April 9, 2005

The Empire of Darkness Series #24: Largest Compilation Ever


Hello everyone!

I've just spent 4 hours adding various excerpts to this gargantuan 75 pages compilation which has been in the work for the past 10 days and—would you believe it!— there is much, much more which I've decided not to include or could not get to review in the amazing amount of material streaming my way every day. Of course, you'll probably have 5 or 6 days to review it before you receive another big one like this from me. So let's hope you don't get discouraged by the time this one will require from you.

Once again I'm at a loss to properly qualify the abysmal litany of horror stories generated by the American Empire's crimes against humanity, the planet and Life itself. Israel's inhumane actions also featured at the very end of this compilation are also worth mentioning and much much more.

And yet, despite all odds I still remain rock solid confident that beyond these hereby exposed realities which the mainstream media do their utmost to cover up, there lies a shining future in which violence, hatred and misery will be no more.

Of course to get there will require some "undoing" of very bad choices as well as the common adoption of true love and peace-based priorities and values, something we are all here to help foster - because criticizing is evidently not enough...

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator

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STATS for this compilation: Over 28,900 words and 88 links provided

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"If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses."

- Louis Levoin
(Sent by "Stan Penner" stanp@mts.net> in response to the Meditation Focus #128: Shifting The World From War-Making To Planet-Healing)


"Today more than ever before life must be characterised by a sense of universal responsibility not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life."

- The Dalai Lama -Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4415929.stm


"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

- Mohandas Gandhi


"We have full faith in the essential goodness and the conscience of the American people, and if these images were shown in America's living-rooms every night, the war would be over in a week."

- Taken from Bringing The War Back Home: Eugene Resisters Shut Down Recruitment Center - Recommended by "Suzy Star" suzystar@earthlink.net> who wrote: "This is heartening news about how dedicated consciously devoted groups can show the world our objections to the atrocities that are being committed by the current regime."


Worthy of Your Attention

The Zoomquilt - a collaborative art project
http://www.eviltree.de/zoomquilt/zoom.htm
Recommended by "Ginger Gibson" ggdolfin1@earthlink.net> who wrote: THIS IS REALLY WILD!!!!!! THE ARTWORK IS AMAZING!" I absolutely concur. This is the most astounding piece of art I've ever seen! Make sure to read and understand the instructions before clicking "start" and make sure to zoom back entirely - if you can... - after zooming in.

Revealing Major Cover-ups & Working Together for the Good of All
http://www.WantToKnow.info/forthegoodofall

Coop Radio: Gail Davidson & Leuren Moret: Are Bush & Co. War Criminals?
http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2005/04/coop_radio_gail.html
(...) The Defendant Mr. George Walker Bush, President of the United States is:
1) Guilty for crime of aggression; 2) Guilty for war crimes in regard to military attacks against civilians, including indiscriminate bombings, use of cluster bombs, daisy cutter bombs, use of depleted uranium weaponry; guilty for war crimes in regard to attacks against civilian objects; guilty for war crimes in regard to treatments of prisoners of war and civil detainees including abuses against prisoners of war in Qara-i-Jhangi, inhuman and degrading treatments against prisoner of war in transfer to Guantanamo Military Base, inhuman and degrading treatments of prisoner of war as well as civil detainees in Guantanamo Base, while charges of war crimes in terms with transfer of prisoners of war and civil detainees in containers as well as inhuman and degrading treatments in Sheberghan Prison Camp have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt to a point that the Defendant himself committed such crimes. 3) Guilty for crimes against humanity in regard to refugees, use of depleted uranium weaponry, and in observance of legal duty to announce the noxious effects of depleted uranium weaponry as well as negligence of safety measures for US military personnel. CLIP

Global Ecosystems Again Shown to Be Perilously Imperiled, Now Is Time for Action!
http://forests.org/action/alert.asp?id=world
Let World Leaders Know We Need Urgent International Measures to Ensure Global Ecological Sustainability and Equitable Development. (...) Somehow world governments must be made to understand that what is at stake is life itself - for humanity, every Earthly species, and the Earth as a whole.

The Last Porto Alegre: Discerning the State of the World Social Forum After Five Years
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0502alegre.html
Good analysis on this recent event attended by 155,000 people from around the world.


