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Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups link

So a leftist can't be anti-Castro or anti-Communist?

That's not just a lame strawman you implictly tossed up there, it's a damn anencephailic Thalidomide strawman.

Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups link

Kirk James Murphy says SHE was playing with CIA-funded terror-tactics groups not so long ago: http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/

The same groups publicly supported the coup in Honduras. The one which Wikileaks revealed US government lying not knowing about and being unable to intervene because of that.

More on how CIA is hunting Assange through Sweden (emphasis added):

The Swedes have a practical reason behind their deceptively slapstick police-work. The WikiLeaks founder, pursued by malevolent forces around the world, sought momentary relief beneath Sweden's reputation as a bastion of free speech. But the moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service.

The suspicion of whether the rape farce is an orchestrated campaign, might be illuminated by these facts: (1) Sweden sent troops to Afghanistan, (2) Assange's WikiLeaks published the Afghan War Diary... --- ...new secret materials by WikiLeaks might just influence the general elections on September 19. Perhaps that explains the sudden police raid on a WikiLeaks server.

"..and thus obviously not a CIA "sparrow.."

no, obviously not.. "your witness..", I believe.

"..All the sordid details here.." - the fucking dailymail?! - sordid lulz indeed.

It's a must-read for people who think US intelligence agencies are somehow behind this.

The Daily Mail story neglects to mention that one of Mr Assange's accusers may indeed have links to the CIA.

Ecuador ranks a whooping 101 on the press freedom index, with an annually deteriorating index value. I'm not quite convinced it's the best country to exile to for people publishing inconveniant documents.

The compilers of that "press freedom index" is Reporters Without Borders. RWB are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.

I would consider that the "US State Dept Press Freedom Index".

In addition to the article under discussion, it might prove worthwhile
to read the following:
Watching Greed Murder the Economy
by Paul Craig Roberts

The idea is nonsensical that the US can remain the font of research, innovation, design, and engineering while the country ceases to make things. Research and product development invariably follow manufacturing. Now even business schools that were cheerleaders for offshoring of US jobs are beginning to wise up. In a recent report, "Next Generation Offshoring: The Globalization of Innovation," Duke University's Fuqua School of Business finds that product development is moving to China to support the manufacturing operations that have located there. -- A Workforce Betrayed: Watching Greed Murder the Economy, Paul Craig Roberts

No big surprise.

Chertoff was the head of DHS who hired Stasi officers - like Markus Wolf - to design plans fro a mandatory ID programme, like that used to control freedom of movement in the former East Germany.

"Chertoff is credited with authoring the Patriot Act, the 300-plus page blueprint for the modern National Security State; patterned to great extent on the successes of the KGB in the Soviet system. He's admired among his Bush cadres for making sure that government surveillance operates at maximum efficiency. Under his stewardship at the Dept of Justice, the 4th amendment has withered like summer grass. The long-held belief that citizens, have a right to a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has buckled under the demands of

"Big Brother" and the new "intrusive" security paradigm."

And: "Chertoff's record of failure at Justice is second only to that of Ashcroft. His 4 year tenure hasn't produced even one identifiable success. (Check out his "obstruction of justice" in the John Walker Lindh case on Democracy Now)

Instead, his personal ineptitude and his palpable contempt for the law have only showered more disgrace on the institution of American justice. That probably explains why he's being moved up the bureaucratic dog-pile to the top rung of Homeland Security. In Bush-world "failing upwards" is more commonplace than cowboy boots at a Crawford tent-show."

Falliing Upwards: The Rise of Michael Chertoff

Before this? He was an Assistant Attorney General - who enabled Chiquita to escape prosecution for hiring private, right-wing death squads - to suppress fair-trade practices from emerging in the banana plantations of Colombia.

"Chiquita, [company officials told Chertoff], would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff...affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting...Sources close to Chiquita say that Chertoff never did get back to the company or its lawyers. Neither did Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general, whom Chiquita officials sought out after Chertoff left his job for a federal judgeship in June 2003. And Chiquita kept making payments for nearly another year."

Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads

Now, this Mossad-tool wants to escalate the idea - absurd to those with a deep, functional knowledge of IP switched networking - of Cyber Cold War.

This is another part of the steady drumbeat to get a CCOIA type law passed - so the US gets its own "Great Firewall of China".

Chertoff DOES have a real enemy that he wants to damage in his cyberwar: the enemy is YOU.

No big surprise.

Chertoff was the head of DHS who hired Stasi officers - like Markus Wolf - to design plans fro a mandatory ID programme, like that used to control freedom of movement in the former East Germany.

"Chertoff is credited with authoring the Patriot Act, the 300-plus page blueprint for the modern National Security State; patterned to great extent on the successes of the KGB in the Soviet system. He's admired among his Bush cadres for making sure that government surveillance operates at maximum efficiency. Under his stewardship at the Dept of Justice, the 4th amendment has withered like summer grass. The long-held belief that citizens, have a right to a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has buckled under the demands of

"Big Brother" and the new "intrusive" security paradigm."

And: "Chertoff's record of failure at Justice is second only to that of Ashcroft. His 4 year tenure hasn't produced even one identifiable success. (Check out his "obstruction of justice" in the John Walker Lindh case on Democracy Now)

Instead, his personal ineptitude and his palpable contempt for the law have only showered more disgrace on the institution of American justice. That probably explains why he's being moved up the bureaucratic dog-pile to the top rung of Homeland Security. In Bush-world "failing upwards" is more commonplace than cowboy boots at a Crawford tent-show."

Falliing Upwards: The Rise of Michael Chertoff

Before this? He was an Assistant Attorney General - who enabled Chiquita to escape prosecution for hiring private, right-wing death squads - to suppress fair-trade practices from emerging in the banana plantations of Colombia.

"Chiquita, [company officials told Chertoff], would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff...affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting...Sources close to Chiquita say that Chertoff never did get back to the company or its lawyers. Neither did Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general, whom Chiquita officials sought out after Chertoff left his job for a federal judgeship in June 2003. And Chiquita kept making payments for nearly another year."

Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads

Now, this Mossad-tool wants to escalate the idea - absurd to those with a deep, functional knowledge of IP switched networking - of Cyber Cold War.

This is another part of the steady drumbeat to get a CCOIA type law passed - so the US gets its own "Great Firewall of China".

