MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
October 27, 2007
The Moment of Truth Series #10: Upping The Ante
Hello everysoul!
Earth Is Reaching The Point of No Return, Says Major UN Environment Report
There is such a huge slew of doomsday news in this compilation (over 120 pages, 45,400 words and 296 links, my largest ever) that I'm hesitant to submit you all to this barrage of stuff. Yet, just reading what, to me, looks like the biggest news of the week (which BTW barely registered in the controlled mainstream newsmedia...) indicates to me that it would be foolish to ignore what is happening - as if we could anyway! See for yourself...
Save the planet? It's now or never, warns landmark UN report (25/10/2007)
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071025154020.bbqhb66q.html
NAIROBI (AFP) - Humanity is changing Earth's climate so fast and devouring resources so voraciously that it is poised to bequeath a ravaged planet to future generations, the UN warned Thursday in its most comprehensive survey of the environment. The fourth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4), published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data garnered over two decades. The 570-page report -- which caps a year that saw climate change dominate the news -- says world leaders must propel the environment "to the core of decision-making" to tackle a daily worsening crisis." The need couldn't be more urgent and the time couldn't be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations," GEO-4 said. The UNEP report offers the broadest and most detailed tableau of environmental change since the Brundtland Report, "Our Common Future," was issued in 1987 and put the environment on the world political map. "There have been enough wake-up calls since Brundtland. I sincerely hope GEO-4 is the final one," said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner." The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged -- and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," he added. Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in 450 million years, the latest of which occurred 65 million years ago, says GEO-4. "A sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused by human behaviour," it says. Over the past two decades, growing prosperity has tremendously strengthened the capacity to understand and confront the environmental challenges ahead. Despite this, the global response has been "woefully inadequate," the report said. The report listed environmental issues by continent and by sector, offering dizzying and often ominous statistics about the future. Climate is changing faster than at any time in the past 500,000 years. CLIP
Of course I've tried, as best as I could, to balance out the doomsday stuff with Light-filled hope-stirring material, a delicate balancing act for sure.
We are really right in the middle of a major moment of truth and the ante has been upped once again...
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com
P.S. Your feedback is as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer it is 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/Archives2007/MomentTruth10.htm
STATS for this compilation: Over 45,400 words and 296 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.
SPECIAL NOTICE FOR ALL SPANISH-SPEAKING SUBSCRIBERS: Christina Iglesias (chrisigle@yahoo.com.ar) from Argentina has kindly translated in Spanish the Call for a Global Peace Vigil and I've archived her translation at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/VigiliaGlobal.htm - You are welcomed to network this to all your Spanish-speaking contacts.
THE QUOTES
"I don't want to be alarmist, I have no evidence there's a coup brewing. But I think the American people and their congressional reps deserve some say in how they will be ruled when the ordinary rules go out the window in a national emergency. For one thing, what will happen to the Bill of Rights' guarantees of individual liberty and the courts that are supposed to enforce them? If you ask me, setting aside any paranoid fantasies, it is clear on the most basic level—read it yourself—that NSPD-51 is the creation of irresponsible incompetents, bulls in the china shop of our constitutional framework. It is a recipe for disaster. For a catastrophe of governance that would match whatever physical catastrophe it followed and threaten the re-establishment of constitutional democracy. It would make the partisan warfare over the 2000 election in Florida seem like child's play. We might recover from a disaster but we might never recover from the "continuity coordination" that followed, "coordination" that could forever undermine any faith in the actual continuity of constitutional liberty in America since it would put it at the mercy of any president who wants to "coordinate continuity" rather than govern legally."
- Ron Rosenbaum -- Taken from The Reality Of Nspd-51 Is Almost As Bad As The Paranoia below
"I suggest that what is needed is A CAMPAIGN OF COORDINATED GLOBAL CIVIC DISOBEDIENCE. This does not need to take the form of anything that might be construed as 'civil unrest' - as these acts would result in a coordinated and abrupt response by local civil defense forces (i.e. police - whose actions are controlled by those about whom we would protest) and ensuing negative action against those protesting. What would happen if everyone or anyone worldwide who disagrees with the policies implemented by the Global Elite via their political puppets in all our countries, would use the horn on their vehicle, a hand-held distress device, a trumpet, or banging on pots and pans to make noise for ONE FULL MINUTE at 0800 hours every morning? The impact of this simple action could be wildly contagious. If, as we are told, 70% of the adult population agrees about the disastrous, genocidal, and destructive nature of the current global situation (Iraq, Afghanistan, depleted uranium poisoning, the 9/11 sham, recession caused by Central Banking, etc.), this kind of coordinated response would have a much larger 'voice' than any number of unreported vigils. These actions of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE would also spread quickly as those who agree would add 'voice' to the increasing global clamor."
- Richard Bee (r_s_bee@yahoo.com) -- Found in the ERN guestbook
"Jean, all I can say is thank you for your amazing work - it is an absolute life blood for me to find out, along with the referred sites, what is really going on in the world. The whole awareness of these issues is so huge and constantly challenges me to work out what I can do just to increase people's awareness of what we are really doing to this world and how we, as individuals, can change it through awareness, caring, intention and action. Thank you for your dedication - I have been a silent addict for some years!!"
- Diana Grosser (sdgrosser@bigpond.com) from Australia -- Message found in the ERN guestbook
"I believe that we in the United States may be in for a number of cataclysmic events such as 9/11, Katrina, and the California fires as this nation -- for the first time in its long history -- begins to experience that it is no more impervious to disaster (natural or man-made) than any other nation. The century of American dominance (and, some might say, American "luck" -- when virtually no major misfortune touched the land) is over. And there may very well be a collective will on the part of Humanity (and not only that portion living outside of the United States) to bring this nation as close to an awareness of its own fragility as every other nation on the earth. Fragility produces humility, and few would argue that America could benefit from a dose of humility right now. Humanity might also right now be teaching itself about its own need to create community -- helping and healing communities, some temporary and some more permanent -- to face the predictably extraordinary challenges of the 21st Century. For the past dozen decades (and increasingly in the last five or six) we have seen a break up of the Community Human as families have disunited and cultures have homogenized and the people of the earth have increasingly become more and more freed by modern technologies and less dependent on each other -- or seemed to have done so. In reality, an experience of our Oneness and our Interdependence is more needed now than ever before, as we march seemingly obliviously toward the brink of our own self-destruction. Only an awareness of our Oneness and Interdependence can save us now, me thinks. Only a complete clarity that we ARE all one can turn the tide of events in favor of sustainability on the earth."
- Neale Donald Walsch -- Taken from God and the California Fires (October 24, 2007)
"By far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses, scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. (...) Dr. Durakovic's UMRC research team also conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained "hundreds to thousands of times" the normal levels of radiation."
- Doug Westerman -- Taken from Depleted Uranium - Far Worse Than 9/11 below
"Evolution is all about uplifting your Light through your own efforts, although help is given once you elect to take a path to the higher realms. It is normally a gradual process, but once it gathers speed it increases exponentially. At present you stand on the verge of a wonderful surge forward. It can be credited to the awakening that has taken place, and you have now reached a very important phase. Much work is still to be carried out, but the plan for fully enlightened Man is well advanced. All will be uplifted if they can accept the Light that is being beamed to Earth. As many of you now understand, all is moving according to Universal Law and it is orderly even if at first it does not seem to be so. (...) Regardless of all the events occurring on Earth, you can be sure that they will be of no consequence where Ascension is concerned. It will bring this cycle to completion, and nothing will prevent or delay it manifesting. I ask that you give no strength to the dark and their fearsome activities, but instead send out your love. It is a simple thing to do, and will hasten the changes that will bring the beginning of the end – allowing a new beginning to fully emerge."
- St. Germain -- 24 October 2007 Message (included at the end of this compilation)
"Dear Ones everything that we have foreseen is taking place, in a way that spells the end of this cycle. Certain events of which we are bound to keep the details secret are gaining momentum. We will give no clues as to the time scale, except to tell you that the changes are coming up very quickly. There is now an impatience noted amongst those who lead the dark forces, and they are extremely anxious to mount an assault on Mankind. Many earlier attempts to build on the fear created by 9/11 have been prevented by us, and they are aware of our many interventions. These are times when the dark will resort to every opportunity to build up a scenario to justify extending the war in the Middle East. It is not something that is hidden from your view, in fact rather the opposite. Their tactics are to continue creating more reasons to continue their programme of self- gratification and aggrandizement. In their naïve and defiant response to our presence, they are planning the very acts that will lead to their downfall. We await with pleasure the outcome, although it gives us heartache to see the continued death and destruction. For those who are aware of the inner happenings and covert actions of both us and the dark, it has called for a great degree of patience. However, you are guaranteed the victory that has been promised from the very first time of our contact with you. Our plan was conceived eons of time ago, in readiness for the first signs that Man was turning his back on the influences of the dark. It was made knowing that regardless of what happened, there would always be a certain percentage of you sufficiently prepared to step up into Ascension."
- Atmos 26-October-2007
CONTENTS
1) Feedbacks
2) 'Humanity's very survival' is at risk, says UN
3) Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study
4) Peak Oil Has Arrived: Report Warns of Social Meltdown
5) Japan ceases to use US dollar as reserve currency
6) Top US Air Force official 'suicided' as Iran war nears
7) The Reality Of Nspd-51 Is Almost As Bad As The Paranoia
8) Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?
9) What the Pentagon doesn't want you to know
10) Six years ago this past Sunday, the U.S. government launched a war against Afghanistan
11) Stop the Depleted Uranium Poisoning of America
12) Andrew Meyer, the student who begged: 'Don’t Tase me bro!', becomes internet star
13) Baghdad Burning is Back!
