Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.
The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t Asking
Mike Rose
No one in power is asking the more fundamental questions like: What is the purpose of education in a democracy, and are our reforms enhancing—or possibly restricting—that purpose?
Education ‘Miracles’ Don’t Survive Scrutiny
Business Goes to School
What might the business community’s culpability be for the state of American education? And what else would a more comprehensive discussion of the school-business connection need to include?
Some businesses have a direct financial interest in matters educational, from textbook and test development to the delivery of goods and advertisements to classrooms. Less obvious is the fact that donations from business are tax-deductible, so, as policy scholar Janelle Scott points out, considerable tax revenues are diverted from the public fund and toward business-certified causes. These causes might well be laudable ones, but the channeling of revenue affects public policy and yet is not open to public deliberation.
The 1910s and 1920s, another era of strong business influence, provide a cautionary tale. In an attempt to maximize educational productivity and efficiency, some districts advocated measuring teacher effectiveness by counting the number of arithmetic combinations or grammar exercises a student could perform in one minute. Industrial conceptions of productivity are spread throughout our educational policy, certainly in some high-stakes testing programs. Business advocacy groups have been defining the purpose of schooling in economic terms. Kids go to school to get themselves and the nation ready for the global marketplace, and this rhetoric of job preparation and competition can play into reductive definitions of teaching and learning.
The sad and astounding fact is that at the state and federal level there is little deep understanding of the intricacies of teaching and learning involved in the formation of education policy.
In all the public discussions I’ve heard, the focus of school-business alliances is solely on the problems with the schools and what it is that business can do to help remedy those problems. The discussion never seems to include business’s contributions to the conditions that have limited educational achievement.
When Banks Are the Robbers
Amy Goodman
The Obama administration signaled that it was not supporting a foreclosure moratorium. Not long after, Bank of America announced it was restarting its foreclosure operations. GMAC followed suit, and others will likely join in. So much for the voluntary moratorium.
GMAC Mortgage engaged in mass document processing, dubbed “robo-signing.”
Recall that GM received $51 billion in taxpayer bailouts; its subsidiary, GMAC, received $16.3 billion; and Ally Financial subsidiary GMAC Mortgage received $1.5 billion as an “incentive payment for home loan modification.”
So you as a taxpayer may have bailed out a bank that is fraudulently foreclosing on you. What recourse do you have?
Why the IMF meetings failed
17th October 2010, 08:41 am by Stan
What is to stop U.S. banks and their customers from creating $1 trillion, $10 trillion or even $50 trillion on their computer keyboards to buy up all the bonds and stocks in the world, along with all the land and other assets for sale, in the hope of making capital gains and pocketing the arbitrage [...]
A Glimpse Into the Heart of a Rotten System
I have now sat through Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job”— the nonfiction version of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”— and I still don’t fully understand our endless financial crisis.
NUPGE urges Obama and U.S. legislators to give Canadian health care system a fair hearing
Clancy said he felt obligated to write to the U.S. legislators after Prime Minister Harper and Health Minister Aglukkaq refused to step in and counter the anti-Canadian propaganda being spread by private health care interests battling health care reform in the United States.
( I know : late to the party. I just never tracked down union representations against corporate propaganda demeaning the Canadian healthcare system. Currently preparations are underway to fight to include medications in insurance coverage.)
“If you want a job, go to Asia!”
That’s Tom Brokaw’s advice to college grads…
Our politicians manipulated the laws to permit corporations to send their lower level jobs to other countries without penalty. Now even white-collar jobs are leaving the country. They wrote the laws (Clinton’s NAFTA, Bush’s CAFTA, Truman’s GATT which is now the WTO) to benefit their corporate contributors and even gave some of the companies taxpayer-funded subsidies in the process.
Who Is Responsible for U.S. Russia Policy?
Who is ultimately responsible for an American policy toward Russia that since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been aggressive, militarily overbearing and threatening to the integrity of Russia, to absolutely no useful purpose. The conventional Western comment says the NATO governments have underestimated “Russia’s determination to dominate its traditional sphere of influence.”
This is wrong. Russia has been amazingly tolerant of successful Western efforts to annex its “traditional sphere of influence,” if that term means the Warsaw Pact, which until 1991 was the Communist counterpart to NATO, lending troops to enforce the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that membership in the Warsaw Pact and in the “Socialist bloc” was irreversible.
Mikhail Gorbachev reversed it. He withdrew troops from Afghanistan.
NATO was redefined by President George H.W. Bush, as he recounts in his memoirs, as “a political instrument of European stability” rather than a force of military confrontation. On those terms Gorbachev agreed to the unification of Germany within NATO. Warsaw Pact states were invited to go their own way, and they did—into NATO.
Came the American-sponsored “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, installing pro-American governments, followed by the Bush administration’s efforts to get NATO to give them a formal Military Action Plan for membership, an initiative fortunately blocked by Germany and France. And in February of this year, Kosovo, Serbian since the 12th century, was—illegally—declared by the U.S. and the EU to be an independent nation.
This was the turning point for Russia. Now the United States and the EU had not only unilaterally dismembered Serbia but were attempting to make two states historically part of Russia into Western satellites. Georgia and Ukraine had not simply been part of the Soviet Union, but before that of czarist Russia.
US: The dishonest broker
There are many reasons for America’s failure to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians but the most fundamental one is that it is a dishonest broker. As a result of its palpable partiality towards Israel, America has lost all credibility in the eyes not only of the Palestinians but of the wider Arab and Muslim worlds.
My Ron Paul rant…
Every liberal who ever said we can’t leave Iraq because without the Americans there the place would descend into chaos… is a passive racist. This is a white supremacist assumption.
My main point was that the biggest social catastrophe for Black and Brown folk in the US today is the criminal justice system and the American gulag that goes with it.
One candidate has quoted the figures on how this has unfairly impacted African Americans. Ron Paul. He opposes the criminalization of drugs. The issue of blanket pardons — within the President’s authority, and the de-prioritization of federal drug enforcement, are both within the Prez’s purview.
One point I emphasized in my rant is the difference between agreeing with someone’s expressed views and the net effect of someone’s likely actions.
