Author
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Topic: Even Worse News from the Empire
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 29 August 2007 06:58 PM
quote: The era of "agrofuels" has arrived, and the scale of the changes it is already forcing on farming and markets around the world is immense. In Nebraska alone, an extra million acres of maize have been planted this year, and the state boasts it will produce 1bn gallons of ethanol. Across the US, 20% of the whole maize crop went to ethanol last year. How much is that? Just 2% of US automobile use... The scale of the change is boggling. The Indian government says it wants to plant 35m acres (140,000 sq km) of biofuel crops, Brazil as much as 300m acres (1.2m sq km). Southern Africa is being touted as the future Middle East of biofuels, with as much as 1bn acres (4m sq km) of land ready to be converted to crops such as Jatropha curcas (physic nut), a tough shrub that can be grown on poor land. Indonesia has said it intends to overtake Malaysia and increase its palm oil production from 16m acres (64,000 sq km) now to 65m acres (260,000 sq km) in 2025.
While this may be marginally better for carbon emissions and energy security, it is proving horrendous for food prices and anyone who stands in the way of a rampant new industry. A year or two ago, almost all the land where maize is now being grown to make ethanol in the US was being farmed for human or animal food. And because America exports most of the world's maize, its price has doubled in 10 months, and wheat has risen about 50%. Starving people to feed cars or why humanity is so badly fucked.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Catchall
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14486
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posted 01 September 2007 05:09 PM
I surely support the development of alternatives to fossel fuels for humankind's transportation needs. But there's just something so creepy and somehow almost anti human to be growing food in a world where so many are hungry and then using the food for something other than feeding the hungry. Petrolium never fed anyone. Corn, on the other hand, has uses other than powering engines. Personlly I like mine on the cob slathered in butter.[ 01 September 2007: Message edited by: Catchall ]
From: Nova Scotia | Registered: Aug 2007
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 03 September 2007 01:53 PM
quote: Kanjorski said it was the second time he was called to the White House for a briefing. He had opposed giving the President the powers to go to war, and said that he hadn't changed his mind after a first meeting. Until he saw the pictures, Kanjorski said, "I hadn't thought that Iraq was a threat." That second meeting changed everything. After he left that meeting, said Kanjorski, he was willing to give the President the authorization he wanted since the drones "represented an imminent danger."Kanjorski said he went to see Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel. Murtha, said Kanjorski, "turned white" when told about the drones; Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was classified. Several years later, Kanjorski said he learned that the pictures were "a god-damned lie,"
More lies from the lying liars
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 05 September 2007 05:19 PM
quote: "All criminals who survived the Fallujah crisis after committing genocide and other war crimes were granted higher ranks," Major Amir Jassim from the ministry of defence told IPS. "I and many of my colleagues were not rewarded because we disobeyed orders to set fire to people's houses (in Fallujah) after others looted them."Jassim said the looting and burning of homes in Fallujah during the November siege was ordered from the ministries of interior and defence. "Now they want to do the same things they did in Fallujah in all Sunni areas so that they ignite a civil war in Iraq," said Jassim, referring to the Shia-dominated ministries. "A civil war is the only guarantee for them to stay in power, looting such incredible amounts of money."
Latin American methods find a new home
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 05 September 2007 05:34 PM
quote: I've traveled to Olancho, a lawless logging region known as the Texas of Honduras, because Tamayo has an international reputation for standing up to the logging interests, legal and illegal, that have been chainsawing their way through mountains rich in pine and tropical hardwoods. He and a growing number of Catholic clergy throughout Latin America have come to see protection of the land and water as God's work, their duty to the region's 500 million Catholics.Although few North Americans seem to have noticed it yet, in the past few years a "liberation ecology" movement, with the church at its spiritual heart, has been taking shape from Chile to Mexico. Will the Vatican, I wonder, encourage or stifle it? Latin American Catholics have, after all, taken on what they saw as forces of injustice before. The liberation theology movement that began to gain strength in the 1970s sided with the poor during a time when military regimes, supported by the region's oligarchs, ruthlessly suppressed social reform--killing more than 200,000 people in Guatemala alone, most of them indigenous.
