16 August - Morning News Notes

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Drought Spreads Pain From Florida to Arizona

The drought is having some odd effects, economically and otherwise. 

10 Surprising Reasons to Drink More Water

EPA Stops The Sale Of DuPont’s Tree-Killing Herbicide

At the American Journal of Public Health, Experts Examine the Risks Posed by Peak Petroleum 

The September issue of the American Journal of Public Health is now available online featuring 8 studies and articles by an interdisciplinary set of experts, each examining the health risks posed by peak petroleum and what can be done to mitigate and protect against the onset of a major spike in energy prices.

( Set against a backdrop of economic collapse )

Pakistani belief about drones: perceptive or paranoid?

Fear and loathing in El Salvador

President Funes took the radical step of putting the army back onto the streets for the first time since the war, in an attempt to curtail the gangs, which survive on extortion, selling drugs and robbery.  

Comments

danadams777 21 hours ago

The UN's Global Commission on Drug Policy affirms what we've long known: the war on drugs is failure, it empowers criminal organizations that undermine democracy, and it makes drug users and non-drug users alike worse off than they'd otherwise be. "That the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won."

The conclusions are notable because of the people who produced them: former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the prime minister of Greece, and former high ranking federal officials George P. Schultz and Paul Volcker. The commission had 19 members total. Other notables include writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, and the billionaire Richard Branson, who hammered home the fiscal inefficiency of the drug war. "It's estimated that over one trillion have been spent on fighting this unwinnable battle," he said. "A legal, regulated market would cost tax payers much less money."

 

Redpossum 11 hours ago in reply to senorpescado

It just breaks my heart to think of the extent to which my nation has contributed to that, not just in El Salvador, but all over Latin America. The endless sabotage of democratically elected governments, the endless evil meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, there is no way to describe it but pure evil.

The East Coast power establishment in this country acts like people in Latin America weren't even human, and it's enough to make a vulture puke.

I'm not an idealist, and I'm sure not a pacifist, but there is such a thing as human decency, and the foreign policy of the USA over the last 60 years has shown damn little of it. There are times when I am so ashamed of the things my country has done, and it makes me furiously angry to hear them try to justify their brutally inhuman actions with phony talk of patriotism. They wrap themselves in the flag, as though they and they alone knew what was best for America.

I'm too upset to write coherent

Syrian navy 'shells city of Latakia' 

State-run news agency SANA said troops were pursuing "gunmen using machine guns, hand grenades and bombs who have been terrorising residents in al-Ramel district".
The agency denied reports the area was being targeted from the sea. It quoted a health official in Latakia as saying two law enforcement officials were killed.

Gaddafi forces 'fire first scud missile'

Military assault continues in Latakia

Who is in control of the Libyan opposition?

Arab democrats: beware the US model 

Recent events have underscored the less desirable traits of the US political system: gridlock and self-preservation.

Over time, a steadily increasing proportion of tax revenues has flowed to the federal government, at the expense of the states.  With that money has come greater authority. Rather than the citizens of the states making spending decisions at the local and provincial level, where their input would be far more direct and the opportunities for abuse, mismanagement and duplication far less, key decisions are more and more frequently made in Washington. Thus, the money which has flowed from the states is then bequeathed, magnanimously, back to the states.  Only now, the uses to which that money is to be put are dictated by, and bureaucratically administered from, the centre. Moreover, free of the balanced-budget constraints which exist in most states, the federal government can dispense largesse, particularly for health, retirement and other large-scale "entitlement" programmes, using money it does not have, for the purpose of expanding and sustaining its own power.
 

The private trial of the Mubaraks

The world's longest ongoing war

Why the Afghanistan War won't end soon

Syria left vulnerable by state violence

Sarkozy and Merkel in euro crisis talks

Palestine needs a political solution, not aid   

The IMF on trial

Marwan Bishara asks: will the International Monetary Fund regain its influence and reshape its role? 

Syria's electronic army

Syrian computer hackers put their own spin on democracy protests in Syria.

U.S. Senator seeks to cut aid to elite IDF units operating in West Bank and Gaza 

Senator Patrick Leahy claims Shayetet 13 unit, undercover Duvdevan unit, and the Israel Air Force Shaldag unit are involved in human rights violations in occupied territories.

Hat Tip  M Jay Rosenberg

 

Clear Gold - Water as a Strategic Resource in the Middle East. A report by Jon B. Alterman and Michael Dziuban for The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (December 2010; 34 pages).
http://csis.org/files/publication/101213_Alterman_ClearGold_web.pdf

Regenerating the U.S.-Turkish Partnership. By J. Scott Carpenter and Soner Cagaptay for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (Policy Notes, No. 2, November 2010;  14 pages)
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyNote02.pdf

The North African Military Balance. By Anthony H. Cordesman for The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (December 2010; 138 pages)
http://csis.org/files/publication/101203_North_African_Military_Balance_final.pdf

Building Security in the Persian Gulf. A report by Robert E. Hunter for the RAND Corporation (2010; 203 pages)
http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG944.pdf

Food Sunday: Drought and Corn

Norway's 9/11: The Horror Is In The Message 

To some people, it will always remain an inexplicable act of madness, a psycho-social kink in the human condition, horrible and insane and ultimately meaningless. There are even some writers arguing that any attempt to find meaning in the Norway massacre is a sign of an unhinged mind.

If that is the case, I am proud to be unhinged. Ultimately, I have no choice, because the meaning of the massacre is as clear to me as it apparently is to some Norwegians, such as the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who seemed to be speaking to a foreign audience when he said:

I have a message to the people who attacked us, and those behind them. This is a message from all of Norway:

You will not destroy us.

You will not destroy our democracy nor our quest for a better world. We are a small nation, but we are a proud nation.

No one shall bomb us into silence or shoot us into silence. Nothing will frighten us out of being Norway.

This night we will comfort each other, talk with each other, and stand together. Tomorrow we will show the world that Norway’s democracy grows stronger when it is challenged. We shall find the guilty and hold them responsible.

If Jens Stoltenberg believed the guilty had already been found, he would not have been speaking in such terms, would he? He seemed to be responding to a secret message, rather than reacting to the crime which the police and media have described.

But the message was no secret.

You will go along with the program. You will send your troops where we tell you, you will buy foreign products regardless of ethical considerations, you will stop supporting the vermin we are trying to eradicate, and under no circumstances will you threaten anyone.

Otherwise we will bomb your offices and kill your children.

We will do it on a famous anniversary, but it in such a way that no direct evidence leads back to us.

We will do it in a way that shows your police are thoroughly compromised and no use to you at all. We will do it in a way that exacerbates tensions between Christians and Moslems. And we will do it in a way that lends credibility to those who would trash the best features of your open, democratic society.

We will cover our tracks with a lame distraction which will confirm quite clearly -- to those with eyes to see -- that the entire world's "news" media are in our pocket. And most of your friends and neighbors -- including many who should know better -- will play along with it, if they show any interest at all.

And then ... ah, yes: then we will rejoice in your grief!

 

Related articles

• Troops Reportedly Fire At Fleeing Families In Latakia (Huffington Post) (syrianemergencytaskforce.org)
• Activists: Torment in Palestinian refugee camp in Syria rages on (cnn.com)
• At the American Journal of Public Health, Experts Examine the Risks Posed by Peak Petroleum (bigthink.com)