In this case, I pose a hypothetical question. If Ron Paul were elected, what would the net effect of his policies be on the American Gulag, given the capabilities and limitations of the office?
Iraq and Afghanistan have become abattoirs. Stopping this war is an urgent and immediate moral imperative.
Let me add something to this. As an anti-imperialist, who believes US hegemony in the world is the most destructive and dangerous political force in our world, and as someone who wants to see that political power broken, for good, there is no single action that would underline an immediate and decisive loss of some of that power than US withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is exactly why whichever DLC-anointed candidate is nominated, the Democratic Party leadership has not the least intention of reversing what is going on in Southwest Asia: the permanent post-Cold War re-disposition of the imperial armed forces of the United States of America. The leadership of the Democrtatic Party is committed to American imperialism.
Hillary’s Bones – A Coup Tutorial
30th September 2010, 03:23 pm by Stan
In light of the coup attempt in progress in Ecuador at this very moment, I am posting the 2nd draft of a blog-book on the coup last year in Honduras. Patience. I’ll put some up, tidy it, then put up some more. But this is not a time to sit on something that shows the [...]
Canada, Honduras and the Coup d’Etat
Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans have protested the coup, denouncing the military, the local oligarchy and the US as the main perpetrators of Zelaya's removal.
But the extent to which countries like Italy, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada, all of which have significant trade and investment links with Honduras are connected to the coup has remained largely unexplored.
In Canada, with the exception of a few editorials in the mainstream media, little attention has been paid to what is certainly one of the most important events in the hemisphere over the last decade. While Canada’s links to Central America are much less significant than those of the US, they are still worth exploring.
Honduras
Far from calling for the return of Zelaya to power and condemning the military’s actions, Canada’s good-neighbour ambiguity has ignored the violence unleashed by the coup regime, and the position of organizations such as the UN General Assembly, whose members demanded that Zelaya be allowed to return to the presidency.
Canada also declined to condemn the military and the coup government after massive peaceful resistance marches across Honduras were violently repressed by the coup regime, which also moved to temporarily shut down radio and TV stations critical of the coup. Detentions, torture, disappearances, beatings and murders of anti-coup activists have continued unabated since the coup.
On November 29, the de facto government presided over the country's regularly scheduled presidential elections. Dr. Juan Almendares, former presidential candidate and ex-rector of the Autonomous University of Honduras, calls the November elections a "second coup."
"We are faced with a situation that’s very delicate, where there was a military coup, where a president is named, and then there is a second coup, which was the election, the fraudulent election," he said in an interview at his clinic in Tegucigalpa.
Almendares points out that the same soldiers that have beaten, tortured and killed Hondurans were responsible for guarding the ballot boxes on November 29.
"There is no doubt that there was fraud, because they were illegitimate elections," said Almendares.
Regardless, Canada’s Junior Foreign Minister Peter Kent’s praise for the country's controversial elections was glowing.
“While Sunday’s elections were not monitored by international organizations such as the Organization of American States, we are encouraged by reports from civil society organizations that there was a strong turnout for the elections, that they appear to have been run freely and fairly and that there was no major violence,” said Kent.
Canada alone in opposing the return of Zelaya in Honduras; here ...
USW Canada: USW’s Global Union Condemns Military Coup in Honduras
Showing posts with label graft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graft. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
20 Mar - Night Blogging
Image via WikipediaDiego Garcia bunker-busters meant to threaten Iran
 |
The Sunday Herald has reported that hundreds of powerful US "bunker-buster" bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia.
In January, the US government signed a contract to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island, the Scottish newspaper wrote on March 14.
According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu-110” and "Blu-117" bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Crucially, the cargo included 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.
Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran's nuclear facilities, added the newspaper.
In January, the US government signed a contract to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island, the Scottish newspaper wrote on March 14.
According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu-110” and "Blu-117" bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Crucially, the cargo included 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.
Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran's nuclear facilities, added the newspaper.
- US hails N. Korea's wish to reopen 6-party talks
- Blair's secret oil links to Mideast revealed
- 2 policemen killed in Iran war on narcotics
- Turkey's Gul wins int'l relations award
- Obama renews symbolic offer of Iran dialogue
- In Iran 11 killed in Nowruz traffic accidents
- Lieberman: Quartet's call distances peace hopes
- Number of slum dwellers up despite global efforts: UN
- Rice admits to lack of knowledge over Iraq war
- Ahmadinejad wants referendum on economic reform bill
- In Pakistan, militants blow up schools, electricity towers
- India seeks to interrogate guilty US Mumbai plotter
Invisibility cloak created in 3-DExperts wonder whether U.S. has a real Israel strategy orhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031905591.html 'talking points' Also Looking at Afghanistan Indonesian Forces Tapped by Obama for Renewed US Aid Implicated in New Assassinations Allan Nairn reveals US-backed Indonesian armed forces carried out a series of assassinations of civilian activists in late 2009. The news comes as the White House moves towards increasing aid to the Indonesian military and lifting a twelve-year ban on the training of the notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. A US-trained Kopassus general who coordinated the assassinations confirmed to Nairn an Indonesian army role in the killings. Dialing for Proliferation DollarsProliferation for profit is in the air. You can hardly turn on your TV or radio without seeing David Albright talking about his excellent new book, “Peddling Peril.” I have long advocated thinking about proliferation as a business and applying the results of research on the diffusion of technology to understanding how countries get the infrastructure and know-how for making WMD and the means to deliver them. As such, it would be nice to understand the amount of profit a proliferation profiteer like A. Q. Khan or North Korea makes on selling various technologies the world would rather see end. If we could understand the amount of profit to various forms of proliferation, say selling missiles vs. missile factories, we might be able to understand how the nature of proliferation is changing. Bacha Bazi - Boy Play in Afghanistan, and ElsewhereReports are circulating out of Afghanistan of the return of Bacha Bazi, the centuries-old practice of trafficking in pre-teen and teenage boys as sex slaves for wealthy businessmen and warlords. Afghans refer to this as Boy Play. The young boys are kidnapped into this trade, or sometimes sold by their parents who are desperate for money. The boys are then dressed as young girls, placed in auction, and kept as permanent sex slaves by their owner. When they are too old to serve this purpose, they often wind up back in the sex trade as prostitutes, since socially they are too stigmatized to find any other employment. The puzzlement behind Bacha Bazi has always been why it has persisted for so long in Afghanistan, a culture so homophobic that men suspected of being gay can be found in a street gutter with their throats slit. In fact, it is not at all clear that the wealthy and powerful men who buy these boys are homosexuals themselves. One theory holds that the boys are so quickly and thoroughly feminized that they are not viewed by society as boys at all, but as young girls. Supporting this theory is the fact that in Afghanistan a young boy who has been raped is marked for life as feminine. There may therefore be no shame for a rich man to own one or more male sex slaves. Biology May Not Be So Complex After All, Physicist FindsEmory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools, by simplifying the research models. The resulting paper, now available online, will be published in the March issue of Physical Biology. |
Mossad's Rogue Assassins
The Dubai Hit
Really, why did the agents use the names of actual people who live in Israel and have dual nationality? Why, of all possible passports, did they use those of friendly countries? How could they be sure that the owners of these passports would not travel abroad at the critical time?
