Sunday, November 7, 2010

Expanding the War or Saving Lives from Cholera in Haiti? CBA

US Unveils $500M Embassy Expansion in Afghanistan

The US has unveiled plans for a $500 million expansion of its embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul. US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry says the project will be completed in June 2014.

VERSUS:

Haiti’s Cholera Outbreak Spreads Ahead of Major Storm

A cholera outbreak is worsening in Haiti just as an approaching storm threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors. New figures show that 105 people have died from cholera since Saturday, bringing the death toll so far to 442. The United Nations is warning the outbreak could spread drastically when Tropical Storm Tomas makes landfall on Friday. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, said aid agencies are overstretched.
Nigel Fisher: "I think that the hurricane is so huge that all of the country is hit severely. I think if two, three, four, five departments are hit, we’ll be able to cope to some extent. More than that, we will really be stretched, and we’re going to have to make difficult choices about where to put scarce assets."
Some 1.5 million people are said to be at risk if rainfall from the storm causes massive flooding. The Haitian government has ordered the voluntary evacuation of camps for earthquake survivors in low-lying areas, but many have nowhere to go. A resident of a camp in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince said aid groups have offered little help.
Carlo D’Charles: "The organizations we have in this country, they don’t come here to help us, you know? They once helped us, you know, two months after the earthquake. But after that, you know, you can’t talk to anybody you want to, any park, you know? We never receive help after two months after the earthquake, you know? That’s really bad. We’re living in bad condition, you know? That’s what I know. And last time we had a big storm pass, you know, many people just died. In this park, we have two people die, you know? Why, now we hear about this storm will come, we not prepare ahead? "



Filmmaker Michael Moore on Midterm Elections, the Tea Party, and the Future of the Democratic Party




AMY GOODMAN: What do you make of war not really being mentioned—
MICHAEL MOORE: At all.
AMY GOODMAN:—in this—
MICHAEL MOORE: At all.
AMY GOODMAN:—in this midterm elections.
MICHAEL MOORE: Gone, right.
AMY GOODMAN: The talk shows on Sunday—WikiLeaks, the biggest military intelligence leak in the history of this country, that week the major agenda-setting talk shows on the networks there was no discussion—
MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN:—of what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
MICHAEL MOORE: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: And when it’s raised with the hosts, they say, "Because we’re talking about the midterm elections."
MICHAEL MOORE: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Aren’t the elections a referendum on the major policy issues—
MICHAEL MOORE: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN:—domestic and foreign?
MICHAEL MOORE: Right. You know, what I really want to say to that, I don’t want to say it. You know. 
AMY GOODMAN: Just don’t curse, because we want to play it on the air.

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

While warning about Fat; US pushes cheese Sales ( 5.3 million given to push high fat cheese, only 6 given to the center for nutrition policy)


Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.
Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits. “This partnership is clearly working,” Brandon Solano, the Domino’s vice president for brand innovation, said in a statement to The New York Times.
But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Voting to Make it Worse - Thomas Frank

Time To End War Against The Earth - Vandana Shiva



When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits - limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and economic concentration.

A handful of corporations and of powerful countries seeks to control the earth's resources and transform the planet into a supermarket in which everything is for sale. They want to sell our water, genes, cells, organs, knowledge, cultures and future.

The continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and onwards are not only about "blood for oil". As they unfold, we will see that they are about blood for food, blood for genes and biodiversity and blood for water.
  
The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names of Monsanto's herbicides - ''Round-Up'', ''Machete'', ''Lasso''. American Home Products, which has merged with Monsanto, gives its herbicides similarly aggressive names, including ''Pentagon'' and ''Squadron''.This is the language of war. Sustainability is based on peace with the earth.

Election Roundtable: Breaking Down the Result



Rethink Afghanistan - Veterans of the War

An Obit on Our Hopes---Robert Scheer

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Right is Wrong - Submedia

this is the way to Doomsday - holy, holy,holy

Schools with Legacy of Institutionalized Fraud - Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch, Assistant Secretary of Education and counselor to Education Secretary Lamar Alexander under President George H.W. Bush and appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board under President Clinton. She is the author of over twenty books, is research professor of education at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her latest book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.



