An activist with the local St. Louis Greens sent a report to Counterpunch about a couple "ultra - storms" that swept through his area last week causing widespread damage. He provides details that would make anyone think twice about denying climate change.
Weather stations provided little if any notice and the damage that took place in minutes left 50 to 90% of homes without electricity. It was still being repaired with over 100,000 still without power when he posted the story. He pointed out that a series of these kind of fast moving storms would make the nine states that sent in extra work crews to restore power would not be available.
He lists a hellish series of factors that he witnessed developing throughout the emergency, like the searing temperatures and the rotting food from lack of electricity after only a few days.
He also studiously noted that the station news editors and reporters never utter the phrase "global warming."
Want to know just how hot it is in St. Louis? Read on below:
Don Fitz: Half-Hour Hurricanes
Monday, July 31, 2006
It was 35,000 deaths in western Europe 2003, so there!
To settle the slight dispute last night over just how many were reported in heat related dead in western Europe here is the link: New Scientist European heatwave caused 35,000 deaths - Breaking News The story was filed 10/October/2003 in the New Scientist magazine attributing the final figure from the Earth Policy Institute study of data from the "scorched" Europe in August 2003.
"August 2003 was the hottest August on record in the northern hemisphere. But projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict more erratic weather, the EPI notes."
My debating partner accused me of adding a "zero" to the number of fatalities, but nope - here's the proof.
"August 2003 was the hottest August on record in the northern hemisphere. But projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict more erratic weather, the EPI notes."
My debating partner accused me of adding a "zero" to the number of fatalities, but nope - here's the proof.
Silver Linings and a Cross of Gold (Harpers.org)
THE NUTS ARE POSTING UP HAPPY ON THE BLOGS, RAPTURE READY TO FLY INTO HEAVEN, NAKED.
THE GOP POLLS OPEN AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING.
WILL THEY MAKE IT?
I received some email today after posting the essay below about the Kansas GOP primaries this week. I won't write them up but the few received sounded a lot like the ones Ken Silverstein wrote about in a Harper's piece last week: Go to Silver Linings and a Cross of Gold (Harpers.org) and figure it out.
As Werther pointed out in his article linked below - the term "Rapture" isn't in the King James Version of The Bible, but who knows what the nutters are reading after the "End - Time" series.
THE GOP POLLS OPEN AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING.
WILL THEY MAKE IT?
I received some email today after posting the essay below about the Kansas GOP primaries this week. I won't write them up but the few received sounded a lot like the ones Ken Silverstein wrote about in a Harper's piece last week: Go to Silver Linings and a Cross of Gold (Harpers.org) and figure it out.
As Werther pointed out in his article linked below - the term "Rapture" isn't in the King James Version of The Bible, but who knows what the nutters are reading after the "End - Time" series.
Werther: Rev. John Hagee: The Manchurian Clergyman
Here is a great article about the Christian Zionist Rev. John Hagee and his traveling circus that went through DC last weekend to listen, pray and shout with Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and other Bible nutters defending Israelis war crimes: Werther: The Manchurian Clergyman
Ahead of the M$M news crawler! Kansas Republicans better listen and learn, quick!
FCF's graphic artist ahead of the news!
Infamous worldwide for Christian religious bigotry and Know - Nothingism; Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist family church has a law suit filed by a dead Marine's dad after a recent protest by the Topeka, Ks based group at a recent Arlington military funeral.
Nationally syndicated news network CBS is covering the church's latest outrage.
Try not to gag and read the article at: http://tinyurl.com/jlyx4
Republican primary elections, before the GOP dissolves.
Tuesday, primary election day for the Republicans in Kansas which will become a watershed moment in state history. The turnout from within the Republican party is also a bellweather to the national GOP leadership. It's outcome could send a signal joining the national tide of revulsion for the phony budget busting "War on Terror" and their disasterous cabal in the White House.
The New Isolationists are coming.
A return to the conservatives' legacy?
We have been clipping and counting the large numbers of conservatives abandoning the religious fundamentalists in the government buildings. It is not difficult to lend support to the libertarians, the old "America First" crowd who favored isolationism to cruel imperialism going back to before World War I.
It is not too hard to remember.
Or is it, Kansas Republicans?
When large standing armies were considered poisonous to the nation's financial health and a tax on every free citizen. How forgetful you Republicans have become.
When church, business or politics were a matter of private choice and not a matter of public evangelical religious hysteria.
Where the bedroom and the church pew were considered protected zones of privacy, and kept that way from the noxious glare of a klieglight or a camera flash for another political campaign.
It's not too difficult to sympathize and support the new Isolationists demanding immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and vast defunding of the "military industrial complex."
The military adventures for Big Energy combined with the annual budget to the Pentagon will approach nearly a trillion dollars, a large fraction of the total economic output of the country. This coupled with an invested wealth of over another trillion dollars by Saudis royals and other dictatorships abroad, funds that are "in" our economy, and who would want to save this mess?
Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent it matters not one bit, the national elected political leaders (and not a few state legislators) have gone Holy Bonkers with your tax money!
WILL THE REAL KANSAS CONSERVATIVES STAND UP?
Are the Christian fundamentalists running the Kansas Republican party "conservative" in anything other than their prejudice for the Christian religion?
It is widely known that gangs of illegal immigrant workers are flooding construction projects all across Topeka, the state's capital and in Johnson county, once reported the nation's third wealthiest county. How many "conservative" Kansas building contractors and sub contractors are running their companies on the cheap with illegal immigrants?
Where is the outrage among the state legislators literally sitting on top of a huge construction project underneath their feet in the statehouse?
It seems the legislators turn a blind eye to their own racist laws, so long as their buddies are making money hand over fist with cheap illegal immigrant labor.
How many illegal immigrants are working in the vast KDOT highway industry?
Why is the only "good" labor in Kansas considered the cheapest?
Why do Kansas Republicans & Democrats take any campaign contributions they can launder from companies like Westar Energy, or any number of other lobbyists for large corporations?
Why aren't there investigations into that kind of business conduct, rather than endless meetings debating science language in a biology textbook?
The idiots in the state legislature would probably have us finance both and not tell us about the results since new Homeland Security laws would prevent disclosure.
The "War on Terror" is a fraud and a huge financial boondoggle for the corporations.
And, Kansas Republicans, you know it to be true.
Instead real Kansans must also know, the once proud populist state is plagued by hypocritical self - styled "pro - life Christian" legislators, anti - abortion protesters and terrorists, the bombmaking vets home of OKC, assorted wacko Christian gun militias - the state's recent history is a disgrace to the whole state's educated and poor; we have seen and endured it all.
Free thinkers and rational minds are swallowed up in the Christian fundamentalist Republican flood of Know - Nothing nutters. Is there anything to be learned from this coming primary election?
It is time to throw the nutters out!
A once proud state that was the breadbasket of the country has lost all collective memory forgotten our proud pre - Civil War "Free State" past, the state's pre - WWI legacy of home to the largest socialist newspaper in the country the "Appeal to Reason" and the 50s landmark anti - segregationist law in public education, the Brown vs. Topeka School Board court case.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the relation between the U. S. made bombs in Lebanon and the U. S. war crimes and atrocities in Iraq. Our nation's leaders have unleashed a high tech holocaust on a billion muslims, making more terrorists with every missile and bomb manufactured from this country. Every Kansas Republican has forgotten Abilene's President Ike's warning against "the military industrial complex", they are brain dead, lost in Bible verses and hysterical attacks on "liberals" and "leftists" while a corporate war machine robs their grandchildren of opportunity and education.
The energy crisis ahead will overwhelm every American man, woman and child in less than five years according to scientists, geologists and a rare few national leaders. The nation is more than "addicted" to oil, it is economically hollowed out, overwhelming in debt and lead by liars holding Bibles over the heads of a population of clutterfreak amnesiacs.
Infamous worldwide for Christian religious bigotry and Know - Nothingism; Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist family church has a law suit filed by a dead Marine's dad after a recent protest by the Topeka, Ks based group at a recent Arlington military funeral.
Nationally syndicated news network CBS is covering the church's latest outrage.
Try not to gag and read the article at: http://tinyurl.com/jlyx4
Republican primary elections, before the GOP dissolves.
Tuesday, primary election day for the Republicans in Kansas which will become a watershed moment in state history. The turnout from within the Republican party is also a bellweather to the national GOP leadership. It's outcome could send a signal joining the national tide of revulsion for the phony budget busting "War on Terror" and their disasterous cabal in the White House.
The New Isolationists are coming.
A return to the conservatives' legacy?
We have been clipping and counting the large numbers of conservatives abandoning the religious fundamentalists in the government buildings. It is not difficult to lend support to the libertarians, the old "America First" crowd who favored isolationism to cruel imperialism going back to before World War I.
It is not too hard to remember.
Or is it, Kansas Republicans?
When large standing armies were considered poisonous to the nation's financial health and a tax on every free citizen. How forgetful you Republicans have become.
When church, business or politics were a matter of private choice and not a matter of public evangelical religious hysteria.
Where the bedroom and the church pew were considered protected zones of privacy, and kept that way from the noxious glare of a klieglight or a camera flash for another political campaign.
It's not too difficult to sympathize and support the new Isolationists demanding immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and vast defunding of the "military industrial complex."
The military adventures for Big Energy combined with the annual budget to the Pentagon will approach nearly a trillion dollars, a large fraction of the total economic output of the country. This coupled with an invested wealth of over another trillion dollars by Saudis royals and other dictatorships abroad, funds that are "in" our economy, and who would want to save this mess?
Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent it matters not one bit, the national elected political leaders (and not a few state legislators) have gone Holy Bonkers with your tax money!
WILL THE REAL KANSAS CONSERVATIVES STAND UP?
Are the Christian fundamentalists running the Kansas Republican party "conservative" in anything other than their prejudice for the Christian religion?
It is widely known that gangs of illegal immigrant workers are flooding construction projects all across Topeka, the state's capital and in Johnson county, once reported the nation's third wealthiest county. How many "conservative" Kansas building contractors and sub contractors are running their companies on the cheap with illegal immigrants?
Where is the outrage among the state legislators literally sitting on top of a huge construction project underneath their feet in the statehouse?
It seems the legislators turn a blind eye to their own racist laws, so long as their buddies are making money hand over fist with cheap illegal immigrant labor.
How many illegal immigrants are working in the vast KDOT highway industry?
Why is the only "good" labor in Kansas considered the cheapest?
Why do Kansas Republicans & Democrats take any campaign contributions they can launder from companies like Westar Energy, or any number of other lobbyists for large corporations?
Why aren't there investigations into that kind of business conduct, rather than endless meetings debating science language in a biology textbook?
The idiots in the state legislature would probably have us finance both and not tell us about the results since new Homeland Security laws would prevent disclosure.
The "War on Terror" is a fraud and a huge financial boondoggle for the corporations.
And, Kansas Republicans, you know it to be true.
Instead real Kansans must also know, the once proud populist state is plagued by hypocritical self - styled "pro - life Christian" legislators, anti - abortion protesters and terrorists, the bombmaking vets home of OKC, assorted wacko Christian gun militias - the state's recent history is a disgrace to the whole state's educated and poor; we have seen and endured it all.
