Freitag, 15. September 2006

Fight Global Warming!

We're heating up our atmosphere more every day, with devastating human and environmental consequences. Right now, Congress has a chance to do more than just talk about this issue. Crucial legislation that would help slow global warming is currently before both the House and the Senate.

Fill out the form below to urge your representatives in Congress to protect our planet for future generations by co-sponsoring these critical science-based global warming bills! http://ga3.org/campaign/global_warming

Rachel's News #872

http://www.omega-news.info/rachels_news_872.htm

FCC Ordered Media Ownership Study Destroyed

The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506O.shtml

World Bank Cites Poverty, Conflict as Key Creators of Terrorism

The World Bank concludes that weak and poorly governed nations can provide a breeding ground for global terrorism. The root causes of terrorism have little to do with "enemies who hate freedom," or "enemies of democracy," or even extremist fanatics pledged to a 7th-century interpretation of Islam. These are symptoms, but not the disease.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506N.shtml

A Call for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to Resign

Murtha Lays the Dead at Rumsfeld's Door

Democratic congressman John Murtha has released a 12-page report outlining severe shortfalls plaguing the US Army as thousands of troops prepare to be deployed to Iraq. Murtha said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bears full responsibility for the military's consistent readiness failures and demanded that he resign.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506J.shtml



A Call for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to Resign

Robert Byrd writes to President Bush: "The war in Iraq has backfired, producing more recruits for terrorism, and deep divisions within our own country. It is a war we should never have begun. The detour from our attack on bin Laden and his minions, hiding in the cracks and crevices of the rough terrain of Afghanistan, to the unwise and unprovoked attack on Iraq has been a disastrous one." He continues, "The United States is a weaker power now, especially in the Middle East, but also in the court of world opinion."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506K.shtml

Sign Petition for Bill to End Funding of The War

http://tinyurl.com/qfq9r

Former Skeptics Call for Action on Warming – Bush Silent

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000318.php

"100 alte Weizensorten bedroht": Umweltschützer wenden sich gegen Genweizen-Anbau

15.09.06

Der Naturschutzbund NABU und der Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) haben das Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit aufgefordert, den geplanten Anbau von Genweizen in Sachsen-Anhalt nicht zu genehmigen. Zu diesem Zweck haben sich die Verbände mit einer schriftlichen Einwendung an die Seehofer-Behörde gewandt. Erstmals seit 2004 sei in Deutschland wieder ein Freisetzungsversuch mit gentechnisch verändertem Weizen geplant. Das Leibniz-Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung in Gatersleben wollten den Genweizen von Herbst an zu Forschungszwecken anbauen, klagen die Verbände. Das Versuchsfeld liege "in unmittelbarer Nähe einer Genbank mit hunderten alter Weizensorten, die zur Erhaltung im Freiland angebaut werden müssen und durch den Genweizen verunreinigt werden können".

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=14348

Don't Let The FCC Cover Up Facts

http://www.stopbigmedia.com/coverup.php

Chris

Poisons at Large

While the US lags behind the rest of the world in its failure to ratify two key international treaties regulating the production of persistent organic pollutants and export of toxic waste, global poison traffickers break existing laws - and people die.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506H.shtml

The Insecurity of Immorality

"The betrayal of our troops by the Bush administration is immoral. The betrayal of each of us by a president who talks tough on issues of security but who has done little more than nothing to enforce protection and, instead, invaded a country with no WMD and no ties to al-Qaeda is immoral. Bush's colossal lie and mantra that "Iraq is the central front in the war on terra" is immoral," writes Missy Comley Beattie.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506D.shtml

How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506C.shtml

The President Goes to Capitol Hill to Lobby for Torture

The Washington Post reports: "President Bush rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that Mr. Bush made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek legislative permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506B.shtml

The Absurd Season

William Rivers Pitt writes: "Herein lies the absurdity. It was bad enough in 2004 to have an entire national election turn on issues that had nothing to do with what the country was facing. Today, there appear to be a number of serious issues on the table - Iraq, torture, national security - but these issues are being transmogrified by the GOP into debates that bear no relationship to reality."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506A.shtml

Climate activists National Call to Action: Keanu Reeves on Global Warming

http://people.freenet.de/omega_news/keanu_reeves_on_global_warming.htm

Scientist who refused to be silenced

By Andrew Gumbel

Published: 15 September 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603680.ece

Two things about Jim Hansen have remained near-constant for the past 30 years. He has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the science of global warming, issuing warning after warning about the consequences for the planet if we do nothing to stop the creation of greenhouse gases. And he has run up against a wall of resistance from politicians and policy-makers who simply don't want to believe what they hear from him.

Under the current Bush administration, he has accused political appointees in the public affairs department at NASA, the space agency where he works, of deliberately blocking his access to the media and censoring the published fruits of his research. When the Reagan administration took office in 1981, they responded to his warnings about climate change by paring his staff to the bone and cutting his funding.

