LadyBroadoak Visionary Planetary Healing Tutorial

Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere'

2011-08-18T12:21:00.001-05:00

Jonathan Swift would be PROUD of Krugman.

Problem is that some lunatic rightists actually think this is TRUE - let's have a holographic Christ come down to save us - and get everyone Xianized !!

There is a good and MEANINGFUL reason us teabaggers booed the Obamabot @Netroots Nation - and he better expect MORE protest in the future, too. When they took my heat subsidy away in MN (!!) via fiat Obama, I was furious ! He's into the Chamber of Commerce's pocket(s) and the bank$ter$ for his $1.6 million a day he "needs" to run in 2012. He's no leader in any sense of the word. He just had the staffer floating his balloon for him ..
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Aren't Americans in the Streets? Where Is the American Autumn?

2011-08-15T15:16:00.001-05:00

The Wall in Europe came down due to Latvian and Lithuian women being ENRAGED about Chernobyl and taking over the radio stations. Here in the US - I am MN USuncut organizer - ANGRY WOMEN are never seen on TV, unless they are "mad" like Michele Bachmann.

The left is truly sexist and until they wake up from their slumber, the US is truly f**ked. Hard to say though what will be women's tipping point. The povertization of women means we have less means to fight back - we are demoralized, taunted, looked down upon and often criminalized because we can't make ends meet. The professional poverty industry on the front lines due nothing to ADVOCATE for the homeless and the poor, imho.

Yes, NoBlueDogs you are onto it ..

Great book: Dismantling Tyranny ..
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

ALEC Exposed: Milton Friedman's Little Shop of Horrors

2011-07-19T13:12:00.001-05:00

http://usuncutmn.blogspot.com/2011/07/call-out-alec-members-in-mn-leg-now-or.html

We could surely use your help calling out ALEC here in MN. We don't even have time to read the bills before they pass the special session and know "how much agenda" has been slipped in There was NO transparency. http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2011/07/19/30142/todays_speedy_special_session_will_have_special_rules Special rules will apply,

The baggers aren't happy - they want nonfunding of abortion and no stem cell research. So . will it fly? We surely do not know.

But a 72 hour period to read them surely would have been in order ..

ALL ALEC MN Gop members should be recalled.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

2011-04-20T14:02:00.000-05:00

Republican budget plan envisions sharp cuts

2011-04-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

A couple walks the grounds of the U.S. Capitol Building as snow falls in Washington, January 30, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

WASHINGTON | Tue Apr 5, 2011 8:50am EDT

(Reuters) - Government spending would plummet by nearly $6 trillion over the coming decade under a Republican plan due to be unveiled on Tuesday, in a sharp contrast to President Barack Obama's fiscal plan.

The plan, crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, envisions a total spending cut of $5.8 trillion over the coming decade, according to an aide.

That's well beyond the $4 trillion in savings envisioned by an Obama task force last year, and roughly six times the savings that Obama's own budget plan would generate.

Ryan's plan, which would take effect when the next fiscal year starts on October 1, is expected to propose sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, as well as hard caps on government spending and tax cuts.

Though it is likely to win the support of the Republican-controlled House, it is not expected to get much support in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Still, it will probably push a debate over government spending that has dominated Washington this year well into the 2012 election season, when both Obama and many of his Republican adversaries will face voters.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; editing by Eric Beech)

~ Straight Truth on Nuclear Fallout ~

2011-03-13T01:33:00.000-06:00

Please forward as far as possible

Please copy and spread this.

Straight truth on nuclear fallout
Long, unwieldy and not to be missed!!

Yes, this means YOU.

Have a read for a bit. It's time for you to see the raw, bold truth - nuclear fallout is hell. It is war against all the people's of the world.

So I've posted the unvarnished TRUTH. Hard to take if you are only interested in pleasure or getting relief from an "unkind" world as your points for living.

But FACTS must be faced. So here's some information you need to advance the cause of a sane planet to live on.

For a 'scientific' paper, what is below is not hard to follow.

Are you in a comfortable chair, playing at activism? Or just not concerned?

Or can we persuade you to take this as a call to arms

to end a conspiracy of silence

a web of deceit, lies and misdirections

to keep a system alive that is killing millions.

As I type, 30 million people in Tokyo are facing possible extinction

years of genetic mutation

following illness and suffering for vast numbers of people.

As the planet prepares for nuclear war against Iran, Syria, North Korea sits "on the table" can you show your concern?

As increasing numbers of people are exposed to depleted uranium and the contaminants spread ever wider onto the planet are you willing to speak up long and HARD?

As the risk of a nuclear "accident" just gains momentum as earth changes are upon us can you see the need to be wary, but VOCAL?

Thinking about the effects this might have on YOU?

Just what effects might this have on offspring born into your families?

You cannot CONTAIN Nuclear fallout.
There is no such thing as a "tiny nuke"!!
Depleted uranium's use is JUST as bad, maybe far far worse.

Hydrofracking the search for methane hydrates releases nuclear fallout.
There are children dieing of uranium poisoning in America, being badly deformed at birth.

And we must all fight together. For much is at stake. Silence is complicity when it comes to facing insane threats to our health, happiness and well-being, so let's get this straight - WHO NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

Who's TELLING YOU??

Surely not YOUR government!!!

Ever REALLY wondered what happened to the Chernobyl victims and to other radiation victims as well??
Ever wonder how you would REALLY find out about it??
Did the information mysteriously go missing "under the radar?"
Did they fund any studies?
If so, who did them, and DID THEY AGREE?
Were findings and results published?
Are we going to be TOLD what nuclear fallout did to us ALL, seeing as how it cannot be contained?
Why are Russians, Ukrainians and other groups still pouring into Canada and other places at ever faster rates?
Just how are those Chernobyl children and others like them now? - we were warned it wouldn't be "pretty".
Were things in place to help out and how?

and maybe most important of all questions:

Can the planet learn from this lesson??
and stop making horrible bombs

and having horrible "accidents"
Can we put a 'face' on it?

Pretty obvious, if you don't really follow scientific principles, then the lessons are going to come at you incomplete.

And then there is that gnawing, never before possible to answer question:

HOW AM I GOING TO FEEL WHEN I FIND OUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENS to the survivors and to their children??

Finally, some answers to assist you as you get to feel your feelings. The events were gut wrenching for the entire world and each time we grew more traumized. Please go towww.shockdoctrine.com and watch the video. We are being victimized by a conspiracy of SILENCE.

The effects of the radiation that has been covered up, but are made available to you from the Low Level Radiation Campaign.

When you are through digesting this may WE,

fellow earthlings

suggest
you pass this on, that maybe
you begin discussing this and
Maybe have a very good cry about it all

But don't fail to get angry at the coverup

Begin to write, email, fax, call
the media and ask them and the politicians

Why is no one telling me this?

When you are through, you may email Richard at his email below
Tell him you are now INVOLVED
in saving this precious, precious planet

Don't fall for the snow job!!

Demand an end to uranium mininng,
To nuclear power plants,
to the proliferation of nuclear weapons
the use of depleted uranium
hydrofracking and the search for methane hydrate

DO NOT BE CONNED BY THE DEAFENING SILENCE
taking place on this issue.

The children of earthlings are counting on you to speak out.

Fukushima explosion
Detailed advice will be issued as more information about possible releases becomes available. Meantime we warn that reassurances from all agencies including IAEA and national offices of nuclear safety are based on the invalid and discredited radiation risk model of the International Commission or Radiological Protection (ICRP), according to which the Chernobyl disaster can not have caused any observable health effects in the general population.
Immediate precautions for populations downwind of Fukushima are to stay indoors. Do not eat local produce; drink bottled water.

And with that note, We ask you to think about the consequences

of the fact that the government of JAPAN

did not listen to warnings or pleas.

They ignored this report.
So here it is is

And please stick with this

International campaign "low-level" radiation

It can be difficult to grasp the sheer scale of the deception that the Commission continues to practise upon the public through its failure to apply scientific method. It amounts to nothing less than a Nelsonian blindness to the health impacts of contaminating the environment with low concentrations of radioactivity, and the theft of mankind's collective opportunity to learn from the post-war nuclear arms race and the Chernobyl disaster.

Here we are not embarking on a rehearsal of all the arguments and all the evidence. It is clear that the Commission is impervious to such submissions. At the same time silence must not give consent. For economy we concentrate on the overarching matter of scientific method.

Scientific method requires countervailing evidence to be addressed. In this respect the Commission fails. Studies of the effects of weapons test fallout and Chernobyl are not cited. In fact the word "Chernobyl" is notably absent from the consultation draft and its key supporting documents, Annexes A and B. The single exception (a study highlighting the difficulty of reconstructing thyroid doses) is cited because of the Commission's obsessive concern with dose. ICRP clings to the outworn dogma that the assessment of radiation doses is fundamental to radiological protection despite robust criticism even from within its own ranks which, characteristically, it ignores. Thus the CERRIE Majority Report is cited in various contexts but not in the context of its attack on the concept of absorbed dose):-

..... There are important concerns with respect to the
heterogeneity of dose delivery within tissues and cells from
short-range charged particle emissions, the extent to which
current models adequately represent such interactions with
biological targets, and the specification of target cells at risk.
Indeed, the actual concepts of absorbed dose become
questionable, and sometimes meaningless, when considering
interactions at the cellular and molecular levels.
(CERRIE Majority Report Chapter 2.1 paragraph 11).

The work of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR 2003 [1)) is not cited. Neither is IRSN's recent report on the ECRR (IRSN 2005 [2]) although ICRP shares staff with IRSN and although IRSN states:

Various questions raised by the ECRR are quite pertinent and
led IRSN to analyze this document with a pluralistic approach.
a. Besides natural and medical exposures, populations are
basically undergoing low dose and low dose rate prolonged
internal exposures. But the possible health consequences under
such exposure conditions are ill-known. Failing statistically
significant observations, the health consequences of low dose
exposures are extrapolated from data concerning exposures
that involve higher dose rates and doses. Also, few
epidemiologic data could be analyzed for assessing inner
exposure effects. The risks were thus assessed from health
consequences observed after external exposure, considering
that effects were identical, whether the exposure source is
located outside or inside the human body. However, the
intensity, or even the type of effects might be different.
b. The pertinence of dosimetric values used for quantifying
doses may be questioned. Indeed, the factors applied for risk
management values are basically relying on the results from
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors' monitoring. It is thus
not ensured that the numerical values of these factors translate
the actual risk, regardless of exposure conditions, and
especially after low dose internal exposure.
c. Furthermore, since the preparation of the ICRP 60
publication, improvements in radiobiology and
radiopathology, or even in general biology, might finally
impair the radiation cell and tissue response model applied to
justify radioprotection recommendations. It was thus justified
to contemplate the impact of such recent observations on the
assessment of risk induced by an exposure to ionizing
radiation.

and

The phenomena concerning internal contamination by
radionuclides are complex because they involve numerous
physico-chemical, biochemical and physiological mechanisms,
still ill-known and thus difficult to model. Due to this complexity,
the behaviour of radionuclides in the organism is often ill
described and it is difficult to accurately define a relationship
between the dose delivered by radionuclides and the observed
consequences on health. This led the radioprotection specialists
to mostly use the dose/risk relationships derived from the study
of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors, exposed in conditions very
different from those met in the cases of internal contaminations.
This fact raises numerous questions, which should be considered
with caution because a wide part of the public exposure in some
areas of the world is due to chronic internal contaminations and
very few data concern these situations.
[…] the questions raised by the ECRR are fully acceptable, … "

and

… we do not possess, in the current state of knowledge, the
elements required to improve the existing radioprotection
system.

