PLENTY OF ADULTS LEFT BEHIND
WILL LESTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS - About 40 percent of Americans say they consider talk show host Bill O'Reilly a journalist - more than would define famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward the same way, according to a poll conducted this spring. . . Only 30 percent of those polled said Woodward was a journalist, while 53 percent said they didn't know. . . More than a quarter said talk show host Rush Limbaugh was one, while one in five said they considered newspaper columnist George Will to be a journalist.
(Article Here)
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
TORTURE
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS AMERICAN GULAGS
USA TODAY - The Supreme Court unanimously upheld an Ohio corrections policy that allows the most dangerous criminals to be locked up in isolated super-maximum-security prison cells. But the justices also found that prisoners have a constitutional interest in avoiding assignment to such cells. As a result, prison officials must ensure that there are several levels of review when a prisoner is transferred to a cell designed to deprive an inmate of almost all human contact and which, in Ohio, eliminates the chance of parole.
USA TODAY - The Supreme Court unanimously upheld an Ohio corrections policy that allows the most dangerous criminals to be locked up in isolated super-maximum-security prison cells. But the justices also found that prisoners have a constitutional interest in avoiding assignment to such cells. As a result, prison officials must ensure that there are several levels of review when a prisoner is transferred to a cell designed to deprive an inmate of almost all human contact and which, in Ohio, eliminates the chance of parole.
Not Quite Capitalist Enough
VANCOUVER'S CAR CO-OP
But what about The Ownership Society, huh?--Pete
Vancouver's car co-op hit an important milestone this week when it added the 100th vehicle to its fleet. The co-op has nearly 2,000 members that pay monthly and usage fees for access to cars, trucks and vans parked across the Lower Mainland. Members say they save money on gas, insurance and maintenance because they don't own the cars. They say they don't sacrifice convenience, either.
"There are about five cars within easy walking distance of where I live," says Tom Durrie a member of the Co-operative Auto Network. "They are all over the city, so it's not as if you need to go great distances to get one."
(Article here)
But what about The Ownership Society, huh?--Pete
Vancouver's car co-op hit an important milestone this week when it added the 100th vehicle to its fleet. The co-op has nearly 2,000 members that pay monthly and usage fees for access to cars, trucks and vans parked across the Lower Mainland. Members say they save money on gas, insurance and maintenance because they don't own the cars. They say they don't sacrifice convenience, either.
"There are about five cars within easy walking distance of where I live," says Tom Durrie a member of the Co-operative Auto Network. "They are all over the city, so it's not as if you need to go great distances to get one."
(Article here)
WORDS
JAMES MCBRIDE, PRATT UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT SPEECH
If I were 21 I would walk the earth. I would go barefoot longer; I'd learn how to throw a Frisbee, I'd go braless if I were a woman and I would wear no underwear if I were a man. I'd play cards and wear the same pair of jeans until they were so stiff they could get up and strut around the room by themselves. ... So don't take the short road. Fool around. Have fun. ... You're not going to get this time back. Don't panic and go to graduate school and law school. This nation has enough frightened, dissatisfied yuppies living in gated communities, driving S.U.V.'s and wondering where their youth went.
We need you to walk the earth, so that other nations can see the beauty of American youth, rather than seeing our young in combat fatigues behind the barrel of an M-16.
http://world.std.com/~emg/followme.html
If I were 21 I would walk the earth. I would go barefoot longer; I'd learn how to throw a Frisbee, I'd go braless if I were a woman and I would wear no underwear if I were a man. I'd play cards and wear the same pair of jeans until they were so stiff they could get up and strut around the room by themselves. ... So don't take the short road. Fool around. Have fun. ... You're not going to get this time back. Don't panic and go to graduate school and law school. This nation has enough frightened, dissatisfied yuppies living in gated communities, driving S.U.V.'s and wondering where their youth went.
We need you to walk the earth, so that other nations can see the beauty of American youth, rather than seeing our young in combat fatigues behind the barrel of an M-16.
http://world.std.com/~emg/followme.html
WAR DEPARTMENT
WHERE OUR HEAD TORTURER GETS HIS INSPIRATION
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june02/rumsfeld_2-4.html
JIM LEHRER: But if somebody were to look at this budget - forget the money for a while - just look at what it buys, does it buy anything that different than what we already have?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I think when you say "that different," it's important to understand that you can - when the Germans transformed their armed forces into the Blitzkrieg, they transformed only about 5 or 10 percent of their force. Everything else was the same, but they transformed the way they used it, the connectivity between aircraft and forces on the ground, the concentration of it in a specific portion of the line, and it - one would not want to transform 100 percent of your forces. You only need to transform a portion.
The Third Reich being the standard, of course.--Pete
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june02/rumsfeld_2-4.html
JIM LEHRER: But if somebody were to look at this budget - forget the money for a while - just look at what it buys, does it buy anything that different than what we already have?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I think when you say "that different," it's important to understand that you can - when the Germans transformed their armed forces into the Blitzkrieg, they transformed only about 5 or 10 percent of their force. Everything else was the same, but they transformed the way they used it, the connectivity between aircraft and forces on the ground, the concentration of it in a specific portion of the line, and it - one would not want to transform 100 percent of your forces. You only need to transform a portion.
The Third Reich being the standard, of course.--Pete
Something Rotten in Ohio
By Gore Vidal, The Nation
Posted on June 14, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22222/
Outside the oil and gas junta that controls two and a half branches of our government (the half soon to be whole is the judiciary), there was a good deal of envy at the late British election among those Americans who are serious about politics. Little money was spent by the three parties and none for TV advertising. Results were achieved swiftly and cheaply. Best of all, the three party leaders were quizzed sharply and intelligently by ordinary citizens known quaintly as subjects, thanks to the ubiquitous phantom crown so unlike our nuclear-taloned predatory eagle. Although news of foreign countries seldom appears in our tightly censored media (and good news, never), those of us who are addicted to C-SPAN and find it the one truly, if unconsciously, subversive media outlet in these United States are able to observe British politics in full cry.
I say "subversive" not only because C-SPAN is apt to take interesting books seriously but also because its live coverage of the Senate and the House of Representatives is the only look we are ever allowed at the mouthpieces of our masters up close and is, at times, most reflective of a government more and more remote from us, unaccountable and repressive. To watch the righteous old prophet Byrd of West Virginia, the sunny hypocrisy of Biden of Delaware -- as I write these hallowed names, I summon up their faces, hear their voices, and I am covered with C-SPAN goose bumps.