Hansen is the very picture of reasonableness: a 65-year-old gentleman from Iowa who insists on presenting scientific fact without political spin. That has made him a menace in the eyes of the energy industry. His first testimony before Congress in 1988 drew considerable ire because he said he was only "99 per cent certain" of some of his claims - falling short of the absolute certainty expected of academic scientists.

Hansen, in turn, accused his adversaries of misrepresenting his testimony - whether it is congressional staffers seeking to minimise the impact of global warming or Michael Crichton, the novelist and global warming sceptic, picking holes in his claims in his novel State of Fear. "Some 'greenhouse sceptics'," he wrote in 2004, "subvert the scientific process, ceasing to act as objective scientists, rather presenting only one side, as if they were lawyers hired to defend a viewpoint."

According to Hansen: "Human-made forces, especially greenhouse gases, soot and other small particles, now exceed natural forces, and the world has begun to warm at a rate predicted by climate models."

Two things about Jim Hansen have remained near-constant for the past 30 years. He has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the science of global warming, issuing warning after warning about the consequences for the planet if we do nothing to stop the creation of greenhouse gases. And he has run up against a wall of resistance from politicians and policy-makers who simply don't want to believe what they hear from him.

Under the current Bush administration, he has accused political appointees in the public affairs department at NASA, the space agency where he works, of deliberately blocking his access to the media and censoring the published fruits of his research. When the Reagan administration took office in 1981, they responded to his warnings about climate change by paring his staff to the bone and cutting his funding.

Hansen is the very picture of reasonableness: a 65-year-old gentleman from Iowa who insists on presenting scientific fact without political spin. That has made him a menace in the eyes of the energy industry. His first testimony before Congress in 1988 drew considerable ire because he said he was only "99 per cent certain" of some of his claims - falling short of the absolute certainty expected of academic scientists.

Hansen, in turn, accused his adversaries of misrepresenting his testimony - whether it is congressional staffers seeking to minimise the impact of global warming or Michael Crichton, the novelist and global warming sceptic, picking holes in his claims in his novel State of Fear. "Some 'greenhouse sceptics'," he wrote in 2004, "subvert the scientific process, ceasing to act as objective scientists, rather presenting only one side, as if they were lawyers hired to defend a viewpoint."

According to Hansen: "Human-made forces, especially greenhouse gases, soot and other small particles, now exceed natural forces, and the world has begun to warm at a rate predicted by climate models."


Informant: binstock

The climate disaster is upon us now

by Michael McCarthy

Published: 15 September 2006

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1603643.ece

Ten years ago, when the world was groping its way towards the signing of the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the sense that the issue needed to be tackled urgently was largely based on one thing only: computer programs.

Predictions from supercomputer models of the earth's atmosphere, about how global warming would progress, were the main drivers of that heroic effort to agree international reductions in the greenhouse gases which cause it.

These immense mathematical structures looked forward a full century (and still do) at the rise in carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, and how that would worsen the greenhouse effect; and their predictions were enough to get the Kyoto protocol signed (but not, thanks to George Bush, enough to make it work).

Yet what was almost completely missing from the climate debate a decade ago was observation: evidence of actual effects that the warming was having. This absence contributed to the sense, still widespread, that global warming is a distant problem, its consequences a century away.

Things have changed. Since the turn of the millennium, observations of the concrete effects of rising temperatures have started to mount up: the unprecedented European heatwave of 2003, which killed more than 30,000 people; the UK's record temperature topping 100F for the first time in that year; the record US hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, culminating in Katrina; and most of all, the melting ice.

The great ice masses are now shrinking rapidly everywhere; almost every mountain glacier, the great Greenland ice sheet, the great ice sheets of Antarctica, the legendary African snow on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, and the ice of the Arctic, whose rate of disappearance, we now learn, has increased explosively.

It means two things: firstly, you can't deny it any more. Last week, we had the remarkable spectacle of The Economist magazine, climate change sceptic-in-chief, cheerleader to the American business community, coughing, shuffling, looking at its feet and admitting gruffly, well, perhaps there is something in this global warming stuff, after all.

Secondly, it's coming, to you. Doesn't matter you're not bothered about it. Doesn't matter you're thinking about your next holiday, or the state of your marriage or the next Big Brother. This vast phenomenon that is going to change the world unthinkably is coming right to your doorstep. A lot sooner than you think.

Ten years ago, when the world was groping its way towards the signing of the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the sense that the issue needed to be tackled urgently was largely based on one thing only: computer programs.

Predictions from supercomputer models of the earth's atmosphere, about how global warming would progress, were the main drivers of that heroic effort to agree international reductions in the greenhouse gases which cause it.

These immense mathematical structures looked forward a full century (and still do) at the rise in carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, and how that would worsen the greenhouse effect; and their predictions were enough to get the Kyoto protocol signed (but not, thanks to George Bush, enough to make it work).