Free thinkers and rational minds are swallowed up in the Christian fundamentalist Republican flood of Know - Nothing nutters. Is there anything to be learned from this coming primary election?
It is time to throw the nutters out!
A once proud state that was the breadbasket of the country has lost all collective memory forgotten our proud pre - Civil War "Free State" past, the state's pre - WWI legacy of home to the largest socialist newspaper in the country the "Appeal to Reason" and the 50s landmark anti - segregationist law in public education, the Brown vs. Topeka School Board court case.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the relation between the U. S. made bombs in Lebanon and the U. S. war crimes and atrocities in Iraq. Our nation's leaders have unleashed a high tech holocaust on a billion muslims, making more terrorists with every missile and bomb manufactured from this country. Every Kansas Republican has forgotten Abilene's President Ike's warning against "the military industrial complex", they are brain dead, lost in Bible verses and hysterical attacks on "liberals" and "leftists" while a corporate war machine robs their grandchildren of opportunity and education.
The energy crisis ahead will overwhelm every American man, woman and child in less than five years according to scientists, geologists and a rare few national leaders. The nation is more than "addicted" to oil, it is economically hollowed out, overwhelming in debt and lead by liars holding Bibles over the heads of a population of clutterfreak amnesiacs.
While the nation goes broke and sits on the edge of an economic abyss of vast worldwide energy shortages from one energy price spike to yet another - Kansans are told to fight cultural religious wars over evolution in cockroach ridden school rooms.
Yet the worst is about to come and the present foretells the future:
When a flash flood swept through southern Jefferson county last October our state's national leaders sent their secretaries and aides and promised more loans for the debt ridden victims of the flood, many were basic farmers. "Were" because they are broke and unable to grow or ranch the land.
The only "Inconvenient Truth" in Kansas is most are obsessed with their neighbors sex organs. Al Gore wasn't heard by a single Bible thumping Rapture ready psychopath.
60% of the entire country is in a state of extreme drought during one of the warmest years on record and Kansas Republicans are told to worry more about their daughters getting an abortion for an unplanned pregnancy.
The nation's military expenditures outstrip those of most countries combined and the Kansas Republicans tell us to be thankful for Ft. Riley's base expansion and housing boom. How much mental health counseling are returning PTSD vets getting before roaming our gravel roads?
The largest manufacturer of aircraft in Kansas, Boeing Int'l, in Wichita is being phased out because it doesn't manufacture military aircraft.
Kansas Republican leaders tell us to embrace more war industries, and send our sons and daughters to fight, kill and be killed, or go mad trying to stay alive - because President Bush and Cheney tell us to do "it" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon or Palestine.
Just do it and shutup!
What gross examples of mass criminality and psychopathic behavior we have in the Kansas Republican leadership. Whatever the madhouses in DC tell us to do we must obey.
The state's Republican primaries lay ahead - will you pull the lever on the same old, same old candidate? Or, will you be able to "find" the "moderate."
It's the last stand for the Old Republicans and a possible signal to the New Isolationists.
Kansans, we are getting just what we deserve for our collective amnesia.
And the world is suffering for it!
Friday, July 28, 2006
Rapture Ready, Fred Phelpsian Art Nouveau, "Before the Peak"
Proposed Kansas State Park & Recreation sign tentatively titled:
"Post Empire American Virgins."
The words of the contributing artist, Bill "The Blade" describing his heartfelt motivations after the signs creation, are below:
"With the Billion dollars that US arms makers lost out on due to Hugo buying 60 aircraft from the Ruskies instead of them, and to celebrate Exxon which today announced the second largest quarterly profit of 10 billion dollars made by any privately held company ever, (the highest was made by them last quarter) I thought it would be a good time to send you my exact sentiments regarding this whole affair in the form of a picture. Enjoy."
Submitted by Kansas pirate Bill "The Blade" aboard the ghost ship HMS Immortal Porpoise sailing on Lake Perry, Kansas this weekend.
Thank you, Bill!
Want to see the dastardly pirate?
Enrollments taken by reserved appointments only:
"The Fred Phelps School of Graphic Design" with master artist and talented sailor, Bill "The Blade", aboard the HMS Immortal Porpoise, Lake Perry, Ks.
SAIL NAKED!
BOOK NOW BEFORE THE RAPTURE!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Pacifists before the barricades?
Medea Benjamin, at left, and another Codepink partner at an earlier congressional hearing last week. Photo courtesy: Codepink
Non – violent, massive exposure, tiny woman. Priceless.
Global Exchange founder and Codepink leader, Medea Benjamin was arrested yesterday at a high visibility event.
She successfully got her message directly to the Prime Minister of Iraq while he was speaking to a joint session of Congress.
CNN and Reuters covered her slight frame being "escorted" out, slight from a twenty day or so fast. She and others are part of a nationwide, yeah, nationwide protest fast. Don’t believe me? Look at the list of those fasting for immediately bringing the troops home at: LOOK WHO'S FASTING!
Also, check out the Troops Home FAST site.
Melting down the intellectual smoke signals.
Meltdown – A “ticking time bomb”?
Gabriel Kolko sent out a second expanded version of an earlier article in Counterpunch. Detailed and bizarre (pay attention to the Boca Rotan swim party) the story reads deeply into an imminent hedge fund crisis and other crunchers in world investment. The headline subject “bankers” seems secondary since the “meltdown” is “uncontrollable.”
I do not pretend to understand all this insider economics, but encourage all readers to check it out.
No internet conspiracy theory about Freemasons and Catholics here, click - Bankers Fear World Economic Meltdown.
Intellectuals & Survival
The prolific professor writes of a “Great Soul of Power” and the contradictory motivations of intellectuals, anarchy and survival of the ones who want “excessive democracy.” Noam Chomsky writes directly to the important Information Clearinghouse site with: GREAT SOUL OF POWER.
Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel
Also from Information Clearinghouse a link to the Independent’s latest from Robert Fisk. He writes clearly from the hills in Southern Lebanon and asks the obviously controversial, but historically consistent theme concerning what others call “People’s War”.
He leads with, “Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?”
Historical context and great scenic descriptions of Lebanon this is classical reporting at it’s best. Great stuff ahead if you click: SEND A WARNING TO ISRAEL.
It’s the Oil, Stupid!
Greg Palast writes:
“I’m not an expert on Palestine nor Lebanon and I’d rather not pretend to be one. If you want to know what’s going on, read Robert Fisk. He lives there. He speaks Arabic. Stay away from pundits whose only connection to the Middle East is the local falafel stand.”
I do and that is what brought up the link listing Fisk’s latest above.
Thank you, Greg.
The entertaining Greg Palast writes from a different angle making a point that it is in the interests of the Iranians, Saudis Royals and the Bush administration to have higher oil prices. I think Greg overlooks the propensity of the powerful to cruelly engage in “demand destruction” whenever it must.
Check out his latest at: Blood in Beirut: $75.05 a Barrel
Gabriel Kolko sent out a second expanded version of an earlier article in Counterpunch. Detailed and bizarre (pay attention to the Boca Rotan swim party) the story reads deeply into an imminent hedge fund crisis and other crunchers in world investment. The headline subject “bankers” seems secondary since the “meltdown” is “uncontrollable.”
I do not pretend to understand all this insider economics, but encourage all readers to check it out.
No internet conspiracy theory about Freemasons and Catholics here, click - Bankers Fear World Economic Meltdown.
Intellectuals & Survival
The prolific professor writes of a “Great Soul of Power” and the contradictory motivations of intellectuals, anarchy and survival of the ones who want “excessive democracy.” Noam Chomsky writes directly to the important Information Clearinghouse site with: GREAT SOUL OF POWER.
Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel
Also from Information Clearinghouse a link to the Independent’s latest from Robert Fisk. He writes clearly from the hills in Southern Lebanon and asks the obviously controversial, but historically consistent theme concerning what others call “People’s War”.
He leads with, “Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?”
Historical context and great scenic descriptions of Lebanon this is classical reporting at it’s best. Great stuff ahead if you click: SEND A WARNING TO ISRAEL.
It’s the Oil, Stupid!
Greg Palast writes:
“I’m not an expert on Palestine nor Lebanon and I’d rather not pretend to be one. If you want to know what’s going on, read Robert Fisk. He lives there. He speaks Arabic. Stay away from pundits whose only connection to the Middle East is the local falafel stand.”
I do and that is what brought up the link listing Fisk’s latest above.
Thank you, Greg.
The entertaining Greg Palast writes from a different angle making a point that it is in the interests of the Iranians, Saudis Royals and the Bush administration to have higher oil prices. I think Greg overlooks the propensity of the powerful to cruelly engage in “demand destruction” whenever it must.
Check out his latest at: Blood in Beirut: $75.05 a Barrel
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
PEAK OIL NEWS
PEAK OIL?
THE DEBATE ON THE DATE IT ARRIVES IS NOT IMPORTANT, THE TIME TO PREPARE IS NOW!
MANY EXPERTS AGREE - THREE, MAYBE FOUR GROWING SEASONS
BEFORE THE WORLD'S FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY BASED CIVILIZATION IS CHALLENGED.
A MUST SEE!
AUSTRALIA'S ABC NEWS NETWORK
FOUR CORNERS PROGRAM
PRESENTS
"PEAK OIL?"
AN INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA
BROADBAND PROGRAM.
REPORTER JOHNATHAN HOLMES PREPARED THIS PROGRAM FOR A JULY 10, 2006 BROADCAST.
BEHIND THE PROGRAM PAGE.
The broadband edition has added features for the reader such as lengthy footage of interviews with Colin Campbell and Robert Hirsch, both experts on the subject who explain the depletion shocks as "the long slope." High volatility creates economic depression [and more energy wars] followed by a temporary return to a shaky normalcy; then the inevitable realization of shortage and again more volatility. The end result is the same - Peak Oil will force incredible, mind bending changes in the world's energy supplies, food production and technology.
CLICK BELOW
http://tinyurl.com/hd3uq
PEAK OIL EXPERTS MEET NEAR PISA, ITALY
HERE IS A "LIVE" BLOG AT THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PEAK OIL (ASPO) BEING HELD THIS WEEK IN PISA, ITALY. THE SCIENTISTS AND GEOLOGISTS THAT HAVE DEDICATED THEIR PROFESSIONS (AND RETIREMENTS) TO THIS SUBJECT ARE ALL THERE.
CLICK BELOW:
http://www.oilposter.org/blog/aspoblog.html
BBC "WAR FOR OIL" NEWS SHORT!
ALSO, COURTESY OF MATT SAVINAR'S HEAVY DUTY WEB SITE A YOU TUBE PRESENTATION OF A BBC 2003 BROADCAST
"WAR FOR OIL"
THREE PARTS - ABOUT NINE MINUTES EACH
CLICK BELOW:
http://tinyurl.com/qr5lm
MATT SAVINAR'S SITE SHOULD BE BOOKMARKED IN YOUR FAVORITE FOLDER TAKE A LOOK AT IT!