Catholic eco-warriors?
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 05 September 2007 05:36 PM
quote: The number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003, researchers report today in the most comprehensive study of the controversial diagnosis ...The spread of the diagnosis is a boon to drug makers, some psychiatrists point out, because treatments typically include medications that can be three to five times more expensive than those for other disorders like depression or anxiety ... “From a developmental point of view,” Dr. March said, “we simply don’t know how accurately we can diagnose bipolar disorder or whether those diagnosed at age 5 or 6 or 7 will grow up to be adults with the illness. The label may or may not reflect reality.”
Uh, huh
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
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posted 07 September 2007 12:31 AM
NGOs and Imperialism: quote: Engler: A major principle of Canadian foreign aid, for example, has been that where the USA wields the big stick, Canada carries a police baton and offers a carrot. The major recipient of Canadian aid in 1999/2000 was the former Yugoslavia; Iraq and Afghanistan were top two recipients in 2003/2004; today Afghanistan and Haiti are Nos. 1 and 2. The intervention-equals-aid principle also exists for other western countries. ....In Canada and many other countries, most people, including all of those who are on the left, oppose private health clinics, seeing them as a threat to our universal, government-run systems of medical care. People everywhere see public schools as an important part of democracy. Citizens in all First World countries demand social services provided by their governments. Yet the “development” model favored in the Third World for the past two decades involves destroying government services and handing them over to NGOs that willingly participate in this undermining of democracy.
What we see is the sponsorship of privatization by the governments of the imperialist countries, like our own, undermining governments of developing countries and their ability to deliver important public services, with parallel systems of service delivery that erode the legitimacy of public institutions, etc.. But hey. That's imperialism for ya. Evil at home and abroad. [ 07 September 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 10 September 2007 04:15 PM
quote: In Los Gatos, Calif., controversy has raged this summer over the city planning commission’s approval of a proposed hillside home that will occupy a whopping 3,600 square feet – and that's just the basement. Atop that walkout basement will be 5,500 more square feet worth of house. The prospective owner says he’ll build to "green" standards, but at the Aug. 8 meeting where the permit was approved, the city's lone dissenting planning commissioner stated the obvious when he told the owner, "You have a 9,000-square-foot house with a three-car garage and a pool. I don't see that as green." The just-popped housing bubble has left behind a couple of million families in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. It has also spawned a new generation of big, deluxe, under-occupied houses bulked up on low-interest steroids.
My Hummer will be green too. A nice shade of olive, I think ...
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 11 September 2007 12:27 PM
quote: He relates, "In 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] was faced with an awkward dilemma. If it continued to include the cost of housing in the Consumer Price Index, the CPI would reflect an inflation rate of 15%, thereby making the country's economy look like a banana republic. Worse, since investors and bond traders have historically demanded a 2% real return after inflation, that would mean that bond and money market yields could climb as high as 17%."Yikes! What to do, what to do, what to do whattodowhattodo? "The BLS's solution was as simple as it was shocking: exclude the cost of housing as a component in the CPI, and substitute a so-called 'Owner Equivalent Rent' component based on what a homeowner might 'rent' his house for." Hahaha! The government resorts to lying! "Wow! Why didn't we think of this before?" they are heard to ask among themselves. Fortunately for the government, it worked. "The result of this statistical sleight of hand was immediate and gratifying," Mr Hardaway writes, "for the reported inflation index quickly dropped to 2%", down from the real, and horrifying, 15% which was due "in part" to the drop in rents caused by speculators wanting to "offset their holding costs by renting out their homes while their prices skyrocketed, thereby flooding the market with rentals that pushed down the cost of renting a house or apartment." Hahaha! You can almost hear the contempt in his voice when he says, "While the BLS was correct in assuming that this statistical ruse would fool the average citizen into believing that inflation was only 2% (and therefore be willing to accept a meager 4% return on his bank savings), what is remarkable is that the ruse also fooled the bond traders, and apparently continues to do so, leading analyst Peter Schiff to describe these supposed savvy bond traders as the 'hormonal teenagers of the capital markets'."
