11/19/2007 
"The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future”
Investigative journalist Craig Unger is the author of the new book “The Fall of the House of Bush”. The book examines how neoconservatives secretly forged an alliance with the Christian Right during the Bush presidency and helped make the case for war in Iraq.
CBS: 'Stunning' veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veterans
CBS News has now completed a five-month study of death records for 2004-05 which shows that the actual figures are "much higher" than those reported by the VA. Across the total US veteran population of 25 million, CBS found that suicide rates were more than twice as high as for non-veterans (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide accounted for 32,439 deaths in 2004).
The Farce of Veteran’s Day; A Holiday For Everyone Except Veterans
How’s your day going? Are you off from work or school? Do you get to spend a three day weekend enjoying yourself?
Well, on this Veterans Day, 25% of the homeless in American are veterans who don’t give a damn about having a holiday of their own, they just want the country that they served to simply treat them like human beings.
America is a land where a baseball player can earn $1.4 billion yet we have people - human beings, families, children and veterans alike living on the streets with no home, no food and no hope. Tell me again about how great our nation is. This is not my America.
US Army desertion rates rise 80 percent since 2003 Iraq invasion; highest rate since 1980
Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over disability benefits when he returned.
Wounded warriors face home-front battle with VA
Strengthened by the autonomy enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, the Iraqi Kurdish authority launched a regional oil policy in August, signing deals with overseas companies, to first achieve self-sufficiency and later exportation. The authority has signed 20 contracts during the last three months and shows no sign of changing course, despite threats from the federal government to blacklist companies trading with the Kurdish region.
Turkish tanks advancing near borders with Iraq
Turkish tanks were seen advancing towards the Iraqi borders on a background of Turkish threats to raid northern Iraq to hunt down fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) holed up in mountainous areas on the Iraqi side of the joint frontiers, border guards and witnesses in Duhuk said on Friday.
Judge slaps White House with restraining order
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order today against the White House, ordering its executive office to preserve all records and back-up copies of millions of missing e-mails.
The order was sought by the National Security Archive, a public interest library at George Washington University, and the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The groups alleged in separate, but now combined, complaints, that the preservation of more than 5 million missing e-mails is vital to the preservation of history as they reveal the inner thinking of President Bush’s top aides between 2002 and 2007.
Pioneering 'heat wave' gun may be used in Iraq
American commanders in Iraq are urging Pentagon chiefs to authorise the deployment of newly-developed heat wave guns to disperse angry crowds or violent rioters. He added that tests were almost complete and the first ADS, also known as the Silent Guardian, could be deployed early next year if the Pentagon allows. The decision is so sensitive that it is expected to be made personally by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, who sent senior representatives to the demonstrations.
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.
But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing. The technique known as comparative bullet-lead analysis has been used since 1963. In 2004, however, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI"s testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." The organization said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence."
Suspect in Pearl's killing dies after interrogation: report
The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive.
Memon's family members and human rights groups said that in April,
the businessman was left in front of his Karachi home badly injured and
emaciated, weighing just 80 pounds (36 kilograms), according to the report. About a month later, he died from what was described as complications
from meningitis and tuberculosis, the Journal said. Pakistani human rights groups have accused the local intelligence service of torturing Memon, according to the paper.
Dershowitz throws a tantrum, but still endorses the use of torture...
The moral argument cannot be qualified by providing support of the workable results for the thing that you find immoral to begin with. In other words, I cannot argue that murder is immoral, but then also state in the same argument that in some cases, the best way to kill someone would be to shoot them. You are confusing two separate arguments and by doing so, muddying your own position on the issue.
Waterboarding in American History
Some high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael Mukasey, the President's choice for attorney general, prefers to equivocate, but water boarding has long been a form of torture that causes excruciating pain and can lead to death. It forces water into prisoner's lungs, usually over and over again.
The Spanish Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover and punish heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain's inquisitors carried it overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during the witch hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were "dunked" and held under water to see if they were witches.
Muir Beach man cited for cleaning beach
No good deed goes unpunished. At least that's how Muir Beach resident Sigward Moser felt Friday after he says he was threatened with a Taser gun, forced to the ground and handcuffed by a National Park Service ranger for refusing to stop cleaning up the oily beach beneath his home.
Why Is The US Dollar Dropping So Fast
Stevia: The FDA's Attack On A Beneficial Supplement
It would at least be understandable if the regulators played with a fair deck and applied equal standards to all alternative sweeteners. But they do not.
Stevia is a natural plant, and cannot be patented. There is no high profit in the product, and it is a threat to the patented molecules like Aspartame, which are high-profit. So Stevia must go. And we see the same thing in drugs, in which naturally occurring or simple treatments which cannot be patented are suppressed in order to force the market towards the patented and high profit products.
Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World
THE Documentary on Aspartame. WATCH THIS!
'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated
They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime.
It is 50 years since Tony Ciarfello and his friends used the yard of a depleted uranium weapons factory as their playground in Colonie, a suburb of Albany in upstate New York state.
'There wasn't no fence at the back of the plant,' remembers Ciarfello. 'Inside was a big open ground and nobody would chase us away. We used to play baseball and hang by the stream running through it. We even used to fish in it - though we noticed the fish had big pink lumps on them.'
Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.
In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The clean-up did not finish until summer 2007, having cost some $190m. Contractors demolished the buildings and removed more than 150,000 tons of soil and other contaminated detritus, digging down to depths of up to 40ft and trucking it 2,000 miles by rail to underground radioactive waste sites in the Rockies. All that is now left of the NL plant is a huge, undulating field, ringed by razor wire.
Despite this colossal effort, Parrish and his colleagues found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments and household dust in the vicinity of the site, deposited long ago when the factory burnt the shavings and chips produced by the weapons manufacturing process: the study estimates that, over the years, about 10 tons of uranium oxide dust wafted from the chimney into the surrounding environment.
Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system. When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.
TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.
Ciarfello says he was still in his twenties when his teeth 'just started to crumble: they ground down to nothing until they were just these little stumps and I pushed them out with my tongue'. Other members of his family are sick. His son developed a severe kidney condition, while his brother, Frank, can barely walk and also suffers chronic fatigue. A nephew was born with a disfiguring facial skin tumour that has required repeated surgery.
'I knew many people from round here who died young, in their twenties and thirties,' she says. 'We used to play out in the creek that flowed out of the plant site. The water was sluggish, a weird yellow-green colour. We'd splash about in it. Now we know it was laden with depleted uranium.'
Vaccine Ingredients
In a compulsory inoculation program, it is the responsibility of the developers, promoters and enforcers to prove safety and efficacy...
Acel-Immune DTaP for diphtheria - tetanus - pertussis:
formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal, and polysorbate 80
check out the entire list
Parents ordered to court for kids' shots
Circuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols ordered parents in a letter to appear at the courthouse Saturday and either get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail.
Parents Kept In Dark About Vaccine Waiver
Parents of children in Prince George's County Maryland were kept in the dark about their right to opt out of vaccines as over a thousand kids were herded into a courthouse to be injected while authorities kept a close watch on advocacy groups and reporters who tried to inform parents that there was no law to mandate the shots.
State Attorney Glenn Ivey, who admitted during a radio interview last week that no law mandated the shots and also that he had chosen not to give his kids the vaccines, confirmed that exemption forms were available from the back of the room. However, when asked if they were aware of the right to opt out, parents were miffed. News reports failed to cite any cases where parents had opted out as a result of signing waiver forms.
Feds 'Lose' Hundreds Of Viruses, Microbes Imported To Hawaii
The state Department of Agriculture lost track of hundreds of viruses and microbes imported to Hawai'i for research purposes over a five-decade period because of a breakdown in the agency's paperwork system.
"So THAT'S what's in this test tube .... OOOPS!
Thousands of teachers abandon Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's education system, once regarded as among the best in Africa, is in crisis because of the country's economic meltdown. Almost a quarter of the teachers have quit the country, absenteeism is high, buildings are crumbling and standards plummeting. In one of the most shocking examples of the Dickensian conditions, a reporter witnessed hundreds of children at Hatcliffe Extension Primary School in Epworth, 12 miles west of Harare, writing in the dust on the floor because they had no exercise books or pencils.
Salt Lake City Mayor: Draw Your Line In the Sand
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
Israel promises to use "Baby Nukes" on Iran
As for Israel saying that the nukes used would be only 1/15th of the power of the Nagasaki nukes, to that i say BS. Israel plans on using much larger nukes than the ones in this article.
Israel Accuses IAEA's ElBaradei of Being "Pro-Iranian"
Israel is accusing International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei of being pro-Iranian after the IAEA issued a report that said Iran has in general been cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog agency. The IAEA said Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment program but that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said: "This report is unacceptable. This is further proof of ElBaradei's one-sided and pro-Iranian position."
This is the man who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Israeli police detain self-styled rabbi charged with sexual abuse
Mondrowitz, 60, is wanted in New York for molesting hundreds of children under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist who became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic sect in Brooklyn for his expertise with minors, the Haaretz newspaper reported Friday.
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
Israel: We won't negotiate at Annapolis
Senior government officials said Saturday night that negotiations themselves would not take place at Annapolis, but rather that the negotiating process would begin "immediately" afterward. No date or venue was given for these negotiations, although they are expected to be carried out by the same teams which have been negotiating the statement to be unveiled at Annapolis.
AFP: Israeli court declines to rule on Gaza sick
Israel's high court on Monday rejected a petition from an Israeli human rights group for the state to change interrogation procedures for Gazans leaving the territory for medical care.
Open Letter to Sir John Holmes, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
You must be aware of the nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is simply dying a slow and painful death at the hands of the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust. This is not an overstatement or exaggerated description of a people long tormented by a sinister occupying power that is hell- bent on decimating them, using the basest and most inhumane of means, such as preventing food and other basic needs from reaching them.
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border
An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life.
Russia says it may deploy missiles to Belarus
Russia may deploy its newest Iskander tactical missiles in neighboring Belarus in response to U.S. plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe, Russian media quoted a senior general as saying on Wednesday. Asked if the missiles could be deployed in response to the U.S. shield, Major-General Vladimir Zaritsky, head of Russia’s artillery and missile forces, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency: “Why not? Under the right conditions and with the corresponding agreement of Belarus, it is possible.”
China deals blow to Western efforts to punish Iran
China has dealt a blow to Western efforts to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by dropping out of a meeting to discuss tougher sanctions against Tehran.
Iran calls for US nuclear apology
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the US and its allies should apologise for their treatment of Iran over its nuclear programme. Mr Ahmadinejad said the latest report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed Iran had been truthful about its nuclear activities.
Dishonest Media Reporting And Iran's Centrifuges
There's some seriously dishonest and/or lazy reporting going on in the Western media about Iran's nuclear program and the IAEA report yesterday.
IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance
Even though compliance by Iran is the principal and only conclusion of the current IAEA report, entitled "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 in the Islamic Republic of Iran" the neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times don't even mention it in their "report" on the IAEA report!
Israel: IAEA's report 'unacceptable'
"You go back and re-write it so we can order the Americans to kill the Iranians for us!"
Why Attack Iran?
More and more people seem to take it as given that a nuclear-armed Iran would use its nuclear weapons to attack the United States. Yet there is no plausible argument, and very little evidence, for that conclusion.
Indeed, for the U.S. government to attack a country that has not attacked us and isn't even threatening to do so would be to commit an immoral, and probably illegal, act. But that's another story.
Fallon: Iranian behavior unhelpful
The Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them and the region is concerned about their radical rhetoric, the top American commander in the Middle East said Sunday. Memo to Admiral Fallon: precisely what do you mean in terms of Iran whey you way that "The Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them"? Are we truly talking about a military strike, when Russian political officials have stated very publicly that an attack against Iran will be viewed as an attack against Russia?
Russia abandons key Cold War arms treaty
Russia readies nuclear fuel
Russia readies nuclear fuel bound for Iran - Israel News
Russia's state-run nuclear fuel producer said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog would later this month start sealing nuclear fuel bound for the Bushehr plant, a major step to shipping the fuel to the Bushehr plant in Iran.
US plans new space weapons against China
The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing risk of missile attack from rogue states and the "satellite killer" capabilities of China. Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate beyond the Earth's atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.
Intel Chief Blasts 'Cherry Picked' Intel
McConnell also said a new national intelligence estimate on Iran should be complete in about a month, but its key findings will not be released publicly. He says doing so could alert Iran to its intelligence vulnerabilities.
Chinese FM in Iran for nuclear talks
Iran on Tuesday denied claims that it had rejected a visit by UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of a crucial report on Tehran’s contested atomic drive. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks on Tuesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Iran’s controversial nuclear drive, insisting he wanted to cooperate with Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ahmadinejad told Yang that Iran wishes “to pursue dialogue and cooperation with the IAEA and the Europeans,” his office said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.
War clouds in the Horn of Africa
As we collect our thoughts and reflect about what a future war could possibly mean to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark rumors of war are rampant in the African Horn; whether these rumors of war are an indication of an impending war or simply a function of public posturing is something that only the near future can tell. If it happens, a fresh war now could spell disaster of tragic proportions for both countries, but especially for Eritrea. It appears that Ethiopia is determined to take advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean conditions. The recent assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt here: “It would not be surprising if Addis Ababa believes an effort in the near future to stage a coup in Asmara and use force against an Eritrean government that has few friends would also be tolerated in Washington.”
