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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
A Pentagon report tries to blame prisoners for their torture.
Italians in a referendum defeated Berlusconi's plan to reward his secessionist allies, while increasing the power of the prime minister (which he expected to continue to be).
Part of the US government is trying to shut down the sale of many kinds of chemicals to the public, on the grounds that people could possibly use them to make bombs.
If you do chemistry, please send letters to educate the regulators.
Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean are now almost extinct due to overfishing, but the agency that is supposed to regulate the fishing remains ineffective.
World scientific bodies unite to combat creationism.
Iraqi PM Maliki's reconciliation plan offers "amnesty" to the resistance -- but only those who have not really fought. And it says nothing specific about making the Bush forces leave.
I don't see how any patriotic Iraqi could accept this plan, but at least it is a first step in negotiation.
A constitutional amendment to allow a ban on burning the US flag was just barely blocked in the US senate.
The people who support this amendment do not really understand the concept of freedom of speech.
Until June 29:
Protest in London on June 29 against the unequal treaty for extradition from the UK to the US, and against the extradition of Gary McKinnon. The protest will start at 5pm at the Institute of Directors (Pall Mall) then march to St James' Park and the Home Office.
Until July 26:
Citizens of the EU:
You can answer a survey about public opinion about ID cards.
The Israeli Supreme Court rules that the army must protect Palestinians from the violence of settlers--and not by restricting the legitimate movements of the Palestinians.
This ruling is clearly the right response. If enforced, it would address one substantial way in which the Palestinians are oppressed, though there are many others. But I expect we will see that it is followed unenthusiastically by the Israeli Army.
Republicans in Congress are working on a plan for elimination of all the regulations that protect the environment and public health.
They have always been in favor of letting business trample the public. But after getting away with trashing the Geneva Conventions and the Bill of Rights, they think they can get away with it wholesale.
The Republicans want to eliminate the Voting Rights Act so that they can get away with systematically blocking Black voters.
Dan Rather critized Bush's personal war-avoidance record, and was pilloried. Greg Palast has published even stronger charges, and stronger evidence; Bush refuses even to respond.
CIA officials tried to stop the Bush administration from using unreliable reports about hypothetical Iraqi mobile chemical weapons labs. They were overridden at a higher level. Subsequently, the CIA chief and deputy chief denied any memory of the meeting where they were told. Hmmm.
Some in the US Congress are trying to distort the evidence to justify Bush's claims that Iraq posed a chemical weapons threat. They just won't give up.
Venezuela and Guatemala are competing for a seat on the UN Security Council, effectively presenting a choice between the empire and the opposition. The empire doesn't like this, and its demonization machine is running full speed, calling Chavez a "threat to world peace".
European governments have failed to enforce the ban against driftnet fishing, which kills lots of whales, turtles, etc.
The US Department of Energy predicts a 75% increase in CO2 emissions by the year 2030. The projection is probably impossible, because it assumes an increase in oil consumption, and the oil extraction rate is going to decrease. Nonetheless, it shows the need for stern measures if we are to prevent cities like New York from being drowned.
The European Union failed to implement its greenhouse gas targets.
And even those disappointing figures underestimate the true emission of greenhouse gases in Europe.
Ethiopia has bought drought insurance -- a sum of about 6 million euros (maybe 7 million dollars).
The idea may not be ridiculous, but that is surely far too little money to do much good for Ethiopians in the event of a severe drought.
The US government is spending our money on propaganda in favor of more restrictive copyright and patent laws, which they refer to by the propaganda term "intellectual property".
A witness says Germany knew that a German citizen had been kidnapped by the CIA.
The Iraqi government has declared an official state of emergency because the resistance is fighting at the door of the Green Zone.
The mainstream US media show their subservience to the empire by how much they don't talk about this.
How the Taliban are gaining popular support in part of Afghanistan.
There is a large student uprising in Greek universities against business-oriented reform plans.
Human activities have destroyed most coastal wildlife in Europe.
200,000 babies are born every year as a result of fertility treatments.
Because the human population puts terrible stress on the Earth's ecosystems, producing more humans at great expense is stupid. National health services and insurance plans should not cover fertility treatments.
The 1500 people who protested the violent police raid in London demanded an apology for wrongdoing rather than just for "hurt", and called the police terrorists. Right on!
Bush says Guantanamo prison must be closed (though by whom, since he isn't doing so), but that some of the prisoners must be held to protect them from torture in their home countries.
These countries, including Saudi Arabia, are places where Bush has previously sent other people to be tortured, and he declines to promise he won't do that again. Notwithstanding that, it is good to protect people from torture; but is keeping them in prison really the right way to do that? And what about the torture carried out by the Guantanamo prison itself?
Bush compared the war in Iraq to the Hungary's fight for freedom from Soviet occupation in 1956. He thinks nobody will notice that the Bush forces are playing the Soviet role.
But even when corrected in that way, the analogy fails to do justice to the Iraqi armed resistance. It has been fighting for Iraq's independence for three years now. The Hungarians only fought the Russians for a few weeks.
Scientists studying the Greenland ice cap are detecting its accelerated melting in many ways. The land that it rests on is below sea level in places, and warmer sea water gets into the ice through a system of tunnels.
The Iraqi government wants peace talks with the resistance as part of a plan to tell the Bush forces to leave.
If this works, it will be great--but I wonder how many laws Bush will have been able to impose on Iraq, perhaps to take control of the oil, perhaps to take control of other aspects of life.
Olmert justified killing additional Palestinian civilians by saying Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives.
Considering that Qassam missiles are almost totally ineffective, Israeli policy resembles that of a grown man who shoots children that try to stab him with crayons.
A study says that social isolation is growing in the US.
The 9/11 attacks killed the accountants who were trying to trace a lot of the Pentagon's money which had disappeared.
The "solid intelligence" that led to the raid in which Mohammed Abdul Kahar was shot came from a man who had little intelligence. His credibility was doubted by the police.
