Lifelong reader, sometime writer with eclectic tastes and libertarian leanings. Don't hold my semi-notorious Berkeley history against me, I settled down so completely after 40 that I can barely recall my loosy-goosy self. But it sure beats going to the same party every night.
Saturday, May 30, 2009 Opposition to NAIS Dominates Listening Sessions
USDA has held five listening sessions so far, and all of them have been dominated by individuals and organizations opposed to NAIS! Pro-NAIS speakers have been few and far between, and almost entirely from a small handful of industrial agriculture organizations. Is USDA really listening?
Saturday, May 30, 2009 PREAMBLE: NEW ECONOMY, SUSTAINING ECONOMY
America's open-ended commitment to aggregate economic growth is consuming environmental and social capital, both now severely diminished. At the same time, it is abundantly clear that American society and many others do need growth along many dimensions that increase human welfare, now and in the future: growth in good jobs and in the incomes of the poor; growth in availability of health care and the efficiency of its delivery
Saturday, May 30, 2009 Review of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation
Polanyi wrote The Great Transformation during World War II. With depression and war, the previous two decades had been a cataclysmic time for the planet. His central thesis was, "The origins of the cataclysm lay in the utopian endeavor of economic liberalism to set up a self-regulating market system." The book decisively pooh-poohs many of the myths of our ruling economic doctrine. Most importantly, he eviscerates the idea of
Saturday, May 30, 2009 Spannos- Participatory Society: Urban Space & Freedom
The urban center is not only defined by relations to rural or suburban peripheries-by space, place, territory or geography-but also by a set of social and material relations that embody all societies. Every society has defining institutions which embody interpersonal roles and relations. Societies where people have very little decision-making capacity, where people have little or no say over when and where they work or live,
Friday, May 29, 2009 Vet Voice: Petraeus Says U.S. Violated Geneva Conventions -- What Will Cheney and Rush Say? (2 comments)
I recently chronicled the quickening departure of some big military names from the Republican party, those concerned about the party moving even farther to the right a number of issues, including torture. What struck me at the time is that General David Petraeus came out against torture and for closing Guantanamo. I was stunned, however, when he admitted today that the United States has violated the Geneva Conventions
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Administrative Waste Consumes 31 Percent of Health Spending (3 comments)
A definitive study of the administrative costs of the U.S. health system in the August 21, 2003 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. After analyzing the costs of insurers, employers, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and home-care agencies in both the U.S. and Canada, they found that administration consumes 31.0 percent of U.S. health spending. $350 billion per year savings is possible.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Resource Boom in Peru's Amazon Threatens Indigenous Peoples' Livelihoods and Their Rainforest Homes
Tens of thousands of indigenous people are bravely protesting Peru government's give-away of their rainforest homes to oil, mining and logging industry without their approval. Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are protesting investment laws passed under a free-trade pact with the US and against concessions granted to foreign energy companies. The focus for Amazonian development must be upon benefiting
Monday, May 25, 2009 Europe's Uprising Against GMOs and Patents on Life (4 comments)
The recent call for a moratorium on GMOs in Europe reflects an unstoppable groundswell of opposition to GMOs from both European citizens and governments. In April Germany became the sixth EU country to introduce a provisional ban on the GM maize, after France, Austria, Hungary, Luxembourg and Greece. Meanwhile, more than a thousand farmers demonstrated against patents on animals and plants
Friday, May 22, 2009 Just Say No To GMOs (3 comments)
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine says: "several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. ..."
Friday, May 22, 2009 Landmark study finds Israeli control in occupied territories 'a breach of the prohibition of apartheid' (1 comments)
An international report concludes that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories "has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid" and "The Wall and its infrastructure of gates and permanent checkpoints suggest a policy permanently to divide the West Bank into racial cantons."
Friday, May 22, 2009 FCC's Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts (1 comments)
You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Another State Rejects Real ID
This week Minnesota became the 23rd state to reject the Real ID Act of 2005 which seeks to turn state drivers licenses into national identification cards by imposing federal standards for the issuance of all state drivers licenses. The costs of implemetation remain unknown and groups from both the right and the left challenge the legislation on Constitutional grounds.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Industrial Local?
