March 22, 2005

The Writing on the Wall Series #38: Seeing The Darkness And Shining Light On It All


Hello everyone

Trying to take in and assess the content of this compilation, I cannot help but feel acute revulsion at all the countless horrors the U.S. military and everything connected to the Bush administration have done and continue doing around the world.

I'm quite sure most everyone on this list experience the same distress when faced with these reports and critical articles that I've been receiving, discovering and networking for the past 8 years now.

It just now seems this is all are getting worst by the day... Seeing them pathetically going out of their way to save one vegetative life in Florida to please their fanatical religious constituency while considering the millions of lives they have willfully taken and the billions of others they are endangering through their immensely destructive, sometimes abjectly inhumane, and most always environmentally insane deeds is the height of hypocrisy - to say the least...

May the Light of Truth shine mightily in everyone's heart to open the world's eyes to what they have done and who they truly represent, and may God have mercy on their souls...

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator

P.S. Today March 22 is World Water Day which initiates the International Decade for Action 'Water for Life'. So I have prepared for you a Special Water & Health compilation coming your way in a couple days

You are welcomed to network anything from this compilation, but please also include the following:

Free subscription to such compilations by sending a blank email to earthrainbownetwork-subscribe@lists.riseup.net


This compilation is archived at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/WritingWall38.htm


STATS for this compilation: Over 21,500 words and 88 links provided.

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"Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."

- President G. W. Bush, Tampa, Florida, Feb. 4, 2005... muddling through to explain - without any teleprompter text to read - his new Social Security plan. This is exactly what he said! What a "sharp" mind he has!...


"This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."

- Peace Pilgrim - Sent by "Stan Penner" stanp@mts.net>


"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive Humvees, or call in air strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts sweatshops and special interests. Where people feel powerless, it helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it reminds them of their responsibility."

- Author Unknown


Worthy of Your Attention

Reply to Popular Mechanics re 9/11 (Absolutely must see - very long but top-notch article)
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/pop_mech/reply_to_popular_mechanics.htm
Some magazine by the name of Popular Mechanics recently came out with an issue in which the main story was called 9/11: Debunking The Myths: "PM examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11." Really? Upon examination it turns out to be a shoddy piece of disinfo produced in a desperate attempt to defend against the fact that Americans are finally waking up and realizing that 9/11 was an inside job, that about 3000 people died at the hands of elements within their own government. CLIP

The World Court Project Declaration for a nuclear weapon-free world http://www.pgs.ca/updir/wcpdeclaration.pdf
Please download and circulate widely. Signed declarations can be returned to the PGS office and will be taken to the NPT Review Conference in New York at the beginning of May.
Recommended by "Doreen Agostino" isisconsulting@rogers.com> who wrote: "Please download, print your name, address, sign and mail to Physicians for Global Survival to abolish nuclear weapons under effective international control."

ACTION ALERT: The World Supports the McCain-Lieberman Climate Bill (March 19, 2005)
http://www.climateark.org/action/alert.asp?id=climate
Time for the United States to Start Addressing Climate Change - The United States government has failed to take part in Kyoto or to develop a climate change policy of its own - despite irrefutable scientific evidence for human caused climate change; and emerging ominous ecological, social and economic impacts. The Climate Stewardship Act (S. 342/H.R. 759) currently before the U.S. Congress is a credible bipartisan first step to addressing the dangers of global warming and the Bush administration's policy of indifference. The bill was recently reintroduced in the Senate after a close vote in 2003. The historic Climate Stewardship Act (CSA) promises to cut heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming to 2000 levels by the year 2010. This would be done by creating a market-based system of tradable allowances, based upon the widely successful system of sulfur dioxide emission permits. An independent study by University economists showed that the CSA would have a modest economic impact of $20 per year per household. The bill would also make the U.S. economy more energy efficient; use free-market incentives to lower costs, grow the economy and promote innovation; and break the logjam of U.S. inaction to fight global warming. The CSA is modest yet not inconsequential legislation, representing the best chance in the short to mid-term to create a legitimate U.S. climate policy. Please encourage wavering United States Senators to carefully consider the CSA legislation, and begin addressing climate change now. Take action now (and forward widely) at: http://www.climateark.org/action/alert.asp?id=climate
Networked by Ecological Internet, GlenBarry@EcologicalInternet.org


CONTENTS

1. 9-11 on Trial Cracks Mainstream Media!
2. Stop fake news on local TV
3. Filter Tips
4. The Voice of the White House on China & The Dragon squeezes Taiwan
5. The Practice of Torture by the American Army Was Widespread in Afghanistan
6. Scott Ritter: Iraq Vote Fixed
7. Pentagon Has Far-Reaching Defense Spacecraft in Works
8. Hariri reportedly assassinated to make way for large US air base in Lebanon
9. Memory of the Holocaust
10. Government leaves UK defenceless against flu threatening to kill 500,000
11. 50 million dead: how flu stopped the world
12. Ocean heat store makes climate change inevitable
13. THE SHORT PATH TO OIL INDEPENDENCE


INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST UPDATE

From: http://www.answercoalition.org/

Hundreds of Thousands Demonstrate in Cities Across the Country and around the World on 2nd Anniversary of Iraq Invasion

March 20, 2005

More than 25,000 March in San Francisco, 20,000 in Los Angeles, tens of thousands more in 700 cities from New York to Fayetteville, NC to Seattle

In more than 1000 cities across the country and around the world, demonstrations today protested on the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In San Francisco, 25,000 marched, and 20,000 marched in Los Angeles. Both demonstrations were sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) which supported and helped to organize many of the other protests around the U.S. 

The crowd in San Francisco swelled as the rain subsided in the late morning. It took more than 45 minutes for the entire demonstration, marching on very wide streets, to enter the Civic Center plaza. The S.F. march included contingents from the labor movement, Glide Memorial Church, the Palestinian and Arab American community, students, immigrant rights movement and many other organizations and communities.

Many thousands marched from Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem to Central Park in New York City in an event sponsored by the Troops Out Now Coalition. 6,000 people marched in Chicago in an event sponsored by the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, and 5,000 people rallied outside Ft. Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in an event sponsored by Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, NC Peace & Justice Coalition and other organizations. 2,000 demonstrated and rallied in New Paltz, NY.

People mobilized around the world on March 19 coming out in a united voice demanding an end to the war and occupation of Iraq. More than 100,000 marched in London, tens of thousands in Rome, and large protests in Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Seoul, Manila, Sydney, Stockholm, Mexico City, Tokyo, and all over the world. In the United States, antiwar actions were organized in more than 735 cities and towns -- twice the number as last year's March 19 protests.

We are asking organizers and participants in the many, many rallies and marches across the country and around the world to send us a short report on the activity in your city. We will collect this information and post it on our website. We will also be sending out a more complete report on the March 19 demonstrations in the next few days. Send reports to info@internationalanswer.org

Let's keep building this movement. Come to the National People’s Speak-Out in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 7. Hundreds of organizations have already endorsed in the last few days. We will stand together at the doorstep of Bush and Congress to say “Hands Off Our Social Security! Fund People’s Needs, Not War in Iraq!” Join us!

Protest Stories (Lots of demo stories and an amazing picture from Budapest)
http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/3/21/9466/08728

Media Downplay Historic Day of Protests (March 20)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032005A.shtml
Fayetteville, NC -- The second anniversary of the war was the impetus for major demonstrations throughout the world. In the United States, over 800 communities held events calling for an end to the occupation. CNN, however, reported that in the United States "barely a ripple was made while large protests took place in Europe." The New York Times reported that protests in the United States ranged from 350 people in Times Square to thousands in San Francisco. Later in the same story, the Times reported that several thousand marched from Harlem to Central Park. If thousands marched in New York, why did the Times highlight the 350 in Times Square? CNN's report was worse … nothing about US protests. While they only saw a ripple, a huge wave passed them by. If CNN had been in Fayetteville, North Carolina, they would have seen what could be a major turning point in the anti-war movement. The largest Anti-war protest ever in this heavily military town took place. CLIP

Protests in US, Europe as Bush Defends Iraq War (March 19) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050319/wl_nm/iraq_protests_dc_5

U.S. Rallies Mark Iraq Anniversary, Reflect Anti-War Groups' Growth, Challenges (March 21)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&ncid=655&e=1&u=/oneworld/20050321/wl_oneworld/45361080291111419228
US WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 21 (OneWorld) - Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in cities and towns across America over the weekend to mark the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and to demand that U.S. troops stationed there be brought home.

Global Coverage of Anti-War Rallies from IndyMedia.org
http://us.oneworld.net/external/yahoo.php?url=http://indymedia.us/en/2005/03/5713.shtml
Around the world, protests took place in Tokyo, Winnipeg, Istanbul, Copenhagen, London, Bombay, Lahore, Rome, Ankara, Athens, Brasilia, Dublin, Glasgow, Mexico City, Sydney, Aukland, Madrid, Kuala Lumpur, Santiago, Cairo, Montevideo, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg and many other cities.

