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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Police in the Minneapolis area are breaking into houses without warrants, and arresting potential protestors, their lawyers, and journalists. They hardly bother to try to make it seem lawful.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Here's testimony from one witness. The police sealed the building after raiding it. They claimed to have a warrant, but refused to show it, which suggests they were lying.
The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, warned that the US had gone nearly all the way towards a police state, and that the full-blown tyranny only becomes unmistakably visible at the last stage. That last stage may be now.
It might not be too late to defeat this monster, if the mass media were to make a scandal. Obama could make this happen if he decides to try. But I expect that they won't. The mass media are certainly part of the monster, and Obama probably is too.
Neo-Nazis and white surpremacists are joining the US Army, which understandably has had trouble meeting recruitment quotas in recent years. Investigations against them get mysteriously cancelled.
Once trained in how to carry out overt state-sponsored terrorism, they may subsequently use their training for covert state-sponsored terrorism — or non-state-sponsored terrorism.
A militia of crazed Christian theocrats might welcome them too.
Three years later, New Orleans remains devastated, its population halved.
Rebuilding New Orleans in the same place would be foolish — inviting a repeat disaster. But Bush has been equally unhelpful to rebuilding in a new site.
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network is campaigning for Brazil
to withdraw its troops from the US-organized occupation of Haiti.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Was Facebook built by the CIA? Links of personnel suggest that it was.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
We don't need proof of any specific conspiracy to recognize that peer pressure can lead kids into many sorts of foolish behavior.
It's a mistake to post anything on Facebook unless you want to publish it.
Putin accused Bush and Cheney of having Georgia start a war to manipulate the US election.
I would not put it past them. Saakashvili surely supplied the main enthusiasm for the attack, but it is an interesting question whether he needed to get permission from the US before he could launch it.
Mexico City's policy of offering abortion services at no charge has won a court challenge.
Bush forces soldiers confessed
to murdering handcuffed prisoners. No charges have been filed
against them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Philip Morris knew that cigarette smoke contains radioactive polonium 210, but decided not to tell the public.
It is common for the effect of a radioactive or poisonous substance to depend on how it is ingested. For instance, a given dose of polonium 210 might be much more dangerous when breathed in than when swallowed, or vice versa. The article does not say, but I doubt it causes lung cancer when swallowed. If someone sends me the answer I will post it here.
More proof that Bush corrupted the CIA: its Oct 2002 "intelligence briefing summary" for Congress about Iraq was drafted months before the analysis it supposedly reported on.
Israel let humantarian relief ships dock in Gaza, avoiding confrontation for the moment. The ships brought children's hearing aids as well as food.
Israel can avoid this confrontation forever, if it lets relief ships continue sailing in and out of Gaza. But that seems unlikely.
The Bush regime wants to withhold crucial evidence from Binyam Mohamed's defense on the grounds that it would harm the "US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship".
Exposing these crimes might very well interfere with future collaboration on torture. That, of course, is why they should be published — not merely provided in secret to the defense lawyers.
What the Bush regime says is, in effect, "Don't let anyone know about our crimes, because we deserve not to suffer the consequences of them!" Any other criminal saying this would meet with derision. If the US is to claim to have rule of law, courts must give the Bushmen the same derision.
But that is not likely, given that this is a "military tribunal" which does not meet the usual criteria for a fair trial.
Articles in newspapers that appear to talk about a topic may have been written to promote a product or company.
The National Cancer Institute presents evidence that cigarette ads and smoking in movies are important factors in encouraging children to start smoking.
Perhaps movies should be rated "parental discretion advised" if they depict smoking.
US agents picked up hundreds of immigrants, even legal ones, to deport because of minor crimes. They say this roundup is aimed at gang members, but that appears to be a lie.
The Afghan government demanded that the US stop bombing civilian homes. The US response is to deny that this demand was made, just as it denies killing civilians.
Israeli concientious objectors are going to prison
rather than serve in the army of occupation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli settlers try to drive the Abu Kabaita family off its land by
killing or
stealing their sheep. The Israeli police support this campaign of
harassment by refusing to accept complaints from the family.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
In Hebron, Israeli settlers attack Arabs
and their homes, and also attack the international monitors who
were placed there to discourage such attacks.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Thousands of children died in the Sichuan earthquake because their schools were not properly built. China has used lies, travel bans, and arrests to prevent them from being seen.
It makes me think of the way the Bush regime treats the 9/11 relatives who want a real investigation of what happened on that day. In the US and in China, the political system is rotten through and through.
The TSA is on guard against the Bra Bomber.
AT&T has effectively
bought the Democratic Party by becoming the main "sponsor" of the
convention.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
I think it is unconscionable for a political party to accept such sponsorship.
US citizens: phone our congesscritter and senators to oppose Bush's plan to negate the Endangered Species Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
AT&T has effectively bought the Democratic Party by becoming the main
"sponsor" of the convention.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
I think it is unconscionable for a political party to accept such sponsorship.
Mexicans are injecting themselves with RFIDs in a futile attempt to prevent kidnaping.
This is laughable, but the danger of it is real. If a practice becomes widespread even for stupid reasons, that makes it easier for society to make everyone do it.
Birds are shifting north under pressure from global warming, but
not as fast as temperatures are shifting north.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Earth can flip very fast from one climate regime to another.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Senator Biden proposed a solution to the Iraq problem somewhat like mine.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
In today's Iraq, the three ethnic/religious groups no longer live together; the reason the violence has mosty ended is that each ethnically cleansed certain territory. This resembles to a certain extent the solution that I and later Biden proposed.
But my proposal included another element: to give each group a friendly supporting army committed to reinforcing it in defense but not helping it attack others. Currently the Shi'ites have the "Iraqi" army, and the Sunnis have none. Thus they are afraid of a third stage of the war in which they will be crushed.
Bush and Maliki are still unable to reach an agreement to keep the Bush forces in Iraq past the end of this year. Maliki wants a deadline and won't give them total immunity from prosecution.
If Iraqi democracy succeeds in checking Bush, that will mean it is real to some extent after all.
The Secret
Deal For Iraq's Oil.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Here are EPIC's comments on TSA's "Secure Flight" program, which aims to make airlines report all air travel to a central site which will check the list of a million terrorist suspects, rather than checking it themselves.
Bruce Schneier points out that the system will be error-prone and ineffective, as well as nasty and unjust.
Even though identifying all travellers has limited value for preventing non-state-sponsored terrorism, it is really handy for general control of the populace and suppression of dissent.
The Bush forces bought the support of many Sunni resistance groups. Now the Shi'ite Iraqi government wants to arrest them.
Now that these two religious groups have come to hate and kill each other, they will either have separate governments or one will conquer and repress the other. In the past, the Sunnis under Saddam Hussein repressed the Shi'ites, but did not need to kill tremendous numbers of Shi'ites to do this. It won't be so easy now, I think.
How Lucy Fairbrother planned and organized her protest in China.
There is still no certain word on whether her blog was maliciously altered.
The accusation that the text was altered may be mistaken.
Has Ms Fairbrother been released? Has she made any statement?
The Afghan government says that a US bombing killed 76 civilians. The US denies this occurred.
Bush wants to eliminate many limits on FBI investigations, so the FBI could investigate people without evidence of crime.
Diebold admitted its
software was to blame for lost votes.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
The work-arounds might avoid accidental loss, but the only reliable way to avoid intentional loss of votes is to count them on paper.
The NIST proposed a bizarre theory to explain the collapse of building 7 in the World Trade Center, after unjustifiably dismissing the straightforward theory that explosives were used.
Binyam Mohamed is in Guantanamo and facing possible execution based on evidence obtained by torture. In the UK, a court has exposed UK participation in this torture.
The nominally Communist government of West Bengal forced thousands of peasants to give up their land for a capitalist car factory, but the dispossessed farmers have not given up protesting.
McCain owns so many houses he couldn't remember how many.
Aging makes it harder to recall facts like these. Perhaps 10 years ago he would have come up with the number right away.
Israel announces it will not
allow food boats to reach Gaza.
This means it will instead lead to an international confrontation that
will highlight the cruelty of the siege.
Russian troops withdrew from the town of Gori, which could be the
start of the promised withdrawal back to South Ossetia, but it
is not going fast.
Disney bought a US law to extend the copyright on the drawing of
Mickey Mouse, but it may have lost
that copyright in 1929 through an error.
While that would be the beginning of fitting punishment for Disney, it
would not undo the harm done by copyright extension.
Iran blocked
actress Golshifteh Farahani from travelling outside Iran.
To stop people from leaving a country is inexcusable injustice. The
Soviet Union and its puppet governments used to do this; today Israel
does this in Gaza, and Iran has put itself in the same category.
Was Georgia's foolish provocation of with Russia encouraged by US
perception that it has a nuclear
first strike capability against Russia?
The Russian government is more overtly tyrannical than the Bush
regime, but less powerful and not so broadly aggressive. Thus,
overall the Bush regime is a bigger threat to freedom around the
world.
Both the US and Russia need regime change, but neither one is likely
to get it. In the mean time, there is no reason to wish for either
one to gain over the other.
McCain's top foreign policy advisor was, until recently, a
lobbyist for the government of Georgia. And previously lobbied
other governments to support the conquest of Iraq.
The Clown regime has misplaced/leaked
the personal information of up to four million citizens in one
year alone.
Perhaps the reason the UK leaks so much personal data is that it
collects such data more aggressively.
US citizens: Bush has possibly withdrawn his attempt to define birth
control as "abortion", or perhaps just disguised it. Sign this
petition to make sure it really gets withdrawn.
30 years after Franco's death, the tens of thousands of Spaniards that
his supporters murdered are being
exhumed and identified.
The Popular Party opposes this because it is the party of Franco's
supporters.
The deputy director of Arlington National Cemetary is accused of
talking families out of press coverage of their relatives' burial,
then claiming
it was their wishes all along.
Israelis have petitioned for more serious charges against the colonel
who effectively ordered a
soldier to shoot a handcuffed palestinian.
Israel's tight siege of Gaza continues to keep the
inhabitants in poverty.
Israel continues killing Gazans by stopping them from travelling
for medical treatment.
For Hedy Epstein, whose parents were killed by the Nazis, bringing food
to Gaza by ship is carrying out the principles of Judaism.
Bush's October surprise -- a
blockade of Iran?
In the US, freedom of speech includes
general advocacy of illegal actions, as well as publishing
information that someone might use to do something illegal.
In accord with this principle, the gag order against the MIT students
has been lifted.
The UK, however, unabashedly imprisons
people for general opinions that might lead someone to commit a
crime at an indefinite future time.
Airline pilot James Robinson has
trouble getting to his flights because he's on the terrorist watch
list.
Another pilot has sued for being listed, since it cut
him off from his livelihood.
A TSA inspector got a clever
idea for "inspecting" planes. Nine planes he damaged were
grounded for repairs.
Russia's borders are full
of potential flash points comparable to South Ossetia.
Russian troops burned,
killed and kidnapped in Georgia.
The Bush forces take Iraqis prisoner, torture
them, and keep them for years without charges.
Artist James Powderly was arrested
in Beijing before he could present a new art work which is also a
protest for Tibet.
When the DEA destroys medical marijuana dispensaries, it takes
the houses and the children of the people who run them.
Civil forfeiture, the practice of seizing the property of people
accused of selling or even buying drugs, is a system of punishment
without trial. It causes multiple injustices.
Russia is starting to withdraw a few troops from Georgia,
and international truce monitors are coming in.
US citizens: support the Employee
Free Choice Act.
Ohio is suing Diebold for making
voting machines that lost votes.
For US immigration agents at JFK airport, bullying is
standard practice. They detain people for hours, forbidding them
to urinate, and proudly say they will hold people longer as an act of
repression.
Microsoft consummated
its corruption of the International Standards Organization, which
dismissed an appeal by several countries against the approval of
OOXML.
However, I think the EU's criminal investigation of this corruption is
still live. (Is it?)
Russia defeated Georgia's attempt to conquer territory with an
unwilling population of Ossetians. Now it appears Russia
is trying to conquer territory with an unwilling population of
Georgians.
The US would be in a better position to oppose this if it had not
conquered an unwilling population of Iraqis.
South Ossetia is holding
Georgian civilians hostage for the return of supposedly kidnaped
Ossetians.
Since Georgia denies holding those Ossetians, they cannot be being
held as hostages. But are they prisoners of Georgia? If not, what
happened to them (if they were real people)?
Musharraf resigned
to avoid impeachment.
No one can predict what will happen to Pakistan in the future; every
political event there creates imponderable good and bad possibilities.
However, in ethical terms, his attempt to sack the independent
judiciary was an attack on democracy; if this means that the court's
legimate judges will return, it is a victory for democracy.
Although Georgia started the war and lost it, it is now winning
the PR battle to present itself as right.
But I don't think we can credit this solely to a PR agency.
Saakashvili is more or less a poodle of Bush, so he gets the US
government's PR assistance, and that probably includes secret inside
media help as well.
Burma's military rulers imprisoned
protestors after a Bush-style fake trial.
Using the names "Myanmar" for Burma and "Yangon" for Rangoon grant
legitimacy to the military government; Aung San Suu Kyi asks people
not to use those names.
Uri Avnery: for peace between Israel and Palestine, the peoples
must read each others' poets.
The FARC has suffered reverses, but the government-sheltered
paramilitaries in Colombia are still a big threat.
Hiu Ng was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security due to
its own confusion, then denied the chance to see a doctor to diagnose
what turned out to be cancer. When he became unable to walk, guards
dragged him on the ground. When he could not stand on line to receive
painkillers, he was denied them. He was forbidden to see his
US-citizen wife and children until a couple of days before he died.
Even if the plan to deport him had not been a mistake, it could not
justify this callous cruelty. And the government officials whose job
is to parrot claims that this sort of thing never happens are just as
guilty for covering this up as the people who did it.
Fully half of the Bush forces are "civilian" contractors, making official
"troop" figures meaningless.
British protestors for Tibetan independence climbed
a building in Beijing to drop a banner. The were arrested, of
course.
A UN human rights report criticized the UK government for disrespecting
freedom of speech in several ways.
What a shame that the UK falls into the same category as China.
In a rare act of thoughtfulnes, the TSA has decided not
to add to its "terrorist suspect" list everyone that forgets to
bring ID.
John Gilmore was once kicked off a plane for
wearing a sticker saying "terrorist suspect". The morons on the
flight crew thought that meant he was dangerous, but it only referred
to the fact that everyone who flies in a plane is treated by the TSA
as a terrorist suspect.
Polls about coastal oil drilling manipulate
the answers through their choice of how to ask the question.
The UK government plans to record all
phone calls, all emails, and all web browsing.
This is to "fight crime", but crime is a minor danger compared with that
of an all-powerful all-seeing state. When the government declares suspicion
grounds to imprison someone, everyone has a valid reason to conceal his
activities from the state.
Pakistan's president Musharraf faces
imminent impeachment. Of course Bush begs them not to do so.
The Russian army continues
moving through Georgia, unimpeded by the completely smashed
Georgian army, and is accused of massive atrocities against civilians.
However, those claims are unconfirmed and could be exaggerated. Human
Rights Watch says that Russia is exaggerating
the casualty figures for Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, and is
concealing real data.
The critics of Russia point out that Georgia's attempt to reestablish
control over South Ossetia was quite analogous to Russia's two
reconquests of Chechnya. That is right: Russia's positions conflict
hypocritically.
Russia responds to this by pointing out that the US defense of
Georgia's "territorial integrity" conficts hypocritically with its
removal of Kosovo from Serbian control. That is right too, but
criticism of the US doesn't invalidate the criticism of Russia. Both
the US government and the Russian government are hypocrites, and
neither one can make itself honest just by criticizing the other.
So what about the substance of the issue? Since the South Ossetians
mostly would rather be part of Russia, I see no reason to force them
to be part of Georgia.
Bush contractors, often cronies, have
made 85 billion dollars from the conquest and occupation of Iraq.
Movie companies are not interested in making a movie about
Toussaint-Louverture, who led the Haitian revolution against slavery,
because it has "no
white heroes".
US citizens: sign
this petition denouncing Bush's plan to call contraception
abortion.
If you want to trick someone with a photograph... you don't need a
computer. All you need to do is change the caption.
Supporters of Tibet, and their web sites, are
the targets of persistent malware attacks.
The Iraqi government is making an oil deal with China. Perhaps it will
really turn out to be Iraqi rather than Bushi.
Talks in Zimbabwe broke down because
Mugabe insisted on keeping the real power.
Foreign journalists visited South Ossetia and reported on
the destruction caused by the Georgian attack, which included shelling the
capital's main hospital.
Sherri Davidoff reports on flying in the US without her wallet, concluding
that the TSA's attempts to identify people have nothing to do with protecting
passengers and are solely about control.
The truce in Gaza is working fine
for Israel.
