
MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
April 21, 2006
The Writing on the Wall Series #49: W - The Walking Disaster
Hello everyone!
Another epic compilation chronicling the inevitable, unstoppable and soon terminal decline of the Bush horror movie, and the unspeakable crimes his dictatorial reign could still create...
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.
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Worthy of Your Attention
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ... and "The Lost Cities of Barsoom" ....
http://www.enterprisemission.com/LostCitiesofBarsoom.htm
Photos of Ancient Cities on Mars
Ongoing Global Poll About First Contact
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/1stcontactpoll.htm
Question: Do you agree at soul level to a global first contact between Earth's inhabitants and benevolent extraterrestrial civilizations? As of April 21, 2006: 91.77% of 717 respondents are in favor...
Google Video UFO
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ufo
299 clips came up of which 290 are free.
The Hutchison Effect: The Race to Zero Point (New Energy Video)
http://stream.osen.org/aag/Hutchison_RaceToZeroPoint.wmv
(Free windows media player required) This is a fascinating 12-minute video demonstrating inspiring new energy technologies.
CONTENTS
1. 2 Feedbacks
2. Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship - WHY RUMSFELD SHOULD NOT RESIGN
3. A Campaign Gore Can't Lose Trailer for Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'
4. Ozone Man
5. Scientists Condemn US as Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Hit Record Level
6. Whose Spring? Our Spring!
7. THE JUDICIAL HIJACKING OF THE 9-11 VICTIM LAWSUITS
8. Charlie Sheen Says Media Complicit In 9/11 Cover-Up
9. Bush Defector To Demolish 911 Lies On May 6
10. Iran was not ordered to Stop Enrichment
11. The Ongoing War on Truth in Iraq
12. Iraq War, Round Two
13. Mass Graves Of Children Found Near Montreal
14. How the First Earth Day Came
15. About US to Palestinians: Vote, then starve; democracy as instrument of mass control 16. Tierramerica Reports Aspartame is a Carcinogen
17. Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Letter to President Bush
18. Bill Maher's closing monologue a few nights ago
19. Post Turtle
See also:
The Worst President in History? (21 April 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006J.shtml
One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush. (Illustration - WORTH SEEING! - by Robert Grossman) George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history. (...) Even worse for the president, the general public, having once given Bush the highest approval ratings ever recorded, now appears to be coming around to the dismal view held by most historians. To be sure, the president retains a considerable base of supporters who believe in and adore him, and who reject all criticism with a mixture of disbelief and fierce contempt - about one-third of the electorate. (When the columnist Richard Reeves publicized the historians' poll last year and suggested it might have merit, he drew thousands of abusive replies that called him an idiot and that praised Bush as, in one writer's words, "a Christian who actually acts on his deeply held beliefs.") Yet the ranks of the true believers have thinned dramatically. A majority of voters in forty-three states now disapprove of Bush's handling of his job. Since the commencement of reliable polling in the 1940s, only one twice-elected president has seen his ratings fall as low as Bush's in his second term: Richard Nixon, during the months preceding his resignation in 1974. No two-term president since polling began has fallen from such a height of popularity as Bush's (in the neighborhood of ninety percent, during the patriotic upswell following the 2001 attacks) to such a low (now in the midthirties). (...) The monster deficits, caused by increased federal spending combined with the reduction of revenue resulting from the tax cuts, have also placed Bush's administration in a historic class of its own with respect to government borrowing. According to the Treasury Department, the forty-two presidents who held office between 1789 and 2000 borrowed a combined total of $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions. But between 2001 and 2005 alone, the Bush White House borrowed $1.05 trillion, more than all of the previous presidencies combined. Having inherited the largest federal surplus in American history in 2001, he has turned it into the largest deficit ever - with an even higher deficit, $423 billion, forecast for fiscal year 2006. Yet Bush - sounding much like Herbert Hoover in 1930 predicting that "prosperity is just around the corner" - insists that he will cut federal deficits in half by 2009, and that the best way to guarantee this would be to make permanent his tax cuts, which helped cause the deficit in the first place! The rest of what remains of Bush's skimpy domestic agenda is either failed or failing - a record unmatched since the presidency of Herbert Hoover. CLIP
Bush, a Crisis Almost Without Equal (19 April 2006) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006A.shtml
Republicans and Democrats alike are starting to face the prospect of what it means to have George W. Bush as their commander in chief for another 33 months - in a time of war, terrorism, and nuclear intrigue. How can the press contribute to confronting the crisis? First: recognize it exists. Thomas Friedman started to do that today. No matter which party they generally favor or political stripes they wear, newspapers and other media outlets need to confront the fact that America faces a crisis without equal in recent decades. Our president, in a time of war, terrorism and nuclear intrigue, will likely remain in office for another 33 months, with crushingly low approval ratings that are still inching lower. Facing a similar problem, voters had a chance to quickly toss Jimmy Carter out of office, and did so. With a similar lengthy period left on his White House lease, Richard Nixon quit, facing impeachment. Neither outcome is at hand this time. CLIP
FOX Poll: Gloomy Economic Views; Bush Approval at New Low (April 20, 2006)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192468,00.html
In the Rubble
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041706O.shtml
As Bush polling numbers creep ever lower, Tom Engelhardt questions how long it will be before some future round of hideous polling figures sets off a full-scale panic in the Republican Party, leading possibly to a spreading revolt of the pols that could put the present revolt of the generals in the shade.
This George Is No WashingtonBy William John Cox (04/11/06)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12704.htm
Each was elected president of the United States, but George the 43rd possesses none of the courage, intelligence, or wisdom of the first. (...) George W. Bush has sometimes quipped that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship; however, it is increasingly clear that the real joke is on the American people. Since taking office, Bush has virtually eliminated the publics access to government records; he has issued more than 100 signing statements, upon signing bills of legislation essentially nullifying any part he does not intend to obey; he has refused to disclose the membership and deliberations of a secret energy panel which formulated government policy; he has suppressed any dissent within government agencies that contradicted his narrow-minded policies; he has punished whistle-blowers for revealing government corruption and illegal activities he deployed the military to spy on non-violent protest groups; he authorized the secret and illegal wiretapping of the telephone conversations and e-mails of thousands of American citizens; and he has lied about it repeatedly. In establishing an imperial presidency, Bush seeks to avoid all accountability and oversight. He has used his global war on terror to expand presidential powers far beyond any grant by Congress, even denying that Congress has the power to limit him, if it interferes with his role as Commander in Chief of the military. More importantly, Bush has sought to deceive the American people about his crimes over and over and over, and the risk of harm posed by his criminality continues to increase. The Reagan administration organized readiness exercises which called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to round up and detain up to 400,000 refugees in the event of uncontrolled population movements over the Mexican border into the United States. In January 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to construct detention centers in the United States to cope with an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs. Each detention center is designed to hold up to 5,000 detainees, should Bush decide to declare martial law in the event of another terrorist attack or a natural disaster, such as another Katrina or an Asian Flu epidemic. Bush has authorized the military to become engaged in counter-terrorism operations inside the United States and to conduct special access surveillance programs. The Pentagons national Counterterrorism Center now holds the names of 325,000 terrorism suspects. It is unknown how many of these suspects are American citizens defined as terrorist affiliates. The Pentagons Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support pledges to transform US military forces to execute homeland defense mission in the ... US homeland. The military considers antiwar protests to be a threat and protestors as those who would harm us. The Pentagons Civilian Inmate Labor Program (which provides for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations) was recently revised. Are these the new programs? Should we fear our president? CLIP
New WH Policy Chief Was "Brooks Brothers" Rioter (19 April 2006) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006E.shtml
The man Bush tapped to fill Karl Rove's spot as his policy wizard is none other than Joel Kaplan, who took part in the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" of 2000. That's when a bunch of Washington GOP operatives, posing as outraged Floridians, waved fists, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and pounded windows in an effort to intimidate officials engaged in the Florida recount effort. In George Bush's Washington, there's no shame in staging a fake protest to undermine a democratic election, apparently: last year, the Washington Post's Al Kamen noted that "the "rioters" proudly note their participation on resumes and in interviews." Kaplan was even the one to cheekily dub the fracas the "Brooks Brothers Riot."
Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush (01/29/06)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11696.htm
Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information.Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. (...) Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States.The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits. [Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.]
Hubris and Neglect - The Imminent Decline of the American Empire? (April 12, 2006)
http://www.counterpunch.com/baroud04122006.html
The miscalculated policies of the US administration in the Middle East are quickly depleting the country's ability to sustain its once unchallenged global position. Winds of change are blowing everywhere, and there is little that Washington's ideologues can do to stop it.The above claim is increasingly finding its way into the realm of mainstream thinking, despite all attempts to mute or relegate its import. A recent speech by US Republican congressman and chairman of the House of international relations committee, Henry Hyde was the focal point of analysis by Martin Jacques in The Guardian. "Our power has the grave liability of rendering our theories about the world immune from failure. But by becoming deaf to easily discerned warning signs, we may ignore long-term costs that result from our actions and dismiss reverses that should lead to a re-examination of our goals and means," Hyde said. In his poignant analysis--decoding Hyde's deliberately implicit thoughts--Jacques argued, "The Bush administration stands guilty of an extraordinary act of imperial overreach which has left the US more internationally isolated than ever before, seriously stretched financially, and guilty of neglect in east Asia and elsewhere." CLIP¨
Bill Bulges With Unforeseen Spending for Guns, Tanks (20 April 2006) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006N.shtml
Senate to take up measure as military fights to keep guns, tanks working. With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat. The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found. Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars. The invasion's "shock and awe" of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected. CLIP
Growth in federal spending unchecked (April 3, 2006)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-02-federal-spending_x.htm
Federal spending is outstripping economic growth at a rate unseen in more than half a century, provoking some conservatives to complain that government under Republican control has gotten too big. The federal government is currently spending 20.8 cents of every $1 the economy generates, up from 18.5 cents in 2001, White House budget documents show. That's the most rapid growth during one administration since Franklin Roosevelt. There are no signs that the trend is about to turn around. This week, the House is scheduled to debate the $2.8 trillion budget for 2007, which projects an additional $3 trillion of debt in the next five years. CLIP
Calling Iran's Bluff
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906D.shtml
"There is one clear standard by which President Bush has asked, over and over, to be judged: his ability to keep us safe from rogue nations or terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction," Robert Scheer writes. "Unfortunately, by any rational definition of that standard, his 5-year administration has been an abysmal failure."
Army report on al-Qaida accuses Rumsfeld (April 15, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1754348,00.html
Donald Rumsfeld said to have been "personally involved" in a Guantánamo Bay interrogation. 15 Apr 2006 Donald Rumsfeld was directly linked to prisoner abuse for the first time yesterday, when it emerged he had been "personally involved" in a Guantánamo Bay interrogation found by military investigators to have been "degrading and abusive". Human Rights Watch last night called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate whether the defence secretary could be criminally liable for the treatment of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi al-Qaida suspect forced to wear women's underwear, stand naked in front of a woman interrogator, and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash, in late 2002 and early 2003. (...) The revelation comes at a critical time for Mr Rumsfeld. He is under unprecedented scrutiny for his management of the Iraq war, after six former generals in quick succession called for his resignation.The questions reached such a pitch by the end of the week that George Bush took the unusual step of issuing a personal note from Camp David in Mr Rumsfeld's defence. (...) And, responding to the generals, Mr Rumsfeld said in an al-Arabiya TV interview yesterday: "If every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defence, it would be like a merry-go-round." However, in the wake of the inspector general's report, Human Rights Watch said: "The question at this point is not whether secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it's whether he should be indicted. General Schmidt's sworn statement suggests Rumsfeld may have been perfectly aware of the abuses inflicted on Mr al-Qahtani."
Rumsfeld Linked to Guantanamo Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906A.shtml
A leading international human rights group is calling for the Bush administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged involvement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials in the torture of a prisoner at Guanatanamo Bay some three years ago.
Rumsfeld Shouldn't Be Fired. He Should Be Indicted (17 April 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041806L.shtml
(...) It's not Donald Rumsfeld's colossal arrogance or his glaring misjudgments we should be focusing on. It's his potential crimes. The mainstream media in the U.S. is giving enormous attention to the retired generals who are demanding Donald Rumsfeld's resignation because of his autocratic style and his bungling in Iraq. But the mainstream media is barely discussing Rumsfeld's alleged culpability in the abusive treatment of detainees, up to and including torture. "The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it's whether he should be indicted," says Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch, who directs its terrorism and counterterrorism program.
Rumsfeld Should Go as Iraq Goes "From Bad to Terrible"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906O.shtml
US Senator Dick Durbin called Tuesday for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to be replaced and said he hopes Congress will debate the issue next week
Baghdad Street Battle Smacks of Open Civil War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041806R.shtml
Snipers held rooftop positions as masked Sunni Arab insurgents said they were gearing up for another open street battle with pro-government Shiite militiamen in Baghdad's Adhamiya district.
20,000 Kidnapped in Iraq Since January: Report (20 April 2006) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006K.shtml
Karbala - Nearly 20,000 people have been kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of this year alone, according to a report released on Wednesday. The survey, which underscores the massive social upheaval caused by rebel activity and increasing sectarian conflict, does not give the number of people killed. However, it says that 15,462 people have been wounded. The 19,548 people kidnapped includes 4,959 women and 2,350 children, according to the report prepared by a group of 125 non-governmental organisations and made public in the Shia holy city of Karbala. The high-profile seizure of foreigners in Iraq has numbered only a few hundred since the practice began two years ago and is usually aimed at scoring propaganda points against the US-led occupation. In contrast, the thousands of Iraqis being kidnapped are primarily the victims of political rivalry and of common criminal gangs seeking ransom. CLIPà
Libby: Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041506Y.shtml
Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.
Grand Jury Hears Evidence Against Rove
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006Z.shtml
The grand jury session yesterday in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Karl Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment. In an interview with Jason Leopold on Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
Cindy Sheehan: Hold Bush Accountable
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
Cindy Sheehan expresses her anger at the excuses Bush uses for being above the law. Cindy also proposes fitting punishment for the Neo-Cons.
