March 3, 2006

The Big Scoop Series #11: The End of Bushevism in Sight?... Let's Hope So!

Hello everyone!

It has been 11 days since I emailed you a compilation, hence the GARGANTUAN size of this one... Over 100 pages, the largest one ever! I feel like I should apologize to all of you for committing such an act of mass information.

I feel we are fast approaching a critical juncture in our collective unfolding history as many signs indicate we are close to boiling point in many areas. Public support for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triumvirat is melting away. The Earth Vital signs are headed in the red zone. And the US public outrage over the litany of colossal blunders and outright lies of the Corporate plutocracy that masquerades as a democratic government is heating up quickly. Much of all of this is chronicled below...

Please note also that following a brief power outage here a couple weeks ago, I had to reset the date and time on my computer and I mistakenly clicked the year to 2008 instead of 2006. A couple people mentioned this to me because my emails from the "future" messed up their InBox sorting. Of course, this is now corrected.

Enjoy - if you can! - and share - if you dare!

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator

P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.

Free subscription to a large weekly Earth Rainbow Network compilation by simply sending a blank email to earthrainbownetwork-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

This compilation is archived at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2006/BigScoop11.htm

STATS for this compilation: Over 36,200 words and 200 links provided.

To unsubscribe from the Earth Rainbow Network automated listserver, or change your listing on it when you have a new email address, the simplest way is to do it yourself by sending a blank email at earthrainbownetwork-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net -- IMPORTANT: You MUST do it from the email account you wish to unsubscribe otherwise the system won't recognize your request.


"Humans are putting about 6 billion or 7 billion metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere a year. And we are standing on 200 billion tons here. If any significant portion came out, that dwarfs the current human injection into the atmosphere. And once that runaway release occurred, there'd be no way to stop it."

— Walter Oechel - Taken from Could Global Warming Become a Runaway Train?


"On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the Attorney General to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make available ... the services of United States prisoners" to various government departments, including the Department of Defense. Though the timing of the document's posting - within the past few weeks - may just be a coincidence, the reference to a "rapid action revision" and the KBR contract's contemplation of "rapid development of new programs" have raised eyebrows about why this sudden need for urgency. These developments also are drawing more attention now because of earlier Bush administration policies to involve the Pentagon in "counter-terrorism" operations inside the United States. (...) Given Bush's now open assertions that he is using his "plenary" - or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the indefinite War on Terror, Americans can no longer trust that their constitutional rights protect them from government actions. As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany of sweeping powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror, "Can it be true that any President really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is 'yes,' then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?" In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might legitimately ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the "rapid development of new programs," which might require the construction of a new network of detention camps."

— Taken from Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs' Below


"Iraq is awash with rumours about the collusion of the occupation forces and their Iraqi clients with sectarian attacks and death squads: the US is widely seen as fostering sectarian division to prevent the emergence of a united national resistance. Evidence of their involvement in Wednesday's anti-Sunni reprisals was picked up in the Times, which reported that after an armed attack on the al-Quds Sunni mosque in Baghdad the gunmen climbed back into six cars and were ushered from the scene by cheering soldiers of the US-controlled Iraqi National Guard."

— Taken from Exit without a strategy


"If we broaden our mind and open up to new mental resources, the present globalisation of violence can be overcome through a globalisation of peace. New potential of intelligence and humanity will become available by concentrating on accessing previously unused information from the cosmic databank. The corresponding possibilities are lodged in the neural structures of the brain and in the molecular structures of the genetic codes. They also lie in a new (intellectual and spiritual) connection to the functioning logic of cosmic (divine) life, as well as in a new frequency of consciousness."

— Dieter Duhm, Theory of Global Healing, 2006 - Taken from info about the 12th International Summer University in Tamera, Portugal July 31st – August 10th 2006 - details at http://www.tamera.org


"The Prophecy of the Fifth World is yet to manifest. But when the ancients ones looked ahead, this is what they can share that we can understand at this time. The Four Worlds, that we are moving from, were all on the same level of time, space and dimension. The Fifth world is a step above previous worlds and marks an enormous transformation that we have ever experienced in the first four worlds. The Fifth World will be a blending and harmonization of all four worlds, but taken to a different level. These four worlds together, in a cosmic equality, will bring about a new kind of life. Mineral, plant, animal and human will be looked at as being equally alive. There will be a type of intelligent communication between each world. The ancient ones know that it is hard for us to imagine this right now."

— Aluna Joy and the Ancient Ones from San Bartolo - March 2006 Taken from THE PROPHECY OF THE FIFTH WORLD


"Dear Jean, Thank you again for all of the work you do in making these compilations available freely to all. My son studies and works at one of our states universities. He was home this weekend and we were talking about world events. He said that one student where he worked was commenting on the emotional upset of the Muslims over the bombing of the Shiíte al-Askari Shrine in comparison to destructive happenings elsewhere in the world and that this student felt that all the upset was not warranted. At that point, a young man was walking near by in tears because as a Muslim he was feeling the import of this destruction in a personal way. My son said that it is really interesting to have seen the criticism on the one hand and the tears on the other and knowing that no matter where in the world strife and hate filled actions are taken, someone will feel the pain and shed the tears. I said that perhaps there is a positive note to all of this in that we can realise that we are not separate from one another, but that we are all part of a greater whole and that in seeing someone else's grief, perhaps we can grow in compassion and from that grow to realise that all of the hatred and destructive actions on this Earth are hurting ALL OF US and perhaps our hearts will open to the LOVE which is the only way we can continue to live as we perceive ourselves as individuals and also as the collective that we truly are. We can never achieve the positive by acting out the negative, but perhaps if we have eyes to see and ears to hear our hearts will have only LOVE to give and thus to receive. Perhaps our universities are truly the gateways to a higher way of educating ourselves!"

— Suzanne Sjogren sjogren@mwt.net> Message left in the ERN guestbook on 2006-02-26


Worthy of Your Attention

This is a great deal on the most entertaining and intelligent 911 truth DVD I've seen, "Loose Change". You can order them for $1.25 apiece or $1.00 apiece for 20 or more copies. An envelope for each is included in the package. Shipping is extra. Paypal is accepted. Contact Jeremy at: linelites@mindspring.com - View the trailer here: http://www.infowars.com/video/promo/loose_change/loose_change_trailer.htm
Recommended by From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>

The REAL 911
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023320890224991194
Recommended by "Sandra and Richard" srkeber@msn.com> who wrote: "It's a long one (about an hour), but irreplaceably educational ... once you start, you won't be able to tear yourself away - even when the tears of rage start."

WTC Buildings blow out and collapse resembles a micro-nuke blast - Telling pictures!
http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier1.htm
http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier2.htm
http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier3.htm
http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/soldier4.htm

Action Alert: Oil Palm Threatens Indonesia's Rainforests and Orangutans
http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=indonesia
Chinese funded development a ploy to access rainforest timbers; will devastate Borneo's biodiversity, regional sustainability and largest remaining wild orangutan population.
(If you have not taken action yet on this issue, it is still urgent and vital to do so...)

