"Mark Engler" - Dramatizing Obama's Climate Dilemma

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/26-6

Published on Friday, August 26, 2011 by Dissent

by Mark Engler

President Obama now has a clear choice on climate change. Major energy corporations are seeking to build a 1700-mile oil pipeline from Canada’s tar sands to refineries in Texas. The Keystone XL Pipeline would itself carry social and environmental costs: cutting through fragile ecosystems, creating risk of spills, and negatively affecting indigenous communities. But, most significantly, it would be a boon to efforts to exploit the tar sands.

The Canadian tar sands are a particularly dirty source of fossil fuels that could produce egregious carbon emissions. As Elizabeth Kolbert reported at the New Yorker:

[B]ecause tar-sands oil is so heavy, it has to be very heavily processed, which requires tremendous amounts of energy, usually in the form of natural gas. It’s been estimated that, on what’s known as a well-to-tank basis, tar-sands oil is responsible for eighty percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than ordinary crude.

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"Michelle Chen" - To Stop Corruption, Fight the Power, Not the People

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/26-4

Published on Friday, August 26, 2011 by ColorLines

by Michelle Chen

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in a world where the gap between the powerful and powerless grows wider each day, corruption in political and economic institutions spreads much faster than shame.

Political power is abused wherever it exists—with scandals ranging from political graft in India to white collar crime on Wall Street to bribery of government regulators in China. Nonetheless, some communities seem especially vulnerable to the cycle of corruption, repression and impunity. And lately, we’ve seen many of them getting fed up with living under regimes that have lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Corruption has been one of the major issues driving the unrest across the Middle East and North Africa, and it has catalyzed a Gandhi-esque movement in the streets of New Delhi.

Indian activist Anna Hazare has inspired huge demonstrations in support of his hunger strike to promote a strict, controversial anti-corruption measure known as the Jan Lokpal bill. The government’s recent crackdown on Hazare only steeled protesters’ resolve under the slogan “India is Anna, Anna is India.”

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"NBA vs. NFL" - Who Wins?

NBA VS NFL

Even if you aren't a Sports Fan this is Very Interesting!

36 have been accused of spousal abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

19 have been accused of writing bad checks

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71, I repeat 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 currently are defendants in lawsuits,and

84 have been arrested for drunk driving

in the last year !

Can you guess which organization this is?

Is it the NBA Or NFL?

Give up yet?

Neither, it's the 535 members of the United States Congress
The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.



"YouTube Clip" - Big Pharma—Define 'Better'

Watch this Music Video Featuring Chill EB - Psycho/pharma spends billions of dollars a year marketing mental 'disorders' & drugs for kids -- yet these drugs are documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause mania, psychosis, hallucinations, suicide, violence, homicidal ideation, heart attack, stroke and death. What's more, they are being prescribed for psychiatric disorders that are simply a checklist of behaviors. Get the facts here http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7rACI-WJEw&feature=player_embedded

"Progressive Radio Network Host Danny Schechter, Friday's @ 1pm(EDT)" - “Monetizing” Electoral Politics: TV Networks Are Out To Sell, Not Tell

By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime Of Our Time

Already the projections are in—not for who is going to win the election in 2012---but for how much it is likely to cost.

Public Radio International concludes: “Campaign spending in the 2012 US election could reach $6 or 7 billion dollars as outside groups pay for electoral influence.”
Here we are in the middle of a deep recession that’s getting deeper by the day, with austerity the unofficial slogan du jour while Republican scheme up new ways to trim, cut and decimate government spending, and parties are spending billions on political horse races.
They decry government spending but they don’t talk much about their own spending, do they? 
And neither do the Democrats who are also backing an orgy of spending cuts if only to show their opponents how “responsible” they are.
As both parties slash spending that benefits people, they are in a manic overdrive effort to raise more for themselves and their campaigns.
PRI’s Here and Now program reported, “In 2008, Barack Obama raised some $778 million for his presidential bid. The total cost of the national election, including Presidential and Congressional, was about $5.3 billion. Since then, court decisions like Citizens United have made spending by outside groups easier.

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" Rady Ananda" - Monsanto GM Corn in Peril: Beetle develops Bt-resistance

Rady Ananda
People's Voice, August 24 2011
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/08/24/monsanto-gm-corn-in-peril-beetle-develop

Nature herself may be the best opponent of genetically modified crops and pesticides. Not only plants, but insects are also developing resistance.  The Western rootworm beetle – one of the most serious threats to corn – has developed resistance to Monsanto's Bt-corn, and entire crops are being lost.

Farmers from several Midwest states began reporting root damage to corn that was specifically engineered with a toxin to kill the rootworm.  Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann recently confirmed that the beetle, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, has developed resistance to the Bt protein, Cry3Bb1.

Bacillus thuringiensis - Bt - is a bacterium that kills insects.  Different proteins are engineered into cotton as well as corn plants.

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"The News" - Polish minister calls for Europe-wide ban on GM crops

The News, 26 August 2011
http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/53998,Polish-minister-calls-for-Europewide-ban-on-GM-crops

*Poland's stance on genetically modified crops has been thrown into confusion after its agriculture minister called for a European-wide ban on GMO.

"We are now proposing to completely prohibit not only the cultivation of GM plants, but also imports of feed and food that is genetically modified," Minister Marek Sawicki told TVP public television.

"And not just in Poland," he added.

Sawicki's remarks come just days after he criticized President Bronislaw Komorowski for vetoing a government bill on the registration of GM seeds, which was intended to bring Polish law in line with EU dictates.

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"Kevin Gosztola" - US Sought "Talking Points" to Combat Impact of French Documentary on Monsanto

Kevin Gosztola
The Dissenter, August 25 2011        
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/25/us-sought-talking-points-to-combat-impact-of-french-documentary-on-monsanto

There are multiple indications in the large cache of US State Embassy cables WikiLeaks has been releasing that the US State Department is willing to do just about anything to ensure the multinational agricultural biotech corporation, Monsanto, has its interests protected in countries around the world.

Cables show the State Department has been very active in defending Monsanto in France during the past decade. In one particular case, a French documentary, "The World According to Monsanto," was released. A diplomat with the US embassy in Madrid immediately felt the need for "talking points" so it knew what to say in response to the content in the film.

The diplomatic cable summary sent on February 4, 2008 reads:

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"YouTube Clip" - Follow the Money

Follow the Money - You Tube Clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te7cvY4LmI0



"Paul Craig Roberts" - 9/11 After A Decade, Have We Learned Anything?

In a few days it will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.  How well has the US government’s official account of the event held up over the decade?

Not very well.  The chairman, vice chairman, and senior legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books partially disassociating themselves from the commission’s report.  They said that the Bush administration put obstacles in their path, that information was withheld from them, that President Bush agreed to testify only if he was chaperoned by Vice President Cheney and neither were put under oath, that Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for investigation for obstruction of justice.

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