Your Future According to Rockefeller (Hawaii Observer April 2006)
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=4403
Would you like to know the future the Rockefeller group plans for you? Check out this excerpted quote, from a 50-year old book about the family: Rockefeller by no means neglected their program of converting our government into a totalitarian device for looting. The basic plan was published in 1930 by his intimate friend Hoffman Nickerson in his book, the American Rich. Nickersons scheme is to nullify the Constitution by converting our Government into an absolute monarchy. He concludes, the only perfect form of government is hereditary absolute monarchy, but it might be wiser at the start not to violate American sentiment by undertaking to impose it openly. The conversion of President to absolute monarch merely requires the elimination of checks and balances on the power of the President that the framers of the Constitution unwisely incorporated into it, to convert his role to that of absolute dictator. The key to converting Congress into a mere rubber stamp is the budget plan. If the Presidential elective monarch presents to Congress, year after year, budgets so huge and complex that members could not possibly find the time to read it, and so richly provided with graft and pork barrel for each member of Congress that none of them would dare to sincerely attack it for fear of losing their shares - Congress would eschew the powers granted it by the Constitution. The presidential monarch would easily rob Congress of its Constitutional power to initial any legislation under the pretense of contrived emergencies and crises
Does this sound like something we have today? Exxon (ex-Standard Oil) Bechtel and Halliburton, the top profiteers of Iraq are all major Rockefeller outfits.
It's a Family Affair: Bush's War for Rockefeller Oil (December 2003)
http://politicalaffairs.net/article/view/25/1/14
(...) In the pioneering 1957 book, Empire of High Finance, Victor Perlo provides the necessary material to see the present-day dominance of one group, the Rockefellers. Perlos 1971 column on the Rockefeller agent, Henry Kissinger (reprinted in the recently published book, People vs. Profits), refers to the Rockefeller group as the most influential single force in the Wall Street Establishment these days. The Rockefellers long ago learned to drop to the background and use a stable of agents in business and politics. Fore example, George Shultz headed both Bechtel, the Rockefeller-affiliated construction company, and the State Department. As Perlo showed, every US Secretary of State in the decades after World War II was tied to the Rockefellers. Coinciding with war-induced oil gouging, US energy monopolies profits jumped 296 percent in the first quarter of 2003, compared to a year earlier. ExxonMobil topped all companies with $7 billion in profits, up 237 percent. ChevronTexaco recorded $2.1 billion, up 192 percent. (...) Now the US proconsul overseeing the destruction of Iraq is Paul Bremer. Who is he? The long-time protégé of Henry Kissinger, serving first as Kissingers aide in the Nixon days, then heading Kissingers consulting business. And who is winning the contracts in occupied Iraq? Bechtel the Rockefeller-dominated construction company; Halliburton, the Rockefeller-dominated oil-services (and now also war-services) corporation. CLIP
Ready for $262 a barrel oil? (April 11, 2006)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/27/news/international/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm
Two of the world's most successful investors say oil will be in short supply in the coming months.
Spare the Taxpayer, Spur the Economy, Save the Planet
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041406EA.shtml
Shifting taxes from income to environmental "bads," like pollution, could save the planet. As one industrialist said: "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth."
In 2005, Exxon CEO Raked in 190K a Day
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041406G.shtml
Exxon CEO Lee Raymond blamed the problem on "global supply and demand" and assured the public that "we're all in this together." Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.
Bush Pays $187,768 in 2005 Taxes; Cheney Gets $1.94 Mln Refund (14 Apr 2006)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aFOqUzYEgPio
President [sic] George W. Bush paid $187,768 in taxes on taxable income last year of $618,694, according to returns released today at the White House. Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, reported owing $529,636 on taxable income of $1,961,157. The couple's total income in 2005 was $8,824,762. The Cheneys are claiming a tax refund of $1.94 million, according to their return, released three days before Monday's filing deadline. (...) Neither Bush nor Cheney paid the federal alternative minimum tax, and both claim residency in states -- Texas and Wyoming -- that don't have income taxes. CLIP
Activists March Against France's Plans to Build New Generation of Nuclear Reactors
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041706EB.shtml
More than 10,000 French activists marched in silence to honor victims of the Chernobyl disaster 20 years ago, part of a larger protest denouncing France's plans to build more nuclear reactors.
Fitzgerald Probe Headed To Switzerland, Marc Rich, Vince Foster And At Least A Trillion Dollars Of Stolen U.S. Treasury Money By The Bush-Clinton Mob; Treasury Agent Leo Wanta, Sent To Arrest Rich, Tells What Really 'Went Down' In Switzerland (15 Apr 2006 )
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/15-Apr-2006.html
Wanta, the legally appointed trustor of $27.5 trillion dollars of money made at the end of the Cold War when the Soviet Currency was destabilized, is now tracing the funds, saying more than $750 billion has been traced as stolen in the biggest bank heist in U.S. history, orchestrated by the Illumnati-controlled Bush-Clinton mob.
Expert View: The joke's on Bush as Chavez strikes it even luckier (16 April 2006)
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article357889.ece
Estimated oil reserves have just overtaken those of Saudi Arabia - There is nowhere on this earth quite like Caracas. Certainly the business traveller has no shortage of time to admire the physical beauty of its setting - two-hour traffic jams characterise this oil-boom city, where petrol costs a mere tuppence a litre. We'd better get used to it. For Venezuela has just overtaken Saudi Arabia in its estimated oil reserves to become number one in the world. Venezuela is here to stay. When the reports of the country's latest good fortune came through to New York, a banker turned to me and said: "Surely by now George Bush must realise God is not on his side." Even under the old estimates, Venezuela already had its place as a major oil producer guaranteed for the next 80 years. Now it would appear to stretch into infinity. Together with the Middle East, Caracas will be the major force in world energy markets. In Venezuela itself, high oil prices are having dramatic effects. CLIP
STOP CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!
http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/about.asp?about=signon&lang=english
A Statement of Unity from the OUR WORLD IS NOT FOR SALE Network - OUR CHALLENGEOur World Is Not for Sale is a worldwide network of organizations; activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the worlds most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment. Against this process of corporate-led globalization, we pose the vision of a global economy that is built on principles of economic justice, ecological sustainability, and democratic accountability, one that asserts the interests of people over corporations. This is an economy built around the interests of the real producers and consumers, such as workers, peasants, family farmers, fishers, small and medium sized producers, and around the needs of those marginalized by the current system, such as women and indigenous people.We believe that a just system must protect, not undermine, cultural, biological, economic and social diversity; put the emphasis on the development of healthy local economies and trade; secure internationally recognized environmental, cultural, social and labour rights; support the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples; and protect national and sub-national democratic decision-making processes. CLIP
John Pilger: Freedom dies quietly (04/13/06) (COMING SOON TO A COUNTRY NEAR YOU...)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12719.htm
The bill marks the end of true parliamentary democracy; it is as significant as Congress abandoning the Bill of Rights. (...) Those who fail to hear these steps on the road to dictatorship should look at the government's plans for ID cards, described in its manifesto as "voluntary". They will be compulsory and worse. An ID card will be different from a driving licence or passport. It will be connected to a database called the NIR (National Identity Register), where your personal details will be stored. These will include your fingerprints, a scan of your iris, your residence status and unlimited other details about your life. If you fail to keep an appointment to be photographed and fingerprinted, you can be fined up to £2,500. Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy and every bank will have an NIR terminal where you can be asked to "prove who you are". Each time you swipe the card, a record will be made at the NIR - so, for instance, the government will know every time you withdraw more than £99 from your bank account. Restaurants and off-licences will demand that the card be swiped so that they are indemnified from prosecution. Private business will have full access to the NIR. If you apply for a job, your card will have to be swiped. If you want a London Underground Oyster card, or a supermarket loyalty card, or a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account, your ID card will have to be swiped. In other words, there will be a record of your movements, your phone calls and shopping habits, even the kind of medication you take. These databases, which can be stored in a device the size of a hand, will be sold to third parties without you knowing. The ID card will not be your property and the Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend it at any time without explanation. This would prevent you drawing money from a bank. (...) This government was re-elected with the support of barely a fifth of those eligible to vote: the second-lowest proportion since the franchise. Whatever respectability the famous suits in television studios try to give him, Blair is demonstrably discredited as a liar and war criminal. Like the constitution-hijacking bill now reaching its final stages, and the criminalising of peaceful protest, ID cards are designed to control the lives of ordinary citizens (as well as enrich the new Labour-favoured companies that will build the computer systems). A small, determined and profoundly undemocratic group is killing freedom in Britain, just as it has killed literally in Iraq. That is the news. "The kaleidoscope has been shaken," said Blair at the 2001 Labour party conference. "The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us."
THE FIRST NATIONAL BIRD FLU SUMMIT (March 7, 2006)
http://newswithviews.com/Tenpenny/sherri5.htm
(...) Discussed in passing was the need to have the police and the military available to control mass panic; the need for incredibly efficient mass production of a polyvalent influenza vaccine; and the duty of governments to continue consulting with risk communication experts to get people to understand the magnitude of the risk.[2] (...) Throughout the two-day affair a stream of scientists and medical professionals from the audience approached the microphone, repeatedly asking the same two questions: Where is the human serological data that demonstrates the need for all this planning? Is there any evidence that the bird flu is becoming a threat to humans? The uniform response was that all of this hype is based on what was happening to birds; whether or not it will occur in humans remains completely unknown. CLIP
U.S. Plan For Flu Pandemic Revealed (April 16, 2006)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041500901_pf.html
Multi-Agency Proposal Awaits Bush's Approval
Danube floods: 1,000 miles of devastation, 26-FEET over previous record highs (17 April 2006)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2137746,00.html
The worst Danube floods for a century have brought chaos and destruction to three countries THE Blue Danube of legend was yesterday a torrent of brackish floodwater after it burst its banks in Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, causing widespread destruction and raising fears of mass evacuations.Romanian officials began a programme of controlled flooding, after the Danube reached its highest levels for more than a century, to prevent low-lying villages being submerged.The floods have been caused by high rainfall and melting snow from the harsh Balkan winter. Hundreds of houses have been flooded in the region and thousands of people have been made homeless. CLIP
TAKE ACTION: Let Russian government know oil and water do not mix
http://www.waterconserve.org/alerts/send.asp?id=baikal
A controversial Russian crude oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast threatens the world's largest freshwater lake. The pipeline may pass within less than one kilometer of Lake Baikal -- a UNESCO protected World Heritage site and home to 20 percent of the world's fresh water. Lake Baikal, called the "Jewel of Siberia", is the world's deepest and oldest lake renowned for its water purity and home to tremendous amounts of endemic species including a rare fresh water seal. It is feared that an earthquake, forest fire or flood around Lake Baikal could rupture the pipeline, sending 4,000 tons of crude oil into the world's largest freshwater body in just 20 minutes. Experts, including specialists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, have said the oil pipeline should run as far as possible from the coast of Baikal. Scientists who conducted the state assessment of the plan found that in the event of an earthquake there is a high likelihood that water quality would be severely diminished and permanent damage to the unique wildlife would occur, and thus recommended its construction near Baikal be stopped. There has been strong local opposition to the project for years, including recent protests by Russian environmentalists. Project plans are continually changing, with important questions including whether the pipeline route will fall within the Baikal water catchment still unresolved. Please send an email supporting local campaigns to ensure the final pipeline route steers well clear of Lake Baikal and its watershed, and to promote sustainable development in the Baikal region.
TAKE ACTION: Call upon Bank board to prevent climate mayhem by halting subsidies for deadly fossil fuel projects while greatly increasing renewable energy and efficiency funding
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=world_bank_renewable_energy
The World Bank has failed to promote clean renewable energy and rarely considers climate change when funding fossil fuel and other projects in developing nations. During the World Bank's Spring Meeting on April 22 and 23, they look set to further steer energy policy in the wrong direction. A new report acknowledging the severe impacts of climate change on developing countries is to be considered, but plans will still be put forward to continue investing in fossil fuel projects. Despite World Bank claims it wants to play a lead role in financing renewable energy globally, it is failing to meet targets for increasing finance for renewable energy projects. In 2005 renewable energy and energy efficiency financing by the World Bank accounted for just 9% of the entire Bank's financing in the energy sector. Climate change threatens the Earth and the lives of all of the Earth's citizens, and we must see real progress on the development of sustainable energy if climate mayhem is to be averted. The World Bank must be called upon to promote clean air technologies like wind and solar power, rather than environmentally harmful oil, coal and dam projects. The World Bank must lead in converting the world's energy system to a sustainable basis or step aside.
Meat-Eaters Aiding Global Warming?
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041906EA.shtml
Your personal impact on global warming may be influenced as much by what you eat as by what you drive, according to authors of a new study that ranks the energy efficiency of food production. According to researchers, the difference between a vegetarian and a red meat diet "is comparable to the difference between driving an SUV and driving a reasonable sedan."
Omega-News Collection 15. April 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1830708/
1.
Date: 16 Apr 2006
From: Kelley Elkins elkins_delgado@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Meditation Focus #150: Shifting to Enlightened Leadership
While it is more than obvious that we should all be concerned about the horrid effects of depleted uranium weaponry, it feels like we're missing something here. It isn't just people that are being harmed by this poison. It is ALL life forms all plants and trees, all fish and sea life, all animals, all biology.
This poison, a ceramic oxide dust, is affecting the planet and we have no known remedy. We have absolutely no idea of its over all effect. It is said that this dust, at less than a micron (goes through gas masks) attaches to DNA. Every living thing has DNA. All the viruses, bacteria, fungi, plankton, algae and up either are DNA made or use DNA .. What will this attachment to DNA do to the function and replication of any and all cells? And Bush wants more nuclear war?
Are all the monsters of the 50's and 60's science fiction horror movies about to come to life? What effect will this have on the billions of life forms that replicate every moment in all life's habitats around the globe? What have we allowed the greedy to do? And more than this how will we correct it? What plant or mineral will set this straight? Must we simply wait it out?
Is this our wake up call? When weird things start crawling about or growing out of strange places and start going bump in the dark -will it get our attention in a large enough way? Isn't it time to recognize that the right-wing fundamentalist have gone too far and that the bickering between religions is not serving but destroying. Will it be enough soon enough to wake us up to the realization that we are all here together on this little planet? And that it does not matter what you or I or anyone use as a name for God/Goddess, but that we call Them now for our individual and collective help before it is too late?
Our entire ecosystem/lifestyle is at risk of ending as we know it and people have the nerve to preach religion (abuse of power). -Or science (abuse of knowledge). -Or politics (abuse of service). From the pharmaceuticals, fundamentalists and the congressional industrial military machine we have what we have today. It is become only too clear as to what has happenedwe have allowed too few to be in charge of too much for too long. And more than that - these too few are too greedy to care about their children or their children's children. Much less the Mother, our Mother, Earth.