"George Bush, Uncle Sam. Iraq Will Be Your Vietnam"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032005B.shtml

---

See also:

Soma Nation: A Threat Greater Than Terrorism (March 21, 2005)
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03212005.html
Delusion has settled over America. Washington cannot tell fact from fantasy. Neither can sycophantic media nor nothink economists. The Bush administration is the first government in history to initiate a war based entirely on fantasy--fantasy about nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction," fantasy about nonexistent "terrorist links," fantasy about "liberating" a people from their culture, fantasy about a "cakewalk" invasion, fantasy about America's omnipotence. Reality has yet to penetrate the Oval Office or America's "red state" consciousness. The gratuitous invasion of Iraq, the torture and the war crimes have made America despised the world over. Our once formidable alliances are shattered. The Muslim world, which perceives America as Israel's enabler of Palestine's oppression, has uniformly turned against us. $300 billion--red ink to the last cent--has been wasted in a pointless war and occupation that has emboldened Islamic revolutionaries, who will be more successful than the US in changing the face of the Middle East. Bush's invasion of Iraq has proved the limits of America's "hegemonic" military power: Eight heavily armored high tech US divisions are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents who control most of the roads and many towns and cities. Any Iraqi collaborator with the US occupation who is foolish enough to leave the heavily fortified "Green Zone" is shot down or blown up in the streets. Such an outcome is proclaimed a "success" by the White House, Republican politicians and a cheerleading media. The reality is that an ignorant and blundering Bush administration has created a Shi'ite crescent from Iran to Lebanon that is revolutionizing the Middle East. The reality will not penetrate the Bush administration. Reality contradicts Bush fantasy and is "against us." Facts that don't support Bush fantasy are "liberal" and "anti-American." Truth is dismissed as anti-Bush propaganda. It is America that has undergone regime change. The Bush administration constitutes a Jacobin revolution. Its fanatics have declared world war on political diversity. The first victim of Bush's "war on terror" is the Bill of Rights. In its place we have an incipient police state. One might easily conclude that Bush is first among the deluded, but the more one observes economists' romance with outsourcing, the more one wonders if economists are not the most deluded of all. CLIP

Fallujah, Tent City, Awaits Compensation (13 March 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031405K.shtml
(...)  Almost all the 300,000 inhabitants of the city fled during the attack. On 11 January, the UN High Commission for Refugees said, as summarized by AFSC: 'Approximately 85,000 residents have passed through Fallujah's checkpoints as of January 9. However, only 3,000 to 8,000 people remain in the city overnight, due to the harsh conditions that include a lack of adequate shelter, electricity, water, and health care, as well as curfews and restrictions on movement. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that only 40 percent of the population in the city is receiving assistance. Returning residents find a city that has been ravaged. Massive destruction to infrastructure and housing has been reported. It is estimated that 40 percent of the buildings were completely destroyed, 20 percent had major damage, and 40 percent had significant damage. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported on December 23 that three of the city's water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth was badly damaged. The water distribution network was destroyed. It will take a long time to restore basic services. ' (...) Readers often write in for an update on Fallujah. I am sorry to say that there is no Fallujah to update. The city appears to be in ruins and perhaps uninhabitable in the near future. Of 300,000 residents, only about 9,000 seem to have returned, and apparently some of those are living in tents above the ruins of their homes. The rest of the Fallujans are scattered in refugee camps of hastily erected tents at several sites, including one near Habbaniyyah, or are staying with relatives in other cities, including Baghdad. The scale of this human tragedy-- the dispossession and displacement of 300,000 persons-- is hard to imagine. Unlike the victims of the tsunami who were left homeless, moreover, the Fallujans have witnessed no outpouring of world sympathy. While there were undeniably bad characters in the city, most residents had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be made object lessons--which was the point Rumsfeld was making with this assault. He hoped to convince Ramadi and Mosul to fall quiet lest the same thing happen to them. He failed, since the second Fallujah campaign threw the Sunni Arab heartland into much more chaos than ever before. People forget how quiet Mosul had been. And, the campaign was the death knell for proper Sunni participation in the Jan. 30 elections (Sunnis, with 20 percent of the population, have only 6 seats in the 275 member parliament). However much a cliche it might be to say it, the US military really did destroy Fallujah to save it.
(MORE ON THIS INSANITY IN "Filter Tips" #3 below)

Why Graft Thrives in Postconflict Zones (17 March 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031805Y.shtml
A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become 'the biggest corruption scandal in history.' London - Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested for allegedly taking $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri Lankan officials are suspended for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large financial discrepancies in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia. Two of the world's biggest-ever reconstruction projects - Iraq and post-tsunami Asia - are facing major tests of credibility, as billions of dollars of aid and reconstruction money pour in. And according to a major report released Wednesday by Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses on issues of corruption, the omens are not good. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Cambodia and Bosnia, from the wrecked coasts of Asia to the kleptocratic carve-up in some African countries, crisis zones are proving to be fertile soil for corruption, the report argues. CLIP