This feverish Ethiopian preparation for aggression on Eritrea has a crucial international dimension, supplied by none other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has actively been on a personal crusade to orchestrate an international demonization of the Eritrean leader and his regime as part of a coordinated effort to facilitate aggression.
Why Bush Doesn't Have to Suspend the Constitution
President George W. Bush doesn’t have to mimic Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suspend the Constitution, since he doesn’t have any opposition. The two major political parties are controlled by the same Wire Pullers. Meanwhile, an “Axis of Zionists,” Michael Mukasey at Justice, Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security and Joshua Bolten at the WH, now have a choke hold on key positions in our government.
Amid Pakistani disaster, Bush Homeland Security advisor resigns
US military strike on Pakistan advocated
Two experts have proposed that the US should take pre-emptive action to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
US envoy to Musharraf returns home with nothing
John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, flew out of Islamabad after Musharraf, a close ally of the US, rejected his call to end emergency rule, to free political prisoners, resign from his post as army commander and hold free and fair elections in January.
Musharraf to step down from army post
Deception: British Reporter Andrew Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
Adrian Levy examines how five consecutive US administrations from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush have been complicit in building and protecting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Levy is co-author of the new book: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons."
Crackdown On the Press: General Musharraf Shuts Down Two of Pakistan's Biggest Private Television News Channels
Pakistan's military leader General Pervez Musharraf is still refusing to lift martial law. On Saturday Musharraf met for two hours with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
While John Negroponte was in Pakistan, Musharraf ordered two Dubai-based Pakistani news channels, GEO-TV and ARY One World to be shut down.
U.S. Considers Arming Pakistani Tribes
The New York Times has revealed the U.S. is proposing to start arming Pakistani tribes in an effort to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would likely expand the presence of U.S. military troops in Pakistan and directly finance a tribal paramilitary force. The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq. An estimated $350 million would be needed to train and arm the paramilitary force known as the Frontier Corps.
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms
Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials. While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.
US eyes Pakistan's nuclear arsenal
The seemingly calamitous developments - which have provoked widespread demonstrations against Musharraf's government - might in fact still fit into the US's grand scheme for the embattled country: to gain control of its nuclear weapons so they do not fall into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Contacts close to the power circles in Pakistan told Asia Times Online that there is a feeling that the US is prepared to take "hurricane" measures to ensure the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal. The thinking goes that by changing horses and supporting Bhutto, the US could exploit the current unrest by dictating new terms to Pakistan in the "war on terror" and coerce it into allowing the US to safeguard its nuclear stockpile.
US has no good option in a Pakistan nuclear 'nightmare'
The US armed forces are virtually powerless to prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from falling into Islamist hands if the political crisis in Islamabad spins out of control, analysts warned. Instead, they said, Washington can do little but help to resolve the crisis and preserve its strong ties with Pakistan's pro-Western military elite, whether or not General Pervez Musharraf stays in power.
"There's no good military option at all," Daniel Markey, a former US government policy planner for South Asia, told AFP on Tuesday in Washington.
Israeli President: We are buying up Manhattan, Poland and Hungary
Israeli president: ''we are buying up Manhattan and we are buying up Hungary and we are buying up Romania and we are buying up Poland. And the way I see it, we have no problems.''
'FACEBOOK' BANS SOME ... BUT WELCOMES OTHERS
Following in the footsteps of Daily Kos, Facebook seems to be actively looking for anti-Zionist sentiments on their pages and threatening to ban them.
Police worry about abandoned homes
The thousands of foreclosed homes in recent years in Modesto present a vexing problem for law enforcement officials, including Police Chief Roy Wasden. Banks aren't watching those properties closely, he said.
"As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures, and it's quite dangerous," Wasden said.
Renters losing their homes without missing a payment
While the housing foreclosure crisis of 2007 negatively impacted many home owners with shaky financial histories, thousands of families are losing their homes without ever missing a payment. These residents are renters who had the unfortunate luck of living in houses whose landlords defaulted on their mortgages — a large but little noticed externality of the subprime fallout.
Talk of Worst Recession Since the 1930s
A Wall Street superstar this year who runs Balestra Capital Partners, Jim Melcher, says he's "worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we'll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product."
Carnage on Wall Street as loans go bad
The scale of the losses that will hit Wall Street banks could approach half a trillion dollars as large numbers of sub-prime home loans go bad.
Business News" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3155150.ece" target="_blank">'Sub-prime black hole is getting scarier'
Blackstone's president warned that the sub-prime crisis on Wall Street was getting "deeper, darker and scarier" yesterday as the US private equity firm posted a loss for the third quarter, hit by a fall in real-estate revenues and charges related to its initial public offering.
Wachovia Bails Out a Money Market Fund
Floyd Norris is reporting via a tip from a reader that in Wachovia's 10Q, filed Friday, Wachovia reports that "during the third quarter it paid $1.1 billion to purchase asset-backed commercial paper from its Evergreen money market fund, and recorded a $40 million loss."
Bail-out fund proposed by banks for SIV/s.
Bankers from Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. decided upon the structure of a multi-billion-dollar fund to buy distressed debt securities.
Turning The Police State Apparatus Against Dissenters
66 Arrested in Washington State Blocking War Shipments At Port of Olympia
More than four hundred antiwar demonstrators marched through Olympia, Washington Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the police brutality aimed at demonstrators in the past two weeks. Since November 7th, at least 66 people have been arrested and 150 others injured for trying to prevent military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia.
Activists Converge on Washington, D.C. for Weekend of Protest Against Hate Crimes, Police Brutality
This week alone, three African American men were shot and killed by police officers in Brooklyn, Chicago and Newark. The weekend's events include a march on the Department of Justice and a rally and concert at the Washington Monument.
Thousands surround Justice Department in hate crimes march
Protesters marched through the streets around the Justice Department Friday to demand federal intervention in the "Jena Six" case and enforcement of hate crime laws against those who hang nooses in public.
20,000 Protest School of the Americas in Georgia
In Georgia, as many 20,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning this weekend to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- formerly known as the School of the Americas. 11 people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. The U.S. military uses the school to train Latin American soldiers in combat, counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Frequently dubbed the “School of the Assassins,” critics say the school’s graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Protesters at the 18th annual Vigil to Close the SOA included Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich.
Most Presidential Candidates Skip Global Warming Forum
Here in this country, a group of environmental organizations hosted the first ever presidential forum on global warming on Saturday but in attendance were only three candidates -- Senator Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Every Democratic and Republican candidate had been invited. The forum was held two days after the Democratic debate on CNN in Las Vegas which was sponsored by the coal industry.
Over 3,100 Killed in Cyclone in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, at least 3,100 people have been killed and millions made homeless following a devastating cyclone. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society said the death toll could hit 10,000 as rescuers are still struggling to reach remote areas. Tens of thousands of homes have been swept away.
U.N. report: Urgent action needed on 'severe' climate change
IPCC Issues New Warning Over Climate Change
Meanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a new report warning global warming is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of poor people. The United Nations' top scientific panel says firm action is needed to avoid more catastrophic events.
The American People are Beginning To Get It
Despite compelling statistical, circumstantial, anecdotal and eyewitness evidence that two presidential and numerous congressional elections have been stolen, this evidence has been discounted, ignored and ridiculed by the mainstream media and, amazingly, by the victimized Democratic Party and its defeated candidates and even by some progressive publications. Even so, a sizeable and growing portion of the American public isn’t buying the official and bi-partisan assurances that the US elections are, by and large, on the level, and that the Bush/Cheney regime is therefore legitimate. For example, an August, 2006 Zogby poll reports that only 45% of the population is “very confident” that Bush and Cheney won re-election “fair and square” in 2004. About a third were “not at all confident.” 
FEMA Protecting Itself, But Not Evacuees?
CBS News Obtains Emails Indicating Agency Prohibits Its Own Staff From Entering Toxic Trailers - CBS News 
FEMA Admits It Held Fake Press Conference about California Wildfires; FEMA Staffers Posed as Journalists
On Tuesday, FEMA staged a fake press conference with agency staffers posing as news reporters. One FEMA staffer who pretended to be a journalist has since been promoted to become head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
News > Metro -- FEMA to face scrutiny during its response to California wildfires" href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071024-1640-cnsfema.html" target="_blank">FEMA to face scrutiny during its response to California wildfires
By designating San Diego and other fire-ravaged counties as major disaster areas Wednesday, President Bush trained a spotlight on his Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is intent on proving it has learned some hard lessons from its slow response and poor coordination after Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA
Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness. Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters.
White House Withholds Hundreds of Abramoff Documents
In response to the Committee's document request, the White House produced approximately 3,700 pages of documents. These documents generally involve communications between White House officials and Mr. Abramoff or members of his lobbying team. The White House refused, however, to produce over 600 pages of documents relating to Mr. Abramoff because they "contain internal deliberations among White House employees, or that otherwise implicate Executive Branch prerogatives." The White House also made a number of redactions in the pages produced to the Committee. Given the prior statements by White House officials, it is surprising that there would be this volume of documents of internal deliberations involving Mr. Abramoff.
Reports of Blackwater immunity deal embarrass Rice
"Press reports today indicate that DS (Department of State) agents offered grants of immunity to Blackwater employees after the September 16 shooting incident in Baghdad. Are these reports accurate?" Biden asked in a statement.
"If so, who authorized these grants of immunity? Was there consultation with the Department of Justice prior to such grants of immunity?" the Democrat asked.
The New York Times Tuesday said officials in the State Department's investigative unit, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made the immunity offer though they lacked authority to do so.
Most of the guards involved in the shooting were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews as long as their statements were truthful, the Times reported. And one law enforcement official told the Washington Post that some Blackwater guards cited the immunity promises in refusing to be interviewed by the FBI, which took over the investigation this month.
McCormack Tuesday sought to distance Rice from the scandal, emphasizing that her attitude is that "if there are individuals who broke rules, laws or regulations, they must be held to account." It was Rice who had asked the FBI to take over the investigation, he added.
"These companies will not get immunity and will be subject to Iraqi law," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.
White House says Bush plans administrative orders to govern, avoiding Congress
Feds want to survey, possibly clean up vast garbage pit in Pacific
IRAQ: Power plants shut due to lack of fuel
The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq is Rarely Described Accurately in the U.S. Media
Iraq fears border crises overtaking agenda
Cheney Nods Off During Meeting On Calif. Wildfires
Staffers claimed he was "meditating."
Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France
Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got an unpleasant surprise during his visit to France today when human rights groups filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande
If it is punishment, it's more likely punishment for this type of stupidity.
IRAQ: Child prisoners abused and tortured, say activists
"Our investigation started after families brought their five sons to our organisation looking for psychological help for their children who were recently released from
Neocon mouthpiece channel Fox News continues to run programming today suggesting that Al Qaeda terrorists may have infiltrated the US and started fires in California that have devastated acres of land and have forced one million people from their homes over the past week.
The Fall of the House of Bush
"The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future”
Investigative journalist Craig Unger is the author of the new book “The Fall of the House of Bush”. The book examines how neoconservatives secretly forged an alliance with the Christian Right during the Bush presidency and helped make the case for war in Iraq.
CBS: 'Stunning' veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veterans
CBS News has now completed a five-month study of death records for 2004-05 which shows that the actual figures are "much higher" than those reported by the VA. Across the total US veteran population of 25 million, CBS found that suicide rates were more than twice as high as for non-veterans (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide accounted for 32,439 deaths in 2004).
The Farce of Veteran’s Day; A Holiday For Everyone Except Veterans
How’s your day going? Are you off from work or school? Do you get to spend a three day weekend enjoying yourself?
Well, on this Veterans Day, 25% of the homeless in American are veterans who don’t give a damn about having a holiday of their own, they just want the country that they served to simply treat them like human beings.
America is a land where a baseball player can earn $1.4 billion yet we have people - human beings, families, children and veterans alike living on the streets with no home, no food and no hope. Tell me again about how great our nation is. This is not my America.
US Army desertion rates rise 80 percent since 2003 Iraq invasion; highest rate since 1980
After six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980. The number of US Army deserters this year shows an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Overall about 4,700 soldiers deserted this year – a 42 percent jump since just 2006.Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over disability benefits when he returned.
Wounded warriors face home-front battle with VA
Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was deployed for his second tour in Iraq. But he didn't expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.
Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.
After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on Anderson's case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic brain injury.
UPDATE ON THE WATADA 'VICTORY'
U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a temporary injunction barring a second court-martial. The judge said Watada would probably be successful in asserting that his Fifth Amendment rights would be violated by being tried twice for the same crime, otherwise known as double jeopardy.
If you take a look at the natural resources of Somalia, they include 'uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas, likely oil reserves."In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.
Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.
After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on Anderson's case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic brain injury.
UPDATE ON THE WATADA 'VICTORY'
U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a temporary injunction barring a second court-martial. The judge said Watada would probably be successful in asserting that his Fifth Amendment rights would be violated by being tried twice for the same crime, otherwise known as double jeopardy.
In Basra, violence is a tenth of what it was before British pullback, general says
So much for the theory that pulling the troops out leads to more violence.
Suffer the Children
Child mortality in Iraq has spiralled because of the tense security situation, deteriorating health services and lack of medical supplies, say experts.