Chertoff DOES have a real enemy that he wants to damage in his cyberwar: the enemy is YOU.

Reporters w/o Borders is a blatant propaganda front for the US Government. Proof & References: "Reporters Without Borders Unmasked"

"Reporters Without Borders seems to have a geopolitical agenda"

"Source Watch: Reporters Without Borders"

Reporters w/o Borders are also trying to trap potential leakers and activist bloggers in their thin veil: https://encrypted.google.com/search?num=100&q=Reporters+Without+Borders+shelter

The FBI pounced on this disclosure, and soon Khan was on the Bureau's payroll at $50,000 a year as an undercover informer, charged with returning to Lodi and probing the terror ring. To date the Bureau has paid him $250,000.

So, we invaded Afghanistan for their opium?

From what I hear, that might well be part of it. Although they have some very nasty beliefs and rules, the Taliban - as religious fundamentalists - are absolutely opposed to drugs. While they were ruling Afghanistan, they came quite close to stamping out opium production completely. Today, it is booming again - which is odd when the Coalition is seemingly so keen to prevent it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/mercile06302010.html

Or did we send someone into the future to find out about the untapped mineral resources that were just discovered?

More like "into the past":
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/minerals_in_afghanistan_mais_oui

Just because you have a fine knowledge of history does not mean that you understand true intent.

Thanks for the compliment. But how does knowing less about history make one able to "understand true intent"? That sounds dangerously close to telepathy.

Our mission was to destroy Al Qaeda.

To destroy a shadowy organization, not certainly known to exist at all, with unknown membership, size, resources, whereabouts, and intentions. And the way to do this was to invade and subjugate a sovereign nation that had made no overt hostile act, kill or maim very large numbers of its citizens, overthrow its government, and set up a Quisling regime?
http://www.counterpunch.org/rothenberg05262010.html

Unfortunately, the second mission was the neocon ideal of "nation building" that is doomed to failure.

It seems to me that was why it was chosen. A state of war gives the executive enormous power and impunity. But most wars are so short... As Orwell pointed out in 1984, the logical solution is a permanent state of war. How better to guarantee that than to invade a country that has never been permanently conquered, in pursuit of an organization not certainly known to exist, and attempt to change that nation into a standard-issue Western democracy?

"Of all enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germs of every other. War is the parent of armies: from these proceed debt and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare".
- James Madison

So, we invaded Afghanistan for their opium?

From what I hear, that might well be part of it. Although they have some very nasty beliefs and rules, the Taliban - as religious fundamentalists - are absolutely opposed to drugs. While they were ruling Afghanistan, they came quite close to stamping out opium production completely. Today, it is booming again - which is odd when the Coalition is seemingly so keen to prevent it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/mercile06302010.html

Or did we send someone into the future to find out about the untapped mineral resources that were just discovered?

More like "into the past":
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/minerals_in_afghanistan_mais_oui

Just because you have a fine knowledge of history does not mean that you understand true intent.

Thanks for the compliment. But how does knowing less about history make one able to "understand true intent"? That sounds dangerously close to telepathy.

Our mission was to destroy Al Qaeda.

To destroy a shadowy organization, not certainly known to exist at all, with unknown membership, size, resources, whereabouts, and intentions. And the way to do this was to invade and subjugate a sovereign nation that had made no overt hostile act, kill or maim very large numbers of its citizens, overthrow its government, and set up a Quisling regime?
http://www.counterpunch.org/rothenberg05262010.html

Unfortunately, the second mission was the neocon ideal of "nation building" that is doomed to failure.

It seems to me that was why it was chosen. A state of war gives the executive enormous power and impunity. But most wars are so short... As Orwell pointed out in 1984, the logical solution is a permanent state of war. How better to guarantee that than to invade a country that has never been permanently conquered, in pursuit of an organization not certainly known to exist, and attempt to change that nation into a standard-issue Western democracy?

"Of all enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germs of every other. War is the parent of armies: from these proceed debt and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare".
- James Madison

Reporters Sans Frontiers/Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government [zcommunications.org] through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct [ned.org], sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party [counterpunch.org].

I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks [wikileaks.org]. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.

It appears to me that this new Reporters Sans Frontiers project is a honeypot intended to catch would-be whistleblowers.

Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.

I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.

How JP Morgan & Goldman Sachs made $100 million profit per day in the last quarter?

Here's a clip:

        "Let's say that there is a buyer willing to buy 100,000 shares of Broadcom with a limit price of $26.40. That is, the buyer will accept any price up to $26.40. But the market at this particular moment in time is at $26.10, or thirty cents lower.

        So the computers, having detected via their "flash orders" that there is a desire for Broadcom shares, start to issue tiny "immediate or cancel" orders - IOCs - to sell at $26.20. If that order is "eaten" the computer then issues an order at $26.25, then $26.30, then $26.35, then $26.40. When it tries $26.45 it gets no bite and the order is immediately canceled.

        Now the flush of supply comes at $26.39, and the claim is made that the market has become "more efficient."

        Nonsense; there was no "real seller" at any of these prices! This pattern of offering was intended to do one and only one thing - manipulate the market by discovering what is supposed to be a hidden piece of information - the other side's limit price!

        With normal order queues and flows the person with the limit order would see the offer at $26.20 and might drop his limit. But the computers are so fast that unless you own one of the same speed you have no chance to do this - your order is immediately "raped" at the full limit price!

        The presence of these programs will guarantee huge profits to the banks running them and they also guarantee both that the retail buyers will get screwed as the market will move MUCH faster to the upside than it otherwise would.

        If you're wondering how Goldman Sachs and other "big banks and hedge funds" made all their money this last quarter, now you know."

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney04162010.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/brown04232010.html

How JP Morgan & Goldman Sachs made $100 million profit per day in the last quarter?

Here's a clip:

        "Let's say that there is a buyer willing to buy 100,000 shares of Broadcom with a limit price of $26.40. That is, the buyer will accept any price up to $26.40. But the market at this particular moment in time is at $26.10, or thirty cents lower.

        So the computers, having detected via their "flash orders" that there is a desire for Broadcom shares, start to issue tiny "immediate or cancel" orders - IOCs - to sell at $26.20. If that order is "eaten" the computer then issues an order at $26.25, then $26.30, then $26.35, then $26.40. When it tries $26.45 it gets no bite and the order is immediately canceled.

        Now the flush of supply comes at $26.39, and the claim is made that the market has become "more efficient."