14) US Government disinformation fails again - Syrian UFO
15) St. Germain -- 24 October 2007
16) Bush White House begins to disintegrate
17) A conversation with Jesus
WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION
Who is The Real Nuclear Threat? (MUST SEE!)
http://www.worldcantwait.net/images/ads/iran_quiz_ad_poster.pdf
Freedom to Fascism the Microchip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClxR-8VLxD8
9/11 Truthers Respond to Bill Maher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoJJIYWMZlY
The greatest survivors of Earth's nature: Water bears (Click on "next photo" to view them all!) AMAZING!!
http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/water_bears-2685/2/
These small, segmented animals were discovered by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, an aquatic zoologist, in 1773. Over 900 species of water bears have been found everywhere around the world - from the Himalayan mountains (at elevations of over 6000 meters) to deep ocean areas (4000 meters below sea level). They are most often discovered on mosses, lichens, and various types of sediments. An easy way to observe them is to soak a piece of moss in spring water. Freeze them, boil them, dry them, expose them to open space & radiation - after 200 years they'll still be alive! The amazing thing about these tiny, 1mm creatures is just how resilient they are to about everything. You can put them in space, in hot sea vents, and freeze them - no matter what you do, they'll survive... Tardigrades can survive in: Extreme cold (at -272 degrees Celsius for a couple of minutes, or at -200 degrees Celsius for days on end)!!! Extreme heat (being heated to 181 degrees Celsius for a couple of minutes)!!! Extreme radiation (easily surviving 5,700 grays of radiation. A gray is about as much radiation as 5,000 chest x-rays. 10-20 grays can easily kill a human and most animals.) Extreme dehydration (A tardigrade can survive for a decade with no water). In a vacuum (A water bear can survive in space!) These tiny organisms can be found everywhere - in fact, there are probably hundreds just a few meters from where you are standing. They aren't as publicized as they should be, but these creatures are truly fascinating. It's amazing that these minuscule beings can survive for so long when others will die out.
Magnificent inspiring paintings by Josephine Wall worth exploring and contemplating
http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/gallery.html
This one is particularly wonderful
http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/sadness.html
The most famous video of UFO - Amazing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsFk9tObERk
QUESTION: Dr. Boylan, How did the Cabalistas get to the moon bases? There are some more parts to this [Cabal craft skimming above the Moon video] story that are untold, and imply that somebody has somehow gone to the moon with other than NASA's well-publicized launches. This is intriguing. REPLY: The Cabal have access to a wide and versatile fleet of U.S. antigravity craft. See: http://www.drboylan.com/xplanes2.html
Only the "chump" astronauts at Kennedy Space Center, FL ride those dangerous buckets full of explosives into space, in a public spectacle designed to keep the ignorant public convinced that's as far as "our" technology has gotten us. The "real" astronauts (secret, military) train at the Special Air Force Academy inside a mountain just west of the "official" Air Force Academy, then fly antigravity craft into space on undeclared missions to the secret "other" Space Station, to the Moon, and to Mars. And have been for years. -- Taken from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DrRichBoylanReports/message/2095
Here is an excerpt from http://www.drboylan.com/xplanes2.html that gives a good idea of the exotic (to most people) war technology the US could use in an attack against Iran... in the unlikely case ET monitoring groups don't intervene to prevent this...
7) the TR3-B 'Astra" , is a large triangular anti-gravity craft within the U.S. fleet. Black projects defense industry insider Edgar Rothschild Fouche wrote about the existence of the TR3-B in his book, Alien Rapture (10). My ex-NSA informant, 'Z', also confirmed that the TR3-B is operational. 'Z' had this to say about the TR3-B triangular antigravity craft. "TR3-B. This is the code name for what everyone on Earth has seen. It is a very large triangular-shaped re-entry vehicle with anti-gravity. It is what the November [2000] issue of Popular Mechanics identified as the Lenticular Reentry Vehicle, a nuclear-powered flying saucer, the first version of which went operational in 1962, [the version which Popular Mechanics illustrated.] 'It was used in Gulf War's early hours with electromagnetic-pulse/laser cannons. It literally sat mid-air, firing long-, medium-, short-range to take out antennas, towers, communications, air traffic control towers, TV dishes and centers, etc. For three hours, these three triangles [TR3-Bs] just sat there blowing up everything in sight. Then the Stealth fighters had fun for the rest of the day into the early evening next night. Then [followed] carpet bombings from high altitude B-52 Strato-Fortresses. They dumped all the old, aged Vietnam-era crap [munitions]; a third blew up and the rest [were] duds. Anyways, the TR3B has been in testing since the '60s. But it has only been perfected for the last 8 years [since 1992]. CLIP
Make sure to read about the 10) The amazing and extremely lethal TAW-50 - a hypersonic, antigravity space fighter-bomber which "has speed capabilities well in excess of Mach 50, a number the contractor calls 'a very conservative estimate'. Its actual speed is classified. Since Mach-1 is 1,225 kilometers per hour, (approximately 748 mph), this means that the TAW-50 is capable of moving considerably faster than 38,000 mph." (...) "The performance of the TAW-50 makes it virtually impossible to defend against. It can hide in orbit many hundreds of miles into space, orbiting at times at 22,000 mph. Then, without warning, it can dive straight down through the atmosphere at over 38,000 miles per hour on an 80-degree attack vector, reverse direction within 150 feet of the ground with very little loss of motion and without a glide turn, and almost instantly go vertically straight up at over 38,000 mph until long after it leaves the atmosphere and resumes orbiting in space. " CLIP
If you have time I also recommend you read "The Grand Tour" - Earth Saucers and Star Wars (1992) at http://www.drboylan.com/grantour2.html -- You may want to also read The Mysterious TR-3B - Govt UFO (10/13/2005) at http://www.americanantigravity.com/blogs/13/The-Mysterious-TR-3B---Govt-UFO.html and to read an independent opinion about Dr Boylan, check http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg05774.html
Also recommended: The Stargate chronicles - The TRUE X-Files at http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/ especially The UFO Onion Drive System and its gravity-wave displacement technology at http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/oniondrive/onion.htm
Depleted Uranium - The Ultimate Dirty Bomb - How the US is using nuclear weapons today
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/15.html
Depleted uranium is considered a weapon of mass destruction and is banned for use in warfare by international law, yet the US and Israel use it routinely.The US military has used thousands of tons of depleted uranium in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq sickening civilians and its own soldiers by the tens of thousands.Depleted uranium contaminates the food, water, air and land it comes into contact with forever. It's the ultimate "dirty bomb." For more information about this video go to: http://www.beyondtreason.com MANY more through http://www.brasschecktv.com/ - AND MUCH MORE ON GLOBAL DEPLETED URANIUM CONTAMINATION IN THIS COMPILATION!
Torture: The Bush Legacy (This video is no longer available)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/127.html
What is waterboarding? This is one of the "interrogation" methods favored by the Bush administration for use on *suspected* terrorists. Note the word "suspected." It's possible for a person who is entirely innocent and has no information whatsoever to be subjected to this form of torture. People can and do die in the course of waterboarding. The practice is essentially to bring the victim to the edge of drowning, over and over again. Bush and his henchmen pointedly continue to refuse to ban this practice explicitly. Theoretically, thanks to George Bush "the Decider", anyone, anywhere, any time, who is suspected of having information related to "terrorism" can be snatched off the street and tortured in this way. This perhaps more than his lying the US into an illegal, immoral and pointless war and ruining the US economy (a work in progress) may be his ultimate legacy.
Panel Pushes for Mukasey to Denounce Technique
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407O.shtml
Philip Shenon reports for The New York Times, "All 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for attorney general, on Tuesday for a clear-cut statement that the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been used by the CIA against terrorism suspects, is illegal."
Levitating Man Draws Crowd At White House (Oct 23, 2007)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21427202
WASHINGTON - People snapped pictures and stared as a man "levitated" in front of the White House on Monday. Dutch magician Wouter Bijdendijk, also known as Ramana, said he couldn't say much about his magic trick. Watch Video http://www.nbc4.com/slideshow/news/14398120/detail.html
Cochrane Mural - Cochrane Alberta Canada - FASCINATING ARTWORK!!
http://www.muralmosaic.com/Cochrane.html
This mural was unveiled last week at the Cochrane ranch House. Each tile is 1 foot square, is it's own individual picture and each is by a different artist. All of them together form this huge mural. You can click on each of the tiles to see them in detail. Check out the horse's eye first and then you'll be hooked. Cowboys lips and cheeks also.
Revealing News: Cell Phone Privacy, Air Safety Survey, Telecom Immunity, More
http://www.WantToKnow.info/071026cellphonesprivacyairsafetytelecomsimmunity
Marine Miniatures
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/marine-miniatures/liittschwager-photography.html
Virtual Serenity: The Journey Within
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txTc3jmM5ZM&e
This 22-minute relaxation video offers a simple and pleasant way to diminish the effects of life's usual worries and concerns.
Surviving 2012 and Planet X
http://planetxforecast.com/videos/survivng/index.shtml
This 5-part video series offers a straightforward view of this coming human event. Produced and hosted by Marshall Masters, a former CNN science feature field producer, it is an ideal Planet X / 2012 primer for those new to this vital topic. As the co-author and publisher of Planet X Forecast and 2012 Survival Guide, Marshall believes that 2012 will be a survivable, evolutionary event. ---- I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS... I'M UTTERLY SKEPTICAL IN FACT... Comments anyone??
