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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

30 November - News of the Day + Wikileaks

 

Solar Hot Water Installer Workshop

World's biggest solar project powers up in Canada

 

Newly Understood Food Allergies

Sorbitol is found in some fruit juices, especially apple juice, and pediatricians have recently pointed out that some infants have diarrhea from sorbitol-containing fruit juices. Some candies prepared for overweight individuals to reduce their caloric intake also contain considerable amounts of sor­bitol and cause diarrhea. No digestive enzymes are available that can improve your indigestion if these complex sugars are the cause. They must be eliminated from the diet.

Starvation In The Midst Of Plenty  

First appearing in young children, this disease can flare up in adulthood or even appear later in life. The clinical picture is a dramatic one weakness, weight loss, diarrhea and bloating, distention and cramping, muscle wasting, fatigue, and loss of energy. These symptoms can all be explained by the failure of the intestine to absorb calories, especially fat calories, and min­erals such as iron and calcium, which is associated with a slow protein leak in the intestine from the blood. There is often an accompanying swelling of the ankles together with failure. to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K. ...

Why US troops are occupying Haiti

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the current US occupation or why the country has been reduced to such wretched poverty without recognizing that Haiti has been in US imperialism’s grip since at least 1915, when Marines invaded the island-country.

Czars U.S.A: Illusion of Democracy Grim, Dry Run for Military Police State

Airport phony Al-CIAda terrorist checkpoint debacle of sexual assaults and abuse have been a dry run for usurping U.S. Constitutional Laws replaced by military checkpoints and sealed State borders.  Because for those of you who don’t remember, the State Department admitted to allowing Umar [Christmas underpants phony] to get on that plane in the first place and eye witnesses reported he was walked through security right past the boarding gate and  helped to his predetermined seat on the plane by someone who looked remarkably like a CIA asset.Posted by  Scot Creighton

U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables

 Logo used by WikileaksImage via WikipediaWE THOUGHT WE WERE FREE

Slowly but surely the fear driven Orwellian noose closes as civil liberties and freedoms which were once taken for granted are gradually restricted or ended and always for the same reason ~ National Security

They Thought They Were Free”  (The Germans 1933 – 1945).

 German exceptionalism in the 1930’s was really not too different, in many ways, than American exceptionalism in the last decade and very likely headed for the same disastrous fate.

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.

And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it … this separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”

 

Ending The State of Siege in America

The American people are not free. They are the colonial subjects of the American empire. Over 40 percent of every income tax dollar goes towards the military-industrial-congressional complex, a figure that brings to mind colonial Mexico's tax payments to Spain between 1760 and 1810 to fund its wars. Author Carlos Marichal writes extensively about how Spain's exploitative tax policies in Mexico and other Latin American colonies led to the wars of independence beginning in 1810 in his book "Bankruptcy of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars Between Spain, Britain and France, 1760-1810."

Chalmers Johnson, who, sadly, passed away on November 20, laid out ten steps that the American people must take to bring an end to the U.S. empire. Johnson warned that in the absence of civic-minded reforms, financial bankruptcy will finally bring America down.

Compare and Contrast: BBC North Korea Edition

China Raises 'Concern' Over U.S. Plan to Hold Joint Military Exercises With South Korea

China works to ease North-South Korea tension

China doesn't want war to break out, because the inevitable result of that will be a total collapse into chaos, during which hundreds of thousands of half-starved, half-mad North Koreans will flood into China. There's already too much civic unrest in many parts of China, and this is the last thing they want.

Flashback: The Tortured and Manipulated 'Terrorist Threat' Evidence

This Sott.net editorial is being 'flash-backed' as a result of the recent Portland 'terror' scare. Details of that incident can be read on Sott.net here. This article shows in abundant detail the efforts that the US government and associated 'Intel' agencies have made over the years to manufacture 'home-grown terrorism'

While Dick is undoubtedly frustrated at the thought of an end to the vicarious pleasure he surely derives from his personal (if indirect) involvement in the water-boarding, sodomising or plain ol' beating to death of innocent people, not to mention an end to his personal assassination squad, the many degrees of separation between an order from the office of the VP and the 'enhanced interrogation' room where the 'fun' takes place ensure that Cheney need not fear any jail time for his 'enhanced misdemeanors' (especially under the increasingly pusillanimous Obama aka 'Judas Goat').

