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Bush is sending more combat troops to Iraq, where the proposed constitution is increasing the hostility among the ethnic groups.
Closing Fuel Economy Loopholes Can Save Consumers Billions.
But Bush doesn't want to do that.
Senators from both parties visited Alaska to see the effects of global warming, and to try to put pressure on Bush.
I predict Bush will continue to deny everything and obstruct all efforts to prevent this problem from getting worse. Those who direct him profit from using lots of oil, and they want to draw as much profit as they can.
Peace in Aceh may be on the way.
Bunnatine Greenhouse, a Pentagon contract official, has been removed from her job for doing it properly.
This is part of Bush's War on Integrity.
Chavez offers to sell gasoline cheap to poor communities in the US. He also offered to provide free health care there.
The low-cost gasoline idea would not really be a good thing, since it would take away the pressure to conserve energy. However, providing medical care would be a very good deed, as well as a propaganda coup.
Israel is confiscating a lot more Palestinian land to expand settlements.
Antiabortionists have been passing restrictions on abortion in many states.
Christian fanatics are moving to South Carolina with the aim of establishing a theocracy.
A 10-year-old refugee who has spent half his life in prison in Australia is suing the government for neglecting his medical needs.
Chavez says that Venezuela will take legal action against Pat Robertson. I'd love to see Robertson in jail for incitement to terrorism.
The Menezies shooting: contradictions and possible cover-up.
A thousand nonvoilent protestors against the annexation wall.
9 northeast states have made an agreement to cap and then reduce CO2 emissions.
Freeing slaves in Brazil is hard work. The slave-owners buy the police.
Dear Settlers and a few other addressees - Uri Avnery
War Made Easy--how the US media enthusiastically support invasion.
The FCC and FBI are trying to stretch the CALEA law which requires phone companies to build in facilities for massive wiretapping, to make it apply to internet service in general.
They are doing this for the specific and unusual case of WIFI and cell phones on airplanes. But if they succeed in stretching the law that far, they won't need to stretch it any further to apply it to all ISPs.
Bush is now trying to destroy everything that the UN has agreed to work for. Even Blair is refusing to support it.
Here's more of what Bush wants to eliminate.
A newspaper strike in the Toronto area is going unreported, because the concentrated corporate media decline to cover it.
Increasing oil prices, and conflicts between the US and China, seem to be the sign that peak oil has arrived.
I wish there were a side in this conflict that deserved the support of people of good will, but they seem to be scoundrels on all sides.
US cities and environmental groups are suing the US government for funding projects that contribute to global warming.
The withdrawal from Gaza has created a great opportunity, but also a great danger.
Europeans are forming a campaign to demand Judith Miller's release from prison.
I appreciate the courage she shows by going to prison for the principle of confidentiality of sources--even though in this case she is protecting people who work for Bush. I hope she would show the same courage if it were protecting someone else. In any case, we must not be misled into thinking that the New York Times upholds the other traditional journalistic virtues along with this one.
The draft Iraqi constitution displeases many Iraqis for many reasons. I get the impression that there's nothing they could do which wouldn't have this problem, which stems from the depth of division and mistrust in Iraq.
It would take a great statesman, admired by most of the people, to overcome such deep divisions--and Bush and his men hardly qualify.
The Blair Watch Project--using biometric ID cards to do mass surveillance of everyone.
Animal rights activists in the UK shut down a guinea pig farm through persistent protests.
The protestors are accused of being violent, but the descriptions of the accusations leave room for doubt about whether it was really violent.
Pat Robertson, speaking on TV, called for assassination of Venezuela's president Chavez.
As Bush faces for the first time the clear disapproval of most Americans, his personality is degenerating into a permanent temper tantrum.
Wetlands in the US are threatened by many causes, including rising sea level due to global warming.
Wetlands play a role in cleaning up pollution, so losing them is dangerous.
Roberts has a history of attacking and undermining environmental protection.
As the US focuses attention on Iran's possible nuclear weapons program, Israel's real nuclear weapons are ignored.
Is a US invasion of Bolivia coming soon?
Bush is citing false intelligence about Bolivia, perhaps to justify an attack.
Persistent and increasing drought in some places, flooding in others-- and it will only get worse as global warming continues to distort the world's climate patterns.
The policemen who shot de Menezies face an investigation that could result in charges against them.
Roberts' record reveals a right-wing extremist.
The US mainstream media showed the public how controlled they are by either ignoring Cindy Sheehan or ridiculing her, while local media covered her protest sympathetically.
Bush is suing the operator of a web site that criticizes him. And Isuzu is suing Consumer Reports because it made a report they did not like.
Blair may get a $400k per year payoff from Bush's friends.
The Center for Democracy and Technology has sold us out and given support to the "broadcast flag".
A study shows a world-wide pattern about suicide bombing: it is a response to foreign occupation. That is why it is occurring now in Iraq.
There are 50 co-sponsors for a congressional resolution for removing the Bush forces from Iraq, and from Bush. It is a very gentle resolution, with no deadline to complete the withdrawal, but it is a step.
Merck is likely to be sued by relatives of thousands of people who had heart attacks after using Vioxx, because Merck knew about this side effect and tried to cover it up.
I think that even these suits are not enough to deter companies from doing this. I think there should be criminal penalties for drug companies (and their staff) that try to hush up such information.
Novo Nordisk, a company that specializes in treatment of Diabetes ("and prevention"), gives out fattening treats to doctors and their staff. Is this how they claim to prevent Diabetes?
In case you ever serve as a juror in a criminal trial, you should read this article.
Carbon sequestration as a way to cope with global warming is becoming technically feasible; but it won't be applied until countries like the US adopt policies to make it happen.
China is setting up new police units to crush the protests and uprisings that often occur when people are chased off their land by developers. At the same time, it is changing the law to make it harder for these people to defend themselves legally--which means they will have no recourse except uprisings.
Compare this with the US, where the Supreme Court ruled that cities can use eminent domain to take private land on behalf of businesses, and you get a pattern of convergence towards tyranny.
In the UK, a neighborhood built on a former toxic waste dump is told, "Don't let your children play in the garden."
I think the government has an obligation to compensate their loss. If everyone shares in shouldering the burden, it will be bearable, but it is unfair to let it fall randomly on just a few.
An Israeli commentator says that the Gaza pullout was due to... firm pressure from Bush.
The Chinese government has organized an exhibit about Japan's wartime atrocities, whipping up public anger towards Japan.
Since the Chinese government is no great supporter of human rights, I am sure it is not doing this because of outrage against atrocities. But that's a side issue; doing the right thing for the wrong reasons does not make it wrong. The Japanese army committed atrocities by the thousands in its war of aggression--and it didn't stop with bombing and shooting civilians; they performed fatal "medical experiments" on some civilian prisoners. They mistreated prisoners of war, too, many of whom died.