CLICK BELOW & BOOKMARK:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html
THE DEBATE ON THE DATE IT ARRIVES IS NOT IMPORTANT, THE TIME TO PREPARE IS NOW!
MANY EXPERTS AGREE - THREE, MAYBE FOUR GROWING SEASONS
BEFORE THE WORLD'S FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY BASED CIVILIZATION IS CHALLENGED.
A MUST SEE!
AUSTRALIA'S ABC NEWS NETWORK
FOUR CORNERS PROGRAM
PRESENTS
"PEAK OIL?"
AN INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA
BROADBAND PROGRAM.
REPORTER JOHNATHAN HOLMES PREPARED THIS PROGRAM FOR A JULY 10, 2006 BROADCAST.
BEHIND THE PROGRAM PAGE.
The broadband edition has added features for the reader such as lengthy footage of interviews with Colin Campbell and Robert Hirsch, both experts on the subject who explain the depletion shocks as "the long slope." High volatility creates economic depression [and more energy wars] followed by a temporary return to a shaky normalcy; then the inevitable realization of shortage and again more volatility. The end result is the same - Peak Oil will force incredible, mind bending changes in the world's energy supplies, food production and technology.
CLICK BELOW
http://tinyurl.com/hd3uq
PEAK OIL EXPERTS MEET NEAR PISA, ITALY
HERE IS A "LIVE" BLOG AT THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PEAK OIL (ASPO) BEING HELD THIS WEEK IN PISA, ITALY. THE SCIENTISTS AND GEOLOGISTS THAT HAVE DEDICATED THEIR PROFESSIONS (AND RETIREMENTS) TO THIS SUBJECT ARE ALL THERE.
CLICK BELOW:
http://www.oilposter.org/blog/aspoblog.html
BBC "WAR FOR OIL" NEWS SHORT!
ALSO, COURTESY OF MATT SAVINAR'S HEAVY DUTY WEB SITE A YOU TUBE PRESENTATION OF A BBC 2003 BROADCAST
"WAR FOR OIL"
THREE PARTS - ABOUT NINE MINUTES EACH
CLICK BELOW:
http://tinyurl.com/qr5lm
MATT SAVINAR'S SITE SHOULD BE BOOKMARKED IN YOUR FAVORITE FOLDER TAKE A LOOK AT IT!
CLICK BELOW & BOOKMARK:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html
YOU DON'T HAVE A FAST CONNECTION?
YOU WANT TO READ SOMETHING PRETTY CONTROVERSIAL ABOUT BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE EVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITY.
START HERE.
http://tinyurl.com/q7s44
AND FINALLY SOME EDUCATIONAL HUMOR!
AND THE GUY DOES A PRETTY GOOD STAND UP COMIC ROUTINE ON THE HISTORY OF OIL.
http://tinyurl.com/ez92b
YOU WANT TO READ SOMETHING PRETTY CONTROVERSIAL ABOUT BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE EVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITY.
START HERE.
http://tinyurl.com/q7s44
AND FINALLY SOME EDUCATIONAL HUMOR!
AND THE GUY DOES A PRETTY GOOD STAND UP COMIC ROUTINE ON THE HISTORY OF OIL.
http://tinyurl.com/ez92b
Monday, July 24, 2006
Blum's "Anti - Empire" Report
The Anti-Empire Report Some things you need to know before the world ends
July 22, 2006
by William Blum
The End Is Near, but first, this commercial.
There are times when I think that this tired old world has gone on a few years too long. What's happening in the Middle East is so depressing. Most discussions of the eternal Israel-Palestine conflict are variations on the child's eternal defense for misbehavior -- "He started it!" Within a few minutes of discussing/arguing the latest manifestation of the conflict the participants are back to 1967, then 1948, then biblical times. I don't wish to get entangled in who started the current mess. I would like instead to first express what I see as two essential underlying facts of life which remain from one conflict to the next:
Israel's real aim, and that of Washington, is the overthrow of the Hamas government in Palestine, the government that came to power in January through a clearly democratic process, the democracy that the Western "democracies" never tire of celebrating, except when the result doesn't please them. Is there a stronger word than "hypocrisy"? There is now "no Hamas government," declared a senior US official a week ago, "eight cabinet ministers or 30 percent of the government is in jail [kidnapped by Israel], another 30 percent is in hiding, and the other 30 percent is doing very little."[2]
To make the government-disappearance act even more Orwellian, we have Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in late June about Iraq: "This is the only legitimately elected government in the Middle East with a possible exception of Lebanon."[3]
What's next, gathering in front of the Big Telescreeen for the Two Minutes Hate?
In addition to doing away with the Hamas government, the current military blitzkrieg by Israel, with full US support, may well be designed to create "incidents" to justify attacks on Iran and Syria, the next steps of Washington's work in process, a controlling stranglehold on the Middle East and its oil.
It is a wanton act of collective punishment that is depriving the Palestinians of food, electricity, water, money, access to the outside world ... and sleep. Israel has been sending jets flying over Gaza at night triggering sonic booms, traumatizing children. "I want nobody to sleep at night in Gaza," declared Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert[4]; words suitable for Israel's tombstone.
These crimes against humanity -- and I haven't mentioned the terrible special weapons reportedly used by Israel -- are what the people of Palestine get for voting for the wrong party. It is ironic, given the Israeli attacks against civilians in both Gaza and Lebanon, that Hamas and Hezbollah are routinely dismissed in the West as terrorist organizations. The generally accepted definition of terrorism, used by the FBI and the United Nations amongst others, is: The use of violence against a civilian population in order to intimidate or coerce a government in furtherance of a political objective.
Since 9-11 it has been a calculated US-Israeli tactic to label the fight against Israel's foes as an integral part of the war on terror. On July 19, a rally was held in Washington, featuring the governor of Maryland, several members of Israeli-occupied Congress, the Israeli ambassador, and evangelical leading-light John Hagee. The Washington Post reported that "Speaker after prominent speaker characteriz[ed] current Israeli fighting as a small branch of the larger U.S.-led global war against Islamic terrorism" and "Israel's attacks against the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah were blows against those who have killed civilians from Bali to Bombay to Moscow." Said the Israeli ambassador: "This is not just about [Israel]. It's about where our world is going to be and the fate and security of our world. Israel is on the forefront. We will amputate these little arms of Iran," referring to Hezbollah.[5]
And if the war on terror isn't enough to put Israel on the side of the angels, John Hagee has argued that "the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West". He speaks of "a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."[6]
The beatification of Israel approaches being a movement. Here is David Horowitz, the eminent semi-hysterical ex-Marxist: "Israel is part of a global war, the war of radical Islam against civilization. Right now Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world by taking on the terrorists. It is not only for Israel's sake that we must get the facts out -- it is for ourselves, America, for every free country in the world, and for civilization itself."[7]
As for the two Israeli soldiers captured and held in Lebanon for prisoner exchange, we must keep a little history in mind. In the late 1990s, before Israel was evicted from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, it was a common practice for Israel to abduct entirely innocent Lebanese. As a 1998 Amnesty International paper declared: "By Israel's own admission, Lebanese detainees are being held as 'bargaining chips'; they are not detained for their own actions but in exchange for Israeli soldiers missing in action or killed in Lebanon. Most have now spent 10 years in secret and isolated detention."[8]
Israel has created its worst enemies -- they helped create Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah in Palestine, and their occupation of Lebanon created Hezbollah. The current terrible bombings can be expected to keep the process going. Since its very beginning, Israel has been almost continually occupied in fighting wars and taking other people's lands. Did not any better way ever occur to the idealistic Zionist pioneers?
But while you and I get depressed by the horror and suffering, the neo-conservatives revel in it. They devour the flesh and drink the blood of the people of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Palestine, of Lebanon, yet remain ravenous, and now call for Iran and Syria to be placed upon the feasting table. More than one of them has used the expression oderint dum metuant, a favorite phrase of Roman emperor Caligula, also used by Cicero -- "let them hate so long as they fear". Here is William Kristol, editor of the bible of neo-cons, "Weekly Standard", on Fox News Sunday, July 16:
"Look, our coddling of Iran ... over the last six to nine months has emboldened them. I mean, is Iran behaving like a timid regime that's very worried about the U.S.? Or is Iran behaving recklessly and in a foolhardy way? ... Israel is fighting four of our five enemies in the Middle East, in a sense. Iran, Syria, sponsors of terror; Hezbollah and Hamas. ... This is an opportunity to begin to reverse the unfortunate direction of the last six to nine months and get the terrorists and the jihadists back on the defensive."
Host Juan Williams replied:
"Well, it just seems to me that you want ... you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to get into the Middle East ... you're saying, why doesn't the United States take this hard, unforgiving line? Well, the hard and unforgiving line has been [tried], we don't talk to anybody. We don't talk to Hamas. We don't talk to Hezbollah. We're not going to talk to Iran. Where has it gotten us, Bill?"
Kristol, looking somewhat taken aback, simply threw up his hands.
The Fox News audience does (very) occasionally get a hint of another way of looking at the world.
Iraq will follow Bush the rest of his life
Here comes now our Glorious Leader, speaking last week at a news conference at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin. "I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing."[9]
It's so very rare that Georgie W. makes one of his less-than-brilliant statements and has the nonsense immediately pointed out to him to his face -- "Putin, in a barbed reply, said: 'We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly.' Bush's face reddened as he tried to laugh off the remark. 'Just wait'," he said.[10]
It's too bad that Putin didn't also point out that religion was a lot more free under Saddam Hussein than under the American occupation. Amongst many charming recent incidents, in May the coach of the national tennis team and two of his players were shot dead in Baghdad by men who reportedly were religious extremists angry that the coach and his players were wearing shorts.[11]
As to a "free press", dare I mention Iraqi newspapers closed down by the American occupation, reporters shot by American troops, and phony stories planted in the Iraqi press by Pentagon employees?
The preceding is in the same vein as last month's edition of this report in which I listed the many ways in which the people of Iraq have a much worse life now than they did under Saddam Hussein. I concluded with recounting the discussions I've had with Americans who, in the face of this, say to me: "Just tell me one thing, are you glad that Saddam Hussein is out of power?"
Now we have a British poll that reports that "More than two thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W. Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests." The American embassy in London was quick to reply. Said a spokesperson: "We question the judgment of anyone who asserts the world would be a better place with Saddam still terrorizing his own nation and threatening people well beyond Iraq's borders."[12]
They simply can't stop lying, can they? There was no evidence at all that Saddam was threatening any people outside of Iraq, whatever that's supposed to mean. It may mean arms sales. Following the Gulf War, the US sold around $100 billion of military hardware to Iraq's "threatened" neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, and Turkey.
As to the world being a better or worse place ... only Iraq itself was and is the issue here, not the world; although if the world is a better place, why am I depressed?