U.S. House Backs $81.4 Billion War Spending Bill (March 17, 2005)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N165450.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily approved an $81.4 billion war spending bill that would slash President George W. Bush's foreign aid request and include nearly $2 billion more than he sought for defense. (...) The Senate must approve its version of the bill and then the two chambers will have to work out differences before it can become law. The Senate is expected to start work on it next month. (...) If approved, the bill would bring to almost $300 billion the amount Congress has authorized in emergency war spending since U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003.The bulk of the funds -- $77 billion -- would cover defense costs to help pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That money, $1.8 billion more than Bush asked for, would be used to buy new weapons, body armor and medical supplies for troops.Democrats largely supported the Republican-written bill but said Congress was not providing enough oversight of how the money was being spent.They cited a military audit released on Monday that said leading U.S. defense contractor Halliburton Co. HAL.N>, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, may have overcharged the U.S. government by more than $100 million under a no-bid oil deal in Iraq. CLIP

America's Agenda for Global Military Domination - by Michel Chossudovsky (03/17/05) http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO503A.html
The Pentagon has released the summary of a top secret Pentagon document, which sketches America's agenda for global military domination. This redirection of America's military strategy seems to have passed virtually unnoticed. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal (see below in annex), not a word has been mentioned in the US media. There has been no press coverage concerning this mysterious military blueprint. The latter outlines, according to the Wall Street Journal, America's global military design which consists in "enhancing U.S. influence around the world", through increased troop deployments and a massive buildup of America's advanced weapons systems. While the document follows in the footsteps of the administration's "preemptive" war doctrine as detailed by the Neocons' Project of the New American Century (PNAC), it goes much further in setting the contours of Washington's global military agenda. It calls for a more "proactive" approach to warfare, beyond the weaker notion of "preemptive" and defensive actions, where military operations are launched against a "declared enemy" with a view to "preserving the peace" and "defending America". The document explicitly acknowledges America's global military mandate, beyond regional war theaters. This mandate also includes military operations directed against countries, which are not hostile to America, but which are considered strategic from the point of view of US interests. From a broad military and foreign policy perspective, the March 2005 Pentagon document constitutes an imperial design, which supports US corporate interests Worldwide. CLIP

'Preemptive Strikes' Become Policy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031905F.shtml

Pentagon: Unilateral, Preemptive Strikes Now US Policy (March 19, 2005)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-defense19mar19,1,4290165,print.story?coll=la-news-a_section
Pentagon strategic plan codifies unilateral, preemptive attacks. The doctrine marks a shift from coalitions such as NATO, analysts say - WASHINGTON - Two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon has formally included in key strategic plans provisions for launching preemptive strikes against nations thought to pose a threat to the United States. The doctrine also now stipulates that the U.S. will use "active deterrence" in concert with its allies "if we can" but could act unilaterally otherwise, Defense officials said. The changes codify the more assertive defense policy adopted by the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks and are included in a "National Military Strategy" and "National Defense Strategy," reports that are part of a comprehensive review of military strategy conducted every four years. "The president has the obligation to protect the country," said Douglas J. Feith, the Defense Department's undersecretary for policy. "And I don't think that there's anything in our Constitution that says that the president should not protect the country unless he gets some non-American's participation or approval of that." Pentagon managers use the strategic plan to guide such decisions as where to place bases, which bases to eliminate, what weapons to buy and where to position them. The heads of the United States' regional commands across the globe, in turn, use the strategy to prioritize spending and form strategies for eliminating threats in their regions. "The potentially catastrophic impact of an attack against the United States, its allies and its interests may necessitate actions in self-defense to preempt adversaries before they can attack," the National Military Strategy states. A previous version, compiled in 1997, did not include plans for preemptive attacks. CLIP