No nation is immune to the temptation to commit atrocities. The Japanese government must acknowledge these wrongs so it can teach Japanese never to consider such things again.
Innocent bomber suspect De Menezes was pinned down by police--then shot while helpless.
Uri Avnery on the proof that it is possible for Israel to demolish settlements.
His quote about land mines is very impressive.
In Pakistan, another writer has been sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Pakistan is one of the few countries on Earth that I would simply refuse to visit. I too might be sentenced to death for what I have said on this site.
The Turkish government was negotiating with someone about paying House Speaker Hastert to change his position--and then he did so. Was he paid to change it? The FBI is covering it up, according to Sibel Edmonds.
(For officials to take pay from corporations is just as bad as taking pay from foreign governments; it is equally a betrayal of the nation.)
Families of British troops killed in the Bush forces in Iraq are going to court to demand an inquiry into whether the war was legal.
TV camera recordings show that the UK police lied to whitewash their killing of the man falsely suspected of carrying a bomb into a train.
The Iraqi puppet government has been unable to work out a constitution.
The job of designing a constitution for Iraq might be intractable even if it were done by statesmen with real popular support who had no conquering foreign army to placate.
In Baghdad alone, 1000 civilians are killed every month. This leads to a rought estimate of 36,000 per year in Iraq as a whole.
Here's what Melanie House says about the death of her husband, in Iraq.
Unlike Ms House, I am not "for" the Bush forces, except in the limited sense that I wish they were safely out of Iraq. Thet are not "our" troops, not any more, until we can take them away from Bush. They are engaged in a vicious and inexcusable war of conquest--so in general they are not heroes.
However, Petty Officer House was an exception, because he was a medic. Medics are heroes no matter which army they are in.
Congressman and senators who supported the war and Bush are feeling the pressure--and awareness is sinking in that Bush cannot win the war.
The Bush forces will have to leave Iraq sooner or later. The sooner they leave, the less evil they will have done.
Businesses (including Haliburton) are trying to push for massive new highway-building plans in the US, taking advantage of the Bush regime's readiness to bow serve business' wants.
If oil prices skyrocket around 2010, there won't be the traffic to fill these new roads--which is a good thing, since that much more CO2 in the air would assure global disaster.
A report says that Earth is 1 degree of warming away from disaster.
In the US, many states are developing renewable energy, despite Bush's opposition to it.
The Liberal Democrat party leader in the European Parliament has endorsed legalization of all drugs.
I don't necessarily go that far; for dangerous addictive drugs, the Dutch system, which lets addicts register and get injections legally but prohibits commercial sale, might be better. Both systems cut out the basis for the profitable black market, both avoid forcing addicts into crime or imprisoning them for their habits. I don't know which one would be better at discouraging people from taking up these drugs.
Baghdad: ten minutes on a trip to the supermarket can mean the difference between life and death.
The Israeli soldier who shot a British nonviolent activist was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
I don't think 8 years is an unreasonable sentence for manslaughter, but given the facts of the case, it should have been murder.
Global warming is melting the permafrost of Siberia, which spews methane into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming.
As we carry our world ever closer to a disaster which we won't actually see until it is too late to avoid, rich men who assume they can buy their personal way out of the painful consequences insist that it is too expensive to do anything.
That's as stupid as claiming you can't afford to get your tooth filled. Would you rather wait and have a root canal?
The use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is commemorated annually as a call for nuclear disarmament.
Winter Soldier, an unflattering documentary of the US Army featuring Vietnam veterans, may finally be shown in the US--after more than 3 decades of suppression. Iraq has given it current relevance again.
Unacceptable regimes in Iraq and the United States.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY: With Violent Greetings
Blair wants to deport some Islamic extremists--some of them to countries that are likely to torture them. Some of these are the same people who were formerly imprisoned without trial. At least one is being deported to a country where he was tried in absentia, which trial was in itself a violation of human rights.
Torture, imprisonment without trial, and trial in absentia, in the hands of an all-powerful state, more dangerous than whatever acts they are supposedly intended to prevent (and which they are just as likely to provide the motivation for). Nobody should be deported to a country where he faces a sentence issued by a trial in absentia. If that country wants to ask for extradition, and makes a credible promise of a new (and fair) trial, then the request deserves to be considered normally.
By contrast, I see no harm in refusing to let Omar Bakri Mohammed return from Lebanon. Since he went there voluntarily, he cannot plead that his human rights are in danger there.
Uri Avnery's comments on the removal of settlers from Gaza.
Over half the settler families in Gaza are leaving peacefully.
Iran nuclear row: No end in sight.
I will not feel safer if Iran has nuclear weapons. However, given that the US has made it clear to other countries that only nuclear weapons can protect them from the likelihood of a US attack, it's only natural that they should try to avail themselves of the only known protection.
The idea of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is that it would acknowledge a few nuclear powers, which would try to move towards nuclear disarmament, and in exchange the rest of the world's states would forego nuclear weapons. But the movement towards nuclear disarmament ended in the 90s. Bush wants a world in which he has nuclear weapons and his enemies do not; but he can't expect the rest of the world to support that goal.
Bliar is trying to attack judges for upholding the legal rights of suspects, even those suspected of terrorism. (Of course, innocent people are often suspected of terrorism, and sometimes even shot dead.) The judges are fighting back.
This is part of Bliar's general attack on all kinds of human rights.
In a part of Gaza cut of by Israeli settlements, Palestinian fishermen have been forbidden to go to sea for years, and a man who went to the hospital in Rafah has been forbidden, since 3 months ago, to return home.
Evacuation of the settlements might change this, or might not.
Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize winner, tears the idea of "intelligent design" to shreds.
Support Cindy Sheehan, on a vigil against Bush for sending her son to die for a lie.
A deserter from the Bush forces, who fled to Canada, tells his story.
Meanwhile, some of the Bush forces are making a serious attempt to establish a protection system including civilians in Iraq.
Colleges in the US are starting to offer students textbooks that disappear after the one semester. And don't even think of lending them to someone else.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is now dictating the design of the next version of Microsoft Windows, with the specific aim take away your control over your own computers.
This takes us a step closer to the world I imagined 8 years ago, in The Right To Read.
I urge students and faculty to organize to reject these phony textbooks. Not buying them is just the first step--people should go further and denounce the restrictions that they carry. They should not be offered even as an "alternative", because society should not accept the "alternative" of losing traditional freedoms.
Students who don't appreciate intangibles such liberty and community cooperation might still be persuaded by secondary reasons--such as that students will probably pay more, in the long run, if they can't borrow each other's books or resell them to next year's students.
