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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

fleet foxes

José González - Down The Line
Official video for "Down the Line" from the album IN OUR NATURE. Directed by Andreas Nilsson

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.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals


"Aint No Time"

The Tunics - Fade Out
The Tunics at the Selsdon Community Center

Andrew Bird - Episode # 01 - Imitosis

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.

Why the Hype About Local Food May Be More than Just a Trend
By David Bollier, OnTheCommons.org.

Now that the New York Times has splashed it on the front page (July 22), consider it an official trend: locally grown food is all the rage. It is being avidly sought out by Manhattan's Upper East Side, the glam crowd in the Hamptons, the merely affluent of Mill Valley, California, and even by the rest of us who live in less celebrated locations with few boldfaced residents.

It is tempting to dismiss locally grown food as just another elite fashion, as many people surely will. But it is also true that wealthy households are often the first to validate broader market trends.

Consider it another chapter in the ongoing dance between the commons and the market. The commons lovingly advances a new ideal -- in this case, the ecological virtues, social satisfactions and great taste of locally grown food. And then, after years of hippies, homesteaders and eco-evangelists beating the drum for this new ideal below the radar screen of mainstream culture, entrepreneurs suddenly get hip to what's going on and swoop in to make money from a grassroots trend.

Some things never change. We are at that special inflection point in the evolution of social attitudes that are mysteriously propelling the rise of a new market niche. Its customers, the aficionados of local food, even have a name -- "locavores." There are also novel sorts of new businesses.

LINK TO CON.

A War of Self-Destruction
By Chris Hedges

An attack on Iran, which Israeli and Bush administration officials appear set to carry out if Iranian uranium enrichment is not halted, would ignite a regional war in the Middle East and lead to economic collapse and political upheaval in the United States.

“In short and simple terms, we would be plunged into a depression that would make the Great Depression of the 1930s in which I spent my childhood look like boom times,” said William R. Polk, former professor of history at the University of Chicago and a member of the Policy Planning Council under President Kennedy. “Industries would fail, banks would collapse, government revenues would dry up, universities would have to close, health care, even as limited as it now is for roughly 75 million Americans, would virtually cease. In short, something like [what] the South suffered at the end of the Civil War would plague the country.”

The passage of vast amounts of oil and liquefied gas through the Persian Gulf would be disrupted. Iranian attacks, carried out with rocket- and bomb-equipped speedboats and submarines, would be deadly and effective. A classified Pentagon war game in 2002 simulated these swarming attacks by Iranian speedboats packed with explosives in the gulf; the Navy lost 16 major warships, according to a report in The New York Times. Iranian oil, which makes up 8 percent of the world’s energy supply, would instantly be taken off the market. And oil would jump to over $500 a barrel and perhaps, as the conflict dragged on, to over $750 a barrel. Our petroleum-based economy would come to a halt.

LINK TO CON.

Will an Organic Revival Overthrow the "Green Revolution"?
By Daniel Pepper, AlterNet.

Inside a hot, dun-colored courtyard at the edge of India's northwestern Punjab state, Jagdev Singh, a wheelchair-bound boy of 15, jerks violently, fruitlessly, in search of some relief. "I can't swat the flies off of my face," says Jagdev. A debilitating muscular disorder (he doesn't know what) prevents him from raising his arms more than few inches above his lap. Doctors in New Delhi have told him the cause is an excess of urea -- a chemical fertilizer used in abundance in the surrounding wheat, rice and cotton fields -- that courses through his bloodstream. Three other children nearby suffer similar fates.

Jagdev's illness is part of a pattern, say villagers, activists, government scientists and academics: early onset of disease brought on by environmental pollutants. Punjab is where India's Green Revolution began, leading the subcontinent out of cycles of famine and realizing the dream of self-sufficiency. But after decades of overusing fertilizers, farmers are now saying that the benefits of the Green Revolution have come at too great a cost, slowly siphoning the health out of both the soil and the surrounding community. In particular, they say, the high use of fertilizers is leading to a spike in cancer and other illnesses, including reproductive ailments.

Backing up the villagers' claims is a recent study by researchers at Punjabi University that has found a high rate of DNA damage among farmers due to pesticide use. A second study, also conducted this past year, found widespread contamination of drinking water with pesticides and heavy metals, revealing that drinking water is one of the major causes of death in Punjab. The government is slow to take action, say villagers, whose access to health care is often across state lines, via uncomfortable overnight train journeys, in neighboring Rajasthan.

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Where Have You Gone, John?
His zesty attacks on corporate greed and inspiring plans for national service are no more.
--Jonathan Alter

In the middle of John McCain's dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: "Is He Ready to Lead?" An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he's a surprisingly immature politician—erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled "juvenile," another termed "childish" and McCain's own mother called "stupid." The Obama campaign's new mantra is that McCain is "an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign." Lame is more like it. And out of sync with the real guy.

Of course, it might work. Maybe depicting Obama as a presumptuous and vaguely foreign presence will resonate. (Why else would one of McCain's slogans be "An American president for America"?) Maybe voters will agree with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who played the fussy card last week by arguing the central importance to the future of the republic of Obama's taste for "MET-Rx chocolate roasted peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew called Black Forest Berry Honest Tea." (Davis somehow forgot to mention McCain's own preference for $520 Ferragamo shoes.) Maybe convincing nervous white voters that Obama is another Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson in his use of racial grievance politics will carry McCain to the White House.

LINK TO CON.

Whole Foods Looks for a Fresh Image in Lean Times
By ANDREW MARTIN, NY TIMES

PHILADELPHIA — Shawn Hebb may have one of America’s toughest jobs: convincing people that Whole Foods Market can be an economical place to shop. This week, leading five customers through a store here, he breezed past the triple cream goat cheese, $39.99 a pound, and the fresh tuna, $19.99 a pound, to focus on the merits of beans, chicken thighs and frozen fish. Then he held up a $1.50 package of tofu. “It looks gross but it’s delicious,” he said.

Whole Foods Market is on a mission to revise its gold-plated image as consumers pull back on discretionary spending in a troubled economy. The company was once a Wall Street darling, but its sales growth was cooling even before the economy turned. Since peaking at the beginning of 2006, its stock has dropped more than 70 percent.

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.

Oregon issues first state chemical use report
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EUGENE, Ore. – Potato fields got the biggest dose of the more than 40 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides used in Oregon's farms, forests and fields last year, according to the state's first tabulation of chemical use.The state Department of Agriculture report showed that a soil fumigant used on potato fields, known as metam-sodium, was by far the most-applied product by weight.

It accounted for 42 percent of the chemicals applied last year.The report was authorized by the 1999 Legislature to provide more detailed information about the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture, so as to gauge how they affect soil and water quality, but it was delayed by years of political struggle.

