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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Congress reports that the Bush regime is blowing hot air when it talks about training Iraqi troops to fight for Bush.
What the report does not question is the basic assumption that Iraqis ought to fight for a conquering foreign empire.
After the Yes Men hoaxed ExxonMobil, the company struck back--shutting off their internet service. They could only get back partial service by deleting this hoax, and deleting all mention of Exxon. They are now seeking another ISP.
Such intimidation gives major corporations the effective power of censorship over the Internet.
Amy Goodman interviews Michael Moore about SiCKO.
The inspiration came when NBC's censors changed the outcome of his "Health Care Olympics" between the US, Canada and Cuba, because "Cuba is not allowed to win".
Four years after the looting of the National Museum of Iraq, the Bushmen have started trying to examine and preserve some of the country's archeological sites, many of which have themselves been ruined by looting.
NASA's Earth science budget is down 30% since 2000. Key satelites that are aging have no planned replacements.
Bush has already said he wants to make sure his successor cannot end the occupation of Iraq. Maybe he is trying to make sure his successor cannot do anything about global warming, either.
China is already the principal producer of CO2 emissions.
San Diego is starting to think about what rising seas will do to low-lying real estate and buildings. But awareness that beachfront property will be inundated is just starting to sink in.
B'liar, no longer prime minister of the UK, will try to negotiate peace between Palestine and Israel.
Given his slavish obedience to Bush, the Palestinians will not regard him as anything but a tool.
The president of Mexico, despite his bad politics in general, is trying to fight police corruption caused by drug trafficking.
The root cause of this problem is the high drug prices caused by prohibition, and the only solution is to end prohibition. Addictive drugs such as heroin and cocaine should be made available to addicts in doctors' offices, as in the Netherlands.
Iran has begun rationing of gasoline.
Rationing may not be the best way to do it, but higher gasoline prices are essential for conservation -- in Iran as in the US. Some European countries have prices over 6 dollars per gallon due to their taxes; before recent price increases, it was 4 dollars per gallon. Over the years, this leads to building society's infrastructure so that people use less gasoline.
The Senate has issued a subpoena for documents pertaining to Bush's decision to carry out illegal surveillance.
The medical industry is launching an organized PR effort to counter the film SiCKO.
Uri Avnery: splitting Gaza and the West bank is a strategy that Israel has practiced for many years. The probable effect will be to cost Fatah and Abbas their remaining support.
Blackstone and Capital's Scam.
Where will Iraq, its refugees go next?
Senator Gravel writes, "Why Hillary Scares Me".
US and Afghan troops tied a prisoner to a jeep and threatened to drag him (to death) if he didn't talk.
These are not isolated instances. We know that the practice of abusing (i.e. torturing) prisoners was promoted from the very top.
Will Bush use the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to push for a troop increase in Iraq?
There is the Big Brother-- Workplace Control and Workforce Surveillance.
Kasparov is effective as a dissident in Russia, criticizing Putin's assault on democracy. However, outside of that, his politics are those of a neocon.
Support the Confederation of Immokalee Workers in pressuring Burger King to give farm workers decent treatment.
US citizens: contact your congresscritter and senators to support low-power FM radio.
An undercover journalist reports on how lobbyists (usually former government staff) corrupt politicians, academia and the press to whitewash evil governments.
UN support for the occupation of Iraq has cast suspicion over the UN, costing it the ability to act in other parts of the world.
A Washington woman says her cell-phone is being cracked remotely, and used to spy on her and to send threats.
This is one reason why the software in cell phones must be free software. If you use non-free software, the developer controls it and you don't.
Congress is investigating the practices of government agencies' inspectors general. As part of Bush's War on Integrity, they have been politicized and suppressed.
Cheney twists the law to keep secrets without following legal rules about government secrets.
Canada is considering a law to subordinate its government policies to the US, and to allow US companies to sue to overturn any regulations that get in their way.
The Bush forces have begun to label the Iraqi resistance as "Al Qa'ida".
Just as Bush tried to tie Saddam Hussein to Al Qa'ida before the invasion, now he wants to tie present-day Iraqi opposition to Al Qa'ida. It's a crude scheme to manipulate Americans' hatred.
Bush's spokesman says that killing a million Iraqis is ok because Saddam Hussein did the same sort of thing.
Saddam did kill many Iraqis, but he wasn't killing a lot of them in 2003.
Karl Rove told the Interior Department to change policy so as to get a Republican senator re-elected. This appears to be illegal.
US citizens: call your congresscritter to support HR 1246, which calls for the US military to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
It is not a good thing for the US military to be strong, since their strength would serve for aggression. However, the recruiting crisis brought about by the occupation of Iraq could be a good opportunity to repeal this biggoted policy.
How Donald Rumsfeld and Ronald Reagan corrupted the FDA to approve aspartame, overcoming a previous rejection due to evidence it might be dangerous to health.
Whether aspartame is indeed dangerous is an unsettled question.
Mahmoud Abbas is trying to use the sudden influx of foreign support to demand negotiations for a real peace agreement.
A review of SiCKO, Michael Moore's latest film.
Al Gore's event to raise climate change awareness is being seized on by corporate greenwashers.
Cheney says his office is not part of the executive branch, so laws about it don't apply to him.
Next he will say he's really on a different planet so Earthly law doesn't apply to him.
Tax resisters in New Hampshire vow to die rather than surrender to the police.
There are many things that the state ought to provide, such as roads, medical care, sewage disposal and treatment, inspection and enforcement of health standards, etc., and this needs money; a progressive income tax that falls most heavily on the rich is the fairest way to collect it. In a state that spent its money on these things, I would not sympathize with tax resisters.
However, it is hard for me to criticize people that refuse to hand over their money for wars of conquest, kidnaping, imprisonment without trial, and torture.
Giuliani's favorite vulture makes big profits from US debt that is going to be "forgiven" to poor countries.
Senators demanded a Justice Dept. investigation Into Tim Griffin's voter-suppression.
As former prosecutor Tim Griffin is investigated for caging voters, a path towards inculpating Karl Rove is starting to open up.
The FBI may have let Osama bin Laden charter a plane in the US after 9/11.