It is not working very well for the inhabitants of Gaza, who remain
under siege. Sick people who want to leave for medical treatment are
forced to
become informers.
Activists from many countries plan to bring food and
supplies to Gaza by boat.
If the Israeli navy blocks them, it will highlight the siege.
US citizens: phone your congresscritters in support of HR 1258
(impeachment of Bush) and HR 33 (impeachment of Cheney).
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
Also sign Kucinich's petition.
Bush is trying again to render
the Endangered Species Act meaningless by allowing any federal
agency to ignore it.
Imprisonment without trial is standard Israeli practice for
Palestinians — even for
journalists.
The Palestinian Authority refused an Israeli peace proposal that would
involve giving Israel
all the land behind the annexation wall and getting desert in
return.
Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia has turned into a major victory
for Russia, perhaps giving it permanent
control over Georgia.
Bush, dishonest as always, accuses Russia of planning
this invasion for a long time.
That may be so, but it was Georgia that started this war.
Russian dominion over Georgia would be a bad thing. It may be worse
than the partial US domination that has existed for several years,
because Russia may have more complete control.
The operators of remote-control bomber drones see the Iraqis they
killed, and even though they mentally label all their victims as "bad
guys", it causes
them remorse.
Was Georgia's attack against Russia a diversion
for attacking Iran?
I have never before seen these claims about Iranian biological
weapons, and this article isn't enough to convince me of them. But
the claims about maneuvers and ship movements should be easy to check,
so I expect they are true.
After Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian child and a teenage
bystander during nonviolent protests in Ni'ilin, Israelis protested the
commander of the regiment, who has the responsibility to make sure his troops
do not commit atrocities. 23
protestors were arrested and badly beaten.
Tens of thousands of poor
Iraqi squatters face eviction.
The UK's Climate Camp goes on despite police
confiscation of everything from soap to buses.
When a government displays this propensity towards dirty tricks,
it is clear that surveillance done by that government is a threat
to the human rights of its citizens.
The protestors say they may
make a permanent protest camp.
A glossary
of Iraq Euphemisms.
Some
Chinese activists have disappeared
recently.
Italy's major ISPs have blocked
access to the Pirate Bay, a major bittorrent site.
While I appreciate the sassy attitude of calling this activity
"Pirate", it is better
to reject and denounce the practice of using that smear term to
refer to sharing.
China presented a computer
simulation of Olympic fireworks as the real thing.
If filming from a helicopter was dangerous, it was right and proper
not to do it. There would be nothing wrong with broadcasting a
computer simulation instead, if it were labeled as such. The wrong
committed here was that of lying, and lying is characteristic of the
Chinese government.
After Georgian troops in South Ossetia were totally defeated by
Russian forces, Georgia says it withdrew them as a "humanitarian"
gesture. Will anyone believe that? But Russia rejected the
opportunity to declare victory, and is attacking
Georgia elsewhere.
This seems to be part
of a game of rivalry between Russia and the US.
Russia seems to have won this move, but the important point is that
neither Russia nor the US deserves anyone's support. Neither
government respects human rights. Both of them rig elections. Both
deserve defeat in their ambitions.
Chavez' government has banned
hundreds of opposition candidates from running for office.
Arbitrarily excluding people from running for office is no better in
Venezuela than in Iran. If there is evidence to accuse these
candidates of corruption, they should be given fair trials and thus a
chance to clear their names.
US citizens: support
the ACLU's campaign to end the nasty practices of the "Department
of Homeland Security".
Notice the similarity between "Department of Homeland Security" and
"Committee for Public Safety"? The latter, headed by Robespierre,
carried out "the terror".
CIA agent Rob Richer told Ron Susskind that he (Richer) circulated
a faked letter connecting Saddam Hussein with Al Qa'ida. After
Susskind's book appeared, Richer first said it was true, then denied
it. So Susskind published the text of Richer's interview where he
admitted this. The original text of the letter arrived on White House
letterhead.
Obaidullah Rahimi faces
deportation to Afghanistan although he does not even speak the
language.
It is absurd to punish anyone for having sex with someone of age 15
— it is normal for Americans of age 15 to have sex. But even if
he had committed a real crime, such as robbery, for which punishment
is appropriate, deporting someone who arrived in the US so young is
absurd.
Here's what happens when people are deported to countries which
they hardly know.
The evil aspect of the EU is revealed by
a plan to merge surveillance with the US.
This is supposedly to serve the goals as "freedom, security and justice", but
it can hardly respect freedom and justice if the US is involved.
The Bush forces keep
prisoners in wooden boxes in the heat of Iraqi summer.
More information about the war in Georgia
reveals duplicity on both sides.
It seems clear that Russia gave Russian citizenship to most South Ossetians as
a prelude to annexation. Citing that now as an excuse for intervention is
bogus.
It seems virtually certain that Georgia started the war. The attack it made
takes preparation, and the preparations must have started several days before
the start of the Olympics, timed for an attack on that day. If Georgia had
responded to a surprise attack by the South Ossetians on that day, it might
have counterattacked, but the counterattack would not have been so big.
I wonder whether Georgia asked Bush's permission before attacking. A
government so dependent on the US that it would send troops to the Bush forces
is compelled also to obey.
Bailouts for failing US banks, which reward the abuses permitted by past
deregulation,
create worse distortions for the future. Proposed "reforms" could make
things even worse.
Russia and Georgia are at
war over South Ossetia.
South Ossetian is obviously acting as a pawn of Russia, and I think it
likely that Georgia is acting as a pawn of the US, but I don't
understand the situation enough to have any further opinions about it.
The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sees
nothing wrong in letting banks write statements for him to sign. But
he takes great offense when
those statements criticize Wal-Mart.
His various purchasers failed to keep track of what parts of him they
had bought.
Bush is negotiating an agreement to remove all
troops from Iraq. It will take several years, but not a century.
The Israeli officer who ordered a soldier to shoot a handcuffed
prisoner will
get off with a slap on the wrist.
The leader of Malaysia's opposition party faces
possible imprisonment for "sodomy".
Whether Anwar is "guilty" is unimportant; what matters is that
Malaysia is guilty of having an unjust law against homosexuality, and
its government is guilty of trying to sabotage the opposition.
Malaysia also denies religious freedom. People of Malay ancestry are
legally required to be Muslims.
US citizens: support the campaign for digital publication of Senate campaign contribution reports.
Salim Hamdan was
convicted in a phony trial for the crime of being
Osama bin Laden's driver — under an ex-post-facto law,
which is explicitly unconstitutional. We cannot tell whether some
of the "evidence" was obtained by torture.
Here is what
makes there trials totally unjust.
The Bush regime is no better than Osama bin Laden.
An arrested pro-Tibet protestor's web site has had pro-Chinese
propaganda mysteriously added.
The Chinese spokesman pompously hopes people will "obey the laws of
China", but why should anyone do that? The tyrannical laws of China
deserve obedience just as much as the tyrannical laws of the US
— which is to say, not at all.
Can humanity adapt
to a temperature rise of 4 degrees C?
US citizens: call your senators to tell them to end government subsidy
for the oil companies (and tax them instead). You can also sign
this petition.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
The Bush regime is accused of faking a letter purporting
to establish a link between Saddam and al-Qaida.
Pro-Tibet protestors were
arrested in Beijing for displaying banners.
Barack Obama's political
background.
Obama, like McCain, gets lots of big campaign contributions.
They reflect the fact he will not challenge the dominion of big business
and the organization of society primarily for the rich.
MoveOn is not a
movement for progressive change.
The Beijing Olympic games take commercialization to
a new height.
Activists are about to sail boats to Gaza to break the siege, daring
Israel to stop them. One activist explains
why.
Scott Ritter: The US
is funding and supporting the Mujahadeen-e Khalk in a campaign of
sabotage and terrorism in Iran.
It is a strange reversal for an organization that once patriotically
fought the US-imposed Shah to work with the regimes of Saddam Hussein
and Bush that are clearly enemies of their country. It could be the
result of carrying a grudge too far, or it could be simple corruption.
The governor of Texas is in a
hurry to execute a Mexican before his violated right to consult
Mexican consular officials can be protected.
US citizens: call your representatives and ask them to cosponsor
these two bills:
The Medical
Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2008 (H.R. 5842) would give
states greater authority to determine their own medical marijuana
policies.
The Personal
Use of Marijuana By Responsible Adults Act of 2008 (H.R. 5843)
would remove federal penalties for possessing up to 3.5 ounces of
marijuana.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
The Bush forces reduced violence in Iraq by informally supporting tame
Sunni as well as Shi'ite militias. However, the Shi'ite militias are
called the "army" and "police", while the Sunni militias are not. And
the Shi'ite
militias are prepared to use that to reignite the massacres.
What Bush did is partially similar to what I called for two years ago,
but not entirely similar. My plan was to give both Shi'ites and
Sunnis non-Bush foreign military support to defend themselves. With
Bush's way, the Shi'ites have foreign military support and the Sunnis
do not.
McCain wants literal
armies of occupation in the US.
How appropriate this would be in a state that acts, in effect, as a government
of occupation by the empire of the megacorporations.
Meanwhile,
Obama made a rather enigmatic vague statement that points in a similar
direction.
I cannot tell whether it was a real proposal for something new, or a too-witty
reference to something prosaic.
Iraq refugees in Jordan need not fear being shot, but they can barely survive
since
they are forbidden to work.
The WTO and China are campaigning against state laws designed to protect
the public from dangerous products.
Over 1% of US adults are in prison, so
the prison business is booming.
The University of Nottingham has given servile support to arresting
students in the "international security and terrorism" course for downloading
an Al Qa'ida manual from a US government web site.
Note how the police cite the "university authorities" as having decided that
Sabir is not allowed to study these materials, while these supposed
"authorities" duck their responsibility to defend academic freedom by saying
nothing and only citing the police.
Evidently the "university authorities'" decision has nothing to do with truth,
justice, or academic freedom, and merely represents obedience to the Sheriff
of Nottingham. This law, which prohibits possession of documents that "might
be useful" for terrorism, is nothing but a veiled way of imprisoning people on
suspicion.
The UK government is a bigger threat to Britons' lives than any
non-state-sponsored terrorist group, and what's worse, it attacks their
freedom as well.
The Clown regime wants to fingerprint everyone boarding a plane in the UK.
Supposedly for security, of course, but maybe the real motive is commercial.
So don't board a plane in the UK. Take the train to Paris or Brussels.
The Bush regime has secretly held Aafia Siddiqui prisoner for five years
in Afghanistan, lying about her all the while. She was a student in the US
and disappeared while visiting Pakisan.
But the regime still won't say what happened to her children, who disappeared
with her.
Israel has agreed to shift the annexation wall back in some areas so as to
restore some of the confiscated Palestinian land.
"Security" is the standard excuse for a broad range of crimes.
As Mohammed Omer returned to Gaza after receiving an international
prize for journalism, Israeli border guards wanted to steal the prize
money. But he didn't have it on him, so they tortured
him instead.
Ex-prosecutor Bugliosi says that any
D.A. could prosecute Bush for murder.
False information about anthrax samples, promulgated by the same lab
where the anthrax came from, was used
to put the blame on Saddam Hussein.
The anthrax attacks of 2001 have reputedly been traced
to a US government researcher, who reputedly killed himself.
I have no way of judging whether to believe either claim, but what is
most interesting is that the anthrax letters were very effective at
convincing Congress to pass the U SAP AT RIOT act which attacked human
rights in the US. If Ivins carried out the attacks, we will probably
never know whether someone such as Cheney planned them.
The designer of Beijing's olympic stadium has condemned the Chinese
government for making
the Olympic Games an excuse for worse tyranny.
Protestors against coal power in the UK defy
police threats to imprison them for nonviolent protests.
Binyam Mohamed's lawyers say the UK
government knew that Bush was having him tortured, and lied about
it.
Bush's latest Attorney General asked Congress to formally give Bush
the power to
imprison anyone without trial.
It's just a tiny step beyond what Congress has already given him.
Here are some congressional elections that can affect abortion
rights.
Now if only they let everyone vote and count the votes accurately...
The pentagon's audit agency has actively covered up bad
news about cost and performance of weapons.
Bush regime torture practices follow those used by China against UN
troops captured in the Korean war. Over 100
prisoners have died in US custody, many of them killed by their
captors.
The war in Afghanistan involves ever more bombing, killing ever
more civilians.
I supported the war against the Taliban in 2001. After the quick
victory, I thought there was a chance to make Afghanistan a much
better and fairly peaceful place. Was that a delusion, or was it
ruined by Bush's invasion of the country he had always wanted to
invade?
After a teen fell off a bridge and broke his back, cops shot him 19 times
with a tazer. The effects on his blood forced doctors to delay
the surgery he needed.
The police are obviously lying. The reason their lie is so lame is
that it's hard even to fabricate a good excuse for attacking a person
lying motionless on the ground with a broken back.
China has imprisoned people for talking
about the structural flaws of schools that collapsed in the
earthquake. And the International Olympic Committee made a deal
agreeing to censorship of foreign reporters' internet access.
The IOC strikes me as disgustingly hypocritical, pretending that it
will uplift humanity through an event which is really just
entertainment, and then making the event go by conniving at
suppression of human rights.
Sami el Haj, an Al Jazeera journalist held captive in Guantanamo for
six years, now campaigns for the release of other prisoners and the
end of torture. Here he describes
how he and others were tortured in Guantanamo.
EPA tells its staff: don't answer to the EPA's inspector general
(or to Congress).
US citizens: call your senators to oppose S.3212, which pretends
to address the danger of computerized voting machines but actually
protects them.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
More information, plus a petition
you can sign.
The Bush forces banned US
journalist Zoriah Miller for publishing bad news.
Being embedded in a military unit tends to bias a
journalist, who comes to think of the troops as his buddies.
This article argues that it is unfeasible for journalists to work if
not "embedded" in a Bush forces unit. Maybe it is true for most of
them, but some, such as Dahr
Jamail do this.
A RAND report says that the "war
on terror" is self-defeating.
Not to mention that it is the excuse to hurt Americans much worse that
Al Qa'ida might have done.
In the latest Ni'ilin protest, Israeli
troops killed a 10-year-old boy by shooting him in the head.
The CIA openly accused its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI,
of supporting the Taliban.
I've always heard that the ISI set up the Taliban, and Al
Qa'ida too. The fact that the CIA talks about this in public suggests
that things are pretty strained between Bush and Pakistan.
The "Justice" Department illegally
applied political criteria for hiring.
Bush's new method to oppose birth control is to redefine it as
"abortion".
He has already redefined "torture", so why not "abortion"?
What will he redefine next?
Richard Perle, one of the not-yet-cons who planned to conquer Iraq, is
trying to cash
in on Iraqi oil.
McCain got big money from oil company executives after he changed
his position on offshore oil drilling.
If a person does this even once, it means he has no integrity.
The US and UK, by rejecting
nuclear disarmament and applying a double standard to Israel and
India, encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons and undermine the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The UK proposed to give battered women a defense if they kill
their oppressors.
The same principle should apply to Iraqis that kill some of the Bush
forces.
Three questions for Barack Obama.
A Canadian band put up their own CDs as posters to oppose
the unjust C-61 copyright law.
Illegal wiretapping in Sweden has created an even bigger scandal after
the police tried
to arrest the person who exposed it.
The WTO negotiations have broken down because China and India (leading
many of the poor countries) would not accept
some US demands about power for the agribusiness megacorporations.
We should cheer this failure, because any agreement made now has to be
a change for the worse. Whatever the US and EU agreed to on 18
"resolved" issues surely gives more power to megacorporations, else
the US and EU would not accept it.
Here's a report about why the deal is bad for the poor.
Amnesty International: China obtained the Olympic Games by promising
to respect human rights more, but it
has done the opposite.
Republicans have disenfranched
hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters in several swing
states.
I don't hold any enthusiasm for Obama; at best he will be like Clinton
but even less liberal. However, systematic destruction of democracy
is dangerous even if there is no good candidate is likely to win this
year.
And you can be sure that if Obama loses because of this
disenfranchement, Democrat activists will blame it on the Green
candidate.
The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul is illegally trying to
destroy the Landless Workers Movement.
Kenya's government has been torturing
thousands to make them identify rebels.
I wonder if the US military aid included torture training.
Remember the video of the Israeli soldier shooting a handcuffed
Palestinian prisoner? The girl who made it feared retaliation, and
now Israelis
have arrested her father.
For once the
Bush forces admit that the Iraqis they shot in a car were
noncombattants.
What's crucial here is that it demonstrates the way the Bush forces
always claim their victims were enemy fighters, regardless of the
truth. The story about a "misunderstanding" caused by the gun in the
car (surely a normal thing in Iraq) is not believable: the dead
driver's son was at the scene while the car was still burning, so the
Bush forces knew who they had killed before they had a chance to look
at what was in the car.