That man had been sentenced to prison for the crime of being a suspect. (Specifically, he had someone's address, and the police thought he might be planning to attack that person.) Defining suspicion as a crime is fundamental injustice.
1500 protested the raid, including George Galloway.
I have a song to suggest for these protests:
(To the tune of "Rule Brittania")
Save our freedom from Bliar and his knaves!
Britons never never will be slaves.
Israel shows restraint in its attacks on Palestinians, as usual.
The tobacco companies are funding fertility research as a way to confuse the issue that smoking is bad for fertility (as well as likely to kill its users).
Large companies and governments frequently run distraction campaigns so that they can get away with abuses. When it's done in regard to the environment, it is called "greenwashing".
The film "The Profit", which criticizes a fictional cult leader, has been censored for many years at the behest of the Church of Scientology, which feels that the shoe fits it.
If they had released the movie on the net right away, it would have been impossible to censor it.
Japan plans to start killing humpback whales (a threatened species) as well as fin whales (an endangered species).
Greenland also wants to hunt humpback whales.
James Joyce's heir is using copyright to stifle research into James Joyce's life by threatening professors with lawsuits.
(Another article, which we could not find on a publicly accessible site, says that other professors have faced such obstacles in the past.)
The Blair regime plans to go ahead and prosecute the "terrorist" grannies for their peaceful protest.
The Earth is hotter now than at any time in the past 2,000 years, and perhaps for several millenia.
The US Congress used to have an agency to give it scientific advice: the Office of Technology Assessment. The first thing the Republicans did after taking control of Congress in 1994 was to abolish the OTA. They didn't want reality-based advice to get in the way of their plans.
EU has worked out a plan to aid Palestinians suffering from Israel's cut-off of funds, food and medicine.
It should be noted that Hamas offers Israel a bilateral cease-fire, and is amenable to recognizing Israel in exchange for less cruelty towards Palestinians.
Guantanamo prison guards have coerced confessions they knew to be false, beaten prisoners to the point of disability, and given detainees psychotropic drugs they believed were for common physical ailments, according to an account one former detainee gave RAW STORY.
Moving General Miller to Abu Ghraib follows a Bush regime pattern of rewarding the people who have carried out the greatest abuses of whatever kind. (Compare the move of General Hayden to the CIA, after he carried out the illegal spying at the NSA.) By doing this, Bush mocks those who criticize his crimes against the constitution and humanity.
LA police evicted protestors from the city land they had farmed for many years, at the behest of the man to whom the city sold the land in a rather suspect fashion -- and just a few weeks before a lawsuit to determine whether the sale was valid.
The Iraqi restistance set off 23 bombs in Baghdad, demonstrating that the supposed "security" campaign in Baghdad has not affected them. Meanwhile, the ACLU revealed additional cases of torture by the Bush forces, including one prisoner who was tortured to death. Americans must recognize that the war was not a mistake--it was a crime.
CEOs get bigger and bigger retirement plans, as they gut the workers' retirement plans.
Part of the reason for this is a "winner take all" phenomenon where companies bid against each other for the best CEOs (or the ones that appear best, for whatever reason). Perhaps if there were more companies, and fewer merges, this phenomenon would be smaller.
The Israeli inhabitants of Sderot demand that unlimited force be used to protect them from Palestinian rocket attacks, which have killed five civilians over five years.
The Israeli attacks whose supposed purpose is to protect Sderot kill far more Palestinian civilians--more than 10 this month. If we apply the same logic from the other side, isn't protecting them higher priority than protecting the civilians of Sderot?
With PBS Frontline, the semi-mass media dared to show how the Bush regime pressured the CIA to provide distorted "intelligence" to support the war it wanted to launch for other reasons.
Subsequent appointments and restructuring have broken the CIA to harness. The next time an administration wants the CIA to fabricate an excuse for war, I don't think it will resist.
Faux News is running a campaign of character assassination against Representative Cynthia McKinney, who has had the courage to stand up to Bush and criticize his reign of terror.
CUPE, a Canadian labor union, has adopted a boycott of Israel. In response, supporters of Israeli policy have made the usual accusations of "anti-semitism". Here is the letter from Israelis in support of CUPE, rejecting that accusation.
The Los Angeles police chief says, about flying camera drones, "Don't complain about more surveillance, because you're already watched everywhere". One must ask him, in response, whether it was legitimate to make such a profound change without ever a public debate.
He is following a common tactic for preventing public debate on an important change that can be imposed gradually on the public. The tactic is to keep saying "It's too early to have a debate" until the point is reached where they switch to "It's too late". We have to ask him, "In which year do you think the debate should have been held, and what did you do then to raise it?"
Of course, it is not too late. It never will be. The citizens of LA should demand a law requiring the police, when using this drone to observe private property, to get the owner's permission or else a court order, just as they would for police to enter and search.
Bush announced plans to protect a substantial area of the Pacific Ocean from fishing. The area contains coral reefs, full of fish. This is a good step, but should not distract us from Bush's general policy of trashing the environment. If global warming melts the Greenland icecap, all those reefs may be so far below sea level that they will die anyway.
Japan has paid various countries to join the International Whaling Commission and support whaling. They now have a majority in the IWC, which will let them start undermining the whaling moratorium.
Three Bush forces soldiers have been charged with murdering Iraqi civilians who were "shot while trying to escape".
Placing charges against them is the right thing to do, when there is solid evidence for such killings, but it is too little, too late. The Bush forces have already had plenty of time to absorb the attitude that Iraqis are there to be shot ad lib, and plenty of time to teach Iraqis to hate them.
The UK asked Israeli prime minister Olmert to negotiate with the Palestinians.
But Olmert rejected Abbas' plan for peace negotiations--which offers Israel nearly all it is entitled to ask for--insisting on unilateral annexation of large parts of already-colonized Palestinian territory.
Olmert's idea of a "partner for peace negotiations" is one who says yes to whatever deal he is offered.
