suspects from Italy back in 2001.
The same UK soldiers who in Northern Ireland ran spies in both sides, provoking murders, are now at work in Iraq for the Bush forces.
If they are doing in Iraq what they did in Belfast, Bush nay be more directly responsible for the civil war than we realized.
"Vulture companies" buy up poor country debts that are about to be forgiven, then demand repayment in full.
There is one anomalous point in this article. If governments really want to forgive these debts, why do they agree to sell the debts?
Another point worth noting is that these "debt forgiveness" programs typically impose harsh privatization requirements that keep the country in permanent suffering.
There is very little good about the practice of making loans to poor countries-- it is supposed to enable them to develop, but its real effect is to put them in a permanent trap.
The main cause of these debt traps is the expectation that the exploitative loans will be repayed. Therefore, what really is needed is for debtor countries to start simply canceling their debts. Once rich people learn that by trying to exploit poor countries this way they are likely to lose, they will stop.
A US bill to "protect minors" would ban Wikipedia access from schools and libraries, as well as making online discussion forums unfeasible.
DEA judge calls for government to end obstruction of medical marijuana research.
The DEA prevents any research from being done to study the medical effects of marijuana, by refusing to provide marijuana for studies.
The US prosecutor who has imprisoned Josh Wolf for six months says he is a journalist "only in his imagination". Meanwhile, a chapter the Society of Professional Journalists has named him "journalist of the year".
The US Air Force punished a sergeant for posing nude, removing her from active duty. She responded by resigning from the national guard.
If you want to avoid participating in a criminal war in Iraq, and you are not heroic enough to follow Lt. Watada's path, this is the easy way out!
Bush's top environmental crimes prosecutor got a juicy reward for letting a big oil company off the hook.
Isolated instances of corruption happen in every government, but they happen a lot more when the government treats corruption as acceptable starting from the very top.
A petition against the plan for "road pricing" in UK received over a million signatures in a short time. The arguments presented by the authors included falsehoods such as denial of the danger of CO2 emissions from cars, but also a valid reason: opposition to government surveillance of car travel.
The UK already does total surveillance of car travel; this wrong must be corrected. If road pricing based on surveillance is introduced, ending the surveillance will be impossible.
The right way to discourage driving and reduce CO2 emissions is to increase the gas tax. Each gallon of gas burnt produces approximately the same amount of CO2 regardless of circumstances, so why discourage it more in one place than in another? Of course, the UK should also make trains and buses cheaper and more frequent. Privatization of trains in the UK has backfired, resultingx in trains that are so expensive that people fly instead.
Various religions are starting to recognize the importance of protecting the environment, and to work with environmental organizations.
The Free Software Movement also receives support from some religious people who conclude that forbidding people to share with each other is against their principles.
Forests in Sumatra and Borneo are being cut down illegally as if there were no tomorrow. And for orangutans, maybe there isn't one.
Charges were dismissed against some British troops in the Bush forces, who were accused of beating Iraqi prisoners (one of whom died from this). Because they blindfolded the prisoners, the prisoners couldn't identify the soldiers who beat them.
So where does this leave all the Iraqi prisoners that Bush forces soldiers might want to beat in the future?
Google has stopped indexing the uruknet.info site, in effect carrying out a form of censorship.
Google claims that this is due to some sort of technical problem, but the claim is implausible and seems not to be true anyway.
Google has resumed indexing urknet as a news source.
A professor at Bowling Green University was harassed by the police for using a free software browser plug-in, Tor, which blocks some methods of surveillance of what users browse.
The attitude that merely blocking surveillance is a crime is common among the "security forces" of universities.
I am disappointed with this professor for granting even partial legitimacy to the desire to suppress Tor. No matter what method they use -- just making nasty threats, or by writing a policy against anonymity -- it has to be resisted.
An ex-CIA-agent is suing the CIA, saying he was fired for reporting evidence suggesing that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass distruction.
I am both shocked and perplexed by the measures to forbid the agent from even identifying himself to the public.
The Bush regime's accusations against Iran have sunk to a new level of absurdity. It says that Iran is supplying the antitank mines used by Sunni resistance groups, counter to all evidence.
To balance the budget, Bush proposes to cut health care for wounded soldiers.
It often happens that governments spend a lot of money to produce something, then don't bother allocating any to take care of it.
The State of Maine has rejected the US government's Real ID plan to convert drivers' licenses into national ID cards.
Excessive government power is far more dangerous than terrorists. For more information on the danger of Real ID, see here
The UK arrested a Muslim leader who called for Muslims in the UK army to be killed. He also endorsed the standard Muslim policy of killing anyone who leaves Islam.