I suspect that the Bush forces admitted the "mistake" this one time
only because they feared alienating the other people that work at
Baghdad airport, and that this does not represent a change in policy.
A Canadian human rights worker faces deportation from Israel for
photographing soldiers brutalizing a nonviolent protest at Ni'ilin.
Poor farmers in South Africa are being pressured
to plant genetically modified crops.
Refugees from Fallujah say people starved in their homes because the Bush
forces' curfiew did not let them get food. And the (Shi'ite) Iraqi Bush
forces are just as bad in different ways.
Obama glowingly praised the right-wing President Sarkozy, who is Bush's
French poodle.
This demonstrates once again that Obama himself is right-wing, but it could be
worse. Sarkozy is known for his draconian law which has made even the
possession of a copy of DeCSS a crime. I hope this doesn't indicate that
Obama will attack the freedom of computer users even further.
After a uranium spill in Tricastin, France,
EDF tried to hold back informing the public. The amount of uranium
contamination seems to prove there were other spills in the past.
Sarkozy wants to build more nuclear plants, even in other countries. Is this
what Obama admires?
People who flee to the UK after being tortured in other countries are
subject to torture and permanent injury when they are deported back for
more torture.
The EFF and ACLU have sued to declare the new unjust wiretap law as
unconstitutional.
The Bush forces systematically
arrest large numbers of Iraqis, just fishing at random.
Obama's lack of concern for how Israel treats Palestinians is second
only to McCain's.
Major ISPs are planning to limit their
subscribers' access to all but a few preferred commercial internet
sites.
Charlie Lynch faces 100 years imprisonment because he filled
a 17-year-old cancer patient's prescription for marijuana.
Owen Beck is probably suffering horrible pain now. That's the sort of
thing that delights a DEA agent's heart.
US citizens: sign
this petition urging Congress to refrain from menacing Iran with
war.
Air travellers now face strip
searches in public.
Remember the Shoe Bomber? Wait till they catch the Bra Bomber and
start requiring all women passengers to remove their bras.
Israel has flagrantly disregarded promises to stop
extending its colonies in the West bank.
Israeli "peace" negotiations consist of demanding that the
Palestinians concede everything, while offering them nothing.
A Maryland State Police document shows massive
government surveillance of political actvists — who are
falsely called terrorists or drug traffickers — by all levels of
government.
The press director of Arlington National Cemetery was fired for
letting the families of deceased veterans decide whether they wanted
press at the funeral.
It's a minor issue in itself, but shows how far the Bush regime
goes to control the press.
A reporter for CNN reported on the million-strong "terrorist" watch
list. The TSA denies punishing him by putting him on the list, but
they refuse
to explain why he gets hassled every time he flies.
The major ISPs in the UK have agreed
to help the music factories against their own customers. People
should move, if at all possible, to other ISPs.
Clown talks very green, but meanwhile he's trying to undermine
EU plans to promote renewable electric generation.
Nuclear reactor companies want government subsidies to build more
nuclear power plants, because they are far more expensive than safe
renewable electric generation or more efficient use of electricity.
They make no economic sense except as handout to the rich.
IMF meddling has been scientifically identified as causing
an increase in tuberculosis. It does this by forcing countries to
cut health care expenditures.
Chavez' activities have freed a number of countries in Latin America
from the IMF's power, and now it is weak. Perhaps we can kill it off.
Oil prices will probably
get even higher because demand will exceed supply.
Bush is using oil and food prices as an opportunity to gain more
power for his cronies. And Obama supports most of it.
China announced it would open a few
locations for protests during the Olympics, but Human Rights Watch
says that restrictions and surveillance would make this an
insignificant opening.
We have seen similar schemes to limit protests in the US, where the
locations are hypocritically called "free speech zones".
The reason Mugabe agreed to a deal is that his supply of
paper for printing money was cut off.
That makes sense, but I find it fishy to claim that Mugabe, who does
not shrink from murder and torture, would shrink from the wrong of
using a proprietary program without a license. He has already
committed the more grave wrong of using it with a license.
And if he doesn't fear that torture victims might sue him, how could
he fear that the developer might sue him?
Cigarette companies adjust
levels of menthol to help people start smoking and then cater to
hard-core addicts.
This year's Netroots Nation event, formerly the Yearly Kos, has been
totally tamed by the
center-right Democratic Party.
CORE, which in the 60s campaigned strongly for civil rights, has been
corrupted by the coal
industry.
A racist UK cop used the "terrorism act" powers to meddle
with a mixed-race family. There was absolutely no basis to
suspect the family of terrorism.
The crucial issue, which this exemplifies, is that the UK's
"anti-terror laws" relate to terrorism only in their name. What they
really do is give police too much power over everyone.
The makers of electronic voting machines distort the facts so
that states will not protect their elections from being stolen.
Pakistan's government has imprisoned
hundreds of Pakistanis in secret prisons, Bush-style, and held
them for years. Their families cannot find out what happened to them.
Europe is considering building
massive solar power plants in the Sahara desert.
Wetlands contain so much carbon that, if they were destroyed, it would
cause disastrous
global warming. And many of them are threatened with destruction.
A committee of MPs concluded that the UK
cannot trust the Bush regime's statements that it does not torture
people, because its definition is suspect.
Israeli settlers often shoot at Palestinian homes with rifles. Now
they are also firing home-made
artillery shells.
In Nil'in, scene of many nonviolent protests, a soldier fired
on a handcuffed protestor at close range while an officer stood
by.
But the only thing which makes that
incident unusual is that it was caught on video, much as the video
of the Rodney King beating offered proof of what cops habitually get
away with.
The Bush forces seem to be planning to
destroy Falluja again.
Last time, they even killed
patients in the hospital.
The House Judiciary Committee has finally agreed to examine some of
Bush's injustices, but still refuses
to consider impeachment.
I think that representatives that do not support impeachment do not
deserve support.
Everyone: sign the
petition calling on McCain to oppose all forms of torture.
The government of Pakistan forbade
Dr Khan from saying anything about Pakistan's proliferation of
nuclear weapons information.
It is the general practice of the Bush regime and its allies to issue
orders to silence people who can testify to the evil they have done.
Consider for instance the gagging of Mordecai
Vanunu in Israel (even though he has no nuclear secrets as such
left to tell) and the translator Sibel
Edmonds in the US.
The judge in a military trial rejected evidence obtained by blatant
torture, but allowed
confessions obtained by the less brutal forms of torture used in
Guantanamo.
Further information about the deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai
explains that the deal means his giving up real power. Apparently
economic desperation is the reason he agreed.
Radavan Karadzic, who led the Bosnian Serbs as they attacked
multi-ethnic Sarajevo, has been
arrested and will probably soon be sent to the Hague for trial.
Karadzic is estimated to be responsible for 300,000 deaths. Bush is
in the same way responsible for probably 4 times as many; when will he
be tried?
US citizens: sign the
petition in support of Al Gore's renewable electricity challenge.
Due to global warming, the only way to protect many species from
extinction is to move
them to new habitats. But this is only possible for a fraction of
them.
Al-Maliki endorsed
Obama's not-really-timetable for removing some parts of the Bush
forces.
However, if large numbers of "non-combat troops" and mercenary
"non-troops" remain in Iraq, I'm not convinced that means the end of
the occupation.
Prejudice against Gypsies in Italy has led to scandal
about bathers who did not react when two Roma girls drowned.
It isn't explicitly clear whether the other bathers knew that the
girls were Roma, or even noticed that they were dead. But even if
they did, I think the scandal's focus is in the wrong place.
I don't see why it is obligatory to make a fuss about a stranger's
corpse. That won't help anyone, least of all the person who died.
The time that we have an obligation to pay attention is while the
person in danger is still alive. Someone did call for help, but did
others neglect that duty out of prejudice? If so, that should be the
real scandal.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe have made a deal, under the influence of
Mbeki.
It is astounding good news, but it is likely to be fragile. What I
wonder is, what led Mugabe to change his tune?
Global warming appears
to be making invertebrates more common and fish less common in
parts of the ocean.
The long drought that is devastating agriculture in Australia is likely to get worse in
coming decades, due to global warming.
DDT being used in Africa is damaging
coral reefs in the Caribbean.
A major bird sanctuary in the Gulf or Mexico, off the Louisiana coast,
is being washed
away. With the rising sea levels, it is probably doomed.
The Palestinian town of Ni'lin has launched a
persistant campaign of nonviolent protest against the Israeli
confiscation of its land, in cooperation with Israeli and
international supporters, and continues it even though Israeli troops
respond with cruelty.
Obama calls the
conquest of Iraq "a strategic error". It was one, of course, but
saying only that whitewashes a terrible crime.
Torture and murder at Iraqi juvenile prison.
The article understates the general situation which led to this. The
department of the "Iraqi" government which runs the prisons was (and probably
still is) in the hands of Shi'ites linked to the Badr brigades, and murdering
Sunnis was their aim.
When the killer cops were aquitted,
New Yorkers rioted — against the police, not against their neighborhoods.
Archeologists voted to reject the idea of making a list of Iranian
archeological sites for Bush not to attack, saying that making the list would
legitimize the attack.
China and Russia blocked an embargo on selling arms to Mugabe.
So it looks like Mugabe wins. The world's powers give lip service to concern
about his tyranny, but nothing more, since freedom is not particularly
important to them anyway.
There are reports that
Israeli fighters are landing in Iraq near Haditha as practice for attacking
Iran. The "Iraqi" government denies this, but you could hardly expect them to
be more honest than their master.
Iraqi refugees, now in desperate circumstances in Syria and Turkey,
are trying to
sneak into Europe. The countries that turned Iraq into a disaster
do nothing for them.
30% of all reef-building
coral species now face imminent extinction due to the effects of
human CO2 production. 10 years ago it was just 3%.
Tenants in Boston organized to
block the eviction of one of the victims of the mortgage crisis.
Three cheers!
Increased US corn production, aimed at making ethanol for cars, is
making the dead
zone in the Gulf of Mexico the biggest ever.
Burmeses activists talk
about an armed uprising — if they can get any arms.
I see nothing wrong in foreign support for resistance against
the military rulers, even if its motive is amoral international
rivalry. But it looks like just enough to stir the pot, and
nothing that could actually help.
Israeli troops demolished Palestinian homes in Hebron.
They did not say why they did this, but whatever the reason may be, it is
collective punishment, and thus a crime.
Meanwhile, in Nablus,
the Israeli army has attacked and destroyed many institutions — a
school, a clinic, and a large shopping mall — and stolen even the school
buses.
For the long term,
Israel is stealing the West Bank's water supplies.
When the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to move the annexation wall away from the
lands of the farmers of Bil'in, that was the main victory for non-violent
Palestinian activism. Now
the government is making a mockery of the court decision, disregarding it
while building new colonies that it will later claim it has to "protect".
China is arresting, killing and deporting people, using
dubious accusations of terrorism as an excuse.
All in all it sounds a lot like the Bush regime.
China also searches people's baggage for entering trains, which makes no sense
at all except to boost employment.
A multitude of US agencies regularly
spy on the activities of the public.
The people quoted in the article hesitate to denounce this as strongly as it
deserves. But since the Bush regime is already guilty of torture,
imprisonment without trial, and wars of aggression, we need not suppose that
things have to get any worse before regarding its power as a threat to
liberty. The US government is already Americans' worst enemy.
If Bush attacks Iran, the price of oil will skyrocket.
This article argues that ultimately this will discourage any attack.
I am not convinced: Bush's cronies profit from the high price of oil.
Segolene Royal accused Sarkozy's men of being behind a strange burglary of
her home in which nothing was stolen.
Such accusations are not at all absurd. Remember Nixon and Watergate? Perhaps
Sarko's men were behind this; but the question is why.
There was a clear motive for Nixon to send people to burglarize the Democratic
Party headquarters: knowing the opposition's campaign plans. Sarco defeated
Royal a year ago, so that motive would not apply. Is there another possible
motive?
Karl Rove disobeyed a summons to testify to a congressional committee, and
could face imprisonment for contempt of Congress, if Congress has the guts to
insist.
Rove's central role in the dirty tricks of a dishonest administration is
plenty of reason to insist that he testify under oath.
The US Senate gave
final approval to almost unlimited government spying on Americans.
The British Army has formally apologized for torturing Baha Mousa to
death, and will pay compensation to his family.
I think that the UK made a serious attempt to convict Mousa's killers of
murder, and the failure reflects the fact that the system and the situation
make this very difficult to do.
The military occupation of a hostile civilian population will inevitably lead
to such events, and it will inevitably be hard to prosecute them. Therefore,
anyone considering ordering the military occupation of a hostile civilian
population ought to realize in advance that this is part of what will result.
A crusading judge has convicted some of the Italian fascist police
that attacked, injured and tortured sleeping protestors in Genoa. Now
the fascist government of Italy intends to make sure
they never go to prison.
Israeli settlers have taken over part of the al-Kurd family home in
Hebron, and now the government
says it will demolish the home.
Evidence that Diebold
stole an election in 2002 by trickery with voting machines.
The Bush regime is pushing a new cold war by installing ABM systems in
Europe. One price of this may be the survival of Mugabe's brutality
in Zimbabwe.
It is callous and absurd for Russia to strike back at Bush by
punishing innocent millions in Zimbabwe that have never helped Bush.
However, Bush is also to blame for the provocation. Between these two
tyrannical regimes, there is little reason to prefer one or the other.
A US appeals court upheld Bush's
power of arbitrary imprisonment. This means there is nothing to
protect Americans from their worst enemy, their own government.
The US constitution is a dead letter if it cannot prevent this.
Protestors who destroyed computers in an arms factory, to stop
production, were acquitted in Ireland on the grounds that they were preventing the
commission of war crimes.
Speaker Pelosi called Bush a "total
failure".
I wish it were true, but the Bush regime has an almost perfect record
of abolishing freedom and democracy in the US, and a very good record
of handing out money to his cronies. The 9/11 attacks might also be
one of its successes; sabotaging and corrupting the investigation
certainly was.
Israeli troops attacking a nonviolent Palestinian protest beat
up a medic so badly that he could not stand, then arrested him.
The general Israeli policy seems to be, no medical care for Palestinians.
Bush may increase
diplomatic contact with Iran.
The US "terrorist" watch list now
has a million names on it, which means that millions of people are
likely to be harassed when they fly. But they can't be absolutely
sure of stopping every terrorist unless they put every person in the
world on the list.
Despite the cease-fire which has pretty much ended overt violence in
Gaza, Israel
continues to kill harmless residents of Gaza by preventing them
from leaving to get the medical treatment they need.
The EU has cut its biofuels
plans after recognizing that they have driven up food prices.
Meanwhile, Bush continues to deny the whole thing.
Nuclear waste was spilled at the Tricastin nuclear power plant in
France. People have been warned not to drink water from the rivers or
eat any fish from them.
A Taliban child soldier, imprisoned in Guantanamo, faces charges with
"war crimes" for fighting against the US. It appears that his
treatment in prison amounts to torture.
Taking enemy soldiers prisoner is not wrong, but torturing them is;
and so is putting them on trial merely for fighting against soldiers.
While the Bush regime rejects all civilized standards for its own
behavior, it imposes ridiculous standards on its enemies. That's
"victor's justice", and would bring more shame on the US (as if there
weren't enough already).
In Iraq -- A
Generation with No Education.
The B'liar regime used Pakistani
agencies to torture a series of British citizens.
I wonder if it also used Pakistani agencies to torture other people
who are not British citizens, but are entitled to the same human
rights.
Massachusetts voters: support Question 2, to eliminate criminal penalties for possession
of small amounts of marijuana.
Many welders develop neurological damage due to manganese exposure.
The problem has been known for around a century. But their employers
deny it, and rather than provide them with clean air to breathe,
prefer to corrupt
scientific studies in order to deny the danger.
The Wedding Crashers: A
Short Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.
The expiring UN mandate for occupying Iraq has given the Iraqi
government the chance to stand up to Bush. Bush has had to
abandon the plan to get an agreement to make the occupation permanent.
Bush must be amazed to see his puppet rebel, but the "Iraqi"
government depends on the Bush forces, so I doubt it stand up to them
for long. However, I would be pleasantly surprised if it succeeds.
Al-Maliki is also talking about taking
control of the Bush forces' "green zone" fortified enclave.
In Turkey the secular
nationalists are fighting the elected Islamist party with coup
plots and a court case.
The president of Sudan has been indicted by the International Criminal
Court.
But when will they indict Bush?
Ex-prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has had three fiction bestsellers, and his
nonfiction book that proposes to try Dubya for murder is a bestseller too. But
newspapers and TV refuse to review it.
Here is the biofuels/food price report that the World Bank tried to cover
up to pander to Bush.
Despite the cease-fire in Gaza,
Israel has not ended the siege.