The renewed war in Afghanistan is heating up, with hundreds of air strikes by the US against the Taliban. Sometimes these kill civilians. Which raises such questions as: do the US forces really try not to bomb civilians, or just say they try? And if they do try, will Afghanis blame the US, or the Taliban, for the civilian casualties that will occur despite the best efforts?
The article quotes commanders as saying that time is against the Taliban, but experience shows such statements are just P.R., and would be made regardless of the truth.
What is clear is that something makes many Afghanis want to fight for the Taliban. Is it anger at foreign soldiers' presence? Religious fanaticism? Money from opium? Whatever it is, it must be the crucial point.
Massachusetts voters: phone your state representative and state senator, and call on them to reject perverted "abstinence-only" sex education in Massachusetts.
"Plan B", a plan for restructuring the Earth's economy to avoid global warming and end poverty, requires spending $160 billion per year.
The US military budget is $490 billion per year.
Paul Larudee: Israel needs to promote harmony in pianos, politics.
Global warming is melting the permafrost in Siberia, and this could lead to the release of lots of stored CO2, greatly increasing global warming.
Based on the numbers in the article, we can estimate that melting 10 feet of permafrost would release about 60 billion tons of CO2, enough to increase the CO2 in the atmosphere an additional 8 percent. Positive feedback phenomena of this kind create "tipping points" where the climate could change rapidly and disastrously.
Several European fashion designers decided to highlight public safety and support the REACH directive, by making a fashion show of clothes made without toxic substances.
Only a tiny rich fraction of the public wears clothes made by famous designers; the sweatshops that make most clothing are unlikely to copy their idealism. The main way an initiative like this can be helpful is if it encourages the adoption of general regulations.
As Bush says that things are getting better in Iraq, a leaked message from Bush's ambassador shows how bad they are getting.
I am sad for the violence that Iraqis suffer, and for the religious fanaticism that oppresses the men, and even worse the women. But I have no sympathy for the Iraqi traitors that work in the US embassy.
The Bliar regime intervened to stop Britons from suing the people in Saudi Arabia who tortured them.
Bliar is against torture, except when it occurs.
A large "Iraqi" army force, working for Bush of course, is supposedly trying to make Baghdad "safe".
These soldiers are nearly all Kurds or Shi'ites, so Sunnis are not likely to be safe around them. Prime Minister al-Maliki says, "No mercy toward those who show no mercy to our people." However, mysteriously this does not include Bush.
Is it possible for the bad guys to win in Iraq?
US citizens: phone your congressional representative and say, "Please support the pledge to refuse oil industry campaign contributions." (This is a MoveOn campaign.)
Russia is building nuclear power plant ships. People are worried about what will happen if they sink.
NATO troops in Afghanistan are attacking the Taliban, but such attacks on a guerrilla force rarely achieve much. Meanwhile, the Taliban are starting a broader terror campaign.
I supported the war in Afghanistan when it was fought. This is not because of 9/11 but rather so as to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban, cruel murderous religious fanatics. However, subsequent events have shown that the outcome of the war was not good. Afghanistan does not enjoy stability or human rights. And since the Taliban are gaining strength, they must have support. Support for murderous religious fanatics can't come entirely from religious fanaticism--there must be other causes, other problems for which they seem to be the solution.
It is possible that a better outcome could have been achieved if the US had given Afghanistan the promised support instead of invading Iraq.
Republicans used a dishonest tactic to challenge large numbers of legitimate black voters. Among those systematically targeted were soldiers in Iraq.
India's proposal for the Secretary General of the UN has a history of supporting the superstition of fraudulent miracle-workers.
This might not have much consequences, if (supposing he is chosen) he focuses on the international relations and management that the UN Secretary General is supposed to do. But if he continues to patronize religious frauds, from that position, it will be quite harmful.
World's oceans reaching point of no return, says the UN Environment Program.
The plan to protect Venice from rising seas may be derailed because of the costs.
Another article said that most of the inhabitants have moved to the mainland, where they no longer face flooding--for the moment. So they don't care about saving Venice.
But even the "mainland" may not be safe for long. Flooding in the coming century will be much than one meter, if the Greenland ice melts.
Is anyone designing a dam across the straits of Gibraltar? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of old cities at the edge of the Mediterranean.
Rare bumblebees in England have made a home in abandoned factories, railways, etc., along the Thames. (The story refers to these as "pockets of East Anglia".) If these pockets are redeveloped as planned in the Thames Gateway, the two species could be wiped out.
Of course, if the sea level rises in this century, they would be flooded out anyway--along with that whole region (including London). But that is another good reason not to build houses there. Isn't anyone putting two and two together to get "under water in 80 years"?
Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamists in Mogadishu have ended the warlords' violence, which wins them public support despite the fact that most Somalis do not really want Islamic law. Businessmen who support the Islamists for stability's sake asked the US to stop supporting the warlords and support them instead. The US refused, so they turned to the Islamists.
10% of the British troops in the Bush forces suffer mental illness as a result.
Fighting enemy soldiers is bad enough, but fighting to occupy a country creates a conflict in the mind of anyone who believes in justice.
Hamas ended its 16-month unilateral truce against Israel because Israel has killed so many Palestinian civilians. However, Hamas offers a bilateral truce--Palestinian attacks will stop if Israel also stops its attacks.
I've read elsewhere that Hamas offered to recognize Israel if Israel accepts the UN-recognized 1967 borders. If that is true, this article is wrong when it says that Hamas completely refuses to recognize Israel. What it refuses to recognize is Israel's annexation plan.
But Israel is using more than guns to kill Palestinians. It is using starvation. Nearly the children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition because of the Israeli siege. (And it is happening in Iraq too.)
Men accused of planning a bombing were convicted in France, based partly on a confession obtained by torture in Syria. I don't know whether these men are guilty, but admitting evidence obtained by torture is a recipe for convicting the innocent, and it is much more dangerous than a bomb.
The Israeli Army, embarrassed about killing a Palestinian family on a beach, denies resposibility and proposes other theories. The facts do not support them.