The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides of Eugene pushed for the annual reports. "Eight years after starting work on this I'm very excited to see the first data," said NCAP's Aimee Code. "I think it will help all of us to better protect our health and clean up our waters."

LINK TO CON.

Nation Faces Historic Vote
Total Recall in Bolivia
By BENJAMIN DANGL
In early July in Sicaya, Cochabamba, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that if he wins the August 10 recall vote on his presidency, “I’ll have two and half years left.” But, if he loses the vote, “I’ll have to go back to the Chapare” to farm coca again. Though the recall vote is likely to favor Morales, it’s unclear if it will resolve many of the divided nation’s conflicts.

This upcoming recall vote on the president, vice president and eight of nine departmental governors is to take place at a time of historic change for the country. Half way through a five-year term in office, Morales is applying social programs, aimed at fighting poverty and inequality, and developing positive relationships with Latin America’s leftist leaders. At the same time, a series of regional disputes in Bolivia over departmental autonomy, the new constitution and wealth from the partially nationalized gas industry continue to put the country’s stability at risk.

Since May 4, autonomy referendums have been approved by voters in the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, Pando and Chuquisaca. These votes were organized by the country’s right-wing politicians and business elite to perpetuate neoliberal policies, resist the redistribution of land and natural gas wealth, and weaken the Morales government.

LINK TO CON.

Home Truths You'll Never Read in the Press
Who's Really Running Iraq?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
American politicians and journalists have repeatedly made the same mistake in Iraq over the past five years. This is to assume that the US is far more in control of events in the country than has ever truly been the case. This was true after the fall of Saddam Hussein when President Bush and his viceroy in Baghdad Paul Bremer believed that what Iraqis thought and did could safely be ignored. Within months guerrilla war against American forces was raging across central Iraq.

The ability of America to make unilateral decisions in Iraq is diminishing by the month, but the White House was still horrified to hear the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki appearing to endorse Barack Obama’s plan for the withdrawal of American combat troops over 16 months. This cut the ground from under the feet of John McCain who has repeatedly declared that ‘victory’ is at last within America’s grasp because of the great achievements of ‘the Surge’, the American reinforcements sent to Iraq in 2007 to regain control of Baghdad.

The success of ‘the Surge’ is becoming almost received wisdom in the US. This is strange since, if the US strategy did win such an important victory, why do America generals need more soldiers, currently 147,000 of them, in Iraq than they did before ‘the Surge’ started? But belief in this so-called victory is in keeping with the American tradition of seeing everything that happens in Iraq as being the result of actions by the US alone. The complex political landscape of Iraq is ignored.

LINK TO CON.

Finally, Congress Starts Moving on Reforming Pot Prohibition
By Allen St. Pierre, NORML.
On July 30 something rather historic on a number of counts occurred in the nation's capital. Firstly, Congress is for the first time in a generation (1978) taking a serious look at reforming components of cannabis prohibition laws. In today's Congress, the support of the Congressional Black Caucus is pivotal to passing any substantive cannabis law reform. So I was so very heartened that Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO) joined us on this very hot and oppressively humid day in DC, along with the always jocose Barney Frank (D-MA), the bill's primary sponsor (along with Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX).

Second, the media attending the press conference on HR 5843, a bill that would decriminalize marijuana possession and use for responsible adults, fairly captured the event's narrative, i.e., 'it makes no sense to treat cannabis consumers like criminals' and 'why not start controlling cannabis in the same way society (and government agencies) already control alcohol products?' with no double entendre or goofy 'stoner stupidisms'. You can view a CNN video of the press conference here. Also, you can check out some YouTube footage here of my opening remarks.

Bill Piper from the Drug Policy Alliance spoke about the collateral effects that happen to citizens arrested for minor amounts of cannabis including, but not limited to: loss of student loans; denial to public housing, food stamps and job training; and denial of entry into the military and some government service jobs.

LINK TO CON.

Can This Planet Be Saved?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Recently the Web site The Politico asked Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, why she was blocking attempts to tack offshore drilling amendments onto appropriations bills. “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she replied.I’m glad to hear it. But I’m still worried about the planet’s prospects.

True, Ms. Pelosi’s remark was a happy reminder that environmental policy is no longer in the hands of crazy people. Remember, less than two years ago Senator James Inhofe — a conspiracy theorist who insists that global warming is a “gigantic hoax” perpetrated by the scientific community — was the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Beyond that, Ms. Pelosi’s response shows that she understands the deeper issues behind the current energy debate.

Most criticism of John McCain’s decision to follow the Bush administration’s lead and embrace offshore drilling as the answer to high gas prices has focused on the accusation that it’s junk economics — which it is.

LINK TO CON.

Wal-Mart Warns Workers Of Democratic Win

UPDATE: Wal-Mart has issued a statement regarding The Wall Street Journal article outlining how it's warning employees to beware of voting for Democrats. AP has the details. The Wall Street Journal article is excerpted below this excerpt from AP:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, denied a report Friday that it had pressured employees to vote against Democrats in November because of worries that a bill the party supports would make it easier for workers to unionize.

The measure, called the Employee Free Choice Act, would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret ballot elections. It was co-sponsored by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, and opposed by John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee.

LINK TO CON.

Amy Macdonald
This is the Life
- Amy Macdonald’s album “This is the Life” is a mix of folk, pop, and rock, if I am to set it in some sort of genre. Macdonald has seen much success across the ocean in England and Scotland (her origin) where her 2007 album reached number one on pop charts. Although Scottish most reviews consider her to sing, in a more Irish style and sound. The album is being published through rock ridge records, a multi faceted record company producing multiple independent artists and some main stream. The first thing that stands out when you start this album with Mr. Rock and Roll is the beautiful voice of Mrs. Macdonald. Her raspy yet tantalizing voice carries well with multi instrument band. The tracks are catchy, danceable, sing-along, and consistently decent.
- My only objection to the album is that the album’s tracks can become repetitive in their sound. The rhythm and/or sound seem similar throughout the album. Although this is the case, the lyrics and good music keeps you interested. Another nice thing is that the young artist, only 20, writes most of her music.
- My favorite track is A Wish for Something More, a track that adds a bit of funk rift to alter the reoccurring sound. Below you will find to videos from you tube to help you decide.

This Is The Life

Mr Rock & Roll

Sustainable biotech crops -- solution or oxymoron?
Industry report touts potential for biotech crops to combat climate change
Posted by Meredith Niles

I am always a sucker for a catchy sounding report -- like the one the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released last week: "Agricultural Ecosystems: Facts and Trends." It had it all: the noble sounding "Council," the association between agriculture and ecosystems, and the appeal to my inner science-geek with words like "facts" and "trends." I printed it out enthusiastically and got out my highlighter, ready to read all of the fascinating new insights into agriculture, food, and the environment.

