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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Israel's attack on Gaza has been planned for months.
The planning must have begun before Israel broke the truce. Perhaps breaking the truce was part of the same plan. Attack Gaza, provoke retaliation with missiles, get public demand to "do something about the missiles", then attack even worse. Is all this violence designed to manipulate the Israeli election?
Israel rejected a renewed truce with Hamas just last week.
Israel broke the last truce in November.
Dan Rather has sued Bush for pressuring CBS to fire him.
Rather points out that Bush never denied Rather's story about Bush's draft-evasion. Instead Bush distracted the attention from himself by quibbling about the origin of the evidence that Rather presented.
If a similar scandal had surfaced for Clinton, the Conservative media would have pressed it unremittingly. Bush got away with changing the subject because there was no major Liberal media to do likewise. The mainstream media, back in 2004, reflected the corporate world's contentment with Bush.
Thus, this is not merely an instance of corporate-controlled right-wing media bias. It is an instance that occurred because this bias was pervasive.
While the hospitals in Gaza are turning away some wounded for lack of capacity and medicine, Israel bombed a medicine storehouse as well as a university and some government buildings.
Israel has killed at least 57 civilians in addition to many policemen. Meanwhile, Palestinian retaliation has killed 3 Israelis, which is comparable with the entire past year.
Rational Israelis who want safety recognize that the way to get it is peace. The Israeli government responds to lulls in violence with escalation because peace is not its goal.
The attack on Gaza has moved many Palestinians to protest. Some want the Palestinian Authority to cooperate with Hamas. Some call the Palestinian Authority quislings and support Hamas.
Eyewitness account of Gaza bombing.
The UK government says that many ex-cons become homeless and commit crimes to get back in prison. To solve this tiny fraction of the homelessness problem, the Conservatives propose to withhold some of the meager pay prisoners get for their jobs.
Using prisoners as workers to make products for sale to the public is a threat to the public. They are paid a pittance, and undermine the wages of free workers; meanwhile, their cheap labor is so profitable that it encourages the government-industrial complex to imprison more people. This is part of why the UK and the US have such a high fraction of the population in prison.
When the UN sent Richard Falk to Gaza to report on human rights, Israel held him prisoner for 20 hours incommunicado and did not let him into Gaza.
The clear conclusion is that Israel wants to exclude from Gaza any witnesses to its attacks that it cannot slander as biased.
Perhaps the UN should ask Egypt to let their observers enter Gaza from there.
Israeli air attacks and shelling have killed almost 300 people in Gaza.
A substantial fraction of the attacks were aimed at police stations.
Police stations are usually found in the middle of the urban areas where police mostly work. Other buildings are right next to them. And citizens go to police stations for many reasons. So bombing them will generally harm lots of civilian bystanders.
Given the tremendous disparity between Israeli attacks and Palestinian attacks, asking both sides to "show restraint" misrepresents the situation by pretending that the blame falls equally on both sides. Israel has killed almost a thousand people in Gaza this year. Palestinian retaliatory attacks have killed a handful of Israelis. Both are wrong when they attack civilians, but Israel's violence is the cause of the problem.
The Clown regime wants world-wide Internet censorship.
It also wants to increase the danger of the UK's dangerous libel laws, which already chill free speech by making it so easy to win a judgment against criticism.
Data-mining schemes such as Total Information Awareness and its successors, which are used to justify massive violation of Americans' privacy by the state, are useless as well as unjust.
A run of three wet years is threatening many wildlife species in England.
Three wet years in a row will happen randomly once in a rare while. But it doesn't last, and better weather allows the species which were hit to bounce back. The danger of global warming is that it can cause these formerly rare events to become common.
Police in Zimbabwe admitted having arrested activists who previously they said were "kidnapped". They had tortured the activists trying to frame them for an assassination plot.
Not to forget: how Bush paid Republicans to go to Florida and sabotage the attempt to properly count the votes.
Mike Connell, formerly Karl Rove's chief IT consultant, died in an airplane "accident". He was going to testify about illegally deleted emails and vote-stealing in 2004.
Ahmadinejad's Christmas message called Western "Christian" governments hypocrites, saying that Jesus would fight against their empires. In response, some Westerners called him a hypocrite on account of his own bigotry.
They are both right.
Others condemned the Iranian government for refusing to recognize religious freedom. For instance, converts to Christianity there face execution. In general, all Muslim countries treat non-Muslims as second-class citizens, or worse.
Rockers to Press Obama on Music Torture.
Bishop Tutu rebuked the government of South Africa for supporting Mugabe's tyranny.
European colonization imposed foreign rule on African nations and subjugated the individuals of them. What we see is that the government of South Africa is more concerned about defending independence for African states than human rights for African people.
A small change in the language of the bank bailout enabled the executives to maintain their excessive pay, now at public expense.
Several animal rights activists were convicted in the UK for various acts against Huntingdon Life Sciences.
The article says they were convicted of "blackmail", but that seems to be an abuse of language, since blackmail means threatening to expose someone else's dirty secret. Although these activists did many things, it does not appear that blackmail was one of them, and the activity which they condemn was never a secret anyway. I wonder if this is an example of a legal lie, similar to "child pornography" and "animal rights terrorism".
I disagree with the animal rights movement; I support experimenting on animals in medical and biological research when that is the best way to do it. The issue here is not animal rights, it is how far people can go in protests against the activities of a company.
Some of these activities seem to be indeed wrong; others are legitimate forms of protest. They are unpleasant for the target, naturally, but nobody has a right to silence criticism just because of that. When companies demand this power, they become a threat to democracy. That has clearly happened here. It is noteworthy that this group moved beyond ordinary protest only after ordinary protest was unjustly prohibited to them.
All in all, I think the principal wrong here was committed by Huntingdon and the British government — not in experimenting using animals, but in denying the public the right to criticize.
A Pentagon program to make soldiers feel appreciated was transformed into a corporate branding program.
In an age when cities display their lack of pride by putting the names of corporations on stadiums, perhaps we should not be surprised that other government officials consider it normal behavior.