CONTENTS

1. Letter to the Editor on conscientious objectors
2. Sleepwalking to disaster in Iran
3. Plans by U.S. to Dominate Space Raising Concerns
4. If You Build It, They Will Kill
5. Revelations from an Insider
6. The Epic Struggle for World Hegemony
7. THE MOTHER OF ALL SCANDALS
8. Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil
9. THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY - IT HAS BEGUN
10. The Anti-War Pope
11. The next Pope may be the last
12. Israel: A Call for Divestment


See also:

In Tsunami Area, Relief Is Very Slow in Coming (April 6) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040705F.shtml
Three months after a tsunami devastated the Aceh Province, almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding. - Banda Aceh, Indonesia - Three months after a tsunami devastated this city, vast areas remain a flatland of rubble, mud and stagnant water where only palm trees and the stumps of broken buildings break the low horizon. Tens of thousands of bodies from among more than 126,000 reported dead in Aceh Province have been cleared away and nearly half a million homeless people have found other places to live. But among the ruins here, and for many miles along the coastline of barren fishing villages, almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding. There is little sign in Aceh of the billions of dollars in donations from governments, aid organizations, civic groups and individual people who reached out to help from around the world. (...) Indeed the government faces a huge and complex task. It cannot simply throw up a few new dwellings; it must rebuild entire neighborhoods and towns, entire economic and social environments. "It is very difficult to rebuild, especially permanent structures, if you don't have a clear idea who the land belongs to and how many people are going to be living there," Ms. Wall said. To begin with, a clear tally of the dead and living must be made, and with more than 100,000 people still listed as missing, the final death toll in Aceh alone is likely to be well above 200,000. The complications of rebuilding come in many forms. For one thing, this disaster may not yet be over. Seismologists predict more earthquakes, perhaps even stronger than the aftershock that devastated several small islands last week. Aid groups are already stockpiling more relief materials. "This is going to happen again," Ms. Wall said. For another, there is a war going on: For more than a decade, Aceh has been the scene of a Muslim separatist rebellion and brutal military repression. There are reports that violence from both sides has continued since the tsunami. CLIP

Scott Ritter: Neocons as Parasites (April 1, 2005) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105J.shtml
(...)  So you believe the neocons are elitist parasites? Yes, elitism is the perfect term. Do you consider it localized or global elitism? The neocons believe in what they think is a noble truth, power of the few, the select few. These are godless people who want power, nothing more. They do not have a country or an allegiance, they have an agenda. These people might hold American passports, but they are not Americans because they do not believe in the Constitution. They believe in the power of the few, not a government for or by the people. They are a few and their agenda is global. (...) No plan survives initial contact with the enemy. The neocon ideology was always hypothetical in its pure application until now. What we are seeing today is what happens when theory (bad theory at that) makes contact with reality. You get chaos, through which the neocons are now trying to navigate. Is Karl Rove a neocon? Karl Rove is not part of the neo-conservative master group; he is a host. Then who is steering the ship? An oligarchy of 'public servant' classes who are drawn from business, and serve naked economic interests. This is true whether you are Democrat or Republican. CLIP

UN Votes to Send Any Sudan War Crime Suspects to World Court (01 April 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105L.shtml
United Nations - The Security Council voted Thursday night to send any war crimes suspects from the Darfur region of Sudan to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, after the United States obtained amendments to exempt Americans from the tribunal's jurisdiction. The vote of the 15-member Council was 11 in favor, with four abstentions- Algeria, Brazil, China and the United States. (...) It was the third Sudan resolution in the Council in a week after two months of delay that had raised a clamor of criticism against the panel over its inaction. On March 24, the Council unanimously passed a measure establishing a 10, 715-member force to shore up a peace agreement in the south of the country and lend assistance to the 2,000 African Union troops in Darfur. On Tuesday, the panel voted 12 to 0 with three abstentions to impose a travel ban and asset freeze on individuals who commit atrocities or break cease-fire agreements. The conflict in Darfur is estimated to have displaced 2.4 million people and cost the lives of up to 300,000 black African villagers. Pro-government Arab militias, including those known as janjaweed, have been blamed for most of the violence, including rape, murder and arson. Though the United States has been in the forefront of calling for action in Darfur, it balked over the judicial issue when a United Nations commission returned from Sudan in January with a recommendation that suspects be sent to the international court. CLIP