I was intrigued by the beginning section on consumer patterns which detailed the increased demand for meat in developing countries and the impact this might have worldwide. One section focused on the role of animal production in climate change. I skipped along to the climate section nodding my head in agreement the entire time: converting grasslands to agriculture is a huge source of carbon dioxide emissions; conventional agriculture can threaten biodiversity; and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated by integrated crop management and minimum tillage. I balked a bit when they cited that agriculture produced 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2000 (since then the United Nations has stated that animal production alone produces 18 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions), but I still felt confident that the report might be worth something.

Maybe I set my expectations a bit high.

LINK TO CON.

Organic food ‘good for you’ says EU
By Laura Crowley

The European Commission has launched a campaign to inform consumers of the benefits of organic food and support those involved in the ever-growing organic market. The promotional campaign focuses on increasing awareness of organic produce among young people to ensure a future market for organic, under its main slogan: “Organic farming: Good for nature, good for you.”

Professionals in the industry can use the slogans for marketing purposes. But despite undertones that imply health benefits from organic produce, the European Commission is denying its support for organic farming over conventional, saying is merely seeking to help the organic sector. “We are not favouring organic as an alternative to conventional,” Michael Mann, agriculture spokesman for the European Commission, told FoodNavigator.com.

“Merely we are providing the marketing tools to aid progress in the organic industry while helping consumers make their own choices on which products to buy.” However, Soil Association said the message that organic is good for you and for the planet is more “bold and upfront” than previous information put out to the public.

LINK TO CON.

Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now responding to the statements that Nancy Pelosi made on The View about impeachment.
(Ignore, or bang your head at Pelosi being a politician and then listen to Kucinish respond with exactly with what Pelosi said we are missing.)

Radiohead - House of Cards
In Radiohead's new video for "House of Cards", no cameras or lights were used. Instead, 3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects. The video was created entirely with visualizations of that data.

Directed by James Frost
From the album IN RAINBOWS

A Victory and a Challenge
The Impeachment Hearing
By DAVE LINDORFF

The dramatic hearing on presidential crimes and abuses of power held on Friday by the House Judiciary Committee was both a staged farce, and at the same time, a powerful demonstration of the power of a grassroots movement in defense of the Constitution. It was at once both testimony to the cowardice and self-inflicted impotence of Congress and of the Democratic Party that technically controls that body, and to the enormity of the damage that has been wrought to the nation’s democracy by two aspiring tyrants in the White House.

As Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the committee, made clear more than once during the six-hour session, this was “not an impeachment hearing, however much many in the audience might wish it to be” He might well have added that he himself was not the fierce defender of the Constitution and of the authority of Congress that he once was before gaining control of the Judiciary Committee, however much his constituents, his wife, and Americans across the country might wish him to be.

At the same time, while the hearing was strictly limited to the most superficial airing of Bush administration crimes and misdemeanors, the fact that the session—technically an argument in defense of 26 articles of impeachment filed in the House over the past several months by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)--was nonetheless a major victory for the impeachment movement. It happened because earlier in the month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has sworn since taking control of the House in November 2006, that impeachment would be “off the table” during the 110th Congress, called a hasty meeting with Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Rep. Conyers, and Rep. Kucinich, and called for such a limited hearing.

LINK TO CON.

(Figured since I got back from Alaska, might as well post this one)
Senator Ted Stevens' Empire of Corruption
King of the Hill
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Ted Stevens doesn't exploit loopholes, he drills them.

From his aerie in the US senate, the Alaska Republican exerts his power over vast terrains of legislation and budgeting, from the logging of the Tongass National Forest to the development of the Star Wars missile defense scheme.

Since Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in Congress, became the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1997, his power has magnified. Through his machinations, federal spending in Alaska has nearly doubled in the past eight years. On a per capita basis, Alaska now leads the nation in the receipt of federal money, at nearly $12,000 for each resident and twice the national average. Alaska also now occupies the top spot for so-called earmarked appropriations, special pet-projects in home states of senators and representatives on the appropriations committees. Under Stevens' sway, Alaska now gets more than $611 in federal funds for each Alaskan for these special earmarks. The national average for earmarked pork projects is $19 per capita.

Of course, this money doesn't go directly into the pockets of all Alaskans, but is channeled into projects benefiting the senator's political patrons and in some cases into projects in which the senator and his family own a financial stake.

LINK TO CON.

The World’s Foremost Terrorist - The US Government
By Karl Schwarz

This article will explain to you why the Totally Screwed-Up US Strategic Plan for the Caspian Basin has backfired and created a “megatrend” against America that may well be the doom of our nation.

Any country willing to spend 30 years lying, conniving and scheming - and blow over $3 trillion (reported) on nothing - is pretty damned stupid or desperate. In the case of American policy, I submit, both apply…and we can, with no effort, add in DELUSIONAL.

There is nothing that George W Bush, McCain or Obama can do to change the tide now…for it has turned into a tsunami against America. The Grand Chessboard game is over, finished, and the US has lost in a rout. Our nation has blown through trillions of dollars (of new debt) with little to nothing accomplished to pursue a bogus, contrived war that was designed to take over in excess of $15 trillion in Caspian Basin oil and natural gas. The sheer cost of the failed ‘war’ and scheme to take over the Caspian Basin has ruined the value of the dollar, buried the US in debt and a myriad of ancillary problems, skyrocketed the cost of oil, utilities, food, and shredded the reputation of the United States around the world. By any measure, it is a catastrophe.

LINK TO CON.

Where was Ty Saturday night?

Wilco - What Light (not the best video..but it at least answers the ?)

The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see By Siv O'Neall Mar 19, 2008, 07:29

The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years. The endless list of genetically modified seeds sold and controlled by Monsanto are putting at enormous risk age-old agricultural patterns under the presumptuous slogan of aiming at solving the huge problem of hunger in the world.

On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE � French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, entitled 'The World According to Monsanto' (Le Monde selon Monsanto). Starting from the Internet over a period of three years Robin has collected material for her documentary, going on to numerous interviews with people of very different backgrounds. She traveled widely, from Latin America, to Asia, through Europe and the United States, to personally interview farmers and people in influential positions.

Link

Hearing on Limits of Executive Power: Dennis Kucinich

June Star - Gone
Chicago, IL / Feb. 18, 2008

The Greatest Threat America Has Ever Faced: the GOP?

The Mother of All Messes
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.”One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made?

It is impossible to imagine a bigger mess. Republicans have us at war in two countries as a result of Republican lies and deceptions, and we might be in two more wars--Iran and Pakistan--by November. We have alienated the entire Muslim world and most of the rest.The dollar has lost 60% of its value against the euro, and the once mighty dollar is losing its reserve currency role.

The Republicans’ policies have driven up the price of both oil and gold by 400%.Inflation is in double digits. Employment is falling.

LINK TO CON.

Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com.