Storm the White House
http://unitedforpeace.org/calendar.php?calid=15790
Multi-Day Event, Beginning March 15, come when you can and stay as long as you can - we are taking over the White House until they leave.Wednesday, March 15th 2006 12:00 AMWashington, DC USATAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide, Torture and OccupationU.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.If we were being bombed and our journalists were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country's military, we would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are doing and go to their president's office and demand that it was stopped. If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!Inviting everyone to the White House for a protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government, illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Major Mobilization Set For April 29th
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3178
March For Peace, Justice And Democracy End The War In Iraq - Bring All Our Troops Home Now Saturday, April 29, 2006, New York City

LOTS of essential headlines
http://Lovearth.net/News.php

Congress Poised To Pass Bill Taking Away Your Right To Know What's In Your Food
http://tinyurl.com/kfevg
Tell Your Congressman or Congresswoman To Vote "No" On House of Representatives Bill H.R. 4167, The "National Uniformity For Food Act," Coming To A Vote In Washington, D.C This Thursday, March 2nd

Standing Ovations for New Film: "America: From Freedom to Fascism"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/022406_sneak_preview.shtml
I went to see the prescreening of Aaron Russo's latest movie, America: From Freedom to Fascism, at the Hilton Phoenix Airport last night. It was a powerful and engaging film that received a well-deserved standing ovation from the group of about 120 adults in attendance, most of who were over 30. The two major topics were the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve. Minor topics were the New World Order, vote fraud, education, government lies, and the police state. The ending contained a call to action that Russo promised will be significantly enhanced in the final edition.A couple of members of the audience mentioned in the subsequent Q&A session that they were not aware of most of what was presented. (...) Russo’s DVD is a dramatic wake-up call that stirs the full range of emotions. It presents, in an absorbing, credible, and fact-filled fashion, America’s chief domestic problems The film begins by documenting the dual frauds of 1913--the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve system--and covers topics such as the national ID card, human chip implants, vote fraud, government lying and spying, and the New World Order. CLIP - Recommended by "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>


CONTENTS

1. The whale/plankton connection
2. Paradoxman Speaks The Truth to Power
3. 27 Members of the House Now Support Impeachment Inquiry
4. Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and Stifling of Democracy
5. Secret Service agents say Cheney was drunk when he shot lawyer
6. The Port Sell-Out and the Dismantling of America
7. Chinese try mobile death vans
8. Overview of the death penalty during 2005
9. Israel considers Palestinian PM legitimate assassination target
10. Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'
11. Miami Herald on "Scholars for 911 Truth" - 9/11 ATTACKS: Avoiding the hard questions
12. Australian Clinician to Speak on Star Kids
13. Acid Seas Kill Off Coral Reefs
14. Climate Change: There is still time to avoid disaster — but not much!
15. Journey Through the Light and Back
16. Did you know that ...
17. Psychic Daughter


See also:

Video: Bush, Chertoff Warned before Katrina
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106Y.shtml
Newly released video footage shows how, in dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his Homeland Security Chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers. Bush did not ask a single question during this final briefing before Katrina struck. Four days later Bush declared "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly floodwaters into New Orleans.

'No One Could Have Anticipated ...'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206J.shtml
William Rivers Pitt writes: No one anticipated the breach of the levees except the Director of the National Hurricane Center, the Director of FEMA, and a half-dozen other experts who implored Mr. Bush to take this storm seriously a full day before the hammer dropped. We are forced to get into some very large numbers today to accurately assess the body count from all the things the Bush administration would have us believe no one could have anticipated.

Is George H. W. Bush Really Prescott Bush's Son?
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/21-Jan-2006.htm
Or Is He The Son Of Inventor Nikola Tesla's German-Born Accountant, George H. Scherff, Sr.? (...) Going back to the stolen Tesla technology and the CIA's role, he added: "The CIA uses stolen Tesla technology, according to Skorzeny, to spy on Americans and manipulate the weather. There are thousands of satellites orbiting the earth that project high intensity positively charged laser beams to certain areas on the earth. These positively charged laser beams enable the New Word Order Nazis/C.I.A. to use their stolen Tesla Technology to manipulate the weather & to transmit extremely low frequency "elf" waves with subliminal messages for mind control purposes."When HAARP is active, giant space based lasers simultaneously aim their beams to a central "spot" on earth. That "spot" will then experience severe droughts, hurricanes, tornados or earthquakes. Spontaneous Human Combustion or "SHC" occurs when these lasers are pointed directly at human beings." Hurricane Katrina was allegedly a man-made disaster. Bush was quick to mention that it was a "natural disaster." It was created to distract America's attention away from Bush's latest unqualified fascist neo-con, Supreme Court of Injustice appointees." Eyewitnesses allegedly saw the levees in New Orleans being blown up by US soldiers after they had survived the storm intact. Katrina was a low, Category 3 storm. Not a CAT 4 or 5 as initially claimed! The levees were intentionally blown up to help Bush's neo-con insurance company cronies. Most homes are covered by wind damage insurance only. Not flooding. If the houses were damaged by flooding instead of wind damage then the insurance companies do not have to pay out any claims."This man-made diversion allowed Bush & OPEC the opportunity to "rape" the American tax payers once again by increasing the price of gas for no legitimate reason other than to make billions of dollars of profit at their expense!"

What Bush Was Told About Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206R.shtml
Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.

White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat (February 20, 2006) SEROUS STIFF!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45572/print/
WASHINGTON, DC—Government documents declassified today reveal that President Bush was briefed last summer of "a substantial risk" that Vice President Dick Cheney would shoot an elderly male in the face sometime in the next several months. Reports indicate that the White House had this photo of Cheney hunting senior citizens as early as 2001.In a Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2005, the CIA warned that the vice president was a potent threat to the senior population at large, and in particular "possessed the capabilities and intentions to spray a senior citizen with projectiles fired from a shotgun or other weapon." A second brief identified the population at risk as those "between 70 and 80 years of age," and warned that the vice president posed the greatest threat to "seniors in close proximity to the vice president when he is armed." The brief, which urged the White House to take "the most thorough possible precautions to disable this threat to the faces, necks, and chests of the nation's elderly," was issued a full six months before the events of Feb. 11. The emergence of the document is causing many to question whether Bush and his staff adequately understood or appreciated the the risk posed by Cheney. "To learn that the president's own people advised him in advance of the strong likelihood that Cheney might spray a helpless geriatric victim with bird shot, and still he did nothing, brings to light very serious concerns about this administration's Cheney-containment policies," said Victor Steinberg, director of the Froman Institute, a D.C.-based organization that monitors vice-presidential violence. Further investigation revealed that reports of potential Cheney violence have surfaced since the early '90s, but were given higher priority in the Clinton Administration. In January 2001, outgoing Clinton Administration officials made specific warnings to Colin Powell, emphasizing the vice-presidential threat. In a statement released Monday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan pointed to the number of times that random Cheney attacks have been prevented or stopped by the administration. "The president routinely deals with any number of reports concerning the vice president's assaults on our nation's elderly, such as ear-biting, clubbing, or in one case, the hurtling of a photocopier," McClellan said. "In each case, the president has seen that appropriate steps are taken, whether that means close monitoring of the vice president, adjustments in his medication, or the removal of heavy equipment from his offices, to ensure the safety of those around him." "We assure you that protecting senior citizens from vice-presidential shotgun blasts was, is, and will remain the highest priority of this administration," he added.

