Wednesday, November 7, 2007
It Is Time For "A National Inquest" - Kucinich's Impeachment Of Cheney
It Is Time For "A National Inquest"
John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=249253
In May of 1972, when then-President Richard Nixon was riding as high as he ever would politically, anti-war activists attempted to place an advertisement in The New York Times urging his impeachment for illegal war making in southeast Asia.
The two-page ad, headlined "A Resolution to Impeach Richard M. Nixon," called on the newspaper's readers to support House Resolution 976, which had been proposed several weeks earlier by Michigan Congressman John Conyers and several other liberal representatives.
Nixon and his aides went ballistic. The same political operation that was busy orchestrating the Watergate crimes celebrated a brief attempt by pressmen at the Times to block the printing of the paper including the ad. When the censorship failed, Nixon's political henchmen made sure that Times executives were inundated with letters condemning the very mention of presidential accountability as "traitorous." A Nixon aide showed up to thank the pressman for trying to prevent publication of the ad. Attorney General John Mitchell and a top Republican in the House, Gerald Ford, explicitly attacked the authors of the impeachment resolution and its supporters. And the group that placed the ad was hauled into court and accused of violating federal campaign finance laws because they had encouraged the election of House members who would pursue impeachment.
Condemnation and ridicule of those who would impeach a president in a time of war is obviously nothing new. And there will be always be political and media players who are at the ready to tell the sincere proponents of the rule of law that it is not the right time to mention impeachment. They will declare that the Constitutionally-defined process is "off the table." They will even warn, ominously, that the Republic -- or, at the very least, the prospects of the proponent's own party in a coming presidential election -- will be harmed by the exercise of patriotic duty.
That's the message Congressman Dennis Kucinich got Tuesday when the Ohio Democrat attempted to force the House to consider the articles of impeachment he has brought against Vice President Cheney. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, moved to table Kucinich's privileged resolution seeking to open a debate on the issue. So, today, it is not just a Republican White House but the leaders of a Democratic-led House who are resisting the pull of the Constitution.
What should Americans who keep faith with the Republic's best values and intents answer think about the question of whether the House should move to hold a top member of the executive branch to account? The best response is to recognize that those who raised the subject of impeaching Richard Nixon in 1972 and those who raise the subject of impeaching former Nixon aide Dick Cheney in 2007 are the keepers of an American tradition that stretches back to 1787.
That was the point made in a response to the controversy about the 1972 Times ad authored by Telford Taylor, who had served as the chief U.S. prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
"Making full allowances for the hyperboles of partisan politics, it is impossible to justify the violence of the attacks leveled by Messrs. John N. Mitchell and Gerald R. Ford against the Congressional sponsors of the Resolution (H. Res. 976) for the Impeachment of President Nixon, set forth in the advertisement printed in The Times on May 31," wrote Taylor, one of the ablest and most honorable legal thinkers of the 20th century. "It is, of course, entirely proper for anyone so disposed to contest the charges set forth in the Resolution, but to condemn them as 'revolting,' 'disgraceful,' and 'traitorous' is wholly unwarranted."
Taylor recalled that the founders of the American experiment had intended impeachment to be proposed when there was a sense in the land that a member of the executive branch had committed "an abuse or violation of some public trust." And he recalled the faith of Alexander Hamilton that the essential value of the impeachment power afforded the House was that it provided "a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."
Noting that "such a 'national inquest' is precisely what is proposed in the Nixon impeachment resolution," Taylor argued that initiative was timely and appropriate -- as similarly well-versed scholars of the Constitution suggest today that Kucinich's articles of impeachment represent the right response to the lawlessness of Cheney and the administration the vice president has defined.
"It may well be doubted that a Congress which has been unable or unwilling to take less drastic steps to reassert its proper responsibilities for peace and war is likely to embark on the impeachment process, especially at a moment when President Nixon is riding the tide of Congressional support for his missions to Moscow and Peking," argued the Nuremberg prosecutor 35 years ago in language that is just as compelling today. "But these political realities should not be allowed to obscure the seriousness of the issues posed by the impeachment resolution, which merits full consideration by the appropriate agencies of the House of Representatives."