China has developed mobile execution vans to make executions more efficient.
They take organs from the cadavers and sell them for transplantation. You can read about it here and here
The practice of executing people to collect organs was predicted in Larry Niven's stories in the 60s, except that those stories envisioned it in the US and done with popular support from people who thought they might someday need transplants.
Shin Dong Hyok has escaped, at age 22, from the North Korean political prison camp in which he was born and lived his whole life.
North Korea provides an example of how sometimes one must work with even the most brutal dictators. Ending the North Korean nuclear program is very important, and I think it is justified for the US to cooperate with North Korea towards that end, even though that means tolerating the regime's atrocities.
But would the US care about those atrocities even this overriding concern were not present? The Bush regime doesn't imprison babies as far as I know -- well, perhaps occasionally as hostages -- and it may never have done anything as heinous as what was done to Mr Shin. But it does things in the same spirit, and the result is to disqualify the US today from being taken seriously in any moral criticism of other countries' atrocities.
The murderous and intolerant side of Islam showed itself again after Salman Rushdie was knighted by the UK. Protestors called for killing him, and so did a minister in the Pakistani government.
No one has an inherent right to an honor such as a knighthood, and if a writer's work expressed hatred towards people who hold a certain view on religion, whether it be Muslims or Christians or Atheists, I would urge governments and others not to give awards to that writer.
I have not read The Satanic Verses, but according to descriptions I have read, it does nothing of the kind. It does not condemn Muslims, or Islam. Rather, a character has a strange dream into which Mohammed enters. This is what the fanatical Muslims condemn. When intolerant Muslims think that everyone in the world should be forced to bow down to their religion, they deserve a firm and unwavering rebuke.
Furthermore, we should take the initiative in this debate, by pointing out that many Muslim countries do not respect other views on religion even to the point of permitting people to adopt them.
Psychosocial Causes for the Palestinian Factional War.
The US foreign service is destroying itself by suspending security clearances based on the vaguest of suspicions.
Bush's War on Integrity has spread to NASA.
I doubt that Bush specifically asked for this, or for the mismanagement of NASA. But it comes out of the general climate of corruption that Bush has established.
Instead of managing NASA, the Bush administration's priority is to investigate the employees more.
Despite protection of the forests where the endangered spotted owl lives, the species continues to decline. For the Bush regime, that suggests cutting down some of those forests.
Exporting industry to China increased its CO2 output even as it reduced workers wages.
Man-made soot contributes to warming of the Arctic, just by making the snow dirty. Thus, the soot and the CO2 add together to create danger of melting icecaps.
A report summarizes how the Bush forces are destroying Iraq.
A man who put a note saying "Kip Hawley Is An Idiot" (that's the head of the TSA) on his plastic bag of liquids was treated like a criminal by the TSA.
This was, in effect, perfect proof that the TSA attacks those who criticize it, even in the total absence of any legitimate reason to do so.
The TSA's response to subsequent inquiries followed the standard dishonest rule of unjust government: admit nothing, deny everything, make counterallegations.
Mugabe, effectively dictator of Zimbabwe, plans to authorize universal police eavesdropping.
Sounds like Bush.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security made the US vulnerable to alien insect agricultural pests that can destroy architecture.
The Italian government is trying to stop the case against the CIA and Italian kidnapers of Abu Omar.
Aung San Suu Kyi, elected president of Burma, has been in prison for over 11 years.
General Taguba, who was in charge of the investigation of torture in Abu Ghraib prison, said that he was ordered not to investigate the role of higher-ups who authorized it.
Leading climate scientists predict disaster for civilization if CO2 production is not checked within the next decade.
More information here.
A wave of phony democracy has spread through the Arab world, carrying with it disillusionment with the idea of democracy. The only opposition Arabs consider sincere is Islamist.
The democratic system of the US is pretty phony too.
California is considering bills to limit use of RFIDs.
These bills do not go far enough. It should be illegal to put an RFID in any product unless its main purpose is for the purchaser to identify herself, and any RFID in packaging should be clearly marked.
Putin is guilty, as far as I can tell, of suppressing political opposition and the independent press. I certainly do not support him. However, what he says and does in dealing with Bush is right on.
Another Russian journalist was shot by an unknown assailant. The journalist wasn't killed, because the gun had a rubber bullet.
I guess this was meant as a warning to stop investigating.
Karl Rove is being investigated for violating the Presidential Records Act by deleting emails. The Bush campaign organization refuses to cooperate with the investigation, which in itself shows what Bush supporters are made of.
The people who did this may have committed crimes. In addition, since this law makes the president personally responsible for assuring compliance, he shares in the personal responsibility for the deliberate circumvention of the law.
This alone would be enough reason to impeach him, but since Congress has closed its eyes to so many bigger reasons already, I don't suppose it will do so.
Democracy in Palestine was formally suppressed as President Abbas instituted an "emergency government", setting aside the elected Hamas government.
Israel and the US have been trying to put an end to democracy in Palestine ever since the Palestinians didn't vote the way they were supposed to.
The Yes Men, posing as representatives of ExxonMobil, presented a plan to make petroleum out of corpses after coming environmental disasters.
Remember, "xx" is not pronounced like "x". It is pronounced like the "ch" in German "ach". Thus, the first syllable of "Exxon" sounds like an expression of disgust.
Rumsfeld and others lied to Congress when they denied knowledge of torture in Abu Ghraib, says General Taguba.
Isn't it a crime to lie when testifying to Congress?
Coca Cola is using vague promises of an ILO investigation in Colombia to convince universities to quash the achievements of student campaigns. The ILO is accused of not being independent of the company, and the investigation may not really be occurring at all.
Microsoft is making a sneak attack on election law in New York State.
Now that Bush has decided that Al Qassim is innocent of the charges for which he was imprisoned in Guantanamo for years, the US wants to transfer him to a prison in Libya. He is fighting this because he thinks the Libyan prison could be worse.
The US has a long history of crushing democracy in the Middle East.
This article doesn't even mention the many Arab dictators that the US has supported and continues to support.