Is Bush preparing to carry out a medium-size military attack in October? I am in no position to verify any of these facts, but even as a rumor it is worth calling attention to.
Roundup, the Monsanto pesticide that Monsanto likes to genetically engineer crops to resist, seems to be very dangerous to amphibians.
China's rule over Tibet continues to be brutal. Cowardly Western rulers such as Bliar, who are willing to fight wars to bring "democracy" to weak countries such as Iraq, sell out to China's money.
Some investors worm info out of doctors about how drug experiments are working, so they can do insider trading.
At the same time, similar investors often stop doctors from publishing experiment results properly, through the power they get through funding the research.
The UK government is trying to tell the newsmedia to stop talking about the dangers of GM crops.
I guess they'd prefer not to have any news reports on embarrassing superweeds.
A witness who survived one of the London bombs says the bomb was under the train, not in it.
This article also provides an example of the idiocy of religion. The lucky survivor thanked his imaginary god for saving him and his friend, but doesn't blame the same imaginary god for killing or injuring everyone else. A recent article in Free Inquiry, focusing on this pattern of bias, was entitled "Teflon God". It must be cozy to be praised for the good you do while never blamed for the bad--but I would rather not be exempt from ethical standards, nor would any being with a conscience.
A genetically modified herbicide-resistant plant cross-bred with a weed to produce a herbicide-resistant weed. So now farmers have to fight a super-weed.
The cross-breeding will probably work in the other direction, too. Wherever the super-weed grows, it will probably cross-breed with crops. Then Monsanto will sue the farmers for patent infringement.
But don't worry--Monsanto will sue the weed for patent infringement and get rid of it.
A wide range of businesses systematically try to distort science, faking enough doubt as to prevent the problems caused by their products or operations from being addressed. And they have arranged (bought) a law to help them.
Australia's ruler says that Australia's draconian anti-terror laws need to be "strengthened". Like every ruler using this excuse to take away people's freedom, he sticks to generalities, never meeting the challenge to show that his specific freedom-limiting measures are really necessary, or even helpful.
Australia's current laws allow grabbing people secretly, and imprisoning them if they do not answer questions. These people are essentially disappeared, since it is considered a crime for them, or anyone else, to report what happened to them. How much more "strengthening" is needed to reach something like Stalin? I'd say they are already at the level of the early Gestapo.
Legacy of the Iraq war: a new increase in nuclear terror.
An Israeli settler fanatic went on a rampage, shooting Arabs on a bus. Fortunately he didn't get very many before the rest of the passengers mobbed and killed him.
While in the Palestinian territories, I was told that settlers frequently snipe at Arabs, any Arabs that appear in range, up to the maximum range of their weapons.
One MP in the UK is not afraid to recognize how Bush and Blair are the chief mass murderers. There may be some US politicians who dare say this, but we don't hear about them much. The media in the UK are not as thoroughly under the corporate thumb as those in the US.
Of course, there are people who condemn him for this. There are people for whom it is impossible to recognize one's own country as the origin of evil no matter how obvious it gets.
About the Cuban exiles in Miami that keep trying to attack Cuba (and dragging the US government into it).
Here's the latest Amnesty International report on Cuba:
Castro's doesn't respect human rights well enough, but Bush respects human rights less in Cuba than Castro does. He's not doing it very well in the US either: I don't know if the Cuban dissidents got fair trials, but with Bush, you may not get one at all.
Corruption was bad in Russia before Putin, but now it is much worse.
A glacier in Greenland is moving 3 times faster than it was 10 years ago.
If this spreads (or has spread) to the rest of Greenland, lots of us will be in cold water.
Iraqi Shi'ites are about to form militias-- to protect themselves from Sunnis. Bush will have trouble stopping this, and I think it will turn out badly for him.
Meanwhile, the new Iraqi constitution seems likely to abolish equal rights for women.
There is so much irony here. This negation of human rights results from having a certain limited amount of democracy in Iraq--together with the fact that Islamic extremism is now powerful in Iraq.
Most Americans won't like what these religious extremists have done, but Bush may not mind it. He's a religious extremist himself.
Overfishing has cut the number of species in half in many areas of the ocean.
South Africa plans to push harder to transfer land from rich Whites to poor landless Blacks.
I support this if it is done carefully. Those rich whites had the help of a colonial system in acquiring their property.
Musharraf is opposing Islamic fundamentalists who are trying to impose Taliban-style laws in part of Afghanistan. However, these are the same people whose political support he relies on.
I think Pakistan is headed for something horrible, and it could include nuclear war.
To censor a pro-union web site, run by a locked-out employee, Canadian ISP Telus blocked 766 other sites. A million customers were unable to access these sites (unless they knew of a proxy to bypass the restriction).
The injunction against posting photos of scabs bothers me, too. That they could get such an injunction reflects the same sort of bias, for business and against citizens, that Canadian courts showed in the Harry Potter injunction case.
The private company that is supposed to provide medical care at many prisons in the US consistently skimps, and when doctors complain that they are not given the resources to do the job, it makes up an excuse and fires them.
It is typical behavior for companies to fail to do the jobs they have promised or claimed they will do. The same companies also insist that people pay them every dime they are owed--but they don't deserve it.
We need a legal system that will hold companies to the same standard that it holds individuals, but first of all we need to do so in our own standards of ethics. We have to reject absolutely the idea that company executives have a duty to make as much money as they can even if this means being nasty to the rest of the community.
"Nobody dies of overpopulation" because people work hard to find something else to blame.
Monsanto is trying to patent breeding pigs. That's right, breeding them. Not engineering genetic modifications in pigs, but selecting pigs, as farmers have done for millenia.
China announced a gigantic reforestation plan.
It remains to be seen how well the plan will be implemented. In the Chinese government, at all levels, there is a tendency to lie to cover up failures.
$15000 bail for spray-painting? Only for political activists.
Uzbekistan, whose dictator was defended by Bush and Blair for strategic reasons and oil, has now switched to Russian allegiance.
Will Bush now begin to denounce the crimes that he ignored when this dictator was an ally?
Now the FBI is investigating Mike Lynn.
When a product is dangerous, and the manufacturer wants this hushed up, of course it calls that a "trade secret". Thus, any agency of the state that gets involved has to choose a side: the public or the company, democracy or fascism.
But there may be some good news here, that our protests after Adobe had Dmitri Sklyarov arrested may have had some deterrent effect on the FBI: it didn't just go and grab Lynn; instead, it is thinking twice about which side to take.
When researcher Mike Lynn found a security risk in Cisco routers, Cisco wasn't concerned with the problem they had created--only with whether the public would find out about their mistake.