Attacks and Theft Seriously Threaten UN Ability to Feed Millions in Sudan's Darfur (1 April)
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/040105HC.shtml
Shootings, attacks on drivers and thefts of contracted trucks carrying critically needed food aid in Sudan's war-ravaged western Darfur region are seriously threatening the ability of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to assist millions of people at a time when needs are increasing daily, the agency said today. "The security situation is so bad that many drivers are now refusing to move through sections of the road corridors to the three Darfur states," WFP country director Ramiro Lopes da Silva said of the region, where fighting between the Government, allied militias and rebels has killed tens of thousands of people and driven nearly 2 million from their homes in the past two years. "These attacks are completely unconscionable. They create a climate of fear that together with truck seizures pose a real threat to our ability to deliver food," he added of the banditry which has also affected other humanitarian organizations. CLIP

Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered - Group of University Professors Urges Investigation of 2004 Election (March 31st , 2005)
Officially, President Bush won November's election by 2.5%, yet exit polls showed Kerry winning by 3% [1] . According to a report to be released today by a group of university statisticians, the odds of a discrepancy this large between the national exit poll and election results happening by accident are close to 1 in a million.In other words, by random chance alone, it could not have happened.But it did.Two alternatives remain. Either something was wrong with the exit polling, or something was wrong with the vote count. Exit polls have been used to verify the integrity of elections in the Ukraine, in Latin America, in Germany, and elsewhere. Yet in November 2004, the U.S. exit poll discrepancy was much more than normal exit poll error (and similar to that of the invalid Ukraine election.[2] ) (...) A state-by-state analysis of the discrepancy between exit polls and official election results shows highly improbable skewing of the election results, overwhelmingly biased towards the President. The report concludes, We believe that the absence of any statistically-plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofskys exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally is an unanswered question of vital national importance that needs thorough investigation.Ph.D. statisticians in America who have seen this group's preliminary exit poll study have not refuted it. This new study is a much more comprehensive an analysis of the exit poll discrepancies. The report is available on-line at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf
An executive summary of the report by is available a http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_summary.pdf

Why the U.S. Media Is a Whore (April 6, 2005)
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=79914;title=APFN
Bush and his stable of journalistic whores seems unfazed by the current scandal; they happily concoct lies everyday as normal policy. For no other reason than this, the Gannon affair proves William Colby right. The mainstream media is owned--bought and paid for. CLIP

Peter Jennings Defrauding: Inside The ABC News UFO Documentary Hoax By Steven M. Greer MD Director, The Disclosure Project (29 March 2005)
http://www.disclosureproject.org/peterjenningsdefrauding.htm
(...) Instead, the final ABC News show was weaker in evidence than most tabloid cable channel pieces on the UFO subject with the bulk of the documentary being interviews with UFO personalities, debunkers and the carnival atmosphere of UFO hotspots like Roswell. They fraudulently appeared to be balanced by having both skeptics and believers with the clear implication that the skeptics were real scientists and the believers were misguided flakes. Using the ruse of media objectivity, ABC News would asymmetrically show, say, a Harvard scientist skeptic juxtaposed against a civilian who thought he had been sexually assaulted by aliens! The few, very brief interviews with pilots and military people were overwhelmed by the spurious, carnival-like pseudo-ethnography of the UFO subculture mixed in with long segments of scientists pooh-poohing the entire matter. While appearing objective and balanced to the general viewer, the project was, rather, a disinformation piece, carefully crafted to give the mere appearance of objectivity. Otherwise, why spend so much air time interviewing UFO personalities, media figures and the like while completely leaving out ALL high-ranking military, government and scientific witnesses and evidence given directly by us to them? In light of the range and scope of material that we personally gave them, it is incomprehensible why ALL of it would be omitted unless it was their intent from the beginning to do a disinformation and cover-up piece. (...) Those who know me know that I like to stay positive, present the affirmative facts and present the promise of an advanced, sustainable civilization on Earth benefiting from the knowledge of these new technologies. But it is time for the American people to wake up to the fact that the Big Media and their corporate masters are the central problem blocking the truth from coming out. As a former board member of Time Warner told me, the Big Media has become scribes taking dictation from the right hand of the king and the fourth estate is essentially dead. A CALL TO ACTION The American people must demand that ABC News correct its fraudulent assertions and do a real investigative report on the serious evidence, government documents and courageous military whistle-blower testimony that The Disclosure Project and others have identified. The reader may obtain much of this evidence from http://www.DisclosureProject.org CLIP