BP Posts $1.79B Quarterly Profit; Firm that Certified Rig (as safe) now Hired to Inspect Blowout Preventer system


The oil giant BP has posted its first profit since the April 20th oil spill set off one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. Earlier today, BP reported a third-quarter profit of $1.79 billion. The news comes as the Interior Department is under criticism for hiring a Norwegian firm that certified the safety measures aboard the Deepwater Horizon to now inspect the device that failed to prevent the spill. The firm, DNV, has received a $1.3 million contract to study the blowout preventer aboard the rig. DNV certified the Deepwater Horizon’s safety procedures and its blowout preventer in 2007 and 2009.

(...let's higher the person who poisoned you to make you better?)

15 year old boy held by US for war crimes, youngest ever.

Gitmo Prisoner Could Return to Canada Next Year

A Canadian citizen held by the US since he was a teenager could be returning to Canada as early as next year. On Monday, Omar Khadr was ordered to serve a maximum of eight more years of a forty-year sentence after pleading guilty to war crimes charges last week. But as part of the plea deal, the US government agreed to allow Khadr’s transfer to a Canadian prison. Once in Canada, Khadr could be eligible for release within three years under the country’s sentencing rules. Khadr was fifteen years old when US troops imprisoned him in Afghanistan in 2002. He says US military guards beat him and threatened him with rape after he arrived at Guantánamo that same year. His trial was set to be the first under the Obama administration’s revised military commissions system and the first war crimes tribunal anywhere since World War II to prosecute someone for acts allegedly committed as a juvenile.


Haiti Prepares for Approaching Storm

Haiti is bracing for a major storm expected to hit later this week. Hurricane Tomas could cause devastating flooding and increase the spread of the recent cholera outbreak. Sophie Chavanel of the Red Cross said government officials and aid groups are scrambling to prepare for the storm.

Sophie Chavanel: "We’re really concerned this could be a direct hit, Hurricane Tomas could be a direct hit on Haiti. And historically, we know that Haiti is extremely vulnerable to hurricanes. Even heavy rain can make a lot of damage here in Haiti. So this is a great concern for the Red Cross right now."

(There is nothing natural about natural distastes the social/economic/political system that has been created in Haiti compounds nature in a disaster...) 

Ugandan Newspaper Ordered to Stop Targeting Gays and Lesbians

A Ugandan judge has ordered a newspaper to stop publishing the names and photographs of Ugandans it claims are gay and lesbian alongside calls to report them to police and even put them to death. Last month, the magazine, Rolling Stone, ran an article on what it called Uganda’s "top" 100 gays and lesbians, alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them." A similar article appeared again on Sunday. Uganda’s Rolling Stone is not affiliated with the US magazine by the same name. Outside the courtroom, Pepe Julian Onziema of the group Sexual Minorities Uganda spoke out about the case.



Pepe Julian Onziema: "What the paper has done is incited violence against us, and we haven’t felt protected by the government here, so we are trying to call on the courts of law to emphasize and put in action the protection and promotion of human rights in this country, regardless of who you are, race, color, sexual orientation, identity."
Ugandan human rights activists say at least four gays and lesbians have been attacked since the first list was published.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt


Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet.
The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009.
It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society.

Statement on Media and Mobs - Arundhati roy

New Delhi, October 31: A mob of about a hundred people arrived at my house at 11 this morning (Sunday October 31st 2010.) They broke through the gate and vandalized property. They shouted slogans against me for my views on Kashmir, and threatened to teach me a lesson.

The OB Vans of NDTV, Times Now and News 24 were already in place ostensibly to cover the event live. TV reports say that the mob consisted largely of members of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha (Women’s wing).

After they left, the police advised us to let them know if in future we saw any OB vans hanging around the neighborhood because they said that was an indication that a mob was on its way. In June this year, after a false report in the papers by Press Trust of India (PTI) two men on motorcycles tried to stone the windows of my home. They too were accompanied by TV cameramen.

An interview with Noam Chomsky Environment, Market Ecomics, Nuclear War, Tea Party, Identity and Story Manegment, Relationship between Vietnam and Iraq, A hopeful public inteligence...