At any rate, wondrous C-SPAN has another string to its bow. While some executive was nodding, C-SPAN started showing us Britain's House of Commons during Question Time. This is the only glimpse that most Americans will ever get of how democracy is supposed to work.
These party leaders are pitted against one another in often savage debate on subjects of war and peace, health and education. Then some 600 Members of Parliament are allowed to ask questions of their great chieftains. Years ago the incomparable Dwight Macdonald wrote that any letter to the London Times (the Brits are inveterate letter writers on substantive issues) is better written than any editorial in the New York Times.
In addition to Question Time, which allows Americans to see how political democracy works, as opposed to our two chambers of lobbyists for corporate America, C-SPAN also showed the three party leaders being interrogated by a cross section of, for the most part, youthful subjects of the phantom crown and presided over by an experienced political journalist. Blair was roughly accused of lying about the legal advice he had received apropos Britain's right to go to war in Iraq for the US oil and gas junta. This BBC live audience asked far more informed and informative questions than the entire US press corps was allowed to ask Bush et al. in our recent election. But Americans are not used to challenging authority in what has been called wartime by a President who has ordered invasions of two countries that have done us no harm and is now planning future wars despite dwindling manpower and lack of money. Blair, for just going along, had to deal with savage, informed questions of a sort that Bush would never answer even if he were competent to do so.
So we have seen what democracy across the water can do. All in all a jarring experience for anyone foolish enough to believe that America is democratic in anything except furiously imprisoning the innocent and joyously electing the guilty. What to do? As a first step, I invite the radicals at C-SPAN who take seriously our Constitution and Bill of Rights to address their attention to the corruption of the presidential election of 2004, particularly in the state of Ohio.
One of the most useful members of the House -- currently the most useful -- is John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who, in his capacity as ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, led the committee's Democratic Congressmen and their staffers into the heart of the American heartland, the Western Reserve; specifically, into the not-so-red state of Ohio, once known as "the mother of Presidents."
He had come to answer the question that the minority of Americans who care about the Republic have been asking since November 2004: "What went wrong in Ohio?" He is too modest to note the difficulties he must have undergone even to assemble this team in the face of the triumphalist Republican Congressional majority, not to mention the unlikely heir to himself, George W. Bush, whose original selection by the Supreme Court brought forth many reports on what went wrong in Florida in 2000.
Read More...
Posted on June 14, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22222/
Outside the oil and gas junta that controls two and a half branches of our government (the half soon to be whole is the judiciary), there was a good deal of envy at the late British election among those Americans who are serious about politics. Little money was spent by the three parties and none for TV advertising. Results were achieved swiftly and cheaply. Best of all, the three party leaders were quizzed sharply and intelligently by ordinary citizens known quaintly as subjects, thanks to the ubiquitous phantom crown so unlike our nuclear-taloned predatory eagle. Although news of foreign countries seldom appears in our tightly censored media (and good news, never), those of us who are addicted to C-SPAN and find it the one truly, if unconsciously, subversive media outlet in these United States are able to observe British politics in full cry.
I say "subversive" not only because C-SPAN is apt to take interesting books seriously but also because its live coverage of the Senate and the House of Representatives is the only look we are ever allowed at the mouthpieces of our masters up close and is, at times, most reflective of a government more and more remote from us, unaccountable and repressive. To watch the righteous old prophet Byrd of West Virginia, the sunny hypocrisy of Biden of Delaware -- as I write these hallowed names, I summon up their faces, hear their voices, and I am covered with C-SPAN goose bumps.
At any rate, wondrous C-SPAN has another string to its bow. While some executive was nodding, C-SPAN started showing us Britain's House of Commons during Question Time. This is the only glimpse that most Americans will ever get of how democracy is supposed to work.
These party leaders are pitted against one another in often savage debate on subjects of war and peace, health and education. Then some 600 Members of Parliament are allowed to ask questions of their great chieftains. Years ago the incomparable Dwight Macdonald wrote that any letter to the London Times (the Brits are inveterate letter writers on substantive issues) is better written than any editorial in the New York Times.
In addition to Question Time, which allows Americans to see how political democracy works, as opposed to our two chambers of lobbyists for corporate America, C-SPAN also showed the three party leaders being interrogated by a cross section of, for the most part, youthful subjects of the phantom crown and presided over by an experienced political journalist. Blair was roughly accused of lying about the legal advice he had received apropos Britain's right to go to war in Iraq for the US oil and gas junta. This BBC live audience asked far more informed and informative questions than the entire US press corps was allowed to ask Bush et al. in our recent election. But Americans are not used to challenging authority in what has been called wartime by a President who has ordered invasions of two countries that have done us no harm and is now planning future wars despite dwindling manpower and lack of money. Blair, for just going along, had to deal with savage, informed questions of a sort that Bush would never answer even if he were competent to do so.
So we have seen what democracy across the water can do. All in all a jarring experience for anyone foolish enough to believe that America is democratic in anything except furiously imprisoning the innocent and joyously electing the guilty. What to do? As a first step, I invite the radicals at C-SPAN who take seriously our Constitution and Bill of Rights to address their attention to the corruption of the presidential election of 2004, particularly in the state of Ohio.
One of the most useful members of the House -- currently the most useful -- is John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who, in his capacity as ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, led the committee's Democratic Congressmen and their staffers into the heart of the American heartland, the Western Reserve; specifically, into the not-so-red state of Ohio, once known as "the mother of Presidents."
He had come to answer the question that the minority of Americans who care about the Republic have been asking since November 2004: "What went wrong in Ohio?" He is too modest to note the difficulties he must have undergone even to assemble this team in the face of the triumphalist Republican Congressional majority, not to mention the unlikely heir to himself, George W. Bush, whose original selection by the Supreme Court brought forth many reports on what went wrong in Florida in 2000.
Read More...
Monday, June 13, 2005
AMERICAN GENERAL ADMITS 'GOOD, HONEST' IRAQIS AMONG THOSE FIGHTING
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/RegionNF.asp?ArticleID=168406
PHIL SANDS, GULF NEWS - A senior US military chief has admitted "good, honest" Iraqis are fighting American forces. Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because "they're offended by our presence".
In an interview with Gulf News, he said: "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]."