A Bush forces soldier who rejected Christianity while in Iraq is now
suing the Defense Department over religious harassment. He says that
Christians have gained dangerous power throughout the army.
I hope he also reconsiders whether his participation in the occupation of Iraq
was good or evil.
The US government is making sure that
future movies about the conquest of Iraq take a pro-US line.
The International Red Cross says that things are not improving for the
millions of Iraqis who were driven to flee their homes by the sectarian
violence.
Iran tested ballistic missiles to show Bush that it could counterattack if
Bush attacks.
Obama supported the Bush line that this makes Iran a "great threat".
The supposed threat of Iran is certainly a great thing for those who want to
distract Americans while picking their pockets of freedom. Iran is no threat
to the US. It could attack US forces in the Middle East, but since those
forces are engaged in an act of aggression, attacking them is not wrong at all.
A nuclear-armed Iran could theoretically bomb and destroy Israel, but Israel
could retaliate and destroy Iran, and I don't think the Iranian generals want
that outcome.
The annexation wall
cut off the village of Jayyous from its farmland. Israel allows the
farmers to go to their land, but the restrictions are so onerous that they
prevent real farming.
Cheney's men were directly involved in censoring an EPA report on global
warming.
The G8's statement on CO2 is
even more lame than it appears. Meanwhile, these governments, like
colonies of the empire of the corporations, continue trying to strengthen the
empire's grip.
The Department of "Homeland Security" is seriously interested in
forcing all airline passengers wear remote control punishment devices for
the whole flight. This may seem like a joke, but it isn't.
The biggest laugh is that this is supposed to be needed to protect passengers
from hijackings — but this is a solved problem already (there has been
no airplane hijacking in the US in a long time).
US Customs seizes travellers' laptops randomly. Imagine what a
disaster that could be for you!
Bush responded to the pressure to ban cluster bombs with a plan to
pretend to make them safer.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support of Title X
funding for birth control, and against the cruel abstinence only "sex
education".
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
Will the U.S. support terrorists to destabilize Iran?
How dare they rip the Fourth Amendment?
This is an example of why I do not support Obama for president. I don't
expect him to make things much better than they are under Bush.
Legal arguments that the invasion of Iraq, and the sanctions that preceded
it, constitute genocide.
Mbeki's latest proposal would give the real power in Zimbabwe to the MDC
and Tsvangirai, while allowing Mugabe to remain as a titular head of state.
Japanese are protesting the G8 summit. Independent journalists and activists
are
facing police harassment.
Let's hope Obama
does not choose Senator Nunn as a running mate.
Patriotic Haitians admire Dred Wilme, who led the resistance to the US
invasion in 2004, and was assassinated in 2005.
This assassination, which was expected, follows
a historical pattern seen in previous US interventions.
The backlash against feminism
has taken over the UK.
When a Bush crony got an oil deal from Iraqi Kurdistan, undermining the
control of the "Iraqi" government, Bush said he was surprised and unhappy. It
turns out
his men knew about it and encouraged it.
Dr. Khan says it was
Pakistan's army that gave uranium isotope separation centrifuges to North
Korea, and that General Musharraf must have approved it.
Amnesty International is lobbying the US government to respect human
rights and close the Guantanamo prison.
The American Association of Public Health Professionals condemns the sham
tobacco regulation bill.
At a formal debate in the UK about surveillance and detention,
the audience affirmed that these threaten their liberty.
This doesn't change any policies, but it might be the start of effective
resistance.
The Iraqi government persists in demanding a withdrawal timetable for the
Bush forces.
When Edna Spennato put links to uruknet into her blog on
blogspot.com, she
started getting told her blog was "spam".
ClearChannel continues to censor criticism of conservatives, on the radio
and on billboards.
If we had a government that supported democracy, it would ban companies from
owning billboards or radio stations in more than one state.
Iran responded with interest to new nuclear offers from the EU.
It would not surprise me if Iran's leaders really want nuclear weapons. The
twin examples of North Korea and Iraq show that nuclear weapons are the only
way for a country to be safe from the US. So they might want nuclear weapons
only for self defense. I would not put it past them to consider wars of
aggression. But they are not likely to attack Israel, which could retaliate
with its own nuclear weapons.
Mugabe is arresting and kidnaping the opposition's MPs.
The Colombian army freed 14 hostages from the FARC with a ruse, including
presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
This is a good achievement, but it would be an ironic shame if it boosts the
popularity of President Uribe. He is closely linked to the paramilitaries,
who are worse terrorists than the FARC.
A secret World Bank report concludes that the
food price crisis is mainly caused by using corn to make fuel.
Obama says he will continue Bush's policy of encouraging government support
to religious organizations, with some changes in details.
Obama is not as bad as McCain, but I don't think he will undo the harm that
Bush has done.
The US midwest has seen
two "500-year floods" in 15 years. But now that it's impossible to deny
the fact of global warming, the same business interests continue trying to
prevent any solution.
A US court ordered Google to
turn over to Viacom all records of who watched what on Youtube. Viacom is
one of the companies that uses copyright to attack the public.
Although Google tried to prevent this, it is still Google's fault to have kept
such records in the first place.
stallman.org does not record your IP address, and this is why.
The African Union made a weak response to Mugabe's tyranny,
"power-sharing". Tsvangirai has rejected this.
The Iraqi government invites Iraqi refugees to return from foreign
countries, but cannot take care of those who are already internal refugees.
Some Iraqis do return — usually because the countries they fled to make
life so difficult for them that they have to go.
Scientists evaluating the danger of extinction of various species have
underestimated the danger level.
The nuclear power industry has conviced the US government to change the rules
for building nuclear power plants. Now it
wants a big subsidy to make them profitable.
If they were safe and didn't produce waste we don't know a safe way to handle,
this might even make sense.
The Dutch "coffee shops" that sell marijuana
are now forbidden to mix it with tobacco.
The policy is inconvenient in the short term, but maybe it makes sense.
Tobacco is addictive, so it is far more dangerous than marijuana. If the
coffee shops find a way to satisfy their marijuana customers without the
tobacco, they will remain successful, and this policy will prevent marijuana
from being a gateway to hard drugs. But if that doesn't work, I think they
should make an exception.
The Bush forces have recruited many Iraqis to betray their country by joining
the "Iraqi" army or "Iraqi" police. Many of them have been wounded. Bush, a
treacherous type,
has betrayed them.
The Bush regime says that
things in Iraq are rosy.
CIA agents in Chile asked Chilean police in 2002 to kidnap a legal resident of
Chile, and hand him over to be taken to Guantanamo or someplace even worse.
Ultimately the police refused, and carried out their duty to defend
human rights in Chile.
The article calls for an investigation of how things were able to get this
far.
Both McCain and Obama are accepting donations of up to $70,000 through
twisting campaign finance law.
Canada keeps wages down for agricultural workers by bringing them from
Mexico, where NAFTA has conveniently ruined the rural economy.
Mohammed Omer, returning to Gaza after receiving a journalistic prize in
Europe, was
stripped, cavity searched, threatened at gunpoint, knocked out, and
dragged across the floor with his head banging.
Israel said that it normally takes special care so that this won't happen to
journalists. This treatment is supposed to be limited to ordinary
Palestinians, who won't be in such a good position to write about it.
Bush has commenced war against Iran, paying fanatical Sunni underground
groups to kill soldiers and officials. In the process he is jerking around
Congress and his generals.
Paranoia about terrorism
killed 1600 Americans in 2002.
It also enabled Bush to deny human rights
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France has become Bush's agent to allow the US government broad access to personal information about Europeans.
The EU's data protection rules are one of the best things it has done. At that time, the EU had statesmen who looked at goals beyond increasing their own power and the power of business. What a sad contrast is the EU of today. Any change that it proposes today which affects human rights or democracy will generally be bad.
One Labour MP is tells the truth about the UK's participation in Bush's conquest of Iraq.
Mugabe's thugs forced many Zimbabweans to vote for him, but many others spoiled their ballots in protest.
Civilian casualties have greatly increased in Afghanistan, due to the Taliban's suicide bombings.
When fighting against a guerrilla army, the US government standard practice is to claim that anyone it kills in battle was an enemy fighter. Those claims are meaningless; the US tactics inevitably kill many civilians. However, the Taliban cares even less about them.
The participants in Delhi's Gay Pride march wore masks because they face life imprisonment if they are identified.
The two lesbians who burned themselves to death should have killed their oppressors instead.
'Infrastructure for a Police State' is at stake in the FISA bill vote.
The Bush forces tried to take control of Mosul, and failed.
Congress has kept taxes low for oil companies, but has not extended the
tax incentives for renewable energy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
This is what happens when business holds political power.
The Baltic sea has many large dead zones, caused by pollution runoff, and its entire ecosystem could collapse if they keep growing.
A natural feedback cycle keeps the amount of CO2 in the air stable. Unfortunately, human CO2 emissions are 100 times too much for this cycle to handle.
There may be open water at the North Pole this summer, as the ice continues to shrink.
Greenland ice cores show that the world's climate can change abruptly.
However, thus far global warning is still slow by human time scales.
Our ability to monitor warming in great detail means there will be hundreds of minor milestone moments. So it will be easy for the deniers to respond, about each one, that it isn't important by itself. That's true, but the continuing process they are part of can be fatal.
Trevor Paglen takes photos of things that the government doesn't want you to see.
Florida will buy a large sugar plantation in order to protect the Everglades.
The Everglades are basically a broad shallow river full of grass, descending gradually to the sea. Protecting it from direct contamination is the right thing to do, but I'm worried about another pollution threat: salt water. Global warming is making sea level rise. What's the elevation of the highest point in the Everglades?
The UN's human rights investigator condemned the Bush regime.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Obama, who wasn't very liberal to begin with, is taking more conservative positions to get elected.
What bothers me most is advocating the death penalty. That is a setback I didn't expect.
If Greg Palast is right, these concessions are all futile, since the Republicans have sewn up the election regardless of how people vote.
North Korea has won a deal in which it keeps its limited collection of nuclear weapons and escapes from sanctions.
This deal makes sense, given that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and that it can threaten South Korea with great destruction even without them. I won't criticize Bush for doing something that is right.
But compare this with Iraq. Bush gave three excuses for attacking Iraq: developing nuclear etc. weapons, support for terrorists, and Hussein's oppression of the Iraqi people. The first one was false for Iraq but true for North Korea. The second was false for both. On the third point, Kim Jong Il is far more cruel than Saddam Hussein ever dreamed of being. So if you're not going to attack North Korea, why attack Iraq? Only oil.
Note also how removing North Korea from the list of "sponsors of terrorism" proves that the list is dishonest. The change that North Korea is now making in its nuclear programs has nothing to do with terrorism. So either there was no reason for Korea to be on the list, or there is no reason to remove it now. Clearly this list is just an "enemies list", an insult that the US government makes against countries it does not like, and has nothing to do with the truth.
Cigarette companies
treat tobacco with ammonia. This enables them to make cigarettes that are
just as addictive although the nicotine content is less.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
Here's an explanation of what the terms in that article really mean, scientifically.
Nelson Mandela criticized Mugabe in a weak way, catering to Mbeki.
It is sad to see a great man deny society his greatness to cater to a lousy man.
Will Bush attack Iran between election day and inauguration day?
Another reason to keep any RFID-infected cards in aluminum foil at all times.
Kucinich: put oil company executives on trial for their role in starting the war of aggression in Iraq.
Exxon delayed 20 years in paying damages for the Alaskan oil spill, and the Supreme Court eliminated 95% of them for invalid reasons.
Think of this when you consider Bush and McCain's proposals for offshore drilling.
Bush is aiming propaganda at Iran and the West in favor of war, and the tempo is speeding up, suggesting that the time for his next attack is getting closer.
Report: Telling the facts abut Obama.
McCain is the head of the International Republican Institute, which uses US funds to overthrow democratically elected governments in other countries.
Bush forces bases in Iraq are being set up for war with Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-12 because the old link was broken.]
A UK journalist won part of his case against a subpoena for his source material, but the court says that the decision was a defeat for him.
Bush's oil company cronies are about to collect the payoff for their conquest of Iraq. And Afghanistan.
US citizens: sign this petition for Congress to finish enacting a whistleblower protection law.
As 100 people protested Bush forces recruiting in Washington DC, the
police tried to stop the march through harassment and lies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US and other powers are trying to pressure Zimbabwe in the UN.
Bush, who has stolen two presidential elections, is no real supporter of democracy. So the US support for democracy in Zimbabwe is probably motivated by someone's greedy plan. But whatever it is, it can't be as bad as Mugabe's terror regime. So we should be glad that, for once, this amoral giant is doing something good. We should reserve our condemnation for when it does evil.
I'm sure it will give us plenty of opportunities.
The Swedish Pirate Party will sue to overturn the new Swedish surveillance law.
More and more private jets are being sold — even some jumbo jets
normally used as airliners. They spew out CO2, and US tax law subsidizes
their use.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose extension of oil drilling
(offshore, ANWR), and
sign this petition with the same point.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The oil will be much more valuable in 50 years (for uses other than combustion) than it is today. For now, let's leave it in the ground.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
NASA climatologist Hansen says: put oil company executives on trial for endangering humanity by lying about global warming.
High officials connected with Cheney took the initiative in instituting torture policies.
Tsvangirai pulled out of the Zimbabwe runoff election, saying that Mugabe's violence was too great. He will not ask people to die voting for him.
Some have criticized Tsvangirai for this decision, but I will not. There is a level of violence at which peaceful resistance becomes impossible, and if he says Zimbabwe has reached it, I will take his word for it. If foreign pressure cannot force Mugabe out, I think armed resistance is called for.
Many former US officials have said that the official story about 9/11 is bullshit, and the investigation was a sham.
A U.S. school district wants to put RFIDs in students's schoolbags.
The Bush regime's torture policies were
instigated from the top.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Obama supports the FISA bill to authorize warrantless wiretapping in the
future, while saying he will "try" to remove the retroactive immunity
provision.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
That shows how enthusiastically he will defend our rights: he will sign them away for the future, while trying ineffectively to legitimize their violation in the past.
Three years ago, Bush forces Marines massacred Iraqis in Haditha. Their
relatives have got no justice.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
It's not unusual for the Bush forces fighters to kill Iraqis. What's rare is to have enough attention and evidence to build a case about it — most of the time it was quietly forgotten. But even with attention and evidence, it's no use. The treaty that Bush demands from the "Iraqi" government is designed to allow this to continue.
This year's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will be the biggest ever.
I wonder if there is a way to provide nitrates for plants without having so much of them wash away into the river.
The UK has proposed a vigorous plan for renewable energy.
But it fails to limit the burning of fossil fuel.
US voters: find out
whether your representatives and senators are supported by the oil
companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
sign Kucinich's petition supporting his effort to impeach Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Mugabe has admitted that his election is a sham, saying he will not give up power no matter what the voters say.
That article says that Tsvangirai did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, but there is every reason to believe that those figures were falsified by Mugabe too.
Most of Zimbabwe's neighbors have condemned Mugabe's tyranny. President Mbeki of South Africa is his last shield.
Mbeki is also responsible for millions of HIV infections, due to his persistent opposition to all the effective measures to prevent them. He also supports the policies of the empire of the megacorporations. His existence is a pestilence.
The Bush forces cancelled the case against an officer who did not investigate the killing of prisoners on a technicality: the wrong man was present in certain meetings.
Command influence is a big danger in military "justice", because it is built into the system. The judges take orders from the military command, and so does the prosecutor, and so does the defense attorney.
I won't say that the improper meetings that occurred are ok; perhaps they were a real problem. But command influence does not always manifest itself so explicitly. The judge in this trial doesn't need to meet with Bush to know that Bush would rather have the blame limited to as low ranks as possible.
The Veterans Administration is testing drugs improperly on veterans, and
putting them at risk.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I agree with Obama that the VA should respect the rights of experimental subjects when treating veterans. But when he describes those who fought in the occupation of Iraq as having "sacrificed...for our country", he legitimizes an unjust war of aggression. This is part of why I do not support Obama for president.
Amnesty International implored the European Union not to be cruel to rejected
asylum seekers.
The EU did not listen.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Samina Malik's conviction was overturned on appeal, but UK law continues to prohibit the mere possession of books that explain methods that "terrorists" might use.
In effect, it is a system of censorship that only applies to those that the authorities see fit to persecute.
Several major US ISPs agreed to
censor Internet access.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The first target of this censorship is sites and newsgroups that supposedly contain "child pornography". This term is dishonest, since the law defines "child" as "anyone under 18". For instance, Americans of age 16 are hardly children. They are sexually mature, almost half of them have had sex, and any normal adult will find them attractive. But our government calls them "children", with the implication that being attracted to them makes you a pervert.