Lt. Eric Watada has taken great personal risk to denounce the war in Iraq. The Army is capable of many kinds of retaliation. Lawyers analyze the charges he is being investigated for, and how the Army silences dissent.
According to a book I read, the soldiers in the "presidio mutiny" were convicted of disregarding an order they could not possibly even have heard.
The police who shot Mohammed Abdul Kahar apologized for the hurt to the family.
That is one step closer to the right thing to do, but it misses the main point. The police must promise not to shoot, kick, or even curse at helpless nonresisting suspects when arresting them.
Palestinians call for UN probe of Gaza killings.
Almost a million Iraqis are refugees in Syria and Jordan, but those countries are refusing new refugees. I suspect that this means Iraqis can't find anywhere they can go.
A bipartisan group of experts concluded that Bush regime policies promote terrorism against the US. They think Iran is not a real threat, just a distraction.
Chavez's support for Peruvian presidential candidate Humalla backfired, and Peru elected corrupt ex-president Garcia, even though many Peruvians hate him.
I can understand Peruvian resentment of too pushy an attempt to interfere in their decision. However, I suspect that the institutions of the corporate empire (such as the US government) interfered in a more powerful but subtler fashion, and that the corporate media cooperated in helping Peruvians focus their resentment on Chavez rather than the other side.
Fu Xiancai is an activist who has campaigned for years to win compensation for the million Chinese who were displaced by the Three Gorges Dam. He was recently attacked by thugs, who broke his neck. He is now paralyzed, probably for the rest of his life.
One must guess the thugs were sent by officials. But such a determined man may find a way to campaign for justice even while paralyzed.
1,800 sheep died from grazing in genetically modified cotton fields in a small area of India. Whether this is happening elsewhere is not known; the problem could be far larger.
The shepherds graze the sheep on cotton crops after the cotton is harvested, so they are not damaging the crop. If this becomes unsafe, they won't do it; then their sheep won't die, but they will have lost a source of food that could be very important.
The Center for Food Safety sued the FDA calling for labeling of genetically modified foods.
Food businesses oppose this labeling, just as they have opposed nearly all sorts of nutritional labeling--because they do not want consumers to have the informational basis to exercise a thoughtful choice.
How did Zarqawi die? Some Iraqis say he was just wounded, and that the Bush forces killed him after taking possession of him.
Mohammad Abdul Kahar describes how thugs broke into his home, shot him, then kicked him, then grabbed him and tossed him in the street. All without identifying themselves as police.
Several massacres by Americans in the Bush forces are now being investigated. Camilo Mejia, a Bush forces veteran, says that such massacres are widespread. "This is the norm. These are not the exceptions."
Experience suggests that, even if soldiers are prosecuted for these massacres, chances are they won't be convicted even if the evidence is strong. Of course, most massacres leave no suitable evidence. So the soldiers nearly always get away with it.
Veteran Garrett Reppenhagen says, "In these circumstances you would be surprised at how any normal human being can see their morals degenerate." The individuals must be held morally responsible for their actions, but the main culpability falls on the people who put soldiers in the situation where this was sure to happen: the occupation of a conquered people who regard them as enemies.
Many British Muslims protested the police shooting, calling for the police chief's resignation, and denouncing the prime minister for his eagerness to support the police.
Some non-Muslims supported the protest, but I am disappointed there were not more. The danger from police that recklessly endanger the public is not limited to Muslims.
Solid evidence has appeared of another massacre by the Bush forces.
For any given instance of killing civilians, it is very unlikely for clear evidence to appear. Therefore, we must regard the cases for which we find proof as a small sample of a frequent practice.
Amnesty International rebuked Israel for its practices that systematically kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Israel kills large numbers of Palestinians as "retaliation" for the killing of few Israelis. Palestinians say their attacks are "retaliation" too, and Sharon used to do things that would instigate such "retaliation" whenever there wasn't enough Palestinian violence to suit his political intentions.
Not everyone in Israel is content with this situation.
When Amir Peretz became head of the Labor Party, he gave a speech that suggested things would change. By accepting the Defense Ministry, he put himself in a situation where he cannot change anything but details, and where he will inevitably be under pressure to show he is not "soft". I think it was a bad mistake.
Just a few weeks ago, the Israeli forces killed a Palestinian leader by shooting a missile at him in a crowded street. Predictably, there were other casualties--five in one family. A little girl was paralyzed for life. And it gets worse...
Is this any less evil than bombing a bus?
Lebanese who went to Iraq to fight the Bush forces are returning home as Islamic radicals.
A leading Turkish writer, Perihan Magden, faces criminal charges for writing about conscientious objection.
After dozens of attempts, some Guantanamo inmates succeeded in escape through suicide.
The Bush regime describes this as "PR", because their killings and torture are meant as public statements. It is possible that these men did intend their deaths as a statement. However, committing suicide as a public statement demonstrates great sincerity, precisely because of the high cost the speaker must pay. The Bush regime's officials pay for lies with money and the lives of other people. For them, talk is cheap.
The Occupiers and the Worsening Plight of Iraqi Gays.
A Sea of Sand Is Threatening China's Heart.
The FBI has no hard evidence connecting Osama bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks--no basis to press charges against him, for instance. Interesting that Bush had enough evidence to start a war.
Comments on Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse.
The Bushmen will try to make a great victory out of Al-Zarqawi's death, just as they tried to make him out as the leader of the Iraqi resistance. But he wasn't, and they will now have to invent another "fanatical leader" to blame for the Iraqi resistance.
One statement in the article calls for clarification: attacking recruits for Bush's police forces is not the same thing as "killing Shi'a", even if those recruits happen to be Shi'ite. Iraqis who want to join the Bush forces are collaborators, not bystanders.
Switching from oil to biofuels can damage the environment if these biofuels are not produced sustainably.
A prize-winning film about the IRA and the British occupation of Ireland in 1920 has an unpleasant lesson for Britain today. A series of critics have denounced the film without having seen it.
