"Daniel Trotta" - US Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting

Published on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629

by Daniel Trotta

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

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Linh Dinh: Mugged then Shot

Published on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/29

by Linh Dinh

“The United States has been a leader in the multinational effort to end bribery and corruption in international business practices."
--Website of The U.S. State Department

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, why shouldn’t the United States be the most corrupt (and corrupting) country on earth? We’re number one! In America, each politician can be bought and absurd sums of money are routinely misallocated or missing altogether, with nary a peep from the complicit media. On the foreign front, America’s modus operandi is to bribe every dictator, and the ones she can’t bribe, she’ll undermine, overthrow or bomb back to Jesus. In exchange for this bribe, which can be disguised as loans or “foreign assistance,” said dictator will allow America to loot his country in perpetuity. If you don’t believe me, just strip any tinpot dictator and you’ll surely find “CIA” tattooed on one ass cheek, with a (pretty good) portrait of a recent U.S. president embossed on the other. Lovers always leave a mark, they often say. Sometimes it’s not a dictator, per se, but a dominant party that’s America’s hushed puppy. In any case, rapacious trade deals and unpayable loans are the bane of countless client states orbiting Washington.

Domestically, American corruption has been institutionalized as campaign contributions and lobbying, but that’s only the open, legal part. Perhaps these practices are allowed to trick us into thinking that American corruption only goes so far, but who really knows what goes on in the labyrinthine backrooms, basements and dungeons of Washington? In any case, us lumpen Americans are “represented” by millionaire politicians who are lint deep in the pockets of the fattest banks and corporations. The American politician is thoroughly corrupt, often from grassroots level, but the degree of venality and sanctimonious hypocrisy increase as he approaches Washington DC, that beautiful cesspool of martial madness.

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Robert Scheer: Yes to Violence, No to Sex

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/yes_to_violence_no_to_sex_20110629/

Posted on Jun 28, 2011

By Robert Scheer

This American life of ours has long been pro-violence and anti-sex, unless the two can be merged so that violence is the dominant theme. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that historical record on Monday in declaring California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to minors unconstitutional while continuing to deny constitutional protection to purely prurient sexual material for either minors or adults.

The California law that the court struck down prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to minors “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being,” unless the work, taken as a whole, possessed redeeming literary, artistic or social value—qualities that limit censorship of sexually “obscene” material.

The Supreme Court, in essence, said no—“sexually assaulting an image of a human being” is protected speech, but depicting graphic sexual activity that is nonviolent and consensual is not. 

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"Robert Parry" - How Greed Destroys America

Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 by Consortiumnews.com

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/28-12

America’s corporate chieftains are living like kings while the middle class stagnates and shrivels

by Robert Parry

If the “free-market” theories of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were correct, the United States of the last three decades should have experienced a golden age in which the lavish rewards flowing to the titans of industry would have transformed the society into a vibrant force for beneficial progress.

Direct Action for Single-PayerAfter all, it has been faith in “free-market economics” as a kind of secular religion that has driven U.S. government policies – from the emergence of Ronald Reagan through the neo-liberalism of Bill Clinton into the brave new world of House Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan.

By slashing income tax rates to historically low levels – and only slightly boosting them under President Clinton before dropping them again under George W. Bush – the U.S. government essentially incentivized greed or what Ayn Rand liked to call “the virtue of selfishness.”

Further, by encouraging global “free trade” and removing regulations like the New Deal’s Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banks, the government also got out of the way of “progress,” even if that “progress” has had crushing results for many middle-class Americans.

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Norman Solomon: Nuclear Dangers Close to Home

Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 by the Marin Independent Journal (California)

http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_18348570

by Norman Solomon

Several decades ago, three expert nuclear engineers told a congressional panel why they decided to quit: "We could no longer justify devoting our life energies to the continued development and expansion of nuclear fission power — a system we believe to be so dangerous that it now threatens the very existence of life on this planet."

The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy heard that testimony in 1977, when the conventional wisdom was still hailing "the peaceful atom" as a flawless marvel. During the same year, solid information convinced me to move from concern to action against nuclear power.

By the time the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant came close to rendering much of central Pennsylvania uninhabitable, I was nearly two years into full-time anti-nuclear work that included public education, civic activism and nonviolent direct action. Given what was at stake, I didn't mind spending a month in jail for civil disobedience.

More than 30 years later, the ongoing disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant underscores the grim realities of nuclear power, ranging from catastrophic reactor accidents to highly radioactive waste that will remain deadly for many thousands of years.

Such inherent dangers are all too close to home here in California, where the state's two nuclear power plants — Diablo Canyon at San Luis Obispo and San Onofre farther south — are both located on major earthquake faults along the coast.

The overall record of Diablo Canyon's owner and operator — PG&E — hardly inspires confidence. And recent events in Japan showed that official assurances can become worthless after a big quake and tsunami.

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Rowan Contraho: Vaccines as ‘Cluster Bombs’

Posted on June 28, 2011 by

http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/vaccines-as-%E2%80%98cluster-bombs%E2%80%99/

By Rowan Contraho

Shiv Chopra, the Canadian microbiologist known for having helped stop the approval of rBGH, did so not by making true but complex arguments about its association to cancers, but by reducing the issue to an undeniable biological fact and thus simple legal issue.