An 8-year-old Saudi girl was married off by her father without telling her. A judge ruled that her mother cannot ask for a divorce for her, and that she is too young to do it herself.
UK police secretly made an audio recording when they arrested shadow minister Damian Green.
I think police should be required to make and keep recordings of all their interactions with members of the public. Police are given special power, both explicitly and implicitly (through the tendency of jurors to believe whatever police say on the witness stand). This power leads to systematic abuse. It is fitting to accompany this special power with special requirements, such as not having the same right to privacy that other citizens deserve.
Seeing Bush and Cheney out of office is not enough. For our future's sake, we must hold them responsible for their crimes.
They have committed mass murder — certainly in Iraq, and perhaps in the World Trade Center — and they have tried to cover it up, at least by not counting the people killed in Iraq. If convicted in a fair trial, they must be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Obama's team claims nobody discussed buying the senate seat that Blagojevich can offer — and that nobody even was aware he wanted to sell it.
I am ready to believe that they never offered to buy it. But this claim strains my credulity.
The Green Party explains Obama' lukewarm support for gay rights.
The Green Party's proposals for avoiding environmental disaster.
How Facebook isolates people by substituting the tag of "friend" for real friendship — while collecting personal data for CIA and marketing use.
The dean of Iranian bloggers was arrested because he had visited Israel.
This is as unjust as arresting Americans for visiting Cuba.
The Bush regime, having just got the "Iraqi" government to agree to keep Bush forces troops, is already planning to violate the agreement by falsely labeling combat troops as "support troops".
The UK state and media increasingly to support the established church, even though public support for it is almost vanishing.
Clown's eminent advisor resigned in disgust in response to the government's deep lack of respect for human rights.
Tasers have killed 400 people in North America since 2001.
Calling them "nonlethal" makes users trigger-happy.
Newfoundland cod are heading for extinction even if fishing is banned — perhaps because the population is too low to overcome the effects of predation by seals. In other words, we knocked it down so far that it can't ever rise again.
So many people want to buy "the same shoes that were thrown at Bush" that Baydan Shoes has hired 100 more workers.
Perhaps they should make a model that has a picture of Dubya on the bottom of the sole.
Israel is tightening the siege of Gaza, and the main Israeli election candidates said they would try to attack and defeat Hamas militarily. It cannot succeed in this except by killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, or maybe more. I fear that that is what it will now do.
Israel says the purpose of the siege is to end Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza. Even if it worked, it would not be justified, since the siege is a bigger war crime than the rockets. But the only thing which has ever succeeded in ending them was the truce. Israel did not obey its commitment to end the siege of Gaza, but the Palestinians kept the truce anyway — until Israel started the fighting again.
There are proposals to "bail out" the big ISPs, which have already failed to keep their commitment to build out broadband in the US, while trying to eliminate competition and regulation.
250 activists that oppose logging and deforestation in Brazil face threats of assassination.
It seems to me that the only way to end deforestation in Brazil is to totally prohibit export of timber from affected regions, and monitor major roads and rivers so that no one can smuggle out substantial amounts.
Arguing that Obama's plan to win the war in Afghanistan is futile.
I supported the US invasion of Afghanistan, as did most people in Afghanistan at first. I supported it, not because of the 9/11 attacks, but to end the Taliban's totalitarian regime. So I wonder now if it might have been a success, supposing the US had given more funds for reconstruction and had not boosted the fundamentalist cause by attacking Iraq.
In any case, it seems to have gone badly wrong now, and the public in Afghanistan no longer support the US. It seems there are also moderate Taliban now (moderate by Afghan standards). Rather than fighting them, it would be better to make peace with them.
Students in Maryland are using fake license plates to trick speed cameras into issuing fines against other drivers.
I wonder what license plates belong to the officials that would vote on whether to abolish speed cameras in Maryland.
The banks that tried to force Cleveland Mayor Kucinich to sell the municipal electric company have folded, but Cleveland still owns its power company and Kucinich is still in Congress.
We need him in the White House.
The Colombian army assassinated an indigenous political leader's husband by shooting him while he was driving.
The army made Bushesque excuses, which would be no justification even if the facts were true. But they are lies.
The Colombian army under President Horrible acts as an army of occupation for the US.
International rejection is pushing manufacturers out of the Israeli "settlements" in Palestinian territory.
Bush and his men must be held accountable for their crimes in Haiti.
One point in the article requires correction: it assumes that Dubya was elected president. There is plenty of evidence that he stole both elections.
Although the agreement between the Bush forces and the "Iraqi" government lasts only till 2011, some in the "Iraqi" government are already talking about extending the occupation of their country.
In the coming Israeli election, none of the major parties offers to make peace.
The small differences between Israeli political parties resemble the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties in the US.
Zaidi's brother denies that Zaidi apologized for throwing shoes at Bush.
The beating that Zaidi received is typical of the treatment of prisoners in Iraq. For Shi'ites and Sunnis to agree is unusual, which means that Zaidi has helped his country in another way.
A Briton falsely accused of murder, and based on hardly any evidence, received an apology from the police. His case was dismissed by a judge because the police never had any evidence.
The same thing is supposed to happen in the US, but it often doesn't.
The truce in Gaza is officially over.
De facto it ended in November when Israel attacked and Palestinians responded.
It only half worked, since Israel never ended the deadly siege of Gaza.
Obama continues to support making ethanol for cars from corn, a practice which feeds cars at the expense of feeding people.
Zaidi apologized for throwing shoes at Bush after being beaten and wounded in prison.
Rivalries inside the "Iraqi" government have resulted in arrests of officials. It's not clear why.
The rich countries approved 60 million dollars for CO2 reduction projects in poor countries. That's good, but it will take billions to make enough reductions to avert catastrophe.
Rescue auto companies for long term contribution to society, not for short-term profitability.
150,000 Haitians protested to demand the return of their elected President Aristide, who was kidnaped by US agents and taken to exile.
US hospitals and insurance companies are very profitable, and they are using deceptive arguments to block health care reform.
Republicans are terrified of single-payer health care reform. They think that if Democrats succeed in implementing this, they could permanently gain political support.
The Democratic Party needs to do more than this before I will support it, but I do support single-payer health care reform.
