A proudly American shoe company ships jobs to China
Chaco Sandals in Paonia, Colo., succumbs to global market forces and lays off 45 full-time workers, silencing a manufacturing plant – and a town.
By Michelle Nijhuis
On the Chaco factory floor in western Colorado, workers are head down at sewing machines and sole trimmers – stitching, gluing, and shaping pair after pair of rubber-bottomed river sandals. The high-ceilinged room hums and buzzes with activity, as it does every day, but today is different. For most of these employees, today feels something like a graduation and something like a funeral.
Since company founder Mark Paigen invented the sandals in his spare room almost 20 years ago, Chacos have caught on among river guides, kayakers, and weekend warriors, and the company has grown from a one-man operation to a 145-person business with a catalog of styles and an international clientele. Through it all, the sandals have been designed, made, and proudly worn here in tiny Paonia.
The company’s steel-sided headquarters and factory sit just outside town, next to soccer fields and within sight of the western edge of the Rockies. The setting, tucked between the mountains and the desert, is starkly gorgeous, but as the saying goes, one can’t eat the scenery. The county’s per capita income hovers just above $17,000, and blue-collar jobs with benefits – like most of those on the Chaco factory floor – aren’t easy to find here.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
It’s Pretty Clear That Europe Is Using 'Trade' Deals to Steal Food from Poor Countries
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history between 12 and 29 million people died. Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger.
Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair's favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world's poorest people.
Seventy per cent of the protein eaten by the people of Senegal comes from fish. Traditionally cheaper than other animal products, it sustains a population which ranks close to the bottom of the human development index. One in six of the working population is employed in the fishing industry; some two-thirds of these workers are women. Over the past three decades, their means of subsistence has started to collapse as other nations have plundered Senegal's stocks.
LINK TO CON.
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history between 12 and 29 million people died. Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger.
Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair's favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world's poorest people.
Seventy per cent of the protein eaten by the people of Senegal comes from fish. Traditionally cheaper than other animal products, it sustains a population which ranks close to the bottom of the human development index. One in six of the working population is employed in the fishing industry; some two-thirds of these workers are women. Over the past three decades, their means of subsistence has started to collapse as other nations have plundered Senegal's stocks.
LINK TO CON.
Bush quietly seeks to make war powers permanent, by declaring indefinite state of war
By John Byrne
As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain's choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.
Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention -- and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and "associated organizations."
Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”
LINK TO CON.
By John Byrne
As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain's choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.
Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention -- and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and "associated organizations."
Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”
LINK TO CON.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Soup to nuts
Erika Fredrickson set out to test Missoula’s burgeoning local food network. What she found might turn even you into a locavore.
By: Erika Fredrickson
Once upon a time, we grew food here. In the early 1900s, Missoula earned the name “Garden City” because of its bountiful irrigation and farms. In 1950, 70 percent of the food consumed by Montanans was grown in-state, according to a study by Grow Montana, and up until about 1940 food processing was the state’s number one employer. The Wal-Mart Super Center on N. Reserve Street, for instance, sits on what used to be a large beet field, and a few blocks away was once a sugar beet factory; now it’s a computer software complex.
Those buildings are indicative of a larger shift. More than 90 percent of our food today comes from outside Montana, according to the same Grow Montana study. Cooler climates limit our food choices, certainly, but access to land, economic conditions and cultural norms also affect what and how we eat. More recent obstacles to food procurement, including the rise in fuel prices and housing sprawl, have also made an impact.
A movement within the last decade has brought local food networks back to prominence. It’s been the subject of best-selling books like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Locally, we’ve witnessed an expansion of farmers’ markets in Montana from five in 1990 to more than 30. Every week, food columnist Ari LeVaux touts the local food network in this paper.
LINK TO CON.
Erika Fredrickson set out to test Missoula’s burgeoning local food network. What she found might turn even you into a locavore.
By: Erika Fredrickson
Once upon a time, we grew food here. In the early 1900s, Missoula earned the name “Garden City” because of its bountiful irrigation and farms. In 1950, 70 percent of the food consumed by Montanans was grown in-state, according to a study by Grow Montana, and up until about 1940 food processing was the state’s number one employer. The Wal-Mart Super Center on N. Reserve Street, for instance, sits on what used to be a large beet field, and a few blocks away was once a sugar beet factory; now it’s a computer software complex.
Those buildings are indicative of a larger shift. More than 90 percent of our food today comes from outside Montana, according to the same Grow Montana study. Cooler climates limit our food choices, certainly, but access to land, economic conditions and cultural norms also affect what and how we eat. More recent obstacles to food procurement, including the rise in fuel prices and housing sprawl, have also made an impact.
A movement within the last decade has brought local food networks back to prominence. It’s been the subject of best-selling books like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Locally, we’ve witnessed an expansion of farmers’ markets in Montana from five in 1990 to more than 30. Every week, food columnist Ari LeVaux touts the local food network in this paper.
LINK TO CON.
The Land of the Silent and the Home of the Fearful
By Dave Lindorff
I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs of the country and the world.
Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up during the question-and-answer session and said, "I want to get involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won't I end up getting put on a "watch list'" or something?"
I told her the short answer was yes, she probably would. In George Bush's and Dick Cheney's America, no one is safe from such spying, and even from harassment, as witness Tom Feeley, the man behind the website Information Clearing House, who had armed men invade his house at night and threaten his wife complaining about his First Amendment-protected effort to publicize important stories on the Internet.
But I also told her that it didn't matter. She should defend her freedom of speech and her right to petition for redress of grievances, just as she was defending her freedom of assembly by attending last night's event.
LINK TO CON.
By Dave Lindorff
I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs of the country and the world.
Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up during the question-and-answer session and said, "I want to get involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won't I end up getting put on a "watch list'" or something?"
I told her the short answer was yes, she probably would. In George Bush's and Dick Cheney's America, no one is safe from such spying, and even from harassment, as witness Tom Feeley, the man behind the website Information Clearing House, who had armed men invade his house at night and threaten his wife complaining about his First Amendment-protected effort to publicize important stories on the Internet.
But I also told her that it didn't matter. She should defend her freedom of speech and her right to petition for redress of grievances, just as she was defending her freedom of assembly by attending last night's event.
LINK TO CON.
An Interview with Michael Hudson
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy
By MIKE WHITNEY
Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world’s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002
Mike Whitney: The United States current account deficit is roughly $700 billion. That is enough "borrowed" capital to pay the yearly $120 billion cost of the war in Iraq, the entire $450 billion Pentagon budget, and Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Why does the rest of the world keep financing America's militarism via the current account deficit or is it just the unavoidable consequence of currency deregulation, "dollar hegemony" and globalization?
Michael Hudson: As I explained in Super Imperialism, central banks in other countries buy dollars not because they think dollar assets are a “good buy,” but because if they did NOT recycle their trade surpluses and U.S. buyout spending and military spending by buying U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae and other bonds, their currencies would rise against the dollar. This would price their exporters out of dollarized world markets. So the United States can spend money and get a free ride.
LINK TO CON.
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy
By MIKE WHITNEY
Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world’s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002
Mike Whitney: The United States current account deficit is roughly $700 billion. That is enough "borrowed" capital to pay the yearly $120 billion cost of the war in Iraq, the entire $450 billion Pentagon budget, and Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Why does the rest of the world keep financing America's militarism via the current account deficit or is it just the unavoidable consequence of currency deregulation, "dollar hegemony" and globalization?
Michael Hudson: As I explained in Super Imperialism, central banks in other countries buy dollars not because they think dollar assets are a “good buy,” but because if they did NOT recycle their trade surpluses and U.S. buyout spending and military spending by buying U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae and other bonds, their currencies would rise against the dollar. This would price their exporters out of dollarized world markets. So the United States can spend money and get a free ride.
LINK TO CON.
Defense Intelligence Agency Seeking “Mind Control” Weapons
By Tom Burghardt
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council (NRC) argues that the Pentagon should harvest the fruits of neuroscientific research in order to enhance the “warfighting” capabilities of U.S. soldiers while diminishing those of enemy personnel.
The 151-page report issued by a 16-member blue ribbon commission, “Cognitive Neuroscience Research and National Security,” was quietly announced in an August 13 National Academy of Sciences Press Release.
Commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon spy shop, the study asserts that the U.S. intelligence “community” must do a better job following cutting-edge research in neuroscience or as is more likely, steering it along paths useful to the Defense Department. According to the NRC,
LINK TO CON.
By Tom Burghardt
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council (NRC) argues that the Pentagon should harvest the fruits of neuroscientific research in order to enhance the “warfighting” capabilities of U.S. soldiers while diminishing those of enemy personnel.
The 151-page report issued by a 16-member blue ribbon commission, “Cognitive Neuroscience Research and National Security,” was quietly announced in an August 13 National Academy of Sciences Press Release.
Commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon spy shop, the study asserts that the U.S. intelligence “community” must do a better job following cutting-edge research in neuroscience or as is more likely, steering it along paths useful to the Defense Department. According to the NRC,
LINK TO CON.
Are Organic Foods Getting Too Pricey for the Middle Class?
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet.
It's no secret that food prices are going up. Bloomberg News reported this month that we are experiencing the highest rate of food inflation in 28 years, and both corn and soy hit record high prices during July.
Consumers are doing what they can to cope with these rising prices -- but does that mean staying away from organic food that may already be pricier? And if so, could a lull in organic sales make farmers and retailers shy away from the organic market as a result?
What better place to look for trends than the poster child for high food prices: my local Whole Foods. Referred to by many as "Whole Paycheck," Whole Foods made headlines in the New York Times this month for seeking to change its high-priced image: "Now, in a sign of the times, the company is offering deeper discounts, adding lower-priced store brands and emphasizing value in its advertising. It is even inviting customers to show up for budget-focused store tours like those led by Mr. Hebb, a Whole Foods employee."
LINK TO CON.
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet.
It's no secret that food prices are going up. Bloomberg News reported this month that we are experiencing the highest rate of food inflation in 28 years, and both corn and soy hit record high prices during July.
Consumers are doing what they can to cope with these rising prices -- but does that mean staying away from organic food that may already be pricier? And if so, could a lull in organic sales make farmers and retailers shy away from the organic market as a result?
What better place to look for trends than the poster child for high food prices: my local Whole Foods. Referred to by many as "Whole Paycheck," Whole Foods made headlines in the New York Times this month for seeking to change its high-priced image: "Now, in a sign of the times, the company is offering deeper discounts, adding lower-priced store brands and emphasizing value in its advertising. It is even inviting customers to show up for budget-focused store tours like those led by Mr. Hebb, a Whole Foods employee."
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Manufactured Famine: How Europe Is Snatching Food from the World's Poor
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history between 12 and 29 million people died. Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger.
Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair's favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world's poorest people.
Seventy per cent of the protein eaten by the people of Senegal comes from fish. Traditionally cheaper than other animal products, it sustains a population which ranks close to the bottom of the human development index. One in six of the working population is employed in the fishing industry; some two-thirds of these workers are women. Over the past three decades, their means of subsistence has started to collapse as other nations have plundered Senegal's stocks.
LINK TO CON.
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, "the most colossal and expensive meal in world history between 12 and 29 million people died. Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger.
Now a new Lord Lytton is seeking to engineer another brutal food grab. As Tony Blair's favoured courtier, Peter Mandelson often created the impression that he would do anything to please his master. Today he is the European trade commissioner. From his sumptuous offices in Brussels and Strasbourg, he hopes to impose a treaty which will permit Europe to snatch food from the mouths of some of the world's poorest people.
Seventy per cent of the protein eaten by the people of Senegal comes from fish. Traditionally cheaper than other animal products, it sustains a population which ranks close to the bottom of the human development index. One in six of the working population is employed in the fishing industry; some two-thirds of these workers are women. Over the past three decades, their means of subsistence has started to collapse as other nations have plundered Senegal's stocks.
LINK TO CON.
Level with us: America needs a stiff dose of the truth
by Alan Bisbort
You don't get elected president, or dog catcher, in America by suggesting that citizens change their profligate lifestyles. America is all about excess and consumption, forever and ever. The fantasy that keeps us going is that by the time the oil runs out we will have made a smooth transition to "alternative energy" sources. And everything else will remain exactly as it is. Each house will still have two or more cars (fueled by Dumpster scum or sunflower seeds), all our myriad machines will still run on electricity, things we no longer want (after being used for minutes, days or weeks) can be dumped in the landfill or "recycled," and the climate will go back to being "normal." Conventional wisdom says it is political suicide to tell voters the truth — that is, that everything in the above paragraph is a delusion. However, as Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear." And to keep what is not pleasant to hear, but truthful, from people is suicide of a different sort.
Obama and Biden, McCain and Romney (or whomever) have yet to address the substantive issues facing the nation down the road environmentally and economically. The truth is that we are collectively walking headlong into a hurricane while pretending to be out for a stroll in the park. If the next financial quarter shows an uptick, the nation's designated "experts" will declare that it's back to "business as usual."
LINK TO CON.
by Alan Bisbort
You don't get elected president, or dog catcher, in America by suggesting that citizens change their profligate lifestyles. America is all about excess and consumption, forever and ever. The fantasy that keeps us going is that by the time the oil runs out we will have made a smooth transition to "alternative energy" sources. And everything else will remain exactly as it is. Each house will still have two or more cars (fueled by Dumpster scum or sunflower seeds), all our myriad machines will still run on electricity, things we no longer want (after being used for minutes, days or weeks) can be dumped in the landfill or "recycled," and the climate will go back to being "normal." Conventional wisdom says it is political suicide to tell voters the truth — that is, that everything in the above paragraph is a delusion. However, as Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear." And to keep what is not pleasant to hear, but truthful, from people is suicide of a different sort.