The peculiar idea of tying people's health to private corporate profits
Steven Pearlstein is a financial writer with the Washington Post, with whom I've exchanged several emails in recent years. He does not ignore or gloss over the serious defects of the American economic system, but nonetheless remains a true believer in the market economy. In a recent review of a book by journalist Maggie Mahar, "Money-Driven Medicine", Pearlstein writes that the author tries to explain "why health care costs so much in the United States, with such poor results." She has focused on the right issues, he says, "the misguided financial incentives at every level, the unnecessary care that is not only wasteful but harmful, the bloated administrative costs." However, "in making the case that the health-care system suffers from too much free-market competition and too little cooperation, Mahar means to drum up support for a publicly funded national system. But in the end, she mostly makes a convincing case that no health-care system will work unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective and then get doctors, hospitals and patients to embrace it."[13]
"Unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective" ... hmmm ... like there haven't been repeated studies showing that national health plans in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere cover virtually everyone and every ailment and cost society and individuals much less than in the United States. Isn't that "working"? I spent five years in the UK with my wife and small child and all three of us can swear by the National Health Service; at those times when neither my wife nor I was employed we didn't have to pay anything into the system; doctors even made house calls; and this was under Margaret Thatcher, who was doing her best to cripple the system, a goal she and her fellow Tories, later joined by "New Labour", have continued to pursue.
And then there's Cuba -- poor, little, third-world Cuba. Countless non-rich ill Americans would think they were in heaven to have the Cuban health system reproduced here, with higher salaries for doctors et al., which we could easily afford.
It should be noted that an extensive review of previous studies recently concluded that the care provided at for-profit nursing homes and hospitals, on average, is inferior to that at nonprofits. The analysis indicates that a facility's ownership status makes a difference in cost, quality, and accessibility of care.[14]
Sale! Western Civilization!
New, Improved! $99.99, marked down from $129.99. Sale!
There's currently a call in the United States to get rid of the one-cent coin because it costs 1.2 cents to make the coin and put it into circulation and because many people find the coins a nuisance. I have another reason to get rid of the coin -- hopefully, doing so would put an end to the ridiculous and ubiquitous practice of pricing almost everything at amounts like $9.99, $99.99, or $999.99. Or $3.29 or $17.98.
What is the reason for this tedious and insulting absurdity? It began as, and continues to be, a con game -- trying to induce the purchaser to think that he's getting some kind of bargain price: Less than $10! Less than $100! In my local thrift shop, catering almost exclusively to poor blacks and Hispanics, virtually all prices end in .97 or .98 or .99. Every once in a while, when the nonsense has piled up to my nose level, I ask a shop manager or corporate representative why they use such a pricing system.
They scarcely have any idea what I'm talking about. Sometimes in a shop when I'm discussing with a clerk the various price options of something I'm thinking of buying, and I say, "Okay, let's see, this model is $60 and ..." S/he'll interrupt me with: "No, it's $59.99."
And let's not forget gasoline. Priced at $2.60.9 per gallon. Or $3.24.9 per gallon. That's 9/10. It's been suggested that it was the oil companies that began this whole silliness.
Is this any way for people to relate to each other? Comes the revolution, and we write a new constitution, Paragraph 99 will ban this practice.
You can't make this stuff up
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France, 1844-1924
On April 14 a federal appeals court ruled that the Los Angeles Police Department cannot arrest people for sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks on Skid Row, saying such enforcement amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because there are not enough shelter beds for the city's huge homeless population. Judge Pamela A. Rymer issued a strong dissent against the majority opinion. The Los Angeles code "does not punish people simply because they are homeless," wrote Rymer. "It targets conduct -- sitting, lying or sleeping on city sidewalks -- that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without."[15]
NOTES
[1] Washington Post, March 13, 2002, p.1
[2] Washington Post, July 16, 2006. p.15
[3] Washington Post, July 3, 2006, p.19
[4] Associated Press, July 3, 2006
[5] Washington Post, July 20, 2006, p.B3
[6] Sarah Posner, The American Prospect, June 2006
[7] FrontPageMag.com, Horowitz's site
[8] Amnesty International news release, 26 June 1998, AI INDEX: MDE 15/54/98
[9] Associated Press, July 15, 2006
[10] Ibid.
[11] The Independent (London), May 27, 2006, p.32
[12] Daily Telegraph (London), July 3, 2006, p.1
[13] Washington Post, July 9, 2006, p.F3
[14] Washington Post, June 21, 2006, p.9
[15] Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2006
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Click below to go to his web site:
http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to <bblum6@aol.com> with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission.
Link to his web site is appreciated.
July 22, 2006
by William Blum
The End Is Near, but first, this commercial.
There are times when I think that this tired old world has gone on a few years too long. What's happening in the Middle East is so depressing. Most discussions of the eternal Israel-Palestine conflict are variations on the child's eternal defense for misbehavior -- "He started it!" Within a few minutes of discussing/arguing the latest manifestation of the conflict the participants are back to 1967, then 1948, then biblical times. I don't wish to get entangled in who started the current mess. I would like instead to first express what I see as two essential underlying facts of life which remain from one conflict to the next:
- Israel's existence is not at stake and hasn't been so for decades, if it ever was, regardless of the many de rigueur militant statements by Arab leaders over the years. If Israel would learn to deal with its neighbors in a non-expansionist, non-military, humane, and respectful manner, engage in full prisoner exchanges, and sincerely strive for a viable two-state solution, even those who are opposed to the idea of a state based on a particular religion could accept the state of Israel, and the question of its right to exist would scarcely arise in people's minds. But as it is, Israel still uses the issue as a justification for its behavior, as Jews all over the world use the Holocaust and conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
- In a conflict between a thousand-pound gorilla and a mouse, it's the gorilla which has to make concessions in order for the two sides to progress to the next level. What can the Palestinians offer in the way of concession? Israel would reply to that question: "No violent attacks of any kind." But that would still leave the status quo ante bellum -- a life of unmitigated misery for the Palestinian people forced upon them by Israel. Peace without justice.
Israel's real aim, and that of Washington, is the overthrow of the Hamas government in Palestine, the government that came to power in January through a clearly democratic process, the democracy that the Western "democracies" never tire of celebrating, except when the result doesn't please them. Is there a stronger word than "hypocrisy"? There is now "no Hamas government," declared a senior US official a week ago, "eight cabinet ministers or 30 percent of the government is in jail [kidnapped by Israel], another 30 percent is in hiding, and the other 30 percent is doing very little."[2]
To make the government-disappearance act even more Orwellian, we have Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in late June about Iraq: "This is the only legitimately elected government in the Middle East with a possible exception of Lebanon."[3]
What's next, gathering in front of the Big Telescreeen for the Two Minutes Hate?
In addition to doing away with the Hamas government, the current military blitzkrieg by Israel, with full US support, may well be designed to create "incidents" to justify attacks on Iran and Syria, the next steps of Washington's work in process, a controlling stranglehold on the Middle East and its oil.
It is a wanton act of collective punishment that is depriving the Palestinians of food, electricity, water, money, access to the outside world ... and sleep. Israel has been sending jets flying over Gaza at night triggering sonic booms, traumatizing children. "I want nobody to sleep at night in Gaza," declared Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert[4]; words suitable for Israel's tombstone.
These crimes against humanity -- and I haven't mentioned the terrible special weapons reportedly used by Israel -- are what the people of Palestine get for voting for the wrong party. It is ironic, given the Israeli attacks against civilians in both Gaza and Lebanon, that Hamas and Hezbollah are routinely dismissed in the West as terrorist organizations. The generally accepted definition of terrorism, used by the FBI and the United Nations amongst others, is: The use of violence against a civilian population in order to intimidate or coerce a government in furtherance of a political objective.
Since 9-11 it has been a calculated US-Israeli tactic to label the fight against Israel's foes as an integral part of the war on terror. On July 19, a rally was held in Washington, featuring the governor of Maryland, several members of Israeli-occupied Congress, the Israeli ambassador, and evangelical leading-light John Hagee. The Washington Post reported that "Speaker after prominent speaker characteriz[ed] current Israeli fighting as a small branch of the larger U.S.-led global war against Islamic terrorism" and "Israel's attacks against the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah were blows against those who have killed civilians from Bali to Bombay to Moscow." Said the Israeli ambassador: "This is not just about [Israel]. It's about where our world is going to be and the fate and security of our world. Israel is on the forefront. We will amputate these little arms of Iran," referring to Hezbollah.[5]
And if the war on terror isn't enough to put Israel on the side of the angels, John Hagee has argued that "the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West". He speaks of "a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."[6]
The beatification of Israel approaches being a movement. Here is David Horowitz, the eminent semi-hysterical ex-Marxist: "Israel is part of a global war, the war of radical Islam against civilization. Right now Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world by taking on the terrorists. It is not only for Israel's sake that we must get the facts out -- it is for ourselves, America, for every free country in the world, and for civilization itself."[7]
As for the two Israeli soldiers captured and held in Lebanon for prisoner exchange, we must keep a little history in mind. In the late 1990s, before Israel was evicted from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, it was a common practice for Israel to abduct entirely innocent Lebanese. As a 1998 Amnesty International paper declared: "By Israel's own admission, Lebanese detainees are being held as 'bargaining chips'; they are not detained for their own actions but in exchange for Israeli soldiers missing in action or killed in Lebanon. Most have now spent 10 years in secret and isolated detention."[8]
Israel has created its worst enemies -- they helped create Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah in Palestine, and their occupation of Lebanon created Hezbollah. The current terrible bombings can be expected to keep the process going. Since its very beginning, Israel has been almost continually occupied in fighting wars and taking other people's lands. Did not any better way ever occur to the idealistic Zionist pioneers?
But while you and I get depressed by the horror and suffering, the neo-conservatives revel in it. They devour the flesh and drink the blood of the people of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Palestine, of Lebanon, yet remain ravenous, and now call for Iran and Syria to be placed upon the feasting table. More than one of them has used the expression oderint dum metuant, a favorite phrase of Roman emperor Caligula, also used by Cicero -- "let them hate so long as they fear". Here is William Kristol, editor of the bible of neo-cons, "Weekly Standard", on Fox News Sunday, July 16:
"Look, our coddling of Iran ... over the last six to nine months has emboldened them. I mean, is Iran behaving like a timid regime that's very worried about the U.S.? Or is Iran behaving recklessly and in a foolhardy way? ... Israel is fighting four of our five enemies in the Middle East, in a sense. Iran, Syria, sponsors of terror; Hezbollah and Hamas. ... This is an opportunity to begin to reverse the unfortunate direction of the last six to nine months and get the terrorists and the jihadists back on the defensive."
Host Juan Williams replied:
"Well, it just seems to me that you want ... you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to get into the Middle East ... you're saying, why doesn't the United States take this hard, unforgiving line? Well, the hard and unforgiving line has been [tried], we don't talk to anybody. We don't talk to Hamas. We don't talk to Hezbollah. We're not going to talk to Iran. Where has it gotten us, Bill?"
Kristol, looking somewhat taken aback, simply threw up his hands.
The Fox News audience does (very) occasionally get a hint of another way of looking at the world.