The law said that no factory containing so much as a single rat dropping or feather is considered clean.  rBGH gives cows mastitis which leads to pus in their milk.   rBGH thus turns cows into pus factories.

Wikipedia (articles there on vaccines appear to have been written by industry), says that “Vaccines are among the greatest achievements of modern medicine.”  Dr. Chopra calls them “cluster bombs.”

“A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease.”  Dr. Chopra says vaccines do nothing of the sort and, in fact, violate the very laws of biology.

As with rBGH, he has a talent for reducing things to understandable and undeniable facts and when it comes to vaccines, he begins at the beginning by describing how the immune system works to protect people from disease.

He says there is a constant war going on between an individual’s bodily integrity and invading organisms.

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"Hui Min Neo" - Worst Drought in 60 Years Hits 10 Million in East Africa

Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gACog4nDVD8yZ8RDDjs4FQjHII4g

by Hui Min Neo

GENEVA — Ten million people in the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, with some areas on the verge of famine and thousands on the march in search of food and water, the UN said on Tuesday.

A poor rainy season coupled with rising food prices have led to severe food shortages in countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda.

Cattle and sheep are dying at higher rates than usual, reaching up to 60 percent of mortality in some areas.

"Over 10 million people are affected by the drought in one way or other," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"We believe that the drought situation in certain regions is the worst in 60 years," she said.

"In some areas the situation is close to that of famine. We are at the emergency stage which precedes that of famine. But the situation can still evolve," she added.

Food prices are soaring with grain prices in some parts of Kenya up to 80 percent higher than the five year average, while in Ethiopia, the consumer price index jumped about 41 percent.

As a result, malnutrition rates are also rising, the UN agency said.

In the worst affected areas, they are at more than twice that of the emergency threshold of 15 percent. Eleven districts in Kenya have also reported malnutrition rates above the emergency threshold.

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Nutraingredients.com: Quality of nano toxicity data is ‘not great’, says expert

Nutraingredients.com, 22-Jun-2011

The limited nature of many toxicity studies into engineered nanoparticles used in the food and dietary supplements industry makes it very difficult to draw firm conclusions about their safety, according to one expert in the field.

Speaking at the IFT show last week, Dr Bernadene Magnuson, senior scientific and regulatory consultant at Cantox Health Sciences International, said an analysis of 30 studies toxicity studies into engineered nanoparticles highlighted gaps in the research and methodological problems.

For example, most in vivo tests were high, single-dose, acute studies, which were of “limited relevance to food exposure”, which should examine the impact of repeated low doses over a long period of time, she argued.

“There are a few short-term repeated dose studies, but no long-term, chronic studies. In general, the reliability of the data from nanomaterial toxicology studies is not great.

"We need to improve characterization and the quality of the studies," added Magnuson, a toxicologist best known for her work on assessing the safety of aspartame.

Testing methodologies must be validated

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"Dahr Jamail and Max Blumenthal" - Assault on Gaza Flotilla Ship: 'Sabotaged by Divers' in Port, Attacked by Legal Group Funded by Christian Right 'Mad Pastor' John Hagee

By Dahr Jamail and Max Blumenthal, Al Jazeera English and MaxBlumenthal.com
Posted on June 28, 2011, Printed on June 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151461/assault_on_gaza_flotilla_ship%3A_%27sabotaged_by_divers%27_in_port%2C_attacked_by_legal_group_funded_by_christian_right_%27mad_pastor%27_john_hagee

The following are two news stories revealing an orchestrated attempt to prevent the launch of the 2nd flotilla ship aimed at breaking Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.

Gaza flotilla ship 'sabotaged by divers'                 

by Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English

A Swedish ship due to join an upcoming Gaza-bound aid flotilla has been sabotaged in the Greek port of Piraeus, organisers say.

In a statement, they said "hostile divers had destroyed the propeller house and cut the propeller shaft" of the vessel Juliano on Monday.

The ship is part of the 10-vessel Freedom Flotilla II that is expected to set sail from Greece and elsewhere for the Gaza Strip in the coming days in a bid to break Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory.

About 350 pro-Palestinian activists from 22 countries are likely to participate.

Israel insists the latest flotilla is a "dangerous provocation" and has vowed to intercept it.

Determined organisers

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Marty Kaplan: Don't Look on the Bright Side -- Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us

By Marty Kaplan, Smirking Chimp
Posted on June 28, 2011, Printed on June 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151454/don%27t_look_on_the_bright_side%3A_pessimism%2C_not_magical_thinking%2C_is_what_will_save_us

It gets worse. If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim. The new normal of high unemployment and stagnant wages will likely not turn out to be just a phase. The next generations may indeed do worse than the ones before them. Thanks to the Supreme Court, big money will keep tightening its stranglehold on elections and lawmaking. Financial reform and consumer protection will never survive the onslaught of lobbyists. Reckless bankers will go on making out like bandits, and the public will always be forced to rescue them. The Internet, along with cable and wireless, will be controlled by fewer and more-powerful companies. The world will keep staggering from one economic crisis to another. We will not have the leadership and citizenship we need to kick our dependence on oil. We will not even keep up with the Kardashians.

Add your own items to the list. Whatever global threats scare you -- climate change, the Middle East, loose nukes, pandemics -- and whatever domestic issues haunt you -- failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, rising poverty, obesity -- the odds are that the honesty, discipline, resources and burden-sharing required for a happy ending will not, like Elijah, show up at our door.

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