Obama and Biden, McCain and Romney (or whomever) have yet to address the substantive issues facing the nation down the road environmentally and economically. The truth is that we are collectively walking headlong into a hurricane while pretending to be out for a stroll in the park. If the next financial quarter shows an uptick, the nation's designated "experts" will declare that it's back to "business as usual."
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
John McCain: Running for War President at Any Cost
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig.
Just great! Nuclear-armed Pakistan is falling apart, Iran's nuclear program is unchecked and congressional legislation on cooperation with the Russians on controlling nuclear proliferation is now dead in the water. Horrid news except for Sen. John McCain, who thrills to a repeat of the danger lines of the Cold War, and now stands a good chance of being our next president.
A very good chance, if the Russian recognition of the independence of two breakaway Georgia provinces can be elevated to the status of a major challenge to the security of the United States. It is an absurd claim: How can one justify uncritical support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia earlier this year while denouncing a similar claim by a Georgian ethnic minority? It is also difficult to ignore that it was Georgia's president and close McCain friend, Mikheil Saakashvili, who upset the status quo by invading first.
Saakashvili's attempt to compare the Russian response with that of the "Stalinist Soviet Union" is a nutty reference to a Georgian-born tyrant who ruled Russia and who is still revered in much of his native Georgia. But when you need a new Stalin to get a Cold War going, President Dmitry Medvedev and the elected members of a unanimous Russian parliament will have to do. And McCain is very happy to have this card to play.
LINK TO CON.
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig.
Just great! Nuclear-armed Pakistan is falling apart, Iran's nuclear program is unchecked and congressional legislation on cooperation with the Russians on controlling nuclear proliferation is now dead in the water. Horrid news except for Sen. John McCain, who thrills to a repeat of the danger lines of the Cold War, and now stands a good chance of being our next president.
A very good chance, if the Russian recognition of the independence of two breakaway Georgia provinces can be elevated to the status of a major challenge to the security of the United States. It is an absurd claim: How can one justify uncritical support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia earlier this year while denouncing a similar claim by a Georgian ethnic minority? It is also difficult to ignore that it was Georgia's president and close McCain friend, Mikheil Saakashvili, who upset the status quo by invading first.
Saakashvili's attempt to compare the Russian response with that of the "Stalinist Soviet Union" is a nutty reference to a Georgian-born tyrant who ruled Russia and who is still revered in much of his native Georgia. But when you need a new Stalin to get a Cold War going, President Dmitry Medvedev and the elected members of a unanimous Russian parliament will have to do. And McCain is very happy to have this card to play.
LINK TO CON.
Bush Is Pouring Gas on Afghanistan's Bonfire
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind forward with their terrible human toll, even as the press and many Americans play who gets thrown off the island with Barack Obama. Coalition forces carried out an airstrike that killed up to 95 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, 50 of them children, President Hamid Karzai said. And the mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning Afghanistan into the mirror image of Iraq. But these very real events, which will have devastating consequences over the next few months and years, are largely ignored by us. We prefer to waste our time on the trivia and gossip that swallow up air time and do nothing to advance our understanding of either the campaign or the wars fought in our name.
As the conflict in Afghanistan has intensified, so has the indiscriminate use of airstrikes, including Friday's, which took place in the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province. The airstrike was carried out after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed by insurgents while on a patrol targeting a known Taliban commander in Herat, the U.S. military said. Hundreds of Afghans, shouting anti-U.S. slogans, staged angry street protests on Saturday in Azizabad to protest the killings, and Karzai condemned the airstrike.
The United Nations estimates that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops. The number of civilians killed in fighting between insurgents and security forces in Afghanistan has soared by two-thirds in the first half of this year.
LINK TO CON.
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind forward with their terrible human toll, even as the press and many Americans play who gets thrown off the island with Barack Obama. Coalition forces carried out an airstrike that killed up to 95 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, 50 of them children, President Hamid Karzai said. And the mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning Afghanistan into the mirror image of Iraq. But these very real events, which will have devastating consequences over the next few months and years, are largely ignored by us. We prefer to waste our time on the trivia and gossip that swallow up air time and do nothing to advance our understanding of either the campaign or the wars fought in our name.
As the conflict in Afghanistan has intensified, so has the indiscriminate use of airstrikes, including Friday's, which took place in the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province. The airstrike was carried out after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed by insurgents while on a patrol targeting a known Taliban commander in Herat, the U.S. military said. Hundreds of Afghans, shouting anti-U.S. slogans, staged angry street protests on Saturday in Azizabad to protest the killings, and Karzai condemned the airstrike.
The United Nations estimates that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops. The number of civilians killed in fighting between insurgents and security forces in Afghanistan has soared by two-thirds in the first half of this year.
LINK TO CON.
Dispatches from the Fields: The trouble with small-scale farming
Can sustainable farming provide a sustainable living?
By Stephanie Paige Ogburn
Should small-scale farmers who grow organically and sell locally or regionally be able to make a middle-class living with farming as their sole source of income? I've always answered this question with a fervent "yes," at least from a philosophical perspective. But the answer to the follow-up question -- "do they?" -- is nearly always a resounding no.
Sure, there are exceptions. In Southwest Colorado, I live in an immature market for small-scale, local food, so farmers here are probably doing worse on the whole due to lack of market penetration. (When you live in a rural area with low population, you can't just sell to the top 1 or 2 percent of customers -- you really have to have a widespread appeal in order to lift sales, since your population base is so much smaller than if you were selling to an urban center. And that depth of customer base takes a long time to build.) So here, out of, say, 25 vegetable farmers I know selling at area markets, only one of them earns a full-time living from her farming occupation.
The reality is, it's really hard to make a living selling a low-end product that is easily replicable and requires a high quantity of labor, but, comparatively speaking, a low level of skill to produce. And food is a low-end product. Tomatoes at $3/lb, which is what they go for here, are cheap. Like it or not, small farmers locally and across the U.S. are selling a cheap product on a minuscule scale, which, anyway you look at it, is a failing business model.
LINK TO CON.
Can sustainable farming provide a sustainable living?
By Stephanie Paige Ogburn
Should small-scale farmers who grow organically and sell locally or regionally be able to make a middle-class living with farming as their sole source of income? I've always answered this question with a fervent "yes," at least from a philosophical perspective. But the answer to the follow-up question -- "do they?" -- is nearly always a resounding no.
Sure, there are exceptions. In Southwest Colorado, I live in an immature market for small-scale, local food, so farmers here are probably doing worse on the whole due to lack of market penetration. (When you live in a rural area with low population, you can't just sell to the top 1 or 2 percent of customers -- you really have to have a widespread appeal in order to lift sales, since your population base is so much smaller than if you were selling to an urban center. And that depth of customer base takes a long time to build.) So here, out of, say, 25 vegetable farmers I know selling at area markets, only one of them earns a full-time living from her farming occupation.
The reality is, it's really hard to make a living selling a low-end product that is easily replicable and requires a high quantity of labor, but, comparatively speaking, a low level of skill to produce. And food is a low-end product. Tomatoes at $3/lb, which is what they go for here, are cheap. Like it or not, small farmers locally and across the U.S. are selling a cheap product on a minuscule scale, which, anyway you look at it, is a failing business model.
LINK TO CON.
Corn demand hurts tequila industry
By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY
ZAPOTLANEJO, Mexico — Here in the heart of Mexico's tequila country, where every town has a distillery and the air smells like sweet fermenting molasses, a sign proudly marks the entrance to Miguel Ramírez's farm: "Rancho Ramírez: Producer of Agaves." But behind the fence, the blue agave plants, the raw ingredient of Mexico's famous tequila, are getting harder to spot. They are being replaced by row after row of leafy cornstalks.
That switch to abandon slow-growing agave plants to cash in on corn, beans and other food crops selling for record prices worldwide could limit the supply of tequila and drive up the cost of a shot or a margarita. The move is part of an international trend from Idaho potato farmers to Bolivian coca growers as they cut back on their trademark crops in hopes of making big money on corn and grain.
"Corn is where the money is now," Ramírez said, admiring his new crop. "I'm going to get out of agave completely."
LINK TO CON.
By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY
ZAPOTLANEJO, Mexico — Here in the heart of Mexico's tequila country, where every town has a distillery and the air smells like sweet fermenting molasses, a sign proudly marks the entrance to Miguel Ramírez's farm: "Rancho Ramírez: Producer of Agaves." But behind the fence, the blue agave plants, the raw ingredient of Mexico's famous tequila, are getting harder to spot. They are being replaced by row after row of leafy cornstalks.
That switch to abandon slow-growing agave plants to cash in on corn, beans and other food crops selling for record prices worldwide could limit the supply of tequila and drive up the cost of a shot or a margarita. The move is part of an international trend from Idaho potato farmers to Bolivian coca growers as they cut back on their trademark crops in hopes of making big money on corn and grain.
"Corn is where the money is now," Ramírez said, admiring his new crop. "I'm going to get out of agave completely."
LINK TO CON.
Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits
By MATTHEW L. WALD, NY TIMES
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While the United States today gets barely 1 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, many experts are starting to think that figure could hit 20 percent.
LINK TO CON.
By MATTHEW L. WALD, NY TIMES
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While the United States today gets barely 1 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, many experts are starting to think that figure could hit 20 percent.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Great Disruption
How scarcity, affluence, and biofuel production are wreaking havoc on food prices
by Elizabeth Shelburne
Oil has long been regarded as the commodity with the most potential for economic mischief, and the one around which much of the world’s geopolitics revolves. But food is making a case for itself this year.
Riots and protests over food prices have broken out in 30 countries since 2007. Haiti’s prime minister was tossed out of office in April, largely because of protests over the price of food, and the Malaysian government is looking none too stable for similar reasons. In South Africa, discontent over soaring food and fuel prices provided the spark for violence that killed dozens of illegal immigrants last spring. Even in the United States, wholesalers such as Costco limited the amount of rice each person could buy, unsettling some consumers. It’s possible that the most consequential price spike of 2008 will be in food, not oil.
High food prices, like high oil prices, are partly the result of rising demand by a larger, wealthier world population. But food-supply problems have also contributed to the recent spike in prices, and food has become a source of international tension.
The growth of the global food market has meant more food for billions of people, yet it has also led to a greater concentration of supply. In 2006, the top five oil producers supplied 43 percent of the world’s oil. By comparison, the top five corn producers grew 77 percent of the world’s supply; rice producers, 73 percent; beef and wheat producers, 66 percent each. Because of this concentration, a supply disruption in even one place can ripple through the food market worldwide.
LINK TO CON.
How scarcity, affluence, and biofuel production are wreaking havoc on food prices
by Elizabeth Shelburne
Oil has long been regarded as the commodity with the most potential for economic mischief, and the one around which much of the world’s geopolitics revolves. But food is making a case for itself this year.
Riots and protests over food prices have broken out in 30 countries since 2007. Haiti’s prime minister was tossed out of office in April, largely because of protests over the price of food, and the Malaysian government is looking none too stable for similar reasons. In South Africa, discontent over soaring food and fuel prices provided the spark for violence that killed dozens of illegal immigrants last spring. Even in the United States, wholesalers such as Costco limited the amount of rice each person could buy, unsettling some consumers. It’s possible that the most consequential price spike of 2008 will be in food, not oil.
High food prices, like high oil prices, are partly the result of rising demand by a larger, wealthier world population. But food-supply problems have also contributed to the recent spike in prices, and food has become a source of international tension.
The growth of the global food market has meant more food for billions of people, yet it has also led to a greater concentration of supply. In 2006, the top five oil producers supplied 43 percent of the world’s oil. By comparison, the top five corn producers grew 77 percent of the world’s supply; rice producers, 73 percent; beef and wheat producers, 66 percent each. Because of this concentration, a supply disruption in even one place can ripple through the food market worldwide.
LINK TO CON.
Questions for Dennis Kucinich
The Wild Card
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Before you ended your quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in January and continued on as a congressman from Cleveland, did you believe you could really be president? No one runs unless they think they can.
But you’re a vegan. Do you think America is ready to elect a non-beef-eating president? I think America is ready for a president with a blood pressure of 90 over 60 who could beat most people half his age in a sprint.
I see you are scheduled to speak at the convention on Tuesday, at the Pepsi Center, which sounds like the name of a soda plant. Why is it called that? My guess is that Pepsi probably bought the naming rights. Naming rights are another thing my subcommittee — the Domestic Policy Subcommittee — is looking into.
What is the point of having a convention when the candidate has been preselected? Isn’t it just an excuse for a party? This is a great opportunity for Democrats to come together, to indicate our solidarity on providing jobs; helping people save their homes; health care for all; retirement security.
LINK TO CON.
The Wild Card
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Before you ended your quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in January and continued on as a congressman from Cleveland, did you believe you could really be president? No one runs unless they think they can.
But you’re a vegan. Do you think America is ready to elect a non-beef-eating president? I think America is ready for a president with a blood pressure of 90 over 60 who could beat most people half his age in a sprint.
I see you are scheduled to speak at the convention on Tuesday, at the Pepsi Center, which sounds like the name of a soda plant. Why is it called that? My guess is that Pepsi probably bought the naming rights. Naming rights are another thing my subcommittee — the Domestic Policy Subcommittee — is looking into.