This belief shows the basic injustice of Islam as an organized religion, in its current form. In most Muslim countries, rejection of Islam by a Muslim is a capital crime. This offence against religious freedom must be strongly condemned.
Two teenagers in Florida were prosecuted for taking sexy photos of themselves together. It is legal for them to have sex, but if they take a picture, that is "child pornography". The judges argued that they should be punished now because the photos might be released some day, even if it were against their will.
Meanwhile, this case reveals the dishonesty of the word "child" in the expression "child pornography". When they use that term, they want us to think of 10-year-olds, but then they apply it to sexually mature young adults.
Hamas and Fatah have made a tentative agreement to stop fighting each other and produce a "national unity" government.
The fighting, and the agreement, is a response to the blockade imposed after Palestinian democracy elected Hamas. But Israel is not satisfied with inclusion of Fatah: it demands total surrender by the Palestinians to the occupation.
A real peace must include recognition of Israel, acceptance of all former treaties except as modified, and a clear renunciation by all sides of all terror and violence. A real peace must also include ending the occupation and giving the Palestinians sovereignty over the West Bank and its resources. It is unfair to demand that the Palestinians make all their concessions at the outset, while Israel does not.
The Bush forces say that the Iraqi Resistance is getting its antitank mines from Iran.
These accusations could be true: why shouldn't Iran (or any country) help the Iraqi Resistance kick out the occupying army? (We're not ashamed of the help provided by France to the American Revolution.) They could also be false; we can't trust what Bush says about this.
If Iran is working with the Iraqi Resistance, is it working with Iraqi Shi'ites? That would mean that Iraqi Shi'ites are an important part of the Resistance. Or is Iran helping Iraqi Sunnis? Neither relationship is impossible, but either one would undermine the Bush view of the situation.
The Iraqi resistance has stated terms for peace. They include canceling all the decisions that the Bush regime has imposed on Iraq.
This is a legitimate demand, since such decisions (which include privatization of many state activities, plant patents, and debts, with the theft of Iraq's oil in progress) have no validity when imposed by a conqueror.
However, the fact that Iraq is now effectively divided makes it futile to make peace with the Sunnis alone. Things are much worse in Iraq now than they were 3 years ago.
Monsanto advertised in France that Roundup is biodegradable and safe. It was convicted of false advertising, then fined a trivial amount.
Monsanto will probably tell its ad agencies in other countries, "Go ahead and try it: the worst that can happen is we pay a small fine, and millions of people will still believe what we told them."
Fines need to be millions of euros if they are to succeed in deterring corporate crimes like these.
A DOD report confirms that the Bush regime distorted intelligence reports in order to fabricate an excuse to attack Iraq.
The Bush regime has accused Iran of aiding in a effective tricky attack on a Bush forces base in Iraq. There is no evidence for this, but Bush wants to prepare excuses to attack Iran. But there is another theory: that the attackers were Americans.
I won't take for granted that the Iraqi resistance lacks the capability to organize such an attack. I also won't assume that the Bush regime has the moral scruples not to attack its own troops. Brzezinsky recently warned Congress that Bush might be planning to do that. (There's also the possibility that the Bush regime participated somehow in the 9/11 attacks.)
The Iraqi government is executing captured members of the resistance as "criminals", after "trials" without defense lawyers.
Do these leaders want to be executed when the resistance captures them?
Italy will try the Bush forces soldier who shot Nicola Calipari on murder charges.
Here's a good illustration of the kind of society that non-free software (which gives the developer power over the users) leads to.
Prominent nuclear physicists called on the US Congress to pass a law prohibiting nuclear attacks against countries that do not have nuclear weapons.
Ethiopia, an ally of Bush, is imprisoning and torturing political opposition.
Teaching allies to torture is standard US practice since at least the 60s. Maybe the Bush regime taught the Ethiopian government some of the techniques.
Here's more detail about Lt Watada's mistrial.
It seems that prominent authorities on the law agree that he cannot be prosecuted again. But who knows whether the Bush regime will respect the law?
The EU proposes to establish Europe-wide criminal penalties for crimes that damage the environment.
If this is enforced energetically against shipment of waste to the poor countries where a large amount of it now winds up, it could make a big difference.
To demonstrate the absurdity of the main supposed argument against gay marriage, a ballot initiative proposes to annul any marriage that does not produce a child within three years.
In an overpopulated world, the idea that the state has an interest in encouraging births is suicidally insane.
The judge in Lt. Ehren Watada's court martial found he was unable to keep Watada's defense -- that the war is illegal and therefore the order for him to fight is illegal -- from being heard in court. So he found a strained excuse to declare a mistrial. This probably means Watada cannot be prosecuted again, and therefore cannot be convicted. But that would be less of a defeat for the Army than to see him found not guilty.