General Taluto, head of the US 42nd Infantry Division which covers key trouble spots, including Baquba and Samarra, also said some Iraqis not involved in fighting did support insurgents who avoided hurting civilians.
He said: "There is a sense of a good resistance, or an accepted resistance. They say 'okay, if you shoot a coalition soldier, that's okay, it's not a bad thing but you shouldn't kill other Iraqis.'"
However General Taluto insisted the US and other foreign forces would not be driven out of Iraq by violence. "If the goal is to have the coalition leave, attacking them isn't the way," he said. "The way to make it happen is to enter the political process cooperate and the coalition will be less aggressive and less visible and eventually it'll go away."
PHIL SANDS, GULF NEWS - A senior US military chief has admitted "good, honest" Iraqis are fighting American forces. Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because "they're offended by our presence".
In an interview with Gulf News, he said: "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]."
General Taluto, head of the US 42nd Infantry Division which covers key trouble spots, including Baquba and Samarra, also said some Iraqis not involved in fighting did support insurgents who avoided hurting civilians.
He said: "There is a sense of a good resistance, or an accepted resistance. They say 'okay, if you shoot a coalition soldier, that's okay, it's not a bad thing but you shouldn't kill other Iraqis.'"
However General Taluto insisted the US and other foreign forces would not be driven out of Iraq by violence. "If the goal is to have the coalition leave, attacking them isn't the way," he said. "The way to make it happen is to enter the political process cooperate and the coalition will be less aggressive and less visible and eventually it'll go away."
Sunday, June 12, 2005
The Anti-Christ and I
By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 08 June 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060805A.shtml#
Satan rules, at least according to many of my fellow Americans. In recent surveys, over two-thirds of those polled said they believed the devil to be real, whether with or without horns and a tail.
Call him Lucifer, Mephistopheles, or the Evil One, his existence plays a major role in the way Americans see the world. Right-wingers, in particular, have found him extremely useful in attacking their political foes.
Racial segregationists, union-busters, and John Birchers historically pursued their own agendas by attacking opponents as devilish collaborators of "Godless communism." Far-right evangelicals still blast the United Nations as a Satanic force run by his End Time agent the anti-Christ, while Christian Reconstructionists tar-brush every intellectual current from humanism to modern science as the work of a diabolical hand. The Enlightenment was, after all, the devil's assault on faith.
Satan sells in the USA. That's why Ronald Reagan battled "the Evil Empire," and how George W. Bush uses "the Axis of Evil."
All of which boggles my mind. I don't know why, but even in my high school years I never believed in anything supernatural, good or bad, and I've long agreed with historians who view America's unending urge to hunt witches and other fiendish conspirators as a self-destructive defect in our national character. I don't even see the present occupant of the White House and his incubi as some singularly evil force, which often puts me at odds with others on my side of the political divide.
Still, let me suggest a leap of faith - not one that I can personally take, but one that many of my religious readers say they have already taken.
What if rational thought misses the cosmic plot? What if our prayerful president, his oil-soaked pre-emptive wars, and his amen chorus of religious reactionaries have come together to do the devil's work? What if Satan - and not just the demonic Dick Cheney - now drives the global train wreck?
For many believers, the evidence seems overwhelming.
A huge number of Americans call themselves born-again or Reconstructionist Christians but have turned their back on most of what their own Bible tells them that Christ taught. "Turn the other cheek" now inspires a worldwide gulag of CIA and Pentagon torture centers from Guantánamo to the Indian Ocean, while the Golden Rule has become "Do unto others before they do unto you."
Our Constitution tells us to keep God and government separate, but a new Supreme Court will likely overrule what the words plainly say and permit increasing application of "Biblical law." What better way to fuel ungodly religious strife?
The deficit and trade gap keep growing. The economy won't grow fast enough. High rollers and holy rollers buy and sell government favors. The dollar drops. And hard-nosed economists now predict a worldwide crash made worse by American leadership that the rest of the world does not trust.
Despite years of disingenuous denial by Mr. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and self-interested corporate leaders, global warming grows dramatically worse. The threat has become so severe that serious environmentalists wonder aloud whether nuclear power - even with all its unsolved problems - might prove less hellacious than burning more fossil fuel.
We face a small number of radical Islamic terrorists, whom American troops are systematically turning into heroes for hundreds of millions of Muslims, from the Southern Philippines to Africa.
The Pentagon failed to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan because Mr. Bush could not wait to start his war in Iraq, which he has now turned into a breeding ground for far more terrorists than there ever were before.
Beyond the terrorists, Bush is losing in Iraq because nationalistic Iraqis increasingly see Americans as foreign occupiers, yet he digs us in even deeper and refuses to consider getting out. Possibly worse, he is setting us up for more of the same in Uzbekistan and across Central Asia.
Scattered reports suggest that he currently has small groups of American troops operating covertly within Iran, along with Iranian collaborators, and that he and his advisors are now considering whether to bomb the country's nuclear facilities or support an Israeli attack.
Pleased with what he sees, the president plunges ahead, turning what could have been a significant but manageable policing problem after 9/11 into a disastrous clash of civilizations. Welcome to the worst of times, as an increasingly disrupted "Christian nation" takes on a rapidly embittered Muslim world.
Cui bono? Who but the Evil One stands to gain? Who but Ha-Shatan could be the voice Mr. Bush hears in his head as the sage advice of his "higher father?"
Believe me, I would never pose such an other-worldly set of questions. But, many serious Christians tell me they have, and their answer scares even an unsaved wretch like me.
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 08 June 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060805A.shtml#
Satan rules, at least according to many of my fellow Americans. In recent surveys, over two-thirds of those polled said they believed the devil to be real, whether with or without horns and a tail.
Call him Lucifer, Mephistopheles, or the Evil One, his existence plays a major role in the way Americans see the world. Right-wingers, in particular, have found him extremely useful in attacking their political foes.
Racial segregationists, union-busters, and John Birchers historically pursued their own agendas by attacking opponents as devilish collaborators of "Godless communism." Far-right evangelicals still blast the United Nations as a Satanic force run by his End Time agent the anti-Christ, while Christian Reconstructionists tar-brush every intellectual current from humanism to modern science as the work of a diabolical hand. The Enlightenment was, after all, the devil's assault on faith.
Satan sells in the USA. That's why Ronald Reagan battled "the Evil Empire," and how George W. Bush uses "the Axis of Evil."
