June 30, 2008

ACTIVISM: CALL FOR CANADIAN PARTICIPANTS - WAR CRIMES CONFERENCE

I am taking Canadian names to attend the conference and asking for HELP.

Virginia
ladybroadoak@gmail.com


http://velvelonnationalaffairs.com/


Prosecuting For War Crimes: As Lincoln Said, The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone, But For A Vast Future.

June 24, 2008

Re: Prosecuting For War Crimes: As Lincoln Said, The Battle Of Today
Is Not For Today Alone, But For A Vast Future.

In the last essay he wrote before his death, Arthur Schlesinger spoke of “national stupidity.” Here is what he said:

Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity -- the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. Thirty years ago we suffered military defeat -- fighting an unwinnable war against a country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests at stake. Vietnam was bad enough, but to repeat the same experiment thirty years later in Iraq is a strong argument for a case of national stupidity.

This writer has expressed the same thought here many times, perhaps in more Runyanesque language. It has been said, on several occasions, “After Viet Nam, who would’ve thunk it?”

“[N]ational stupidity.” “Who would’ve thunk it?”. Yet it happened a second time. After Viet Nam no one thought it could happen again, and Congress took steps to assure it couldn’t, such as enacting the War Powers Act, reining in the CIA, and banning electronic eavesdropping of Americans by the NSA. But it did happen again and worse -- worse because today we not only have a years-long unwinnable war, but also torture, kidnappings and renderings to foreign countries for torture, many years of detention without trial of people who are innocent, the use of massive private armies to help carry out Executive policies, electronic spying on anyone and everyone the Executive wishes, suppression of the media far beyond anything experienced during Viet Nam, reducing Congress to an impotency exceeding that of Viet Nam, the use of Executive Branch lawyers to write professionally incompetent, secret memoranda giving clearance to awful policies, and the use of retired generals who are making a fortune from the Pentagon to spread its gospel on the mainstream media.

Once again, as occurred after Viet Nam, people are likely to reflexively think it cannot happen again. But what assurance is there that five or ten or twenty or thirty years down the road, when some militarists or reactionaries might again come to power, we will not get Iraq redux, just as Iraq was Viet Nam redux? We have been shocked once. What is to prevent the possibility of being shocked again? There are cultural reasons for a potential Iraq redux that go back to the very beginning of American history. They have been written of extensively in two journal articles that are now on the internet, with shortened versions of them having been picked up by numerous websites. (The articles are by Professor Michael Sherry of Northwestern University and by me.) Briefly put, the reasons for another possible redux include:

· The nation largely does not know, and ignores, history.

· A national penchant for violence.

· Hubris.

· Misbegotten, factually incorrect philosophies.

· Lies, distortions, and delusions.

· To the extent we consider history, viewing it through the prism of wars.

· A desire to maintain American power at a preeminent level.

· Congressional abdication of responsibility and congressional cowardice, coupled with Executive seizure of power.

· The fact that America itself has not suffered the ravages of war internally in any extensive way since the Civil War.

· Hollywood (i.e., The John Wayne syndrome).

· The South’s military culture coupled with its political power.

· Massive standing military forces and the added possibility of a draft.

· Public gullibility.

· The tenets of religious fundamentalism.

· Nearly uncontrolled nationalism.

· The fact that leaders’ families face no risks.

· Lack of accountability.


Because of these reasons we have, over the course of our history, fought, often repeatedly, the Indians, the French, the British, the Barbary States, the Mexicans, each other (in the Civil War), the Spanish, the Germans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Russians (at the end of World War I and in the air over Korea), the Viet Namese, the Panamanians, the Serbs, the Iraqis, and many others as well, such as the Haitians and the Grenadians. There are few other peoples who can “boast” such a historical record of wars, except perhaps imperial Rome and imperial Great Britain.

So the idea that in future we will not repeat the mistakes of Iraq would appear, on the basis of cultural factors and history, to be as likely to prove forlorn as the idea that World War I was the war to end all wars or the idea that we would not repeat Viet Nam. The forlornness is only the greater because American politicians, media and citizens continue to see the world as a place that could require military action against countries ranging from middle eastern theocracies and/or autocracies, like Iran, to China. Any politician who took a different position, a more pacific position, would be derided as “soft,” and probably could not win election.

What to do then to try to increase the possibility that America will not get into more misbegotten wars in the future and, if it does get into war, will not torture people, kill prisoners, spy on its own citizens, and commit other atrocious acts. There is only one thing to do: that is to hold American leaders to account for their actions so that in future other leaders will not repeat the actions for fear that they will likewise be held to account.

But domestic politics has proven useless in holding our leaders to account -- Lyndon Johnson retired to his ranch, George Bush was reelected and will retire to his, Nixon received a pardon and went back to San Clemente, McNamara became the long time President of the World Bank, Kissinger became richer and richer (and secretly advised Bush and Cheney on Iraq), nobody expects Rumsfeld to suffer, Wolfowitz was given a sinecure (which he blew) at the World Bank, lawyers who facilitated the misdeeds, such as Jay Bybee and John Yoo, are federal judges or professors at leading law schools.

Because domestic politics are obviously useless for holding the guilty accountable, we must try to do what was done in the 1940s to the leaders of nations who committed evil; we must try to do what was done to the German and Japanese leaders from top Nazis and Tojo right down to lawyers and judges. We must try to have them held accountable in courts of law. And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top Germans and Japanese.

America’s Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg, Justice Robert Jackson, said we were invoking principles that would govern our nation as well as our defeated enemies. We must attempt to make a truth teller of Jackson, instead of allowing our leaders to make a liar of him.

Today, there is no accountability for our leaders, nor do their own families face death on the front lines as occurred during the Civil War (when several Cabinet officials’ sons or brothers faced battle) and World War II (when one of FDR’s sons participated in extraordinarily dangerous missions in the Pacific). Today there are, rather, only very different factors -- factors that make it easy and safe for leaders to fight wars: there are half trillion dollar appropriations, huge standing military forces which the President orders into combat all around the world at the proverbial drop of a hat, a compliant Congress that refuses to do its duty, and an incompetent, if not venal, mainstream media. Not unless leaders fear prison or the gallows for actions that violate law will there be anything to check the next headlong rush to war for allegedly good reasons that later prove false, as with Mexico, Spain, Viet Nam or Iraq, a headlong rush to war regardless of whether it occurs under a McCain (who never met a war he didn’t like), an Obama, or someone whose name has not yet surfaced, and regardless of whether the headlong rush were otherwise to occur one year from now or five years from now or twenty years from now or thirty years from now.

There will, of course, be those who say that even if a precedent for punishment is established, future leaders will ignore the possibility of criminal punishment. Not so. Even the current crop of leaders were very concerned that they might be legally held to account, notwithstanding that American leaders have never before been held to account. It was the fear of being held to account in courts even though this had never happened before that led the Executive to commission exonerating legal memoranda from the John Yoos and their ilk in the Department of Justice and the Pentagon. For George Bush, Richard Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger to swing, or even for them to spend years in jail, would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders. It is not amiss to note that leaders of Germany and Japan from the end of World War II until today have never advocated the kinds of policies advocated by generations of their predecessors. There are several reasons for this, but one cannot discount the importance of the leaders’ knowledge that their predecessors swung in the 1940s.

There are also those who will say that American courts will never call this country’s leaders, or their minions like John Yoo, to account. That almost surely is true now and will likely remain true for at least ten or twenty years, even though library stacks and internet servers already are fairly bulging with books, journal articles, internet essays, legal complaints, newspaper articles and other materials showing that horrendous crimes have been committed, and more evidence of and reasons for guilt are in process of being written down. (Our courts are unlikely to act because, unlike in Germany or Iraq, our courts will be branches of the same government which committed the horrible acts, and will include deeply conservative political and judicial supporters of the acts.) But, as we have already seen in the last few years, in Italy, Germany and France, there are courts, and there also are international tribunals, that will prosecute these people, either in person if they dare venture abroad so they can be caught there, or in absentia if necessary. Even trials and convictions in absentia of current leaders would send a powerful message to future ones. And who knows, perhaps someday in the distant future even American courts may be willing to punish the criminal miscreants, or to at least admit that serious crimes have been committed (just as American judges ultimately admitted defacto, decades later, the horribly miscreant nature of the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II).

There will also be those who say, as is so typically American, that we should simply put Iraq behind us, should not seek “revenge” upon those responsible for it, and should just get on with life. But that was said about Viet Nam in its day, helped lead to Iraq, and was largely responsible for the pardon of Nixon which taught American leaders like Bush and Cheney that they can evade punishment for horrible actions. The “forget the past and get on with life” philosophy should not be indulged now any more than we indulged it with the Germans and Japanese. Otherwise we will get more Viet Nams and more Iraqs because leaders will know they can get away with anything, will suffer no consequences to themselves.

In his own time, in the vast cauldron of the Civil War, Lincoln said that the battle of today is not for today alone, but for a vast future. That is equally true of the necessity of bringing to book the men who have led us to disaster twice in one lifetime, in Viet Nam and Iraq. The battle to impose criminal responsibility upon them is not for today alone, but to safeguard a vast future. Otherwise the future will be threatened by Executive lawlessness undertaken because of knowledge that leaders need fear no personal consequences, the future will be threatened by the possibility of more Viet Nams, more Iraqs, more violent denials of basic civil liberties because leaders -- especially leaders of a militaristic or highly conservative cast of mind -- will know they need fear no personal consequences.

It is for all these reasons that I have called a conference to be held in Andover, MA on September 13 and 14, 2008. The conference is entitled Planning For The Prosecution Of High Level American War Criminals. The Conference is not intended to be only a discussion of violations of law that have occurred. Although discussions of ideas and facts showing violations of law will take place, library stacks and the internet are, as said, already bulging with materials showing violations (although in the last analysis decisions on violations will be made by judges if leaders are brought to justice). The Conference, rather, is intended to also be a planning conference, one at which plans will be laid, and necessary organizational structures will be set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and to the ends of the earth in order to bring them before the bar of justice. The underlying law and facts will be discussed in the context of laying plans to pursue the guilty in courtrooms so that in future there may be no more Viet Nams, no more Iraqs.

The topics which will be discussed, and subjects on which plans will be laid, already include the following:


1. Brief introductory remarks stressing that the crimes and misconduct have now occurred twice in forty years -- in Viet Nam and then again in Iraq -- and that the high level perpetrators need to be punished (as occurred at Nuremberg and Tokyo in 1946) in order to insure that people will not do these things again (as the Germans and Japanese have not committed their crimes again).

2. A discussion of his recent book, The Torture Team, by Philippe Sands, including how Executive Branch lawyers failed in their duties (yet remained in power or gained soft landings (as, e.g., federal judges and professors at leading law schools)).

3. What domestic and international crimes were committed, which facts show crimes under which laws, and what punishments are possible.

4. What high level Executive officials (and federal judges and legislators too, if any) are chargeable with crimes.

5. What international tribunals, foreign tribunals and domestic tribunals (if any) can be used, and how to begin and prosecute cases in front of them.

6. What cases have already been brought, with what results and the reasons for the results.

7. What must be done to make the question of prosecutions an issue in the 2008 political campaign and to have the question become a significant subject in the media and on the internet.

8(a). Creating an umbrella coordinating committee with representatives from the various -- and increasing number of -- organizations that are involved in cases.

(b). Creating a Center to keep track of and organize compilations of relevant briefs, articles, books, opinions, facts, etc.

9. The possibility of having a Chief Prosecutor’s office ala Nuremberg.

10. Review and summary of the action items that have been decided upon.


Both experts and the public are invited to the Conference. It will be held at 500 Federal Street in Andover, Massachusetts, from 10 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, September 13 and 14. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners will be provided, and will be covered by a conference charge of $125. Hotel rooms will be available a mile away, at the Wyndham Hotel, for 99 dollars per night, with buses available to take attendees to and return them from the conference.

Anyone who wants to attend the conference should contact my special assistant, Jeff Demers, at demers@mslaw.edu or at (978) 681-0800.*


* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to comment on the post, on the general topic of the post, or on the comments of others, you can, if you wish, post your comment on my website, VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com. All comments, of course, represent the views of their writers, not the views of Lawrence R. Velvel or of the Massachusetts School of Law. If you wish your comment to remain private, you can email me at Velvel@VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com.

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast. To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page. The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com

In addition, one hour long television book shows, shown on Comcast, on which Dean Velvel, interviews an author, one hour long television panel shows, also shown on Comcast, on which other MSL personnel interview experts about important subjects, conferences on historical and other important subjects held at MSL, presentations by authors who discuss their books at MSL, a radio program (What The Media Won’t Tell You) which is heard on the World Radio Network (which is on Sirrus and other outlets in the U.S.), and an MSL journal of important issues called The Long Term View, can all be accessed on the internet, including by video and audio. For TV shows go to: www.mslaw.edu/about_tv.htm; for book talks go to: www.notedauthors.com; for conferences go to: www.mslawevents.com; for The Long Term View go to: www.mslaw.edu/about­_LTV.htm; and for the radio program go to: www.velvelonmedia.com.

Nuremberg-eyewitness to history

Fill in the blanks 2008.

"Each defendant was accused of one or more of four charges: conspiracy to commit crimes alleged in other counts; crimes against peace; war crimes; or crimes against humanity. Specific charges included the murder of over" 1,000,000 Iraqis, "pursuing an aggressive war, the brutality of the" FORCED OCCUPATION, "and the use of" ILLEGAL WEAPONS, Link CLICK HERE http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfnuremberg.htm

Iraq "WAR CRIMES REPORT" is fully documented, distributed worldwide, translated into Arabic, describes the war crimes committed in Iraq from the very first day of the invasion, those responsible, and proposes "a mechanism for accountability" Link CLICK HERE http://www.consumersforpeace.org/pdf/war_crimes_iraq_101006.pdf

George W. Guilty of Murder?
A prominent lawyer lays out a compelling case in THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER. Staggering evidence is collected against the president in a startling new book.
"The preferable venue for the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder and conspiracy to commit murder would be in the nation's capital, with the prosecutor being the Attorney General of the Unite States acting through his Department of Justice. This book, however, establishes jurisdiction for any state attorney general (or any district attorney in any county of a state) to bring murder and conspiracy charges against Bush for any soldiers from that state or county who lost their lives fighting Bush's war, which as you can see applies to every state in this nation", excerpt taken from renowned prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's stunning, insightful, best selling book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder".

Okay, Canada! Let's get going!!


What's up in space - 30 June 2008

What's up in Space
June 30, 2008
AURORA ALERTS: Did you miss the Northern Lights of June 25th? Next time get a wake-up call from Space Weather PHONE.

SUNSET SKY SHOW: Tonight, after sunset, go outside and look west. Red Mars and 1st-magnitude star Regulus are having a close encounter, less than 1o apart. Together they join with Saturn to form a pretty isosceles triangle that you won't want to miss: sky map.

photos: from Tamas Ladanyi of Lake Balaton, Hungary; from Doug Zubenel of Linn County, Kansas

NOCTILUCENT COMPANIONS: The Pleiades. A slender crescent Moon. Electric-blue noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Add them all together and you get ... Monday in England. This morning just before the sun came up over the British Isles, a wispy bank of noctilucent clouds joined the Moon and Pleiades in the pre-dawn sky:

"What a sight!" says Pete Lawrence who took the picture, above, from the beach at Selsey in West Sussex. A panoramic shot "conveys the scene quite well with noctilucent fingers stretching out of the twilight arc." Noctilucent cloud activity remains high; readers, be alert for NLCs and their companions.

more images: from Martin Stirland of Winterton On Sea Norfolk England; from Laurent Laveder of Quimper, Bretagne, France; from Thad V'Soske of Grand Valley, Colorado; from Mark E. Peter south of Flint Ridge, Ohio; from David Arditti of Edgware, Middlesex, UK

LAVENDER SUNS: California is on fire. Hundreds of wildfires in the northern half of the state are filling the air with smoke and filling the sky with ... lavender suns? Christopher Calubaquib saw one on June 26th when he looked through the haze over El Sobrante, California:

"Because of the smoke, the sun was not very bright, and I didn't need to use a filter to take the picture," says Calubaquib. In other words, the colors are genuine. A day later, another lavender sun appeared over Arcata, California: "This photo was not processed or retouched; it's how the sun really looked," says photographer Mike Kelly.

What makes the sun lavender? It happens when the air is filled with particles measuring about 1 micron (10-6 m) across, a little larger than the wavelength of red light. Micron-sized particles scatter red light strongly, while letting shades of blue pass through. The mix of ash over El Sobrante produced a lavender hue, reminiscent of the great Alberta muskeg fires of September 1950. Believe it or not, the same physics can turn the Moon blue, but that is another story.

Is the smoke wafting through your hometown this week? Be alert for the lavender sun.

more images: from Raymond Rochelle of Chico, California; from Andrew Kirk of Bishop, California;


Important information tables on Iranian OIL (why mess with nuclear energy?)

Oil
Iran is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and the fourth-largest crude oil exporter in the world.
According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has 136 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, or roughly 10 percent of the world's total proven petroleum reserves as of January 1, 2007. Iran has 40 producing fields, 27 onshore and 13 offshore, with the majority of crude oil reserves located in the southwestern Khuzestan region near the Iraqi border. Iran's crude oil is generally medium in sulfur content and in the 28°-35° API range.
Iran is OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia. In 2006, Iran produced an estimated 4.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of total liquids, of which 3.8 million bbl/d was crude oil, equal to 5 percent of global production.
Iran’s oil consumption totaled 1.6 million bbl/d in 2006. The Iranian government heavily subsidizes the price of refined oil products which has contributed to increased domestic demand. Iran has limited refinery capacity to produce light fuels, and imports much of its gasoline supply. Iranian domestic oil demand is mainly for gasoline and automotive gasoils, but domestic demand for other oil products are declining due to the substitution of natural gas. However, it is an overall net petroleum products exporter due to large exports of residual fuel oil. Oil export revenues represent the majority of Iran’s total exports earnings, but the country suffers from budget deficits due to a growing population and large government subsidies on gasoline and food products. In 2005, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that energy subsidies accounted for 12 percent of Iran’s GDP, the highest rate in the world according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) study.