During the cold war, the argument was made that the US could not afford to be choosy about allies against the Soviet Union. That might have justified working in some ways with some dictators that were already established, but it couldn't possibly justify installing a dictator in place of a democracy as in Iran.
Hundreds of thousands protested again in Oaxaca, and rebuilt the barricades of last year.
Here's a review of the history of a year of protest in Oaxaca -- how the police attacked the protest, and how later protestors (and mere bystanders) have been tortured in prison.
Chiquita Banana pled guilty to using death squads in Colombia to kill union organizers. Now the victims' families are suing the company.
US military chaplains published antisemitic lesson plans.
Eric Montanez was arrested in Orlando...for giving away food to homeless people.
Orlando's policy reflects the essential cruelty of a political system that puts business profit above human well-being.
Robert Fisk: Palestine -- a coup d'etat by an elected government.
A UN report criticizes the UK's movement towards a police state.
Bush is against a Congressional proposal to protect reporters (including even bloggers) from revealing confidential sources.
This from an administration constantly involved in covering up crimes.
Torture Gonzales is being investigated for obstruction of justice.
The US bullied Berkeley High School into helping army recruiters get access to its students. But the school continues to resist: it made sure that every student and every parent considered the possibility of opting out. 90% of the students have opted out already.
Every high school in the US should do the same. US military recruiters are known to lie frequently, and those recruited nowadays are more likely to serve in wars of aggression than to "serve their country" in any way.
Uri Avnery confirms that the US and Israel were directly involved in provoking the fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas and Fatah are now openly at war. Hamas has captured Gaza,while in the West Bank, Fatah has arrested members of Hamas.
This article claims that the US directly arranged the violence through Palestinians it supports.
I don't know whether the facts stated there are accurate. In any case, it seems that the blockade by Israel the US helped bring this about. However, Palestinians can't escape their share of the blame.
Global warming has enabled mountain pine beetles to spread northward and upward, attacking other species of pine trees, which could be wiped out.
If the white pine high in the mountains are killed, that will exacerbate the water shortage that the West is going to face due to other effects of global warming.
If Jamil el-Banna is released from Guantanamo, the UK plans not to let him return, on the grounds he has "been away too long". Instead, he may be sent to Jordan where he faces torture or death.
B'liar, on TV, still pretends that his war is not unpopular.
His motto seems to be, "The show must go on."
A Pentagon report shows Bush's troop increase in Iraq has not achieved its goal.
It is absurd to blame al Maliki personally for failing to reconcile Iraq's ethnic groups and sects. Under Bush occupation, that task is essentially impossible. So he is being used as a fall guy. Well, if that leads to ending the war, that is ok. With his participation in the Iraqi government, he is hardly innocent.
I suspect that the "promises" referred to in the article include the planned passage of a law to hand over Iraq's oil to Western oil companies, presumably owned by Bush cronies. The Iraqi parliament has been working on this law for months or years. I wonder if it is doing this the way Penelope made her wedding dress.
The Somali "interim government" has been unable to establish control despite Ethiopian and US military support. As a result, the country is in chaos, making some Somalis yearn for the days of the Islamic Courts, which were the only force able to restore order.
The Ethiopian intervention was supposed to last a short time, but it is becoming permanent (as I predicted).
Somalia faces a very sad choice: between violent chaos and cruel, unjust Islamic law.
A series of murders of members of the Lebanese Parliament seems to be due to Syria, since all the victims are supporters of the pro-American prime minister.
Almost 1/3 of the shareholders of ExxonMobil voted for a resolution calling on the company to work to reduce CO2 emissions.
Even though it didn't pass, it may pass next year. It also could lead the management to start thinking;if anything can do that.
The House of Lords has made a final decision that prisoners held by British units in the Bush forces are covered by the Human Rights Act.
Since the government advised soldiers to disregard that law, it now faces an investigation that may blow the lid of part of B'liar's malice and cruelty.
Peak oil -- the plausible theory that a scarcety of petroleum will drive prices way up starting a few years from now -- has finally hit mainstream news.
Sudan has agreed to a larger military force to prevent violence in Darfur.
A secret UN report sees no prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. It blames Israel for rejecting peace, the Palestinian Authority for being unable to stop attacks on Israel (never mind that these are not very dangerous nowadays), and the great powers for imposing sanctions against the Palestinians after they voted for Hamas.
A Bush regime spin machine has been saying that Iran supports the Taliban. The Pentagon now says it isn't true at all.
The FBI's "terrorist watch list" has over half a million names on it, making it a cause of pointless harrassment and useless for any legitimate purpose.
In Iraq, a Sunni mosque and a Shi'ite mosque were attacked. Muqtada al Sadr called on Iraqis to unite and not fight each other.
US citizens: call on your senator to say: send Scooter Libby to Guantanamo to serve his sentence, or shut it down.
In Helmand provice, life for women is no better than when the Taliban ruled.
The Islamic extremists are already fighting a war against women. I think that Afghan women should start fighting back with guns. Rather than waiting to be shot, they should take the initiative. Burkhas should make it easy to get in position for a surprise attack. They will also make it impossible to identify who the attackers were, once they have gone.
Bush plans to cut down on satellites to measure Earth's climate.
One way or another, he's determined to prevent conservation.
Spewing sulfur into the upper atmosphere can prevent global warming cheaply.
But it can't prevent the droughts which CO2 is also causing, in places such as the US.
Open warfare has broken out in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah.
A true follower of Bush, B'liar attacked the media for not giving him a free pass.
Putin has allowed some opposition protests to occur.
He probably has realized that crushing small protests is not worth the criticism it brings. Having brought the media under control by assassination, he can get away with lies even if protestors point out the truth. It works for Bush in the US, where the mainstream media, without assassination of their reporters, are nearly as subservient.
The Italian trial of Abu Omar's kidnappers (US and Italian secret agents) has begun, but Abu Omar cannot testify. Both Egypt and Italy have prevented him from going to the trial.
Professor Norman Finkelstein was offered tenure by DePaul University, but then the university changed its mind because of a campaign against his political views that criticize Israel.
I am told that more info can be found in www.normanfinkelstein.com, but I have not seen that site.
Chinese law labels many activities "state secrets", which is often the excuse to sentence political critics to prison.