The danger of censorship goes far beyond this specific instance of censorship. Once ISPs agree to censor the Internet for one kind of thing, they can easily censor other things. In effect, they have now constituted the Great Firewall of the US.
The editors of Uruknet report that Google has repeatedly dropped its pages from the index.
European governments are starting to recognize the harm done by biofuel made from food crops.
Ireland's no vote on the European constitution-in-disguise is so uncomfortable for Europe's leaders that they don't want to accept it. They are trying to demand that Ireland must vote again and say yes this time.
This resembles what Mugabe did after he lost the election.
This treaty in printed form was 269 pages long, thus almost impossible to understand.
A truce between Israel and Hamas has begun. If it holds, Israel has promised to relax the siege of Gaza.
Burmese paramilitaries attacked protestors who demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Pro-government militias" under a military regime do not arise spontaneously from public enthusiasm. They are organized by the government, and their members get some sort of rewards or privileges. Thus, calling them "paramilitaries" seems appropriate.
A Turkish publisher has been sentenced to prison for publishing a book that acknowledges the genocide of the Armenians.
One of the causes of the food shortage in Africa is that the US, the IMF
and the World Bank forces African governments to adopt policies damaging to
the millions of small farms.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Clorox is raking in money after corrupting the Sierra Club into advertising Clorox chemical products.
Rep. Conyers is under strong public pressure to hold impeachment hearings
but still refuses.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
An open letter to Conyers explaining why impeachment is necessary.
Environmentalists disagree over whether it is safe to dispose of CO2 in the deep ocean, where it would remain for hundreds of years.
It seems to me that if the total amount that could be disposed of there only equals 16 years of human production, this method is at best a stopgap. We may have need for a stopgap as part of a real solution. However, today's governments, subservient to the megacorporate empire, will seize on any stopgap as an excuse to put off real solutions.
Russia has accused four men including an ex-cop and a member of the spy agency of the murder of journalist Politkovskaya.
McCain wants to drill for oil at the expense of the environment, supposedly to reduce oil prices.
The world is burning too much oil already.
It's not just the government that censors the internet in China. PR corporations do it too, as in the US.
The European Parliament voted
to imprison rejected asylum-seekers for up to 18 months before deporting
them.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
When so many governments around the world trample human rights to maintain the control of the megacorporations over their countries, there is a large population of people that have valid grounds for political asylum. Hence the pressure on governments to deny asylum even to people that qualify, often by denying plain facts about oppressive regimes.
At the same time, many people wish to move to Europe for economic reasons — for instance, to escape the poverty that the megacorporate empire spreads. It is legitimate in principle for a country to reject such migrants, but this carries with it the duty to help those countries resist and escape the harmful influence of the empire; for instance, to abolish the sweatshop treaties which do the dirty work.
The sweatshop treaties are usually called "free trade" treaties, but that name is dishonest. These treaties typically impose requirements for patents and copyrights, requirements that restrict trade. The purpose of these treaties is rather to transfer power from (possibly democratic) governments to business. Thus, they are designed to reduce governments' power to control business, and to in some cases to increase the megacorporations' power to do so.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, told the EU that Bolivia would pull out of negotiations on a new sweatshop treaty if this directive is approved.
I hope he follows through on this. My only criticism is that he was willing to entertain such negotiations in the first place. On trade issues, the EU is just as bad as the US; any trade treaty that the EU of today is willing to sign is surely harmful.
Canada's president apologized for the policy of forcing native children to attend church boarding schools. Canada will pay compensation to the survivors.
The US had a similar schools policy, with disastrous results. (Many books describe the strife that this caused in the Hopi tribe.) These schools, which were designed for assimilation, must have played a big role in the loss of many of the native languages.
A large fund has been set up to support projects that reduce the destruction of the Congo rainforest.
Even if some of these projects are effective, I doubt they can overcome the profitability of logging. So I think more is needed. I wonder if it is possible to identify through biological tests which part of the world some wood originated in.
Hundreds of homosexual couples have married in California, but Christian fanatics find the idea offensive and have arranged for a referendum to ban the practice.
Although the Bible says that Jesus preached people should love each other, Christianity often manifests itself as hatred.
Egypt says it has brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Israel seems to cast some doubt on whether this is real.
The US response speaks of Hamas' "loaded gun" and does not mention Israel's loaded cannons pointing in the other direction. This reflects the extreme bias of the US government in the matter.
Protesters against Bush's imperial procession in London clashed with police as they tried to reach Whitehall, the street where the UK's government buildings are located.
I am glad to read that the protestors condemned Bush's temporary occupation of London as well as his "temporary but forever" occupation of Iraq.
Everyone, but especially US citizens:
Three Palestinians from Gaza received Fulbright scholarships to study
in the US, but Israel would not allow them to go.
Write to Ms Rice
saying the US should pressure Israel to let them travel and study.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Former governor Jesse Ventura, who has demolition experience, says that he is convinced that 9/11 was an inside job.
Nader's entry into the presidential race has made Obama talk a little more progressive, but it's just talk so far.
A part of Australia is creating a centralized data base of all students, and many parents are angry.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Those who are debating the danger of unauthorized misuse are being distracted from the bigger danger: authorized misuse, by the government and its agents. Collecting data about people while they are young gives the government a head start on total information about everyone, and governments do not always use this information for good.
Teachers don't need a database to recognize their students. If schools need some of these data, they should keep only what is needed, in a decentralized way, and discard it when no longer needed.
US Citizens: The Senate is making another attempt to
retroactively legalize
the phone companies' illegal surveillance. Phone your congresscritter, thank
the House for blocking this a few months ago, and ask him/her to do block it
this time too.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
You can also send an email, but phone calls carry more weight.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Bush wants the "Iraqi" government to agree that Bush can decide arbitrarily whether Iraq has been "attacked", and then retaliate. This appears designed as a legalistic excuse for attacking Iran.
Lithuania proposes to let people vote through their cell phones.
This would make it easy for the election administration to record how you vote, delete your vote, change your vote, etc. The phone company could do these things too, unless something I don't see prevents it.
Write a letter to the government of Afghanistan on behalf of reporter Sayed Kambakhsh, who is facing the death penalty for "blasphemy" for redistributing to fellow students a document he obtained from the net. In the UK, Hicham Yezza is also being punished for downloading information from the net.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
In Stockholm: Join the protest outside parliament against the Swedish surveillance law on Wednesday, June 18, at 8 a.m. when the parliament votes on it.
Sweden is about to pass a surveillance law that would let the government listen to nearly all phone calls and read nearly all emails, without any court supervision. The proponents describe it with lies, of course.
Uri Avnery's program for peace between Israel and Palestine starts with an apology.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who helped negotiate the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, condemned the influence of the Israeli Hawk Lobby in the US, and says it falsely accuses people of "anti-Semitism".
Now the supporters of the Israeli Hawk lobby are proving Brzezinski's point by doing that very thing to him.
Note how this article refers to Brzezinski as "Obama's advisor". They don't care about Brzezinski as such; what they want is to make Obama toe the line.
Two Iraqis accused of shooting prisoners have been held prisoner since 2003, without trial. They smuggled out a letter asking to be released or given a trial.
A major ISP in the UK has taken the side of the music factories against its customers, the public.
Virgin's customers should cut off their service. But, more than that, this shows that we must organize to loudly condemn and oppose the very idea of stopping people from sharing — no matter how it is done.
The politicians and executives that support draconian laws against copying do not expect to face widespread condemnation from the people they have attacked. We need to teach them a different expectation. We need to show them that anyone who attacks sharing will be considered the enemy of society.
Ireland's referendum rejected the EU constitution-in-disguise.
Voters were right to distrust any treaty drawn up by today's politicians to "reform" the EU. The EU needs reform, but they will try to make it worse, not better. Most EU governments and politicians are subservient to business, and any constitution they propose had better be studied long and hard for booby traps. If it is hard to read, that is a very good reason to reject it. This treaty in printed form was 269 pages long, thus almost impossible to understand.
It is no surprise that these same politicians are trying to insist that the constitution is not dead. They know what their bosses want, and they are very persistent.
A spectacular Taliban attack freed nearly all the prisoners in Kandahar prison.
CO2 pollution protestors seized and stopped a coal train in the UK.
A Maoist movement that believes in multiparty democracy won the elections in Nepal, but now faces the threat of a coup by the Western-armed royalist army.
Mao was a disaster for China, so I am skeptical of anyone who calls himself Maoist. It sounds like this movement is a lot better than Mao, but I do not know enough to think about whether I could support it.
McCain tries to hide the fact that he is a neocon, and that he supported the lies that were used as the excuse to invade Iraq.
We used to call these people "cons", and subsequently "ex-cons".
Ethiopia is using a brutal terror campaign to defeat rebels in the Ogaden region.
The Bush regime treats Ethiopia as an ally, using Ethopia as a proxy for the Iraq-style occupation of Somalia. In effect, the "War on Terror" only applies to terrorists that Bush does not find useful.
A major leader of the UK Conservative party resigned his position to campaign against increases in pretrial detention.
Many others think he made a tactical error. Perhaps they are right; I do not know enough to judge that. But I agree with everything he said about the issue itself.
Mugabe arrested the main Zimbabwean opposition leaders, charging one of them with treason.
The Ethiopian government did something similar.
A doctor in the US was sentenced to prison for
collecting body parts from corpses and making them available for medical
purposes.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The failure to screen these body parts for diseases was a dangerous act of negligence: it exposed people gratuitously to the risk of infection. This should be punished. But the rest of what he did was not wrong.
This doctor saved, for the most meritorious possible use, parts of corpses which would otherwise have been thrown away. Is that "plunder"? Relatives of the deceased people claim to be "victims", but they are guilty of something much worse: they sought to deny others needed medical care, apparently for no reason except corpse fetishism. They deserve no sympathy.
There ought to be a law that relatives of a dead person who wish to veto taking organs for transplantation must first have a face-to-face conversation with someone that needs a transplant and is so far down the list that he probably won't get one. He will ask them questions such as, "Why is burying that heart (liver, kidney, tendon, whatever) in a grave so important that it should keep me from getting the operation I need? Is something hidden inside a corpse more important than a living person's health?"
Or just legislate that everyone's body is available for transplantation. I don't think many corpses will object.
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, NATO has started to say "We must win this fight for the sake of NATO."
This means that (1) what's good for Afghanis is no longer the point, and (2) NATO has adopted the Bush regime's attitude that it must never allow anything to fail, because that would mean admitting fallibility.
The US Supreme Court restored the right of habeas corpus for the prisoners in Guantanamo.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
But how can the thousands of secret prisoners elsewhere, whose captivity is not acknowledged, exercise this right?
A judge dismissed the trumped-up charges against artist Steven Kurtz.
The Bush regime prosecutors could not have failed to know that these charges were unjust. I think they were implementing the regime's arrogant attitude toward the public: "The Government Is Never Wrong." Anyone who the regime accuses, even by mistake or through confusion, must be convicted of something, by hook or by crook.
Grinding people down persistently for years often succeeds in crushing them, innocent or not. It worked with Kurtz' colleague, who pled guilty to some of the same charges that were now dismissed. It takes physical stamina as well as mental firmness to stand up to the pitiless attacks of an evil machine.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter to support the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which would stop the federal government from arresting patients who are using medical marijuana legally under state law.
Marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol, so it should not be more illegal. This is just a first step, but it is an important step.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
After a conference in Bil'in on peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation,
the attendees went to a nonviolent protest at the annexation wall, and
were attacked by Israeli troops.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The protestors included European officials. Perhaps this will have an effect.
The anti-abortion movement has come out in the open with its real aims:
prohibition of contraception.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
This shows that their real concern is not a matter of "right to life" for embryos that have no brain, or fetuses whose brains are not yet wired up to function. Their aim is to force everyone to live according to their perverse religion.
Tyson Foods lied to the public and to the government when it said its chickens were not given antibiotics.
Both McCain and Obama are supporting Bush's exaggerated claims about Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Music sharing is not only good for society, and ethical. It can even benefit the musicians.
Harvard Professor Matory reports on the censorship pressure that has
"disinvited" three visiting academic speakers who were known for supporting
the Palestinian cause. His faculty resolution to reaffirm academic freedom
was defeated.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A museum exhibit showing maps of Palestine was
closed under pressure from the Israeli Hawks lobby. The exhibit has
reopened allowing admittance only with guided visits.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I call it the "Israeli Hawks lobby", rather than the "Israel lobby", because it represents only one side of Israeli politics, and does not represent all Israelis or Israel's real interests. It is easier to oppose these hawks in Israel than in the US where the Israeli Hawks lobby reigns supreme.
Gordon Clown got his 42-day-detention law through the House of Commons,
just barely.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The law is likely to be blocked by the House of Lords, but this vote is still a loss for Britain. It shows that Clown is determined to crush the last shreds of the Rights of Englishmen.
It was predictable, after the compromise that extended pre-charge detention to 30 days when B'liar wanted 90, that the B'liar/Clown regime would come back later saying "meet me half-way again". Compromise with fascists is self-delusion; the only thing to do is oppose them.
The Bush regime is protecting companies and Iraqis that ran off with 23 billion of unaccounted funds.
Did the Bush forces use phosphorus bombs in Mosul?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Protestors against Bush plan to march in London even though the Clown regime has banned the march.
www.kucinich.org was sabotaged shortly
after Kucinich introduced his articles of impeachment. These articles can be
found in
http://www.democrats.com/files/amomentoftruth.pdf.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Kucinich again introduced articles of impeachment against Bush.
In order for this to have an effect, the rest of the house must support it.
The Bush regime admits it may have trouble imposing the colonization treaty it wants on Iraq.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter and demand that he/she support Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Bush.
Here's one person's open letter to the House Judiciary Committee:
http://erispress.com/Open_Letter-HJC.html.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Star Simpson, arrested by police nincompoops that mistook lights on her shirt for a bomb, avoided prosecution by taking blame for the police's mistake.
To be forced to apologize and praise those who wronged her must have been humiliating, and clearly was unfair, but what is more important is how it affects the rest of us. This confirms the police's idea that they must never be blamed for mistakes. If they make a mistake about you, that is your fault; you should have known better than to do anything they might be confused about.
As long as police get away with blaming their mistakes on the victims, they will continue to treat the public with contempt.
Ten years from now,
Lake Mead may be mostly empty and the Hoover Dam may produce no
electricity. Scripps researchers predict a 50% chance that will happen by
2017.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Global warming is part of the cause.
The TSA has abruptly abolished the right to board a plane without showing ID.
As the article explains, this and the "no fly" list are "security theater", with results that are unjust.
The people of Afghanistan seem to have given up hope for the Afghan government, which cannot provide security.
The high price of oil has made
geothermal electric generation economically feasible.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Bush wants a treaty to station the Bush forces permanently in Iraq, with power to arrest and imprison people, exempt from Iraqi law. In effect, it would make Iraq a permanent colony.
B'liar's first attack on the Rights of Englishment was a law making it easy for any level of government to spy on people without a warrant. This law was supposed to be for the sake of stopping "terrorism", but in fact it is used for matters as small as putting out garbage on the wrong day.
This same law makes it a crime not to hand over your encryption keys on demand.
Uri Avnery on why Obama bowed down to the Israeli hawks.
It may not be just a pretense.
Obama has a solid record as a pro-business Democrat — what we would have called "right-wing Democrat" in the 70s.
Bush wants a treaty to station the Bushg forces permanently in Iraq,with power to arrest and imprison people, exempt from Iraqi law. In effect, it would make Iraq a permanent colony.
1/3 of the CO2 we put into the atmosphere goes into the oceans, making
them more acidic. This will eventually kill the plankton and coral,
eliminating the rest of the food chain.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime is trying to admit only its supporters to the kangaroo trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The 9/11 victims' families are being kept out; apparently Bush does not want them to see what's happening.
Bush's War on the Constitution puts every American in danger.
Anyone who has sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution has the duty to protect the country from public enemy number one: Bush.
How much change would Obama make in US Middle East policy? Probably not much.
I am not very impressed when politicians say that will give us "change". Bush gave us lots of change...for the worse.
US citizens: call your senators' offices and say, either fix the Lieberman/Warner global warming bill, or drop it.
You can also sign
this petition (which also leads to more information), but a phone call has
more impact.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Obama partially backed off from his statement that Jerusalem should belong to Israel only.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers gained a major concession from Burger King, which will now pay agricultural workers an additional penny for each pound of tomatoes.
This extra cost is tiny (one pound of tomatoes is enough for probably 20 burgers) for Burger King; the fact that Burger King resisted so long and hard is an indication of intends greed and callousness.
The "Iraqi" government, trying to act with independence, says it will not permit unrestricted movement of the Bush forces troops in the future.
The Iraqi government is sovereign only in Bush's pretense. It exists only because Bush set it up, and cannot maintain itself in power. For it to defend any sort of real sovereignty will be difficult.