Iran produced 6 million bbl/d of crude oil in 1974, but has been unable to produce at that level since the 1979 revolution due to a combination of war, limited investment, sanctions, and a high rate of natural decline in Iran’s mature oil fields. Iran’s oil fields need structural upgrades including enhanced oil recovery (EOR) efforts such as natural gas injection. Iran’s fields have a natural annual decline rate estimated at 8 percent onshore and 10 percent offshore, while current Iranian recovery rates are 24-27 percent, 10 percent less than the world average. It is estimated that 400,000-500,000 bbl/d of crude production is lost annually due to reservoir damage and decreases in existing oil deposits.

Upstream Projects

The Azadegan project phases I and II represent the greatest potential increase in Iranian crude oil production. Azadegan contains 26 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, but is geologically complex and difficult to extract. Iran and Venezuela have agreed on a $4 billion investment in the Ayacucho 7 block, where there are an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil. Iran’s Northern Drilling Company (NDC) has also worked with Russia’s Lukoil on oil field development in the Caspian Sea. (See Caspian Sea Analysis Brief)


Iran plans to increase oil production to over 5 million bbl/d by 2010, but it will need foreign help. According to Global Insight, an estimated $25-35 billion is required to meet the government’s 5.8 million bbl/d target by 2015. Investment in Iran’s energy sector has been tempered due to the election of the conservative government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the international controversy surrounding the Iranian uranium enrichment and nuclear program, and economic sanctions. According to the IEA 2007 Medium-Term Oil Market Report, Iran will not be able to increase its net expansion capacity through 2012.

U.S. Sanctions

U.S. sanctions against Iran due to Iran’s historic support for international terrorism and its actions against non-belligerent shipping in the Persian Gulf impact the development of its petroleum sector. According to the Iran Transactions Regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), U.S. persons may not directly or indirectly trade, finance, or facilitate any goods, services or technology going to or from Iran, including goods, services or technology that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. U.S. persons are also prohibited from entering into or approving any contract that includes the supervision, management or financing of the development of petroleum resources located in Iran.

Sector Organization

The state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is responsible for oil and gas production and exploration. The National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC), a subsidiary of NIOC, accounts for 80 percent of local oil production covering the provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Fars, and Kohkiluyeh va Boyer Ahamd. Though private ownership of upstream functions is prohibited under the Iranian constitution, the government has allowed for buyback contracts which allow international oil companies (IOCs) to enter exploration and development through an Iranian affiliate. The contractor receives a remuneration fee, usually an entitlement to oil or gas from the developed operation. In August 2007, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed NIOC executive Gholamhossein Nozari to serve as Acting Oil Minister, replacing Vaziri Hamaneh and creating controversy over President Ahmadinejad’s role in the energy sector.

Exports

According to International Energy Agency’s Monthly Oil Data Service and Global Trade Atlas, Iran’s net crude and product exports in 2006 averaged 2.5 million bbl/d, primarily to Japan, China, India, South Korea, Italy, and other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, making it the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil in the world. In 2006, Iran’s oil export revenues amounted to $54 billion.

Export Terminals

Iran has the largest oil tanker fleet in the Middle East, the National Iranian Tanker Company, which holds 29 ships including Very Large Crude Carriers. Kharg Island is the country’s largest terminal with a holding capacity of 16 million barrels of oil and a loading capacity of 5 million bbl/d, followed by Lavan Island with capacity to store 5 million barrels and loading capacity of 200,000 bbl/d. Other important terminals include Kish Island, Abadan and Bandar Mahshar, and Neka, which helps facilitate imports from the Caspian region. The Strait of Hormuz, on the southeastern coast of Iran, is an important route for oil exports from Iran and other Persian Gulf countries. (See Persian Gulf Analysis Brief) At its narrowest point the Strait of Hormuz is 34 miles wide, yet an estimated 17 million barrels, or roughly two-fifths of all seaborne traded oil, flows through the Strait daily. Iranian Heavy Crude Oil is Iran’s largest crude export at 1.6 million bbl/d followed by Iranian Light at 1 million bbl/d.


Refining

Iran’s total refinery capacity is 1.5 million bbl/d from nine refineries operated by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), a NIOC subsidiary. Iranian refineries are unable to keep pace with domestic demand, and face major infrastructure problems. The country plans to add around 985,000 bbl/d of refining capacity by 2012, mostly through expansions and upgrades for gasoline yields at the Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, and the 90-year-old Abadan refineries. Large expansion projects at Bandar Abbas, including new catalytic reformers, distillation units, and condensate splitters will help supply the domestic demand, but it will probably not eliminate all gasoline imports. Iran has also discussed joint ventures in Asia, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore to expand refining activity.


Pipelines

Iran has an expansive domestic oil network including 5 pipelines, and multiple international pipeline projects under consideration. Recently, an expansion of the 150 mile pipeline from the port of Neka on the Caspian coast to Rey, Tabriz, and Tehran refineries has reached a capacity of 300,000 bbl/d according to Global Insight. Iran has invested in its import capacity at the Caspian port to handle increased product shipments from Russia and Azerbaijan, and enable crude swaps with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. In the case of crude swaps, the oil from the Caspian is consumed domestically in Iran, and an equivalent amount of oil is produced for export through the Persian Gulf with a Swiss-trading arm of NIOC for a swap fee.
In 2006, Iran imported over 192,000 bbl/d of gasoline and relied upon imports to meet almost half of its fuel needs costing $5 billion.
Gasoline

Iran is the second biggest gasoline importer in the world after the United States, consuming over 400,000 bbl/d. According to FACTS Global Energy, Iran imported over 192,000 bbl/d of gasoline in 2006 costing $5 billion. The gasoline consumption growth rate has averaged ten percent annually over the past six years, and the cost of imports is expected to reach $6 billion in 2007, up from $2.8 billion in 2005. Gasoline prices are heavily subsidized, and sold below the market price at around 42 cents per gallon, which has encouraged increased consumption. An increase in vehicle sales in recent years has also contributed to the problem. According to PFC Energy, car ownership in Iran grew 250 percent between 1990 and 2006, and a majority of these vehicles are older models. Gasoline powered vehicles in Iran are expected to reach 14.9 million by the end of 2007. Iran does not have sufficient refining capacity to meets its domestic gasoline and other light fuel needs. Therefore Iran imports gasoline from India, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, France, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran also imports from large, multinational wholesalers such as BP, Shell, Total, Vitol, LUKoil, and several Chinese companies.

New Gasoline Rationing System

In June 2007, the Iranian government instituted a gasoline rationing system. The decision followed a 25 percent price increase to 42 cents per gallon in May. NIORDC is responsible for the program which allows private cars to purchase 26 gallons per month and taxis to buy 211 gallons per month. The rations and increased costs are politically unpopular in Iran. Customers are allowed to purchase their ration six months in advance. Part-time taxis, commercial vehicles, and government vehicles also have special allowances. Records are maintained on smart cards, and later this year the government is expected to announce the price for gasoline bought beyond quota levels.

Iran’s gasoline consumption dropped 30 percent immediately after the rationing scheme was adopted. NIOC executive, Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, stated that Iranian gasoline imports for August 2007 dropped 14 percent, although an additional $1.5 billion was requested by the Iranian Oil Ministry to increase gasoline imports through March 2008. The International Energy Agency reported in its August 2007 Oil Market Update that gasoline consumption will likely increase again due to the fact that Iran allows advance purchase of gasoline at a subsidized rate. The combination of rationing, price hikes, increased refining capacity, as well as compressed natural gas (CNG) production, will reduce Iranian gasoline import demand by an estimated 30,000 bbl/d in the next three years according to FACTS Global Energy.

Ralph Nader is now being attacked as a racist for pointing out the obvious - that Obamarama is NOT a populist at all. He is getting some lamestream media attention for stating the TRUTH.

Meanwhile, although Ralph, who has done enormous good for all people, is being called racist. They forget about his support of Winona LaDuke!

Many progressives in America who support the Bill of Rights, are now sending their dollars to Ralph! Go, Ralph, Go! (And Cynthia M., too !)

Hard to tell what will happen before the US elections, but you can be sure it will prove "interesting" !!

Veeger

June 30, 2008
www.votenader.org
www.officialnaderstore.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Driscoll, 202-360-3273, chris@votenader.org
IL Contact: Christina Tobin: 312-320-4101

THE NADER/GONZALEZ CAMPAIGN DECLARES BALLOT VICTORY IN ILLINOIS

The Nader/Gonzalez independent presidential campaign will be on the Illinois ballot in the November election. The campaign submitted more than 50,000 signatures to the Illinois Board of Elections on Monday June 23, far surpassing the required 25,000. Under Illinois law, upon submitting signatures for ballot access, other parties have 1 week to challenge those signatures. That 1-week period has now passed and no party has challenged the Nader/Gonzalez signatures.

This is good news for voters who want more choice and the opportunity to vote for an anti-war candidate in November.

Illinois marks the third state where Nader/Gonzalez will be on the ballot in 2008, but did not qualify in 2004. Arizona and Hawaii are the other two. Presently, the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign has seven teams in seven states collecting signatures for ballot access. Sunday, on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Mr. Nader announced his campaign will be on the ballot in 45 states.

In 2004 the Democratic Party and their allies initiated frivolous lawsuits aimed at keeping the Nader/Camejo ticket off the ballots in 18 states, denying voters the choice of an Independent candidacy for President and Vice President. In 2008 the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign is cautioning the Democratic Party not to misuse the court system with baseless political challenges and to honor the will of the people for more choices on the ballot.

- End -

Whistleblower information on Jack Layton from Connie Fogal !!

NDP leader JACK LAYTON betrays CANADA on "deep integration"



Location: Windsor
Date Listed: 05-Jun-08
Event Date(s): 01-Jul-08


THIS IS A WHISTLE BLOWING!!!

CAN YOU HEAR IT? !!!

Bet you can't wait to celebrate CANADA DAY with Jack!

NDP leader JACK LAYTON was a guest speaker at the 30 May 2008 "model Parliament
for North America" held in Montreal City Hall last week, organized by the North American Forum on Integration, and also featuring SEPARATIST guest speaker, Gilles Duceppe.

Search google for these key words:

"jack layton", NAFI, "Friday May 30 City hall"

This organization, the North American Forum on Integration, operates from offices at the French University of Montreal on Montreal soil, is co-planning the end of CANADA and of the Canadian Parliament.

But Jack Layton, who pretends to be AGAINST "deep integration" of Canada into the US and Mexico has NEVER told his electorate about this organization or HIS PARTICIPATION IN IT.

Moreover, at his NDP web site, Layton maintains an itinerary of his speeches and events. He was delivering CANADA to the globalists at lunch time on 30 May 2008 for NAFI in Montreal, but he has listed only ONE activity on that same date, when he also delivered a speech to the Canadian Labor Congress. Why has Layton NOT DIVULGED his participation in "continental integration" to his Danforth constituents and to his NDP Party's members all across Canada? Why does Layton maintain an e-mail campaign PRETENDING to oppose "deep integration"
while in fact he is promoting it SECRETLY?

Jack Layton, in Canadian Parliamentary Hansard which he published at his NDP site, accuses Paul Martin of a "hidden agenda" of "deep integration", but Layton himself IS IN ON IT.

WHY HAS JACK LAYTON HIDDEN HIS REAL AGENDA FROM HIS CONSTITUENTS?

Layton has a "Continental Integration" subject tab at his NDP web site. That section of his site says NOTHING about the NAFI forum on integration, NOR about his participation IN IT. Search his NDP site, NOT A WORD on NAFI's existence.

Want to find out MORE about the criminally illegal integration of CANADA into the US and MEXICO scheduled for 2010 or sooner?

Want the TRUTH on Canadian unity and the criminal SCAM of so-called "Quebec Secession"? It is and has always been a SCAM to "deep integrate" Canada into the US and Mexico. Every rabid separatist from the PARTI QUEBECOIS and the BLOC QUEBECOIS is behind the bogus new Parliament for North America, and Layton is in WITH them, as are the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Search GOOGLE for "HABEAS CORPUS CANADA DOT COM" and make sure to READ the Grounds page and the Statement of Purpose.

Also visit YOUTUBE and look for crazyforcanada where I have posted a video on the SCAM in English and in French. The straight jacket in the video is for a good reason: on 31 October 2007, I was criminally assaulted by municipal POLICE after my landlord changed the locks on my apartment WITHOUT A LEGAL PROCEEDING and confiscated my law books and research notes on the annexation of Canada to the US and Mexico. The Police said, "we think you're a bit mental" because of my web site, HABEAS CORPUS CANADA, and forced me into an ambulance by physical assault, and off to a Hospital, which is SOVIET-STYLE INCARCERATION of this
Canadian Sovereignty activist.

Look for my blog: crazyforcanada on the internet for the story on that.

June 29, 2008

Jason Call calls for CITIZEN'S ARRESTS

I'm casting a wide net with this email. Some of you have much more professional experience with legal issues and procedural matters than I do. I've been reading Bugliosi's book The Prosection of George Bush for Murder. The case is clear, as most of us have known for years, but it has now been organized and is ready and waiting for someone to pick it up and move forward.
Can we count on the various state and federal attorneys general to file suit? At one point I may have thought so, but look at what the Democratic leadership is doing to actively thwart the will of their constituents to hold impeachment hearings.
So how does a citizen group use what Bugliosi has proferred? I don't know if the case has to be taken up by a representative of the government, or if it can be done by a private citizen (or citizens) as a class action type suit, being that Bush's assault on the Constitution (resulting in the deaths of 4000 Americans) has done injury to us all.
Here's what I know though - if these bastards are going to be held legally accountable, and it can be done by a citizen or citizen group - I want to be a part of it.
Peace
Jason
Lynnwood, WA

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER; Conyers subpoena to Michael Mukasey

For Immediate Release
6/27/2008

Conyers Issues Subpoena to DOJ for Valerie Plame Documents

For Immediate Release Contact: Jonathan Godfrey
June 27, 2008 Melanie Roussell

(Washington, DC)- House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) today issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide to the committee a number of previously requested documents by July 9. The Subcommittee on Commercial and Adminstrative Law voted this week to authorize committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. to issue the subpoena at his discretion. The documents the committee is seeking cover a broad range of issues including the Valerie Plame leak, allegations of selective prosecution, and other matters. The subpoena is here.


##110-JUD-062708##

Conference on disarmament statements

CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HEARS STATEMENTS FROM AUSTRALIA, JAPAN, RUSSIA, SOUTH AFRICA, CANADA, FRANCE, SRI LANKA, CHINA AND NEW ZEALAND

Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com
24 June 2008
States News Service

The following information was released by the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG):

The Conference on Disarmament today heard statements from Australia, Japan, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Canada, France, Sri Lanka, China and New Zealand on Presidential proposal CD/1840 to end the impasse in the Conference and on regional nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts.

The incoming President of the Conference, Ambassador Christina Rocca of the United States, said it was unquestioned that CD/1840 was a compromise, and thus by definition, unable to meet anyone's goals perfectly, but it was well-suited to advance everyone's interests and to get the Conference back to work. If it was adopted, all would win much and lose a little. While the United States would continue to focus on CD/1840 as the desired outcome of this year's activities in the Conference, with the support of the P6, they proposed a series of informal meetings during the third part of the 2008 session of the Conference in late July and in August. The United States had asked the seven Coordinators to resume their roles and to chair the discussions. The full exchange of views in these renewed informal discussions would help refresh all the issues in Members' minds, would help advance consensus on CD/1840, and would help inform the Conference on its final report.

Australia informed the Conference of an announcement made by the Australian Prime Minister in a speech in Japan on the establishment of an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. In a joint statement with the Japanese Prime Minister, Australia and Japan had renewed their determination to strengthen the international disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation regime and to cooperate closely to achieve a successful outcome to the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The objective of the Commission was to enhance global efforts to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty by paving the way for a successful Review Conference in 2010.

Japan said that, on 12 June, the Japanese Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Australia had released a joint statement to reaffirm the particular importance of the Japan-Australia relationship and to strengthen further the comprehensive and strategic partnership between the two countries. Both leaders had renewed their determination to strengthen the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. Japan had also welcomed the Australian Prime Minister's proposal to establish an international commission on nuclear non-proliferation. On CD/1840, Japan believed it was a well-balanced compromise.

The Russian Federation said not everything in CD/1840 suited the Russian Federation and it was sure that all other delegations were not fully satisfied either. The Russian Federation wanted a stronger focus on prevention of an arms race in outer space which was a priority for the country. The Russian Federation was interested in having a negotiating mandate for the Ad Hoc Committee on the prevention of an arms race in outer space. Nevertheless, the Russian Federation was prepared not to oppose it with the view of ensuring the quickest return of the Conference to work.

South Africa said the consensus rule in the Conference had often been mentioned as the main reason why the Conference had not been able to negotiate anything in the last couple of years. But was it not perhaps the misuse of the consensus rule, rather than the rule itself, that had created the problem. The consensus rule did not apply itself, it was the Members of the Conference that chose when and how to apply it. When it was used to block the commencement, not the finalization, of negotiations, one could perhaps understand why some referred to the "tyranny of consensus". South Africa did not believe that CD/1840 was perfect. However, it represented that which was possible and practical under the present circumstances. South Africa stood ready to join a consensus on CD/1840.

Canada, speaking also on behalf of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), presented to the Conference the report on a conference entitled: "Security in Space: the Next Generation", that had taken place earlier this year. The conference had been the latest in a series of annual conferences held by UNIDIR on the issues of space security, the peaceful uses of outer space and the prevention of an arms race in outer space.