All of which boggles my mind. I don't know why, but even in my high school years I never believed in anything supernatural, good or bad, and I've long agreed with historians who view America's unending urge to hunt witches and other fiendish conspirators as a self-destructive defect in our national character. I don't even see the present occupant of the White House and his incubi as some singularly evil force, which often puts me at odds with others on my side of the political divide.
Still, let me suggest a leap of faith - not one that I can personally take, but one that many of my religious readers say they have already taken.
What if rational thought misses the cosmic plot? What if our prayerful president, his oil-soaked pre-emptive wars, and his amen chorus of religious reactionaries have come together to do the devil's work? What if Satan - and not just the demonic Dick Cheney - now drives the global train wreck?
For many believers, the evidence seems overwhelming.
A huge number of Americans call themselves born-again or Reconstructionist Christians but have turned their back on most of what their own Bible tells them that Christ taught. "Turn the other cheek" now inspires a worldwide gulag of CIA and Pentagon torture centers from Guantánamo to the Indian Ocean, while the Golden Rule has become "Do unto others before they do unto you."
Our Constitution tells us to keep God and government separate, but a new Supreme Court will likely overrule what the words plainly say and permit increasing application of "Biblical law." What better way to fuel ungodly religious strife?
The deficit and trade gap keep growing. The economy won't grow fast enough. High rollers and holy rollers buy and sell government favors. The dollar drops. And hard-nosed economists now predict a worldwide crash made worse by American leadership that the rest of the world does not trust.
Despite years of disingenuous denial by Mr. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and self-interested corporate leaders, global warming grows dramatically worse. The threat has become so severe that serious environmentalists wonder aloud whether nuclear power - even with all its unsolved problems - might prove less hellacious than burning more fossil fuel.
We face a small number of radical Islamic terrorists, whom American troops are systematically turning into heroes for hundreds of millions of Muslims, from the Southern Philippines to Africa.
The Pentagon failed to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan because Mr. Bush could not wait to start his war in Iraq, which he has now turned into a breeding ground for far more terrorists than there ever were before.
Beyond the terrorists, Bush is losing in Iraq because nationalistic Iraqis increasingly see Americans as foreign occupiers, yet he digs us in even deeper and refuses to consider getting out. Possibly worse, he is setting us up for more of the same in Uzbekistan and across Central Asia.
Scattered reports suggest that he currently has small groups of American troops operating covertly within Iran, along with Iranian collaborators, and that he and his advisors are now considering whether to bomb the country's nuclear facilities or support an Israeli attack.
Pleased with what he sees, the president plunges ahead, turning what could have been a significant but manageable policing problem after 9/11 into a disastrous clash of civilizations. Welcome to the worst of times, as an increasingly disrupted "Christian nation" takes on a rapidly embittered Muslim world.
Cui bono? Who but the Evil One stands to gain? Who but Ha-Shatan could be the voice Mr. Bush hears in his head as the sage advice of his "higher father?"
Believe me, I would never pose such an other-worldly set of questions. But, many serious Christians tell me they have, and their answer scares even an unsaved wretch like me.
Canada’s Supreme Court sanctions drive to dismantle public health care
By Keith Jones 11 June 2005
Canada’s Supreme Court has provided big business and the political right with the battering-ram they have long sought to dismantle the country’s universal public health-care system, Medicare.
By a margin of 4 to 3, the country’s highest court has struck down a Quebec law that prohibits private health insurers from providing coverage for medically necessary services available through the state-funded public health insurance system.
The plaintiffs, anti-Medicare activist Dr. Jacques Chaoulli and his patient, George Zeliotis, argued that the prohibition on private insurance violated Zeliotis’s constitutional right to security of person because he was forced to endure a painful, nearly year-long wait before undergoing hip surgery.
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling overturned two lower court judgments. The lower courts had found that while Zelliotis’s individual rights were curtailed, this was acceptable because the prohibition helped ensure a greater collective good—the viability of a public health care system that provides health care to all, not just those with the means to pay for private health care.
The Supreme Court majority justified their decision by pointing to the lengthy waiting lists that now exist in Quebec and most parts of Canada for necessary and even potentially life-saving medical procedures and to the failure of governments to address this problem, although it has persisted for years.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and two other of the four judges who voted to strike down the Quebec law declared: “The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health-care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.”
Read more...
Canada’s Supreme Court has provided big business and the political right with the battering-ram they have long sought to dismantle the country’s universal public health-care system, Medicare.
By a margin of 4 to 3, the country’s highest court has struck down a Quebec law that prohibits private health insurers from providing coverage for medically necessary services available through the state-funded public health insurance system.
The plaintiffs, anti-Medicare activist Dr. Jacques Chaoulli and his patient, George Zeliotis, argued that the prohibition on private insurance violated Zeliotis’s constitutional right to security of person because he was forced to endure a painful, nearly year-long wait before undergoing hip surgery.
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling overturned two lower court judgments. The lower courts had found that while Zelliotis’s individual rights were curtailed, this was acceptable because the prohibition helped ensure a greater collective good—the viability of a public health care system that provides health care to all, not just those with the means to pay for private health care.
The Supreme Court majority justified their decision by pointing to the lengthy waiting lists that now exist in Quebec and most parts of Canada for necessary and even potentially life-saving medical procedures and to the failure of governments to address this problem, although it has persisted for years.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and two other of the four judges who voted to strike down the Quebec law declared: “The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health-care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.”
Read more...
Friday, June 10, 2005
Good news from Iraq: skylights installed in Fallujah schools!
From Needlenose
Fallujah, June 09, 2005 - In the latest Good News From Iraq (TM), the U.S. military, with the assistance of Halliburton, today announce the completion of an infrastructure rebuilding project in Fallujah, the creation of skylights in all public schools.
"Now all our children can enjoy clean air and natural lighting," said I. Bin Sukar'd, U.S.-appointed mayor of Fallujah. "Before, the children had to rely on power-intensive artificial lighting and air conditioning in their studies, but thanks to you, they are now enjoying healthier conditions at a fraction of the utility cost!"
This Good News has been brought to you by the Right-Wing Noise Machine. Don't forget to enlist so that you too can help ventilate Iraqi schools!
Fallujah, June 09, 2005 - In the latest Good News From Iraq (TM), the U.S. military, with the assistance of Halliburton, today announce the completion of an infrastructure rebuilding project in Fallujah, the creation of skylights in all public schools.