A deluded king and his court lickspittles (Mar. 02, 2006) http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/03/02/bush_flattery/
Cut off from reality and surrounded by flatterers like Rice and Cheney, Bush clings to grandiose illusions of heroism. (...) Bush's immovability was previously perceived as the determination of a man of simple but clear convictions. But as his policies have unfolded as disastrous, his image has been turned inside out. Instead of being perceived as secure, he is seen as out of touch; instead of being acknowledged as a colossus striding events, he is viewed as driftwood carried away by the flood.Within the sanctum of the White House, his aides often handle him with flattery. They tell him that he is among the greatest presidents, that his difficulties are testimony to his greatness, that his refusal to change is also a sign of his greatness. The more is he flattered, the more he approves of the flatterer. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has risen along with her current of flattery. She is expert at the handwritten little note extolling his historical radiance. Karen Hughes, now undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, was a pioneer of the flatterer's method. White House legal counsel Harriet Miers is also adept. But it is Vice President Dick Cheney who has sought and gained the most through flattery. While Bush is constantly and lavishly complimented as supreme leader, Cheney runs the show. Through his chief of staff, David Addington, he controls most of the flow of information, especially on national security, that reaches the incurious president. Bush seeks no contrary information or independent sources. He does not delve into the recesses of government himself, as Presidents Kennedy and Clinton did. He never demands worst-case scenarios. Cheney and his team oversee the writing of key decision memos before Bush finally gets to check the box indicating approval. Addington also dominates much of the bureaucracy through a network of conservative lawyers placed in key departments and agencies. The Justice Department regularly produces memos to justify the latest wrinkle in the doctrine of the "unitary executive," whether on domestic surveillance or torture. At the Defense Department, the counsel's office takes direction from Addington and acts at his behest to suppress dissent from the senior military on matters such as detainees or the "global war on terror."Tightly regulated by Cheney and Bush's own aides (who live in fear of Cheney), the president hears what he wishes to hear. They also know what particular flattery he wants to receive, and they ensure that he receives it. CLIP

Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806J.shtml
Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major US offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the US military and the news media.

Ex-Official: Iraq Abuses Growing Worse
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206P.shtml
John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

Iraq's Death Squads: On the Brink of Civil War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706B.shtml
Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations' outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed.

Bush administration drags Iraq towards the abyss of civil war (March 1)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/iraq-m01.shtml
Since the destruction of the Al-Askariya mosque last Wednesday in Samarra, Iraq has been convulsed by sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslim militias. A vicious cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals has claimed hundreds of lives, including dozens of men from both denominations who have been dragged from their homes and executed in the street. As the third anniversary of the US invasion approaches, there is talk of civil war.The Bush administration and the American media have expressed shock and dismay at this turn of events. Friday’s editorial in the New York Times was a case in point. “Iraqi leaders from all religious groups and communities need to exert a calming influence”, it pontificated, concluding: “Creating a new Iraq that is at once democratic, unified and stable was never going to be easy. Now it has become a lot harder”.No small amount of cynicism and deceit was required to write such lines. In the face of the sectarian clashes, mouthpieces of the US ruling elite such as the Times expect people to forget that in March 2003 the Bush administration launched an illegal and unprovoked war against Iraq. The prospect of fratricidal conflict stems directly from this brutal and reckless crime.The invasion was not carried out to bring democracy, unity or stability to Iraq, but to impose a US puppet state and create conditions for the US corporate plunder of the second largest oil reserves in the world. The military devastation of what the Pentagon knew was a defenceless country was also intended as a warning to all potential rivals to the US, from the European powers to China, of the consequences of challenging American interests.Among the key planners of the war, the invasion of Iraq was viewed as only the first in a series of interventions in the Middle East to establish US dominance over the region where a large proportion of the world’s oil and gas is derived. Iran is now the subject of threats by the Bush administration over its alleged nuclear programs that are ominously reminiscent of the build-up to the attack on Iraq. Syria is also the target of repeated provocations. (...) A civil war in Iraq would potentially produce greater horrors than communal fighting in countries such as Lebanon or the former Yugoslavia. Baghdad, a highly integrated city with a population of six million, is almost evenly divided between adherents of both branches of Islam. Any conflict in Iraq would also inevitably spill over its borders, drawing in neighbouring states such as Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and Shiite Iran.The American ruling elite was not only aware that the overthrow of the Baathist regime would plunge Iraq into sectarian conflicts and the broader Middle East into instability, its most consistent advocates—the so-called neo-conservatives—based their strategy for the region on precisely such an outcome. CLIP - This is a most interesting article for those who want to better understand the background of the current situation in Iraq.

Curfew Fails to Quell Iraq Civil War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022506Y.shtml
At least 36 people have died in violence across Iraq as the authorities fight to contain sectarian killing in which at least 165 have died this week, increasing fears of an impending Iraqi civil war.

Sunni-Shia Schism 'Threatening to Tear Iraq Apart'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706K.shtml
Iraq is on the verge of breaking up along religious, ethnic and tribal lines - a process bloodily amplified by the Shia versus Sunni violence in the wake of last week's bomb attack on the gold-domed shrine in Samarra, the International Crisis Group says in a report out today.

Evictions May Foreshadow Iraq Civil War (March 1, 2006)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1675907
Shiites and Sunnis Being Kicked Out of Homes in Iraq May Be Possible Precursor to Civil War - Many Iraqi Shiites Muslim families living in a Sunni dominated areas have fled and taken refuge in a safer places, fearing sectarian tensions on the rise, a dangerous precursor to civil war in Iraq. BAGHDAD (AP)— The sectarian cleansing that drove 68-year-old Abbas al-Saiedi from his home may be as alarming a sign of a country on the brink of civil war as the killings that have swept Iraq in the past week. Masked gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic rifles kicked down the gate at his house, fired into the air and told the Shiite he had 48 hours to get his family out of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood in west Baghdad. Al-Saiedi's story, a tale of fear and desperation told to The Associated Press on Wednesday, represents a growing phenomenon of religious cleansing in which members of each Muslim sect are driving the others from neighborhoods where they have long lived side by side. The practice, which has been going on for some time in neighborhoods south of Baghdad, is a barometer of the degree to which the Shiites and Sunnis have moved on the path to civil war. The number of incidents cannot be fully gauged, but is not yet at the level of mass expulsions of the kind that took place in the Balkans during the civil war there in the 1990s. For their part, Sunnis have long-standing claims of attacks by Shiite-dominated and, some say, government-linked death squads and eviction from homes in the very neighborhoods now being occupied by Shiites displaced from Sunni areas. Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a spokesman for the powerful Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars, urged both communities to stop reprisal attacks and end evictions. CLIP