Iraq will follow Bush the rest of his life
Here comes now our Glorious Leader, speaking last week at a news conference at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin. "I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing."[9]
It's so very rare that Georgie W. makes one of his less-than-brilliant statements and has the nonsense immediately pointed out to him to his face -- "Putin, in a barbed reply, said: 'We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly.' Bush's face reddened as he tried to laugh off the remark. 'Just wait'," he said.[10]
It's too bad that Putin didn't also point out that religion was a lot more free under Saddam Hussein than under the American occupation. Amongst many charming recent incidents, in May the coach of the national tennis team and two of his players were shot dead in Baghdad by men who reportedly were religious extremists angry that the coach and his players were wearing shorts.[11]
As to a "free press", dare I mention Iraqi newspapers closed down by the American occupation, reporters shot by American troops, and phony stories planted in the Iraqi press by Pentagon employees?
The preceding is in the same vein as last month's edition of this report in which I listed the many ways in which the people of Iraq have a much worse life now than they did under Saddam Hussein. I concluded with recounting the discussions I've had with Americans who, in the face of this, say to me: "Just tell me one thing, are you glad that Saddam Hussein is out of power?"
Now we have a British poll that reports that "More than two thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W. Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests." The American embassy in London was quick to reply. Said a spokesperson: "We question the judgment of anyone who asserts the world would be a better place with Saddam still terrorizing his own nation and threatening people well beyond Iraq's borders."[12]
They simply can't stop lying, can they? There was no evidence at all that Saddam was threatening any people outside of Iraq, whatever that's supposed to mean. It may mean arms sales. Following the Gulf War, the US sold around $100 billion of military hardware to Iraq's "threatened" neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, and Turkey.
As to the world being a better or worse place ... only Iraq itself was and is the issue here, not the world; although if the world is a better place, why am I depressed?
The peculiar idea of tying people's health to private corporate profits
Steven Pearlstein is a financial writer with the Washington Post, with whom I've exchanged several emails in recent years. He does not ignore or gloss over the serious defects of the American economic system, but nonetheless remains a true believer in the market economy. In a recent review of a book by journalist Maggie Mahar, "Money-Driven Medicine", Pearlstein writes that the author tries to explain "why health care costs so much in the United States, with such poor results." She has focused on the right issues, he says, "the misguided financial incentives at every level, the unnecessary care that is not only wasteful but harmful, the bloated administrative costs." However, "in making the case that the health-care system suffers from too much free-market competition and too little cooperation, Mahar means to drum up support for a publicly funded national system. But in the end, she mostly makes a convincing case that no health-care system will work unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective and then get doctors, hospitals and patients to embrace it."[13]
"Unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective" ... hmmm ... like there haven't been repeated studies showing that national health plans in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere cover virtually everyone and every ailment and cost society and individuals much less than in the United States. Isn't that "working"? I spent five years in the UK with my wife and small child and all three of us can swear by the National Health Service; at those times when neither my wife nor I was employed we didn't have to pay anything into the system; doctors even made house calls; and this was under Margaret Thatcher, who was doing her best to cripple the system, a goal she and her fellow Tories, later joined by "New Labour", have continued to pursue.
And then there's Cuba -- poor, little, third-world Cuba. Countless non-rich ill Americans would think they were in heaven to have the Cuban health system reproduced here, with higher salaries for doctors et al., which we could easily afford.
It should be noted that an extensive review of previous studies recently concluded that the care provided at for-profit nursing homes and hospitals, on average, is inferior to that at nonprofits. The analysis indicates that a facility's ownership status makes a difference in cost, quality, and accessibility of care.[14]
Sale! Western Civilization!
New, Improved! $99.99, marked down from $129.99. Sale!
There's currently a call in the United States to get rid of the one-cent coin because it costs 1.2 cents to make the coin and put it into circulation and because many people find the coins a nuisance. I have another reason to get rid of the coin -- hopefully, doing so would put an end to the ridiculous and ubiquitous practice of pricing almost everything at amounts like $9.99, $99.99, or $999.99. Or $3.29 or $17.98.
What is the reason for this tedious and insulting absurdity? It began as, and continues to be, a con game -- trying to induce the purchaser to think that he's getting some kind of bargain price: Less than $10! Less than $100! In my local thrift shop, catering almost exclusively to poor blacks and Hispanics, virtually all prices end in .97 or .98 or .99. Every once in a while, when the nonsense has piled up to my nose level, I ask a shop manager or corporate representative why they use such a pricing system.
They scarcely have any idea what I'm talking about. Sometimes in a shop when I'm discussing with a clerk the various price options of something I'm thinking of buying, and I say, "Okay, let's see, this model is $60 and ..." S/he'll interrupt me with: "No, it's $59.99."
And let's not forget gasoline. Priced at $2.60.9 per gallon. Or $3.24.9 per gallon. That's 9/10. It's been suggested that it was the oil companies that began this whole silliness.
Is this any way for people to relate to each other? Comes the revolution, and we write a new constitution, Paragraph 99 will ban this practice.
You can't make this stuff up
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France, 1844-1924
On April 14 a federal appeals court ruled that the Los Angeles Police Department cannot arrest people for sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks on Skid Row, saying such enforcement amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because there are not enough shelter beds for the city's huge homeless population. Judge Pamela A. Rymer issued a strong dissent against the majority opinion. The Los Angeles code "does not punish people simply because they are homeless," wrote Rymer. "It targets conduct -- sitting, lying or sleeping on city sidewalks -- that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without."[15]
NOTES
[1] Washington Post, March 13, 2002, p.1
[2] Washington Post, July 16, 2006. p.15
[3] Washington Post, July 3, 2006, p.19
[4] Associated Press, July 3, 2006
[5] Washington Post, July 20, 2006, p.B3
[6] Sarah Posner, The American Prospect, June 2006
[7] FrontPageMag.com, Horowitz's site
[8] Amnesty International news release, 26 June 1998, AI INDEX: MDE 15/54/98
[9] Associated Press, July 15, 2006
[10] Ibid.
[11] The Independent (London), May 27, 2006, p.32
[12] Daily Telegraph (London), July 3, 2006, p.1
[13] Washington Post, July 9, 2006, p.F3
[14] Washington Post, June 21, 2006, p.9
[15] Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2006
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Click below to go to his web site:
http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to <bblum6@aol.com> with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission.
Link to his web site is appreciated.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Armageddon, Not! Eat your Bibles, pay as you go.
Republican end – timers best prepare for energy shortages instead of Rapture.
Republican loyalists in Kansas who read this would best reserve their Armageddon fantasies about the Middle East and check out what is being broadcast from both sides of the armed clashes taking place there. After all, don’t you trust your local television news broadcasts about the weather and local crime reports?
Well, thanks to the internet it is now possible to watch the same television programs the bombed families see while huddled in their homes. Also, Israelis local programming where Zionism is openly discussed favorably while U. S. supplied F - 16s are piloted over neighboring countries air - space.
Here is the actual stuff at Link TV. Click here.
There are also links to provide the ubiquitous End – Timers in Kansas with important analysis from Democracy Now! Television. Click here for a broadcast with recent coverage of the Middle East inferno.
Also, British journalist Robert Fisk reports from his home in Lebanon what he is watching unfold in and around Beirut – and makes very clear that the Israelis punishment has all the makings of more war crimes. Click From my home, I saw what the 'war on terror' meant and read something more than Christian news sources.
Republican loyalists in Kansas who read this would best reserve their Armageddon fantasies about the Middle East and check out what is being broadcast from both sides of the armed clashes taking place there. After all, don’t you trust your local television news broadcasts about the weather and local crime reports?
Well, thanks to the internet it is now possible to watch the same television programs the bombed families see while huddled in their homes. Also, Israelis local programming where Zionism is openly discussed favorably while U. S. supplied F - 16s are piloted over neighboring countries air - space.
Here is the actual stuff at Link TV. Click here.
There are also links to provide the ubiquitous End – Timers in Kansas with important analysis from Democracy Now! Television. Click here for a broadcast with recent coverage of the Middle East inferno.
Also, British journalist Robert Fisk reports from his home in Lebanon what he is watching unfold in and around Beirut – and makes very clear that the Israelis punishment has all the makings of more war crimes. Click From my home, I saw what the 'war on terror' meant and read something more than Christian news sources.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Foreign Press Foundation - The Netherlands
After the genocide in Gaza:
ISRAEL LAUNCHES MILITARY ASSAULT ON LEBANON
The broader global forces are aligned; local actors are committed. It is a bloody test, a macabre dress rehearsal, for what lies over the horizon.
HR-intro: Lebanon is one of those smaller countries, where one in time of war from the capital Beirut can take a cab to the front. One of my cab drivers in Lebanon formerly had been an ambulance driver. Until an Israeli F-16 with a missile shot at his red crossed and white coloured ambulance which was carrying victims of their bomb attacks, on the seaside road close to the city. He showed me the burnt out wreck, and told me about the horrible death of his patients in the flame engulfed vehicle from which he had been catapulted, burned but surviving. And after spending 10 years in North West Africa and the Middle East, it isn't difficult to connect the dots and understand the perfidy of the picture.
It has to be repeated, that all United Nations resolutions against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the holocaust by Israel of the Palestinians, have not helped. Israel doesn't care. Nor does the US management, nor that of the European Union: they all are a shame for humanity allowing this to happen to fellow human beings. Israel stoneheartedly refuses to comply, and the world's so called 'moral leaders' show which cowards they are, and just are silent. They stand by, making us all complicit in the war crimes. If we're not already the victims.
The average European is deeply ashamed of those immorally behaving traitors, but is forced to pay too via their own defense forces and all of NATO, which secretly was OK'd by the collaborating 'government' and other rats in the Quisling race for war crimes. Ashamed and angry as Americans should be too, who are paying for most of the genocides by their mad and malignant 'Project for a New American Century' 'managers'. The choice is ours: Poor or Dead? May I strongly suggest immediate resistance? In all and every form as justified by international law and war of agression conventions?
IT IS NOT ONLY THIS USUAL ISRAELI SLAUGHTER, NOW TURNED INTO AN OPEN WAR AGAIN IN LEBANON, IT IS MUCH BIGGER.
To take one example: Yesterday 'The New York Sun' had this headline: ''The war with Iran has begun'' using the following quote to end the article: "Ephraim Sneh, a former general and Labor Party leader who is the Israeli longest drawing attention to the approaching conflict with Iran, is saying that the current moment reminds him of the Spanish Civil War.
The broader global forces are aligned; local actors are committed. It is a bloody test, a macabre dress rehearsal, for what lies over the horizon. The war with Iran has begun.'' - [endquote] - Url.: http://www.nysun.com/article/35990
The inhuman and bloody American/Israeli slaughterhaus grinds on, and the victims are people like you and me. Where are all the international so called 'authorities' trying to halt the massacre? They all - with few exceptions - daily prove to be hypocritical cowards, Pharisees and servile to the managers of the war machine. It will be a pleasure to see all those collaborators and propagandists of the war crimes in court. With in the front row the inhuman group responsible for their permanent string of crimes against humanity.*
Without any form of legal justification for the detention or in compliance with any law for human beings, ''Israel reportedly is holding 9,000 Arab prisoners. The vast majority are Palestinians, but there are also some Lebanese.''