France referred to the statement by the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, on 21 March in Cherbourg proposing an ambitious disarmament plan, saying that these transparency measures were unprecedented for a nuclear weapon State. The President of France proposed to invite international experts to come and witness the dismantling of the fissile material for weapons facilities in Pierrelatte and Marcoule. Today, France renewed this invitation, and a visit to these facilities would be organized on 16 September. All Member States were invited to send representatives.

Sri Lanka said CD/1840 was a good basis for discussion, Sri Lanka had no doubt about that. However, Sri Lanka wished to draw attention to some underlying structural anomalies which had to be addressed if this effort was to be successful. CD/1840 privileged one agenda item over others. This particular item elevated over the others involved certain Member States more than certain others. If those Member States felt that their fundamental national interests were at variance with the spirit of CD/1840, then it was not a question of a handful of holdouts. Those countries concerns had to be seriously engaged with. If it was the perception of these States that their core strategic interests were at stake, then the Conference had to do better. Doing better could mean looking afresh at the other agenda items.

China hoped that the relevant parties would continue to make efforts to further conduct a constructive dialogue and consultations so that they were able to narrow the differences and reach consensus on a programme of work which was acceptable to all. In general, China was ready to make joint efforts with all the relevant delegations to push forward progress in the Conference.

New Zealand supported the President's comment that moving forward to reach consensus on the basis of CD/1840 was the best basis for advancing the work in the Conference. As far as its national position was concerned, New Zealand would be happy to commence negotiations on any of the core items before the Conference. As a non nuclear weapon State and as a State which had taken strong positions on nuclear weapons, New Zealand particularly wished for the start of negotiations on nuclear disarmament. The reality was that no delegation here was in a position to begin serious negotiations on all the core issues before the Conference. A Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty would contribute to nuclear disarmament. New Zealand would like to see the treaty deal with verification and existing stocks and would argue in the negotiations in favour of including verification and existing stocks.

According to draft decision CD/1840 by the 2008 Presidents of the Conference, the Conference would appoint Chile as Coordinator to preside over substantive discussions on nuclear disarmament and the prevention of nuclear war; appoint Japan as Coordinator to preside over negotiations, without any preconditions, on a non-discriminatory and multilateral treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, thus providing all delegations with the opportunity to actively pursue their respective positions and priorities, and to submit proposals on any issue they deem relevant in the course of negotiations; appoint Canada as Coordinator to preside over substantive discussions dealing with issues related to prevention of an arms race in outer space; appoint Senegal as Coordinator to preside over substantive discussions dealing with appropriate arrangements to assure non-nuclear weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; and would request those Coordinators to present a report to the Conference on the progress of work before the conclusion of the session. The Conference would also decide to request the Coordinators for the agenda items previously appointed by the 2008 Presidents (i.e., new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems for such weapons, radiological weapons; comprehensive programme of disarmament; and transparency in armament) to continue their work during the current session.

Draft Decision CD/1840 builds on an earlier proposal submitted by the 2007 P-6 (CD/2007/L.1), and its related documents CRP.5 and CRP.6, combining those three texts in a single document.

The Conference on Disarmament will hold a public plenary at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 25 June, to listen to a statement by Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union. This will be the last public plenary of the second part of the 2008 session of the Conference. The third and last part of the 2008 session of the Conference will be held from 28 July to 12 September.

Statements

CHRISTINA ROCCA (United States), Incoming President of the Conference on Disarmament, said it was an honour to preside over the Conference. The common sense of purpose shown by all members of the Presidency, their joint aim in getting the Conference back to work, the genuine collegialitiy, was all impressive and gratifiying. It was a demonstration of how harmony could be created from disparate voices, given the will to do so. Some delegations had questioned the need for the differentiation among the key issues shown by CD/1840. It was unquestioned that CD/1840 was a compromise, and thus by definition, unable to meet anyone's goals perfectly, but it was well-suited to advance everyone's interests and to get the Conference back to work. If it was adopted, all would win much and lose a little.

read the rest here.


Reminder: Blackwater is still around - even in Canada !!

Proposal to Amend the US Constitution

on Daily Kos

Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 09:50:54 PM PDT

The dangers of private security contractors to civil society have been much discussed in light of the recent shootings of Iraqi civilians by employees of Blackwater Security. Author Naomi Wolf (among others) has emphasized, in a current diary on Dkos, the dangers to Democracy of a Praetorian Guard responsible ultimately to the President, and largely protected from the legal consequences of their actions.

I propose to fix this problem by amending the US Constitution; please continue reading for further details.

I am not a lawyer, but I believe the following draft of a 28th amendment would provide an interesting springboard to discussion and action.

No person in the service, under the orders, or at the behest or bidding of the United States Government shall employ, pursuant to their duties as such, a firearm, or any other physical weapon of aggression, protection, or restraint, except that said person be an employee of the United States Government, such as a member of the Armed Forces, an agent of the Justice Department, or in exceptional cases, a deputized federal marshal or equivalent, subject to the full battery of institutional laws, liabilities, and constraints customarily applying to such persons.

The idea is simple: any person with the power to employ lethal force on behalf of the US Government must be an employee of the US Government.

If this thing needs a name, call it the Blackwater Amendment.

Poll

Should the US Constitution be amended to prohibit employment of private security contractors by the US government?

57%83 votes
15%22 votes
9%13 votes
1%2 votes
16%24 votes

| 144 votes | Vote | Results


Impeachment toolkit!! Today's visual comment !!


impeach bush and cheney

Declare It Now!
Wear Orange
Drive Out the Bush Regime!

referring page for this image.

Done deal!!

(about bloody time !!

We all came dangerously close to martial law.)




Activism - open letter to the Stop-SPP-digest: The US Government is now run by John Conyers !! SO ..


- Please circulate widely -

The US government is now in the hands of the US House Judiciary Committee, chaired by John Conyers.

Cheney will be impeached first, to make the point: TREASON DOES NOT PAY.

Canada has a present and at least one ex-Prime Minister who fit the bill, eh?

After Cheney, BuZh will be impeached.

War Crimes charges have been issued against Donald Rumsfield; War Crimes charges have also been issued against Australia's John Howard. There will be Canadian war crimes charges filed as well.

So I am taking the liberty to give any US Citizen who stops by the blog (run so far donation free), or gets my emails, the form they need to file complaints. Pick a random issue, ANY issue, and send in your complaints (gee, how many are there?) Just press the link !!

Unfortunately, the link is not applicable to US expats nor global citizens, but HEY! Send in those faxes, send him a registered letter, just keep up calling ..

Conyers' phone number:
p/202-225-3951

2138 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 p/202-225-3951

Remember: The impeachment hearings are on c-span!

Tune in, turn on, don't drop out!

I have been asked, by WAR CRIMES prosecutors,

to relay this message:

LAW SCHOOL TO ORGANIZE BUSH WAR CRIMES TRIAL

By Sherwood Ross

A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid a

nd necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

Velvel said past practice has been to allow U.S. officials responsible for war crimes in Viet Nam and elsewhere to enjoy immunity from prosecution upon leaving office. "President Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and his Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was named to head the World Bank; Richard Nixon retired to San Clemente and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was allowed to grow richer and richer," Velvel said.

He noted in the years since the prosecution and punishment of German and Japanese leaders after World War Two those nation's leaders changed their countries' aggressor cultures. One cannot discount contributory cause and effect here, he said.

"For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeild, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders," Velvel said.

The conference will take up such issues as the nature of domestic and international crimes committed; which high-level Bush officials, including Federal judges and Members of Congress, are chargeable with war crimes; which foreign and domestic tribunals can be used to prosecute them; and the setting up of an umbrella coordinating committee with representatives of legal groups concerned about the war crimes such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, among others.

The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover was established in 1988 to provide an affordable, quality legal education to minorities, immigrants and students from low-income households that might otherwise be denied the opportunity to obtain a legal education and practice law. Its founder, Dean Velvel, has been honored by the National Law Journal and cited in various publications for his contributions to the reform of legal education. #

#

(To attend or for further information Jeff Demers at demers@msl.edu (978) 681-0800; or Sherwood Ross, media consultant to MSL, at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)

Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for the City of Chicago and public relations consultant to New York City. He served as news director for the National Urban League; and worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and wor

kplace columnist for Reuters. He has also been a media consultant to colleges, universities, law schools and more than 100 national magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Business Week, and Foreign Policy; as a speechwriter for mayors, governors and presidential candidates, and as a radio news reporter and talk show host at WOL, Washington, D.C. He holds an award for "best spot news coverage" for Chicago radio stations in 1963. His degree from the University of Miami was in race relations and he has written a book, "Gruening of Alaska," a number of national magazine articles and several plays, including "Baron Jiro," produced at Live Arts Theatre, Charlottesville, Va., and "Yam

amoto's Decision," read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.

This law school has been picked PARTICULARLY. A law suit has been filed against the ABA. This will legitimatize the attorneys it graduated, so ignore the ignorant comments at afterdowningstreet.

We who are interested in WAR CRIMES prosecutions are looking particularly for Canadian participants, so that Canadian WAR CRIMINALS are brought to justice !!

I have been asked by the WAR CRIMES prosecutor to stay here in Canada until that date and ORGANIZE, so any help is deeply appreciated over the summer. The relevant legal information has long been posted on my blog - under "Special Prosecutor Information" and is applicable to Canadian officials who have participated in GENOCIDE in Afghanistan.

All comments on Canadian WAR CRIMES are accepted on my blog. These are being vetted by WAR CRIMES prosecutors.

I would like to have a press pass to attend from Canada. If anyone on this list could accomodate me, I would be most appreciative.

Our Canadian segments of the WAR CRIMES prosecutions will be posted on my blog.

The relevant information on infowarfare, a term you will hear often used now, has also been posted on my blog under INFRAGARD.

Part One is to alert those of you in universities how to prepare for the next stage of liberation.

Any help getting up a Canadian WAR CRIMES site will be much appreciated. And all comments posted on my blog are being saved for historical purposes, so I urge you to post.

Sounds nearly "corny" to mention, but - there are
NO HUMAN RIGHTS without national sovereignty

and GENOCIDE is the Supreme International War Crime.


Time to take our Canadian TRAITORS to the woodshed.

Megweetch,

Virginia Simson
Many Rivers

impeach.to.end.war.crimes@gmail.com
freedetainees.org
www.ladybroadoak.blogspot.com
ladybroadoak@gmail.com
www.lowlevelradiation.blogspot.com

Don't forget as Canadians! - our fellow citizen, OMAR KHADR, is STILL not free!
Torture is torture no matter what you call it - and Canada is complicit in rendition, torture. And Omar Khadr is the Amistad of our generation.

The last blog, deals particularly with ONTARIO complicity in du, and other radiation-Canadian issues and could use some co-bloggers, if anyone is interested. This will help end Canadian complicity in du-related WAR CRIMES.


Happy summer everyone ;-)

We don't have to worry about the SPP anymore !!

I might mention: you might want to send thanks


to EFF Foundation

for the valuable work they did getting the

US Department of Defense emails released.

And please ..

continue to send letters of complaint to the ICC.







See why the US CONgress has an 11% approval rating!!

Democrats will 'refrain' from pushing liberal agenda, Reuters wire story asserts

RAW STORY
Published: Sunday November 26, 2006

"Three Democratic congressmen who are about to take important leadership posts said on Sunday they plan to pass popular legislation blocked by Republicans but would refrain from pushing some of the most controversial elements on the liberal agenda," a Sunday Reuters story claims.

"The three, appearing on Fox News Sunday, are among the most liberal Democrats who will take over key committee chairmanships when Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives in January," Reuters adds.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who will take over the House committee that oversees financial institutions, mentioned upping the minimum wage, providing cheaper drug coverage for seniors and providing affordable housing and college tuition aid as the focus of Democratic legislation. He did not, however, float more controversial plans pushed by party liberals including overturning the ban on gays from serving in the US military.

"Our first efforts are going to be to do those things that I think the mainstream of America wants," Frank said. "Some things have become liberal because the right wingers who control the Republican party have abandoned them to us."

FULL REUTERS STORY HERE.

Be sure to check out the commentary on the link !

BuZh quit doing signing statements.

What's the lame CONgressional excuse NOW?

Now that I know impeachment is coming -

and that war crimes tribunals will take place,

I can shrug off anyone's INCOMPETANCE

Knowing how ignorant, greedy and stoopid

they really all are.

It's all just a matter of TIME.

Of course, We the People need to keep up the pressure !

Will Obamarama do the FISA fillibuster

after the recess ?

Good question ! Now let's watch !!



What the unruly mob has to say on idiocracy

Are Americans Getting Dumber?


There are two things I always notice when I travel in Europe. The first is how fat we are (myself included, although by American standards I'm pretty slim). The second is how the level of discourse goes up by at least an order of magnitude when I get off the plane. Here is a translated article from die Zeit (by way of Watchingamerica.com).

(If you don't read watchingamerica from time to time, do so. It's really instructive to learn how the world thinks of us.)

Now I don't think Americans are dumb, at least not individually. In the herd, though, we sink to the lowest level of nearly any civilized country. We don't speak other languages. I have literally shocked people in Germany when they address me in English and I respond in German. Das gibt doch nicht, they say, That doesn't exist, or Du hast mich doch erschrocken,


you certainly shocked me. Not to say I'm the only American who speaks German but I certainly find the ones who do a lot more interesting.

My German friends and acquaintances of all educational levels always surprise me with their depth. We get together, a bit of beer or wine flows and we're talking about politics - American politics - or literature, or philosophy, or art. I read the posters stuck to nearly any flat surface in Frankfurt, classical concerts, theater, political talks. Here on the bus stops I see posters for Get Smart. And we wonder why we are losing ground in the world. In Sweden, everyone literally speaks English. They get their entertainment from us, you see, and the market for Swedish entertainment is not large enough to overdub, so they get English with subtitles. And the buildings are all built to allow natural light, something I'd like to see you propose to an American builder.

Are Americans stupid? No, not individually. As a herd, we're shallow, we think only in the short term and we tend to be very self-absorbed and I think that was what the author of the piece cited meant.

Then I read of attempts to legislate natural law and once again, I become just a bit ashamed of what our country has become.

And finally, a bit of culture for a Friday night:

And a bit more fuel for this fire....


TAGS: Stupid American Tricks, Dumb and dumberer, Get Smart, Fool, American Decline

Matt Janovic on the Supreme Court's 2nd Amendment Ruling

On the Supreme Court's 2nd Amendment Ruling Today


Washington D.C.--While not advocating anything actionable, see dictionary definition below. For educational purposes only. Time to open a gun shop in D.C., a wide-open frontier! The American Dream writ large!! Do not remove tag under penalty of law. The number three: that's odd. That'll learn ya.'

Massive Government and Private Sector Job Cuts Coming : Mish Shedlock

* Massive Government and Private Sector Job Cuts Coming -

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis/~3/322336730/massive-government-and-private-sector.html

CNN Money is reporting State, city layoffs: 45,000 and counting.

With falling revenue from sales and income taxes, and property-tax declines looming, states, cities and towns have already laid off tens of thousands of government employees. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a public employees union, says about 45,000 government layoffs have been announced this year.

There are 29 states, including California, Florida and Ohio, facing a combined budget shortfall of at least $48 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a liberal think tank.

There are nearly 20 million state and local government employees in the country. So a 1% decline in employment at cities, towns, schools and states would result in a job loss of almost 200,000 people, a much larger amount than we've seen from battered sectors such as automakers or home builders in the past two years.The effect of those layoffs will far outweigh any benefit of the economic stimulus package, much of which was already spent. We must use the word benefit loosely because government giving away money it does not have never produces any economic benefit.

Bank of America To Cut 7,500

MarketWatch is reporting Bank of America sees 7,500 job cuts after Countrywide close.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said Thursday it expects to make about 7,500 job cuts after acquiring Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) . Affected employees will start finding out their fate in the third quarter. "Citigroup to cut 6,500

The TimesOnline is reporting Citigroup and Goldman Sachs cut more staff.

Citigroup, America's largest bank, is expected to cut up to 6,500 investment banking jobs as much as 10 per cent of its roughly 65,000 headcount worldwide. It is believed that entire trading desks in New York, London and other cities will be eliminated. Senior managing directors will not be immune from the layoffs.

In April, Citigroup said that 9,000 jobs would go on top of the 21,000 eliminated in the past year. [This is yet another 6,500 - Mish]175,000 Financial Cuts Coming

Bloomberg is reporting Financial Firms May Make Deeper Cuts, Eliminate 175,000 Jobs.

The world's biggest financial firms may lose as many as 175,000 jobs by this time next year as Citigroup Inc. and other banks shed workers amid slowing revenue and billions in writedowns, executive recruiters say.

"The worst is yet to come," Russ Gerson, head of New York- based recruiting firm Gerson Group, said yesterday in an interview. "We are going to have a major contraction. This is affecting all areas of the investment banking universe and it's affecting all areas globally."

New York-based Bear Stearns Cos. is cutting more than 9,000 jobs, or 66 percent of its workforce, as it was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Zurich-based UBS AG has announced 7,000 job cuts, and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has trimmed 6,300 employees.

The Independent Budget Office in Manhattan said in a report issued last month that it expects 33,300 finance jobs in the city, or 7.1 percent of the total, to be cut from the peak in 2007. The industry lost 52,500 jobs in New York during the 2000- to-2003 market drop.

About 17 percent of banking and securities jobs in New York were wiped out from 2000 to 2003, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The current round of cuts may claim 35 percent to 40 percent of the industry, said Gary Goldstein, chairman of New York-based financial recruitment firm Whitney Group.

"They just keep chopping heads," Goldstein said. "They'll wake up one day and realize that they've cut too deep and now these businesses have come back and they don't have anybody to do them."Goldstein Needs To Wake Up

This is the backside of Peak Credit.

