Thursday
Jul072011
Forging his way through the predictable UK media censorship: Dr Andrew Wakefield Responds to Measles Outbreak in Swansea
Thursday
Jul072011
Gary Null Guest on July 7, 2011 - "Dr. Hildegarde Staninger" - PROJECT FMM - FIBERS, METEORITE & MORGELLONS
July 7, 2011 Thursday
Jul072011
“Dennis Kucinich” - The US Must End Its Illegal War in Libya Now
July 7, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/06-6
Published on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 by The Guardian/UK
President Obama has ripped up the US constitution for Nato's ill-considered Libyan adventure. Congress must restore sense
by Dennis Kucinich
This week, I am sponsoring legislation in the United States Congress that will end US military involvement in Libya for the following reasons:
First, the war is illegal under the United States constitution and our War Powers Act, because only the US Congress has the authority to declare war and the president has been unable to show that the US faced an imminent threat from Libya. The president even ignored his top legal advisers at the Pentagon and the department of justice who insisted he needed congressional approval before bombing Libya.
Second, the war has reached a stalemate and is unwinnable without the deployment of Nato ground troops, effectively an invasion of Libya. The whole operation was terribly ill-considered from the beginning. While Nato supports the Benghazi-based opposition (situated in the oil-rich north-east), there is little evidence that the opposition has support of the majority of Libyans. The leading opposition group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (which had reportedly been backed by the CIA in the 1980s), should never have launched an armed civil war against the government if they had no chance absent a massive Nato air campaign and the introduction of Nato troops. Their reckless actions, encouraged by western political, military and intelligence interests, created the humanitarian crisis that was then used to justify the Nato war campaign.
Third, the United States cannot afford it. The US cost of the mission is projected to soon reach more than $1bn, and we are already engaged in massive cutbacks of civil services for our own people.
It is not surprising that a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents alike think the US should not be involved in Libya.
This war is misguided. An invasion would be a disaster. Nato already is out of control, using a UN mandate allowing for protection of civilians as the flimsy pretext for an unauthorised mission of regime change through massive violence. In a just world, the Nato commander would be held responsible for any violations of international law. As a means of continuing the civil war, Nato member France and coalition ally Qatar have both admitted shipping weapons to Libya, in open violation of the United Nations arms embargo.
In the end, the biggest casualty of this game of nations will be the legitimacy of the UN, its resolutions and mandates, and international rule of law. This condition must be reversed. The ban on arms supplies to Libya must be enforced, not subverted by Nato countries. The US must cease its illegal and counterproductive support for a military resolution now.
The US Congress must act to cut off funds for the war because there is no military solution in Libya. Serious negotiations for a political solution must begin to end the violence and create an environment for peace negotiations to fulfil the legitimate, democratic aspirations of the people. A political solution will become viable when the opposition understands that regime change is the privilege of the Libyan people, not of Nato.
© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich is US Congressman from Ohio and a former presidential candidate in the United States.
Thursday
Jul072011
“Susan Casey-Lefkowitz” - Yellowstone River Spill Shows Dangers of Even Riskier Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline
July 7, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/06-13
Published on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 by NRDC Blog
by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz
Once again this weekend, we saw a clear example of how water and oil don’t mix when an Exxon oil pipeline spewed around 40,000 gallons into the wild Yellowstone River in Montana. The mess is likely a wakeup call for officials in Montana. And is yet another reminder for pipeline regulators around the country that we have a problem. It’s been a bad year with spills in Michigan, some big messes in Canada, spills all along first Keystone tar sands oil pipeline in the Great Plains, a spill in downtown Salt Lake City and now in the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states. As these spills take a toll on American waters, landscapes, and communities. I wonder when we will get focused on fixing our faulty infrastructure to stop these messes---and if we can afford to build another mega-pipeline across our most sensitive water resources without fixing the problem.
Montana’s Governor Schweitzer is rightly focused on making sure the cleanup of this spill happens quickly and thoroughly. As a next step Montana should also be questioning the safety of proposed new pipelines such as TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would also cross the wild Yellowstone River. Tar sands oil from Canada is more corrosive, more prone to spills, and more difficult to clean up than conventional oil. The Exxon oil pipeline spill is another indicator that we should not be transporting even more dangerous and dirty tar sands oil endangering our precious rivers, agricultural lands, communities and wildlife.