Maybe stuffing money into a mattress is the smartest thing to do.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Doug
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 44
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posted 11 September 2007 05:14 PM
Not really in the bad news category here, but just interesting: quote: Univision captured the #1 network ranking among all Adults 18-34, not just Hispanics, and outdelivered ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW for the entire first week of Nielsen's single national panel (NPM). In the first entire week (8/27/07-9/2/07) since all networks were reported from one single ratings sample, Univision ranked as the #1 network with an +11% advantage over its nearest competitor, FOX, and beating ABC by +43%, CBS by +42%, NBC by +57%, and fully +125% ahead of CW for all Adults 18-34, not just Hispanics. Univision was also the #1 ranked network all night every night Monday through Friday last week among the same coveted young adult demographic....Univision Communications Inc. is the premier Spanish-language media company in the United States.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070906/20070906005934.html
From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 11 September 2007 05:49 PM
quote: Consider this: US GDP is 70% consumer spending. That means that wages have to increase beyond the rate of inflation OR THE ECONOMY CAN’T GROW. It’s just that simple. So how is it that 50% of the American people still believe Bush’s supply side baloney that cutting taxes for the uber-rich strengthens the economy? How does that increase wages or build a healthy middle class. If we want a strong economy wages have to keep pace with productivity so that workers can buy the goods they produce. Greenspan knows that. So does Bush. But they chose to hide it behind an “easy credit” smokescreen so they could weaken the dollar, off-shore thousands of industries, out-source 3 million manufacturing jobs, fund an illegal war, and maintain the lethal flow of the $800 billion current account deficit into American equities and Treasuries. In truth, there hasn’t been any growth in the economy since Bush took office in 2000. What we’ve seen is an ever-expanding bubble of personal and corporate debt amplified by a “structured finance” system that magically transforms liabilities (subprime loans) into securities and increases their value through leveraging. That’s it. No growth---just a galaxy of debt-instruments with odd-sounding names (CDOs, MBSs, CDSs, etc) stacked precariously on top of each other. That’s what we call "wealth" in America. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The financial system has decoupled from the productive elements of the economy and is now beginning to show disturbing signs of instability. That’s why the big blow-off in the bond market. The halcyon days of supplying our armies, funding our markets and building our subprime “ownership society” empire on the backs of foreign creditors is over. The stock market is headed for the landfill and housing is leading the way. Economic fundamentals can only be ignored for so long.
Alarmist bullshit.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 17 September 2007 05:40 PM
quote: To understand how the housing bust may ripple through the broader American economy, look beyond the countless for-sale signs that dot this middle-class city. Instead, stop by Boater's Landing, where salespeople sit idle, hoping someone will once again want to buy a boat.Or visit the women answering phones at the local United Way, which is dealing with a flood of aid requests from the unemployed, whose numbers have nearly doubled in a year. Or talk to the Shevlins, a real-estate agent and a carpenter, whose combined incomes dropped from $350,000 to less than $60,000 in two years.
What's the big deal? It is what the market wants. I
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 18 September 2007 03:59 PM
quote: Shanghai and neighbouring regions yesterday evacuated 200,000 people ahead of the landfall of "super typhoon" Wipha, which was forecast to lash the city this morning with the most powerful winds and rains seen in a decade.Women's world cup matches were rescheduled, schools closed and more than a million text message warnings sent out along China's southeastern coastline as the typhoon moved closer to the country's manufacturing and commercial heartland yesterday. Since it was upgraded on Monday from a tropical storm, Wipha has gathered force. With gusts now estimated at 198kmph, it has been classified by the Chinese meteorological agency as a "super typhoon".