Afghanistan: 'One Huge US Jail' (March 19, 2005) HORRIFYING! REALLY! MUST READ!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1440836,00.html
Afghanistan is the hub of a global network of detention centers, the frontline in America's 'war on terror', where arrest can be random and allegations of torture commonplace. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark investigate on the ground and talk to former prisoners(...) Outside Kabul, Afghanistan is bleaker, its provinces more inaccessible and lawless, than it was under the Taliban. If anyone leaves town, they do so in convoys. Afghanistan is a place where it is easy for people to disappear and perilous for anyone to investigate their fate. Even a seasoned aid agency such as Médécins Sans Frontières was forced to quit after five staff members were murdered last June. Only the 17,000-strong US forces, with their all-terrain Humvees and Apache attack helicopters, have the run of the land, and they have used the haze of fear and uncertainty that has engulfed the country to advance a draconian phase in the war against terror. Afghanistan has become the new Guantánamo Bay. Washington likes to hold up Afghanistan as an exemplar of how a rogue regime can be replaced by democracy. Meanwhile, human-rights activists and Afghan politicians have accused the US military of placing Afghanistan at the hub of a global system of detention centers where prisoners are held incommunicado and allegedly subjected to torture. The secrecy surrounding them prevents any real independent investigation of the allegations. "The detention system in Afghanistan exists entirely outside international norms, but it is only part of a far larger and more sinister jail network that we are only now beginning to understand," Michael Posner, director of the US legal watchdog Human Rights First, told us. (...) In Kabul, Nader Nadery, of the Human Rights Commission, told us, "Afghanistan is being transformed into an enormous US jail. What we have here is a military strategy that has spawned serious human rights abuses, a system of which Afghanistan is but one part." In the past 18 months, the commission has logged more than 800 allegations of human rights abuses committed by US troops. The Afghan government privately shares Nadery's fears. One minister, who asked not to be named, said, "Washington holds Afghanistan up to the world as a nascent democracy and yet the US military has deliberately kept us down, using our country to host a prison system that seems to be administered arbitrarily, indiscriminately and without accountability." What has been glimpsed in Afghanistan is a radical plan to replace Guantánamo Bay. (...) We have obtained prisoner letters, declassified FBI files, legal depositions, witness statements and testimony from US and UK officials,
which document the alleged methods deployed in Afghanistan - shackles, hoods,electrocution, whips, mock executions, sexual humiliation and starvation - and suggest they are practiced across the network. Sir Nigel Rodley, a former UN special rapporteur on torture, said, "The more hidden detention practices there are, the more likely that all legal and moral constraints on official behavior will be removed." (...) The US army came to
Afghanistan as liberators and now are feared as governors, judges and jailers. How many US marines know what James Madison, an architect of the US constitution, wrote in 1788? Reflecting on the War of Independence in which Americans were arbitrarily arrested and detained without trial by British forces, Madison concluded that the "accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

What the French TV audience gets to see that is hidden from Americans (Mar 15, 2005)
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16275.shtml
Editor's Comment: The following article describes The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the film documentary of the 2002 Coup d'etat against Hugo Chavez Frias, President of Venezuela. This description was written and translated into English by Siv O'Neall, Lyon, France who sent it to us with correspondence. Ms. O'Neall points out the flagrant attempts by the U.S. corporate media to hide from the U.S. population the facts about what happened that rueful day in Caracas when the U.S. funded Venezuelan minority of very wealthy people conducted stormed the presidential palace and kidnapped President Chavez, taking him to a prison in the Carribean in a plane registered in the United States. (...) We thank Siv O'Neall for her incisive media-scalpel that exposes the cancer of suppression that infects the U.S. corporate press today - a western media monopoly that has surrendered all pretense of journalist integrity in service to the corporate global empire. CLIP

NIGHTMARE VISION OF NORTH AMERICA (March 19, 2005 )
http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/globalnetnews-summary/2005-03/msg00078.html
John Manley, prominent Liberal politician in Canada, has shown a stunning lack of judgment in chairing a private group proposing a new security-economic regime for Canada, Mexico, and the United States. One hopes the proposal is not a feeler for something quietly supported by Paul Martin's government. We do know that Mr. Martin's goal of improving relations with George Bush has been a bit of a runaway train, gone off the tracks. The Prime Minister is almost certainly looking for ways to right the engine and fire up the boilers. I could dwell on the difficulty of anyone's improving relations with a man of Mr. Bush's remarkably unpleasant character. After all, Canada has produced no more affable or charming politician than former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Mr. Chretien it seems could not entirely disguise a sense of repulsion. I am sure he did not greatly miss his cancelled invitation to share charred cow, root beer, and sermons from the Book of Revelations down in Crawford, Texas. (...) The panel's scheme is a vision of Fortress America scowling at the worldwith its two small neighboring principalities huddled in the shadows of outer works or pens under the massive walls. The scheme is sweetened for Canada and Mexico by offering supposed new certainties in trade access to the world's largest national market. The outer works supposedly have open doors through the looming walls. CLIP

Bottom Dollar (March 21)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7170226/site/newsweek/
The greenback's fall is stoking fears of a global crisis. Behind the slide: a world economy wildly out of balance.

Asian banks offload their greenbacks (March 12, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/4udyb
The US dollar's status as the world's main reserve currency is under threat as Asian banks back away from the superpower's ballooning twin deficits.

Bush to Recommend Wolfowitz for World Bank (16 March 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031605Y.shtml
Washington - President Bush on Wednesday tapped Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has been a lightning rod for criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other defense policies, to take over as head of the World Bank. (...)  The United States is the World Bank's largest member nation. The bank traditionally has had an American president. Its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, traditionally has been headed by a European. (...) The Bush administration has been pushing for major reforms in how the World Bank operates, especially interested in having the development bank dole out aid in the forms of grants, which don't have to be repaid, rather than loans.