Moreover, were they not aware that Dubai was full of cameras that record every movement? Did they not foresee that the local police would produce films of the assassination in almost all its details?
But this did not arouse too much excitement in Israel. Everybody understood that the British and the Irish were obliged, pro forma, to protest, but that this was nothing but going through the motions. Behind the scenes, there are intimate connections between the Mossad and the other intelligence agencies. After some weeks, everything will be forgotten. That’s how it worked in Norway after Lillehammer, that’s how it worked in Jordan after the Mishal affair. They will protest, rebuke, and that’s that. So what is the problem?
From the strategic point of view, the Dubai operation causes heavy damage to the government’s policy, which defines Iran’s putative nuclear bomb as an existential threat to Israel. The campaign against Iran helps it to divert the world’s attention from the ongoing occupation and settlement, and induces the US, Europe and other countries to dance to its tune.
Barack Obama is in the process of trying to set up a world-wide coalition for imposing “debilitating sanctions” on Iran. The Israeli government serves him – willingly – as a growling dog. He tells the Iranians: The Israelis are crazy. They may attack you at any moment. I am restraining them with great difficulty. But if you don’t do what I tell you, I shall let go of the leash and may Allah have mercy on your soul!
Moreover, were they not aware that Dubai was full of cameras that record every movement? Did they not foresee that the local police would produce films of the assassination in almost all its details?
But this did not arouse too much excitement in Israel. Everybody understood that the British and the Irish were obliged, pro forma, to protest, but that this was nothing but going through the motions. Behind the scenes, there are intimate connections between the Mossad and the other intelligence agencies. After some weeks, everything will be forgotten. That’s how it worked in Norway after Lillehammer, that’s how it worked in Jordan after the Mishal affair. They will protest, rebuke, and that’s that. So what is the problem?
* * *
THE PROBLEM is that the Mossad in Israel acts like an independent fiefdom that ignores the vital long-term political and strategic interests of Israel, enjoying the automatic backing of an irresponsible prime minister. It is, as the English expression goes, a “loose cannon” – the cannon of a ship of yore which has broken free of its mountings and is rolling around the deck, crushing to death any unfortunate sailor who happens to get in its way.From the strategic point of view, the Dubai operation causes heavy damage to the government’s policy, which defines Iran’s putative nuclear bomb as an existential threat to Israel. The campaign against Iran helps it to divert the world’s attention from the ongoing occupation and settlement, and induces the US, Europe and other countries to dance to its tune.
Barack Obama is in the process of trying to set up a world-wide coalition for imposing “debilitating sanctions” on Iran. The Israeli government serves him – willingly – as a growling dog. He tells the Iranians: The Israelis are crazy. They may attack you at any moment. I am restraining them with great difficulty. But if you don’t do what I tell you, I shall let go of the leash and may Allah have mercy on your soul!
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Saturday, January 9, 2010
9 Jan - Night News
Depleted Uranium in Iraq
From New American Media:
Robert Fisk has previously written on this subject in relation to the 1991 Gulf War and the Bosnian conflict in 1996:
( Uranium - Mining and 'Depleted' 'Agent Orange' for the Ages )
Mobile phone radiation 'protects' against Alzheimer's
The memory benefits of phone exposure took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years.
The researchers conclude that electro-magnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease in humans.
They are currently testing whether different sets of frequencies and strengths might produce a more rapid and greater cognitive benefit.
Chuanhai Cao, another author of the study, said: "Since production and aggregation of beta-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer's disease."
The authors say previous studies have linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer's with "low-frequency" electro-magnetic exposure like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines.
They say mobile phones emit "high frequency" electro-magnetic waves that are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain function, such as increasing brain cell activity.
Dark matter 'beach ball' unveiled
The giant halo of dark matter that surrounds our galaxy is shaped like a flattened beach ball, researchers say.
It is the first definitive measure of the scope of the dark matter that makes up the majority of galaxies' masses.
The shape of this "dark matter halo" was inferred from the path of debris left behind as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy slowly orbits the Milky Way.
GALLOPING BEAVER
A TAIL DRAGGING ROMP THROUGH THE SWAMPS OF THE WORLD
Default dictatorships...
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 06, 2010
OK, aside from the fact Canadian tax dollars apparently went to former members of the Bush administration, I initially thoughtthis was too funny.
A former spokesman for George W. Bush received a second sole-source contract from the Prime Minister's Office for American communications advice, according to filings with the U.S. Justice Department. Ari Fleischer was hired for a month last spring to help Stephen Harper receive American media exposure in advance of a critical G20 summit in London. But a second communications contract with the PMO, worth the same amout ($24,500) as the first, was paid out to Fleischer on Sept. 28.
The PMO paid Ari a whack of tax payer dollars so Harper could hang-out with the propagandamongers of the side that LOST the last US election?
But it really isn't so funny. It shows you that modern Conservatives can't ever appeal to group big enough to let them achieve any more than temporary power. They are not even interested in venturing out of their own echo chamber. They therefore must, by default, force themselves on the majority. They preach a good line about small government, which works when they're not in government. But the moment they are, their social ideology is so unpalatable by the majority, they must grow incrementally dictatorial if they are ever to survive long enough to implement substantive policy changes.
Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.
From New American Media:
Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer.
Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.
Here are a few examples. In Falluja, which was heavily bombarded by the US in 2004, as many as 25% of new- born infants have serious abnormalities, including congenital anomalies, brain tumors, and neural tube defects in the spinal cord.
The cancer rate in the province of Babil, south of Baghdad has risen from 500 diagnosed cases in 2004 to 9,082 in 2009 according to Al Jazeera English.
In Basra there were 1885 diagnosed cases of cancer in 2005. According to Dr. Jawad al Ali, director of the Oncology Center, the number increased to 2,302 in 2006 and 3,071 in 2007. Dr. Ali told Al Jazeera English that about 1,250-1,500 patients visit the Oncology Center every month now.
Not everyone is ready to draw a direct correlation between allied bombing of these areas and tumors, and the Pentagon has been skeptical of any attempts to link the two. But Iraqi doctors and some Western scholars say the massive quantities of depleted uranium used in U.S. and British bombs, and the sharp increase in cancer rates are not unconnected.
Robert Fisk has previously written on this subject in relation to the 1991 Gulf War and the Bosnian conflict in 1996:
( Uranium - Mining and 'Depleted' 'Agent Orange' for the Ages )
Mobile phone radiation 'protects' against Alzheimer's
The memory benefits of phone exposure took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years.
The researchers conclude that electro-magnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease in humans.
They are currently testing whether different sets of frequencies and strengths might produce a more rapid and greater cognitive benefit.
Chuanhai Cao, another author of the study, said: "Since production and aggregation of beta-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer's disease."
The authors say previous studies have linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer's with "low-frequency" electro-magnetic exposure like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines.
They say mobile phones emit "high frequency" electro-magnetic waves that are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain function, such as increasing brain cell activity.
Sanyo rolls electric bicycles into U.S. market
Eneloop bicycles weigh in at 50 pounds each and the luxury of sweat-free peddling comes with a steep $2,300 U.S. ($2,369 Cdn) price tag.
Dark matter 'beach ball' unveiled
The giant halo of dark matter that surrounds our galaxy is shaped like a flattened beach ball, researchers say.
It is the first definitive measure of the scope of the dark matter that makes up the majority of galaxies' masses.
The shape of this "dark matter halo" was inferred from the path of debris left behind as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy slowly orbits the Milky Way.
GALLOPING BEAVER
A TAIL DRAGGING ROMP THROUGH THE SWAMPS OF THE WORLD
Default dictatorships...
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 06, 2010
OK, aside from the fact Canadian tax dollars apparently went to former members of the Bush administration, I initially thought
But it really isn't so funny. It shows you that modern Conservatives can't ever appeal to group big enough to let them achieve any more than temporary power. They are not even interested in venturing out of their own echo chamber. They therefore must, by default, force themselves on the majority. They preach a good line about small government, which works when they're not in government. But the moment they are, their social ideology is so unpalatable by the majority, they must grow incrementally dictatorial if they are ever to survive long enough to implement substantive policy changes.
The Airport Scanner Scam
Scan, baby, scan. That’s the mantra among politicians at all levels in the wake of the thwarted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet. According to conventional wisdom, the would-be “underwear bomber” could have been stopped by airport security if he’d been put through a full-body scanner, which would have revealed the cache of explosives attached to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s groin.
The rush toward full-body scans already seems unstoppable. They were mandated today as part of the "enhanced" screening for travelers from selected countries, and hundreds of the machinesare already on order, at a cost of about $150,000 apiece. Within days of the bombing attempt,Reuters was reporting that the "greater U.S. government shift toward using the high-tech devices could create a boom for makers of security imaging products, and it has already created a speculative spike in share prices in some companies."
Which brings us to the money shot. The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners, calling the bombing attempt "a very vivid lesson in the value of that he rush toward full-body scans already seems unstoppable. They were mandated today as part of the "enhanced" screening for travelers from selected countries, and hundreds of the machines are already on order, at a cost of about $150,000 apiece. Within days of the bombing attempt, Reuters was reporting that the "greater U.S. government shift toward using the high-tech devices could create a boom for makers of security imaging products, and it has already created a speculative spike in share prices in some companies."
Which brings us to the money shot. The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners, calling the bombing attempt "a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery"—all without disclosing his relationship to Rapiscan. machinery"—all without disclosing his relationship to Rapiscan.
Chertoff Linked to Body Scanner Manufacturer
Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.
What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines.
"Terrorism" is frequently applied by governments and by the corporate media to "guerrilla warfare", which is the traditional response of a weaker opponent who tactically seeks out soft targets rather than frontal military assault, e.g. the French Resistance fighters whom the Nazis referred to as "terrorists."
The concept of "state terrorism" is likewise controversial.
The use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents....
U.S. contractor worked for "secret services": Cuba
A U.S. contractor detained last month in Cuba for distributing satellite communications equipment to dissidents worked for American "secret services" and is being investigated, a top Cuban official said on Wednesday.
"This is a man hired by a company that contracts for the American secret services and that is the object of investigation," Alarcon told reporters after a meeting of Cuba's National Election Commission.
He said the contractor was part of trend toward "privatization of war" by the United States, which hires people to be "agents, torturers, spies."
Asked if the prisoner was in good condition, Alarcon said, "I can assure you that he is much better -- much, much better -- than the victims of those contractors all over the world."
Since Northwest Flight 253, Team Obama = Team Bush/Cheney, say 9/11 widows
The 9/11 Commissioners would not assign any accountability nor did they recommend that incompetent people be fired. Additionally, there was no urgency by the Bush Administration and/or Congress to make sure that common sense changes were made from “lessons learned”. In response, we asked, “whatWhat the hell? will your excuse be the next time an attack occurs?” Apparently, the same excuses are being used again.
President Obama stated, “This was not a failure to collect intelligence Š it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already hadŠ” With all due respect to President Obama, we have heard these words before.