Nixon sabotaged Vietnam peace talks in 1968 to get himself elected.
US mainstream media pay no attention.
In France, a noncommercial ISP sticks its finger in Big Brother's eye.
160 countries voted to block tobacco companies from "helping" plan activities to reduce tobacco use.
The NATO command in Afghanistan wants to merge its news and propaganda offices.
Most progressive Americans have not woken up to the fact that Obama's advisors and appointees are all right-wing.
Reportedly some Somali pirates now demand compensation for pollution dumped by rich countries on Somali shores.
If the facts are as charged, the demand is a valid one. However, since the pirates were in it for the money before, I doubt the sincerity of their altruism now.
Protestors shut down Stanstead Airport, near London, opposing airport expansion which would lead to more flights and more CO2.
Note the irrelevance of the response by the aircraft industry. It sounds impressive, but it does not alter the fact that more flying means more CO2 emission.
Note also the woman who took advantage of cheap flights to have a second home in France — and now resents being inconvenienced in travelling there. If they extend Stanstead airport, more people will buy second homes in France, and they will expect to travel there more often.
Chinese officials make a practice of committing people to mental hopitals if they complain.
We can trace this to the general Chinese penchant for covering up problems rather than correcting them.
Australia censored a Simpsons knock-off cartoon, convicting a person for possessing a copy.
Arundhati Roy tells about the oppression carried out by the Indian governent in many parts of India: military occupation, torture, and systematic labeling of dissidents as "terrorists". She says she could be arrested as a "terrorist" just for the books she owns.
(Arresting people for having copies of publications has already happened in the UK.)
When a Greek policeman shot and killed a youth for no reason, it set off massive riots based on other long-building resentment.
The Clown regime is trying to corrupt and delay the parliamentary investigation into the recent arrest of an opposition "shadow" minister. So the opposition parties have refused to participate in the investigation.
Five Blackwater guards will finally face charges for the Iraqis they shot.
Five Guantanamo prisoners say they want to make confessions about involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
At least one of them was tortured, and maybe the others were too. Since torture extracts false confessions, it is hard to tell whether these people were really guilty. Maybe some would relish a martyr's death and are willing to make a false plea to get it. Maybe some would prefer death to life in prison.
If they really are guilty, can they implicate co-conspirators in the Bush regime?
Coal-power protestors in the UK were acquitted after a peaceful protest. The jury agreed that the coal plant would do more harm than the protest did. Now the Clown regime wants to change the law so as to imprison more protestors.
New Labour has carried out an unremitting attack on human rights in Britain for ten years, and they will not stop.
Cheney continues to lie to justify his invasion and conquest of Iraq and to lie about torture and formerly-illegal wiretapping.
Cheney, along with Bush, ought to be sent to the Hague for trial for crimes against humanity. But I don't expect Obama to do this, any more than he will restore the human rights that Bush and Cheney took away from Americans. We must continue to denounce the US government as the enemy of our freedom.
The bank bailout was a ripoff, and the need for it seems to have been exaggerated. Meanwhile, Congress does nothing to help ordinary Americans.
Making Light: Free Muntadar Zaidi now!
When Gary Webb broke the story that the CIA protected drug smuggling for the Nicaraguan Contras, his newspaper was pressured into disavowing the story. In 1998 an official investigation effectively admitted the charges were true.
Despite this vindication, Gary Webb never could get a job as a reported again, and ultimately killed himself.
Using music as a torture sounds like a joke, but loud music 24 hours a day can drive people crazy and make them give false confessions. Some musicians condemn this; others still joke and do not understand.
CIA officials that support torture are campaigning for their own to be considered for the job of heading the CIA.
The US has a duty to punish those that practiced torture and those that authorized it. If the US does not punish them, other countries must punish them.
NBC continues presenting one of the Pentagon's paid pundits as an objective and independent expert, neglecting to mention that he has a financial interest in the war. NBC also does not mention that it is owned by GE, which also has a financial interest in the war.
It is worth making a substantial effort to avoid watching the US mainstream media, since they are designed to mislead people, and it takes work to overcome their effects.
When scientist Nancy Olivieri reported liver damage from a drug made by Apotex pharmaceuticals, the company sued her and forced her to promise not to say any more about it. She didn't, but the company has sued her again, claiming that merely by attending conventions about how companies influence research, she is "defaming" them.
It is clear that the company is only using its greater resources to procure injustice in the courts. Such lawsuits against researchers should be explicitly banned. Imposition of nondisclosure agreements on scientists studying the health effects of anything whatsoever must likewise be banned.
Furthermore, university medical research should not be funded directly by companies. Instead, governments should tax the companies and use the money to fund the research.
Repeated US bombing of civilians in Afghanistan, and the arrogance of US troops, are building support for the Taliban.
When the UK (and US and India) criticize Pakistan's intelligence agency for supporting terrorist groups, they must not overlook their own acts which created the anger that fuels the terrorism.
Bush is trying to pretend he was an innocent victim of mistaken intelligence when he decided to invade and conquer Iraq.
There is sufficient proof that Bush pressured the CIA and other agencies to make this "mistake."
Congressional democrats dropped public-interest conditions from the proposed auto-company bailout.
Beggars can't be choosers: the auto companies are not acting like beggars. If they think they can afford to make demands, then they must not believe they are in such desperate circumstances as to need government help.
The UN declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa to be a terrorist organization, and Pakistan shut it down. If Jamaat-ud-Dawa is indeed a terrorist organization, it should be shut down, but first it should get a fair trial. To administratively declare an organization illegal is a violation of freedom of association.
The author of Liar's Poker explains how Wall Street executives fooled even themselves into valuing worthless assets.
The Australian protest against censorship.
The MPAA has asked Obama for a disastrous attack on the freedom of the Internet.
Democrats have a tendency to kowtow to movie companies, so the danger may actually be worse than it was.
Mexico will demand fingerprints from all cell phone users. Mexicans should refuse to comply with this law.
The rest of the provisions of this law seem reasonable, but nothing can justify demanding fingerprints without reasonable grounds to suspect them of a crime.