The BBC makes no bones about it; Israelis are held ³hostage² or ³captives², but Palestinians are ³prisoners². The Israeli government kidnaps half the government and a quarter of the Palestinian parliament, an act that the BBC refers to as "arrests". How much longer are we to put up with the blatant propagandising of the BBC on behalf of the Israeli government? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/mzyc4
Apart from the Beirut airport, and a hundred people killed already, the TV station Al Manar has been bombed too. And Indymedia in Beirut? Well, not exactly knowing who runs the show, we asked:
Wake up! There's a war going on in your country! - Url.: http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2006/07/4508.shtml
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISRAEL LAUNCHES MILITARY ASSAULT ON LEBANON
By Chris Marsden
13 July 2006 - Israel responded to the capture of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah, which carried out a raid across the Israeli-Lebanese border Wednesday morning, by opening up a second front in its military operations, launching missile and bomb attacks from the air and sea and sending troops into southern Lebanon.
The prospect of a full-scale war with Lebanon in the north coincides with escalating Israeli attacks across its southern border in the Gaza Strip. Several hours before the eruption of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel dropped a quarter-ton bomb on a house in Gaza City, killing a Hamas activist, his wife and seven of their nine children. Palestinian sources said a total of 20 Palestinians were killed in Gaza Wednesday as a result of Israeli military actions.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed in the cross-border Hezbollah raid, in addition to the two who were taken prisoner. Another four Israeli soldiers died in the initial incursion by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) into southern Lebanon when an Israeli tank ran over a land mine. A fifth Israeli soldier was killed while assisting in recovering the tank, according to the IDF.
The death of eight Israeli soldiers is the largest single-day toll in many years, and it heightened the atmosphere of crisis surrounding the regime of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The response of the Israeli government was to threaten all out war against Lebanon. Olmert said the border raid by Hezbollah was not merely an act of terrorism, but ³an act of war by the state of Lebanon against the state of Israel in its sovereign territory.² He pledged to extract a ³heavy price² through ³very painful and far-reaching² action, and rejected a call by Hezbollah leaders in Beirut for negotiations on the release of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in exchange for the return of the two captured Israeli soldiers.
Israel reportedly is holding 9,000 Arab prisoners. The vast majority are Palestinians, but there are also some Lebanese.
Olmert again took the opportunity to threaten hostilities against Syria, describing it as ³a state which supports terror... This will, of course, require an appropriate response to deal with Syria¹s actions.²
Defence Minister Amir Peretz declared, ³The Lebanese government, which allows Hezbollah to operate freely against Israel from its sovereign territory, will bear responsibility for the consequences and ramifications (of the cross-border attack). Israel sees itself as being free to employ any means it deems fit, and the army has been instructed accordingly.²
A high-ranking military officer said that if the soldiers were not returned in good condition, Israel would turn Lebanon back 20 years by striking its vital infrastructure.
Israel¹s ground, sea and air assault on Lebanon has already been substantial and is likely to escalate in the coming days. Troops have crossed the border for the first time since Israel quit southern Lebanon six years ago. Israeli Air Force jets and helicopters have flown over the capital Beirut and navy gunboats and artillery along the border have shelled targets in Lebanon. Reports are that 27 civilians, including 10 children, were killed in overnight raids on southern Lebanon.
In the most damaging move, aircraft fired rockets at the runways of Beirut's international airport, forcing it to be closed down.
Planes have struck over 40 targets, purported to be Hezbollah outposts. At least two civilians were killed when Israel bombed a road bridge on a major route though southern Lebanon. Four other bridges in the south were hit and five Lebanese were wounded, security sources said.
Israel has called up reserve troops, signalling the beginning of a major campaign that will now be waged on two fronts. Several thousand reservists will be deployed along the Lebanon border, according to officials. The government also advised Israelis living along the northern border with Lebanon to seek protection in bomb shelters from rockets fired by Hezbollah forces.
Hezbollah, declared a terrorist organisation by both Israel and the US, is a major political force in Lebanon, having the support of most of the poor Shiite population and occupying posts in the current pro-Western government. The government in Beirut disassociated itself from the Hezbollah border raid.
The Bush administration immediately backed Israel¹s aggression in Lebanon. In its response, Washington implicitly exonerated the pro-US regime in Beirut, instead placing the onus on Syria and Iran.
A statement issued by White House press secretary Tony Snow declared: ³Today Hezbollah terrorists operating from Lebanon kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and launched rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel. The United States condemns in the strongest terms this unprovoked act of terrorism... We also hold Syria and Iran, which have provided long-standing support for Hezbollah, responsible for today¹s violence. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of the Israeli soldiers.²
In Rome, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan echoed Washington¹s line, condemning the Hezbollah attack ³without reservation² and demanding that the captured Israeli soldiers be released.
[WHAT NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS THINK ABOUT KOFI ANNAN IS NOT FIR FOR PRINT - HR]
The characterisation of the Hezbollah action as ³unprovoked² is both grotesque and absurd. The cross-border raid by the Lebanese Shiite group comes after two weeks of escalating Israeli aggression in Gaza that has left more than 60 Palestinians dead.
Moreover, Israel has never abandoned its territorial ambitions in Lebanon and Syria. To this day it has retained the Shebaa Farms, a 25 square-kilometre area of Lebanese agricultural land. It was captured by Israel in the 1967 war and again in 1973 and has been occupied ever since. The fate of Shebaa Farms is bound up with that of the much larger Golan Heights, which it is adjacent to. Formerly known as the Syrian Heights, the Golan Heights is a strategic plateau on the border of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It was captured by Israel in the 1967 war and again in 1973 and has been occupied ever since.
In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut, killing an estimated 18,000 people and forcing the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation leadership. Israel collaborated with the fascist Phalange in the massacre of 1,200 Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatilla camps.
It withdrew from Beirut in 1983, but continued to occupy southern Lebanon. Numerous Israeli air raids were mounted throughout the 1990s in an ongoing conflict with Hezbollah that left hundreds dead, before Israel was forced to make its partial withdrawal from southern Lebanon under Prime Minister Ehud Barak in May 2000, after an 18-year war of attrition.
Israel¹s offensive in Gaza continues to escalate. In addition to the bombing in Gaza City, dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and armoured bulldozers, covered by Apache attack helicopters and armed drones, crossed into central Gaza and advanced to the southeastern town of Deir al Balah. Air strikes continue against Beit Hanoun and other northern towns.
Arrests continue in military operations on the West Bank. The IDF said that 18 alleged Palestinian militants were detained Tuesday night, bringing the total number of arrests to nearly 100.
[andend] - World Socialist Web Site - Url.: www.wsws.org
FPF-REFERENCES:
* This collection of resolutions criticizing Israel is unmatched by the record of any other nation, as Israel stands in violation of more UN resolutions than ANY OTHER NATION ON EARTH. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/nbxup
* You can find the biased Google selection here, about the illegal Israeli war of agression raging in Lebanon - Google - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/h5qkl
* Israel Britain¹s Imperialist Rottweiler + BBC disappeared? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/mzyc4
* WHO IS RUNNING AMERICA? - Url.: http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html
* WHO OWNS YOU? - OUR ENEMY, THE STATE - by Albert J. Nock - His Classic Critique Distinguishing 'Government' from the 'STATE' - Url.: http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html
* THE US PNAC WARS & NATO¹S SECRET ARMIES LINKED TO TERRORISM? - (NATO, the Pentagon, NSA, MI6, the CIA, Mossad, BND, and all other European and global 'intelligence services' are linked to inhuman terror, coups d¹état, 'rendition', the PNAC Gulags and torture - HR) - by Daniele Ganser - Url.: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GAN412A.html
* FALSE FLAG 9/11 - NO LEGAL BASE FOR NATO FIGHTING US WARS - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/zqzkc
FPF/HR - STRONGLY RELATED LINKS - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gkgrb
* IT'S VERY UNLIKELY, but if you indeed would prefer to unsubscribe from the FPF-list: just send an email in return with the word 'unsubscribe'.
* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
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-0-
Monday, July 10, 2006
NATIONALIZE THE CROOKS
Boeing Criminal Agreement – Odd and Unusual
20 Corporate Crime Reporter 28(1), July 5, 2006
It was 3:36 p.m. on Friday June 30.
The Friday before the July 4th holiday weekend.
Reporters were on their way out of town.
And into our e-mail box comes a press release from the Justice Department announcing that Boeing will not be criminally prosecuted for alleged criminal activity.
According to the press release, Boeing will pay a $50 million criminal penalty and $615 million in civil penalties to resolve federal claims relating to the company's hiring of the former Air Force acquisitions chief Darleen A. Druyun, by its then CFO, Michael Sears, and its handling of competitors information in connection with the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Program and certain NASA launch services contracts.
Attached to the press release was a copy of the nine-page civil settlement agreement .
But where's the non-prosecution agreement – the settlement agreement for the criminal side?
This non-prosecution agreement was not attached to the press release.
Why not?
READ MORE OF THE COMPLETE CORPORATE - BIG GOVERNMENT SCAM HERE.
20 Corporate Crime Reporter 28(1), July 5, 2006
It was 3:36 p.m. on Friday June 30.
The Friday before the July 4th holiday weekend.
Reporters were on their way out of town.
And into our e-mail box comes a press release from the Justice Department announcing that Boeing will not be criminally prosecuted for alleged criminal activity.
According to the press release, Boeing will pay a $50 million criminal penalty and $615 million in civil penalties to resolve federal claims relating to the company's hiring of the former Air Force acquisitions chief Darleen A. Druyun, by its then CFO, Michael Sears, and its handling of competitors information in connection with the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Program and certain NASA launch services contracts.
Attached to the press release was a copy of the nine-page civil settlement agreement .
But where's the non-prosecution agreement – the settlement agreement for the criminal side?
This non-prosecution agreement was not attached to the press release.
Why not?
READ MORE OF THE COMPLETE CORPORATE - BIG GOVERNMENT SCAM HERE.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Bush regime ain't over, not by a long shot.
The “slog” through to the painful end of the most disastrous administration in
U. S. history
“A nation cringes” is how the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford describes life under Bush and the long bitter end to the second term.
Morford uses some of the most vivid words, even at one point describing having Bush as president to a painful rash on the face that never goes away and so embarrassing to keep one away from public view for weeks, months.
And the liberal bashing hard core Fox News nuts get a taste of just how the Republican friends of Morford are:
“Bush came up, as a topic, as a cancer, as a fetid miasma in the air. They were both shaking their heads. They were sighing heavily. They were both, in a word, disgusted. The more staunchly conservative of the two even went so far as to say he was so embarrassed and humiliated by this president, by this administration, so appalled at all the war atrocities and the wiretapping and the misuse of law, the fiscal irresponsibility and the abuse of the lower classes and the outright arrogance, that if the Dems could somehow produce a decent moderate candidate with a brain, he'd have zero problem switching allegiances and voting for him. Or her.”
Morford’s painful but reality based piece goes on to address the very 32% left supporting Bush with:
This is where it stands: Bush can in no way risk alienating the ultra-right-wing bonk-job contingent that put him in office (they are, considering Bush's 32-percent approval rating, the only ones left even remotely supporting him -- even though, according to many estimates, they're starting to abandon him, too), and hence all policy and all agenda items from here on out will be even more vicious and desperate in an attempt to shore up the base. Hence trying to mutilate the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Hence attacking the New York Times and claiming newspapers are endangering American lives.