In the draft Recommendations [3] preceding the present one paragraphs 37, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48 , 49 and 50 gave detailed discussion of the circumstances where heterogeneity of energy distribution compromises absorbed dose. Paragraph 51, immediately following, presented a bizarre and risible contradiction in asserting (or re-asserting) that

The definition of the protection quantities is based on the mean absorbed dose …

The present consultation draft has reorganised or vanished the material from the paragraphs listed. It does not seem worth making a detailed analysis of the fate of this material since the Commission clings to its original conclusion about the assessment of radiation doses. However, we note one example (selected at random, not according to any ranking).

Paragraph (44) of the 2004 draft read:

Absorbed dose is defined based on the expectation value of the
stochastic quantity e, energy imparted, and therefore does not
consider the random fluctuation of the interaction events. It is defined
at any point in matter and, in principle, is a measurable quantity, i.e. it
can be determined experimentally and by computation. The definition
of absorbed dose has the scientific rigour required for a fundamental
quantity. It takes implicitly account of the radiation field as well as of
all of its interactions inside and outside the specified volume. It does
not, however, consider the atomic structure of matter and the
stochastic nature of the interactions.

The final sentence with its inherent caveat about heterogeneity of energy deposition has vanished from the analogous paragraph of the present draft.

Section 4.4.5.1 of Annex A, Supralinear low dose responses, discusses a number of disputed areas of radiation risk, citing the CERRIE Minority Report but not the Minority Report [4]. This cannot be dismissed as an oversight, in view of the overlapping membership of CERRIE and the ICRP Task Group which wrote the Annex. We see it as an exercise in misrepresenting the status of a scientific dialogue.

A feature of the technique is that it attacks the work of individuals in a manner that allows them to be identified by the cognoscenti but does not cite them overtly — a propaganda technique rather than science.

The topics so treated in Section 4.4.5.1 are dismissed in terms of

The Task Group agree[ing] with the general view expressed by the majority of CERRIE members that none of the proposals on the gross underestimation of risk that were considered have a sound scientific basis and that some are demonstrably flawed. The following points illustrate the views of the Task Group:

a) the interpretation of selected epidemiological datasets.

The Annex glosses this as

The epidemiological evidence cited did not provide consistent evidence that risk of childhood leukaemia from nuclear test fallout was seriously underestimated by established radiation risk models.

XXXX points should be noted. 1) The principle of Popperian falsification holds that a single genuine counterexample is enough to require a hypothesis to be modified. It is not a question of having to provide consistent evidence of a serious underestimate. 2) Rather than accepting the unsupported statements of the Task Group, readers should refer to detailed discussion of the childhood leukaemia in the CERRIE Minority Report pp.30-2. 3) In fact just as much attention was given to INFANT leukaemia post-Chernobyl. The CERRIE Majority Report handled this in a farcical manner which has been analysed in a number of submissions (e.g LLRC to CoRWM) and published in Radioactive Times Vol 6 no 1 without being rebutted. A version is appended as Appendix 1. 4) CERRIE cannot be represented as a thorough examination of even a substantial proportion of the epidemiological datasets available. It is particularly noteworthy that two Russian Academicians attended the 3-day international workshop convened by CERRIE in 2003. They recommended that there were tens of thousands of papers in Russian which were relevant to the Committee's remit and they asked that the Committee should recommend translation of at least the abstracts to make them more widely accessible. The Majority Report ignored this entire topic, but the Minority Report included translations of about 100 summaries showing supralinear effects, both experimental and epidemiological, tending to falsify ICRP's risk estimates. This work has now been augmented in publication of a far larger volume of work from Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine [5]. A summary is appended as Appendix 2. b) biophysical proposals on the mode of action of certain internal radiations.

The Annex glosses this as

The so called Second Event Theory cited in support of higher than expected cancer risk from 90Sr and particulate forms of alpha-emitters [which the majority felt] was inadequately formulated and inconsistent with a wellestablished body of biological data.

The manner in which this was treated by CERRIE was highly unsatisfactory. An external reviewer was appointed without reference to the Committee; the criteria he applied were not satisfactory and omitted some key issues. As the Minority Report reveals [6], Committee members failed to understand key aspects of the debate. Crucially, it was never contended that the Second Event Theory has to be valid in order to demonstrate that there is something badly wrong with the ICRP's modelling. The epidemiological data, allied to the caveats uttered by the ICRP itself, take precedence; the Theory stands as a possible explanation of why the epidemiological data fail to conform to simplistic assumptions based on external irradiation and average dose. This it shares with the next category:

c) the role of induced genomic instability/bystander signalling in cancer development;

Jury out. It is said that if these mechanisms play a role in radiation induced disease they are already subsumed within existing radiation risk factors. This is hard to sustain since they have potential to cause a far larger range of disease than are currently assumed to be radiogenic — cf ECRR 2006.

d) the fitting of bimodal or polymodal dose-responses to epidemiological and experimental data.

The Annex glosses this as

The data relating to bimodal/polymodal dose responses were generally weak, statistical analyses were inadequate and the phenomena, if real, had no obvious mechanistic basis.

Many of the post-Chernobyl reports in ECRR 2006 and the CERRIE Minority Report show bimodal/polymodal dose responses. The Commission fails to examine these data, just as CERRIE did; CERRIE did not undertake enough analysis to allow the conclusion that statistical analyses were inadequate. One does not know how much analysis ICRP has carried out since it cites no post-Chernobyl evidence. It has been pointed out that some of the data sets cited by ICRP and other conventional agencies (e.g. of nuclear industry workers) show anomalously high effects at low dose, though these points are usually dismissed as outliers. Mechanistic bases for bimodal responses have been proposed, including during CERRIE. An example is to be found on page 58 of the CERRIE Minority Report. We know of no logical rebuttal, as contrasted with the Annex's unscientific opinion mongering.

This section of the ICRP's Annex A concludes:

Epidemiology takes precedence over theory, and the post-Chernobyl epidemiology falsifies this statement.

The Commission assumes on the basis of the LSS external irradiation studies that effects are limited to a small range of disorders. Post-Chernobyl studies showing a wide range of non-cancer diseases falsify this assumption, as does Whyte's metaanalysis of infant mortality at the time of the weapons test fallout (not cited by ICRP). ICRP itself admits that no specific judgement on low dose risk of non-cancer diseases is possible. [7]

Conclusion

The Commission's approach is fundamentally unscientific. The Commission's obsession with absorbed dose as an average and its refusal to consider any studies where dose cannot at least be inferred conflict with opinions about the limitations of absorbed dose from a range of authorities including the Commission itself.

On the basis of copious epidemiological evidence radioactive contaminants appear to be acting as toxins irrespective of dose considerations, irrespective of whether biological mechanisms are known, and irrespective of assumptions based on the LSS studies about which types of disorder are inducible by radiation.

Appendix 1

INFANT LEUKAEMIA: AN ACID TEST

A sharp increase in infant leukaemia was observed in several countries after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. It was extensively discussed by CERRIE.

Leukaemia is recognised as an early indicator of radiation damage; more specifically, infant leukaemia (i.e. diagnosed before a baby’s first birthday) signals damage acquired in the womb. Scientific journals have published papers by different research teams showing post-Chernobyl increases of between 20% and 330% in various countries as far apart as Belarus and the USA (Busby 2000; Gibson 1988; Ivanov 1998; Mangano 1997; Michaelis 1997; Petridou 1996 [8]).

This is a crucial challenge to conventional radiation risk estimates because only the Chernobyl fallout can have caused the disease in this very precisely defined subset of the population. The number of sick babies was small but they are in effect miners’ canaries, suggesting that radioactive discharges are contributing to the global epidemic of cancer.

All the post-Chernobyl studies show between 150 and 800 times more leukaemia than expected. We argued in CERRIE that this was prima facie evidence against the external risk model. Our opponents set out to show it could be ignored.

They argued that the statistical power of the individual studies was so low that no reliance could be placed on the overall observation. One strand of this argument depends on ignoring studies of Scotland and Wales where excess risks were high and statistically significant.

The second strand began with using wrong data and ended in nonsense. The first draft of the CERRIE Majority Report said radiation doses in Germany were the same as in Greece. This had the effect of reducing the apparent significance of the German study and CERRIE concluded that

… the only study to show a large discrepancy with the predictions of
external radiation risk estimates is the Greek … study.

However, we knew from UN monitoring that fallout in Greece was roughly four times higher than in Germany (Savchenko 1995). We told CERRIE’s Chairman that the stated doses were obviously wrong and the Majority Report was changed. As published, it contains the correct doses but, untenably, still concludes that only the Greek study is out of line with expectation.

The third strand of the CERRIE case is an unsubstantiated slur on the quality of data collection in Greece. This was never discussed in Committee, but the Report’s implication is that the Greek study can therefore be ignored.

The fourth concerns the study from Belarus, where fallout levels from Chernobyl were more than seven times higher than in Greece ‘though the increase in infant leukaemia was smaller than anywhere else in mainland Europe. The Majority Report says the Greek study (the only one supposed to be an anomaly) is

... statistically inconsistent with … the study in Belarus where the highest
doses from Chernobyl contamination were received.

Statistically inconsistent with … is code, meaning that the observations challenge the dogma that dose and effect are always linear. We had consistently argued in CERRIE that there are good reasons why disease may not always show linear relationships with dose. Infant leukaemia is just one example. It starts in the womb, so babies carried by pregnant women in high fallout areas will suffer more damage than in low fallout areas. As a result more babies will be miscarried or stillborn or will die before leukaemia is diagnosed. A high fallout area will therefore inevitably have a lower incidence of leukaemia per unit dose than a low dose area and possibly an absolutely lower incidence as well, as in the case of Belarus. Thus we have further evidence of the invalidity of the ICRP linear risk model.

The Majority Report thus used a combination of wrong and selective data, innuendo and dependence on assumptions which CERRIE itself had been set up to test, to find that the increase in each country could have happened by chance, so the overall increase could have happened by chance. This ignores the classic scientific dictum of “instance confirmation”; that is, studies which consistently show a trend increase our confidence that the trend is real. The Chernobyl infants’ studies satisfy Professor Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s famous features of reliable epidemiological studies (Bradford Hill 1965: extracts in italics. This discussion of Bradford Hill was part of the CERRIE process — it was as near as CERRIE would get to discussing the philosophy of science, or How do you know what you know?):-

• “strength” (Is the observed increase in risk large enough, relative to unexposed people, to draw a firm inference about causation?

On this Bradford Hill cautions

We must not be too ready to dismiss a cause-and-effect hypothesis merely on the grounds that the observed association appears to be slight.)

• “consistency” (Has it been repeatedly observed by different persons, in different places, circumstances and times?)

• “specificity” (Is there a specific association between the disease and the type of exposure?),

• “temporality” (Does the disease follow the exposure?)

• “plausibility” (Is the causation we suspect biologically plausible, bearing in mind that the association we observe may be one new to science or medicine and we must not dismiss it too light-heartedly as just too odd.)

• and “coherence” (Does the cause-and-effect interpretation of our data …. seriously conflict with the generally known facts of the natural history and biology of the disease?)

The Biological gradient criterion is not satisfied, but Bradford Hill envisages circumstances in which a linear dose response would not be seen, and I have already given good reason why infant leukaemia would not display one. As the CERRIE Minority Report’s appendix of studies from the Chernobyl affected territories of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine shows, many disease phenomena show non-linear relationships with dose.