Am I just making this up? You do the research, show me to be insane please! And then send a donation to Aaron Russo to help support his movie America, Freedom To Fascism to wake us up ... watch the trailer (http://www.freedomtofascism.com).
Thank you
Dr. Kelley Elkins
---
From: "Ilyana" ilyana@oo.nu>
RE: Meditation Focus #150: Shifting to Enlightened Leadership
Date: 17 Apr 2006
Dear Jean,
Here's something you might be interested in for your newsletter:
"An elected Councilman in Florida has refused to take an oath of office. Not because he doesn't intend to fullfil his duties, but because : "No citizen of the Unites [sic] States should be required to swear to support the government, which is the (Bush) administration,'' said Dalack, who served in the Army in Korea during the Korean War. "Those kids in Iraq died only because of George Bush, and I will not swear to support a government with immoral and unlawful policies.''
The issue is actually much larger then not agreeing with going to war, and the right to express that It is even beyond the issue of our current Administration and Congress, who has written into law legislation that actually attacks the Constitution. There has been repeated attempts to dismantle our bill of rights. Taking an oath to support such a government would prevent a person from acting to remove a government whose officials have violated their own oaths of office."
http://www.choicechanges.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=543
ilyana
http://www.choicechanges.com
Conscious choices from the contents of conscience
2.
From: http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=493&row=0
Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship - WHY RUMSFELD SHOULD NOT RESIGN
By Greg Palast
The Guardian - Comment - April 14, 2006
Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation.
Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and they still don't get it.
I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy in the rump, in public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot straight.
It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell-
It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleezza-
It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney-
Yes, Rumsfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense.
Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy.
Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil."
Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and oil- supporting industries." The General knew of the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government -- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms -- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed "liberation" turned into a hated "occupation."
But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab.
On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, Jack, you're fired."
Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some tin- pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired.
Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it.
For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the puppet instead of the puppeteers.
There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in command.
Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.)
President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he's taken all their ammo."
When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished."
Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's the President, stupid.
---
Read more about the untold story of General Garner and the secret war plans in ARMED MADHOUSE, by Greg Palast, to be released June 6 (US) and July 6 (UK). View Palast's interview with Garner for BBC Television at http://www.GregPalast.com
---
See also:
BEHIND THE MILITARY REVOLT (16 April 2006)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041606C.shtml
The calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951. In that epic drama, Truman was unquestionably correct - MacArthur, the commanding general in Korea and a towering World War II hero, publicly challenged Truman's authority and had to be removed. Most Americans rightly revere the principle that was at stake: civilian control over the military. But this situation is quite different. First, it is clear that the retired generals - six so far, with more likely to come - surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside. CLIP
Rumsfeld May Be Permanently Tainted by War in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041706R.shtml
Rumsfeld's ability to achieve his broader goals at the Pentagon will be compromised by the damage Iraq has done to his reputation, according to Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, and other military experts.
Arrogance
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041706H.shtml
American Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's "paw prints are all over everything that's gone wrong with the war in Iraq: in the congenital lying that characterized the triggering of hostilities, in the major strategic errors like the dissolution of the Iraqi Army after the seizure of Baghdad, in the absence of a credible post-war plan, in the humiliations and tortures at Abu Ghraib ..." argues Libération's Pierre Haski.
3.
From: "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
Subject: Trailer for Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'
Date: 19 Apr 2006
From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/17/AR2006041701259.html
A Campaign Gore Can't Lose
By Richard Cohen - Washington Post
April 18, 2006
Boring Al Gore has made a movie. It is on the most boring of all subjects -- global warming. It is more than 80 minutes long, and the first two or three go by slowly enough that you can notice that Gore has gained weight and that his speech still seems oddly out of sync. But a moment later, I promise, you will be captivated, and then riveted and then scared out of your wits. Our Earth is going to hell in a handbasket.
THIS IS THE TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUiP6dqPynE
You will see the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see photos from space of what the ice caps looked like once and what they look like now and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn to naught. It will be underwater.
"An Inconvenient Truth" is a cinematic version of the lecture that Gore has given for years warning of the dangers of global warming. Davis Guggenheim, the director, opened it up a bit. For instance, he added some shots of Gore mulling the fate of the Earth as he is driven here or there in some city, sometimes talking about personal matters such as the death of his beloved older sister from lung cancer and the close call his son had after being hit by a car. These are all traumas that Gore had mentioned in his presidential campaign and that seemed cloying at the time. Here they seem appropriate.
The case Gore makes is worthy of sleepless nights: Our Earth is in extremis. It's not just that polar bears are drowning because they cannot reach receding ice flows or that "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" will exist someday only as a Hemingway short story -- we can all live with that. It's rather that Hurricane Katrina is not past but prologue. In the future, people will not yearn for the winters of yesteryear but for the summers. Katrina produced several hundred thousand evacuees. The flooding of Calcutta would produce many millions. We are in for an awful time.
You cannot see this film and not think of George W. Bush, the man who beat Gore in 2000. The contrast is stark. Gore -- more at ease in the lecture hall than he ever was on the stump -- summons science to tell a harrowing story and offers science as the antidote. No feat of imagination could have Bush do something similar -- even the sentences are beyond him.
But it is the thought that matters -- the application of intellect to an intellectual problem. Bush has been studiously anti-science, a man of applied ignorance who has undernourished his mind with the empty calories of comfy dogma. For instance, his insistence on abstinence as the preferred method of birth control would be laughable were it not so reckless. It is similar to Bush's initial approach to global warming and his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol -- ideology trumping science. It may be that Gore will do more good for his country and the world with this movie than Bush ever did by beating him in 2000.
Gore insists his presidential aspirations are behind him. "I think there are other ways to serve," he told me. No doubt. But on paper, he is the near-perfect Democratic candidate for 2008. Among other things, he won the popular vote in 2000. He opposed going to war in Iraq, but he supported the Persian Gulf War -- right both times. He is smart, experienced and, despite the false caricatures, a man versed in the new technologies -- especially the Internet. He is much more a person of the 21st century than most of the other potential candidates. Trouble is, a campaign is not a film. Gore could be a great president. First, though, he has to be a good candidate.
In the meantime, he is a man on a mission. Wherever he goes -- and he travels incessantly -- he finds time and an audience to deliver his (free) lecture on global warming. It and the film leave no doubt of the peril we face, nor do they leave any doubt that Gore, at last, is a man at home in his role. He is master teacher, pedagogue, know-it-all, smarter than most of us, better informed and, having tried and failed to gain the presidency, he has raised his sights to save the world. We simply cannot afford for Al Gore to lose again.
cohenr@washpost.com
---
See also:
A Scramble for Black Gold Under Retreating Ice
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041806EC.shtml
As the Arctic melts, oil companies are rushing to develop once inaccessible oil and gas deposits. Stephanie Tumore of Greenpeace said: "Haven't we learnt anything? Why are we going looking for more fossil fuels when what's happening in polar regions just proves that it is devastating and we cannot continue to do that?"
4.
From: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060424ta_talk_remnick
Also from http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041806EA.shtml
Ozone Man
By David Remnick - The New Yorker
17 April 2006
The imminence of catastrophic global warming may be a subject far from the ever-drifting mind of President Bush - whose eschatological preoccupations privilege Armageddon over the Flood - but it is of growing concern to the rest of humanity. Climate change is even having its mass-entertainment moment. "Ice Age: The Meltdown" - featuring Ellie the computer-animated mammoth and the bottomless voice of Queen Latifah - has taken in more than a hundred million dollars at the box office in two weeks. On the same theme, but with distinctly less animation, "An Inconvenient Truth," starring Al Gore (playing the role of Al Gore, itinerant lecturer), is coming to a theatre near you around Memorial Day. Log on to Fandango. Reserve some seats. Bring the family. It shouldn't be missed. No kidding.
"An Inconvenient Truth" is not likely to displace the boffo numbers of "Ice Age" in Variety's weekly grosses. It is, to be perfectly honest (and there is no way of getting around this), a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels. It has a few lapses of mise en scène. Sometimes we see Gore gravely talking on his cell phone - or gravely staring out an airplane window, or gravely tapping away on his laptop in a lonely hotel room - for a little longer than is absolutely necessary. And yet, as a means of education, "An Inconvenient Truth" is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. "An Inconvenient Truth" is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.
The catch, of course, is that the audience-of-one that most urgently needs to see the film and take it to heart - namely, the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago - does not much believe in science or, for that matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep. Inconvenient truths are precisely what this White House is structured to avoid and deny.
In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as "ozone man" and claimed, "This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we'll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American." In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush cracked that Gore "likes electric cars. He just doesn't like making electricity." The younger Bush, a classic schoolyard bully with a contempt for intellect, demanded that Gore "explain what he meant by some of the things" in his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance" - and then unashamedly admitted that he had never read it. A book that the President did eventually read and endorse is a pulp science-fiction novel: "State of Fear," by Michael Crichton. Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office. In "Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes, the Fox News commentator, reveals that the President and Crichton "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement." The visit, Barnes adds, "was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more."
As President, Bush has made fantasy a guide to policy. He has scorned the Kyoto agreement on global warming (a pact that Gore helped broker as Vice-President); he has neutered the Environmental Protection Agency; he has failed to act decisively on America's fuel-efficiency standards even as the European Union, Japan, and China have tightened theirs. He has filled his Administration with people like Philip A. Cooney, who, in 2001, left the American Petroleum Institute, the umbrella lobby for the oil industry, to become chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he repeatedly edited government documents so as to question the link between fuel emissions and climate change. In 2005, when Cooney left the White House (this time for a job with ExxonMobil), Dana Perino, a White House spokesperson, told the Times, "Phil Cooney did a great job." A heckuva job, one might say.
Last week, Gore dropped by a Broadway screening room to introduce a preview of "An Inconvenient Truth." Dressed in casual but non-earth-tone clothes, he gave a brief, friendly greeting. If you are inclined to think that the unjustly awarded election of 2000 led to one of the worst Presidencies of this or any other era, it is not easy to look at Al Gore. He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years (and of what might still happen in the coming two). Contrary to Ralph Nader's credo that there was no real difference between the major parties, it is close to inconceivable that the country and the world would not be in far better shape had Gore been allowed to assume the office that a plurality of voters wished him to have. One can imagine him as an intelligent and decent President, capable of making serious decisions and explaining them in the language of a confident adult. Imagining that alternative history is hard to bear, which is why Gore always has the courtesy, in his many speeches, and at the start of "An Inconvenient Truth," to deflect that discomfort with a joke: "Hello, I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next President of the United States."
Those inclined to be irritated by Gore all over again will not be entirely disappointed by "An Inconvenient Truth." It can be argued that at times the film becomes "Death of a Salesman," with Gore as global warming's Willy Loman, wheeling his bag down one more airport walkway. There are some awkward jokes, a silly cartoon, a few self-regarding sequences, and, now and then, echoes of the cringe-making moments in his old campaign speeches when personal tragedy was put to questionable use. (To illustrate the need to change one's mind when hard reality intrudes, he recalls helping his father farm tobacco as a youth and then his sister's death from lung cancer.) But in the context of the larger political moment, the current darkness, Gore can be forgiven his miscues and vanities. It is past time to recognize that, over a long career, his policy judgment and his moral judgment alike have been admirable and acute. Gore has been right about global warming since holding the first congressional hearing on the topic, twenty-six years ago. He was right about the role of the Internet, right about the need to reform welfare and cut the federal deficit, right about confronting Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. Since September 11th, he has been right about constitutional abuse, right about warrantless domestic spying, and right about the calamity of sanctioned torture. And in the case of Iraq, both before the invasion and after, he was right - courageously right - to distrust as fatally flawed the political and moral good faith, operational competence, and strategic wisdom of the Bush Administration.
In the 2000 campaign, Gore was cautious, self-censoring, and in the thrall of his political consultants. He was even cautious about his passion, the environment. That caution, some of his critics think, may have cost him Florida, where he was reluctant to speak out on the construction of an ecologically disastrous airport in the middle of the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. But since the election - - especially since emerging from an understandable period of reticence and rebalancing - Gore has played a noble role in public life. It's hardly to Gore's discredit that many conservative commentators have watched his emotionally charged speeches and pronounced him unhinged. ("It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again," the columnist and former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer wrote after one such oration.)
It may be that Gore really has lost his taste for electoral politics, and that, no matter what turn the polls and events take, an Al-versus-Hillary psychodrama in 2008 is not going to happen. There is no substitute for Presidential power, but Gore is now playing a unique role in public life. He is a symbol of what might have been, who insists that we focus on what likely will be an uninhabitable planet if we fail to pay attention to the folly we are committing, and take the steps necessary to end it.
5.
From: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041906EB.shtml
Scientists Condemn US as Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Hit Record Level
By Steve Connor - The Independent UK
19 April 2006
The United States emitted more greenhouse gases in 2004 than at any time in history, confirming its status as the world's biggest polluter. Latest figures on the US contribution to global warming show that its carbon emissions have risen sharply despite international concerns over climate change.
The figures, which were quietly released on Easter Monday, reveal that net greenhouse gas emissions during 2004 increased by 1.7 per cent on the previous year, equivalent to a rise of 110 million tons of carbon dioxide.
This is the biggest annual increase since 2000 and means that in 2004 - the latest year that full data is available - the US released the equivalent of nearly 6,300 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Scientists in Britain condemned the increase, saying that it showed how the US was failing to take a lead in the international attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions despite being the worst offender.
Professor David Read, the vice-president of the Royal Society, said that the US and Britain needed to take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas levels in order to honour their commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"The figures published this week show not only that the US emissions are not decreasing, but that they are actually increasing on an annual basis," Professor Read said. "And while the UK appears to be doing slightly better, its carbon dioxide emissions have been rising annually for the past three years," he said. "The US and the UK are the two leading scientific nations in the world and are home to some of the best climate researchers."
"But in terms of fulfilling the commitment made by their signature to the UN convention to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, neither country is demonstrating leadership by reducing their emissions to the levels required," Professor Read said.
The US accounts for about a quarter of the total global emissions of man-made carbon dioxide or the other gases such as methane that can exacerbate the earth's greenhouse effect, which traps sunlight and heat.