Everyone:
sign this petition rebuking McCain and Obama for going overboard in
supporting Israel and disregarding the Palestinians.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Republican opposition killed the Senate's climate change bill.
Disney World is teaching children to insist that "everyone must be fingerprinted".
Supermarket discount cards have a similar effect.
The mass extinction now begining could
be disastrous for the world. Every species' extinction means the
loss of something irreplaceable. Sometimes what is lost is a way to
cure diseases.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
This shows another reason not to make biofuels from food crops or on land that could be used for food crops.
It is also a reason to press hard to end human population growth.
Mugabe's troops attack opposition supporters at the grass-roots level, while denying food to everyone tagged as an opposition supporter.
Israel has explicitly threatened to attack Iran.
I read elsewhere that one of Ahmadinejad's supposed threats to destroy Israel had been misinterpreted, and that his actual words were a prediction that Israel would disappear sooner or later. Predicting someone's demise is unfriendly, but it is not as bad as a threat. Israel, which already has nuclear weapons, is the one that is doing the threatening.
It seems to me that Olmert may be trying to start another war so that he won't be indicted for corruption for all the money he received from Talansky.
New Zealand has released Amir Mohebbi and Ali Panah from prison. But it still wants to deport them to Iran, where they might face execution for converting to Christianity.
Here's more info on the proposed Iranian law that would make conversion a capital crime.
Bush wants the "Iraqi" government to allow US attacks
against any country from permanent bases in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign the petition in favor of equal rights for marriage
regardless of gender.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Sweden is about to pass a nasty bill authorizing effectively total surveillance of Internet communication.
Mugabe has banned
international food aid organizations, claiming that they help the
opposition, whose members and leaders he is attacking and arresting.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Since Mugabe is trying to use starvation as a weapon against the opposition, any food aid not under his control tends to defeat that tactic, and thus could be said to help the opposition. But there is nothing wrong with that. The rest of the world should be giving the opposition in Zimbabwe a lot more help, including military help. A few divisions would suffice to make it possible to have a free election.
It is interesting to compare this case with Iraq. Iraq was kept hungry for 12 years by US-imposed sanctions, and did not have a real internal opposition to Saddam Hussein. Yet Bush claimed his invasion was meant to help the Iraqis. If he were really moved by such concerns, he would have refrained from invading Iraq, and would invade Zimbabwe now.
The Bush regime doesn't mind doing business with people that the US has accused of corruption.
That's because Bush's motto is, Corruption R Us.
100,000 people's movements were tracked through their cell phones for a scientific study.
This is a reminder that Big Brother can track anyone's cell phone. Do you want all your movements to be tracked?
Remember that the only way to stop most cell phones from reporting their whereabous is to take the batteries out.
Bush plans to turn the occupation of Iraq over to mercenaries. This will allow him to pretend to have withdrawn US troops from the Bush forces, because he pretends that the mercenaries are not troops.
Mercenaries in Iraq are subject to no laws at all. If official soldiers kill prisoners, they are subject to military justice. Even though that is a parody of justice, biased in these cases in favor of the soldiers, it is better than nothing. However, mercenaries in Iraq regularly go unpunished even when they rape other mercenaries.
In Washington DC, people are now forced to show their papers to travel around the city.
Exxon said, for the second time, that it has stopped funding organizations that lie about global warming. Apparently it wasn't true the first time. And it isn't true this time either.
A reporter at MSNBC says that the staff was systematically pressured to slant stories in favor of attacking Iraq.
Slacktivism can result from the human tendency to laziness, but it can also be organized by companies.
Remembering the massacres of 19 years ago, when China
crushed its democracy movement.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
This is not mere history: the resulting injustice still operates today, since China continues to suppress democracy in the same way. All the more reason to keep the heat on.
To keep the memory of the massacre alive, we should stop calling that place Tienan Mén (gate of heavenly peace). If you are going to Beijing, ask for directions to Sha Xuésheng Mén (gate of killing students). The x is pronounced like "ch" in German "ich", the acute accent indicates a rising tone, and the second and third e's are pronounced like "u" in "put".
Readers have posted several comments on the article that express extreme cynicism: "You can't criticize China since your country's government is bad too." Such cynicism is made to order for despots in all countries, since it sets a threshold for criticism that nobody can meet. It despises humanity and gives up on making anything better.
Amnesty International is equally aware that every government can violate human rights, and nearly all of them do. Unlike the cynics, it aims to make things better. So it organizes pressure on every country from people in other countries.
Venice has launched a campaign against bottled water.
Bush's political appointees in NASA altered reports to cover up global warming, says an official investigation.
The investigation found no proof that Bush or his men specifically told them to do this, but that signifies nothing. If they were given their instructions orally, there would be no proof to find.
Plamegate isn't over: there is new evidence touching Cheney.
China has added a bunch of nasty reasons to the usual reasons you should stay away from places where Olympic games are being held.
The production of biofuels in the US and Brazil was attacked at the FAO summit.
Lula's response was a distractive irrationality. There are plenty of other scandals in use of oil and coal, but that doesn't address the question; people can't eat them.
The problems with biofuels made from food crops have been published for over a year now, as you can see from previous links here. Yet I'm no expert on this field: all I did was keep my eyes open, which anyone can do. So what can we say about politicians who have kept their eyes shut?
The occupation of Palestine costs Israel dearly, stunting economic growth.
This is small potatoes compared with the injustcie it does to the Palestinians, but if it helps convince Israelis to end the occupation, it matters.
Can anyone hear the voices
of the poor and hungry?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I think the answer is, "Yes, if the mainstream media don't distract us from them."
As Colombia presents possibly fabricated evidence connecting Chávez to the FARC guerrillas, Uribe uses this to distract attention from the his own much better documented ties to Colombia's terrorist paramilitaries.
High oil prices have renewed interest in space solar power, which would be safe and produce no chemical or radioactive pollution on Earth.
This is one of many reasons why we are not compelled to build nuclear power plants.
An ice shelf in the Arctic is starting to disintegrate. Scientists predict that there will be no ice in the Arctic in summer a few decades from now.
Every decrease in Arctic ice causes more absorption of sunlight and more warming — a dangeroust positive feedback system.
Another dangerous positive feedback system is release of methane from permafrost. Research shows this is increasing.
Global warming will enable
crabs and sharks to return to the waters around Antarctica, where
they could wipe out many species that have been protected from them
for millions of years.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Russia and China support a treaty against deploying arms in space. Who opposes this? The US, of course.
Venezuelan President Chávez has proposed a law along similar lines to the unjust U SAP AT RIOT Act.
Withholding evidence from defendants is the road to unjust convictions. The other provisions sound bad too. The Bush regime is in no position to criticize, but those who have opposed the PAT RIOT Act and supported Chávez should implore him to drop this plan.
Israel has apparently relented on letting Palestinian students
leave Gaza to study in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli agents harrassed and tried to intimidate the Physicians
for Human Rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Mohammad Qatanani, fighting deportation to Palestine, told a US court
of his torture in an Israeli prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
They also threatened his family, a tactic used also by the Bush regime in Iraq.
The world's major ISPs are accused of planning (and signing secret
contracts) to make
Internet users pay for access to all but a few favored web sites.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I have no objection in principle to charging
users for total bandwidth of downloads as long as it is done
without discrimination based on what is downloaded. However, someone
pointed out to me that this might lead more people to put passwords on
their WiFi. That would be a bad result.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
It may be possible to avoid that result through neighborhood-based campaigns urging people not to lock each other out. I wonder if there are any unlocked WiFi activists in the area of Texas where this is being tested.
An airline security bully threatened to arrest a man in Heathrow
Airport for wearing
a shirt with a picture of a cartoon robot with a gun.
[Reference updated on 2017-12-02 because the old link was broken.]
If the bully were so stupid that he believed the cartoon robot could actually shoot someone, it would be hard to be angry at him. Someone so badly retarded is not fit for the job, but it's not his fault that he is retarded.
However, what really happened is much worse. That bully was perfectly aware that the cartoon robot could not shoot anyone. But he thinks he should forbid it anyway, because he has lost all sense of proportion.
An open letter to Admiral Fallon (recently retired) implores him in the name of his oath to the constitution to denounce the lies Bush is now using to excuse attacking Iran.
Oppose the deportation of Hicham Yezza, who is being punished for being innocent of "terrorism" charges.
Yezza was originally accused simply for having printed a document he obtained from a US government web site. This reveals the tyranny of the UK's laws.
If you sweat while in a plane because you are afraid of flying, you may
get fingered as a terrorist.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The whole idea is absurd, because even if the system works, what good could it do? Whatever the crew could do to oppose a would-be hijacker with a little advance warning, they could just as well do when he starts to act. Only when there are armed police in the plane (and that's a small fraction of the time) would the advance warning be useful.
McCain is defending the lies that Bush told to justify conquering Iraq.
The Bush regime is holding least 26,000 "disappeared" prisoners whose whereabouts are secret. Some are kept on ships, where they are beaten.
The ships can also hand them over to other evil governments where they can be tortured and Bush can pretend not to be responsible. Bush said he stopped doing this, but he lied.
Americans that close their eyes to the evil of the Bush regime make
themselves co-responsible for it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans are planning to steal the 2008 election by stopping many Democrats from voting.
A hunger striker outside McCain's office in Phoenix demands
the truth about the 9/11 attacks.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Virginia Commonwealth University got research funds from Philip Morris by allowing that company total control over releasing the results. The university officials who signed the contract are not even allowed to talk about it.
The article obscures some of the facts by using the vague term "intellectual property". That term potentially refers to a large set of diverse laws — but most places where it is used really mean only one or two of them. We cannot tell which of these laws are actually meant here, because the term hides that.
It is always a mistake to use the term "intellectual property". See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.
Participate in the Day of Action against Starbucks on July 5.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Chinese parents protested the faulty construction of schools, which caused the death of their children in the earthquake.
Even after 60,000 dead, the Chinese official's primary wish is to try to deny and bury problems. That is why they were not corrected in the first place.
The same thing occurred during the SARS outbreak several years ago: Chinese officials denied the scope of the problem until that was impossible.
It happened again a couple of years ago when a toxic chemical spill menaced the water for a city. As long as this continues, the inhabitants of China will have lousy government. So can Americans, if Bush achieves his aim of making the US government follow the Chinese model.
There are nonviolent protests against the annexation wall in the Palestinian village of Ni'ilin. The wall threatens to surround that region completely and cut it off.
Uri Avnery: Olmert is part and parcel of corruption that spreads from conquest and occupation of Arab lands.
The Bush regime acknowledged paying other countries to contribute troops to the occupation of Iraq.
That is not immoral in itself; in a just war, this would not be an unjust way to fight it. But it shows the regime's claims of support from other countries are part fake.
Why Gaza has to pump sewage into the sea: to avoid
overflows like this one which killed 5 people.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
In Kurdish Iraq, cell phone cameras have led to the death of hundreds of women.
It is plausible that this happens in the rest of Iraq too, but it may be too dangerous there to collect any statistics.
Why Gaza has to pump sewage into the sea: to avoid
overflows like this one which killed 5 people.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush regime acknowledged paying other countries to contribute troops to the occupation of Iraq.
That is not immoral in itself; in a just war, this would not be an unjust way to fight it. But it shows the regime's claims of support from other countries are part fake.
In Kurdish Iraq, cell phone cameras have led to the death of hundreds of women.
It is plausible that this happens in the rest of Iraq too, but it may be too dangerous there to collect any statistics.
Gaza lacks fuel to run sewage treatment plants, so it has to pump
sewage into the Mediterranean, which kills the fish and makes the sea
dangerous to swim in.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Israeli government probably considers this a plus, since it impedes any attempt to swim to a ship, and contributes to the starvation of everyone in Gaza.
President Carter called Israel's starvation of Gaza one of the worst human rights crimes.
The Isreali representative thinks it is irresponsible to admit the facts about Israel's nuclear weapons because that might lead people to compare the international attitude towards possible Iranian nuclear weapons with the international attitude towards actual Israeli nuclear weapons.
Israeli soldiers shot protestors in Gaza, killing one of them and wounding many.
The arrest of Hicham Yezza and the plan to deport him has ignited protests at the University of Nottingham against the unjust UK "anti-terrorism" laws, that make it a crime to read a book (if the government claims you are doing it for "terrorism").
The CIA has admitted using drowning torture, but
continues concealing when it has done so.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A campaign to break the siege of Gaza, by delivering relief supplies
by ship, asks for
various kinds of support.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Union of Concerned Scientists warns the US: act now to reduce global warming drastically, or it will soon be too late.
The Bush regime removed a
judge from the phony trial of a Guantanamo prisoner because the
judge tried to make the trial fairer.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The fact that this is even possible illustrates one reason these military courts are fundamentally unjust: the judge works for the prosecution.
Polluters can easily get awards for being good to the environment,
when big companies dominate the organizations that give the awards.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Many US restaurant chains misrepresented the calories in various dishes
— sometimes giving values only half the real ones.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I don't believe their claim that this was because the investigators just happened to receive oversize portions. These chains must carefully manage the portion sizes.
An organization funded by coal companies called senators to oppose
a bill to reduce global warming, and pretended to be a citizens'
group.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Airline security idiots told Marnina Norys she could not board a plane with her necklace, which had a 2" pendant in the shape of a gun.
The arguments offered to defend them show the insane frame of mind of the security state: grasp at straws to justify whatever they do, rather than admit being mistaken. That insanity is much more dangerous than any non-state-sponsored terrorists.
George Monbiot tried to arrest John Bolton (a Bush regime official and neocon) for war crimes. Bolton escaped with the help of his bodyguard.
Here's what Monbiot said about it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Note how the Hay festival's response misses the point. Monbiot attempted to arrest Bolton after his speech, thus respecting freedom of expression. However, freedom of expression is not an excuse for mass murderers to escape punishment for their crimes.
100 nations agreed to a treaty to ban cluster bombs.
The states that refuse to ban them are the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. Shame on them all!
Photographer Bill Henson faces prosecution in Australia for nude photos seized from an art exhibition. Many respected artists have come to his defense.
This shows where the perverse crusade against "child pornography" naturally leads.
Global warming will cause reduced rainfall in the US southwest, which will make it hard to find water for the growing population.
The US Congress voted to investigate the Pentagon Paid Propaganda Pundit Program. The US TV networks, which were used by these "military experts" to prevent propaganda for attacking Iraq, continue to refuse to recognize it.
McCain is trying to turn a global
warming bill into a subsidy for nuclear power.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US and EU and Canada want border
guards to check everyone's laptops for unauthorized copies. They
are trying to impose this nasty law through a treaty, secretly
negotiated, so as to bypass democracy.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The prohibition of sharing can only be enforced with draconian cruelty. This shows that prohibiting sharing is wrong.
The copyright companies keep asking for draconian cruelty, and corporocratic governments keep proposing to give it to them. This illustrates why corporocratic governments are unjust and their actions are illegitimate.
Israeli police order Palestinians to come for an interrogation, then
make them wait in line days without talking to them, effectively
ruining their lives.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Since imprisonment without trial is normal in Palestine, nobody there has any rights, and any Palestinian could be punished for anything, up to and including summary execution, at any time.
A US businessman gave $150k to Olmert, under the table.
Whether this was a bribe, or a secret campaign contribution, either way it was corrupt.
Israel tried to block Desmond Tutu from starting the UN investigation of the shelling that killed 18 sleeping Palestinians in their home. But he has finally arrived in Gaza to begin.
But that was far from unique. Israeli forces are destroying
farms and businesses in Gaza, making a substantial fraction
uninhabitable, and thus exacerbating the poverty and starvation even
worse.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The shelling might have been an accident, but these raids certainly are no accident.
Burma's military rulers decided to imprison Aung San Suu Kyi for 5 more years. The UN ignored this issue because it was begging them to allow aid to the Burmese cyclone survivors.
In effect, it used those survivors as hostages.
Palestinian students in Gaza have been blocked from traveling
to Europe to study — some for up to 7 years.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Other Gazans die, because Israel blocks them from traveling to hospitals for treatment.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Palestinians have to lie down in front of bulldozers to stop illegal
Israeli settlements from stealing their land.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Bush has resumed the FBI's spying on political opposition,
as in the 60s.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Bush and McCain are trying to justify war by pretending that Iran is a military threat to the US. Or will be. Does that sound familiar?
Chinese whose children died in collapsed school buildings are protesting to the government even though officials begged them not to.
Carter called on Europe to stop following the US and start talking with Hamas.
Ancient City of Babylon Destroyed by US Occupation Base.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The plans for "stabilization" of CO2 at levels such as 550ppm are
fundamentally impossible, since that level of warming would melt lots
of permafrost, releasing a lot more greenhouse gas. Thus, it is absolutely
essential to cap CO2 at a lower level.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
1/3 to 2/3 of the subsidies for carbon emission reduction are going to projects that would have been done anyway.