        Nonsense; there was no "real seller" at any of these prices! This pattern of offering was intended to do one and only one thing - manipulate the market by discovering what is supposed to be a hidden piece of information - the other side's limit price!

        With normal order queues and flows the person with the limit order would see the offer at $26.20 and might drop his limit. But the computers are so fast that unless you own one of the same speed you have no chance to do this - your order is immediately "raped" at the full limit price!

        The presence of these programs will guarantee huge profits to the banks running them and they also guarantee both that the retail buyers will get screwed as the market will move MUCH faster to the upside than it otherwise would.

        If you're wondering how Goldman Sachs and other "big banks and hedge funds" made all their money this last quarter, now you know."

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney04162010.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/brown04232010.html

So because everyone is speeding, you're accusing them of racial profiling ... by default?

If everyone is speeding, then it's very easy for the cops to pull over just the dark-skinned people and claim to have a legitimate stop. If you're a black guy pulled over for doing 70 in a 65 zone, you don't know if you just got unlucky, or if there's a pattern -- say, that black drivers are stopped four times as often as whites..

It takes a lot of examination of records on an on-going basis to show the bias.

Combine this with feminism's known class and race issues, and things start to look interesting...

I partially agreed with what you said, until I got here. Perhaps you mean feminism in the so called west but there are feminists all over the world. There are even African, Chinese, Muslim, and South American feminists.

Falcon

So did the US. Don't believe me? The US protected the bombers of Cubana Flight 455, who included CIA operatives, in 1976. The year before, in 1975, the US supported Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, in which 200,000 East Timorese were massacred. In 1973 the US supported Gen Pinochet's overthrow of Chile's democratically elected government in a coup d'état Thousands of people disappeared afterwards. The US has a history of arming and supporting repressive regimes with large human rights violations.

Heck, at the same tyme the US was supporting Saddam, the US was also arming Iran, who he was fighting against. If the US had allowed democracy in Iran, instead of aiding the overthrow of Iran's elected government and installing the Shah in a dictatorship, there would not have been the revolution in Iran in 1980.

As far as Iraq goes, we had a treaty in place that allowed us to investigate them at will and they broke that treaty.

What treaty was broken and when? After Scott Ritter came out and stated Iraq had no significant WMDs the Neocons in Bush Jr's admin had to besmear him for not supporting their lies.

As for breaking treaties, the US has broken many treaties. I can think of 2 treaties Bush Jr broke or tried to break. With Starwars he was breaking the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. In trying to locate the permanent nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mount he would also have violated the Treay of Ruby Valley which granted the Western Shoshone Yucca Mount and the surrounding land. The US broke a number of treaties with the Sioux. When Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee to march on the Trail of Tears he broke a treaty when the Cherokee.

The US also supports Israel who has consistently disregarded UN resolutions, there was an uproar when VP Biden went to Israel and they announced more settlements in occupied territory.

the point was to keep Iran's military in line.

Why then did Reagan administration officials sell weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra Affair? Quite simply they were supporting a number of different sides who were repressive.

At that time there was also a threat by the Soviets against northern Yemen (after they invaded Afghanistan) and Iraq was prepping to fight with Saudi Arabia to defend against them.

Afghanistan was the Soviet's Vietnam. And the same Muslims going there to fight would have fought for the Saudis as well, heck a lot of Saudis went to Afghanistan. After Saddam's invasion of Kuwait al qaeda offered to protect Saudi Arabia against Saddam. They would have caused the Soviets trouble too.

By the way, the USA did NOT give Saddam chemical weapons. Did you just make that up?

• How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons
• Reagan's WMD Connection to Saddam Hussein
• Where Did Saddam Get His Chemical Weapons?
• Arming Iraq: A Chronology of U.S. Involvement
• How Did Iraq Get Its Weapons? We Sold Them
• Congressional Record: September 20, 2002

I responded to some of this in a parallel item, but since you said you spent so much time on it, I'll reply in more detail on these points.

You wrote: "Capitalism = Market distributes wealth; Marxism = Power brokers distribute wealth"

OK, to begin with, from Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02052010.html
"""
The truth is that markets are a social institution. Their efficiency depends on the rules that govern the behavior of people in markets. When free market economists talk about markets deciding this or that, they are reifying a social institution and ascribing to it decision-making power. But, of course, markets do not act or make decisions. People act and make decisions, and markets reflect the decisions and actions of people.
The entire debate over regulation is misconstrued. It is not the market, an efficient social institution, which is regulated. What is regulated is the behavior of people in markets. If you want good results from markets, good regulation of human behavior is a requirement.
The market is like a computer. Garbage in, garbage out.
If people who use markets are not regulated, they issue fraudulent financial instruments. They leverage assets with absurd amounts of debt. They market their instruments with fraudulent investment grade ratings. They deal themselves aces.
Did Greenspan not know this? Was he a victim of a theory or an enabler of greed unleashed by the absence of regulation?
The failure to regulate financial markets has produced enormous losses to all Americans except the super-rich. But the U.S. government is guilty of an even greater failure. Washington has not only permitted but also encouraged the unemployment of its citizens by enabling greed-driven corporations to send American jobs abroad in order to maximize profits for CEOs' bonuses, shareholders, and Wall Street.
As Ralph Gomory has made clear, economic theory has been shattered because there is no longer any connection between the profits of American companies and the welfare of Americans. The profits of American companies are derived from the cheap labor in offshored locations and are at the expense of the American work force.
"""

Do such profitable actions have merit or not in your eye?

Here is Greenspan on this:
"Greenspan Destroys Deregulation in 16 Seconds"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH-o7oEiyY&feature=related

In order to survive and prosper as a country and a planet, we need to regulate the behavior of people in markets. We also need to regulate the concentration of wealth that can result from markets, because, since it takes money to make money, the free market playing field becomes increasingly unfair without progressive taxes. That is why the 1940s and 1950s, with progressive taxation up to a marginal 91%) saw such a huge boom in general prosperity in the USA, even as we were shipping a lot of production abroad for then worthless IOUs.