2% INFLATION AND OTHER OFFICIAL LIES (03-21-05)
http://www.isil.org/towards-liberty/inflation-gov-lies.html
According to official government statistics, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — the mostly widely used measure of inflation — is running a very low 2.2% a year. But if inflation is so low, why is the price of everything you buy going up so fast? How do you reconcile 2% inflation with 10% to 20% annual increases in housing prices . . . 25% to 40% increases in heating bills during the past winter . . . and double-digit increases in the price of nearly everything you consume, from gasoline, to food, to movie tickets? The simple answer is that the official inflation rate is virtually pure fiction, and has been for decades. (...) Williams estimates the current real consumer inflation rate is closer to 6% than 2%. Other research services, like free market Agora Research, now put the real inflation rate at 7%-8%. There are many reasons why it is in the government's interest to make the inflation seem lower than it actually is: First and foremost, it saves them billions of dollars. For instance, cost of living adjustments in Social Security, welfare payments, Medicare and other entitlements are based on changes in the CPI. Similarly, keeping the official CPI rate low, keeps salary and pension adjustments for government employees and retirees much lower than they would otherwise be. A low official CPI also helps keep down interest payments on the national debt (which now consumes over 20% of all government expenditures). It also keeps down the cost of government borrowing, which is now over $1 trillion a year — a lot of money even for the federal government. CLIP

Budgets: Bad And Badder (April 06, 2005)
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/budgets_bad_and_badder.php?dateid=20050406
There's the House budget, and there's the Senate budget. Both include more than $100 billion in program cuts, mostly hurting working people, and large increases in tax cuts, mostly benefiting a small percentage of wealthy people. Sharon Parrott and Jonh Springer of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explain how the tax cuts and defense spending increases contained in both budgets would cost more than the cuts in domestic programs would save. So much for deficit reduction. CLIP

U.S. dollar facing collapse, warns Malaysia's Mahathir (March 30)
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050330/afp/050330081922business.html
KUALA LUMPUR, (AFP) - The US dollar is facing an imminent collapse and the global economy will suffer a "catastrohpe" when it is rejected as the currency for trade, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said. Mahathir, who famously ignored International Monetary Fund (IMF) advice and instead chose to peg his country's ringgit to the US dollar during the Asian financial crisis, said a standard gold currency was now the best alternative for world trade. The dollar was retaining some value because of fears of a global economic catastrophe if it was rejected, he told a conference of some 650 chief executives from 30 countries at a conference in Kota Kinabalu on Borneo island Tuesday, The Star newspaper reported. "But the catastrophe will come one day because even the most powerful country in the world cannot repay loans amounting to seven trillion dollars," Mahathir said. The former premier, who was also finance minister, said he believed central banks worldwide were reducing their US dollar reserves and he suspected that Malaysia was also switching to other currencies. Telling reporters that he was giving his personal views, he warned that "unless (the Americans) change their president and have a more responsible president who will try to reduce the deficit, they will have serious trouble with the US currency."CLIP

International Campaign to Stop Smallpox Genetic Engineering Announced (4 April 2005)
http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prenglish.html
Non-Governmental Organizations Urge the World Health Organization to Put Smallpox in the History Books Instead of the Genetic Engineering Lab – An international alliance of non-governmental organizations has launched a campaign to urge the World Health Organization to reject a proposal that would permit the genetic engineering of smallpox and to instead ensure that all remaining stocks of the virus are destroyed within two years. Debate on the proposal will take place at the World Health Assembly (WHA), which meets in Geneva, Switzerland beginning on May 16th. The NGOs, led by Third World Network and The Sunshine Project, have opened a website http://www.smallpoxbiosafety.org/, where organizations and individuals can send letters to the WHO Director General. The website provides links to health ministries, so that people can also contact their government’s representatives to the WHA. The website is available in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox, which would also permit smallpox genes to be inserted into related poxviruses and the unlimited distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA, poses a large number of public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks. It was prompted by the United States, and has been recommended to the WHA through an imbalanced advisory committee. (...) The World Health Organization (WHO) is justly proud of the global effort that brought about the eradication of smallpox in 1977; but the truth of the matter is that the job was never finished. The United States and Russia still retain stocks of the smallpox virus (Variola major), an easily transmitted disease and ancient scourge of humanity that is a potent biological weapons agent. Smallpox kills one quarter or more of the people it infects and leaves many that do not die disfigured and blind. In 1999, the remaining stocks of smallpox virus were slated for imminent destruction. But Russia and the US balked at the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution calling upon them to destroy the virus. Instead, the US has accelerated smallpox research. Now, it wants to open the Pandora’s Box of genetically-engineered smallpox. A plan to genetically engineer the virus could be approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2005. The plan also includes the expression of smallpox genes in related poxviruses, and unlimited distribution of segments of smallpox DNA. If implemented, this plan would pose serious biosafety risks and open the road to an artificial reconstruction of the virus for biowarfare purpose. Fewer and fewer people, and their leaders, have personal memories of the horror of smallpox, or even the scars left by vaccination, which had ended in most countries by the late 1970s. CLIP