Yet what was almost completely missing from the climate debate a decade ago was observation: evidence of actual effects that the warming was having. This absence contributed to the sense, still widespread, that global warming is a distant problem, its consequences a century away.

Things have changed. Since the turn of the millennium, observations of the concrete effects of rising temperatures have started to mount up: the unprecedented European heatwave of 2003, which killed more than 30,000 people; the UK's record temperature topping 100F for the first time in that year; the record US hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, culminating in Katrina; and most of all, the melting ice.

The great ice masses are now shrinking rapidly everywhere; almost every mountain glacier, the great Greenland ice sheet, the great ice sheets of Antarctica, the legendary African snow on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, and the ice of the Arctic, whose rate of disappearance, we now learn, has increased explosively.

It means two things: firstly, you can't deny it any more. Last week, we had the remarkable spectacle of The Economist magazine, climate change sceptic-in-chief, cheerleader to the American business community, coughing, shuffling, looking at its feet and admitting gruffly, well, perhaps there is something in this global warming stuff, after all.

Secondly, it's coming, to you. Doesn't matter you're not bothered about it. Doesn't matter you're thinking about your next holiday, or the state of your marriage or the next Big Brother. This vast phenomenon that is going to change the world unthinkably is coming right to your doorstep. A lot sooner than you think.


Informant: binstock

From Alaska to Australia, the world is changing in front of us

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603660.ece


Informant: binstock

Changing ocean chemistry threatens to harm marine life

By Bruce Lieberman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 14, 2006
VICTORIA FABRY

Census of Marine Life

[fotos] Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Oceans are absorbing rising levels of carbon dioxide and becoming more acidic. The change could be devastating for organisms that build their skeletons from carbonate ions. These include (from top) pteropods, foraminifera, coccolithophores and corals.

Fifty-five million years ago, Earth endured a period of rapid global warming, a shift so dramatic it altered ocean and atmospheric circulation, driving plankton in the seas and mammals on land to extinction.

The event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, may have been caused by volcanic eruptions that flooded the atmosphere with billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Or, methane gas frozen beneath the sea on continental shelves could have destabilized, diffusing into the atmosphere where it was oxidized into CO.

As the oceans absorbed much of the carbon dioxide, their pH fell and they grew increasingly acidified.

Thirty percent to 40 percent of a major class of plankton, called foraminifera, went extinct.

Today, scientists look at that turn in Earth's history with worry. Rising carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of gas, oil and other fossil fuels is being absorbed by the oceans – making them increasingly acidified once again.

Every day, about 22 million tons of CO generated from human activities – primarily from the burning of fossil fuels – are entering the world's oceans. That's 10 times the rate at which carbon dioxide would be absorbed by the oceans if humans did not burn fossil fuels.

Only 200 years after the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, scientists fear that human-generated CO is altering the chemistry and biology of the oceans – perhaps irreversibly. Many types of plankton that form a key part of the ocean food web, as well as coral reefs, could be devastated by falling pH. And it could happen within decades, scientists say.

“It's stunning. I don't know how else to describe it,” said Victoria Fabry, a researcher at California State University San Marcos who studies how ocean acidification threatens tiny and abundant plankton called pteropods. “The impact we're having is very alarming.”

Acidification of the oceans is the sleeping giant of global warming. Scientists are only beginning to understand what the changing chemistry could mean.

But some of the science is clear. As atmospheric CO is absorbed by the oceans, it forms carbonic acid, lowering the pH of seawater. The lower pH, in turn, decreases the availability of chemical building blocks called carbonate ions that many marine organisms need to make their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.

Threatened plankton include coccolithophores, foraminifera and pteropods, which lie at the bottom of the ocean food chain. Both warm-water corals, such as those at the Great Barrier Reef off Australia, and deep cold-water corals, which provide critical habitats for numerous species of fish, also are in danger.

“There's nothing really controversial about ocean acidification,” Fabry said. “The chemistry is very, very well known. The only unknown is how organisms will respond and how those changes will ripple through ecosystems.”

Scientists had long thought that the world's oceans amounted to a near limitless reservoir that could absorb any CO that humans put into the atmosphere. But the oceans are highly stratified, with layers varied by temperature and salinity, and it takes time for CO to mix completely in the oceans – as many as 1,500 years, said Christopher Sabine, a researcher at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in Seattle.

In fact, 50 percent of the man-made carbon dioxide that's been absorbed by the oceans is still in their upper 1,300 feet, he said.

That is where the oceans have grown more acidified.

Falling pH

The pH scale measures acidity and alkalinity. On the scale, 7.0 is neutral, lower numbers are more acidic, and higher numbers are more alkaline. Battery acid has a pH of about 0, while household bleach has a pH of about 12.


The scale is akin to the Richter scale in that increments in one direction or another change logarithmically – not linearly. Seemingly small differences in pH, then, are large and can have big consequences for ocean chemistry and sea life.