Bush's 'shocking' choice of Wolfowitz for World Bank provokes outrage (18 March 2005)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=621258
President George Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank has triggered reactions ranging from polite acceptance to outright hostility among foreign governments and aid groups.Some believe he is unqualified for the job while others fear he will be all too effective in using the post to expand America's global dominance.(...) Clare Short, the former international development secretary, described the nomination of the Bush administration's leading neoconservative hawk as the equivalent of sticking up "two fingers to the world". "This is really shocking," she told Channel 4 News. "It's as though they are trying to wreck our international systems." Caroline Lucas, a British Green and member of the European Parliament, described the nomination as "an insult to the world's poor". "As a leader of the neoconservative movement," she added, "[Wolfowitz's] belief in unfettered free markets and a philosophy that what is in the US's interest is thereby in the interest of the entire world spells disaster for many countries in the developing world." Much of the criticism of Mr Wolfowitz is focused on his lack of direct experience of the financial sector and his limited exposure to development issues - for much of his life he has been an academic and a diplomat focussed on military and strategic questions. Many experts and government officials also found it troubling that the Bush administration, in nominating someone for a job dependent on consensus-building, would pick someone who has become a symbol of US resistance to that very consensus. Not only did Mr Wolfowitz push harder than anyone for the invasion of Iraq two years ago - with or without the approval of the rest of the world - he also has a long track record of advocacy of a strong America acting as it sees fit, pre-emptively if necessary, to protect its global interests.

World Bank Workers Reject Wolfowitz
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031905D.shtml

Now Wolfowitz Is Laughing All the Way to the World Bank (March 20) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032105J.shtml
The Rules are that the other 183 members are supposed to go along with whomever the United States designates to run the World Bank. It's the perquisite for providing nearly 17 percent of the bank's money - more than twice that of No. 2 Japan. So official grousing about President George W. Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz is at a minimum, even though much of the world sees it as akin to sending Darth Vader to guard the Princess Leia. Our European allies count it a direct affront. You don't like John Bolton at the U.N.? Take Wolfowitz at the World Bank - an even bigger ideologue and one of the Iraq war's main architects. He'll shake up your poverty programs! CLIP

Angry E.U. Calls Wolfowitz to Brussels over World Bank
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032005D.shtml

Getting Away with Murder (March 21, 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032105B.shtml
(...) The key to the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia can be found in a 1992 draft of the Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance on post-Cold War Strategy, prepared under the direction of Paul Wolfowitz. It advocated discouraging other advanced industrialized nations "from challenging our leadership" or "aspiring to a larger regional or global role." The document declares, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in [the Middle East and Southwest Asia] to preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil." Bush's wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are consistent with this strategy, as are his appointments of Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq war and "preemptive war" doctrine, as head of the World Bank, and John Bolton, avowed U.N.-hater, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. After NATO conquered Yugoslavia, Halliburton's Brown and Root constructed Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the largest foreign U.S. military base built since the Vietnam War. Besides the Great Wall of China, the only other earthly thing visible from outer space is Camp Bondsteel. Brown and Root is also building the 14 permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. Mandel's indictment of the United States' policies in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Rwanda does not ignore the complicity of the other dark forces in those conflicts. He writes, "The fact that the Americans and their allies have been the supreme criminals in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq does not mean their enemies are innocent. The fact that the Americans and the Europeans were directly and indirectly complicit in the atrocities of Rwanda, and the fact that their Tutsi clients in the RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] committed them too, does not mean that the Hutu government and militias did not." CLIP

Insane US Experimental Bomb Test, in Attempt to Change Jet Stream
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index697.htm

Atomic clock ticks down to fallout with Iran (March 18, 2005)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1440433,00.html
Iran and the western powers are on a collision course as the clock ticks towards crucial talks in Paris next week about Tehran's nuclear programme. Iranian diplomats insist that their country's development of nuclear technology is for peaceful, civilian purposes only. They say Iran is merely exercising its right, under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to enrich uranium for reactor fuel. But the EU "troika", comprising Britain, France and Germany, and the Bush administration do not believe them. Brandishing evidence of past concealment gathered by UN inspectors, they suspect that Iran is seeking weapons-grade uranium to build atomic bombs. CLIP

US cancels Agent Orange study in Vietnam (20 March 2005)
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7146
Is Agent Orange responsible for deformities in the children and grandchildren of people exposed to it during the Vietnam war? Vietnam claims the herbicide, used by the US to reduce forest cover, is to blame. But the US has never accepted this. The chances of the issue ever being resolved receded last month when the US cancelled a multimillion-dollar research project. CLIP

Now fears grow for ozone layer above Europe (March 7, 2005)
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=39766
(...) Dr Neil Harris, of the European Ozone Research Co-ordinating Unit in Cambridge, says ozone levels in the Arctic are 40 per cent lower than normal for this time of year. But scientists are divided on the likelihood of a hole developing. The crunch will come in the next few weeks when sunlight - which plays a key role in destruction - returns after the dark Arctic winter. If the hole does form, the risk to people will depend on weather conditions and other local factors, Dr Harris says. For example, clouds will shield people from radiation, while sunny days will expose them to it. But, even at its worst, the depletion is likely to be only half as severe as over Antarctica.
The ozone layer
* Ozone is a scattering of the blue-tinged gas through the 33km-deep stratosphere which screens out harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
* It is so thin that if collected together it would form a girdle round the Earth no thicker than the sole of a shoe.
* Without it life on Earth would be impossible.