How the Bush campaign paid people to riot and stop a recount in Miami in 2000.
I read recently that one of the organiers of this act of political fraud said that Bush's conduct made him regret it.
Some Indian politicians are trying to use the Mumbai attacks as an excuse to start a war which they desire for other reasons.
Are they following Bush's example?
Remembering the twisted logic that the Supreme Court employed to make Bush president by refusing to count Florida's votes.
Keep in mind that the only reason Bush was able to come close enough to do this is that Katherine Harris intentionally disenfranchised 50,000 eligible Florida voters.
Even a small regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan would produce a devastating nuclear winter. It wouldn't wipe out humanity, but it would cause suffering around the world.
Chiquita Banana was found guilty in US court of hiring the paramilitaries to kill people in Colombia. Then relatives of teh victims began to sue. Eric Holden, Obama's choice for Attorney General, defended Chiquita Banana in these lawsuits.
In Cameroun, police attacked anti-corruption protestors pre-emptively, confiscating their protest signs, and injured some so badly that one is in a coma.
Arundhati Roy compares India's anti-terrorist hysteria with that of the US. India's frezy about Islamic terrorists draws attention away from the much larger right-wing Hindu terror attacks against Indian Muslims and Christians, whose leaders go unpunished or get re-elected.
The EU has agreed on a policy of substantial CO2 cuts, though not sufficient. It could have done more, but heavy industry demanded to make no concessions.
The inquest into the police killing of de Menezes was spoiled by the coroner, who forbade the jury to give a verdict of "unlawful killing."
We cannot tell whether the jury would have wished to return that verdict. I think they should make a public statement about the question.
The jurors were not allowed to learn that the Menezes family had decided to boycott the trial because they found it biased already.
A student protestor in Patras says that fascist gangs supported by the police are responsible for the violence.
Since the epidemic of cholera in Zimbabwe could be a motive for intervention, Mugabe claims it does not exist.
Israeli refusenik Tamar Katz refuses to wear a military uniform. The prison punishes her by not letting her change her clothing.
Obama's preferred choice for Secretary of Education is totally unqualified. Appointed to run school systems like businesses, he caused only trouble.
This may relate to his conservative ideas of economics.
Greenland has voted for independence from Denmark, motivated by the temptation of valuable minerals that could be mined if the ice melts.
If the Greenland ice melts enough to give access to these minerals, the worldwide disaster will be so great that Greenland will have trouble selling them.
Pakistan raided a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp and arrested one of the men accused of planning the Mumbai terrorist attack.
Michael Moore: nationalize the car companies and turn them toward building green transportation.
How globalization makes this depression different from the depression of 1929.
Everyone: tell Bank of America and Congress that the bailout funds should be used to provide loans to keep the economy going.
You can contact Congress through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Computer experts who can be in DC on Dec 15: We need you to offer expert testimony for protest defendents accused by lying police.
Uri Avery spells out for Obama precisely how to achieve peace between Israel and the Arabs, and what the deal must look like.
The details are already clear. For success, just add courage. Does Obama have such courage? We will soon see. If he continues the policies of previous presidents, accepting Israeli demands the Palestinians concede everything before negotiations start, there will be no peace.
The Iraqi government is inviting foreign companies under all flags to invest in Iraqi oil production.
This could mean that Bush and his cronies have not won all they hoped for. They sought total control of Iraqi oil for themselves alone. But if it is a partial defeat for Bush, that does not make it much of a victory for Iraqis, who will nonetheless lose control to foreign companies.
During Argentina's economic crisis in 2001, workers occupied many bankrupt, closed factories and put them back into production. Many of these factories continue to operate under worker control.
Several UK ISPs are blocking access to Wikipedia in an act of absurd prudery.
Yegor Gaidar analyzes the collapse of the Soviet Union in economic terms: failure to produce enough grain for the urban population, and dependence on oil to get money to buy grain. When the price of oil went down, and subject populations tried to break away, the state had no way to maintain its power.
The forced collectivization of the Soviet Union was directly responsible for the low grain production. According to Gaidar, its invasion of Afghanistan led Saudi Arabia to reduce the price of oil.The cost of matching President Reagan's arms buildup may have played some role, but Gaidar does not give it a major role.
Americans should stop giving Reagan credit for making the Soviet Union collapse, and recall Reagan as the president who betrayed America's honor by selling weapons to terrorists to ransom hostages.
The occupation of Gaza as an issue of human rights.
The Bush forces' agreement to hand over prisoners to the Iraqi government conflicts with legal requirements that prisoners cannot be handed over to states which don't provide justice.
2008 will be the coolest year of the decade, by random fluctuation. But it would have been considered a very hot year in the 1980s.
Why defend the freedom to say things that some people find disgusting. I think that the first few paragraphs, ending in the line that says "Jess", are a quotation from someone else. It would be clearer to make that explicit.
Many Americans were misled into signing mortgages which they now cannot pay.
This isn't the first time. The wave of farm foreclosures under Reagan, which wiped out the US institution of the family farm, victimized farmers who had followed government and institutional advice to take out loans. When insitutions lead people into danger and harm, it is unjust to place all the responsibility on the victims.
The European human rights court ordered the UK to discard the DNA samples and fingerprints kept from people who were arrested but not convicted of a crime.
An Atheist outdoor sign that presents a general criticism of religion was stolen.
Many US Christians don't think Atheists should be allowed to express disagreement with them.
Rioting Israeli settlers near Hebron shot and injured two Palestinian men before other Palestinians subdued them. Then the insecurity forces of the nearby settlement (or should we say "colony") arrived, and took the side of the shooters.
The committee to protect journalists reports that online journalists are now almost half of all the journalists imprisoned for political reasons in the world. Imprisonment of journalists increased greatly after the world-wide wave of repression unleashed by Bush as a response to the 9/11 attacks.
Bush forces personnel have sued Halliburton and KBR for making them sick by knowingly supplying contaminated food and water.
It looks like Bush will not launch a war against Iran, but the neocons may get Obama to do it.
Australians: sign this petition against internet censorship in Australia.