Like so many political debates of the last, say, 2000 years, the debate on the merits of torture in attempting to extract accurate information from an alleged suspect in the war on terror is hubris

Torture was much better suited to forcing a prisoner to state something that was not true - prisoners like Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who coincidentally appears to have been suicided recently in prison in Libya) and Abu Zubaydah who remains in Gitmo to this day.

al-Libi was reportedly tortured many times, including water boarding, in Egypt and later in Libya. He was also locked in a 20 inch high "coffin" for 17 hours and then beaten for 15 minutes before he finally found sufficient inspiration and the 'right answer' about those "links between Iraq and al-Qaeda". In the case of Abu Zubaydah, despite the fact that shortly after his capture by FBI and CIA agents in Pakistan in 2002 he was deemed schizophrenic, he was treated to no less than 85 water boarding sessions. As a result of their torture, both of these men felt obliged to finally agree that there were indeed links between al-qaeda and Iraq. al-Libi later recanted but not before his confession was used as evidence by Colin Powell in his infamous March 2003 speech at the UN.

The US-led war on terrorism was (and remains) a war based solely on the desire by US, British and Israeli warmongers to expand their influence and empire. In order to sell their immoral war to the people therefore, 'moral' justification for it had be manufactured, reality had to be "created" as an unnamed Washington Neocon infamously quipped a few years ago. That 'reality' included the creation of a "terrorist threat" at home and abroad. 

 

Shocking cable: US says Saudi donors are chief financiers of al Qaeda

"According to the U.S. State Department 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 'Saudi donors and unregulated charities have been a major source of financing to extremist and terrorist groups over the past 25 years,'"

Muqtedar Khan, Associate Professor of Islam and Global Affairs at the University of Delaware, criticized the Saudi government on the revelation at The Huffington Post, saying that the cables exposed Muslim governments' hypocrisy.
"The... cables also reveal that even now the main financiers of al Qaeda are Saudi donors," Khan writes. "American presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama have identified al Qaeda as the biggest threat to the U.S., and yet they collude with the nation whose citizens are its biggest financiers. Why don't the Saudis cut off the head of the real snake by arresting and imprisoning al Qaeda's financiers? Most Americans know that fifteen of the nineteen terrorists that attacked the US on September 11, 2001, were Saudis. None were Iranians

 

Circle IX

A-10 Warthog Over Baghdad

 Consider the mind and the moral system that conceived the elegant solution of licensing corporations like ATK and General Dynamics to purchase large amounts of low-level nuclear waste from the Department of Energy for conversion at enormous profit into an endless belt of pyrophoric ammunition feeding the Pentagon’s endless “War on Terror”, underwritten by your tax dollars.



http://web.archive.org/web/20040406020942/http://www.atk.com/productsPrecision/descriptions/products/medium-cal-ammo/gau-8.htm
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/corporate/dd/alliant.html
Consider the mind and the moral system that conceived the elegant solution of licensing corporations like ATK and General Dynamics to purchase large amounts of low-level nuclear waste from the Department of Energy for conversion at enormous profit into an endless belt of pyrophoric ammunition feeding the Pentagon’s endless “War on Terror”, underwritten by your tax dollars.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines02/1112-01.htm
“DU is the stuff of nightmares,” said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.
Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others — including Rokke — have serious health problems.
Rokke said: “Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.
“This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity.”
Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, “When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed.”
Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as “a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh,” said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.
“Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown,” Rokke said. “That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem.” Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.
“Their arrogance is beyond comprehension,” he said. “We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it’s all arrogance.”

 Showing newest posts with label how the us supports its troops.

stop the deployment of traumatized troops: support ivaw's operation recovery

 army suicides, prisoner "suicides": suffering on both sides of the barbed wire

new court martial offense for u.s. troops: pregnancy

is there anything the u.s. army won't do to its troops?