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. I'd hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we'd sleep right there on the floor. By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother's dining room furniture. I have no oil for hot water. We boil our water on the stove and pour it in the tub. I'd like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capital building... we are certainly a country in distress. -- Letter from a single mother in a Vermont city, to Senator Bernie Sanders

The Republican and Democratic conventions are just around the corner, which means that we're at a critical time in our nation's history. For this is the moment when the country's political and media consensus finally settles on the line of bullshit it will be selling to the public as the "national debate" come fall.

If you pay close attention you can actually see the trial balloons whooshing overhead. There have been numerous articles of late of the Whither the Debate? genus in the country's major dailes and news mags, pieces like Patrick Healy's "Target: Barack Obama. Strategy: What Day is it?" in the New York Times. They ostensibly wonder aloud about what respective "plans of attack" Barack Obama and John McCain will choose to pursue against one another in the fall.

In these pieces we already see the candidates trying on, like shoes, the various storylines we might soon have hammered into our heads like wartime slogans. Most hilarious from my viewpoint is the increasingly real possibility that the Republicans will eventually decide that their best shot against Obama is to pull out the old "He's a flip-flopper" strategy -- which would be pathetic, given that this was the same tired tactic they used against John Kerry four years ago, were it not for the damning fact that it might actually work again. (I'm actually not sure sometimes what is more repulsive: the bosh they trot out as campaign "issues," or the enthusiasm with which the public buys it.)

LINK TO CON.

Nunavut (Kronos Quartet and Tanya Tagaq)

Grammy-winning, genre-bending ensemble, Kronos Quartet present Nunavut, which includes a spectacular musical collaboration with groundbreaking Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq and a world première piece by Hurdy-Gurdy, commissioned by Luminato. Isabel Bader Theatre.

Dispatches from the Fields: The risks of farming for 'non-farmers'
No government disaster assistance for alternative farmers in Iowa
Posted by Ariane Lotti

Now that Iowa has started to dry out from record flooding, farmers are looking to their fields and feeling the uncertainty of this year's crop. For conventional commodity crop farmers, that feeling is fleeting; they can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that government-backed crop insurance and disaster assistance programs [PDF] will cover their losses. For Iowa's alternative farmers, government-backed crop insurance is a pipe dream that requires them to be innovative in their risk management strategies.

Conventional commodity crop farmers can turn to the government for help in times of crop disasters, and with the passage of the 2008 Farm Bill, disaster assistance has become a permanent program. This means that in addition to benefiting from government-subsidized crop insurance, commodity crop farmers will also have a government program to fall back on when "disaster" strikes (often in the form of drought or flooding). How these funds will be used in Iowa has yet to be determined as the regulations have yet to be written, but the USDA's Risk Management Agency has started providing assistance to commodity farmers for how to deal with crop losses and to seek assistance.

LINK to continue.

Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet

A different world of pick'en!

A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss

Eating locally raised food is a growing trend. But who has time to get to the farmer’s market, let alone plant a garden?

That is where Trevor Paque comes in. For a fee, Mr. Paque, who lives in San Francisco, will build an organic garden in your backyard, weed it weekly and even harvest the bounty, gently placing a box of vegetables on the back porch when he leaves.

Call them the lazy locavores — city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty. Mr. Paque is typical of a new breed of business owner serving their needs.

LINK

Disaster Capitalism, State of Extortion
By Naomi Klein

Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well--until it doesn't.

For instance, "independent conservative" radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: "I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down," Doyle announced. "We've invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin' Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government.... Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years."

There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: "We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so.

LINK TO CON.

How Democrats Could Turn Texas Into the Blue Star State
By Bob Moser

"Did I mention that it's fun to be a Democrat in Texas?" asks Matt Glazer, editor in chief of the Burnt Orange Report, the state's leading progressive blog. He has, in fact, mentioned it a couple of times over beers at Scholz Garten, a legendary liberal hangout in Austin, and always with the same glimmer of happy bemusement behind his black-frame blogger specs. I'd been seeing that look in Democrats' eyes all over Texas in early June--at their raucous, record-breaking state convention, at local Democratic shindigs, in giddily overburdened Obama HQs. "It's like everyone who toiled on that Democratic death march for years, when it was so difficult, is now seeing daylight," says Josh Berthume of the Dallas suburb Denton, editor in chief of TheTexasBlue.com and another key player in a vigorous blogosphere that has helped ignite the startling Democratic flare-up here, in the bright red heart of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove's "permanent" Republican majority.

The very notion of Texas Democrats glimpsing daylight--of America's biggest chunk of Republican real estate being shaded pink on the '08 election map--seems almost absurd, a contradiction in terms, even to those who are making it happen. Like many of the nuevo pols, bloggers and progressive activists who are constructing a state-of-the-art Democratic machine in Texas, Glazer and Berthume are too young to remember the last time skies were blue for the party that ruled Texas politics from Reconstruction clear through to Reagan/Bush. So is Burnt Orange publisher Karl-Thomas Musselman, who's 23. "The last time Democrats won my hometown"--a small outpost in the central Hill Country--"was 1964," he says. "And that was only because President Johnson brought the chancellor of Germany to Fredericksburg for a visit."

LINK TO CON.

Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water
By ANDREW MARTIN

CAIRO — Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant supply of water.For decades nations in this region have drained aquifers, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the mighty Nile to make the deserts bloom. But those projects were so costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 percent or more of their staples.

Now, the worldwide food crisis is making many countries in this politically volatile region rethink that math.

The population of the region has more than quadrupled since 1950, to 364 million, and is expected to reach nearly 600 million by 2050. By that time, the amount of fresh water available for each person, already scarce, will be cut in half, and declining resources could inflame political tensions further.

LINK TO CON.

Africa's women last and least in food crisis
Cultural expectations ensure women are hardest hit amid growing scarcity
By Kevin Sullivan

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - After she woke in the dark to sweep city streets, after she walked an hour to buy less than $2 worth of food, after she cooked for two hours in the searing noon heat, Fanta Lingani served her family's only meal of the day.

First she set out a bowl of corn mush, seasoned with tree leaves, dried fish and wood ashes, for the 11 smallest children, who tore into it with bare hands.

Then she set out a bowl for her husband. Then two bowls for a dozen older children. Then finally, after everyone else had finished, a bowl for herself. She always eats last.

LINK TO CON.

Murdering God: Of Shotguns, American Capitalism, and Moral Expediency
By Jason Miller
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

-Nietzsche

Experiencing decreasing levels of the comfort that ensures our loyalty to the criminal enterprise of American Capitalism, we “average” US Americans comprising the poor, working class, and rapidly shrinking middle class still revel in our relatively meaningless social freedoms (we can say “fuck you” to George Bush but can’t even get our “elected representatives” to impeach him for his Nuremberg class war crimes) as the economic manacles and shackles of wage slavery clamp ever tighter about our wrists and ankles.

In pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, we sell our souls for a relative handful of economic crumbs from the table of the US power elite and their express permission to do whatever we please (as long as we stay within “free speech zones,” don’t threaten public officials, commit no acts that impede the sacred cow of commerce, “just say no” to drugs, pay our taxes that fund a massive military apparatus (that has slaughtered millions) and prop up the Zionist squatters in Palestine, look the other way as amoral corporations rape the Earth and torture billions of non-human animals each year, ignore the abject criminality of corporados, Wall Streeters, and those we have “elected,” and act as cogs in the machineries of capitalism to avoid exercising our right to sleep under a bridge).

LINK TO CON.

Fresh generation of volunteers takes road to organic farms
By JESSICA SIDMAN / The Dallas Morning News

WACO – In 27-year-old Chris Becker's cramped New York City apartment building, neighbors rarely greeted one another beyond a head nod or a grunt. Mr. Becker, a chef, spent 2 ½ hours commuting every day and worked up to 80 hours a week in a restaurant where chicken with sage, sangiovese, schiacciata and carrots went for $90.

Now he's given it all up to harvest vegetables in the hot Texas sun – without pay.

Mr. Becker and his wife, Amanda Becker, 28, are spending the summer on an organic farm near Waco run by World Hunger Relief, a nonprofit that provides free dormlike housing and food to young volunteers in exchange for their labor.

And it's not just the Beckers. Twenty-somethings across the country are fleeing the cities and suburbs to volunteer on organic farms.

LINK TO CON.

Great band from Uruguay, US, and Argentina
Bajofondo- Pa Bailar

Memories of Beer Lovers, Hemp Farmers & Bloody Revolution
by Mike Ely

Ok, I admit it. I’m not your usual observer. When I heard that Budweiser had been bought by the Euro-capitalists InBev, I was not concerned.

I don’t care who owns the factories in the U.S. I don’t worry the U.S. heartland is being infiltrated by foreign interests. And certainly, I don’t consider Budweiser a national treasure. The truth is that it’s almost undrinkable.

But my ears perked up when I read how Budweiser’s maker, Anheuser-Bush had roots in St. Louis that went back before the Civil War. Ah, my friends, THERE is a story worth telling. And I’m going to sit back in the damp heat of this Chicago evening, sip on a couple of Fat Tires, and tell it to you, just because I hate patriotic bullshit and because I love revolution.

First, there is nothing American about beer making in St. Louis.

LINK TO CON.

How Bush's No Fly List is Making Americans Unsafe
Airport Gestapo
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Bush Regime’s “terrorist” protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the “terrorist” watch list.

One of them is that of former Assistant US Attorney General Jim Robinson, whose top security clearances are current. Every time Mr.Robinson flies away on business, he is delayed by a totally incompetent “terrorist” protection racket that cannot tell a person named Jim Robinson, who served in the highest echelons of the US government, from a Muslim terrorist.

What confidence can we have in a regime that is incapable of differentiating an Assistant US Attorney General from a terrorist?

Mr. Robinson said: “If I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it, but I doubt it. I expect my story is similar to hundreds of thousands of people who are on this list and find themselves inconvenienced.”

LINK TO CON.

As Price of Grain Rises, Catfish Farms Dry Up
By DAVID STREITFELD, NY TIMES

LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds. “It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.

As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.”

Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price in the last two years, for many reasons: harvest shortfalls, increasing demand by the Asian middle class, government mandates for corn to produce ethanol and, most recently, the flooding in the Midwest.This is creating a bonanza for corn and soybean farmers but is wreaking havoc on consumers, who are seeing price spikes in the grocery store and in restaurants. Hog and chicken producers as well as cattle ranchers, all of whom depend on grain for feed, are being severely squeezed.

LINK TO CON.

How to buy organics while on a budget
As grocery prices soar, more shoppers are looking for bargains
By Herb Weisbaum

If you’re like me, your household budget is getting clobbered by the one-two punch of $4-plus-a-gallon gasoline and higher food prices. Most of us can find a way to drive less, but we all have to eat.

To stretch their food dollars, people are changing the way they shop. For some, that means buying fewer organic products or taking them off the shopping list entirely.

“The statistics aren’t available yet, but there’s definitely been trading down by consumers in many areas,” says Brian Todd, CEO of The Food Institute, a non-profit organization in Elmwood, N.J., that tracks supermarket trends. “Consumers are going from national brands to private labels and from more expensive produce, and that would include organics, to lower-priced produce,” he says.

LINK TO CON.

Not All Apples Are Created Equal

Scientists Say Organic Foods Are More Nutritious - Are Government Officials Listening?Don’t ask the US federal government whether there are any health benefits to eating organic food. It won’t tell. No mere coincidence, then, that no pictures of farmers or farms (or fertilizers or pesticides) appear in the USDA food pyramid logo. The federal government encourages the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and grains, but stops short of evaluating the farming systems that produce these same foods. An apple is an apple regardless of how it has been grown, the USDA food pyramid suggests, and the only take-home message is that we should all be eating more apples and less added sugars and fats.

But this message may be too simplistic. Over the past decade, scientists have begun conducting sophisticated comparisons of foods grown in organic and conventional farming systems. They’re finding that not all apples (or tomatoes, kiwis, or milk) are equal, especially when in comes to nutrient and pesticide levels. How farmers grow their crops affects, sometimes dramatically, not only how nutritious food is, but also how safe it is to eat. It may well be that a federal food policy that fails to acknowledge the connection between what happens on the farm and the healthfulness of foods is enough to make a nation sick.

The Results Are In

LINK TO CON.

The Real-Life "24" of Summer 2008
Sunday 13 July 2008
by: Frank Rich, The New York Times

We know what a criminal White House looks like from 'The Final Days,' Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's classic account of Richard Nixon's unraveling. The cauldron of lies, paranoia and illegal surveillance boiled over, until it was finally every man for himself as desperate courtiers scrambled to save their reputations and, in a few patriotic instances, their country.

'The Final Days' was published in 1976, two years after Nixon abdicated in disgrace. With the Bush presidency, no journalist (or turncoat White House memoirist) is waiting for the corpse to be carted away. The latest and perhaps most chilling example arrives this week from Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, long a relentless journalist on the war-on-terror torture beat. Her book 'The Dark Side' connects the dots of her own past reporting and that of her top-tier colleagues (including James Risen and Scott Shane of The New York Times) to portray a White House that, like its prototype, savaged its enemies within almost as ferociously as it did the Constitution.

LINK TO CON.

Interview With Rep. Dennis Kucinich
by: Maya Schenwar
Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced a new article of impeachment against President Bush in the House last Thursday. In a single, pointed resolution, he charged the president with lying to Congress about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, in order to obtain permission for a US attack.