Under the UN climate change convention, America is required to publish its net contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, which takes into account pollution sources, such as cars and industry, and "sinks," such as forests.
The figures show that the total US emissions have risen by 15.8 per cent from 1990 to 2004, mainly due to increased consumption of electricity generated by burning fossil fuel, a rise in energy demands caused by increased industrial production and a rise in petrol consumption due to increased travel. Fossil fuel combustion alone accounted for 94 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the US during 2004, the figures show.
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now a third higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, and probably higher than they have been for at least 10 million years.
Scientists have suggested that if the international community is to try to stabilise carbon dioxide levels at twice pre-industrial levels then countries such as the US and Britain need to reduce emissions by about 60 per cent by the middle of this century.
Professor Read said there was mounting evidence to suggest that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions were beginning to cause serious climate effects, such as a drop in annual rainfall in east Africa because of rising water temperatures in the Indian Ocean.
"If emissions continue to rise, we can expect even more impacts across the world," Professor Read said. "The developing world will find it difficult to adapt to climate change and the industrialised countries, which are primarily responsible for the rise in greenhouse gas levels, should realise that they would also struggle to adapt to a world in which, for instance, sea levels are several metres higher," he said.
"The science justifies action now by all countries to both adapt to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
6.
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906C.shtml
Whose Spring? Our Spring!
By Ted Glick
19 April 2006
For as long as I've been an activist for progressive social change, the spring and the fall are usually the times when pre-planned, major demonstrations or campaigns happen. Summer with its heat and vacations, and winter with its cold and snow, generally are not the best times to try to mobilize large numbers of people.
Six months ago, in late fall, a mix of progressive groups began having serious discussions about whether there should and could be a major demonstration this spring. It took a couple of months, but we did come to agree that, yes, we should and we can. And as a result, on Saturday, April 29th, many tens of thousands of people, probably hundreds of thousands, will be marching for peace, justice and democracy in New York City.
This is not just another demonstration. It is happening at a time when Bush and Cheney are way down in the polls and have been for months, when the neo-conservatives most responsible for the Iraq war have been discredited, and when the Republican Party is in disarray in a way it has not been for a long, long time. War criminal Rumsfeld is on the defensive as a growing number of generals publicly call for his resignation. The indictments of Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff and Scooter Libby could well be, one hopes, only the tip of the iceberg of legal troubles for them and their ilk.
And yet, despite this sea of troubles, the Republicans are far from down and out. Down yes, but by no means out.
Think "wounded beast." Think about the damage they can do as, hurting and feeling put upon, they lash out, trying to deflect attention elsewhere - like onto Iran or Venezuela - using their sham "war on terror" to try to intimidate people who are in opposition to their destructive policies.
Of course, a primary reason why they could well mount a comeback and wreak so much more damage is the nature of the "loyal opposition," the Democratic Party. Their "opposition" is so weak that they're being made fun of by virtually all the late night TV hosts, ridiculed as the party that stands up for nothing.
This is where we come in.
It is essential, critical, that those of us who have been against the Iraq war since before it started, as well as those who have turned against it since, all those who understand that we need to turn this country around in a fundamental way - we need to speak out, stand up, and march together. As the powerful wave of the past month's immigrant rights actions have shown us, mass demonstrations do have an impact.
April 29th in New York City is the time and place where we can send a powerful message to elected officials, to the country and to the world.
More than that, April 29th in New York City is where we can make visible the developing unity of our movement for peace, justice and democracy, our commitment to continue organizing and working together past April 29th so that whoever is in office, of whatever party, knows that they have an organized, aroused and determined movement to contend with.
We cannot underestimate the importance of that message, that reality.
I've been part of many, many coalitions over the course of my years in the movement. Often, in the intensity of organizing for a major action, nerves get frayed, political differences are exacerbated and the day of the action is a welcome relief for the organizers because the coalition that organized it then disbands.
So far, that doesn't describe what's been happening as the nine organizations that are co-sponsoring April 29th work together in combination with the growing number - about 450 so far - of endorsing organizations of all types. Despite differences as far as primary constituencies and issues being worked on, whether it be labor, veterans, African-Americans, women, youth and students, environmentalists, peace activists or Katrina survivors, there has been a generally healthy and positive organizing process among the nine groups.
And the coalition is expanding. At a press conference on April 4th at Riverside Church to announce April 29th, representatives of the two major immigrant rights coalitions in NYC participated alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson, NOW President Kim Gandy, UFPJ coordinator Leslie Cagan and other leaders of the April 29th coalition, and those ties have deepened since. Coalition members actively supported and participated in the recent April 10th immigrant rights actions in New York City and around the country.
There are two weeks to go. Two weeks for people to make plans for getting to 22nd St. and Broadway in Manhattan on the morning of the 29th for a march beginning at noon, going down Broadway to Foley Square, there to participate in an all-afternoon peace and justice festival in the shadows of the federal building and federal courthouse. Two weeks to talk to friends, relatives and co-workers and bring them along. Two weeks to make a needed donation or volunteer to help by going to www.april29.org.
As the call for April 29th says, "Our message to the White House and to Congress is clear: either stand with us or stand aside! We are coming together to march, to vote, to speak out and to turn our country around!"
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Ted Glick is active with the Climate Crisis Coalition and the Independent Progressive Politics Network and is on the steering committee for April 29th.
7.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=87695
THE JUDICIAL HIJACKING OF THE 9-11 VICTIM LAWSUITS
Christopher Bollyn - American Free Press
While the media plays up the significance of the government show trial of the seemingly deranged "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui, not one 9-11 victim's lawsuit has been allowed to be heard in a trial by jury. Why have the 9-11 victims' families not been given the same right to have their cases heard in an open trial by a jury of their peers?
Ellen Mariani, who lost her husband Neil on United Air Lines (UAL) Flight 175, filed the first 9-11 wrongful death lawsuit against UAL on December 20, 2001. Interviewed on national television in May 2002 by Bill O'Reilly of FOX News, O'Reilly repeatedly questioned Mariani about why she had chosen to pursue litigation instead of accepting the government fund.
"I want justice," Mariani said. "I want accountability. Who is responsible? I want the truth."
Today, Mariani, like the other 9-11 plaintiffs, is under a legal gag order which prevents her from speaking about her on-going lawsuit. Likewise, thousands of employees of federal agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, have received secret gag orders in the mail preventing them from speaking about what they know about the events of 9-11.
After more than four years, however, Mariani's determined pursuit for the truth about 9-11 through the court system has failed to yield any answers or discovery about who is responsible for 9-11. Today, she is no closer to obtaining what she has clearly and repeatedly said she wanted from the beginning - a trial by jury.
Why have the many victims' cases like Mariani's, brought by relatives of loved ones lost on 9-11, not been heard in open trials with juries - a basic American right?
And why has the Israeli-owned airline security company involved in the shocking security lapses, which apparently enabled the attacks of 9-11, been granted complete immunity by the U.S. Congress?
All of the relatives' wrongful death lawsuits, i.e. criminal cases, against the airlines and their security companies were consolidated by the presiding judge into a negligence lawsuit, which, as a civil case, is much less likely to be argued or investigated in an open trial with a jury. All the 9-11 wrongful death and personal injury cases against either American Air Lines (AA) or United Air Lines or any of the foreign-owned airport security companies, namely Argenbright Security (British), Globe Aviation Services Corp. (Swedish), and Huntleigh USA Corp. (Israeli) have been handled by United States District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.
In the case of at least one of these security defendants, Huntleigh USA, there would seem to be a serious conflict of interest for the judge because the airline security company who is responsible for the shocking security lapses at both the Boston and Newark airports on 9-11 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an Israeli company (ICTS) headed by Israelis with clear ties to Israel's military intelligence agency, the Mossad.
Judge Hellerstein, on the other hand, has deep and long-standing Zionist connections and close family ties to the state of Israel. A Zionist is a supporter of the Jewish state of Israel.
Judge Hellerstein's wife, for example, is a former senior vice president and current treasurer of a New York-based Zionist organization called AMIT. AMIT promotes Jewish immigration to Israel and stands for Americans for Israel and Torah. AMIT's motto is "Building Israel - One Child at a Time."
Judge Hellerstein, 73, is also a long-time member of The Jewish Center of New York and a former president of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York.
This raises the obvious question about why, in the 9-11 terror case in which an Israeli security company is a key defendant and in which individuals from Israeli military intelligence are suspected of being involved, was Hellerstein chosen to preside over all 9-11 victim lawsuits - and who chose him?
Huntleigh USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of an Israeli company called International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) International N.V., a Netherlands-based aviation and transportation security firm headed by "former [Israeli] military commanding officers and veterans of government intelligence and security agencies."
Menachem Atzmon, convicted in Israel in 1996 for campaign finance fraud, and his business partner Ezra Harel, took over management of security at the Boston and Newark airports when their company, ICTS, bought Huntleigh USA in 1999.
UAL Flight 175 and AA 11, which allegedly struck the twin towers, both originated in Boston, while UAL 93, which supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania, departed from the Newark airport.
ICTS also operates the German port of Rostock on the Baltic Sea. An Israeli company linked to the Mossad runs the port operations of a major German harbor. (Why would the Mossad want to run a German port? Imagine the possibilities.)
Some victims' families brought lawsuits against Huntleigh claiming the Israeli-owned airport security firm had been grossly negligent on 9-11. While these relatives have a right to discovery and to know what Huntleigh did or did not do to protect their loved ones on 9-11, Huntleigh was granted complete congressional protection in 2002 and will not be called to account for its actions on 9-11 in any U.S. court.
On July 26, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Homeland Security Bill and slipped in a last-minute provision which provided complete corporate immunity for the three foreign-owned security companies. Likewise, the Senate voted to shield the three security companies from corporate responsibility on November 19, 2002. These congressional votes effectively prevent any legal investigation or discovery into the security failures of these foreign companies on 9-11.
Hellerstein, however, is not the only player overseeing the 9-11 litigation process who has close ties to Israel. In fact, all of the key players and law firms involved are either active Zionists or do a great deal of business representing Israeli companies and/or the state of Israel.
Kenneth R. Feinberg, for example, the special master of the federally-funded Victims' Compensation Fund, is also a deeply dedicated Zionist. Feinberg single-handedly administered the $7 billion fund that paid out U.S. taxpayer money to some 97 percent of the families who could have otherwise used the courts to sue to recover tort damages for monetary loss and pain and suffering.
Those who accepted the Feinberg administrated federal fund signed away their right to litigate against the government, the airlines or the security companies. This federally funded pay-off to the families effectively prevented the possibility for nearly every relative to obtain justice or truth through the legal process, which would have brought legal discovery of facts and events of 9-11.
The Kenneth Feinberg Group is listed as one of the top ten supporters of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies for 2004-2005. The Jerusalem Institute is an Israel-based Zionist organization that supports the building of the illegal separation wall across Palestine, for example.
The Feinberg Group also lists as its clients major insurance and re-insurance companies such as Lloyd's of London. These are the companies who stood to lose billions of dollars if 9-11 victims' lawsuits had gone forward.
Feinberg was appointed special master by then Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft, a dedicated Christian Zionist and supporter of such groups as Stand for Israel, is today working as a lobbyist for Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Israel's major military aerospace company, which hired the former U.S. Attorney General to help secure the U.S. government's approval to sell an Israeli weapons system to the South Korean Air Force.
The Israelis hired Ashcroft to improve their chances against an American-made system built by Chicago-based Boeing Co.
Ashcroft, who was born in Chicago, is the former head of the Dept. of Justice, where his Israeli-American assistant, Michael Chertoff, directed the FBI non-investigation of the events of 9-11. Ashcroft is now being paid (off) by the state of Israel to work against the interests of an American company - and the United States.
8.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
Subject: Charlie Sheen Says Media Complicit In 9/11 Cover-Up
Date: 19 Apr 2006
From: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2006/170406mediacomplicit.htm
Charlie Sheen Says Media Complicit In 9/11 Cover-Up
Response to Kimmel appearance betrays unparalleled willful ignorance
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | April 17 2006
Charlie Sheen has hit back against the predictable establishment response to his Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance by asking why they failed to address the two core issues he mentioned, the five frames of the Pentagon footage and Building 7. Sheen accuses the media of being complicit in the 9/11 cover-up.
The response to Charlie Sheen's Friday night appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live (VIDEO) again underscores the blind ignorance of the establishment media in their treatment of the 9/11 subject as well as their blatant deception in claiming Sheen has little public support.
Sheen limited his focus to just two issues, the Pentagon and Building 7.
"There are two areas," said Sheen, "Building 7 and the five frames from the Pentagon. Don't listen to me, do your own research," Sheen stated on the ABC show.
But every single hit piece has failed to adequately discuss either.
According to recent developments in the Moussaoui trial, family members were shown video of the impact of Flight 77. Why is that footage so sensitive that it has not been released publicly? Or was the footage just a repeat of the five amorphous frames that have provoked so many questions?
The National Ledger website has so relentlessly attacked Sheen that it looks like they are now doing so only to try and attract attention. Despite this, today's tirade fell flat on its face again in refusing to address the main tenets of Sheen's argument. The writer also confused Charlie Sheen with Tom Cruise, as can be seen from the screenshot below, hardly a mistake that would fill one with confidence as to their focus and journalistic credibility.
While attempting to state that Sheen is trying to come forward with a mea culpa The Ledger can't even keep straight that its Sheen not Tom Cruise who is brave enough to ask questions about 9/11.
Furthermore, The Ledger cites the cockpit recordings of Flight 93 as evidence to debunk Sheen's claims. For a start Sheen has not even discussed Flight 93 or used it to illustrate his argument. Secondly, the Flight 93 cockpit recordings, assuming they are genuine, contradict the official contention that the 'let's roll' heroes bravely crashed the plane, preventing it from finding a higher profile target.
This completely contradicts a speech made by President Bush on May 8 2002.
"I think the most telling event on September 11th, and one that I hope a lot of people remember, is what happened on Flight 93. Basically, what Im saying is, its important to serve something greater than yourself in life. Its important to serve a call greater than yourself and a cause greater than yourself. Flight 93, we had average citizens flying across the country, and they realized their plane was fixing to be used as a weapon on the Nations Capital. They called their loved ones on the phone. They said a prayer and told them they loved them, said a prayer, and they drove the plane in the ground to serve something greater than themselves. Thats the American spirit I know. Thats that sense of sacrifice that makes this country so strong."