A too big rich/poor divide also cause the market to fail (like now) as more and more fiat dollars are moved by the rich from the physical economy to the casino economy of speculation (whether on land or other assets or usually just financial instruments).
"Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxo_XPdpI_s

People drawing trillions of dollars out of the physical economy to speculate on derivatives or currency moves is the same as if the stuffed it under their mattresses as far as the physical economy is concerned. That's a big reason there is not much money for investment in physical things (oh, yes, there is billions of dolla

I will get modded to hell for this but as someone who is of Haitian decent and has family there right now the true cause of the corruption is bribery from states, corporations and even the IMF. The rice riots are a perfect example When the IMF loaned much needed money to Haiti it came with requirements that they open the country to "Free Trade" (Many Haitian politicians got their palms greased in this deal then left the country) when that happened American corporations flooded the market with cheap food which sounds great at first but when you consider the fact that the majority of the population made its living as farmers it doesn't sound so great. Farmers either lost their businesses or were forced into what amounted to virtual slavery for corporations who conveniently had money to lend them in their hour of need as long as they grew the crops (which were largely inedible) that the corporations wanted. Now you say "It all worked out great the farmers now have jobs, everything worked out for all parties!"

WRONG, the corporations paid the farmers pathetic prices for their crops because they were desperate and with agriculture being the only means of earning a living everyone in the country turned to farming, they tore down every tree in site in order to use every bit of land so they could earn enough just to survive. The worst part about this happened much later, with large areas of land in Haiti virtually treeless due to over-farming, Haiti got pounded by hurricanes three years in a row. With no trees to hold the ground into place when there was flooding large areas of land simply washed away killing thousands.

If the world really wants to help Haiti we need to do three things....

1.) Forgive much of Haiti's debt
2.) Lift all of the ridiculous restrictions that came with the debt
3.) Restrict foreign corporations and states from meddling in the country's politics

Have you heard about the Cuban Five? They infiltrated a Miami-based terror network, and instead of going the Mossad way of killing them, or the CIA way of abducting them, they actually handed over the information to American authorities.

Instead of arresting international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the FBI arrested the agents who had done the work for them. The five were then convicted to ludicrous prison terms in a trial in Miami, while Posada Carriles is still a free man.

Ok, in this case it was not "handing out free stuff to political groups", it was more like "handing out critical security information to the host government".

Congratulations, you just ran whois on a porn site instead of scroogle.org. Thanks for offering your authoritative opinion.

Scroogle.org, which is the actual search-engine proxy in question, has been operated by Daniel Brandt for the last 6 years or so.

Thanks for stating the actual fact of the matter about Israel's use of terrorism to steal the Palestinian's land, something that is almost never discussed in overtly pro Zionist public school history courses or our heavily biased mainstream media. Fortunately it's getting harder for Zionists to hide the truth now that we have the web to do research about the continuous history of human rights abuses from the state of Israel's origin in terror and collaboration with the Nazis:

http://www.counterpunch.org/brenner1223.html

(Don't be shocked Zionism is a racist ideology just like Nazi fascism, birds of a feather...) To Israel's war crimes continue to this day against the displaced people of Palestine as is documented in the Goldstone report:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/01/un-us-block-goldstone-report-must-not-defer-justice

The ongoing crimes against humanity by the government of Israel require two responses IMO:

1. That good hearted Jews who are appalled by Israel's ongoing crimes follow the good example of fellow Jews Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein and denounce Israel's crimes against humanity loudly and clearly and to call out fellow Jews when critics of Israel's crimes are falsely labeled "anti-Semetic."

2. That the U.S. government should cut off all aid to Israel until it complies *completely* with U.N. resolution 242 requiring Israel to return to it's recognized under international law border at the green line. Annexing territory after military victory as Israel has done and continues to do with expanding the settlements is a crime against humanity under international law. IMO our government ought not to fund war criminals whether it be our own unauthorized by Congress and thus unconstitutional foreign wars, or Israel's egregious crimes against humanity that are so cruel and destabilizing to the possibility world peace.

I wish I could say I was shocked by Israel keeping a database using facial recognition software of all it's citizens, but sadly I think Israel has descended nearly to the depths of the racist police police state that nearly unjustly destroyed the Jews as a people in the Holocaust. Nietzsche said if you stare in the depths of the abyss long enough you become that abyss something sadly the leadership of Israel has not learned. :(

As an aside here is a fascinating article by an ex CIA agent on why the CIA has exactly the same disease NASA has and why they are dysfunctional too. Apparently most CIA agents spend most of their time angling to making a jump to the private sector where they can get rich by using their insider knowledge to get lucrative contracts.... from the CIA.

NASA is pretty similar. There are very few scientists and engineers left at NASA. They are mostly contract monitors who shuffle paper from pile to pile to get money from Congress to award contracts to the private sector and the contractors do all the actual work. Of course contractors tend to be flakes, and are just in it to milk as much money as they can. During Apollo there were a lot of contractors but there were actual engineers and scientists at NASA who did stuff, not so much any more.

A government providing service is fine. People buying service themselves is often fine. Which one of those two you prefer might vary but both can work in right conditions and both have their own pros and cons... But people paying taxes so government can buy the services from a private company is a recipe for horrible end results. There are few exceptions in the modern history.

When a government provides a service, the point is: Service is seen as so crucial that nobody should be left without it. Government tries to offer best service possible and can do it with low resources as it doesn't need to make profit. Adding private companies to the mix ruins it: Now government doesn't pay the doctors to provide best service they can but rather government pays to companies who pay to doctors. Companies take a cut of profits so it costs more tax money for government to provide the service and in addition to this, the doctors aren't now paid by entity that tries to provide good service but rather by entity that tries to make profit (and providing good service might or might not be a method for such).

Right wing supporters hate that kind of a situation. Left wing supporters hate that kind of a situation. But left wing supporters won't let government to stop providing service and right wing supporters won't allow government to hire more people directly. Democracy is a funny thing.

NASA is a hopeless entrenched bureaucracy. Forming more committees, and writing reports, is what they do when threatened, its their counterpart to the old west circling of the wagons when attacked by Indians.

As an aside here is a fascinating article by an ex CIA agent on why the CIA has exactly the same disease NASA has and why they are dysfunctional too. Apparently most CIA agents spend most of their time angling to making a jump to the private sector where they can get rich by using their insider knowledge to get lucrative contracts.... from the CIA.

NASA is pretty similar. There are very few scientists and engineers left at NASA. They are mostly contract monitors who shuffle paper from pile to pile to get money from Congress to award contracts to the private sector and the contractors do all the actual work. Of course contractors tend to be flakes, and are just in it to milk as much money as they can. During Apollo there were a lot of contractors but there were actual engineers and scientists at NASA who did stuff, not so much any more.