The leaders of a US charity for poor Palestinians have been convicted of "supporting terrorism" after a trial that was obviously unfair.
Anyone seriously trying to help poor families in Palestine will inevitably help many families whose fathers were killed by Israeli troops. The Israeli troops will always say they were killed because they were terrorists, whether it is true or not. Thus, the bogus arguments used here will always be available to punish any charity that helps Palestinians.
A former Bush forces interrogator says, as an expert, that torture is an ineffective way to get intelligence.
Torture is very effective for the goal of getting confessions, if you don't care whether they are true or false. And very effective for venting hatred.
Should the US nationalize the big three auto companies? It would cost less than the bailout they want.
Iraq's parliament voted to approve the continuing occupation by the Bush forces, subject to a referendum to be held next June.
Sad to say, this means that Bush's cronies have more or less won their war to privatize and loot Iraq, oil and all. They are likely to control the economy as long as the government in Baghdad is a puppet that "needs" the Bush forces to stay in power.
I've read elsewhere that the pact allows mercenaries working for the Bush forces to continue to enjoy immunity from all law. It is only the contractors working for other agencies that will be subject to Iraqi law. Thus, mercenaries raped by other mercenaries will continue to get no justice.
Clown has taken belated steps to protect homeowners from losing their homes.
So when will the US do this?
Journalist Amira Hass entered Gaza illegally by boat because Israel does not allow Israeli or foreign journalists to go there.
There are few legitimate reasons for a government to keep journalists out of a region, and none can apply to Gaza. The reason is clearly that Israel wants people not to know what its siege is doing.
Nixon's tapes, recently published, show he was just the vindictive and paranoid creep that his reputation portrays.
Australians protested in the streets against government plans to censor the Internet.
If Australia censores the Internet, they won't be able to rely on holding protests that will be seen anywhere but in the streets.
Brazil has a new plan to cut deforestation in the Amazon.
The old plan has been effective enough to generate an uprising. Normally I would sympathize with the people rather than the government; but this is an uprising of fools who seek in their short-term thinking to destroy something precious.
Lieutenant Colonel Vandeveld, who resigned as a prosecutor in Guantanamo, is giving interviews: "We had abandoned our American values and defiled our constitution."
The defilement is not the Guantanamo prison camp as such, it is the unjust practices carried out there. Closing the Guantanamo prison will make no difference if the US does not cease and reject these practices. Will Obama do this?
Clown's latest attack on human rights: 10 yeards in prison for publishing information about policemen "likely to be useful to terrorists". This is unjust, not only because it is censorship, but also because it is vague. It seems to be intended to stop dissident groups from resisting the policemen who harrass them, as well as the police provocateurs that infiltrate dissident groups hoping to lead them to do something they could be prosecuted for.
FITwatch, which reports on some of those police, has called for a campaign of systematic defiance.
The UK government, for its persistent disregard of human rights, has lost its claim on anyone's support or loyalty, much like the US government and many others.
Obama's official "transition site", change.gov, lists many intended policy changes. None of them has to do with recovering the freedoms that Bush took away from us. Contrast the large section on "Homeland Security" with the completely absent section on "Civil Liberties".
I looked in other possible categories and saw not a word about ending imprisonment without trial and "enemy combatants". Not a word about stopping the government from spying on citizens without a search warrant. Not a word about the right to travel anonymously. Not a word about RFIDs, Real-ID, or other proposed or actual policies that subject Americans to surveillance.
Obama is just the man to continue the harm that Bush has done to our freedom. Bush, through his obvious dishonesty and greed, aroused strong opposition. It was unable to protect our freedom, but it tried. If Obama refrains from evident lies and from wars of conquest that kill thousands of Americans, he may find it easy to continue Bush's campaign to establish a society of total surveillance.
Americans who love civil liberties and hate Big Brother: get used to thinking of Obama as another Bush.
Israel has blocked a humanitarian aid ship from docking in Gaza.
Israel slightly relaxed the siege of Gaza during the months of the cease fire but did not end it. Then Israel broke the cease fire, and cites subsequent Palestinian retaliation as the reason for making the siege worse.
Obama is not likely to do anything to protect us from NSA spying unless we push him hard.
Clown's proposals to reduce CO2 emission in the UK are too weak. Worse, they focus on long-term targets instead of action starting soon.
Muslim condemnations of terror attacks on civilians in Mumbai, India.
India says it has proof that the Mumbai attackers were from Pakistan and connected with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group that has in the past been supported by ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service.
Given that fanatical Muslim terrorists have carried out many bombings in Pakistan this year, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, wouldn't it make sense for the two governments to work together against this threat?
Amnesty International reports that thousands of Iraqi prisoners of the Bush forces face the threat of torture or execution if they are handed over to the Iraqi government.
This is a paradoxical issue because whenever the Bush forces leave Iraq, they will have to do something or other with their prisoners, such as hand them over to the Iraqi government, or free them. The problems of handing them over are no argument for keeping the Bush forces in Iraq.
Those who have been held without charge should generally be freed.
It appears that Obama will not prosecute US torturers for war crimes.
Any US pressure to prosecute war criminals of other countries will be hypocritical and useless unless we clean our own house first.
Some of Obama's advisors are trying to make imprisonment without trial a permanent and normal part of US law.
Obama Should Oppose Preventive Detention.
I visited change.org and supported the proposal for a new investigation of the 9/11 attacks and who was responsible for them, and I posted a note urging others to support it too. The next day I received a message saying that change.org had deleted this proposal, saying that it did not propose a policy change.
While an investigation is not, in and of itself, a policy change, this investigation is essential for moving forward to change many unjust and dangerous policies that were established to "protect" us from the supposed danger according to the US government's suspect claims about the attack. Bush's whitewash investigation reinforced this basis for maintaining and exacerbating those policies. An honest investigation of those claims is therefore vital for future policy decisions.
Additional Israeli leaders have backed real concessions to Palestinians.
After the Yes Men's spoof New York Times issue criticized the diamond monopolist De Beers, that company tried to get it shut down by attacking the registrar of its domain name, www.nytimes-se.com.
US citizens: The site change.org allows people to propose and support political ideas. One that I supported is a new investigation of how the 9/11 attacks were carried out, and who was responsible.