The oceans are actually alkaline, with a pH today of 8.05.

During the last ice age, peak concentrations of CO in the atmosphere measured 180 parts per million, and the corresponding pH of the upper oceans was 8.32, Fabry said.

Just before the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had risen to 280 parts per million and the pH of the upper oceans had fallen to 8.16, toward the acidic side of the pH scale.

Today, the CO concentration is 380 parts per million and the pH of the upper oceans has dropped further to 8.05.

If CO2 concentrations reach 560 parts per million by the end of the century as some scenarios predict, the pH of the upper oceans will fall more, to 7.91. At 840 parts per million, it will drop to 7.76.

“To put this in historical perspective, this ocean surface pH decrease (to
7.76) would be lower than it has been for more than 20 million years,” said Steve Murkowski, director of scientific programs and chief science adviser at NOAA, during a Congressional hearing in April.

“These are systems that have been in very delicate balance,” Sabine said of the relationship between atmospheric CO and pH in the oceans. “Whenever you mess with that balance, things can go wrong very quickly and in very unexpected ways.”

Dissolving shells

Fabry first noticed that something wasn't right 20 years ago, while on a research cruise in the Gulf of Alaska. While examining a glass jar filled with seawater and swimming pteropods, she observed that the translucent shells of the graceful, snaillike animals were dissolving.

“I thought, 'Wow, that's strange,'” Fabry said. “I couldn't quite believe it.”


CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Victoria Fabry, of California State University San Marcos, sorted through samples of water collected at various locations throughout the Pacific Ocean. She first recorded changes in ocean chemistry due to carbon dioxide 20 years ago. Consumed with other work, Fabry filed the observation away in the back of her mind. Nearly two decades later, scientists in the journal Nature reported that rising CO in seawater inhibited the ability of coccolithophores to form their calcium carbonate shells.

Fabry dug out her pteropod samples and confirmed that their shells had in fact dissolved under elevated CO conditions. A paper on her findings was published in Nature in 2005.

Fabry regards pteropods as “canaries in the coal mine” that signal what might happen throughout the oceans as they acidify. They are a key plankton species in high-latitude oceans, and they are extremely abundant. They're a key food resource for salmon, mackerel, herring and cod.

Impacts to sea life will likely be more severe in higher-latitude seas, because colder water can absorb more carbon dioxide and because seawater there mixes downward into the ocean interior, carrying CO into deeper water, Fabry said. “The problem we have in the high latitudes is that we have low species diversity already, so if you pull (pteropods) out, you know, it's not good,” she said.

Fabry, Sabine and their colleagues referred to these possible shifts in a landmark report in June that summarized the specter of ocean acidification and the need for more study. The report is called “Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and other Marine Calcifiers.”

Mussels, clams, scallops and more

Scientists are quick to note that much isn't known about precisely how marine life will react to acidifying seas.

Data exist on less than 2 percent of the plankton that build calcium carbonate shells “so that really means we can't make any sweeping statements” about what might happen to them, Fabry said.

But some studies show alarming results. Even small reductions in skeleton-building elements can reduce by 50 percent corals' ability to form their skeletons.

Studies by Chris Langdon at the University of Miami have shown that corals do not adapt to acidification, at least in the short term.

The ocean uptake of CO follows a basic principle of chemistry. If you increase the concentration of a gas over a body of water, the two seek equilibrium, and the water will passively absorb the gas from the air.

Since 1800, about 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or one quarter of all the carbon dioxide produced by human activities, has been absorbed by the oceans.

About half remains in the atmosphere, and the other 25 percent has been absorbed by trees and other plants on land.

Even at this astounding rate, the oceans have taken up only about 15 percent of their total capacity.

“The oceans will continue to take up CO for thousands of years,” Sabine said. “We do not have to worry about the oceans running out of capacity.”

But in near-term time scales, acidification in the upper oceans could make the seas a very different place.

“The oceans are performing this great service for mankind, absorbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and they will continue to do that,” Sabine said. “But the consequence of that is that we're changing the chemistry of the oceans.”

For people in the San Diego region, a trip to tidal pools at the coast may give them an idea of what they might lose. Numerous bottom dwellers such as mussels, clams, scallops, sea urchins and starfish develop during a planktonic period in which their calcium carbonate shells are critical to their survival, Fabry said.

“If they have increased mortality due to elevated carbon dioxide, that will change all (bottom-dwelling) coastal communities,” she said. “When you just start thinking about this – it's really overwhelming.”

Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20060914-9999-lz1c14acid.html


Informant: binstock

Don't Swallow The Doughnut Hole

by Jeff Cruz, TomPaine.com

A treat for Big Pharma but poison for seniors: It's time to smash this symbol of GOP corruption.

http://ga3.org/ct/g720pgF1Emj1/

Why nuclear power won't solve our energy crisis

Nuclear Deficits

by Peter Bradford and Kurt Gottfried, TomPaine.com
http://ga3.org/ct/gp20pgF1Emjq/

Sweeping detention powers that Warner, Graham and McCain want to give the president

Derelict On Detainees

by Aziz Huq, TomPaine.com

The focus on the GOP intraparty squabble distracts from the sweeping detention powers that Warner, Graham and McCain want to give the president.

http://ga3.org/ct/gd20pgF1EmuC/

CIA Knew in '02 Bin Laden Had No Iraq Ties

The CIA learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, according to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091506Z.shtml

WE MUST STOP THE NEW ADMINISTRATION WIRETAPPING BILL IN CONGRESS, EVEN IF IT MEANS A FILIBUSTER

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pnum499.php

Bush has threatened to veto any wiretapping bill that provides for ANY judicial oversight. That is precisely why oversight is such an absolute necessity.

Once again the Bush Administration is attempting to avoid the law and court decisions by having their stooges in Congress offer a new bill retroactively legalizing all the illegal Bush actions to date. Once again, Bush has said, and it's written in to this bill, that he will be able to AGAIN avoid court review of his actions. This is about the Administration backed 'Specter' Bill supposedly a 'compromise' but in actuality giving Bush everything he wanted: essentially a free hand to do as he wishes.

Two other bills are on the floor of the Senate, one offered by Rebel Republicans and one offered jointly by Senator Specter, whose original bill was hijacked and carries his name, and Senator Feinstein of California. We want the Feinstein Bill to pass . . . but more importantly we want the Administration Bill NOT to pass. We must stand up and fight to a finish to block this bill.

We cannot let this original Administration backed 'Specter' bill pass. Write your letters and then, if you would, follow them up with phone calls to the Democratic leadership at 888-355-3588 or 800-828-0498. If there was ever a time for a filibuster...this is it.

Take action today, please! Some of our most basic freedoms are at stake. This Administration thinks nothing of ignoring our Constitution. They must be stopped. Today is the day.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pnum499.php

This alert is brought to you through the activism of Stacey Tallitsch, running for the U.S. House in the 1st Congressional district, and one of the leading progressive voices in the state of Louisiana. Many of you have already submitted his action page calling for the troops in Iraq to start coming home now, a policy that is more surely correct with every passing state of emergency in Baghdad.

Stacey has been running call to action radio spots in this district , calling for an end of the obstinate occupation of Iraq, a military escapade which has brought nothing but death and destruction to both their country and our own. And he has produced a new one on the impeachment issue. You can hear the new spot on this page.

RADIO SPOT DONATIONS: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/donations.php

Nobody can predict how a particular race will turn out. But we know that the spots we ran on impeachment had tremendous secondary impact, as TWO other groups were inspired to run their own call to action ads on this issue as a result of the investment we made in this action. If you are able to do so, please make whatever donation you can to continue the stand we are taking on issue after issue.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2006, Patent pending, All rights reserved

Weltweiter Protesttag gegen das weltgrößte Delfinmassaker in Japan!

Jedes Jahr von Oktober bis April werden in Japan etwa 20.000 Delfine auf unvorstellbar grausame Weise abgeschlachtet. Das ist die brutalste und weltweit größte Massenabschlachtung von Delfinen in der Welt. Demzufolge finden am 20. September weltweit Proteste vor den japanischen Botschaften statt...

http://www.peta.de/de/home.cfm?p=724

Massentierhaltung: Mechanisierter Wahnsinn

Machen Sie sich folgendes klar: Die Massentierhaltung der modernen Landwirtschaft strebt danach, eine maximale Menge an Fleisch, Milch und Eiern so schnell und billig wie möglich zu produzieren, und das bei minimaler Platzanforderung. Kühe, Kälber, Schweine, Hühner, Truthähne, Enten, Gänse, Kaninchen und andere Tiere werden in kleinen Käfigen oder Ställen gehalten, oft so beengt, daß sie sich nicht einmal umdrehen können. Man beraubt sie jeglicher Bewegungsmöglichkeit, damit ihre ganze Körperenergie in das Fleisch geht, das der Mensch später verzehrt...

http://www.peta.de/de/home.cfm?p=506

Pelzfarmen sollte man verbieten

http://www.pelzfrei.de/

One million ways to die

Wired
by Ryan Singel

09/11/06

Comparing official mortality data with the number of Americans who have been killed inside the United States by terrorism since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma reveals that scores of threats are far more likely to kill an American than any terrorist -- at least, statistically speaking. In fact, your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is. With that in mind, here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005...

http://tinyurl.com/g5gp9


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Personnel policies need scrutiny

Boston Globe
by Scot Lehigh

09/14/06

It's become a staple of state and local news coverage: The public employee who abuses sick leave or vacation time policies in ways that would be unimaginable in the private sector. The latest example came last week, with the Globe's report on Boston Police officer Christine Meegan, who took more than 100 work days off in less than a year by gaming the department's sick time and vacation policies. ... But here's the real scandal: According to the Globe story, what Meegan did was apparently permitted under the department's union contract. In mid-August, meanwhile, we had a sterling example of greed in the persons of Matt Amorello, former chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and some members of his management team. On their way out the door at the turnpike, Amorello and his managers made off with something that really should belong to you and me. Like, say, several hundred thousand dollars...