Check also: The Planet X Saga: Science at http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html
More through http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=fr&q=is+planet+X+for+real&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_X
SPECIAL FEATURE
Date: 24 Oct 2007
From: Robert Greenwald (info@bravenewfoundation.org)
Subject: What can we do to end the war?
Dear activists, colleagues and friends,
It has been over 4 and a half years since the invasion of Iraq. 3,835 U.S. soldiers and over 1 million Iraqi citizens have lost their lives. U.S. taxpayers have spent over $600 billion on this war with no end in sight.
This Saturday, October 27th, you can take a stand. United for Peace and Justice is coordinating over 150 peace groups across the country for demonstrations in 11 cities.
Boston, Chicago, Jonesborough Tennessee, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle.
There are also events in Fairbanks, Tucson, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Denver, Kapaa Hawaii, Des Moines, Smithfield NC, and Oklahoma City.
We made a video to help get the word out. Watch it here and recruit your friends to come:
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/16736-october-27th-mobilization-to-end-the-war?play=1&utm_source=rgemail
Please come! Four years ago this month we documented the lies that led us into this war in "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," and last year we took on the mercenaries, cost-plus contracts, Blackwater and Halliburton in "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers." Both of these stories are now widely known in the broader media thanks to your efforts in screening the films and organizing with them.
This new video is about getting people into the streets and DOING SOMETHING.
See you on Saturday!
Robert Greenwald, Jim Miller, and the Brave New Foundation team
---
HERE IS AN INITIAL REPORT
Thousands "die" in anti-war protest on Market St. in SF (October 27, 2007)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/27/MNJHT0ULT.DTL&tsp=1
SAN FRANCISCO -- On cue from a bullhorn's blast, thousands of protesters fell to the pavement on Market Street today in a symbolic "die-in" as part of a nationwide protest staged in 11 cites against the war in Iraq. For about three minutes the demonstrators lay on the ground, representing what organizers said were more than 1 million Iraqis killed since the war began in 2003. Then the marchers got up and resumed their march from San Francisco's Civic Center to Dolores Park for a rally. March organizers put their number at 30,000 - old, young, workers, students, religious leaders. Police declined to give a formal estimate, but onlookers said the demonstrators definitely numbered far more than 10,000. They filled up Market Street for several blocks, shouting that U.S. troops should be brought home and carrying banners decrying the war. At the head of the marchers was a band of Native American drummers who pounded a steady beat as protesters chanted, "No more war!" Before the march began, demonstrators gathered in front of City Hall to hear speakers berate the Bush administration and call on Americans to stand up against the war. "Silence shows compliance," Nicole Davis, a leader of the Campus Anti-War Network group, told the crowd at the San Francisco event, which was organized by the Oct. 27th Coalition of several groups, including ANSWER - Act Now To Stop War and End Racism. "If you disagree with this war," she added, "it is your duty to stand up and let the world know." CLIP
Video for The U.S. vs. John Lennon (trailer) - THE INSPIRATION FOR A GENERATION OF PEACE ACTIVISTS!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478049/trailers-screenplay-E30967-10-2
Go at http://www.wizardwerksstudio.com/ and then click on "Videos" and then on "Enough is Enough by Knight After" to watch this musical video with a clear-cut Peace message. Recommended by ERN subscriber Joy Frink (injoyfulnoise@hotmail.com)
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Cheney: US Will Not Let Iran Go Nuclear
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102207J.shtml
The Associated Press reports, "The United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday."
We can attack Iran, says US commander (20/10/2007)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/20/wiran120.xml
America's top military officer said the country does have the resources to attack Iran, despite the strain of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Adm Michael Mullen, who took over as chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff three weeks ago, said diplomacy remained the priority in dealing with Iran's suspected plans to develop a nuclear weapon and its support for anti-US insurgents in Iraq.But at a press conference he said: "there is more than enough reserve to respond (militarily) if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do". Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could set off an arms race in the Middle East. "The risk of an accident or a miscalculation or of those weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists seem to me to be substantially increased," he added. The two leaders appeared together just days after George W Bush raised the spectre of "World War Three" if Iran went nuclear. Adm Mullen did not elaborate on what size of assault would be feasible, but earlier reports have said the Pentagon had laid out contingency plans for a major aerial campaign against suspected nuclear targets in Iran. CLIP
George Bush warns Putin over 'World War III' (20/10/2007)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/18/wiran118.xml
President George W Bush has raised the spectre of "World War Three" breaking out if Iran was allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. (...) Mr Bush's remarks are likely to inflame a delicate situation, which has seen intense speculation about possible US air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and other targets. The Pentagon is known to have drawn up attack plans and Mr Bush's close advisers are divided between those who think Teheran needs to be taught a lesson and those who think bombing raids would hand Mr Ahmadinejad a propaganda victory. Publicly, the president has repeatedly said that "all options are on the table" regarding Iran. Critics will view Mr Bush's choice of words, which were delivered off the cuff, as typically injudicious, reminiscent of his early description of the war on terror as a "crusade". "I am sure people around the world will be terrified by these comments," said Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There is clearly an apocalyptic streak in his rhetoric, but his historical understanding is very limited. "Even if, God forbid, we went to war with Iran it wouldn't be World War Three because Iran is not a major power. It would be more of a colonial style war."Earlier in the White House press conference, Mr Bush refused to answer repeated questions about an Israeli air strike inside Syria last month that US officials has said obliterated a nascent nuclear reactor built with North Korean assistance. "This is not my first rodeo," the president said. Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, underlined the importance of space yesterday, saying that a Chinese anti-satellite test earlier this year exposed US vulnerability. Mr Gates called on the military to protect "unfettered" US access to space, tying it to efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of extremists. "It is through space we monitor the weapons we already know exist," he said. "It is through space that our troops and our leadership monitor the battlefield and communicate with each other. Therefore, it is space we must protect, especially as we expand its use."
Straitjacket Bush (Los Angeles Times - October 25, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/39fa3y
The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really. -- Forget impeachment. Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment. Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war. That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat." (...) The problem with Bush is that he is the president -- and he gives instructions to the CIA and military, without having to go through his dental fillings. Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant. But despite their impressive foresight in other areas, the framers unaccountably neglected to include an involuntary civil commitment procedure in the Constitution.Still, don't lose hope. By enlisting the aid of mental health professionals and the court system, Congress can act to remedy that constitutional oversight. The goal: Get Bush and Cheney committed to an appropriate inpatient facility, where they can get the treatment they so desperately need. In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization." I'll even serve on the jury. When it comes to averting World War III, it's really the least I can do.
Antiwar Radio: Scott Horton Interviews Chris Hedges
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/10/19/chris-hedges-3/
Chris Hedges, veteran war reporter and author of War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and many other books, discusses the convergence of the Egyptian and American national security states as their puppet military dictatorship kidnaps and tortures people at the best of the U.S. government, the incompatibility of the rule of law and a republican form of government with empire and oligarchy, the “ghost prisons” and “ghost detainees,” held by the U.S. government around the world, the tortured (and false) testimony of Ibn-al Shaykh al-Libi which was used by Colin Powell in his UN speech to justify aggressive war against Iraq, how Mamdah Habib was threatened with rape by an animal, the perhaps thousands of victims of these crimes, his article about American war crimes in Iraq (soon to become a book), the Egyptian war against domestic dissidents, the long term consequences of abandoning law and the American population’s preference for Amusing Ourselves to Death. MP3 HERE - Especially listen from 11 minute into the audio record...
More Than 755,000 on US Terrorist Watch List
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102507A.shtml
Agence France-Presse reports: "The US terrorist watch list includes more than 755,000 names and continues to grow, the US Government Accountability Office said Wednesday. The list exploded from fewer than 20 entries before the September 11, 2001 attacks to more than 150,000 just a few months later, after the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created in December 2003 to keep tabs on terrorist suspects, according to the GAO, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress."
Clinton Rakes In Cash From The US Weapons Industry (19 October 2007)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3075691.ece
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts. (...) This week, she said that, if elected president, she would not rule out military strikes to destroy Tehran's nuclear weapons facilities. While on the armed services committee, Mrs Clinton has befriended key generals and has won the endorsement of General Wesley Clarke, who ran Nato's war in Kosovo. A former presidential candidate himself, he is spoken of as a potential vice-presidential running mate. Mrs Clinton has been a regular visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and is careful to focus her criticisms of the Iraq war on President Bush, rather than the military. The arms industry has duly taken note. (...) "Arms industry profits are so heavily dependent on government contracts that companies in this field want to be sure they do not have hostile relations with the White House," added Mr Edsall.The industry's strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. CLIP
West won't win Afghan war: former UN envoy
http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/19/int14.htm
International forces are unlikely to win their battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, risking a regional conflict that could match the magnitude of previous world wars, a former top UN envoy said. (...) “I think we are losing in Afghanistan now, we have lost I think and success is now unlikely,” he said in an interview. “I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shia, Sunni regional war on a grand scale.” “Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this (failure) to match this magnitude,” Ashdown added. The number of Taliban suicide attacks in Afghanistan -- more than 100 so far this year -- is set to top last year’s record of 123, the United Nations says, and most victims are civilians. The Taliban have increased the number of suicide attacks after suffering heavy casualties in conventional clashes with foreign forces and the Afghan army, security analysts say. While Western forces, alongside the Afghan army, have claimed victories against Taliban in the south, many remote areas and some towns remain under the militants’ control and attacks have also spread north to regions previously considered safe. Frustration with the government over the slow pace of development, official corruption and the lack of law and order have all played into rebel hands. CLIP
Blackwater to Be Phased Out of Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102007Z.shtml
Warren P. Strobel, reporting for McClatchy Newspapers, says Blackwater mercenaries will likely be "eased out of its role of guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq in the aftermath of a shooting last month that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead." Blackwater's current work order under a State Department contract worth $834 million reportedly runs out in May 2008.