As individual suspects, Bush and Cheney must not be punished without being convicted in a fair trial. As the level of politics, however, given that they blocked and corrupted the investigation into their possible guilt, we must consider them guilty until a real investigation is allowed.
Update! Shortly after I voted for that proposal and wrote this note, change.org deleted the proposal, saying that it does not fit the site because it is not a policy change.
While that investigation is not, in and of itself, a policy change, it is essential for moving forward to change many unjust and dangerous policies that were established to "protect" us from the supposed danger according to the US government's suspect claims about the attack. Bush's whitewash investigation reinforced this basis for maintaining and exacerbating those policies. An honest investigation of those claims is therefore vital for future policy decisions.
Voters say that voting machines are flipping Democratic votes to Republican.
Bush got the Iraqi government to agree in private on a treaty to continue the presence of the Bush forces, but the Iraqi cabinet refuses to approve it.
The concessions of immunity from prosecution went too far.
EU citizens: The European Parliament is working hard to help record companies mistreat music listeners and musicians even worse. Call or write your MEP to oppose this directive.
Warning: this article makes the grave mistake of using the term "intellectual property". This propaganda term spreads bias and confusion; for instance, it lumps copyright law together with other unrelated laws. Every use of the term "intellectual property" spreads bias and confusion.
For the sake of clear thinking, we should avoid using the term ourselves, and when we cite a name which uses the term, we should without fail explain that the name embodies confusion.
UK police arrested an opposition shadow minister for publishing government secrets to criticize the government — normal practice for opposition MPs in the UK political system.
The Marijuana Policy Project sued the "drug czar" for distributing false information to oppose the medical marijuana initiative in Michigan.
The End of Bailout Transparency Already?
It has become quite common for popular musicians to license their music for use in commercials.
That Ms Klein poses the question of whether iTunes could "save" something suggests she is not aware of the issue of Digital Restrictions Management as a threat to people's freedom.
Urging Obama to apologize to those whom Bush imprisoned without trial.
Muslim fanatics shot over 100 people in various sites around Mumbai in what appears to have been coordinated terrorist attacks.
It seems that some of the terrorists have been captured; if the police do not torture them into making statements that might be false, we may learn something from them about who planned these attacks.
The long list of Iraqi academics who were killed during the violence unleashed by Bush's conquest of iraq.
Support the courageous Israelis who have gone to prison rather than serve in the army of occupation.
No matter how nasty a practice is, it will occasionally benefit someone deserving. For instance, the Big Brother surveillance in NYC subway metrocards provided evidence to support Jason Jones' claim that he was elsewhere at the time of a shooting he was accused of.
Even though the MTA surveillance records have apparently "proved" Jones' innocence, the prosecutor has not dropped the charges. Is he planning to argue that Jones arranged for someone else to use his metrocard?
That accusationn might be far-fetched in this case, since it appears that the shooting was not premeditated. But in another case, one that involves a planned killing, don't expect a DA to be impressed if your metrocard "proves" you are innocent. On the other hand, if your metrocard suggests you were in a position to commit a crime, you can count on the prosecutor to cite that as evidence.
In a just world, surveillance evidence would generally promote the cause of justice. But in a prejudiced world, it will generally harm those who are weak.
Obama — Bush in blackface?
South African President Mbeki killed an estimated 300,000 people through his policy towards medicine for HIV.
Everyone: support Israeli conscientious objectors who are refusing to serve the occupation.
Pakistan's army is fighting the Taliban in Bajur. The Taliban shoot civilians that don't support them, and the army kills them with aerial bombing.
Alan Greenspan admits he was wrong to support deregulation of financial derivatives.
Support the Appel de Blois, which calls for an end to laws that censor views on historical events.
There is substantial opposition even within the UK government to the plans to record who speaks to whom in the UK.
One crucial point here is the ability to locate a cell phone "within yards" even without help from its GPS. If you want to use a cell phone without being tracked, you will need to use a tightly focused antenna to talk to a cell tower that is not near by.
I have never had a cell phone, but since OpenMoko cell phones became available I have been considering whether to get one. Now I am leaning towards refusing, because I do not want to carry a cell phone that Big Brother will be able to identify as mine. Instead I will use pay phones or ask people around me to make calls for me on their cell phones.
In one respect, Bush has won the war in Iraq: the Iraqi government is giving foreign oil companies a big stake in Iraqi oil and natural gas exports.
Americans are so bombarded with news that they become overloaded and shun seeing any more of it.
This makes the display of right-wing TV news in public places even more sinister. It not only misinforms people, it also makes them avoid any further information that might correct the distortions and twisted assumptions.
The Iraqi government has arrested and imprisoned so many people, and keeps them in so little space, that some prisoners must stand so others can sleep.
There's no need to torture prisoners one by one when the prison conditions amount to torture.
Auto company executives went to Washington to ask for handouts, but they have not set aside their expensive private planes.
Israeli settlers stole Ibrahim Suleiman Muhammad Salah's horse, so he went to the (Israeli) police. They fined him for complaining.
A series of Israeli eviction orders has driven the al Kurd family out of one home after another, but the father of the family is no longer affected. The stress exacerbated his medical problems and he died.
By contrast, when settlers are supposed to leave an illegal "outpost", they can delay for years by insisting on being handed new homes first.
These illegal outposts were built with Israeli government funds.
Bush is trying to sabotage the Clean Air Act.
A cholera epidemic is spreading in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe in effect holds the population hostage.
This is sort of the situation where an honest policeman of the world would invade and rescue the hostages. The US is not interested because Zimbabwe has no oil.
The Brazilian government is making a real effort for the first time to protect the Amazon rainforest. The people who make a living from cutting it down fought back massively.
The pain they will suffer from ceasing to destroy the rainforest is inevitable, just as in the case of fishermen that are destroying fish stocks. Either they reduce their activities now and suffer, or they will stop entirely in 10 or 20 years when they have destroyed it all; that way, more of them will suffer, and worse, after having destroyed something irreplaceable. I am in favor of making them stop now, even by force.