http://tinyurl.com/gdkvn


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Americans in denial about 9/11

http://www.alternet.org/story/41635/


The Path to 9/11 leads through Disney

from Reason to Freedom
by "The Melinda"

09/15/06

The Bush Cabal is desperately hoping this movie will save them. We should aim at having it bury them instead. It is well to remember that there is no exit strategy, either from the Iraq or the White House. Therefore they are desperate for the means of staying on in perpetuity, something elements of the military have let them know will not be tolerated. And why would Disney and ABC cooperate in this effort? We all know the answer. The centralization and consolidation of media in the United States makes this kind of thing a natural extension of the use of the political tools Rove finds familiar...

http://www.reasontofreedom.com/911_Disney_Horowitz_NeoCon.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Hoekstra-Harman hoax

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

09/15/06

For the War Party, deception isn't just a tactic, or even a strategy -- it's a lifestyle. That's why they're indifferent to getting caught. Like a hardened criminal arrested for his umpteenth felony, the neocons see brazen lying as just a routine procedure. Caught red-handed, they just move on to their next subterfuge, one invariably designed to drag us into war. That is the only way to explain what Reps. Peter Hoekstra and Jane Harman thought they were doing when they released their 'report' on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, which -- as the International Atomic Energy Agency puts it -- is chock full of 'erroneous, misleading, and unsubstantiated information'...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9702


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rep. Bob Ney expected to plead guilty

Coeur d'Alene Press

09/14/06

Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, is expected to plead guilty as early as Friday to at least one criminal charge in an election-year congressional corruption investigation, Republican officials said Thursday night. Ney, whose ties with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff have long been under scrutiny by prosecutors, has consistently denied all wrongdoing. He announced this summer he would not seek re-election, a step he took reluctantly and at the prodding of party leaders fearful of the loss of his seat...

http://tinyurl.com/kfk2e


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Looks like anyone with EHS will not longer be able to fly, just as we have been excluded from electric trains/trams

Thought you might be interested in this radio programme from BBC Radio 4 in the UK. The last paragraph of the programme description (see below) is particular of significance to anyone with EHS.

Looks like anyone with EHS will not longer be able to fly, just as we have been excluded from electric trains/trams. I know Ryanair a budget airline based in the UK and Ireland has announced plans to allow mobile on its flights (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5298332.stm )

The Material World BBC Radio 4 Thursday 14 September 2006

Audio Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/rams/materialworld.ram
Web Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld.shtml

PROGRAMME DETAILS

"I'm on the Plane!"

Those are words to sink the hearts of peace-loving travellers.

At present, mobile phone use is banned on planes on safety grounds, but surveillance equipment shows that many frequent fliers ignore the rule.

So are mobile phones a genuine threat to air safety or just to airlines' income from their own in-flight phones? Surely it's OK to leave your phone switched on if you don't actually make a call?

No, says Bill Strauss, who researches electromagnetic compatibility in the USA. He points out that your mobile will send out stronger and stronger signals to try to stay in touch with phone masts on the ground.

If US and European phones on the same flight both do so, they produce interference on the same frequency as the plane uses for its GPS navigation equipment. There is circumstantial evidence of occasions where the GPS has been 150 miles off course, perhaps as a result.

Even electronic equipment not intended for communications, such as music players and games consoles can produce interference at critical frequencies, the research shows.

But there could be ways round these problems and some airlines have plans to introduce their own in-flight mobile phones systems using what are called picocells. Paul Guckian is working on them at Qualcomm in the USA, European companies are also developing the technology.

The idea is to keep the signals low, effectively by flying a mini phone mast in the plane. But each plane must pass stringent safety tests for electrical interference and quite a few passengers may have objections to the audio interference!

--------

Discord in the air over mobiles

Daily Telegraph
(Filed: 16/09/2006)

Airlines are divided over the use of mobile phones on flights, following the announcement by Ryanair last week that it will equip its planes with mobile-phone technology by the end of next year.

Air France will be first to allow in-flight calls during a six-month trial in February. Bmi and Tap Air Portugal will follow shortly after.

EasyJet, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have so far resisted introducing the technology, which has yet to be approved by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT).

Virgin Atlantic said it had no plans for mobiles, while BA said it was consulting passengers. "There is a whole world of difference in using mobiles on a mid-week 7am business flight to Paris and a 10-hour flight to Tampa in the school holidays," said a BA spokeswoman.

An EasyJet spokesman said the airline was looking at the issue, but so far feedback from travellers said that most would rather not be pestered by constant phone calls.