The New York Times published an article on May 12th titled When 'Local' Makes It Big, that outlines the latest attempt by Big Food to cash in on the growing sustainable food and farming movement. This time, they've gone after "local." Clearly, the term "local" can be easily misappropriated. Consumers still need to buy local AND organic
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Smart Jitney Transportation in the Coming Era of Fuel Scarcity
The Smart Jitney is a system of efficient and convenient ride sharing that addresses the problem of transportation in a post-peak oil world. The system utilizes the existing infrastructure of private automobiles and roads due to the time, expense, and difficulty of building a new transportation infrastructure amongst such a dispersed population. The goal of the system is to insure that each private car carries several people
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Activists want probe of health insurers
Health Care for America Now asks the Justice Department to crack down on industry practices that allegedly infringe on the doctor-patient relationship, and to re-examine whether dozens of insurance company mergers in recent years have undermined competition. Antitrust lawyer David Balto, who also signed the letter to the DOJ, said it would be a mistake for the Obama administration to allow private insurers to assume a leading
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Israeli Settlements and U.S. Policy (5 comments)
The Obama Administration's support of an Israeli settlement freeze echoes three decades of U.S. policy against Israeli settlements and must be linked to credible monitoring, accounting and enforcement mechanisms if his administration is to succeed where previous ones have failed.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Israel Dumps Hazardous Waste in West Bank (3 comments)
"Israel has been dumping waste, including hazardous and toxic waste, into the West Bank for years as a cheaper and easier alternative to processing it properly in Israel at appropriate hazardous waste management sites," Palestinian Environmental Authority (PEA) deputy director Jamil Mtoor told IPS. Israel exerts complete control over more than 40 percent of the West Bank.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 Gaza Reality- video (2 comments)
We're not hearing enough about real life in Gaza. Not on television, not in the newspapers and not in the speeches of politicians in Washington.
The "Gaza Reality" series of videos, fully produced in Gaza, gives an intimate, monthly close-up of what life is really like there today.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 On Bisphenol-A Policy, the Lobbyists Are in Charge
When it comes to bisphenol-A (BPA), a ubiquitous and likely dangerous chemical found in hard plastic products like water bottles, there seem to be three repeating story lines: state and local governments continue to take action, new studies continue to prove frightening, and evidence continues to surface showing that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no interest in protecting American consumers.
Monday, May 18, 2009 William Black audio: The Role of Fraud in the Financial Crisis
William Black, in a lecture in Iceland, discusses how the role of fraud in the financial crisis has been virtually ignored when he contends it was a major factor, and is also overlooked in the regulation of financial institutions.
Monday, May 18, 2009 Feudalism With A Smiling Face
The rich and powerful live in a different world from average men. They consider themselves privileged. Entitled. Untouchable. Better than the rest of us. Rules are for commoners, not royals. Welcome to feudalism with a smiling face.
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Global Farm Grab vs. Our Native Need for Food (1 comments)
In a disquieting rush to secure food supplies, financial speculators around the world are gobbling up farmland in developing nations and causing land prices to soar. Some call it the new colonialism, but most just call it an old-fashioned land grab. Land grabbing and food speculation are not just overseas phenomena; they are also happening in North America.