I applaud Mike Lynn's willingness to fight against this abuse of the legal system. But I am disappointed that both he and the conference where he spoke agreed to censor themselves on the matter forever after. Perhaps he figured that the information was already out of the bottle and that Cisco would be unable to stuff it back in. Maybe that's true--but Cisco clearly isn't convinced, and I can't be confident they are mistaken.
Lynn was somewhat confused when he said that Cisco "had to do what's right for their shareholders". What's right for Cisco's shareholders is to act, on their behalf, in an ethical way. Perhaps he meant "what's good for their shareholders"--not the same thing. But if that's what he meant, the statement is mistaken. Nobody has to bully people, and making money for the shareholders is not an excuse for doing so.
I think it is superfluous to call a boycott of Cisco, because only idiots would buy a router made by a company whose response to a problem like this is to try to hush it up. However, this case, like the Harry Potter injunction, illustrates both the injustice of the relevant laws and the hostile prejudice of the governments that enforce them. Any government that takes Cisco's side is not on your side. Any official that isn't disgusted that Cisco was able to gag Lynn does not deserve to be in office.
The US as well as several other countries have signed a new treaty intended to reduce global warming. However, it doesn't have any specific required targets, so what good it will do is not clear.
Inside evidence--leaked emails from former prosecutors--says that Bush's military courts for Guantanamo prisoners are "rigged".
It was clear all along that this would be the case, more or less. But it is useful to have direct evidence.
I honor those prosecutors whose personal integrity led them to quit the proceedings that they found to be unjust. I fear that Bush will retaliate against them now, if he has not done so already. Bush recognizes only one law: "Never thwart me in anything!"
Deadly heatwaves and droughts on various continents are a consequence of global warming.
The weather always fluctuates--but as the whole world gets warmer, weather that used to be so extreme it would happen once a century can start happening once a year. Rainfall patterns change; some places will get much less average rainfall, while others get more.
The AFL-CIO voted to call for removal of the Bush forces troops from Iraq "as soon as possible".
The resolution presents this as support for the troops, and that's right. The most important support they deserve, and the only kind they should get, is no longer to fight an unjust war of occupation against a justifiably hostile people.
Bush loyalists are likely to insist that "as soon as possible" means "after complete victory". But they are slowly giving way to the pressure.
Self-proclaimed experts in business ethics are now trying to justify business' having influence in government, on the ground that businesses pay taxes.
That principle is twisted. "No taxation without representation" applies only to people--and it does not imply that she who pays more taxes deserves more representation.
The aim of democracy, since Athens, is to prevent rich people from having disproportionate influence in the policy of the state. Allowing business any sort of influence defeats the purpose of democracy.
Roberts helped Bush prevent a recount in 2000.
California has rejected Diebold voting machines because they failed 10% of the time.
The Ukraine's new government is losing support, facing conflicting pressures from the people and from the US. Their main "achievement" to date has been impose WTO-style copyright law. Joining the WTO would mean surrendering their newly-won democracy.
It's admirable to have canceled an unjust privatization, but instead of simply auctioning off the same property, they should be smarter about what to do with it.
UN peacekeepers in Haiti shot innocent people in the head during a raid.
The raid was against gangsters, but those were small fry. The US-installed government is composed of gangsters.
The Bush regime is giving out more hints of starting to pull out of Iraq.
Of course, they don't admit that it's a matter of pulling out. Instead, they're talking about handing over the occupation to Iraqi collaborators. You could call it "Iraqization".
When it's all over, Iraqi will still be a much worse place than it was under Saddam Hussein. It looks like they will have gone from a secular dictatorship to an Islamic fanatic dictatorship. But it will be better than the murderous Bush regime.
All in all, the West has been very stupid in opposing and sabotaging secular nationalism in the Arab countries, because the result was that Arabs turned to Islamic fundamentalism as the only way to resist.
A American reporter overcame the obstacles created by Bush to interview the Bush forces sniper who had shot his Iraqi friend, also a reporter and a doctor.
I think the sniper is right in saying "this wasn't murder"--not on his part. He was afraid for his buddies' lives and had very little time to think. You can't expect people to figure out the right thing to do under such a situation--not reliably. At the individual level, this soldier had moral bad luck: he had to make a choice, and both options could have been very very wrong.
However, the overall effects of the occupation are not a matter of chance. The occupation systematically generates such situations, and systematically a certain fraction kill noncombatants. The result is a lot of killings. The decision to conquer and occupy Iraq is responsible for all these killings; neither Bush nor his officers arrange each one precisely, but Bush's orders made them inevitable.
Then there are the children who die from malnutrition and lack of clean water-- thousands a year.
Thus, Bush is committing mass murder by continuing the occupation. Only a very strong ethical urgency can justify this sort of thing, and Bush knows he has none. That is why he tries to prevent his murders from being investigated, and why the mass media that are in cahoots with him don't report them. The sooner the resistance drives his army out, the less evil Bush will have done.
The UK government has adopted a policy of shooting suspected suicide bombers on sight, without warning. One innocent person was already shot in the head. In effect, the war in Iraq has come home.
The Democrats 2008 Choice: Sell Out and Lose, or Stand Up and Win.
Police in India beat up and injured hundreds of workers who were on strike.
I think there should be an investigation of why the police were there in the first place. I suspect that the business brought them in to try to crush the strike. It is just a suspicion, and might be wrong; but since they raise the question of who started the fight, this might show who really started it.
The "Iraqi government" is selling off oil fields to foreign oil companies. The price will probably be much less than they are worth; that's the usual way that privatization goes. Meanwhile, it will be easy for crooks in ministries to run off with the money. (To run off with the oil itself would be much harder.)
We always knew that grabbing Iraq's oil was part of Bush's war aims. However, it didn't stop there--the article explains that Bush and his cronies have been stealing Iraq's money too.
It is interesting to compare the low degree of attention to this corruption with the much greater attention given to much smaller corruption involving the former Oil for Food program. Corruption is never legitimate, but the regime uses its opponents' small offenses as a distraction from its own large ones.
The House Republicans have control of the chamber, but they're not satisfied with passing bad laws openly. Here they cheated the rest of the House, to give a handout to Halliburton.
A letter from Zimbabwe says: Zimbabwe keeps going down the drain as world sits by and does nothing.
Here's the Amnesty International report.
There is a new campaign to label products that put smaller burdens on the environment.
It might be a good thing, but in order to be effective, I think it needs to apply to consumables, not just to durable goods. Also, it doesn't say that labor conditions are part of the criteria, so this seal doesn't mean it wasn't made in a sweatshop.
Dalits in Tamil Nadu, whose villages and crops were wiped out by the tsunami, are getting no aid. When people try to provide aid to the, upper-cast people stop them and steal it.
Bush extends his War on Integrity to the SEC, by appointing Chris Cox to lead it.
Sad news: the US House of Representatives approved CAFTA. The vote was close; we almost won a victory, but "almost" counts for nothing.