It is a great victory, but if another officer follows Watada's in footsteps, the Army will probably find a different legal strategy.
President Chavez was recenly given limited power to decree laws in a certain range of issues. This article explains more about law-decrees in Venezuela. They can be overturned by the legislature or by a referendum, or by the Supreme Court if it finds them unconstitutional.
I am confident that Chavez intends to respect democracy.
Florida proposes to have a voter-verifiable paper ballot for all votes cast.
This will certainly make things better, but my enthusiasm for a voter-verified paper backup ballot was dimmed by the experiment which found that most people failed to notice that their paper backup ballot didn't match the votes they had cast. Unless we educate voters to pay more attention, we need to have votes cast on paper.
Meanwhile, let's not forget that use of optical scanning machines does not ensure an honest election. Evidence strongly suggests that Bush stole the 2004 election through the rigging of optical scanning vote counting machines in Ohio.
B'liar is accused of sabotaging a UN push to abolish the death penalty.
Note the British diplomats' half truth: they say they are "skeptical about the resolution's chances of passage". This is dishonest if they are the ones preventing it from passing. But even if it were honest, it would not be a valid reason to oppose the resolution.
Devastating floods made 340,000 people homeless in Jakarta.
They were caused by deforestation of nearby hills, which was done to make houses for the wealthy.
The latest Republican proposal: to make your ISP spy on you for the US government.
Zbigniew Brzezinski told a senate committee that the Bush regime is looking for a provocation to excuse attacking Iran, to carry out its "self-fulfilling prophecy" of such a war.
He also condemned the Iraq war as morally wrong.
The Australian government attacked concert organizers who tried to restrain hooligans, because the hooligans literally draped themselves in the Australian flag. The opposition, and mass media joined in the attack.
The concert organizers made a mistake by going on the defensive. They should have accused Prime Minister Howard of supporting hooliganism.
Tens of thousands marched in Oaxaca demanding the resignation of the governor, accusing him of stealing the election.
In late 2006, the governor crushed massive protests, arresting large numbers of people and torturing some. Others seem to have been "disappeared".
But this did not put an end to the movement.
I suppose Bush would also respond to massive protests by arrests, torture and disappearace. But people in the US have not shown the courage in defense of their democracy that we have seen in Mexico.
Professor Yayla job in Turkey criticized some of the ideas of Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern Turkey. For this, people called him a traitor, and he was fired.
Academics in the US have been punished for their views in recent years, too. This is equally wrong in any country.
The Indian Young Publisher award was given to a publisher who focuses on issues of caste.
Dr. Ambedkar's Navayana form of Buddhism is a rationalist form, with the spiritualist aspects removed.
Amnesty International is concerned about the torture of a conscientious objector in Turkey.
On Feb 7 there were protests in many countries against the UN troops that control Haiti.
This article also explains why.
Soldiers of the Bush forces, in the "Iraqi" army, kidnaped an Iranian diplomat, then released him.
The Bush regime could have ordered it as part of their campaign against Iran, denying it afterward. Or perhaps these soldiers were working on some other account.
Spain arrested 18 people just for belonging to a group that had recently been declared "terrorist". Apparently there is no need for them to be personally connected with any crime in order to be convicted and punished.
In Spain as in the US, this practice constitutes guilt by association -- which is unjust use of government power. ETA bombings are injustices, but that doesn't legitimize government injustices.
(I am not a supporter of Basque independence; treating people this way is wrong no matter what cause they support.)
Bush is quietly pushing the construction of a hundred new coal-burning electric plants. If they are built, there is little hope of reducing US CO2 emissions. And it's totally unnecessary, since Greenpeace shows how the US could cut emissions drastically by building windmill farms and requiring cars to be more efficient.
Car company lobbies made the EU water down its CO2 emissions limits.
In order for governments to get serious about preventing climate disaster, or protecting freedom, or reducing poverty, or anything except pandering to business, they must have the strength to tell business lobbyists to buzz off: "What you say is surely only half true, and you are not very important anyway."
Note how the car companies blocked the previous effort by agreeing to "voluntary standards", which they then ignored. Business always proposed voluntary standards as a compromise because it can ignore them, so that is really just a way for business to deflect the pressure for regulation. A government which is serious about achieving a goal will respond to such a proposal by saying, "Business can't be trusted to keep voluntary standards. We'll make mandatory standards, and avoid an unnecessary risk."
You may have read that President Chavez convinced Congress to give him the power to "legislate by decree". The story is true, but only partly; this is limited to a few specific areas.
I find this somewhat disturbing, because bypassing constitutional procedures is generally worrisome, and because I don't see why it should be necessary. However, these areas are not the ones that are significant in terms of human rights, so I don't think this is outright bad. I will wait and see what laws he makes this way before I criticize.