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Tamiflu Developer: Swine Flu May Have Been Released From A Lab (5 comments)
One of the first scientists to properly analyze the genetic makeup of the so-called swine flu virus that emerged three weeks ago in Mexico and led to fears of a global pandemic states that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory. Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that one of the simplest explanations is that it's a laboratory
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Reich: The Truth Behind the Social Security and Medicare Alarm Bells (2 comments)
Social Security is a tiny problem. Medicare is a terrible one, but the problem is not really Medicare; it's quickly rising health-care costs. Look more closely and the real problem isn't even health-care costs; it's a system that pushes up costs by rewarding inefficiency, causing unbelievable waste, pushing over-medication, providing inadequate prevention, over-using emergency rooms, and spending billions on advertising
Thursday, May 14, 2009 War crimes against children - new Gaza report (13 comments)
A new report released today reveals the true extent of child killings by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip during its 23 day offensive. War Crimes Against Children exposes the abject failure of Israeli authorities to uphold international humanitarian law, which provides protection for children in armed conflict and the lack of adequate precautions taken to distinguish between civilians and military targets.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Health Care Reform Turning Into Health Insurance Bailout (4 comments)
Mandatory purchases of private insurance policies without offering a public alternative to the private market is nothing other than a bailout for HMOs - whose greed, waste and indifference to our health have created the current mess.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Secretary of Ag Vilsack pledges to promote Big Biotech (2 comments)
While the Obama Administration has supported organics with several notable actions during its first 100 days of office, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack pledged to promote Big Biotech abroad as part of President Obama's foreign policy. Tell him this is a bad idea. We want a sustainable agri. policy!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 PsySR: Questions for APA about Torture
Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) has called for an independent national commission to fully investigate U.S. torture and prisoner abuse under the Bush Administration and call for the commission to determine whether the American Psychological Association (APA) knowingly cooperated with the Department of Defense and the CIA in helping to plan and facilitate torture.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Army's Prescription to Combat Solider Suicides: Christianity
A recent edition of the U.S. Army's suicide prevention manual advises military chaplains to promote "religiosity," specifically Christianity, as a way to deter distraught soldiers from committing suicide, which in recent months, according to one veterans advocacy group, has reached epidemic proportions.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 The Neo-Liberal Debacle: More than Banking Needs to Change
The first priority of governments is to get the economy moving again and people back into work. Now that the myth of the market has been so obviously demolished, however, they should ignore what Soros calls the "market fundamentalists" and put in place measures designed to stop it going wrong again. And rich nations should stop imposing the neo-liberal model that has been thoroughly discredited on the rest of the world.
Monday, May 11, 2009 Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police
Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybody's movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday. However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was "more than a little troubled" by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals.
Sunday, May 10, 2009 Press Buries the GAO's Damning Report on the SEC
A General Accountability Office report on the SEC this week reported that former chairman Christopher Cox "created an atmosphere in which enforcement attorneys believed their ability to bring actions against corporate wrongdoers had been weakened" and the staff lacked in-house expertise on pretty much all the fancy financial instruments without which we would not have this crisis.
Saturday, May 9, 2009 Durban Review Conference, Racism, And the Clash of Civilizations (3 comments)
As European Jews for a Just Peace chair Dror Feiler asks, "Is it really such a scandal to describe Israel as a racist country? what else can we call a nation whose policies make crucial differences between people, based on religion and ethnicity? What should we call a state under whose laws everyone is not equal? What should we call the practice of granting exclusive land-leasing rights to Jewish citizens?"
Saturday, May 9, 2009 Digby: Exceptional Dissonance
The moral dissonance on torture is so extreme that it's no wonder everyone wants it to just go away. If we confront what's really happened then we have to admit that what this country did (is doing?) was no different than the North Vietnamese and the Chinese and the Soviets and the North Koreans. If that truth is ever accepted and the myth of American exceptionalism is finally retired, I'm not sure how the right goes on.
Saturday, May 9, 2009 Friday Movie Night - Slave Economics Edition
One of the things so often overlooked in America today is not too long ago, the ultimate productive labor unit was the enslaved one. Below is a documentary on China labor and two American slave history documentaries with a focus on slavery economics.
Friday, May 8, 2009 The Subprime Court
By now everyone knows the new Supreme Court tilts to the right. What's less known is the court's newly expanded function as an institution of corporate power. Since Bush's appointments, the court has begun hearing far more business cases and, in case after case, has "pushed the law in a direction favored by business," as the Wall Street Journal reports.
Friday, May 8, 2009 Obama's Violin: Populist rage and the uncertain containment of change
The standard historic pattern of Democratic Party co-optation and surrender is currently trying to repeat itself amidst epic economic crisis and imperial disruption. David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official, commented on the president's corporatist and militarist transition team and cabinet with a musical analogy- "the violin model: you hold power with the left hand and you play the music with the right"
Friday, May 8, 2009 Concerned Scientists Offer Online Column on the Science of Agriculture
A new online UCS column, "The Real Scoop," will offer a science-based perspective on industrial-style agriculture. Written by Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist and author of the report Failure to Yield, the column will cover genetic engineering, CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations), and other food production methods that have enormous impacts on human health, the environment, and society.