In the hour before Kucinich brought his resolution to the floor, he sat down with Truthout for an interview.
We discussed the politics of justice, the quest for peace and the rationale for holding the administration accountable for its decisions on Iraq.
"The case for war was based on fraud," he said. "That's the core charge in this impeachment resolution. And it just takes one article to be able to force the administration and the president to the consequences of their deceit."

LINK TO INTERVIEW

Ernie Halter- soul, rock, acoustic

California-based singer-songwriter Ernie Halter will be releasing his next album, entitled "Starting Over," on August 5th via Rock Ridge Music. The digital version (available via digital download portals) will precede the brick and mortar release on July 15th. "The new record is called 'Starting Over' for a reason," says Halter. "I wanted the title to be direct, simple, and set the tone for the album. In this past year, I experienced the unraveling of my marriage and the birth of my first son. It was during this year that I wrote the material for the new record and performed over 150 shows. More than ever I think it's important to be as open and honest as possible, both as a songwriter and as a person. One positive side to the tumultuous year I've had is this new-found freedom to say it as it is, to admit who I am and where I've been, faults and all. I feel this is a total crossroads for me."

"Starting Over" was recorded in early 2008 in New York City and is the follow-up to 2007's "Congress Hotel." On the eleven-track new album, Ernie mixes blue-eyed soul, pop, and rock in a style that is both familiar, unique and always inimitably Halter. His vocal delivery is percussive and smooth, raw and real, his phrasing often an instrument itself. Stylistically, Halter endeavored to make "Starting Over" sound more organic and a little less polished than previous recordings. Halter's long-time drummer Michael Peters and bassist Zack Rudulph flew out from Halter's hometown of Los Angeles to record with him. Jason Spiewak (Five.Bolt.Main, Chris Volz) sat in the production seat.

The entire recording process, for perhaps the first time ever, was broadcast over the internet from their New York City studio. Says Halter: "To my knowledge, nobody has ever done that." Halter has been called a pioneer by many including EQ Magazine and text broadcasting company Mozes (Halter was one of its first artists) for his technologically-oriented approach to connecting with fans. Halter elaborates: "I am making this record for me and them, and I wanted them to see their record being made." It was actually Halter's tech-savvy approach to promoting and marketing his music that garnered the attention of his management and label, Rock Ridge Music, in the first place: Halter was one of the first artists to really take advantage of MySpace as a promotional tool. Utilizing his tech know-how and his extraordinarily focused work ethic, Halter has incorporated such unique features on the page as a live "tour van cam" and nightly webcasts of his concerts across the United States.

WINDOWS MEDIA AUDIO: Ernie Halter "My Heart Is With You" –
http://vista.streamguys.com/jspiewak/ernie_heart.wma

WINDOWS MEDIA AUDIO: Ernie Hatler "Cyclone" -
http://vista.streamguys.com/jspiewak/ernie_cyclone.wma

Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman: President Bush has lifted an almost two-decade-old executive order banning offshore and natural gas drilling. With prices at the pump over $4 a gallon, Bush has been pushing to allow more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, amidst strong opposition from environmentalists.

The executive drilling ban was issued by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. His son's lifting of the ban yesterday is largely symbolic, because a separate congressional ban has prohibited offshore drilling since 1981. Speaking on the White House lawn Monday, the President urged lawmakers to lift the ban.

President George Bush: The failure to act is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, and it's unacceptable to the American people. So today I've issued a memorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration in the OCS. With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the US Congress. Now the ball is squarely in Congress's court.

LINK TO CON.

Too Old and Brain-dead
By Joel Hirschhorn

In the over half a century that I have been politically engaged I have never seen such an unqualified presidential candidate as John McCain. There are tens of millions of Americans in their seventies and beyond that have been smart enough to become technology literate, but not McCain, who is unable to even use the Internet. The man has a medical history that makes Dick Cheney look like the picture of great health.

How anyone can still see McCain as a legitimate maverick is insane. The man has switched positions on so many key issues as to make him unbelievable on anything. He routinely says things in public that are totally false. McCain has sold his soul to get the Republican nomination and while Republicans deserve no better, Americans would be beyond stupid to vote for McCain. Yet if polls are to be believed history could repeat itself and nearly half of voters could vote for him. For me this is entirely understandable, because I find Barack Obama a clever charlatan and nothing more than another conventional, dishonest politician with exceptional eloquence and a winning smile. Is he the lesser evil compared to McCain? Sure. But that just depresses me, not motivate me to vote for him.

The contrast between the youthful Obama and the elderly McCain simply on the basis of visible physical and mental sharpness and vigor is remarkable.

LINK TO CON.

Iran Shows Its Cards
By Scott Ritter

There can no longer be any doubt about the consequences of any U.S. and/or Israeli military action against Iran. Armchair warriors, pundits and blustering politicians alike have been advocating a pre-emptive military strike against Iran for the purpose of neutralizing its nuclear-related infrastructure, as well as retarding Iran’s ability to train and equip “terrorist” forces on Iranian soil before dispatching them to Iraq or parts unknown. Some, including me, have warned of the folly of such action, and now Iran itself has demonstrated why an attack would be insane

I’ve always pointed out that no plan survives initial contact with the enemy, and furthermore one can never forget that, in war, the enemy gets to vote. On the issue of an American and/or Israeli attack on Iran, the Iranian military has demonstrated exactly how it would cast its vote. Iran recently fired off medium- and long-range missiles and rockets, in a clear demonstration of capability and intent. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, regional oil production capability and U.S. military concentrations, along with Israeli cities, would all be subjected to an Iranian military response if Iran was attacked.

LINK TO CON.

A Bellwether Battle Against Neoliberalism in the Americas
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil
By JOHN ROSS

The countdown to the denouement of the great debate over privatization of Mexico's oil industry looms just weeks away and both sides in this bellwether battle against neo-liberalism are sharpening up their knives. With formal debate in the Senate set to end July 22nd, President Felipe Calderon's privatization imitative is on the legislative fast track for a quick vote - Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel urges legislators from Calderon's rightist PAN party, which holds a slim majority in both houses, to call a special session the moment debate ends to vote up the proposed "energy reform" package over the objections of the opposition.

Last April, during a similar putsch by the PANistas and their allies in the once-ruling PRI to fast track privatization, leftist senators and deputies seized the podiums of their respective houses and paralyzed the legislative process for 13 days to force a national debate on the issue. Thousands of women formed brigades - "Las Adelitas", inspired by women soldiers during Mexico's revolution - donned long skirts, big sombreros, bandaleros, hoisted toy carbines, and surrounded the Senate building in support of the striking legislators of the Broad Progressive Front or FAP. The PAN accused the Adelitas of waging a guerrilla war against the legislative process and threatened to call the military.

LINK TO CON.