Statistical significance, so crucial to CERRIE’s dismissal of the infant leukaemia, is of minor importance according to Bradford Hill. Nonetheless, we can amalgamate the statistical tests contained in the various studies. The Scottish, Greek and German studies combined, for example, have a p value of 0.00065, meaning that an event on this scale occupying a two year period would not happen by chance in more than two thousand lifetimes. Common sense says that if the events were truly random, at least some of the data points would have been below the dotted line.

FOUR-WAY SPLIT NOT EXPLAINED

On this key issue the Majority Report shows a bizarre four-way split:

In the judgement of a large majority of Committee members, it is
likely that radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident resulted
in an increased risk of infant leukaemia in the exposed populations.
A substantial fraction of members thinks that this increase is at the
level anticipated from current risk models. However, another
substantial fraction feels that these models may have underestimated
the level of this increased risk. Of this latter group, two members
further believe that the evidence for infant leukaemia suggests that
the current risk estimates are appreciably in error. The remainder of
the Committee believes that there exists relatively little evidence that
lends support to this view. There is a consensus within the
Committee that leukaemia incidence in infants post-Chernobyl
merits further study. [CERRIE Majority Report Chapter 4 para. 26]

The reasoning behind some of the views remains a mystery even to CERRIE members, since the Committee never went through an open process of identifying members’ opinions. One faction - its size is not stated - seems to think Chernobyl had no effect on how many babies got leukaemia. Most members thought it did have an effect, but were split three ways on how big it was; some thought all the data points could be interpreted as being in line with ICRP expectations, others thought the risks might have been higher, but the report doesn’t say how much higher, nor who thought so, nor why. Two members insisted that the various scientific papers unequivocally show radiation is at least 100 times and maybe up to 1000 times more dangerous than conventional estimates. The majority felt there was relatively little evidence of this.

The Committee’s remit required differences of opinion to be explained, but the Majority Report leaves the reader only to guess whether there were any scientific grounds for this wide divergence (as opposed to the obvious political motivations). The implications are huge, for if the risk factors are so grossly in error we have an explanation not only for the Seascale leukaemia cluster but for the global epidemic of cancer which started when the nuclear industry began to spread radioactive pollution around the planet. On this key issue, as on many others, the Majority Report completely fails to produce any reliable advice for policy makers.

The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment colluded with the cover-up. Professor Bryn Bridges, Chairman of COMARE, attended every meeting of CERRIE as an observer. Professor Eric Wright was a member of both CERRIE and COMARE and also sat on the COMARE sub-Committee shadowing CERRIE, so despite the opacity of CERRIE’s treatment of the infant leukaemia, COMARE was fully aware of its importance. However, its 9th Report, which advises ministers on CERRIE’s findings, contains not a word about it. Professor Bridges retired as Chair of COMARE at the end of 2004 but he defends his report against this criticism. In an email to LLRC he cites a paragraph which refers to the forthcoming European Childhood Leukaemia/ Lymphoma Incidence Study (ECLIS). This he says

will investigate trends in incidence rates of childhood leukaemia and
lymphoma in 20 European countries, in relation to [...] Chernobyl [...]
Such large studies are much more likely to produce firm results than
those proposed in the CERRIE report.

As ECLIS is unpublished it does not falsify studies published up to 18 years ago. CERRIE’s own study is part of the body of evidence which the Majority Report misrepresents.

Appendix 2

ECRR 2006 contains a vast amount of information on conditions that could be described as generalised ill-health. We summarise some of them here. The discussion commences:

Since 1986, in the USSR, life expectancy has noticeably decreased.
On average, infant mortality has noticeably increased, as well as
death rates for those of advanced ages. There is no proof of a
direct connection between these parameters and the Chernobyl
catastrophe, but THERE IS PROOF OF SUCH CONNECTIONS FOR
PARTICULAR POLLUTED TERRITORIES.

AFTER 1986, IN THE RADIOACTIVELY POLLUTED AREAS OF UKRAINE,BELARUS AND RUSSIA, THERE IS AN INCREASE IN GENERAL MORTALITY BYCOMPARISON WITH NEIGHBORING AREAS. (EMPHASIS added.)

The following list of conditions has been taken from Chapter 1 of ECRR 2006. The presence of a condition here indicates that the parameter has worsened since the accident and many of the studies report a dose dependent relationship [9].

Stillbirths, miscarriages, infant mortality, general mortality, cancer mortality, sudden deaths.
Thyroid cancer.
The 40 % increase in all malignancies between 1990 and 2000 correlates with radioactive fallout levels. The list of cancer sites includes retinoblastoma, lung, intestines, colon, kidneys, female breast, bladder, respiratory organs, nervous system, pancreas, all cancers in children.
Psychological diseases correlate with levels of radioactive pollution. There is a steep and continuing increase in diseases of the nervous system, e.g. congenital convulsive syndrome, brain circulation pathology, general neurological diseases, short-term memory loss, deterioration of attention function in school-children.
In adults there is growing evidence of a syndrome marked by deteriorating memory and motor skills, occurrence of convulsions, and pulsing headaches. This is caused by the destruction of brain cells and in the region has been dubbed Chernobyl
dementia.
In the Chernobyl territories cataracts have become a common disease.
Urogenital illnesses correlate with levels of radioactive pollution, and include interruption of pregnancy, gestosis, premature birth, inflammation of female genitals, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroma, menstrual irregularities, kidney infections, kidney stones, stones in urinary passages, infringements of sexual development, complications of pregnancy and births, failures of pregnancy, medical abortions, infertility, pathology of sperm, sclerocystosis, early impotence in men aged 25 - 30, structural changes of testiculus, spermatogenesis disturbances, lactation in 70- year old women, and delayed puberty as well as accelerated sexual development.
Diseases of the cardio-vascular system and blood are one of the most common consequences of the Chernobyl radioactive pollution:- anaemia, illnesses of the blood circulation system, arterial hypertensia or hypotensia, disturbances of heart rhythm and digestive systems, macrocitosis of lymphocytes, diseases of the blood and circulatory organs in adults, early atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease, leucopenia, infringement of the blood supply in legs, changes in abundance and activity of leukocytes.
There is much evidence correlating fallout levels with endocrine/hormone diseases, e.g. incidence rate for Type 1 diabetes mellitus in Belarus. Similarly thyroid gland diseases (autoimmune thyroiditis, thyrotoxicosis, diabetes etc.). In 1993 more
than 40 % of the surveyed children in the Gomel area of Belarus had an enlarged thyroid gland. Experts think up to 1.5 million people in Belarus are at risk of pathology of the thyroid gland.
In some of the Chernobyl-polluted territories immune systems are compromised, with changes to cellular and humoral immunity, decreased maintenance Т- and В- lymphocytes, reduced resistance to infections and other diseases, raised frequency and expressiveness of tonsillitis, lymphadenopathies and lowered resistance to cancer.
In the radioactively polluted territories the typical consequence of infringement of the immune system appears as an immuno-deficiency. An increase in frequency and intensity of both acute and chronic diseases is observed everywhere in the Chernobyl polluted territories. Sometimes the weakening of the immune system in these radioactively polluted territories is referred to as Chernobyl AIDS.
There is accelerated ageing among the people in radioactively polluted territories in the Ukraine: their biological age exceeds their actual age by 7 - 9 years. In highly polluted territories in Belarus the mean age of men and women who died from heart attacks was 8 years younger than the average across Belarus.
The array of diseases commonly considered exclusive to the elderly is now typical for children in all of the heavily polluted territories. The immune system activity of these children is similar to the type of immune system activity experienced in old age. The pathology of the digestive system epithelium in children from the polluted areas of Belarus also shows similarities with elderly people.
There are many studies showing a wide range of chromosomal aberrations in the Chernobyl radioactively polluted areas. Examples:- higher frequency of chromosomal aberrations in somatic cells, lowered mitotic index in polluted districts, increased mutation rates in satellite DNA, chromosomal aberrations and satellite DNA mutations increased in children with thyroid cancer, chromosomal mutations de novo higher in polluted territories.
In the polluted territories, compared with clean ones, there is increasing morbidity by intestinal toxicosis, gastro-enteritis, dysbacteriosis, sepses, respiratory viruses, herpes infections, trichocephalisis, pneumocistis, cryptosporidosis, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. Microsporia occur in the radioactively polluted territories of the Bryansk areas (Russia) more frequently and in a more virulent form.
There are increases in children’s general morbidity, and increases in rare illnesses in the Chernobyl polluted territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia;
It is clear that children in heavily radio-polluted territories really do suffer,
to a much greater degree, from a variety of diseases.
Practically all forms of studied nosology are more prevalent […] [there is] a
convincing picture of sharply worsening health in children from the polluted
territories.
Conditions listed under this heading are:- chronic gastritis, chronic duodenitis, chronic gastro-duodenitis, bilious dyskinesia, vegeto-vascular and cardiac syndrome, astheno-neurotic syndrome, chronic tonsillitis, caries, chronic periodontitis.
Total child morbidity in Ukraine increased by 2.9 times between 1986 and 2001, newborn morbidity in Belarus increases year-on-year at a rate of 9.5% with greatest increases in the most polluted Gomel area. The spectrum of children’s noncancer
illnesses in the polluted territories includes lowered birthweight in those irradiated in utero in Ukraine, reduced head circumference in newborns in the polluted territories of Ukraine and Belarus, infringements of the rate of physical development in those irradiated in utero, premature birth more common in the polluted territories of Belarus, delayed rate of growth in the radioactively polluted parts of Belarus.
Respiratory system diseases occurred everywhere in the polluted territories and tend to correlate with levels of radioactive pollution:- asphyxia was observed in half of the 345 surveyed newborns irradiated in utero in Ukraine 10. Other pathologies
were latent bronchospasm, bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic nasopharyngeal pathology, acute respiratory diseases.
Cardiovascular system diseases in children occurred more frequently in the polluted territories, including infringements of cardiac rhythm, infringements of vegetative regulation of cardiac activity, arterial hypertension, reduced numbers of В- and Т—lymphocytes, lymphopenia, brachycardia, lymphoid hyperplasia, haematological disease, heart conductivity, and reduced elasticity of arterial vessels even in apparently healthy children.
Dental diseases in children are more frequent in the Chernobyl radioactively polluted territories. The frequency of some dental diseases correlates with levels of radioactive pollution.
Congenital malformations. Increased rates of teratogenic effects all over Europe, with a dose dependent relationship found in a Bavarian study. It reports that in Europe there were also widespread increases in still birth, premature birth, low birth weight, Down's Syndrome, perinatal and neonatal deaths, and reduced birth rate. In Belarus, according to the Belarus National Genetic Monitoring Registry, there were post-Chernobyl increases in anencephaly, spina bifida, cleft lip, cleft palate, polydactyly, limb reduction, oesophageal atresia, anorectal atresia and multiple malformations. Many of the authors explicitly state that these phenomena are radiogenic. One, a researcher known for her caution, says only a third of congenital deformities of the face and jaw could be attributed to radiation. But it is a third, and those which are so attributed are said to be anomalously severe.
The proportion of children with impaired intellectual development is consistently greater in polluted areas. Irradiated children have not kept pace with other children. Disorders of intellectual development in children irradiated in utero in the polluted territories

are described as

the most tragic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe’s impact on health.