A former law lord denounced the UK's post-9/11 anti-terror laws, saying they attack civil liberties and do not contribute to safety.
The danger from terrorism in the UK today is small compared to the danger of terrorism in the 1970s and 80s. Such a small danger cannot justify painful measures.
Republican talk radio host says Bush may be the worst president in US history.
I don't agree with that host's political ideas, but at least he has the integrity to condemn lies.
Lieutenant Watada has refused to go to Iraq, saying that the occupation is illegal. He faces the threat of prison.
I consider him a hero.
Iraqi women are being attacked, even killed, by religious fanatics for not dressing and acting as the fanatics demand.
Bush did not plan for this, but it was his conquest, creating a situation where political Islam was a central part of opposition to his occupation of Iraq, that paved the way for it.
Greg Palast traces the rise of Islamic fanatics in the Iraqi resistance to the Bush regime's determination to take Iraq's oil.
The US has adopted a law prohibiting protests in the vicinity of national cemetaries -- a direct attack on freedom of speech.
The name of this law is the "Fallen Heroes Act", but "Fallen Freedom Act" would be more fitting.
UK police apologized for the upheaval caused by the raid where they shot an unarmed man in his home. It appears they have not yet apologized for shooting him, however.
Their apology is a false one because it doesn't admit doing anything wrong. It is really just an attempt to silence the complaints.
Britons should reject government calls to "pull together" for increased police power. They should insist that the government join them in pulling together for the human rights of all Britons.
The Iraqi prime minister accused the Bush forces of killing civilians daily.
I'm surprised that the Iraqi government officials are showing this much independence. Perhaps Iraqi democracy is not 100% sham. However, given that nearly all Iraqis want the Bush forces out, Iraqi democracy is mostly sham as long as it doesn't order them to leave.
The House of Representatives rejected network neutrality.
This decision was the result of a lobbying battle between two groups of companies. No matter which side had won, for decisions to be made in this way is a failure of democracy.
A Russian human rights group has found proof that Russia operated a Bush-style torture center in Chechnya. (The Russian government denies this.)
A Palestinian family was killed on the beach by artillery fire.
We should not forget that the supposed justification for Israel's checkpoints and wall, which divide Palestinians from their fields, workplaces, schools, hospitals, and relatives, and for the financial blockade of Palestine, is to prevent massacres like this. However, in point of fact, nearly all the massacres in the region are massacres of Palestinians.
The US canceled international talks on paying Palestinian Authority employees, supporting Israel's starvation policy.
Chinese leaders are on trial in Spain, for killing and torturing Tibetans and others.
Four Egyptian bloggers remain in prison for supporting freedom of speech. They have been tortured.
Do you think the Bush regime is pressuring Egypt to stop this? Or does it encourage the practice of torture, so as to have a place to send prisoners?
Was the 2004 Election Stolen? by Robert Kennedy, Jr.
NASA has canceled or delayed various satellites that would provide information about global warming. That will help Bush and his corporate masters deny global warming.
Since global warming is likely to kill far more than 6 million people, I think that global warming denial is akin to holocaust denial.
The borders of the tropics have advanced 140 miles away from the equator in the past 25 years -- an effect of global warming.
(Does anyone know precisely how "the tropics" are defined?)
The cleric abducted in Italy by the CIA was "tortured from the moment of seizure".
Robert Fisk writes about the histories of some Palestinian refugees who went to Iraq to fight, including suicide bombers.
Islamic fanaticism is dangerous; if today it fights to free a country from murderous foreign occupation, tomorrow it could be turned against women's rights, or unbelievers, or even other Muslims. However, any situation where there is a just cause that Islamic fanatics can support tends to encourage fanaticism.
Big Brother's next method for tracking the public's activities: through social networking web sites.
Some British soldiers in the Bush forces killed a teenage looter--by forcing him into the river, where he drowned. They were actually put on trial in a military court, which exonerated them.
Even when killing and cruelty are acknowledged, they are not punished. The only way to stop the Bush forces from massacring civilians is to get them out of Iraq.
Large protests attend Ukraine's welcome to US military bases, which many Ukrainians don't like. The protest movement gets support from Russia, which is taking a leaf from the US book.
6,000 corpses have been brought to the Baghdad morgue this year, and it's only 5 months into the year.
UK police shot a defenseless, unarmed "terror suspect" in his home. He did not know they were police; he went downstairs after hearing noises made by intruders in his house, and was shot. Fortunately he lived, and will be able to denounce the police.
If the police had evidence he was preparing violence, they had grounds to get a warrant and search the house, and perhaps to arrest him as well. But there's no excuse for shooting unarmed people who are not resisting.
Nonetheless, Blair endorsed the police raid 101%. The shooting gives him a chance to show how callous he is.
The Somali Islamists have captured Mogadishu from the US-supported warlords.
Violating a UN arms embargo would not bother Bush, nor working with the government of Ethiopia, which has put the opposition leaders on trial for treason. That's what Bush calls "freedom and democracy".
Shirin Ebadi calls for real democracy in Iran as the solution to various problems, including the nuclear crisis. Meanwhile, she criticizes the US for its double standard in how it treats Iran and Pakistan.
Two NYC police detectives have been convicted of assassinations for the Mafia.
To kill for organized crime is egregious for police in the US, but lesser forms of cooperation between them are widespread. And police typically stick together like mafiosi when one of them is caught in a crime. Don't be led astray by the presumption that police testifying against someone in court are less likely to lie than than the defendant.
In Argentina, more resistance against water privatization and its attendant rip-offs.
Workers Face Growing Violence for Demanding Rights.
Israel is trying to starve the population of Gaza into submission.
Dick Marty's report says that several European countries have actively cooperated with CIA torture flights, while others intentionally turned a blind eye to them.
Several European governments have denounced the accusations as "not based on clear facts". If the facts are not clear, it is because those governments have blocked further investigation.
The Case of the Missing $21 Billion--Who's Following the Iraq Money?