Thursday
Jul072011
“Robert Scheer” - The Tea Party and Goldman Sachs: A Love Story
July 7, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/06-9
Published on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 by TruthDig.com
by Robert Scheer
Face it. We live in two nations, sharply divided by an enormous economic chasm between the super-rich and everyone else. This should be an obvious fact of life for most Americans. Just read the story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Profits Thrive in Weak Recovery.” Or the recent New York Times story pointing out “that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million,” a 23 percent gain over the year before.
In the midst of a jobless recovery, those same corporations are sitting on more than $2 trillion in reserves, refusing to invest in this country, as increasing percentages of their profits are garnered in tax-sheltered operations abroad. And the bankers who caused the economic meltdown have turned against President Barack Obama, who saved them; instead they favor a tea-party-dominated Republican Party that seeks to limit any restraint on corporate greed while destroying the ability of state and federal governments to bring some measure of relief to ordinary folk.
The whole point of the tea party is to focus concern over our stagnant economy on something called “big government” while ignoring the big corporations that have bought the government as an accessory to their marketing strategies. Big government is big precisely because it now exists primarily to make the world safe for multinational capitalism, whether through a bloated defense budget, trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement, or monetary policies that serve the interests of the largest companies.
Thursday
Jul072011
“Alex Pareene” - Rupert Murdoch's international house of bad journalism
July 7, 2011 Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011
By Alex Pareene
News of the World is a British Sunday tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch since 1969. It, along with the daily Sun, is where Murdoch perfected the salacious tabloid format he'd eventually import to America, where it found much more success as a television station. The basic formula hasn't changed: rabid right-wing politics, sexy girls, constant bellowing outrage, celebrity scandal and a general disregard for journalistic ethics. That News Corp culture -- prizing scoops above all else, from basic human decency to, sometimes, truth itself -- is what has led to the "phone hacking" scandal that now consumes the U.K. The News of the World, it turns out, had a long-standing practice of breaking into the voicemails of newsworthy figures, from celebrities to the victims of horrific crimes.
While the practice was originally blamed on a few overzealous reporters, it's clear, now, that it was more or less standard operating procedure for reporters. The victims of News of the World hacking now include multiple murdered teenaged girls (News of the World reporters even deleted old messages in order to make room for new ones to spy on) and the families of victims of the 7/7 terrorist attacks. The paper also bribed cops, and Scotland Yard is still contacting additional potential victims of phone hacking with the cooperation of a private investigator retained by News of the World to perform the hackings.
Thursday
Jul072011
“Alison Fairbrother, Randy Fertel, Gilt” - The disappearing fish we should worry about
July 7, 2011 Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011
How Virginia's permissive legislation is destroying the menhaden -- and the Atlantic's ecosystem
By Alison Fairbrother, Randy Fertel, Gilt
On a bright morning in May, a calm Chesapeake Bay glitters in the sun, an expanse of blue, the nation's largest and once most productive estuary. A sudden commotion shatters the serenity: Dozens of gulls swoop toward the 135-foot ship Reedville, and the water beneath the boat begins to churn and froth. With two smaller boats at its side, the Reedville encloses a school of fish in a stiff black purse seine net. With practiced efficiency, workers onboard hoist a vacuum pump into the net and suck tens of thousands of small silvery fish out of the water. It looks like an unusual way to catch fish; it's all the more unusual when you realize that this particular industrial catch is actually banned by every state on the East Coast. Every state, that is, save for one: Virginia.
The fish going up the tube are Atlantic menhaden, known to ocean ecologists as the "breadbasket of the ocean," though some prefer to call them "the most important fish in the sea." Because there's money to be made, menhaden, all the fish that rely on them for food, and the entire ocean ecosystem are in trouble.
Found in estuarine and coastal waters from Nova Scotia to Florida, menhaden are oily, bony, and inedible to humans, which is why you've probably never heard of them. But their nutrient-packed bodies are a staple food for dozens of fish species you have heard of, as well as marine mammals and sea birds. Located near the bottom of the food chain, menhaden are the favored prey for many important predators, including striped bass and bluefish, tuna and dolphin, seatrout and mackerel.