"Now all our children can enjoy clean air and natural lighting," said I. Bin Sukar'd, U.S.-appointed mayor of Fallujah. "Before, the children had to rely on power-intensive artificial lighting and air conditioning in their studies, but thanks to you, they are now enjoying healthier conditions at a fraction of the utility cost!"
This Good News has been brought to you by the Right-Wing Noise Machine. Don't forget to enlist so that you too can help ventilate Iraqi schools!
Pocket Paradigm
The mega-media is out to get Howard Dean again. Dean is a fascinating target since he stands, in the media's collective mind, at the dividing line between acceptable acquiescence to the status quo and unacceptable criticism of that status quo. There are, of course, many people to the left of Dean, which is precisely the point: if Dean gets away with it, who knows who will successfully follow in his footsteps?
Consider this fascinating fact: a majority of the American people do not think the Iraq war was a good idea yet the media - even NPR - does not reflect this truth in any substantial way. The media's coverage is as pro-war as it ever was. Thus it is not enough to have the backing of the American people. In fact, it's not even important. What's important is that one's coverage coincide with the collective and heavily bipartisan judgment of the political and economic elite. The devil take the rest of us, including the head of the Democratic National Committee if he is foolish enough to speak out of turn. - Sam Smith
Consider this fascinating fact: a majority of the American people do not think the Iraq war was a good idea yet the media - even NPR - does not reflect this truth in any substantial way. The media's coverage is as pro-war as it ever was. Thus it is not enough to have the backing of the American people. In fact, it's not even important. What's important is that one's coverage coincide with the collective and heavily bipartisan judgment of the political and economic elite. The devil take the rest of us, including the head of the Democratic National Committee if he is foolish enough to speak out of turn. - Sam Smith
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
$1000 To Any Reporter Who Shows Signs Of An Actual Backbone
From Speakspeak News
Salon reports that Democrats.com is offering $1,000 to any White House reporter who will be brave enough to ask President Bush about the infamous Downing Street memo — and elicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
Fat chance.
They’re also offering a consolation prize of $100, however, for simply asking the question (and then presumably being blacklisted).
Asking the president — the First Amendment Guy! — an important, public-has-a-right-to-know question: $1,000.
Losing your White House press pass: Priceless!
From Salon.com.
Salon reports that Democrats.com is offering $1,000 to any White House reporter who will be brave enough to ask President Bush about the infamous Downing Street memo — and elicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
Fat chance.
They’re also offering a consolation prize of $100, however, for simply asking the question (and then presumably being blacklisted).
Asking the president — the First Amendment Guy! — an important, public-has-a-right-to-know question: $1,000.
Losing your White House press pass: Priceless!
From Salon.com.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Well I Guess That Genocide In Sudan Must Have Worked Itself Out On Its Own
From The Onion.com
I was pretty worried a year or so ago when the news came out that thousands of people had been indiscriminately slaughtered in Darfur. It was unsettling to hear that citizens of one ethnicity (Arab, maybe?) were systematically mass-murdering the population of some other ethnicity (Was it the Ganjaweeds? It's been so long since I've read their names!) But lately, the main stories in the news seem to be about Deep Throat, the new summer blockbusters, and something about stem cells. Since I'm sure I would have remembered if the U.S. had intervened in some way to stop it, I can only assume that the whole genocide-in-Darfur thing has somehow worked itself out.
Well, that's good news then, isn't it?
I also seem to recall that this genocide was causing a massive exodus of displaced refugees, with millions starving to death while attempting to flee to neighboring nations. Since I haven't seen any petitions or heard any emotional entreaties for somebody—anybody—to please, for God's sake, do something... Well, I'm gonna guess that the major humanitarian crisis must be over. And thank God, too! The whole situation sounded really awful.
Not that I wanted to be an alarmist, but when I first heard about the Darfur conflict, I thought to myself, "Uh oh! Sounds like another massive ethnic cleansing, not unlike Bosnia and Rwanda!" Those genocides sure were unfathomable! And not only because of the inhumanity of the acts, either—the blind indifference with which the world allowed the killings to continue unchecked was upsetting, too.
Well, someone must've invaded or overthrown a corrupt government or something like that. I know it wasn't the U.S., though. I may not be all that up on current events, but I do follow the news enough to know when my own country attacks another country. Maybe it was one of those genocides that solves itself without substantive international intervention. Well, that's one less horrific reality of modern geopolitics hanging over our heads!
Good thing, 'cause for a while there, it seemed like the Sudan situation was pretty serious, especially when both President Bush and Sen. Kerry talked about it in the presidential debates. Heck, that the Darfur conflict qualified as genocide was practically the only thing they agreed on! So, if both presidential candidates acknowledged on TV that genocide was taking place, it's pretty safe to assume that someone stepped in before more innocent victims were systematically butchered. Right?
What a great turn of events! Frankly, I'm relieved that all the horror, death, and human agony is over. I mean, after all those reports of ongoing murder, rape, and looting, I confess I was a little surprised when I didn't hear much more about it, beyond some international sanctions and aid packages. Ah, but what's the point in belaboring the grisly details? Why go on and on about which paramilitary militias were killing and raping which women and children? The important thing is that the conflict's apparently over.
Evidently, the hatred has been healed, peace has been restored, and the perpetrators of this unimaginable crime have been brought to justice. It sure is good to know it all must've turned out all right. It's like they say: No news is good news!
Right?
I was pretty worried a year or so ago when the news came out that thousands of people had been indiscriminately slaughtered in Darfur. It was unsettling to hear that citizens of one ethnicity (Arab, maybe?) were systematically mass-murdering the population of some other ethnicity (Was it the Ganjaweeds? It's been so long since I've read their names!) But lately, the main stories in the news seem to be about Deep Throat, the new summer blockbusters, and something about stem cells. Since I'm sure I would have remembered if the U.S. had intervened in some way to stop it, I can only assume that the whole genocide-in-Darfur thing has somehow worked itself out.
Well, that's good news then, isn't it?
I also seem to recall that this genocide was causing a massive exodus of displaced refugees, with millions starving to death while attempting to flee to neighboring nations. Since I haven't seen any petitions or heard any emotional entreaties for somebody—anybody—to please, for God's sake, do something... Well, I'm gonna guess that the major humanitarian crisis must be over. And thank God, too! The whole situation sounded really awful.