Well, go do your own googling then and find out about modern game management, it's out there. I am a rural person and long time outdoorsman, like well over half a century worth now, this is just freeking as common of knowledge in our "community" as starbucks charges multiple dollars per cup of coffee is in yours. I mean, geez loweez, just go to some magazine stand that has a lot of "multicultural diversity" in the selections, they have entire magazines devoted to JUST whitetail deer hunting and *herd management*. Now, besides the articles, just look at the ads in that magazine. This isn't "opinion", this is established practice and business.

This is old hat well established science here and is already a *pretty large industry*. A business, not just some wild theory. If that ain't enough for a "debunking" I don't know what else could qualify. All these folks are not in the hobby and sport and business of making less deer, and smaller deer.

As to basic biology, the birds and bees.. That's second grade at the latest stuff, at least the basics. Taking big bucks, mature many year old game animals, does NOT remove the genes he carries from the herd, they are already out there in tons of baby and older deer from that buck gettin' lucky numerous times before. He ain't "saving himself" for later, for Ms. Doe "right", he's already done his buck-best in that regard, and they duke it out between the big bucks over who gets first dibs and who gets sloppy seconds. This period is called "the rut". The bigger tougher ones win. This means the bigger tougher buck-genes get a much better shot at being passed down into the herd. Like I said, basic biology.

Want some more odd facts about deer in the US? There are MORE whitetail deer NOW, 2009, then there were when the pilgrims first landed,by a huge factor, and for a couple hundred years after that time. Want to know why? It's because there is more dense cover now, less climax forests but more second or later growth, plus more ag area so they can munch on like corn and soybeans, etc, which means LOTS more for them to eat of a higher nutritional density, many more places to hide and yard up, and now we have better game management as well. We are getting more deer now, and overall larger deer, *even with robust hunting pressure*.

The very lowest period of time for whitetail populations in US history was immediately after the beginning of the great depression, when hunting pressure shot through the roof because people were starving because the wallstreet pirates had borked the economy, so hunting pressure increased well past the point that the authorities could handle. It got so bad for the deer population, that in some areas, such as my state of Georgia, they estimate only a few hundred head were left statewide, total, before things started getting better, and now the herd size is back up just great, and the individual animal size is back up as well. Very similar to my Zimbabwe comments, just we didn't have a big civil war going on then (unfortunately in my view, we should have sorted out those scumbag ripoff "elitists" the traditional way back then and been done with it));.heh.... Very similar in some ways, borked economy, ag plummeted, hunting increased from necessity, etc. Anyway, water under the dam now. Or maybe coming soon again, who knows....

It all has to do with whether or not the local economy is intact or not, if local agriculture is able to work and make some money and not be destroyed from warfare or other retarded big business and big government normal tom foolery, then responsible game management. No game management (the agenda 21, Gaia, "rewilding" junk science theory), means the herds get overly large for their area and start croaking from diseases and malnutrition, and then the natural predators, who's numbers have now increased go through the same thing, lose food, so they croak from malnutrition, a boom bust never ending cycle). No game mana

It's a well-known conspiracy theory: that Mossad has created Telco front companies throughout the world to spy on other nations. See The Israeli Spy Ring, which talks about the Fox News articles, and another typical story. Of course, a conspiracy theory doesn't make it true...

Although I like the gist of your comment I have a nitpick:

The risk of being injured by a nuclear meltdown today is on par with being injured by lightning.

Your risk of injury from nuclear meltdown is orders of magnitude less than getting hit by lightning. Think about it, people get hit by lightning all the time in comparison the number of nuclear meltdowns in the nation. And no one was "injured" at our last nuclear meltdown (Three Mile Island) so even given an incredibly rare meltdown you have a incredibly minute chance of injury unless you happened to be working in the containment building.

Now, Three Mile Island did release radioactive contamination to the atmosphere, but the affect on the surrounding population was slight. Of course, not everyone agrees. I can't speak to the findings of the various researchers but I can say that several of Mr. Wasserman's claims are either misleading or flat-out wrong:

The public was told there was no danger of an explosion. But there was, as there had been at Michigan's Fermi reactor in 1966. In 1986, Chernobyl Unit Four did explode.

Even the Chernobyl explosion was non-nuclear, caused by the water in the coolant tubes being instantly converted to steam during the accident and literally blowing the lid off of Chernobyl. A hydrogen bubble was present in the reactor core after the meltdown but could not have exploded without the presence of oxygen to combust with, but oxygen is kept out of the coolant due to corrosion concerns.

there is no safe dose of radiation, and none will ever be found.

Well there is no set level under which you can say that a person will be just fine, but at the same time each and every single one of us live in a field of ionizing radiation from natural/cosmic sources all the time. Life has been adapted to low-level ionizing radiation due to this. If it were not the case then therapies such as medical radioimaging would not be performed, not to mention procedures like X-raying. For the same reason, people are allowed to fly on airplanes even though the radiation you receive in flight is much higher than on the ground due to less atmospheric shielding while in flight. Mr. Wasserman is correct that radiation damage is more harmful to fetuses, unborn babies, and children due to the reduced amount of time available to repair the damage before cell division. However we let pregnant women fly so apparently there must be some level of ionizing radiation that we believe unborn children can withstand.

Much of the rest of his assertions is a they-said/I-said where he discounts studies and government reports that disprove his claim by invoking the ever-popular conspiracy theory and then he submits his claims based on experts who agree with his claim. I can say people in Harrisburg didn't suffer symptoms, as I've certainly never walked door to door there. I can say that the trial court in Pennsylvania where the TMI cases were adjudicated ended up throwing out the lawsuits due to lack of evidence.

In addition Mr. Wasserman talks about "anecdotal" evidence of "Many [central Pennsylvanians] quickly developed large, visible tumors, breathing problems, and a metallic taste in their mouths that matched that experienced by some of the men who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima." This is nice and all except that the metallic taste is due to gamma radiation, which was produced in copious amounts during the Hiroshima bombing, but not so much in the radioactive release from TMI (otherwise there would have been more than "anecdotal" evidence for its existence). I'm not sure if Mr. Wasserman was leading the questions or simply allowing peoples fears to guide what they thought they were feeling but this kind of effect is very far-fetched.