Planet Ark : Oil Super-Spike Could Sink Stocks, Economy - Analysts (April 1, 2005)
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30186/story.htm
NEW YORK - If oil were to hit $105 per barrel, as suggested by a leading broker, it would spread ruin through the stock market and could spell disaster for everything from airlines to retailers to mining companies, analysts said on Thursday.Since the start of the year, oil has risen more than 25 percent to near $56 a barrel. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs issued research saying oil markets have entered a "super-spike" period that could see prices go as high as $105. Goldman also raised its 2005 and 2006 New York Mercantile Exchange crude price forecasts to $50 and $55, respectively, from $41 and $40. A Reuters poll showed that analysts on average expected a mean price for 2005 of $45.49 a barrel. The analysts revised their super-spike range to $50-$105 per barrel from $50-$80 previously, noting demand and economic growth in the United States and China especially. While oil companies benefit from rising crude prices, a diverse mix of companies including Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, trash company Allied Waste, rail operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and Kellogg Co. have all warned of fuel costs. Airline industry analyst Robert Mann said the consequences of oil reaching $105 would be so disastrous to the US economy that it is difficult to isolate the airline industry within that scenario."It's bigger than that," he said. "I think it would ruin the economy. It would be catastrophic."However, Tom Bentz, an analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc., said $100 oil "is possible, but anything is possible."With OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) capacity only a million (barrels per day) away from their limits and demand rising, add a major outage somewhere and sure it's possible," he said. CLIP

Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt (April 1, 2005
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_15/b3928103.htm
A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution - Is there a car that can cut America's oil imports to a trickle, dramatically reduce pollution, and do it all with currently available technology? Greg Hanssen thinks so. His company has already built one such car -- a converted Toyota Prius that gets 100 to 180 mpg in a typical commute. Andrew A. Frank thinks so, too. The University of California at Davis professor has constructed a handful of such vehicles. His latest: a converted 325-horsepower Ford Explorer that goes 50 miles using no gas at all, then gets 30 mpg. "It goes like a rocket," he says. These vehicles are quickly becoming the darlings of strange bedfellows: both conservative hawks and environmentalists, who see such fuel efficiency as key to ensuring national security and fighting climate change. Reducing dependence on the turbulent Middle East "is a war issue," says former CIA Chief R. James Woolsey, who calls the cars' potential "phenomenal."What's the secret? It's as simple as adding more batteries and a plug to hybrids such as the Prius. That way, the batteries can be charged up at any electrical outlet -- letting this so-called plug-in hybrid travel 20 to 60 miles under electric power alone. Since most Americans drive fewer than 30 miles a day, such a car could go months without visiting the filling station. "The only time you would have to gas up is when you go out of town," says Felix Kramer, who founded the nonprofit California Cars Initiative to promote plug-ins. Run the internal combustion engine on a blend of gasoline and biofuels like ethanol, and it would use almost no oil products at all. "That changes the world," says Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy. CLIP