The ECRR 2006 book has an entire chapter on the topic. Its author observes that the official French agency IRSN has recognised that the Central Nervous System is radiosensitive. Children irradiated in utero whose mothers had been evacuated or who lived in a zone contaminated with between 5 and 40 Ci/km2, suffered a greater frequency of neurotic disorders, CNS pathology and delay of mental development, compared with children in the less polluted areas of Belarus. The depression of intellectual development was massively greater in the irradiated group than in the controls; pathologies include neurotic disorders, asthenic syndrome, vegetative dystonia, CNS organic pathology, delayed mental development, EEG pathology, delayed development of speech, lowered psycho-emotional development, low IQ indices, deviations in mental development, memory impairment, immaturity for school, organic pathology of the brain, decreased and delayed psychomotor development, epilepsy and epilepsy-related conditions, and schizophrenia.

Overview of health in Lugyny district

Here are some health statistics for one remote Ukrainian administrative district from the Zhytomir area – Lugyny district, which is not one of the most contaminated regions. Comparison is made between two years just before the accident (1984 – 1985) and 1995 - 1996, ten years after. All the medical information for this study was collected by the same people in the Central Hospital before and after the catastrophe, using the same equipment and the same protocols.

The proportion of detected tuberculoses which were of a very aggressive type doubled. Endocrine pathology in children increased 10-fold. Goitres were not registered before the accident but ten years later were found in 12 or 13 children per 1000. Neonatal morbidity increased between 4 and 13-fold. Total mortality increased from 10.9 per 1000 to 15.5. Life expectancy declined from 75 years to 65.

Life-expectancy remaining to a patient in Lugyny District after being diagnosed with lung or stomach cancer shrank from 38 – 62 months before the accident to 2 – 7 months afterwards. The CERRIE Minority Report (p. 126) observes that this reduction in life expectancy runs counter to the view that increased incidence of cancer since the Chernobyl accident has been an artefact caused by increased vigilance and hence better ascertainment. Better ascertainment ought to mean earlier detection and hence more effective treatment and a better prognosis. In the Lugyny overview we see a dramatically worse prognosis — after a lung or stomach cancer diagnosis the average patient now survives for only 4½ months, instead of between 3 and 5 years before Chernobyl. Only four explanations are readily apparent:

doctors are not looking for cancer as assiduously as before Chernobyl, so they
detect it very late in its course;
treatment resources are much reduced;
cancer patients fear that their cancer was caused by radiation;
the post-Chernobyl cancers are of a more aggressive type.

The first of these is contrary to the general pattern. The second is possible and should be investigated. The third is, to put it mildly, contentious. The fourth is consistent with many observations in the region including non-cancer diseases.

Low Level Radiation Campaign,
Richard Bramhall,bramhall@llrc.org

Contact us

by post:

LLRC,
The Knoll,
Montpellier Park,
Llandrindod Wells,
Powys LD1 5LW
United Kingdom

by 'phone or fax:

01597 824 771 in United Kingdom
44 1597 824 771 from outside UK

15th September 2006

[1] 2003 Recommendations of the ECRR The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes: Regulators’ Edition Edited by ChrisBusby with Rosalie Bertell, Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Molly Scott Cato and Alexei Yablokov. Published on Behalf of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Comité Européen sur le Risque del’Irradiation, Brussels by Green Audit, 2003. ISBN: 1 897761 24 4

[2] DRPH/2005-20: Health consequences of chronic internal contamination by radionuclides. Comments on the ECRR report “The health effects of ionising radiation exposure at low doses for radiation protection purposes” and IRSN recommendations.

[3] 2005 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection

[4] Minority Report of the UK Department of Health / Department of Environment (DEFRA) Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE); Sosiumi Press Aberystwyth. ISBN 0- 9543081-1-5

[5] ECRR Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. European Committee on Radiation Risk Documents of the ECRR 2006 No1 Edited by C.C.Busby and A.V. Yablokov Published on behalf of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Comité Européen sur le Risque de l’Irradiation, Brussels by Green Audit, 2006. ISBN: 1-897761-25-2

[6] CERRIE Minority Report Technical Annex 2

[7] Table 7.1 of Annexe A

[8] For references to this section see Radioactive Times Vol 6 No 1 on www.llrc.org

Find out more about how survivors of Chernobyl have coped with the effects of the disaster:

Interviews on Chernobyl from Chernobyl.info
“Chernobyl Journey”—For the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Belarusian journalist Vasily Semashko travels through the Chernobyl region and reports on his impressions about everyday life of the people living in the contaminated area
NPR: ‘Voices of Chernobyl’: Survivors’ Stories

More info about Chernobyl:
Chernobyl.info
wikipedia entry on “Chernobyl Disaster”
In Focus : Chernobyl (International Atomic Energy Agency)
Chernobyl Children’s Project

Read articles in New America Media category: Environment

NOW the time to take out a pen and start writing.

Energy and Climate Campaign
Nuclear power is not a solution to climate change!
Six myths about nuclear energy | Uranium mining | Safe Energy for Europe (FoE Europe) | Climate & Energy Campaign (FoE Europe) |Stop climate change (FoE International)

Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons
Mayors For Peace | Nuclear information | Nuclear Weapons: An introduction | Abolition 2000 Europe | Citizens' Weapons Inspections

Depleted Uranium
Campaign against the use, production, and financing of Depleted Uranium weapons
International Coalition to Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons

Sign Women Title Holders petition!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

Must watch videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related

Chernobyl Decay and Deformed children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101OEaksU0s&feature=related

Chernobyl 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ooj0-pWuTs

Explosion at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHfR_wybvw0

Huge explosion at Japan nuclear plant

NO MORE NUCLEAR THREATS!!!!

Send this out. Go through your email list and send it to everyone you know. You can easily find this at:

http://ladybroadoak.blogspot.com/2007/09/please-forward-as-far-as-possible.html

and please mirror this site.

Please add YOUR links to the bottom
and personalize it by making YOUR remarks known.

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of Earthlings Anonymous to always be there. And for that, I AM Responsible.
You are part of the ONEiverse. As I love the ONE I love you as I am now able.

Grant us the courage to change what we can, the serenity to accept what we cannot change- and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Killing Must Stop Save our Mother Earth Consume less and share more Take some time for an earth walk today Save our sacred spaces save all totem as well as all other animals NO MORE POISONS

Some sloganz:
Less babble, more DO.
Who we are and what we do MATTER.
Always do your best.
Should your wish to join, you must provide us with an email address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

Al Franken takes a stand pro WI unions !!

2011-03-10T15:37:00.000-06:00

Dear Virginia,

We were all shocked by what happened in Wisconsin Wednesday night.

Eighteen Republican state senators broke faith with the people who elected them. They broke their word. They may have even broken the law.

They wanted to bust public sector unions -- the last line of defense for the rights of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and other public servants -- so badly that they were willing to cheat the system.

Let’s be clear: They did this in the hopes that, with the bill passed, the crowds would dissipate and we’d let this go.

But they were wrong. We’re not going to let this go. We’re going to help the people of Wisconsin fight this bill -- and the illegal power grab it took to pass it -- every step of the way. We’re going to help them hold accountable the elected officials who sold out workers and subverted democracy.

And, most of all, we’re going to make sure that this is the end -- not the beginning -- of the right wing’s attempt to destroy the middle class. It took a power-hungry, corporate-backed governor and 18 senators with no respect for the law or the struggle of working families to bring this issue to national attention. But the fight to stand up for the middle class against corporations and the politicians they own has always been a national fight.

It’s up to us to make sure we win that fight for the working families whose voices -- whose livelihoods -- are at stake.

Thank you. And please stay tuned.

Al

ACTIVISM: WI firefighters Union action v. M & I bank.

2011-03-10T15:36:00.000-06:00

I have been following the actions in WI.
An interesting thing has developed. M&I bank was a major contributor
to Governor Walker.
This bank has been on boycott Walker lists for weeks. Somehow in the
last day and a half this thing got legs.
People started telling other people to pull their money out of M&I and
to protest the banks over their donations to Walker.
A tweet came across last night about 10pm for people to show up at M&I
tomorrow morning (this morning) and withdraw their money.
The firefighters union was there at 9am at the downtown Madison branch
and took out their $180,000. Lots of people followed suit and there
was a large crowd with signs out front most of the morning from what
accounts I saw.
Word is now from multiple sources that M&I in Madison closed for the day.

They were doing this for reasons other than UnCut's specific purpose
but this is just awesome to see. People being fed up with something
and taking action.
It didn't take that many people to do this and it was concentrated in
Madison at least as far as a big crowd. No reports yet how many people
went into other branches
in the region to close accounts.

Banks and big businesses try to poo poo boycotts and protests and a
few disgruntled people and that they don't matter. But they do and it
doesn't take huge numbers to do it.
Companies being hit with WI boycotts are in a panic, issuing press
releases and trying to deny culpability for their political donations.
Companies don't do that unless they are in fear.
These are WI companies that have national exposure but this is only
from people aware of the WI goings on. Again, not the total
demographic of the US jumping on it.

Koch Industries has been in damage control mode for weeks as boycotts
of their consumer products made rounds and started to be hinted at in
mainstream media. If a company that big is in fear of grassroots
boycotts they do matter. Last week Georgia Pacific products were on
sale just about everywhere I looked.

So what does this have to do with Uncut? Look at the big change a few
people made. Small groups of angry people made companies react.

I think the in masse closing of accounts at B of A could be a great
tactic if there is a way to get enough current customers on board to
do it.

Nancy in SD

2011-03-08T05:45:00.000-06:00

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics

2011-02-21T03:58:00.000-06:00

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics

By Matt Taibbi

February 16, 2011 9:00 AM ET

Here's how regulation of Wall Street is supposed to work. To begin with, there's a semigigantic list of public and quasi-public agencies ostensibly keeping their eyes on the economy, a dense alphabet soup of banking, insurance, S&L, securities and commodities regulators like the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as well as supposedly "self-regulating organizations" like the New York Stock Exchange. All of these outfits, by law, can at least begin the process of catching and investigating financial criminals, though none of them has prosecutorial power.

The major federal agency on the Wall Street beat is the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC watches for violations like insider trading, and also deals with so-called "disclosure violations" — i.e., making sure that all the financial information that publicly traded companies are required to make public actually jibes with reality. But the SEC doesn't have prosecutorial power either, so in practice, when it looks like someone needs to go to jail, they refer the case to the Justice Department. And since the vast majority of crimes in the financial services industry take place in Lower Manhattan, cases referred by the SEC often end up in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Thus, the two top cops on Wall Street are generally considered to be that U.S. attorney — a job that has been held by thunderous prosecutorial personae like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani — and the SEC's director of enforcement.

The relationship between the SEC and the DOJ is necessarily close, even symbiotic. Since financial crime-fighting requires a high degree of financial expertise — and since the typical drug-and-terrorism-obsessed FBI agent can't balance his own checkbook, let alone tell a synthetic CDO from a credit default swap — the Justice Department ends up leaning heavily on the SEC's army of 1,100 number-crunching investigators to make their cases. In theory, it's a well-oiled, tag-team affair: Billionaire Wall Street Asshole commits fraud, the NYSE catches on and tips off the SEC, the SEC works the case and delivers it to Justice, and Justice perp-walks the Asshole out of Nobu, into a Crown Victoria and off to 36 months of push-ups, license-plate making and Salisbury steak.

That's the way it's supposed to work. But a veritable mountain of evidence indicates that when it comes to Wall Street, the justice system not only sucks at punishing financial criminals, it has actually evolved into a highly effective mechanism for protecting financial criminals. This institutional reality has absolutely nothing to do with politics or ideology — it takes place no matter who's in office or which party's in power. To understand how the machinery functions, you have to start back at least a decade ago, as case after case of financial malfeasance was pursued too slowly or not at all, fumbled by a government bureaucracy that too often is on a first-name basis with its targets. Indeed, the shocking pattern of nonenforcement with regard to Wall Street is so deeply ingrained in Washington that it raises a profound and difficult question about the very nature of our society: whether we have created a class of people whose misdeeds are no longer perceived as crimes, almost no matter what those misdeeds are. The SEC and the Justice Department have evolved into a bizarre species of social surgeon serving this nonjailable class, expert not at administering punishment and justice, but at finding and removing criminal responsibility from the bodies of the accused.