None of the financial engineering jobs that fueled this credit boom will ever be needed again. SIVs, Conduits, Toggle Bonds, Covenant Lite loans are all dead for years, more likely decades to come. Add to that liar loans, Pay Option Arms, insane leverage, and numerous other ridiculous lending arrangements. And if those things are not coming back, we do not need Wall Street shills to securitize that garbage and pitch it to unsuspecting suckers.

More Mergers Coming Up

There are undoubtedly more bank mergers coming up. The strong swallow the weak to the point the strong become weak. And with each merger there will be more job cuts, massive job cuts. Bank of America's announced cutback of 7,500 related to its acquiring Countrywide is just a small down payment of what's coming down the pike.

Unemployment is poised to soar. Few are prepared for it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Palestinian youth launch campaign to sue British government

He stressed that Britain should “bear moral and political responsibilities for what happened to the Palestinian people, and that the British people should be at the forefront of the peoples of the world who defend the Palestinian cause and back the Palestinian people for independent statehood and self-determination.”

read more | digg story

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER: another Iraqi massacre!



IRAQI CIVILIANS MASSACRED BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS NEAR BAIJI


Family Members and Friends Killed as They Waited for Relative's Release

Iraqwar.ru

June 27, 2008

On May 20, 2008 in the village of Al Mazraa, near Baiji, Salahuddin Province, Iraq-

Eight relatives and a neighbor on their way to a homecoming party for a detainee released from Camp Bucca were shot and killed by American soldiers as they waited on the road outside the neighborhood. American soldiers were conducting raids in the area, so neighbors had advised the family to stay away from the area until the patrol was over.

As the two car convoy was waiting nearby, an American helicopter nearby opened fire on the vehicles. As the vehicles were hit, the drivers attempted to seek cover, but both vehicles were repeatedly shot and disabled. The helicopter landed but instead of assisting those shot and needing medical help, the American soldiers killed any survivors and then wrote numbers on the foreheads of some. Several children including a young girls body are clearly visible, and the wounds suffered by the men are horrific. The vehicle is clearly shot with many rounds and the seats and road is covered with blood. Iraqi police were called to the scene to remove the bodies, and some video footage was taken. It is clear that these people were unarmed civilians.

American troops did eventually enter the house where over 50 Iraqis were gathered for the homecoming party, and the soldiers proceeded to destroy furniture and belongings as they conducted their search. No one in the house was harmed.

The names of those killed:

Sabah Rasheed Matrood
Saab Rasheed Matrood
Kamel Badr Daher
Ali Badr Daher
Udei Badr Daher
Fateh Haref Nouar
Abdul Rahman Kamel Badr

May they rest in Peace.

Meanwhile, contrast this LIEING SMIRKING CHIMP's PRESS STATEMENT for today!

Disgusting! Totally disgusting!
Screw the lamestream news!

Statement by the Press Secretary

29/June/2008

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of California and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local response efforts in the area struck by wildfires beginning on June 20, 2008, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of Butte, Mendocino, Monterey, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, and Trinity.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures, limited to direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Michael J. Hall as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.

Yeah, here is the new and horrible compassionate society!!

The George HW BuZh & BushCo

Compassionate society !!





June 26, 2008

What would happen re detainees after US election: Jordan J. Paust

US Duties to Detainees During a Withdrawal from Iraq

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that so long as the United States is an occupying power or exercises effective control in any part of Iraq it must ensure that it is meeting its obligations to detainees under international law and the laws of war.


Both presumptive presidential nominees are likely to attempt to downsize US military forces operating within Iraq if elected to the presidency. Obama would do so in a responsible manner, perhaps over a period of months, whereas McCain would leave US troops in-country for decades and downsize over a period of years. In either case, it is worth contemplating what might happen to persons who are detained by US military or other personnel in Iraq, or who are otherwise within effective US control. Is there a need for agreement concerning the detainees?

As a former and apparently present occupying power over any portion of Iraqi territory under its effective control, the US has responsibilities under the laws of war with respect to detained persons, and will have until any form of effective occupation ends. Such responsibilities continue to involve the absolute prohibitions of torture and cruel, inhuman, degrading, or humiliating treatment at US hands or in complicity with others. These prohibitions are also part of customary international law reflected in common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and are applicable to detained persons of any status. Also of interest is the absolute obligation under Articles 49 and 147 of the 1949 Geneva Civilian Convention to not transfer non-prisoners of war out of occupied territory or out of the theater of war within a country of detention such as Iraq. Under Article 4 of the Convention, it is clear that the protections under Articles 49 and 147 even reach nationals of a neutral state or a co-belligerent state while they are outside the actual territory of the detaining state (e.g., while outside U.S. territory). Persons who are security threats can continue to be detained under Articles 5 and 78 of the Geneva Civilian Convention if such is necessary for reasons of security and if there is periodic review of their status and release when detention is no longer necessary, but non-prisoners of war cannot be transferred out of Iraq. It is possible, therefore, that the US will attempt to continue to detain certain individuals within Iraq even after a significant withdrawal of US military forces, but US competence to do so would hinge on continuation of the applicability of Geneva law to an area, however small, where the US continues to exercise effective control.

Treaty-based and customary human rights law along with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), contrary to the Bush Administration, clearly apply wherever the US exercises effective control or jurisdiction over detainees, and such laws require that the US not transfer persons under its control to any country, including Iraq, if there is a “real risk” that the persons transferred will suffer human rights violations. Article 3 of the CAT also mandates that no party to the treaty “shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” More generally, complicit behavior by a state or its officials and its other nationals can create “state responsibility” under international law (which can lead to political, diplomatic, economic, and juridic sanctions against the state) and individual criminal and civil liability.

In view of the probable continuation of U.S. control of certain persons within Iraq (persons who, under Geneva law, cannot lawfully be transferred out of Iraq) and in view of continued US responsibilities under treaty-based and customary international law, it would seem to be in the interest of the US to offer the following clause with respect to any future agreement with the government of Iraq concerning US downsizing of troops and future relations and responsibilities between the US and Iraqi governments and their military forces:

“All persons in the hands of the US or in any other manner under effective US control who are protected in any manner under the 1949 Geneva Conventions shall remain under the complete jurisdiction and control of the US and shall not be transferred to any state where there is a real risk of deprivation of their human rights.”

Jordan J. Paust is the Mike & Teresa Baker Law Center Professor at the University of Houston, a former U.S. Army JAG officer, and member of the Faculty of the Judge Advocate General’s School. Discussion of some of the abovementioned and other duties of the U.S. appears in an earlier article: “The United States as Occupying Power Over Portions of Iraq and Special Responsibilities Under the Laws of War, 27 Suffolk Transnat’l L. Rev. 1 (2003).

Video on hidden Canadian uranium mining

Strong scientific evidence shows that particles released into the air and water during uranium mining and processing contribute to increased rates of cancer and organ damage, especially in children. The CBC recently reported that 4 out of 9 people screened had radioactive chemicals in their bones after living near a uranium processing facility.
Jeff Rense Show. JUNE 6, 2008.
Category: News & Politics
Tags:

Interesting news items today

Arab thinkers voice concern over US-Iraq security deal
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:45:40
Samer Dadaa, Press TV, Damascus

Bush, Talabani discuss US-Iraq security pact
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:03:44
Mike Kellerman, Press TV, Washington

Gerry Adams calls for Northern Ireland reunification
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:02:11
Roshan Mohammed Salih, Press TV, London

GAO report cites insufficient results in US 2007 military surge
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:30:10
Jihan Hafiz, Press TV, Washington

Israel closes Gaza crossings despite truce
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:49:21
Yousef Al-Helou, Pess TV, Gaza


Amnesty Int'l slams tolerance of torture
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:40:54

Amnesty International accuses Europe of enactment over serious torture issues
Amnesty International has slammed Europe for tolerating human rights abuse and torture, highlighting cases that support its claims.

Coinciding with the UN's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Amnesty International has issued a report accusing European governments of complicity and inaction over US-led rendition and secret detention by which people have been unlawfully detained and transferred from one country to another outside of any judicial process.

The report focuses on a number of notorious rendition cases, one of whom is Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and UK resident, rendered in 2002, allegedly tortured in Morocco and now detained for nearly fours years without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

"European governments are in a state of denial and have been sidestepping the truth for too long," said Amnesty International. "Their involvement in renditions and secret detention runs in stark contrast to their claims to be responsible actors in the fight against terrorism."

The report highlights six cases involving 13 individuals, details the involvement of European states.

This ranges from governments permitting CIA flights headed for rendition circuits to use European airports and airspace, as with Shannon Airport, to hosting secret detention centers, or "black sites" and includes the participation by security services from European states in interrogations of their own citizens while concealing their whereabouts from their families.

Also US detainees are being regularly transferred to detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; a facility known for its brazen use of torture to extract information from prisoners.

A number of individuals have also been subjected to enforced disappearance and the whereabouts of some three dozen people remain unknown. Every one of the victims of rendition interviewed by Amnesty International has said they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in custody.

FBA/MMN

Why is nothing said about CANADA? It used Goosebay for landings, it did illegal interrogations, it refuses to obey court orders to release Omar Khadr and there are "detainees" going around talking about their abuse !! And then there's the curious case of CHINA which "observed" illegal interrogations at Guantanamo Bay .. yet where is the international torture prosecutor on this?

Oh, yeah, I forgot! Canadian Amnesty International is ABOVE THE LAW !! And I should know.




"Detainee" kangaroo courts update

Judge threatens to suspend war court trial


crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A military judge in the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr threatened Thursday to suspend the terror trial unless the prison camp releases a detailed log of Khadr's treatment in more than five years of detention as an alleged al Qaeda terrorist.

Khadr, 21, is accused of throwing a hand grenade in a July 2002 firefight between U.S. forces and al Qaeda suspects in Afghanistan. A Special Forces medic, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., died of his wounds. Khadr was 15.

His attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, wants the log in a pretrial effort to limit the scope of evidence given to a jury of U.S. military officers at his upcoming trial, expected in late summer. He argues the circumstances of some interrogations would exclude some of his statements from the trial.

Thursday morning, the military judge, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, agreed with the defense that it should get copies of the log entries from the prison camp's Detainee Information Management System, or DIMS.

Brownback is believed to be the first war court judge to threaten to ''abate'' the proceedings if the prison camp's command staff does not turn over the evidence.

''I find that this is relevant because it shows the day-by-day, hour-by-hour track of Mr. Khadr throughout his detention here at Guantánamo Bay,'' the colonel said.

The extensive document is "a method of determining how he went through the system.''

The hearing took place in the original military commissions courtroom, an old air traffic control tower on a hill overlooking "Camp Justice.''

A day earlier, war court staff retreated from the Pentagon's showcase $12 million ''Expeditionary Legal Complex'' following a series of technical glitches, including a power outage, in a first test use of a maximum-security, snoop-proof court created for the trial of six alleged 9/11 conspirators.

The long the Khadr defense team seeks would draw back a layer of secrecy surrounding Khadr's treatment at this offshore Navy base, where the Toronto-born teen grew into bushy-bearded, six-foot-two adulthood behind the razor wire of Camp Delta.

A statement Thursday evening from the prison camps command staff, called the Joint Task Force, or JTF, said the commanders were "working closely with the prosecutors to redact the records for release.''

Redaction is a process of censorship that blacks out information that the Pentagon or other government agencies don't think the public should see.

''This entails a significant effort to redact information which would put JTF personnel at risk,'' the statement added, without elaborating on the nature of the risk.

Defense lawyers argue that Khadr, the son of an alleged senior al Qaeda financier, has been subjected to repeated mistreatment at Guantánamo to reinforce a confession he gave in detention at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

They say he was coerced into a confession soon after his capture, injured with two bullet wounds in his back -- and punished here if he didn't stick to that first account.

Prison camp commanders have consistently denied that Khadr has been mistreated and say all enemy combatants are treated with safety and humanely.

Khadr was sent here in 2002 after his 16th birthday and has been held in the cellblocks with other adult prisoners classified as ''enemy combatants,'' -- not at Iguana House, a special prison camp set up for juvenile combatants since sent home.

Brownback noted that Khadr's defense attorneys -- Kuebler and Rebecca Snyder, a civilian Pentagon lawyer -- are cleared to see any sensitive national security information that might be included in the log.

He set a deadline of 5 p.m. May 22 for authorities to turn over the log or find a remedy for the standoff over access to the details of Khadr's confinement.

''If not,'' Brownback said, "we stop.''

After the hearing, Air Force Maj. Gail Crawford, a military commissions legal expert, said there has been no abatement so far at the war court, which is now receiving pretrial motions in six cases and has charge sheets for seven more in the wings.

''If you can't get discovery, you can't go forward,'' Crawford said.

Brownback's ultimate remedy after abatement, she said, would be to dismiss the charges entirely.

In early 2005, his attorneys sought a criminal investigation into allegations that guards used Khadr as a human mop to clean up an interrogation room at the prison camps.

According to their description, Khadr had been left shackled so long in an interrogation booth in March 2003 that he urinated on himself. To clean it up, they claimed, guards poured a cleaning solvent on his soiled prison camp uniform and dragged him across the floor to wipe it up.

In March, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said there ``was no evidence to substantiate these claims."

Different war court judges have been struggling with their authority to issues orders related to the running of the prison, a razor-wire-ringed series of camps that sprawl across a bluff overlooking the Caribbean -- several miles from the tribunal building.

The judge in the case of Osama bin Laden's driver, expected to be the first at trial, has set late May for a hearing on the conditions of confinement of the driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

Hamdan's lawyers say he is so emotionally unstable after years of isolation in the camps that he is not competent to assist in his defense.

Last week the driver declared he would boycott the proceedings after the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, postponed a hearing on the topic.

''I don't have any control over the conditions of your confinement,'' Allred told Hamdan. "I've read in the newspapers that you and others are unhappy with them, and I understand that.''

Then Wednesday, a defense attorney in the case of Afghan detainee Mohammed Jawad, captured at 17, point blank asked Brownback whether he had the authority to intervene in the circumstances of his client's captivity. Brownback hedged a reply.

Jawad is accused of throwing a grenade into a U.S. military jeep at a bazaar in Kabul and injuring two American soldiers and their interpreter. He claims he was punished for refusing to come to his war court arraignment in March.

In order to get him there, his lawyer said, guards dragged him from his cell. In March, he was brought into the court in leg shackles, a war court first.

''I believe that some court should have some supervisory power over the administration of the detention facility. Up until now, it has been an empire unto itself,'' said Jawad's attorney, Air Force Reserves Maj. David J.R. Frakt, who is in civilian life a California law professor.


The crimes and cruelty of Buschco never cease, do they?

Guantánamo (from Miami Herald)


In this courtroom sketch, Omar Khadr attends his war-crimes trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba Thursday, May 8, 2008.
JANET HAMLIN / COURTESY CBC
In this courtroom sketch, Omar Khadr attends his war-crimes trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba Thursday, May 8, 2008.

June 25, 2008

Barkley likes odds of Ventura Senate run

The former governor has until July 15 to decide whether to enter the race and will probably wait until then.

Last update: June 19, 2008 - 10:30 AM

Dean Barkley, one of former Gov. Jesse Ventura's closest political associates, said Wednesday that he thinks Ventura will enter the U.S. Senate race as a third-party candidate next month.

But Barkley emphasized that no one knows what the former governor will wind up doing.

And he said Ventura probably won't make a decision until right before the deadline for filing for office -- 5 p.m. on July 15.

But Barkley said that recent polls -- which showed Ventura with the support of a quarter of Minnesota voters in a hypothetical run against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and DFLer Al Franken -- have reinforced their hunch that this could be a good year for a famous third-party candidate with office-holding experience.

In fact, both he and Ventura think the former governor would win, Barkley said.

"I think the public would like an alternative," he said. "The polls just show that [Coleman and Franken] have weaknesses that could be exploited by the right person."

No matter what Ventura does, that person won't be Barkley, who was appointed by Ventura to complete Paul Wellstone's term after the senator's death in 2002. Although he had said he would run if Ventura doesn't, Barkley was recently hired to run Metro Mobility transit and has ruled out joining the race.

As for Ventura, he's struggling between wanting to hang onto his comfortable lifestyle in Minnesota and Mexico, where he's become a surf hound, and his desire to shake up Congress and support U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Barkley said.

He added that Terry Ventura says she won't stand in her husband's way if he wants to run.

"Half of him wants to [run] and the other half says, 'Don't do it, you idiot,'" Barkley said. "He knows his way of life is going to have to change."

One of the recent polls that showed support for Ventura also found that 60 percent of respondents said he shouldn't run for the Senate. Barkley acknowledged that he has some negatives.

SENATOR NORM COLEMAN a Whistleblower with a mandate who never came Forward!

SENATOR NORM COLEMAN a Whistleblower with a mandate who never came Forward! I, Jack Shepard AWARD TO SENATOR NORM COLEMAN THE NON-WHISTLEBLOWER OF THE YEAR 2006-2007 FOR ALL US GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT AGENCIES. For detailed cases by case in depth unbelievable in dept look there are several very interesting links.NORM COLEMAN -& VISIT WWW.JACKSHEPARDFORSENATE.COM to see how SEN. NORM COLEMAN chair of the Iraqi oversight Committee did not use his powers to be a whistleblower on any contractors who were giving him $100,000+ in donations to his Senate Re-election Committee; which know has over $7,000,000 on hand?

posted by jack4shepard

Justice guilty of political hiring: La Times

A report found young applicants deemed liberal or Democrat were rejected for jobs.

Last update: June 24, 2008 - 10:55 PM

WASHINGTON - Scores of highly credentialed young lawyers and law students were denied interviews for coveted positions at the Justice Department because of an illegal screening process that took political and ideological views and affiliations into account rather than merit, Justice Department investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday.

In 2006, some applicants for sought-after jobs in the department's honors program and summer intern program were rejected because they were members of the American Constitution Society or Planned Parenthood or because they expressed concern about gender discrimination in the military, the report found.