The Afghan government claims to have arrested some of the Taliban who threw acid on girls on their way to school.
I hope it is true, but it seems suspiciously successful for a government so weak. I hope they did not arrest whoever they could get and torture them into confession.
Obama's message of "change" is making some undemocratic regimes tremble.
It would be ironic if that message were more show than substance in the US, and has real effects elsewhere.
When universities stand up to the RIAA, they can block the record companies' harassment suits.
Students should organize to demand that their universities not keep records that could make it possible to connect an IP address with anyone in particular.
The UK Labour Party once again dares to talk of taxing the rich, but its actual measures are not yet focused on helping the poor.
If people support Labour for this, they will also endorse its policy of total surveillance, imprisonment on suspicion, punishment for non-crimes, and so on.
Police in Australia have systematically infiltrated political opposition groups, inserting provocateurs to try to lead them into violence.
Iraq's defense minister is threatening "martial law" if the parliament does not accept keeping the Bush forces in Iraq.
One in October, a US congressman said that the Bushmen threatened him with martial law in the US if he did not vote for the bank bailout. In the US, that is a real threat. By contrast, if martial law were declared in Iraq, it would hardly be any different from the situation now.
Reports that Sarah Palin was not sure where Africa was were not a hoax, even though a hoaxter claimed to have made them up.
New Report: CIA Lied About Missionary Plane Shot Down Over Peru.
Obama is talking about eliminating daylight savings time to reduce energy use.
It might not be a big saving, but it could set an example.
When an Australian policeman killed aboriginal prisoner Mulrinji Doomadgee in jail, the police tried to deny responsibility. So the local people burned down the courthouse, police station, and the policemen's homes. These crimes were punished, but the killing was not.
Al Sadr's people held a large protest in Baghdad against the proposed Bush occupation treaty.
This treaty does at least make a step forward, in that it subjects Bush forces mercenaries to Iraqi law. I wonder what kind of justice female contractors that get raped by male contractors will get under Iraqi law.
Atrazine in fertilizer boosts the population of snails and parasitic worms they harbor, and the worms can wipe out frogs.
When plastic trash in the ocean breaks up into small bits, lots of marine organisms can eat them and get toxic chemicals from them.
The Bush forces generals say that withdrawing the Bush from Iraq is impossible because it would take too much time to pull out all the expensive equipment they have put in place.
Obama's appointments for foreign policy are Clinton's people, active supporters of sweatshop treaties.
Biden as a senator actively suppressed opposition to the invasion of Iraq. As VP he may not be in a position to do much harm. But Hillary Clinton as senator turned off her bullshit detector. As a cabinet secretary she can do a lot of harm.
If Janet Napolitano becoms Secretary of "Homeland Security", she might kill the REAL ID plan. Or she might give it federal funds and wipe out that part of the opposition which is based on costs rather than freedom.
A new "Al Qa'ida" tape tells Obama, in rather unfriendly terms, to make peace.
Somee of what was said in this tape is true. It may be too late for more troops in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban. And bowing to the Israeli Hawks Lobby is not conducive to rational hope of peace between Israel and Palestine. We don't need Al Qa'ida to tell us this, however, and neither does any US president.
So what could anyone from Al Qa'ida hope to gain my aiming warnings or threats at Obama? He's most unlikely to take their advice.
I wonder if this is meant to pressure Obama to follow Bush policies. Previous "Al Qa'ida" tapes appeared to be designed to boost Bush politically. Now that they can't boost Bush, they may seek to pressure Obama to follow Bush's policies. These policies were great for Al Qa'ida recruiting. If Obama were to do something sensible, millions of Muslims might stop being angry at the US, and where would that leave Al Qa'ida?
This tape will enable neocons to claim that wiser US policies would be "giving in to Al Qa'ida."
It's also possible that "Al Qa'ida" tapes are fakes made by neocons. Since the neocons and Al Qa'ida want the same US policies, either group might have chosen to make such a tape.
Even within the "music industry" some businessmen are calling for the end of the War on Sharing, and say that voluntary payments support musicians better.
President Uribe (Horrible) of Colombia has been forced to admit that soldiers have been killing innocent people to collect bounties on dead "terrorists". However, he has not placed charges against anyone.
(That article was published this month.)
A former UK Law Lord says that the UK and the US acted as "vigilantes" by invading Iraq.
One might wish he had not waited so long to say this.
The US-backed Ethiopian intervention in Somalia is responsible for the resurgence of piracy. The Union of Islamic Courts suppressed piracy, but the US-supported "Interim government" has no popular support and little power.
If phone company employes were not punished for checking who Obama called, can you trust them not to check (and tell) who you call?
A US judge ordered the release of several Guantanamo prisoners on grounds of habias corpus: the government failed to show any grounds to charge them with anything.
If someone forwards you the viral email claiming celebrities that condemn Bush are anti-American cowards, here's a good response.
TSA "behavior detection" selects innocent people more than 99 percent of the time, and psychologists say it is has no psychological basis.
The #1 story on Project Censored's list is that the Bush invasion of Iraq killed over a million Iraqis.
The UK plans to prosecute clients of prostitutes for rape if the prostitute is not working voluntarily, but has no intention to help them find out whether a prostitute is working voluntarily.
This law follows a common pattern of legal dishonesty: taking a term which we apply to a heinous act, and arbitrarily declaring that it applies to something else entirely. How many prostitutes did client X rape, if you call being a prostitute's client "rape"? None, because calling it a rape doesn't make it one. This law would be a lie, and the minister who proposed it is a liar.
The law is also designed to ensure that no prospective client of a prostitute can tell whether he would be committing a "rape" or not. Laws which do not allow a person to tell what is or is not a crime are no better than the caprices of an autocrat. The legislators that vote for them, and the prosecutors that try to enforce them, are the one who ought to be imprisoned.
It's obvious that aim of this law is to terrify all men that deal with any prostitutes. But rather than stating the intention to do so, it pretends to be doing something else. That too is dishonest.
If the UK government wants to prosecute dealing with trafficked prostitutes in a way that is just, it must give men a way to tell who is not trafficked. Perhaps voluntary prostitutes could get identification that the clients could ask to see, so they can reliably avoid committing the crime.