The systematic lack of regulation has left even the country's top regulators frustrated. Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant for the SEC, laughs darkly at the idea that the criminal justice system is broken when it comes to Wall Street. "I think you've got a wrong assumption — that we even have a law-enforcement agency when it comes to Wall Street," he says.

In the hierarchy of the SEC, the chief accountant plays a major role in working to pursue misleading and phony financial disclosures. Turner held the post a decade ago, when one of the most significant cases was swallowed up by the SEC bureaucracy. In the late 1990s, the agency had an open-and-shut case against the Rite Aid drugstore chain, which was using diabolical accounting tricks to cook their books. But instead of moving swiftly to crack down on such scams, the SEC shoved the case into the "deal with it later" file. "The Philadelphia office literally did nothing with the case for a year," Turner recalls. "Very much like the New York office with Madoff." The Rite Aid case dragged on for years — and by the time it was finished, similar accounting fiascoes at Enron and WorldCom had exploded into a full-blown financial crisis. The same was true for another SEC case that presaged the Enron disaster. The agency knew that appliance-maker Sunbeam was using the same kind of accounting scams to systematically hide losses from its investors. But in the end, the SEC's punishment for Sunbeam's CEO, Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap — widely regarded as one of the biggest assholes in the history of American finance — was a fine of $500,000. Dunlap's net worth at the time was an estimated $100 million. The SEC also barred Dunlap from ever running a public company again — forcing him to retire with a mere $99.5 million. Dunlap passed the time collecting royalties from his self-congratulatory memoir. Its title: Mean Business.

Sorting through claims about the internet & revolutions, part 2

2011-02-17T13:57:00.000-06:00

Sorting through claims about the internet & revolutions, part 2

Highly interesting. Read the comments as they come in ....

Tax Evader TARGET, pay your share !

2011-02-16T13:13:00.000-06:00

Tax Evader TARGET, pay your share !

Time	Saturday, February 26 · 11:00am - 2:00pm

Location	Midway Super Target 1300 University Avenue West Saint Paul, MN

Created By	Virginia Simson

More Info	Target has 8 offshore subsidies to avoid fair taxation ! Meanwhile we all experience cuts to our services. Stop the cuts! Tax the rich ! If you are affected by tax cuts, do you think Target should be avoiding its share? Let's educate people - So, bring your literature, signs, costumes, music, street theater and be part of a new international movement ! We will stand STRONG and UNITED against injustice.

GRAPES OF WRATH – 2011

2011-02-15T11:28:00.000-06:00

Posted on 13th February 2011 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, debt, dignity, Dust Bowl, farming, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, financial industry, fraud, Grapes of Wrath, Great Depression, John Steinbeck, manufacturing, Tom Joad, Wall Street

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” – John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck wrote his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath at the age of 37 in 1939, at the tail end of the Great Depression. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for literature. John Ford then made a classic film adaption in 1941, starring Henry Fonda. It is considered one of the top 25 films in American history. The book was also one of the most banned in US history. Steinbeck was ridiculed as a communist and anti-capitalist by showing support for the working poor. Some things never change, as the moneyed interests that control the media message have attempted to deflect the blame for our current Depression away from their fraudulent deeds. The novel stands as a chronicle of the Great Depression and as a commentary on the economic and social system that gave rise to it. Steinbeck’s opus to the working poor reverberates across the decades. He wrote the novel in the midst of the last Fourth Turning Crisis. His themes of man’s inhumanity to man, the dignity and rage of the working class, and the selfishness and greed of the moneyed class ring true today.

More, much more on the link above .. (read the awesome comments, too ...)

Mubarak resigns, military claims power in Egypt

2011-02-11T22:53:00.000-06:00

Mubarak resigns, military claims power in Egypt

Not always a big World Socialist Website fan, but I think these are fine observations.

Have not been feeding this stuff onto the blog, but onto facebook - which I may come to regret. : (

By Tom Eley
12 February 2011

At about 6 p.m. on Friday, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman went on national television and issued a brief statement saying that President Hosni Mubarak, who for 30 years ruled Egypt as a dictator, had resigned and left a group of top generals, the Armed Forces Supreme Council, in charge of the nation.

Egypt erupted in jubilation on word of Mubarak’s resignation. A crowd numbering in the millions and spreading out for kilometers in all directions from Cairo’s Tahrir Square broke out into singing, dancing, and tears of joy. Similar scenes took place across Egypt, including at a demonstration of hundreds of thousands in Alexandria.

Mubarak’s departure came after 18 days of demonstrations and strikes that had waxed and waned, but that had generally grown in size and scope in spite of the brutal oppression of the regime. At this stage in the revolution, at least 300 have been killed―the real number is doubtless far higher―and thousands have been arrested and “disappeared”.

The decisive moment came Wednesday and Thursday, when the Egyptian working class moved to the forefront, partially or completely shutting down every sector of the economy.

The strike wave propelled the Egyptian military to finally move against Mubarak. Up until then, the Obama administration backed Mubarak, fearful that his removal would only spread the revolutionary contagion beyond Egypt and set the stage for a showdown between the Egyptian workers and the military, which will be neither willing nor able to address the social and democratic grievances of the masses.

There had been many indications that in his televised Thursday evening speech Mubarak would announce his resignation. Earlier in the day the nation’s supreme military council convened before television cameras, in the conspicuous absence of Mubarak and Suleiman, and issued a document titled “Communiqué #1” that suggested a coup d'état had taken place. The same day a general appeared in Tahrir Square and told demonstrators their demands would be met.

Meanwhile, in the US, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta told Congress he expected Mubarak would step down later in the day.

When Mubarak appeared on television Thursday night and provocatively insisted he would serve out his term, while delegating additional authority to Suleiman, formerly the nation’s top intelligence official and a close collaborator with the US and Israel, the stage was set for a social explosion.

Up until he made his announcement, it was unclear whether or not Mubarak would resign. In the morning, the military council issued another statement, “Communiqué #2,” supporting the dictator’s speech of the night earlier. The document indicated the military would maintain its allegiance to Mubarak indefinitely. The Obama administration once again refused to publicly call for Mubarak’s resignation.

But Mubarak’s speech only deepened the resolve of the population. Friday’s demonstration centered in Tahrir Square was the largest to date. Demonstrations erupted elsewhere in Cairo, Egypt’s capital and largest city, including around Mubarak’s palace and the headquarters of the hated state television network. In the afternoon it was reported that Mubarak and his family had left the city for his Red Sea palace at Sharm el-Sheikh.

Heavily armed contingents of the Egyptian military were stationed throughout the city, raising the specter of a bloody confrontation, but as the day wore on fraternization between demonstrators and rank-and-file soldiers increased.

Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, also saw its largest protest on Friday, a demonstration that numbered in the hundreds of thousands and snaked along the Mediterranean coastline for kilometers. Mubarak’s Alexandria palace also became a focal point of the demonstration.

In the industrial city of Suez, a crowd estimated in the tens of thousands massed around ten government buildings. In the Sinai, the town of El-Arish was the scene of armed clashes between demonstrators and police. Police fired guns, and demonstrators responded by throwing firebombs and setting police cars alight. The governor of a southern Egyptian province was forced to flee the region in the face of violent protests in the morning.

It is believed that Mubarak’s cabinet has been or soon will be disbanded, as have both the upper and lower house of parliament. It appears that Suleiman, the favored heir of both the US and Israel, will not assume the presidency. The ruling National Democratic Party also showed signs of dissolution, with its chairman announcing his resignation minutes before Mubarak’s resignation was announced.

Little is known at this point what steps the military regime will take. A “Communiqué #3” issued by the military command after Mubarak’s resignation said only that it was “studying” how it could meet the demands of the population. It did not lift the state of emergency that has governed the country uninterruptedly for decades, saying that it would only be lifted after the current protests had ended.

The main opposition figures and parties, including both Mohammed El Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood―which have worked systematically to contain protests―have insisted that the military be brought into any government. As late as Thursday night, a desperate El Baradei pleaded for the military to intervene to prevent the deepening of the revolution. "The army must save the country now," he said after Mubarak’s speech on Thursday night. “I call on the Egyptian army to immediately interfere to rescue Egypt. The credibility of the army is on the line."

After Mubarak departed, El Baradei declared victory. “The country has been liberated after decades of repression,” he said.

There is in fact not the slightest possibility that a military-backed government will meet the demands of the Egyptian masses―for jobs, good wages, and housing. The Egyptian military government is itself profoundly committed to the existing order. Its leading figures are deeply integrated into the business enterprises, and it has been for more than three decades the basic guarantor of the Mubarak regime.

The military’s assumption of power, with the backing of the Obama administration and bourgeois political forces like El Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood, can only set the stage for a new phase in the revolution.

Proposed New Constitution for the United States

2011-02-10T12:10:00.000-06:00

Proposed change to the US Constitution

The President is a clerk, not a King or Emperor.

We the People

I. Powers and Rights Reserved To We the People, Never Delegated or Violated Without Consent

A. The People are expressly defined as human beings and does not refer to corporations or contractual relationships.

B. No contract, agreement, or promise may ever bind any human to refuse to enforce the law, or prohibit them from speaking on matters of public interest.

C. We the People may believe anything, including the possible belief that this Constitution must be discarded and replaced with a superior document which defends the People and protects their power to enforce this Constitution against the Government.

D. The People are educated to apply the lessons of history to ensure rights are preserved, power asserted, and this Constitution is protected from domestic and foreign enemies.

E. The People have the enforceable right and power to review any public document and access any public official.

F. The People have the enforceable right to engage in any speech, communication, or discussion on issues of war crimes, government incompetence, or allegations of reckless government planning and maladministration.

G. Government officials, agencies, departments may not invoke any power or right they have denied to the People.

H. The People have the right to affordable housing. Where none is available, the government is denied the power to prosecute anyone for not living in a home, or residing in a public park, open forest, or public lands.

I. The People have the enforceable right to freely travel, without questions, and without delay. Any law enforcement officer, agents, or contacted security official who uses any ruse, scheme, or deception to engage in pretextual stops shall be enforced as a violation of this Constitution.

J. The People have the enforceable right to compel government officials, contractors, and securtit personnel to identify themselves, disclose their policies and procedures, and respond to complaints about violations of this Constitution, the Supreme Law, or laws of war.

K. The People may not be subject to any electronic surveillance except on probable cause and a warrant before a judicial tribunal. The President, Congress and others are expressly denied the power to enact, create, use, or rely on quasi-judicial tribunals to self-certify warrants to conduct surveillance.

L. All denied powers to the US Government in this Constitution are reserved to the People to be used to defend the Constitution.

II. Powers and Rights Reserved to States

A. States shall have authority to enforce any law within their jurisdiction. Failure to enforce the laws of war shall be prosecuted as a war crime.

B. States shall, when the Federal Government refuses to enforce the Constitution or Supreme Law, enforce the national and international law against contractors, legal counsel, state or US government officials.