Speaking of

Here's an excellent column by am Martens about this arbitration business. Judicial Apartheid

lets be intellectually honest here: anyone who doesn't browse the web is completely out of touch with the main thrust of anything and everything computer related in the last 15 years

He still browses the web - he just does it via a method that works:

1. even if he doesn't have a net connection when he wants to actually view the page (which might be later on in the day at a conference, or in a cafeteria) - the page is in his email, so he can download it now, and then view it later offline with his email program
2. without downloading all the associated crap that most pages are infested with
3. while providing him with a permanent copy of the stuff he's interested in

Other people also use other means to "browse" the web that don't involve conventional interactions with a web browser. Programs like JAWS (a screen reader for the blind) and blinux don't meet your metaphor for accesing the web - BFD, get over it.

Also, computing is much more than just the web. For many researchers, email is a LOT more convenient, and more important, than the web ever will be.

Funding parties that oppose policies the U.S. government doesn't like most certainly is interference:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22868.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06192009.html

The neo-cons are openly bragging that they are supporting the Iranian opposition ie interfering in their society:

"The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting âcolorâ(TM) revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.

âoeSome of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.â

Yes, you say, but what does a blow-hard propagandist like Timmerman know about such things? Well, he should know! His very spooky Foundation for Democracy in Iran has its own snout deep in the trough of NEDâ(TM)s âoeopen covert actionsâ against the Iranian government.

How does the âoeFoundation for Democracy in Iranâ seek to âoepromote democracyâ in Iran with our tax dollars? Foundation co-founder Joshua Muravchik gives us a hint in his subtly-titled LA Times piece, âoeBomb Iran.â

Frankly, what I find more disturbing than the fact that the US government continues meddling in this new magical era of Obama is how many in the United States continue to be taken in by these events color-coordinated from afar. Pundits have turned their websites green in âoesolidarityâ with this âoegreen revolution.â Self-described âoelibertariansâ have thrown all critical thinking aside to embrace their inner green. As if hoping, somehow, that this time it will all be true. That the âoepeople powerâ really is on the march. That it is a binary world where there are evil incumbents â" the old guard â" oppressing thrusting âoereformersâ who are Twittering away toward the bright tomorrow of a world where everyone wants to be just like us! Democracy!"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027782.html

Even the Voice of America admits Ahmadinejad was ahead going in to the elections:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-08-voa60.cfm

Note that I think Ahmadinejad is a cruel and reactionary leader, but if that is the Iranian peoples choice I think we ought to stay out of it 100% and focus on our own dire economic circumstances, decayed infrastructure, and lack of healthcare in the U.S. first and foremost. Endless meddling in other peoples affairs only leads to wasted blood and treasure and blowback, something I very much agree with Ron Paul on despite being a leftist activist.

I won't object to communities getting source code to voting machines under free software licenses, but when voting machines are used only to prepare voter-verified paper ballots never to count ballots (as they should be), security concerns for these machines drop dramatically. I shouldn't have to use such a machine in the first place, but if I choose to use a machine to prepare my voter-verified paper ballot source code concerns drop to making sure that bugs in the program won't stop me from using the program under unforseen conditions. Communities deserve software freedom, and that is sufficient justification for communities to run their own voting systems completely.

Unless its a city without traffic, pollution, gangs, poverty and the homeless its going to look pretty much the same to me. Getting rid of cars, trucks, and sirens would be the biggest step to a Utopian city I can think of assuming you replace it with effective transit, kinder gentler taxis, an effective logistics mechanism to replace trucks and effective emergency services without sirens.

I recall reading recently there is a 2 mile square suburb in Germany which was designed to ban cars. They have communal garages on the edge for your cars. Rail service to commute to jobs in the city. Stores are designed to be walked to. Its bikes and pedestrians only in the interior. That is pretty close to Utopia for me.

If people in businesses like IT, finance, etc and can telecommute effectively that would also be a huge step. Commuting alone make urban/suburban design an unavoidable living hell.

Solving the homeless problem a lot harder. You can't just cage them, can't just ship them somewhere else, and you can't just wave a wand and solve the drug abuse, mental illness, criminal records, hatred for the man and hatred for 40 hour work weeks in factories and offices that made them the way they are.

Here is an interesting article on CounterPunch with Alex Rivera, an indie sci fi film producer from Peru about his dystopian film, Sleep Dealer. It raises some interesting issues. One of the premises is based on a future sealing of the border to illegal immigrants who will instead continue to work in the U.S. through virtual links, like driving Taxi's, assembly line work in factories through robots, mowing lawns, etc. Its the ultimate continuation to outsourcing and globalization.

I wish news organizations were failing because the most important issues to cover were covered so poorly. How many news agencies collaborated with the US government to sell us lies about the invasion and occupation of Iraq? We saw the multi-page spread mea culpa for Jayson Blair's lies but how about the far more important lies from the front pages of The New York Times by Judith Miller (included planted stories referenced by Vice President Cheney on the Sunday morning talk shows: "There's a story in The New York Times this morning [...] and I want to attribute The Times" he said).

John Nichols reminds us "It is important to remember that, at the same time The New York Times, The Washington Post and television network news programs were cheerleading the country toward war, European print and broadcast outlets were questioning President Bush's outrageous exaggerations and outright lies.". There was and is massive failure on the part of American establishment news organizations to properly report on the most important thing a government can do—go to war. Instead of challenging the powers that be, which is a journalist's job, journalists were lining up to become "embedded" with the government and thus never got around to questioning the case for war (remember Col. Powell's lies to the UN? Remember how many news programs said that that was a "slam dunk" case for war with Iraq? A lot of them did. Too bad so few of them could muster the intellectual courage to remind us of Powell's recent lies when Powell endorsed Obama for US President).

Basic journalistic principles are left out as media consolidates. "The Market" apparently isn't doing a good job making sure the investigative journalists are finding outlets to be heard and paid for their critical muckraking. We need independent audience-funded journalism now more than ever.

"Spooky" would imply that there was some mystery to it. To anyone who was paying attention, it only required enough common sense to know that foxes shouldn't be allowed to guard henhouses. There wasn't any mystery.

Just like there wasn't much of a mystery about the lack of WMDs in Iraq before the war to anybody who was paying any attention at all to how the Carlyle Group and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root were going to make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit from Cheney's unabashed manipulation of the intelligence coming out of the CIA:

http://www.counterpunch.org/shor0521.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/vips03152003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06272003.html

Amazing notion... money can corrupt?