We have to hope that some Central American countries will refuse to ratify the treaty, and protect the future of their potential democracy.
The Indonesian government has made a deal with the Aceh independence movement, which seems to offer the prospect of a peaceful solution involving some regional autonomy.
The UN is wrestling with the question of how to define "terrorism".
The question would difficult even without the political pressures from various governments. I expect the US to demand a broad definition that includes legitimate political protest and excludes anything done by a government.
The Taliban are regaining strength--possibly with the help of Pakistan's intelligence service.
However, the people in the part of Pakistan near Afghanistan are also supporters of the Taliban, and some of them are fighting the Pakistan government.
Pakistan is more or less a military dictatorship, does not recognize human rights. Its laws impose a death sentence for blasphemy. It is one of the countries I would not even consider visiting. If people invite me to give a speech there, I will do it by videoconference.
A close political advisor of Berlusconi has been convicted of working closely with the Mafia at the same time.
Renewable energy sources and cogeneration are now comparable with nuclear power, in their contribution to world electricity supply, and they are much cheaper.
I think this refutes the claim that only nuclear power could be deployed enough to significantly reduce global warming.
"Theft in plain sight" as Israel extends the annexation fence around Jerusalem.
The Torture of Chief Iron ThunderHorse
The UN Work Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned the US, saying that the Cubans who were convicted of spying--not on the US government, but on terrorist groups that operate in the US and attack Cuba--did not get a fair trial.
Some Irish police were investigated and found responsible for trying to frame innocent people. They were punished...with being transferred to Dublin.
Shell is paying dearly for jailing Irish villagers that oppose construction of a dangerous pipeline.
This page gives information about what Shell did to the Ogoni in Nigeria.
It appears to be a few years old; there is no longer a military government in Nigeria. I wonder what the situation is now with Shell and the Ogoni.
The Bush forces forced an Iraqi youth to jump into the Tigris, where he then drowned.
Was that boy, or the thousands of others like him, less important than someone who was killed in London?
Two teenagers were executed in Iran for being gay.
The House Rules Committee, in approving extension of the USA PAT RIOT Act, blocked the full house from even considering certain amendments to reduce the powers--for instance, the amendment that was adopted by a majority of the house, to eliminate the power to collect bookstore and library records. In other words, even our representatives (weak defenders of our freedom that they are) were bullied and trampled down by the Republican leaders.
The Blair regime is talking about a new anti-terror law that might make it a crime to view a "terrorist" web site. (This is half way down the page.)
Aside from being censorship, this would be quite easy for the police to sucker anyone into viewing such a site, which would then be an excuse to put the person in prison.
I am more scared of this than of bombs in the subway.
More information on Judge Roberts, Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court.
A US representative suggested using nuclear weapons on Mecca as revenge for possible future terrorism.
I can understand the anger that must have led him to say that. Anyone who can understand that anger should also be able to understand how Muslims might feel similar anger after the mass murder that Bush and Blair have committed in Iraq--and how they might also be led to consider setting off explosions that would kill many in the US or UK.
So what is the way forward? To kill more? Or to kill less?
Alfonso Molina, a prominent Colombian journalist, reported in the launch of Telesur that the Colombian army recently seized and shut down a TV station run by an indigenous group. (It was broadcasting views criticial of the government.)
The US House of Representatives voted to extend the USA PAT RIOT act.
It appears that fear-mongering is still too strong for to resist in the name of civil liberties. Although there was opposition on the specific issues of library, bookstore, and medical records, nearly all accepted secret searches (illegal even to talk about) for other kinds of business records.
Bush formerly said he would fire anyone in his administration involved in leaking the name of Valerie Plame. But now he says he will only fire someone if he "committed a crime".
Perhaps he thought, when making the previous statement, that the people responsible would never be caught.
The UK government is prosecuting a colonel for the killing of a civilian prisoner.
It appears that the UK has eliminated the problem of command influence that makes military "justice" in the US a farce. That's commendable. The willingness to prosecute a colonel is also comparable, compared with the US policy of only blaming underlings. However, the integrity of the prosecution system, combined with the fewness of the successful prosecutions, demonstrate how hard it is to build a case against soldiers who kill civilians during war. Which means that mostly they can get away with murder.
South Africa is pressuring Mugabe to pull back from his tyrannical policies in Zimbabwe, in exchange for a loan.
I read in another article (for which I cannot find an accessible URL) that some are pressuring South Africa to demand even more in respect for human rights in exchange for this loan.
A Muslim religious court in India ordered a woman to separate from her husband and marry his father, because he raped her.
Some Indian Muslims are outraged by the injustice of this, but apparently not enough to change it. And the chief minister of the state (equivalent to a US governor) supports it.
Islamic ideas of justice are barbaric, and Muslims can be part of civilization only by rejecting those ideas.
Iraq: A nation where suicide bombing is a fact of life.
This shows graphically how the London bombings are small potatoes compared with the violence that Blair has helped Bush commit. And I was please to read that a poll found that 2/3 of Britons consider Blair partly responsible for the bombings. Britons should not allow Blair to respond by trying to claim down while he continues the evil that motivates such retaliation.
More about Thailand's State of Emergency: it applies only to the provinces where the insurgency is located, but it is meeting some sharp criticism as threatening to Thai democracy--especially from newspapers that object to censorship.
Bush has done all the same things, one way or another--with the exception of explicit censorship, but the mass media are controlled through their corporate owners, and it serves the same purpose. He applies them to the entire US, even though there is no insurgency anywhere in the US. Is this threatening to US democracy?
In May, Bush met personally with someone who participated in the attempted coup against Venezuela's President Chavez.
That is plenty of basis to suspect that Bush supports the violent overthrow of Chavez's government.
I will look for more information about Posada's case. He shouldn't be subject to double jeopardy, but there is no reason for a foreign terrorist to be welcome in the US, even if he can't be convicted criminally for it
Australia's government has been shamed into taking a step back in cruelty to people seeking political asylum. Those that have been imprisoned for years (sometimes as much as 7 years), for no reason except seeking asylum, will be freed from prison while their cases are considered.
Role in Iraq war ' has made Britain a target for attacks'. (And the US too, of course.)
Massive drug company mergers have nearly wiped out the development of new antibiotics, just as the old ones are starting to frequently fail.
Random anti-Muslim violence has increased in the UK after the recent London bombings.
Religion in general is foolish, and has the potential to lead people to persecute others, but people should not be persecuted just for following a religion. Anyway, these understandably angry people are putting the blame in the wrong place. Bliar is more responsible for the recent bombings than all the Pakistani immigrants combined.
A new law authorizes Islamic tyranny in a part of Pakistan, if it isn't declared unconstitutional.