Hold tight.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 19 September 2007 06:26 PM
quote: For most of the 21st century I have been pointing out that offshoring is not trade, free or otherwise. It is labor arbitrage. By replacing US labor with foreign labor in the production of goods and services for US markets, US firms are destroying the ladders of upward mobility in the US. So far economists have preferred their delusions to the facts.... The US is on a path to economic Armageddon. Shorn of industry, dependent on offshored manufactured goods and services, and deprived of the dollar as reserve currency, the US will become a third world country. Gomery notes that it would be very difficult—perhaps impossible—for the US to re-acquire the manufacturing capability that it gave away to other countries. It is a mystery how a people, whose economic policy is turning them into a third world country with its university graduates working as waitresses, bartenders, and driving cabs, can regard themselves as a hegemonic power even as they build up war debts that are further undermining their ability to pay their import bills.
Boom! Boom! Out go the lights.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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mary123
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6125
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posted 19 September 2007 08:03 PM
Canada needs to seriously make a hard left turn politically in this country.The right wing conservatives will only take us down the George Bush path: and that is going down crashing and burning (in Iraq and economically.) Conservatives are not good money managers, they just pretend to be.
From: ~~Canada - still God's greatest creation on the face of the earth~~ | Registered: Jun 2004
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 21 September 2007 03:08 PM
quote: "We want the IAEA to have access to Israeli nuclear facilities and report to the international community at large."There is no chance of such an IAEA move without an Israeli invitation, inconceivable under current political circumstances. Arab nations say a chronic imbalance of power in the Middle East caused by Israeli breeds instability and spurs others to seek mass-destruction weaponry. At the annual 149-nation IAEA gathering yesterday, Arab and other Islamic nations pushed through a milder resolution targeting Israel by calling on all Middle East nations to apply IAEA safeguards and renounce nuclear weapons. The non-binding vote, which upset the IAEA's traditional consensus culture, was 53-2 with 47 abstentions by Western and developing states.
The racist double-standard of the West exposed, again ...
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 21 September 2007 03:27 PM
quote: The Persian Gulf states, flush with cash from burgeoning oil revenues, are buying overseas assets at a record rate and countering the paucity of acquisitions hampered by the summer's surge in corporate borrowing costs.Abu Dhabi agreed yesterday to pay $1.35 billion for 7.5 percent of Carlyle Group, the world's second-biggest private equity firm. Dubai and Qatar took competing stakes in Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., London Stock Exchange Group Plc and Nordic bourse OMX AB. Qatar also won approval to examine the financial records of J Sainsbury Plc, the second-largest U.K. supermarket chain. All told, the deals are worth $25 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The pace of international investments by Gulf states, which earn $1.2 billion a day from oil exports, is quickening as they seek to diversify beyond energy. The nations have already spent a record $68 billion on overseas acquisitions this year, the Bloomberg data show.
Sounds like the colonies might be buying the master's home while he is obsessed with putting the colonies in their place.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
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posted 24 September 2007 11:05 AM
quote: Bricmont has one strategic suggestion for the left that I think should be taken very seriously . Given the failure of existing human rights organizations to take issues of war and economic bullying seriously, he calls for the formation of an 'imperialism watch' that would focus on all the different expressions of US/Western imperialism. Such an organization could denounce not only military invasions, but also intervention in elections, the production of new military bases, high handed economic behavior, etc. Not unlike current human rights campaigns, it might help to produce campaigns around several of these issues at once, although, unlike the human rights groups, there would of course be no hint that intervention by the West might be a relevant last resort. I can see several advantages such an organization would have over the current expressions of the peace movement. It would not hinge its existence on stopping or ending one particular war. It would not invest messianic hopes either in those who are militarily opposing the US, or in those who are electorally opposing the current regime within the US. To the extent that such an imperialism watch was successful, another world might truly be possible.
from Left Eye On Books... a review of Jean Bricmont's Humanitarian Imperialism. So there are those that call for an organization to do what Babbler Frustrated Mess has been doing individually ... Humanitarian Imperialism - A Review by Steven Sherman [ 24 September 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 26 September 2007 03:30 PM
quote: “We have to get rid of Saddam. There are two weeks left. In two weeks we will be ready militarily. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March,” Bush said in the transcript which was translated into Spanish by the newspaper.Victory would come “without destruction”, he added. The meeting between Aznar and Bush came just days after a massive protest in Madrid by more than a million people against the invasion which Aznar’s conservative government backed. Aznar tells Bush in the transcript that he needed Washington’s help to get Spanish public opinion behind the invasion. He adds that he is worried by Bush’s optimism. “I am optimistic because I believe I am right. I am at peace with myself,” Bush responded.
