Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
'New Orleans marks Katrina anniversary'
Today my wonderfully sensitive and compassionate 14 y/o son asked if we could light a candle in rememberance of the victims of hurricane Katrina. Then my partner K, my son, and myself held hands in a moment of silence for those who died, suffered needlessly and lost everything they had ever known.New Orleans marks Katrina anniversary
Katrina grazed Florida before making landfall at 6:10 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2005, in Buras, a tiny fishing town 65 miles south of New Orleans on one of the fingers of land jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico. Entire blocks of houses, bars and shops vanished, whipped into the Gulf by a wall of water 21 feet high.
In New Orleans, the sun came out after the violent winds subsided, but the worst was yet to come: The industrial canal began to leak, and when two sections of the wall fell, a muddy torrent was released that yanked homes off their foundations.
Throughout the city, other parts of the levee system began to fail. With each breach came a cascade of water, until 80 percent of the city was submerged.
Nearly 1,600 people died in Louisiana, and the rest of the nation watched in horror as survivors begged to be rescued from rooftops or freeway overpasses. Forty-nine bodies remain unidentified in the city’s morgue.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Israel accused of 'war crimes'
South Beruit before and after...
Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.
The human rights group says attacks on homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war.
The group also calls for a UN investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law.
Continued...
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Stephanie McMillan: Minimum Security: Birth pangs
By Stephanie McMillan
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TomPaine.com - Panic As Policy
Last week’s arrests of 24 British citizens accused of planning massive suicide missions against U.S.-bound airplanes unleashed widespread chaos and delays in airports around the world. In the aftermath of the arrests, amid the ensuing code red alerts, panic levels across Europe and the U.S. spiked. Hours after the plot was revealed, President George W. Bush boasted that, "This country is safer than it was prior to 9/11." While the plot’s disruption may have averted a catastrophe, there is little evidence to support the president’s claim.
Bush's Iraq policy polls poorly, yet the president enjoys significant public support for his counterterrorism strategies. Talking "tough on terror" has proved to be popular with the public and last week’s disruption of the apparent suicide attacks will certainly play to this strength. Lost in the rhetoric is the fact that this plot was beaten by good old-fashioned police work, international cooperation and patience, rather than by fighting a “Global War on Terror.”
WorkingForChange-No shortage of fear
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
08.15.06
AUSTIN, Texas -- We have nothing to fear but fear itself, especially since fear is now being fomented and manipulated for political purposes by a bunch of shameless hacks. Who is trying to make you afraid and why? This Karl Rove tactic is getting quite threadbare, in fact, and so much so that it is getting dangerously close to comedy.
My favorite episode, of course, was the Miami terrorists, a fearsome horde of seven described by the FBI's deputy director as, "More inspirational that operational." That means wanna-bes. An FBI informant posing as a member of al-Qaida offered to supply the plotters with material for the jihad, so they asked for boots and uniforms. Every terrorist needs a uniform.
Cynthia Tucker: Republicans beat the war drum
Republicans beat the war drum
Will GOP message of 2002, 2004 still resound with voters?
By Cynthia Tucker
Hoping for a reprise of the 2002 and 2004 elections, when they rolled over Democrats by claiming they were soft on terrorism, leading Republicans are once again portraying the invasion of Iraq as brilliant, denouncing their critics as traitors, and claiming anything less than enthusiastic support for "staying the course" is tantamount to saddling up with al-Qaida.
Recently, GOP heavyweights used the victory of anti-war political novice Ned Lamont over three-term incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., in last week's Democratic primary -- Lieberman had remained a staunch defender of the war -- to portray the Democrats as a bunch of America-hating wimps. With so many Republican incumbents struggling to distance themselves from President Bush and the war, you'd think the GOP leadership would have a qualm or two about that strategy. But if you only know one tune, you sing it.
UK Considers Racial Profiling, U.S. Moves to Psychological Profiling
read more digg story
Thursday, August 10, 2006
"America by the Numbers - No.1?" by Micheal Ventura
America by the numbers
No. 1?
- The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
- The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
- Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
- "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
- Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
- "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
- "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
- Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
- Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
- The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
- "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
- Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
- "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
- Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
Terrorist Plot to Blow Up Aircraft... Reality or Propaganda?
Overnight arrests have foiled threats to blow up aircraft.
read more digg story
Really, just think about how convenient this is for the U.S. and Britain. Propaganda is the way the government keeps all it's people in line. Basically, governments lie and or embellish the truth to keep us quiet, uninformed, and afraid. Propaganda is a terrorist tactic...so if both governments are making this up to put the fear of terrorism back into the masses...then our government terrorizes it's people.
We have become terrorists. Bullies, actually. Is it really Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaida that we should fear, or is it really our own governments? Look at Israel. Sending leaflets down before they bomb the shit out of a group of people (the Lebanese), that appeared to be developing a very effective democracy, is pretty terrifying. Especially when there's absolutely no way out and the whole world turns it's back on you....
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Monday, August 7, 2006
Not In Our Name - Pledge of Resistance
We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names
Not in our name will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths no more transfusions of blood for oil
Not in our name will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil
Not by our mouths will we let fear silence us
Not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil
Not by our will and Not in our name
We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity
We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice,freedom and peace
Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real.
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Stand Up for Human Rights!