Coca Cola is threatening to sue an Indian photographer for a billboard that includes their logo and slogan--making a political point about how the company's plants dry up wells, so that poor people can't get clean water.
This is an example in a long line of examples of how trademark law is being used to interfere with statements of political views. Nowadays, with governments giving companies so much power, criticizing companies is an essential part of political activity.
Bush secretly manipulated the Iraqi election.
In the US, he stole the election, probably twice. He would not have scrupled to do the same in Iraq. Did he do it?
Abu Ghraib torture has now been traced directly to Guantanamo, so we know the soldiers who were convicted were not acting on their own.
They deserve their punishments, since following orders is not an excuse. But the ringleaders must be punished too.
Bush's Iraqi Army is made of "ghost batallions".
Their corruption follows the example set by Bush's donations to Haliburton etc. If the master is crooked, you can't expect his servants to be honest.
The corruption in Iraq doesn't operate exactly the same as it did in Vietnam, but it fills the same role in the overall pattern: a corrupt regime, democratic only in name, lacking the loyalty of the people and unable to fight effectively against the rebels. So it remains only as long as it is propped up by a foreign army.
Bliar hopes to overcome the opposition to his ID card plan by turning it into an EU rule.
This is known as "policy laundering": governments that wish to impose an unpopular policy on the people arrange a treaty they can sign, turning it into a fait accompli beyond the reach of democracy.
I'm all in favor of a united Europe, if it were done in a democratic way, one that served the public rather than subjugating it to business and governments. But the existing EU is just an excuse for tyranny, and if it cannot be made democratic, it must be abolished.
A state of emergency was declared in Thailand in response to a steady stream of attacks by Muslim insurgents. This involves censorship of the news, as well as that favorite Bush tactic, imprisonment without trial.
One could argue that this is close enough to civil war that it justifies extreme measures. However, let's not forget that the Thai government has a history of disregarding the rights of anyone deemed socially undesirable. A couple of years ago, for instance, the Thai police were reported as killing people who were suspected of drug trafficking. (This probably included some who really did drug trafficking and others who didn't.) Is that partly responsible for the insurgency?
The London suicide bombers were carrying identification papers. They apparently wanted their identities to be known.
So...if the UK had established mandatory ID cards, would it have changed anything? Obviously not. But this is a great excuse for any sort of attack on people's freedom. Just say "We're protecting you from terrorists". The next step, already taken by members of the Bush administration, is to say that anyone who complains (perhaps because he values freedom) is "helping terrorists".
How Chicago police persecute people who live in housing projects--including threatening to arrest people for not hitting other people on command.
When noted free software developer Chip Salzenberg found his employer engaged in sleazy and illegal address gathering from web sites, he reported his objections to the boss. The company responded with a fabricated criminal accusation against him. The state then seized all his computers, disks, etc, before checking if it made any sense. When the DA eventually dropped the spurious charges, the company sued him, and the state handed all his computers and records over to the company.
Anyone who works remotely, using a computer, can be victimized in this way. So there is an effort to defend him and warn others.
This is one is piece of the general pattern known as fascism, in which the government kowtows to business while trampling human rights.
I asked Chip whether the DA is considering prosecuting the company for the activities he originally objected to. He said he could not comment on that. I hope that means this is under consideration. But even if so, the disparity in attention given to the two complaints--acting precipitously when a company claims to be the victim, and slow when it is the perpetrator--is suspect.
Colombian President Uribe is asking European governments to support a law that would effectively grant immunity to the government-supported death squads that are the greatest origin of terrorism in Colombia.
All over the US news media, we are told that US news media are dominated by Liberals. They can say this because it isn't true.
Police collected videos from thousands of surveillance cameras in London to try to spot the bombers.
This was a large job but not impossible, and that's as it should be. When the job needs to be done, it can be done. If it were easy, it would lend itself to abuse of power.
The danger is that newer technology will make it easy, perhaps make it possible for the police to construct a list that records everywhere that everyone goes. That would be a tool for tyrants.
Canadians have been ordered not to read books that were sold to them "by mistake" . Read that article, then don't buy any Harry Potter books.
An interesting essay on the ideas behind the freedom movements of the 60s, ideas that helped inspire the Free Software Movement.
Another essay analyzes the aspects of the counterculture that I sensed inarticulately, which are the reasons I did not participate.
Israeli "soldiers are not used to dealing with 15-year-olds"... because 15-year-old Arabs don't count.
In Laos, as villagers recycle metal from bombs dropped 30 years ago, the live bombs continue to kill adults and children.
This is how Iraq's future looks.
In the week since bombs in the UK killed 50 persons, 60 others there have been killed by traffic accidents (assuming 2004 patterns continue). These deaths were no less gruesome and tragic, even though they didn't all happen in one event. There probably won't another bombing this week, but there will surely be more traffic deaths this week, and every week, totalling over 3,000 a year.
It is important to try to prevent people from being killed, by whatever cause. But sometimes the methods proposed are themselves gruesome and tragic--such as the surrender of freedoms that previous generations gave their lives to defend. Perspective on the various dangers can help in making the right decision.
The Palestinian Authority asks the EU to boycott products made in the Israeli settlements.
CAFTA is designed to increase the harm that was done by NAFTA. Every country that refuses to ratify it will escape from being hurt by it.
CO2 in the air is not just making the oceans rise, it is making them more acidic. That can wipe out many ocean-dwelling species.
Since we are already overfishing most of the edible ones, we are in for a lot of trouble ourselves.
The American Indian influence on American ideas of liberty and the US Constitution.
An Iraqi woman's plea: don't let grief for those killed in London be used as an excuse for the Bush forces to keep on killing in Iraq.
The Blair regime is starting to think about pulling troops out of Iraq.
This is a good sign--it means they are feeling the pressure. We have to keep up the pressure until they pull out completely.
Of course, they talk about "handing over security to the Iraqi Army". When the US began pulling its troops out of Vietnam, it said it was handing over the war to Vietnamese troops. This was called "Vietnamization". In fact, it was a way to save face while accepting defeat. Accepting defeat is what the Bush forces ought to do; if "Iraqization" opens the door to this, so much the better.
At the ethical level, this war is very much like the Vietnam war. The Bush forces, much like the US army in the 60s and 70s, support a puppet regime whose troops are motivated only by their pay and their perks. (The book John Paul Vann, A Shining Bright Lie explains how this worked in Vietnam.) Bush and his "Iraqi Army", like Nixon and the ARVN, give lip-service to freedom and democracy, but nothing more. The resistance doesn't care about freedom and democracy either, but it really does have some ideals. Their soldiers want their cause to win, not just to get paid.