Um, not.

"Spooky" would imply that there was some mystery to it. To anyone who was paying attention, it only required enough common sense to know that foxes shouldn't be allowed to guard henhouses. There wasn't any mystery.

Just like there wasn't much of a mystery about the lack of WMDs in Iraq before the war to anybody who was paying any attention at all to how the Carlyle Group and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root were going to make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit from Cheney's unabashed manipulation of the intelligence coming out of the CIA:

http://www.counterpunch.org/shor0521.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/vips03152003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06272003.html

Amazing notion... money can corrupt?

Um, not.

"Spooky" would imply that there was some mystery to it. To anyone who was paying attention, it only required enough common sense to know that foxes shouldn't be allowed to guard henhouses. There wasn't any mystery.

Just like there wasn't much of a mystery about the lack of WMDs in Iraq before the war to anybody who was paying any attention at all to how the Carlyle Group and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root were going to make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit from Cheney's unabashed manipulation of the intelligence coming out of the CIA:

http://www.counterpunch.org/shor0521.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/vips03152003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06272003.html

Amazing notion... money can corrupt?

Um, not.

"Spooky" would imply that there was some mystery to it. To anyone who was paying attention, it only required enough common sense to know that foxes shouldn't be allowed to guard henhouses. There wasn't any mystery.

Just like there wasn't much of a mystery about the lack of WMDs in Iraq before the war to anybody who was paying any attention at all to how the Carlyle Group and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root were going to make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit from Cheney's unabashed manipulation of the intelligence coming out of the CIA:

http://www.counterpunch.org/shor0521.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/vips03152003.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06272003.html

Amazing notion... money can corrupt?

Um, not.

Original article by John Goekler: http://www.counterpunch.org/goekler03242009.htmlhttp://www.counterpunch.org/goekler03242009.html

Of the top things to be scared of there is no mention of terrorism. But watch out for family members! "Over 16,000 Americans will be murdered this year, most often by a relative or friend."

Almost all big industrial processes are dangerous, it's true. Even with solar panels, people will fall off roofs when they install them. It's sometimes hard to assess benefits to whom versus risks to who else?

Still, was the TMI release safe just like the air was declared safe by the EPA in NYC after 9/11?
"EPA Misled Public on 9/11 Pollution: White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report says "
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0823-03.htm
"""
Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, called for a Justice Department investigation. "That the White House instructed EPA officials to downplay the health impact of the World Trade Center contaminants due to 'competing considerations' at the expense of the health and lives of New York City residents is an abomination," he said in a news release. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview it was "understandable that in the midst of a crisis the White House did not want the EPA to sound alarmist." But, he warned, "If the public loses faith that things are safe when the government says so, we'll have done more damage than a pointed statement the week after 9/11 would have."
"""

As to there being no deaths related to TMI, that's not what these people say:
"30 Years and Counting: People Died at Three Mile Island "
http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman03242009.html
"""
Using unsubstantiated estimates of how much radiation was released, the government issued average doses allegedly received by people in the region, which it assured the public were safe. But the estimates were utterly meaningless, among other things ignoring the likelihood that high doses of concentrated fallout could come down heavily on specific areas. ... In fact, the most reliable studies were conducted by local residents like Jane Lee and Mary Osborne, who went door-to-door in neighborhoods where the fallout was thought to be worst. Their surveys showed very substantial plagues of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, respiratory problems, hair loss, rashes, lesions and much more. ... Gundersen, a leading technical expert on nuclear engineering, says:
"When I correctly interpreted the containment pressure spike and the doses measured in the environment after the TMI accident, I proved that TMI's releases were about one hundred times higher than the industry and the NRC claim, in part because the containment leaked. This new data supports the epidemiology of Dr. Steve Wing and proves that there really were injuries from the accident. New reactor designs are also effected, as the NRC is using its low assumed release rates to justify decreases in emergency planning and containment design." ... But the Big Lie remains officially in tact. Expect to hear all week that TMI was "a success story" because "no one was killed." But in mere moments that brand new reactor morphed from a $900 million asset to a multi-billion-dollar liability. It could happen to any atomic power plant, now, tomorrow and into the future. Meanwhile, the death toll from America's worst industrial catastrophe continues to rise. More than ever, it is shrouded in official lies and desecrated by a reactor-pushing "renaissance" hell-bent on repeating the nightmare on an even larger scale.
"""

Or here:
"Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety "
http://www.counterpunch.org/sturgis04032009.html
"""
The evidence that people, animals and plants near TMI were exposed to high levels of radiation in the 1979 disaster is not merely anecdotal. While government studies of the disaster as well as a number of independent researchers assert the incident caused no harm, other surveys and studie

Almost all big industrial processes are dangerous, it's true. Even with solar panels, people will fall off roofs when they install them. It's sometimes hard to assess benefits to whom versus risks to who else?

Still, was the TMI release safe just like the air was declared safe by the EPA in NYC after 9/11?
"EPA Misled Public on 9/11 Pollution: White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report says "
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0823-03.htm
"""
Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, called for a Justice Department investigation. "That the White House instructed EPA officials to downplay the health impact of the World Trade Center contaminants due to 'competing considerations' at the expense of the health and lives of New York City residents is an abomination," he said in a news release. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview it was "understandable that in the midst of a crisis the White House did not want the EPA to sound alarmist." But, he warned, "If the public loses faith that things are safe when the government says so, we'll have done more damage than a pointed statement the week after 9/11 would have."
"""