It’s just too good to chop up any further, read the complete piece George W. Bush Is Dead To Me.
And who is paying that very heavy bloody price?
Just look at this Affidavit from federal court, U.S. v. Steven D. Green case # 06MJ230 where F.B.I. Special Agent Gregor J. Ahlers, Louisville Division as he describes the rape, murder and cover – up of the 14 year old Iraqis girl and her family.
The New York Times got a shot of her passport and reported that more soldiers are being charged as Baghdad explodes into "mob violence."
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Hot Links from the FCF's 'hard gravel road' edition!
The following is an excerpt of FCF's most recent "hard gravel road" printed edition that is being distributed throughout Valley Falls, Effingham and Nortonville, Kansas, U.S.A. this week. Issue #55 includes the links below.
Local news reports, outstanding essays, ascerbic satire and our classified ads are included. Our current email distribution list is approaching 2000 readers worldwide and we are proud to have been one of the first periodicals in Kansas to not only oppose the Oil Wars, but to be the first locally printed periodical to investigate and prepare our communities for Peak Oil.
If you would like a printable [.pdf Adobe] copy of the Flyer emailed to you as an attachment send a request to: bluebarnnewscentral@hughes.net .
Australia’s Biggest News Agency
Drops the “Real Oil Crisis” Bomb!
A thirteen minute shocker video [Real Player version] of a recent broadcast featuring both “sides” of the Peak Oil “debate” between the geologists and scientists in the “majority” [thirty years or more], or the “minority” [now and for the next three years].
ABC of Australia is finally taking this issue seriously and so should you, your friends, neighbors and your officials in City Hall.
Join the “growing number” of people who refuse to “look back in anger” but to prepare for the radical changes ahead in energy production. It is now time to prepare your family, villages and local government officials for this epic fundamental change in the world’s energy grid.
The “early” Peak Oil “splinter group” within the scientific geologic community is gaining momentum and numbers. The “elite whistleblowers” are telling us to prepare with each food-growing season.
Clear, “balanced” and worth watching, click or enter the line below and watch:
http://tinyurl.com/ktc3p
The Big Energy Elites are quietly preparing for the Oil Shock. Are you and yours?
Mike Whitney’s devastating exposure of Vice President Cheney’s financial portfolio and other elites in Big Energy as they load their financial “lifeboats” and let the U. S. dollar and national economy sink.
From Whitney’s article as it originally appeared off the outstanding Information Clearinghouse headline feed at the FCF’s web log site:
“Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and ‘American Celebrity.’
The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat corporations who’ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while the anemic dollar continues to sag.
All the signs indicate that the economy is slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise. This is the onset of stagflation; the dreaded combo of a slowing economy and inflation.”
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:
http://tinyurl.com/rzss4
How a small village in Ireland is preparing and how you can prepare your village and neighborhoods for a low energy future!
Here is a detailed article that is well worth reading concerning the activities of a small class of students and teachers in Kinsale, Ireland who developed a sustainable working model of a “low energy” village in the here and now.
BOOKMARK THIS WEB SITE!
FROM THE IMPORTANT ENERGY BULLETIN ARTICLE:
Kinsale 2021 “On Saturday February 12th 2005 we held an event in Kinsale called “Kinsale in 2021 - Towards a Prosperous, Sustainable Future Together”, which took place at Kinsale Town Hall. The event was presented as a ‘community think-tank’ in order to hear the community’s ideas about how energy descent would affect the community and what might be done about it. Before the event we sent personal invitations to the people in Kinsale that we had identified as being the movers and shakers in the town, drawn from the sectors identified above.
We also left the event open to the public and put posters up around the town. From the 60 people invited, about 35 turned up on the day. The event itself was opened by the Mayor of Kinsale, Mr Charles Henderson, who spoke of the importance of energy as an issue and how it affects all aspects of our lives and our economy. This was followed by a screening of ‘The End of Suburbia’.”
STUDY THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:
http://tinyurl.com/kxdow
Local news reports, outstanding essays, ascerbic satire and our classified ads are included. Our current email distribution list is approaching 2000 readers worldwide and we are proud to have been one of the first periodicals in Kansas to not only oppose the Oil Wars, but to be the first locally printed periodical to investigate and prepare our communities for Peak Oil.
If you would like a printable [.pdf Adobe] copy of the Flyer emailed to you as an attachment send a request to: bluebarnnewscentral@hughes.net .
Australia’s Biggest News Agency
Drops the “Real Oil Crisis” Bomb!
A thirteen minute shocker video [Real Player version] of a recent broadcast featuring both “sides” of the Peak Oil “debate” between the geologists and scientists in the “majority” [thirty years or more], or the “minority” [now and for the next three years].
ABC of Australia is finally taking this issue seriously and so should you, your friends, neighbors and your officials in City Hall.
Join the “growing number” of people who refuse to “look back in anger” but to prepare for the radical changes ahead in energy production. It is now time to prepare your family, villages and local government officials for this epic fundamental change in the world’s energy grid.
The “early” Peak Oil “splinter group” within the scientific geologic community is gaining momentum and numbers. The “elite whistleblowers” are telling us to prepare with each food-growing season.
Clear, “balanced” and worth watching, click or enter the line below and watch:
http://tinyurl.com/ktc3p
The Big Energy Elites are quietly preparing for the Oil Shock. Are you and yours?
Mike Whitney’s devastating exposure of Vice President Cheney’s financial portfolio and other elites in Big Energy as they load their financial “lifeboats” and let the U. S. dollar and national economy sink.
From Whitney’s article as it originally appeared off the outstanding Information Clearinghouse headline feed at the FCF’s web log site:
“Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and ‘American Celebrity.’
The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat corporations who’ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while the anemic dollar continues to sag.
All the signs indicate that the economy is slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise. This is the onset of stagflation; the dreaded combo of a slowing economy and inflation.”
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:
http://tinyurl.com/rzss4
How a small village in Ireland is preparing and how you can prepare your village and neighborhoods for a low energy future!
Here is a detailed article that is well worth reading concerning the activities of a small class of students and teachers in Kinsale, Ireland who developed a sustainable working model of a “low energy” village in the here and now.
BOOKMARK THIS WEB SITE!
FROM THE IMPORTANT ENERGY BULLETIN ARTICLE:
Kinsale 2021 “On Saturday February 12th 2005 we held an event in Kinsale called “Kinsale in 2021 - Towards a Prosperous, Sustainable Future Together”, which took place at Kinsale Town Hall. The event was presented as a ‘community think-tank’ in order to hear the community’s ideas about how energy descent would affect the community and what might be done about it. Before the event we sent personal invitations to the people in Kinsale that we had identified as being the movers and shakers in the town, drawn from the sectors identified above.
We also left the event open to the public and put posters up around the town. From the 60 people invited, about 35 turned up on the day. The event itself was opened by the Mayor of Kinsale, Mr Charles Henderson, who spoke of the importance of energy as an issue and how it affects all aspects of our lives and our economy. This was followed by a screening of ‘The End of Suburbia’.”
STUDY THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:
http://tinyurl.com/kxdow
Friday, July 07, 2006
Kenny Boy clones, anyone?
KEN “KENNY BOY” LAY 1942-2006
LENNY KAYE, b 2006, Danli, Honduras.
By Sterne Broun, Blue Barn News Central
The nation was shocked and saddened to discover its favorite Gilded Age revivalist Ken Lay dead of an apparent heart attack. Mourners have been holding candlelight vigils. The Wall Street Journal reported that some have even gone so far as fasting in his memory. But some folks just don’t get it.
Eager to suspend Lay’s 72 virgins, the Moldovan kind reserved for Free Market Martyrs, conspiracy theories have engulfed the internet like so many East New Orleans bungalows.
Speculation about the mysterious Lenny Kaye, recently spotted swiping a packet of Duvalin from a Honduran child, has only served to exacerbate the ghoulish denials. These reports, “all wrong,” as CNN Money Man Allen Wastler informs us, prolong the grief America feels.
“This type of thing makes ya’ looney,” a former Enron employee was overheard saying at a Fifth Ward swap meet. “I mean, you’d think he would have called us if he were looking to start again in Latin America.”
“It is utter poppycock,” a disheartened Tony Blankley said. “If you look at these photographs, you can clearly see that Lenny Kaye has a moustache. Ken Lay never had a moustache!”
Blankley, wiping a tear away with a smart $300 handkerchief, continued. “If you need any more proof, check the death certificate. Equity Funding has notarized the thing this morning!”
Add to Blankley’s assertions the fact that Lay’s untimely demise prevents his family from sharing his wealth with former shareholders and employees and it is quite clear Kenny Boy wouldn’t have wanted it this way. “You know and I know,” Tony Snow told his stenographers, “Kenny Boy would want to pay his debts. We rewarded him for his contributions, he contributed more. That was just the kind of guy he was.”
Besides, the corporate media would hasten to add, if there were a dead ringer for Lay out there he’d be receiving embalming services as we speak, not hamming it up at a famous cigar factory. That Lenny Kaye has been spotted makes Lay faking his death with a body double statistically impossible.
Judy Miller was unavailable for comment.
Love it and Leave it, Moron!
Go to Venezuela, You Idiot
By Jeff Cohen
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 06 July 2006
Thursday 06 July 2006
I don't usually take the advice of right-wingers. But I did this time. After receiving inflamed email messages from dozens of angry rightists that I should get the hell out of the USA and go to Venezuela, I accepted their challenge and flew to Caracas.
"Would you like me to start a fund to ship your ass down there, Comrade Cohen?"
What had provoked the often-abusive emailers was my 2005 Internet column urging US residents to buy their gasoline at Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state oil company. I called for a Citgo BUY-cott, to protest Bush's interventionist foreign policy, while supporting innovative anti-poverty programs in Venezuela. (Last winter, Citgo started a program that provided discounted home-heating oil to low-income families in the US.)
"Hey moron, if you hate America so much and love Venezuela, why don't you go there?"
This funny and very informative article goes on about taking those right – wing American “gringos” advice, point and click at the following link for the complete article detailing recent developments there, or: Go to Venezuela, You Idiot!
Saturday, July 01, 2006
INTERNATIONAL LAW - GENOCIDE IN GAZA
Detailed listings of investigated Israelis military strikes and late – breaking violations of international law.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights [PCHR] has released in the last few hours a tentative listing of military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank.
The report also cites specific violations of international law as:
“PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to force IOF to comply with the Convention, including the prohibition of reprisals against protected persons and their property (article 33). PCHR calls also upon the High Contracting Parties to apply article 1 of the Convention, which calls for respecting the Convention and ensuring respect the Convention in all circumstances. PCHR further reminds the international community of the Hague Regulations of 1907, which prohibits military actions against civilians and civilian targets."
Click HERE to read the investigated findings of the most recent attacks.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights [PCHR] has released in the last few hours a tentative listing of military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank.