The US under Bush is following a similar path of secrecy, though it has not gone as far.
MacDonald's is trying to whitewash its image by inviting mothers to visit farms that grow ingredients.
Visiting a farm of MacDonald's' choice won't give them any real information. City folk like me, visiting a farm, don't know how to tell whether the farm's food is good to eat. But suppose it is: so what? Even a thorough study of farms that grow the wheat or lettuce, or potatoes and cattle, will have nothing to say about whether burgers make people fat.
But these mothers, given a free vacation and seeing something that looks nice, will have every reason to convince themselves that they have seen proof that MacDonald's food is good.
When Banaz Mahmod told police that her father wanted to kill her (for having a boyfriend), the UK police did not believe her. Now her father has been convicted of murder.
Professor Colin Green explains the experiences in Palestine that led him to support an academic boycott of Israel. His union voted to start a year-long debate on the question. He says that Palestinians are enthusiastic about the debate, while Israel's supporters are angry that the idea is even considered.
Illegal logging in Indonesia will wipe out orangutans in the wild in 10 years, along with the forests they live in.
This is where the robot police airplanes ought to be used.
UK police are adapting drone aircraft to watch streets.
If they were only looking for ordinary criminals, I wouldn't mind this. But their focus is to catch people who do things that are slightly annoying -- as well as political opposition, of course.
The Bush forces say they are arming some Iraqi resistance groups, hoping they will fight Al Qa'ida.
I am a bit suspicious of this, because I thought there were lots of arms in Iraq. Meanwhile, the description of "negotiating" by arresting the other party's negotiators strikes me as negotiating in bad faith. Just like the Bush forces to arrest people who come out under a flag of truce.
Democrats in Congress are supporting abstinence-only antisex education, as part of a deal with the worst Republicans.
Pizza Hut fired the worker who reported mice to the health department.
Brian D. Kelly faces the threat of 7 years in prison for making an audio/video recording of a policeman who had pulled over a car. He's not the only one who has met with such threats in the US.
It is natural that police would want to stop citizens from recording what they do -- because mere eyewitness testimony isn't enough to get them convicted.
The median income of American families has declined since Bush stole the presidency.
The sectarian war in Iraq is getting worse despite Bush's increase in troops, so Iraqis are still fleeing, if they can find a place to flee to. 4.2 million are now refugees.
A jury in the UK found two protestors not guilty for trying to damage a US B52 bomber. It accepted their argument that they were trying to prevent a bigger crime, which was to be committed using that bomber.
The US and Iran have captured some of each others citizens, making accusations of spying and intervention which might or might not be fabricated.
Musharraf met with a partial setback in his attempts to gag the media in Pakistan.
Most of the US is suffering from a severe drought; in the West, this drought has lasted for many years. It is probably due to global warming, which is expected to make it get worse and worse.
The company building the US Embassy in Iraq has been accused of bringing in employees against their will. You can read about it here.
The "War on Drugs" continues ruining lives in the US. Bernie Ellis, who grew marijuana to treat an uncurable chronic illness, has avoided imprisonment due to tremendous community support. Now he faces confiscation of his home.
It must be even worse for James Burton, who is presumably going blind in prison because he can't grow pot there.
It is interesting to compare forfeiture (government seizure of assets, labeled as a punishment) in this with the case of the company that collects TV license payments in the UK. In both cases, punishments have been increased so as to collect more money. In one case, a company does it; in the other, a government agency does it; but what they do is the same.
However, most government agencies don't have a motivation to act this way. That's because the usual government agency is not terribly interested in collecting more money for the general treasury. That won't give the agency more money to spend.
The fact that forfeited assets directly enrich the police agency that collects them creates a special situation where there is an incentive for abuse. The point here is that privatization of collections can create the same special situation, and the same risk.
When Bush admitted using secret prisons, he said they had been closed. But he appears to have been lying, as usual. Human Rights Watch reports on 39 people that the US appears to have disappeared.
In some cases the US taken young children hostage, and reportedly tortured them too.
Musharraf seems helpless against spreading Islamic fundamentalism
in Pakistan. You can read about it in this web page.
Hank Silver, an American Jew who helped build Israel in its early days,
went there again to observe the occupation of Palestine.
The Hebrew University appointed a former head of the security service as
its director of external relations, despite a petition signed by many
professors saying that this would contradict the humanistic mission and values
of the university.
Academics in other countries have already proposed a boycott of cooperation
with Israeli universities, and there is an argument about whether it is right
to have such a boycott. This appointment will strengthen the argument in
favor.
An Israeli argues that
the fundamental reason for various boycotts of Israel is that it is not a
democracy. It rules millions of Palestinians, who are not allowed to vote to
control the policies under which they are ruled.
Another Israeli recognizes the legitimacy of the boycott.
The Jews of Israel don't have to admit the Palestinians as voting citizens of
Israel. But they must respect the Palestinians' right to be voting citizens
of a sovereign, democratic state: if not Israel, then Palestine.
Blackwater is suing the families of four mercenaries who were killed in
Iraq. These families want information about how their relatives were killed,
information that might embarrass Blackwater. The company now aims to both
bankrupt them and gag them.
While fighting in in Iraq, these mercenaries were participating in an unjust
occupation. They were helping Blackwater do Bush's dirty work--something that
I would guess their families refuse to recognize. However, that is no excuse
for what Blackwater is doing to those families today. Following Cindy
Sheehan's path, their personal loss is leading them into opposition to the
empire. I hope they will not crack as she did.
The resolution to impeach Cheney now has seven sponsors.
That they are so few is a measure of the cowardice of Congressional Democrats.
US presidential candidates get away with lies in the debates, because the
mainstream media don't comment on the truth of what they say.
In the spirit of Krugman's point, we should note that Dubya did not get within
"chad-and-butterfly range" of winning the 2000 election. As Greg Palast
discovered and published, Katherine Harris stole the election for Bush by
disenfranchising tens of thousands of Black voters in Florida.