I just visited Amnesty International USA's Web site, where you can take online action to support human rights around the world. Join me and support human rights at the Human Rights Action Center
Please help Amnesty International save lives and protect all of us from human rights violations...
Cindy Sheehan, other activists protest in Mideast
AMMAN, Jordan - “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan and 14 other U.S. anti-war activists on Saturday joined Iraqi lawmakers in demanding a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Continued....
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Footage you were never supposed to see
One of the most important films of the last 25 years
Footage you were never supposed to see
Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.
Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again. Tell your friends about it. This extraordinary film released in the early 1990s is almost completely unknown. Hopefully, the Internet will change that.
Click here to watch SPIN for free...
Cutting through Israel's Propaganda War in the US
Cutting through Israel's
propaganda war in the US
Four short clips of things
Americans never see on TV
Exhibit #1 - Journalists who ask questions - I
Continued....
Saturday, August 5, 2006
"Cuba's Transition"
Cuba's Transition
Raul Castro Disappears
Washington is anticipating a change of the regime in Cuba. The U.S. Congress is, for one, considering allocating $80 million for developing democracy in Cuba. George W. Bush made it clear on Thursday that Cuba may soon have a democratic government. “We will support any effort to build a transitional government in Cuba committed to democracy,” he said during his visit to Texas.
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Amnesty International To Hold Vigils Calling for an Immediate Ceasefire in the Lebanon/Israel Conflict
an Immediate Ceasefire in the Lebanon/Israel Conflict
National Vigil to be Held at State Department
(Washington, DC) -- In response to the escalating violence and deaths of civilians in the Lebanon and Israel conflict, Amnesty International will hold vigils on Monday, August 7 to call for an immediate ceasefire, demand all governments stop the supply of arms and stand in solidarity with the victims and survivors from both sides. Amnesty International members will participate in vigils across the globe including Venezuela, United Kingdom, Spain, Chile, France, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Australia, Belgium, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Turkey, Korea and the United States.
Details for the Washington, DC vigil are:
What: AIUSA National Vigil When: Monday, August 7 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. (EDT) Where: U.S. State Department
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC
NOTE: Participants will be in front of the C Street, NW entrance.
For more information, please contact Sharon Singh at 202.544.0200 x 302.
Call on the United States and other world governments to work towards an immediate, full and effective ceasefire to protect civilians on both sides of the conflict in Israel and Lebanon.
Please sign the petition to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Learn more. »
Friday, August 4, 2006
"The Day the System Worked" by Jared Bernstein
by
As the heat wave over Washington, D.C., finally lifts, it appears cooler heads have prevailed. I’d even go as far as to say our political system worked yesterday.
Last night, on August 3, the Senate defeated that devious bit of legislation that linked passage of a minimum-wage increase to a major reduction in the estate tax. The House passed the bill last week and Senate conservatives pushed hard for the same result in their chamber, larding the bill up further with special breaks for key votes, like tax exclusions to pick off a few Democratic senators from timber states.
But the center held, thanks to the 42 senators who voted "no" on cloture, denying the majority the 60 votes they needed to make the bill a law.
Even for veterans of minimum wage horse trading, the coupling of the bill to repeal most of the estate tax with a minimum wage increase set a cynical new low. The increase in the minimum, to $7.25 by 2009, simply replaces the value by which inflation has eroded the wage over the past few decades, giving a direct lift worth around $1,200 per year to about 6 million low-wage workers. And it does so without adding to the $300 billion budget deficit.
The estate tax reduction—which clocks in with a 10-year cost of $268 billion—returns about $1.3 million to 8,200 wealthy estates, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP also points out that the size of the tax cut would grow with the size of the estate; as many as 900 estates worth more than $20 million would receive an average tax cut of $5.4 million in 2011.
It gets worse. The lobbyists for the National Restaurant Association managed to inject a paragraph into the minimum wage part of the bill that would have significantly lowered the pay of minimum wage workers who work get tips (like waitpersons) in seven states.
Thursday, August 3, 2006
Lebanon's Death Toll Over 900
Lebanon's death toll in more than three weeks of Israel-Hezbollah fighting has reached more than 900, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Thursday in a video statement to an Islamic conference in Malaysia.
"Over 900 (have been) killed and 3,000 injured so far, one third of the casualties are children under 12," Saniora told participants at a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Muslim world's largest political group.
He said Israel's offensive on Lebanon "is taking an enormous toll on human life and infrastructure, and has totally ravaged our country and shattered our economy."
Lebanon's death toll was previously thought to be 548 - including 477 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 25 Lebanese soldiers and at least 46 Hezbollah guerrillas.
The health minister had said the number could be as high as 750, including those still buried in rubble or missing.
Born Different
32% of the population is born blue eyed
15% of the population is born left-handed
4% of the population is born with red hair
3% of the population is born gay
The debate on whether sexual orientation is a choice or something a person is born with has been gaining more and more publicity as science continues to gain evidence that homosexuality is most likely caused by biological rather than social factors.
The campaign helps seperate the facts and myths of homosexuality and promotes equality for all Americans. The campaign is not about religion or politics, but is simply encouraging Americans to think. In response, the religious group Focus on the Family has recently created their own campaign, Sherman the Barking Dog, which claims homosexuality is a disease to be cured.
Born Different www.borndifferent.org.