A million Iraqis dead and Bush was, and I'm sure is, at peace with himself. Isn't that nice.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 26 September 2007 04:55 PM
quote: Contrary to assurances from Prime Minister Harper, an SPP regulatory agreement signed at Montebello sets Canada on course toward a single North American regime for regulating industrial chemicals that will almost certainly weaken the existing Canadian regulatory system and erode policy autonomy, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.The study, by CCPA Executive Director Bruce Campbell, reveals that a sub-agreement on chemicals regulation was signed at Montebello, but it was not publicized and it was not posted on the Canadian government web site The sub-agreement commits the three NAFTA countries to harmonizing chemicals regulation in testing, research, information gathering, assessment, and risk management, as much as possible, by 2012. It also commits the three governments to work toward a single North American voice in international standard-setting bodies, which, given existing power realities, means an American voice.
Chemical goodness! What chemicals?
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 26 September 2007 04:59 PM
quote: To replace the toxic, ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide -- a favorite of stubborn U.S. berry growers -- the U.S. EPA is reportedly set to soon approve an alternative that doesn't deplete ozone but is "one of the more toxic chemicals used in manufacturing" according to opponents, including six Nobel Prize-winning chemists. Even though the replacement pesticide, methyl iodide, is injected into soils and not applied directly to crops, health advocates, including 54 scientists and physicians who wrote a letter to EPA head Stephen Johnson about their concerns, worry about "pregnant women and the unborn fetus, children, the elderly, farmworkers, and other people living near application sites" who could be at risk from exposure to the pesticide. California, which is doing its own review of the chemical, classifies it as a carcinogen. "It's extremely toxic," said Glenn Brank of California's Department of Pesticide Regulation. "We are concerned about whether or not this can be used safely." Studies have shown that chronic exposure to methyl iodide can harm the central nervous system, lungs, skin, and kidneys. But just think of the berries!
Oh. Those chemicals.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 09 October 2007 11:33 AM
quote: The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. The report by the independent inspection panel, seen by the Guardian, also accuses the bank of misleading Congo's government about the value of its forests and of breaking its own rules.Congo's rainforests are the second largest in the world after the Amazon, locking nearly 8% of the planet's carbon and having some of its richest biodiversity. Nearly 40 million people depend on the forests for medicines, shelter, timber and food.
Yes, yes, yes, but don't the Pygmies know the World Bank only wants to make them richer by driving them off their land and into the arms of roving death squads or onto the edges of slums. They just don't know what's good for them.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 09 October 2007 11:42 AM
quote: The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, located on the Mall in Washington, D.C., is a monument to historical amnesia. The blond limestone building, surrounded by indigenous crops of corn, tobacco and squash, invites visitors on a guilt-free, theme park tour of Native American history, where acknowledgment of the American genocide is in extremely bad taste. The beauty of the architecture and landscaping conceals the hollowness of the enterprise. The first two floors of the four-story building are turned over to gift shops and the cafeteria. The museum provides no information on the forced death marches, authorized by Congress, such as the Trail of Tears, the repeated treaty violations by the United States, reservations, infamous massacres such as Wounded Knee, or leaders such as Tatanka Iyotanka (Sitting Bull), Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht (Chief Joseph), Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse), or Goyathlay (Geronimo).