The government that took over in Vietnam was another dictatorship, but dictatorship and peace is better than dictatorship and war that kills millions. If the Iraqi resistance throws out the Bush forces--and I think they will--the outcome will probably be a dictatorship, and it won't respect human rights. But that's better than brutal foreign conquerors occupying their country, stripping its wealth, imposing unjust laws, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and torturing thousands more--and not respecting human rights.
A study provides specific evidence that music file-sharing does not reduce record sales.
I present this because it helps undercut one of the record companies' arguments, but when we cite this, we should be careful to reject the presupposition that if downloading decreased their income that would make it wrong. The right to share is a human right that takes precedence over anybody's business plan. Also, we should reject the term "piracy" to describe sharing. Don't grant any legitimacy to an unjust law!
In a way, I am disappointed by what this study found, because I'd like to see the major record companies' income go down--all the way to zero. There's nothing wrong with making and selling records, and I would not object to having a copyright system which really did require record companies to pay a share of the sales price to the artists. (The actual system only pretends to do this, except for the superstars.) But the vicious threats these companies have made against the public call for punishment: bankruptcy.
The Supremacy of the Super-Citizen.
The UN "peacekeepers" in Haiti seem to support the gangsters that Bush put in power there.
A secret UK govt report admits--the War on Drugs has failed.
There is nothing more dangerous than a war on drugs. When a war is on drugs, it forgets who the enemy is, and begins attacking the citizens indiscriminately. Let's get that poor war into a drug treatment plan, quickly!
I'm not in favor of simple legalization of dangerous addictive drugs such as heroin. In the Netherlands, it's illegal to sell these drugs, but addicts are not imprisoned and can get shots from doctors. The policy seems to work well for reducing the number of addicts.
Armed Palestinian extremists attacked a Palestinian singer's concert because he sang a love song.
The G8 summit convinced Bush to make a symbolic empty gesture in the direction of reducing global warming. Whoop-de-do.
Blair has been kowtowing to Bush for years, claiming that this is the way to get Bush to change. It has never worked.
I don't fault Blair for "trying" to convince Bush. I fault Blair for blocking so many other things that could have been done, because supposedly this would enable him to convince Bush. And the Downing Street Memo shows that Blair pretends he is going to convince Bush to be less bad, even when privately he knows the game is up. Bliar, Bliar, World on Fire!
The inhabitants of a suburb of Sofia, Bulgaria, were being poisoned by fumes from the large garbage dump nearby. They protested, blocked the streets, and were attacked by police. They face a choice of being mutilated one way or the other.
The police were beating people up, not to enforce the law, but rather to promote violation of it. The garbage dump has been ruled illegal but the city keeps dumping garbage there anyway.
A call for "carbon rationing" to reduce global warming.
Russia blocked a plan to try to limit arms sales to Africa. (These arms sales take up a large part of African governments' resources and tend to perpetuate poverty.)
In theory one could also address the problem from the other end. Much of Africa's appetite for arms is caused by gangs that conquer the valuable natural resources of specific areas--for instance, diamonds. They sell these resources on the world market. The rich countries could, if they were willing, make it harder for the gangs to sell what they have conquered, or assist more in suppressing and defeating them.
A Palestinian was shot in a protest against the annexation wall.
Elsewhere I've read that Palestinians generally begin throwing stones only after the police attack the initial nonviolent protest.
Iraqi Sunnis are increasingly fighting against Shi'ite and Kurdish militias that work for the Bush forces.
The only Iraqis that will actually fight the Sunni resistance are Kurds and Shi'ites, so Bush is using them. But I expect Bush's advisors are aware that this encourages civil war between Iraqi ethnic groups. They also surely know the principle of "divide and rule".
A man in Nigeria was sentenced to death for having homosexual sex.
This illustrates my suggestion on how to get even for 9/11. We don't know how much of the responsibility falls on Muslim fanatics and how much on Christian fanatics, but supporting gay marriage (aside from being the right thing on general principles) will be a defeat for all of them.
Some 50 people were killed last Thursday by terrorist bombings in London as revenge for the invasion of Iraq. As we contemplate this attack against civilians, we should keep in mind that the Bush forces have done the same to Iraqi civilians more than a thousand times over. The London bombing was just a taste of what Iraq has seen.
Why do they hold Londoners responsible for Blair's participation in Bush's war? Many, who supported the war, are morally responsible. Many others, who opposed the war, are not. Of course, the bombs in London did not try to distinguish. They are not alone in this: the Bush forces' bombs do not distinguish among Iraqis. The soldiers could try, but often don't; the death squads do, but perversely. The radioactive uranium dust that now contaminates Iraq does not discriminate between fighters and children, and it will continue not discriminating for centuries to come.
The best thing we can do now is to learn a moral lesson from all these deaths. We can refuse to allow this act of revenge to be used by Blair and Bush as distraction from the great evil that inspired it--or as an excuse for them to curtail freedom in any way. We should stop them from killing thousands in Iraq, and then the motivation to take revenge by killing dozens of us will fade. When our governments respect human rights, democracy, and justice, we will inspire others to respect them too.
Blair is trying another compromise to get Bush to do something about climate change.
It's not a bad thing to explore other possible deals. A plan like this could do some good--if the World Bank doesn't turn it into additional pressure for its cruel "structural adjustment" deprivation policies.
However, Bliar is ducking the issue when he argues against isolating Bush. It's true that the US won't sign any strong agreement now, but it is just as true that the weak ones the US might sign won't solve the problem. There's only one way to get the job done, and that is to isolate the US today, to pressure it to accept a real solution later. By shielding Bush now, Bliar is blocking the only path to solving the problem.
Police threatened to arrest students on a field trip, and their guide because they took a picture of a polluting chemical plant. They call it "fighting terrorism", but they are the ones trying to terrorize people.
Note that the police made false accusations to threaten the students. False witness is a common police tactic. (I wonder if posting the 10 commandments in police stations would increase the honesty of policemen who are Christians.) Not that it would have been justified to arrest the students for crossing the streat even if they had done so.
Note that the state officials then bullied Fontenot by threatening to abuse their power. Speculation: maybe some of their corporate backers found his activities enforcing environmental law inconvenient and were glad to have an opportunity to get rid of him.
When a public campaign got going to back up Fontenot, the bullies got scared, and started trying to deny what they had done. This isn't unusual--bullies are often cowards.
A report says that the London congestion charge hasn't reduced car trips, and has only moved congestion to different places. (Sorry, I cannot find a URL I can link to.)
What this system has been completely effective at is...surveillance. The system works by recording which cars enter a certain area of central London.
A suitable increase in the gasoline tax would reduce car travel and congestion, with no surveillance at all. The increase could apply in region around London, and taper off gradually to zero as one gets further away from that region.
Bliar was forced, for a moment, to admit his "special relationship" with Bush won't convince Bush to do anything to stop global warming.