Other students or graduates who were brushed aside included a University of Alabama law graduate, ranked sixth in the class, who had written a paper on the detention of aliens under the USA Patriot Act, a Yale Law School graduate who was fluent in Arabic and a Georgetown law student who had worked for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

In another case, a Harvard Law student was passed over after criticizing the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Justice Department officials told investigators the applicants were turned down for reasons of academic performance. But most, if not all, of the applicants had superior records, and those explanations were not deemed credible, according to the report.

Career staff and other senior officials openly complained about bias in the process, but their complaints were ignored, investigators found.

"When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys, our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics," said Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test."


Inspiring essay on TPMuckraker by The Facilitatrix

This appears as Obama and McCain have exposed themselves for the asses that they are ..

An EXCELLENT essay! (Wish I'd written it myself, but I spend my time getting everything on this blog now .. )

The Second Great Depression is already in the USA, there are gobs of things to fix. Impeachment and a WAR CRIMES tribunal are the only answers legally BUT we must stay inspired.

The Bush legacy is much worse than you think

By The Facilitatrix - April 16, 2008, 2:32PM

You know what, folks? The sky is falling.

The Bush administration is merely the culmination of a strategy that's been undermining our free, open, and self-determining society for years, and pushing most of us into a cesspool while a few live in splendor.

All these years of letting the market regulate itself has led us here: an environment so raped and pillaged that to reverse the climate change—which is fast leading from over warming to water shortages to food shortages to famine to wars to death and chaos on a level we need to watch The Road Warrior to picture.

We may not see the worst of it, but our children or grandchildren will, and it ain't gonna be pretty. Only a few will be exempt from the effects.

Welcome to our world

What we have right now are airlines flying with unsafe aircraft, because a politicized FAA didn't want to squelch business growth by making the airlines maintain their fleet properly. We have mine disasters and vaunted "clean coal." We have profiteering in unmonitored student loans. We have an FCC that protects media conglomerates, not the airwaves. We have Bizarro-world taxation and environmental standards. But none of this hurts the few, and much of it benefits them further.
We have an educational system that is the laughingstock of the world's unsympathetic and a tragedy to our friends in the world, friends who remember the shining society the US was building and reaching, with secondary education that prepared children to become functioning adults and higher education available to any who were willing to pay the price in effort and intellectual growth, not devastating, life-long debt. This strengthens those few, turning social and economic gaps into chasms.

We have a "justice" system that slaps the hands of corporate malefactors while it methodically pits race against race, to keep the underclasses struggling just to survive, so they won't have the strength to fight the system that controls injustice. The few nod approvingly.

The few, the arrogant

We have a superclass of the few that has for decades methodically worked toward the massive gap we have between their wealth and the rest of us, based, I can only imagine, on pathological needs for money and power, because they sure as hell can't eat any better now than they did in 1965.

We have a "shadow market" of the few operating free from even minimal regulation and that benefits from the petty greed of players in the stock market, because investors' grandiose schemes for profit and distress at loss are merely tools for the real profit gained by the shadow puppeteers.

We have a society of the rest of us in which those recently disenfranchised by deregulation and free markets are those who in generations past disenfranchised other races and ethnicities. And they're still reeling from the loss, so much so that their bitterness—yes, their bitterness—is aimed at people who had nothing to do with disenfranchising them.

But the superclass has had its minions tell the white former middle class over and over that it's the blacks, the Mexicans, the liberals, the Jews, the terrorists, the gays, the atheists—everyone but those actually responsible for it—who took away their jobs and their way of life.

How'd they do it? And who helped?

The superclass knows that if they tell us up is down and right is wrong long enough and often enough, they'll wear down the weakest of us, the most disillusioned of us, the most fearful of us, and the angriest of us, so we'll lash out at others and each other, rather than at them. We've been turned so topsy-turvy that we focus on what they tell us are threats to our "way of life" and can't see outside of the tunnel they've built to see the builders themselves.

Their minions are the middle managers, the stockbrokers, the investor-players, the lobbyists, and the legislators, who buy into the superclass's vision and do their dirty work for them, dreaming their grand dreams. The minions think that by doing their masters' bidding and playing their game, they'll get a piece of the pie. But even though it's a very, very big pie, only very, very few get to enjoy it.

So, wake up, little minions! Wake up, Condoleezza and Colin and Alberto and Alphonso, and really, Harriet and Karen and Lurita. Because the guys in charge have absolutely no intention of sharing the pie with you. Blacks, Mexicans, and women need not apply to the superclass, but you can work for them. Oh, and Johnny Yoo? Nice work on the memos. We'll call you if we need anything else done. You are not one of them, and you never can or will be. You are the pie makers. You steal from your own to make the pie, but you don't get to take it home.

Bush and Cheney and O'Neill and Rove, along with some select, moving-and-shaking (and correctly born, educated, and baptized) senators (sorry, not you, Joe L.) enjoy the pie, but no congressmen (Really, the grunts? I think not!). And of course, the business moguls who share the beds of of the politicos in the superclass win with them, and they gobble up the pie and get fatter than even Croesus could have imagined.

They're not going to give anything back.

Unless those of us who are on to what the superclass has done to us rise up—and I mean that in its classical, revolutionary sense—nothing will ever get better for anyone but them. And unless we shove the faces of all of those minion-enablers into the reality that they can't eat that pie—which they were never intended to share—they're going to keep on helping those few who have done the world more harm than any war, any despot, any plague, or any disaster.

So anything they tell us? More smoke and mirrors to keep us from screaming out the truth and taking back our education, our health, our utilities, our infrastructure, our transportation, our communications, our media, and anything else that has been deregulated or allowed to be "free marketed" into its current state. And we've got to regulate the hell out of everything, and tax the bastards within an inch of their lives. Then at least we can stop them where they now stand and maybe even get something back.

Who will win?

But you know what? No matter what we do to the superclass—short of incarcerating the lot of them in Pelican Bay, looting their villas, or building some guillotines—they will always have more money than they rest of us can imagine. Just accept that now. It shouldn't stop us from doing what we need to do, though.

We can restore our freedoms. We can stop playing their games, using their oil, swallowing their pabulum, and blaming fellow victims. But we're going to have to fight for it, and we're going to have to convince their minions that facilitating the puppeteers is in no one's interest but the puppeteers themselves.

So take up metaphorical arms and do what we need done to save us all. Winning an election isn't going to make things magically better. But it's a necessary first step toward unraveling our knots and cutting the puppets' strings. Just don't expect the superclass to give anything back without a dirty, ugly, bloody fight.

Again, the torture prosecutor is the first step. And this would lead to IMPEACHMENT !
The WORLD is breathlessly awaiting what US patriot really do - and if you've read the blog you know that Obama is no answer.

The elections WILL be cancelled. And then there is very heavy work to be done and I am doing my part, as I can.


MNN update: at the Canada/US border

AKWESASNE GUARDS ON THE BORDER OF INSANITY: Colonists cross “line” into "terrorism": by Karakwine of Kanehsatake of Haudenosaunee Territory

MNN. June 24, 2008. It looks like the military-industrial-governmental cartel is no longer restricting itself to using words, subterfuge and intimidation in their “war” on Indigenous people of Turtle Island. They are now attempting to eliminate those who stand in their way. Every person who wants freedom should be wary. Beware of the coming attacks on our people.

Dear loyal readers of MNN. As you already know, MNN suffered a blow on Saturday June 14th. To briefly recap. Kahentinetha Horn and Katenies were brutally attacked and beaten at the Cornwall-New York border that runs through the middle of the Akwesasne Mohawk community. As a result, kahentinetha suffered damage to her heart and is resting quietly. Katenies is in seclusion with her family recuperating from a vicious beating.

We thank you in advance for your continued readership and patience during this time. We at MNN will continue to report lies, thefts, deceptions and brutality directed against our people and expose the colonists as only we know how. We see even more clearly that Prime Minister Harper speaks peace on one hand and metes out violence with the other. This attack on Kahentinetha and Katenies exposes the hypocrisy of Harper’s heinous apology to the Indigenous people last week over the Canadian policy of genocide. Our ancestors were right. He speaks with “a forked tongue”.

That “Drug Store Indian” Phil Fontaine was standing next to his master, the Prime Minister, skinning and grinning for all he was worth. Hey, Phil, was your soul stolen for good at “Camp Auchweitz Indian Residential School”? Haven’t you got your humanity back?

The goons hired by Canada Border Customs are high on muscle and testosterone, low on brains and selected for their sadistic nature. The Canadian “Corp. Gov.” is hell bent on spilling Mohawk blood. Our young people are being harassed daily at this border crossing. Their parents are running around from one jail to another frantically looking for them. This tactic is meant to demoralize our youth and future generations.

The brutal and disrespecpectful conduct at the border is consistent with the recent heightening of OPP threats and the calling in of the Canadian army on Indigenous people. All Canada is stepping up military recruiting. There appears to be a consensus among these violence-based organizations to use indigenous people for target practice. Julian “Little Il Duce” Fantino recently burst into the Six Nations Onondaga longhouse to exercise what he thinks is his imaginary right of dictatorship over us. Kahentinetha was warned by several people that she should not set foot in “their” Ontario. She made a mistake that it was safe for her to go there. These creeps appear to have stepped out of the pages of the Mussolini fascist era to become Harper’s obedient Doberman.

Psychological tests have demonstrated that a “disconnect” tends to take over when you stick a uniform on someone’s back. It brings out a killer instinct. It is dangerous. If they are asked to guard an outhouse, they would do this with all the seriousness befitting a royal body guard. As long as they have their uniform on, the more elaborate, they are ready to take liberties. They think they can get away with anything. “Only taking orders!”

Don’t’ be surprised to hear lies and disinformation directed against MNN. We must be vigilant against the “new normal” fascism. MNN is going to try to address this new paradigm. Our voice will roar back. “We will, we will, resist!” Guaranteed!

Fighting this border issue will cost money. MNN has none. The Canadian state can dip into the pockets of 30 million people and all indigenous resources. It’s an unbalanced fight. We need your help to get counsel that will not be intimidated by this display of power. The establishment is apparently hiring the top law firms in the country to fight the Mohawks. Your financial help is needed.

Karakwine

If you could send donations to the MNN legal defense fund, it would be greatly appreciated: MNN, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0.

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Report: Mohawk grandmothers attacked by Canadian Border Services Agency guardsnooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2008/06/cbsa-attack.html “Family furious with Customs” Posted by Trevor Pritchard, Cornwall Standard Freeholder - Saturday, June 21, 2008 Family furious with Customs; See MNN Category: “ Border/Jay Treaty “; New MNN Books Available Now! The books below, email us: Mohawk Warriors Three - The Trial of Lasagna, Noriega, 20/20$20.00 usd; The On-Going Confusion between The Great Law and The Handsome Lake Code$ 20.00 usd; The Agonizing Death of "Colonialism" and "Federal Indian Law" in Kaianere'ko:wa/Great Law Territory $20.00 usd; Who's Sorry Now? The good, the bad and the unapologetic Mohawks of Kanehsatake $20.00 usd; Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy Karoniaktajeh $10 usd; Warriors Hand Book Karoniaktajeh $10 usd; Mail checks and money orders to... MNN P.O. Box 991 Kahnawake, QC J0L 1B0; Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePress Store; http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews ;Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates ; http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php ; Sign Women Title Holders petition! ; htp://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois ;Link to MNN Get the code and banners to link to Mohawk Nation News. ; http://www.mohawknationnews.com/pg.php?page=promote.html ;Your Support - Make a contribution to our newsgroup. Secure your online transaction with PayPal®. ; http://www.mohawknationnews.com/pg.php?page=donate.html Nia:wen, Kahentinetha Horn Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com Speaking & Contemporary Native Issues Workshops Katenies katenies20@yahoo.com Manager ; Stay tuned! www.mohawknationnews.com


June 24, 2008

recent news on Alzheimer's/dementia

New clue to Alzheimer's found

Wired

2008-06-24

Researchers have uncovered a new clue to the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

The brains of people with the memory-robbing form of dementia are cluttered with a plaque made up of beta-amyloid, a sticky protein. But there long has been a question whether this is a cause of the disease or a side effect. Also involved are tangles of a protein called tau; some scientists suspect this is the cause.

Now, researchers have caused Alzheimer's symptoms in rats by injecting them with one particular form of beta-amyloid. Injections with other forms of beta-amyloid did not cause illness, which may explain why some people have beta-amyloid plaque in their brains but do not show disease symptoms.

The findings by a team led by Dr. Ganesh M. Shankar and Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe of Harvard Medical School were reported in Sunday's online edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The researchers used extracts from the brains of people who donated their bodies to medicine.

Forms of soluble beta-amyloid containing different numbers of molecules, as well as insoluble cores of the brain plaque, were injected into the brains of rats. There was no detectable effect from the insoluble plaque or the soluble one-molecule or three-molecule forms, the researchers found.

But the two-molecule form of soluble beta-amyloid produced characteristics of Alzheimer's in the rats, they reported.

Those rats had impaired memory function, especially for newly learned behaviors. Studies were also done on mice and when their brains were inspected, the density brain cells were reduced by 47 percent. The beta-amyloid seemed to affect synapses, the connections between cells that are essential for communication between them.

The research, for the first time, showed the effect of a particular type of beta-amyloid in the brain, said Dr. Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, director of the division of neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, which helped fund the research.

It was surprising that only one of the three types had an effect, she said in a telephone interview.

Morrison-Bogorad said the findings may help explain the discovery of plaque in the brains of people who do not develop dementia. For some time, doctors have wondered why they find some brains in autopsy that are heavily coated with beta-amyloid, but the person did not have Alzheimer's.

The answer may lie in the two types of beta-amyloid that did not cause symptoms.

Now, the question is why one has the damaging effect and not others.

"A lot of work needs to be done," Morrison-Bogorad said. "Nature keeps sending us down paths that look straight at the beginning, but there are a lot of curves before we get to the end."

Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, said that "while more research is needed to replicate and extend these findings, this study has put yet one more piece into place in the puzzle that is Alzheimer's."

In addition to the Institute on Aging, the research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland, Wellcome Trust, the McKnight and Ellison foundations and the Lefler Small Grant Fund.


Congress to hear testimony on AIDS !!

I have received the meeting time and date. U.S. House Resolution 15090 will be our calling card. Page 129 of this document proves the U.S. Pentagon sought and received $10,000, 000.00 on June 9, 1969, to make a "synthetic biological agent" for which no natural immunity could exist, an agent that will deplete the immune system so as to allow for the onset of infectious disease. This document was previously provided to Willie Blair of your staff.

ANY REVIEW OF THE U.S. SPECIAL VIRUS PROGRAM (1962 - 1978) WILL SOLVE AND END HIV/AIDS. The program's 1971 "research logic" blueprint is absolute evidence of the design, purpose and intent of this federal program.

Equally true is the United States' 1971 confession that "visna virus" (sheep) had not YET been associated with human disease. See page 39, progress report # 8 (1971). However on July 18, 1983, The U.S. AIDS Task Force was informed that "visna" was the etiological agent of HIV/AIDS. So, the question for the Congressman and the United States regarding the laboratory birth of AIDS is: When did visna sheep virus cross species between 1971 and 1983 so as to become the etiological agent of HIV/AIDS. See Science Vol 227, pp. 173 -7, January 1985. See also, The Proceedings of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences, Vol 83, pp. 4007 - 11, PROC NAS, June 1986, see also, PROC NAS Vol 92, pp. 3283 - 87, April 11, 1995.

The U.S. Special Virus program is the ONLY answer. The 1971 flowchart depicts the development of the "ESP-1 virus. Under electron microscope the esp-1 is "IDENTICAL" to the HIV electron microscope as listed in the 1985 Science paper cited above.

Also true is the fact that a 1971 Science paper of the time details the esp-1 virus made within the U.S. Special Virus program (1962 - 1978), See, "U.S. Special Virus Cancer Program: Trevails of a Biological Moonshot" (google it).

I look forward to meeting you and the Congressman, I hope by then the whole world is watching. We have within our reach a vision of a world once again without HIV/AIDS, we must not fail. Respectfully submitted,

Boyd Ed Graves, J.D.

Director-AIDS CONCERNS

The Common Cause Medical Research Foundation (Ontario, Canada)

370 D. Street

Chula Vista, CA 91910

619-849-9364


ACTIVISM: Anti Star wars defense update

JUNE 22 PHOTOS AND AN EMAIL FROM THE COLONEL

Folks met in Brunswick, Maine on the town green for an hour of sign
holding, writing letters to Condi Rice (who goes to the Czech
Republic on July 10 to sign the Star Wars radar agreement), and we
closed with a circle and everyone shared why they had come. Most
of those in the photo fasted on June 22.

In dozens of cities all over the world the June 22 global day of
fasting brought people out onto the streets in creative displays
of solidarity with the 70% of the people in the Czech Republic who
are working hard to reject U.S. plans to deploy a Star Wars radar
facility in their country.

Thousands of signatures were gathered for the petition at
http://www.nonviolence.cz/ In many places statements were written
on paper plates to Secretary of State Rice and will be sent to her
before her visit to Prague in early July.

You can find many more photos, and reports, at this web site.

At the end of the day I received an email from Col. Robert Suminsby,
Jr. in which he said, "The point I made, and will continue to make,
is that the country is on an unsustainable course. The growth of
entitlement spending, left unchecked, will eventually crowd out all
other parts of the federal budget."

Col. Suminsby worries that people like me are taking a fixed position
of hands off entitlement spending ........"You see, I'm prepared
to make sacrifices to fix national problems. I think others should
expect to make sacrifices as well," he said.

I want to assure the Colonel that I too am ready to see "sacrifices"
made for the good of the nation. I'd like to see the $14 billion
of month we are wasting in Iraq and Afghanistan brought home to
build rail systems, solar, and windmills. I'd like to not see us
attack Iran. I'd like to see an end to tax cuts for the rich and
the corporations. I want an end to the NSA's "warrantless wiretapping"
of American citizens and people all over the world.