C. Any state may start impeachment investigations or proceedings against the President, Member of Congress, or US government official on issues of international laws of war, domestic rebellion, or violations of the Supreme Law oath of office, or Geneva Conventions. The States shall, upon receipt of an impeachment investigation or conviction from any other state, shall within 10 days debate that resolution. If convicted by 2/3 of the States, that US government official shall be removed from office. Any effort to thwart State efforts to enforce the US Constitution through impeachment investigations or impeachment proceedings at the State level may be construed as a subsequent violation of this Constitution and laws of war.

D. The States may, without notice, organize themselves to collectively defend this Constitution from the domestic enemies in the United States government. The States Governors have the standing power, right, and authority to use deadly combat force to enforce this Constitution against US government officials.

E. A failure of any State official to enforce the laws of war shall be subject to a war crimes trial within 90 days of discovering that evidence. Where there are credible allegations of war crimes, a failure to investigate shall be construed as a subsequent war crime, punishable by the death penalty.

F. States have the power to enforce contract obligations between contractors and the US government which affect the rights of their State citizens. Failure to enforce these contractual obligations against the contractors or US government could be construed as a subsequent violation under the laws of war and US Constitution against legal counsel, state officials, or court officers.

III. Independent Branch

A. All US government, contractor-provided, and legal counsel data shall be retained in an independent branch.

B. The President, Congress, and Judicial branches have no power, right or claim to not fully fund this Independent Branch.

C. The Independent Branch conducts electronic surveillance of the US government, stores that data, and ensures there are independent, safe, retained records of all US government transaction, including conversations and memos between legal counsel and government officials. Once created for the government or connected with any legal or illegal activity, these records are public records.

D. The data may be seen only upon a showing of reasonable belief or suspicion by the United States Congress, Court, or Executive Branch that the information may be useful in enforcing the Constitution, Supreme Law, or Geneva Conventions.

E. Private citizens may view any data, unless the US government provides sufficient, detailed evidence why that request for information should not be met for bonafide, lawful secrets. Any effort to hide evidence behind a claim of "state secrets," where that claim is linked with an effort to bypass the Constitution, oath of office, Supreme Law, or laws of war may be punishable by the death penalty.

F. All government data belongs to the People. Any legal counsel working for the US government shall ensure that the People's right to reliable information is protected. A failure to protect this information could be construed as a war crime.

IV. Prosecutorial Branch

A. All prosecutorial options are denied of the President.

B. The Prosecutorial branch has the power to raise independent combat power, support them, and may lawfully use that deadly combat force to confront Members of Congress, the Judicial Branch Officers, or the Presidents upon showing of probable cause for war crimes.

C. The prosecutorial power is the exclusive power of the prosecution branch. However, anyone may make a claim of illegal activity, and enforce the laws of the United States and States respectively. Any effort to block anyone from unilaterally attempting to enforce the laws of war through discovery, investigation, and open discussion of those alleged war crimes shall be construed as a possible subsequent offense under the laws of war.

D. Legal counsel are subject to public review, audit, and can be required, with fair notice, of a requirement to demonstrate before any court their compliance with the laws of war.

E. Legal counsel may be denied authority to conduct discovery during any investigation when that discovery is linked with efforts that would thwart war crimes investigation, enforcement of the Supreme law or Geneva Conventions.

V. Judicial Branch

A. The Judicial Branch is above the Legislative Branch and Executive Branch only in order of precedence. The Judicial Branch is a co-equal branch, and closest to the People and Constitution. It is least responsive, and most slow to the People's daily interests to enforce the Constitution and Supreme Law or Geneva Conventions.

B. Where the Judicial Branch does not timely enforce the Constitution, Supreme Law, or laws of war, the States and People retain the power and right to investigate and prosecute allegations of US government illegal activity, war crimes, or violations of the Supreme law.

C. All precedents under the laws of war are binding on the Judicial Branch, US government, and the People through enforcement actions.

D. Any decision by any judicial officer not to fully enforce the laws of war, Supreme Law, or this Constitution may be construed as a war crime, subject to the death penalty.

VI. Legislative Branch

A. The Legislative Branch is listed after the Judicial Branch because it is less responsive to the People.

B. The Members of Congress may be stopped between sessions and held to account for their failure to enforce the laws of war.

C. Refusing to investigate or impeach the President, Judicial Officers, or any current or former US government official for alleged war crimes, maladministration, illegal warfare, or other crimes against the People, States, or US Government shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to not fully assert ones oath of office, and punishable by the death penalty under the laws of war.

D. There are three chambers to the Congress. The Senate and House have a legal duty to fully enforce the laws. Any decision to not timely review evidence of impeachable offenses, or not investigate war crimes or maladministration could be construed as subsequent offenses under the laws of war.

E. The Superior Chamber shall decide, before any debate, whether the proposed bill is or is not Constitutional. This determination is subject to approval, challenge, and rejection by the People, States, and Judicial Branch.

F. The Congress is denied the exclusive power to make rules. Any rule which prohibits any investigation into alleged malfeasance in re the laws of war, Supreme Law, or oath of office is illegal, and may be construed as a subsequent offense under the laws of war.

G. The Congress shall comply with public audits, and timely provide within 45 days of an audit report a statement of remedy, and outline a plan within 90 days to fully comply with all legal obligations under the Statute, Supreme Law, oath of office, and laws of war.

H. The Congress may raise and support an army, and independently order that army only against the President when the President refuses to enforce the laws of war, or comply with his legal obligations under this Constitution.

VII. Executive Branch

A. The Executive Branch is led by three Presidents, co-equal with non-overlapping jurisdictions. The Executive Branch has one power: Executive Power. All actions taken under that one power are lesser authorities not powers. The Executive Branch has no power to create new powers or assign itself broader power.

B. The Executive Branch is listed last because it is the least responsive to the People, and the greatest threat of tyranny to this Constitution. The President is a clerk, not a King or Emperor. The President only manages programs. The President has no power to ignore, rewrite, or refuse to enforce the law. Each of the three Presidents shall have an ongoing requirement to demonstrate to the People and States and Congress and Courts compliance with the Constitution, Supreme Law, oath of office, and laws of war.

C. The Domestic Affairs President is responsive to the States and US Government on internal affairs.

D. The Foreign Affairs President shall have exclusive power to interact with foreign powers. The Foreign Affairs President is denied any power to violate the laws of war, or use covert activity against American citizens.

E. The Executive Branch, Congress, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs President are denied the power to thwart any lawful State action to organize with foreign powers and agents to defend the US Constitution, enforce the laws of war, or protect the rights and powers of the People and States against domestic encroachments by the US government, legal counsel, or other US government officials.

F. The Commander in Chief shall only have power to lead combat operations during war time. Congress shall conduct ongoing, public reviews whether the Commander in Chief is or is not competent in managing combat operations. The Presidents and Commander in Chief are denied the power to prohibit Congress from using electronic surveillance or use separately raised and supported armies to conduct this oversight during wartime and peacetime.

G. The Executive Branch is denied the power to block anyone from getting access to illegal activity related to the laws of war.

H. During Peacetime, the Commander in Chief shall periodically cooperate with ongoing Oversight of US combat forces to ensure they are combat ready, fully trained on the laws of war, and prepared to lawfully be used to defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies.

I. The Executive Branch and Presidents and officers, agents, contractors, and personnel are denied the power, right, or authority to order anyone to ignore any statute, law, legal requirement, or obligation under the Constitution.

J. The Executive Branch has no power or authority to directly contact the Legislative Branch by name. The President may only request, not order other branches of government. All Communications between the Executive and Legislative Branch shall pass through the Prosecutorial Branch, and retained in the National Archives. Those records are available for public inspection at any time. The People have the enforceable right to compel the Executive Branch, Legislature, and Judicial Branch to produce documents.

K. The Executive Branch, Congress, Judicial Branch, and Prosecutorial Branch, and States are denied the power to wage warfare, information warfare, or harass American civilians through his agents, combat troops, or third parties in the United states or from overseas. Any funds used for this illegal purpose belong to the People and States. Contracts used to enforce, compel, or organize this illegal activity are not enforceable, and contrary to public policy.

L. The Presidents are denied a presumption of competence until proven. The President shall always have the burden of proof, and is expressly denied a presumption of good faith until demonstrated with overwhelming evidence in public. An election result is not proof of competence nor does it satisfy a presumption of good faith, only of mastery to win an election through legal or illegal methods and deception.

M. The Executive Branch and Presidents and subordinate agency head, contractor, and employees are expressly denied any assurance any conversation he has related to illegal activity, war crimes, unlawful acts, or other threats to the US Constitution shall remain secret behind any shield, scheme, agreement, or technology. Any order a President or anyone gives to anyone to hide, destroy,not provide, or conceal evidence of illegal activity may be construed as a subsequent war crime, punishable by the death penalty. This restriction against following illegal orders may not be bypassed by claiming the order was from a non-person, electronic device, or other non-Constitutionally recognized entity, database, policy, guide, or other document.

N. The Presidents are denied the power to use any combat force, technology, or other military weapon or plan against American civilians, except in cases of internal rebellion which only the Congress shall approve in writing. When the Congress fails to act, or abuses its authority, the State Governors may lawfully use deadly combat force to detain and enforce the laws of war prohibiting illegal use of force against American civilians.

O. The Presidents are denied the power to induce any civilian to take any action that might deny them on any Geneva protections as a civilian. Any order, ruse, scheme, propaganda, or unreliable information to induce anyone to wage war, information warfare, or any action to harass civilians is punishable by the death penalty, and may be enforced as a violation of the laws of war.

P. The President, when delegating any power to any agency head, agrees that that agency shall be organized as if it were a separate, lesser, and not coequal branch. Those agencies shall fully cooperate with the other branches of government to ensure power within the branch or department is divided. There is no single agency, division, or office in the Executive Branch that is beyond ongoing oversight by the other four branches.

Q. The President shall have no power to block the Congress, States, Judiciary, Prosecutorial, and Independent Branch from a having co-equal status to oversee, manage, and organize that lesser branch. If the President refuses to substantially comply with that requirement, Congress may not lawfully provide funding for that agency, and the funds return to the States and People.

Response to Robert Fisk

2011-02-10T09:26:00.001-06:00

A MurKan/Canadian view of Barry's response to calls for democracy in the ME/North Africa ...

::::::::Like everyone else, I am watching with all four of my eyes the doings in Egypt and Tunisia. I am now an avid Facebook user, as this nets me better "news" than what I had before. I have a chance to peer into the Egyptian soul as never before.

I am posting a running commentary on all things Egyptian and trying heartily to avoid the Oped that proliferated like dandelions in April these days, UNLESS they indicate some major shift in perception or alliance. Or, like the NYT, they are official mouthpieces for some particular group, in their case the liberal democratic perspective as it pertains to "stability" and a critique of US foreign policy from their point of view. I've spent hours pouring over Egyptian blogs, magazines, FB pages, twitters, human rights organization reports. Sometimes my eyes are just looking for historical accuracy as it applies to US policy on Egypte and the Middle East. Remember; the outright torture and genocide of Paolestinian people is covert and largely unknown to those spoon fed US psyops.

So, with interest today I find an article by Robert Fisk making the rounds. It is superbly fitting after reading Allen J. Roland's article on Veteran's Today yesterday and hurriedly translating arabic texts to find out what the pro democracy forces are demanding and putting in writing to go global/viral. They are frustrated with rhetoric and want ALL their power back; Wael has urged them all to DREAM the big one. The Vision Statement of Egypt is being written which will drive the further actions and priorities of these Freedom Fighters. Such big demands are being laid on the Egyptian leadership as this is a LIFE AND DEATH battle: Despite the fact that the prime "directive" is to communicate and trust, as Wael brought up:

1. They are busy burying the dead and looking for the disappeared and the beaten and tortured. The list, to be presented to the press is busily being prepared in time for the Friday funeral; Also, documenting all the assault cases and in one case, death of journalists and news organizations.