Helicopter Gunfire Kills Iraqi Civilians, Days After Sadr City Battle
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407J.shtml
Andrew E. Kramer reports for The New York Times: "Gunfire from an American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after it came under fire north of Baghdad on Tuesday, according to a statement by the military. The episode was the second this week in which multiple Iraqi deaths resulted from a United States combat action."
War Supplemental Makes Room for Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407A.shtml
Maya Schenwar, reporting for Truthout, writes: "The Bush administration's $196.4 billion war supplemental spending request, released Monday, has Democrats reeling. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd called the supplemental 'short-sighted at best,' while House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey remarked in a statement, 'It's amazing to me that the president expects to be taken seriously.' Yet beyond the request's mind-boggling size, its open-ended aims point to the potentially vast scope of the 'war on terror' for years to come - including an undiminished presence in Iraq and the possibility of action against Iran."
The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407B.shtml
John H. Richardson, reporting for Esquire, writes: "Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the US has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again."
Risks of US-Iran War Through Misunderstanding Grow
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407G.shtml
Le Figaro's Renaud Girard, French Ambassador Jacques Andreani and Marc Ullmann, writing for Le Monde, and Mohamed ElBaradei in an interview with Natalie Nougayrede at Le Monde all fear the rush to use force with Iran and argue it would be extremely premature.
NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR: U.S. to strike Iran' if diplomacy fails (26 Oct 2007)
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58350
Intel official says Washington promoting Palestinian state to pay for Arab support - JERUSALEM – A senior Palestinian intelligence official said that based on meetings with American diplomats he "understood" the U.S. plans to target Iran's suspected nuclear installations in two to three months if negotiations with Tehran don't generate a major breakthrough.The official, speaking to WND yesterday on condition of anonymity, said according to what he "understood," the U.S. will "pay" for Arab support for a U.S. strike against Iran by creating a temporary Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank by next summer.The official met last week with U.S. secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her trip here earlier this month to prepare for a U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian summit slated for next month in which Israel is expected to outline a future Palestinian state in most of the West Bank.Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in recent weeks hinted at willingness to give away sections of Jerusalem.The Palestinian intelligence official would not say if he was basing his information on any specific statements by U.S. officials that a military operation against Iran was in the works."It's based on what I understood from the Americans," he told WND.His statements come as the Bush administration today imposed a series of new sanctions on Iran, accusing the country of an illicit nuclear program and supporting terrorism throughout the Middle East. CLIP
4 colonels relieved of command over nuclear-armed flight - Boston Globe/Washington Post (Oct. 20, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/2ah4tb
Four Air Force colonels have been relieved of their commands and more than 65 lower-ranking officers and airmen have been disciplined over a series of errors that led to a B-52 flight from North Dakota to Louisiana with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles that no one realized were under the wing. CLIP - IS THIS REALLY THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT THIS EVENT?
Afghanistan and Iraq Set to Cost More Than Vietnam and Korea
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407D.shtml
Leonard Doyle, reporting for The Independent, writes, "President George Bush will have spent more than $1 trillion on military adventures by the time he leaves office at the end of next year, more than the entire amount spent on the Korean and Vietnam wars combined."
Government Short Money to Help Poor Pay Heating Bills
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102107Y.shtml
Tom Dogget, reporting for Reuters, says "about 30 million low-income American households who will need help paying heating bills this winter from a US government program will be left in the cold because of a lack of funding for the program."
United States National Debt (1938 to Present) -- An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible for the Borrowing (24 Oct 2007)
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
(...) In 1993 President Clinton inherited the deficit spending problem and did more than just talk about it; he fixed it. In his first two years and with a cooperative Democratic Congress he set the course for the best economy this country has ever experienced. Then he worked with what could be characterized as the most hostile Congress in history, led by Republicans for the last six years of his administration. Yet, under constant personal attacks from the right, he still managed to get the growth of the debt down to 0.32% (one third of one percent) his last year in office. Had his policies been followed for one more year the debt would have been reduced for the first time since the Kennedy administration. When President Bush II came into office in 2001 he quickly turned all that progress around. With the help of a Republican controlled Congress he immediately gave a massive tax cut based on a failed economic policy; perhaps an economic fantasy describes it better. The last year Mr. Clinton was in office the nation borrowed 18 billion dollars. The first year Mr. Bush II was in office he had to borrow 133 billion[8]. The first tax cut Bush pushed through a willing Republican Congress caused an upswing in government borrowing that was supposed to stimulate the economy, but two years later Bush had to push through yet another tax cut. The second tax cut was needed because it was clear that the first one did not work. Economic history tells us the second did not work either. As a result of all his tax cutting with no cutting in spending, in 2003 President Bush set a record for the biggest single yearly dollar increase in debt in the nation's history. He did it again in 2004, increasing the debt more than half a trillion dollars. Since 2003 total borrowing has exceeded $500,000,000,000 per year. Even Mr. Reagan never increased the debt that much in a single year; Mr. Reagan's biggest increase was only 282 billion, half of GWB's outrageous spending. As a result of the fact that the debt was already pretty high when Bush II entered office, his annual rate of increase is only averaging 7% per year so far. In 2006 he was holding press conferences bragging that the debt was increasing at the rate of only 300 billion dollars a year, yet in reality it was twice that. Again the facts do not match Neo-Con rhetoric. CLIP - IN SHORT: 75% of the 9 trillion US debt was accrued under three Republican presidents...
Bush lobbies for more Iraq, Afghan funds (Oct 22, 2007)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21422707/
President Bush asked Congress on Monday for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs. CLIP -- IN SHORT: Bush lobbies Congress to have the funds saved from his veto of children's health care to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $45.9-billion emergency request would push the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over $600 billion.
Plame: White House Likely To 'Twist Intelligence' On Iran
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/22/plame-iran/
This morning, former CIA agent Valerie Plame appeared on NBC's Today Show and spoke about whether the Bush administration is on a path to war with Iran. She told host Meredith Vieria that she believes the administration is "capable" of again misleading the American public "into a disastrous war based on twisted intelligence." Watch it (at the URL above) Plame's comments come one day after Vice President Cheney issued "his sternest warning to date on Iran," stating that "the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences." Norman Podhoretz recently met privately with the President for 45 minutes, advocating war with Iran. In a CSPAN interview earlier this month, Podhoretz stated, "I believe President Bush is going to order airstrikes [on Iran] before he leaves office."While the right wing continues to bolster Cheney's war-mongering, members of the intelligence community are reportedly trying to "slow down what the president, most particularly the vice president, want to do in Iran."Before Bush administration officials blew her cover as a covert CIA agent, Plame was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. She was "involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran."
Loose Change Final Cut Release Date Announced (October 22, 2007)
Internet phenomenon to arrive November 11th, features all-new material and interviews
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2007/221007_loose_change.htm
After many months of anticipation, a release date has finally been announced for Loose Change Final Cut, the pre-eminent 9/11 truth documentary. The film, which features all-new material and interviews, will hit the web on November 11th and also be available to order on DVD that same day.
Kurds Also Fighting on Iran Border
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102307A.shtml
Richard A. Oppel Jr., reporting for The New York Times, writes: "Deadly raids into Turkey by Kurdish militants holed up in northern Iraq are the focus of urgent diplomacy, with Turkey threatening invasion of Iraq and the United States begging for restraint while expressing solidarity with Turkish anger. Yet out of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran."
Turkey Sends More Troops to Iraq Border
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102307D.shtml
Volkan Sarisakal and Christopher Torchia, reporting for The Associated Press, write, "Dozens of Turkish military vehicles streamed toward the Iraqi border with heavy artillery and ammunition Monday after Kurdish guerrillas killed a dozen soldiers and claimed to have captured eight in an intensifying crisis threatening to spill into Iraq."
Turkish Prime Minister warns US: we will attack Kurdish rebels in Iraq (October 22, 2007)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2710139.ece
Turkey will launch military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq despite frantic appeals for restraint from America and Nato, its Prime Minister has told The Times. Speaking hours before the PKK, the Kurdish Workers' Party, killed at least 17 more Turkish soldiers yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had urged the US and Iraqi governments repeatedly to expel the separatists but they had done nothing. Turkey's patience was running out and the country had every right to defend itself, he said. "Whatever is necessary will be done," he declared in an interview. "We don't have to get permission from anybody."Mr Erdogan, who begins a two-day visit to Britain today, also offered a bleak assessment of relations between the US and Turkey, a country of huge strategic importance to Washington. He said that a "serious wave of anti-Americanism" was sweeping Turkey, called America's war in Iraq a failure, and served warning that if the US Congress approved a Bill accusing the Ottoman Turks of genocide against Armenians during the First World War, the US "might lose a very important friend". CLIP
In Laos, new bloodshed from long-ago war (Oct 21)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-wolaos145426212oct21,0,4392163.story
(...) During the Vietnam War, U.S. warplanes carried out as many as 500 airstrikes a day on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, already denuded by Agent Orange sprayed by the Americans. Bitterness from that time lingers for thousands of Laotians living with its lethal legacy. "They are suffering from this problem today because of Americans, so they are still angry toward the Americans," Sayasenh said. Unexploded ordnance is a hazard in more than one-third of Laos. Sappers have collected more than 800,000 items since 1996, everything from small bomblets to 3,000-pound bombs. Sayasenh has about 900 staffers in the field, with an annual budget of $4.3 million, but much of his equipment is outdated and it is expected to take 50 to 100 more years to finish the job.Deaths on the riseTo was one of at least 76 people injured in the first half of this year, according to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Program. Of the 76, at least 25 have died. Forty percent of the casualties have been children.Last year's total of 16 dead and 33 injured was a sharp drop of 70 percent from 2005, but the number is climbing now because poverty is forcing villagers to seek new farmland in areas that haven't been cleared of ordnance, Sayasenh said. CLIP - IN SHORT: Since 1975, 13,000 dead and countless injured in Laos by remaining US ordnance that Washington won't help to clean-up.