Watching the press briefing on January 7, 2010 and reading the summary of the White House Review of the December 25 Attempted Terrorist Attack and The Corrective Actions, left us stunned. The desperate attempt by the current administration to convince us that these problems were somehow different from the ones faced prior to 9/11 was absurd. We can tell you without a doubt, these problems are not new at
all.
Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 08, 2010 "ICH" -- What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.
If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.
After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.
The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.
Recently I read a column by an author who has a "convenience theory" about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.
Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities "for its links with the Israeli intelligence services."
Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.
The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.
ofgodsandothermonsters.blogspot.com/
What the hell?
This is starting to feel like an episode in the Twilight Zone.
Still, there's word the Tories may go further to ensure prorogation becomes routine. Government sources say they're contemplating formally shutting down Parliament at the end of every year, so the government can start afresh with a throne speech and a budget.
Do it often enough, it becomes routine, and people come to believe it's the norm. Normal to kill any work still on the table and start all over again just to kill the same bills the following year. Normal to incurr waste of taxpayers dollars on wasted bills. Normal to wipe the slate clean of work done by committees studying abuses and scandals.
Sort of like going to confession on a regular basis: wipe your sins away without coming to terms with them or being held accountable so that you can go out and commit a whole new set of sins, repeat some of the same ones, secure in the knowledge that never, ever will you be held accountable.
The role of elected representatives will erode further if the federal government makes good on its suggestion to make prorogation an annual event, experts say. "It's not easy to see how this can work," said David Mitchell, president of the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum. "It raises the question: Why do we have a Parliament?"
Killing Organizers in Honduras
The bodies of slain activists are piling up in Honduras. While it's being kept quiet in most Honduran and international media, the rage is building among a dedicated network of friends spreading the word quickly with the tragic announcement of each compañero/a.
Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared.
The specific targets of these killings have been those perceived as the biggest threats to the coup establishment. The bravest, and thus the most vulnerable: Members of the Popular Resistance against the coup. Their friends and family. People who provide the Resistance with food and shelter. Teachers, students, and ordinary citizens who simply recognize the fallacy of an un-elected regime taking over their country. All associated with the Resistance have faced constant and growing repercussions for their courage in protesting the coup. With the international community given the green light by the US that democratic order has returned via elections, it’s open season for violent forces in Honduras working to tear apart the political unity of the Resistance Front against the coup.
The killings are happening almost faster than they can be recorded.
Pavón and other human rights leaders in Honduras have been extremely vocal in denouncing these atrocities, but the story has remained under the radar for most Hondurans and almost all international media. At the time when Hondurans most need exposure to these abuses, they’ve been left to fend for themselves.
How did this happen? Why are people being randomly executed in dark corners of the country for simply standing in opposition to a military coup?
Most of the bloodshed is on the hands of coup president Roberto Micheletti and other leaders of the regime. However, President Barack Obama and the US State Department played a major role in allowing conditions to get to this point. The US government took no concrete action against the thousands of documented violations since the coup took place June 28. It’s no shock that the violence has worsened dramatically with the eyes of the world now averted.
When Does It Become Genocide?
During a visit to Ramallah a year ago while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza was underway, I shared my fears with a close Palestinian friend. "It may sound insane, but I think the Israelis' real objective is to see them all dead."My friend told me not to be silly, the assault was horrific, but it was not mass killing. I said that wasn't the issue: This was a population already very vulnerable to disease, ill-health, and malnutrition after years of siege, with its infrastructure rotted, its water and food contaminated. Israel's war would surely push the people over the brink, especially if the siege was maintained -- as it has been.
In other words, Israel would not directly kill tens of thousands of Palestinians, but it would create the conditions for tens of thousands to die. Any epidemic could finish the job. My friend fell silent at these words, but still shook his head in disbelief.
Two things have changed since last year: More people have started to apply the term "genocide" to what Israel is doing to Gaza. And not only is Israel being directly accused but also, increasingly, Egypt.
Is it genocide? "The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" -- a clear, concise document adopted by the United Nations in December 1948 -- states that genocide is any of five acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Three acts appear to apply to the situation in Gaza: "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
Mutant toads discovered in Gladstone
CQUniversity researcher Dr Scott Wilson has examined more than 6000 toads in CQ, most from Gladstone, and said close to 10% of those had abnormalities.
In a normal toad population, Dr Wilson said only 1% or 2% of the amphibians had defects.
The research fellow, based in Gladstone, said the results of the year-long study were concerning because up to half are believed to have been caused by chemicals in the environment.
Dr Wilson said the porus skin that frogs and toads had allowed them to work like a canary in a coal mine.
Because the amphibians adapt to their environment, Dr Wilson said the results from Gladstone showed there was something in the Central Queensland environment that was causing bizarre abnormalities in toads.
A common stomach complaint known as ‘phowa’ affects up to 80% of the exiled Tibetan population.
The term phowa describes painful stomach disorders like ulcers, gastritis and reflux and several years ago one of the monks visiting Australia was diagnosed with the bacteria helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) as the cause of his problems.
H.pylori is a common bacterium that lives in the stomach, but it eluded medical science for many years. In 2005 two Australian scientists, Dr Robin Warren and Dr Barry Marshall, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering it and the link with stomach ulcers.
Last November Maureen and a medical team ran a pilot program to test about 60 monks back in the Dharamsala monastery and as expected, the tests showed that an incredibly high proportion of the population had the bacteria. It can be treated with a simple course of antibiotics.
“It was incredibly successful,” Maureen said. “78% of people tested positive and were promptly treated. Within seven days people who had been suffering for 20 years were basically cured. We had a 100% success rate (for those treated). It was an excellent result.”
Maureen is now hoping to go back in April to run a much bigger program that would involve testing all 500 monks at the monastery and about 2200 people at a nearby school.
Mideast Water Crisis Brings Misery, Uncertainty
The Middle East is facing its worst water crisis in decades. For three summers, the annual rains have failed to come. Farmland has dried up across the region in Iraq, Syria, southeast Turkey and Lebanon.More than 160 villages are abandoned now in Syria alone. According to a United Nations report on the drought, 800,000 people have lost their livelihood. Hundreds of thousands left once-fertile land that turned to dust and pitched tents near the big cities, looking for any kind of work.