Holocaust denial is perfectly acceptable depending on the holocaust being denied.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 10 October 2007 06:15 PM
quote: SIRNAK, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish warplanes bombed positions of suspected Kurdish rebels Wednesday, and the prime minister said preparations for parliamentary approval of a military mission against separatist fighters in Iraq were under way.A cross-border operation could hurt Turkey's relationship with the United States, which opposes Turkish intervention in northern Iraq, a region that has escaped the violence afflicting much of the rest of the country. U.S. officials are already preoccupied with efforts to stabilize areas of Iraq outside the predominantly Kurdish northern region. Turkey and the United States are NATO allies, but ties have also been tense over a U.S. congressional bill that would label the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I as genocide. President Bush strongly urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it would do "great harm" to U.S.-Turkish relations. Turkish troops blocked rebel escape routes into Iraq while F-16 and F-14 warplanes and Cobra helicopters dropped bombs on possible hideouts, Dogan news agency reported. The military had dispatched tanks to the region to support the operation against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in response to more than a week of deadly attacks in southeastern Turkey.
Lookit, you have carried out a brutal campaign against our Kurdish (heh!heh!) allies for decades, you've previously carried out a genocide you remain in denial about, and now a wider war is threatened because those same Kurds just happen to be our allies (heh!heh!) in the phony war against Iran. But c,mon! We're friends![ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 10 October 2007 06:22 PM
quote: One of the first victims of the Bush administration’s 2002 torture policy was Abu Zubaydah, whom they called “chief of operations” for al Qaeda and bin Laden’s “number three man.” He was repeatedly tortured at the secret CIA “black sites.” They water boarded him, withheld his medication, threatened him with impending death, and bombarded him with continuous deafening noise and harsh lights.But Zubaydah wasn’t a top al Qaeda leader. Dan Coleman, one of the FBI's leading experts on al Qaeda, said of Zubaydah, "He knew very little about real operations, or strategy … He was expendable, you know, the greeter . . . Joe Louis in the lobby of Caeser's Palace, shaking hands." Moreover, Zubaydah was schizophrenic; according to Coleman, “This guy is insane, certifiable split personality.” Coleman's views were echoed at the top levels of the CIA and were communicated to Bush and Cheney. But Bush scolded CIA director George Tenet, saying, "I said [Zubaydah] was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" Zubaydah's minor role in al Qaeda and his apparent insanity were kept secret. In response to the torture, Zubaydah told his interrogators about myriad terrorist targets al Qaeda had in its sights: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statute of Liberty, shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, and apartment buildings. Al Qaeda was close to building a crude nuclear bomb, Zubaydah reported. None of this was corroborated but the Bush gang reacted to each report zealously. Moreover, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was tortured so severely – including by water boarding – that the information he provided is virtually worthless. A potentially rich source of intelligence was lost as a result of the torture.
This government does not torture people
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 10 October 2007 06:27 PM
... the fix is already in. quote: Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two and challenging peace overtures.The appropriation orders come with Israelis and Palestinians preparing for a major US-sponsored international peace summit widely expected in Maryland next month, and were immediately criticised by Arab authorities. Hassan Abed Rabbo at the Palestinian local government ministry said the late September order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. The land could create a bloc of settlements incorporating Maale Adumim and nearby Mishor Adumim and Kedar, he said, and "prevent Palestinian territorial continuity" between the West Bank and Jordan Valley.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 11 October 2007 04:22 PM
quote: As our world heats up, as pollution increases, as population grows and as our globe's resources of fresh water are tapped, we are faced with an environmental and humanitarian problem of mammoth proportions.Demand for water is doubling every 20 years, outpacing population growth twice as fast. Currently 1.3 billion people don't have access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and sanitation. In less than 20 years, it is estimated that demand for fresh water will exceed the world's supply by over 50 percent. The biggest drain on our water sources is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the water used worldwide -- much of which is subsidized in the industrial world, providing little incentive for agribusiness to use conservation measures or less water-intensive crops. This number is also likely to increase as we struggle to feed a growing world. Population is expected to rise from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2050.
Water, water ... anywhere?
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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