I'd like to see at least a 50% cut in military spending for starters.
(Just yesterday an article was sent around about the increases in
funding for the Pentagon's high-tech black "secret" budget. I'd
like to see the black budget shut down.) I'd like to see the 750
plus U.S. military bases around the world shut down.

Living at a time where we face increasing corporate media consolidation
many of us have to rely on email, websites, and blogs to get our
messages out to the general public. Newspapers are now in dire
financial straits, in part, because people rely on the Internet as
their primary source of information.

Col. Suminsby concluded his email to me by saying, "Therebs precious
little difference between you and any number of right-wing blowhards
on talk radiob&on either end of the ideological spectrum, if you
insist on creating your own version of someonebs position and then
attacking it, youbll succeed only in making yourself feel good, and
convincing those who already agreed with you."

I would thank Col. Suminsby for sending me the email. He should
know that increasing majorities of the people in the U.S. and around
the world are now quite uncomfortable with the escalating U.S.
military empire. There is a growing backlash against U.S. militarism
both here at home and abroad.

I noticed that the Colonel is soon to be transferred to Germany. I
lived there in the mid-1960's when my Air Force father was stationed
in Wiesbaden. One day our middle school class was taken to the Rhine
River to view the ruins of a castle. The tourist guide informed us
that the stone slab we were standing on had once been the barracks
of Roman soldiers. I remember wondering to myself, "What were those
soldiers doing so far from home?" Even at that young age I intuitively
understood that empires are a contradiction and in time can not
stand. They are destined to fall.

In our case the U.S. empire is now collapsing. One clear sign is
that in the U.S. there is growing competition for the federal tax
dollar. Will we fund the Pentagon or social progress? We can't serve
two masters.

It appears that the debate will go on.

Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear
Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org global...@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)

Important FLU and atypical antipsychotic information

Two things to keep your elderly parents away from: Being drugged at their elderly facility and the flu shot that has high levels of mercury, causes dementia and actually does not work which in some facilities are required.
If so, demand the flu shot without Thimerosal but not the live virus vaccine called "Flu mist". Eileen

See 5 minute University of Calgary video on our site: www.ProgressiveConvergence.com (how mercury degenerates the brain neurons)

and check out the 2500 suicide and homicide stories: http://www.ssristories.com/index.php



Letters to the editor: letters@nytimes.com
New York Times
Doctors Say Medication Is Overused in Dementia
By LAURIE TARKAN
June 24, 2008

Ramona Lamascola with her mother, Theresa Lamascola.
Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication.

Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola's own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia.

Mrs. Lamascola no longer takes antipsychotics.
Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. "My mother was screaming and out of it, drooling on herself and twitching," said Ms. Lamascola, a pediatric nurse. The psychiatrist in the nursing home stopped the Risperdal, which can cause twitching and vocal tics, and prescribed a sedative and two other antipsychotics.

"I knew the drugs were doing this to her," her daughter said. "I told him to stop the medications and stay away from Mom."

Not until yet another doctor took Mrs. Lamascola off the drugs did she begin to improve.

The use of antipsychotic drugs to tamp down the agitation, combative behavior and outbursts of dementia patients has soared, especially in the elderly. Sales of newer antipsychotics like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa totaled $13.1 billion in 2007, up from $4 billion in 2000, according to IMS Health, a health care information company.

Part of this increase can be traced to prescriptions in nursing homes. Researchers estimate that about a third of all nursing home patients have been given antipsychotic drugs.

The increases continue despite a drumbeat of bad publicity. A 2006 study of Alzheimer's patients found that for most patients, antipsychotics provided no significant improvement over placebos in treating aggression and delusions.

In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration ordered that the newer drugs carry a "black box" label warning of an increased risk of death. Last week, the F.D.A. required a similar warning on the labels of older antipsychotics.

The agency has not approved marketing of these drugs for older people with dementia, but they are commonly prescribed to these patients "off label." Several states are suing the top sellers of antipsychotics on charges of false and misleading marketing.

Ambre Morley, a spokeswoman for Janssen, the division of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures Risperdal, would not comment on the suits, but said: "As with any medication, the prescribing of a medication is up to a physician. We only promote our products for F.D.A.-approved indications."

Nevertheless, many doctors say misuse of the drugs is widespread. "These antipsychotics can be overused and abused," said Dr. Johnny Matson, a professor of psychology at Louisiana State University. "And there's a lot of abuse going on in a lot of these places."

Dr. William D. Smucker, a member of the American Medical Directors Association, a group of health professionals who work in nursing homes, agreed. Though the group encourages doctors to conduct a thorough assessment and prescribe antipsychotics only as a last resort, he said, "Many physicians are absent without leave in the nursing home and don't take an active role in the assessment of the patient."

Some nursing homes are trying a different approach, so-called environmental intervention. The strategies include reducing boredom, providing intellectual and physical stimulation, exercise, calming music, bringing in pets for therapy and improving how the staff approaches and talks to dementia patients.

At the Margaret Teitz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Queens, social workers do life reviews of patients to understand their interests, lifestyle and former occupations.

"I had a patient who used to be in fashion," said Nancy Goldwasser, the director of social services. "So we got her fabric samples. And she'd sit and look through the books, touch the fabric, and it would calm her."

But such approaches are time consuming, they do not help all patients, they can be prohibitively expensive and they will be more difficult to provide as Alzheimer's continues to increase.

"Our health care system isn't set up to address the mental, emotional and behavioral problems of the elderly," said Dr. Gary S. Moak, president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

Nursing homes are short staffed, and insurers do not generally pay for the attentive medical care and hands-on psychosocial therapy that advocates recommend. It is much easier to use sedatives and antipsychotics, despite their side effects.

The first generation of antipsychotics, like Haldol, carry a significant risk of repetitive movement disorders and sedation. Second-generation antipsychotics, also called atypicals, are more commonly prescribed because the risk of movement disorders is lower. But they, too, can cause sedation, and they contribute to weight gain and diabetes.

Used correctly, the drugs do have a role in treating some seriously demented patients, who may be incapacitated by paranoia or are self-destructive or violent. Taking the edge off the behavior can keep them safe and living at home, rather than in a nursing home.

If patients are prescribed an antipsychotic, it should be a very low dose for the shortest period necessary, said Dr. Dillip V. Jeste, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego.

It may take a few weeks or months to control behavior. In many cases, the patient can then be weaned off of the drugs or kept at a very low dose.

Some experts say another group of medications — antidementia drugs like Aricept, Exalon and Menamda — are underused. Research shows that 10 to 20 percent of Alzheimer's patients had noticeable positive responses to the drugs, and 40 percent more showed some cognitive improvement, even if it was not noticeable to an observer.
"Sometimes, it's enough to take the edge off the behavioral problems, so the family and patient can live with it and you don't expose people to much risk," said Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Other experts cite a lack of research backing these drugs for behavioral problems.

If patients begin showing behavioral symptoms of dementia, doctors said, they should have complete medical and psychiatric workups first, especially if symptoms develop suddenly.

"Just because someone is 95 does not mean one should not do a workup, especially if she's been healthy," Dr. Kennedy said.

Common causes of the symptoms include ministrokes, reparable brain hemorrhage from a mild bump on the head, hypothyroidism, dehydration, malnourishment, depression and sleep disorders.

Some doctors point out that simply paying attention to a nursing home patient can ease dementia symptoms. They note that in randomized trials of antipsychotic drugs for dementia, 30 to 60 percent of patients in the placebo groups improved.

"That's mind boggling," Dr. Jeste said. "These severely demented patients are not responding to the power of suggestion. They're responding to the attention they get when they participate in a clinical trial.

"They receive both T.L.C. and good general medical and humane care, which they did not receive until now. That's a sad commentary on the way we treat dementia patients."

To family members looking at a nursing home for an aging parent, experts recommend seeking out homes with low staff turnover, a high ratio of staff members to patients, and programs with psychosocial components.

The Medicare Web site has basic information on individual homes at www.medicare.gov/NHcompare. The National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, at www.nccnhr.org, offers a consumer guide to choosing a nursing home.

If medications are necessary, a family member should communicate with the prescribing doctor, learn the goal of each medication and be involved in making the decision.

Dr. Moak, of the psychiatry association, emphasized seeking out the doctor. Family members, he said, "often speak through the nursing staff, and that's a huge mistake."

Family members who are not convinced that a relative is receiving the best care should get a second opinion, as Ramona Lamascola did.

The physician she consulted, Dr. Kennedy of Montefiore, stopped her mother's antipsychotics and sedatives and prescribed Aricept.

"It's not clear whether it was getting her hypothyroid and other medical issues finally under control or getting rid of the offending medications," he said. "But she had a miraculous turnaround."

Theresa Lamascola still has dementia, but she went from confinement in a wheelchair — unable to sit still and screaming out in fear — to being able to walk with help, sit peacefully, have some memory and ability to communicate, understand subtleties of conversations and even make jokes.

Or, as her daughter put it, "I got my mother back."

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/health/24deme.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1


27,346 Signatures Against TeenScreen. Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY


HIV 'FALSE POSITIVE' TEST STRESS

By MELISSA KLEIN (New York Sun)


June 22, 2008 -- Hundreds of people were incorrectly told they had tested positive for HIV at New York City STD clinics this winter.

Almost half the results given by the clinics were false positives, the Department of Health confirmed.

From November to April, 213 people tested positive after taking a rapid mouth-swab HIV test. A second test revealed they did not have the virus.

The city would not explain why, as false positives mounted, it continued to administer the tests.

The reason for the spike is under investigation by the DOH, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and test manufacturer OraSure Technologies. The DOH said it had stopped using OraSure's rapid swab tests.

DOH said anyone who received a positive result from the oral test was immediately given another test, this time using a finger stick to take blood.

"Nobody was misled or harmed," said Dr. Susan Blank, assistant DOH commissioner and director of the bureau of STD control.

The swab tests proved popular after they were introduced at city STD clinics in 2005. The number of people tested for HIV grew 24 percent that year.

Additional reporting by Susan Edelman

June 23, 2008

On Barak Obama - too funny not to post

The Two Obamas

Published: June 20, 2008

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they're running against some academic liberal who wouldn't wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn't proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they're running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there's Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He's the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he's too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

But he's been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in "Entourage" and it all falls into place.

Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted "present" nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck.

Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don't do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don't go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck.

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He's spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama's got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn't just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. Obama blamed the (so far marginal) Republican 527s. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa's final steps to sainthood.

The media and the activists won't care (they were only interested in campaign-finance reform only when the Republicans had more money). Meanwhile, Obama's money is forever. He's got an army of small donors and a phalanx of big money bundlers, including, according to The Washington Post, Kenneth Griffin of the Citadel Investment Group; Kirk Wager, a Florida trial lawyer; James Crown, a director of General Dynamics; and Neil Bluhm, a hotel, office and casino developer.

I have to admit, I'm ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he'll sell that out, what won't he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain't beanbag. If we're going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I'd use to describe Barack Obama. He's the most effectively political creature we've seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn't smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

R.I.P. George Carlin






Fuck. Will I ever miss you.

Empathy deficit disorder -- do you suffer from it?

By Amanda Robb
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Oprah

(OPRAH.com) -- I swear on the "Thelma & Louise" video we watched into a scratchy oblivion: I didn't mean to be the worst friend ever. When Lisa -- my roommate and boon companion of three years --stepped into our apartment, sank to the floor, and clutched our cocker spaniel, I asked, "What's wrong?" with sympathy.

Empathy deficit disorder -- do you suffer from it?

"I got fired," Lisa told me.

"Wow." I pulled her to her feet. "You'll have an amazing story for Jim's party tonight!"

Lisa's eyes went round and wet as the dog's when we left her at the vet. She said, "Come on, Maya" (who gave me a reproachful glance before obeying), disappeared into her bedroom (for three days), and never discussed career matters with me again.

Boy, was I annoyed. At age 26, I was a sublime friend. Lisa, also 26, was blessed to have an ally so honest about dates and hairstyles, so fiercely supportive of her dreams, and willing to defend her choices (the dates, hairstyles, and dreams) to her habitually nettling mom and dad. Never once in our relationship, I was proud to think, had I ever even been tempted to commit a single mortal friendship sin: being competitive, gossiping, or backstabbing.

To me, Lisa's job loss was no big deal. She had complained about the position. Her parents were rich and gave her money. She had nothing to worry about. I thought that reminding her we had something fun to do that night was an appropriate and kind response.

Psychologist Douglas LaBier, Ph.D., director and founder of the Center for Adult Development in Washington, D.C., disagrees. He explained to me that my dearest friend was humiliated by receiving a pink slip, feared she might be incompetent at everything she tried, and, because of me, felt utterly alone. I was, LaBier tells me, "catastrophically unempathetic" to Lisa.

At the heart of many problems

Today, 15 years later, I know why my attempt at consoling my friend was so ham-fisted. As LaBier explains, virtually everyone learns the basics of empathy in childhood (from our parents comforting us when we're in distress), but my father died when I was 4, and afterward my mother had to be very can-do, juggling three jobs, graduate school, and two kids. When I was upset, she never said, "Oh, I'm sorry. It must be hard to have me away so much after losing your dad."

Instead, on good days, she'd say, "Why are you crying? Nothing is wrong." And on bad days: "You'd better toughen up because life can get a lot worse." Looking back at my 20-something self, I realize that if, as LaBier says, empathy is "the ability or the willingness to experience the world from someone else's point of view," I wasn't brought up to be able to do that.

At least my lack of empathy was not unusual. Having practiced as a psychotherapist for 35 years, LaBier believes that what he calls empathy deficit disorder (EDD) is rampant among Americans.

LaBier says we unlearn whatever empathy skills we've picked up while coming of age in a culture that focuses on acquisition and status more than cooperation and values "moving on" over thoughtful reflection. LaBier is convinced that EDD is at the heart of modernity's most common problems, macro (war) and micro (divorce).

When Lisa crept into her bedroom, I couldn't have articulated any of this. She might have felt abandoned, but all I knew was that I felt alone. My roommate had her dog, and they were both shunning me, and my boyfriend of four years wouldn't rescue me from the loneliness I increasingly felt by agreeing to get married. I went into psychotherapy.

Faking it a step to becoming empathetic

I thought my therapist would help me break up with my commitment-phobic lover, figure out how to choose less sensitive friends, and, of course, let me rant about my mother's shortcomings. I did get to rant -- about my mom, Lisa, and my boyfriend.

What surprised me was my therapist's response to these tirades. She never said, "Leave that rotten bastard." Or "Your roommate is a big baby." Instead she said, "Gosh, that sounds really hard." And, "That must have felt terrible." And, "How did you feel after that happened?" My reaction to those spectacularly bland comments was even more astonishing. I loved them.

"These very simple responses make you feel understood," says New York psychologist Frank M. Lachmann, Ph.D., author of "Transforming Narcissism: Reflections on Empathy, Humor, and Expectations."

He points out that many of the common responses -- "It could be worse"; "You should do X"; "Let's talk about something else" -- appear to be kind and aimed at soothing. But no matter how well intentioned, Lachmann says, these remarks are a rejection, a denial, of what the other person is going through. "They are code for 'Don't confront me with things that are unpleasant,'" he says. "Or 'Don't bother me with your pain.'"

About six months into psychotherapy, I started using what I thought of as my therapist's "lines."

When Lisa was offered a job at an organization she did not want to work at, I said, "Oh, that's a tough spot to be in." When my boyfriend was invited to study abroad, I said, "How do you feel about that?" What I really felt was: "Lisa, that job pays a ton of money, but I guess you can turn it down because your parents are loaded." And, "You selfish bastard, I'll kill you if you go to Europe without me."

Still, Lachmann says, I had taken the first step to becoming empathetic -- which is faking it. If you want to act more empathetic, you follow certain steps: Instead of telling people what they ought to do or becoming tyrannically optimistic, you offer sympathy, inquire about feelings, and validate those feelings. You'll be giving comfort to the other person, even if you yourself can't feel what they're going through.

It's true that for a long time, while I could say the appropriate thing, I could not relate to their struggles. Still, I took satisfaction in the fact that my relationships were improving. Then a year after starting therapy, I began feeling something intensely when comforting friends: terror.

This turned out to be a signal, Lachmann says, that I was actually feeling empathy.

Final insult

I didn't recognize it because I'd always run from emotional discomfort -- and, at least in the beginning, I found trying to be empathetic profoundly uncomfortable. Most of the time, I managed to avoid the impulse to blurt out unhelpful suggestions to my friends -- "Happy hour, anyone?" Or, "Here's the number for a credit consolidator!" -- and instead say the appropriate thing. But for years and years, I could stand genuine empathy only five minutes at a time.

For those five minutes, though, I was not alone. And once I had experienced the wonder of that, I was willing to stumble out of my comfort zone to try to be not alone again.

Virtually everything I have ever tried to improve about myself -- my weight, my sleep habits, my housecleaning -- has resulted in an endless seesaw of improvement. But empathy, I've learned, is not like dieting. (Or, at least, how I diet, which involves ending up back at square one.) Cultivating empathy has its own rewards: The more you do it, the better your relationships are and the more you want to continue.

Feeling understood in that therapist's office taught me that human beings are not doomed to be alone -- and empathy is life's connective tissue. If you have a romantic partner, he or she will someday believe that you are entirely wrong about something, and if you can see the problem from your partner's point of view, you'll be able to get through that conflict without smoldering in the corner or splitting up.

If you work with someone you despise (and who despises you back), and you try to understand why that person dislikes you, then you stand a chance of not hating every minute with her at the office. If you live in a world that you would like to see less divided by ethnic, economic, and religious strife, you'll find that attempting to comprehend the needs of your sworn enemies is a prerequisite to any meaningful action you can take.