China is planning to build an arcology powered by renewable energy that could house, employ and feed half a million people.
Steve Jobs called on the record companies to end use of DRM.
Here is his actual article.
The article pleads for us not to hold Apple responsible for iTunes' DRM. However, nobody held a gun to Jobs' head to make Apple implement iTunes; he and Apple cannot evade responsibility for what they did. The article also insults people who share by calling them "pirates" and calls sharing "stealing".
Nonetheless, this article may help in the pressure to abolish DRM.
Iran is about to announce increased production of weapons-grade uranium -- partly as bluff; some experts say it will need years to really produce enough for weapons.
I do not believe Iran's claims that this is meant for peaceful uses; they do face an oil crisis in the future, but if they only wanted nuclear power plants, they could get them without this confrontation. However, I would be more inclined to regard Iran as a particular menace if the nuclear-armed US were not so aggressive, and more inclined to blame Iran if the US had not made it clear that nuclear weapons are the only way for other countries to protect themselves from US attack.
Disposable clothing boosts pollution both before and after it is worn.
Iraqis fleeing the murder in Iraq can find refuge in Syria, but Palestinians fleeing Iraq are stuck in a camp at the border.
In order to support the official pretense that Afghanistan was a safe place, UK officials denied asylum to a refugee who said he and his family faced the threat of murder there. They deported him, and sure enough, he was murdered.
The B'liar regime, like many, is more interested in creating an appearance of validity for its lies, than with what they do to people.
The Conservatives say they will scrap the B'liar's ID card plan if they are elected. They are trying to scuttle the scheme even sooner by scaring companies off of bidding to implement the scheme.
This approach should be applied to "free trade" treaties too.
Fatah and Hamas are meeting in a last-ditch chance to avoid a Palestinian civil war.
The conflict between them is the result of the Israeli blockade and financial embargo. I would guess that many in the Israeli government are hoping that civil war does break out among Palestinians. But I think that if it does, they will eventually regret it.
A Citizens' Hearing presented the evidence that Lt. Ehren Watada was forbidden to present at his trial -- which would appear not to be much of a trial.
Senate Republicans prevented any debate about Bush's plans to send more troops to the Bush forces.
Many US cities are passing laws making it a crime to feed homeless people. Politicians feel these unsightly nuisances belong in the cemetery.
The UN denies its troops in Haiti fired at shantytowns from helicopters, inevitably killing bystanders, but the roof damage seems to prove they did.
A Labour MP writes that he is ashamed to be a Labour MP, after he was unable to stop a family of Pakistani refugees from being callously deported from the UK.
The minister who deported them, trying to look tough on immigration, considered the case in such a cursory fashion that he never had the evidence the family offered, as proof that their lives would be in danger in Pakistan, translated into English.
The new unit of Guantanamo prison is even harsher-- solitary confinement for everyone.
The Bush regime, as usual, lies about it. Prisoners should just love this new prison.
The UK plans to teach all school students about global warming.
However, the focus on what individuals can do-- supposing they pay constant attention and that their work pressures allow them time to do so-- could be an excuse not to do what is really needed to limit global warming: firm and effective goverment policies.
It looks like the Iraqi resistance has found a new way to shoot down Bush forces helicopters.
The 200 or so pilgrims that the Bush forces killed-- and then claimed were terrorists-- were reportedly part of a group of Shi'ites that want to stand with the Iraqi Sunnis against the Bush forces, rather than with the Shi'ites that are slaughtering Sunnis, who control the "Iraqi" government.
So maybe the "Iraqi" government was being murderously rational in killing them.
There are now over 140,000 street children in Jakarta. Many poor people can't afford to care for their children.
The best way to avoid this sort of problem is to help (and convince) people to have fewer children.
The B'liar regime is using recent police raids as an opportunity to demand imprisonment of suspects for 90 days, even though these raids have nothing to do with such a policy.
Note the argument that "we can imagine circumstances in which this power would be needed." Any conceivable proposed government power could have such a "justification" -- therefore, if we value any kind of freedom at all, we must conclude that such we-can-imagine "justifications" are not sufficient reason to abolish a freedom.
The people who opposed the invasion of Iraq are now seen to have been right, but they cannot take much pleasure in it.
The most noteworthy point in this article is actually the details of the pressure that was put on some of these people to lie and support Bush. That is fundamental corruption of the political system, waiting to be used by any dishonest president for any purpose.
Congress is starting to document Bush's record of gagging US scientists.
Seclists.org, which archives various security-related mailing lists, was shut down by its domain registrar on request from MySpace.com. Neither MySpace.com nor the registrar bothered to talk with the maintainers of Seclists.org before they did this.
The Brookings institute says that the Bush forces must give up on trying to control Iraq's cities, and invite Syria and Iran to help reestablish order and end the civil war.