Krugman doubts that the US can survive four more years of Bush-quality
leadership. I don't think that the US has survived 6 years of leadership with
Dubya's level of patriotism. The US is not a collection of people, nor its
physical infrastructure. The US is a system of government based on human
rights. When Bush crushed basic human rights, with the support of most
Democrats in Congress, he destroyed the US. The question now is whether the
US can be resurrected.
I see little hope for it. The Republican candidates gloat about the
destruction of human rights, while the Democratic candidates -- aside from
Kucinich -- pay little attention to the question.
Religious
freedom vs fundamentalism.
China has evicted over a million residents of Beijing to demolish their
homes for the Olympics. They have to move to distant slum suburbs, from which
it is expensive to get to work.
In the US, gentrification does the same thing, but more slowly. It would be
acceptable if there were adequate housing for poor working people.
Uri Avnery:
40 years as an occupying power have corrupted Israeli society and
government, and made violence normal.
The law allowing members of parliament to be expelled for criticizing cabinet
ministers or army commanders will effectively abolish the representation of
Isreali Arabs -- and anyone that seriously wants peace. Their representatives
will either gag themselves, becoming ineffective, or be expelled.
This review of Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation, by R.T.
Naylor, makes me want to read a copy.
US citizens: phone your congresscoward and say, "Support resolution 333 to
impeach Cheney! He's a criminal, and you have a responsibility to recognize
this by launching his prosecution."
One of Mugabe's conscripted torturers has escaped, and
explains how the system is organized for atrocities.
B'liar endorsed South African President Mbeki's gentle approach to
Mugabe's tyranny. (Mbeki has blocked most sorts of action against Mugabe for
years.)
It is interesting to contrast the attitude of B'liar and Bush toward Mugabe
with their attitude towards Saddam Hussein. Hussein's past atrocities were
used as the excuse for a war of conquest, but Mugabe's present and increasing
atrocities get only verbal criticism -- and now, not even that.
Bush wants to pardon Libby, but faces pressure from Republicans not to
do so.
We need a constitutional amendment that would deny the president the
power to pardon crimes that relate to working closely with high
government officials. I suggest that pardons for such crimes
be possible only for a president who took office at least 3 years
after the end of the administration that the crime was connected with.
Here's a way to educate the public about what global warming can do:
erect poles in coastal cities, showing heights above sea level. Each
pole could be graduated in meters, with a big label "If Greenland
Melts" on a line at the appropriate height (around 6 meters above
current sea level).
The IWW is organizing workers at Starbucks, which treats them
worse than Wal Mart.
Due to overfishing, jellyfish are proliferating in the Mediterranean
and regularly invade Spanish beaches.
The drought that exacerbates this problem is likely to get more severe
and more frequent in the future, due to global warming.
An Israeli court is hearing a Palestinian challenge to practices
that exclude Palestinians from a road running through the West Bank.
Restrictions like these have divided the West Bank into small enclaves,
making it difficult to travel between them.
Bush continues to oppose meaningful action against climate change.
At the G8 summit, he committed only to "consider" taking steps.
We can imagine the result this consideration will reach.
Thus, B'liar's claim to have influence over Bush is once again shown
false.
There is a time in diplomacy for patience, but there is also a time
for pressure and denunciation, and this is it. Other countries must
tell the truth about the Bush regime: that its policy is driving the
Earth to disaster.
While the G8 summit didn't achieve much good, protests against the
meeting were very effective.
Is inundating another country an act of war? If so, countries whose
coastal regions face inundation (if Greenland or Antartica melts)
could justify a pre-emptive attack on US and Chinese fossil fuel power
plants, oil refineries, coal mines, and other CO2-emitting facilities,
in the name of simple self-protection.
Taking the absurdity of software patents to its insane logical
extreme, a new company's business plan is to patent security fixes.
Mainstream Australian media companies accuse the government of
endangering the freedom of the press, and of practicing too much
secrecy.
US citizens: sign the petition demanding no pardon for Libby.
US citizens: sign the petition against the US plan for liquid coal, which would increase CO2 emissions.
The arms trade from the UK to Saudi Arabia involves payment
of bribes to a Saudi prince, authorized by the UK government.
B'liar blocked investigation into this corruption, which as much as
admits that the accusations, saying that this corruption is
"strategic". What he means is that "What's good for BAE arms sales
is good for the UK."
The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to investigate psychologists'
work in researching torture techniques for the US Army.
The rigging of the PENS report by people who concealed or hedged their
military affiliations reminds me of the way Communist infiltrators
used to take control of political opposition groups.
Cheney continues to repeat the lie about Saddam Hussein and al Qa'ida.
MIT economists confirm that US workers' income is not
increasing as their productivity rises -- and the reason is
due to changes that give bosses more power and workers less.
Congress is planning new farm subsidies, which seem likely
to favor large companies.
The Iraqi Parliament is trying to end the occupation
by blocking the UN approval for it. But Maliki, Bush's
Iraqi prime minister, plans to veto the bill.
The WWF has accepted a lot of money to advertise Coca Cola Corporation.
The UK company that has the commission to collect taxes for television
sets has tried to increase profits by demanding payment from people
whether they have television sets or not.
Politicians often argue for privatization of government functions,
claiming that businesses will run them more efficiently.
But businesses do not necessarily achieve higher profits through
doing the right job more efficiently. They are just as likely
to raise profits by doing the job wrong.
Glaciers in Antarctica are flowing faster into the ocean. This means
the danger of catastrophic flooding of coastal areas is worse than we
thought.
The US antimissile system which provokes Putin is being
imposed on an antagonistic Czech public.
The Czech leaders who support this are working for the US,
not for their own people.
B'liar is making one last try to influence Bush on climate change. I
wish him luck, but he has never succeeded in changing Bush's course
before.
What 40 years of occupation has done to Palestine, and to Israel.
The UK faces the threat of legal restrictions on abortion.
Yelena Tregubova says:
Putin is turning Russia into a dictatorship, and now wants to threaten
neighbors, so don't appease Russia.
I agree with her overall position, but I see the nuclear weapons issue
differently. Putin can't possibly threaten other countries as much as Bush
does, and it is Bush that wants to abandon arms control and destabilize the
nuclear balance. So I think it is right to interpret Russia's development of
advanced missiles as a response to Bush's provocation. If Russia did this in
the absence of US provocation, it would say more about Russia.