If you believe the Flight 93 transcripts the only people who drove the plane into the ground were the hijackers.
The Ledger tries to slam Sheen, stating:
"No one cares if Charlie Sheen has questions."
"But when you make outrageous claims with nothing more than propaganda to back up said claims - expect to be attacked. Other people get to speak as well - and Sheen needs to understand that."
"Sheen is allowed to have his questions - and folks in the media are allowed to challenge him and indeed label him a tin foil hat wearing "Hollywood nut."
He brought nothing serious to the table to debate.
Quite to the contrary, Sheen asserted only (as he has ever done) that he has questions about things that "don't make sense," and wants to see more attention given to these questions that many people share. His statements during the Jimmy Kimmel interview were not a mea culpa, but a hardline stance reclaiming his right as an American citizen to question authority.
Despite what many might have you believe about Sheen, the people are with him.
Charlie Sheen personally gave his response to Jim Roberts' Ledger piece.
"Hey Jim - Why did you so carefully yet obviously OMIT my two specific focal points, Building 7 and the 5 frames from the Pentagon, in your story, despite numerous quotes from the Kimmel piece interwoven throughout?"
"Like so many others, chances are you took a look for yourself and realized the evidence is far too credible. I'm all for an honest debate. However, manipulating or distorting such irrefutable data prevents anything of the sort from occurring. There is nothing "tiny" about this movement. Do a little more research before you spew forth such blatant inaccuracies."
"It's actually inspiring to witness this level of media arrogance and complicity - it so clearly illustrates a radical and baseline climate of fear. Fear perhaps, of the TRUTH... I wish you well in your travels."
We will wait and see if The Ledger even publishes Sheen's rebuttal, something the Guardian refused to do.
The most egregious of the spin appears on Slashfilm where the site states that, "The public attacked Sheen after asking questions about 9/11 on a national radio show. The general viewpoint being that he was just an actor, what right does he have to make such accusations."
While Sheen does indicate that he was attacked for his comments during the interview, it was in fact the media that attacked his brave stance and not the public. The public's outcry, as measured by several polls conducted by CNN and others, had been very much in favor of Sheen and his willingness to put his career on the line and speak truth to power. Even during the interview on the Jimmy Kimmel Live program, the crowd responded with a powerful and sustained round of applause when Sheen again raised his questions about 9/11.
In an article recently published by Scripps-Howard News Service, Journalist Betsy Hart notes the incredible response she first received when covering the Sheen 9/11 story, "I started getting inundated with e-mails. They implored or demanded that I consider Sheen's "evidence" of a government conspiracy."
This is a cheap attempt to skew the incredible, positive response from people all over the country who viewed Sheen's statements on 9/11 as a courageous and important act.
Far from becoming a shrinking violet, Charlie Sheen has now gone one step further in his defiant stance on 9/11. After the media failed to respond to his invitation to challenge him on the facts, he is now pointing a finger at the media for collaborating in the cover-up of 9/11.
"The mainstream media's blatant attempt to suffocate and censor my specific points of interest i.e. Building 7 and the five frames from the Pentagon, illustrates their transparent and desperate role as accomplices to the 9/11 cover up," Sheen told Alex Jones.
Proof of this censorship has again come from Google's quarters, following their refusal to index any articles concerning Sheen's appearance on The Alex Jones Show, a policy that was later reversed, we have again run into a black hole in terms of Google's failure to index Infowars or Prison Planet articles concerning Sheen's appearance on Kimmel (listing only a temporary cache of our main index pages).
Will Google continue to impose a blackout or, as in other cases, will they relent under pressure?
Will the mainstream attack dogs continue to whimper like poodles or will they actually engage Sheen in a real debate?
---
See also:
Many more related items on Charlie Sheen at http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/sheen/index.htm
9.
From: http://rense.com/general70/demol.htm
Bush Defector To Demolish 911 Lies On May 6
4-18-6
The former top economist in Bush's Department of Labor, Morgan Reynolds, will speak out on the 9/11 inside job at the State Historical Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison on Saturday, May 6th. The film Loose Change will be shown, and refreshments served, starting at 1 p.m, and Reynolds will speak at 3:00 p.m.
Dr. Reynolds, who holds three U.W.-Madison degrees, and who is currently Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, will present evidence that top Bush Administration officials orchestrated the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, and the murder of almost 2,500 Americans, as a pretext for initiating their pre-planned "long war" in the Middle East.
"While more Americans doubt the 9/11 story every week, evidence abounds that many have a mental block against rational examination of the evidence about 9/11" writes Dr. Reynolds in a recent article. This mental block, he thinks, amounts to willful ignorance-not just about 9/11, but about history.
"Governments throughout history have provoked or staged attacks on their own people to serve the powers behind the throne ('the money power'), glorify themselves, engage in vast government spending, reward friends, exert domestic control, stimulate the juices of war, annex neighbors and pursue vast geostrategic rearrangements (the 'global domination project)" Reynolds asserts. He notes that every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on the "Operation Northwoods" plan to murder Americans in fake "Cuban terrorist" attacks in 1962. The planned Operation Northwoods murders of ordinary Americans in fake terrorist bombings and a fake "airliner shoot-down" would have involved hundreds of military and intelligence personnel. Yet the existence of Operation Northwoods was successfully kept secret from the American people for forty years until James Bamford revealed it in his book Body of Secrets, published in January 2002.
Though government officials have historically been able to successfully conceal their fake or arranged war-trigger attacks long enough to avoid being hanged for treason, Reynolds thinks the 9/11 cover-up has already unraveled. "Skepticism about conspiracy, small or large, is somewhat beside the point in the case of 9/11 because the official Osama-and-Nineteen-Young-Arabs (ONYA) conspiracy tale is so farcical and impossible. Nearly everyone in America has easy access to the internet and hundreds of websites expose the 9/11 fraud." (Morgan Reynolds, "Conspiracy and Closed Minds on 9/11": http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911 )
Reynolds argues that the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 were destroyed in a manner that can only be explained by controlled demolition with pre-planted explosives-which should not be surprising, since no steel framed high-rises have ever collapsed in the way the three World Trade Center buildings did for any other reason. In his article "Why Did the World Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?" Reynolds writes that among the many features of the WTC demolitions that suggest explosives, rather than jet-fuel fires, are:
1. Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse except for the three buildings on 9/11, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9/11.
2. The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were small.
3. WTC-7 was unharmed by an airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.
4. WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams (pp. 68-9).
5. In a PBS documentary, Larry Silverstein, the WTC lease-holder, recalled talking to the fire department commander on 9/11 about WTC-7 and said, ".maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it," slang for demolish it.
6. FEMA, given the uninviting task of explaining the collapse of Building 7 with mention of demolition verboten admitted that the best it could come up with had "only a low probability of occurrence."
7. It's difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel (kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.
Professional demolition, by contrast, can explain all of these facts and more. Demolition means placing explosives throughout a building, and detonating them in sequence to weaken "the structure so it collapses or folds in upon itself". In conventional demolitions gravity does most of the work, although it probably did a minority on
9/11, so heavily were the towers honeycombed with explosives.
1. Each WTC building collapse occurred at virtually free-fall speed (approximately 10 seconds or less).
2. Each building collapsed, for the most part, into its own footprint.
3. Virtually all the concrete (an estimated 100,000 tons in each tower) on every floor was pulverized into a very fine dust, a phenomenon that requires enormous energy and could not be caused by gravity alone (".workers can't even find concrete. 'It's all dust,' [the official] said").
4. Dust exploded horizontally for a couple hundred feet, as did debris, at the beginning of each tower's collapse.
5. Collapses were total, leaving none of the massive core columns sticking up hundreds of feet into the air.
6. Salvage experts were amazed at how small the debris stacks were.
7. The steel beams and columns came down in sections under 30 feet long and had no signs of "softening"; there was little left but shorn sections of steel and a few bits of concrete.
8. Photos and videos of the collapses all show "demolition waves," meaning "confluent rows of small explosions" along floors (blast sequences).
9. According to many witnesses, explosions occurred within the buildings.
10. Each collapse had detectable seismic vibrations suggestive of underground explosions, similar to the 2.3 earthquake magnitude from a demolition like the Seattle Kingdome (p. 108).
11. Each collapse produced molten steel identical to that generated by explosives, resulting in "hot spots" that persisted for months (the two hottest spots at WTC-2 and WTC-7 were approximately 1,350o F five days after being continuously flooded with water, a temperature high enough to melt aluminum (p. 70). ("Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?" by Morgan Reynolds: http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911 )
The apparent demolition of the three skyscrapers, and a perhaps inadvertent statement by heavily-insured WTC landlord Larry Silverstein that WTC-7 was "pulled" (slang for "demolished") can be viewed on many 9/11 truth DVDs and web-videos, including Loose Change, 9/11 Eyewitness, 9/11 and the American Empire, (Dr. David Griffin), and 9/11 Revisited (Dr. Steven Jones). Dr. Reynolds' articles on 9/11 and other matters can be found at http://nomoregames.net .
The videos, and further information about Dr. Reynolds' May 6th speech, are available from the event's sponsor, the Madison-based Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com
10.
Date: 19 Apr 2006
From: Rudolf Schneider res@ipsgeneva.com>
Subject: Iran was not ordered to Stop Enrichment
From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12757.htm
Iran was not ordered to Stop Enrichment
By Mike Whitney
04/16/06 "ICH" -- -- Its easy to get confused about developments in Iran because the media does everything in its power to obfuscate the facts and then spin the details in way that advances American policy objectives. But, lets be clear; the Security Council did NOT order Iran to stop enriching uranium. It may not even be in their power to do so since enrichment is guaranteed under the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty). For the Security Council to forbid Iran to continue with enrichment activities would be tantamount to repealing the treaty itself. They didnt do that.
What they did was request that Iran suspend enrichment activities so that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) could further prove that Irans nuclear programs were entirely for peaceful purposes.
Iran, of course, did the only thing they could do; they graciously declined. After all, Iran followed every minute step that the Bush administration took in the long march to war with Iraq, so it is only natural that they would choose to take a different path. Why would they invite more intrusive inspections allowing the UN to ferret through every inch of Iranian territory in an attempt to uncover every armory, radar station, and missile site before the inevitable US bombing? Why would they endure the humiliation of being singled out and scorned for complying with the NPT when nuclear cheaters like India are rewarded with praise and offered banned nuclear technology by Washington?
No thanks.
The Security Council is looking for a peaceful way out of the standoff, so they are bending as much as possible, but, make no mistake, there will be no sanctions, no Chapter 7 resolutions, and no outright ban on Iran enriching uranium.
It wont happen.
In fact, as nuclear scientist Gordon Prather reports, the Security Council actually confirmed Irans right to enrich uranium in a terse Presidential Statement which they issued after two weeks of deliberation:
"The Security Council reaffirms its commitment to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and recalls the right of States Party, in conformity with articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.
Should we be surprised that not one newspaper in the western press printed this astonishing vindication of Irans conduct under the terms of the NPT?
The media routinely characterizes Irans behavior as defiance, as if anyone who stands in the way of American foreign policy is inherently evil. In fact, there is an important principle involved in Irans response that is never adequately explored. The right to enrich uranium is the central tenet of the NPT. That is why in the language of the treaty, it is referred to as an inalienable right. This point is oftentimes overlooked but it is crucial to understanding the true spirit of the treaty. Every nation is entitled to the full benefits of nuclear technology as long as they comply with inspections that ensure their programs are strictly being used for peaceful purposes.
Theres no way to strip enrichment out of the NPT and still have a treaty that means anything. . Without the prospect of enrichment, there is no incentive for countries to join the NPT. The signatory would simply be accepting an apartheid system which rewards nuclear states without any practical benefits for the non-nuclear members. It is the right to utilize nuclear technology without developing nuclear weapons that makes the treaty attractive.
For the United States to say that they want Iran to forgo enrichment is the same as saying they want to unilaterally repeal the treaty.
For Iran, this is totally unacceptable. It is the equivalent of buying a car from a dealership only to discover that the steering wheel, engine, and transmission have been removed.
Iran has fully complied with the most rigorously monitored inspections in the history of the IAEA. They have willingly submitted to additional protocols negotiated with the EU-3 (Germany, France and England) as a way of allaying concerns about noncompliance and to build confidence among the members of the international community. Their eagerness to negotiate in good faith was intentionally subverted by the Bush administration which has stubbornly refused to provide any of the security guarantees that Iran sought in exchange for sacrificing its rights. Iran wants a non-aggression pact from the Bush administration, something that Washington is unprepared to offer.
At no point, have the inspections produced any evidence that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons or diverting nuclear material from its use in peaceful technology. This hasnt stopped the administration from pursuing an aggressive media strategy to feed public hysteria.
Will it work?
Irans struggle represents a fundamental clash between the rights of individual sovereign states and an increasingly mettlesome superpower. No one disputes that the NPT allows its members to enrich uranium. The dispute is whether or not the United States can arbitrarily overturn international law and rescind a treaty for a nation it simply dislikes.
Treaties are the foundation blocks upon which the international order rests; without them we are doomed to an endless cycle of bloody conflicts. Irans demand that its rights be respected is in fact a defense of the basic principle which underscores civilization itself; that even the weakest among us can take refuge in the law. The Mullahs are right to think that that is a principle worth fighting for.