Laura Bush, Women and Realities of Afghanistan
http://www.afghanwomensmission.org
Kolhatkar, based in Los Angeles, is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission and has recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan. She said today: "Mrs. Bush said yesterday that 'American women stand in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan.' But most Afghan women disapprove of U.S. policy. Women are overwhelmingly disappointed with the re-emergence of warlords, a direct result of U.S. policy. These warlords are ideologically similar to the Taliban and many have horrific war crimes in their past. Unfortunately the Bush administration and Mrs. Bush refuse to apply the same standards of women's rights to their warlord allies." Kolhatkar added: "Laura Bush is taking $21.2 million in school grants to Afghanistan. Afghanistan's education was recently called the 'worst education system in the world' by the UN, and unfortunately Mrs. Bush's donation will barely make a dent in the needs -- the United Nations, the Asia Development Bank and the World Bank estimate the need in Afghanistan to be at about $15 billion over a period of 10 years. Afghan Finance Minister Hedayat Arsala predicts the needs to be around $22 billion for the first five years. Mrs. Bush's small donation (hugely outweighed by the U.S.military budget for Afghanistan) is clearly aimed at promoting a perception of U.S. generosity, rather than achieving real progress for Afghanistan. If Mrs. Bush was really interested in Afghan women's rights, she should back an immediate disarmament of warlords, disbarment from government positions,and a war crimes tribunal to demand justice for past crimes. The warlords hinder Afghan women's development, democratic freedoms and access to education." CLIP

The Terrorism of War, By Ron Jacobs (04/06/05)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8477.htm
Since US planes first started bombing the mountains and plains of Afghanistan back in October 2001, we have heard and read plenty about the US "war on terrorism." As has become quite apparent to those who aren't blinded by the rulers' propaganda, this war has very little to do with defeating terrorism and much to do with attempting to establish permanent US domination of the world and its resources. Like the Athenian, Roman, and British empires before it, the US government and the interests it serves need easy and unchallenged access to resources, labor and markets to maintain not only a certain margin of growth (which means profit), but to continue to exist. CLIP

Gas Pains (06 Apr 2005)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200505/bryce
One of the U.S. military's greatest vulnerabilities in Iraq is its enormous appetite for fuel. The insurgents have figured this out. (...) In short, the American GI is the most energy-consuming soldier ever seen on the field of war. For computers and GPS units, Humvees and helicopters, the modern soldier is in constant need of energy: battery power, electric power, and petroleum. The U.S. military now uses about 1.7 million gallons of fuel a day in Iraq. Some of that fuel goes to naval vessels and aircraft, but even factoring out JP-5 fuel (which is what the Navy primarily uses), each of the 150,000 soldiers on the ground consumes roughly nine gallons of fuel a day. And that figure has been rising. CLIP

Draft May Be Needed in a Year, Military Analysts Warn (30 March 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/033105C.shtml
Washington - If American forces aren't pulling out of Iraq in a year, a draft will be needed to meet manpower requirements, military analysts warned Wednesday. With recruitment lagging and no end in sight for U.S. forces in Iraq, the "breaking point" for the nation's all-volunteer military will be mid-2006, agreed Lawrence Korb, a draft opponent and assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration, and Phillip Carter, a conscription advocate and former Army captain. "America's all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world," CLIP

Venezuela - is a deadly threat to the Washington Consensus! (April 05, 2005)
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=29464
Here in Washington, both the reactionary Project for a New American Century and the "progressive" Center for American Progress sponsored a symposium on the needs of the military services. Venezolanos will rejoice to hear that both called for an increase in the strength of the US Army by at least 100,000 troops. And then just on Sunday, in a radio talk, the prominent economic journalist Robert Kaplan described Venezuela as "destabilizing its neighbors." You do not have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing in the the imperial capital. And of course, a Bolivarian Venezuela, committed alike to political democracy as it is to socialdemocracy is indeed, for real, profoundly destabilizing -- not only to its neighbors like Colombia, but to the imperial homeland itself. Consider. The job being done by the 10,000 Cuban physicians in Venezuela -- the free medical care for your poor -- is an amazingly serious challenge to the privatized medical system in place right here in the USA. Here we spend near 20% of the largest gross national product of any nation on this planet on health care. And the morbidity statistics of our citizens are inferior to those of the Republic of Cuba! And now another country in what we would like to think of as our colonial hinterland wants to follow in Castro's medical footsteps. Can you possibly imagine anything more outrageous? CLIP - recommended by Alicia AliciaAlltruth@centurytel.net>