Friday, May 8, 2009 Genetically engineered crops banned from national wildlife refuge
A federal court has ordered the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to stop planting genetically engineered (GE) crops on its Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. While the ruling is limited to Prime Hook, the lawsuit may serve as a model for similar litigation at more than 80 other national wildlife refuges now growing GE crops across the country.
Friday, May 8, 2009 4 Reasons Why 'Modern' Agriculture Is Bad For You
Here are four of the negative effects of industrial agriculture on the well-being of people and the ecosystems we depend on: Genital feminization of male humans and animals caused by ag chemicals. Herbicides linked to cancer, neurological disorders. Antibiotics fed to livestock have created antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Plants absorb antibiotics from soil amendments.
Thursday, May 7, 2009 Argentine Herbicide Lawsuit Alarms GM Soy Farmers (9 comments)
An environmental group filed suit in April before the Supreme Court, seeking a ban on glyphosate, a weed killer used with genetically modified soybeans that has helped fuel Argentina's soy boom by dramatically boosting yields. The lawsuit cited potential health dangers of the herbicide signaled in an unpublished study by Andres Carrasco, embryology professor at the University of Buenos Aires and researcher at the National Scie
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Cashing in on 'Government Sachs'
The fact that the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank made millions off his secret purchase of Goldman Sachs stock, "in violation of Federal Reserve policy," as the WSJ put it, at a time when the New York Fed was ostensibly overseeing the antics of the Wall Street firm, has barely registered a blip of outrage.
And it was facilitated by Geithner. These jackals belong in jail.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Gaza Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty
Countless fruit groves across the Gaza Strip are now gone, entire farms bulldozed. The remains of thousands of destroyed homes emit toxic asbestos, while dilapidated infrastructure dumps raw sewage into the Mediterranean Sea. An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war. Over 20,000 buildings and 5,000 homes were destroyed, rubble has yet to be cleared as a
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Hedges: Buying Brand Obama
Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. It's about being happy consumers, being lulled into supporting a lot of things not in our interest.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Can the Neocons Jump to the Dems? (1 comments)
Like the parasite that eventually kills its host, the Republican Party's virtual collapse, in large part because of the failed nation-building adventure in Iraq, has left neoconservatives discredited and facing policy extinction. Unfortunately, neoconservatism will probably live on by changing hosts and infecting the Democrats. Many Clintonians share the neoconservatives' passion for armed social work and nation-building.
Monday, May 4, 2009 New Stress Trial Balloon Floated
Tthere might be method in the seeming madness of changing dates and shifting sneak previews via favored members of the press as to what the stress tests might entail. Tire out the critics, numb the casual followers, and leave the boosters in firm control of share of mind. Let's face it, the fact that the authorities are allowing banks to negotiate the findings is a very very bad sign.
Sunday, May 3, 2009 GM Fails To Boost Crop Yields (17 comments)
An important new report from Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman, a former biotech specialist with the EPA who is now with the Union of Concerned Scientists, shows that "despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields." Recent studies have shown that organic and similar farming methods can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers
Sunday, May 3, 2009 First genetic analysis of swine flu
The first genetic analysis of how well this virus transmits from person to person concludes that it spreads barely well enough to keep itself going. But it may be too early for celebrations. The 1918 flu pandemic, caused by another H1N1 virus, started with a mild, early wave in spring and early summer and the virus began its lethal second wave the following autumn.
Sunday, May 3, 2009 Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms
Scientists have traced the genetic lineage of the new H1N1 swine flu to a strain that emerged in 1998 in U.S. factory farms, where it spread and mutated at an alarming rate. Experts warned then that a pocket of the virus would someday evolve to infect humans, perhaps setting off a global pandemic. The new findings challenge recent protests by pork industry leaders that industrial farms shouldn't be implicated
Saturday, May 2, 2009 I can call someone Hitler or a Nazi, but you can't. (1 comments)
Fresh from witnessing a neoconservative Hudson Institute-sponsored Alan Dershowitz/Jon Voight et al tirade smearing everyone from Hamas and Hezbollah to Ahmadinejad and, well, most Palestinians, as Nazis and Hitlers, it should come as no surprise that a {Jewish] professor is now actually being investigated by the Anti-Defamation League and his employers for suggesting a comparison between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto.