Even soldiers have rights 

The Forever War of the Mind 

u.s. military openly admits u.s. taxpayers are funding the taliban (hundreds of millions of dollars)

u.s. army separates mother and child, will court martial or forcibly deploy soldier-mom to afghanistan

 

 The Militarization of the World: The Case of Iran

To justify the criminal economic sanctions against the Iranian people, the U.S. has for years insisted that Iran is supporting terrorism, threatening U.S. national interests, and pursuing a program of nuclear weapons manufacturing. As these harebrained allegations are increasingly losing credibility, the United States is now invoking a new ploy to justify its decision to further tighten the sanctions on Iran: “military dictatorship” and “human rights abuses. "

Iran’s military spending is infinitesimally small compared to that of the United States. 

In light of the fact that the U.S. is altogether silent in the face of heinous human rights violations under the rule of the regimes it calls “allies,” its alleged concern for “human rights abuses” in Iran is hypocritical and utilitarian: it uses the lofty ideal of defending human rights to disguise its nefarious intentions to impose economic sanctions or to embark on military aggression against that country. Hypocritical defense of human rights is often used to justify wars of aggression as humanitarian operations, or “just wars,” as they were called in times past. Just as this ruse was used in 1999 to wreak carnage on Yugoslavia, so it is now used to pave grounds for committing similarly heinous crimes against Iran. Regrettably, many left/liberal/antiwar individuals and organizations often fall for this hoax, thereby endorsing (or remaining silent in the face of) U.S. wars of aggression on ethical grounds, that is, on grounds of fighting dictatorship or terrorism in the hope of achieving liberation and democracy. Of course, to make the ruse credible, champions of war and militarism usually start with demonization and distortion, and then proceed to aggression and invasion. It must also be pointed out that the purported U.S. support for human rights tends to be narrowly focused on purely cultural issues such as life style and identity politics, that is, the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation. As such, it is largely devoid of basic economic needs for survival.

Mossad Criminals Murder Iranian Scientist and Wound Another In Bomb Attacks

 Iran has continued to state clearly that its nuclear program is under constant attack from the West and its allies. These include alleged abductions of nuclear officials and, more recently, a computer worm known as Stuxnet that experts say was calibrated to destroy uranium-enrichment centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control. Iran says its experts stopped Stuxnet from affecting systems at its nuclear facilities.

 Viktor Bout`s Extradition Legally Unjustified

The extradition of the Russian businessman Viktor Bout from Thailand to the United States was carried out under pressure from the U.S. authorities in open violation of international law. That’s how analysts and politicians reacted to the Thai Cabinet’s endorsement of an earlier ruling by the Thai Appeals Court upholding Bout’s extraction.
Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 on charges of “supporting terrorism”. Because of a lack of evidence, the prosecution dropped the “terrorism” charges against Bout but the Thai Appeals overturned the decision.
Andrei Klimov, Vice Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, argues that Bout’s case is not within the jurisdiction of U.S. courts:
He is not a U.S. citizen and has not committed any crimes on the territory of the United States. All the rest is outside the U.S. jurisdiction. Washington has no right to force anyone suspected of wrongdoing to be brought over to the U.S. for trial. Every country has its own courts to try crimes committed on their territory. Second, crimes suspects can stand trial in countries whose citizens they are. Finally, they can be tried by international courts. By the way, Americans do not recognize the jurisdiction of international courts with respect to their own citizens.
Professor Rolf Goessner, a German law analyst, shares this view:

Secret US Embassy Cables

This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

Graphics of the cablegate datasetOriginal caption: A woman pleads to an Iraqi a...Image via Wikipedia

Cables by origin and classification

  • Cables by Subject

    Cables by Country

    Cables by Organization

    Cables by Program

    Cables by Topic
    Click here to download full site in single archive.
    Cable Viewer

    Wikileaks revelations emerge 

    US embassy cables: Verdict on the leaks about the Middle East

    The behind-the-scenes revelations about American diplomacy really only shock three groups of people.
    The first is those who believe the US is a force for unalloyed good in the world with a foreign policy rooted in principle rather than pragmatism. Even after the past nine years the number of those in that category is higher than many would think. For them, the problem with the US invading Iraq was not that it broke international law on a false pretext, leaving thousands dead or displaced, but that it lost. The lesson they have drawn is not that the US needs to adopt more subtle methods than bombing, torturing and invading but that not all of the world is ready for freedom.