Syria and Iraq blame Turkey's huge network of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for reducing water supplies by 50 percent.
Turkey is the site of the headwaters of a river system that Syria and Iraq depend on. An informal agreement determines the flow downstream.
"When we had bad relations with Turkey, they reduced the flow of water despite the agreement, and now, thank God, we have excellent relations with Turkey, and hopefully, we will not see any cutoff of water," Sukkar says.
Turkey says there is enough water for everyone, but Syria and Iraq waste their share. Amery, the water expert, says the Turks are partly right.
"The issue is water but it goes far beyond water," he says.
Amery says the key to head off a water crisis is more efficient management of a scarce resource. But he adds politics, not climate, is the problem.
"A lot of Arabs believe that Turkey is trying to assert itself as a regional superpower," he says, "and water is being used as a tool to advance that interest."
Turkey is a water superpower because the headwaters of the great rivers — the Tigris and Euphrates — are in the Turkish mountains. Over the years, the Turks have built dozens of dams limiting the flow to the Arab world downstream.
Between 2007 and 2008, the drought forced residents to abandon about 160 villages in Syria and scores of villages in Iraq.
This week, Turkey and Syria agreed to joint management of some water resources, after being at odds for years.
Hat Tip : Josh Landis at Syria Comment
The sky comes alive in Evans Heads
This weekend the skies over Evans Head will again roar with the sound of many old aircraft as part of the annual Great Eastern Fly-In. www.greateasternflyin.com.
We would like to thank Con MP Brent Rathgeber for that lovely explanation of Steve's dismissal of parliament - first ignoring its will and then proroguing it - and move on to how the media props up that c...
CANADIANS AGAINST PROROGUING PARLIAMENT On Facebook . Meanwhile, Alberta Con MP Brent Rathgeber, who sits on both the Justice and Human Rights Committee and the Public Safety and National Security Commit...
What do you get when you cross aboriginal wisdom with Google Maps? Newly discovered meteor impact craters, of course! Duane Hamacher studies aboriginal astronomy as MacQuarie University in Sydney; already ...
If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation, which stems from our weekly science news podcast that you can subscribe to here on...
In early December 2009, Super Typhoon Nida was dying in the North Pacific (that's her in her prime below). She was a real beaut - 175 mph winds, lots of energy. Some of that energy ended up in what could ...
Elvis Presley, who would have celebrated his 75th birthday today, famously sang about a hound dog. But his true animal passion was for horses, suggests Priscilla Presley and multiple other sources. You'll ...
"We now have a real whale war on our hands," said Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd after a collision between his vessel, the Ady Gil, and the Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru No.2 tore the bow off the former a...
It turns out ants have group strategies for avoiding famine and poisoning that humans could borrow from.
NASA engineers are working on an ultra-compact nuclear power plant that should generate enough electricity to run an average American house.
Alexander The Great Wear patterns on one of the most celebrated mosaics of antiquity have allowed researchers to reconstruct exactly how ancient Romans viewed the artwork. Found during the 1831 excavations...
It may not seem like it now, but satellite maps show a sharp decline in late winter and early spring snow cover.
Although a new study on autism cannot pin down the causes of the disability, researchers have just recognized a new trend among parents of autistic children.
*Friday Night at 6PM Eastern Time, WWL Radio relaunches for 2010!* The Holiday Break/Vacation is over! I am pleased and excited to rejoin Gottlieb on air in this New Year. It is always an honor to run wit...
If you love science fiction, there's a good chance you love escape pods. Just try and tell a space opera without one. But what about the real-life space escape and rescue vehicles? Let's abandon ship toget...
Searching for alien worlds using the cutting-edge Kepler space telescope would be the pinnacle of anyone's career, but what does it take to be an exoplanet hunter? We ask Kepler co-investigator Ted Dunham ...
Records show that reefs are key sources for the appearance of new species.
This diamond in the sky could help scientists to deflect future asteroids on a collision course with Earth.
Killer Whales in the in the North Atlantic Ocean come in two different flavors, and could be in the process of splitting into two species, according to new research by a team of European scientistsSanyo rolls electric bicycles into U.S. market. Orcas ...
A new dairy in Texas promises to green the farming process and put more money in farmers' pockets at a time when they are feeling the greatest pinch. The demonstration dairy facility under construction at ...
Hovering silently a few feet off the ground it looks like a flying saucer out of a Steven Spielberg film. The AR.Drone can be used for "augmented reality gaming" -- allowing "real world objects and conditi...
If you're thinking about taking up running to burn off those holiday pounds, you might want to set aside the running shoes. A study published in American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation rep...
So called "non-avian theropod" dinosaurs from the Cretaceous had feathers, nests, laid eggs and roosted like birds. If they were so much like birds, why don't we just say they were birds? A paper in the Fe...
It's just like the movie "Avatar" -- well, sort of. Starfish, sea urchins, and their brethren are rising up to fight humanity's greatest wrong to the Earth: global warming. Together they are sucking around...
In New Bedford, Mass., a shuttered plant that once rolled out Polaroid film is up and running again. Except this time, the plant isn't producing film -- it's making extremely thin flexible solar panels. Ba...
Out of nowhere, a very quiet Silicon Valley startup called Neato Robotics announced the official release of the XV-11, a robotic vacuum cleaner, which promises to challenge Roomba.
Who would've thought deforestation had an upside? Satellite flyovers of newly cleared land in the Amazon have uncovered a vanished civilization that could rival the Incans or Aztecs in sophistication. Rese...
Over the winter holidays I bought a bug vacuum, one that promised to suck up insects without harming them, so they could be easily deposited outside. It didn't work and was returned, but I wish I'd have se...
Find out how the rhythms of Wall Street could help to predict patterns of enemy combatant attacks, potentially saving the lives of both soldiers and civilians.
A Japanese craft sniffs the moon's thin atmosphere and provides details that could help future explorers.
"This is a man hired by a company that contracts for the American secret services and that is the object of investigation," Alarcon told reporters after a meeting of Cuba's National Election Commission.
He said the contractor was part of trend toward "privatization of war" by the United States, which hires people to be "agents, torturers, spies."