According to a report released in May 2007 by aid agency Save the Children, “Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 per cent since 1990, more than any other country.”
State Dept official asks to cancel Blackwater hearing
The lawyer for State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard asked on Saturday that he not be called to testify before Congress on discrepancies between his statements and those of his brother over the brother's ties to the Blackwater security firm.
Report: Blackwater killings were unjustified
Blackwater Advisor Alvin Krongard Resigns
The brother of State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard has resigned from the advisory board of the private military company Blackwater. Alvin Krongard resigned from Blackwater on Friday just days after his bother, the State Department's top oversight official, was forced to admit his brother had ties to the company.
And guess what else? Someone found out that Howard’s brother, Alvin (Buzzy) Krongard, sits on the Advisory Board of Blackwater. When asked about this, Howard told the House Committee that Buzzy had NO connection to Blackwater. He knew NOTHING, not a thing about this, even after a call to his brother. But, but, but after a recess, Krongard knew the jig was up. He admitted that it was true, Buzzy was a member of the Board, but had never, ever told him about it.
Small problem: Brother Buzzy called the Committee and told them that he had, indeed, told brother Howard of his connection to Blackwater. Uh oh. That’s perjury. Howard Krongard LIED UNDER OATH about a matter relevant to an ongoing investigation. Perjury is a crime. Wanna bet nothing happens to the man?
Howard Krongard is obviously not a menace to anyone. He apparently poses no threat to our lives or to the safety of the nation. Let’s all hope that Chairman Henry Waxman doesn’t look too closely into “allegations of perjury” after Thanksgiving, as he has promised to do. And let us all hope that Krongard, like Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and other Bushco criminals continue to escape prosecution and punishment of any sort.
Did Afghan bodyguards massacre civilians?
UN report says gunfire from panicking security detail hit most of 180 bombing victims after bomb went off.
UN: Afghan Bodyguards Fired "Deliberately and Indiscriminately" At Crowd
In news from Afghanistan, an internal U.N. report has concluded bodyguards protecting Afghan lawmakers fired "deliberately and indiscriminately" into a crowd two weeks ago after a suicide bombing. The report, which was obtained by the Associated Press, said that as many as two-thirds of the 77 killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire. Most of the dead were schoolchildren.
Strengthened by the autonomy enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, the Iraqi Kurdish authority launched a regional oil policy in August, signing deals with overseas companies, to first achieve self-sufficiency and later exportation. The authority has signed 20 contracts during the last three months and shows no sign of changing course, despite threats from the federal government to blacklist companies trading with the Kurdish region.
Turkish tanks advancing near borders with Iraq
Turkish tanks were seen advancing towards the Iraqi borders on a background of Turkish threats to raid northern Iraq to hunt down fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) holed up in mountainous areas on the Iraqi side of the joint frontiers, border guards and witnesses in Duhuk said on Friday.
Judge slaps White House with restraining order
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order today against the White House, ordering its executive office to preserve all records and back-up copies of millions of missing e-mails.
The order was sought by the National Security Archive, a public interest library at George Washington University, and the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The groups alleged in separate, but now combined, complaints, that the preservation of more than 5 million missing e-mails is vital to the preservation of history as they reveal the inner thinking of President Bush’s top aides between 2002 and 2007.
Pioneering 'heat wave' gun may be used in Iraq
American commanders in Iraq are urging Pentagon chiefs to authorise the deployment of newly-developed heat wave guns to disperse angry crowds or violent rioters. He added that tests were almost complete and the first ADS, also known as the Silent Guardian, could be deployed early next year if the Pentagon allows. The decision is so sensitive that it is expected to be made personally by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, who sent senior representatives to the demonstrations.
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.
But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing. The technique known as comparative bullet-lead analysis has been used since 1963. In 2004, however, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI"s testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." The organization said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence."
Suspect in Pearl's killing dies after interrogation: report
The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive.
Memon's family members and human rights groups said that in April,
the businessman was left in front of his Karachi home badly injured and
emaciated, weighing just 80 pounds (36 kilograms), according to the report. About a month later, he died from what was described as complications
from meningitis and tuberculosis, the Journal said. Pakistani human rights groups have accused the local intelligence service of torturing Memon, according to the paper.
Dershowitz throws a tantrum, but still endorses the use of torture...
The moral argument cannot be qualified by providing support of the workable results for the thing that you find immoral to begin with. In other words, I cannot argue that murder is immoral, but then also state in the same argument that in some cases, the best way to kill someone would be to shoot them. You are confusing two separate arguments and by doing so, muddying your own position on the issue.
Waterboarding in American History
Some high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael Mukasey, the President's choice for attorney general, prefers to equivocate, but water boarding has long been a form of torture that causes excruciating pain and can lead to death. It forces water into prisoner's lungs, usually over and over again.
The Spanish Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover and punish heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain's inquisitors carried it overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during the witch hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were "dunked" and held under water to see if they were witches.
Muir Beach man cited for cleaning beach
No good deed goes unpunished. At least that's how Muir Beach resident Sigward Moser felt Friday after he says he was threatened with a Taser gun, forced to the ground and handcuffed by a National Park Service ranger for refusing to stop cleaning up the oily beach beneath his home.
Why Is The US Dollar Dropping So Fast
Going back a little in time; by the late in 1960's, the US Govt. started racking up big debts & deficits, one of the reasons for the big increase in debts and deficits was the unexpectedly large expenses incurred waging the Vietnam war (sound familiar)... at that time, the US Govt. was spending more money than they could legally print under the amount of Gold it held in reserve... the US Govt. desperately needed to print more money to fund their war and debts than their Gold reserves would allow, so the US Govt. simply decided to re-write laws (regardless of their long-term financial consequences & Constitutional law) and started the de-coupling process away from backing the US Dollar with precious metals.
Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake
'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.
On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.
Chavez starts OPEC summit with 200-dollar oil warning
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened an OPEC summit on Saturday with a chilling warning about 200-dollar-a-barrel oil if the United States attacks Iran in a speech that also urged the cartel to be more political.
Saudi minister warns of dollar collapse
The dollar could collapse if Opec officially admits considering changing the pricing of oil into alternative currencies such as the euro, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister has warned.
In an embarrassing blunder at the meeting in Riyadh, ministers' microphones were not cut off during a key closed meeting, and Prince Al-Faisal was heard saying: "My feeling is that the mere mention that the Opec countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries. "There will be journalists who will seize on this point and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for Opec."
U.S. dollar loses its value because of dirty politics
The dollar keeps sinking amid near-global concerns about the future of the U.S. currency. Analysts forecast that the greenback will remain weak on the world market in November, and therefore the Russian ruble will trade at around 24 against the dollar.
The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency
The decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible. After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.
Dollar stays weak as Iran joins fray on greenback weakness
The dollar's woes continued for yet another day with Iran's call for oil cartel OPEC to recognise the currency's relentless falls highlighting just how far sentiment on the greenback has deteriorated.
Dollars no good for the Taj Mahal
Foreign tourists to many of India's most famous landmarks will no longer be able to pay the entrance fee in dollars, the government says.
Bush Awards Historian Who Downplayed Abu Ghraib, Said We Need To Bomb ‘Paper Tiger’ Iran
With Bush’s contention that Hanson deserves the award due to the “wisdom for our times” he has offered, it’s important to look at exactly what some of that “wisdom” has been:
-- This summer, Hanson wrote that the “real problem” at Abu Ghraib wasn’t the “American mistreatment” — which he said was the work of a “single rogue jailer” — but the “serial release” of Iraqis, whom he calls “Islamic murderers.”
-- On the Hugh Hewitt show, he claimed America needs to get “beyond talking” with “paper tiger” Iran and consider “starting to forget where the border is and taking out some of these training camps.”
One has to wonder how many young people of appropriate military age in Hanson's family have been so inspired by his rhetoric that they are serving in any branch of the military, or in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Lawmakers Strip Immunity for Telecom Companies from Surveillance Bill
Despite threats of a White House veto, both the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed bills Thursday rejecting blanket immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping.
Complaints Flood CNN After Beck Smears Ron Paul Supporters As Terrorists
NYC firefighters planning to swift-boat Rudy
9/11 group mulls anti-Giuliani campaign
Indictment, Lawsuit Cloud Presidential Hopes of Ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
With the Iowa caucuses 50 days away, more questions about Giuliani's past have emerged in recent days that could threaten his candidacy. On Friday, his personal friend and business partner Bernard Kerik was indicted on 16 counts of federal corruption charges, including bribery and tax fraud. On Tuesday, it was revealed that one of Kerik's former lovers, Judith Regan, had sued Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and accused the company of pressuring her to commit perjury in order to protect Giuliani's presidential ambition. We speak to investigative reporter and Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett, author of two books on Giuliani.
What ‘That Regan Woman’ Knows
Ms. Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was unjustly made a scapegoat for the O. J. Simpson “If I Did It” fiasco that (briefly) embarrassed Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation. But for those of us not caught up in the Simpson circus, what’s most riveting about the suit are two at best tangential sentences in its 70 pages: “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”
Kerik's Royalties Shocker: Gets $75,000 for 9/11 Book
Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned.
Ex-Publisher’s Suit Plays a Giuliani-Kerik Angle
Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed today protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake
'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.
On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.
Chavez starts OPEC summit with 200-dollar oil warning
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened an OPEC summit on Saturday with a chilling warning about 200-dollar-a-barrel oil if the United States attacks Iran in a speech that also urged the cartel to be more political.
Saudi minister warns of dollar collapse
The dollar could collapse if Opec officially admits considering changing the pricing of oil into alternative currencies such as the euro, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister has warned.
In an embarrassing blunder at the meeting in Riyadh, ministers' microphones were not cut off during a key closed meeting, and Prince Al-Faisal was heard saying: "My feeling is that the mere mention that the Opec countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries. "There will be journalists who will seize on this point and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for Opec."
Chinese TV: Dump the Dollar
Chinese lunchtime television on Friday gave ordinary people a basic tip on how to play the currency markets: sell the dollar!
U.S. dollar loses its value because of dirty politics
The dollar keeps sinking amid near-global concerns about the future of the U.S. currency. Analysts forecast that the greenback will remain weak on the world market in November, and therefore the Russian ruble will trade at around 24 against the dollar.
The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency
The decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible. After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.
Dollar stays weak as Iran joins fray on greenback weakness
The dollar's woes continued for yet another day with Iran's call for oil cartel OPEC to recognise the currency's relentless falls highlighting just how far sentiment on the greenback has deteriorated.
Dollars no good for the Taj Mahal
Foreign tourists to many of India's most famous landmarks will no longer be able to pay the entrance fee in dollars, the government says.
Bush Awards Historian Who Downplayed Abu Ghraib, Said We Need To Bomb ‘Paper Tiger’ Iran
With Bush’s contention that Hanson deserves the award due to the “wisdom for our times” he has offered, it’s important to look at exactly what some of that “wisdom” has been:
-- This summer, Hanson wrote that the “real problem” at Abu Ghraib wasn’t the “American mistreatment” — which he said was the work of a “single rogue jailer” — but the “serial release” of Iraqis, whom he calls “Islamic murderers.”
-- On the Hugh Hewitt show, he claimed America needs to get “beyond talking” with “paper tiger” Iran and consider “starting to forget where the border is and taking out some of these training camps.”
One has to wonder how many young people of appropriate military age in Hanson's family have been so inspired by his rhetoric that they are serving in any branch of the military, or in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Lawmakers Strip Immunity for Telecom Companies from Surveillance Bill
Despite threats of a White House veto, both the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed bills Thursday rejecting blanket immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping.
Complaints Flood CNN After Beck Smears Ron Paul Supporters As Terrorists
NYC firefighters planning to swift-boat Rudy
9/11 group mulls anti-Giuliani campaign
Indictment, Lawsuit Cloud Presidential Hopes of Ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
With the Iowa caucuses 50 days away, more questions about Giuliani's past have emerged in recent days that could threaten his candidacy. On Friday, his personal friend and business partner Bernard Kerik was indicted on 16 counts of federal corruption charges, including bribery and tax fraud. On Tuesday, it was revealed that one of Kerik's former lovers, Judith Regan, had sued Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and accused the company of pressuring her to commit perjury in order to protect Giuliani's presidential ambition. We speak to investigative reporter and Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett, author of two books on Giuliani.
What ‘That Regan Woman’ Knows
Ms. Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was unjustly made a scapegoat for the O. J. Simpson “If I Did It” fiasco that (briefly) embarrassed Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation. But for those of us not caught up in the Simpson circus, what’s most riveting about the suit are two at best tangential sentences in its 70 pages: “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”
Kerik's Royalties Shocker: Gets $75,000 for 9/11 Book
Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned.
Ex-Publisher’s Suit Plays a Giuliani-Kerik Angle
Stevia: The FDA's Attack On A Beneficial Supplement
It would at least be understandable if the regulators played with a fair deck and applied equal standards to all alternative sweeteners. But they do not.
Stevia is a natural plant, and cannot be patented. There is no high profit in the product, and it is a threat to the patented molecules like Aspartame, which are high-profit. So Stevia must go. And we see the same thing in drugs, in which naturally occurring or simple treatments which cannot be patented are suppressed in order to force the market towards the patented and high profit products.
Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World
THE Documentary on Aspartame. WATCH THIS!
'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated
They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime.
It is 50 years since Tony Ciarfello and his friends used the yard of a depleted uranium weapons factory as their playground in Colonie, a suburb of Albany in upstate New York state.
'There wasn't no fence at the back of the plant,' remembers Ciarfello. 'Inside was a big open ground and nobody would chase us away. We used to play baseball and hang by the stream running through it. We even used to fish in it - though we noticed the fish had big pink lumps on them.'
Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.
In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The clean-up did not finish until summer 2007, having cost some $190m. Contractors demolished the buildings and removed more than 150,000 tons of soil and other contaminated detritus, digging down to depths of up to 40ft and trucking it 2,000 miles by rail to underground radioactive waste sites in the Rockies. All that is now left of the NL plant is a huge, undulating field, ringed by razor wire.
Despite this colossal effort, Parrish and his colleagues found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments and household dust in the vicinity of the site, deposited long ago when the factory burnt the shavings and chips produced by the weapons manufacturing process: the study estimates that, over the years, about 10 tons of uranium oxide dust wafted from the chimney into the surrounding environment.
Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system. When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.
TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.
Ciarfello says he was still in his twenties when his teeth 'just started to crumble: they ground down to nothing until they were just these little stumps and I pushed them out with my tongue'. Other members of his family are sick. His son developed a severe kidney condition, while his brother, Frank, can barely walk and also suffers chronic fatigue. A nephew was born with a disfiguring facial skin tumour that has required repeated surgery.
'I knew many people from round here who died young, in their twenties and thirties,' she says. 'We used to play out in the creek that flowed out of the plant site. The water was sluggish, a weird yellow-green colour. We'd splash about in it. Now we know it was laden with depleted uranium.'
Vaccine Ingredients
In a compulsory inoculation program, it is the responsibility of the developers, promoters and enforcers to prove safety and efficacy...
Acel-Immune DTaP for diphtheria - tetanus - pertussis:
formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal, and polysorbate 80
check out the entire list
Parents ordered to court for kids' shots
Circuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols ordered parents in a letter to appear at the courthouse Saturday and either get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail.
Parents Kept In Dark About Vaccine Waiver
Parents of children in Prince George's County Maryland were kept in the dark about their right to opt out of vaccines as over a thousand kids were herded into a courthouse to be injected while authorities kept a close watch on advocacy groups and reporters who tried to inform parents that there was no law to mandate the shots.
State Attorney Glenn Ivey, who admitted during a radio interview last week that no law mandated the shots and also that he had chosen not to give his kids the vaccines, confirmed that exemption forms were available from the back of the room. However, when asked if they were aware of the right to opt out, parents were miffed. News reports failed to cite any cases where parents had opted out as a result of signing waiver forms.
Feds 'Lose' Hundreds Of Viruses, Microbes Imported To Hawaii
The state Department of Agriculture lost track of hundreds of viruses and microbes imported to Hawai'i for research purposes over a five-decade period because of a breakdown in the agency's paperwork system.
"So THAT'S what's in this test tube .... OOOPS!
Thousands of teachers abandon Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's education system, once regarded as among the best in Africa, is in crisis because of the country's economic meltdown. Almost a quarter of the teachers have quit the country, absenteeism is high, buildings are crumbling and standards plummeting. In one of the most shocking examples of the Dickensian conditions, a reporter witnessed hundreds of children at Hatcliffe Extension Primary School in Epworth, 12 miles west of Harare, writing in the dust on the floor because they had no exercise books or pencils.
Salt Lake City Mayor: Draw Your Line In the Sand
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
Israel promises to use "Baby Nukes" on Iran
As for Israel saying that the nukes used would be only 1/15th of the power of the Nagasaki nukes, to that i say BS. Israel plans on using much larger nukes than the ones in this article.
Israel Accuses IAEA's ElBaradei of Being "Pro-Iranian"
Israel is accusing International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei of being pro-Iranian after the IAEA issued a report that said Iran has in general been cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog agency. The IAEA said Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment program but that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said: "This report is unacceptable. This is further proof of ElBaradei's one-sided and pro-Iranian position."
This is the man who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Israeli police detain self-styled rabbi charged with sexual abuse
Mondrowitz, 60, is wanted in New York for molesting hundreds of children under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist who became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic sect in Brooklyn for his expertise with minors, the Haaretz newspaper reported Friday.
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
Israel: We won't negotiate at Annapolis
Senior government officials said Saturday night that negotiations themselves would not take place at Annapolis, but rather that the negotiating process would begin "immediately" afterward. No date or venue was given for these negotiations, although they are expected to be carried out by the same teams which have been negotiating the statement to be unveiled at Annapolis.
AFP: Israeli court declines to rule on Gaza sick
Israel's high court on Monday rejected a petition from an Israeli human rights group for the state to change interrogation procedures for Gazans leaving the territory for medical care.
Open Letter to Sir John Holmes, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
You must be aware of the nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is simply dying a slow and painful death at the hands of the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust. This is not an overstatement or exaggerated description of a people long tormented by a sinister occupying power that is hell- bent on decimating them, using the basest and most inhumane of means, such as preventing food and other basic needs from reaching them.
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border
An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life.
Russia says it may deploy missiles to Belarus
Russia may deploy its newest Iskander tactical missiles in neighboring Belarus in response to U.S. plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe, Russian media quoted a senior general as saying on Wednesday. Asked if the missiles could be deployed in response to the U.S. shield, Major-General Vladimir Zaritsky, head of Russia’s artillery and missile forces, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency: “Why not? Under the right conditions and with the corresponding agreement of Belarus, it is possible.”
China deals blow to Western efforts to punish Iran
China has dealt a blow to Western efforts to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by dropping out of a meeting to discuss tougher sanctions against Tehran.
Iran calls for US nuclear apology
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the US and its allies should apologise for their treatment of Iran over its nuclear programme. Mr Ahmadinejad said the latest report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed Iran had been truthful about its nuclear activities.
Dishonest Media Reporting And Iran's Centrifuges
There's some seriously dishonest and/or lazy reporting going on in the Western media about Iran's nuclear program and the IAEA report yesterday.
IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance
Even though compliance by Iran is the principal and only conclusion of the current IAEA report, entitled "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 in the Islamic Republic of Iran" the neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times don't even mention it in their "report" on the IAEA report!
Israel: IAEA's report 'unacceptable'
"You go back and re-write it so we can order the Americans to kill the Iranians for us!"
Why Attack Iran?
More and more people seem to take it as given that a nuclear-armed Iran would use its nuclear weapons to attack the United States. Yet there is no plausible argument, and very little evidence, for that conclusion.
Indeed, for the U.S. government to attack a country that has not attacked us and isn't even threatening to do so would be to commit an immoral, and probably illegal, act. But that's another story.
Fallon: Iranian behavior unhelpful
The Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them and the region is concerned about their radical rhetoric, the top American commander in the Middle East said Sunday. Memo to Admiral Fallon: precisely what do you mean in terms of Iran whey you way that "The Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them"? Are we truly talking about a military strike, when Russian political officials have stated very publicly that an attack against Iran will be viewed as an attack against Russia?
Russia abandons key Cold War arms treaty
The Russian senate voted Friday to suspend compliance with a key Cold War treaty limiting conventional military forces across Europe, drawing renewed Western criticism.
Russia readies nuclear fuel
Russia readies nuclear fuel bound for Iran - Israel News
Russia's state-run nuclear fuel producer said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog would later this month start sealing nuclear fuel bound for the Bushehr plant, a major step to shipping the fuel to the Bushehr plant in Iran.
US plans new space weapons against China
The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing risk of missile attack from rogue states and the "satellite killer" capabilities of China. Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate beyond the Earth's atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.
Intel Chief Blasts 'Cherry Picked' Intel
McConnell also said a new national intelligence estimate on Iran should be complete in about a month, but its key findings will not be released publicly. He says doing so could alert Iran to its intelligence vulnerabilities.
Chinese FM in Iran for nuclear talks
Iran on Tuesday denied claims that it had rejected a visit by UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of a crucial report on Tehran’s contested atomic drive. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks on Tuesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Iran’s controversial nuclear drive, insisting he wanted to cooperate with Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ahmadinejad told Yang that Iran wishes “to pursue dialogue and cooperation with the IAEA and the Europeans,” his office said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.
War clouds in the Horn of Africa
As we collect our thoughts and reflect about what a future war could possibly mean to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark rumors of war are rampant in the African Horn; whether these rumors of war are an indication of an impending war or simply a function of public posturing is something that only the near future can tell. If it happens, a fresh war now could spell disaster of tragic proportions for both countries, but especially for Eritrea. It appears that Ethiopia is determined to take advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean conditions. The recent assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt here: “It would not be surprising if Addis Ababa believes an effort in the near future to stage a coup in Asmara and use force against an Eritrean government that has few friends would also be tolerated in Washington.”
This feverish Ethiopian preparation for aggression on Eritrea has a crucial international dimension, supplied by none other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has actively been on a personal crusade to orchestrate an international demonization of the Eritrean leader and his regime as part of a coordinated effort to facilitate aggression.
Why Bush Doesn't Have to Suspend the Constitution
President George W. Bush doesn’t have to mimic Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suspend the Constitution, since he doesn’t have any opposition. The two major political parties are controlled by the same Wire Pullers. Meanwhile, an “Axis of Zionists,” Michael Mukasey at Justice, Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security and Joshua Bolten at the WH, now have a choke hold on key positions in our government.
Amid Pakistani disaster, Bush Homeland Security advisor resigns
US military strike on Pakistan advocated
Two experts have proposed that the US should take pre-emptive action to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
US envoy to Musharraf returns home with nothing
John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, flew out of Islamabad after Musharraf, a close ally of the US, rejected his call to end emergency rule, to free political prisoners, resign from his post as army commander and hold free and fair elections in January.
Musharraf to step down from army post
Deception: British Reporter Andrew Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
Adrian Levy examines how five consecutive US administrations from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush have been complicit in building and protecting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Levy is co-author of the new book: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons."
Crackdown On the Press: General Musharraf Shuts Down Two of Pakistan's Biggest Private Television News Channels
Pakistan's military leader General Pervez Musharraf is still refusing to lift martial law. On Saturday Musharraf met for two hours with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
While John Negroponte was in Pakistan, Musharraf ordered two Dubai-based Pakistani news channels, GEO-TV and ARY One World to be shut down.
U.S. Considers Arming Pakistani Tribes
The New York Times has revealed the U.S. is proposing to start arming Pakistani tribes in an effort to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would likely expand the presence of U.S. military troops in Pakistan and directly finance a tribal paramilitary force. The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq. An estimated $350 million would be needed to train and arm the paramilitary force known as the Frontier Corps.
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms
Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials. While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.
US eyes Pakistan's nuclear arsenal
The seemingly calamitous developments - which have provoked widespread demonstrations against Musharraf's government - might in fact still fit into the US's grand scheme for the embattled country: to gain control of its nuclear weapons so they do not fall into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Contacts close to the power circles in Pakistan told Asia Times Online that there is a feeling that the US is prepared to take "hurricane" measures to ensure the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal. The thinking goes that by changing horses and supporting Bhutto, the US could exploit the current unrest by dictating new terms to Pakistan in the "war on terror" and coerce it into allowing the US to safeguard its nuclear stockpile.
US has no good option in a Pakistan nuclear 'nightmare'
The US armed forces are virtually powerless to prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from falling into Islamist hands if the political crisis in Islamabad spins out of control, analysts warned. Instead, they said, Washington can do little but help to resolve the crisis and preserve its strong ties with Pakistan's pro-Western military elite, whether or not General Pervez Musharraf stays in power.
"There's no good military option at all," Daniel Markey, a former US government policy planner for South Asia, told AFP on Tuesday in Washington.
Israeli President: We are buying up Manhattan, Poland and Hungary
Israeli president: ''we are buying up Manhattan and we are buying up Hungary and we are buying up Romania and we are buying up Poland. And the way I see it, we have no problems.''
'FACEBOOK' BANS SOME ... BUT WELCOMES OTHERS
Following in the footsteps of Daily Kos, Facebook seems to be actively looking for anti-Zionist sentiments on their pages and threatening to ban them.
Police worry about abandoned homes
The thousands of foreclosed homes in recent years in Modesto present a vexing problem for law enforcement officials, including Police Chief Roy Wasden. Banks aren't watching those properties closely, he said.
"As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures, and it's quite dangerous," Wasden said.
Renters losing their homes without missing a payment
While the housing foreclosure crisis of 2007 negatively impacted many home owners with shaky financial histories, thousands of families are losing their homes without ever missing a payment. These residents are renters who had the unfortunate luck of living in houses whose landlords defaulted on their mortgages — a large but little noticed externality of the subprime fallout.
Talk of Worst Recession Since the 1930s
A Wall Street superstar this year who runs Balestra Capital Partners, Jim Melcher, says he's "worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we'll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product."
Carnage on Wall Street as loans go bad
The scale of the losses that will hit Wall Street banks could approach half a trillion dollars as large numbers of sub-prime home loans go bad.