Exit without a strategy (February 24, 2006) THE US IS BEHIND ALL THE CARNAGE!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1716598,00.html
The popular response to Iraq's latest atrocities has been to blame the occupation, not rival sects -- The shattered golden dome of Samarra is yet another milestone in George Bush's "long war" - in which a civil war in Iraq shows every sign of being a devastating feature. But what sort of civil war? I am convinced it is not the type of war that politicians in Washington and London, and much of the western media, have been anticipating.The past few days' events have strengthened this conviction. It has not been Sunni religious symbols that hundreds of thousands of angry marchers protesting at the bombing of the shrine have targeted, but US flags. The slogan that united them on Wednesday was: "Kalla, kalla Amrica, kalla kalla lill-irhab" - no to America, no to terrorism. The Shia clerics most listened to by young militants swiftly blamed the occupation for the bombing. They included Moqtada al-Sadr; Nasrallah, leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon; Ayatollah Khalisi, leader of the Iraqi National Foundation Congress; and Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader. Along with Grand Ayatollah Sistani, they also declared it a grave "sin" to attack Sunnis - as did all the Sunni clerics about attacks on Shias. Sadr was reported by the BBC as calling for revenge on Sunnis - in fact, he said "no Sunni would do this" and called for revenge on the occupation. None of the mostly spontaneous protest marches were directed at Sunni mosques. Near the bombed shrine itself, local Sunnis joined the city's minority Shias to denounce the occupation and accuse it of sharing responsibility for the outrage. In Kut, a march led by Sadr's Mahdi army burned US and Israeli flags. In Baghdad's Sadr City, the anti-occupation march was massive.There was a string of armed attacks on Sunni mosques in the wake of the bombing but none of them was carried out by the protesters. Reports suggest that they were the work of masked gunmen. Since then there has been an escalation of well-organised murders, some sectarian, some targeting mixed groups, such as yesterday's killing of 47 workers near Baquba.But as live coverage of Wednesday's demonstrations on Iraqi and Arab satellite TV stations clearly showed, the popular mood has been anti-occupation rather than sectarian. CLIP

Iraq Violence Surges Anew, 75 Dead
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106K.shtml
At least 75 Iraqis were killed in a maelstrom of violence as insurgents carried out one of their deadliest offensives in weeks. The vast majority of the victims died in five powerful bombings in Baghdad that threatened to heighten tensions as Iraqis were still struggling to recover from the worst sectarian bloodletting of the war.

Burying the Lancet Report
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206D.shtml
Over a year ago an international team of epidemiologists completed a "cluster sample survey" of civilian casualties in Iraq. Its findings contradicted central elements of what politicians and journalists had presented to the US public and the world. Soon after the study was published, US and British officials launched a concerted campaign to discredit its authors and marginalize their findings without seriously addressing the validity of their methods or presenting any evidence to challenge their conclusions. Today the continuing aerial bombardment of Iraq is still a dark secret to most Americans and the media present the same general picture of the war, focusing on secondary sources of violence.

TV Ads Push Iraq War Support
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206E.shtml
In an early sign of the imagery that may flood the nation's television screens as congressional elections approach this fall, a conservative political group closely aligned with the Bush administration has launched a blitz of television ads to shore up sagging public support for the war in Iraq.

Analysts See Lebanon-ization of Iraq in Crystal Ball
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706F.shtml
The outlines of a future Iraq are emerging: a nation where power is scattered among clerics turned warlords; control over schools, hospitals, railroads and roads is divided along sectarian lines; graft and corruption subvert good governance; and foreign powers exert influence only over a weak central government. It's far too early to write Iraq off as a quagmire, analysts say, but the threat of contagious and continuous instability - like in Lebanon - looms.

Death of a professor (February 28, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329422475-103677,00.html
There is now a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation. In a letter to a friend in Europe, Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, a Baghdad university professor in his 50s, grieved for his killed friends and colleagues. His letter concluded: "I wonder who is next!" He was. On January 28 al-Na'as drove from his office at Baghdad University. Two cars blocked his, and gunmen opened fire, killing him instantly.Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of the "new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met this fate since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have mourned the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of education stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education staff were killed and 133 wounded. Not one of these crimes has been investigated by the occupation forces or the interim governments. They leave that to international humanitarian groups and anti-war organisations. Among them is the Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, which has compiled a list to persuade the UN special rapporteur on summary executions to investigate the issue; they do so with the help of Iraqi academics, who risk their lives in the process. Their research shows that the victims have been men and women from all over Iraq, from different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds. Most were vocally opposed to the occupation. For the most part, they were killed in a fashion that suggests cold-blooded assassination. No one has claimed responsibility. Like many Iraqis, I believe these killings are politically motivated and connected to the occupying forces' failure to gain any significant social support in the country. For the occupation's aims to be fulfilled, independent minds have to be eradicated. We feel that we are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq. CLIP

US Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806B.shtml
An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the US should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows. A BBC poll reveals that people across the world overwhelmingly believe the war in Iraq has increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks worldwide.

In Iraq "Reconstruction" Means New Prisons
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106B.shtml
The US State Department is winding down its $20 billion reconstruction program in Iraq and the only new rebuilding money in its latest budget request is for prisons, officials said on Tuesday.

DOD secretly continued intel program
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060223-082516-5272r
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A controversial counter-terrorism program has quietly continued despite being theoretically ended two years ago.The Department of Defense's Total Awareness Information program was halted by lawmakers more than two years ago amid outcries from privacy advocates. However, it was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the privacy of U.S. citizens, the National journal reported Thursday. The TIA program developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States. Its research was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group that builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency, the National Journal said. The publication cited documents it had obtained and intelligence sources. The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts, the Journal said. Two of the most important components of the TIA program were moved to the Advanced Research and Development Activity, housed at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., the National Journal said. These included the Information Awareness Prototype System, the core architecture that tied together numerous information extraction, analysis, and dissemination tools developed under TIA, it said. The prototype system included privacy-protection technologies that may have been discontinued or scaled back following the move to ARDA.

Restoring the Public Trust
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406A.shtml
Bill Moyers speaks on the issue of money and politics: Watching these people work is a study of the inner circle at the top of American politics. It is a Dick Cheney world out there - a world where politicians and lobbyists hunt together, dine together, drink together, play together, pray together and prey together, all the while carving up the world according to their own interests. It is time to fight again. It's not their government, it's your government.

Lies, Damn Lies and Poverty Statistics
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022806LB.shtml
Census data released this past August suggests that the number of Americans living in poverty has risen to 12.7 percent. But use of an outdated method to determine poverty level (based solely on food prices) has distorted the real figure, which may be as high as 25 percent of all Americans living in poverty.

Prisons Often Shackle Pregnant Inmates in Labor
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030206HB.shtml
Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Arkansas, had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on September 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed. Though her doctor and two nurses joined in the request, her lawsuit says, the guard in charge of her refused.

Gonzales to Reveal Much Larger Domestic Spying Operation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106E.shtml
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales appeared to suggest yesterday that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance operations may extend beyond the outlines that the president acknowledged in mid-December.