Asked if the prisoner was in good condition, Alarcon said, "I can assure you that he is much better -- much, much better -- than the victims of those contractors all over the world."
Since Northwest Flight 253, Team Obama = Team Bush/Cheney, say 9/11 widows
The 9/11 Commissioners would not assign any accountability nor did they recommend that incompetent people be fired. Additionally, there was no urgency by the Bush Administration and/or Congress to make sure that common sense changes were made from “lessons learned”. In response, we asked, “whatWhat the hell? will your excuse be the next time an attack occurs?” Apparently, the same excuses are being used again.
President Obama stated, “This was not a failure to collect intelligence Š it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already hadŠ” With all due respect to President Obama, we have heard these words before.
Watching the press briefing on January 7, 2010 and reading the summary of the White House Review of the December 25 Attempted Terrorist Attack and The Corrective Actions, left us stunned. The desperate attempt by the current administration to convince us that these problems were somehow different from the ones faced prior to 9/11 was absurd. We can tell you without a doubt, these problems are not new at
all.
Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 08, 2010 "ICH" -- What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.
If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.
After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.
The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.
Recently I read a column by an author who has a "convenience theory" about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.
January 08, 2010 "ICH" -- What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.
If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.
After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.
The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.
Recently I read a column by an author who has a "convenience theory" about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.
Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities "for its links with the Israeli intelligence services."
Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.
The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.
Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.
The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.
ofgodsandothermonsters.blogspot.com/
What the hell?
This is starting to feel like an episode in the Twilight Zone.
Still, there's word the Tories may go further to ensure prorogation becomes routine. Government sources say they're contemplating formally shutting down Parliament at the end of every year, so the government can start afresh with a throne speech and a budget.
Do it often enough, it becomes routine, and people come to believe it's the norm. Normal to kill any work still on the table and start all over again just to kill the same bills the following year. Normal to incurr waste of taxpayers dollars on wasted bills. Normal to wipe the slate clean of work done by committees studying abuses and scandals.
Sort of like going to confession on a regular basis: wipe your sins away without coming to terms with them or being held accountable so that you can go out and commit a whole new set of sins, repeat some of the same ones, secure in the knowledge that never, ever will you be held accountable.
The role of elected representatives will erode further if the federal government makes good on its suggestion to make prorogation an annual event, experts say. "It's not easy to see how this can work," said David Mitchell, president of the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum. "It raises the question: Why do we have a Parliament?"
Still, there's word the Tories may go further to ensure prorogation becomes routine. Government sources say they're contemplating formally shutting down Parliament at the end of every year, so the government can start afresh with a throne speech and a budget.
Do it often enough, it becomes routine, and people come to believe it's the norm. Normal to kill any work still on the table and start all over again just to kill the same bills the following year. Normal to incurr waste of taxpayers dollars on wasted bills. Normal to wipe the slate clean of work done by committees studying abuses and scandals.
Sort of like going to confession on a regular basis: wipe your sins away without coming to terms with them or being held accountable so that you can go out and commit a whole new set of sins, repeat some of the same ones, secure in the knowledge that never, ever will you be held accountable.
The role of elected representatives will erode further if the federal government makes good on its suggestion to make prorogation an annual event, experts say. "It's not easy to see how this can work," said David Mitchell, president of the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum. "It raises the question: Why do we have a Parliament?"
Killing Organizers in Honduras
The bodies of slain activists are piling up in Honduras. While it's being kept quiet in most Honduran and international media, the rage is building among a dedicated network of friends spreading the word quickly with the tragic announcement of each compañero/a.
Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared.
The specific targets of these killings have been those perceived as the biggest threats to the coup establishment. The bravest, and thus the most vulnerable: Members of the Popular Resistance against the coup. Their friends and family. People who provide the Resistance with food and shelter. Teachers, students, and ordinary citizens who simply recognize the fallacy of an un-elected regime taking over their country. All associated with the Resistance have faced constant and growing repercussions for their courage in protesting the coup. With the international community given the green light by the US that democratic order has returned via elections, it’s open season for violent forces in Honduras working to tear apart the political unity of the Resistance Front against the coup.
The killings are happening almost faster than they can be recorded.
Pavón and other human rights leaders in Honduras have been extremely vocal in denouncing these atrocities, but the story has remained under the radar for most Hondurans and almost all international media. At the time when Hondurans most need exposure to these abuses, they’ve been left to fend for themselves.
How did this happen? Why are people being randomly executed in dark corners of the country for simply standing in opposition to a military coup?
Most of the bloodshed is on the hands of coup president Roberto Micheletti and other leaders of the regime. However, President Barack Obama and the US State Department played a major role in allowing conditions to get to this point. The US government took no concrete action against the thousands of documented violations since the coup took place June 28. It’s no shock that the violence has worsened dramatically with the eyes of the world now averted.
Two things have changed since last year: More people have started to apply the term "genocide" to what Israel is doing to Gaza. And not only is Israel being directly accused but also, increasingly, Egypt.
Is it genocide? "The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" -- a clear, concise document adopted by the United Nations in December 1948 -- states that genocide is any of five acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Three acts appear to apply to the situation in Gaza: "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared.
The specific targets of these killings have been those perceived as the biggest threats to the coup establishment. The bravest, and thus the most vulnerable: Members of the Popular Resistance against the coup. Their friends and family. People who provide the Resistance with food and shelter. Teachers, students, and ordinary citizens who simply recognize the fallacy of an un-elected regime taking over their country. All associated with the Resistance have faced constant and growing repercussions for their courage in protesting the coup. With the international community given the green light by the US that democratic order has returned via elections, it’s open season for violent forces in Honduras working to tear apart the political unity of the Resistance Front against the coup.
The killings are happening almost faster than they can be recorded.
Pavón and other human rights leaders in Honduras have been extremely vocal in denouncing these atrocities, but the story has remained under the radar for most Hondurans and almost all international media. At the time when Hondurans most need exposure to these abuses, they’ve been left to fend for themselves.
How did this happen? Why are people being randomly executed in dark corners of the country for simply standing in opposition to a military coup?