Since Chavez's opposition likes to compare him to Putin, it is informative to
contrast them. Putin has suppressed oppostion journalism by assassination of
journalists who investigate corruption, and has frightened opposition media
into silence. Chavez cut off the radio broadcast of one opposition TV station
which supported a military coup against his government, but even that station
continues cable broadcasts (since they don't require a TV transmitter license).
Meanwhile, there are plenty of other opposition media outlets in Venezuela.
Iraq veteran Adam Kokesh is protesting the war with clever nonviolent
stunts, and has been arrested for this.
Now the Marine Corps wants to punish him for protesting, even though he's
not in the Marine Corps any more.
Kokesh's arrest was for a protest inside a Senate office building. He was
charged with "unlawful assembly, loud and boysterous"
although he had not uttered a sound.
Congress is starting to look at Greg Palast's
evidence of felonious disenfranchisement of voters in 2004.
The CIA warned Bush of many of the bad things that might result from
attacking Iraq. Bush ignored this.
A Pakistani Christian was sentenced to death for insulting Muhammad. He
seems to deny that he did so, but whether he did or not is a side issue; to
make it a crime to express such opinions is an offense against human rights.
It is for policies like these that Pakistan is one of the countries that I
simply refuse to visit.
The US health care system, despite its high technology, kills insured
people because of bureaucracy, while other die because they can't get
insurance.
The UK's national health care system has problems too, but those problems are
mainly caused by something very simple: underfunding, which reflects the New
Labour party's priority of catering to the rich.
Islamic extremists in Gaza have threatened to kill women TV presenters
unless they cover their faces. The women are defiant.
The Eritreans presumed drowned at sea (because Malta waited 6 hours to
send a ship to rescue them) may have survived and washed back to Libya.
I support Europe's right to control immigration, but that is no excuse to let
people drown. And if these people have a valid claim they face persecution in
Eritrea, and they are already in Libya, Libya ought to give them asylum.
Libya's government is a dictatorship, but at least it has no reason to
persecute these people.
It appears that the
UK is considering removing most British troops from the Bush forces within
a year. Maybe.
Not long ago I linked to a report of a statement by a British Bush forces
division, which gave an earlier exit date, but that seems to have been an
error.
Reports about the Democratic candidates' debate confirm my support for Dennis
Kucinich. He said he would get rid of the U SAP AT RIOT act and take the US
out of the treaties (NAFTA, WTO) that subordinate democracy to corporations.
And he refused to support the invasion of Iraq when most Democratic officials
chose to go along with it.
(The dishonesty of Bush's demand for war was quite obvious, even though there
was, at the time, no proof to put him on trial with. Democrats who endorsed
his lies did so because they lacked the courage to resist the pressure.
Kucinich has that courage.)
I did not see debate, but my impression is that no other candidate supports
those positions. (Obama did oppose the invasion, but he doesn't support the
rest.) If any other candidate does support these positions, please let me
know.
Meanwhile, a bit of kudos to the candidate who pointed out that rising US gas
prices are good, because they promote conservation. Trying to push prices
down is evidence of a lack of statesmanship. What we should do is tax away
the oil companies' windfall profits, and spend the money promoting mass
transit and other good things.
B'liar's attorney general encouraged troops in the Bush forces to
disregard the human rights of Iraqi civilians.
Neocons in the Defense Department were encouraging Taiwan to declare
independence even as the State Department opposed it.
While it is ridiculous to have two parts of the government pursuing
contradictory foreign policies, I disagree with the presumption that everyone
must kowtow to Beijing's demand to swallow Taiwan (or Tibet).
The British troops in the Bush forces will be withdrawn in December.
What the heck is vote caging, and
why does nobody care?
The Department of Homeland Security was justified in the name of
preventing terrorism, but that seems just to be a front.
Bush told friends that he was trying to make it as difficult as possible
ever to remove the Bush forces from Iraq.
Real opposition in Congress would cite this publicly as a reason to stop
giving whatever Bush says the benefit of the doubt.
A report about Baghdad on a Friday night.
Andrew Bacevich, whose son was killed in Iraq,
has received insane accusations saying that he caused his son's death by
opposing the war. This is absurd, since if Bacevich's efforts had succeeded,
his son would not have been in Iraq.
Although soldiers in the Bush forces may wish to believe they are "serving
their country", whichever country it happens to be, we must not pander to this
fiction. The occupation of Iraq does not serve any country, only Bush and his
cronies. And the only support these troops deserve is pulling them out.
Republican presidential candidates are trying to propagate Bush's lie
connecting Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks.
Another Guantanamo prisoner has escaped into death.
Bush's climate change plan -- do nothing but talk for two more years --
met with nothing but derision, except from toadies like B'liar.
President Chavez has proceeded with the announced plan to close the
station RCTV, which directly supported the attempted coup, by not renewing its
license.
I don't think this is dictatorship, but it wasn't necessary. If this develops
into a general policy of blocking private opposition TV, then I will be
concerned.
This article gives more information about how RCTV participated in
supporting the coup attempt.
"
US 'Exaggerating' Iran Threat For Military Intervention", says
a think tank report.
A book review of The United States Since 1980--a study of how corporations
have taken power away from democracy.
Lina Joy, a Malay living in Malaysia, has been formally denied the right
to cease to be legally regarded as a Muslim.
Most Muslim countries have similar policies; some make it a capital offense to
convert. Hardly any of them respect the human right of religious freedom.
Whenever Muslims condemn others for criticizing their religion or making fun
of it, we should throw this in their faces.
Firing union organizers is illegal, but it's standard practice in the US.
There's a report -- I don't know the source --
that 10,000 Iraqi women are in prison, and that most of them have been
raped.
Turkey is considering giving the police broad powers to collect
information and save it, to search people, and to shoot people.
McCain opposes net neutrality, and wants to put a Microsoft executive in
the cabinet.
He misses the point of democracy, which is that the non-rich can join together
against the power of the rich, and by acting jointly achieve what they
couldn't get by dealing with the same rich one by one. To advocate "no
government interference" is to advocate that the non-rich fail to use this
weapon.