What is the point of having a convention when the candidate has been preselected? Isn’t it just an excuse for a party? This is a great opportunity for Democrats to come together, to indicate our solidarity on providing jobs; helping people save their homes; health care for all; retirement security.
LINK TO CON.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Genetically modified diplomat
U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way
by Tom Philpott
About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Federoff, official "science and technology adviser" to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice's science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Federoff defends GMOs:
There's almost no food that isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution.... The paradox is that now that we've invented techniques that introduce just one gene without disturbing the rest, some people think that's terrible.
Right; GMOs merely mimic nature, and are thus no different than any other organisms. But if that's true, then why do GMOs require such draconian intellectual property protection? Why should Monsanto be able to enforce patent claims on, say, Round Up Ready soybean seeds?
Perhaps Federoff is pushing an open-source approach to GMOs -- the idea that a handful of of companies shouldn't be able to lock up ownership of globe's most widely planted seeds. But given her corporate affiliations -- which the Times didn't see fit to divulge -- that's doubtful.
LINK TO CON.
U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way
by Tom Philpott
About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Federoff, official "science and technology adviser" to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice's science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Federoff defends GMOs:
There's almost no food that isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution.... The paradox is that now that we've invented techniques that introduce just one gene without disturbing the rest, some people think that's terrible.
Right; GMOs merely mimic nature, and are thus no different than any other organisms. But if that's true, then why do GMOs require such draconian intellectual property protection? Why should Monsanto be able to enforce patent claims on, say, Round Up Ready soybean seeds?
Perhaps Federoff is pushing an open-source approach to GMOs -- the idea that a handful of of companies shouldn't be able to lock up ownership of globe's most widely planted seeds. But given her corporate affiliations -- which the Times didn't see fit to divulge -- that's doubtful.
LINK TO CON.
The Senator from Ethanol-land
Obama and Big Corn
By NICOLE COLSON
The recent news that ExxonMobil's second-quarter profits rang up at $11.7 billion--the largest quarterly profit of any company in history--rightly enraged millions of working people in the U.S. and abroad who are feeling the sting of high gas prices.
Democratic contender Barack Obama, among others, has been critical of such mega-profits. As a recent Obama campaign ad warns, "Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets." In response, Obama promises to stand up for workers' rights by instituting a windfall profits tax on oil companies if he becomes president.
But there's another industry that is currently reaping record profits that Obama most likely won't criticize: agribusiness companies that are currently raking in millions on the push towards ethanol and other biofuels.
In the U.S., corn-derived ethanol has been promoted as an "environmentally friendly" alternative to traditional fossil fuels. Thanks in part to massive government subsidies, millions of acres of land has been diverted from crops like soybeans to corn, and dozens of ethanol distilleries have popped up around the country, particularly in the Midwest.
LINK TO CON.
Obama and Big Corn
By NICOLE COLSON
The recent news that ExxonMobil's second-quarter profits rang up at $11.7 billion--the largest quarterly profit of any company in history--rightly enraged millions of working people in the U.S. and abroad who are feeling the sting of high gas prices.
Democratic contender Barack Obama, among others, has been critical of such mega-profits. As a recent Obama campaign ad warns, "Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets." In response, Obama promises to stand up for workers' rights by instituting a windfall profits tax on oil companies if he becomes president.
But there's another industry that is currently reaping record profits that Obama most likely won't criticize: agribusiness companies that are currently raking in millions on the push towards ethanol and other biofuels.
In the U.S., corn-derived ethanol has been promoted as an "environmentally friendly" alternative to traditional fossil fuels. Thanks in part to massive government subsidies, millions of acres of land has been diverted from crops like soybeans to corn, and dozens of ethanol distilleries have popped up around the country, particularly in the Midwest.
LINK TO CON.
VP JOE BIDEN SLAMS JOHN MCCAIN & BUSH ON FOREIGN POLICY
John McCain & George Bush are wrong on foreign policy. "What's the alternative to talking to your enemies?", asks Biden. "You either talk or you go go to war." If not, you accept the status quo.... John McCain is terribly wrong on what American foreign policy should be...Watch Joe Biden maul McCain and bash Bush, (two men joined at the hip-identical twins) on a McBush failed foreign policy...VP Joe Biden slams John McCain and George W. Bush on foreign policy hypocrisy...
John McCain & George Bush are wrong on foreign policy. "What's the alternative to talking to your enemies?", asks Biden. "You either talk or you go go to war." If not, you accept the status quo.... John McCain is terribly wrong on what American foreign policy should be...Watch Joe Biden maul McCain and bash Bush, (two men joined at the hip-identical twins) on a McBush failed foreign policy...VP Joe Biden slams John McCain and George W. Bush on foreign policy hypocrisy...
Power, Profits and the Future of the Columbia River
Killing Salmon With Paul O'Neill
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury, is an unlikely apostle for the crusade to combat global warming. But for the past couple of years the former corporate executive has been preaching the virtues of moving away from fossil fuels. In 1998, while head of aluminum giant Alcoa, O’Neill gave a speech to the aluminum industry’s trade association in which he named what he believed to be the world’s two most pressing problems. “One is nuclear holocaust,” he said. “The second is environmental: specifically, the issue of global climate change and the potential of global warming.” O’Neill handed out copies of his 1998 speech at Bush’s first cabinet meeting.
O’Neill, who just called for the abolition of the corporate income tax, is not an altruistic green. For more than a decade he ran one of the world’s most rapacious timber giants, International Paper. However, he’s a financial opportunist. While helming Alcoa, O’Neill correctly devined that new clean air rules could help the aluminum makers, which stood to profit if Detroit was forced to switch to lighter weight cars made with more aluminum.
More deviously, O’Neill also foresaw the possibility of making a killing by getting in on the front end of the new energy market, which he did for Alcoa, the company that he ran for a decade. In the process, he made himself a bundle of money.
LINK TO CON.
Killing Salmon With Paul O'Neill
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury, is an unlikely apostle for the crusade to combat global warming. But for the past couple of years the former corporate executive has been preaching the virtues of moving away from fossil fuels. In 1998, while head of aluminum giant Alcoa, O’Neill gave a speech to the aluminum industry’s trade association in which he named what he believed to be the world’s two most pressing problems. “One is nuclear holocaust,” he said. “The second is environmental: specifically, the issue of global climate change and the potential of global warming.” O’Neill handed out copies of his 1998 speech at Bush’s first cabinet meeting.
O’Neill, who just called for the abolition of the corporate income tax, is not an altruistic green. For more than a decade he ran one of the world’s most rapacious timber giants, International Paper. However, he’s a financial opportunist. While helming Alcoa, O’Neill correctly devined that new clean air rules could help the aluminum makers, which stood to profit if Detroit was forced to switch to lighter weight cars made with more aluminum.
More deviously, O’Neill also foresaw the possibility of making a killing by getting in on the front end of the new energy market, which he did for Alcoa, the company that he ran for a decade. In the process, he made himself a bundle of money.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Corn Patches and Dispatches
Notes on a recent trip to Mexico
By Tom Philpott
In Mexico, a milpa is a garden patch, usually kept by several families, to grow a substantial portion of a year's sustenance. Milpas are typically dominated by corn -- first domesticated in present-day Mexico thousands of years ago -- but also contain stunning agricultural and nutritional diversity.
In addition to corn for tortillas, traditional milpas grow squash and beans of many varieties, avocados, melon, tomatoes, chile pepper, sweet potato, jicama, amaranth, and a medicinal herb called mucana, claims journalist Charles C. Mann in his 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. "Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary," Mann writes. "Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin ... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan ... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; avocados, fats." Agriculturally, beans fix nitrogen from the air into the soil, helping fertilize corn, which requires large amounts of nitrogen. Quoting H. Garrison Wilkes, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Mann calls the milpa "one of the most successful human inventions ever created."
The great invention is increasingly marginal to modern Mexican life. The Revolution-era land-reform programs that once gave rural life a measure of stability have been gutted over the past 20 years. Promising a manufacturing boom and a new era of prosperity, Mexico's leaders beckoned campesinos (smallholder farmers, mostly ethnically indigenous) from the countryside into the cities. The boom never quite materialized, at least not in powerful enough form to provide sufficient jobs for the rural exodus. As a result, the country now has a devastated rural economy and swelling shanty towns on the edges of its cities, housing millions of workers in the "informal economy" (i.e., chewing gum salespeople, windshield washers, etc.). It has also, of course, exported millions of excess farmers north of the border, where they staff our farms, meatpacking plants, restaurant kitchens, and construction sites.
LINK TO CON.
Notes on a recent trip to Mexico
By Tom Philpott
In Mexico, a milpa is a garden patch, usually kept by several families, to grow a substantial portion of a year's sustenance. Milpas are typically dominated by corn -- first domesticated in present-day Mexico thousands of years ago -- but also contain stunning agricultural and nutritional diversity.
In addition to corn for tortillas, traditional milpas grow squash and beans of many varieties, avocados, melon, tomatoes, chile pepper, sweet potato, jicama, amaranth, and a medicinal herb called mucana, claims journalist Charles C. Mann in his 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. "Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary," Mann writes. "Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin ... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan ... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; avocados, fats." Agriculturally, beans fix nitrogen from the air into the soil, helping fertilize corn, which requires large amounts of nitrogen. Quoting H. Garrison Wilkes, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Mann calls the milpa "one of the most successful human inventions ever created."
The great invention is increasingly marginal to modern Mexican life. The Revolution-era land-reform programs that once gave rural life a measure of stability have been gutted over the past 20 years. Promising a manufacturing boom and a new era of prosperity, Mexico's leaders beckoned campesinos (smallholder farmers, mostly ethnically indigenous) from the countryside into the cities. The boom never quite materialized, at least not in powerful enough form to provide sufficient jobs for the rural exodus. As a result, the country now has a devastated rural economy and swelling shanty towns on the edges of its cities, housing millions of workers in the "informal economy" (i.e., chewing gum salespeople, windshield washers, etc.). It has also, of course, exported millions of excess farmers north of the border, where they staff our farms, meatpacking plants, restaurant kitchens, and construction sites.
LINK TO CON.
Vote in Alaska Puts Question: Gold or Fish?
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Just up the fish-rich rivers that surround this tiny bush town on Bristol Bay is a discovery of copper and gold so vast and valuable that no one seems able to measure it all. Then again, no one really knows the value of the rivers, either. They are the priceless headwaters of one of the world’s last great runs of Pacific salmon.
“Perhaps it was God who put these two great resources right next to each other,” said John T. Shively, the chief executive of a foreign consortium that wants to mine the copper and gold deposit. “Just to see what people would do with them.”
What people are doing is fighting as Alaskans hardly have before. While experts say the mine could yield more than $300 billion in metals and hundreds of jobs for struggling rural Alaska, unearthing the metals could mean releasing chemicals that are toxic to the salmon that are central to a fishing industry worth at least $300 million each year. And while the metals are a finite discovery, the fish have replenished themselves for millenniums.
“If they have one spill up there, what’s going to happen?” said Steve Shade, 50, an Alaska Native who has fished on Bristol Bay all his life, for dinner and for a living. “This is our livelihood. They’re going to ruin it for everybody.”
LINK TO CON.
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Just up the fish-rich rivers that surround this tiny bush town on Bristol Bay is a discovery of copper and gold so vast and valuable that no one seems able to measure it all. Then again, no one really knows the value of the rivers, either. They are the priceless headwaters of one of the world’s last great runs of Pacific salmon.
“Perhaps it was God who put these two great resources right next to each other,” said John T. Shively, the chief executive of a foreign consortium that wants to mine the copper and gold deposit. “Just to see what people would do with them.”
What people are doing is fighting as Alaskans hardly have before. While experts say the mine could yield more than $300 billion in metals and hundreds of jobs for struggling rural Alaska, unearthing the metals could mean releasing chemicals that are toxic to the salmon that are central to a fishing industry worth at least $300 million each year. And while the metals are a finite discovery, the fish have replenished themselves for millenniums.
“If they have one spill up there, what’s going to happen?” said Steve Shade, 50, an Alaska Native who has fished on Bristol Bay all his life, for dinner and for a living. “This is our livelihood. They’re going to ruin it for everybody.”
LINK TO CON.
A Billionaire Finances Ads Hitting Obama
By JIM RUTENBERG
The conservative group running advertisements that highlight Senator Barack Obama’s association with the 1960s radical William Ayers is being financed by a Texas billionaire who has raised money for Senator John McCain and who also helped finance the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry in 2004.The billionaire, Harold Simmons, donated nearly $2.9 million on Aug. 12 to the American Issues Project, the group running the advertisements, papers it has filed with the Federal Election Commission show.
In 2004, Mr. Simmons donated $2 million to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose advertisements against Mr. Kerry included one that, with allegations since discredited, impugned his military service as a Swift boat captain during the Vietnam War.
Mr. Simmons is also listed as a major fund-raiser for Mr. McCain, who repudiated the Swift boat advertisement questioning Mr. Kerry’s service. Efforts to reach Mr. Simmons after office hours Friday evening were unsuccessful.
A founder of the American Issues Project, Ed Failor Jr., previously worked for Mr. McCain’s campaign, which paid his firm $50,000 in 2007, records filed with the election commission show.
LINK TO CON.
By JIM RUTENBERG
The conservative group running advertisements that highlight Senator Barack Obama’s association with the 1960s radical William Ayers is being financed by a Texas billionaire who has raised money for Senator John McCain and who also helped finance the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry in 2004.The billionaire, Harold Simmons, donated nearly $2.9 million on Aug. 12 to the American Issues Project, the group running the advertisements, papers it has filed with the Federal Election Commission show.