Empathy will also require you to get past rationalizations and admit wrongdoing.

For about a decade after I started working to be more empathetic, I told myself that I hadn't hurt Lisa too badly because she never told me I had. But Lachmann points out that the final insult of being treated with a lack of empathy is that the hurt person usually can't complain. "If you say, 'That was such an unempathetic thing to say,' it can easily be heard as, 'Feel sorry for me.' And no one wants to be pathetic." So most people don't say anything, Lachmann says, and relationships "are often ruptured and ruined."

Lisa and I are no longer close. We live on opposite coasts. We have very different lives. But still, I couldn't bear the idea of us being "ruptured and ruined." I recently called her and said I was sorry for being selfish when she lost her job. I said I had eventually learned that it must have been a terrible time for her and that I had made it worse by leaving her so alone with all her confusion. Lisa was gracious ("You did your best"), forgiving ("Really, you were a wonderful friend to me overall"), and honest ("It was 15 years ago, and I'm over it now"). She changed the subject, and we caught up on our summer plans.

Her family -- along with the cocker spaniel, Maya, who was still alive and giving reproachful looks -- was planning a camping trip. Packing up, Lisa realized none of her jeans fit. Her pregnancies had stripped every curve from her body. She was skinny as a post. I began to wail,

"Oh my God, you lucky rat! I gained 10 pounds ... "

But then I stopped myself. "Um. So how does it feel to have to buy new jeans?" I asked.

There was a silence on the line. Then Lisa started laughing. "Wonderful," she said. "Absolutely wonderful."

By Amanda Robb from "O, The Oprah Magazine," April 2008

Good essay on US martial law, from freedom in our time

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Martial Law: A License to Loot, a Permit to Plunder














Breaking and entering: Where does this fit under the heading "To protect and serve"? A paramilitary "strike team" commits a felonious break-in of a home in the flood-ravaged Midwest.


Digging up the planted axioms that litter our ordinary conversations can be a revealing exercise. We learn how deeply rooted our supposedly free society has become in collectivist and militarist assumptions.

For example: How often do we hear or read language that draws a distinction between "police" and "civilians"?

Our republican framework of government supposedly prohibits the use of the military in domestic law enforcement. Yet if a police officer isn't a civilian, he of necessity must be considered some variety of soldier: He bears arms, belongs to a force organized in a military hierarchy, issues orders, and expects immediate obedience to his demands.


Police are supposedly civilian "peace officers," distinguished from the rest of the citizenry (to paraphrase Robert Peel) only by the fact that they are specially charged to protect the rights and property of the innocent as a permanent assignment, rather than an occasional necessity.


Yet when non-professional police officers are given "law enforcement" duties by local governments -- as in Gilbert, Arizona, where such people are part of a unit that can issue traffic citations and investigate accidents -- they are referred to as "civilian auxiliaries" of police departments. Again we see the critical distinction: The regular police are something other than civilians.


Roughly a year ago, USA Today reported that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had created a shortage of ammunition, leaving police and "civilians" at the back of the line. Annual police awards ceremonies across the country routinely honor not only law enforcement officers but "civilians" for various distinguished acts.


Cultivating a new crop of "law enforcement" officers: Teenagers participating in a summer police training program receive instructions from SWAT operators at a firing range.



And, significantly, it is very common for "civilians" to be charged with "disobeying an officer" even when no other alleged offense is involved. That charge makes little sense unless it is assumed not only that police exercise authority akin to military personnel, but that common civilians are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Were this actually a country in which governments and their enforcement agencies derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, wouldn't it be possible to charge a police officer with "disobeying a citizen"?


As I mentioned above, these assumptions are usually buried and carefully ignored. But they are rudely exposed whenever crisis descends on a community and the familiar pretenses are blown away. Catastrophic natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina or this year's Midwestern floods are eagerly embraced by law enforcement agencies as a pretext for overtly exercising the kind of power that many of them covertly lust to employ all the time -- the power to regiment their communities at gunpoint under a form of martial law.

Think, once again, of the roots of that expression: "Martial" has its origin in the proper name Mars, referring to the pagan deity of -- what activity?

The term unmistakably refers to a military posture, or a state of war. It is the suspension of normal life via force majeure, resulting in rule by unalloyed force. And the capacity for rule of this kind is embedded in every law enforcement body in every community across the country, simply waiting for an excuse to manifest itself.

Many who reside in our flood-ravaged Midwest are learning, as residents of New Orleans did before them, that our paramilitary "protectors" will eagerly exploit disasters in ways that compound the suffering inflicted by a natural disaster. Many citizens in such circumstances prefer to stay in their homes, running their own risks in order to protect what is theirs. But it is
standard operating procedure for police -- aided, at times, by National Guardsmen -- to force such people out of their homes, and to use the force of arms to prevent those who have left from returning.

In the wake of the floodwaters in Iowa came all of the impedimentia of military occupation -- armed guards, checkpoints, detention areas. These strictures were imposed on communities already reeling from a deadly caprice of nature. Rather than permitting people to inspect their own property, "strike teams" that included armed police broke into locked homes, including the occasional occupied dwelling.

One Cedar Rapids homeowner, understandably outraged that a "strike team" had broken into his otherwise undamaged home, confronted them and made his feelings known in forceful but measured terms. This prompted police officer Josh Bell to threaten the homeowner with arrest for "harassing" the "strike team."


The business end of government "compassion": Armed "protectors" arrest Cedar Rapids homeowner Ricky Blazek at gunpoint (left, below).


That aggravated homeowner was relatively fortunate.


Fellow Cedar Rapids resident Ricky Blazek, one of several thousand flood victims reasonably infuriated by "checkpoints" preventing them from returning to their homes, tried to circumnavigate one such roadblock in his automobile. This resulted in Blazek being forced out of his car at gunpoint and arrested.


While the armed "strike teams" had unfettered access to homes of flood victims, and the media was given limited access in order to chronicle the supposed heroism of the government functionaries, homeowners basted in a seething broth of frustrated suspicion.


After all, would any thinking person feel secure knowing that government agents, freed by a natural disaster from the constraints of the pesky Fourth Amendment, had free rein to break into their homes and help themselves to anything they found therein?


Last year, the small town of Greensburg, Kansas was all but obliterated by a tornado of a ferocity not seen in the region since Dorothy Gale's house was rapted away to Oz and deposited rudely on top of Hillary Clinton's long-forgotten sister.


That's certainly more than enough for any town to suffer. However, the police establishment, displaying government's infallible gift for compounding tragedy, made matters immeasurably worse by barring residents from their homes and then selectively looting them for firearms (and, in some cases, jewelry and other valuables).

Gun Week reports that these thefts were made possible because officers "from various agencies" -- local and state police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, FEMA, and the ATF -- "allegedly claimed that martial law had been imposed when it had not, and ordered all residents to leave the town."


Those residents who discovered the thefts and demanded the return of their firearms found them, in many cases, damaged to the point of being useless. A few opened gun cases only to discover that their firearms had been replaced with guns of inferior quality.


Bob Martin, an 83-year-old trap shooter, returned to his home the morning after the tornado to discover that several of his guns were missing. Like Ricky Blazek, Martin was originally barred access to his home by officers who claimed, falsely, that martial law had been declared by the municipal or state government. He was forced to take a circuitous route to his home; by the time he got there, his gun safe had been plundered.


After getting back several -- but not all -- of his guns (which had been damaged in police custody, Martin, along with his wife, moved out of Greensburg. He now regrets not shooting his way through the police barricade that kept him from defending his home and property.


"If I'd have known [that the martial law claim was a ruse, and the police were looting his gun collection], I had a gun of my own in the car, and I'd [have] loaded it and gone in," Martin says. "Ain't nobody going to keep me off my property."


Whatever it is that prompts a man in his ninth decade to take such a commendably militant stance toward the looters in blue, I earnestly hope it's contagious.


Provoked by the police crime wave that descended on tornado-ravaged Greenburg, the Kansas state legislature this year enacted HB 2280 (.pdf), a law that (per the official summary) "prohibits officials, during a declared state of emergency, from forcibly dispossessing an owner of any firearm not otherwise prohibited by law, or from requiring registration of firearms not required to be registered under state law."


Now, that bill was pockmarked with troubling qualifications (for instance, no peaceful and law-abiding citizen can properly be "prohibited by law" from owning any weapon he has the means to purchase and the skill to operate, "laws" holding otherwise notwithstanding). But the fundamental point here is of the "Well, duh" variety: Police shouldn't take advantage of natural disasters to steal firearms from citizens, any more than street crooks should capitalize on the opportunity to swipe consumer electronics from undefended retail stores.


Thus it is hugely significant that HB 2280, which only prohibits police from doing something they weren't authorized to do in the first place, was opposed by the Pratt County (Kansas) Sheriff, the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.


From their point of view, it's just not worth the trouble of having a natural disaster if the event can't be exploited to regiment local civilians and confiscate their firearms.


Available now!

June 22, 2008

Recent Maher Arar, Mohamed Harket articles

Look at how long JUSTICE is being denied CANADIAN citizens !!

Just when can we trust U.S.?


Jan 25, 2007 04:30 AM
Thomas Walkom

American Ambassador David Wilkins is right when he says that it's up to Washington – not Ottawa – to decide whether Canadian Maher Arar can enter the United States. He's right but misses the point.

The U.S. is a sovereign nation and can do whatever it wants. As Wilkins said yesterday, it is "presumptuous" for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to tell Americans whom they should let in.

If Americans want to refuse entry to Arar, a Muslim they sent to be tortured in Syria, they have that right. If they want to keep out Lutherans, or blonds, or vegetarians or simply every tenth Canadian attempting to cross the international border, they can do that, too.

Their country, their rules.

But what Wilkins and Day don't seem to understand is that the dispute over Washington's decision to treat Arar as a terror suspect is not just about this particular Canadian computer engineer. It casts into question the entire rationale for sharing intelligence information between Canada and the United States.

If Canada can't trust American judgment in this case, how can it co-operate in others? If U.S. intelligence is as unreliable as Day suggests, why is he moving ahead full-bore to further integrate Canadian and American security systems in areas such as no-fly lists?

Day says he's seen the still-classified U.S. file on Arar, but that the information in it is unconvincing – that it does not alter the Canadian government's view, based on an exhaustive public inquiry, that Arar is absolutely innocent of anything even remotely resembling terrorism.

Yet the federal government seemingly does accept as gospel U.S. intelligence in other areas.

For instance, Ottawa is trying to deport Algerian Mohamed Harkat as a security threat, in large part because of information the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency claims it received from an Al Qaeda suspect it's been interrogating in one of its secret prisons.

Even putting aside the probability that this information was obtained under duress (which, as Harkat's lawyer Paul Copeland says, does cast doubt on its reliability) what if – as in the case of Arar – it's just plain wrong-headed? Indeed, it is sobering to remember that if Arar had not been fully investigated – and vindicated – by a judicial inquiry, the Canadian government almost certainly would have accepted unquestioningly the U.S. claim that he remains a dangerous terror suspect.

That's because we've been taking our cues on these matters from the Americans.

After the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, Ottawa moved quickly to integrate its security and intelligence apparatus more closely with that of the U.S.

In practical terms, as Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry into Arar discovered, that meant funnelling more information to the Americans and allowing U.S. agents to sit in on all Canadian security meetings.

Indeed, O'Connor concluded that it was probably the RCMP's promiscuous sharing of rumour, innuendo and misinformation that persuaded the Americans to arrest Arar in 2002 in New York, and ship him to Syria for torture

Under the new regime of co-operation, Canada also allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. agencies to send more operatives into Canada.

One example came to light inadvertently last June after native protestors at Caledonia near Hamilton hijacked what they took to be a suspicious vehicle that had been cruising near their blockade. As it turned out, it was a U.S. Border Patrol car containing Canadian and American agents, including one from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

As well, Canada's soon-to-be-unveiled no-fly list is almost certainly linked to its U.S. counterpart, according to experts in the field. (Ottawa won't say one way or the other).

In short, we take our cue from the Americans when it comes to security. We assume that they know what they are talking about.

Washington's intransigence on the Arar case blasts a hole in that theory. It is making serious allegations about Arar, perhaps to derail a lawsuit he has filed against the U.S. administration, perhaps for other reasons. Canada's government has seen the American evidence and discounted it. In effect, Day and Harper are saying that America's judgment in this matter is not only unfair but also seriously flawed.

Yet if we can't trust the U.S. government to behave rationally here, how can we trust it in other matters involving national security?

As Wilkins says, we don't have the right to tell American leaders what to do in their own country. But if they are temporarily deranged, surely we are under no obligation to co-operate.

See also:

Dispute over legal fees latest wrinkle to delay national security ...
The Canadian Press, OTTAWA - May 27, 2008
Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub all face removal from Canada for alleged terrorist activity. ...

Trial of terror suspect Momin Khawaja at crossroads
Vancouver Sun, Canada - Jun 21, 2008
The Supreme Court of Canada last year struck down that process as fundamentally unjust since it denied defendants, including Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat, ...


White House invokes executive privilege on EPA investigation regarding California's vehicle emission standards

Los Angeles Times

2008-06-22

"I don't think we've had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president," Congressman Henry Waxman said yesterday after the Bush administration invoked executive privilege in order to refuse to turn over subpoenaed documents in an investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny California permission to implement its own vehicle emission standards.

Waxman was referring to the fact that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was deciding on whether to bring contempt-of-Congress proceedings against EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson and Susan Dudley, administrator of regulatory affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, for refusing to honor the subpoena.

In asserting executive privilege in the EPA inquiry, the administration made public a copy of a letter sent to the president by Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey saying that releasing internal documents "could inhibit the candor of future deliberations among the president's staff."

EPA spokesman Tim Lyons said the agency had provided the committee with more than 7,000 documents and devoted 2,200 hours of staff time to responding to requests for information, and he called it "disappointing" that the committee had decided to "politicize environmental regulations."

"We don't know whether this privilege that's being asserted is valid or not," Waxman said yesterday and is currently deciding what the committee's next move will be.

-- Tony Pierce


Required reading: A revolt elite power is in the air ..

Any one who reads me knows - I don't believe in Barak Obama, I believe in The Constitution of the United States.

This has some good history however; forget the Barak Obama propaganda - he's the next Hitler!

They don't point out his connections to Zbig, AIPAC, or any of the other baggage. He has the same advisers as Constitution-busting HiLIARy Clinton.

Obama didn't grow up POOR; his mother worked for the depopulation biggies at Ford Foundation!

The LAWS OF WAR are more important that the presidendency of hahaha Constitutional scholar Barak Obama ..

NO MORE ASSASSINATIONS! We need three presidents, not another KING.

Veeger

A REVOLT AGAINST ELITE POWER IS
IN THE AIR, AND THE ELITES ARE
BREATHING FIRE AGAINST IT

By: S.R. Shearer
JUNE 21, 2008

"And then suddenly, unexpectedly, out of nowhere there is an explosion from below in which millions of people begin to engage the 'established order' on a 'revolutionary' basis. They reach for revolutionary changes to the oppressive conditions they have been living under …"

Joel Geier
ISR Magazine

INTRODUCTION

Joel Geier writes that most of the time people are loath to rise up against an oppressive government. Instead, they find it much more expedient to adapt to existing conditions, even very bad ones. They feel powerless; they don't think they can change things. Add to that the fact that there are not many true revolutionaries in the world - and the few who actually exist are considered unrealistic utopians and are, as a result, marginalized - and it is easy to see why revolution (even a bloodless one; even one achieved through "constitutional" means) is a path seldom chosen by most people.

"The people" are warned away from the very few revolutionaries that exist. They are told that if they join themselves to these utopians and dreamers, they too will find themselves marginalized and "cut-off" from all that passes as "conventional" and "established" in this life. So give the idea of revolution up; forget it, relax, enjoy your life - or what there exists of it; that's the best you can hope for.

And then suddenly, unexpectedly, out of nowhere there is an "EXPLOSION FROM BELOW" in which millions of people begin to engage the "established order" on a "revolutionary" basis. They reach for revolutionary changes to the oppressive conditions they have been living under - AND IN DOING SO, THEY THREATEN TO DIVEST THE GOVERNING FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL ELITES OF THEIR POWER AND ILL-GOTTEN WEALTH, AND SWEEP THEM AWAY, just as "the people" did to the French and Russian elites in 1789 and 1917 respectively. And make no mistake about it - these two years - i.e., 1789 and 1917 - have been stamped indelibly into the mindset of the world's elites as nightmares more horrible and ghastly than hell itself.

1933 & 1968

Most people today think that the elites in the United States have never been threatened in such a fashion. But that's not quite true; for example, the elites in America were twice threatened with extinction in the 20th century - once in the 1930s, and again in the '60s - and each time the elites reacted with a murderous rage. In the 1930s it was the New Deal of FDR that threatened to undo the American elites; and in the 1960s it was the Civil Rights Movement and the rage against the Vietnam War that threatened to do so.

In the first instance, the rage of "the people" was driven by an unprecedented economic crisis - the Great Depression; and in the second instance, their frenzy was driven by the twin conundrums of a war that wouldn't go away (and that was swallowing up in its bloody maw thousands and thousands of American soldiers as human sacrifices), and by the drive for civil rights by heretofore marginalized factions of the American population that threatened to undo the social and political "establishment" upon which the elites relied.

IN BOTH OF THESE INSTANCES, WHAT HAPPENED WENT FAR BEYOND THE USUAL FAKE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTES.

THE FAKE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE
REPUBLICANS & THE DEMOCRATS

The very real fact of the matter is, the well-known struggle between Democrats and Republicans is one that can be characterized by dramatic posturing and pulled punches. The ruse is instantly apparent to anyone with even a casual interest in US politics. It continues due only to the vast amount of voter ignorance and apathy. The apathy exists for good reason - politics are as exciting now as comparing the respective market strategies of Coke and Pepsi. There is nothing new being said, nothing creative being done - just endless reverberations in an echo chamber.