Rumor has it that Obama will support the Saudi plan for peace between Israel and all Arabs.
On the other hand, his appointment of Rahm Emmanual as chief of staff suggested that Obama is going to bow to the powerful Israeli Hawks' Lobby.
I hope the former will be true and the latter false.
In a man-bites-dog case, the British Bush forces arrested some Iraqi soldiers for murdering British soldiers who were their prisoners. Now the question is whether the Iraqi government would give them a fair trial, or torture them and kill them.
The UK is auctioning off some permissions to keep emitting CO2, rather than just giving away permissions. Making those companies pay is a good thing, but the money should be used to fund energy savings.
The job to be done to end global warming is so big that a few good steps are not enough.
Many food companies are shrinking containers or wasting space in them, to disguise price increases.
The European Union has addressed this problem with a system of standard product weights. I don't know how well the solution works.
Israel is increasing its attacks against Palestinians, arresting 30 people in the West Bank
and arresting fishermen from Gaza so close on shore that they can't catch much fish.
Israel arrested several Palestinian children who got in the way of plans to demolish almost 100 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem to build gardens.
Israel has also ordered the eviction of settler squatters in a house in Hebron. But the settler movement is threatening to fight back a lot more than those Palestinian kids do.
Many local governments in the UK use anti-terror laws to watch people putting rubbish out on the wrong day.
Prof. Nesson will challenge the constitutionality of the record companies' lawsuits against people who share music.
Cory Doctorow: Why I Copyfight.
The Iraqi cabinet agreed to Bush's plan for keeping the Bush forces in Iraq for another few years, and without clearly solving dangers such as immunity and attacking other countries.
Bombings in Baghdad are increasing, and many Iraqis think the Bush forces are responsible.
Freedom of communication on the net is threatened in many ways at once.
None of the policemen who attacked sleeping protestors in Genoa has ever been identified. And none of the top policement who ordered the attack will be punished.
Berlusconi adopted this 5-year law so he could escape prosecution for corruption.
Although California voted to prohibit same-sex marriage, Connecticut voters rejected a similar measure, and same-sex marriage has now begun there.
US citizens: sign the pledge to overturn California's proposition 8 and reinstate same-sex marriage.
Although this applies specifically to California, they have asked non-Californians to sign too.
The Bush regime is going beyond the authorized bailout, making illegal handouts to business. Is Obama serious about changing course or will he let the stock market dictate one more plunder of the treasury?
US citizens: phone your senators and say they should not let Lieberman continue as the chair of the Committee on "Homeland Security". Lieberman persistently supports the war in Iraq and has bent over backwards to leave us unprotected from abuses of government spy power.
It's a mistake to put issues of civil liberties in charge of a committee whose remit is described in terms of "security."
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641, and 888-355-3588
A court ruled against a Bush plan to illegally hide government e-mails from the national archives.
A paper mill that has polluted Lake Baikal with mutagenic dioxin has closed after decades of pressure from environmentalists.
A spoof edition of the New York Times announced peace in Iraq and the correction of many other social problems.
The Yes Men have done other wonderful pranks.
Israel has blocked food delivery into Gaza. The cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza lasted 5 months until Israel broke it. The threat of starvation is Israel's retaliation for the Palestinian retaliation.
The idea that Palestinians could use a tunnel to capture Israeli soldiers seems rather far fetched, especially if Israeli soldiers know where the tunnel is located and stay away from it.
A tunnel might serve such captors to hide in or flee through, but there are lots of other places to do those things. For the actual capture they would surely use arms. To break the cease fire because of a tunnel is as absurd as breaking it because some Palestinians have arms.
But even during the cease fire Israel did not end the siege, which kills helpless civilians in Gaza by denying them medical care.
I wonder if the real reason why Israel broke the cease fire was to distract attention from an increasing focus on Israel's taking of Palestinian land. The UK is taking a strict stand against passing off exports from Israeli settlements as coming from Israel.
The annexation wall is supposedly meant to protect Israelis from Palestinians, but when it protects Palestinians from violent Israeli settlers, they knock it down.
It's a step forward that the Israeli government has started to take down the "illegal outposts" instead of build them up. But all the settlements are really illegal. For the sake of peace, they have to be eliminated.
Diyala province in Iraq is the scene for many female suicide bombers.
Attacking pro-US soldiers is legitimate for a resistance movement, but these tactics are despicable. The guilt for this falls both on the fanatics that organize the suicide bombings and on the fanatics that organized the conquest of Iraq, since the earlier crime paved the way for the later one.
The Bush bank bailout is a feeding trough just like the "reconstruction" of Iraq.
Police in London are censoring music performances and make false/confusing statements when asked about it.
Previously Nkunda's troops were murdering civilians for no reason. Now Congo government troops are accused of raping civilians.
The UK and Russia have taken effective measures against piracy.
The election of an African-American as president may help the US move towards racial equality, but it has a long way to go.
Israel confiscated the al Kurd family's home in East Jerusalem because it was owned by Jews before 1948. However, Israel will not let the family reclaim the house that it owned in West Jerusalem before 1948.
The occupation of Palestine by Israel is "the bone in America's throat". As long as it is stuck there, the US will continue provoking conflict and putting its citizens and others in danger.
Urgent Note - U.S. citizens: phone your congresscriter to support Henry Waxman for chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The other choice, Dingell, is in the pocket of the energy companies and his wife is an executive at GM.
The Capitol Switchedboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-8181-6641, and 888-355-3588
37% of Americans still believe Bush's discredited lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Bush continued to spread this lie throughout his term of office.
Why is there more interest in preventing heart attacks through expensive drugs than through efficient programs to reduce tobacco use?
These two methods apply to different groups of people, so non-smokers may need these drugs. Notwithstanding that, the comparison is still pertinent.
Australian internet censorship plans are running into powerful opposition from citizenry that know perfectly well what the internet does (and what it doesn't do).
Hannah Jones went to court to stop a hospital from taking her by force for a heart translpant.
I feel so sorry for her. I suppose she would want a treatment fo