In 2004, Mr. Simmons donated $2 million to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose advertisements against Mr. Kerry included one that, with allegations since discredited, impugned his military service as a Swift boat captain during the Vietnam War.
Mr. Simmons is also listed as a major fund-raiser for Mr. McCain, who repudiated the Swift boat advertisement questioning Mr. Kerry’s service. Efforts to reach Mr. Simmons after office hours Friday evening were unsuccessful.
A founder of the American Issues Project, Ed Failor Jr., previously worked for Mr. McCain’s campaign, which paid his firm $50,000 in 2007, records filed with the election commission show.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
No way to bee
EPA knuckleheads hide info on pesticide implicated in colony collapse disorder
by Tom Philpott
So there's this insecticide called clothianidin that seems likely to be implicated in colony collapse disorder. By the EPA's own reckoning [PDF], clothianidin "has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honeybees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen." Over in Germany, the introduction of clothianidin coincided with a sudden bee die-off, so German authorities recently banned it. They reckoned that giving clothianidin a rest would provide researchers time to look deeper into it without further endangering bees. (France did the same thing with a related pesticide.)
Our own EPA must be preparing to do something similar, right? Well, no. That's not how our EPA works. Rather than banning clothianidin, EPA bureaucrats have busied themselves hiding information about clothianidin.
This, even though, according to NRDC, there's a "a growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute" to colony collapse disorder. Frustrated by this intransigence in light of ongoing colony collapse, the NRDC has resorted to suing the EPA to force the agency to release the info.
LINK TO CON.
EPA knuckleheads hide info on pesticide implicated in colony collapse disorder
by Tom Philpott
So there's this insecticide called clothianidin that seems likely to be implicated in colony collapse disorder. By the EPA's own reckoning [PDF], clothianidin "has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honeybees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen." Over in Germany, the introduction of clothianidin coincided with a sudden bee die-off, so German authorities recently banned it. They reckoned that giving clothianidin a rest would provide researchers time to look deeper into it without further endangering bees. (France did the same thing with a related pesticide.)
Our own EPA must be preparing to do something similar, right? Well, no. That's not how our EPA works. Rather than banning clothianidin, EPA bureaucrats have busied themselves hiding information about clothianidin.
This, even though, according to NRDC, there's a "a growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute" to colony collapse disorder. Frustrated by this intransigence in light of ongoing colony collapse, the NRDC has resorted to suing the EPA to force the agency to release the info.
LINK TO CON.
In Germany, ruddy-cheeked farmers achieve (green) energy independence
Freiamt residents produce 17 percent more electricity than they use, boosting their bottom line and proving that green isn’t just for geeky idealists.
By Mariah Blake
Dawn was just breaking over the Black Forest when Helga Schneider climbed out of bed, tugged on her overalls and thick brown galoshes, and trudged out to the cow pen. She herded a dozen head into a tiled alcove strewn with straw and manure, and began fixing rubber hoses to swollen udders.
Within minutes, milk was snaking through a maze of tubes to a copper-plated box the size of a cinder block, where the warmth was siphoned off and stored for heating everything from the Schneider’s bath water to their home.
Many residents of this farming village have also found creative ways to harvest energy, be it turning manure into biofuel or installing turbines in the local creek. Thanks to their ingenuity, Freiamt is not only energy independent, but produces 17 percent more power than it uses.
LINK TO CON.
Freiamt residents produce 17 percent more electricity than they use, boosting their bottom line and proving that green isn’t just for geeky idealists.
By Mariah Blake
Dawn was just breaking over the Black Forest when Helga Schneider climbed out of bed, tugged on her overalls and thick brown galoshes, and trudged out to the cow pen. She herded a dozen head into a tiled alcove strewn with straw and manure, and began fixing rubber hoses to swollen udders.
Within minutes, milk was snaking through a maze of tubes to a copper-plated box the size of a cinder block, where the warmth was siphoned off and stored for heating everything from the Schneider’s bath water to their home.
Many residents of this farming village have also found creative ways to harvest energy, be it turning manure into biofuel or installing turbines in the local creek. Thanks to their ingenuity, Freiamt is not only energy independent, but produces 17 percent more power than it uses.
LINK TO CON.
Brave New America: On Corporate Totalitarianism, Electoralist Passivity, and Inauthentic Opposition
By Paul Street
In a truly participatory democracy elections would constitute but one element in a process of popular discussion, consultation, and involvement. Today, elections have replaced participation...Elections enact a kind of primal myth in which "the people" designate who is to rule them...an election, at one and the same time, empowers a Few and causes the Many to submit, to consent to be obedient.
- Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 147-148.
This news overdose on the elections has bred a kind of passivity among millions, as they wait in front of TV screens and computers, like deer caught in headlights.
- Mumia Abu Jamal, ZNet (August 10, 2008)
My forthcoming book "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, August 2008) exposes Barack Obama as a conservative, corporate, militarist Democrat posing as a democratic progressive. It provides a detailed empirical case for this judgment and an analysis of how true progressives (those who advocate actual left, radical, social-democratic policies in the United States) can most effectively respond to the Obama phenomenon - and to the broader corporate-controlled political system and culture it reflects - whether Obama wins or loses. Key to any such response is answering a number of questions: To what extent are U.S. government and political culture meaningfully democratic in the 21st century? What if Obama's deeply deceptive promise of "change" is part of an effort by dominant U.S. political and economic elites to preserve and expand the American System's antidemocratic characteristics and nature? How should (true) progressives think about the meaning of Obamaism as they struggle for democratic transformation in the U.S.?
LINK TO CON.
By Paul Street
In a truly participatory democracy elections would constitute but one element in a process of popular discussion, consultation, and involvement. Today, elections have replaced participation...Elections enact a kind of primal myth in which "the people" designate who is to rule them...an election, at one and the same time, empowers a Few and causes the Many to submit, to consent to be obedient.
- Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 147-148.
This news overdose on the elections has bred a kind of passivity among millions, as they wait in front of TV screens and computers, like deer caught in headlights.
- Mumia Abu Jamal, ZNet (August 10, 2008)
My forthcoming book "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, August 2008) exposes Barack Obama as a conservative, corporate, militarist Democrat posing as a democratic progressive. It provides a detailed empirical case for this judgment and an analysis of how true progressives (those who advocate actual left, radical, social-democratic policies in the United States) can most effectively respond to the Obama phenomenon - and to the broader corporate-controlled political system and culture it reflects - whether Obama wins or loses. Key to any such response is answering a number of questions: To what extent are U.S. government and political culture meaningfully democratic in the 21st century? What if Obama's deeply deceptive promise of "change" is part of an effort by dominant U.S. political and economic elites to preserve and expand the American System's antidemocratic characteristics and nature? How should (true) progressives think about the meaning of Obamaism as they struggle for democratic transformation in the U.S.?
LINK TO CON.
Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme
By Scott Thill, AlterNet.
If you are going out of business, you don't go down with the ship, you get another ship. For us, it's natural gas." -- T. Boone Pickens, "Becoming a Billionaire"
You can't always get what you want, the Rolling Stones counseled. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Factor billions of dollars, questionable loyalties and a privatization rap sheet invested more in profit than people into the equation, and you usually can get both what you want and what you need. In the case of hyper-loaded oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, that means having your cake on climate crisis, fossil fuel addiction, eminent domain, water privatization and corporate earnings -- and eating it too.
In July, the oil magnate unveiled a well-publicized campaign, the Pickens Plan, which begins with an obvious premise: "America is addicted to foreign oil." Pickens' proposal to kick the habit is straightforward and simple: "Building new wind-generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years."
Sounds fair enough, especially given that Pickens and climate-crisis herald Al Gore have melded minds on the issue. But not hard enough, which is where the cracks in the Pickens Plan begin. "(Gore) asked if we could we join together and do something," Pickens explained to Bloomberg News. "I told him no, because global warming is on page two for me. Page one is foreign oil.''
LINK TO CON.
By Scott Thill, AlterNet.
If you are going out of business, you don't go down with the ship, you get another ship. For us, it's natural gas." -- T. Boone Pickens, "Becoming a Billionaire"
You can't always get what you want, the Rolling Stones counseled. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Factor billions of dollars, questionable loyalties and a privatization rap sheet invested more in profit than people into the equation, and you usually can get both what you want and what you need. In the case of hyper-loaded oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, that means having your cake on climate crisis, fossil fuel addiction, eminent domain, water privatization and corporate earnings -- and eating it too.
In July, the oil magnate unveiled a well-publicized campaign, the Pickens Plan, which begins with an obvious premise: "America is addicted to foreign oil." Pickens' proposal to kick the habit is straightforward and simple: "Building new wind-generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years."
Sounds fair enough, especially given that Pickens and climate-crisis herald Al Gore have melded minds on the issue. But not hard enough, which is where the cracks in the Pickens Plan begin. "(Gore) asked if we could we join together and do something," Pickens explained to Bloomberg News. "I told him no, because global warming is on page two for me. Page one is foreign oil.''
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Rick Noriega: How to repair broken health care system
(a change in Texas?)
Rick Noriega, a Democrat who has represented his Houston district in the Texas House since 1999, is running for the U.S. Senate. He may be contacted through info@ricknoriega.com.
Many issues deserve the attention of our elected officials, but few directly affect the lives of Texans like health care. We must all unite around the goal of accessible, affordable health care for every Texas family. Families in this state are facing a health care crisis because Washington isn't looking out for them. Sen. John Cornyn recently said he thinks Texas is a national model for an effective health care system. However, our state has the nation's highest rate of individuals without health insurance. We can and must do better.
My health plan will protect Texas children, lower costs to employers and individuals, and reform the inefficient, failing status quo. In Texas, over 20 percent of children are not covered by health insurance. But while Texas has the highest number of uninsured children in the country, Mr. Cornyn voted six times against expanding health insurance coverage for Texas kids.
My health care plan reflects my long-time advocacy of expanding coverage to children. As a state representative, I helped increase coverage to more than 500,000 children, sponsored legislation that eliminated bureaucratic 90-day waiting lists, and led efforts to allow families to deduct child care costs while the state determined their eligibility status.
LINK TO CON.
(a change in Texas?)
Rick Noriega, a Democrat who has represented his Houston district in the Texas House since 1999, is running for the U.S. Senate. He may be contacted through info@ricknoriega.com.
Many issues deserve the attention of our elected officials, but few directly affect the lives of Texans like health care. We must all unite around the goal of accessible, affordable health care for every Texas family. Families in this state are facing a health care crisis because Washington isn't looking out for them. Sen. John Cornyn recently said he thinks Texas is a national model for an effective health care system. However, our state has the nation's highest rate of individuals without health insurance. We can and must do better.
My health plan will protect Texas children, lower costs to employers and individuals, and reform the inefficient, failing status quo. In Texas, over 20 percent of children are not covered by health insurance. But while Texas has the highest number of uninsured children in the country, Mr. Cornyn voted six times against expanding health insurance coverage for Texas kids.
My health care plan reflects my long-time advocacy of expanding coverage to children. As a state representative, I helped increase coverage to more than 500,000 children, sponsored legislation that eliminated bureaucratic 90-day waiting lists, and led efforts to allow families to deduct child care costs while the state determined their eligibility status.
LINK TO CON.
A creepy new use for rBGH
Putting cow hormones into fish food makes them balloon
by Tom Philpott
Want a snapshot of the state of research at the modern state university? Here's one:
In collaboration with Monsanto Chemical Company and California Sea Grant, Hawaii Sea Grant Director Gordon Grau is characterizing the efficacy and safety of Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone in raising aquacultured tilapia.
Sea Grant is a publicly funded, nationwide network of 30 state-university research and extension programs designed to "foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources." Sea Grant has a pithy little slogan: "Science serving America's coasts."
In this case, it might consider modifying that to read: "Publicly funded research serving the globe's largest agri-biotech company." According to one account, the Sea Grant kicked in $100,000 to support the project, with Monsanto ponying up $80,000.
LINK TO CON.
Putting cow hormones into fish food makes them balloon
by Tom Philpott
Want a snapshot of the state of research at the modern state university? Here's one:
In collaboration with Monsanto Chemical Company and California Sea Grant, Hawaii Sea Grant Director Gordon Grau is characterizing the efficacy and safety of Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone in raising aquacultured tilapia.
Sea Grant is a publicly funded, nationwide network of 30 state-university research and extension programs designed to "foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources." Sea Grant has a pithy little slogan: "Science serving America's coasts."
In this case, it might consider modifying that to read: "Publicly funded research serving the globe's largest agri-biotech company." According to one account, the Sea Grant kicked in $100,000 to support the project, with Monsanto ponying up $80,000.
LINK TO CON.
Dispatches From the Fields: Mowing -- and re-growing -- the grassroots
Now that farmers have gotten big or gotten out, it's up to alternative farmers
Posted by Ariane Lotti
Since the early 1970s, if not before, U.S. farm policy has hinged on the mantra, "get big or get out."
Larry Bee got big. He currently farms 5,000 acres in North Central Iowa and produces over 600,000 bushels of corn and about 90,000 bushels of soybeans. To do the work, he owns a fleet on farm machinery big enough to make any gear nerd swoon -- three 64-foot cultivators, a 90-foot sprayer (with a 1,600 gallon tank), a couple of 12-row combines, and at least one of those tractors with four rear tires. And three semis to haul just-under-1,000-bushel loads of corn to the ethanol plant when the price is right.