Business News" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3155150.ece" target="_blank">'Sub-prime black hole is getting scarier'
Blackstone's president warned that the sub-prime crisis on Wall Street was getting "deeper, darker and scarier" yesterday as the US private equity firm posted a loss for the third quarter, hit by a fall in real-estate revenues and charges related to its initial public offering.
Wachovia Bails Out a Money Market Fund
Floyd Norris is reporting via a tip from a reader that in Wachovia's 10Q, filed Friday, Wachovia reports that "during the third quarter it paid $1.1 billion to purchase asset-backed commercial paper from its Evergreen money market fund, and recorded a $40 million loss."
Bail-out fund proposed by banks for SIV/s.
Bankers from Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. decided upon the structure of a multi-billion-dollar fund to buy distressed debt securities.
Turning The Police State Apparatus Against Dissenters
66 Arrested in Washington State Blocking War Shipments At Port of Olympia
More than four hundred antiwar demonstrators marched through Olympia, Washington Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the police brutality aimed at demonstrators in the past two weeks. Since November 7th, at least 66 people have been arrested and 150 others injured for trying to prevent military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia.
Activists Converge on Washington, D.C. for Weekend of Protest Against Hate Crimes, Police Brutality
This week alone, three African American men were shot and killed by police officers in Brooklyn, Chicago and Newark. The weekend's events include a march on the Department of Justice and a rally and concert at the Washington Monument.
Thousands surround Justice Department in hate crimes march
Protesters marched through the streets around the Justice Department Friday to demand federal intervention in the "Jena Six" case and enforcement of hate crime laws against those who hang nooses in public.
20,000 Protest School of the Americas in Georgia
In Georgia, as many 20,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning this weekend to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- formerly known as the School of the Americas. 11 people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. The U.S. military uses the school to train Latin American soldiers in combat, counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Frequently dubbed the “School of the Assassins,” critics say the school’s graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Protesters at the 18th annual Vigil to Close the SOA included Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich.
Most Presidential Candidates Skip Global Warming Forum
Here in this country, a group of environmental organizations hosted the first ever presidential forum on global warming on Saturday but in attendance were only three candidates -- Senator Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Every Democratic and Republican candidate had been invited. The forum was held two days after the Democratic debate on CNN in Las Vegas which was sponsored by the coal industry.
Over 3,100 Killed in Cyclone in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, at least 3,100 people have been killed and millions made homeless following a devastating cyclone. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society said the death toll could hit 10,000 as rescuers are still struggling to reach remote areas. Tens of thousands of homes have been swept away.
U.N. report: Urgent action needed on 'severe' climate change
IPCC Issues New Warning Over Climate Change
Meanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a new report warning global warming is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of poor people. The United Nations' top scientific panel says firm action is needed to avoid more catastrophic events.
The American People are Beginning To Get It
Despite compelling statistical, circumstantial, anecdotal and eyewitness evidence that two presidential and numerous congressional elections have been stolen, this evidence has been discounted, ignored and ridiculed by the mainstream media and, amazingly, by the victimized Democratic Party and its defeated candidates and even by some progressive publications. Even so, a sizeable and growing portion of the American public isn’t buying the official and bi-partisan assurances that the US elections are, by and large, on the level, and that the Bush/Cheney regime is therefore legitimate. For example, an August, 2006 Zogby poll reports that only 45% of the population is “very confident” that Bush and Cheney won re-election “fair and square” in 2004. About a third were “not at all confident.”
posted by Nose Cone @ 11/19/2007 links to this post 
11/08/2007
FEMA staff not allowed in toxic evacuee trailers
FEMA Protecting Itself, But Not Evacuees?
CBS News Obtains Emails Indicating Agency Prohibits Its Own Staff From Entering Toxic Trailers - CBS News
There are still 50,000 families along the Gulf Coast living in travel trailers given to them by FEMA. Six months ago we began investigating reports of toxic formaldehyde fumes making some of those people sick. And as Chief Investigative Reporter Armen Keteyian reports, FEMA has done more to cover their own backs than help the people in the trailers. Many of the trailers are loaded with toxic formaldehyde fumes and people are still getting sick.
Toxic Homes for Wildfire Victims?
Toxic Homes for Wildfire Victims?
The Sierra Club — the environmental group that blew the whistle on FEMA when Hurricane Katrina victims were given toxic RV trailers to live in — has warned that some mobile homes en route to victims of the California wildfires have the same excessive formaldehyde levels that sickened some Katrina victims.
The staged news conference during the California wildfires crisis last month claimed the job of a second Federal Emergency Management Agency press official today.
Aaron Walker, press secretary for FEMA, submitted his resignation to the administration's chief David Paulison Wednesday afternoon, according to a FEMA official quoted by CNN.
The official said Walker and John "Pat" Philbin, who was FEMA's director of external affairs, bore the "greatest degree of responsibility for the planning and execution" of the news conference on Oct. 23. "They had the greatest ability to stop that train from going down the track, and they didn't," said the official.
Philbin left his job two days after the news conference to become head of public affairs for the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell. That job offer was rescinded after Philbin's role in the press conference became clear.
Poll: Iraq war opposition at record high Aaron Walker, press secretary for FEMA, submitted his resignation to the administration's chief David Paulison Wednesday afternoon, according to a FEMA official quoted by CNN.
The official said Walker and John "Pat" Philbin, who was FEMA's director of external affairs, bore the "greatest degree of responsibility for the planning and execution" of the news conference on Oct. 23. "They had the greatest ability to stop that train from going down the track, and they didn't," said the official.
Philbin left his job two days after the news conference to become head of public affairs for the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell. That job offer was rescinded after Philbin's role in the press conference became clear.
Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday. And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans. In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans. In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
Support for the war in Iraq has dropped to 31 percent and the 68 percent who oppose the war is a new record.
Brent Wilkes convicted of corruption
A U.S. District Court jury has convicted Brent Wilkes on all 13 counts in his corruption trial. The Poway defense contractor had been accused by prosecutors of leveraging more than $600,000 in cash bribes and thousands more in gifts to ousted Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham in exchange for Cunningham's influence in securing more than $80 million in government contracts.
Pentagon Forbids Marine to Testify
Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns
Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists
Bankruptcy Law Backfires On Banks
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter Calls for Impeachment Hearings! Brent Wilkes convicted of corruption
A U.S. District Court jury has convicted Brent Wilkes on all 13 counts in his corruption trial. The Poway defense contractor had been accused by prosecutors of leveraging more than $600,000 in cash bribes and thousands more in gifts to ousted Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham in exchange for Cunningham's influence in securing more than $80 million in government contracts.
Pentagon Forbids Marine to Testify
The Bush administration blocked a Marine Corps lawyer from testifying before Congress today that severe techniques employed by U.S. interrogators derailed his prosecution of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist. Asked last week to appear before the panel, Col. Couch says he informed his superiors and that none had any objection.
Yesterday, however, he was advised by email that the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, "has determined that as a sitting judge and former prosecutor, it is improper for you to testify about matters still pending in the military court system, and you are not to appear before the Committee to testify tomorrow." Mr. Haynes is a Bush appointee who has overseen the legal aspects of the Pentagon's detention and interrogation policies since Sept. 11, 2001. The email was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Yesterday, however, he was advised by email that the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, "has determined that as a sitting judge and former prosecutor, it is improper for you to testify about matters still pending in the military court system, and you are not to appear before the Committee to testify tomorrow." Mr. Haynes is a Bush appointee who has overseen the legal aspects of the Pentagon's detention and interrogation policies since Sept. 11, 2001. The email was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns
The Iraqi interior minister said Wednesday that he would authorize raids by his security forces on Western security firms to ensure that they were complying with tightened licensing requirements on guns and other weaponry, setting up the possibility of violent confrontations between the Iraqis and heavily armed Western guards.
Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists
CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct.
Edwards advocates combat 'expeditions'
Edwards advocates combat 'expeditions'
Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, who has stepped up attacks on rival Hillary Clinton for her plans to continue combat missions against Al Qaeda in Iraq, said yesterday that he would also carry out "expeditions" against that insurgent group - but from bases outside the country.
You know, "War-lite!" Tastes just like war but less filling on the news.
You know, "War-lite!" Tastes just like war but less filling on the news.
Bankruptcy Law Backfires On Banks
Banks tried to stick it to the consumer by changing credit card laws, instead borrowers are sticking banks with depreciating houses.
Head of National Childrens Museum in DC arrested for child porn and soliciting.
A Flashback to the Horrors of America's Past: The Return of Water Torture
Abu Ghraib "Pattern Of Torture” implicates Bush
Wexler Will Urge House Judiciary Committee to 'Schedule Impeachment Hearings Immediately'
Head of National Childrens Museum in DC arrested for child porn and soliciting.
The chief operating officer of the National Children's Museum in Washington was arrested Tuesday on child pornography charges, accused of using his work computer to send explicit images to others - including an undercover New York City detective.
50 States Sued to Block Computerized Vote Counting
50 States Sued to Block Computerized Vote Counting
On October 2nd we posted an article in which we announced that the Clean Election Lawsuit was being expanded to all fifty states. We said we were in the process of filing an amended complaint to name all of the nation’s chief election officials as defendants. The lawsuit seeks an Order from the Court prohibiting the use of all voting machines and to force election officials to instead use utilize paper ballots and to count and total all votes by hand, always in full view of the public.
A Flashback to the Horrors of America's Past: The Return of Water Torture
Water torture or drinking by force, a method of inflicting pain as punishment or to extract information, has been around as long as man has been near water. One of the earliest written records of the practice is the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), which decreed that if a person suspected of sorcery survived a dunking in the Holy River, he was innocent. Throughout the centuries, societies have continued to use water as a tool to terrorize and no doubt, torturing with water survives today over other ancient practices such as quartering or burning chiefly because water leaves no incriminating marks on the victim.
Abu Ghraib "Pattern Of Torture” implicates Bush
Torturing of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison was not episodic, but rather systematic and intentional, and can be attributed to instruction from President George W. Bush and his top officials to “take off the gloves” in prisoner interrogations, according to an article published today in Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal.
Wexler Will Urge House Judiciary Committee to 'Schedule Impeachment Hearings Immediately'
“It is the duty of the Vice President to faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America and to defend the Constitution. There is growing evidence that the Executive Branch has ignored some of our laws and has attempted to bend the Constitution to its will.
FBI: Al Qaeda May Strike U.S. Shopping Malls in LA, Chicago
Energizer's "D" rechargeable is really an "A" in a plastic shell.
FBI: Al Qaeda May Strike U.S. Shopping Malls in LA, Chicago
The alert, like similar FBI and Department of Homeland Security terror alerts issued over the past five years at holiday times, raised questions about the credibility of the information.
The bulletin acknowledges that U.S. intelligence officers are uncertain as to whether the information is real, and intelligence officers say there is a concern that it could be "disinformation."
Great way to encourage lots of holiday spending..... booga-booga!
Israel admits there will be no peace after the summit
Energizer "D" Battery Exposed The bulletin acknowledges that U.S. intelligence officers are uncertain as to whether the information is real, and intelligence officers say there is a concern that it could be "disinformation."
Great way to encourage lots of holiday spending..... booga-booga!
Israel admits there will be no peace after the summit
It looks like Israel is really serious about the upcoming 'peace talks'... according to the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (which btw means lightening in Hebrew), there will not be a planned invasion of the Balata refugee camp until AFTER the talks are finished.... key word is AFTER.
US okays $155m arms package for Israel
Ron Paul now a frontrunner, in the race to win it
US okays $155m arms package for Israel
The US Congress on Wednesday approved a $155 million arms package for Israel, aimed at the development of the Hetz and David mid-range defensive missile systems and for the development long-range defensive missile systems. The arms package is still pending the approval of the US House of Representatives and President George W Bush. The Israeli defense establishment was pleased with Congress' decision, which effectively increases Israel's missile development budget by 30%.
Op-Ed: Israeli occupation: Injustice in our name
Pakistani police rounded up about 400 supporters of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto in a crackdown hours after she called for mass protests against emergency rule, her party said Thursday.
Op-Ed: Israeli occupation: Injustice in our name
I am Jewish. I state that at the beginning of this op-ed so that when you read it, you will not immediately discount me as anti-Semitic.
We single out Israel for the same reason that others single out Darfur or Burma: because there are atrocious human rights abuses occurring in a specific socio-political context. But more importantly, we focus on Israel because it is the number one recipient of US foreign aid, most of which is in the form of military grants. As American citizens and taxpayers, a better question might be: “Why not focus on Israel?”
We single out Israel for the same reason that others single out Darfur or Burma: because there are atrocious human rights abuses occurring in a specific socio-political context. But more importantly, we focus on Israel because it is the number one recipient of US foreign aid, most of which is in the form of military grants. As American citizens and taxpayers, a better question might be: “Why not focus on Israel?”
Pakistani police rounded up about 400 supporters of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto in a crackdown hours after she called for mass protests against emergency rule, her party said Thursday.
Musharraf, of course, has been a crucial American ally since the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001, and the U.S. has rewarded him ever since with over $10 billion in civilian and (mostly) military largesse. In fact, however, a considerable amount of the money the U.S. gives to Pakistan is administered not through U.S. agencies or joint U.S.-Pakistani programs. Instead, the U.S. gives Musharraf's government about $200 million annually and his military $100 million monthly in the form of direct cash transfers. Once that money leaves the U.S. Treasury, Musharraf can do with it whatever he wants.