(Nobody: the Bush regime decided to block the investigation, and then cover up the fact that it was blocked.)
Many Pakistanis in the UK are now afraid the police will randomly arrest or shoot them.
The Ohio Secretary of State is running for governor, and while doing so, is running the election in a way designed to sabotage democratic voters.
Alaska recriminalized marijuana, disregarding its Supreme Court's ruling. The ACLU has sued to overturn the law.
Iraqi Leaders Assail U.S. on Civilian Deaths.
Nuclear reactor lobbyists bought access to Labor Party leaders with gifts. No wonder Blair is now pushing nuclear power.
Uri Avnery: Meeting Hamas
Prejudice is killing Aids victims, warns Annan.
Waiters in a New York Chinese restaurant, and their union, have won a victory over a restaurant that often refused to pay their wages and took their tips.
Union efforts are improving working conditions at many restaurants.
Banks are holding back efforts to conserve energy, failing to lend money for conservation projects that would pay for themselves quickly through savings in fuel.
When Cheney showed favor to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan immediately after criticizing Russia for its lack of human rights and democracy, the hypocrisy of the juxtaposition was so blatant that even the corporate took note. What is behind this?
The US is aiding murderous warlords in Somalia to fight against an equally murderous Taliban-like group. However, it isn't succeeding, and meanwhile the strategy seems to kill mostly civilians.
The pope visited Auschwitz, and gave a speech designed to say that the majority of Germans at the time were not to blame for the mass murder of Jews and others. I refer people to the book "Hitler's Willing Executioners".
Günter Grass condemns Bush, just as he condemns all dictators.
The Continuing Adventures of Private Infringer
The Bush regime concluded its troops were not at fault when they killed a bunch of Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi prime minister says this was a whitewash.
The Bush regime is working on new biological weapons, which could start a new bio arms race.
The police raid that seized the web servers of a BitTorrent site, an anti-copyright political organization, and many other organizations and companies at the same hosting site, broke Swedish law in numerous ways, aside from having no legal basis in the first place.
Carefully limited legalization of heroin in Zurich resulted in an 80% drop in use of heroin there.
I am sure it reduced the number of people suffering imprisonment, too.
Marines will face charges for shooting civilians in Haditha.
The Swedish police seized the world's largest Bit-Torrent tracker site, apparently at the behest of the Bush regime.
I understand the spirit of defiance that motivated the site's operators to call it "pirate", but I think that is a bad mistake. The term "pirate" presumes that sharing is the moral equivalent of attacking a ship. Well, they're not equivalent, and we shouldn't let that assumption pass unquestioned.
Names aside, I like the spirit of the Pirate Party, and I would support it except for one grave and ironic error: in the area of software, their policy of limiting copyright to 5 years would backfire, hurting free software without helping the users.
Copyleft is based on copyright, so its effectiveness as a defense for the user's freedom would be undermined if copyright for software is reduced in a simple way. Meanwhile, most proprietary software developers use EULAs, not just copyright, so this change would not hamper them at all.
Reducing the length of copyright to 5 years is a good idea, but in order for this to have right results in the software field, it needs to be accompanied by a requirement to put the source code in escrow for public domain release 5 years later. It won't do you much good if a binary from 5 years ago is in the public domain, but you still can't change it. And if its developer put in a time bomb, it might not run at all.
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
As the Egyptian government arrests protestors and opposition bloggers, it denounces the US for criticizing this crackdown.
But wait a minute--didn't Egypt get the idea of calling opposition "terrorists" from the US?
Congress has passed a law that nearly eliminates environmental review for building pipelines and electric power lines through national parks. This follows the basic policy of giving priority to business over all else.
The Taliban become Pakistan's instrument to control Afghanistan once again.
A Pentagon investigation into the killing of refugees during the Korean War denied the orders that the soldiers had received.
The claim that North Korean commandos had infiltrated groups of refugees, and that it was necessary to shoot to keep them from crossing the UN lines, was stated publicly decades ago, so I don't see why the Pentagon would want to deny it now. Does anyone know if it really happened, and what evidence there was for it at the time?
If it did happen (or if the UN forces had good reason to believe so), why not cite it now as the reason, rather than lying?
America: failed state.
A hoax video in which an impostor pretends to be a Bush forces soldier confessing to atrocities has been picked up as a tool to discredit real evidence of real atrocities. Some wonder if this was an intentional Bush regime disinformation campaign.
A defense witness in the trial of Saddam Hussein says that the prosecution tried to bribe and threaten him.
Who are the enemies of Palestinian democracy?
Bush vs 1984: a point by point comparison.
Bush vs Haditha: a point-by-point comparison.
Iraq veterans fear they will be shunned by Americans just as many Vietnam veterans were shunned.
There is a lot more of an ethical reason to criticize Iraq veterans than Vietnam veterans--most of the latter were conscripts, but the former all volunteered to join the armed forces.
I think that any Iraq veteran who wants to be treated as a hero should do something heroic, such as joining Iraq Veterans Against the War. If they claim they didn't know what they were getting into before they did it, they ought to know by now. If they stand by these wrongs, they have no excuse.
Another Republican dirty trick: jamming Democrats' phones on election day.
Cheney's men have been systematically studying proposed legislation looking for anything that might limit the autocratic power he believes presidents should have.
Some large investors in ExxonMobil, including pension funds, have criticized the company's management for failing to recognize the danger of global warming.
I think that a real solution to the problem of the wrongdoing of companies such as ExxonMobil is to eliminate the management's excuse -- the principle of "fiduciary responsibility" which exempts management from all responsibility other than to make the company rich.
Air pollution during pregnancy can cause permanent mental retardation for child.
Leaking radioactive waste (from a storage dump that supposedly would not leak at all) threatens to contaminate the vineyards from which champagne is made.
Gush Shalom says:
Israel is violating its international commitments
by trying to exile Jerusalem residents who have been
elected to the P.A. as Hamas members.
How the US is establishing a police state -- in many ways at once.