Audited voting machines shows votes were made 2 weeks before `04 election (February 23, 2006)
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19421.html
The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night. Black Box Voting successfully sued former Palm Beach County (FL) Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore to get the audit records for the 2004 presidential election. After investing over $7,000 and waiting nine months for the records, Black Box Voting discovered that the voting machine logs contained approximately 100,000 errors. According to voting machine assignment logs, Palm Beach County used 4,313 machines in the Nov. 2004 election. During election day, 1,475 voting system calibrations were performed while the polls were open, providing documentation to substantiate reports from citizens indicating the wrong candidate was selected when they tried to vote.Another disturbing find was several dozen voting machines with votes for the Nov. 2, 2004 election cast on dates like Oct. 16, 15, 19, 13, 25, 28 2004 and one tape dated in 2010. These machines did not contain any votes date-stamped on Nov. 2, 2004.You can find the complete set of raw voting machine event logs for Palm Beach County here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/6628.html CLIP

Did 308,000 cancelled Ohio voter registrations put Bush back in the White House? (February 28, 2006) THIS IS ENOUGH TO WARRANT A NATIONAL OUTCRY AND MASS PROTESTS IN THE STREETS - MUST READ AND PASS ON!
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1832
While life goes on during the Bush2 nightmare, so does the research on what really happened here in 2004 to give George W. Bush a second term. Pundits throughout the state and nation---many of them alleged Democrats---continue to tell those of us who question Bush's second coming that we should "get over it," that the election is old news. But things get curiouser and curiouser. In our 2005 compendium HOW THE GOP STOLE OHIO'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org), we list more than a hundred different ways the Republican Party denied the democratic process in the Buckeye State. (...) Therefore, to put it simply: at least 308,000 voters, most of them likely Democrats, were eliminated from the registration rolls prior to an election allegedly won by less than 119,000 votes, where more than 106,000 votes still remain uncounted, and where the GOP Secretary of State continues to successfully fight off a meaningful recount. There are more than 80 other Ohio counties where additional pre-November, 2004 mass eliminations by GOP-controlled boards of elections may have occurred. Further "anomalies" in the Ohio 2004 vote count continue to surface. In addition, it seems evident that the Democratic Party will now enter Ohio's 2006 gubernatorial and US Senate races, and its 2008 presidential contest, with close to a half-million voters having been eliminated from the registration rolls, the vast majority of them from traditional Democratic strongholds, and with serious legislative barriers having been erected against new voter registration drives. Stay tuned.

Diebold Covertly Re-certified in California
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2007

Why do Diebold's Touch-Screen Voting Machines Have Built-In Wireless Infrared Data Transfer Ports? (2/22/2006)
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002458.htm
IrDA Protocol Can 'Totally Compromise System' Without Detection, Warns Federal Voting Standards Website. (...) This from TrueVoteMD: Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machines have an infrared (IrDA) port installed. This is a remote communication port through which another remote device could communicate with the touch screen and change either its data or its software or both. If your county uses Diebold touch screens, let your county officials and election judges know that it is crucial to cover the IR port with opaque tape. (...) As mentioned, since touch-screen machines have been stored at poll workers' houses and other unsecured locations prior to Election Day, and since data can be transferred to the machines and their memory cards via Infrared -- even without removing the cards or breaking their protective seals -- the IrDA ports would seem to be a tremendous concern. CLIP

Congressman Ron Paul Admits Conspiracy to Create Tyrannical World Government http://911exposed.com/
Eric Rainbolt - audience member asking question of Congressman Paul at event near Austin, Texas on August 30th, 2003: "Congressman Paul, I have a question..."Moderator: "Over here." (pointing to Eric Rainbolt.) Eric Rainbolt: "Great! If we can take a look at the big picture, could you tell us, the people in this room, any information that you may have of an international and deceptive conspiracy to overthrow the American Republic and its Constitution & Bill Of Rights in order to set up and usher in a totalitarian World Government likely espoused under the UN also.."? Congressman Paul: " He asked if there was an international conspiracy to overthrow our government. The answer is "Yes". I think there are 25,000 individuals that have used offices of powers, and they are in our Universities and they are in our Congresses, and they believe in One World Government. And if you believe in One World Goverment, then you are talking about undermining National Sovereignty and you are talking about setting up something that you could well call a Dictatorship - and those plans are there!..." CLIP Find more info about Congressman Ron Paul at http://www.house.gov/paul/ - A list of articles published by the Congressman is at his government website http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/welcome.htm

Bush-Nazi Documentation
http://www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/

White House 'Discovers‚ 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406Y.shtml
Jason Leopold has learned that 250 emails from Dick Cheney's office, relating to the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, that the White House claimed did not exist, in fact do. Those newly re-discovered emails have been turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and are said to be explosive.

Bush Visit Brings South Asia a New Nuclear Threat
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106D.shtml
George W. Bush arrives in India late Wednesday evening, but much has preceded him. Like the media hype over the "historic visit," for example. More notable than this advance party, however, is the shadow of a nuclear militarism preceding the presidential visit. The Bush mission, it is already and abundantly clear, bodes ill indeed for South Asia, besides the entire neighborhood, warns J. Sri Raman.

Protests as Bush starts India visit (01 March 2006)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2E29EC90-930B-471D-8B17-6F74AD52460D.htm
Tens of thousands of Indians have joined demonstrations across the country against the visit by US President George Bush.Groups representing Muslims, communists and survivors of the Bhopal disaster in 1984 held protests hours before Bush's arrival in New Delhi on Wednesday. Bush's three-day visit to the world's largest democracy, which is also Asia's third-largest economy, has raised expectations in India as it sheds its socialist baggage and turns to the West to help it become a regional power. But it has also drawn the ire of leftist and Muslim groups who staged large protests in several cities across the country against Bush's policies. CLIP

Mahatma Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806M.shtml
Norman Solomon writes: The White House announced plans for George W. Bush to lay a wreath at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial in New Delhi this week. While audacious in its shameless and extreme hypocrisy, this PR gambit is in character for the world's only superpower. One of the main purposes of the Bush regime's media spin is to depict reality as its opposite.

Arundhati Roy | Bush in India: Just Not Welcome
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806L.shtml
Arundhati Roy writes that in his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and curiouser.

Poll: Bush Ratings At All-Time Low
http://tinyurl.com/m2jh4
The Latest CBS News Poll Finds Bush's Approval Rating Has Fallen To An All-Time Low Of 34 Percent

Pentagon Told to Release Guantanamo Transcripts
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406E.shtml
A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move which would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there.

American gulag (February 26 2006)
http://www.moreliberty.org/
Torture, force-feeding and darkness at noon -- this is Guantanamo, a lawyer for prisoners says. (...) The files include only the flimsiest accusations or hearsay that would never stand up in court. The file on one prisoner indicated that he had been seen talking to two suspected Al Qaeda members on the same day — at places thousands of miles apart. The primary "evidence" against another was that he was captured wearing a particular Casio watch, "which many terrorists wear." Oddly, the same watch was being worn by the U.S. military chaplain, a Muslim, at Guantanamo. When I first met my clients, they had not seen or spoken with their families for more than three years, and they had been questioned hundreds of times. Several were suspicious of us; they told me that they had been interrogated by people who claimed to be their lawyers but who turned out not to be. So we had DVDs made, on which members of their families told them who we were and that we could be trusted. Several cried on seeing their families for the first time in years. One had become a father since he was detained and had never before seen his child. One noticed his father was not on the DVD, and we had to tell him that his father had died.Most prisoners are kept apart, although some can communicate through the steel mesh or concrete walls that separate their cells. They exercise alone, some only at night. They had not seen sunlight for months — an especially cruel tactic in a tropical climate. One prisoner told me, "I have spent almost every moment of the last three years, and eaten every meal, here in this small cell which is my bathroom." Other than the Koran, prisoners had nothing to read. As a result of our protests, some have been given books.Every prisoner I've interviewed claims to have been badly beaten and subjected to treatment that only could be called torture, by Americans, from the first day of U.S. captivity in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They said they were hung by their wrists and beaten, hung by their ankles and beaten, stripped naked and paraded before female guards, and given electric shocks. At least three claimed to have been beaten again upon arrival in Guantanamo. One of my clients, Fayiz Al Kandari, now 27, said his ribs were broken during an interrogation in Pakistan. I felt the indentation in his ribs. "Beat me all you want, just give me a hearing," he said he told his interrogators. CLIP

Guantanamo, Fortress of the Absurd
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806C.shtml
Philippe Gelie returns to the looking-glass world of Guantanamo after a little over two years and describes the changes - and the absence of changes - he observes.