To be successful at the "get big" strategy, the secret is to keep getting bigger, which inevitably means buying up more acres, buying bigger farm machinery every year or two, and upgrading farm implements, equipment, and inputs. This year, Larry built a new addition to his grain elevator complex 200 feet from his house -- a 200,000-bushel grain bin. If that means nothing to you, just know that that is a big bin -- most of the grain bins at the town grain elevators around these parts have a 90,000-bushel capacity. He and his wife are looking forward to this year's Farm Progress Show, where they will see the latest in farm machinery toys and gadgets in action.
LINK TO CON.
Now that farmers have gotten big or gotten out, it's up to alternative farmers
Posted by Ariane Lotti
Since the early 1970s, if not before, U.S. farm policy has hinged on the mantra, "get big or get out."
Larry Bee got big. He currently farms 5,000 acres in North Central Iowa and produces over 600,000 bushels of corn and about 90,000 bushels of soybeans. To do the work, he owns a fleet on farm machinery big enough to make any gear nerd swoon -- three 64-foot cultivators, a 90-foot sprayer (with a 1,600 gallon tank), a couple of 12-row combines, and at least one of those tractors with four rear tires. And three semis to haul just-under-1,000-bushel loads of corn to the ethanol plant when the price is right.
To be successful at the "get big" strategy, the secret is to keep getting bigger, which inevitably means buying up more acres, buying bigger farm machinery every year or two, and upgrading farm implements, equipment, and inputs. This year, Larry built a new addition to his grain elevator complex 200 feet from his house -- a 200,000-bushel grain bin. If that means nothing to you, just know that that is a big bin -- most of the grain bins at the town grain elevators around these parts have a 90,000-bushel capacity. He and his wife are looking forward to this year's Farm Progress Show, where they will see the latest in farm machinery toys and gadgets in action.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
New mobile equipment helps farmers preserve crops
By Lisa Rathke
CRAFTSBURY, Vt.—Pete Johnson, owner of Pete's Greens, already extends his vegetable farm's summer bounty by using cold storage.
Now, he'll be able to quick-freeze some of his crop, thanks to a new Vermont Agency of Agriculture mobile freezing unit, allowing him and other farmers to offer customers more through the year.
The cargo trailer will travel around Vermont so processors can freeze berries and produce, at a rate of 600 pounds a minute.
"It brings some access to people that normally wouldn't have it. It gives them another marketing opportunity," said Kevin Schooley, executive director of the North American Strawberry Growers Association
The individual quick freeze equipment, a technology called IQF, hits fields this summer.
LINK TO CON.
By Lisa Rathke
CRAFTSBURY, Vt.—Pete Johnson, owner of Pete's Greens, already extends his vegetable farm's summer bounty by using cold storage.
Now, he'll be able to quick-freeze some of his crop, thanks to a new Vermont Agency of Agriculture mobile freezing unit, allowing him and other farmers to offer customers more through the year.
The cargo trailer will travel around Vermont so processors can freeze berries and produce, at a rate of 600 pounds a minute.
"It brings some access to people that normally wouldn't have it. It gives them another marketing opportunity," said Kevin Schooley, executive director of the North American Strawberry Growers Association
The individual quick freeze equipment, a technology called IQF, hits fields this summer.
LINK TO CON.
Somethings Are Worse Than Jail
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders
By MARTHA ROSENBERG
Scratch the surface of a food offender whether they abuse the environment, workers, animals, the public trust or public funds and you usually find they are repeat offenders.
Nebraska Beef, the Omaha, NE-based supplier Whole Foods says it didn't know its supplier Coleman Natural Foods was using (right) recalled more than five million pounds of beef to other customers in seven states weeks before the Whole Foods recall of 1.2 million pounds that sickened seven.
In 2002 and 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) shut Nebraska Beef down three times for feces on carcasses, water dripping off pipes onto meat, paint peeling onto equipment and other non-hygienic embellishments.
And in 2004 and 2005, Nebraska Beef was cited five times for failing to remove potentially mad cow-infected spinal cords and heads from its products--changing the store's moniker from Whole Paycheck to Whole Head at least for a while.
LINK TO CON.
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders
By MARTHA ROSENBERG
Scratch the surface of a food offender whether they abuse the environment, workers, animals, the public trust or public funds and you usually find they are repeat offenders.
Nebraska Beef, the Omaha, NE-based supplier Whole Foods says it didn't know its supplier Coleman Natural Foods was using (right) recalled more than five million pounds of beef to other customers in seven states weeks before the Whole Foods recall of 1.2 million pounds that sickened seven.
In 2002 and 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) shut Nebraska Beef down three times for feces on carcasses, water dripping off pipes onto meat, paint peeling onto equipment and other non-hygienic embellishments.
And in 2004 and 2005, Nebraska Beef was cited five times for failing to remove potentially mad cow-infected spinal cords and heads from its products--changing the store's moniker from Whole Paycheck to Whole Head at least for a while.
LINK TO CON.
The Mindlessness is Total
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment. Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America’s.
It was obvious to anyone with any sense -- which excludes the entire Bush Regime and almost all of the “foreign policy community -- that the illegal and gratuitous US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon civilians with US blessing, would result in the overthrow of America’s Pakistani puppet.
The imbecilic Bush Regime ensured Musharraf’s overthrow by pressuring their puppet to conduct military operations against tribesmen in Pakistani border areas, whose loyalties were to fellow Muslims and not to American hegemony. When Musharraf’s military operations didn’t produce the desired result, the idiotic Americans began conducting their own military operations within Pakistan with bombs and missiles. This finished off Musharraf.
LINK TO CON.
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment. Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America’s.
It was obvious to anyone with any sense -- which excludes the entire Bush Regime and almost all of the “foreign policy community -- that the illegal and gratuitous US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon civilians with US blessing, would result in the overthrow of America’s Pakistani puppet.
The imbecilic Bush Regime ensured Musharraf’s overthrow by pressuring their puppet to conduct military operations against tribesmen in Pakistani border areas, whose loyalties were to fellow Muslims and not to American hegemony. When Musharraf’s military operations didn’t produce the desired result, the idiotic Americans began conducting their own military operations within Pakistan with bombs and missiles. This finished off Musharraf.
LINK TO CON.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
There is No God
By Penn Jillette
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, November 21, 2005.
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
LINK TO CON.
By Penn Jillette
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, November 21, 2005.
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
LINK TO CON.
How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet.
It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.
Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society. American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.
Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments. This stuff would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.
In the 2004 election, nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed the United States had "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; and more than a third that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The political right and allied culture warriors actively ignore evidence and encourage misinformation. To motivate their followers, they label intelligent and informed as "elite," implying that ignorance is somehow both valuable and under attack. Susan Jacoby confronts our "know-nothingism" -- current and historical -- in her new book, The Age of American Unreason.
LINK TO CON.
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet.
It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.
Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society. American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.
Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments. This stuff would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.
In the 2004 election, nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed the United States had "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; and more than a third that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The political right and allied culture warriors actively ignore evidence and encourage misinformation. To motivate their followers, they label intelligent and informed as "elite," implying that ignorance is somehow both valuable and under attack. Susan Jacoby confronts our "know-nothingism" -- current and historical -- in her new book, The Age of American Unreason.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Superweeds: ready for Roundup
In Arkansas, a new GMO/herbicide solution to a problem created by an old one
Posted by Tom Philpott
I've written a couple of times about the rise "superweeds" in the Southeast and mid-South. In Arkansas, horseweed and Palmer amaranth now choke fields planted with Monsanto's Roundup Ready cotton and soy -- engineered to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide. Fifteen years ago, horseweed and amaranth weren't problem weeds.
Back in March, Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service officials were pushing farmers to supplement their Roundup applications with doses of Reflex, a broad-spectrum herbicide made by Monsanto's rival, Syngenta.
Now the agribiz-friendly extension service is hotly promoting the wares of another Monsanto rival, Bayer Crop Sciences, Delta Farm Press reports. Bayer's Liberty Link soybeans, designed to withstand doses of Bayer's broad-spectrum herbicide Ignite, will be available next year.
LINK TO CON.
In Arkansas, a new GMO/herbicide solution to a problem created by an old one
Posted by Tom Philpott
I've written a couple of times about the rise "superweeds" in the Southeast and mid-South. In Arkansas, horseweed and Palmer amaranth now choke fields planted with Monsanto's Roundup Ready cotton and soy -- engineered to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide. Fifteen years ago, horseweed and amaranth weren't problem weeds.
Back in March, Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service officials were pushing farmers to supplement their Roundup applications with doses of Reflex, a broad-spectrum herbicide made by Monsanto's rival, Syngenta.
Now the agribiz-friendly extension service is hotly promoting the wares of another Monsanto rival, Bayer Crop Sciences, Delta Farm Press reports. Bayer's Liberty Link soybeans, designed to withstand doses of Bayer's broad-spectrum herbicide Ignite, will be available next year.
LINK TO CON.
Gravel: Take Bush to The Hague
By Shahram Vahdany
Former Democratic candidate Mike Gravel says President George W. Bush should be taken to The Hague for war crimes rather than being impeached.
In a Monday video conference with Press TV, the former Alaska senator said President Bush does not 'deserve' to be impeached for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which has resulted in the loss of 'millions of lives'.
"An Impeachment just means you would only take away his (Bush's) presidency. Well, he is almost done (with) his presidency. What really needs to happen is that these people have to be held accountable for the crimes they have committed," the 78-year-old Democrat said referring to the US president and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"If you impeach president and vice president, Nancy Pelosi is going to become president; that is not going happen," Gravel added.
Gravel is an outspoken advocate of impeaching Bush and Cheney over the disinformation campaign they have led in support of their go-to-war policies.
"There is a lot of very good news that makes me tremendously hopeful that we as a nation are starting to wake up and insist our congressional representatives act to make impeachment happen now," he had said in a statement in January after congressman Dennis Kucinich announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush.
By Shahram Vahdany
Former Democratic candidate Mike Gravel says President George W. Bush should be taken to The Hague for war crimes rather than being impeached.
In a Monday video conference with Press TV, the former Alaska senator said President Bush does not 'deserve' to be impeached for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which has resulted in the loss of 'millions of lives'.
"An Impeachment just means you would only take away his (Bush's) presidency. Well, he is almost done (with) his presidency. What really needs to happen is that these people have to be held accountable for the crimes they have committed," the 78-year-old Democrat said referring to the US president and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"If you impeach president and vice president, Nancy Pelosi is going to become president; that is not going happen," Gravel added.
Gravel is an outspoken advocate of impeaching Bush and Cheney over the disinformation campaign they have led in support of their go-to-war policies.
"There is a lot of very good news that makes me tremendously hopeful that we as a nation are starting to wake up and insist our congressional representatives act to make impeachment happen now," he had said in a statement in January after congressman Dennis Kucinich announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush.
Is Blackwater’s Erik Prince the next Viktor Bout?
Blackwater is building its own air force, Presidential Airways, and looking to AFRICOM to expand its reach and operations. It has helicopters, the C-212 transport aircraft pictured above, and is acquiring blimps.
From Army Times:
As Africa Command stands up this fall, Prince said he foresees the potential for an even greater need there for his company’s aviation services.
“I think there’s less road now than there was 40 years ago in Africa,” he said. “So, being able to fly around is pretty key and being able to fly into rough places.”
Setting up Africa Command has been pretty sensitive, evidenced by the Defense Department’s inability to find an African country willing to host the new headquarters, so connecting Blackwater and its controversial reputation could add to the anxieties.
Both of Prince’s companies have become the focus of lawsuits, investigations and criticism from U.S. and Iraqi lawmakers as well as military leaders and troops on the ground.
LINK TO CON.
Blackwater is building its own air force, Presidential Airways, and looking to AFRICOM to expand its reach and operations. It has helicopters, the C-212 transport aircraft pictured above, and is acquiring blimps.
From Army Times:
As Africa Command stands up this fall, Prince said he foresees the potential for an even greater need there for his company’s aviation services.
“I think there’s less road now than there was 40 years ago in Africa,” he said. “So, being able to fly around is pretty key and being able to fly into rough places.”
Setting up Africa Command has been pretty sensitive, evidenced by the Defense Department’s inability to find an African country willing to host the new headquarters, so connecting Blackwater and its controversial reputation could add to the anxieties.
Both of Prince’s companies have become the focus of lawsuits, investigations and criticism from U.S. and Iraqi lawmakers as well as military leaders and troops on the ground.
LINK TO CON.
Resistance and Ignominy at Cove-Mallard
Last Stand in the Big Woods
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
"Every time I've compromised, I've lost. When I held firm I won. The problem with too many environmentalists today is that they are trying to write the compromise instead of letting those we pay to compromise do it. They think they get power by taking people to lunch or being taken to lunch, when in reality they are only being taken."
-- David R. Brower
There was no reason it had to come down like this: Two militant greens standing in the middle of an isolated, snow-crusted road in a place where a road should never be; bracing their bodies against a train of logging trucks, snowmobiles, and Forest Service jeeps groaning at the gate, demanding entry; willingly subjecting themselves to arrest by Idaho troopers armed with guns, clubs, and a draconian and sub-constitutional new law. All in a last-gasp attempt to halt a vastly destructive timber sale in the heart of the nation's largest roadless area, a timber sale two federal judges had already found to be a brazen assault on our national environmental laws.
Charged with felony conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, Mike Roselle, a founder of Earth First!, and Tom Fullum, of the Native Forest Network, now face possible five-year prison terms and $50,000 fines under Idaho's so-called Earth First! Statute - a law geared to smother popular dissent against the transgressions of multinational timber companies by slamming the jailhouse door on anyone bold enough to bodily protest logging on federal lands in the Potato Atate. The bill was signed into law in 1993 by then-Governor Cecil Andrus, a noted liberal who called the Cove/ Mallard protesters "just a bunch of kooks."