This does not necessarily mean the subsidy has no good effect. Rather, it is an inefficiency in the subsidy, which might or might not make another method better.
I tend to favor taxes on emissions, because that would affect all parts of the economy. For instance, how do we reduce the long-distance transport of food, but only when its pollution is more?
A tax would have this effect.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Bush forces are still not accounting for their spending, so billions just disappear.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the RISE Act, which would abolish the law that denies financial aid to students who were convicted of possession of drugs.
You can also send an email, but phone calls have more effect.
The government of Portugal has admitted that the CIA flew prisoners through Portugal. Such prisoners were typically headed to be tortured by the US or other countries.
The State of Oregon is trying to copyright its laws, and giving a nasty company preferential access to them.
I think this same company, Thomson West, is the same one that has a virtual monopoly over access to many US court decisions.
The Dalai Lama says that China is planning massive colonization of Tibet — after the Olympic Games.
UK police arrested a graduate student for downloading an al Qa'ida manual to study for his research. He got it from a US government web site.
Although that student has been released, the UK officials continue to claim that this is an "illegal document" which you "should not send to any Tom, Dick or Harry", in effect announcing their intention to imprison people for what they read.
These tyrants are the real threat. Britons, don't let the tyrants distract you by pointing at other minor enemies, while they attack your freedom.
Obama and Clinton propose to tax just 20% of the windfall profits that oil
companies have obtained through cartels and war. That's not enough! The tax
should be at least 80% of this windfall.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Of course, the companies pretend that the world will end if they are taxed at all. But that's backwards. To let them have money with which to fund lies about global warming is more likely to end the world.
Burma's military rulers have finally agreed to allow foreign aid and aid workers to help the victims of the cyclone.
The Dalai Lama keeps trying to reach out to China, and China in response keeps lying about him.
This persistent dishonesty of the Chinese regime seems to be the model for the Bush regime. These regimes continue lying because many people believe the lies. China has fooled many Chinese about the Dalai Lama, just has Bush has fooled many Americans about Saddam Hussein.
Both of these regimes manipulate people by appealing to their patriotism, but loving your country does not mean loving or obeying the corrupt, dishonest people that control it. Mencius pointed out 2500 years ago that such regimes have no legitimacy.
McCain happily
accepted the endorsement of John Hagee, who believes that Hitler
was divinely ordained to make Jews move to Israel to fulfill
prophesies. Hagee now wants Israel to get into a war with Iran, so as
to fulfill more prophesies, and end the world.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
This sort of "friendship for Israel" might well cause more war. And these insane Christians have been very influential over US policy towards Israel under all recent presidents, the only exception being Bush I.
Hagee's claim that the Catholic Church (at least at the level of the pope) helped Hitler might be valid; it probably is based on the book Hitler's Pope. It puzzles me, however, that Hagee doesn't consider this a reason to praise the Catholic Church.
This article describes the Bush family's long-term ties with Nazi Germany in detail.
The high price of oil is making driving more expensive.
That is a good thing, since oil will get more scarce in the future. High prices will motivate people to change their arrangements to use less. Reducing taxes would mean trading society's present discomfor for future agony.
The high price of oil is causing increases in air ticket costs and reduction in flights.
That is good too, in the long run.
Perhaps speculation is responsible for the current high price. In a few months, who knows, it might be back down to $100 a barrel. But looking at a period of years, oil will get more expensive, and people will fly less.
So if your city is thinking of investing in airport expansion, preparing for flights that won't arrive, make sure to prevent this folly. Invest in conservation instead!
Many airports are not far above sea level. Expanding them is even stupider.
A long-term feedback mechanism controls
the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, but it can't cope with the
rapid emissions caused by human activity.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A review of the film War Inc.
(I have not seen it.)
Oxytocin sprayed into the air makes humans keep trusting those who betrayed them.
Will the Republicans and Democrats spray this into the air at voting booths next November?
Cisco considered Chinese censorship and internet surveillance "opportunities" for business.
Hillary removes Bill Clinton as first husband.
China imprisoned Guo Quan, apparently because he criticized the government's response to the earthquake.
I do not know whether the response to the earthquake deserves criticism, but I've seen claims that schools collapsed while private buildings nearby survived. Perhaps those schools were not built strongly enough to survive a big quake.
Charlie Black, McCain's campaign advisor, says it was ok for him to do PR work for dictators, because the US government approved of his choice of dictators.
Lebanon seems to have pulled back from the brink of civil war through an agreement between various factions.
In an overture to China, the Dalai Lama asked Tibetans to cease protests for a month out of concern for the earthquake.
Congress has given veto power to Philip Morris in writing a bill to regulate tobacco sales.
The FBI is trying to recruit infiltrators to spy on protest groups. They
say it is because they suspect protestors are "terrorists".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Their definition of "terrorist" is much broader than yours or mine, but they don't really need to believe these protest groups include terrorists. That is just excuse is just cover for sabotaging protests.
Do you use Charter Communications as your ISP? Do you know anyone who does? Customers should write to denounce the plan to track users' web browsing for commercial purposes.
Carbon nanotubes could be dangerous like asbestos — nobody knows what will happen when objects made of them are put into landfills.
Global warming is likely to damage the growth of the plants that caribou eat.
Bush is afflicting the US with secret laws, secret even from Congress.
The claim that "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" is absurd in the US for many other reasons. Many activities (sharing music, smoking pot, talking about US government support for terrorism) are illegal even though they are not wrong. And if you don't do any of them, many police and prosecutors will happily lie to put you in prison if they consider you a threat to the state.
Republican Boehner wants protection from illegal wiretapping — but only for himself, not for you.
The Netherlands has banned electronic voting machines.
Canadians: call your MPs again to oppose your government's plans to give Hollywood new power over you.
China is using surveillance cameras and face recognition to set up
Police State 2.0.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
US companies are helping, and the rulers of countries such as the US and the UK want to follow the same path. Now the UK wants to make a data base of all phone calls and emails.
To talk about the possibility that this data may be "lost, traded or stolen" is missing the point. The worst danger is that the government which collected it will use it.
Former Alabama Governor Siegelman talks about Karl Rove's prosecution
of Democrats such as himself.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Pakistani army is using collective punishment to try to end suicide bombings by Taliban-like fanatics.
Aside from the general injustice of collective punishment, it is not likely to achieve a victory in the long term.
Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are facing violence from local people who think they are taking away jobs.
Perhaps one solution is to organize some of these refugees into an army, so they can return to Zimbabwe and kick out Mugabe.
The Bush regime seems to have a secret
list of Americans to arrest in the event of a "national
emergency". Even large protests could qualify.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Every patriotic American belongs on this list, so how can I find out if I have made the grade?
Iran claims it
busted a US terror network.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli politics is corrupted by foreign billionaires that fuel the electoral campaigns and turn the politicians into their pets.
The Democratic leadership in Congress wanted to fund the occupation of
Iraq and avoid debate on the issue, but Republicans thwarted the move. Bush
can still count on most Democrats to be scared to end the occupation.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
So what good are those Democrats?
Agribusiness gets rich by shafting farmers and consumers, even as it leads the latter towards unhealthy eating.
Windows Vista gratuitously refused to record certain TV programs as a form of Digital Restrictions Management.
Chicago is following London's path in installing surveillance cameras everywhere along with software to analyze the video.
I hope that this "cost/benefit ratio" is not limited to considering the monetary cost. That would be tantamount to treating government surveillance, which is easily used to crush protests and dissent, as no cost.
Even places that no terrorist would bother with are subject to surveillance against people just taking photos.
I urge everyone to stop and take pictures of weigh stations. Saturate this pointless and harassing police surveillance.
Drug marketing: payola
for doctors.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: Demand an investigation of Rep. Don Young, who secretly altered a bill after Congress had approve it and before passing it to Dubya for signing.
A massive study attributes 90% of the wildlife changes around the world to human-caused global warming.
Yet businesses are still funding global-warming-denial organizations.
Since this fake citizens' group conceals the source of its funds, we are entitled to suppose it is the oil companies.
McCain calls for more Reagan-style trickle down economics, and wants 4 more years to reduce Iraq to quivering submission.
The Bush regime dropped its phony trial against Mohammed al-Qahtani, apparently embarrassed that the case against him was based solely on confessions extracted by torture. Now al-Qahtani faces only life imprisonment without trial.
The UK will conduct an investigation into the killing of Iraqi prisoner Baha Mousa.
This is the first stage in what an ethical government does when its agents have killed prisoners. I hope the UK does the whole job.
People who have climbed Ayers Rock give bizarre credence to superstitious ideas that it must not be "polluted" by climbing it or taking away loose stones.
The article seems to confuse the isues of damaging the mountain and offending the aboriginal tribe. Real damage to the mountain seems unlikely as long as people don't use picks.
The Burmese junta has succeeded in blocking nearly all aid to the victims of the cyclone, in effect holding them hostage.
As long as the rest of the world is afraid of a military confrontation with the junta, it will tend to learn the twisted lessons that this article seems to recommend. I think the lesson to be learned is "Invade Burma". But that has to be part of a larger lesson, including "Don't invade Iraq".
US citizens: sign
this letter calling for a GAO investigation of the Pentagon Paid
Propaganda Pundit Program.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US nuclear power plant manufacturers want government subsidies, and say that there should be nothing shameful about that. It has corrupted former environmentalists to work alongside the PR company that also worked for Clinton, Clinton, Berlusconi and B'liar.
I agree that "government subsidy" is not necessarily bad. Remember that when greedy right-wing jerks object to subsidies for things that help most people's lives.
An NPR program downplayed concerns about suicide as a side effect of prozac. Turns out the program is funded by the company that makes prozac.
NPR ought to adopt a clear and firm position about conflicts of interest, rather than trying to get away with as much as it can.
A New Zealand anarchist reports on how his protest camp was attacked, and many there were arrested and accused of "terrorism". There appears to be no evidence for that accusation.
Obama gave the Bush regime a jab, by calling on the State Department
to talk about Saudi Arabia's abuses of human rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Bush and the EU plan to cement
software patents in both America and Europe through a nasty
treaty.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
In the UK, the world's leader in orwellian high-tech surveillance, stores now use biometrics to monitor customers and employees.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and say, "Don't vote any money to continue the war." And if you support any senator as a presidential candidate, call that candidate's office and say, "Don't vote any money to continue the war."
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Michael Klare: An
Oil-addicted EX-superpower.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The increased power of Russia and China could turn into benefits for the world if the rivalry helps other countries escape from being dominated by either of them or the US.
Hamas has agreed to accept any treaty approved by a referendum of
Palestinians. True friends of Israel (like true friends of the Palestinians)
should pressure Israel to negotiate with Hamas, and pay the price for lasting
peace.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Instead,
Bush has given the Israeli government total support, to the point where
Palestinians are on the point of giving up on the very idea of a separate
state to coexist with Israel.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Supporting whatever Israel does is
not friendship.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
An Israeli participant in the weekly Bil'in protests shouted "enough violence", so an Israeli soldier shot him. He plans to continue protesting.
McCain's campaign is full of PR people that have
represented dictators and bigots.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Here are the full details.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A famous Indian "barefoot doctor" has been accused of carrying a note for one of his patients, an imprisoned guerrilla. 22 Nobel laureates denounced these these charges and called for him to be freed.
The way state-organized militias, supposedly fighting against the guerrillas, clear off the people that live in areas where there are resources to mine, reminds me of Colombia and its paramilitaries, which supposedly existed to fight the guerrillas but actually stole land from the peasants in places far away from the guerrillas.
Lots of chocolate contains palm oil produced on that stolen land.
Remember also how the Bush regime has accused lawyers and guards for terrorist suspects of carrying messages for them? These charges were laid for political purposes, and maybe the ones in India were too.
And doesn't India have a responsibility to provide medical care for prisoners?
A letter shows Einstein's complete rejection of religion in the usual sense of the word.
The Canadian government uses copyright to obstruct political criticism.
Police in the UK have forbidden protestors from calling the Church of Scientology a cult. One protestor was charged with a crime for carrying a sign saying that.
Vince Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson, calls for Bush and his co-conspirators to be tried for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
But their crime goes beyond the mere murder of so many people. To launch a war of aggression is itself a crime under the principles established at Nuremberg.
US citizens: call your senators and tell them to override
the FCC decision that allows more media concentration.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
If you want to donate aid money to help the Burmese, do it through http://www.uscampaignforburma.org.
The surge of
Iraqi prisoners.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Canada is prosecuting an author for "hate speech" for a book that apparently criticizes Muslims.
I have not seen the book, and I do not know whether I would agree with anything in it. But that is irrelevant: censorship is more dangerous than anything that a book might say.
Haitians rioted to demand the return of kidnaped President Aristide, so his enemies fabricated accusations of murder against them.
Global warming may
threaten koalas.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Burmese military rulers have seized foreign emergency relief supplies.
They also demand payment of import duty on relief supplies. Paying this would support their regime.
I support the proposal to deliver relief supplies in defiance of their power, since they are in no way the legitimate rulers of Burma anyway. If it is necessary to defeat the Burmese army in order to do this, so much the better — then Aung San Suu Kyi could take office.
Tsvangirai says he will return to Zimbabwe for a run-off election but only if international observers can make sure it is fair and free.
There are 5
million orphans in Iraq, according to official statistics of the
"Iraqi" government.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery, who saw the Israeli war of independence as a participant, explains how it resulted in the expulsion of Palestinians.
The film Body of War describes how a soldier in the Bush forces was wounded and permanently paralyzed, then became an activist for Iraq Veterans Against the War.
When Congress tried to restore effective enforcement of sex
discrimination laws, McCain did not support it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A number of employers in the UK are planning a blacklist database to identify anyone that has ever been accused of crimes, or other bad work habits — never mind whether they have been convicted (or even charged).
Two men took photos on a ferry boat, and our paranoid police
started an international search for them. It turns out they were just
taking pictures, as we all do.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
To suspect people of being terrorists because they take pictures is as absurd as suspecting them because they breathe. Maybe the ferry boat captain who photographed those two is a terrorist. You never know, right?
1/3 of the women in the US military get sexually
assaulted during their period of employment. Some are then
murdered, and the commanders often call it "suicide".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
This problem is small compared with the number of deaths of Bush forces soldiers, which is itself small compared with the number of Iraqis that the Bush forces have killed. But it parallels the general attitude of the Bush forces towards a wide range of corruption.
The Clown regime seems likely to miss half its stated environmental goals, and these are concentrated especially in the area of global warming.
The EFF is fighting an attempt to twist copyright law to give the software developer total power over execution of the program.
Victory in this case will not eliminate the practice of restricting how users run proprietary programs. It will only limit the developers to using contracts as the means. This will not make users free. If you want freedom, you must reject proprietary software and use free software .
Even as the EFF fights this attempt to stretch copyright power, it perhaps unwittingly encourages future such attempts, through its use of the term "intellectual property" to describe copyright.
That propaganda term is biased: it gives people the wrong idea of the basis for thinking about copyright issues. In addition, it is confusing: it encourages people to conflate copyright with other totally different laws that raise different issues.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html for more explanation.
Using that term in this article was totally gratuitous. Avoiding it would have been trivial.
The EFF ought to stop using that propaganda term, and teach other people to reject it too.
Iraqi Bush forces have arrested the leader of Al Qa'ida in Iraq.
Someone else will replace him, as he replaced the previous leader. This will not eliminate that organization. Bush's only chance to do that was in 2003: all he had to do was not invade Iraq.
Shi'ites and Sunnis are fighting in Beirut.
There is a danger this will restart the civil war.
In the UK, the Minister of Police Power calls for harrassment of suspects.
ASBOs mean that the local authorities can order people to stop doing literally anything they don't like. If the victims don't obey the order, they can be imprisoned, if if the activity is not a crime at all.
This is obviously unjust, but not very effective at deterring unruly teenagers, who consider the ASBOs a badge of honor. So now the Minister of Police Power calls for further nastiness.
The latest thing for governments that say they want to eliminate poverty
is to ask the megacorporations that run the sweatshops to expand their
operations.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
At the base of this absurd idea is Reagonomics and trickle-down, but they have stopped explicitly arguing for that. Instead they take it for granted.
Marijuana use in the UK is falling, but the Clown regime wants to increase penalties so as to look "tough on drugs".
The ACLU and EFF made the FBI back down from using the U SAP AT RIOT act to search library records.
We know that the FBI has often violated even the lax rules of the U SAP AT RIOT act.
But let's not confuse "violating the rules" with "unjust". The power to search without even a court order is fundamentally unjust. The U SAP AT RIOT act must be eliminated.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, "
No compromise with Bush on FISA. Defend our freedom; don't increase Big
Brother's spy powers, which are already too much, and don't let the phone
companies off the hook for their illegal spying."
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Small changes in how we live are not enough to avert environmental disaster.