Not that I wanted to be an alarmist, but when I first heard about the Darfur conflict, I thought to myself, "Uh oh! Sounds like another massive ethnic cleansing, not unlike Bosnia and Rwanda!" Those genocides sure were unfathomable! And not only because of the inhumanity of the acts, either—the blind indifference with which the world allowed the killings to continue unchecked was upsetting, too.
Well, someone must've invaded or overthrown a corrupt government or something like that. I know it wasn't the U.S., though. I may not be all that up on current events, but I do follow the news enough to know when my own country attacks another country. Maybe it was one of those genocides that solves itself without substantive international intervention. Well, that's one less horrific reality of modern geopolitics hanging over our heads!
Good thing, 'cause for a while there, it seemed like the Sudan situation was pretty serious, especially when both President Bush and Sen. Kerry talked about it in the presidential debates. Heck, that the Darfur conflict qualified as genocide was practically the only thing they agreed on! So, if both presidential candidates acknowledged on TV that genocide was taking place, it's pretty safe to assume that someone stepped in before more innocent victims were systematically butchered. Right?
What a great turn of events! Frankly, I'm relieved that all the horror, death, and human agony is over. I mean, after all those reports of ongoing murder, rape, and looting, I confess I was a little surprised when I didn't hear much more about it, beyond some international sanctions and aid packages. Ah, but what's the point in belaboring the grisly details? Why go on and on about which paramilitary militias were killing and raping which women and children? The important thing is that the conflict's apparently over.
Evidently, the hatred has been healed, peace has been restored, and the perpetrators of this unimaginable crime have been brought to justice. It sure is good to know it all must've turned out all right. It's like they say: No news is good news!
Right?
Supreme Court Ruling On Compassionate Marijuana Use Unjust, But Probably Won't Affect Users
Since 99% of all Marijuana arrests are local, the ruling doesn't have much teeth unless you encounter a DEA agent or a federal prosecutor. The odds of that happening are miniscule in California, where the laws supporting medical use of the herb will still stand. These laws have very practical safeguards, since they dictate that local law enforcement shouldn't be arresting or prosecuting users for whom a doctor has written a recommendation.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Witchfynder General Gonzales. Then blow it out your ass.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Witchfynder General Gonzales. Then blow it out your ass.
Un-Housing the Poor
By Dan Frosch, AlterNet
Posted on June 6, 2005, Printed on June 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22106/
Hey, man, I got my tax cut. How'd y'all make out, huh?--Pete
In December 1998, Tarrah Leach's life finally hit rock bottom. She was barely 17 years old, already a mother of two small infant daughters, and hiding out in a domestic shelter. She'd been married only a year, a difficult year that the teenage couple spent first in a homeless shelter and then in a small public housing apartment in Lancaster, Ohio, a town some 32 miles southeast of Columbus. And though Leach still loved her childhood sweetheart, she could no longer tolerate his abuse and beatings. So she took her kids and walked out the door without a dollar to her name.
"By the time, I’d left him, I had this new family with no money and no home to help me raise them," Leach says.
Help, however, was around the corner. Leach received a fresh start in life courtesy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. The federal assistance program enabled Leach to rent an affordable apartment in a safe neighborhood, a decision that she says saved her life. After waiting for two months, her family was able to move into a quiet two-bedroom trailer, which she rented for a reasonable $100 a month thanks to the HUD voucher, as opposed to the market rate of $425.
The Section 8 program, created in 1974 during the Nixon years, offers poor families a housing voucher to rent an apartment or home put on the market by participating landlords. With the voucher, a family only has to pay 30 percent of their adjusted income toward the rent, with the local housing authority paying for the balance with HUD money. Under HUD regulations, 75 percent of a housing authority’s vouchers must go to families making 30 percent or less of the median income in their area.
The program represents a vital lifeline for families with extremely low incomes who get the opportunity to move their family out of public housing in poor and often dangerous neighborhoods. Currently, more than two million families use Section 8 vouchers to pay a subsidized rent.
The Department of Housing, however, is planning to cut that lifeline.
Last month, Congress began hearings on two bills -- one each in the House and Senate -- that threaten to reorient federal assistance away from the families that need it most. Specifically, the legislation would double Section 8’s existing median income cap to 60 percent, thereby allowing families who earn more to qualify for these vouchers.
It also removes rules which ensure that families in serious need receive the most assistance. Under the new measure, local housing authorities are free to award up to 90 percent of their vouchers to applicants that qualify under the raised income cap -- allowing them to dole out the majority of vouchers to families who earn more and therefore pay more of the rent.
HUD, which drafted both pieces of legislation, is framing this reorientation as a response to the rising costs of a program that has jumped from $11 to $15 billion over the past three years. Last year, HUD cut millions in Section 8 funding but restored some of it after an outcry from housing authorities who said they were being asked operate the program but deprived of the funding required to do it.
If HUD is successful in its latest bid, success stories like Tarrah Leach will likely become a faraway memory. Thanks to Section 8, Leach was able to get her GED even as she worked at WalMart, and later attended nursing school on her days off. She eventually graduated with honors and got her nursing license.
"I still would have been struggling, I wouldn’t have been able to go to school, to get the nursing job I have now—not to mention paying rent, the bills and taking care of my kids," she says. "It wouldn’t have happened without that voucher."
Low-income housing advocacy groups and some members of Congress say that HUD’s proposals will essentially decimate its own program and unduly target the very people it’s supposed to help most. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), the impacts of the changes would be enormous: low income families in need of vouchers will invariably be passed over by cash-strapped housing authorities who will tend to horde their funds by giving the vouchers to families who make more money. Housing authorities have lost $2 billion in HUD funding over the past four fiscal years and are in the midst of a serious budget crunch.
"It’s as if HUD figured out the worst possible solutions to low income housing problems and crammed them into one bill," says Linda Couch, NLIHC’s deputy director. "The administration’s goal here is clearly to save cash. And it’s at the expense of the people who need housing the most."
The people most in need of HUD's assistance are often black and Hispanic families, who account for 53 percent of all vouchers a year, according to a recent Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) study. Executive Director Philip Tegeler says the proposed legislation could create a scenario where housing authorities are denying vouchers to poor minorities while giving them to slightly better off white families in order to preserve their already depleted coffers. If the legislation moves forward, PRRAC predicts that the 131,000 families of color served by Section 8 could quickly be cut in half, and over the next decade, hundreds of thousands of vouchers would be shifted away from poor black and Hispanic applicants to less impoverished whites.