---
See also:
Keepers at the Gate - He Who Controls Television Controls the Masses (12/07/05)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11242.htm
(...) In todays day and age, those who control television are corporations and the fledgling corporatists now in possession of government. The rise of fascism in America has also given rise to the mutually beneficial interests of both government and corporations, making the use and control of television of utmost importance to the ruling elite. With government and business fusing together, the resources of both entities can join forces to achieve the desired regimen of thought control, thereby having a greater impact in controlling more of the population, for longer periods of time, and in greater capacity, both by mass manipulation and by offering exactly what the human/animal brain wants most, distraction. Thus, mass media serves a paramount importance in the rise of corporatism, using all tools at its disposal to condition, manipulate, indoctrinate, distract and transform the masses, steering the population in the direction both government and business wants us to head in, creating massive armies of drones marching lock step in service of, and controlled by, the corporatist few.With Americans watching so much television on a weekly basis, discarding books of enlightenment for monitors of idiocy, preferring the drug of fantasy over the sobering realm of reality, no longer capable of analytical, logical thought, choosing to incorporate as their own the views, beliefs and opinions of corporate media, the keepers at the gate are free to do as they please, disseminating lies, distortions, manipulations, propaganda and fictions into our homes and the minds of our family, young and old, never discriminating and always flowing in the interest of the Establishment. From birth they have us hooked with their highly addicting programming, from cartoons to sitcoms to movies to sports to newscasts to niche channels, using our animal emotions and passions to intravenously feed us their vast array of products and opinions and services and trends and beliefs. From birth the manipulation of brainwaves begins, altering development, robbing innocence, supplanting free thought with manipulated ideas tested in marketing laboratories, making consumers and producers of us and enslaving our biological and psychological needs to those outcomes that offer them the greatest revenue, profit and rise to power. CLIP
Controlling the Bomb
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3175
The United States is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons. This is only the most recent of its seemingly endless series of battles over the past 60 years to control which other countries have access to these weapons. In this time it has failed to understand that as a nuclear-armed superpower it is as much part of the problem as part of the solution. As the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca explained almost 2000 years ago, "Power over life and deathdon't be proud of it. Whatever they fear from you, you'll be threatened with." Non-proliferation by cooperation and consent cannot succeed as long as the United States is insistent on retaining and improving its nuclear arsenal and allowing its allies to have these weapons. By what argument can others be persuaded to give up, or not acquire, nuclear weapons? The only hope lies in a mutual recognition that all nuclear weapons are created equally evil, and there should be no room in our world for such weapons of mass destruction. CLIP
Physicist says heat substance felled WTC (April 10 , 2006)
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635198488,00.html
A Brigham Young University physicist said he now believes an incendiary substance called thermite, bolstered by sulfur, was used to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center on 9/11, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse. "It looks like thermite with sulfur added," Steven Jones, professor of physics at BYU, told a meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. CLIP
Many comments posted at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12757.htm the bottom are worth reviewing including those 2:
If enough Americans become conscious to the inhumanity of our leaders and join a non-violent movement comprised of the poor, the working class, the middle class, minorities, intellectuals, those in the government who are not a part of the corruption, and artists, sheer numbers of people demanding change could overwhelm the ruling plutocracy, who are clearly a numerical minority.
The vast majority of American citizens have their world view shaped by the corporate news media. Can there by any doubt why the public mind is so distortedso disconnected from reality?
More totalitarian nations control the masses through the use of brute force. We are seeing more and more of that in the cities of our America, as witnessed in the streets of New Orleans recently. However, in comparatively free societies propaganda is the weapon of choice; and it is no less intimidating and effective than brute force.
No one is more effectively enslaved by the power brokers in government than those who wear the chains of servitude but think they are free. Unfortunately, the average American has no conception of how effectively their perceptions are shaped and manipulated by the media propaganda they unwittingly feed into their unsuspecting minds.
The major television networks will determine how most Americans view of the event will be shaped. This is what interested me--how coverage of the event would be presented to the world. The manipulation of images and information is frequently subtle but its effect on the public mind is often profound.
Indeed, so superb are the propagandists who control the flow of information in America that the average American enthusiastically supports polices that are detrimental to him witness families that espouse political and fiscal conservatism supporting huge tax cuts for the wealthy, rampant corporate welfare, and the writing of blank checks for endless war waged against the worlds working poorand they are themselves the cannon fodder for those wars. We are witnessing a bizarre psychic phenomenon that is the physical and spiritual equivalent of mass hypnosis. We seem almost incapable of waking ourselves up; or looking away from the shining pendant that swings before our glazed, vacuous eyes. Better not drink the kool aid.
Many Americans are overcoming the lies they have been "programmed" to believe since they were able to fashion conscious, coherent thoughts.
Perhaps the old Islamic divisions are what the US government is relying on to enable it to continue to rule the Middle East. Muslims might consume themselves in their internal hatreds while the US builds its bases to control the oil and the world.
Walter
---
In 1944, U.S., British and "Free French" troops "liberated" Paris from its German occupiers. The French did not want the Germans to be there, and by the time the Third Reich forces had pulled out, most of the Germans did not want to be there, either. However, U.S. forces did not remain in France (at least in large, formalized bases, as was the case elsewhere in Europe), and to this day, many survivors of the German occupation have at least some appreciation toward U.S. troops. People in lands that U.S. troops have occupied since the end of World War II 60 years ago, however, do not have the same gratitude towards Americans, and it is no mystery why this is so.
Contrast the French example with the escapades of U.S. forces elsewhere, beginning with the Philippine insurgency in the early 1900s. Our "distorians" tell us that the USA "liberated" the Philippines from Spain in 1898; Filipinos see things quite differently. We are the people who drove out a set of occupiers and became the new occupiers, and to this day, the U.S. Government meddles in Filipino affairs.
In 1950, U.S. forces "liberated" what is now South Korea from the North Korean communists. However, whatever appreciation the South Koreans might have had for and good will towards the Americans is long gone as the USA continues to keep troops and weapons in the country, ready to renew the conflict, if need be. (However, neoconservative pundits such as Ann Coulter and William Kristol have another "solution" to the Korea problem: just nuke North Korea and be done with it.)
Middle Easterners have long had the reputation of hating occupiers, even though they rarely have had success when organized into standing armies. The exploits of T.E. Lawrence in World War I were seen as astonishing because no one believed someone could organize the Arabs in a way that would result in driving out the Turkish occupiers. Thus, when U.S. forces easily crushed the standing Iraqi army twice in less than 15 years, people mistakenly believed that any military operations in that region would be a cakewalk. But just as insurgents drove the Americans out of Lebanon in 1984, the rebels in Iraq will do the same to the U.S. forces. This is inevitable.
No, we have "lost" Iraq because we never could "win" there in the first place. The political classes might be able to shape the rhetoric of war, but they cannot spin its reality, and reality is here to greet us in all its horror and madness and death.
The problem is not just that our army fights imperialist wars, but that virtually all of us are in some way implicated in that imperialist system.
So we have been warned, yet again. Terrorism is the logical consequence of American and British "foreign policy" whose infinitely greater terrorism we need to recognize, and debate, as a matter of urgency.
Anna
11.
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041806J.shtml
The Ongoing War on Truth in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail - t r u t h o u t | Perspective
18 April 2006
The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a disaster.
-- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), The Sunday Times, August 1920
On Monday, April 17, my sources in Baghdad reported fierce fighting in the al-Adhamiya neighborhood of the capital city, as well as fighting in the al-Dora neighborhood. One source, who lives in the predominantly Sunni area of Adhamiya, had been telling me the situation was disintegrating for days leading up to this. There had been clashes every day for four days leading up to yesterday's huge clash there, with sporadic fighting between Sunni resistance fighters and members of the two largest Shia militias. The armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Badr Organization, and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army have been launching ongoing attacks against fighters in the neighborhood. There is a shorter version of this description.
Civil war.
Yet we don't hear it described as such in the corporate media, nor from the Cheney administration. Their propaganda insists that Iraq is not yet in a civil war.
But in Adhamiya, every night now for several weeks roads have been closed with tires, trunks of date palm trees and other objects to prevent "kidnappers and Shia death squads" from entering the area, according to one source, whom I'm keeping anonymous for security reasons.
His description of the fierce fighting in his neighborhood is quite different from the reporting of it in mainstream outlets.
"Sunday night at 12:30 a.m. clashes started just like on the four previous nights, but it was very heavy and from different directions. It was different from the other nights in quantity and quality; it was truly like the hell which I haven't seen even in the battles of the war between Iraq and Iran during the eighties," wrote my source. He added that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were used, and so much ammunition that the sky was "glowing red." The situation went on until Monday morning. He said, "I usually have my cup of coffee in my small backyard to drink it in a good atmosphere, but the minute I opened the door someone from the interior ministry commandos shouted at me, telling me to get inside or he'd shoot me. Of course I stayed inside and the shooting continued in a very heavy way until 12:30 p.m., when the American forces came to start helping the militia's attack on al-Adhamiya after they were watching the scene from their helicopters."
He went on to state very clearly that "these were members of the Badr militia and Sadr's Mehdi Army who were raiding the neighborhood."
Another witness at the scene wrote, "Men in police uniforms attacked the neighbourhood. The Ministry of Interior claimed the uniformed men don't belong to the puppet [Iraqi government] forces, but local residents are quite sure they are special-forces from the Ministry of Interior, probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile phone network was disconnected until 10:45 p.m. Electricity was cut off from 10 a.m. on."
Meanwhile, Reuters obediently parroted the US military by reporting that "Insurgents mount bold attack in Baghdad," and saying, "About 50 insurgents mounted a brazen attack on Iraqi forces in Baghdad on Monday, prompting U.S. troops to provide support in a battle that lasted seven hours, a U.S. military spokesman said. The guerrillas attacked Iraqi forces in the mostly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad overnight. Five rebels were killed and one member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no U.S. casualties, said the spokesman."
While this press report quoted an Iraqi police official as saying, "Adhamiya residents have taken up arms to prevent the Shi'ite militia from entering," and "Adhamiya residents said Shi'ite militiamen accompanied the Iraqi forces," it added that this could not be confirmed.
An Iraqi in Adhamiya confirmed this immediately after the clashes ended by writing, "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood, the National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin against the attacking forces to protect Al-Adhamiya. Several residents have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures available. US troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they only stood by and watched; later on they, too, fired at the locals, who tried to repel the attacks. Later in the day, rumours circulated that another fierce attack of Al-Adhamiya is planned on Wednesday, but ... couldn't confirm this information."
Other news outlets directly contradict the aforementioned statement by the US military spokesman, when one reported that "gunmen clashed with residents in Baghdad's Aadhamiya district."
Of course, the military spokesman also failed to mention that on the same day, "Four gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque killing a guard in the Adhamiya district of the capital."
Instead, we hear reporting that "[US] Army officials said they had suffered no casualties, and plan to raid homes in search for the gunmen."
Disturbingly, this obvious US-backed Shia militia invasion of a Sunni neighborhood may well be a prelude to what the US military is calling a "second liberation of Baghdad" which they will carry out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed.
The Sunday Times reports that US commanders both in Iraq and at an army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, are planning a "carrot-and-stick" approach by offering suffering populations "protection" from sectarian violence in exchange for "rooting out insurgent groups or Al-Qaeda."
Sound like mafia tactics to you?
The article states that "Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops. Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6 "Little Birds" ... are likely to complement the ground attack."
This is disturbingly similar to what just occurred in al-Adhamiya.
Another glaring example of the Cheney administration/US military's ongoing war on truth in Iraq is the open wound which is Fallujah.
Heavy-handed assaults by the US military continue in Fallujah, where as recently as this Monday three Iraqi civilians were killed, along with 10 wounded in the Jebail district of the city. Of the 10 wounded, three were women and two were children. According to Mustafa Karim, with an Iraqi security force in the city, "US forces fired on houses in the district following confrontations with armed groups in the vicinity." Karim added that residents of Fallujah have been demanding an easing of the tight security procedures imposed by Iraqi and US armed forces on the region since November 2004, which have obstructed the passage of civilians into and out of the region, and "Fallujah has been recently witnessing a renewed escalation of armed confrontations between US forces and armed Iraqi groups."
In fact, fierce fighting in Fallujah has been ongoing since just a few months after the November 2004 US attack, which destroyed most buildings and homes in the city of 350,000 people.
But the US military doesn't want people to see that American soldiers are dying there on nearly a daily basis as of late. Rather than calling it Fallujah when soldiers die there, they prefer a sort of Bermuda Triangle approach and use "Al-Anbar Province" for the location of these deaths.
Let's have a brief glance at some soldiers killed recently in "Al-Anbar Province":
* April 17, Department of Defense (DOD) announced (hyperlink 'announced' with http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12834.html) the death of a Marine who "died April 14 from a non-hostile motor vehicle accident in Al-Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 16, CENTCOM announced: "Camp Fallujah, Iraq - A Marine ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 15."
* April 16, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - Multi-National Forces (MNF) Iraq announced: "Three Marines ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 15."
* April 15, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced: "Two Marines died and 22 were wounded due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 13 ... Ten wounded Marines ... were evacuated to a medical facility at Camp Fallujah."
* April 15, DOD announced: "four Marines died April 15 when their HMMWV struck an improvised explosive device during combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 11, DOD announced: "Lance Cpl. Juana NavarroArellano, 24 ... died April 8 from wounds received while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced: "A soldier ... died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 8."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced: "Two soldiers ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 9."
* April 8, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced: "A Marine ... died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar Province April 7."
Note the clue that several of these are issued from "Camp Fallujah, Iraq."
This is hardly a complete list of US soldiers killed in Fallujah, and some of the aforementioned may not have actually been killed inside that city. However, military announcements of the deaths of soldiers in other places mention the name of specific cities, whether they occur in Samarra or Tal Afar or elsewhere.
Obviously the US military is being intentionally vague when it comes to their admittance of losing American soldiers within the city limits of Fallujah. An email I received Monday from one of my sources in Fallujah sheds much light as to why this is the case, not only in Fallujah, but throughout Iraq.
"Resistance [in Fallujah] is very active and all the destruction to the city by American soldiers did not succeed to stop them. You know the city was totally destroyed in the November attack and is still surrounded and closed for anyone other than citizens of the city. What is going on now is that the Americans are trying to conceal their failure here by not letting anybody in. There were at least five explosions today and more than one clash between resistance fighters and US soldiers. So all the military procedures, together with the thousands of casualties, were in vain. In short, the American Army seems to be losing control in this country and God knows what they will do in revenge. I expect the worst to come."
---
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006. He writes regularly for TruthOut, Inter Press Service, Asia Times and TomDispatch, and maintains his own web site, dahrjamailiraq.com.
---
See also:
US Knew Shiite Militias Were a Threat but Took No Action
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041806N.shtml
US officials were warned for more than two years that Shiite Muslim militias were infiltrating Iraq's security forces and taking control of neighborhoods, but they failed to take action to counteract it, Iraqi and American officials said.
On the Ground, It's a Civil War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041706P.shtml
The debate over what to call Iraq's war is lost on many Iraqis as Shiite militias and Sunni groups wage their deadly conflict.
12.