The USDA refuses to ban the use of meat from very sick cows even though agribusiness is asking for this.
The New York Times is spreading propaganda for attacking Iran, just as it spread propaganda for attacking Iraq in 2002.
US TV stations that were platforms for the Pentagon's propaganda "military experts" have still said nothing about the issue.
NPR intends to keep using its Pentagon "expert".
Rising sea level threatens Alexandria and is destroying Egyptian farmland with salt.
Due to global warming, glaciers are melting earlier, so the water is not available when needed for agriculture.
A UK police official justified allowing Chinese police into London because otherwise China would have sent the Olympic torch through another city. And he excused them for punching protestors because it was a "natural reaction" to possibly "losing face".
Does he believe that people in general are allowed to punch protestors that make them lose face? Or is this a special privilege for Chinese thugs only?
A principled UK government would have told China to take its thugs elsewhere. But the Clown organization is not known for principle.
The recession has turned Sick-o into Sick-o squared.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Polish police attacked and arrested protesters when they were
sleeping, after the protest, then made various obviously dishonest
excuses for it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
There were riots in Somalia over food prices.
I think there is something more going on. The article talks of "old 1000-shilling notes." I wonder whether the US-imposed regime that controls Mogadishu has caused hyperinflation, or tried for other reasons to replace the currency.
The US has started constructing a DNA database of everyone in the US. It is being done gradually: only for newborn babies, who are too young to defend their rights.
US citizens should go to another country to have babies.
All the surveillance cameras in London have had almost no effect on street crime, even though that is supposed to be their purpose. The authorities say, "It will work, once our surveillance goes deeper."
They also would like us to assume that the system is safe as long as access is limited to "authorized" people. But that does nothing to protect Britons from the worst threat: Big Brother.
Since the B'liar regime used "anti-terror" laws to sabotage protests, do you believe that the Clown regime won't use CCTV to find and sabotage opposition if it ever works well enough?
The state of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, voted for and declared "autonomy" but not secession.
The state powers described in this article do not seem controversial to me, since in the US every state has them. At the same time, I suspect that foreign oil companies have something to do with this, and that somehow it is a scheme to keep the oil revenues in their own hands.
I hope that the Democracy Center will provide a useful analysis of this.
Many members of the African National Conference, including Nelson Mandela, are on the US "terrorist" watch list and need waivers to visit the US.
This is not the only way the US is nasty to foreigners. It takes fingerprints of them when they enter the country, and for that reason alone everyone should stay away from the US if possible.
It certainly is right to remove the heroes of the fight against apartheid from this list. However, it sounds like this is just an example of a broader problem. If even the Secretary of State cannot get them removed, something very strange must be responsible. Does anyone know what?
Maybe someone in Rep. Berman's district can ask him what it is.
Bush's corrupt system of contractors in Iraq repeatedly kills Bush
forces soldiers.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
According to George Soros, the financial crisis is partly due to right-wing ideology. Markets are unstable, and government intervention is periodically necessary for them to work well for society. But the US government regulators came to believe right-wing propaganda telling them to place their faith in the invisible hand.
A South African woman is in difficulties because she cannot get a
national ID card. It requires a fingerprint, but she has no fingers.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
To require citizens to give the government their fingerprints for ordinary life activities is unjust even if they do have fingers. National ID cards should be abolished everywhere.
The Bush regime is sending a fleet to the Caribbean as a threat to
invade countries there.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
They are fortunate that the US army has been sufficiently worn down in Iraq that it could not occupy a substantial country against determined Iraq-style resistance.
An Iraqi man, imprisoned for a year but never tried, was made to kneel
for two hours to a US flag. Wonder of wonders, he now hates Americans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US owes him, and all Iraqis, an apology.
Mugabe's run-off, which gives him a second chance to threaten voters, may be delayed for up to a year — meaning yet more chance to do so.
Shark attacks against humans are increasing; is it due to human
destruction of their food sources?
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The theory that it is due to more people spending more time in the water does not hold water, because that is a gradual trend.
Bush's Iraqi government denies that Iran is supporting the Mahdi Army. Evidently Bush's control over it is not complete.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Bush wants an excuse to attack Iran. The Shi'ite SCIRI party that controls the Iraqi government is quite friendly with Iran. They both would like to destroy the Mahdi Army, but for different reasons.
For KBR, Iraq is anarchy. Its staff take advantage of this by operating the most outrageous rackets, such as looting, and selling the Bush forces' weapons. The local managers support the rackets and punish anyone that tells about them, which I suspect means they are getting a share.
Folklore has it that military quartermasters, soldiers in charge of supplies, also frequently sold those supplies. But I doubt that the US Army gave dishonorable discharges to soldiers who reported such crimes.
The mortgage crisis was fueled by fraud in which all kinds of participants connived.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Fraud is wrong, but I think that the responsibility of individuals for this kind fo fraud is diminished by the fact that they were invited and encouraged by the institutions that they were supposedly defrauding. It would be legitimate to prosecute those who provably committed fraud in exceptional degree, but we must hold the institutions (ultimately the government) responsible for the overall problem.
Retired Justice O'Connor is campaigning to end election of judges, because it gives the rich a way to corrupt them.
As part of Bush's War on Integrity, the EPA chief for the Midwest has been fired for doing her job.
The local Chamber of Commerce has been corrupted too. That's not news, it's standard practice, but it's important to see how it happens. Their reasoning is, "For the sake of local jobs, let the employers pollute." If everyone accepts that, we won't have more jobs, but we will have a lot more pollution.
Why is Obama's connection with Rev. Wright treated as a scandal, while Bush's connection with Sun Myung Moon is not?
If you buy Parry's book, please don't get it from Amazon, maker of the Swindle(DefectiveByDesign.org).
Rather than conserve oil, Bush is launching a new Cold War against Russia and China for control of the dwindling supplies.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
McCain has similar ideas.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Unlike the first Cold War, in which countries that respected human rights most of the time opposed Communist dictatorships, this will be a contest between two groups of brutal tyrants, both of which deserve the opposition of all people of good will.
I think these evil regimes will use this Cold War as an excuse to become even worse. Both sides will sponsor terrorists to attack the other side, and then both sides will use the "terrorist threat" as an excuse to further trample the human rights of their people.
If the US apologizes to the people of Iraq for conquering and destroying their country, and to the people of Iran for overthrowing their democracy in 1954, it would go a great way to reducing the desire of Islamic extremists to practice terrorism against the US. And if the US cooperates with Russia and China to develop alternative energy sources instead of starting another Cold War, they won't be victims of each other's terrorism. That is the way to be safe.
Uri Avnery contrasts Israel's independence and the Palestinians' catastrophe.
Will the Iraqi militias that Bush is paying turn around and become enemies of the US?
I think they will not follow a path like that of Al Qa'ida, because they are not idealistic enough to care. But they are likely to prove unreliable allies.
The Zimbabwe election commission released results, but they differ from the counts posted at polling places and give Tsvangirai a lower total which would justify the run-off Mugabe intends to have.
It seems Mugabe is trying to prevent that run-off from being held freely, and the opposition refuses to participate in it.
Clinton wants to eliminate the gasoline tax
so that Americans can produce more CO2 this summer.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The magnates of Eastern Bolivia are stirring up racial hostility
to try to break away from Bolivia, and keep the wealth of their region
for themselves instead of supporting poor Bolivians with it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Police in the UK stopped a
showing of On The Verge at Southampton University, threatening
students with prosecution. University officials helped the police and
conveyed these threats. The film depicts police attacks on protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
It would be interesting for a group of students to show it and dare the police to prosecute them.
2.5 million refugees have fled Iraq. Hardly anyone wants to
return, but they are having trouble living anywhere else.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that President Chavez had increased
Venezuela's food production. That is what I recalled from my first
visit there, but, more recently, price
controls have caused food shortages.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Mario Uribe, President Uribe's cousin and advisor, was arrested for collaborating with paramilitary thugs.
Although the paramilitaries pretend that their purpose was to oppose the guerrillas, their main activity is organized crime. For instance, they serve Coca Cola Company by killing union organizers and their families.
They are also known for attacking villages to terrorize the inhabitants into selling their land, very cheap, to people like Mario Uribe. I heard one of the victims speak in Spain; he lives there, sponsored by human rights organizations, because he would not be safe in Colombia. There was no guerrilla activity near his village, and the army seemed to close its eyes to the attack by the paramilitaries.
President Horrible (in Spanish it sounds enough like Uribe) gave the paramilitaries an amnesty, whose effect is that they get to keep this land that they extorted. People interpret the amnesty as intentional aid to them.
That's just the sort of person that Bush would want as an ally.
US citizens: Tell the EPA to oppose an expensive project to drain vital wetlands to please a few wealthy landowners.
Jesse Jackson reminded Americans that the US
owes Haiti an apology as well as food aid.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Oxfam calls on Israel to stop starving Gaza.
Uri Avnery explained when the Annapolis "peace process" was announced that it was a failure from the outset.
This article from Jewish Voices for Peace analyzes the situation
today.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
It is misleading to compare the siege of Gaza to apartheid in South Africa. Although South African forced the Blacks to live in special zones, it did not lock them up in those zones and starve them.
Timothy Garon was denied a liver transplant because he had used
marijuana to cope with the pain of his liver disease.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I've been told that the active ingredients in marijuana relieve nausea like nothing else, but only when smoked.
Victims of politically motivated prosecutions, and their witnesses and their lawyers, have been the targets of strange burglaries and even arson.
I do not doubt that these crimes were organized by the state. The evidence points that way, and there is no reason to find it incredible. Even Nixon arranged burglaries, and Dubya is far worse.
When we condemn government surveillance, the usual response is that "If you are not doing anything wrong, you have no reason to object if we know everything that you do." That's not true under a regime that might frame you or burn down your house if it doesn't like what you are doing.
Sami al-Hajj, a journalist freed after 6 years imprisonment in Guantanamo, did not hesitate to condemn the way the captives are treated there after being imprisoned without trial.
Microsoft has built a new back door in Windows for the use of the police.
In regimes where the police do things like ship you to Syria to be tortured, this is a threat to your human rights. Organizations that oppose government policies cannot trust Windows — or any non-free software, because users cannot tell what those developers have done.
An Australian musician says he was duped into contributing to an anti-"piracy" video.
The EFF is campaigning with Congress against unlimited searches of travelers' computers at borders.
The Supreme Court approved state ID requirements for voting which will tend to exclude poorer voters that don't have the required ID cards, can't afford them, etc.
This is part of a general Republican strategy to lock up elections by excluding voters that won't support them, and continues the method used by Bush to steal the 2000 election.
Here's the text of Rev. Wright's speech, which led Obama to break with him.
There are things in it I disagree with. Above all, the religion: I am sure that an omnipotent, omniscient that allowed all the suffering and injustice of our world would not deserve anyone's admiration. And I don't believe such a being exists anyway.
Secondly, and much less important, I do not believe that the US government produced HIV. Nobody in 1980 could have done such a thing; even today, genetic engineering is nowhere near advanced enough. Indeed, HIV has been found in tissues from people who died long before that.
I do not condemn Wright for saying that, I just disagree with it. To have made the AIDS virus would be only a couple of grades worse than what the US government has done in Iraq, so I reject the claim that the government would never do something so bad, but I don't believe it did.
Meanwhile, I admire Wright's principal points regarding race (both repentance and reconciliation), and regarding oppression and empire. I'd rather have him as president than either of the Democratic candidates.
Why did Obama denounce Rev. Wright? Here's one theory.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Genetically modified soybeans do not improve crop yields.
They might have some other advantage, but when we compare that against the dangers (to health, to ecosystems, and to farmers' rights), we must not weigh them against hypothetical benefits.
Fiji bottled water, which engages in the absurd practice of bottling water in Fiji and shipping it to the US, is reaching for absurd straws to greenwash this practice.
A US bombing raid in Somalia killed the leader of Al Qa'ida there, along with several people in nearby buildings — bystanders, presumably.
The Ethiopian army occupies Somalia with US help. Ethopia's government is a dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy but imprisoned the leaders of the opposition — just the sort of regime that Bush would love. I would hate to be ruled by the sort of Islamist regime that brought stability and peace to Somalia until the Ethopian conquest, but it is clear that the Bush-sponsored occupation is even worse.
Iran has stopped accepting US dollars for oil sales.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
As the WHO looks for a new system of funding the medical research
that the big drug companies don't do — essentially,
research that would save lots of lives rather than make fairly wealthy
people more comfortable — these drug companies are using dishonest
PR techniques to sabotage the negotiations.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The governments that support the drug company positions are those that serve as the national representatives of the megacorporations. Their citizens would be very unhappy if they knew what "their" governments were doing "on their behalf", but the government and the corporate media hide it. And democracy has been corrupted and weakened to the point where their wishes count for nothing.
Everyone: make phone calls and send email in support of
Professor Al-Arian, facing persecution in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Israel plans to close Palestinian orphanages, dumping
some 300 children onto the street.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The article says where to send your complaints.
China has publicly convicted 30 people for protests in Tibet with sentences up to life imprisonment.
I wonder how many have been disappeared secretly, like the young Panchen Lama and his family.
Ministers must be held responsible for the persistent use of torture by British troops in the Bush forces.
I'm sure the troops that carried out the torture were a small minority of the British contingent in the Bush forces. After all, only a small minority of any army is directly involved in guarding prisoners, and those who committed torture must be a fraction of them. But this detail changes nothing about the government's responsibility. It is an attempt to confuse and distract.
Israel rejected Hamas' offer for a cease-fire.
Apparently Israel finds it more useful to attack the Palestinians than to end the missile attacks on Sderot which provide an excuse doing so. Israeli authorities are aware of how rarely those missiles hurt anyone.
What do Palestinian children learn from the occupation?
There is a lot of opportunity for diplomacy between the US and
Iran, if the US government wants to do it.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US government is concerned about the danger of malicious features in IC chips.
This is a rational concern: in fact, most PCs contain malicious features already, for treacherous computing.
Since the US government already uses malicious software to spy on computer users, I am more worried that the US government will put malicious features into our computers than about whatever Chinese crackers may do to them.
When Ecuador's government was a puppet of the US, Chevron praised its judicial system so as to get an environmental case transferred to Ecuador. Now that Ecuador is no longer subservient to business, Chevron's media supporters say the opposite.
Business is good at ting plausible lies, and has experts available for hire to do so, and for convincing newspapers to present a picture that supports them. Therefore, we must distrust all policy arguments offered by business even if they seem superficially plausible. Without an honest, independent investigation, we cannot know whether they are true.
Burger King's vice president anonymously posted nasty comments to attack the Confederation of Immokalee Workers.
The Confederation of Immokalee Workers asks restaurant chains to pay a tiny price increase for tomatoes to give the tomato pickers a substantial boost in their poverty-level wages. Some have agreed, but Burger King has refused.
The Pentagon's secret corruption of "military experts" is explicitly illegal, but that law depends on Bush to enforce it.
British agents interrogated prisoners in Pakistan who were being tortured by Pakistani guards. Some of these prisoners were then shipped to the UK without extradition hearings, and arrested and convicted of "terrorism". One must suspect they were convicted based on confessions extracted by torture.
Here's how the British agents collaborated with the Pakistani torturers.
What the agents did was illegal, but the Clown regime will surely find a ridiculous excuse not to prosecute them, just as it cites "privacy" as an excuse not to admit the wrongs it has done. Its view is that laws are tools of power over the public, not limits on what it can do to the public.
Britons must defend themselves above all from the principal terrorist threat, their government.
The UK government is more concerned with cutting taxes for the rich than with health, so it is kicking people out of hospitals early if they cannot pay.
While the government's propaganda staff call these people "health tourists" I suspect that many of them are simply undocumented. And some of them are babies.
I am not surprised that Andy Finlay gets death threats. I would categorize him as a murderer.
Riad Hamad, founder of the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund, was
bound with tape and tossed into a lake. The police call it suicide.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
Here's a letter he sent to Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-10 because the old link was broken.]
I don't think the author of that letter would commit suicide, or write a "suicide note" implying doubt about the rightness of his cause. It seems more plausible that someone (working for the Bush regime?) murdered him and faked the note.
The UK's surveillance law, introduced by B'liar as a vital security measure, is being used to investigate littering.
Another injustice in this law is that it requires people to hand over their own encryption keys or face imprisonment.
In Memphis, the police are asking citizens to report anyone taking pictures. Anyone who "talks a little bit radical" is supposed to be a potential terrorist.
This shows clearly that the so-called "war on terrorism" is really a war on each and every one of us. The frequent warnings for citizens to "be alert" against the unlikely danger of non-state-sponsored terrorism are meant as a distraction from the ever-present danger of a tyrannical state. And the jittery trigger-happy state it induces leads to real harm to innocent victims, as Star Simpson and several others have discovered.
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