Horrors of Camp Delta Are Exposed by British Victims
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206A.shtml
An award-winning film director, who reconstructed scenes of torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay, has called for the immediate closure of the US-run camp. Michael Winterbottom's film shows prisoners beaten, manacled to floors and subjected to deafening music in solitary confinement.

William Fisher: Son of Gitmo
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206Z.shtml
Legal, diplomatic, religious and human rights authorities are struggling to be heard on what many consider to be the "Son of Guantanamo" - a secret prison in Afghanistan where the US military is said to have been holding some 500 "enemy combatants" for as long as three or four years without access to lawyers.

Gulags For American Citizens In Final Planning Stages (March 1 2006)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/010306gulagsforamericans.htm
Halliburton sex slave trade criminals prepare camps for political dissidents - Bush administration and US army preparations to target American citizens and intern them in forced labor camps has vastly accelerated in the past month and commentators from all over the political spectrum are sounding the alarm bells that the round-ups may begin soon.Once the bane of the media's stereotypical 'tin foil hat wearing' caricatures, concentration camps in America are now serious news and no one is laughing.Following the news first given wide attention by this website, that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, "Fifth Columnists" Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with "the enemy," whoever that enemy may be. CLIP

Human Rights Hypocrisy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706J.shtml
Marjorie Cohn writes: Bolton stated last month, "Membership on the Commission by some of the world's most notorious human rights abusers mocks the legitimacy of the Commission and the United Nations itself." But Bolton was not referring to the United States, which invaded Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, and tortured and abused prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Put Out More Flags: The Making of Another America
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306H.shtml
John Pilger: Hicks was a drifter. In the 1990s, Hicks became a Muslim and drifted through Kosovo, then on to Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped by the Americans and sent to their concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. Not a shred of evidence exists that Hicks fought for al-Qaeda, or is a terrorist. Yet he is to face one of Bush's "military commissions," for which torture is used to extract confessions, and there is no right to cross-examine witnesses, no presumption of innocence and no standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." The Howard government has said, in so many words, that David Hicks can rot. He is a no-hoper, un-American, unaspirational. Put out more flags.

New Paths to Stop Human Rights Violations in US
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306G.shtml
Congress member Barbara Lee gave the House of Representatives in early February reports of 30 types of human rights violations by the US Government since 9/11.

CIA Using Canadian Airstrips
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406K.shtml
CIA planes have landed in Canada 74 times since the 9/11 terror attacks, underscoring fears that the United States is ferrying suspected terrorists through its neighboring country en route to foreign prisons for torture, according to newly declassified government documents.

The Permanent Energy Crisis (February 13, 2006)
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/13/the_permanent_energy_crisis.php
(...) In addition to this danger, we face the entire range of environmental perils associated with our continuing reliance on fossil fuels. Consider this: The DoE predicted in July 2005 that worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide (the principal source of the "greenhouse gases" responsible for global warming) will rise by nearly 60 percent between 2002 and 2025—with virtually all of this increase, about 15 billion metric tons of CO2, coming from the consumption of oil, gas, and coal. If this projection proves accurate, the world will probably pass the threshold at which it will be possible to avert significant global heating, a substantial rise in sea-levels, and all the resulting environmental damage.The surest way to slow the increase in global carbon emissions is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to alternative forms of energy. But because such alternatives are not currently capable of replacing oil, gas, and coal on a significant scale (and won't be, at present rates of investment, for another few decades), the temptation to increase reliance on fossil fuels is likely to remain strong. We are, in fact, caught in a conundrum: the world needs more energy to satisfy rising global demand, and the only way to accomplish this at present is to squeeze out more oil, gas, and coal from the Earth, thereby hastening the onset of catastrophic climate change. In turn, the only way to avert such change is to consume less oil, gas, and coal, which would involve severe economic costs of a sort that most national leaders would be reluctant to consider. Hence, we will be trapped in a permanent crisis brought on by our collective addiction to cheap energy. The sole way out of this trap is to bite the bullet and adopt heroic measures to curb our fossil-fuel consumption while embarking upon a massive program to develop alternative energy systems – an effort comparable to, and in some sense a reversal of, the coal-and-oil-fueled industrial revolution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the United States, this would, at an utter minimum, entail the imposition of a hefty tax on gasoline consumption, with the resulting proceeds used to fund the rapid development of renewable energy systems. All funds now slated for highway construction should instead be devoted to public transit and high-speed inter-city rail lines and all new cars sold in America after 2010 should have minimum average fuel efficiencies of 50 MPG or higher. This will prove costly and disruptive—but what other choice is there if we want to have some hope of exiting the permanent global energy crisis before the global economy collapses or the planet becomes uninhabitable by humans.

Wi-fi rots your brain - Canadian university bans wireless (Feb 23, 2006)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29860
LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY in Canada has canned a big wi-fi project out of fears that it could cause cancer and rot its students' brains.The Ontario University President Fred Gilbert refuses to sign off on a campus-wide installation after reading a a California Public Utilities Commission study. The study said that there was a possible risk of tumours and other diseases due to exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The Consumer and Clinical Radiation Protection at Health Canada is expect to release a report later this year that will say that there are "no identified risks" at normal exposure levels. But Gilbert said that would not be good enough for him, as some of the effects of these things, do not show up for 30 to 40 years after exposure. CLIP

University takes pass on wireless Internet (Feb 23) http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=76ac123e-17e0-4b8e-afc4-7675973f4f15&k=36686
Looking for a hot spot? You won’t find one at Lakehead University.University president Fred Gilbert said he’s unwilling to introduce wireless Internet access to the Thunder Bay, Ont., school until he’s certain no health risk exists from electric and magnetic fields (EMFs). In a recent interview with the website itbusiness.ca, Gilbert said his decision was based on "scientific literature that indicates the potential for ‘some fairly significant’ health consequences." Gilbert could not be reached for comment on Thursday, but the university issued a statement saying its decision to not install wireless technology was made for "health and security reasons." CLIP

Factory Farms Blamed for Spread of Bird Flu
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022706HA.shtml
Factory farming and the international poultry trade are largely responsible for the spread of bird flu, and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for the disease, a new report says. The deadly H5N1 virus has proliferated through exports of live birds and the use of chicken droppings as fertilizer.

Infection Is Growing in Scope, Resistance
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022706HB.shtml
A virulent staph germ once largely confined to hospitals is emerging in jails, gyms and schools.