Why is the 911 "fringe" movement so...mainstream? (October 25, 2007)
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd317.htm
Bill O'Reilly and his stable of regular commentators always refer to those seeking the truth about 911 as conspiracy wackos; the "fringe element" that no one takes seriously. He is particularly nasty and often hysterical in his tirades. They all pull out Rosie O'Donnell as the poster child to bolster their rants. Following along with the rest of these mindless robots comes Glen Beck. Uh, who?(...) Those Americans are just a tiny number of not only family members, but fire fighters, first responders, professionals such as engineers, pilots, former military, aviation experts and demolitions experts from every walk of life, every race, religions and different political parties. Are they all part of a fringe element out of their minds by asking questions? How about seven veteran CIA personnel who call the official version of 911 a joke, monstrous lies and a cover up? You can read the statements of 190 Americans who ARE mainstream folks and this includes the spontaneous statements of fire fighters who heard bombs go off in the underground (basement) of the World Trade Towers by clicking here: http://patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html
A Life Saver Called "Plumpynut" (Oct. 21, 2007)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/60minutes/main3386661.shtml
You've probably never heard a good news story about malnutrition, but you’re about to. Every year, malnutrition kills five million children -- that's one child every six seconds. But now, the Nobel Prize-winning relief group "Doctors Without Borders" says it finally has something that can save millions of these children. It's cheap, easy to make and even easier to use. What is this miraculous cure? As CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it's a ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched concoction called "Plumpynut," an unusual name for a food that may just be the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition. "It's a revolution in nutritional affairs," says Dr. Milton Tectonidis, the chief nutritionist for Doctors Without Borders. "Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looked like they're half dead. We can cure them just like an antibiotic. It’s just, boom! It's a spectacular response," Dr. Tectonidis says. "It's the equivalent of penicillin, you’re saying?" Cooper asks. "For these kids, for sure," the doctor says. No kids need it more than a group of children 60 Minutes saw in Niger, a desperately poor country in West Africa, where child malnutrition is so widespread that most mothers have watched at least one of their children die. Why are so many kids dying? Because they can't get the milk, vitamins and minerals their young bodies need. Mothers in these villages can't produce enough milk themselves and can't afford to buy it. Even if they could, they can't store it -- there’s no electricity, so no refrigeration. Powdered milk is useless because most villagers don't have clean water. Plumpynut was designed to overcome all these obstacles. Plumpynut is a remarkably simple concoction: it is basically made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and because of that kids cannot get enough of it. The formula was developed by a nutritionist. It doesn't need refrigeration, water, or cooking; mothers simply squeeze out the paste. Many children can even feed themselves. Each serving is the equivalent of a glass of milk and a multivitamin. CLIP - Recommended by Bonnie Mandell-Rice (velsubus@yahoo.com)
Shirley MacLaine claims Kucinich had UFO encounter (October 23, 2007)
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1193128634148360.xml&coll=2
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has claimed to have seen a UFO, according to Shirley MacLaine in her new book, "Sage-Ing While Age-Ing."Kucinich "had a close sighting over my home in Graham, Washington, when I lived there," the actress, a close Kucinich friend, wrote. "Dennis found his encounter extremely moving. The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him."It hovered, soundless, for 10 minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn't comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind." CLIP
Military Experiments Target the Van Allen Belts (24 October 2007)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5660
Satellite and Alaskan array will test whether RF injections into the ionosphere could halt geomagnetic storms. -- Ever since the Van Allen radiation belts were discovered, the U.S. armed forces have been interested in understanding—and maybe even controlling—how the belts influence wireless communication. For example, the U.S. Air Force, wanting to keep in touch with airborne fighter pilots at all times, would like to understand exactly how geomagnetic storms in the atmosphere will cause disruptions. Today, the armed forces are sponsoring two big experiments to gain more knowledge about the Earth's ionosphere.The first of them is the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), located in Gakona, Alaska, about 300 kilometers from Fairbanks. CLIP
Autism Incidence And EMF (Oct 24. 2007) INTRIGUING HYPOTHESIS
http://www.rense.com/general78/aut.htm
(...) Mothers of Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon be wary your children may be unwitting subjects of the largest mind control experiment ever witnessed on this planet.
American kids, dumber than dirt -- Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist (October 24, 2007)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/a/2007/10/24/notes102407.DTL
I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career. And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be. His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new. No, my friend takes it all a full step — or rather, leap — further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that. We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait. It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad. CLIP
Dying For A Diet Coke? (8,356 words!) DON'T MISS THIS ONE!
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/145552
(...) Consider for a moment how many cities around New Zealand and Australia are opening new hospitals and setting up increased facilities especially for treating children who in ever-increasing numbers are going down with what used to be relatively rare adult diseases like diabetes, leukaemia, brain tumours and weird new diseases like autism and hyper-activity that turn tiny kids into monsters. Generations who had children before the 1950s would wonder why we so nonchalantly accept the huge toll of chronic disease in children that now exists, with so little comment and such apparent acceptance of the inevitable. Meanwhile we carry on feeding ourselves and our children with the thousands of new convenience foods laden with a witchs cauldron of chemical preservatives and additives, convinced by TV advertising and our faith in a vague common social mythology that neither our politicians, our health regulatory bureaucrats nor our complaisant food and beverage industries would deliberately poison us. Worst of all, many of us are now feeding a new generation of human beings - our babies, our children and our pregnant selves - with a popular synthetic sweetener poison, aspartame/Additive 951 (also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, Benevia, Equal Measure, Canderel, etc), which has been reported in a long series of scientific, peer-reviewed studies as carrying the ability to maim, distort and disable intellectual and physical development from the foetal stage to adolescence. In fact over the 26 years that have passed since aspartame's introduction into the world food chain we are now moving into generations of human beings whose parents and parent's parents have been continuously exposed from breakfast to dinner-time to aspartame, monosodium glutamate and a baneful assemblage of human nervous system toxins that American neurosurgeon Dr Russell Blaylock has termed excitotoxins, chemical poisons that can over-excite the neural pathways to the point of nerve death. (1) What is more, while we have finally accepted in our law courts and at a Government level that substances like Agent Orange, lead, and blue asbestos can medically disable particularly where long-term exposures are involved, we seem quite unable to extend that logic to the artificial dietary chemicals that we consume every day, year after year. Little wonder then, that ill health and classrooms full of medicated children are part of normal, daily life and lunatic murders, road-rage, air-rage, depression and a steady media reportage of odd and irrational behaviour in people of all ages is just put down to modern living. Unknown to most of us, and apparently ignored by the authorities we trust, aspartame use has been associated in the scientific literature with a huge list of medical and psychological disorders including irrational rage, headaches, numbness, fatigue, blurred vision and blindness, heart palpitations, brain lesions and tumours, memory loss, dizziness, muscle spasms, choking spasms, miscarriages, sexual dysfunction, irritability, anxiety attacks, vertigo, epileptic seizures, rashes, tachycardia, tinnitus, joint pain, nausea, mood alterations and depression, hearing loss, slurred speech, loss of taste, and insomnia, as well as eroding intelligence and short-term memory. It also helps trigger multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein Barr, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, mental retardation, lymphoma, and birth defects. CLIP Recommended by Betty Martini (bettym19@mindspring.com) who wrote: "Hang on to your hats for one of the strongest articles on aspartame by the courageous, incredible journalist, Chris Wheeler, the New Zealand arm of Mission Possible."
NOTE FROM JEAN: I wrote to Chris Wheeler to inform him that I was going to quote his article above:
Congratulations Chris for this excellent article. Incidentally, I've also written an article on this issue (in French - check Aspartame : Le mal caché du siècle at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/AspartaMalcache.htm) in the form of a Question and Answer format as a result of a request by a health magazine journalist from France. They featured this article in the magazine "Bonne Santé" (circulation 200,000) several years ago. I've also extensively (128 times!) covered this issue over the years both in French and in English in my compilations networked to thousands of subscribers worldwide (check http://tinyurl.com/2fke2k to locate all the relevant files in my archives) and I've been interviewed on a mainstream radio station in Quebec City (with several hundred thousands listeners) several years ago. While on the air the radio host phoned Danone's pr representative whom I faced with the fact they were poisoning their customers with aspartame in the yogurt products. Partly as a result - I'd like to believe - Danone no longer uses Aspartame (their products in America all have in large letters the notice "No Aspartame" and has shifted its emphasis on truly healthy products. Check ...