    The second group is those who believe that the US can call the shots unilaterally and need not care about whatever anyone else thinks. This has long been acknowledged by the country's intelligence forces.

     The third group: those on the left, who mistook American diplomacy for acts of either unalloyed evil or delusion. News of America resisting calls from the Arab world to bomb Iran simply show it is more than capable of a rational appraisal in global affairs. The diplomats in question, charged with looking after their national interests, understand that such an attack would not be in the country's interests in the region. These were probably the same diplomats who desperately tried to dissuade George Bush from invading Iraq. The state department, lest we forget, voiced internal opposition to the war and predicted many of the things that went wrong.

    We should not confuse America's domestic politics with its diplomatic engagements; nor should we assume that its foreign and military actions are necessarily guided by its diplomatic assessments.

     Craig Murray: 'The best policy advice is not shielded from peer review'

    The securitocracy has been out in force in the media, attacking WikiLeaks and repeating their well-worn mantra: government secrecy is essential to keep us all safe. It is seriously argued that ambassadors will not in future give candid advice if there is a chance that that advice might become public. In the past 12 hours I have heard this remarkable proposition put forward on five different television networks, without anybody challenging it. I was wearily familiar with these pro-secrecy arguments in more than 20 years as a British diplomat, six of them in the senior management structure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
    Put it another way and the cracks start to appear. The best advice is advice you would not be prepared to defend in public. Really? Why? In today's globalised world, embassies are not a unique source of expertise. Often, expatriate, academic and commercial organisations are a lot better informed. The best policy advice is not advice that is shielded from peer review.
    What the establishment mean is that ambassadors should be free to recommend things that the general public would view with deep opprobrium, without any danger of being found out. But should they really be allowed to do that, in a democracy?
    I have never understood why it is felt that behaviours that would be considered reprehensible in private or even commercial life – like lying, or saying one thing to one person and the opposite to another person – should be considered acceptable, or even praiseworthy, in diplomacy.
    Among British diplomats, this belief that their profession exempts them from the normal constraints of decent behaviour amounts to a cult of Machiavellianism, a pride in their own amorality. It is reinforced by their narrow social origins – still in 2010, 80% of British ambassadors went to private schools. As a group, they view themselves as ultra-intelligent Nietzschean supermen, above normal morality.
    There is therefore a huge amount about Iran's putative nuclear arsenal and an exaggeration of Iran's warhead delivery capability. But there is nothing about Israel's massive nuclear arsenal. That is not because WikiLeaks has censored criticism of Israel. It is because any US diplomat who made an honest and open assessment of Israeli crimes would very quickly be an unemployed ex-diplomat.

    Abbas Edalat and Phil Wilayto: 'Iran's independent stance is hugely popular among Arabs'

    The latest batch of WikiLeaks revelations give the impression that it is the Arab states that are most energetically pressuring the US to attack Iran. That's definitely putting the cart before the horse.
    In the first place, the Arab governments mentioned as being hostile to Iran – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates – are all undemocratic, unpopular regimes that depend on US support to stay in power. As such, they seem to have absorbed the US claims that Iran is the region's greatest threat to peace.
    A completely different view, however, is held by these governments' own subjects, among whom Iran's independent stance is hugely popular. According to a recent poll that asked Arab people in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to name two countries they thought were the greatest threat to the region, 88% stated Israel, 77% stated the US and only 10% mentioned Iran.

      Educational Resources

    Great Medical Mystery is Why This Guy is Called an Expert

    An “expert” just came out and set us back 40 years on PTSD. He thinks there is no effective treatment and that time will take over. In other words, “get over it” leaving veterans to think there is no hope again.

    Making our war fighters expendable when they are gay

    The debate itself tells the other nations we depend on that their soldiers are not up to our standards when they allow gay people to serve without any problem at all.