From: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/17/iraq_war_round_two.php
Iraq War, Round Two
Robert Dreyfuss
April 17, 2006
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com
Missing from the discussion over Iraq in the United States is the growing likelihood that the Bush administration will escalate, not de-escalate, the war. If they do, their goal will be to employ another round of shock and awenamely, massive U.S. military air and groundin a desperate effort to tip the balance in Iraq in Americas favor in advance of the 2006 elections. The failed war in Iraq is overwhelmingly the key factor driving down poll numbers for the president, vice president and the Republican Party in general.
Its by no means clear that Democrats will capture either or both houses of Congress in November, but if they do it will open the floodgates for a never-ending series of partisan investigations by congressional committees, not only into Iraq but the myriad other scandals plaguing the administration. Thats a terrifying prospect for the Bush-Cheney team, and one they cannot allow at any cost.
The so-called doves in the Bush administrationwho sometimes like to call themselves realistshave apparently settled on the idea of a slow drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq, combined with the stepped-up effort to cobble together a shaky government of national unity in Iraq that could take the lead in fighting the Sunni-led resistance. The idea behind that strategy is to convince American voters in advance of November, 2006, that Iraq is stabilizing, that the war is being won and that American troops are coming home. The fact that American troops will probably be in Iraq for a decade at least, if not far longer, is an ugly reality that the administrations doves hope will dawn on Americans after the election.
The same goes for the fact that Iraq is already engulfed in a civil war that no national unity regime can put an end toparticularly a regime made up of the same gaggle of exile leaders and warlords who, in succession, led the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003, the interim and transitional governments of 2004-2005 and the so-called permanent government of 2006.
Problem is, the Bush administrations hawks have a different idea, and there is no reason to think that they are not in control. As in 2003, the hawks are led by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the staffs of the office of the secretary of defense and the office of the vice president. And, as in 2003, President George W. Bushstubborn to the point of being pig-headed and obsessed with the goal of winning the Global War on Terroris likely to go along, no matter how strong the opposition from the realists. In 2003, the war in Iraq was opposed by virtually the entire professional class at the State Department, the CIA and the U.S. military, yet Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld launched their illegal, unilateral war anyway.
Against a backdrop of editorials from the Weekly Standard, the National Review, The Wall Street Journal and Commentary, along with predictable emanations from such thinktanks as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation all calling for the Bush to resist calls to reverse course in Iraq, there are at least two recent calls for a sweeping new U.S. offensive in Iraq to complete the objectives of the invasion of 2003.
The first comes from AEIs Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing in The Wall Street Journal on April 3. Gerecht, a former CIA officer who in 2003 was among the strongest advocates for the shock-and-awe notion that force is the only language that Middle Easterners can understand, suggested in a lengthy opinion piece that U.S. tactics in 2006 must become far more bloody-minded than they have been so farincluding a sweeping effort to retake the Iraqi capital. Gerecht wrote:
"The Bush administration would be wise not to postpone any longer what it should have already undertakensecuring Baghdad. Pacifying Baghdad will be politically convulsive and provide horrific film footage and skyrocketing body counts. But Iraq cannot heal itself so long as Baghdad remains a deadly place."
If anything, Gerecht understates the mayhem that a U.S. offensive to re-conquer Baghdad would involve, including house-to-house street fighting in both Sunni strongholds and in the Shiite slums of eastern Baghdad controlled now by the gangs of the Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr.
On April 16, the Times of London elevated Gerechts April 3 prescription to a major U.S. policy option, in an article entitled: U.S. Plots New Liberation of Baghdad. Said the Times:
"The American military is planning a second liberation of Baghdad to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed. Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing for a significant withdrawal of American troops. Strategic and tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant-General David Petraeus.
Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops."
The Times report rings true. It signifies that Bush and Cheney are planning one last, all-out effort to crush Iraqs civil war, break all resistance to U.S. dominance in Baghdad, and impose the peace of the dead on central Iraq. Initially, it might take more (not less) U.S. troops, but in recent months the Pentagon has stated officially that a significant increase in American troops levels in Iraq is not out of the question if the situation warrants it. That it not to say that such a U.S. offensive would be successful. The 2006 Second War in Iraq would not be any easier than the 2003 First War in Iraq. But it does seem congruent with the Bush administrations dominant notion that Americans will support the war if and only if they see that the administration has a clear plan to win it.
The latest breakdown in Iraqi government negotiations, announced on Sunday, forced yet another postponement of plans to convene Iraqs parliament. So far, more than four months after the December 15, 2005, elections, the parliament has met for a total of 30 minutes and there is no government. More and more observers say that Iraq has tumbled into outright civil war.
The definition of civil war is that the people (of a country) are fighting each other, said Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal of Saudi Arabia. I don't know what we can call (what is happening) in Iraq except a civil war. According to Egypts President Husni Mubarak, who impolitely noted that many Arab Shiites are loyal to Persian Iran, civil war has already begun. Its not on the threshold of civil war, he said. Its pretty much started. That, too, is the assessment of many Iraqis, including the CIAs own Iyad Allawi, the secular Shiite who commands an important swing bloc in Iraqs parliament-to-be. And a recent internal staff report by the U.S. embassy in Iraq, leaked to the New York Times, noted that only three of Iraqs 18 provinces might be called stable.
On the ground in Iraq, there is only ethnic cleansing, political assassinations, rule by militias and paramilitary forces, terrorism and torture-murders overseen by rogue elements of the Interior Ministry. Even if a prime minister were named, Iraq still needs a president, a Cabinet, an army, a revamped ministry of interior, a reliable police force and then a new constitution stripped of the divisive provisions stuffed into the October 2005 version. And none of that is likely to staunch the growing Sunni insurgency, which has resumed killing Americans on patrol at a steady pace.
For that reason, a new round of U.S. shock-and-awe in the Second War in Iraq must look awfully tempting to the Bush administration. It might even win the plaudits of many of the generals whove started calling for Rumsfelds head. Some of them, such as Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, say that the war itself was a tragic mistake, wrong from the beginning and pushed by zealots. But many of them, including some of those most favored by the Democratic Partys hawks, differ only on tactics. This latter group insists only that the war was launched with too few troops. Sadly, the Bush administration may be taking that pernicious advice to heart.
13.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
Subject: Nazi CIA Doctors Torturing Children
Date: 15 Apr 2006
From: http://tjh.elequity.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=268
Mass Graves Of Children Found Near Montreal
The Helper Elf - Saturday, 15 April 2006
Mass Graves Of Children Found Near Montreal;
Another Duplessis Orphan Tells Of Being Tortured As A Child In CIA Experimentation Programs Using Nazi Doctors
Pierre Sampson, now 60, is calling for justice an an open investigation to stop the murder of innocent children in government sponsored child experimentation programs. More than 50,000 children said to be illegally experimented but crooked officials on both sides of the border blocking investigation.
13 Apr 2006
By Greg Szymanski
Another Duplessis Orphan has come forward with horror stories, including electro shock therapy, straight jacket sessions and mind altering drugs injections after being subjected to illegal government experimentation programs as a young child.
Pierre Sampson, 60, of Vancouver, Canada endured the torturous treatment for six long years until at the age of 14 when he finally escaped.
But thousands of other Duplessis Orphans weren't as lucky, as investigators recently uncovered a mass grave outside of Montreal where the bones of hundreds of children are buried in a mass grave.
Called the "pigsty" since the grave site is located next to a hog farm, Rod Vienneau, whose wife was also a child victim, said a push is now underway to exhume the bodies with strong resistance from governments on both side of the border, both denying any involvement in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary.
"I have been researching this atrocity for more than 10 years since my wife went public about being abused as one of the orphans," said Rod Vienneau this week on Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal, regarding the Duplessis Orphans, who may number more than 50,000 and named after former Prime Minister Maurice Duplessis, a key figure in the child experimentation cover-up.
"We have documentation proving the link among with the CIA, the United States government and the Canadian government, all of them willing accomplices to the illegal experimentation of children.
"Thousands of children have died, thousands of others have endured great suffering and there remains about 3,000 surviving victims we know about who are still seeking justice. What's even more astonishing is that the illegal experimentation is still taking place while we speak."
Sampson, who went public for the first time in the United States on The Investigative Journal, is one of tens of thousands of children who were reduced to experimental guinea pigs by unscrupulous doctors, some known Nazi war criminals in a CIA program starting in the 1950's
Recently, a Canadian high court in 2004 awarded damages to adult mind control victims in a related case, pinning the CIA with responsibility as well as their unscrupulous doctors, including Dr. Ewin Cameron.
For a further look at Dr. Cameron's nefarious activities, a book called The Most Dangerous Game traces the history of top-secret CIA mind control operation MK-ULTRA: from the covert importation of NAZI scientists at the end of WWII, to the illegal brainwashing experiments conducted on the patients of psychiatric researcher, Dr Cameron
The same type of testing Dr Cameron and others performed on adults is now being traced to innocent children, as advocates for the Duplessis Orphans contend their evil knows no age limits.
Regarding Sampson's personal story, he said at the age of six he was transferred from a Catholic orphanage to a mental institution even though he was both mentally and physically sound as church and civil authorities overnight changed his paperwork, indicating he was mentally ill.
"After researching what happened," said Sampson, who also appeared this week on The Investigative Journal. "The Church made a deal with the government to turn over perfectly healthy children in return for money, giving the doctors the ability to experiment at will since we were all considered insane.
"To this day my records haven't been changed. Although I have never been mentally ill, my records still haven't been changed."
The link Sampson makes between the infiltrated Catholic Church and corrupted civil authorities is disturbing, indicating a consolidation of corruption not only in government but extending all the way to Rome and beyond.
According to Vienneau and Sampson, this inhumane treatment was accomplished with the full authority, cooperation and funding of the American and Canadian governments together with corrupted elements of the Catholic Church, one of the government's main suppliers of children used like experimental guinea pigs.
"I hope one day we can get justice and remove this evil element of people from the continent," said Vienneau. "How can we live in a society and trust a government who is killing our own children? These people will never admit to what they done and the only thing we can do is gather enough support among good people to have these corrupted leaders removed."
Vienneau also outlined what his main motives are in seeking justice for his wife, Sampson and the many other children abused by the illegal experimentation programs.
"Criminal acts: Horrific criminal acts were done to thousands of innocent children here on Canadian soil ranging from murders, tortures; disappearance of children; lobotomy's and experimental drugs and falsely labeling thousands of innocent young children from 1935 to 1975 and nobody has yet been held accountable for these free criminal acts done to the Duplessis orphans.
"Thousands of orphans were falsely labeled mentally ill, and today, this label still hangs heavy on the orphans shoulders, This label has not yet been erased, this alone is a criminal act.
"The Quebec government, the College of Physicians of Quebec; the Roman Catholic church of Quebec; the Quebec Public Trustee;(Guardianship) and the federal government of Canada and America have not yet acknowledged the harm done to thousands of young children here in Quebec.
"Constitutional Rights : The Quebec government took away the Duplessis orphans rights to defend themselves in a court of law since 1995, all though four members of parliament stated that the orphans could take a lawyer at any time for their case, but it has been 11 years now that many orphans have been trying to get a lawyer for their case but to no avail.
"Lawyer Daniel Lighter, told me flatly that the Duplessis orphans case is locked shut tight since over fifteen years. The Duplessis orphans have no Constitutional rights, it all boils down to a huge cover up."
For more informative articles, go to http://www.arcticbeacon.com/
Editor's Note: It's beyond the realm of human comprehension how newspaper owners in the mainstream lack the decency to mount an investigation for the memory of all the dead children and the many others who have suffered at the hands of corrupted politicians and church leaders.
By ignoring this story for more than five decades, major newspaper owners in the United States should be branded as co-conspirators along with the corrupted church leaders and politicians, who all march to the altar in lockstep every Sunday with the blood of the Duplessis Orphans dripping from their dirty hands.
Greg Szymanski
14.
". . . on April 22, 1970, Earth Day was held, one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy. . . "
- American Heritage Magazine, October 1993
From: http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html
How the First Earth Day Came About
By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.
Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.
I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.
After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:
"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."
It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.
Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.
---
See also:
http://earthday.envirolink.org/
Earth Day Network
http://www.earthday.net/
Coordinating worldwide events for Earth Day 2000 and beyond.
Organizer's Guide
http://earthday.envirolink.org/organizers.html
What can you do to help celebrate Earth Day in your community?
Earth Day 2006 Calendar
http://earthday.envirolink.org/calendar.html
105 Earth Day events in the U.S.
Your Ecological Footprint
http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/index.asp
Online quiz to measure your impact on the Earth's resources.
15.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_704.shtml
US to Palestinians: Vote, then starve; democracy as instrument of mass control
By James Brooks - Online Journal Contributing Writer
April 17th, 2006
On March 15, former World Bank president and current Quartet Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn warned Congress that unless stepped up Western aid was delivered to the Palestinian people, cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority would result in "chaos in the streets."
"I do not believe you can have a million starving Palestinians and have peace," Wolfensohn said with his gift for biting understatement. [1]
The following day, the Gaza Strip ran out of flour, due to months of Israeli border closures. [2] The day after that there was no bread in Gaza. Then sugar, rice and other staples began to disappear from the shelves. For an imprisoned population of 1.5 million people, two-thirds of whom make less than $2 a day, it was a disaster. [3]
The following week, the first cases of deadly H5N1 bird flu were confirmed in the Gaza Strip. The resulting mass cullings of poultry dealt another severe blow to the meager and dwindling Gazan diet. [4,5]
On March 31, an EU mission declared the food crisis "serious" and found that it was largely caused by Israel's relentless border closures. [6] A group of United Nations relief organizations warned on April 4 that the Gaza Strip is "on the verge of a humanitarian disaster." [7]
Two days later, the US Congress addressed this looming catastrophe by voting to terminate the last remaining morsel of America's financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.
To make sure not one red cent of US taxpayer money winds up in the hands of Hamas, Congress also stopped all indirect aid to the occupied Palestinian territories, cutting some $240 million in development and assistance projects. [8]
At the same time, US humanitarian assistance to Palestinians was increased 57 percent, to $287 million. [9] That works out to an extra $105 million, which, if actually delivered as direct aid, would amount to $23 for every Palestinian, enough to maintain their present poverty level for about 12 days.