Democrats and Republicans pay attention solely to their differences, and the media outlets and general public willingly follow suit. The real issues that divide the two parties are minuscule, but this fact is covered over because both emphasize so-called "wedge" issue, and in doing so emphasize those things that divide them while obscuring their similarities - similarities that ensure the continuing dominance of the nation by the elites.

This tactic is highly effective. If you believe in wedge issue A, then you must be with the A-believers. But the A-believers also come with baggage loaded up by the elites that have nothing to do with wedge issue A. For example, What does abortion have to do with an unregulated market? What does global warming have to do with labor unions? But if you are going to support A, you must also support B, C, and D - all of which are issues that ensure the survival of elite power. Whether you vote for a Republican or a Democrat, you're voting for the same thing - the perpetuation of the elite's monopoly of the country's economic and political system. [Please see Forum: The Monopoly of the Republocrats, whose superb description of this fake struggle we have used here.]

BUT IN 1933 AND AGAIN IN 1968, THIS WAS NOT SO! REAL REVOLUTIONARY FORCES ROSE TO THE SURFACE, AND THE USUAL "PLAY" BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES PROVED TO BE INEFFECTIVE IN OBSCURING THEM. IN BOTH INSTANCES, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FELL "VICTIM" TO THESE REVOLUTIONARY DRIVES; AND IN DOING SO, THEY THREATENED TO END THE GAME THAT THE "OLD-LINE" OR "MODERATE" DEMOCRATS (THOSE DEMOCRATS WHO TODAY ARE MEMBERS OF THE DLC OR THE CLINTON FACTION OF THE PARTY) HAD BEEN PLAYING WITH THE REPUBLICANS. The elites survived "the people's" rage against them in these two instances,

BUT NOW A NEW "RAGE" HAS SURFACED AGAINST THE ELITES; A RAGE THAT MAY PROVE EVEN MORE POWERFUL THAN THE ONES THAT OCCURRED IN 1933 AND 1968. ONCE AGAIN, THIS RAGE HAS FOUND A HOME IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, AND IT HAS FOUND A CHAMPION IN BARRACK OBAMA.

THE QUESTION IS, WHAT ARE THE ELITES GOING TO DO TO STOP IT? ARE THEY GOING DO WHAT THEY ATTEMPTED TO DO AGAINST FDR (AND FAILED), AND WHAT THEY DID AGAINST MARTIN LUTHER KING AND ROBERT KENNEDY (AND SUCCEEDED)? That's the question!

PART 1:
1933 AND THE "NEW DEAL"

A MANDATE FOR CHANGE

In the winter of 1932-33, America was in the grip of the worst economic depression of the century. The economy had nearly ground to a halt and unemployment had reached a staggering one-quarter of the American population; bread lines and soup kitchens were everywhere, and hundreds and hundreds of shanty towns called "Hoovervilles" (named after Republican President Herbert Hoover) had sprung up, populated by those unfortunates who had been evicted from their homes.

A new President was about to take office: Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). FDR had thrashed the elites' man, Herbert Hoover, in the November election of '32, and had been given an overwhelming mandate from the American people to reverse their fortunes - even if it meant sweeping the elites from power and installing what many members of America's elite class [e.g., the Morgans (banks and the financial sector), the Mellons (banks and the financial sector), the DuPonts (chemicals and technology), the Fords (automobiles and transportation), the Harrimans (railroads), the Sloans (General Motors), etc.] believed was a "socialist government."

Should Roosevelt succeed in his proposed measures - what he called a "New Deal" for average, working Americans - the elites' feared that their financial power would be permanently broken. [Please see our article, "The Religious Right and the Business Right: An Alliance Made in Hell;" please also see David Farber, Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors; please also see Facing the Corporate Roots of Fascism, March 2004, Published by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/sloan.html)]

AN EXPLOSION FROM BELOW

This was one of those "EXPLOSIONS FROM BELOW" that Geier talks about (see above); one that - unexpectedly and out of nowhere - engaged millions and millions of average Americans in a revolutionary rage against their "masters" in the elite; the kind of rage capable of producing another French or Russian Revolution in the American homeland; one that could very well sweep the elites permanently from power.

With their power thus threatened, the financial oligarchs were ready to take a radical course of action: ROOSEVELT HAD TO BE ELIMINATED! Thus was set in motion a series of murderous events that most Americans have never heard of - events that have over the years been carefully concealed from the American people by the elites and their toadies in the media who very much feared what the consequences would be for the survival of even the barest form of capitalism should the truth get out.

NOTE #1: Even Roosevelt - the target of the elites' rage - participated in the cover-up. Roosevelt and those who surrounded him feared that "the people" would be swept up in an uncontrollable fury if the facts concerning these events were ever fully revealed; and - as a consequence - they would demand a socialist government that even he (i.e., Roosevelt) could not manage. One must remember in this regard that at the height of the depression, socialism seemed like a very real alternative to capitalism insofar as countless numbers of Americans were concerned.

NOTE #2: It is very difficult for most Americans to fully comprehend the important role that political assassination has played in the history of our nation - and not just insofar as so-called "lone-assassins" are concerned, but assassinations involving very complex plots and many, many people. It seems that most Americans are prepared to see the importance that complex assassination plots play in the histories of "Third World" nations, and even the nations of Europe; but not America - as if Americans are somehow or other exempt from the strictures of Romans 3:23, "For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," strictures that would make them as vulnerable to the foibles of ordinary men as the Europeans and those in the so-called Third World are.

The fact is, however, political assassinations have played a routine role in the history of America's foreign relations, and have been used to great effect in the pursuit of American objectives abroad. An abbreviated list of those who have been targeted for assassination by the United States just since the end of World War II was compiled several years ago by William Blum, a very prominent figure in America's foreign policy "establishment." Some of the assassination attempts proved successful, others were not; but the fact that ALL these very prominent individuals were targeted for assassination makes one's blood run cold, AND GIVES ONE AN IDEA OF JUST HOW FAR THE ELITES WHO GOVERN THE UNITED STATES ARE PREPARED TO GO IN PURSUIT OF THEIR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC OBJECTIVES:

1949
Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader.
1950s
CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of numerous political figures in West Germany.
1950s
Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life.
1950s
Sukarno, President of Indonesia.
1951
Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea.
1950s
Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader.
1955
Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India.
1957
Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt.
1959
Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia.
1960
Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq.
1950s-70s
José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life.
1961
Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, leader of Haiti.
1961
Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire).
1961
Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic.
1963
Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam.
1960s
Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life
1960s
Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba.
1965
Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader.
1965-6
Charles de Gaulle, President of France.
1967
Che Guevara, Cuban leader.
1970
Salvador Allende, President of Chile.
1970
Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile.
1970s, '81
General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama.
1972
General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence.
1975
Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire.
1976
Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica.
1980-'86
Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life.
1982
Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran.
1983
Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander.
1983
Miguel d'Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua.
1984
The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate.
1985
Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt).
1991
Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq.

ANNOTATION: The list does not include several assassinations in various parts of the world carried out by anti-Castro Cubans employed by the CIA and headquartered in the United States.


Residential Schools in Canada map

June 21, 2008

Pow trail starts today - Here's the guidelines !!


The Pow Wow is a sacred celebration and there are certain things that are expected of both visitors and participants. These are guidelines provide for your information only. When at our event, please listen to our Master of Ceremonies who will guide in the proper pow wow etiquette for the day.

1. The Pow Wow is a sacred place. The Circle is blessed before the festivities begin. It remains sacred until the Pow Wow is over.

2. Seating around the dance arena is reserved for singers and dancers. NEVER sit on someone else’s blanket or chair. If you see personal items on a seat, do NOT touch them or use the seat.

3. NEVER take photographs when the Master of Ceremonies has asked you to refrain. Pictures are NOT allowed during Prayers, Veterans Songs or Flag Songs.

4. NEVER photograph a dancer in regalia without asking. If you wish to use the photo for publication, ASK.

5. Respect Honor, Veterans and Flag Songs. Be sure to stand until these songs are finished. Remove all hats or head coverings unless they are adorned with an eagle’s feather.

6. The Flag Song (Indian National Anthem) is always sung when the National (US or Canadian) flags are raised or lowered. Stand and remove hats and head coverings while these songs are sung.

7. NEVER use your finger to point. Many Native cultures consider the pointed finger to be a sign of rudeness. If you must indicate a certain direction, nod your head.

8. NEVER wear halter tops, short-shorts, hot pants or swimsuits to a Pow Wow.

9. NEVER use profanity at a Pow Wow.

10. If you wish to sit directly behind the dancers, ASK. They may have a place reserved for family or friends.

11. A dancer’s clothing is called an “outfit” or “regalia,” NEVER a costume. NEVER touch a dancer’s regalia without permission. It is often made up of sacred objects and family heirlooms.

12. Listen to the Master of Ceremonies. By doing so, you will not do anything inappropriate.

13. Donations are welcome during the “Blanket Dance.”

14. Only dancers in regalia are permitted to enter the “Sacred Circle” unless an invitation is announced. Spectators are invited to participate at some Pow Wows.

15. Respect the Head Man and Head Woman. The role of these dancers is to begin each song or set of songs. Wait until they start to dance before dancing. In some cultures it is forbidden to pass these dancers. If you’re unsure, check with the Master of Ceremonies or the Head Dancers before the dance begins.

16. Some dancers are subject to eligibility rules. Snake, buffalo and trot dances have particular steps and routines. Veteran dances are usually restricted to Combat Veterans, Veterans or, at times, family members of Veterans. If unsure, check before the dance begins.

17. Photographs and dancing are NOT allowed during Flag Songs.

18. NEVER sit at a drum without permission. Drums are sacred.

19. If you wish to hear a Drum Song, ask the Master of Ceremonies. When doing so, it is traditional to give a monetary or symbolic gift.

20. NEVER touch a drum without permission.

21. Many times gifts are given at Pow Wows as a symbol of Native generosity. If you are the recipient of a gift, be sure to thank everyone that was involved in its giving.

22. NEVER pick up a feather that has been dropped, either by you or someone else. Be sure to notify the Master of Ceremonies, a Veteran or the Head Veteran or Head Dancer. When a feather falls, the Pow Wow is immediately stopped until its power is restored. Stand with an uncovered head and NEVER take photographs while the Veterans perform this traditional dance.

23. If you have a question, the staff, elders, dancers or the Master of Ceremonies will be glad to enlighten you. It is polite to offer a symbolic gift or drink to these people.

Above all, use common sense. This will allow you to feel comfortable in your surroundings and to have a great time.

June 20, 2008

Dr. Michael Hudson: How should the Middle East invest its Rising Trade Surplus?

How Should the Middle East invest its Rising Trade Surplus?

Michael Hudson

The following article is appearing in the June 2008 issue of The Gulf, a weekly business news magazine published in Bahrain. -- MH

Every week Mid Eastern countries acquire more dollars in payment for their oil and other exports, and also for rising U.S. investment in their stock markets and other property. This confronts them with a problem: What can they do with these dollars?
Traditionally, exporters have saved their export earnings by building up their assets. But is it still realistic for them to acquire more dollarized assets?
Central banks throughout the world presently hold some $2.5 trillion of U.S. Treasury bonds, and another trillion dollars in private-sector U.S. dollar debt. As the dollar’s exchange rate falls, these banks suffer losses when their holdings are denominated in their own currencies. Even more serious, the principal itself is now in question. There is no foreseeable way in which the United States can redeem its foreign debt. Its trade surplus continues to deteriorate, while its foreign military spending adds to the overall balance-of-payments deficit.
This means that the United States is pumping more and more dollars into the rest of the world without any means of repaying them – or any intention to do so. That is why foreign countries are beginning to treat these dollars as “hot potatoes,” trying to get rid of them as fast as they can.
But how can they all do this? China is using its new dollar inflows to try and buy up foreign raw materials assets, land and other assets needed for its long-term growth. And some Middle Eastern countries are buying long-term supply agreements for food and raw materials produced abroad. But fewer countries are eager to accept these dollars. And the U.S. Government is blocking foreign investment in the most desirable and remunerative domestic U.S. sectors as its politicians become more nationalistic. This threatens to limit foreign investment in the United States to the junk-mortgage market, to real estate that is falling in price, and loans to bail out U.S. banks and financial institutions as they fight off insolvency and their stock-market prices plunge. Middle East purchases of Citibank shares last year are the most notorious example.
This means that Middle Eastern oil exporters – and indeed, European industrial exporters – are in effect giving their oil and other products away to U.S. consumers in exchange for paper IOUs that are in danger of becoming unspendable and hence worthless.
Fortunately there is a better alternative. That is for Middle Eastern governments to invest their export earnings in building up their own economies rather than that of the United States and those of other dollar-area countries. Two thousand years ago, even during the high tide of Greece and the Roman Empire, the Middle East had long been the world’s most entrepreneurial and prosperous region. What is stopping it from reclaiming this historic position?
A major problem is its arid desertification. This problem can be largely overcome by a combination of domestic infrastructure spending and long term international barter deals. Such deals are the indicated way to go when major currency markets become unstable – and it looks like exchange rates are going to keep on zigzagging and spiking over the coming decade or so.
There is a striking parallel with the last time the Middle East began to receive sharply higher export earnings, after 1973. Back then, it arranged oil-for-infrastructure deals with Korean, Japanese and other Asian firms to build roads, hospitals and other construction needed to raise productivity and living standards. Today, China has entered the mix. And there is still a long way to go for investment in the array of public and private services that are needed to make the region one of the world’s most prosperous.
The emergence of India, China and Pakistan as economic and even military powers (at least for defensive purposes), as well as Russia and Central Asia, already has led to creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Iran already has joined. The world is becoming multi-polar, if only as a defensive response to U.S. attempts to give NATO a post-Cold-War role by extending it into the Middle East, Indian and Pacific regions.
Inasmuch as Asia and India promise to emerge as the world’s major industrial centers – perhaps joined by South America’s leading nations – this economic realignment is inherently political in character. To speak bluntly, the United States opposes it as threatening its desire for unilateral hegemony. And bluntly is just how British Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE spoke on April 22 at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London. He described the U.S.-British Iraq War as having been fought to stop “the tide of Easternisation” – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, which together import some “two thirds of the Middle East’s oil.”
General Ellery is in a position to know. He was the Foreign Office's Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad after 2003. In his talk he explained that U.S. global strategists were concerned that in response to the U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq, it – like Iran – might turn its economic focus eastward.
This is the U.S. nightmare, because it has used the Middle East as a piggy bank to bail out the weakening American financial economy. After the first grain-and-oil shock in 1972-73 – when the United States quadrupled grain export prices, and OPEC responded by quadrupling oil prices – U.S. Treasury officials told Middle Eastern rulers that they could charge as much as they wanted for oil (thus providing domestic U.S. oil majors with a price umbrella that enriched their coffers), but that if they did not recycle their export earnings to the United States, this would be viewed as an act of war.
This means that for the Middle East to use its export earnings to develop its own economies may require breaking with the U.S. diplomatic sphere. At the very least it gives the region an interest in getting the United States to end its occupation of Iraq – including the military bases it is now in the process of constructing.
So I have a modest proposal for how to negotiate this quantum change in Middle Eastern-U.S. geopolitics: Offer to buy out the U.S. bases under construction, perhaps including the Green Zone buildup, at fair market value (certainly not at the exorbitant prices that Republican campaign contributors have been paid, with contracts that both the United Nations and the U.S. Congressional Budget office have found to have been corrupt and handled with improper oversight). This can best be done by making clear to the United States that the free lunch it obtained after going off gold in 1971 is over.
This may sound like giving the United States its way in what looks like a protection racket. But protection may be well worth buying under today’s conditions.
Two centuries ago the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine: Europe should leave the Western Hemisphere to U.S. as a sphere of influence. Is it not time for the world to act symmetrically and ask that the United States for its part leave the Eastern Hemisphere to that region’s nations, to develop as they wish in peace?
The more publicly the Middle Eastern countries can make this kind of trade-off, the more chance it has of being adopted as a policy plank in this year’ U.S. presidential campaign.

Forbes reaction to financial arrests!! (very anti BuZh)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led Congress finally appears ready to give President Bush $162 billion in long-overdue funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House is slated on Thursday to ratify a deal worked out between House Democrats and Republicans and the White House. If it passes as expected, the measure would put to rest Bush's long-standing battles with the Democrats over war funding. At the same time, Democrats would win help for the unemployed and a remarkably generous increase in GI Bill education benefits for military service members.

House passage of the bill also would pave the way for a quick infusion of emergency flood relief for the Midwest, though more is expected to be needed to deal with the terrible losses in Iowa, Illinois and other states.

The latest installment of war funding would bring to well over $600 billion the amount of money Congress has provided for the unpopular war in Iraq. It also would give Bush's successor several months to set Iraq policy after taking office in January — and spares lawmakers the need to cast more war-related votes closer to Election Day.

"The way it's been set up now, whoever ... is president will have a few months to think through how we are going to extricate ourselves," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., a key negotiator.

White House Budget Director Jim Nussle said Thursday that President Bush "can support" the measure.

The agreement drops restrictions on Bush's ability to conduct the war and gives him almost all of the funding he sought more than a year ago for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anti-war Democrats are frustrated at their inability to alter the course of the war after taking control of Congress last year.

"The president basically gets a blank check to dump this war on the next president," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "I was hoping George Bush would end his war while he's president."

But Democrats were pleased after overcoming White House opposition to adding the unemployment and GI Bill provisions.

The White House — and Capitol Hill Republicans — had signaled greater flexibility in recent weeks after Democrats orchestrated impressive votes to more than double GI Bill college benefits and give a 13-week extension of unemployment payments for people whose benefits have run out.

In late-stage talks, Democrats dropped a provision to pay for the GI college benefits by imposing a half-percentage point income tax surcharge on incomes exceeding $500,000 for single taxpayers and