That resembles what I've been saying here.
German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the CIA kidnap team that seized a German citizen in Macedonia and imprisoned him in Albania.
They ought to include the former head of the CIA, who must have authorized this.
The "Vishnu Strategy": persistent massive use of armed force, which breeds the hatred that eventually defeats it.
I'm told that the writer has misunderstood the Hindu conception of Vishnu, and that the proper translation of that part of the Bhagavad-Gita is "I am Time, that comes to destroy worlds", the point being that everyone Arjuna fights in the coming battle is going to die sooner or later anyway. I wouldn't consider that alone a justification for war, but the point is that people shouldn't take this article as a lesson about Vishnu. It is nonetheless interesting for what it says about Bush.
The net is closing around B'liar's lieutenants who offered honors in return for contributions to the Labor party.
Novartis and other drug companies are pursuing a campaign of mass murder, through a lawsuit in an Indian court that attempts to change Indian patent law.
When people die because the WTO made medicine too expensive for them, their tombstones should say, "Patented to death by the WTO." This is what the world needs to generate, over time, the movement that will destroy the WTO.
The WTO deserves to be destroyed because it subordinates democracy to the unjust power of business.
The destruction of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia has brought back to Mogadishu the chaos and violence that existed before the ICU.
The contents of "bin Laden tapes" has repeatedly produced suspicion that they are made by someone working for the Bush regime (who may or may not be Osama bin Laden). The statement connecting Somalia to al Qa'ida is consistent with that theory -- if the Bush regime wanted to intervene there, this gave them a fine excuse.
What shall we call Gordon Brown?
Gordon Brown has already made it clear that, if he replaces Tony Blair, he will continue Blair's attacks against the Rights of Englishmen. Therefore, he will deserve to be the object of derision and disgust.
But the name "B'liar" won't fit him. So what should we call him? "Frown"? "Clown"? "Drown"? Something else?
Please email your suggestions to rms at the site gnu followed by a period and orgy without the y.
B'liar blocked the Italian initiative for the EU to take a stand against the death penalty world-wide. The reason given: to pander to the US.
Shame on the UK, and shame on the US.
The Bush forces say they suspect two Iraqi generals helped plan a Jan 20 attack by resistance fighters disguised as Bush forces.
If this is true, those generals are secretly loyal to their country, even as they appear to collaborate with the occupation. And they are far from alone.
An UK parliament report on poverty urges a new focus on helping poor countries reduce population growth.
I disagree with those that object to China's birth limitation policy: it is both necessary and justified. To say to a person "have as many children as you want" is tantamount to saying "50 years from now, take for your descendants as much land, as much water, as much gasoline, as much of everything as you want". Both are equally unsustainable.
In some countries the birth rate has decreased to the point where there is no problem of population growth. In some countries, providing free contraception would suffice to solve the problem. We should do this, of course. But if in some places that doesn't solve the problem, we must still curb that growth somehow, and letting it be done by starvation and disease is not humane.
Canada's depository library now requires submission of electronic works -- copies sans DRM.
Major US companies CEOs called for a cap on carbon emissions -- in other words, serious efforts to restrain global warming.
The CEOs' goal is probably long-term economic growth. That's not a very good goal, since it gives no direct value to ending poverty. But the contrast with the Bush regime's policy shows that the regime has much worse values. The Bush regime has the attitude of a looter.
The Middle East's military tensions block observers from studying the environmental condition of the Jordan River, but the parts they can see have almost no water in them. And they are so polluted that they are dangerous to visit.
Hamas and Fatah are battling openly in Gaza.
The US criticized Israel for using cluster bombs in populated areas.
So we cannot say that Bush regime has made the US do bad things 100% of the time. But it comes pretty close.
The Bush forces wiped out a group of Iraqis on pilgrimage, more than 200 people, after a fight that started by accident.
Like any tyrant, Bush would rather lie to accuse others than admit his own mistake. So the Bush forces called the pilgrims "terrorists", and called the fight a great victory.
B'liar personally intervened to divert aid funds for African children into buying an unneeded radar system.
The radar was made by a British company that B'liar persistently operates to support.
The campaign for a world boycott of the Israeli Medical Association and other Israeli medical organizations that support the occupation of Palestine.
Bush is firing effective federal prosecutors and replacing them with inexperienced political hit-men -- probably so as to stop them from exposing and prosecuting corruption that Bush encourages.
The UK's prisons are full to capacity, but there's still room for a peace protestor who refuses on principle to pay a fine for protesting.
Soldiers in Guinea shot protestors as a general strike calls for the ouster of the president. They also arrested the leaders of the unions that organized the strike.