Other Blood on Their Hands, by John Pilger (March 18, 2005)
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5247
(...) The Colombia military and police have the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere. That the government of "Oxford-educated" Uribe is any better than his predecessors and that drugs alone are the cause of more than 20,000 murders every year is a fiction promoted in Washington and London. No one doubts that FARC, the peasant-based guerrilla group, has trafficked in cocaine, but the overwhelming majority of the drugs trade and the violence in Colombia are the responsibility of the state, its military and paramilitaries, funded and trained, directly and indirectly, by the American and British governments. Moreover, the issue of cocaine is a distraction: the fuel of the conflict, not the cause. The victims are the likes of Luis Eduardo Guerra and his family, and trade-union activists, teachers, land-reformers, indigenous and peasant leaders who work to promote social and economic justice and human rights. In his study of British foreign policy, Unpeople, the historian Mark Curtis wrote: "The war in Colombia is essentially over the control of resources in a deeply unequal society: the elite, especially the large landowners, control most of the wealth while the majority of the population lives in poverty. The basic role of the state is to marginalize the popular forces and ensure that Colombia's resources ˆ notably oil ˆ remain in the correct hands. [U.S. and British] strategy is to support this. · The 'war on drugs' is a cover." Death squads linked to Colombian governments have been so successful in driving people off their farms that 76 percent of the land is now controlled by an elite of less than 3 percent of the population. Given the close links between the military and the paramilitaries, says Douglas Stokes, of Aberystwyth University, "U.S. military aid is going directly to the major terrorist networks throughout Colombia, who traffic cocaine into U.S. markets to fund their activities." (...) In Uribe's first year as president, there were nearly 7,000 political killings and "disappearances," worse than the average during the four years of Pastrana. CLIP

Black holes 'do not exist' (31 March 2005)
http://news.nature.com//news/2005/050328/050328-8.html
These mysterious objects are dark-energy stars, physicist claims. Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion. George Chapline thinks that the collapse of the massive stars, which was long believed to generate black holes, actually leads to the formation of stars that contain dark energy. "It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist," he claims. Black holes are one of the most celebrated predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as the warping of space-time caused by massive objects. (...) Outside the 'surface' of a dark-energy star, it behaves much like a black hole, producing a strong gravitational tug. But inside, the 'negative' gravity of dark energy may cause matter to bounce back out again.If the dark-energy star is big enough, Chapline predicts, any electrons bounced out will have been converted to positrons, which then annihilate other electrons in a burst of high-energy radiation. Chapline says that this could explain the radiation observed from the centre of our galaxy, previously interpreted as the signature of a huge black hole.He also thinks that the Universe could be filled with 'primordial' dark-energy stars. These are formed not by stellar collapse but by fluctuations of space-time itself, like blobs of liquid condensing spontaneously out of a cooling gas. These, he suggests, could be stuff that has the same gravitational effect as normal matter, but cannot be seen: the elusive substance known as dark matter.

Pandemic bug returns as community MRSA strain (1 April 2005)
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7219
A virulent type of community-acquired MRSA "superbug" that attacks healthy, young people has been found to be the descendent of a penicillin-resistant strain that caused serious infections worldwide 50 years ago.Scientists fear that this offspring superbug strain - which causes serious boils and abscesses and can lead to a severe pneumonia - could pose a major public health threat in the future.Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) is genetically distinct from the strains prevalent in hospitals, and can cause infections in young people with no connection to healthcare environments.Sickness ranges from relatively minor skin and soft tissue infections to a necrotizing pneumonia which destroys the lungs so rapidly that it can kill just 24 hours after infection. This is because most CA-MRSA strains carry a particularly vicious cytotoxin called Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) toxin which destroys leukocytes.Cases are still relatively rare but have been reported throughout the world, though this form of MRSA is a particular problem in the United States, where in some areas it accounts for 70% of all reported MRSA infections. While these bacteria are not multi-drug resistant - and can still succumb to the antibiotic vancomycin - treatment can be complicated. (...) Mark Enright at the University of Bath, who led the study, says the results are alarming. "I have no doubt that this is going to cause serious public health problems in the UK and elsewhere in coming years. This is a very aggressive pathogen and it's spreading rapidly."