Ryanair's announcement may yet prove premature, if the introduction of the technology is not approved. However, the airline is confident that it will get the go-ahead. Tests have shown the technology does not interfere with aircraft equipment, but there are still concerns about interference with ground-based mobile-phone networks.

Passengers, however, appear to be divided on the issue. A recent survey by the ONAir telecommunications company of 2,500 travellers flying from Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle and Hong Kong International airports revealed that 65 per cent of people travelling for business reasons would turn their devices on during flights, and that, of these, 94 per cent would take calls and check emails in the air. But in a separate survey of 1,500 travellers conducted by Monarch Airlines, 67 per cent of passengers claimed that having to listen to other people's ringtones would be one of the most annoying inflight experiences.


Informant: Margaret E White

Hiring out prisoners has become big business and it's booming

A Sweatshop Behind Bars

Hundreds of prison generated products end up attached to trendy and nationally known labels. After deductions, many prisoners earn about $60 for an entire month of nine-hour days. In short, hiring out prisoners has become big business. And it's booming.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/091406LB.shtml

Barbara Ehrenreich Helps White Collar Workers

On a recent book tour, Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of "Nickel and Dimed," was approached by white collar workers complaining of a volatile economy. Inspired by white collar tales of job tragedies, Ms. Ehrenreich has started an organization called United Professionals to help white-collar workers - be they unemployed, uninsured, downsized, stressed out or merely anxious.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/091406LA.shtml

Community Renewable Energy Is Just Around the Corner

"For decades, the conventional wisdom about developing energy projects in the US has been that 'big' always meant cheaper, and therefore better," writes Ted Bernhard. "Today the US finds itself on the verge of another new wave of thinking that incorporates the lessons of the past, but goes beyond merely addressing cost and environmental concerns and seeking maximum output," continues Bernhard, introducing the "community renewables" model, in which new power projects are smaller and tightly integrated with local communities and local resources.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/091406EB.shtml

White House Seeks a Way to Keep Bolton at the UN

President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations appears increasingly endangered in the Senate, prompting the administration to explore other ways to keep him in the job after his temporary appointment expires in January, officials said yesterday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091406U.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bolton

US Press Bigwigs Screw Up, Again

Robert Parry chastises major media outlets for the recent account from Richard Armitage, Novak's initial source on the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, as "the gospel truth." Parry says that mainstream journalists are, "wearing blinders that so limit their field of vision that - after all these years - they still can't believe that Rove and the White House would play dirty to discredit anyone who challenges Bush."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091406T.shtml

GOP Senators and Powell Defy Bush on Detainees

President Bush went to Capitol Hill today to rally Republican support for his anti-terrorism policies, but a Senate committee dealt him a serious setback. Four of the panel's 13 Republicans joined all 11 Democrats in rejecting Mr. Bush's proposal to keep defendants from seeing classified evidence against them. Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also came out in opposition today to this legislation, saying he rejects efforts to "redefine" a key provision of the Geneva Conventions.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091406R.shtml

Hedge fund cash floods U.S. politics

Campaign finance records show 20 of the most successful U.S. hedge fund managers have pumped more than $3.1 million into campaigns so far in 2005-2006, up from about $1.1 million by the same group in the last mid-term election cycle.

http://snipurl.com/wfdm


From Information Clearing House

Scott Ritter: Hillary's Challenger Crucified on a Cross of Gold

Money is the difference between having a fighting chance and total obscurity for Hillary Clinton's challenger Jonathan Tasini in the New York Senate Dem primary.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/41476/#more


From Information Clearing House

The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century

Journalists Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten discuss their new book. In it, they reveals how the Republican party owns a clear advantage in the fundamentals of campaigning and has built up a series of structural advantages that make it increasingly difficult to beat.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14975.htm

What is the U.S. Military Doing in Paraguay?

The U.S. military is conducting secretive operations in Paraguay and reportedly building a new base there. Human rights groups and military analysts in the region believe trouble is brewing. However, the U.S. embassy in Paraguay denies the base exists and describes the military activity as routine.

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/09/14/p10792


From Information Clearing House

Bush-backed spying bill clears US senate panel

A bill backed by President George W Bush to enable a court review of his domestic spying programme won the approval on Wednesday of a US Senate panel under election-year pressure to safeguard civil liberties.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10401246


From Information Clearing House

Powell Opposes Bush Interrogation Plan

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed efforts to block President Bush's plan to authorize harsh interrogations of terror suspects, even as Mr. Bush lobbied personally for it Thursday on Capitol Hill.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/13/politics/main2007125.shtml


From Information Clearing House

Bush in bid to twist Republican arms on security

President George W. Bush went to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to prod fellow Republicans to back his plans to track and try terrorism suspects, but some pressed on with a competing measure the White House rejects.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060914/pl_nm/security_usa_dc_1