Saturday, May 2, 2009 Are Your Tax Dollars Being Used to Fund Human Rights Abuses in Gaza?
The US government is planning to pour more money- billions of dollars- to continue this madness. Tell them what happened in Gaza and ask them to investigate. Gaza's streets are littered with "made-in-the-US" ammunitions; Gaza's schools with "made-in-the-US" phosphorus.
Friday, May 1, 2009 Why Congress Won't Investigate Wall Street
Republicans and Democrats would find themselves in the hot seat: understanding our problems, this time around, would require our political leaders to examine themselves. The crisis today is not solely one of bank misbehavior. This is also about the failure of the regulators -- the Wall Street policemen who dozed peacefully as the crime of the century went off beneath the window.
Friday, May 1, 2009 Gagging on Google (1 comments)
Google is to privacy and respect for intellectual property rights what the Taliban are to women's rights and civil liberties: a daunting threat that must be fought relentlessly by all those who value privacy and the right to exercise, within the limits of the law, control over the uses made by others of their intellectual property. The internet search engine company should be regulated rigorously, defanged, broken up
Friday, May 1, 2009 Are the Markets Too Complacent About Swine Flu?
Perhaps because so few market players studied science, or have a current link to science, they seem not to realize that the world's virologists and flu experts are in a state of nail-biting, ashen-faced, fear.
Friday, May 1, 2009 Massachusetts--Martial Law Bill S18 (2 comments)
In response to the recent Swine flu outbreak, MA Bill- S18 gives the Governor power to authorize the deployment and use of force to distribute supplies and materials, and gives local authorities the permission to enter private residences for investigation and to quarantine individuals. Basically during an "emergency" our state can and will declare martial law; you lose your Constitutional rights.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 The "Jewish Conspiracy" behind the Durban Review Conference
It's no secret who was behind the effort to discredit the 2009 Durban Review Conference in Geneva. For nearly a year before the anti-racism confab, Jewish and pro-Israel groups lobbied hard to get Western countries to boycott the gathering, and actually did conspire, albeit openly, to sabotage the conference. Organizers and participants did not want to point the finger at them for fear of being labled anti-Semites.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Golden Rice and Hazards of GMOs (19 comments)
Last year it was revealed that Tufts University in Boston has been carrying out 'clinical trials' of Golden Rice on children. More than 30 senior scientists and academics signed an open letter condemning the work. The Golden Rice in the trials (GR2) was not one identifiable variety but was an experimental collection of transgenic events still in the laboratory, not tested pre-clinically on animals, or subjected to any safety
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Swine Flu: Twitter's Power To Misinform :
Who knew that swine flu could also infect Twitter? Unlike basic internet search - which has been already been nicely used by Google to track emerging flu epidemics - Twitter seems to have introduced too much noise into the process, the "swine flu" Twitter-scare has once again proved the importance of context - and how badly most Twitter conversations are hurt by the lack of it.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Swine Flu: The Guardian explores the Smithfield connection Bonnie's Sustainable Blog: All about sustainable farming (1 comments)
The U.S. media is ignoring the possible factory farm link to Swine Flu. A 2008 study commissioned by the Pew Foundation underscores how factory farms are putting public health at risk by serving as a breeding ground for diseases that can afflict people as well as pigs. No one is safe when the same problems that plagued our financial system were allowed to infect our food supply as well. Rules were written to benefit the corpor
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Bacevich: Farewell, the American Century (1 comments)
The central theme of the American Century has been one of righteousness overcoming evil. The persistence of this self-congratulatory account deprives Americans of self-awareness, hindering our efforts to navigate the treacherous waters in which the country finds itself at present. Bluntly, we are perpetuating a mythic version of the past that never even approximated reality and today has become downright malignant.
Saturday, April 25, 2009 Swine Flu Is Deadly Mix Of Never-Before-Seen Viruses (4 comments)
Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst, and that the bug is a never-before-seen mixture of human, avian and pig viruses from America, Europe and Asia. Clues that the virus may be a synthetic creation are already manifes
Saturday, April 25, 2009 CDC - Key Facts about Swine Influenza (Swine Flu)
In the past, CDC received reports of approximately one human swine influenza virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported.