LINK TO CON.
Last Stand in the Big Woods
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
"Every time I've compromised, I've lost. When I held firm I won. The problem with too many environmentalists today is that they are trying to write the compromise instead of letting those we pay to compromise do it. They think they get power by taking people to lunch or being taken to lunch, when in reality they are only being taken."
-- David R. Brower
There was no reason it had to come down like this: Two militant greens standing in the middle of an isolated, snow-crusted road in a place where a road should never be; bracing their bodies against a train of logging trucks, snowmobiles, and Forest Service jeeps groaning at the gate, demanding entry; willingly subjecting themselves to arrest by Idaho troopers armed with guns, clubs, and a draconian and sub-constitutional new law. All in a last-gasp attempt to halt a vastly destructive timber sale in the heart of the nation's largest roadless area, a timber sale two federal judges had already found to be a brazen assault on our national environmental laws.
Charged with felony conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, Mike Roselle, a founder of Earth First!, and Tom Fullum, of the Native Forest Network, now face possible five-year prison terms and $50,000 fines under Idaho's so-called Earth First! Statute - a law geared to smother popular dissent against the transgressions of multinational timber companies by slamming the jailhouse door on anyone bold enough to bodily protest logging on federal lands in the Potato Atate. The bill was signed into law in 1993 by then-Governor Cecil Andrus, a noted liberal who called the Cove/ Mallard protesters "just a bunch of kooks."
LINK TO CON.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Case is Overwhelming
All Experts Agree: Legalize Drugs
By JULIAN CRITCHLEY
Eight years ago, I left my civil service job as director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit. I went partly because I was sick of having to implement policies that I knew, and my political masters knew, were unsupported by evidence. Yesterday, after a surreal flurry of media requests referring to a blog I wrote that questioned the wisdom of the UK's drug policies, I found myself in the thick of the debate again, and I was sorry to discover that the terms hadn't changed a bit.
I was being interviewed on the BBC World Service, and after I tried to explain why I believe that drugs should be decriminalised, the person representing the other side of the argument pointed out that drugs are terrible, that they destroy lives. Now, I am a deeply boring, undruggy person myself, and I think the world would be a better place without drugs. But I think that we must live in the world as it is, and not as we want it to be. And so my answer was, yes, I know that drugs are terrible. I'm not saying that drugs should be decriminalised because it would be fun if we could all get stoned with impunity. I'm saying that we've tried minimising harm through a draconian legal policy. It is now clear that enforcement and supply-side interventions are largely pointless. They haven't worked. There is evidence that this works.
LINK TO CON.
All Experts Agree: Legalize Drugs
By JULIAN CRITCHLEY
Eight years ago, I left my civil service job as director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit. I went partly because I was sick of having to implement policies that I knew, and my political masters knew, were unsupported by evidence. Yesterday, after a surreal flurry of media requests referring to a blog I wrote that questioned the wisdom of the UK's drug policies, I found myself in the thick of the debate again, and I was sorry to discover that the terms hadn't changed a bit.
I was being interviewed on the BBC World Service, and after I tried to explain why I believe that drugs should be decriminalised, the person representing the other side of the argument pointed out that drugs are terrible, that they destroy lives. Now, I am a deeply boring, undruggy person myself, and I think the world would be a better place without drugs. But I think that we must live in the world as it is, and not as we want it to be. And so my answer was, yes, I know that drugs are terrible. I'm not saying that drugs should be decriminalised because it would be fun if we could all get stoned with impunity. I'm saying that we've tried minimising harm through a draconian legal policy. It is now clear that enforcement and supply-side interventions are largely pointless. They haven't worked. There is evidence that this works.
LINK TO CON.
The Neocons Do Georgia
Humanity's Greatest Enemy?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag. It certainly worked with Americans. The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.
Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships. We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.
LINK TO CON.
Humanity's Greatest Enemy?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag. It certainly worked with Americans. The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.
Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships. We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
How Taxpayer Money Is Wrapped Up in Georgian War
By Sharona Coutts, ProPublica.
Russia's announcement Tuesday morning that it will cease its offensive in Georgia has created a potential lull in what was a rapidly escalating military and diplomatic crisis.
Whether the fighting really ends, one result of the conflict is clear: it has thrown a bright light on that region's importance to global oil supplies. A pipeline that runs through Georgia is the second largest in the world.
But a little-reported fact is that American tax dollars were used to help fund big oil projects in the region.
Georgia sits between the rich oil deposits of the Caspian Sea in the East, and the friendly shores of the Mediterranean in the West. Since 2006, a 1,100 mile pipeline has pumped that crude from Baku, in Azerbaijan, westwards across the conflict-torn continent to tanker ships waiting at the Turkish city of Ceyhan. The multi-billion-dollar Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is run by an international consortium, including American oil-giants Chevron and Conoco-Phillips.
LINK TO CON.
By Sharona Coutts, ProPublica.
Russia's announcement Tuesday morning that it will cease its offensive in Georgia has created a potential lull in what was a rapidly escalating military and diplomatic crisis.
Whether the fighting really ends, one result of the conflict is clear: it has thrown a bright light on that region's importance to global oil supplies. A pipeline that runs through Georgia is the second largest in the world.
But a little-reported fact is that American tax dollars were used to help fund big oil projects in the region.
Georgia sits between the rich oil deposits of the Caspian Sea in the East, and the friendly shores of the Mediterranean in the West. Since 2006, a 1,100 mile pipeline has pumped that crude from Baku, in Azerbaijan, westwards across the conflict-torn continent to tanker ships waiting at the Turkish city of Ceyhan. The multi-billion-dollar Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is run by an international consortium, including American oil-giants Chevron and Conoco-Phillips.
LINK TO CON.
Dispatches from the Fields: Whatever happened to organic?
The limits of consumption-based food movements
Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn,
A few years ago at farmers markets here and around the country, most customers would ask a farmer how she grew her vegetables and herbs. Eaters were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing. Nowadays at market, almost no one asks if Dragonfly Farms is certified organic. (We're not, but are pursuing Certified Naturally Grown status.) They don't even ask if we use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
Consumer priorities, and the questions buyers ask, have shifted. Now the main farm-production question I hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?" Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. This switch is both interesting and somewhat troubling. It's interesting in part because it shows how the power of one captivating idea -- local -- can quickly eclipse the power of another -- organic.
It's troubling because, from the perspective of a movement against agribusiness-as-usual, organic farming has a lot more substance than local does. The organic farming movement has a history of opposing and actively questioning the status quo of Green Revolution -- style, high yield, industrial agriculture. The movement largely formed itself in opposition to the Green Revolution, drawing on the strength of pioneers like Sir Albert Howard, Jerome Rodale, and the publication of books like Silent Spring in the early 1960s.
LINK TO CON.
The limits of consumption-based food movements
Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn,
A few years ago at farmers markets here and around the country, most customers would ask a farmer how she grew her vegetables and herbs. Eaters were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing. Nowadays at market, almost no one asks if Dragonfly Farms is certified organic. (We're not, but are pursuing Certified Naturally Grown status.) They don't even ask if we use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
Consumer priorities, and the questions buyers ask, have shifted. Now the main farm-production question I hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?" Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. This switch is both interesting and somewhat troubling. It's interesting in part because it shows how the power of one captivating idea -- local -- can quickly eclipse the power of another -- organic.
It's troubling because, from the perspective of a movement against agribusiness-as-usual, organic farming has a lot more substance than local does. The organic farming movement has a history of opposing and actively questioning the status quo of Green Revolution -- style, high yield, industrial agriculture. The movement largely formed itself in opposition to the Green Revolution, drawing on the strength of pioneers like Sir Albert Howard, Jerome Rodale, and the publication of books like Silent Spring in the early 1960s.
LINK TO CON.
Help Our Veterans Vote
By SUSAN BYSIEWICZ, NY TIMES
WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.
I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.
Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.
LINK TO CON.
By SUSAN BYSIEWICZ, NY TIMES
WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.
I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.
Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.
LINK TO CON.
Impeachment? Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Never Mind That - Haul George Bush into a Court of Law, Part 1 (of 3)
by Russ Wellen
As you may have heard by now, the mainstream media has been giving Vincent Bugliosi's latest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the cold shoulder. Never mind that he authored what was, at the time, the bestselling crime book in history, Helter Skelter, about his successful prosecution of the Manson family. Nor that he's written numerous bestsellers since. His 2007 book, Reclaiming History, a 1,600-page attempt to dispel alternative histories of the Kennedy assassination, is being made into a mini-series by HBO and Tom Hanks.
In the only mainstream media article addressing The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder and its reception, New York Times reporter Tim Arango writes: "The editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, said he had not read the manuscript, but he offered a reason why the media might be silent: 'I think there's a kind of Bush-bashing fatigue out there.'"
The main reason though may be Bugliosi's agenda: Impeach Bush? Convene a truth and reconciliation commission for him and his gang? Forget all that. Once Bush is out of office, let's drag his butt into a court of law. But the media's perception that much of the public can't conceive of prosecuting a president in a court of law is probably accurate.
LINK TO CON.
by Russ Wellen
As you may have heard by now, the mainstream media has been giving Vincent Bugliosi's latest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the cold shoulder. Never mind that he authored what was, at the time, the bestselling crime book in history, Helter Skelter, about his successful prosecution of the Manson family. Nor that he's written numerous bestsellers since. His 2007 book, Reclaiming History, a 1,600-page attempt to dispel alternative histories of the Kennedy assassination, is being made into a mini-series by HBO and Tom Hanks.
In the only mainstream media article addressing The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder and its reception, New York Times reporter Tim Arango writes: "The editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, said he had not read the manuscript, but he offered a reason why the media might be silent: 'I think there's a kind of Bush-bashing fatigue out there.'"
The main reason though may be Bugliosi's agenda: Impeach Bush? Convene a truth and reconciliation commission for him and his gang? Forget all that. Once Bush is out of office, let's drag his butt into a court of law. But the media's perception that much of the public can't conceive of prosecuting a president in a court of law is probably accurate.
LINK TO CON.
Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?
By Robert Scheer
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
LINK TO CON.
By Robert Scheer
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Dispatches from the Fields: Whatever happened to organic?
The limits of consumption-based food movements
Posted by Stephanie Paige Ogburn
A few years ago at farmers markets here and around the country, most customers would ask a farmer how she grew her vegetables and herbs. Eaters were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing.
Nowadays at market, almost no one asks if Dragonfly Farms is certified organic. (We're not, but are pursuing Certified Naturally Grown status.) They don't even ask if we use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
Consumer priorities, and the questions buyers ask, have shifted. Now the main farm-production question I hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?"
Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. This switch is both interesting and somewhat troubling. It's interesting in part because it shows how the power of one captivating idea -- local -- can quickly eclipse the power of another -- organic.
LINK TO CON.
The limits of consumption-based food movements
Posted by Stephanie Paige Ogburn
A few years ago at farmers markets here and around the country, most customers would ask a farmer how she grew her vegetables and herbs. Eaters were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing.
Nowadays at market, almost no one asks if Dragonfly Farms is certified organic. (We're not, but are pursuing Certified Naturally Grown status.) They don't even ask if we use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
Consumer priorities, and the questions buyers ask, have shifted. Now the main farm-production question I hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?"
Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. This switch is both interesting and somewhat troubling. It's interesting in part because it shows how the power of one captivating idea -- local -- can quickly eclipse the power of another -- organic.
LINK TO CON.
A Game for Life
Grassroot Soccer project coordinator, Nolusindiso "Titie" Plaatjie, uses soccer to educate South African youth about HIV/AIDS prevention. She describes her childhood in the poverty-stricken city of Port Elizabeth and how soccer gave her the drive to be who she is today.
LINK TO VIDEO
http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/agameforlife
Grassroot Soccer project coordinator, Nolusindiso "Titie" Plaatjie, uses soccer to educate South African youth about HIV/AIDS prevention. She describes her childhood in the poverty-stricken city of Port Elizabeth and how soccer gave her the drive to be who she is today.
LINK TO VIDEO
http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/agameforlife
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Russia Begins Bombing Georgian Capital
By Kim Sengupta and Sean Walker, Independent UK.
Georgia's appeal for a ceasefire seemed to have fallen on deaf ears last night as Russian jets expanded their bombardment, targeting the capital, Tbilisi, for the first time. As the world's diplomats hurried to contain the violence and prevent the conflict engulfing the wider Caucasus region, Russia made clear it no longer considered Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili a partner, prompting accusations from his main ally, the United States, that Moscow was resisting peace and wanted regime change.
Russia has made no secret of its dislike for Mr Saakashvili, his alliance with Washington, his attempts to join Nato and his oft-repeated pledges to bring two separatist provinces back under Tbilisi's control -- a pledge he tried to make good on Thursday by sending troops into South Ossetia.
Last night there was strong condemnation of the Georgian leader from the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who said: "A man who issued orders to commit war crimes which resulted in thousands of deaths of peaceful civilians cannot be viewed by Russia as a partner."
LINK TO CON.
By Kim Sengupta and Sean Walker, Independent UK.
Georgia's appeal for a ceasefire seemed to have fallen on deaf ears last night as Russian jets expanded their bombardment, targeting the capital, Tbilisi, for the first time. As the world's diplomats hurried to contain the violence and prevent the conflict engulfing the wider Caucasus region, Russia made clear it no longer considered Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili a partner, prompting accusations from his main ally, the United States, that Moscow was resisting peace and wanted regime change.