Soft drinks found to have high levels of cancer chemical
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022206LA.shtml
It turns out you can't trust Monsanto. Warned of devastating consequences to farmers, the company made a landmark public promise in 1999 not to commercialize "Terminator Technology" - plants that are genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. Now, seven years later, Monsanto seems to have changed its mind.

McCartney, Wife to Protest Seal Hunt (February 28, 2006)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801215.html
TORONTO -- Paul McCartney and his wife will travel to the ice floes off the Canadian Maritimes this week to observe seal pups before the country's annual hunt opens, the Humane Society of the United States said. The former Beatle and Heather Mills McCartney, both longtime animal-rights activists, will head out to the frigid ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Thursday and Friday in their bid to prompt Ottawa to end the annual hunt of seals. Paul McCartney and his wife Heather watch from backstage at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London, on July 2, 2005. The couple will travel to the ice floes off the Canadian Maritimes this week to observe seal pups before the country's annual hunt opens, the Humane Society of the United States said Tuesday. "Heather and Paul's visit to the seal pups will shine a global media spotlight on this cruel and needless slaughter," Rebecca Aldworth, the society's director of Canadian wildlife issues, said Tuesday. The timing of this year's hunt is uncertain. Generally the hunt runs from mid-March through mid-April, but the unseasonably mild winter has put the hunt date on hold.Twenty years ago, the centuries-old industry appeared doomed. Celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot and Martin Sheen pushed to ban the hunt amid a worldwide campaign that featured graphic photos of doe-eyed whitecoats, or baby harp seals, being bludgeoned on the ice floes.The protests worked. The United States moved to ban the import of seal products in 1972, and the European Union instituted a partial ban in 1983. Prices plummeted to as low as $5 per seal pelt, and in 1987 Canada banned the killing of whitecoats.But by the mid-1990s, new markets opened up in China and Russia, the price for pelts started to rise, and the sealing industry's efforts to encourage humane harvesting practices limited the impact of renewed protests. As a result, both the industry and the seal population bounced back.The full 325,000 seals allowed under the country's quota were killed last year, giving some 15,000 fishermen and their families $16.5 million in revenue.

Memory Against Forgetting- An Open Letter on the "Green Scare"
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805070.php
This is an excellent essay from Portland Indymedia on the current "Green Scare" arrests of eco-activists. (...) The U.S. government excels at dropping down on people's lives like a ton of bricks, and of course that's what it has done with this witch hunt. In the last couple months, it has incarcerated or otherwise hammered many amazing radicals, thereby traumatizing them, their friends, families, and movements. Federal prosecutors have also set a new standard for potential sabotage penalties: life in jail plus, oh, say, about 300 years. The personal reality for the people and their loved ones facing this repression is sad enough. But to make matters worse is the apparent success with which the government has isolated the accused from their comrades and movements. We need to look at how the state has succeeded, to a large degree, in cutting off each of these people from communicating with one another or their political allies. This isolation has surely caused some of them to break their solidarity with each other and cooperate with the prosecution. CLIP Recommended by Ethan X livetrii@yahoo.com>

Marine Mammals Suffer Human Diseases (Feb 25)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060225/sc_space/marinemammalssufferhumandiseases
ST. LOUIS—Parasites from cat feces are causing deadly brain damage in California sea otters. A combination of toxic chemicals and herpes virus is killing off California sea lions. And toxic algae blooms are contributing to record manatee deaths in Florida. All of these animals live near coastlines, spending a majority of their lives in the same waters people swim and surf in. Their daily cuisines consist of the same foods we serve up in clam shacks and fine seafood restaurants.The difference between humans and these animals, says NOAA spokesperson Paul Sandifer, is that the animals deal with the ocean conditions, good or bad, full time. People can pick and choose when to go into the water and what to eat. As a result, marine animals, particularly mammals, play an important role as sentinel species. When one of these species gets sick or dies from something in the water, it is often a warning to humans of disease to come. CLIP

The Fate of the Ocean
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030106EB.shtml
The oceans as we have known them are ceasing to exist, says the author of this lengthy investigative piece. Oceanic problems once encountered on a local scale have gone pandemic, and these pandemics now merge to birth new monsters. - Our oceans are under attack, and approaching a point of no return. Can we survive if the seas go silent? (...) The 25 years I've spent at sea filming nature documentaries have provided a brief yet definitive window into these changes. Oceanic problems once encountered on a local scale have gone pandemic, and these pandemics now merge to birth new monsters. Tinkering with the atmosphere, we change the ocean's chemistry radically enough to threaten life on earth as we know it. Making tens of thousands of chemical compounds each year, we poison marine creatures who sponge up plastics and PCBs, becoming toxic waste dumps in the process. Carrying everything from nuclear waste to running shoes across the world ocean, shipping fleets spew as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as the entire profligate United States. Protecting strawberry farmers and their pesticide methyl bromide, we guarantee that the ozone hole will persist at least until 2065, threatening the larval life of the sea. Fishing harder, faster, and more ruthlessly than ever before, we drive large predatory fish toward global extinction, even though fish is the primary source of protein for one in six people on earth. Filling, dredging, and polluting the coastal nurseries of the sea, we decimate coral reefs and kelp forests, while fostering dead zones. (...)  Fishing fleets kill an estimated 100 million sharks per year across the globe. In the Gulf of Mexico, the number of oceanic whitetip sharks has plunged 99 percent since the 1950s, driving this once common pelagic species into virtual extinction. A study of the North Atlantic found that overall shark populations have declined more than 50 percent since 1986. Sadly, sharks are slow breeders, with most delivering small litters (some only twins) after reaching a late sexual maturity (some at 25 years old), after which they typically deliver litters at three-year intervals. The results of such slow reproduction make recovery from overfishing notoriously difficult. (...) Close to 50 hypoxic zones fester on the coasts of the continental United States, affecting half of all our estuaries. The situation is worse in Europe, with 14 persistent dead zones that never go away, and almost 40 others occurring annually, the biggest and worst being the 27,000-square-mile persistent dead zone in the Baltic Sea, which is nearly the size of South Carolina. CLIP

Enemies of the Ocean
http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/03/enemies_of_the_ocean.html
A list of companies, politicians, and countries who do the most damage to the world's oceans. (...) Japan offers multimillion-dollar “grants” to poor countries in exchange for pro-whaling votes on the International Whaling Commission. In a famous example, both St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines changed their antiwhaling position two weeks after their prime ministers took trips to Tokyo. The two countries then received $20 million in aid from Japan. Generations of U.S. consumers have been told to “Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman,” but its Japanese parent company, Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd., has killed some 2,700 whales under the guise of “scientific research” since buying Gorton’s in 2001. McDonald’s gets its Filet-O-Fish from Gorton’s. Chemicals used in Midwestern farms flow down the Mississippi toward the Gulf of Mexico, where the largest dead zone in America waits. The industries are such strong backers of Rep. Pombo that he let them write a bill undoing the Food Quality Protection Act and introduced it into Congress. Cruise ships can produce 30,000 gallons of sewage and 19 tons of garbage a day, most of which is dumped into the ocean, often in brazen defiance of federal laws. Add to that diesel exhaust equal to 12,240 cars, and you’ve got what the Bluewater Network calls “an emerging crisis.” CLIP