Going to the Roots
Fixing a Broken Agriculture
By STAN COX

The ecological destruction in progress all around us grows out of the human economy’s unvarying tendency to overproduce what is profitable while at the same time underproducing what is needed. There is no better example of that than American agriculture [1]. Efforts to bring agriculture into line with ecological reality fall into two classes. Some efforts can be started today and will help get humanity through mid-century. Others (which also must be accelerated, and soon) will take longer to complete but will be necessary to sustain agriculture to the end of the century and beyond.

In the short run: go to the roots of the economy
The energy content of food produced for residents of the United States has risen from 3200 calories per person per day in the 1970s to almost 4000 today [2], approaching double the average daily requirement. Much of that is wasted. For many such reasons, shrinking the economic “throughput” of agriculture and associated industries can be a much more straightforward process than in other areas of human society, and it need not mean that anyone need go undernourished.

LINK TO CON.

Countdown: War Crimes Prosecutions Possible

Wal-Mart Comes to the Farmers' Market
As the ground shifts under their feet, food giants experiment with new strategies
By Tom Philpott

For more than a generation, the major corporations that process and sell the vast bulk of our food have had it pretty easy.

They've had access to cheap energy to ship food over globe-spanning distances and run giant food-processing plants; reveled in cheap inputs like corn and soy, transforming them into everything from breakfast cereal to chicken nuggets; and relied on low-paid, abundant, and politically disenfranchised workers to do the dirty jobs. Together, these elements formed a kind of tripod propping up the industry's enormous profits even as food's retail price barely budged.

These companies fattened themselves on what economists call "monopsony" -- monopoly's shy but cunning cousin. When a few companies dominate a market and collude to jack up prices for their customers, they boldly risk incurring punishment by antitrust authorities. But when they quietly perform the opposite dirty trick on their suppliers and workers -- use their market power to force down prices and wages -- federal authorities tend to look the other way, as Barry C. Lynn showed in an important 2006 Harper's essay.

LINK TO CON.

Maker's Mark Fuels Operations with Bourbon Waste
By GreenBiz Staff

LORETTO, Ky. -- Marker's Mark has turned on a new treatment system at its Loretto, Ky., distillery, turning waste into energy for the facility.

The anaerobic digestion facility installed by waste management provider Ecovation will process stillage - the water, grain and yeast waste leftover from making bourbon - and produce a methane and carbon dioxide biogas for use in the distillery's boilers.

The stillage treatment, which was incorporated into the facility's existing wastewater treatment system, is expected to offset 15-30 percent of the distillery's natural gas use.

LINK.

Check out the carbon
Will eco-labeling contribute to consumer shopping confusion?
Posted by Ben Tuxworth

British supermarket shoppers face increasingly bewildering claims about the ethical qualities of products. In one of retail giant Tesco's stores, shoppers can opt for goods branded with the Soil Association's organic standard, the Fairtrade Foundation's logo, the British Farm standard, or chain-of-custody marks from the Marine Stewardship and Forest Stewardship Councils. They can linger over footprint information from the Carbon Trust or dolphin-based evaluation of the fishing methods used to catch their tuna. On another spectrum altogether, they are offered "Finest" and "Value" brands on Tesco's own goods. And on most products they're also expected to wade through nutritional assessments, guideline daily amounts, glycemic index counts, information on allergies, and of course, brand, quantity, and price.

As one weary consumer observed, supermarket shopping has become more like visiting a museum, with plenty to read and a clear educational agenda. Check-Out Carbon, a new report from my organization Forum for the Future, explores attempts to reduce the carbon intensity of the weekly shopping trip, and makes challenging reading for anyone hoping shoppers are taking it all in. After interviewing industry experts, conducting focus groups with consumers, and commissioning a survey of 1,000 U.K. adults, we found a surprising consensus: Despite the race to get ethically branded goods into stores, we're all expecting too much of shopper choice.

LINK

Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms
By SUSAN SAULNY, NY TIMES

CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. — In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.

On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.

“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.

Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon — in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.

LINK TO CON.

FISA Fight: Attack Of The Epic Failure
by: MBoz

Today is going to go down as a dark day in our nation's history, as the Senate completes its total capitulation to the Bush administration and its corporate masters, through passing legislation that dramatically expands the government's surveillance powers and immunizes the companies responsible for illegally spying on us from any form of legal redress for the victims.

MBoz :: FISA Fight: Attack Of The Epic Failure

It's unbelievable that nearly three years of campaigning, legislating, debating, and shouting from the rooftops on this issue, one of the most important of the time, has had almost no effect. Worse yet, the new law that is about to be passed is the worst possible permutation imaginable--not only does it perform all the aforementioned perfidious tasks of justifying lawbreaking and expanding our surveillance state, it practically removes all oversight from the process and allows the surveillance system to be easily tailored to pick on purely domestic issues, ranging from illegal online gambling to P2P file sharing. All the Attorney General and the DNI have to do now is say, "Hey, the President authorized this. Here's his signature," and the FISA judge has to essentially sign off on a rubber-stamp for surveillance of potentially dozens--hundreds--of people, all without individual warrants. Because, of course, no sitting President or Attorney General would ever abuse such a system for their own ends. No sir.

This was a battle the Democrats absolutely could have won.

LINK

A letter by my firend (The Dude) sent to the senator of Montana after he voted in favor of HR 6304.
Senator Baucus:
I was sorely disappointed to see that you voted in favor of the amendment to H.R. 6304. This is one more step in the wrong direction for America. Our civil liberties have been trashed by the Bush Administration; what is worse, though, is that congress is allowing it to happen. Democrats have the majority in both the House and the Senate, yet nothing has changed. We are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan; the poor are still being pillaged by taxes, while the rich get off scot-free; absolutely nothing has been done on the national scale to combat global warming; every year, the president's budget is passed, no questions asked; and our civil liberties are being stripped away, one at a time. In America, we pride ourselves on being some kind of great democracy, but what is democracy when even those who have been elected to protect our 'freedom' will not stand against those who are taking it from us? Does the system of checks and balances, which we were so grandly taught about in grade school, even exist anymore? I understand that this is an election year for you, and so you have to vote in a way that will make it more difficult for your opponents to make you look bad; that is the only explanation I can think of for such a backward vote as the one you cast today, July 9. But in your enthusiasm to 'protect' us from the evil terrorists, you have stripped one more shred of our freedom and protection from our own government. Senator Baucus, I am a registered Democrat, but I am seriously considering NOT voting for you in November. I have been disgusted with the Senate's inability to accomplish, well, anything in recent years. You have allowed yourselves to be pushed around at the whim of the Bush Administration, yet is is us - the voters and taxpayers - who are paying the price. I had been struggling over who to vote for in recent months, but this most recent vote seems to have made my choice much easier: anyone but Baucus. Thank you for taking the time to read my message. I sincerely hope it leads you next time to vote not for what is best for your 'image', but what is best for the citizens of the United States. Best of luck to you, Senator.