As to there being no deaths related to TMI, that's not what these people say:
"30 Years and Counting: People Died at Three Mile Island "
http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman03242009.html
"""
Using unsubstantiated estimates of how much radiation was released, the government issued average doses allegedly received by people in the region, which it assured the public were safe. But the estimates were utterly meaningless, among other things ignoring the likelihood that high doses of concentrated fallout could come down heavily on specific areas. ... In fact, the most reliable studies were conducted by local residents like Jane Lee and Mary Osborne, who went door-to-door in neighborhoods where the fallout was thought to be worst. Their surveys showed very substantial plagues of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, respiratory problems, hair loss, rashes, lesions and much more. ... Gundersen, a leading technical expert on nuclear engineering, says:
"When I correctly interpreted the containment pressure spike and the doses measured in the environment after the TMI accident, I proved that TMI's releases were about one hundred times higher than the industry and the NRC claim, in part because the containment leaked. This new data supports the epidemiology of Dr. Steve Wing and proves that there really were injuries from the accident. New reactor designs are also effected, as the NRC is using its low assumed release rates to justify decreases in emergency planning and containment design." ... But the Big Lie remains officially in tact. Expect to hear all week that TMI was "a success story" because "no one was killed." But in mere moments that brand new reactor morphed from a $900 million asset to a multi-billion-dollar liability. It could happen to any atomic power plant, now, tomorrow and into the future. Meanwhile, the death toll from America's worst industrial catastrophe continues to rise. More than ever, it is shrouded in official lies and desecrated by a reactor-pushing "renaissance" hell-bent on repeating the nightmare on an even larger scale.
"""

Or here:
"Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety "
http://www.counterpunch.org/sturgis04032009.html
"""
The evidence that people, animals and plants near TMI were exposed to high levels of radiation in the 1979 disaster is not merely anecdotal. While government studies of the disaster as well as a number of independent researchers assert the incident caused no harm, other surveys and studie

Here's another, more recent story about the same thing happening to a journalist just two years ago. In short, possession laws are still very much defecating on the freedom of the press.

Hmm, it sounds like someone doesn't believe in the Monroe Doctrine.

Pumpkin Segregation Forever!

@jester:

"Was it because CNN doesn't show that kind of thing as policy, or was it just because it was too close to home and they didn't want to upset people further?"

I'd say you pretty much answered your own question. For a more balanced perspective than U.S. corporate MSM I'd recommend:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (center left by European standards hard left by American standards)

http://antiwar.com/ (Libertarian anti imperialist excellent tracking of conflict around the world)

http://commondreams.org/ (Liberal/left compilation of news from around the world)

http://counterpunch.org/ (Hard left with occasional Libertarianesque essays)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/ ("anti state, anti war, pro market" essays)

Yeah this list is slanted to the left if you go to all these sites and balance it with the BBC and our center right to hard right corporate MSM, you can ALMOST figure out what's going on in the world. Good luck having a life though. :(

oh, they must have used highly advanced software to detect the minute discrepancies between lighting angles. it must have taken a team of experts several weeks to uncover the fraud.

this seems like typical nationalistic BS, but it's really not any worse than the kind of stuff you see in magazines or the kind of audience manipulation TV networks like Fox and CNN do on a regular basis. i'd be more worried about Army psy-ops "interning" at CNN or NPR.

Since it highlights the safety concerns of putting nuclear warheads on aircraft, this seems like a good excuse to resurrect a faded story that didn't live past the UK arms deal scandal. Whether or not the U.S. has, ahem, only a small number of serious incidents in its past, there's no doubting that we're guilty of significant negligence in our handling of nuclear weapons.

This first article was first published in July 2005, Lost Nuclear Warheads from a B-52 Now in Iran? and the second nearly a year later in April 2006, Cheney Violated International Law In Failing To Report The 1991 B-52 'Lost Nuke Incident' In Iran, According To Former Forensic Intelligence Officer. According to both, the incident involved W-69 SRAM warheads.

Here we have then Senator and later Secretary of Defense William Cohen's timely comments in 1992 regarding the W-69 warhead:

The Senator from Louisiana has pointed out--and I think very effectively, as has the Senator from New Mexico--that there are serious safety issues that have been raised... The Drell panel was the one that came to the conclusion that a substantial portion of our inventory still has major safety problems... The Senator from Louisiana started to deal with that, and he showed a photograph, which I did not see at the time, but perhaps it was that accident we had at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, in 1980 with a B-52 bomber. That bomber was loaded with SRAM-A missiles, and the W-69 warhead on that SRAM-A missile is not equipped with insensitive high explosives, or with a fire resistant pit, or with the enhanced nuclear detonation safety systems. It has none of those safety systems. We were lucky in this particular tragedy. As I recall, it was Dan Rowen who used the expression `the fickle finger of fate.' We were spared a major catastrophe by that fickle finger of fate, because the wind was blowing the wrong way that day.

So the Pentagon and perhaps the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services let a known safety problem and potential environmental disaster persist between 1980 and 1992 and more likely since the weapon's development in 1972. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I think their sudden interest in safer warheads in 1992 and the subsequent retirement of the W69 (pg 27) add credibility to the story's allegations. They may have been willing to overlook the risks until chance conspired to illustrate that it's also a proliferation risk. It'll be a few more decades before we admit that we actually lost them.

We have one candidate that opposed the Iraq war from the beginning...

REALLY? Which candidate is that? Because Barack Obama has repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq and he plans to continue it indefinitely. He plans to keep open the giant embassy (bigger than the Vatican) from which we direct our puppet regime in Baghdad. He plans to keep open over a dozen massive military bases from which we routinely bomb innocent civilians. He plans to continue using lawless mercenaries like Blackwater. And the handful of troops he has proposed to maybe withdraw someday if the generals say it's ok? He wants to send them to Afghanistan—because both he and McCain agree on escalating that war.

Obama has proposed increasing military spending (from the already stratospheric level of $600+ billion Congress just passed for 2009) and he wants to increase the size of the military by over 90,000 troops. Obama has repeated the same blustery, discredited lies about Iran as Bush and has stated he's willing to bomb both Iran and Pakistan. There is virtually no difference between McCain and Obama on Iraq, except that McCain is more honest: he says he wants us to remain there for 100 years. Obama is a fraud because he is deceiving millions of voters into believing he's an anti-war candidate, when he clearly is not.

Obama has no problem with war—he just doesn't like losing. His plan for Iraq is not to end the war but to continue it in another guise—in effect, a repackaging and re-branding of the war. He's not running for antiwarrior-in-chief, he's running for commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful imperial army—and that is the role he's going to fill.

The Vietnam war was ended when widespread revolt among GI's meant that the US could no longer count on the military to fight the war. Open rebellion within the ranks is what brought that 12+ year war to an end. It will take nothing less this time around. Voting for a pro-war candidate like Obama will only serve as an endorsement of more war. If you really want to cast a vote against war then you need to vote for a genuine anti-war candidate like Nader or McKinney. Voting for the Democrats only tells them they can keep betraying us and pay no political price—it's as irrational as rewarding someone for misbehaving and then expecting a positive change in their behavior.