2. They are busy recording all the crimes committed, including the looting of the treasury and corruption -- not just against lower level officials, but the Mubarak family (Going on on mainly arabic websites, some translations I have put on my FB notes " ) and making sure there are travel bans on these people. They are also documenting the abuses since Jan. 25, video, first hand accounts -- these include material related to the state-run TV stations and orders given to other media outlets

3. Refining demands while learning a WHOLE LOT of international law that is relevant.

Mubarak does not move on as Ben Ali did, so this is STRESSFUL to the entire process ..

Meanwhile - I, just like you, do not like them as Sitting Targets " ! I wish Anonymous would attack the Egyptian government computers which have the capacity to give the military knowledge to go after and punish anyone who has participated in actions.

This is a bloodbath going on, and Barry&Co are morally culpable. Chris Hedges takes on that vast problem here and it well worth your while to give 27 minutes attention to it.

The US tried to BUY OFF and influence pro-democracy leaders like 6th April, but support them verbally, hell no. They knew what was coming and hedged their bets. Hi LIAR y brought them over on a regular basis. She thought that they were "safer" than the Muslim Brotherhood.

When Wael and his friends outsmarted the US intended control of The Movement, Barry&Co immediately grew frustrated and have blown this crisis/opportunity in every way possible. Both public and private diplomacy "efforts" are DISASTERS. MurKa has shown itself to be only capable of supporting military action/elites. They have no concept of making friends based on moral, ethical, and values as the basis of true alliance. Choosing Wisner as the POINT MAN was a TOTAL disaster from everyone's point of view but Wisner's and Mubarak's -- and shows precisely why the US cannot be trusted. No one will convince me that they did not know of Wisner's CIA connections, his firm representing The Regime and his own personal investments in Egypt. Strains credulity doesn't it?

It becomes increasingly clear that Obomber's only agenda is to get enough money to run in 2012 , and for that he needs to kowtow to those who would never even consider speaking with, let alone supporting, someone who is an ACTIVIST. Remember: he needs to raise $1.6 million per DAY to get the necessary funds. As this all rages, he with the Chamber of Commerce and making deals with Canada to have 30 corporations RUNNING North America. The North American Union has slipped in under the radar while eyes were diverted. The militarization of Canada is nearly complete, just a few details to iron out. This took far higher priority than any human rights attention on either of their parts.

Barry thinks no one in Egypt with power, clout and MONEY is backing The Movement. I think that Dream TV interview with Wael indicated something far different. I think we will see resources being mobilized to help the new leadership and America be DAMNED. The Regime has a new call for a bond issue that is slipping in under the wire -- they made a tender on Monday to keep themselves "solvent" as the elite raids the treasury before leaving. Fortunately, the real leaders of The Movement are figuring out what to do as I type. I've posted their preliminary demands to freeze these assets from officials and slap travel bans on them so that they can't flee with funds. I think banks who help these criminals will be held liable, too. Mubarak, alone, has enough money (not counting his gold) to bail out the entire Egyptian debt !! What will Barak do when the protestor/citizens get what is "RIGHTFULLY theirs?

As Allen J. Roland said: This is not a bright, shining moment for Barak ". Anyone who supports torturers should have been highly suspect anyway ....

There is the call to WAKE UP from Egyptian women who know "the score" .. will Barry hear them and their children?

America's Strategic Repression of the Arab Awakening Dandelion Salad

2011-02-09T18:57:00.001-06:00

British Consul Closes Office to Duck Assange Letter

2011-02-09T08:32:00.001-06:00

I wonder what was SO dangerous about my comment here that Huff wouldn't publish it.

UNREAL.

I am making the point WE are taxpayers, too and that one man came out and harassed us and nothing was done to HIM.

The issue SHOULD be discussed at the City Council. It is NOT in Mpls purview to back up idiots who troll FB and twitter and pay public funds to send out the police. There is plenty of CRIME here to take care of ..
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

British Consul Closes Office to Duck Assange Letter

2011-02-08T18:24:00.001-06:00

Oh, the irony!

When we handed out anti torture postcards earlier in the day we were THANKED by nearly everyone who took one regardless of age, race, nationality, political persuasion. It was extremely gratifying.

Then we show up at a private building and treated like rodents, the ones with the leathery tails. One spiteful man came outside and started SCREAMING AT US, and not ONE cop or security guy said a word or even moved a muscle !! Hey, we are taxpayers, too. These kinds of bullies

("PUT THAT MAN IN PRISON AND THROW AWAY THE KEY" he yelled. Yet, I'll bet he'd give the WAR CRIMINALS campaign donations and invite them to dinner.)

If protesters are peaceful but cannot even deliver a letter about justice, how can anyone think this is a land of the free, home of the brave?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

ACTIVISM: CETA IS the North American Union

2011-02-08T15:32:00.000-06:00

Obomber and Harpo have done with nerve that which no man has done before. It was done in secret and without fanfare. The Canadian Senate has not stopped it as I had predicted it would.

The Competitive Council is probably celebrating and Obomber went to the Chamber of Commerce.

Corporatocacy is carrying the day.

GET ON THE PHONES !!

Harper signs new security perimeter deal without consulting Canadians or Parliament

Late Friday afternoon, Prime Minster Stephen Harper announced he had unilaterally signed a deal with the United States government that some pundits have said is larger in scope than NAFTA.

The security perimeter deal, which Harper touted as being needed to further ease trade restrictions between the two countries, states that Canadian and U.S. governments will work “together within, at, and away from the borders of our two countries” to toughen security and promote trade.

In his comments following the announcement, Prime Minister Harper said the border plan is intended to “keep out terrorists and criminals,” “simplify regulations that hinder trade,” create “consistent inspection measures,” and to have “better management of our border” but not eliminate it.

The Council of Canadians has spoken out against this deal, which was reportedly negotiated in secret for six months with involvement from business groups, but not Parliament or public interest groups. While concrete details about the deal have been sparse, many concerns have already been raised about the implications of sharing security information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the loss of sovereignty and trade-offs made to come to this agreement, and the degree to which any of the common measures being discussed will address the so-called “thickening” of the border.

"We've gone down this road before – it was called the Security and Prosperity Partnership – and North Americans rejected it," said Stuart Trew, Trade Justice Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. "The Harper government must disclose what terms it is negotiating with the Americans and open it to public and parliamentary scrutiny."

Take action!

Contact Prime Minister Stephen Harper today and tell him he shouldn’t sign away Canada’s sovereignty by making backroom deals without public debate or scrutiny. The security perimeter deal was signed by Prime Minster Harper without permission from the Canadian public and without approval from Parliament even though it could result in major changes to how our borders are monitored, unfair immigration policies, and the sharing of Canadians’ personal information with U.S. Homeland Security.
Go here to send your message to Prime Minister Harper today.
Here’s more about what’s new at the Council of Canadians:

Corporatocracy

2011-02-08T14:53:00.000-06:00

JURIST - Forum: Tunisia, Egypt, and Revolution in a "Democracy"

2011-02-08T11:04:00.000-06:00

JURIST - Forum: Tunisia, Egypt, and Revolution in a "Democracy"

JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of University of Houston Law Center says that revolutions occur in different manners around the world, including in the US, and suggests that the US and other members of the UN should change their foreign policies to reflect the values and hopes of the majority of people in an interdependent world....

During our witnessing of what appear to be democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, a law professor named Carl T. Bogus posted a comment on CNN alleging that, "[T]here's no right of revolution in a democracy." Surely such a Bogus admonition is not correct or preferable. Some revolutions occur peacefully and partially through changing patterns of generally shared expectations or changes at the ballot box. The fact that a particular change, resting on general patterns of expectation or demand, occurs within a relative democracy should not be alarming to those who favor political self-determination of peoples, human rights, and the rule of authoritative law.

Moreover, of course, it begs a question at stake whether a given governmental process is democratic. It is also worth noting that some of our Founders, especially J.Q. Adams, Hamilton, Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, and Wilson, who engaged in a notable revolution of their own, did not prefer that our federal government would be a direct democracy but a republic. Without, for example, the direct election of a President and with a balancing role of a Senate that is in potential opposition to a House with membership that is more directly representative of the human beings who make up our polity.

It was a Republican President in the midst of a civil war in 1861 who remarked during his First Inaugural Address that the people of the United States have a revolutionary right to overthrow their government at any time. But, he added, the Union, and not the secessionists, represented the people of the United States, or at least the majority thereof. His sentiments reflected, of course, those of the Founders of our country and others in the Americas who had thrown off the yoke of foreign powers.

I recall a time when Richard Nixon was on his way out, when thousands of demonstrators had already been locked up for days without trial in Washington, D.C. (something that the ACLU, which handled some of the cases, still cannot admit in view of "gag" orders imposed by the judiciary in a relative democracy). It was a time when the New York Times reported that generals in the Pentagon had decided not to push the button merely because a democratically elected President had ordered a nuclear attack. The unelected generals would decide themselves whether there was a need to use nuclear weapons - and thank goodness for common sense.

A general officer told me later that President Nixon, through his Chief of Staff, had asked the Joint Chiefs whether the military would support martial law and Nixon's retention of power, although the process of impeachment had begun. The unelected generals said, "No" - thank goodness. It had become clear that a previously democratically elected President had lost a democratically based authority to rule. It is a lesson for us that sometimes there is a need for revolutionary refusal or confrontation in a relative democracy, even against a government that had initially been democratically elected. Abraham Lincoln was correct.

And what is happening now in the Middle East, in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere? What should our response be and that of the United Nations? Should we continue with an ultimately failed foreign policy that prefers stability at the expense of democratic values, political self-determination of peoples, and human rights - our cherished American values evident from the time when my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War? Under article 55 of the United Nations Charter, every U.N. entity must promote and serve self-determination of peoples and participate in a universal respect for and observance of human rights. These same obligations are incumbent upon state members of the U.N. through article 56 of the Charter. Isn't it time for a revolutionary change in our foreign policy - one that reflects the values and hopes of the majority of our people and, quite obviously, numerous other peoples who seek to share a common dignity in an increasingly interdependent world?

Jordan J. Paust is the Mike and Teresa Baker Law Center Professor at the University of Houston and has ancestors who participated in the Revolutionary War and others who, far earlier, had signed the Magna Carta. He is the author of "The Human Right to Participate in Armed Revolution and Related Forms of Social Violence: Testing the Limits of Permissibility," 32 Emory Law Journal 545 (1983).

Suggested citation: Jordan J. Paust, Tunisia, Egypt, and Revolution in a "Democracy", JURIST - Forum, Feb. 1, 2011, http://jurist.org/forum/2010/09/tunisia-egypt-and-revolution-in-a-democracy.php

Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 2 – With English subtitles | Alive in Egypt

2011-02-07T21:31:00.000-06:00

Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 2 – With English subtitles | Alive in Egypt

Video Subtitles courtesy Alive in Egypt

Dream TV Interview With Wael Ghonim: Part 1 – With English Subtitles | Alive in Egypt

2011-02-07T20:12:00.000-06:00

Dream TV Interview With Wael Ghonim: Part 1 – With English Subtitles | Alive in Egypt



Video Subtitles courtesy Alive in Egypt

Egyptian Revolution 2011 COMPLETE. World MUST MUST watch this. Freedom f...

2011-02-05T16:20:00.000-06:00

One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown | Save the Internet

2011-01-31T23:48:00.000-06:00

One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown | Save the Internet

By Tim Karr, January 28, 2011

The open Internet's role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime today reportedly shut down Internet and cell phone communications -- a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that has followed.