10 signs of an impending police state.
Support Amnesty International's campaign against Internet censorship.
Amnesty International says,
Israeli soldiers, police and settlers who committed unlawful killings, ill-treatment and other attacks against Palestinians and their property commonly did so with impunity. Investigations are rare, as were prosecutions of the perpetrators, which in most cases did not lead to convictions. By contrast, Israel used all means at its disposal, including assassinations, collective punishment and other measures that violate international law, against Palestinians who carried out attacks against Israelis or who were suspected of direct or indirect involvement in such attacks.
Here's the full report.
This is why I do not accept "self defense" as a justification for Israeli policy. By any even-handed standard, Israel's crimes are greater, so the Palestinians are the ones who can plead "self defense". The Israeli state (like any other) has a duty to protect its citizens from attacks by foreigners, and likewise a duty to protect foreigners from attacks by its citizens. Using the former duty as an excuse to disregard the latter duty is culpable.
A committee of MPs say that the Blair government is covering up possible CIA torture flights by refusing to look into the matter.
Oil companies are still putting lies on TV about global warming.
The Bush regime has joined corporate America in producing propaganda videos for US TV stations to broadcast as "news".
A victory for on-line journalists who published what Apple did not want the public to know.
The Yangtze River may be completely dead in 5 years due to industrial waste. Then the inhabitants of 200 nearby cities would lose their source of drinking water.
President Toledo of Peru accused Chavez of "interfering" in Peru's presidential election. (Chavez endorsed the candidate that Toledo does not like.)
A few years ago, Microsoft paid Toledo's government not to adopt a law preferring free software. On a bigger scale, Toledo's government has negotiated a new "free trade" treaty with the US, sacrificing Peru's sovereignty and democracy. Chavez is clearly right in saying that Toledo is subordinate to US interests. Probably Garcia will be, too.
I hope Peruvians, and the OAS, will recognize that it is the US, not Venezuela, whose interference in Peruvian affairs is dangerous.
The European Union's high court voided the EU's agreement to violate its data protection laws at the demand of the US.
I hope that some politicians in Europe use this opportunity for nationalistic opposition to US bullying.
Genetically engineered papaya contaminated an organic papaya farm in Hawai'i, ruining its crop.
The fact that the engineered genes spread where humans didn't want them shows that this technology (at least when used in plants) is not fully under human control. It must therefore be treated with distrust.
Blair's private ideas don't always agree with Bush, but when he gives a speech in public, he won't contradict his boss.
Some chemicals used in making Teflon and Scotchgard are subtly toxic to rat fetuses: when they grow up, they are infertile. They are getting into wildlife in North America at levels that could be dangerous. And into some human children, too.
Private water supply companies are causing trouble in the US, not just in South America and Africa.
We can draw interesting conclusions from the facts in the article that the article does not choose to draw.
When these companies present snow jobs about their greater capabilities, don't believe it. The usual way they try to cut costs is by cutting corners with reliability and public safety. They do things that a public agency could have done, but wouldn't have risked. The risk falls on the public.
A $4000 fine, or even a $60,000 fine, is nothing for these large companies. If they can save $100,000 by cutting corners on public safety, and face the possibility of a $60,000 fine (but only if caught, and they don't expect to be caught), they will do it--unless the manager has a strong personal sense of integrity and public responsibility. This is a recipe for malfeasance.
Water companies pretend that they can solve problems that cities can't tackle, because they have money to invest. However, cities can raise that money directly, with municipal bonds. All the water companies add is a layer of privatizers who demand handsome profits.
Bush convinced Olmert to have negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
Since Olmert doesn't really want to reach a peace deal, he's unlikely to negotiate in earnest. This can at cause a delay before he annexes part of the West Bank in defiance of international law. Still, this delay could create an opportunity for something else to happen.
The Democratic Party used to defend working people's rights and interests, though not to an extreme. George McGovern's recent column illustrates how that has changed.
McGovern presents arguments that workers must accept poverty--arguments which this article clearly refutes. But I do not necessarily agree with the solution it recommends, of socialism. There are many ways that the world could be globalized, if only we are ever in a position to choose. Various solutions to the problem of increasing economic disparity are possible, if we could try them. But as long as business retains power over governments, making democracy a sham, we can't try any of them.
In Los Angeles, Cop Watch reports on police harassment tactics.
The investigation of Bush forces marines for shooting helpless Iraqis in Haditha is taking the lid off a widespread practice.
While individual soldiers are responsible for their personal acts of murder, the Bush regime is responsible for the overall pattern of murder.
I am skeptical of the Iraqi's claim that the Bush forces have ordered troops to kill lots of Iraqis no matter who they are. (How would they benefit?) However, if they measure success by body counts, as in Vietnam, that would be enough to convince some troops to shoot any available Iraqis so as to inflate the body counts. It produces the same result, but those who set it up can deny responsibility even in their own minds. Nonetheless the responsibility would still be theirs.
I do not know whether such orders are in effect. It is possible that the soldiers shoot civilians due solely to panic and anger, which are only to be expected in a hated occupying force under attack from a resistance movement. If so, the Bush regime is still responsible.
(Note how the first article speaks of Bush's "effort to rally support at home", as if such efforts were legitimate and possible. Perhaps the editors are still providing a lingering form of support to them.)
George Galloway is being condemned by bigoted politicians for saying that, supposing that Blair were to be killed by a hypothetical suicide bomber as revenge for Iraq, it would be morally equivalent to Blair's killing of Iraqis. Galloway does not, however, think Blair should be killed--he wants Blair to receive a fair trial for war crimes.
When other British political figures condemn Galloway for this, they show their lack of moral objectivity. It is a double standard to condemn a deadly bomb carried by a person (Iraqi style) more than a deadly bomb dropped by an airplane (Bush or Blair style). It is a double standard to condemn an enemy for (hypothetically) bombing your leaders when your side has in fact tried to bomb their leaders. It is a double standard to condemn terrorism only when it is not carried out by the organized army of a state.