"This lifting of the current income targeting is not race neutral. And so the bill ends up having serious civil rights consequences," Tegeler says. He also points to the serious implications of another aspect of HUD’s proposal which would give housing authorities more power in determining whether Section 8 families can move out of a particular neighborhood -- a process called "portability." The proposed restrictions will make it much harder for black and Hispanic families to move from ghettoes into areas with more opportunity, further entrenching segregation in cities that are already carved up by color lines.
HUD spokeswoman Donna White does not agree that the proposal will push lower-income folks out of the program.
"The bottom line is now they have options. If you make 32 percent of the median income in your area, why should you be cut out of the program?" she says. "We think that by giving the housing authorities more options, more flexibility, as opposed to having follow strict guidelines," housing authorities will be better able to help the families in their area. White also claims that this increased flexibility could help cut down on waiting lists for vouchers, which can last up to five years in major cities according to HUD.
HUD's argument, however, does not impress a number of members of Congress who are opposed to the bill. A May 17 Congressional hearing before the House Financial Services Committee provoked decided and bipartisan opposition from numerous members, including Barbara Lee (D-California), Julia Carson (D-Indiana) and Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut). Shays was one of 20 members of Congress who wrote a letter on Apr. 29 urging the House Appropriations Committee to boost funding for Section 8.
"While it is clear we need to take steps to reform the Section 8, we can’t forget how successful the program has been," Shays said in an email response to AlterNet. "I’m eager to work with the Financial Services Committee to craft responsible legislation, but am concerned [the bill] simply passes the buck to the local housing authorities."
Among those testifying in front of Congress was Leach, now 24 and a nurse at a convalescent home. She came all the way from Ohio because she couldn’t stand the thought of another single mother having to endure what she went through without any help.
"If it had not been for the Housing Assistance, I, as a single mother, would not have been able to put a roof over my children’s heads. My children would have suffered because I would have had to work all of the time just to make ends meet to pay rent and utilities," she told the committee. "I ask that you consider my story."
Dan Frosch is a New York-based journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Source and the Santa Fe Reporter.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/22106/
Posted on June 6, 2005, Printed on June 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22106/
Hey, man, I got my tax cut. How'd y'all make out, huh?--Pete
In December 1998, Tarrah Leach's life finally hit rock bottom. She was barely 17 years old, already a mother of two small infant daughters, and hiding out in a domestic shelter. She'd been married only a year, a difficult year that the teenage couple spent first in a homeless shelter and then in a small public housing apartment in Lancaster, Ohio, a town some 32 miles southeast of Columbus. And though Leach still loved her childhood sweetheart, she could no longer tolerate his abuse and beatings. So she took her kids and walked out the door without a dollar to her name.
"By the time, I’d left him, I had this new family with no money and no home to help me raise them," Leach says.
Help, however, was around the corner. Leach received a fresh start in life courtesy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. The federal assistance program enabled Leach to rent an affordable apartment in a safe neighborhood, a decision that she says saved her life. After waiting for two months, her family was able to move into a quiet two-bedroom trailer, which she rented for a reasonable $100 a month thanks to the HUD voucher, as opposed to the market rate of $425.
The Section 8 program, created in 1974 during the Nixon years, offers poor families a housing voucher to rent an apartment or home put on the market by participating landlords. With the voucher, a family only has to pay 30 percent of their adjusted income toward the rent, with the local housing authority paying for the balance with HUD money. Under HUD regulations, 75 percent of a housing authority’s vouchers must go to families making 30 percent or less of the median income in their area.
The program represents a vital lifeline for families with extremely low incomes who get the opportunity to move their family out of public housing in poor and often dangerous neighborhoods. Currently, more than two million families use Section 8 vouchers to pay a subsidized rent.
The Department of Housing, however, is planning to cut that lifeline.
Last month, Congress began hearings on two bills -- one each in the House and Senate -- that threaten to reorient federal assistance away from the families that need it most. Specifically, the legislation would double Section 8’s existing median income cap to 60 percent, thereby allowing families who earn more to qualify for these vouchers.
It also removes rules which ensure that families in serious need receive the most assistance. Under the new measure, local housing authorities are free to award up to 90 percent of their vouchers to applicants that qualify under the raised income cap -- allowing them to dole out the majority of vouchers to families who earn more and therefore pay more of the rent.
HUD, which drafted both pieces of legislation, is framing this reorientation as a response to the rising costs of a program that has jumped from $11 to $15 billion over the past three years. Last year, HUD cut millions in Section 8 funding but restored some of it after an outcry from housing authorities who said they were being asked operate the program but deprived of the funding required to do it.
If HUD is successful in its latest bid, success stories like Tarrah Leach will likely become a faraway memory. Thanks to Section 8, Leach was able to get her GED even as she worked at WalMart, and later attended nursing school on her days off. She eventually graduated with honors and got her nursing license.
"I still would have been struggling, I wouldn’t have been able to go to school, to get the nursing job I have now—not to mention paying rent, the bills and taking care of my kids," she says. "It wouldn’t have happened without that voucher."
Low-income housing advocacy groups and some members of Congress say that HUD’s proposals will essentially decimate its own program and unduly target the very people it’s supposed to help most. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), the impacts of the changes would be enormous: low income families in need of vouchers will invariably be passed over by cash-strapped housing authorities who will tend to horde their funds by giving the vouchers to families who make more money. Housing authorities have lost $2 billion in HUD funding over the past four fiscal years and are in the midst of a serious budget crunch.
"It’s as if HUD figured out the worst possible solutions to low income housing problems and crammed them into one bill," says Linda Couch, NLIHC’s deputy director. "The administration’s goal here is clearly to save cash. And it’s at the expense of the people who need housing the most."
The people most in need of HUD's assistance are often black and Hispanic families, who account for 53 percent of all vouchers a year, according to a recent Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) study. Executive Director Philip Tegeler says the proposed legislation could create a scenario where housing authorities are denying vouchers to poor minorities while giving them to slightly better off white families in order to preserve their already depleted coffers. If the legislation moves forward, PRRAC predicts that the 131,000 families of color served by Section 8 could quickly be cut in half, and over the next decade, hundreds of thousands of vouchers would be shifted away from poor black and Hispanic applicants to less impoverished whites.