The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing.
Friday, April 24, 2009 UK government's moral compass shattered beyond repair (Don't trust the Democrats to do any better)
This is what happens when governments lose the plot and they become accident-prone. Things fall apart. The centre does not hold. The Number 10 director of strategy, Damian McBride, was caught proposing to smear opposition MPs with crude sexual innuendo. Headline writers were amused when it emerged that the Tory immigration spokesman had been threatened with life imprisonment for leaking an embarrassing memo.
Friday, April 24, 2009 UK government's moral compass shattered beyond repair (Don't trust the Democrats to do any better)
This is what happens when governments lose the plot and they become accident-prone. Things fall apart. The centre does not hold. The Number 10 director of strategy, Damian McBride, was caught proposing to smear opposition MPs with crude sexual innuendo. Headline writers were amused when it emerged that the Tory immigration spokesman had been threatened with life imprisonment for leaking an embarrassing memo.
Friday, April 24, 2009 Richard Cook- A Meditation on Our Monetary System: State of Permanent Siege (1 comments)
THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together over a century ago by Cecil Rhodes and his friends. In a state of permanent siege we would trade all our libe
Thursday, April 23, 2009 'Israelis Prepared for Violations' (2 comments)
After the internal investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers in the course of the Gaza assault was closed suspiciously fast, a brief overview of publications by army officials, published months before the start of the war, suggests the reported misconduct was policy and not coincidence. "The operations were part of the military strategy called the 'Dahiyah policy', being that of indiscriminate killing and the use o
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 Sleep Scientists: Research Twisted to Justify Torture (Updated)
A 2005 memo from the Bush administration argued that it was okay for CIA interrogators to keep terror suspects awake for seven and a half days straight -- because "even very extended sleep deprivation does not cause physical pain," backed up by citing the work of a number of leading university researchers on sleep. Now, those professors are saying that their work was horribly misused.
Saturday, April 18, 2009 Big Food, Bigger Lies (2 comments)
The food industry is as bad as the tobacco industry for lying about the health effects of their products. In a New York Times article that ran this past weekend, James E. McWilliams said that locavores are ruining food. His proposed alternative, the concentrated animal feeding operations of industrial agriculture, are themselves a health hazard to their workers and neighbors.
Thursday, April 16, 2009 Is Geithner's Hedge-Fund Bailout Illegal?
Much of Geithner's new $100 billion program to help Wall Street hedge funds purchase "toxic assets" from banks-and which could put us on the hook for up to $500 billion-doesn't involve subprime mortgages at all. Instead, about half of that money goes to a Legacy Loans Program to help hedge funds purchase relatively conventional loans.
Thursday, April 16, 2009 CBS TV's "60 Minutes" this Sunday: "Cold Fusion Is Hot Again"
Low-energy nuclear reactions, historically known as "cold fusion," will get their 12 minutes of fame on CBS TV's "60 Minutes" Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in a program titled "Cold Fusion Is Hot Again." Three weeks ago, researchers from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Pacific made headlines with unambiguous evidence of nuclear particle emissions from their LENR experiments.
Monday, April 13, 2009 The Politics of Starvation (3 comments)
"They're always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us," says Alaa Samour (19), pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. These are the most fertile and productive agricultural areas, the 'food basket' areas. At the end of Israel's three weeks of attacks on Gaza December-January which left more than 1,450 dead, Israeli authorities declared an expansion of the 'buffer zone' into what they dubbed a no-go zone
Saturday, April 11, 2009 Your Favorite 'Natural' Brands May Not Be What They Seem (4 comments)
Many of the products you may trust and respect for their independence and social responsibility are now owned by big corporations that are going out of their way to hide their link to the small, socially responsible brands. Links for "where to find locally harvested organic foods" and a "list of sustainable agriculture options" are included in article comments.
Friday, April 10, 2009 Socialism has failed. Now capitalism is bankrupt. So what comes next? (8 comments)
We have not yet learned to live in the 21st century, or at least to think in a way that fits it. The future, like the present and the past, belongs to mixed economies in which public and private are braided together in one way or another. But how? The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening opportunities
Friday, April 10, 2009 Coal Ash On Our Fields
You've heard about Zero Waste models for industry? Instead of bothering with the expense and hassle of proper disposal, many toxin-producing industries sell their waste as fertilizer. Waste gets transformed into saleable product. Fertilizer and other agricultural chemicals only have to report their N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) content so we have no idea what's been put on the fields where our food is grown.