This article seems to want to give the feeling that the violence was mutual, but the another article, for which I don't have a usable URL, says that the killing was done by soldiers to protestors.
An ice shelf disintegrating due to global warming has produced a giant iceberg the size of a city.
At least this problem won't get worse and worse. In a few decades, there won't be any ice shelves left.
Dishonests presidents, such as Nixon and Bush, pretend to be the "commander in chief" of all Americans.
In fact the president is the commander in chief only of the armed forces.
WTO negotiations on a revised "free trade" treaty, which appeared to have collapsed, are being reopened.
"Free trade" treaties are inimical to democracy because they transfer power from states to big business. Some of these treaties attack democracy explicitly, by requiring states to pay for the privilege of regulating business. All attack democracy implicitly, by making it easier for businesses to tell states, "If you dare to regulate us, we will simply move."
Encouraging international trade is beneficial only so long as democracy is not weakened, but weakening democracy is exactly what businesses want. Thus, there is no practical prospect of a "free trade" treaty which isn't a threat to the public good. All the existing free trade treaties should be abolished because of the harm they do to democracy.
Disposable clothing threatens to boost pollution, both while it is made, and after it is thrown away.
Bush ignored Congress and sent more troops to the Bush forces. The result is that a lot of them are being killed, along with a lot of Iraqis.
The Bush forces say they killed some 200 members of an Iraqi cult group that was planning to attack a religious festival.
It could be true, but I don't trust the Bush regime enough to take its word for any of the facts that cannot be verified.
Thailand decided to produce cheap generic versions of some life-saving medicines.
This exercizes a clause in the TRIPES agreement that the US keeps trying to pressure poor countries not to use.
Violence and division continue to increase in Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq, making Bush's supposed "strategy" absurd.
Litvinenko killer 'will die of poisoning within three years'.
Is that a clever move by the organizers of the killing, to get rid of the killer as a possible witness? Will the killer confess to get revenge on them?
Millions of tons of waste from rich countries are disposed of in China, where poor people sort through it by hand and get sick from it.
Russia has banned two human rights organizations which have helped Chechens publicize and go to court about Russian atrocities in Chechnya.
The practice of banning organizations arbitrarily has been championed by the US and its allies, and has been extended by them to the UN level.
Under NAFTA, Mexico has become dependent on corn from the US. The increase in corn prices due to turning corn into ethanol has created a food crisis there.
Biofuel is no solution to the problem of oil if it competes with food for humans. Only if made from waste plant material (which is not yet feasible) can it be a substantial renewable energy source.
Ecuador is going to sue Colombia in the World Court for US-backed drug-eradication spraying, which damages crops and people's health in Ecuador.
Maryam Ibrahim, 8 years old is in prison in Texas, as is the rest of her family. They came to the US legally and asked for asylum.
The Palestinian peace activist whose 11-year-old daughter was murdered by the Border Police still wants peace.
Bush wants to win the occupation of Iraq by killing Iranians.
If the Bush forces start killing Iranians in Iraq, they will start hiding better. A few will be killed nonetheless, but it won't change anything directly. However, it will create an appearance of activity, escalate the tension with Iran, and provide a lever to manipulate Americans. I think that is what Bush wants.
Some senators think this is leading to an attack against Iran.
Recent announcements suggest that maybe Israel will make that attack.
I would feel more sympathy for Israel's view of this situation if it were not involved in a system of oppression that makes Iran look like paradise.
Officially, some 3,000 Bush forces soldiers have been killed by the resistance. But that only counts official soldiers. Some 48,000 mercenaries fighting as well, but the casualty figures do not count them.
Carl Bernstein: Bush Administration has done "Far Greater Damage" than Nixon.
The Bush forces are attacking in many Iraqi cities, and rampaging against civilians too.
When Shi'ite and Sunni students started shooting at each other in Beirut, the army could not decide what to do.
Publishers of restricted-access scientific journals have hired a PR agent to attack the open access movement. The agent previously worked to deny global warming.
The people operating a medical-marijuana operation in Canada, who funded it through voluntary donations, were prosecuted and accused of distributing the marijuana commercially.
Prosecutor Lindley's quote is a vicious act of misrepresentation. The evidence which supposedly shows this was commercial actually proves just the opposite, when carefully considered. It confirms that the recipients of the marijuana were not charged any price: when some sent money, that was a voluntary donation. But Lindley takes the fact that many chose to donate as a sign of evil.
I wonder what Lindley would do if she suffered from a disease and the only drug that provided relief were illegal.
The European Parliament's investigation of US kidnapings in Europe denounced government ministers of various European countries for refusing to cooperate with the investigation, and says they surely knew about these crimes.
After 9/11, some Muslim immigrants in the US were arrested on vague suspicions and kept in jail for a long time; while there, they were mistreated and beaten and labeled as "terrorists". Now some have gone to court about it.