Those who start a war are not entitled to get huffy because the victim fights back. Nonetheless, they often do, because bullies desire excuses to put their victims in the wrong. "He's scum because he hit me after I started beating him up" is typical reasoning for bullies, both individual and national. The other politicians quoted are encouraging the UK to adopt the attitudes of a bully. I salute Galloway for refusing to go along.
I am disappointed, however, with Galloway's apparent endorsement of the nondemocratic government of Cuba.
Kurdish militants claimed to have started a major fire in Istanbul airport. It's not nice to set a building on fire, but this is nothing to the way Turkey treats its Kurdish citizens.
Bumblebees in Britain are endangered -- some species are already extinct. Their loss could wipe out many plant species.
60 minors, including children 14 years old, were prisoners in Guantanamo. Some still are. Some were tortured.
A student in the US faces expulsion from school for posting on a web site that he was angry that the school was trying to censor him.
James Yee, former chaplain at Guantanamo, describes the torture he saw there.
The Indian government is looking for ways to palliate the objections of upper-caste students while preserving their plan to increase affirmative action.
Even a mass movement does not deserve support when it seeks to preserve the privilege of a minority.
I would offer these strikers a pledge to sign, promising to refuse to participate in the common forms of abuse against the lower castes; those who sign are worthy of being heard.
Iran-backed militia groups are in control of much of southern Iraq.
Hillary Clinton states her admiration and friend-ship for prominent right-wingers--which should not be surprising, since her focus for years has been trying to become almost as Republican as Republicans.
NASA has cut space research drastically, in favor of militarization of space.
Don't believe the propaganda saying that poverty is increasing under President Chavez.
The Wall Street Journal shows the empire's intentions towards Chavez.
Famous running shoe manufacturers continue to buy from sweatshops. While they claim to be trying to stop this, their activity consists mainly of making excuses.
Here's a list of senators that voted to confirm General Hayden. Every one of them owes an apology to the public.
Palestinian Authority President Abbas proposes a referendum of Palestinians on a two-state solution (which includes recognizing Israel).
Perhaps the Palestinian Authority should offer to follow old peace agreements if Israel agrees to follow old UN resolutions.
Bush forces marines may face charges for wanton killing of Iraqi civilians.
Israel captured a Hamas official who commanded attacks that killed 78 civilians.
I can't blame them for capturing him -- and it is good that this time they didn't shoot a missile at him and kill a dozen bystanders. But there are Israeli officials whose orders have killed far more than 78 Palestinians. Shouldn't they too be arrested?
The Colombian paramilitaries that work for President Uribe have stepped up their attacks on union leaders. Some have been killed, and others disappeared.
In a sad day for the US Constitution, the Senate approved General Hayden as head of the CIA--and in effect voted to condone his illegal spying on Americans when working in the NSA.
300 Egyptian judges protested for judicial independence.
Latino Immigrant Workers File $1.5 Million Lawsuit Against Supermarket Chain.
In Blair's prisons for refugees, people fleeing torture can't even get to see a doctor for treatment for their wounds.
Afraid now to kill their daughters and sisters, Turkish men now force them to commit suicide, by locking them in a room with a gun or a rope.
The fact that these killers now must hide gives these woman an option, though it requires great courage. If the woman says, "I will just sit here and die of thirst -- and then the autopsy will convict you!", the threat might compel her relatives to spare her life. If that doesn't work, then I hope she contrives to shoot one of them instead of herself. Better the would-be murderer should die, than the intended victim.
Wild orangutans could be wiped out in 12 years as the forests of Borneo are burned and turned into palm oil plantations.
The easiest way to address this problem would be for importer countries to ban the sale of palm oil made in plantations that were recently burned out of the forest. But the WTO surely prohibits that, just as it prohibits the old US law that tuna sold in the US had to be caught in ways that protected dolphins.
French Army officers believe that the Taliban are getting advice from the Iraqi resistance.
A new campaign calls on the House of Representatives to reject "mystery bills" which are submitted and then voted on without time for proper study even by the house.
I think 72 hours is too little time anyway. It will be hard for anyone to properly study and think about a bill hundreds of pages long in that time. Bills should not be voted on in less than a month except to respond to an emergency, and the bills that respond to emergencies should be simple.
Turkey is moving towards confrontation between the secularists and the Islamists, in the wake of the assassination of a judge by one of the latter.
Telephone companies, sued for illegally releasing information about customers' phone calls to the NSA, are making cunning statements that appear to deny the accusations -- but don't really say anything.
The US Border Patrol shot and killed a driver who was transporting some illegal Mexican immigrants...back to Mexico.
Even if you believe that stopping illegal immigration is worth killing people, this makes no sense. Yet the Bush regime is not abashed. It is proud and glad to have found an opportunity for killing, even a senseless and absurd opportunity.
I have been silent on the immigration debate, partly because I have no objection in principle to the prevention of unauthorized immigration, and many of the proposed methods seem legitimate. I have no objection to a fence at the border, for instance, or to more patrolling, as long as it isn't murderous.
However, the latest proposal sounds extremely cruel.
The part of these immigration bills that I hate most is the requirement for new forms of identification and surveillance of US citizens. I gather this is supported by nearly everyone in Congress. Orwellian surveillance is not controversial in the US, where "Land of the Free" has been replaced with "Let me see your papers."
When the US adopted a requirement for US citizens to prove their citizenship in order to get a job, I vowed I would never do so. I will never again be an employee in the US.
Iran in 2003 offered the US concessions on every issue that an honest and sensible US government might have cared about.
Bush rejected that overture, and this year he canceled another promising initiative for negotiations.
I guess Bush just wants a war.
US citizens: call your congressman to oppose the free trade treaty with Oman. In addition to the usual reasons for opposing all modern free trade treaties (they subjugate democracy to business power), this one is likely to encourage specific kinds of human rights abuses practiced by Oman.
Blair's police are escalating their battle to silen