Thursday, April 9, 2009 State Secrets Claims Test Democrats' Commitment to Oversight (2 comments)
Caroline Frederickson, director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Justice Department's latest use of the claim "makes it even more clear that we need a statutory framework, because we can't trust any administration to judge what's an appropriate claim of secrecy."
Thursday, April 9, 2009 Climate Change Comes to Your Backyard
USDA revises its plant hardiness map, bringing climate change down to earth for millions of households across the country. The guide, last updated in 1990, shows where various species can be expected to thrive. Experts who have helped with the revision expect the new map to extend plants' northern ranges and paint a sharp picture of the continent's gradual warming over the past few decades.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Willem Buiter: "Non-Negligible" Risk of Default by US and UK
Willem Buiter takes no prisoners. In his latest post, "The green shoots are weeds growing through the rubble in the ruins of the global economy", he dispatches the idea that recovery is around the corner. He also says that Simon Johnsom may be correct in his view that the government is captured by the finance sector, not merely by subscribing to their world view, as he has argued before, but in the mercenary sense.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Corporate Monopoly of Science (3 comments)
Corporations are aiming for an absolute stranglehold on scientific research and the flow of scientific information; that's why patents on GM crops should be abolished. In advance of two meetings on GM crops the EPA was holding earlier this year, twenty six scientists submitted a statement protesting "technology/stewardship agreements" which inhibit them from doing research for the public good.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Greenwald: The Virtues of Public Anger (1 comments)
The anti-anger consensus among our political elites is exactly wrong. The public rage we're finally seeing is long,long overdue, and appears to be the only force with both the ability and will to impose meaningful checks on continued kleptocratic pillaging and deep-seated corruption in virtually every branch of our establishment institutions. What we have is a political class and financial elite that is rotted to the core
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Declass Board Tells Obama Openness is "At Risk"
In a new letter to President Obama, the Public Interest Declassification Board warned that reliable public access to government information, the very foundation of representative democracy, may be in jeopardy. "Future historians may find that the paper records of early American history provide a more reliable historical account than the inchoate mass of digital communications of the current era."
Monday, March 23, 2009 "The Market Is Not a Deity And We Are Not At Its Mercy"
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches is challenging neoliberal beliefs that ''unrestrained competition, consumerism and the unlimited economic growth and accumulation of wealth are the best for the whole world'' and for ''claiming to be without alternative, demanding an endless flow of sacrifices from the poor and creation...and demanding total allegiance which amounts to idolatry.''
Monday, March 23, 2009 New Green Deal or Not: Industrial Capitalism Is Assured Death
A New Green Deal must do more than provide continued employment in the speculative, industrial growth machine that is consuming the Earth's ecosystems. I am against green jobs, if the emphasis upon jobs includes more economic growth on the back of ecosystem harm. Nothing grows forever. And certainly not industrial and speculative capitalism which kills all it encounters through explosive growth.
Sunday, March 22, 2009 Joe O'Sullivan: my day with antonia
I've been a cop almost 20 years. I don't have any doubt that I'm a coarser person now than I was 20 years ago. An average cop, assuming that he's not working in some urban hellhole or high-crime area, does not spend all that much time dealing with actual criminals. We spend most of our time dealing with people who've ended up with us because some other, every other, system or safety net has broken.
Saturday, March 21, 2009 MATT TAIBBI: The Big Takeover
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution. So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity.
Friday, March 20, 2009 Hasbara Handbook: How to pretend to debate while smashing your opponent (7 comments)
There really is a Hasbara Handbook. You can download your very own copy right now - this one, by the World Union of Jewish Students, is from 2002 and aims to help students make the case for Israel. You could, the book suggests, try one of two methods. You could engage in real debate or you could "point score." As it says on page 9 under the title "How to score points whilst avoiding debate", and no I did not make this up:
Friday, March 20, 2009 Alan Nasser: A Real-World Stimulus Plan (3 comments)
The financial crisis was initiated by defaults on fraudulently inflated mortgage obligations. A direct approach would engage the problem of negative equity by acknowledging the disparity between the real value of the house and the size of the mortgage. This means writing down the mortgages to correspond to the real value of the house and the ability of the homeowner to pay.