What's even more troubling is news that one American company is aiding Egypt's harsh response through sales of technology that makes this repression possible.

The Internet's favorite offspring -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- are now heralded on CNN, BBC and Fox News as flag-bearers for a new era of citizen journalism and activism. (More and more these same news organizations have abandoned their own, more traditional means of newsgathering to troll social media for breaking information.)

But the open Internet's power cuts both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower protesters can also be used to hunt them down.

Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant phone and Internet service provider, is a state-run enterprise, which made it easy on Friday morning for authorities to pull the plug and plunge much of the nation into digital darkness.

Moreover, Egypt also has the ability to spy on Internet and cell phone users, by opening their communication packets and reading their contents. Iran used similar methods during the 2009 unrest to track, imprison and in some cases, "disappear" truckloads of cyber-dissidents.

The companies that profit from sales of this technology need to be held to a higher standard. One in particular is an American firm, Narus of Sunnyvale, Calif., which has sold Telecom Egypt "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment.

CHART OF THE DAY: Oil Prices vs. Food Prices | The Prudent Investor

2011-01-30T11:57:00.000-06:00

CHART OF THE DAY: Oil Prices vs. Food Prices | The Prudent Investor

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Keep it simple and see the coming food-energy price spiral. The FAO Food Index and EIA oil index show a very high correlation of 0.93, according to this graph plotted by Paul Chefurka.

GRAPH: Food prices doubled in the last 11 years while oil rose more than 150%. Data: Nov 2000 to Nov 2010 by EIA, FAO. Chart courtesy Paul Chefurka

As global protests have spread to Saudi Arabia oil prices are destined to lead the next step up and remain high. The possibility of supply disruptions by either a closure of the Suez Canal or riots getting out of hand in Saudi Arabia will put in a solid floor at current levels.
This does not bode well for food prices. Check some 11.1 million Go ogle results for "rising food prices" or look at your latest grocery bill.
Forget about seemingly stable "core" ex food/energy inflation and tepid "consumer price indices" with overweighted consumer electronics and underweighted everyday needs. No human being can fight inflation by stopping to eat and no business can cut its energy consumption deliberately. Riots in Africa are not for cheaper iPads but stable food prices.

Very touching video... Egyptian speaks !!

2011-01-29T16:42:00.000-06:00

Very touching video... (102)

is an understatement. One to save and treasure.

The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

2011-01-29T16:17:00.000-06:00

The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

"America is no "Role Model" of Democratization for the Middle East. US military presence imposed on Egypt and the Arab World for more than 20 years, coupled with "free market" reforms are the root cause of State violence.

America's intent is to use the protest movement to install a new regime.

The People's Movement should redirect its energies: Identify the relationship between America and "the dictator". Unseat America's political puppet but do not forget to target the "real dictators".

Shunt the process of regime change.

Dismantle the neoliberal reforms.

Close down US military bases in the Arab World.

Establish a truly sovereign government."

Read this in its entirety at the link above ..

Incredible coverage of Egypt protest on Jan. 28.

2011-01-28T07:32:00.000-06:00

Now this is news and brilliant coverage !! Guardian you rock !!

Jack Shenker in Cairo says there are signs that the police are siding with protesters. "The regime is already" falling he was told

Listen!

Egypt Leaves the Internet - Renesys Blog

2011-01-28T00:08:00.000-06:00

Egypt Leaves the Internet - Renesys Blog:

From the comments:

"I suspect the cut off of all these services (Net, landlines,cells, power, water -if true) IS multipurpose - Disrupt protest communications to coordinate - protect (balloon theory) AND instill FEAR .. Notice the fear of non-witnessed massacres on some tweets?
Can some of these be plants? Scare people (earlier) from going out on Friday ?"

Palestine papers: MI6 plan proposed internment – and hotline to Israelis

2011-01-26T02:50:00.000-06:00

Palestine papers: MI6 plan proposed internment – and hotline to Israelis

Seumas Milne and Ian Black:
January 25, 2011 - The Palestinian Authority's security strategy to crush Hamas and other armed groups on the West Bank was originally drawn up by Britain's intelligence service, MI6, leaked papers reveal. The strategy included internment of leaders and activists, closure of radio stations and replacement of imams in mosques – the bulk of which has since been carried out. Two documents drafted by the Secret Intelligence Service in conjunction with other Whitehall departments, which are among the cache given to al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian, are understood to have been passed to Jibril Rajoub, former head of PA security in the West Bank, at the beginning of 2004 by an MI6 officer then based at the British consulate in Jerusalem...
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Blair sucks.

Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated - ProPublica

2011-01-26T02:32:00.000-06:00

Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated - ProPublica

Der Spiegel's take on the new Tunisia

2011-01-25T04:24:00.000-06:00

"More than anything, most of the demonstrators want to see an end to corruption."

My definition: Corruption is the psychotic symptom of excessive violence.

I love love love articles like this where I find something out and the author seems to tell the TRUTH about something I long to know about.

This shows some of what may happen in a NEW Tunisia. I am also going to check IC Publications Africa Today and The Middle East to see what they are saying. Obviously some leadership is emerging, if only in the media's imagination.

Notice I already had a Middle East liberation tag. I just KNEW this had to happen eventually. Even the totally screwed over by being terrorized get fed up when they are told they won't be able to eat, but the Fat Cats are eating caviar in Dubai.

Intoxicated by Freedom

Reinventing Tunisia at Record Speed

By Mathieu von Rohr and Volkhard Windfuhr in Tunis

Photo Gallery: Aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution

Tunisians are intoxicated by their newfound freedom. The media is publishing long-suppressed sentiments, while activists form new parties and young people hold heated debates on street corners. But the country is facing huge challenges in its bid to become a modern democracy, and it will hardly be possible to stick to the deadline for new elections. more...

The 18 men and women have formed a circle, with some sitting and others standing. They are holding one of the first editorial meetings ever convened at La Presse, a daily newspaper in the Tunisian capital Tunis. They discuss thetremendous things happening in their county and what should appear in tomorrow's paper.

They are intoxicated with newfound energy. Now they want to do all the things they have never done before. They want to tell the stories that will stir the country, stories about the little bookshop around the corner displaying formerly banned books, about how stores are gradually reopening their doors but food shortages continue, and about how people on the street are criticizing the new government. All of that is supposed to appear in the next day's edition.

They also want to write articles about the social networking Internet platform Facebook, which has become an alternative source of news for the country's youth. They are even considering downloading and printing images circulating online of police violence and destruction from all over the country.

Still, they are not completely sure how far they should allow themselves to go. They debate and argue over whether they should criticize individual ministers who are particularly incompetent and whether they should identify all the authors of opinion pieces by name.

Euphoria and Apprehension

Faouzia Mezzi is leading the meeting. While the autocratic former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali still ruled the country, there were times when she was banned from writing articles. Today, she is having a hard time restraining those staff members who would prefer to change everything immediately. "We first need to see if we can even publish a newspaper at all," she says. "Be patient."

At the time, it had only been five days since Ben Ali, Tunisia's dictator for 23 years, fled the country, and only the fifth day that the country had enjoyed freedom of the press. No one gave it to these journalists; they simply took it. While the country was rising up against the regime, they launched their own revolution.

But there appear to be limits to the new freedom. The interim government shut down the country's most popular private television station, Hannibal TV, on Sunday night. The New York Times, quoting Tunisia's state news agency, reported that the government had arrested the station's owner, which it accused of treason for broadcasting "false information likely to create a constitutional vacuum and destabilize the country." A spokesman for the station, which had criticized Ben Ali's government in the past, said that it had been shut down without warning and called the move a violation of freedom of the press.

By Monday morning, however, the station had resumed broadcasting, apparently after an opposition member of the interim government intervened. Observers in Tunisia told the New York Times that the network's shutdown damaged the interim government's credibility and said that the fate of the station would be seen as a test of the state's commitment to press freedom.

Practicing Self-Censorship

La Presse, which appears in both French and Arabic versions, is one of the country's oldest newspapers. Like almost all media sources in Tunisia, it is government-owned, meaning the state appoints its senior editors. During the dictatorship, those editors would dictate the issues to be covered, as well as censor anything that could upset the regime. Naturally, the journalists also practiced self-censorship. Indeed, until the revolution, La Presse was little more than a bland mouthpiece for government statements.

On Friday, January 14, 2011, even before Ben Ali and his family had been chased out of the country, the paper's staff allowed itself to be infected by the same lust for freedom that had gripped the entire country. They stripped the editor in chief of power and designated a group of 10 people to be in charge of managing the paper.

The former editor in chief still has his office with its leather chair and he can be spotted skulking along the corridor, but he no longer has any say. The journalists formerly under his charge have been busy discovering what it means to live in a free society -- just like people throughout Tunisia these days.

Back at the meeting, Olfa Belhassine from the paper's culture section proposes an editorial entitled "Who's Afraid of Press Freedom?" She adds that, in her 20 years of working in the media, she has always dreamed of writing just such an article. The next day, it appears in the paper.

An Orderly Revolution

The rest is here on the link .. more to read !! Really, don't miss it, much material of interest

LadyBroadoak Visionary Planetary Healing Tutorial

Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The 'Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere'

Why Aren't Americans in the Streets? Where Is the American Autumn?

ALEC Exposed: Milton Friedman's Little Shop of Horrors

Republican budget plan envisions sharp cuts

~ Straight Truth on Nuclear Fallout ~

Explosion at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

Huge explosion at Japan nuclear plant

Al Franken takes a stand pro WI unions !!

ACTIVISM: WI firefighters Union action v. M & I bank.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics

Sorting through claims about the internet & revolutions, part 2

Tax Evader TARGET, pay your share !

GRAPES OF WRATH – 2011

Mubarak resigns, military claims power in Egypt

By Tom Eley12 February 2011

Proposed New Constitution for the United States

Proposed change to the US Constitution

Response to Robert Fisk

British Consul Closes Office to Duck Assange Letter

British Consul Closes Office to Duck Assange Letter

ACTIVISM: CETA IS the North American Union

Obomber and Harpo have done with nerve that which no man has done before. It was done in secret and without fanfare. The Canadian Senate has not stopped it as I had predicted it would.

The Competitive Council is probably celebrating and Obomber went to the Chamber of Commerce.

Corporatocacy is carrying the day.

GET ON THE PHONES !!

Harper signs new security perimeter deal without consulting Canadians or Parliament

Take action!

Corporatocracy

JURIST - Forum: Tunisia, Egypt, and Revolution in a "Democracy"

Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 2 – With English subtitles | Alive in Egypt

Dream TV Interview With Wael Ghonim: Part 1 – With English Subtitles | Alive in Egypt

Photos on flickr

Videos

Egyptian Revolution 2011 COMPLETE. World MUST MUST watch this. Freedom f...

One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown | Save the Internet

CHART OF THE DAY: Oil Prices vs. Food Prices | The Prudent Investor

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Very touching video... Egyptian speaks !!

The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

Incredible coverage of Egypt protest on Jan. 28.

Jack Shenker in Cairo says there are signs that the police are siding with protesters. "The regime is already" falling he was told

Egypt Leaves the Internet - Renesys Blog

Palestine papers: MI6 plan proposed internment – and hotline to Israelis

Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated - ProPublica

Der Spiegel's take on the new Tunisia

Intoxicated by Freedom

Reinventing Tunisia at Record Speed

Photo Gallery: Aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution

RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS

By Tom Eley
12 February 2011