"This lifting of the current income targeting is not race neutral. And so the bill ends up having serious civil rights consequences," Tegeler says. He also points to the serious implications of another aspect of HUD’s proposal which would give housing authorities more power in determining whether Section 8 families can move out of a particular neighborhood -- a process called "portability." The proposed restrictions will make it much harder for black and Hispanic families to move from ghettoes into areas with more opportunity, further entrenching segregation in cities that are already carved up by color lines.
HUD spokeswoman Donna White does not agree that the proposal will push lower-income folks out of the program.
"The bottom line is now they have options. If you make 32 percent of the median income in your area, why should you be cut out of the program?" she says. "We think that by giving the housing authorities more options, more flexibility, as opposed to having follow strict guidelines," housing authorities will be better able to help the families in their area. White also claims that this increased flexibility could help cut down on waiting lists for vouchers, which can last up to five years in major cities according to HUD.
HUD's argument, however, does not impress a number of members of Congress who are opposed to the bill. A May 17 Congressional hearing before the House Financial Services Committee provoked decided and bipartisan opposition from numerous members, including Barbara Lee (D-California), Julia Carson (D-Indiana) and Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut). Shays was one of 20 members of Congress who wrote a letter on Apr. 29 urging the House Appropriations Committee to boost funding for Section 8.
"While it is clear we need to take steps to reform the Section 8, we can’t forget how successful the program has been," Shays said in an email response to AlterNet. "I’m eager to work with the Financial Services Committee to craft responsible legislation, but am concerned [the bill] simply passes the buck to the local housing authorities."
Among those testifying in front of Congress was Leach, now 24 and a nurse at a convalescent home. She came all the way from Ohio because she couldn’t stand the thought of another single mother having to endure what she went through without any help.
"If it had not been for the Housing Assistance, I, as a single mother, would not have been able to put a roof over my children’s heads. My children would have suffered because I would have had to work all of the time just to make ends meet to pay rent and utilities," she told the committee. "I ask that you consider my story."
Dan Frosch is a New York-based journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Source and the Santa Fe Reporter.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/22106/
Monday, June 06, 2005
It's Not Just Eskimos in Bikinis
Climate Helter-Skelter in the Lower 48
By Chip Ward, from TomDispatch.com
When we hear the term "global warming," we usually imagine collapsing Antarctic ice shelves, melting Alaskan glaciers, or perhaps starving polar bears wandering bewildered across an ice-free, alien landscape. Warnings about climate change tend to focus on the Earth's polar regions, in part because they are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and the dramatic changes underway there can be easily captured and conveyed. We may not be able to see the 80% decline in the Antarctic krill population -- the tiny, shrimp-like creatures that are a critical food source for whales, seals, and sea birds -- but we can easily see satellite photos of state-sized chunks of ice shields separating from the continent. We can grasp the enormity of planetary glacial melting simply by comparing photos of glaciers taken just a decade apart. But as long as we're talking about ice in distant climes, global warming seems like something that's happening elsewhere and to somebody else -- or some other set of creatures.
So when you hear about global warming, the odds are good that you never think of the yellow-bellied marmot. Probably, you've never even heard of the critters, but the big rodents, common not to the distant Arctic but to Rocky Mountain meadows, have been acting like so many canaries lately -- coal-mine canaries, that is. They may be the first among many species in the Lower 48 to die off, thanks to close-to-home global warming effects that we hear little about. They are dying of confusion.
As a term, global warming is so benign-sounding -- we all like "warmth," after all -- that it masks what's actually going on. Yes, temperatures overall are rising, low-lying islands are disappearing under the sea, and epic wildfires are becoming more routine. But some places like Europe could get much colder in a globally "warmed" world, if warm ocean currents shift away from them; while across the planet, however counterintuitive this might seem, floods are likely to be as commonplace as drought. "Climate disruption" is probably a more accurate description of what we are experiencing than mere "warming." Although the radical break in climate patterns now underway will lead to rising oceans and expanding deserts, the most insidious changes may be more subtle -- and as unnoticed as the disappearance of the marmots may be.
Read More...
By Chip Ward, from TomDispatch.com
When we hear the term "global warming," we usually imagine collapsing Antarctic ice shelves, melting Alaskan glaciers, or perhaps starving polar bears wandering bewildered across an ice-free, alien landscape. Warnings about climate change tend to focus on the Earth's polar regions, in part because they are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and the dramatic changes underway there can be easily captured and conveyed. We may not be able to see the 80% decline in the Antarctic krill population -- the tiny, shrimp-like creatures that are a critical food source for whales, seals, and sea birds -- but we can easily see satellite photos of state-sized chunks of ice shields separating from the continent. We can grasp the enormity of planetary glacial melting simply by comparing photos of glaciers taken just a decade apart. But as long as we're talking about ice in distant climes, global warming seems like something that's happening elsewhere and to somebody else -- or some other set of creatures.
So when you hear about global warming, the odds are good that you never think of the yellow-bellied marmot. Probably, you've never even heard of the critters, but the big rodents, common not to the distant Arctic but to Rocky Mountain meadows, have been acting like so many canaries lately -- coal-mine canaries, that is. They may be the first among many species in the Lower 48 to die off, thanks to close-to-home global warming effects that we hear little about. They are dying of confusion.
As a term, global warming is so benign-sounding -- we all like "warmth," after all -- that it masks what's actually going on. Yes, temperatures overall are rising, low-lying islands are disappearing under the sea, and epic wildfires are becoming more routine. But some places like Europe could get much colder in a globally "warmed" world, if warm ocean currents shift away from them; while across the planet, however counterintuitive this might seem, floods are likely to be as commonplace as drought. "Climate disruption" is probably a more accurate description of what we are experiencing than mere "warming." Although the radical break in climate patterns now underway will lead to rising oceans and expanding deserts, the most insidious changes may be more subtle -- and as unnoticed as the disappearance of the marmots may be.
Read More...
Just Another Day In Hell...
Here is a rap video from a group of American warriors on the ground in besieged Iraq.
I find the warning about graphic language and violent images ridiculous coming from MSNBC. If they and the other corporate media were actually doing their jobs, the warning would be redundant, since graphic language and violent images would be constant fixtures in our newspapers and on our televisions.--Pete
I find the warning about graphic language and violent images ridiculous coming from MSNBC. If they and the other corporate media were actually doing their jobs, the warning would be redundant, since graphic language and violent images would be constant fixtures in our newspapers and on our televisions.--Pete
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