Anarchist Websites And Forums Under Attack (01 Apr 2005)
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/114150.shtml
The FBI has recently sent two subpoenas to the website administrator of the flag.blackened.net webserver. Recently there have been rumours circulating in anarchist circles the flag's webmaster had been contacted by the FBI, he has released this press release to notify the wider activist community on what has been going on. The Flag server hosts many of anarchism's most widely viewed websites and the removal of this sever would be a major blow to anarchist organising worldwide. CLIP

FBI seeks expanded search powers (April 5, 2005)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7388717/
Justice Dept. also wants expiring Patriot Act provisions renewed. WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday asked lawmakers to expand the bureau's ability to obtain records without first asking a judge, and he joined Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in seeking that every temporary provision of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act be renewed. CLIP

Sun, Wind, Fuel Cells Power Cargo Ship of the Future (April 6, 2005)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-06-03.asp
AICHI, Japan (ENS) - A cargo ship designed to run exclusively on renewable energy is making its debut in the Nordic Pavilion at the World Expo 2005. It harnesses the power of the sun, wind and water and releases zero emissions into the environment. A concept model of the E/S Orcelle, a cargo ship designed by the Scandinavian shipping company, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, is on display in the Nordic Pavilion. E/S stands for Environmentally sound Ship. Designed for a future with declining supplies of fossil fuels and increasing environmental responsibility, the concept vessel would have a capacity of 10,000 standard cars and would use only renewable energy sources and naturally-charged fuel cells for power. CLIP

Dalai Lama campaigns for wildlife (2005/04/06)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4415929.stm
The Dalai Lama has called for an end to illegal wildlife trafficking between Nepal, Tibet, India and China.He is appealing to exiled Tibetans, who are increasingly involved in the bloody trade, to remember their dedication to Buddhist non-violence.Last year, Tibetan officials intercepted 32 tiger, 579 leopard and 665 otter skins in one single shipment.This prompted the Dalai Lama and a pair of wildlife charities to launch an awareness drive around the Himalayas."We Tibetans are basically Buddhists, we preach love and compassion towards all other living beings on Earth," said the exiled Tibetan leader. "Therefore it is the responsibility of all of us to realise the importance of wildlife conservation."The Dalai Lama is working with the charities Care for the Wild International (CWI), from the UK, and the Wildlife Trust of India, to promote an understanding of the damage illegal trading can cause.The team plan to make videos and leaflets which they will take to Tibetan refugee settlements around India. They also hope to broadcast anti-poaching messages over the TV and radio. (...) CWI claims that the illegal wildlife trade is devastating populations of endangered Himalayan and sub-Himalayan wildlife such as tigers, leopards, snow leopards, rhinos, otters and bears.Many of these animal body parts head for China, where they find their way into the traditional medicine market.Wildlife organisations have long worried about this sad pilgrimage, but few have appealed to people's religious sensibilities to prevent it.The Dalai Lama carries enormous weight, especially with Tibetans living in exile, so his voice is likely to be heard."It is in the Pali and Sanskrit tradition to show love and compassion for all living beings," he said at a press conference in New Delhi, India. "It is a shame that we kill these poor creatures to satisfy our own aggrandisement."We must realise that because of our follies a large number of our animals are getting killed and we must stop this." CLIP

Google plans to double Gmail capacity and keep adding (March 31)
http://news.com.com/Google+plans+to+double+Gmail+capacity/2100-1032_3-5649571.html
Google plans to offer a bottomless cup of storage with its Gmail Web-based e-mail service, dramatically raising the bar for rivals in the sharply competitive business for the second time in a year. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Web giant on Friday plans to double the free storage on Gmail from 1GB to 2GB, said Georges Harik, Gmail product management director. After that, Google will add a yet-to-be-determined amount of extra storage daily, with no plans to stop. The move highlights the seemingly inexhaustible storage needs of a small group of heavy e-mail users, and the sharply falling costs of online storage. CLIP

News that the 'Rapture' Has Come and Gone Alarms Many Christians (March 29, 2005)
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/03/news_that_the_r.html
What if the 'Rapture' happened but you were left behind? That's what millions of Christians are wondering amid mounting evidence that the Rapture, the much-anticipated event in which God summons his faithful to the heavens, may have happened earlier this month. Among the startled 'still here': House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, just one of the political leaders who had expected to be making the trek skyward. CLIP

EMF-Omega-News 2. April 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/604985/

Omega-News Collection 2. April 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/604981/

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