Bush, forced to admit that global warming is an issue, continues trying to block real remedies. His "solution" calls for a small reduction in oil use over a long period of time, to be achieved by biofuels-- thus avoiding real solutions that would burn less.
Bush's plan may actually cause harm.
A soldier who killed some Iraqi prisoners has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The Army is doing the right thing in this case, but it is a rare exception. Even the killing of prisoners is punished only occasionally. Killing unarmed Iraqis who are not prisoners happens all the time. When soldiers do this intentionally, usually it is not punished. Even more often, jumpy soldiers shoot unarmed Iraqis out of fear they might be attackers. This is not considered a crime on the part of those soldiers, but it is part of the crime that Bush committed.
Protests sparked riots in Lebanon, threatening a reignition of the civil war.
It is worth noting that it was not the Hezbollah people that started the violence.
Brian Haw won a victory in court to continue his 6-year protest in front of Parliament.
B'liar passed a law specifically to stop this protest; that shows how much it stung him, and how little regard he has for democracy.
The world's leading climate experts now predict that global warming will do even more harm than previously estimated.
In Kabul, the poverty is so great that people regularly die from the cold.
Nepal has been pressured to privatize the water supply. Resistance is beginning.
A joint Israeli-Palestinian protest made the Israeli government back off its latest plan to restrict Palestinians; the prohibition on Palestinians' riding in Israeli's cars.
More generally, this article says how the Israeli rule of Palestine resembles South African apartheid, and how it differs.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explains why it has moved the doomsday clock up to 5 minutes to midnight.
A list of what Israeli troops do to Palestinians when not shooting at them.
Dubya's plans to attack Iran amount to a major war.
The Iraqi resistance says that Bush force soldiers shot a 16-year-old Iraqi for spitting at them.
Bush should teach his soldiers to say: IEDs can break my knees, but spit will never harm me!
The second looting of New Orleans.
We need to help rebuild New Orleans, but not in the same place! That is asking for it to be drowned again. Even the parts that aren't below sea level now will be below sea level in a few decades. If we don't to take advantage of this opportunity to move the city to higher ground, we will all regret it later.
Bush admits his occupation of Iraq is a "slow failure", but as always he insists on continuing it. Democrats are trying to end the occupation -- slowly.
In Somalia, the guerrilla resistance of the Islamic Courts has begun. It looks like Iraq all over again, except that Ethiopia has already said it will not keep troops there for long.
Doctors say that Iraqi children are dying by the hundreds, and the US and UK are responsible, since the invasion and occupation of Iraq caused these deaths.
"Carbon offsetting" can ease people's consciences without reducing CO2 emissions. "Offset" plans based on tree planting are especially ineffective.
Former Israeli justice minister Lapid recognized the parallel between the Israeli treatment of (some) Palestinians in Hebron and the widespread antisemitism of the pre-WWII world.
Peace Now tried to protest there, but the protestors were blocked. The police seem quite capable of restricting Israelis who stand for human rights. It's only the bigots bent on ethnic cleansing that they can't stop.
Stephen Hawking warns that climate change is nearly as dangerous as the possibility of nuclear war.
The US Congress is trying to make all Internet sites censor all postings by "sex offenders" (a category which includes people convicted of skinny-dipping). If a site fails to do this, the operators would be fined. Many sites sites would have to close rather than run such a risk.
In around 15 years, due to global warming, Snowdon won't have any snow. All the snow-covered mountains of England and Wales are losing their snow.
The UK's latest Big Brother proposal: a single combined data base with all the government's information about everyone.
UK scientists accused B'liar of manipulating a scientific committee report about nuclear waste, so as to facilitate his plan to build new nuclear plants.
The B'liar regime plans another attack on human rights: many kinds of administrative punishment without a trial.
One of B'liar's men condemned the Law Lords for standing up for human rights.
On the run with the Karen people forced to flee Burma's genocide.
Rioting Israeli soldiers, firing indiscriminately, killed 10-year-old Abir Aramin who had just stepped out of school.
Iraq's refugee nightmare: 1/6 of all Iraqis have fled their homes, but it is increasingly hard for them to get into any other country.
Prominent doctors say that Iraqi children are dying by the hundreds, and the US and UK are responsible -- since the invasion and occupation of Iraq caused these deaths.
The ACLU has shown that the US military has tracked at least 186 anti-military protests in recent years. And that is just the beginning of unjust government surveillance.
Atheist Richard Dawkins on 'The God Delusion'.
Please don't accept the invitation to post your statements of Atheism (or anything) on YouTube.com. That site is designed so as to require proprietary software (the Flash player) in order to view anything. If you want to post a video, post an Ogg Theora file on your own site.