Danone Cuts Out the Cookies (Oct. 18, 2007)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673282,00.html
(...) Danone, which had $19.6 billion in sales last year, is the world leader in yogurt and fresh-dairy sales and, with bottled-water brands like Evian and Volvic, No. 2 in the packaged-water industry, behind Nestlé. (...) With the new Danone, I think we can say that 98% of total sales will be functional health and nutrition. It's very different from the competitors," says Riboud, 51, a skier and windsurfer. (...) Danone has been one of the few companies to create "active" foods like yogurt touted as having health benefits thanks to the addition of patented probiotic bacteria. Activia, a yogurt with a strain of Bifidus bacteria, marketed as aiding digestion and eliminating bloating, accounts for $1.8 billion in sales worldwide.The yogurt, on the European market since 1987, sold $130 million in its first year on the U.S. market, 2006--a breakout hit in a country where people don't eat that much yogurt and are more accustomed to treating health problems by popping a pill than changing their diet. Actimel, sold in the U.S. as DanActive, which claims to strengthen the body's natural defense system with Lactobacillus casei, has sales of more than $1.4 billion. Danone is tailoring the active blueprint by mapping diet deficiencies by region and designing products accordingly. Danonino, a yogurt product for children, is enriched with vitamin A and zinc in Brazil, calcium and vitamin D in Poland, and iron and vitamin C in Mexico. "People are ready to pay a bit more" for a product that does something for their health, says Sacchi, who contends that the active health brands still carry mainstream prices. (...) Danone also insists its health claims are based on hard science. The company has founded 16 "Danone Institutes" to study nutrition. It filed 30 health-related patents last year and maintains a "bio bank" with 3,000 strains of bacteria for research. CLIP
Unfortunately I believe they are instead using sucralose whose true long-term risks on human health have never been studied - see at http://www.truthaboutsplenda.com/factvsfiction/index.html
I'd recommend this kind of strategy - confronting on the air the pr people from offending companies (Coke and Pepsi for instance) - and encouraging them all to get into health promoting products instead of disease-fostering lines of products. That's where the truly lucrative future markets are..."
Lloyd's preparing for personal injury related to cell phone use (October 22, 2007) http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=75336&issue=10222007
Lloyd’s of London is preparing for the next big liability action — for personal injury damages based on the use of cell phone technology.“Mobile phones are now so ingrained in our daily lives that the thought of living without them is impossible,” Lloyd’s notes in a posting on its Web site. “Commercially and personally, mobile technology has revolutionized the way in which we live. “So what would happen if, say in 20 years time, the link between the electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated by mobiles is proven to be linked with a higher susceptibility to illness? How are London’s underwriters protecting themselves from opening the floodgates to future claims without prejudicing policyholders?”Lloyd’s says the number of reports on mobile telecommunications and its impact on health is “immense,” and “the study findings are often conflicting.” CLIP
Cell phone/cancer verdict (October 25, 2007) http://groups.google.com/group/mobilfunk_newsletter/browse_thread/thread/a63d2992ab447048
(...) It’s a wonderful, indispensable little tool, and we’re not prepared to go through life without it. But that’s also potentially a problem: if a technology is used so ubiquitously and intimately by so many people (over two billion world-wide), many of them children, we need to be absolutely sure it’s safe. And we’re not at all sure.
Dect Phone Radiation: NONSTOP PULSED 2.4 GHZ RADIATION INSIDE US HOMES
http://groups.google.de/group/mobilfunk_newsletter/browse_thread/thread/d8856b9539831b9b
DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephones) cordless phones may be the most dangerous devices found in many homes today. This is because they emit strong microwave emissions twenty four hours a day. The attached scientific document is very informative. The document is five years old, but this is the first time that I have seen it. Governments are still allowing DECT phones to be sold and they are still failing to warn users of the extreme danger they face. CLIP
Omega-News Collection 20. October 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/4366686/
EMF-Omega-News 20. October 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/4366680/
Omega-News Collection 27. October 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/4387051/
EMF-Omega-News 27. October 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/4387042/
1.
From: Triaka Smith (spiritnet@webtv.net)
Subject: Re: Turning Tide of History #23: My MOST Important Compilation EVER!
Date: 19 Oct 2007
Blessings to you Jean for your continuing front-line battle to awaken the masses !!!
May we all...
Urgently remember... for there to be Justice, Peace, and Freedom in this world, all "Initiatory" Physical Force by governments, as well as Individuals, must cease! Cooperation yes, Compulsion no.
The world's Brightest Future is in cooperatively Protecting and Balancing the Inherent, Innate, Ingrained, Instinctive, Intuitive, and Inalienable Natural Freewill Rights of each member of our One Human Family, including the Right to dissociate from any Principle, Policy, Program, Practice, or Person. As your Natural Rights are Protected, so is all Life and the Planet Protected.
See your Natural Rights Enumerated and Protected by the "World Cooperative" CONSTITUTION of UNITED DIVERSITY http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uniteddiversity
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldcooperative
http://www.globalvisions.org/cl/swn
For the Highest Good of All,
Triaka
---
From: Kathleen Beatty (akavibe4@hotmail.com)
Subject: Feedback
Date: 19 Oct 2007
Greetings, Jean:
It's been a while since i've written to you. I'm living in the Boulder CO area now, where Naomi Wolf spoke recently.
Boulder is the home of the Left Hand Bookstore, a non-profit cooperative political and cultural bookstore staffed by volunteers. I'm volunteering there.
I figure any LHB volunteer stands a good chance of getting on "the list" if they're not already on it. But i refuse to live my life in fear. We're all going to die anyway. And i can't be at peace with myself if i don't speak out against what is happening to my country, and to the world.
The challenge is to stay connected to the energies of Light and Love while also being aware of the insanity and darkness going on. I of course meet politically aware and active people on my shift at Left Hand Books. These folks are by and large way happier than those who choose willful ignorance.
Edgar Cayce, in one of his readings, said that in the (then) future, the darkness and corruption in high places in the USA would come to light, and that eventually the US American people would rise up and take the government back in to our own hands.--No prophecy is 100% assured. But i'm for sure going to do my part.
Peace, Kathleen
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
"There is no anti-depressant that will cure a depression that's spiritually based, for the malaise doesn't originate from brain dysfunction, but from an accurate response to the desecration of life."
David R. Hawkins, Power Vs. Force
There is ALWAYS hope.
Aragorn
All shall be well
And all shall be well
And all manner of things shall be well.
---
Date: 20 Oct 2007
From: David Creighton (dcr8on@sympatico.ca)
Subject: Dialogue
What a stimulating dialogue, even have me replying!
I've been an ERN subscriber for a long time and ought to share my experiences, in partial answer to Jean's rant. Every issue I receive I read, and dissect into smaller messages, that I forward to a number of specific-interest lists. I am grateful that Jean already does most of that sorting in advance. Anyway, there will be several hundred messages go out each issue, regularly with the invitation to subscribe directly. And I encounter a wide range of people in person, and pass on tidbits. So there is a multiplier effect. Sometimes people will quote back to me a story they heard from me 'originally.' Then I am content the light is spreading. And so should you be.
Most of my correspondents also have circles of friends with whom they share the news, although they may not see the whole picture as yet. Who does? Some of my correspondents are fundamentalist xians, some libertarians, some republican/conservative, and of course some anarchist, hindu, buddhist, monetarist and so on. Even though most still watch tv or listen to the radio, the 'alternative' illumination tends to brighten their perspectives. And so it goes.
Please don't worry if you don't often hear from people like me. We are here anyway and growing brighter all the time. With great thanks to all like you.
Keep up the Great Work!
David
P.S. "6 billion candles" would be awfully bright, eh? Besides, then there wouldn't be any more news!
---
Sam Johnson (oaxacasam@hotmail.com) from Oaxaca, Mexico wrote: "I saw that, in the current Meditation Focus, it said that big changes could be coming in the next weeks or months, a "battle of the forces of light and darkness". But I saw that this material is dated 1999. What I'm wondering if the situation being talked is for the immediate future or was about then?"
And my reply was: "I felt that much of the content of this text I "received" in 1999 still applies to today's situation, perhaps even more so. As to what was referred to in "In the coming weeks and months, a great battle will be waged between those of the Shadow and those of the Light. "... I should have edited this to "In the coming weeks, months and years, a great battle will be waged between those of the Shadow and those of the Light. " This battle is still going on but, according to Matthew and from what I gather, in the overall balance of things, the Forces of Light have mostly succeeded in tipping the scale in the right direction. Now what is left is for this to play out entirely in the "real" world."
2.
STARK WARNING - ONE MORE! PLAYING OSTRICH IS NO LONGER AN OPTION... BUT WHO REALLY CARES?... I DO! YOU TOO I'M SURE! BUT MOST POLITICIANS DON'T... TIME TO BRING IN SOME WHO DO!...
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2739926.ece
'Humanity's very survival' is at risk, says UN
October 26, 2007
by Lewis Smith
The speed at which mankind is using and abusing the Earth’s resources is putting humanity’s survival at risk, scientists have said.
The bleak assessment of the state of the environment globally was issued as an “urgent call for action” amid growing concerns of worldwide waste, neglect and governmental inertia.
Fundamental changes in political policy and individual lifestyles were demanded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as it gave warning that the “point of no return” for the environment is fast being approached.
The damage being done was regarded by the UN programme as so serious that it said the time had come for the environment to be a central theme of policy-making instead of just a fringe issue, even though it would damage the vested interests of powerful industries.
Marion Cheatle, of the environment programme, said that damage sustained by the environment was of fundamental economic concern and, if left unchecked, would affect growth.
“The report provides incontrovertible evidence of unprecedented environmental change over the last 20 years that, unless checked, will fundamentally undermine economic development for current and future generations,” she said as the report was released in London.
The report, the fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4), assessed the impact on the environment since 1987.
It was drafted on the basis of reports by almost 400 scientists, all experts in their fields, whose findings were subjected to review by another 1,000 scientists.
Climate change was identified as one of the most pressing problems but the condition of freshwater supplies, agricultural land and biodiversity were considered to be of equal concern.
It came 20 years after the publication Our Common Future by the Brundtland Commission, the first attempt by the UN to provide a comprehensive review of Man’s impact on the environment.