From Information Clearing House

A Visit with a Man Wrongly Detained at Guantanamo

Murat Kurnaz was detained in the United States detention camp at Guantánamo, Cuba, for almost five years and released three weeks ago. Cem Özdemir, a member of the European Parliament, visited Kurnaz at his home in Bremen and reports back about a German man of Turkish origin who appears to be anything but a fanatic.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14976.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo

U.S. Will Always Face Terror, Say Americans

Many adults in the United States think their country will forever be a target for terrorists, according to a poll by CBS News. 81 per cent of respondents think the U.S. will always have to live with the threat of terrorism.

http://snipurl.com/wfdi


From Information Clearing House

Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence

Fmr. Iranian Pres. Mohammad Khatami Address at the John F. Kennedy, School Of Government.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14960.htm

UN attacks US nuclear report on Iran

The UN's nuclear watchdog has made a stinging attack on the US Congress over an "outrageous and dishonest" report on Iran's nuclear programme.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1872679,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1


From Information Clearing House

War pimp alert: Kissinger warns of possible "war of civilizations"

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that Europe and the United States must unite to head off a "war of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East.

http://snipurl.com/weq9


From Information Clearing House



The Trials of Henry Kissinger

"A fascinating, bombshell documentary that should shame Americans, regardless of whether or not ultimate blame finally lies with Kissinger. Should be required viewing for civics classes and would-be public servants alike."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6623.htm

U.S. seeks Iran sanctions now

The United States said on Wednesday Iran was "aggressively" pursuing atom bombs and should face sanctions now, but EU allies stressed it was not too late for talks on a negotiated solution to its disputed nuclear work.

http://snipurl.com/wfd6


From Information Clearing House

U.N. inspectors challenge House nuclear report on Iran

'Outrageous and dishonest' claims, officials complain
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/14/MNG31L5AIK1.DTL


From Information Clearing House

Most Americans Dispute Iraq War Benefits

Many adults in the United States believe their federal government made a mistake in launching the coalition effort, according to a poll by TNS released by ABC News. 56 per cent of respondents think, considering the costs versus the benefits, the war with Iraq was not worth fighting.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13134


From Information Clearing House

Where is the evidence?

Paul Craig Roberts

There are many problems with the 9/11 debate. Many different interests are using 9/11 to advance their agendas. Security interests use fear generated by 9/11 to erode civil liberties and establish the foundations of a police state. Federalist Society members in pursuit of a stronger executive use 9/11 to justify concentrating power in the White House, power that violates the separation of powers in the US Constitution.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14963.htm

Rigging the Market: the secret maneuverings of the Plunge Protection Team

By Mike Whitney

The country now faces the growing probability of an economic tsunami triggered by the rickety hedge funds, the falling dollar, and the rapidly deflating real estate bubble. The solid foundation of government oversight and regulation has been eroded by the persistent attacks of the corporatists and banking giants. The entire system is now on shaky ground. When the scaffolding starts to fall, the futile maneuverings of the Plunge Protection Team won’t make a bit of difference.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14979.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17251.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=the+falling+dollar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=real estate bubble
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mike+Whitney

In praise of the 'subversive' documentary

By John Pilger

My own films have been shown all over the world, but never on network television in the United States. That suppression of alternative viewpoints may help us understand why millions of Americans display such a chronic ignorance of other human beings.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14973.htm

Military Commissions Bills Would Allow for Lifelong Detention Without Trial, Torture Without Accountability

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0914-02.htm

Congress Panel Cooking Intel on Iran

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0914-08.htm

Bush Keeps Failing His Troops in Iraq

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0914-22.htm

It is time to end not just this current war in Iraq, but this insanity, here and now, while there is still time

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0914-21.htm

We could benefit from looking in a mirror, and absorbing the shock of not recognizing what we’ve become

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0914-33.htm

Smoking Gun: Washington Post Hires Top Bush Speechwriter

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0914-28.htm

Bad News From Iraq: Is It the PR, or the Policy?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-06.htm

Alarmed Scientists Warn: Even in Winter, Arctic Ice Melting

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-02.htm

NASA Expert: World has 10-Year Window to Act on Climate Warming

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-01.htm

KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Whitney0121.htm


Informant: ranger116

Forget about November: electronic voting machines are extremely hackable

http://www.physorg.com/news77376348.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

--------

Experts Easily Reverse Diebold Results & No One Would Know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwWP-N1HqT0


Informant: David Diggins



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Diebold

When States Fail Should We Care?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/stringham1.html

A Nightmare for the U.S.A.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/chartier/chartier26.html

Rebel Americans and the TSA

http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers47.html

Daniel Ellsberg calls on insiders to leak US plans for war on Iran

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5102/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Funkmasten bleiben unerwünscht

http://tinyurl.com/q3sth

Probleme bei der Aufklärung des "Kofferbomben"-Falls

http://www.meta-info.de/?lid=24343

Zugriff auf die Taschen der Internetnutzer

http://news.web-hh.de/index.php?id=&rubrik=&lid=24342&such=&user=&site=metainfo

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