Ron Paul now a frontrunner, in the race to win it
Paul did well raising over 5 million in the third quarter with over 5 million in cash on hand at quarter’s end. At that point his candidacy should have been recognized by media outlets as the real deal but instead media outlets have continued to rely on their own polls to determine a candidate’s viability.
U.S. GMO Rice Caused $1.2 Billion in Damages
AIDS "Vaccine" Clinical Trial Leads To HIV Infections In Volunteers Who've Never Had The VirusU.S. GMO Rice Caused $1.2 Billion in Damages
Trace amounts of genetically modified varieties of rice that were found commingled in the U.S. rice supply in 2006 caused more than $1.2 billion in damages and additional costs, the environmental group Greenpeace International said on Monday.
Energizer's "D" rechargeable is really an "A" in a plastic shell.
posted by Nose Cone @ 11/08/2007 links to this post
11/01/2007
FEMA lies, Rice gives Blackwater immunity in Iraq
FEMA Admits It Held Fake Press Conference about California Wildfires; FEMA Staffers Posed as Journalists
On Tuesday, FEMA staged a fake press conference with agency staffers posing as news reporters. One FEMA staffer who pretended to be a journalist has since been promoted to become head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
News > Metro -- FEMA to face scrutiny during its response to California wildfires" href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071024-1640-cnsfema.html" target="_blank">FEMA to face scrutiny during its response to California wildfires
By designating San Diego and other fire-ravaged counties as major disaster areas Wednesday, President Bush trained a spotlight on his Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is intent on proving it has learned some hard lessons from its slow response and poor coordination after Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA
Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness. Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters.
White House Withholds Hundreds of Abramoff Documents
Today Chairman Waxman asks White House Counsel Fred Fielding to turn over more than 600 pages of documents relating to the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff that are being withheld because they involve internal White House deliberations.
When Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption charges in January 2006, White House officials stated emphatically that Mr. Abramoff was a virtual stranger to the White House. President Bush said, "I don't know him." White House spokesman Scott McClellan asserted that "there were only a couple of holiday receptions that he attended, then a few staff-level meetings on top of that."
Despite the refusal of key witnesses to provide testimony, the Committee has learned that some senior White House officials had regular contact with Mr. Abramoff.When Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption charges in January 2006, White House officials stated emphatically that Mr. Abramoff was a virtual stranger to the White House. President Bush said, "I don't know him." White House spokesman Scott McClellan asserted that "there were only a couple of holiday receptions that he attended, then a few staff-level meetings on top of that."
In response to the Committee's document request, the White House produced approximately 3,700 pages of documents. These documents generally involve communications between White House officials and Mr. Abramoff or members of his lobbying team. The White House refused, however, to produce over 600 pages of documents relating to Mr. Abramoff because they "contain internal deliberations among White House employees, or that otherwise implicate Executive Branch prerogatives." The White House also made a number of redactions in the pages produced to the Committee. Given the prior statements by White House officials, it is surprising that there would be this volume of documents of internal deliberations involving Mr. Abramoff.
Reports of Blackwater immunity deal embarrass Rice
"Press reports today indicate that DS (Department of State) agents offered grants of immunity to Blackwater employees after the September 16 shooting incident in Baghdad. Are these reports accurate?" Biden asked in a statement.
"If so, who authorized these grants of immunity? Was there consultation with the Department of Justice prior to such grants of immunity?" the Democrat asked.
The New York Times Tuesday said officials in the State Department's investigative unit, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made the immunity offer though they lacked authority to do so.
Most of the guards involved in the shooting were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews as long as their statements were truthful, the Times reported. And one law enforcement official told the Washington Post that some Blackwater guards cited the immunity promises in refusing to be interviewed by the FBI, which took over the investigation this month.
McCormack Tuesday sought to distance Rice from the scandal, emphasizing that her attitude is that "if there are individuals who broke rules, laws or regulations, they must be held to account." It was Rice who had asked the FBI to take over the investigation, he added.
"These companies will not get immunity and will be subject to Iraqi law," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.
White House says Bush plans administrative orders to govern, avoiding Congress
It's not quite signing statements, where President George W. Bush used legal means to "interpret" laws, allowing him to avoid Congressional directives, but the White House is now planning to implement as much new policy "as it can" by administrative order "after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership."
"White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration," the Post authors write. "They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases."
"White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration," the Post authors write. "They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases."
Feds want to survey, possibly clean up vast garbage pit in Pacific
The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area. But that might not stop the federal government from trying.
Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.
The Garbage Patch is not a solid island, as some people believe, Moore said. Instead, it resembles a soupy mass, interspersed with large pieces of junk such as derelict fishing nets and waterlogged tires - "an alphabet soup," he called it.
"But before we embark on a huge removal process," Bamford said, "we need to understand what we're dealing with."
The dramatic growth in plastics use over the past two decades is what distresses activists like Moore. The annual production of plastic resin in the United States has roughly doubled in the past 20 years, from nearly 60 billion pounds in 1987 to an estimated 120 billion pounds in 2007, according to a study by the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation's largest plastic and chemical manufacturers.
Keith Cristman, a senior director of packaging at the American Chemistry Council, said the plastics industry is aware of its connection to marine debris and said the council is working with federal and state agencies to put more recycling bins on California beaches in an attempt to stop plastic bottles and bags from making their way to the sea.
Environmentalists alarmed by 'mass dolphin suicide'
Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.
The Garbage Patch is not a solid island, as some people believe, Moore said. Instead, it resembles a soupy mass, interspersed with large pieces of junk such as derelict fishing nets and waterlogged tires - "an alphabet soup," he called it.
"But before we embark on a huge removal process," Bamford said, "we need to understand what we're dealing with."
The dramatic growth in plastics use over the past two decades is what distresses activists like Moore. The annual production of plastic resin in the United States has roughly doubled in the past 20 years, from nearly 60 billion pounds in 1987 to an estimated 120 billion pounds in 2007, according to a study by the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation's largest plastic and chemical manufacturers.
Keith Cristman, a senior director of packaging at the American Chemistry Council, said the plastics industry is aware of its connection to marine debris and said the council is working with federal and state agencies to put more recycling bins on California beaches in an attempt to stop plastic bottles and bags from making their way to the sea.
Leading Australian Scientist Tim Flannery on Global Warming and the Worsening Dangers of Climate Change Denial
Tim Flannery, an Australian mammologist, palaeontologist and field zoologist, he has discovered and named more than thirty new species of mammals. He has been described as being in the league of all-time great explorers such as David Livingstone.
Flannery might be best known as the author of the bestselling book "The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change."
Earlier this year he was named 2007 Australian of the Year.
Environmental Journalist Bill McKibben on the Links Between Global Warming & the California Wild Fires
"This is the kind of disaster we see more and more of as we begin to change the basic physics and chemistry of the planet we live on," says McKibben, who is organizing the Nov. 3 Step It Up National Day of Climate Action.
Environmentalists alarmed by 'mass dolphin suicide'
The mysterious "mass suicide" of 152 dolphins washed up on Iran's coast over the past month has alarmed environmentalists, with the blame pointed at regional fishing practices.
At the end of September, 79 Striped Dolphins were found washed up off the southern port of Jask in southern Iran, and last week another 73 dolphins were found dead in the same area.
Pictures of rows of dolphin corpses in the sand have been widely featured in Iranian newspapers, which said the dolphins had "committed suicide" - behaviour the animals have exhibited on occasion in the wild.
Tests of the US Navy's super sonar produced the same results in Hawaii.
Dolphins could have followed sick leader
At the end of September, 79 Striped Dolphins were found washed up off the southern port of Jask in southern Iran, and last week another 73 dolphins were found dead in the same area.
Pictures of rows of dolphin corpses in the sand have been widely featured in Iranian newspapers, which said the dolphins had "committed suicide" - behaviour the animals have exhibited on occasion in the wild.
Tests of the US Navy's super sonar produced the same results in Hawaii.
Dolphins could have followed sick leader
The mass death of more than 150 Striped Dolphins in southern Iran over the last month could be due to the herd of mammals following a sick dominant male, said a UAE-based marine expert.
Or, more likely, the US Navy is playing with their Super Sonar again, as the described behaviors of the dolphins matches what we saw here in Hawaii during tests of the system.
Or, more likely, the US Navy is playing with their Super Sonar again, as the described behaviors of the dolphins matches what we saw here in Hawaii during tests of the system.
IRAQ: Power plants shut due to lack of fuel
The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq is Rarely Described Accurately in the U.S. Media
"From the invasion until now, with few exceptions the so-called mainstream media in the West has portrayed a drastically different picture of what Iraq is really like under U.S. military rule. We regularly see stories from the military point of view, and rarely, if ever, how catastrophic the occupation has made life for the average Iraqi. Thus, most people are in no way getting an accurate picture of what has occurred, or what is occurring today."
Iraq fears border crises overtaking agenda
Tensions in northern Iraq between Kurdish guerrillas and neighboring countries are threatening to dominate Iraq's diplomatic agenda, taking attention away from some of the country's most pressing needs, Iraqi officials indicated Wednesday. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki met with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki of Iran and asked him to intervene on Iraq's behalf at the meeting of Iraq's neighbors that starts Thursday in Istanbul.
Blogger wins monumental ruling in favor of bloggers
A nonlethal ray gun originally slated for fielding in 2010 could be deployed as soon as next year.
Deployment of ray gun pushed up
With the unit mounted on the back of a vehicle, U.S. troops can operate a safe distance from rocks, Molotov cocktails and small-arms fire. The beam penetrates the skin slightly, just enough to cause intense pain. The beam goes through clothing as well as windows, but can be blocked by thicker materials, such as metal, wood or concrete.
The most determined volunteer lasted only a few seconds Thursday. The stinging was done by Senior Airman Robert Hudspeth, a 21-year-old senior airman from Florida. Sitting in the Humvee nearly 800 yards away from the circle, Hudspeth used a joystick and a computer screen to send the beam on its way.
Blogger wins monumental ruling in favor of bloggers
Though the court doesn't equate bloggers and journalists generally, it gives Smith the same protection given to journalists.
Deployment of ray gun pushed up
With the unit mounted on the back of a vehicle, U.S. troops can operate a safe distance from rocks, Molotov cocktails and small-arms fire. The beam penetrates the skin slightly, just enough to cause intense pain. The beam goes through clothing as well as windows, but can be blocked by thicker materials, such as metal, wood or concrete.
The most determined volunteer lasted only a few seconds Thursday. The stinging was done by Senior Airman Robert Hudspeth, a 21-year-old senior airman from Florida. Sitting in the Humvee nearly 800 yards away from the circle, Hudspeth used a joystick and a computer screen to send the beam on its way.
US soldiers shy from battle in Iraq
Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here in upstate New York say that morale among US soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid"
missions.
Middle East Analyst & Historian Juan Cole on U.S. War Plans Against Iran, Turkey and His New Book "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East”
As President Bush seeks $196 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we speak to Juan Cole about Iraq war and whether the war could spread to Iran and Turkey.
Republican Senator Calls for Unconditional Talks
Amid growing contention among Democratic presidential contenders about US policy toward Iran, a senior Republican lawmaker has appealed to President George W. Bush to pursue "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks" with Tehran.
The appeal, which was sent to Bush by Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel two weeks ago, noted that Washington's diplomatic efforts to use economic pressure to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear program were "stalling" amid "growing differences with our international partners" that are likely to continue widening.
Basra in the grip of militias
Amid warnings that southern Iraq could erupt into civil war when British troops withdraw, Basra's chief of police has publicly admitted that his forces have been unable to clamp down on growing militia warfare in the city.
In recent months, rival Shia factions have been battling for control of the city which is considered the second largest in the country and home to Iraq's only port.
Pentagon Sharing Intel With Turkey on PKK
The Bush administration has admitted to sharing key military intelligence with Turkey that could be used for a full-scale assault on Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq. Turkey has deployed an estimated one hundred thousand troops on its Iraq border in what it calls an attempt to stop Kurdish rebel attacks. On Wednesday, the Pentagon said it’s assisted Turkey with spy planes and information on Kurdish positions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to the region tomorrow. On Wednesday, State department spokesperson Sean McCormack denied U.S. backing of a Turkish attack.
- State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack: “Talking about Turkey's needs in terms of defending itself -- obviously those are decision that Turkey's going to have to make for itself. But our view remains the same. I'm sure she will have good discussions with Turkish interlocutors.”
Compelled Iraq duty angers U.S. envoys
Hundreds of U.S. diplomats Wednesday vented anger and frustration over the State Department's decision to force Foreign Service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some calling it a "potential death sentence."
U.S. Diplomats in Uproar Over Mandatory Iraq Assignments
The Washington Post is reporting the State Department is facing an internal uproar over new rules that would force U.S. officials to serve in Iraq. The dissent was heard Thursday at a town-hall meeting of hundreds of U.S. diplomats in Washington.
One Foreign Service Officer received “sustained applause” after calling service in Iraq “a political death sentence” that otherwise would have been closed were it anywhere else in the world. Another officer complained the State Department refused to pay for her medical treatment after she returned from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Diplomats were informed last week that nearly fifty vacant positions would be filled in Iraq through mandatory assignments. It’s believed to the first time officials have been ordered into foreign posts since the 1960s.