Secretary of State Rice told a congressional budget hearing, "One thing we are reviewing is how we can even increase our humanitarian assistance because we don't want to send a negative message to the Palestinian people about their humanitarian needs." [10]
In other words, the additional pittance is still on the drawing board, yet we are determined to cut off all other aid immediately. It is no more than what Ms. Rice implies; a presumably non-negative "message to the Palestinian people about their humanitarian needs." She needn't have bothered. It's fair to say the Palestinian people have already got the message.
The plan is all too clear. We will subject the Palestinians to an indefinite period of increasing impoverishment, hunger, chronic malnutrition, escalating unemployment, financial isolation, and social and political chaos, and at some point on the downward curve of this disaster our increased humanitarian assistance will make its way to Palestine, where it may help keep a few people alive.
That is our response to what most observers agree was the fairest, most transparent election ever conducted in the Arab Middle East. [11]
The EU, determined to maintain good relations with Israel and the US, moved in lockstep with Washington to end its own aid to the PA, which had been roughly twice the US amount. The Europeans promise to boost their humanitarian aid is a somewhat more credible prospect than the vapor on offer from the US, but it is still far short of what will be required to keep Palestine afloat. [12]
European diplomats were anxious to claim that their termination of assistance was not aimed at the Palestinian people. But Dutch foreign minister Ben Bot removed the sugar coating and told the truth: "The Palestinian people have opted for this government, so they will have to bear the consequences." [13]
Consequently the first fully democratic government of the Palestinian Authority is now living from hand to mouth, unable to make its next payroll despite an emergency grant of $80 million from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. [14] The financial collapse of the occupied territories is beginning and may, as some experts fear, snowball out of control. [15]
The World Bank and the UN have been warning for months that the financial collapse of the PA could unleash an unprecedented wave of internal chaos in the occupied Palestinian territories. There is concern that if the security forces go unpaid they may begin to dissolve into the various militant factions, taking their weapons (such as they are) with them. [16,17]
The World Health Organization, noting that 57 percent of all health workers are paid by the (now bankrupt) Palestinian Health Ministry, is warning that, as the Daily Star put it, "the public health system in the West Bank and Gaza Strip could enter a rapid decline toward possible collapse." [18]
Yet Israel has once again closed the vital Karni crossing into Gaza, in another violation of its agreement last November with the US and the Palestinians. Washington remains silent, perhaps because it also had no intention of honoring the pact. [19]
Instead, our government encourages Israel to tighten its stranglehold on a barely breathing economy. It seems likely that at least 200,000 people in Gaza are now going to bed hungry every night. More than half are under the age of 18.
This is the kind of diplomacy that is supposed to stop terrorism.
Here's how Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon's former chief of staff and closest advisor, described the policy to a conclave of top Israeli defense, intelligence and foreign ministry officials: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die." According to Gideon Levy of Haaretz, "the participants reportedly rolled with laughter." [20]
Yet Palestinians are dying, and will die in greater and greater numbers, from lack of medical care, lack of immunity due to chronic malnutrition, and lack of sanitation due to collapsing public services.
But that is not enough. Perhaps only photos of grossly emaciated children and hard evidence of death by starvation would be sufficiently sensational to make us question the morality of destroying the economy of an already malnourished land. Would we also ask whether our termination of aid to a destitute people for political purposes was a case of collective punishment, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions?
Apparently a critical piece of information was left out of our recent (inept) campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East. It was never mentioned that if Arabs used this wonderful system to elect the wrong people, they could face an externally imposed economic disaster.
The Palestinians latest catastrophe shamefully reveals one of the ulterior motives behind Washington's "democratization" agenda: Democracy will make Arabs accountable for their politics.
Arabs in non-democratic states have always been fundamentally beyond the political control of the United States and Israel. For pro-Israel neoconservatives and their allies, this is an unacceptable situation.
Democracy is the answer. It sounds good and discourages objection. And in the corrupted, trap-door form these people have in mind, democracy will "liberalize" Arab economies, exposing them to foreign predation. It will shatter traditional political cultures and induce periods of chaos that they expect to manipulate to their own ends. And, as an instrument of diplomacy, democracy will saddle Arabs, as individuals and as groups, with whatever responsibilities the self-appointed masters of democracy care to assign to them.
Our "Arab democracy" turns out to be a kind of electoral Russian roulette (with two chambers loaded), in which voters leave the ballot booth wondering whether they have elected a successful government or consigned their nation to diplomatic isolation and economic siege.
Our warlords in Washington have joined Israel as an equal partner in its war against the Palestinians, delivering an economic knockout blow to supplement Israel's overwhelming military force. We will starve women and children in order to overturn the results of a free and fair election, or, failing that, to force dramatic political concessions from an occupied people.
For us, democracy has become little more than a bedtime story we read to hostage nations, just before we put them to sleep by dismemberment or starvation.
1) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3228344,00.html
Quartet envoy warns of chaos if PA not helped, YNet News, 3/15/2006
2) http://www.maannews.net/en/do.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8879
Gaza Strip out of Flour, Ma'an News, 3/16/2006
3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1736439,00.html
Gaza rations food as Israel cuts supplies, The Guardian, 3/22/2006
4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4833948.stm
Bird flu discovered in Gaza Strip, BBC, 3/22/2006
5) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498803652&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Culling causes protein shortage in Gaza, Jerusalem Post, 4/5/2006
6) http://www.imemc.org/content/view/17725/1/
European Union mission visits Gaza Strip; says food crisis is 'serious' due to Israeli closures, International Middle East Media Center, 3/31/2006
7) http://www.imemc.org/content/view/17792/1/
UN: "Gaza on verge of a humanitarian disaster", International Middle East Media Center, 4/4/2006
8) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2124260,00.html
US to cancel $240m aid over Hamas government, Times of London, 4/8/2006
9) ibid.
10) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=702500
U.S. looking to increase Palestinian humanitarian aid, Ha'aretz, 4/5/2006
11) http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=21864
No American perplexity needed on Hamas, Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star, 2/1/2006
12) http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1751310,00.html
EU suspends aid to Palestinian Authority, The Guardian, 4/11/2006
13) http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B483CCF7-19CF-41FA-996D-7A0BD26EFE32.htm
EU halts Palestinian aid, AlJazeera, 4/11/2006
14) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=704002
Palestinian Authority confirms it cannot pay March salaries, Ha'aretz, 4/9/2006
15) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0412/p01s01-wome.html
Palestinians feel pinch, Christian Science Monitor, 4/12/2006
16) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=emNo=6>ttp://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=emNo=6
World Bank official: Palestinians on verge of bankruptcy, By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz, 1/10/2006
17) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=687983
UN: Israel's tightened security exacting heavy humanitarian toll, Ha'aretz, 2/28/2006
18) http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=23572
WHO report sounds alarm for Palestinian healthcare system, The Daily Star, 4/7/2006
19) http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2006/37-2006.htm
IOF Re-close Karni Commercial Crossing and Impose a Siege on the Palestinian Civilian Population in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 4/6/2006
20) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=684258
As the Hamas team laughs, Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, 2/19/2006
James Brooks serves as webmaster for http://www.vtjp.org/
Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel. He can be reached at jamiedb@attglobal.net.
16.
From: Sh0shanna@aol.com
Date: 18 Apr 2006
Subject: Tierramerica Reports Aspartame is a Carcinogen
From: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb373249.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/general/copyright.html
Tierramerica Reports Aspartame is a Carcinogen
Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet) causes cancer, even consumed in small quantities, according to results of an 8-year study, led by Dr. Morando Soffritti, head of the Cancer Research Center, the Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology, in Bologna, Italy.
(PRWEB) April 18, 2006 -- Anti-aspartame consumer advocates* who have fought to remove the chemical sweetener since its approval in 1981, welcome Dr. Morando Soffrittis response at attempts to negate his work.
Dr. Soffritti gave an interview to Tierramérica, sponsored by IPS, a specialized news service backed by the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Environment Program.
On the heels of recent claims by the US National Cancer Institute and industry-based organizations announcing aspartame does not cause cancer, Dr. Morando Soffritti reaffirmed his findings.
Dr. Soffritti, in his interview, reveals the carcinogenic effects of the artificial sweetener. The NCI announcement of aspartame safety is based on an unscientific study from a food questionnaire circulated by AARP to its members, a number of years ago.
Dr. Soffritti and his team studied 1,800 rats (Sprague-Dawley) raised especially for the study. We gave them, by groups, doses similar to those ingested daily by people, of 5,000, 2500, 500, 100, 20, 4 or 0 mg/kg of body weight. Aspartame was added to the standard diet (seven doses in the food). The experiment began when the animals were eight months old and lasted until their natural death, at 159 weeks. When the rats died we conducted histopathological studies of their organs and tissues. We analyzed more than 30,000 samples. "
Tierramérica' reports the results of the study were first released in July 2005 and some months later, published in the US Department of Healths journal, Environmental Health Perspectives.
Dr. Soffrittis long-term study contradicts other studies (assuring the public aspartame poses no risks to human health) financed by the large corporations that manufacture and sell the chemical sweetener.
Tierraméricas, Francesca Colombo, in an article and interview with Dr. Soffritti, Yes, Aspartame Is A Carcinogen writes: The sale of aspartame, with only four calories per gram and 200 times sweeter than sugar, is sold under the trademarks NutraSweet and Equal, bringing in 570 million dollars a year. It is estimated that some 350 million people around the world, many in hopes of losing weight, consume aspartame daily through 6,000 kinds of foods and beverages. In Europe alone, 2000 tons of the sweetener are sold annually
When Ms. Colombo asks about the results of Dr. Soffrittis controlled trial between 1997 and 2005, on the cancerous effects of aspartame, he replies:
The results indicate that aspartame is a multi-potential carcinogen, even consumed daily at 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That is a lower quantity than the maximum recommended by the FDA (50 mg/kg of body weight) and the European Union (40 mg/kg).
Questioned about what kind of cancer aspartame produces, Dr. Soffritti explains the conclusive evidence of his long-term test.
Our study showed for the first time that aspartame increases the incidence of malignant tumors in rats. In the females it increases leukemia and lymphomas, as well as cancerous cells in the pelvis and urethra. In the males, it especially increases the incidence of malignant tumors in peripheral nerves.
Tierraméricas interviewer inquires: Can it be assumed that what happened in the rats could also happen in human beings?
Dr. Soffritti responds, According to an investigation of cancer by the World Health Organization, the experimental study of carcinogenic agents in rats is very important for humans. One-third of the cancer-causing agents in man have been discovered with experiments conducted on animals.
Answering an important question about consumption of aspartame by women and children and what effects it could have on them, Dr. Soffritti states:
the carcinogenic effect in children could be greater because of their lower weight. The carcinogenic agents have a stronger effect on the embryo, which is why pregnant women are at greater risk
Resolving a frequent question consumers ask the government (FDA) and industry: Are new scientific studies about the potential cancer-causing effect of aspartame necessary? Dr. Soffritti tells the world:
Yes, more studies are needed to obtain greater precision in quantifying the risk
The current results already demand
an urgent review of the norms regulating the use and consumption of aspartame in order to protect public health, especially childrens health.
A question on all user's minds is: Aspartame is sold mainly as a means for people to control their weight. In your experiment, did the animals lose weight?"
Dr. Soffritti answers, No.
Read the complete interview at:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32904
Posted by:
Carol Guilford, LA-based writer and cookbook author and
Shoshanna Allison, environmental researcher.
See our PRWEB release of April 6
AARP Food Questionnaire Pitted Against Italian Cancer Institute Aspartame Study
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb368992.htm
http://www.dldewey.com/aspar.htm
www.presidiotex.com/aspartame
www.sweetpoison.com
www.aspartamesafety.com
17.
Forwarded by Lise Jacques lisejacq@yahoo.fr>
From: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519690/
Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Letter to President Bush
17 April 2006
Thirteen of the nations most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran gravely irresponsible and warning that such action would have disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.
Newswise Thirteen of the nations most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran gravely irresponsible and warning that such action would have disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.
The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nations preeminent professional society for physicists.
Their letter was prompted by recent articles in the Washington Post, New Yorker and other publications that one of the options being considered by Pentagon planners and the White House in a military confrontation with Iran includes the use of nuclear bunker busters against underground facilities. These reports were neither confirmed nor denied by White House and Pentagon officials.
The letter was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, who last fall put together a petition signed by more than 1,800 physicists that repudiated new U.S. nuclear weapons policies that include preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries (http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/). Hirsch has also published 15 articles in recent months (http://antiwar.com/hirsch/) documenting the dangers associated with a potential U.S. nuclear strike on Iran.
We are members of the profession that brought nuclear weapons into existence, and we feel strongly that it is our professional duty to contribute our efforts to prevent their misuse, says Hirsch. "Physicists know best about the devastating effects of the weapons they created, and these eminent physicists speak for thousands of our colleagues.
The fact that the existence of this plan has not been denied by the Administration should be a cause of great alarm, even if it is only one of several plans being considered, he adds. The public should join these eminent scientists in demanding that the Administration publicly renounces such a misbegotten option against a non-nuclear country like Iran.
The letter, which is available at http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/physicistsletter.html, points out that nuclear weapons are unique among weapons of mass destruction, and that nuclear weapons in today's arsenals have a total power of more than 200,000 times the explosive energy of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, which caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people.
It notes that there are no sharp lines between small and large nuclear weapons, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities and those targeting armies or cities, and that the use by the United States of nuclear weapons after 60 years of non-use will make the use of nuclear weapons by others more likely.
Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too, the physicists write. In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.
The letter echoes the main objection of last falls physicists petition, stressing that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be irreversibly damaged by the use or even the threat of use of nuclear weapons by a nuclear nation against a non-nuclear one, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.
It is gravely irresponsible for the U.S. as the greatest superpower to consider courses of action that could eventually lead to the widespread destruction of life on the planet. We urge the administration to announce publicly that it is taking the nuclear option off the table in the case of all non-nuclear adversaries, present or future, and we urge the American people to make their voices heard on this matter.
The 13 physicists who coauthored the letter are: CLIP
Read the rest at http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519690/
18.
Forwarded by Ed Elkin EdElkin@aol.com>
Bill Maher's closing monologue a few nights ago...
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend - you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare - helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards are maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished. "Now it's time to do what you've always done best - lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying - there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.
"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.
"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is, 'Take a hint.'
19.
From: "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
Subject: Post Turtle
Date: 17 Apr 2006
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to former Texas Governor, George W. Bush and his elevation to the White House. The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle." The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb shit get down.
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