Russia has made no secret of its dislike for Mr Saakashvili, his alliance with Washington, his attempts to join Nato and his oft-repeated pledges to bring two separatist provinces back under Tbilisi's control -- a pledge he tried to make good on Thursday by sending troops into South Ossetia.
Last night there was strong condemnation of the Georgian leader from the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who said: "A man who issued orders to commit war crimes which resulted in thousands of deaths of peaceful civilians cannot be viewed by Russia as a partner."
LINK TO CON.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
China's Still-Wild West
Beijing imposed heavy security on the Olympic torch’s passage through Xinjiang Province.
It isn't only Tibetans who have risen up against Chinese rule, but also Turkic Muslim Uighurs in China's far western province of Xinjiang. The Chinese have reacted by arresting Uighur activists in the Islamic center of Kashgar, and accusing Uighurs of ties to international terrorism.The Uighurs, in return, demand an independent state: East Turkestan. Even as China prepares to showcase its growing strength and dynamism at this year's Olympics, the situation in Xinjiang, as much as the one in Tibet, demonstrates how it has yet to consolidate its border areas, with profound implications for China, the United States, and the world.
Geographically, Xinjiang, which means "New Dominion," is separated from China by the Gobi Desert. Though the Chinese state has existed for more than 3,500 years, Xinjiang became part of China only in the middle of the 18th century. Even thereafter, Xinjiang traded far more with czarist and Soviet Turkestan than with the rest of China, and a state of sustained rebellion continued right up to the 1940s -- in 1935, for example, the Uighurs slaughtered most of Kashgar's Han Chinese population. When I reported in the 1990s from Xinjiang, I found the hatred between the Uighurs and Han settlers to be of a Balkan intensity.
LINK TO CON.
Beijing imposed heavy security on the Olympic torch’s passage through Xinjiang Province.
It isn't only Tibetans who have risen up against Chinese rule, but also Turkic Muslim Uighurs in China's far western province of Xinjiang. The Chinese have reacted by arresting Uighur activists in the Islamic center of Kashgar, and accusing Uighurs of ties to international terrorism.The Uighurs, in return, demand an independent state: East Turkestan. Even as China prepares to showcase its growing strength and dynamism at this year's Olympics, the situation in Xinjiang, as much as the one in Tibet, demonstrates how it has yet to consolidate its border areas, with profound implications for China, the United States, and the world.
Geographically, Xinjiang, which means "New Dominion," is separated from China by the Gobi Desert. Though the Chinese state has existed for more than 3,500 years, Xinjiang became part of China only in the middle of the 18th century. Even thereafter, Xinjiang traded far more with czarist and Soviet Turkestan than with the rest of China, and a state of sustained rebellion continued right up to the 1940s -- in 1935, for example, the Uighurs slaughtered most of Kashgar's Han Chinese population. When I reported in the 1990s from Xinjiang, I found the hatred between the Uighurs and Han settlers to be of a Balkan intensity.
LINK TO CON.
Superbugs
The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat.
by Jerome Groopman
In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University’s Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital’s microbiology laboratory. At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit. “It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had,” Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. “So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, ‘My God, this is an organism that basically we can’t treat.’ ”
Klebsiella is in a class of bacteria called gram-negative, based on its failure to pick up the dye in a Gram’s stain test. (Gram-positive organisms, which include Streptococcus and Staphylococcus , have a different cellular structure.) It inhabits both humans and animals and can survive in water and on inanimate objects. We can carry it on our skin and in our noses and throats, but it is most often found in our stool, and fecal contamination on the hands of caregivers is the most frequent source of infection among patients. Healthy people can harbor Klebsiella to no detrimental effect; those with debilitating conditions, like liver disease or severe diabetes, or those recovering from major surgery, are most likely to fall ill. The bacterium is oval in shape, resembling a TicTac, and has a thick, sugar-filled outer coat, which makes it difficult for white blood cells to engulf and destroy it. Fimbria—fine, hairlike extensions that enable Klebsiella to adhere to the lining of the throat, trachea, and bronchi—project from the bacteria’s surface; the attached microbes can travel deep into our lungs, where they destroy the delicate alveoli, the air sacs that allow us to obtain oxygen. The resulting hemorrhage produces a blood-filled sputum, nicknamed “currant jelly.” Klebsiella can also attach to the urinary tract and infect the kidneys. When the bacteria enter the bloodstream, they release a fatty substance known as an endotoxin, which injures the lining of the blood vessels and can cause fatal shock.
LINK TO CON.
The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat.
by Jerome Groopman
In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University’s Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital’s microbiology laboratory. At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit. “It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had,” Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. “So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, ‘My God, this is an organism that basically we can’t treat.’ ”
Klebsiella is in a class of bacteria called gram-negative, based on its failure to pick up the dye in a Gram’s stain test. (Gram-positive organisms, which include Streptococcus and Staphylococcus , have a different cellular structure.) It inhabits both humans and animals and can survive in water and on inanimate objects. We can carry it on our skin and in our noses and throats, but it is most often found in our stool, and fecal contamination on the hands of caregivers is the most frequent source of infection among patients. Healthy people can harbor Klebsiella to no detrimental effect; those with debilitating conditions, like liver disease or severe diabetes, or those recovering from major surgery, are most likely to fall ill. The bacterium is oval in shape, resembling a TicTac, and has a thick, sugar-filled outer coat, which makes it difficult for white blood cells to engulf and destroy it. Fimbria—fine, hairlike extensions that enable Klebsiella to adhere to the lining of the throat, trachea, and bronchi—project from the bacteria’s surface; the attached microbes can travel deep into our lungs, where they destroy the delicate alveoli, the air sacs that allow us to obtain oxygen. The resulting hemorrhage produces a blood-filled sputum, nicknamed “currant jelly.” Klebsiella can also attach to the urinary tract and infect the kidneys. When the bacteria enter the bloodstream, they release a fatty substance known as an endotoxin, which injures the lining of the blood vessels and can cause fatal shock.
LINK TO CON.
Know-Nothing Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part. And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”
LINK TO CON.
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part. And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”
LINK TO CON.
What’s Sex Got to Do With It?
By Chris Hedges
If I had to choose between George W. Bush, naked and neighing on all fours while being ridden around the Oval Office by a spurred cowgirl Condoleezza Rice, or enduring his shredding of domestic and international law to wage an illegal war and bilking of the country on behalf of his corporate backers, I could learn to stomach a wide array of sexual escapades.
Let our elected leaders and candidates have quick homosexual encounters in airport bathrooms, bring as many hookers as they want to their hotel rooms, and screw around with their campaign staff as long as they exhaust their libidos on lusts other than war, torture and economic mismanagement. Adolf Hitler, after all, was an abstemious and monogamous vegetarian who loved his German shepherd.
But, unfortunately for us, and hapless politicians like John Edwards, our press finds it more lucrative to report salacious sex scandals than the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, although the mainstream press showed, for once, a remarkable restraint until Edwards was forced to confess. We hear more about pricey hookers and the bathroom code of cruising homosexuals than the revoking of habeas corpus, the use of torture as an interrogation technique, and the plundering of our country by rapacious corporations. Television dominates our news content, and its ethical standards hover around those of the National Enquirer.
LINK TO CON.
By Chris Hedges
If I had to choose between George W. Bush, naked and neighing on all fours while being ridden around the Oval Office by a spurred cowgirl Condoleezza Rice, or enduring his shredding of domestic and international law to wage an illegal war and bilking of the country on behalf of his corporate backers, I could learn to stomach a wide array of sexual escapades.
Let our elected leaders and candidates have quick homosexual encounters in airport bathrooms, bring as many hookers as they want to their hotel rooms, and screw around with their campaign staff as long as they exhaust their libidos on lusts other than war, torture and economic mismanagement. Adolf Hitler, after all, was an abstemious and monogamous vegetarian who loved his German shepherd.
But, unfortunately for us, and hapless politicians like John Edwards, our press finds it more lucrative to report salacious sex scandals than the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, although the mainstream press showed, for once, a remarkable restraint until Edwards was forced to confess. We hear more about pricey hookers and the bathroom code of cruising homosexuals than the revoking of habeas corpus, the use of torture as an interrogation technique, and the plundering of our country by rapacious corporations. Television dominates our news content, and its ethical standards hover around those of the National Enquirer.
LINK TO CON.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Latin leftists reshape democracy
Bolivians vote Sunday on the fate of President Evo Morales and other top officials.
By Sara Miller Llana
Mexico City - In a high-stakes vote, Bolivians will decide Sunday whether populist President Evo Morales gets to keep his job.
It's the latest in a string of popular votes called for by Latin America's new crop of leftist leaders whose reforms have brought a sense of inclusion to the poor and, some say, strengthened democracy. But others say it reverses the region's democratic gains. By bringing votes directly to the people, leaders are bypassing checks and balances and centralizing power in their own hands.
"There is a cascade of reform movements, and there is no doubt that Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela are inspired by what is going on in each other's countries," says Zachary Elkins, an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. "What is common to all these revisions is more power to the president." Since Mr. Morales took office as Bolivia's first indigenous president in January 2006, his efforts to "refound" the country with a new Constitution have been stalled by an opposition that favors the market-friendly status quo.
LINK TO CON.
Bolivians vote Sunday on the fate of President Evo Morales and other top officials.
By Sara Miller Llana
Mexico City - In a high-stakes vote, Bolivians will decide Sunday whether populist President Evo Morales gets to keep his job.
It's the latest in a string of popular votes called for by Latin America's new crop of leftist leaders whose reforms have brought a sense of inclusion to the poor and, some say, strengthened democracy. But others say it reverses the region's democratic gains. By bringing votes directly to the people, leaders are bypassing checks and balances and centralizing power in their own hands.
"There is a cascade of reform movements, and there is no doubt that Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela are inspired by what is going on in each other's countries," says Zachary Elkins, an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. "What is common to all these revisions is more power to the president." Since Mr. Morales took office as Bolivia's first indigenous president in January 2006, his efforts to "refound" the country with a new Constitution have been stalled by an opposition that favors the market-friendly status quo.
LINK TO CON.
The Problem Is Simple: Too Many People, Too Much Stuff
By Paul & Anne Ehrlich, Yale Environment 360.
Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and -- most importantly -- language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we've increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth -- in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity -- as if there were no tomorrow.
The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization. Too many people -- and especially too many politicians and business executives -- are under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by technological fixes that will allow the population and the economy to grow forever. But if we fail to bring population growth and over-consumption under control -- the number of people on Earth is expected to grow from 6.5 billion today to 9 billion by the second half of the 21st century -- then we will inhabit a planet where life becomes increasingly untenable because of two looming crises: global heating, and the degradation of the natural systems on which we all depend.
LINK TO CON.
By Paul & Anne Ehrlich, Yale Environment 360.
Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and -- most importantly -- language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we've increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth -- in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity -- as if there were no tomorrow.
The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization. Too many people -- and especially too many politicians and business executives -- are under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by technological fixes that will allow the population and the economy to grow forever. But if we fail to bring population growth and over-consumption under control -- the number of people on Earth is expected to grow from 6.5 billion today to 9 billion by the second half of the 21st century -- then we will inhabit a planet where life becomes increasingly untenable because of two looming crises: global heating, and the degradation of the natural systems on which we all depend.
LINK TO CON.
An agricultural Waterloo
Globalization failed, cheap oil is gone, local production is the only way forward
Posted by Jim Goodman
Bigger is always better, isn't it? Big cars, big houses, big businesses, big farms. If you were big, you made more money. Clearly, that is the way of the world. When Europeans colonized the Americas, they wanted more land -- not some of it; all of it. Napoleon wanted more land. Nothing stopped him until Waterloo.
So, do you think that the human race, has reached its Waterloo? Have we finally hit the wall with our never-ending desire for "bigness"? I decided years ago that I didn't want my farming operation to get bigger. I liked milking 45 cows, raising their feed and doing a little direct marketing.
I liked being small. "Hopelessly behind the times," I was told. Local cheese makers were giving up; local meat processing was a thing of the past. Small farming was dead. The developing world couldn't feed itself and needed industrial farming systems. Who could argue with the Green Revolution? Until the current food crisis. Not so much a shortage of food but a shortage of cheap food.
LINK TO CON.
Globalization failed, cheap oil is gone, local production is the only way forward
Posted by Jim Goodman
Bigger is always better, isn't it? Big cars, big houses, big businesses, big farms. If you were big, you made more money. Clearly, that is the way of the world. When Europeans colonized the Americas, they wanted more land -- not some of it; all of it. Napoleon wanted more land. Nothing stopped him until Waterloo.
So, do you think that the human race, has reached its Waterloo? Have we finally hit the wall with our never-ending desire for "bigness"? I decided years ago that I didn't want my farming operation to get bigger. I liked milking 45 cows, raising their feed and doing a little direct marketing.
I liked being small. "Hopelessly behind the times," I was told. Local cheese makers were giving up; local meat processing was a thing of the past. Small farming was dead. The developing world couldn't feed itself and needed industrial farming systems. Who could argue with the Green Revolution? Until the current food crisis. Not so much a shortage of food but a shortage of cheap food.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Spain, Italy: Two tactics for tackling illegal immigration
Italy is using state of emergency powers, while Spain has introduced measures that include paying jobless immigrants to go home.