It's the Oil, stupid!
BY NOAM CHOMSKY

The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq — questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of their country.

Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies — to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia.

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America's love affair fades as the car becomes burden of suburbia
By Paul Harris

It is known as the Inland Empire: a vast stretch of land tucked in the high desert valleys east of Los Angeles. Once home to fruit trees and Indians, it is now a concrete sprawl of jammed freeways, endless suburbs and shopping malls.

But here, in the heartland of the four-wheel drive, a revolution is under way. What was once unthinkable is becoming a shocking reality: America's all-consuming love affair with the car is fading.

Surging petrol prices have worked where environmental arguments have failed. Many Americans have long been told to cut back on car use. Now, facing $4-a-gallon fuel, they have no choice.

Take Adam Garcia, a security guard who works near the railway station in Riverside. Like many Inland Empire residents, he commutes a huge distance: 100 miles a day. He used to think nothing of it. But now, faced with petrol costs that have tripled, he is taking action. He has even altered the engine of his car to boost its mileage. 'I have to. Everyone does. I can't afford to drive as much as I did,' he said

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GE Sugar Beets to Hit Stores in 2008!

American Crystal, a large Wyoming-based sugar company and several other leading U.S. sugar providers have announced they will be sourcing their sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets beginning this year and arriving in stores in 2008. Like GE corn and GE soy, products containing GE sugar will not be labeled as such.

Since half of the granulated sugar in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, a move towards biotech beets marks a dramatic alteration of the U.S. food supply. These sugars, along with GE corn and soy, are found in many conventional food products, so consumers will be exposed to genetically engineered ingredients in just about every non-organic multiple-ingredient product they purchase.

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Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin reported in today's New York Times that, "At least 29 countries have sharply curbed food exports in recent months, to ensure that their own people have enough to eat, at affordable prices. "When it comes to rice, India, Vietnam, China and 11 other countries have limited or banned exports. Fifteen countries, including Pakistan and Bolivia, have capped or halted wheat exports. More than a dozen have limited corn exports. Kazakhstan has restricted exports of sunflower seeds.

"The restrictions are making it harder for impoverished importing countries to afford the food they need. The export limits are forcing some of the most vulnerable people, those who rely on relief agencies, to go hungry."'It's obvious that these export restrictions fuel the fire of price increases,' said Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organization."

Bradsher and Martin explained that, "The new restrictions are just an acute symptom of a chronic condition. Since 1980, even as trade in services and in manufactured goods has tripled, adjusting for inflation, trade in food has barely increased. Instead, for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies.

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G8 Summit: Global Capitalist Get-Together
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
The 34th G-8 summit in Hokkaido, Toyako, Japan from 7 to 9 July 2008 is slated to discuss and reach consensus on issues under the main themes of world economy, environment and climate change, development and Africa and political issues. As their imperialist character dictates, the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia will seek to harmonize their policies in further exploiting and oppressing the proletariat and people of the world.

The policy of “free market” globalization has failed to override the fundamental ills of monopoly capitalism and has brought about the worst economic and financial crisis of the world capitalist system since the Great Depression. In this dire context, the summiteers have highlighted in advance the need for stabilizing the turbulent financial market. But the US is not being held to account for its main responsibility in generating the economic and financial crisis.

What can be expected are some moderated references to the mortgage meltdown and the international credit crunch. But certainly no serious concern will be expressed by the summiteers about the accelerated crisis of global capitalism under the myth of neoliberalism and the high costs of aggressive wars under the pretext of anti-terrorism. As matter of public relations, the summiteers will take up the soaring prices of fuel and food and pretend to be concerned about the plight of the working people and the underdeveloped countries. But they will not hold the oil and food cartels to account.

LINK TO CON.

America...
...It's Time For Some Wake Up Calls !
by David Lawrence Dewey

America...it is time for some wake up calls! I am going to be very blunt in this column. Someone has to start speaking up and stop this insanity that has been going on in this country the last 8 years. You're probably not going to like what I have to say, but it has to be said.

We've had a bunch of clueless idiots who have been steering our country right over a cliff, corporate thieves stealing us blind, the largest transfer of wealth from one class of citizens to another class and most importantly, America's wealth has left the country. I'll tell you more about that later on.

We have a bunch of talking heads in this country on radio programs and television programs that don't know what they are talking about. You know the ones I am talking about. They are feeding Americans political mis-informed agendas.

We have Americans who are more concerned about who wins American Idol, and who'd rather watch reality shows like CBS's Survivor or Big Brother watching people lie and cheat one another for what? Money? America has lost its' value system of what is right and what is wrong. We have rap music with words such, "Gonna kill that bitch." Am I the only one that sees these things?

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Michael Pollan on What's Wrong with Environmentalism
By Kate Cheney Davidson, Yale Environment 360.

It's easy to think of Michael Pollan as a food writer. After all, his most successful books-- including his most recent, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto-- focus on food and the implications of the choices we make about what we eat. But Pollan's work also delves deeply into the environmental effects of those choices-- from the impact of America's corn-based agriculture on its ecosystems to the carbon impact of industrial-scale farming. And Pollan, who serves as Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, has emerged as a staunch advocate of buying local food, growing one's own produce, and generally making the kind of individual lifestyle choices that could lead to society-wide change in consumption habits.

San Francisco-based journalist Kate Cheney Davidson recently interviewed Pollan at his home in Berkeley, California. In a wide-ranging discussion, Pollan talked about the need to cut back U.S. ethanol subsidies, why victory gardens worked, and why environmentalism needs to shift its focus from preserving wilderness to creating sustainability.

Kate Cheney Davidson: In your book An Omnivore's Dilemma, you explore the environmental, ethical, and political implications of our food system. Increasingly you hear people talk about the environmental or "carbon" impact of food. Do you think the footprint of our food has gotten any smaller since that book came out a couple of years ago?

LINK TO INTERVIEW.

In Brazil, Monsanto and Syngenta Lead Farm Model that Destroys Indians and Environment
Written by MST

The approval of Brazil's Provisionary Measure 422 (Medida Provisória (MP) 422) by the Brazilian federal deputies on Tuesday night, May 27, a few hours after the resignation of Marina Silva, the ministry of the Environment, confirms that the defense of biodiversity is losing the battle against deforestation and development at whatever cost, which are defended by diverse sectors of the government.

The recently approved MP 422 can be translated as the "legalization of land grabbing". It deals with the sale of public lands of up to 1,500 hectares without bidding - broadening the limit by a thousand hectares - under the tutelage of INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, or Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária).

Now, MP 422 awaits the company of the Draft Act proposed by senator Flex Ribeiro (PSDB-PA), or PL 6.424, another large incentive to the devastation. This law will reduce the requirement for legal reserves (areas for forest preservation) in Amazonian properties from 80% to 50%.

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