Who will be the president of the World Bank is a side issue. What really
matters is to change its harmful policies.
A commentator on the BBC last night mentioned that some criticize the World
Bank as inefficient; that it has too many employees for the lending it does.
Then he mentioned that some people say World Bank loans are harmful -- and
assumed that satisfying these criticisms would require adding more employees,
as if the harm were due to mere mistakes.
This technique is commonly used in the mainstream media to sabotage
consideration of an issue: raise it in a confused way, so that the audience
believes it has considered the issue, and dismissed it for what appears to be
good reason. Few will find out that the reason was a red herring.
The ACLU has sued Jeppeson Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, for providing
support to CIA torture flights.
Plastic has covered 40% of the ocean's surface with garbage, and the
chemicals that leach out of plastic are poisoning us and other animals.
Bill Clinton is planning to accept an award from Colombia's President
Uribe, who has been tied to murderous paramilitaries.
Scientists criticize the EPA's planned program to screen for endocrine
disruptor chemicals, saying it is as good as designed to miss most of the
problems.
US citizens:
Tell the FCC not to sell off lots of the radio spectrum dirt cheap to
phone companies.
Inuit, already experiencing damage due to global warming, sent a representative
to England
to testify against airport expansion.
The Bush forces are coming to recognize that they are fighting for no
good cause, as they see that the soldiers in Bush's "Iraqi army" are
fighting against the occupation.
The article ends with an absurd reason for continuing the occupation: for the
sake of the local auxiliaries that have been recruited to mainain the
occupation. We see these absurd excuses over and over, and since major US
media treat them as legitimate, they achieve a political effect.
Why did Congressional Democrats cave in on Iraq war funding? Because most
of them aren't committed to ending the war at all.
As B'liar talks about reducing UK carbon emissions,
he wants to destroy one of Britain's few ancient forests to expand an
airport.
Greg Palast:
Monica Goodling testified that Torture Gonzales' chief of staff lied to
Congress. He denied his knowledge of a feloneous Republican scheme that
disenfranchised many Black voters in 2004. And Palast has proof of it all.
The debate over internet neutrality has been nearly ignored by the US
mass media, along with other vitally important issues.
Even the network neutrality campaigners ignore one vital aspect of network
neutrality: whether network facilities and servers use free protocols that
everyone can implement. If they don't, they tend to impose the use of
specific non-free programs or systems.
Costa Rica will stop sending police for training in the US at a school for
torturers.
This school, formerly called the School of the Americas, has spent decades
teaching Latin American soldiers to overthrow democratic governments and/or
torture the opposition.
Bush isn't satisfied with surveillance in the US. He is
funding Mexico to increase surveillance, too.
I am suppose they will say this is for catching drug dealers. And they will
probably use it some of the time to catch those drug dealers who didn't pay
off the police adequately. However, they will also use it to catch political
opposition.
The drug problem in the US today is mostly due to prohibition, and further
enforcement of prohibition does not make it better. So it cannot justify
measures like this.
Haifa Zangana:
The entire Labour party shares the blame for Iraq's horrors.
The Bush regime illegally turned immigration judgeships into political
patronage.
Another Bush achievement in Iraq: growing opium.
Russia is protecting the probable murderer of Mr Litvinenko.
Amnesty International says, the UK's "politics of fear is eroding human
rights".
For the full report:
http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Download-the-Report.
Political leaders of many Iraqi factions, and neighboring countries,
find it useful for fighting in Iraq to continue.
It is only the Iraqi people that suffer more and more.
B'liar's government has published a blueprint for new nuclear power
plants, while denying it is one, after a sham consultation with the public, so
they can pretend they had one.
Colorado Progressive Jews calls for an end to the occupation and a just
peace with Palestine.
The Israeli Army blocked the latest nonviolent Bil'in protest with barbed
wire, then attacked the protestors.
The Bush administration has bent over backwards to let oil companies cheat
the treasury of billions.
Amnesty International says
most Palestinians killed in Israeli raids are civilians.
Cheney directly attacked the Geneva Conventions in a speech at West Point.
What Cheney said about "the terrorists" is just as applicable to the Bush
regime when it conducts wars of brutal aggression. I hope West Point
graduates realize that.
After Bush forces troops murdered civilians in Haditha,
a cover-up was intentionally ordered at higher levels.
Note how they regard the facts of the case as "propaganda". That reflects the
attitude that the truth has no importance, an attitude that flows straight
from Bush and his supporters.
Bush wants to let nuclear arms control treaties expire.
A small boat with 53 illegal immigrants sank in the Mediterranean because
the Maltese coast guard decided not to rescue them.
Neither Malta nor the European Union has an obligation to admit unwanted
immigrants, but they do have an obligation to rescue people from sinking boats.
Bush arrogantly says "expect more bloodshed" after making the Democrats
surrender on Iraq.
Israel has arrested many Palestinian elected officials, in effect wiping
out any chance of Palestinian democracy.
The statement by Michael Williams that "legislators cannot be immune from the
law" is peculiar because, in many countries including Israel, legislators have
exactly that immunity. However, when on country's army arrests another
country's legislators, that is normally called war.
The UK has subjected several men to house arrest without trial. Several of
them have run away. The B'liar/Clown regime proposes to make this
an excuse to declare a state of emergency and abolish human rights
officially.
The Guardian published a story, attributed to someone in the Bush regime,
saying that Iran is working with al Qa'ida and the (mostly Sunni) Iraqi
resistance.
When I read that, I thought, "
This is nonsense -- but Bush would sure like us to believe it." I'm not
the only one.
Bush is quietly planning another troop increase in Iraq.
I am confident that the Iraqi Resistance will outlast the Son of Surge, but
only after Bush makes life into hell for Iraqi civilians.
Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, has fled into
exile after the police accused him of treason because he met with members of
Hezbollah. Bishara says that no one gets a fair trial in Israel's "security"
courts, because they use secret hearsay evidence.
Democrats in Congress have caved in to Bush, giving funding for continued
occupation of Iraq, but only for 3 months.
Television now teaches the public to legitimize torture.