By Lisa Abend and Anna Momigliano
MADRID; and milan, Italy - Miriana spends her nights sleeping in a park, and her days hunched on a stoop outside a Madrid shop, begging for money. The young woman admits that she earned more in Italy, where she lived for a year. But for this Romanian immigrant, who is also ethnically Roma (or gypsy), the decision to move to Spain was easy.
"Here, the people are better," she explains in broken Spanish. "They don't have as much hate."
Both Spain and Italy, situated across from Africa on the Mediterranean coast, have faced huge influxes of illegal immigrants over the past couple of years – 18,000 intercepted by Spain last year alone, and 12,000 by Italy so far this year. But their governments, though sharing a conviction that the problem urgently needs to be curbed, have taken different approaches to reach that common goal.
While Spain struggles to find the balance between limiting immigration and protecting human rights, Italy has implemented state of emergency measures and even fingerprinting of Roma – measures decried as "xenophobic" by the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg.
LINK TO CON.
Italy is using state of emergency powers, while Spain has introduced measures that include paying jobless immigrants to go home.
By Lisa Abend and Anna Momigliano
MADRID; and milan, Italy - Miriana spends her nights sleeping in a park, and her days hunched on a stoop outside a Madrid shop, begging for money. The young woman admits that she earned more in Italy, where she lived for a year. But for this Romanian immigrant, who is also ethnically Roma (or gypsy), the decision to move to Spain was easy.
"Here, the people are better," she explains in broken Spanish. "They don't have as much hate."
Both Spain and Italy, situated across from Africa on the Mediterranean coast, have faced huge influxes of illegal immigrants over the past couple of years – 18,000 intercepted by Spain last year alone, and 12,000 by Italy so far this year. But their governments, though sharing a conviction that the problem urgently needs to be curbed, have taken different approaches to reach that common goal.
While Spain struggles to find the balance between limiting immigration and protecting human rights, Italy has implemented state of emergency measures and even fingerprinting of Roma – measures decried as "xenophobic" by the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg.
LINK TO CON.
Is Your Organic Food Really Organic?
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet.
When you buy food with a "USDA organic" label, do you know what you're getting? Now is a good time to ask such a question, as the USDA just announced Monday it was putting 15 out of 30 federally accredited organic certifiers they audited on probation, allowing them 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation. At the heart of the audit for several certifiers were imported foods and ingredients from other countries, including China.
Chinese imports have had a bad year in the news, making headlines for contaminated pet food, toxic toys, and recently, certified organic ginger contaminated with levels of a pesticide called aldicarb that can cause nausea, headaches and blurred vision even at low levels. The ginger, sold under the 365 label at Whole Foods Market, contained a level of aldicarb not even permissible for conventional ginger, let alone organics. Whole Foods immediately pulled the product from its shelves.
LINK TO CON.
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet.
When you buy food with a "USDA organic" label, do you know what you're getting? Now is a good time to ask such a question, as the USDA just announced Monday it was putting 15 out of 30 federally accredited organic certifiers they audited on probation, allowing them 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation. At the heart of the audit for several certifiers were imported foods and ingredients from other countries, including China.
Chinese imports have had a bad year in the news, making headlines for contaminated pet food, toxic toys, and recently, certified organic ginger contaminated with levels of a pesticide called aldicarb that can cause nausea, headaches and blurred vision even at low levels. The ginger, sold under the 365 label at Whole Foods Market, contained a level of aldicarb not even permissible for conventional ginger, let alone organics. Whole Foods immediately pulled the product from its shelves.
LINK TO CON.
Working Poor Unready to Revolt
When Economic Pain Does Not Motivate Political Rebellion, is All Lost?
By Joel Hirschhorn
Once upon a time when governments no longer served most of their citizens it was the most economically disadvantaged that could be counted on to rebel against tyranny and injustice. Times have changed, for the worse, despite the spread of democracy.
Here we are with a two-party plutocracy that preferentially serves corporate and wealthy interests and lets the middle class suffer and sink. Plausibly, the middle class is unready to revolt because it still maintains a relatively good standard of living despite rising economic insecurity. But what about the lowest 40 percent of Americans that are the working poor?
A recent survey of this group by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University conducted this past June looked at the beliefs of adults ages 18 to 64 working 30 or more hours a week, not self-employed and who earned no more than $27,000 in 2007. The results show a fascinating dichotomy. Though there is widespread pain and discontent there is also a stubborn faith in the American dream despite little help from government.
LINK TO CON.
When Economic Pain Does Not Motivate Political Rebellion, is All Lost?
By Joel Hirschhorn
Once upon a time when governments no longer served most of their citizens it was the most economically disadvantaged that could be counted on to rebel against tyranny and injustice. Times have changed, for the worse, despite the spread of democracy.
Here we are with a two-party plutocracy that preferentially serves corporate and wealthy interests and lets the middle class suffer and sink. Plausibly, the middle class is unready to revolt because it still maintains a relatively good standard of living despite rising economic insecurity. But what about the lowest 40 percent of Americans that are the working poor?
A recent survey of this group by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University conducted this past June looked at the beliefs of adults ages 18 to 64 working 30 or more hours a week, not self-employed and who earned no more than $27,000 in 2007. The results show a fascinating dichotomy. Though there is widespread pain and discontent there is also a stubborn faith in the American dream despite little help from government.
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Monsanto & ADM Set Up New Front Group to Deflect Ethanol Criticism & to Promote GMOs
Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S. agribusiness companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co. are uniting in the intensifying food-versus-fuel debate, forming an alliance to promote the idea that technology can ease global supply shortages.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy - which includes seed makers Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., as well as farm-gear maker Deere & Co. - wants to spread its belief that renewable fuels won't cut into food supplies if new technologies, such as genetically modified crops, are used to their fullest. The group is also working hard to protect government subsidies for ethanol production.
"ADM, Monsanto and others have seen their own profits soar in recent years, as booming demand for agricultural products in emerging markets has pushed up commodity prices and spurred additional production."
LINK TO CON.
Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S. agribusiness companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co. are uniting in the intensifying food-versus-fuel debate, forming an alliance to promote the idea that technology can ease global supply shortages.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy - which includes seed makers Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., as well as farm-gear maker Deere & Co. - wants to spread its belief that renewable fuels won't cut into food supplies if new technologies, such as genetically modified crops, are used to their fullest. The group is also working hard to protect government subsidies for ethanol production.
"ADM, Monsanto and others have seen their own profits soar in recent years, as booming demand for agricultural products in emerging markets has pushed up commodity prices and spurred additional production."
LINK TO CON.
USDA Admits Organic Fraud is IncreasingThe U.S. Department of
Agriculture National Organic Program (NOP) announced on August 5th that 15 of the 30 accredited organic certifiers they recently inspected failed the USDA audit and will have 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation with the NOP. It is clear that there are numerous violations of organic standards taking place in the U.S. and across the world. (Read the August 5 NOP Audit Report here)
A number of the violations noted in the several hundred page audit related to Chinese imports certified by the French-based organic certifier Ecocert and other certifiers. Strangely enough, Quality Assurance International (QAI), the largest organic certifier in the world, is not cited by the USDA, even though the OCA has recently reviewed documents that indicate that QAI is indeed under investigation by the NOP.
LINK TO CON.
Agriculture National Organic Program (NOP) announced on August 5th that 15 of the 30 accredited organic certifiers they recently inspected failed the USDA audit and will have 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation with the NOP. It is clear that there are numerous violations of organic standards taking place in the U.S. and across the world. (Read the August 5 NOP Audit Report here)
A number of the violations noted in the several hundred page audit related to Chinese imports certified by the French-based organic certifier Ecocert and other certifiers. Strangely enough, Quality Assurance International (QAI), the largest organic certifier in the world, is not cited by the USDA, even though the OCA has recently reviewed documents that indicate that QAI is indeed under investigation by the NOP.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Got (rBGH) Milk? You May Not Know in Ohio
The Organic Trade Association last month filed suit against a new milk labeling rule in Ohio that bans statements about production methods, such as "no artificial hormones."
This suit was the latest bid to block the lobbying by Monsanto Corp. advocates, who are seeking to limit milk labels state-by-state. The International Dairy Foods Association filed suit too.
(Update) On Friday, the OTA filed a motion for summary judgment in the case. The Ohio Department of Agriculture has until August 15 to file its opposition and the OTA could then file a reply by August 29. The IDFA filed a similar motion.
If Ohio is successful, the label limitations would prevent consumers from choosing milk that is produced without synthetic growth hormones. Monsanto argues that there is no difference between milk produced with the added growth hormones and milk without it. But consumers advocates — and consumers themselves — take a different view. They want choice.
LINK TO CON.
The Organic Trade Association last month filed suit against a new milk labeling rule in Ohio that bans statements about production methods, such as "no artificial hormones."
This suit was the latest bid to block the lobbying by Monsanto Corp. advocates, who are seeking to limit milk labels state-by-state. The International Dairy Foods Association filed suit too.
(Update) On Friday, the OTA filed a motion for summary judgment in the case. The Ohio Department of Agriculture has until August 15 to file its opposition and the OTA could then file a reply by August 29. The IDFA filed a similar motion.
If Ohio is successful, the label limitations would prevent consumers from choosing milk that is produced without synthetic growth hormones. Monsanto argues that there is no difference between milk produced with the added growth hormones and milk without it. But consumers advocates — and consumers themselves — take a different view. They want choice.
LINK TO CON.
Slow Food Nation Gains Momentum
by Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation leader Alice Waters--founder of Berkeley's famous Chez Panisse Restaurant and author of eight food books--spoke at the small town (8000 people) Sebastopol Farmers' Market in Northern California August 3. She was interviewed about the August 29-31 SFN celebration to happen around San Francisco by KRCB public radio host Michelle Anna Jordan for her "Mouthful" program to run that evening.
"We want to lift a loud voice to change our food system," Waters responded when asked about SFN, where over 50,000 people are expected. "We need to change the ways we grow, distribute, and eat food, which needs to be good, clean, and fair. Things are at a crisis point with respect to health and the environment."
Waters described how the lawn in front of San Francisco's Civic Center, one of the sites for SFN, has been replaced with a victory garden. "We have been talking about a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. This would be a way to talk about stewardship and nourishment. Thomas Jefferson had such a garden."
LINK TO CON.
by Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation leader Alice Waters--founder of Berkeley's famous Chez Panisse Restaurant and author of eight food books--spoke at the small town (8000 people) Sebastopol Farmers' Market in Northern California August 3. She was interviewed about the August 29-31 SFN celebration to happen around San Francisco by KRCB public radio host Michelle Anna Jordan for her "Mouthful" program to run that evening.
"We want to lift a loud voice to change our food system," Waters responded when asked about SFN, where over 50,000 people are expected. "We need to change the ways we grow, distribute, and eat food, which needs to be good, clean, and fair. Things are at a crisis point with respect to health and the environment."
Waters described how the lawn in front of San Francisco's Civic Center, one of the sites for SFN, has been replaced with a victory garden. "We have been talking about a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. This would be a way to talk about stewardship and nourishment. Thomas Jefferson had such a garden."
LINK TO CON.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Crisis Looms as Corporations Seize Control of Commodities
By Barbara L. Minton
"NaturalNews" -- - The global food crisis won’t go away any time soon. Capitalism has the average consumer by the belly. Amid growing signs of famine and outrage, the entire chain of commodities and resources of the world are now being cornered by giant corporations. Farmland, water, fertilizer, seed, energy, and most of the basic necessities of life are falling under corporate control, providing increased wealth and power to the ruling elite while the rest of humanity struggles.
Commodity scarcity in India was recently reflected in the need to distribute fertilizer from the police station in Hingoli. Now police have to control the lines that form outside of dealer outlets, because the dealers won’t open for business otherwise. Without this intervention there would be no fertilizer for the planting that must take place before the rain comes. In Akola and Nanded, police involvement is also needed. Agriculture officers have fled their work places to escape angry farmers. In Karnataka, a farmer was shot dead during protests, while farmers stormed meetings and set up road blocks in other districts.
Despite the success of the genetically engineered Bt cotton crops, the trend in India is now back to soybeans because they cost less to grow and need less fertilizer than cotton.And it’s not just fertilizer that is scarce. Seeds are also in short supply which is being blamed on agitation that has interfered with freight train traffic. However, the shortfall in seeds is 60 percent, a level more indicative of corporate intervention to drive up prices than the actions of powerless farmers.
LINK TO CON.
By Barbara L. Minton
"NaturalNews" -- - The global food crisis won’t go away any time soon. Capitalism has the average consumer by the belly. Amid growing signs of famine and outrage, the entire chain of commodities and resources of the world are now being cornered by giant corporations. Farmland, water, fertilizer, seed, energy, and most of the basic necessities of life are falling under corporate control, providing increased wealth and power to the ruling elite while the rest of humanity struggles.
Commodity scarcity in India was recently reflected in the need to distribute fertilizer from the police station in Hingoli. Now police have to control the lines that form outside of dealer outlets, because the dealers won’t open for business otherwise. Without this intervention there would be no fertilizer for the planting that must take place before the rain comes. In Akola and Nanded, police involvement is also needed. Agriculture officers have fled their work places to escape angry farmers. In Karnataka, a farmer was shot dead during protests, while farmers stormed meetings and set up road blocks in other districts.
Despite the success of the genetically engineered Bt cotton crops, the trend in India is now back to soybeans because they cost less to grow and need less fertilizer than cotton.And it’s not just fertilizer that is scarce. Seeds are also in short supply which is being blamed on agitation that has interfered with freight train traffic. However, the shortfall in seeds is 60 percent, a level more indicative of corporate intervention to drive up prices than the actions of powerless farmers.
LINK TO CON.
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