Hrant Dink, a Armenian-Turkish editor who was convicted of "insulting Turkish identity" for writing about the genocide of the Armenians, has been assassinated.
Turkey has imprisoned conscientious objector Halil Savda. Turkey does not recognize any right to conscientious objection.
Secret unofficial peace talks between Israel and Syria, carried out with the Israeli government's knowledge, considered ways to return the Golan Heights to Syria and ensure security. The proposed draft would have had Syria stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
In Israel, the president, the prime minister, and the finance minister all face possible prosecution. And Defense Minister Chalutz has resigned, taking responsibility for the "failure" of the invasion of Lebanon (but not for its inexcusable attacks on civilians and their infrastructure).
I believe it was Chalutz who, when asked what he feels when he drops a bomb from a plane, replied "a little bump".
Henry Siegman, the former head of American Jewish Congress, defends Jimmy Carter's new book and writes about how Israeli governments have killed the peace prospects.
Taliban raids into Afghanistan have tripled in certain parts of the Pakistani border.
The US Congress is considering a law to prohibit Bush from attacking Iran.
This law could actually be adopted, if it were included in another law that Bush couldn't afford to veto.
I've posted several warnings that an attack on Iran was under immediate consideration, but no such attack has occurred. Perhaps all Bush wanted to do was generate anxiety and keep people off guard.
Iran says it is willing to help train "Iraqi security forces" so that the foreign occupying troops will leave Iraq.
Perhaps Iran is already helping to train them. Iran has been accused of supporting Shi'ite militias, many of whom are members of the "Iraqi police" and run death squads that kill Sunnis.
Nonetheless, open Iranian help could be useful for ending the violence, if some other country (a Sunni Arab country perhaps) could help the Sunnis defend themselves from the Shi'ites.
Global warming has disrupted salmon's mating cycle in Scotland.
In a further attack on freedom of speech, Germany wants to make "holocaust denial" a crime in the whole EU.
Denying the holocaust is a falsehood, but political and historical positions must not be censored merely because they are wrong.
Israelis for peace plan a "Freedom Ride": they will defy the law that prohibits them from carrying Palestinian passengers in their cars in Palestine.
A Malian film puts West's blueprint for Africa on trial.
BearingPoint, the company that wrote the Iraqi law to enable Bush's cronies to run off with Iraq's oil wealth, has a long history of inside connections with the Bush regime, and a long history of not accounting for what it does with the money that the Bush regime pays it.
A New York Times columnist calls Bush "defeated", and calls on Republicans to save the additional lives that Bush's troop increase would destroy.
Before we start to crow about Dubya's possible defeat, we must remind ourselves that ending his war will not restore human rights in the US. To make the US once again a country that deserves to be admired or supported, there is a long way to go, and most US politicians are against it.
Paul Krugman says Bush's continued pursuit of his war for Iraq is a matter of looting, and compares it to the deceptive operation of a bank that seeks new depositors after it is already broke.
An article in the Atlantic claims that Bush personally believes his lies, because he has disconnected himself from reality. That could be the explanation for why he persists in all these lies even after they are disproved.
If Bush wants to believe that Saddam Hussein possesses banned weapons, and pressures the CIA until it fabricates evidence for this, whereupon Bush cites the CIA's evidence, then Bush has not lied -- not exactly. Rather, he has made the government as a system lie on his behalf. Since he is in charge of that system, he is just as responsible for this as he would be for lying personally.
John Murtha, proposing to forbid Bush from sending more troops to Iraq, said on mainstream media: "The invasion itself is what causes the sectarian violence. It's the occupation [that] causes the violence."
I'm really glad that the wall forbidding people to say that the war is wrong has been punctured.
Greg Palast says: instead of letting Bush have one more fix of troops, ask Saudi Arabia and Iran to work out peace in Iraq.
I have recommended similar things.
There is a disease alert in Baghdad because the sewage system has been overwhelmed. The tap water is now sewage.
Bush's attacks on infrastructure, and the violence that his occupation unleashed, set the stage for problems like these.
Indian Prime Minister Singh compared the caste system to the former apartheid regime.
A Bush regime official called for a boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo prisoners. In effect, he is trying to deny them the possibility of legal representation by sabotaging what remains of the US system of justice.
Although other Bush regime officials did not support this plan, the fact that it was proposed at all reflects the Bush regime's climate of opposition towards the very idea of the rights of the accused.
Some UK MPs demand that MI5 account for its role in sending two UK residents to Guantanamo.
A new film tells about the cruel and deadly mistreatment of Canadian indigenous children carried out by the United Church in Canada, and how it punished minister Kevin Annett for exposing what was done.
11,000 Palestinians who are political prisoners of Israel are on