Report: Navy Sonar Likely Made Orcas Flee (March 17, 2005)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Sonar-Whales.html
SEATTLE (AP) -- Sonar pulsing from a Navy guided-missile destroyer during training exercises near the San Juan Islands two years ago was likely loud enough to send killer whales fleeing, according to a government agency report. The National Marine Fisheries Service report backed up local experts who said sonar from the USS Shoup caused a group of orcas to behave abnormally, apparently trying to avoid the sound. It contradicts the Navy's previous findings that orcas in Puget Sound's J Pod seemed unaffected by the sonar coming from the Shoup on May 5, 2003. NFMS' 10-page report, dated Jan. 21 but not released publicly until March 10, said the Shoup's sonar was not loud enough to cause the whales any temporary or permanent hearing damage. Cmdr. Karen Sellers, the Navy's spokeswoman for the Northwest, acknowledged the Shoup's sonar signals were the "dominant noise event'' experienced by the orcas that day. She said the Navy maintains the "biological significance'' was minimal, The (Bremerton) Sun newspaper reported Wednesday. Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor said whether the whales suffered hearing loss is beside the point. "They are trying to get away, and they are stranding and dying. It is irrelevant whether they had hearing loss if they are dead,'' Balcomb said. Marine mammal researchers have also expressed concern about 15 harbor porpoises found dead in northern Puget Sound in the spring of 2003. Sellers said the Navy stands by its conclusions those deaths were not related to sonar. The NMFS report said scientists found no signs the porpoises' ears suffered any acoustical trauma, although decomposition hindered researchers' analysis. Puget Sound's orca population has been proposed for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Degree of Sonar Harm to Marine Mammals Debated (18 March 2005)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/216520_orcas18.html
Whales, porpoises seen acting strangely - Scientists and whale-watchers in Haro Strait could hear the sonar long before they saw the USS Shoup. As the pings grew louder above and beneath the waves, sounds ricocheting off submerged land forms, onlookers saw a minke whale, Dall's porpoises and killer whales behaving strangely. Whale expert David Bain said a minke, usually wary of research boats, was nearly run over by one. The porpoises panicked, bolting from the unnatural sounds. A pod of orcas swam into an unusual area, hid for a while, then split up, reuniting a day later. But to the chagrin of those hoping for stronger marine mammal protections, a report by the National Marine Fisheries Service shows the difficulties in scientifically proving sonar's impact on denizens of the deep. At a time when scientists and environmentalists increasingly view sonar as a culprit in marine mammal deaths, such as the recent dolphin beachings at Florida's Key West, the federal report effectively concludes that the high-powered sonar used by the Navy in 2003 did not actually harm Puget Sound orcas' hearing. (...) The Fisheries Service assessment includes a detailed analysis of Navy records of sonar activity, decibel levels and reverberations or echoes, hydrophone recordings, videotapes of pod behavior, and the relative distances of the ships to the whales. The report found, for example, that sonar levels received by J-pod whales ranged from 121 to 175 decibels. Bain, a University of Washington professor who has studied whales for 25 years, said Haro Strait would register about 90 decibels if quiet -- no boats, no wind or rain. But because the impact of decibels is calculated exponentially -- by how sound is perceived -- a decibel range of 175 or 180 is actually heard 500 times louder than 90 decibels. CLIP

THE DEATH OF SOMETHING OTHER THAN ENVIRONMENTALISM (Grist summary)
Monarch butterfly populations see sharp decline this season
Cold, wet weather in the U.S., illegal deforestation in Mexico, and strong herbicides used on genetically altered crops in the U.S. and Canada are, warn scientists, threatening the survival of the monarch butterfly. Researchers say the number of monarchs that made it to their forested, hilly wintering grounds in Mexico this winter was the lowest since record keeping began about 30 years ago, some 75 percent lower than last year. "There used to be rivers of butterflies, but now there are years when there are no butterflies at all," says Homero Aridjis of the area near his village. He helped set up monarch sanctuaries in the 1980s and calls the current decline in population numbers a "trinational crisis," referring to the three countries -- Mexico, the U.S., and Canada -- through which the orange and black insects migrate thousands of miles. Although monarch butterflies are known to be quite resilient following years of die-off, biologists say the continued habitat destruction throughout their migratory path may cause numbers to drop so low that the population will be unable to recover.