Memo to State Dept. employees -- "they" don't care about you, either.
Giuliani Faces Investigation Of 9/11 Radios
The investigation, which will examine how the FDNY ended up using faulty equipment during the terrorist attacks and why Giuliani gave a no-bid contract to Motorola for that equipment, has been endorsed by New York City Councilman Eric Gioia, chair of the city's oversight and investigations committee.
Calls for an investigation were first proposed by filmmaker Robert Greenwald who has documented Giuliani's handling of 9/11 in a series of shorts for Brave New Films. In The Real Rudy: Radios, Greenwald documents how radios used by the FDNY on 9/11 were the same ones that malfunctioned during the 1993 attack on the Twin Towers. When - eight years later - Giuliani finally purchased new communications equipment for $14 million from Motorola, it was never field-tested.
A week later, the equipment was recalled after a firefighter's mayday went un-heard. Giuliani reissued the old batch of radios. And on 9/11 when a police helicopter warned that the North Tower could collapse, more than 120 firefighters remained inside.
LA TIMES: Straitjacket Bush
Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Hysteria Over Iran
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?
The two greatest human catastrophes of the 20th century were World War I (10 million deaths) and World War II (62 million deaths). In February 2002, neocon journalist Norman Podhoretz (a leading warmonger who is currently senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani) wrote an article calling for a new World War.
Cheney Nods Off During Meeting On Calif. Wildfires
Staffers claimed he was "meditating."
Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France
Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got an unpleasant surprise during his visit to France today when human rights groups filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande
Instance) charging the chief architect of President George W. Bush's "war on terror" with ordering and authorizing torture.
Army Needs More Contracting Personnel
Army Needs More Contracting Personnel
The demands of supplying soldiers in combat require an additional 1,400 military and civilian personnel with the authority to sign contracts, a new report finds.
U.S. officials familiar with the report, which was to be released Thursday, did not say how much the additional personnel would cost. The Army's contracting work force now has just over 10,000 people.
U.S. officials familiar with the report, which was to be released Thursday, did not say how much the additional personnel would cost. The Army's contracting work force now has just over 10,000 people.
US troops will be in the Middle East for next 50 years, says Abazaid
US troops could be in the Middle East for another 50 years, according to the longest serving commander of the Qatar-based US Central Command.
General John Abazaid, who retired in May, said the "strategic situation" in the region - the rise of extremism and the global dependence on oil - would necessitate a long-term presence.
Petraeus Personally Introduces Disgraced Ahmed Chalabi To U.S. Troops In Iraq
For Petraeus to proudly introduce troops to Chalabi is particularly unfitting, considering that Chalabi has repeatedly put the lives of U.S. troops in danger in Iraq. Before the war, Chalabi provided faulty intelligence on Iraq’s supposed weapons programs, helping launch the war.
Getting Waterboarded
There is a version of this where the victim is strapped to a board that is actually tilted head down at about 30%. Far more water can be used, indeed to the point of completely filling the mouth, sinuses and trachea, but since gravity keeps the water from rushing up into the lungs, actual drowning is prevented, regardless of how close it feels.
This is what Mukasey says he doesn't think is torture.
Mukasey Losing Democrats' Backing
Nominee Unsure If Waterboarding Breaks Torture Law.
Sen. Kennedy vows to oppose Mukasey nomination
U.S. Terrorism Advisor: Waterboarding is Torture
A top U.S. advisor on terrorism has publicly denounced the interrogation technique of ‘waterboarding’ as a form of torture. On Wednesday, Malcolm Nance said he had witnessed hundreds of waterboarding exercises while working at the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence. Nance says the practice is taught at a US Navy training facility in San Diego. Waterboarding simulates the experience of drowning by strapping a victim to a board and forcing water into their lungs through a cloth covering the face.
Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey is facing a potential rejection from the Democrat-controlled Senate over his waterboarding stance. Mukasey said this week he does not know if waterboarding amounts to torture. Legal experts interviewed by the New York Times say Mukasey’s evasive response could be a deliberate attempt to avoid laying ground for prosecutions against U.S. officials who’ve practiced waterboarding. Mukasey’s nomination goes before the Senate next week.
Mukasey's nomination runs into trouble
Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination for attorney general ran into trouble Thursday when two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture.
Separately, a Democrat familiar with the panel's deliberations said Mukasey may not get the 10 committee votes his nomination needs to be reported to the
Senate floor with a favorable recommendation unless he says, in effect, that waterboarding is torture. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely.
CIA chief backs rendition flights
Gen Hayden said programmes such as extraordinary rendition produced what he said was irreplaceable intelligence.
Bush Foreign PR Czar Resigns
The senior Bush administration official tasked with promoting U.S. foreign policy worldwide has resigned. On Wednesday, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes announced she will step down later this year. Hughes oversaw a series of marketing campaigns aimed at foreign countries.
A recent forty-seven nation poll from Pew Global Attitudes found the U.S. image in Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East is “abysmal.” Over the past five years favorable ratings of Americans declined in 23 of 33 countries surveyed.
Monks Return to Streets of Burma in Protest
In Burma, hundreds of monks marched in the temple town of Pakokku Wednesday. It was their first protest since the military junta’s crackdown on a mass uprising. Witnesses say the monks chanted prayers but refrained from political statements. The march comes ahead of a return visit from UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari. Speaking in Thailand, the exiled Burmese opposition leader Maung Maung called for increased international pressure on the military junta. The U.S. oil giant Chevron is among several international firms with close ties to the junta.
HRW: Burmese Junta Relying on Child Soldiers
Meanwhile Human Rights Watch is accusing the Burmese junta of filling its depleted armed forces with an increasing number of child soldiers. Human Rights Watch Burma consultant David Scott Mathieson says children as young as ten years old are being forced to enlist.
21 Convicted, 7 Acquitted in Madrid Train Bombing Trials
In Spain, twenty-one people have been found guilty of involvement in the 2004 train bombings that killed one-hundred-ninety-one people in Madrid. Seven of the accused were acquitted of any role in the bombings including one alleged mastermind. Juan Carlos Vives Segura of the Terrorism Victims Association said he is disappointed with the verdict.
Kansas Church Ordered to Pay $10.9M for Cheering Soldier Funeral
Back in the United States, a jury has ordered a homophobic Kansas church to pay millions of dollars in damages for cheering the funeral of a U.S. marine because they believe U.S. deaths in Iraq are a punishment for tolerance of homosexuality. On Wednesday, jurors ruled that Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church owes the family of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder $10.9 million for emotional distress. Church members attended Snyder’s 2006 funeral with signs reading “You’re going to hell” and “God hates you.” Snyder’s father, Albert Snyder, welcomed the verdict.
- Albert Snyder: “Kind of speechless, I guess about it. I hope it's enough to deter them from doing this to other families. That was the goal the whole time. It wasn't about the money. It was about getting them to stop.”
If it is punishment, it's more likely punishment for this type of stupidity.
Two former body armor company execs indicted for insider trading, fraud
David H. Brooks, 53, the former CEO of DHB Industries Inc., and Sandra Hatfield, 54, the former chief operating officer, were charged in a superseding indictment with manipulating DHB's financial records to increase earnings and profitmargins, thereby inflating the price of DHB's stock.
Body Armor Execs Indicted For Fraud, CEO and COO of Supplier To Troops
Allegedly Manipulated Records to Inflate Stock, Pocket $200M
David H. Brooks, 53, the former CEO of DHB Industries Inc., and Sandra Hatfield, 54, the former chief operating officer, were charged in a superseding indictment with manipulating DHB's financial records to increase earnings and profit
margins, thereby inflating the price of DHB's stock.
David H. Brooks became notorious for throwing his daughter a $10 million Bat-Mitzvah at the same time his body armor was accused of defects that endangered the lives of our troops wearing it What we need to find out is just how this particular crook GOT the contract in the first place? Who agreed to pour millions of US tax dollars into this guy's pockets?
Kuwaiti firm blamed for Baghdad embassy flaws gains new jobs
The Kuwaiti contractor that's building the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad — behind schedule and plagued by allegations of shoddy construction and safety flaws— is still winning lucrative new contracts to build U.S. diplomatic installations overseas.
Citizen groups trying to stop the U.S. Army from shipping waste from deadly VX
nerve agent from Indiana across eight states to Port Arthur, Texas say sources who wish to remain anonymous told the groups that the Army had withheld crucial information from the public and a federal judge during a hearing on the shipments last July.
STRESS MESS IN U.S.
We're stressed out, we can't sleep, we're drinking too much - and it's getting worse.
Warmonger's burden?
Torture, Paramilitarism, Occupation And Genocide
Relief from these type abuses are nowhere in sight as leading Democrats condone them and now assure extremist Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey's nomination won't be challenged. He promises business as usual that's bad news for supporters of the law. He earned his bona fides as a US District Court
nerve agent from Indiana across eight states to Port Arthur, Texas say sources who wish to remain anonymous told the groups that the Army had withheld crucial information from the public and a federal judge during a hearing on the shipments last July.
STRESS MESS IN U.S.
We're stressed out, we can't sleep, we're drinking too much - and it's getting worse.
Warmonger's burden?
Torture, Paramilitarism, Occupation And Genocide
Relief from these type abuses are nowhere in sight as leading Democrats condone them and now assure extremist Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey's nomination won't be challenged. He promises business as usual that's bad news for supporters of the law. He earned his bona fides as a US District Court
Southern District of New York judge by ruling Jose Padilla, a US citizen, could be imprisoned without trial and held indefinitely by the military.
IRAQ: Child prisoners abused and tortured, say activists
"Our investigation started after families brought their five sons to our organisation looking for psychological help for their children who were recently released from
prison, and what we found out was shocking," Rabia'a added.
According to Rabia'a, child prisoners between 13 and 17 are being accused of
supporting insurgents and militias.
"The five children showed signs of torture all over their bodies. Three had marks of cigarettes burns over their legs and one couldn't speak as the shock sessions
affected his conversation," Rabia'a said. "It is against international law that protects children and we call for interventions in all Iraqi prisons to save the lives of these children."
So are lots of other things that have been perpetrated in the name of the "War on Terror."
Michael Chertoff Calls Iran, Venezuela Relationship 'Troubling'
Oil Hits Record Above $90 on OPEC Report
Krisztine Samu is an outraged Hawai’i resident and tells the Army so
during public testimony at the U.S. Army Stryker Brigade Public
Hearings in Waimea, on September 26, 2007. She is outraged by the
military’s shameless and continued contamination of her home, Hawai’i
Island.
Know all the stuff TSA steals from you at the airport? They sell it on eBay!
Craziest items?
"There are always lots of plastic fake swords that people buy at Walt Disney World, so there are probably lots of mad kids."
"We've received hundreds of pairs of fuzzy handcuffs and other ... paraphernalia--I wanted to create funny Valentine's Day kits, but folks here thought taxpayers wouldn't like it."
"Brass knuckles, crutches, and piñata sticks. And we once got a cane with a knife inside it."
"Lots of ulus--round Eskimo chopping blades. Also, a Sit'n Putt. It's a short-handled putter designed to be used while you're on the potty."
HPV Vaccine – When Profits Come Before Safety
Gardasil is a vaccine manufactured by Merck & Co., which targets the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and was approved by the FDA in June of 2006. It is administrated in three doses over a six-month period at a cost of between $360-400 per person, making it one of the most expensive vaccines of all time. It has been recommended for girls and young women, and there has been a push by some to make the vaccine mandatory in some states. This would translate into even more profits.
Photo suggests quick cleanup of suspected Syrian nuclear site
Only CNN could take a photograph that shows nothing, and spin it into proof of guilt.
Boy confesses to starting California fire that FOX News claimed Al-Qaeda started
With no new evidence, Fox continues to ask: Did al Qaeda burn California?
Fox News Runs With Al Qaeda Wildfires Conspiracy TheoryAccording to Rabia'a, child prisoners between 13 and 17 are being accused of
supporting insurgents and militias.
"The five children showed signs of torture all over their bodies. Three had marks of cigarettes burns over their legs and one couldn't speak as the shock sessions
affected his conversation," Rabia'a said. "It is against international law that protects children and we call for interventions in all Iraqi prisons to save the lives of these children."
So are lots of other things that have been perpetrated in the name of the "War on Terror."
Michael Chertoff Calls Iran, Venezuela Relationship 'Troubling'
Iran and Venezuela are united in their disdain for the U.S. Some reports have indicated that Chavez won't hesitate to cut off his country's oil supply to the United States if it launches an air strike or any military action against Iran. Chertoff suggested that his department and indeed the intelligence community are tracking the growing ties between these two nations and the potential threat it could pose.
Who created their need for an alliance?Oil Hits Record Above $90 on OPEC Report
Oil futures jumped to a new record close of $90.46 a barrel Thursday on news that OPEC production increases aren't coming as fast as expected and that the cartel won't announce new output quotas when it meets next month.
Prices rose in early trading on growing concerns about conflict in the Middle East and declining supplies of crude in the U.S.
They got a further boost after Dow Jones Newswires reported that Oil Movements, a company that tracks oil tanker traffic, said crude shipments from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members will grow more slowly than anticipated through early November.
Mission Accomplished.