Most of the bloodshed is on the hands of coup president Roberto Micheletti and other leaders of the regime. However, President Barack Obama and the US State Department played a major role in allowing conditions to get to this point. The US government took no concrete action against the thousands of documented violations since the coup took place June 28. It’s no shock that the violence has worsened dramatically with the eyes of the world now averted.
When Does It Become Genocide?
During a visit to Ramallah a year ago while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza was underway, I shared my fears with a close Palestinian friend. "It may sound insane, but I think the Israelis' real objective is to see them all dead."My friend told me not to be silly, the assault was horrific, but it was not mass killing. I said that wasn't the issue: This was a population already very vulnerable to disease, ill-health, and malnutrition after years of siege, with its infrastructure rotted, its water and food contaminated. Israel's war would surely push the people over the brink, especially if the siege was maintained -- as it has been.
In other words, Israel would not directly kill tens of thousands of Palestinians, but it would create the conditions for tens of thousands to die. Any epidemic could finish the job. My friend fell silent at these words, but still shook his head in disbelief.Two things have changed since last year: More people have started to apply the term "genocide" to what Israel is doing to Gaza. And not only is Israel being directly accused but also, increasingly, Egypt.
Is it genocide? "The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" -- a clear, concise document adopted by the United Nations in December 1948 -- states that genocide is any of five acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Three acts appear to apply to the situation in Gaza: "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
Mutant toads discovered in Gladstone
CQUniversity researcher Dr Scott Wilson has examined more than 6000 toads in CQ, most from Gladstone, and said close to 10% of those had abnormalities.
In a normal toad population, Dr Wilson said only 1% or 2% of the amphibians had defects.
The research fellow, based in Gladstone, said the results of the year-long study were concerning because up to half are believed to have been caused by chemicals in the environment.
Dr Wilson said the porus skin that frogs and toads had allowed them to work like a canary in a coal mine.
Because the amphibians adapt to their environment, Dr Wilson said the results from Gladstone showed there was something in the Central Queensland environment that was causing bizarre abnormalities in toads.
A common stomach complaint known as ‘phowa’ affects up to 80% of the exiled Tibetan population.
The term phowa describes painful stomach disorders like ulcers, gastritis and reflux and several years ago one of the monks visiting Australia was diagnosed with the bacteria helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) as the cause of his problems.
H.pylori is a common bacterium that lives in the stomach, but it eluded medical science for many years. In 2005 two Australian scientists, Dr Robin Warren and Dr Barry Marshall, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering it and the link with stomach ulcers.
Last November Maureen and a medical team ran a pilot program to test about 60 monks back in the Dharamsala monastery and as expected, the tests showed that an incredibly high proportion of the population had the bacteria. It can be treated with a simple course of antibiotics.
“It was incredibly successful,” Maureen said. “78% of people tested positive and were promptly treated. Within seven days people who had been suffering for 20 years were basically cured. We had a 100% success rate (for those treated). It was an excellent result.”
Maureen is now hoping to go back in April to run a much bigger program that would involve testing all 500 monks at the monastery and about 2200 people at a nearby school.
Mideast Water Crisis Brings Misery, Uncertainty
The Middle East is facing its worst water crisis in decades. For three summers, the annual rains have failed to come. Farmland has dried up across the region in Iraq, Syria, southeast Turkey and Lebanon.More than 160 villages are abandoned now in Syria alone. According to a United Nations report on the drought, 800,000 people have lost their livelihood. Hundreds of thousands left once-fertile land that turned to dust and pitched tents near the big cities, looking for any kind of work.
Syria and Iraq blame Turkey's huge network of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for reducing water supplies by 50 percent.
Turkey is the site of the headwaters of a river system that Syria and Iraq depend on. An informal agreement determines the flow downstream.
"When we had bad relations with Turkey, they reduced the flow of water despite the agreement, and now, thank God, we have excellent relations with Turkey, and hopefully, we will not see any cutoff of water," Sukkar says.
Turkey says there is enough water for everyone, but Syria and Iraq waste their share. Amery, the water expert, says the Turks are partly right.
"The issue is water but it goes far beyond water," he says.
Amery says the key to head off a water crisis is more efficient management of a scarce resource. But he adds politics, not climate, is the problem.
"A lot of Arabs believe that Turkey is trying to assert itself as a regional superpower," he says, "and water is being used as a tool to advance that interest."
Turkey is a water superpower because the headwaters of the great rivers — the Tigris and Euphrates — are in the Turkish mountains. Over the years, the Turks have built dozens of dams limiting the flow to the Arab world downstream.
Between 2007 and 2008, the drought forced residents to abandon about 160 villages in Syria and scores of villages in Iraq.
This week, Turkey and Syria agreed to joint management of some water resources, after being at odds for years.
Hat Tip : Josh Landis at Syria Comment
Syria and Iraq blame Turkey's huge network of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for reducing water supplies by 50 percent.
Turkey is the site of the headwaters of a river system that Syria and Iraq depend on. An informal agreement determines the flow downstream.
"When we had bad relations with Turkey, they reduced the flow of water despite the agreement, and now, thank God, we have excellent relations with Turkey, and hopefully, we will not see any cutoff of water," Sukkar says.
Turkey says there is enough water for everyone, but Syria and Iraq waste their share. Amery, the water expert, says the Turks are partly right.
"The issue is water but it goes far beyond water," he says.
Amery says the key to head off a water crisis is more efficient management of a scarce resource. But he adds politics, not climate, is the problem.
"A lot of Arabs believe that Turkey is trying to assert itself as a regional superpower," he says, "and water is being used as a tool to advance that interest."
Turkey is a water superpower because the headwaters of the great rivers — the Tigris and Euphrates — are in the Turkish mountains. Over the years, the Turks have built dozens of dams limiting the flow to the Arab world downstream.
Between 2007 and 2008, the drought forced residents to abandon about 160 villages in Syria and scores of villages in Iraq.
This week, Turkey and Syria agreed to joint management of some water resources, after being at odds for years.
Hat Tip : Josh Landis at Syria Comment
The sky comes alive in Evans Heads
This weekend the skies over Evans Head will again roar with the sound of many old aircraft as part of the annual Great Eastern Fly-In. www.greateasternflyin.com.
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