The report also cites specific violations of international law as:
“PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to force IOF to comply with the Convention, including the prohibition of reprisals against protected persons and their property (article 33). PCHR calls also upon the High Contracting Parties to apply article 1 of the Convention, which calls for respecting the Convention and ensuring respect the Convention in all circumstances. PCHR further reminds the international community of the Hague Regulations of 1907, which prohibits military actions against civilians and civilian targets."
Click HERE to read the investigated findings of the most recent attacks.
More "GAZA UNDER SEIGE" coverage. Subscription information details.
Detailed listings of last weeks war crimes committed by Israelis occupation forces in GAZA.
I have been receiving quite a number of recent emails from Flyer readers requesting first – hand sources of news from Palestine, specifically concerning the recent invasion of the West Bank of Gaza.
You may also sign up for our email broadcasts by sending “subscribe” in the subject line to: bluebarnnewscentral@hughes.net . We do not share our lists with others.
Here are some of the most recent resources available in audio. They are broadcast in low bandwidth, after a short wait even some of the slowest connections will receive the transmit.
The fast moving situation is still developing as we post this entry, but last week's series of massive war crims has been summarized in a quick two – minute audio presentation.
It came from the Indymedia Radio Project.
The incidents described were originally reported by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights [PCHR] http://www.pchrgaza.org/
The Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 25/2006, 22- 28 June 2006.
Hear it all HERE.
I have been receiving quite a number of recent emails from Flyer readers requesting first – hand sources of news from Palestine, specifically concerning the recent invasion of the West Bank of Gaza.
You may also sign up for our email broadcasts by sending “subscribe” in the subject line to: bluebarnnewscentral@hughes.net . We do not share our lists with others.
Here are some of the most recent resources available in audio. They are broadcast in low bandwidth, after a short wait even some of the slowest connections will receive the transmit.
The fast moving situation is still developing as we post this entry, but last week's series of massive war crims has been summarized in a quick two – minute audio presentation.
It came from the Indymedia Radio Project.
The incidents described were originally reported by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights [PCHR] http://www.pchrgaza.org/
The Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 25/2006, 22- 28 June 2006.
Hear it all HERE.
Audio report from Rafah, Gaza
Latest “On the ground” audio reports from Gaza
"Wake Up! They are using American F-16s to kill our children!"
From the important Indymedia world wide radio service.
Peoples’ media through the internet is proving more reliable than any of the M$M oligopolies.
From the program’s description:
“This is a devastating interview with Mohammed Omer who lives in Rafah, Palestine and writes a blog called Rafah Today (www.rafahtoday.org). It details the brutality of the current assault on Gaza by the Israeli Occupation Army.”
Hear it all HERE.
"Wake Up! They are using American F-16s to kill our children!"
From the important Indymedia world wide radio service.
Peoples’ media through the internet is proving more reliable than any of the M$M oligopolies.
From the program’s description:
“This is a devastating interview with Mohammed Omer who lives in Rafah, Palestine and writes a blog called Rafah Today (www.rafahtoday.org). It details the brutality of the current assault on Gaza by the Israeli Occupation Army.”
Hear it all HERE.
War Crimes, Gaza Under Seige
Israel’s War Crimes
"ONGOING AT GAZA"
While many in the United States are preparing to celebrate Independence Day, preparing happy scenes of BBQ picnics and fireworks, on the other side of the world, U.S. supplied weapons are being used by Israel to “collectively punish” all persons in Gaza.
Rolling power outages have swept across the area after American build aircraft bombed electrical generators. Water and fuel supplies have been stopped at the border and along the Iron Wall.
Many reports are coming out through the internet of mass deprivations.
Reports sound horribly familiar to narratives of the Nazis destruction of civilian resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.
This is a real war crime.
Here is one of the closest reports “on the ground” I could find, courtesy the FPF’s links.
Go to: Rafah - Palestine for up to date photographs and short articles describing the Israelis attacks along the West Bank.
Also, a scattering of analysis and reports from many different sources in or near the scene of the invasion at:
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/16119/
More to follow.
"ONGOING AT GAZA"
While many in the United States are preparing to celebrate Independence Day, preparing happy scenes of BBQ picnics and fireworks, on the other side of the world, U.S. supplied weapons are being used by Israel to “collectively punish” all persons in Gaza.
Rolling power outages have swept across the area after American build aircraft bombed electrical generators. Water and fuel supplies have been stopped at the border and along the Iron Wall.
Many reports are coming out through the internet of mass deprivations.
Reports sound horribly familiar to narratives of the Nazis destruction of civilian resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.
This is a real war crime.
Here is one of the closest reports “on the ground” I could find, courtesy the FPF’s links.
Go to: Rafah - Palestine for up to date photographs and short articles describing the Israelis attacks along the West Bank.
Also, a scattering of analysis and reports from many different sources in or near the scene of the invasion at:
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/16119/
More to follow.
Hot News from the Foreign Press Foundation, The Netherlands
GENOCIDE BY ISRAEL IN THE GHETTO OF GAZA
Intro by Henk Ruyssenaars, Ten years independent correspondent in N-Africa & M-East
July 1 - 2006 - Massive air strikes and sonic booms forced hundreds of Gaza families to abandon their homes seeking safe shelter, as thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks penetrated the Gaza strip. Israeli warplanes launched missiles at the impoverished coastal strip, destroying the only power station, which left 700,000 people living in Gaza without electricity. The restoration of the power station will take between three to six months at the cost of six to eight million dollars.
Humanitarian organizations warn of yet another crisis in Gaza, since all water supply and sewage disposal pipes are powered by electricity or diesel oil, which has also been cut off by Israel. People are deprived from drinking water, cooking, and light. - http://www.cnionline.org/
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE REACTIONS: ''THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT IS LOSING ITS REASON'' - [Israeli paper] Haaretz Editorial - "Bombing bridges that can be circumvented both by car and on foot; seizing an airport that has been in ruins for years; destroying a power station, plunging large parts of the Gaza Strip into darkness; distributing flyers suggesting that people be concerned about their fate; a menacing flight over Bashar Assad's palace; and arresting elected Hamas officials: The government wishes to convince us that all these actions are intended only to release the soldier Gilad Shalit.'' - Continue pls. at Url.: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
GUSH SHALOM, the Israeli Peace Bloc: - The Invasion of Gaza Will Lead to Disaster! - Url.: http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2006/june/june28-2.html
Humanitarian crisis looms in Gaza, aid agencies warn
by BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM - The Scotsman
Saturday, 1st July 2006 - INTERNATIONAL aid agencies yesterday warned of an impending humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip as Israel kept up its air and artillery bombardments on the fourth day of a wide-ranging military operation aimed at freeing a kidnapped Israeli soldier.
The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva called on Israel to reopen a border passage into Gaza to enable the delivery of supplies and medicines and the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said many Palestinian civilians were now living on "just one meal a day".
An Israeli air strike that destroyed Gaza's only electricity plant means there will soon be no tap water for many of the Strip's 1.4 million residents.
The air strike was mounted on the first day of "Operation Summer Rain" which Israel says is aimed at freeing a corporal captured by Palestinian militants.
Shlomo Dror, a senior Israeli security official, denied that there was any impending crisis, but added that Israel hoped to re-open the Karni border crossing to allow in supplies next week. The crossing was closed after the raid by Palestinian militants in which Corporal Gilad Shalit was captured on Sunday.
IN AN ESCALATION OF AIR AND ARTILLERY FIRE ON THURSDAY AND YESTERDAY, THE MILITARY STRUCK BRIDGES, ROADS, ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRAINING GROUNDS OF THE RADICAL HAMAS MOVEMENT, ACCORDING TO PALESTINIAN SOURCES.
An Israeli missile also struck a car on a main a road in Gaza city yesterday afternoon, wounding two people, Palestinian officials said. Army officials said the target of the strike was a squad preparing to launch rockets at southern Israel.
At a mosque in Gaza city, Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, said that Israel would fail to topple Hamas from power despite a wave of arrests in the West Bank on Wednesday including eight ministers and a third of the movement's parliamentary deputies. France yesterday called on Israel to free the arrested ministers.
Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the WFP, said that the crisis had affected all aspects of Palestinian life, including access to food, health care, education and fuel. "It is essential that all crossings remain open so that essential food aid shipments into Gaza may continue," he said.
And Dorothea Krimitsas, a spokeswoman for the ICRC, said the agency was negotiating with Israel to allow the passage of humanitarian aid, including essential medicines and medical supplies for the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Mr Dror, the Israeli official, conceded conditions are difficult in the Strip, but said UN officials and the Palestinians were exaggerating in order to muster international pressure on Israel to stop the military operation.
He said the destroyed power station had provided no more than 15 per cent of the Strip's electricity.
"THEY ARE CREATING A CRISIS, WE DON'T THINK THERE IS A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS THERE," HE SAID.
After initially giving the government broad support for its steps to free Corporal Shalit, Israel's media yesterday began voicing criticisms of the operation. - [HR: The usual: first you kill'm, than you complain about the funeral.]
Citing the air force's flyover of Syrian president Bashar Assad's palace in Latakia, Syria, on Wednesday and the destruction of the Gaza power plant, the left-wing Haaretz, Israel's most respected daily, wrote in an editorial that the steps "appear to reveal more about [the government's] losing its senses than its pursuing a comprehensive approach based on wisdom".
Meanwhile in Egypt, the government urged calm as it tried to mediate an end to the crisis while several thousand protesters shouted for jihad against Israel.
The call-to-arms rang out in Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque, the most prominent institution in the Sunni Arab world, where more than 3,000 people packed in to attend Friday prayers and a demonstration afterward, organised by the Egyptian government's top rival, the Muslim Brotherhood.''
[and end] - This article - Url.:
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=959162006
Related: More genocides by this group -
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gkgrb
* AN EXAMPLE: The Group's former US/PNAC-Secr. of State Madeleine Albright-Korbel, in her comment on the at least HALF A MILLION dead children in Iraq (according to Unicef it's now one-and-a-half million children under the age of five): "WE THINK THE PRICE IS WORTH IT" - On CBS '60 Minutes' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2vmc8
* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp
* Today's Google selection concerning the further Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/zmars
* ROME TRIBUNAL ON WAR CRIMES AND MEDIA: Held Guilty of Deception - The tribunal said mainstream media reportage on Iraq also violated article six of the Nuremberg Tribunal (set up to try Nazi crimes) which states: "Leaders, organisers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes (crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such a plan." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/68jws
* WHO IS RUNNING AMERICA? - Url.: http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html
* THE US PNAC WARS & NATO¹S SECRET ARMIES LINKED TO TERRORISM? - (NATO, the Pentagon, NSA, MI6, the CIA, Mossad, BND, and all other European and global 'intelligence services' are linked to inhuman terror, coups d¹état, 'rendition', the PNAC Gulags and torture - HR) - by Daniele Ganser -
Url.: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GAN412A.html
* FALSE FLAG 9/11 - NO LEGAL BASE FOR NATO FIGHTING US WARS - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/zqzkc
* IT'S VERY UNLIKELY, but if you indeed would prefer to unsubscribe from the FPF-list: just send an email in return with the word 'unsubscribe'.
* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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