The authors of the latest report said there had been progress on some environmental problems in the past two decades, most notably the international agreement to protect the ozone layer. But while maintaining that they wanted to avoid presenting a “dark and gloomy scneario”, they concluded: “There are no major issues raised in Our Common Future for which the foreseeable trends are favourable.”
They said the scale of the challenge was huge and highlighted a series of problems that need to be faced and tackled by people and governments around the world before damage to the environment becomes irreversible.
Increases in the world population, which has risen almost 34 per cent from 5 billion in 1987 to 6.7 billion today, have caused many of the challenges because of the demands on the Earth’s natural resources.
Demand, heightened by a three-fold increase in trade since 1987, means that more is now being produced than can be sustained in the long term. On average, each person needs 21.9 hectares of the Earth’s surface to supply their needs whereas, it was calculated, the Earth’s biological capacity is 15.7 hectares per person.
The report was critical of the lack of action by governments in protecting the environment. The response to climate change was described as “woefully inadequate” but it was regarded as one of several significant problems that need to be addressed effectively.
“We appear to be living in an era in which the severity of environmental problems is increasing faster than our policy responses,” it said. “To avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences in the future, we need new policy approaches to change the direction and magnitude of drivers of environmental change.
“The need couldn’t be more urgent and the time couldn’t be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations.”
Overfishing was singled out as an issue that needed to be tackled as a priority. Measures to protect biodiversity, with species being forced into extinction at a rate 100 times faster than any in fossil records, were regarded as equally urgent.
Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, said that the international community’s response to environmental issues was at times “courageous and inspiring”, but all too often was inadequate.
“The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged - and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay,” he said.
Mike Childs, of the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, said: “The steady degradation of the world’s environment threatens the well-being of everybody on the planet.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the report illustrated the importance of living sustainably: “It is the only way to improve global life expectancy and income inequality, beat climate change, reduce deforestation and protect biodiversity.”
---
Related articles:
The Acid Threat http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/marine-miniatures/acid-threat-text.html
If carbon dioxide continues to rise unchecked, computer models show that acidification will deplete carbonate ions in much of the ocean by 2100, turning the waters corrosive for many shell-building animals.Tiny creatures near the base of the marine food chain lead perilous lives at best. Now they face a man-made threat. No, not global warming this time, though the root cause is the same. As the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) rises, it is not only heating the globe but also dissolving in ocean waters, turning them more acidic. For shell-building animals that can mean a corrosive, even deadly environment. Oceans are a natural sink for CO2, already soaking up more than a quarter of what's released into the atmosphere. Today we're pumping out massive quantities—a surge that began more than a century ago as factories, power plants, and cars began devouring fossil fuels. By now the oceans are taking in 25 million tons a day of excess CO2, and it is starting to show. Already scientists have measured a rise in acidity of some 30 percent in surface waters, and they predict a 100 to 150 percent increase by the end of the century. No ill effects have been documented so far in the open ocean, but the threat is clear. Absorbed by seawater, CO2 reacts to form carbonic acid, which turns the normally alkaline water more acidic. In the process, fewer carbonate ions are left floating around—and many marine organisms, including mollusks and corals, rely on carbonate from seawater to build their shells and other hard parts. Eventually, vital species will no longer be able to build or maintain their shells and skeletons. Users of the mineral aragonite—a very soluble type of calcium carbonate—are especially vulnerable. They include tiny pteropod snails, which help feed commercially vital fish like salmon. Computer models predict that polar waters will turn hostile for pteropods within 50 years (cold water holds the most CO2, so it is already less shell-friendly). By 2100, habitat for many shelled species could shrink drastically, with impacts up the food chain. And as the acidification reaches the tropics, "it's a doomsday scenario for coral reefs," says Carnegie Institution oceanographer Ken Caldeira. If current trends continue, he predicts, reefs will one day survive only in walled-off, acid-controlled refuges. Massive outbursts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have acidified the oceans in the geologic past, but equilibrium returned as the oceans stored away excess CO2 in minerals on the seafloor. This time nature may be slow to heal. "Our emissions are huge compared with natural fluxes," Caldeira says. "If you could stop emissions and wait 10,000 years, natural processes would probably take care of most of it." These days we're simply dishing it out faster than the oceans can mop it up.
Acid Oceans Increasing Rapidly (10/17/07)
http://www.motherjones.com/blue_marble_blog/archives/2007/10/5834_acid_oceans_inc.html
We've known for a while that ocean acidification is a bad bad thing. Now new research into corals using boron isotopes indicates the world-ocean has become about one third of a pH unit more acid over the past fifty years, reports the Australian Research Council. The acidity is caused by a CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, which then dissolves into the oceans—a development likely to be lethal for animals with chalky skeletons, who just happen to comprise more than a third of the planet’s marine life. Apparently this acidification is now taking place over decades, rather than centuries, as originally predicted, and is happening even faster in the cooler waters of the Southern Ocean than in the tropics. Corals and plankton with chalky skeletons rely on sea water saturated with calcium carbonate to form their skeletons. As acidity intensifies, it becomes harder to form their skeletons. According to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland: "Analysis of coral cores shows a steady drop in calcification over the last 20 years. . . When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans." Atmospheric CO2 is presently 385 ppm, up from 305 in 1960. "It isn’t just the coral reefs which are affected—a large part of the plankton in the Southern Ocean, the coccolithophorids, are also affected. These drive ocean productivity and are the base of the food web which supports krill, whales, tuna and our fisheries. They also play a vital role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which could break down."More alarmingly, recent experiments along Australia's Great Barrier Reef show that red calcareous algae—the glue that binds reefs together in turbulent waters—actually begin to dissolve at higher CO2 levels. "The risk is that this may begin to erode the Great Barrier Reef at a grand scale," says Hoegh-Guldberg. So exactly where are our leaders, those slackers? What the hell is more important to attend to than this?
At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate (October 22, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102100761.html
(...) The scenario is not new. What is most alarming to the scientists is the speed at which it is unfolding. A decade ago, melting at the poles was predicted to play out over 100 years. Instead, it is happening on a scale scientists describe as overnight. When the Larsen B, an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Rhode Island, collapsed in 2002, "it was a big glaring clue that something not natural was happening," said Hugh Ducklow, director of ecosystems for MBL Laboratories in Woods Hole, Mass. "The geological evidence suggested that was stable for at least 10,000 years, back to the last ice age. And it literally disintegrated in three weeks."The scientists say the coming scenes in the movie, as described by the historic melding of research assembled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be even more disturbing: CLIP
Rising Seas Will Swamp America's Shores, Study Says (22 Oct 2007)
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/102307EB.shtml
Several scientists agree one meter rise will happen as soon as 50 years from now. Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting. In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased. Global warming - through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding - is expected to cause oceans to rise by 1 meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation. Rising waters will lap at the foundations of old money Wall Street and the new money towers of Silicon Valley. They will swamp the locations of big-city airports and major interstate highways. Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians - the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on spring break. That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps reviewed recently by the Associated Press. The maps, created by scientists at the University of Arizona, are based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the 1-meter projection. Some say they believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100 and still others say 150. Sea level rise is "the thing that I'm most concerned about as a scientist," said Benjamin Santer, a climate physicist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. "We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris. "It's going to happen no matter what - the question is when." CLIP
Flames Force Nearly 1 Million Evacuations (Oct. 24, 2007)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/24/national/main3401265.shtml
On the fourth day of a vicious firestorm, exhausted firefighters and weary residents looked forward Wednesday to a break - an expected slackening of the fierce wind that has fanned the state's explosive wildland blazes. San Diego County officials say the property damage from this week's wildfires has reached at least $1 billion countywide. (...) With nearly 1 million people ordered out, it marks one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, reports CBS' The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. The fires have burned 410,000 acres, or about 640 square miles. Forecasters said the Santa Ana wind whipping across Southern California will begin to weaken late Wednesday afternoon, followed by cooling sea breezes. The 16 wind-fed wildfires have destroyed nearly 1,500 homes. CLIP
South struggles to cope with drought (October 22, 2007)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1022/p02s01-ussc.html
JEFFERSON, Ga. - Kids in Jefferson, Ga., are shutting the tap off as they brush their teeth. Adults are doing bigger, but fewer, laundry loads. And just about everybody is glancing nervously at the puddle passing for the town's reservoir.Like many in the South, the people of this farm town turned Atlanta suburb have not given much thought to water consumption in the past. But with their well literally running dry, residents have curtailed water consumption by 25 percent. Now they just hope it's enough. "We can't say we're surprised," says Bill Lawrence, an owner of a video-game shop here. "We knew it was coming." The historic drought gripping the South forced Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to declare a state of emergency on Saturday in 85 counties, and to ask President Bush to declare them a major disaster area.In some areas, "snitch patrols" have formed and local officials have imposed $500 fines to stop midnight lawn watering. In at least one South Carolina town, full-soak baptisms have been curtailed.For popular residential and industrial destinations like Georgia and North Carolina, the drought is a lesson in moderation and humility for a region that owes much of its success to easy availability of resources – especially water, experts say. CLIP
Creating Our Own Hell on Earth (October 26, 2007)
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=14138
Climate Warming Causes Drought Fueled Mega-Fires (...) With water supplies rapidly shrinking, Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency for 85 counties and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area on October 20, 2007. A drought of historic proportions is affecting Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia. Meanwhile, drought is feeding a fiery fiasco in California. In the past five days, parts of southern California have become out-of-control, raging infernos as another hot dry summer turns dehydrated forests into combustible tinder-boxes. On October 21, 2007, CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley reported that “recently there has been an enormous change in Western fires. In truth, we've never seen anything like them in recorded history. It appears we're living in a new age of mega-fires -- forest infernos ten times bigger than the fires we're used to seeing.” According to the number of acres burned, 7 of the 10 busiest forest fire seasons in the United States have occurred since 1999 based on records going back 47 fire seasons to 1960. Pelley said last year’s was the worst in recorded history, and this year is already a close second, with two months to go. More than eight million acres have already burned this year. (...) When the US Senate tried unsuccessfully to amend the most recent energy bill to require utilities to produce 15 % of their energy from renewable resources like wind, solar and biomass, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint voted against it. Ms. Veno says South Carolina politicians have become dependent on campaign contributions from utilities and the coal industry. Such compromised politicians across our country are ignoring the facts: that CO2 producing fossil fuels such as coal are the primary cause of climate warming; that global warming is occurring at a much faster rate than scientists predicted; that one consequence of global warming is drought; that the US is the primary contributor to the crisis. To save this planet we must each do our part and we must demand that our leaders lead. As we watch the fires in the west, can’t we see that we are destroying our beautiful country by our own hand and creating a fiery hell on earth?