    ( What that says about 'your standards' is most uncomplimentary )

    Cadets for Christ Proselytizing Draws Protest from Cadet Parents

     USAFA completely denies that unconstitutional proselytizing exists on their campus even though innumerable witness accounts and results of the recent climate survey irrefutably contradict their knowingly false and deliberately misleading public statements. 

     

    They're Crazier Than Ever Before

    Most of the National Security Council over the last thirty-five years has been made up of Kissinger-apprentices, regardless of what party they've served. You could almost say that Nixon and Kissinger provided a framework that has persevered since Ford left office, and which has formed the based for what we consider 'normal' American foreign policy. It's a policy that I, and most of the left, have found wanting .

    The New START Treaty that the Obama administration has negotiated is being opposed by the Senate Republicans, and therefore will probably not be ratified. Yet, the GOP foreign policy Establishment supports it, as was evident when Obama recently discussed the treaty with the press.

     

      World's biggest solar project powers up in Canada-Oct 4

    The world's largest solar energy facility, the 80-megawatt Sarnia photovoltaic project in Ontario, is now fully operational and is supplying energy to the Canadian province's power grid

     Pathways 2 Sustainability 2011 
    Pathways 2011 is moving forward from planning to community-based action! With the support of the City of Red Deer and Red Deer College, Pathways 2011 is a dialogue about the components of resilient communities: Food, Fuel, and Finance.

    P2S Agenda Highlights

    An opportunity to network with over 300 progressively minded people from communities across Alberta with expertise that spans the realms of technological innovation, sustainable community planning models, and “green” investment models in an exploration of the tools and the methods of  sustainability.

    Stanford CARS, Part 3: A solar car that gets 1,400 miles per gallon

    Stimulus Allows Big Polluters to Bypass Environmental Regulations

     The federal government made a stunning 179,000 "categorical exclusions" that allowed corporations -- many with disastrous environmental records -- to use stimulus funding to sponsor projects without submitting them to review under the nation's "most basic form of environmental oversight"




  • Utah Legislators to Brainwash Youth for Fossil Fuel Industry

    Indoctrination. That is what Utah state lawmakers decided to implement last week.  A state committee voted unanimously to recommend the Mineral and Petroleum Literacy Act.  This bill would use oil, gas, and mining revenues to develop an elementary school curriculum to teach young children “the virtues of mineral industries.

    Stop Them From Eating My Town

    There is a huge difference between a mall full of chain stores or a big-box retailer, and a downtown area full of small, locally owned businesses. The transition from the latter to the former is what’s destroying local communities on the one hand and creating mind-boggling wealth for a very few very large corporations and multimillionaire CEOs on the other. 

    Guidestar

    Verify charities and identify supporting organizations

    GMO Crop Sabotage on the Rise: French citizens destroy trial vineyard Aug 16

     Sixty people, locked inside an open-air field of genetically modified grapevines, uprooted all the plants.  In Spain last month, dozens of people destroyed two GMO fields. On the millennial cusp, Indian farmers burned Bt cotton in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Ignored by multinational corporations and corrupt public policy makers, citizens act to protect the food supply and the planet.

    William Pepper - An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King

    Since King's death on April 4, 1968, Pepper has worked to rescue the truth about his murder, and honor his legacy. He represented the King family in the civil trial "King Family v. Loyd Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators" that took place in a Memphis courtroom in late 1999. Click here to read the transcript of the trial. Unsurprisingly, the trial received zero coverage from the mainstream media. They were more interested in the lives of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson than in the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy.

     Upon the completion of the 30-day trial, the 12-member jury ruled that Martin Luther King Jr.'s death was the result of a government conspiracy. In other words, the government's version of King's murder was proven in court to be a big lie. 

    JFK: What We Know Now

     In Wake of WikiLeaks Cable Release, JFK, Ellsberg's Remarks on 'Secrecy,' 'Covert Ops' Worth Noting

    JFK '61: 'Word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society'
    Ellsberg '08: 'Most covert ops deserve to be disclosed by free press'
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