Friday, March 20, 2009 Further accounts of Gaza killings released (3 comments)
In the two months since Israel ended its military assault on Gaza, Palestinians and international rights groups have accused it of excessive force and wanton killing. Now testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property that is sure to inflame the debate about the army's conduct in Gaza.
Monday, March 16, 2009 Monsanto's assault on agriculture
Monsanto is a corporation reviled for its genetic tampering and attempts to seize control of agriculture around the world. While trying to change its public persona into one of benevolence towards the public, the history of Monsanto is littered with continuous efforts to not only seize control of food production, but also supply. Monsanto's history also includes lives destroyed either financially and/or physically
Monday, March 16, 2009 American critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces (3 comments)
Tristan Anderson from California has been critically injured in the village of Ni'lin after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister. The gas canister does not make a noise when fired or emit a smoke tail and has a propeller to accelerate the weapon mid-air. A combination of the canister's high velocity and silence is extremely dangerous. Tristan Anderson was shot as Israeli forces attacked unarmed demonstr
Monday, March 16, 2009 A Plea for Help for a Great Local Farm (1 comments)
and Local Harvest CSA farmer Susan Jutz. Please lend her all the support you can... "As many of you know, last fall I canceled my annual farm tour and harvest event activities at my farm because Johnson County Planning and Zoning decided my "harvest event" was not an acceptable use of my land as a farmer and therefore required me to have a "special event" permit. (The Cost: $250 per event, a lengthy and complicated application
Monday, March 16, 2009 The Freeman Affair: Is the Israel Lobby Running Scared? (1 comments)
Judging by the outcome of the Charles W. Freeman affair this week, it might seem as if the Israeli lobby is fearsome indeed. Seen more broadly, however, the controversy over Freeman could be the Israel lobby's Waterloo. On March 10th, Freeman bowed out, but not with a whimper. In a letter to friends and colleagues, he launched a defiant, departing counterstrike that may have helped to change the very nature of Washington polit
Saturday, March 14, 2009 The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal
In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs. Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug use as a criminal offense.
Friday, March 13, 2009 Google Begins Behavioral Targeting Ad Program
Google launched its behavioral targeting ad program, which it calls "interest-based advertising." this week. EFF is concerned about behavioral targeting, because it means that information about how you use the web is collected, stored
and associated with a cookie on your browser, which can track you across different websites and online services. We worked with Google to seek a new solution, an opt-out plug in.
Friday, March 13, 2009 The Human Cost of Cheap Food
Chances are that if you've eaten a domestic tomato this winter, you've eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a modern-day slave. As the logistics of industrial food systems often require, exploitation is a key ingredient in feeding our desire for out-of-season produce. Workers are paid only 45 cents for every 32-pound basket of tomatoes they pick, which almost ensures a cycle of endemic poverty.
Friday, March 13, 2009 Global Warming Deniers, Delayers Gather for Unreality Check (12 comments)
The world's largest gathering of climate change deniers convened in New York City this week for its annual confusion of climate and weather, science fact and fiction, and criticism of Al Gore. Global Warming blogger Ed Humes covers the group's wackier claims, including -- of course -- a mention of Adolf Hitler. It wouldn't be conspiracy without some Nazi comparisons!
Thursday, March 12, 2009 Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries (6 comments)
Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Charles Freeman's statement on shameful smear campaign
Chas Freeman says: "I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country....It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Bishop supports rapist over child who was raped- because she had an abortion
Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife excommunicated the doctor, the child's mother and the medical team involved in the procedure. However, the stepfather was not excommunicated, with Sobrinho telling Globo TV that, "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life." ...more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Quote For The Day (2 comments)
"In the U.S., you can advocate torture, illegal spying, and completely optional though murderous wars and be appointed to the highest positions. But you can't, apparently, criticize Israeli actions too much or question whether America's blind support for Israel should be re-examined," - Glenn Greenwald.