Farm animals 'need emotional TLC' (2005/03/18)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4360947.stm
Farm animals have feelings which should be respected and catered for, academics at a London, UK, meeting have said.They believe animals should not be dismissed as simple automatons - cows take pleasure in solving problems and sheep can form deep friendships.Delegates from around the globe were speaking at the Compassion in World Farming Trust (CIWF Trust) conference.They shared ways of exploring the minds of animals, as well as monitoring their suffering and alleviating their pain. (...) "I am incredulous that some sceptics actually question whether animals feel anything." Now there is a growing weight of evidence to suggest animal minds probably do house emotions quite similar to our own. (...) "It helps send a message about treating animals in a proper way. A number of dairy farms now have signs up saying 'please don't shout at the cows'."The famous chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, in her opening speech at the conference, said we needed to re-define the way we viewed animals, both tame and wild.Dr Goodall, 71, who has spent 45 years studying chimps in Africa, told the CIWF Trust delegates that humans and chimps were strikingly similar - that both shared a capacity for barbarity but were also capable of great altruism.She described how she had seen chimps come to the aid of others who had been frightened, orphaned or injured, demonstrating "a care and compassion indistinguishable from our own".She said: "We have to understand we are not the only beings on this planet with personalities and minds."

World Population Grew by 76 Million People in 2004 (22 December, 2004)
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Pop/2004.htm
During 2004, 133 million people were born and 57 million died, expanding world population by 76 million. This excess of births over deaths was concentrated in the developing countries, which added 73 million people compared with only 3 million in the industrial countries. World population, growing by 1.2 percent annually, is projected to reach 6.4 billion in 2005. (...) U.N. projections of world population growth show several potential trajectories. The low-fertility scenario has population peaking at 7.5 billion by 2040 and then falling to 7.4 billion in 2050. The medium-growth scenario has the world hitting 8.9 billion by mid-century, with growth slowing until population peaks at 9.2 billion around 2075. The high-growth variant brings us to 10.6 billion by 2050 and 14 billion by the end of the century. With water and land in limited supply, whether we move toward the higher or lower number may have more influence on future environmental and social stability than anything else we do. The most humane way to achieve the low-level projections is to improve health and social conditions to promote population stabilization through reduced birth rates, not to allow death rates to climb as a result of negligence.

Road Threatens Central America's Greatest Rainforest Wilderness (March 18, 2005)
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Dr. Glen Barry, http://www.Forests.org - Panama's government is accelerating efforts to build a road through the Darien Gap - one of Central America's last great rainforest wildernesses. There will always be a somewhat reasonable excuse to wipe out the Earth's last rainforests and other vital ecosystems. Money can almost always be made for a select few by liquidating natural ecosystems. At some point destroying terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric and hydrological ecosystems leads to ecological collapse. It is only after a critical threshold ha been reached - such as has happened in the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere - that the land, water and air can no longer support affluent life for more than a few. Perhaps the Darien gap can be destroyed and the ecosystems of the region remain intact. Or maybe it is the proverbial straw that will break the ecosystem's back, leading to climate change,drought, more deforestation and lack of other critical services provided to humanity by intact rainforests. The well-being of future generations of Panamanians is best served by keeping the Darien gap natural, and stopping road construction. NOTE: Glen Barry's comment was made in response to this news:
In Panama's jungle, new roads pit ecotourism against logging (March 18, 2005) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2002210645_panama20.html

THE METHODIC DEMISE OF NATURAL EARTH
http://www.wnho.net/methodic_demise.htm
An Environmental Impact Overview of chemtrails - Recommended by "Stephanie Sutton" ssutton@phisciences.com> who wrote: "Not everyone can handle this information nor do they wish to be informed. For those of us that are awake and willing, please read the following information and do what you can."

The Killing of Rachel Corrie (16 March 2005)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031605E.shtml
Washington, DC - Observing the two-year anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie on March 16, 2003, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to support an independent investigation of her death. Corrie, a US citizen, was apparently trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian building in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli army bulldozer ran her over, crushing her to death. Amnesty International believes that investigations into Corrie's death, conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), failed to resolve contradictions between the official IDF position and eyewitness testimonies. Although this year's Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Israel agreed, stating bluntly that "U.S. officials who have seen the IDF report found inconsistencies among the statements of the people involved in the accident and other witnesses," there is no indication that the US has sought further investigation of these inconsistencies. While the US government has assisted in the investigations into cases of US citizens killed by Palestinian armed groups, it has failed to do so in Corrie's case, raising the appearance of a double standard. CLIP

Dozens of articles on Rachel Corrie's death compiled by "Mark R. Elsis" mark@lovearth.net
http://Rachel-Corrie.com/

Omega-News Collection 19. March 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580665/

EMF-Omega-News 19. March 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580672/

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