Collateral Damage (March 1, 2006)
http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/03/collateral_damage.html
Navy sonar exercises could be to blame for whale strandings. - -The pilot whales began coming ashore last January, on North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, not far from Whalebone Junction, where fishermen make the turn toward the marina at Oregon Inlet. Short-finned with distinctly rounded heads and long, stocky dark bodies, some were almost 20 feet long, weighing up to three tons. By the time they were discovered in the surf near a lonely five-mile stretch of beach, 15 pilot whales—6 of them pregnant—were dead. Seven more had to be euthanized by veterinarians. During the next two days, a newborn minke whale and two dwarf sperm whales also died in one of the largest beaching events ever documented along this coastline.Scientists arrived to gather tissue; after the necropsies, the whales were buried on the beach. “It’s curious to have three different kinds of whales strand, and a number of possible causes are being examined. Sonar is certainly one of them,” said Connie Barclay, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.On the day the strandings began, several Navy ships conducted submarine-hunting exercises off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, using loudspeakers to send mid-frequency sonar sound waves across ten or even a hundred miles of ocean. Sonar devices can locate an enemy’s sophisticated, almost-silent diesel submarines by, ironically, making a deafening noise—sometimes above 230 decibels, as loud as a Saturn V rocket blasting off. (Underwater noise of only 120 decibels—a level billions of times less intense—has been known to disrupt whale behavior.) CLIP

US Not Doing Its Share to Stop the Population Explosion
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022306WA.shtml
Andrea Doll says it is obvious that Earth's projected population increase of 50 percent within the next 50 years will have an enormous impact on the Earth's already strained ability to sustain us. So why doesn't the United States fund programs whose mission it is to help individuals and families make sound decisions on family planning?

HOPI PROPHESIES & THE GREAT SHIFT OF THE AGES
We are in the midst of a confluence of events and forces that make this a truly unique age, with the potential for unprecedented transformation. Many refer to this as The Great Shift of the Ages, in which the Earth is entering an exceedingly rare geophysical and astrophysical age that was prophesized thousands of years ago by cultures spanning the globe, including the Egyptians, the Essenes, the Mayans, the Hopis, and others. It is seen as a once in a millennia opportunity to change from an old decadent paradigm,which is collapsing around us, to a new paradigm, where life on this planet will be very different. Others believe the end of the world is upon us, and that this is the end-times that were prophesized in the Bible. One thing is fairly certain, and that is we could be in for a very bumpy ride in the not so distant future. This week's article is by Robert Ghost Wolf, a Hopi Native American, in which he passes along these prophesies as passed down from his elders. He confirms that there are chaotic times ahead, but also that the direction this takes depends entirely upon us. We have the capability to survive and rebuild the planet, depending on remembering "the ancient, sacred teachings," and keeping our connection with the Spirit. The choice is ours, and it's not too late to change. Click here for the article:
http://www.harmonymindbodyspirit.com/archives/hopi.shtml
Prepared and recommended by "Jack Allis" jallis@stratia.net>

In Hot Water
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature4/index.html
Last year's record hurricane season may have been just the beginning. Forecasters predict the Atlantic seaboard could be in for decades of relentless pounding. (...) That debate will continue, but many scientists agree that the present hurricane surge is likely part of a 60-to-70-year cycle that changes the strength of ocean currents distributing heat around the globe. Researchers have used tree rings and ice cores to track this variability back hundreds of years. We're now in a fast-flowing mode of this up-and-down cycle, named the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), during which Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and wind conditions favor hurricane generation. Ten years from now, or perhaps thirty (the timetable is difficult to predict), the cycle should reverse, tending to suppress major hurricanes. Why the variation? "Frankly, no one can say with 100 percent certainty, but it appears to be a natural effect," CLIP

Norway Firm Plans World's Biggest Wind Park With Total Capacity Of 1,500 Megawatts
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35223/story.htm

Sweden Aims For Oil-Free Economy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4694152.stm
Sweden Says It Aims To Completely Wean Itself Off Oil Within 15 Years - Without Building New Nuclear Plants

US Led World In New Wind Power Installs In 2005
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35244/story.htm
The United States Installed About 2,400 Megawatts Of Wind Power Last Year

Plan Unveiled For Hydrogen Power Plant
http://tinyurl.com/7gn72
Oil Giant BP And Edison Say They Will Spend $1 Billion To Build A Non-polluting Facility In Carson [CA]. It Is Expected To Be Completed In 2011

The Greenest Vehicles Of 2006
http://www.greenercars.com/12green.html

Corn at the Right Time - Ethanol is suddenly all the rage in D.C. and Detroit http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/02/24/griscom-little/index.html?source=weekly
GM's pervasive new "Live Green, Go Yellow" campaign is hyping ethanol everywhere from billboards to airwaves to T-shirts. President Bush has been talking up the biofuel too; last week, which he dubbed "energy week," Bush and top cabinet officials fanned out across the country to tout energy initiatives intended to curb America's oil addiction. But is ethanol actually a boon for the environment, and what are its prospects for becoming more than a niche fuel propped up by big subsidies? Muckraker digs around for answers.

Flying Is Dying
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030106EA.shtml
Monbiot warns: There is no way to halt global warming and continue traveling long distances at high speeds. The only solution is to stop flying in airplanes.

Omega-News Collection 25. February 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1619496/

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Note from Jean: Long-time ERN subscriber, Tim Strachan [strachan@megadisc.com.au> or tim@writer-4-hire.com>] sent me an article he just wrote, entitled "Travels with my Laptop", which I found quite interesting. In it he explains his plan to write an ebook giving all the necessary tips on that subject (How to run a business through your laptop computer while travelling, how to do internet phoning, Wifi hotspots around the world, etc.) I found the following excerpt most interesting...

(...) Skype is the one! In the end, the simplest and the best for the single traveller is Skype. Skype is free to download, register and use between two (or more: you can conference too) skype users. This encourages rapid spread of the technology and uses ‘web psychology’ in the best way – give something useful away for free and get people in. You even find some internet cafes let you use Skype on their computers (though not often – they like to charge for phone calls at much higher rates). Once you have skype working on your computer, you can get more serious – you can buy credit (using PayPal, or credit card) which allows you to use SkypeOut, that is, you can call any phone number anywhere (except some emergency numbers), be it a landline (1 or 2 cents per minute) or a cellphone (10 cents per minute approximately). I use this constantly for business and friends who don’t have Skype-to-Skype installed yet. Skype claims that $13 credit will give you 10 hours speaking to landlines round the world. You can go further and get SkypeIn, meaning that you can pay about $10 for your own phone number (for 3 months) in any of about 10 countries currently available. I (an Australian in Mexico) have a California phone number which appears on all my websites as if I have an office in the US, and which any American can call at US rates – these calls go to my computer and are answered by Skype, whether I’m there or not. Either I take the call, or redirect it to other numbers (at Skype costs, very low) or take a voicemail. I could also have a number in the UK, and numerous other countries round the world.
I have been using all these features for months and I can tell you that it works well. It is even something you should have on your computer at home, whether you travel or not – you can save a lot of money in phone bills. I know, because I have saved plenty in Australia.
See SkypeZones below for more capabilities. CLIP - To get the whole article, please go at http://www.writer-4-hire.com/index_files/laptoptravel.htm