There is a campaign in the UK parliament
against cooperation with Bush regime torture flights.
The expelled inhabitants of the Chagos Islands have won a court victory
over the B'liar regime, which had tried to set aside the previous court
decision which said they could go home.
The B'liar regime did this because it didn't want any civilians anywhere near
a big US base.
A company that wants to pay schools to play ads (with music) in school
buses has run into resistance.
That people can start such a company and not expect to be laughed out of every
school department's office reflects the extent of corruption of our society by
business. When cities sell names of stadiums to businesses, they set an
example of corruption that promotes corruption in every area of life.
A strict curfew in Samarra, turning the whole city into a prison, is
making it hard for residents to find food and fuel. At least 10 people have
died in the hospital as a result. Others have died because they could not get
to the hospital.
This is what Bush means by "freedom and democracy in Iraq". As usual, the
Bush forces refuse to accept responsibility for what they have done.
The Pentagon is reducing the McClatchy reporters' access as punishment for
negative coverage of the Iraq war.
I wouldn't say this is wrong in and of itself. I too decline to give some
reporters interviews (though, unlike the Bush regime, I don't try to hide it).
What is noteworthy is that this method is fairly effective at making most of
the mainstream media give positive coverage.
Palestinian rockets
finally killed an Israeli civilian.
The Israeli army and air force have been pre-emptively retaliating for this
casualty for weeks, killing many Palestinian civilians in the process. Both
the Palestinian and the Israeli attacks against civilians are wrong, but the
Israeli attacks kill many while Palestinian attacks rarely hurt anyone.
20 years after the publication of Manufacturing Consent,
the Internet has changed the landscape for corporate propaganda, but has
not eliminated the problem.
We find out about corporate-funded phony activism when it makes mistakes.
However, professionals don't make mistakes all the time. We need to be
suspicious of organizations that lobby for something corporations want -- and
we need to develop rules to make it easier to distinguish real activism (which
occasionally cooperates with companies) from fake corporate-funded activism.
A BP memo shows how it manages the agencies that are supposed to regulate
it, with a carefully planned series of personal relationships between
particular executives and regulatory officials.
A Conoco representative says his company has been "luckier" in avoiding
spills, but we know that
BP's oil spill wasn't due to mere luck.
The Pope is trying to overcome the anger caused by his praise of European
colonization and its effects on indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Bush has appointed himself total power in "emergencies", in an apparently
unconstitutional plan to "ensure constitutional government".
Everyone: sign
this petition supporting some Iraqi members of parliament in opposing the
plan to hand over the oil to foreign companies.
The US Attorney for New Mexico was fired on the excuse he was "absent
from the job" -- when, as a military reservist, he was on active duty.
The real reason is that he didn't cooperate with Republican plans to
undermine the 2008 election with fake charges of individual voter
fraud.
Uri Avnery: The Israeli inquiry into the "failure" of the invasion of
Lebanon disregards the most important issues: there was no legitimate
reason for the war, and the offered justification was a lie.
Bush is planning to continue the occupation of Iraq for decades.
More about the dishonesty at Guantanamo, how Matt Diaz tried to
protect the Constitution, and how his trial was rigged.
Lebanon is on the verge of a civil war between Islamist extremists and the
goverment.
Malalai Joya, a member of the Afghan parliament,
had bottles thrown at her there when she stood up for women's rights.
When she criticized this, the men took such offense that they suspended her
from parliament.
Many butterfly species have appeared a month early in the UK, a measure of
how much global warming is affecting the Earth.
The question now is whether we are wise enough to take action to save our
endangered space-ship, or whether greed as channelled through global
corporations will destroy it.
Brazil's Atlantic Forest has the highest biodiversity on Earth. But it is
being cut down because Brazil doesn't appropriate enough money to protect it.
Gordon Clown wants a law to make it easy to ram through any sort of
development over local opposition. He is hoping to fool opposition by making
this apply to wind-farms as well as nuclear plants and supermarkets.
Governments often use this kind of "one step forward and ten steps back"
tactic; we have to be on guard against it.
The environmental organizations in the US have become ineffective, because
they have lost the fire of activism and don't dare talk about the danger of
population growth.
This is why I do not support the cause of people who want to move to the US
for economic reasons. Letting millions of people move from overpopulated
countries to the US is not a solution to population growth. What we need is a
committment by the US and other wealthy countries to fund contraception and
abortion in the rest of the world.
The Bush forces made a plan before the war to turn the Iraqi news media
into propaganda outlets.
We don't know if this plan was followed, but don't say the Bush regime is
incapable of advance planning. It knows how to plan corruption and dishonesty.
The company SAIC mentioned in the story often does dirt for the US government.
A few years ago, SAIC held the contract to operate the computers of PDVSA, the
Venezuelan state oil company, which had fallen into the effective control of
foreigners. When President Chavez moved to reclaim Venezuelan control of
PDVSA, seeking to use the oil wealth to help the poor, the unpatriotic
managers of PDVSA tried to force it to stay shut down. SAIC helped them, by
shutting down PDVSA's computers.
The US Army is recruiting soldiers that need antidepressants to avoid
killing themselves, and recruiters tell them to lie about this.
The commanders deny that this happens. But lying is par for the course in the
Bush regime.
The US Senate is considering a law to make the CIA publish a secret
report about the 9/11 attacks in the US. Senator Wyden says, "The decision to
classify the report has nothing to do with national security, but rather
political security."
The UK has so much surveillance that even police are starting to
call it "orwellian".
Illegal sale of ivory on eBay promotes elephant poaching.
Missiles from Gaza continue to be basically harmless, but Israelis feel
they are not killing enough Palestinians in response.
The Bush forces tried in 2004 to kill Muqtada al-Sadr, with a fake offer
of negotiations meant to lure him into a trap.
Bush has established a climate of depravity in which there is no evil so bad
that his regime won't do it.
Does it make sense for thousands of people to fly or drive to a concert so
as to raise awareness of global warming?
The "Fabric of Life" road, which is the only exit from the Palestinian
village of Bir Naballah, is subject to constant Israeli harrassment. Arabs get
arrested for having dangerous weapons such as screwdrivers.