Despite this, there has been a little progress. Bush was forced to admit that humans are contributing to climate change. Previously he was a stubborn cold-earther. (A cold-earther is someone one who continues to maintain that the Earth is not getting warmer. Sort of like a flat-earther.)
China's transition from Communism to Fascism is revealed in a series fo uprisings of the poor against local governments working hand in hand with businesses.
But China, where the poorest 10% still own 1.4% of the wealth, is egalitarian compared with the US, where the poorest 40% own 0.3%, and the poorest 18% own nothing.
Microsoft has supplied China with Internet-censorship software that has been used to arrest dissidents.
200 Italian police claimed to "fight terrorism" by forming a secret gang to operate illegally and dishonestly. It has ties to the "far right", which usually means neo-Nazis.
And--this is really interesting--a former CIA agent says that the head of Italian military intelligence "authorized" the CIA to kidnap an Egyptian and send him to Egypt to be tortured. In countries that respect human rights, spy chiefs are not allowed to authorize kidnaping.
The Bush forces are operating death squads in Iraq, and they killed the reporter who broke the story.
A New York Times reporter is going to jail to stand for the principle of confidentiality of sources.
I admire this courage. I wish the New York Times allowed its reporters to be equally courageous in reporting on the lies of the Bush regime and the invisible hand gang.
Here's the text of a complaint that I am sending to the TSA for misleading treatment at Logan Airport.
When I continued to verbally criticize the conduct of the agents, and didn't sit down and shut up, they called the State Police, and one Officer Gillespie told me that "Unless you shut up I will throw you out." I asked if that meant he would arrest me for speaking, and he said, "No, for making a scene." (Different words for the same act.) I told him that was bullying and abuse of power, and refused to shut up.
I then promised I would write about it for my web site, and he asked what it was, so I told him. Unfortunately it took a few days for me to get the work done. I hope he has not concluded I failed to follow through.
Fascism in Ireland: handouts to corporations go beyond money; they allow corporations to ignore environmental protection and endanger people's lives and property.
250,000 Australian workers protested against plans to abolish all protection for workers' rights. The unions have been reluctant to get into the fight.
Protestors are blocking the demolition of Berlin's only memorial of the Berlin Wall.
Palestinians at a permanent border crossing in the middle of their land face the risk of arbitrary discrimination, and brutal and senseless attacks. It makes me think of what I've read about the pogroms committed by antisemites a hundred years ago.
Meanwhile, some Jews try to overinflate the term "antisemitism". Watch out, it might burst.
A gang of Israeli fanatics attacked a harmless Palestinian, then threatened to kill the paramedic who wanted to treat him. A group of journalists saved him, while soldiers were prepared to let him die.
This underreaction to settler violence, combined with the overreaction to Palestinian violence (and to Palestinian nonviolence as well), adds up to a double standard that is the Israeli state's way of blocking peace.
The UN Ambassador of Iraq's Bush-installed government accused the Bush forces of murdering his cousin (a student) in cold blood.
If they kill enough thousands of innocent people, sooner or later one of them will turn out to be related to an official. I don't think the Bush forces will do a real investigation even in a case like this. I expect they will tell a lie and stick to it come hell or high water. (They've done so many times before.)
"Free trade" treaties give corporations the power to make poor countries compete for who will allow the most destruction of the environment.
A UN official accuses the US of keeping secret prisoners on warships.
Debt relief for Africa: "a fraud and a circus".
Gay marriage has been authorized in Spain.
A tibetan nun, imprisoned and tortured by China for over ten years because she said "Long live the Dalai Lama" and "Free Tibet", is now free and telling her story.
The forcible evacuation of Israeli settlers from Gaza has started, and in one place the settlers were evicted forcibly without bloodshed.
However, in many places the Israeli government has treated settlers with kid gloves even when they were threatening people's lives.
Perhaps Sharon is afraid that if he can deal with low-level settler violence without bloodshed, people will demand he avoid bloodshed in response to nonviolent peace protests.
Countries around the world ban organizations by fiat by labeling them as "terrorist".
Since these organizations do not get to have a trial, in effect this policy has abolished freedom of political assembly. Even more outrageous, in the EU individuals can be arbitrarily labeled as terrorists, which in effect sentences them to starvation--again, without a trial.
The US and UK prohibition on supporting these groups extends to "ideological support", which is censorship of political opinion, and the EU prohibition extends to "passive support", which can be stretched to include almost any behavior which demonstrates insufficient zeal in obeying orders.
This policy is tyranny piled on tyranny. Some of the banned groups may be real terrorists, but whatever danger they may present is nothing compared with the danger of tyranny.
For more information, http://www.statewatch.org/terrorlists/terrorlists.pdf
On Socialism, by Albert Einstein.
Einstein recognized that a planned economy could be tyranny. He did not recognize the potential for waste and absurdity that real planned economies have demonstrated. Nevertheless, he hits the nail on the head about how unbridled capitalism subverts democracy, and tends to convert it into what we call fascism.
Microsoft's web of influence is a new example of how far this goes.
How to avoid both of these pitfalls at once is a problem I am trying to think about.
Bliar's ID card scheme is a plan for pervasive surveillance, misleadingly labeled as a system for proving identification.
As the government of Zimbabwe drives millions into hunger they don't die of starvation because AIDS kills them first.
Despite strong opposition, Bliar got the ID card plan through the House of Commons.
Bush said he would tear down Abu Ghraib prison, but now is going to expand it instead.
This is more indication that the resistance is gaining ground. The sooner the Bush forces pull out, the less evil they will have done. They are already responsible for the death of tens of thousands, but that is no excuse for continuing to add to the toll.
UK police seized an Indymedia server because of a message anonymously posted on it.
The first US town to move because of global warming.
It's hitting Alaska first, because the warming is greatest in the Arctic and Antarctic. But it will get to the othyer coastal states by and by, if we don't reduce our generation of greenhouse gases.
In 2002, Bush ignored a North Korean diplomatic initiative about nuclear weapons talks.
He was too busy lying about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons program to bother trying to convince North Korea to end a real nuclear weapons program.
Iranians voted for the hard-liner who doesn't want friendship with Bush.
Democracy in this election was only partial, since the mullahs vetoed reformist candidates. However, there was some democracy; the candidates disagreed on many issues, including how to treat the US. This election shows that Iranians won't welcome invading Bush forces with cheers.
Farmers from Colombia are suing BP for using paramilitaries to force them off their land and into destitution. Those who didn't go were killed.
Multinational corporations working with paramilitaries to murder and bully people seems to be a pattern for Colombia.
The Wall Street Journal systematically distorts the evidence about global warming.
In this it works hand in glove with Bush, whose efforts to disguise the problem have been mentioned here before.
A former Bush regime official