Expert: Warming Climate Fuels Mega-Fires (21 October 2007)
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/102307EC.shtml
Scott Pelley reports from the American West's fire lines on the rising number of mega-fires. Every year you can count on forest fires in the West like hurricanes in the East, but recently there has been an enormous change in Western fires. In truth, we've never seen anything like them in recorded history. It appears we're living in a new age of mega-fires - forest infernos ten times bigger than the fires we're used to seeing. CLIP
Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide for First Time
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101907EA.shtml
Steven Mufson, reporting for The Washington Post, writes: "The Kansas Department of Health and Environment yesterday became the first government agency in the United States to cite carbon dioxide emissions as the reason for rejecting an air permit for a proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant, saying that the greenhouse gas threatens public health and the environment."
Global Warming "Is Happening Faster" (23 October 2007)
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/102407EB.shtml
A weakening in the Earth's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere means that global warming is happening faster than we thought, scientists said yesterday. Scientists thought that concentrations of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere would grow in line with the world economy. The latest figures show, however, that over the past seven years CO2 concentrations have grown 35 per cent faster, partly because the ability of the Southern Ocean and other carbon "sinks" such as vegetation and forests to take it up has been reduced. It is a development which has alarmed scientists from the Global Carbon Project, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) who compared the period 1970-2000 with the past seven years. They found that increasing use of coal-fired power stations rather than cleaner alternatives, had increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere by 17 per cent above anticipated levels, based on economic projections. At the same time there had been a decline in the ability of ocean and land 'sinks' to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere which resulted in an 18 per cent increase. Over half the decline of the carbon sink efficiency was the result of intensifying winds in Antarctica's Southern Ocean disrupting the sea's ability to store carbon, the scientists said. If the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas there are fears that global warming leading to climate change will get worse. CLIP
New CO2 evidence means climate change predictions are 'too optimistic (October 23, 2007)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2719627.ece
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing much faster and will be harder to control than scientists have predicted, a study has found. An international team of researchers has found that, since 2000, the rate at which CO2 has been pumped into the atmosphere is 35 per cent greater than most climate change models have allowed for. The conclusions have serious implications for forecasts of how much and how quickly the world’s temperature will rise and mean that global warming will be harder and more expensive to control than feared. The results also mean that international efforts to bring CO2 emissions under control will need to be more far-reaching. CLIP
Historic Bill in Senate to Fight Warming
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101907EB.shtml
Zachary Coile of The San Francisco Chronicle reports: "A bipartisan group of senators, borrowing heavily from California's efforts to fight climate change, fired the starting gun on what's expected to be a long global-warming debate in Congress with a proposal for limits on greenhouse gases affecting every major segment of the nation's economy."
White House Cut Warming Impact Testimony
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102407L.shtml
H. Josef Herbert reports for The Associated Press, "The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents."
Bush Aide Rejects Climate Goal
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101907EC.shtml
Juliet Eilperin, reporting for The Washington Post, writes: "The president's top science adviser said yesterday there is no solid scientific evidence that the widely cited goal of limiting future global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avert dangerous climate change, an assertion that runs counter to that of many scientists as well as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
The Future Is Drying Up (October 21, 2007)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html
Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.” In the Southwest this past summer, the outlook was equally sobering. A catastrophic reduction in the flow of the Colorado River — which mostly consists of snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains — has always served as a kind of thought experiment for water engineers, a risk situation from the outer edge of their practical imaginations. Some 30 million people depend on that water. A greatly reduced river would wreak chaos in seven states: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. CLIP
Warming could wipe out half of all species (October 24 2007)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/24/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange
Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world's species could be wiped out. Scientists at the University of York and the Universit of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth' temperatures are in a "greenhouse" climate phase, the found that extinctions rates were relatively high Conversely, during cooler "icehouse" conditions biodiversity increased. The results, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earth's temperature due to man-made climate change could have a similar effect on biodiversity. Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist at the University of York and one of the authors of the research paper, said: "Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase."According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could increase by as much as 6C by the end of the century. Dr Mayhew found that of the five mass extinction events in the Earth's history, four were linked to greenhouse climates where the Earth was covered in heat-trapping carbon dioxide or methane gases. CLIP
Ingredients of Systemic Change: The Environmental Keynesian Alternative (September 14, 2007)
http://www.globalnetwork4justice.org/story.php?c_id=313
The only feasible way out of the ecological crisis is a new, environmental Keynesianism, bringing together government, corporations and citizens. The problem is to convince politicians that ecological transformation and environmental practices can pay off politically, argues Susan George. (...) My premise is that local solutions are insufficient so let me devote the rest of my time to the twin problems of governments and of the capitalist corporate production and financial system. The question I wrestle with is: Can we save the planet while international capitalism remains the dominant system, with its focus on so-called “share-holder value” and with ubiquitous, no-holds-barred finance capital making more and more decisions world-wide? Most days I answer : No: there is no way we can reverse the ecological and climate crises under capitalism, but that is a despairing answer and if true, it means there is virtually no hope. No hope, because I do not see how even the most convinced, most determined people could replace, much less overthrow capitalism fast enough to carry out the necessary systemic change before a runaway climate effect takes hold. (...) I’m not an economist but the only new tool I can think of to pull the United States out of the economic doldrums is a new Keynesianism, not military this time, but environmental; a push for massive investment in eco-friendly industry, in alternative energy, in the manufacture of lightweight materials for use in new vehicles; in clean, efficient public transport; in the green construction industry, etc. How could one finance such an effort which would involve targeted government spending in the traditional Keynesian sense? By levying carbon taxes, taxes on movements of finance capital and purchases of shares, unitary profits taxes on transnational corporations and — in order to encourage more local consumption — taxes on the miles travelled by the food that we eat and the clothes we wear. We also need safeguards to prevent delocalising all the ecological activity once more to China and other low-wage countries. In other words, we need some form of protectionism - but let the Indians invest in Indiana and the Chinese in Chicago if they want to pay American level wages and respect American laws and standards. They too should be allowed to site here to sell here. All these new, eco-friendly industries and products would have huge export value and could quickly become the world standard.
VICTORY! Uganda Government Finally Scraps Mabira Rainforest Giveaway (October 17, 2007)
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2007/10/victory_uganda_government_fina.asp
In a major victory for Uganda's people, rainforests, environment and ecologically sustainable development aspirations; the Ugandan government has finally scrapped controversial plans to allow Mabira rainforest, one of the country's largest and most important protected area, to be partially cleared for sugar production for biofuels. This may sound slightly familiar, as on a previous occasion it was reported the plan was dead but it came back to haunt us. Statements by the government this time are from the Minister of Finance, other numerous sources and are more firm. Mabira rainforest will remain protected, and a precedent has been set that protected rainforests must not be cleared for biofuel production. This is huge! CLIP
Butterflies disappear as habitat shrinks, temperatures rise (October 22, 2007)
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071022/A_NEWS/710220310
(...) Shapiro, a professor at the University of California, Davis, believes butterflies are disappearing from California as new construction paves over and cuts through their habitat, and climate change forces them to higher elevations. Results from more than 20 years of butterfly counts in San Joaquin County seem to support his theory. Where as many as 30 species once were counted, recent years have yielded no more than 18 and as few as 11."The butterflies are leaving us," said Kathy Schick of Stockton, an entomologist who heads the annual count each July. Assessing the health of butterfly species isn't easy. Changes in the weather can dramatically affect populations. CLIP
Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean (October 19, 2007)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL
At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing." To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe. In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists. The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii. Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years."With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm." The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco. (...) The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life, said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group. Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds."These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."The Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris. Chabot said if environmentalists wanted to remove the ocean dump site, it would take a massive international effort that would cost billions.But that is unlikely, he added, because no one country is likely to step forward and claim the issue as its own responsibility. Instead, cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is left to the landlubbers."What we can do is ban plastic fast food packaging," Chabot said, "or require the substitution of biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws."Otherwise, this ever-growing floating continent of trash will be with us for the foreseeable future." CLIP
Food prices to treble in five years (12 October 2007)
http://sj.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=46138
Food prices will treble in the next three to five years as world grain stocks decline to their lowest levels in history, CBH chief executive, Imre Mencshelyi, has warned. Mr Mencshelyi says world grain stocks are starting to run out while supplies are shrinking, creating the greatest crisis in 50 years and threatening to curtail the emerging biofuels industry. "On the one hand you've got the biofuels industry pushing grain prices higher, but on the other, questions are being asked about where the focus should be — energy or feeding the populations?" he said. "There is evidence i