Iraq threatens to cut off oil to Turkey if sanctions approved
The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned Turkey on Thursday that his government would cut off the flow of oil from northern Iraq if Ankara followed through on its threat to level economic sanctions against the country.
“The Strykers and the legacy they would leave are not welcome on Hawai’i.”Prices rose in early trading on growing concerns about conflict in the Middle East and declining supplies of crude in the U.S.
They got a further boost after Dow Jones Newswires reported that Oil Movements, a company that tracks oil tanker traffic, said crude shipments from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members will grow more slowly than anticipated through early November.
Mission Accomplished.
Iraq threatens to cut off oil to Turkey if sanctions approved
The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned Turkey on Thursday that his government would cut off the flow of oil from northern Iraq if Ankara followed through on its threat to level economic sanctions against the country.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's comments came a day after Turkey's top leadership agreed to recommend the government take economic measures to force cooperation by Iraqis against Kurdish rebels who have been staging cross-border attacks against Turkish troops.
Krisztine Samu is an outraged Hawai’i resident and tells the Army so
during public testimony at the U.S. Army Stryker Brigade Public
Hearings in Waimea, on September 26, 2007. She is outraged by the
military’s shameless and continued contamination of her home, Hawai’i
Island.
Know all the stuff TSA steals from you at the airport? They sell it on eBay!
Craziest items?
"There are always lots of plastic fake swords that people buy at Walt Disney World, so there are probably lots of mad kids."
"We've received hundreds of pairs of fuzzy handcuffs and other ... paraphernalia--I wanted to create funny Valentine's Day kits, but folks here thought taxpayers wouldn't like it."
"Brass knuckles, crutches, and piñata sticks. And we once got a cane with a knife inside it."
"Lots of ulus--round Eskimo chopping blades. Also, a Sit'n Putt. It's a short-handled putter designed to be used while you're on the potty."
The Shame of Diego Garcia
In their resistance to the islanders' claims, Blair and the Foreign Office were clearly protecting the interests of their American allies, for whom the geopolitical
War on Iran: White House Leak: Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike
China opposes sanctions against Iran
US speeding up anti-missile plans: Moscow
An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.
Putin warns Europe over Iran, Kosovo ahead of summit with EU leaders in Portugal
Russia's President Vladimir Putin made a new warning to Europe over the Iran nuclear standoff and Kosovo's push for independence ahead of a summit with EU leaders here today.
MSNBC: "Giuliani’s team includes a prominent neocon who advocates bombing Iran as soon as possible"
Romney open to Iran 'bombardment'
Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he would be willing to use a military blockade or "bombardment of some kind" to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.
McCain: Iraq Pullout Bad For Israel
White House On $2 Trillion Iraq War: ‘Not Worried About the Number’
As long as their cronies rake it all in.
House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
"Thought Crime Bill" Could Ensnare Peaceful Activists
Ostensibly, the bill targets United States citizens because of its constant reference to basic Constitutional protections, but this has led some to fear that it is intended to shut down free speech on the Internet and stifle patriot and alternative talk radio networks.
In their resistance to the islanders' claims, Blair and the Foreign Office were clearly protecting the interests of their American allies, for whom the geopolitical
importance of Diego Garcia as a strategic base had recently been augmented by its use, and the use of some of the ships moored there, as fabulously remote offshore prisons in which to hold and interrogate "high-value" al-Qaeda suspects.
War on Iran: White House Leak: Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike
High-ranking military experts say an attack would lead to world economic chaos, or even what Bush calls 'World War III.'
In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.
US: No objection to Egyptian nuclear program
Pentagon chief calls planning for Iran strike "routine"
The white house doesn't want dialogue. This is another example of its "my way or the highway" approach to foreign policy, which has, of course, turned out so magnificently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, this administration also believes that a potential war with Russia as a good thing as well, in light of the fact that Russia is not likely to sit idly by if the us attacks Iran.In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.
US: No objection to Egyptian nuclear program
The White House on Monday said it had little information about Egypt's plans to relaunch its nuclear power program but declared itself "generally supportive" of civilian atomic power.
"I don't know a lot about it. In general, we are supportive of countries pursuing civil nuclear energy. It's clean burning. It provides electricity in a clean-burning and affordable way for citizens," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
"I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning!"
"I don't know a lot about it. In general, we are supportive of countries pursuing civil nuclear energy. It's clean burning. It provides electricity in a clean-burning and affordable way for citizens," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
"I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning!"
Pentagon chief calls planning for Iran strike "routine"
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday characterized U.S. military planning for a strike on Iran as "routine".
"I would characterize it as routine," Gates told reporters on a flight en
route to Washington, when asked about any U.S. planning for military
action against Iran.
Attack Iran and you attack Russia
The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran
"I would characterize it as routine," Gates told reporters on a flight en
route to Washington, when asked about any U.S. planning for military
action against Iran.
Attack Iran and you attack Russia
The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran
tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.
Putin warns against sanctions on Iran
"Why worsen the situation and bring it to a dead end by threatening sanctions or military action?" Putin said in a veiled reference to the U.S. push for harsher international sanctions against Tehran. "Running around like a madman with a razor blade, waving it around, is not the best way to resolve the situation."
Dialogue Undermined by White House's Iran Sanctions
Putin warns against sanctions on Iran
"Why worsen the situation and bring it to a dead end by threatening sanctions or military action?" Putin said in a veiled reference to the U.S. push for harsher international sanctions against Tehran. "Running around like a madman with a razor blade, waving it around, is not the best way to resolve the situation."
Dialogue Undermined by White House's Iran Sanctions
China opposes sanctions against Iran
China believes that "the unbridled use of sanctions should not be encouraged," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.
His comments come as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was in Beijing to call on China to back new sanctions against Iran.
His comments come as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was in Beijing to call on China to back new sanctions against Iran.
US speeding up anti-missile plans: Moscow
Washington's negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic over installing the defences "have not only not been suspended, but additional measures are being taken to speed them up," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin. "There is the impression that the United States is trying to make the realisation of its plans irreversible," Kamynin said in a statement.
An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.
Putin warns Europe over Iran, Kosovo ahead of summit with EU leaders in Portugal
Russia's President Vladimir Putin made a new warning to Europe over the Iran nuclear standoff and Kosovo's push for independence ahead of a summit with EU leaders here today.
MSNBC: "Giuliani’s team includes a prominent neocon who advocates bombing Iran as soon as possible"
Romney open to Iran 'bombardment'
Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he would be willing to use a military blockade or "bombardment of some kind" to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.
McCain: Iraq Pullout Bad For Israel
In a message to the majority of American Jews who oppose continued U.S. presence in Iraq, Arizona Sen. John McCain on Tuesday told the community’s largest umbrella group that a “surrender” now would harm Israel’s security. “If you believe that the State of Israel is going to be more secure if the U.S. fails in Iraq, we have an honest difference of opinion,” McCain told leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
White House On $2 Trillion Iraq War: ‘Not Worried About the Number’
As long as their cronies rake it all in.
House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
"Thought Crime Bill" Could Ensnare Peaceful Activists
Ostensibly, the bill targets United States citizens because of its constant reference to basic Constitutional protections, but this has led some to fear that it is intended to shut down free speech on the Internet and stifle patriot and alternative talk radio networks.
The bill is H.R.
1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention
Act of 2007 and passed Congress after a bipartisan vote
on October 23rd.
1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention
Act of 2007 and passed Congress after a bipartisan vote
on October 23rd.
HPV Vaccine – When Profits Come Before Safety
Gardasil is a vaccine manufactured by Merck & Co., which targets the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and was approved by the FDA in June of 2006. It is administrated in three doses over a six-month period at a cost of between $360-400 per person, making it one of the most expensive vaccines of all time. It has been recommended for girls and young women, and there has been a push by some to make the vaccine mandatory in some states. This would translate into even more profits.
Photo suggests quick cleanup of suspected Syrian nuclear site
Only CNN could take a photograph that shows nothing, and spin it into proof of guilt.
Boy confesses to starting California fire that FOX News claimed Al-Qaeda started
With no new evidence, Fox continues to ask: Did al Qaeda burn California?
Fox & Friends, the conservative cable channel, was panned Wednesday for
breathlessly reporting a sketchy, four-year-old FBI memo as if it offered new information linking America's enemies in the "Global War on Terror" with a plot to burn down southern California.
The morning team was back at it Thursday, as anchor Alisyn Camerota introduced a segment on the fires that again mischaracterized and over-inflated warnings from a 2003 interview with an al Qaeda detainee.
breathlessly reporting a sketchy, four-year-old FBI memo as if it offered new information linking America's enemies in the "Global War on Terror" with a plot to burn down southern California.
The morning team was back at it Thursday, as anchor Alisyn Camerota introduced a segment on the fires that again mischaracterized and over-inflated warnings from a 2003 interview with an al Qaeda detainee.
Neocon mouthpiece channel Fox News continues to run programming today suggesting that Al Qaeda terrorists may have infiltrated the US and started fires in California that have devastated acres of land and have forced one million people from their homes over the past week.
Al Qaeda is behind Global Warming!
Taliban Fighters Move in Near Kandahar for First Time Since 2001
Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown
Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarianwar "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.
RACISM BOOED OFF STAGE IN AMERICA
US to speed up stealth fighter delivery to Israel
During meetings Defense Minister Ehud Barak held at the Pentagon last week, US defense officials agreed to allow Israel to begin receiving the aircraft as early as 2012, when delivery to the United States Air Force is set to begin.
Taliban Fighters Move in Near Kandahar for First Time Since 2001
Several hundred Taliban fighters have moved into a strategic area just outside the southern city of Kandahar in recent days and clashed with Afghan and NATO forces, according to Canadian and Afghan officials.
The fighting, which began Tuesday, is the first time large numbers of Taliban have been able to enter the area just north of the city since 2001. Control of the area, known as the Arghandab district, would allow the Taliban to directly threaten Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city.
The fighting, which began Tuesday, is the first time large numbers of Taliban have been able to enter the area just north of the city since 2001. Control of the area, known as the Arghandab district, would allow the Taliban to directly threaten Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city.
Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown
Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarianwar "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.
RACISM BOOED OFF STAGE IN AMERICA
Piss on racism! That's essentially what the students at Emory University had to say to David Horowitz and his 'message' of Islamo-Fascism.
The Middle East Conflict: Zionist Quotes
The Middle East Conflict: Zionist Quotes
"There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
US to speed up stealth fighter delivery to Israel
During meetings Defense Minister Ehud Barak held at the Pentagon last week, US defense officials agreed to allow Israel to begin receiving the aircraft as early as 2012, when delivery to the United States Air Force is set to begin.
"We asked that for every two jets manufactured for the US, one be manufactured
for Israel," a senior defense official said, adding that acquisition of the aircraft would greatly increase Israel's deterrence as Iran races toward nuclear power.
Israel admits Iran is not really a threat!
Report: “360 Palestinian children are imprisoned by Israel, facing harsh conditions”
Israel approves Gaza power cuts
Israel's defence minister has approved sanctions against Gaza, including cuts infor Israel," a senior defense official said, adding that acquisition of the aircraft would greatly increase Israel's deterrence as Iran races toward nuclear power.
Israel admits Iran is not really a threat!
Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, told a parliamentary committee that while failure at the conference could provoke some violence, it would not reach the same level as the Intifada, or uprising, that began in 2000 when the last major peace initiative collapsed.
"In my estimation ... the Palestinians are exhausted. There isn't the energy in the public and there also isn't the leadership right now that could spur such resistance," Diskin was quoted by a parliamentary spokesman as telling lawmakers.
"In my estimation ... the Palestinians are exhausted. There isn't the energy in the public and there also isn't the leadership right now that could spur such resistance," Diskin was quoted by a parliamentary spokesman as telling lawmakers.
Report: “360 Palestinian children are imprisoned by Israel, facing harsh conditions”
The Wa’ed Society for political prisoners and ex-prisoner, reported on Monday that the Israeli army continued its violations against the Palestinian people, continued the arrest campaign, and that currently there are 360 Palestinian children still imprisoned in several Israeli prisons and detention facilities.
The number of Palestinian children currently imprisoned by Israel is 360, the society said, and added that the imprisoned children are facing harsh conditions, mistreatment and repeated attacks.
The number of Palestinian children currently imprisoned by Israel is 360, the society said, and added that the imprisoned children are facing harsh conditions, mistreatment and repeated attacks.
Israel approves Gaza power cuts
the supply of electricity and fuel to try to halt rocket attacks.
Rocket launchers are electric-powered? This seems calculated to enrage the Palestinians more.
Israeli troops invade southeast Gaza
Lebanese sources: Troops open fire on IAF planes over Lebanon
The siege of Gaza is going to lead to a violent escalation
Rocket launchers are electric-powered? This seems calculated to enrage the Palestinians more.
Israeli troops invade southeast Gaza
Israeli troops rolled into southeast Gaza Strip Thursday morning and bulldozers
leveled agricultural lands, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.
leveled agricultural lands, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.
Lebanese sources: Troops open fire on IAF planes over Lebanon
The siege of Gaza is going to lead to a violent escalation
This week the collective punishment of the people of Gaza reached a new level, as Israel began to choke off essential fuel supplies to its one and a half million people in retaliation for rockets fired by Palestinian resistance groups. A plan to cut power supplies has only been put on hold till the end of the week by the intervention of Israel's attorney general.