Out on the bay, the vacuum pump on the Reedville removes 45,000 menhaden from the water. This is a small catch for a boat that routinely takes multiple schools, each of which can contain as many as a million members, stored in a giant hold below deck. There, they will wait for the ship to return to its namesake, Reedville, a remote town on Virginia's northern neck peninsula, where they will be cooked, ground up, and sold. This is the "menhaden reduction" process, the basis for a lucrative industry controlled, on the East Coast, by exactly one company: Omega Protein, Inc.
The same oily property that makes menhaden so valuable to marine life can also be used for aquaculture and livestock feed, pet food, oil for paints and cosmetics, and as a component in dietary supplements. Omega Protein's annual harvest is worth more than $168 million. Revenues for 2011 are projected at $218 million. Because of Omega Protein, Reedville is the third largest commercial fishing port in the United States.
Thursday
Jul072011
“ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and BASSEM MROUE” - Syrian crackdown on town may be war crime
July 7, 2011 http://www.salon.com/news/syria/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/07/06/ml_syria_40
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press
Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011
Amnesty International condemns Assad regime for brutal tactics in border city of Talkalakh in May
The rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday that Syrian security forces may have committed war crimes during a deadly siege of an opposition town in May, citing witness accounts of deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention.
The Amnesty report focused on a crackdown in Talkalakh, a town near the Lebanese border that was overrun by army tank units, security forces and pro-regime gunmen after weeks of protests calling for the ouster of President Bashar Assad. Some activists place the Talkalakh death toll as high as 36. Thousands of people also fled to Lebanon to escape the offensive.
The report by the London-based group could boost international pressure on Assad's regime as it presses attacks on various fronts against a four-month-old uprising, including sending more forces this week against a string of towns along the Turkish border seen as potential anti-government strongholds.
Amnesty called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court.
Thursday
Jul072011
“Andy Kroll” - How Racism, Global Economics, and the New Jim Crow Fuel Black America's Crippling Jobs Crisis
July 7, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/05-4
Published on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 by TomDispatch.com
by Andy Kroll
Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation's lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern D.C. with one of the highest unemployment rates anywhere in America. Or, if you happen to be jobless, upset about it, and living in that neighborhood, on a crisp morning in March you could have joined an angry band of protesters marching on the nearby 11th Street Bridge.
They weren't looking for trouble. They were looking for work.
Those protesters, most of them black, chanted and hoisted signs that read "D.C. JOBS FOR D.C. RESIDENTS" and "JOBS OR ELSE." The target of their outrage: contractors hired to replace the very bridge under their feet, a $300 million project that will be one of the largest in District history. The problem: few D.C. citizens, which means few African Americans, had so far been hired. "It's deplorable," insisted civil rights attorney Donald Temple, "that... you can find men from West Virginia to work in D.C. You can find men from Maryland to work in D.C. And you can find men from Virginia to work in D.C. But you can't find men and women in D.C. to work in D.C."
The 11th Street Bridge arches over the slow-flowing Anacostia River, connecting the poverty-stricken, largely black Anacostia neighborhood with the rest of the District. By foot the distance is small; in opportunity and wealth, it couldn’t be larger. At one end of the bridge the economy is booming even amid a halting recovery and jobs crisis. At the other end, hard times, always present, are worse than ever.
Wednesday
Jul062011
"David Roberts" - Bachmann: Energy is ‘the most easy problem for America to solve’
July 6, 2011 During a campaign event at Iowa's world-famous (?) Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor & Museum this past weekend, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said that energy is "the most easy problem for America to solve." How, you ask?
We have 25 percent of the world's coal here. Trillions of cubic square feet of natural gas here. We just built one of the world's largest lines of natural gas here. We have got more oil in three Western states in shale oil than all of Saudi Arabia. Did you hear that on your local nightly news? Are you kidding? We've got it. I say let's go get it.
Now, it's true that Bachmann is always saying crazy sh*t. But this is not Tea Party fringe talk. This is the heart and soul of GOP energy policy. It is their one and only answer to the problem of energy: dig up more fossil fuels. Easy!