Telford Taylor offered the right response to those who attempted to squelch an impeachment initiative in the spring of 1972. That response is just as right in the fall of 2007.
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John Nichols is the author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"
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LED Light - Less Energy Used, No Toxic Mercury Of CFL Light Bulbs
[Here's an ad for LED (Light Emitting Diode) light that replaces both the extremely energy wasteful regular light bulbs and the toxic, with mercury, CFL light bulbs. It looks like they last much longer than CFL lights also. How does cost over the same amount of time compare to CFL? When someone gives these a try, I'd like to know how well they work. Is there a 'dark' side to using them?]
http://led.section9tech.com/
Light, Light bulbs, Non-Toxic?, Better?
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http://led.section9tech.com/
| Not Found In Retail Stores! |
 | |
| L.E.D. Technology advances lighting efficiency, helping us reduce our impact on our environment. Why does it make so much sense to replace your old standard bulbs with Section9 LED lamps? Consider a standard 40 watt incandescent bulb rated at 1,000 hours in its lifetime will use $4.80 worth of electricity. Now a 5 watt LED bulb giving out the same amount of light will use $30 of electriciy during its rated 50,000 hour lifetime - that is $240 using standard incandescent and only $30 using Section9LED lamps over the operating time of 50,000 hours - not to mention you are burdened with having to buy and replace 50 standard bulbs during that time as well! All while simultaneously saving the environment by cutting down on your use of non-renewable energy sources and greenhouse gas emissions. It's a no-brainer! | |
Light, Light bulbs, Non-Toxic?, Better?
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Quality Of Life Most Important For Living Longer Better Life
now we know quality of life is a critical factor in determining survival,
what matters most is what patients themselves are telling us about their quality of life"
quality of life remained the strongest predictor of overall survival.
patient's quality of life increased over time, we saw a corresponding increase in survival,"
underscore the importance of helping our patients improve the quality of life where we can in order to help them live longer better."
"Quality of life measures should be incorporated into treatment decision making and clinical trials,"
+++
Quality Of Life Is The Most Important Predictor Of Survival For Advanced Cancer Patients
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071030170208.htm
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2007) — Healthcare providers have observed it for years -- patients who appear to have a better quality of life while battling their cancer live longer. Now, a prospective, multi-institutional study examining the quality of life of patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer backs that observation. In fact, quality of life is so important, it out-weighs other classic predictors of survival.
"In the past, we've consider the stage of disease or tumor size along with other empirical data to predict how long a patient will survive, but now we know quality of life is a critical factor in determining survival," said Nicos Nicolaou, M.D., an attending physician in the radiation oncology department at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and lead author of the abstract.
The study included patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer enrolled in a treatment trial (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 9801 assessing the addition of amifostine to induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiation). In addition to quality of life surveys, factors used to predict overall survival, included stage of disease, gender, age, race, marital status, type of tumor, tumor location in the lung, blood oxygen level, and type of treatment.
"Our study shows that what matters most is what patients themselves are telling us about their quality of life", said Benjamin Movsas, M.D., principal investigator of the RTOG study and senior author of the abstract. Movsas is chairman of the Radiation Oncology Department at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Of the 239 patients analyzed, 91 percent completed a pre-treatment quality of life questionnaire. Patients with a quality of life score less than the median (66.7) had a 69% higher rate of death than patients with a quality of life score greater than 66.7 (p=0.002).
"We conducted two different statistical analysis including all the usual prognostic factors and either way, quality of life remained the strongest predictor of overall survival.
What's more, if a patient's quality of life increased over time, we saw a corresponding increase in survival," Movsas said.
Married patients or those with a partner had the highest quality of life score.
"We found a significantly lower quality of life score for single, divorced and widowed patients which deserves further study," Nicolaou said. "These findings underscore the importance of helping our patients improve the quality of life where we can in order to help them live longer better."
"Quality of life measures should be incorporated into treatment decision making and clinical trials," Movsas concluded.
The results of the study were presented October 30, 2007 at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's 49th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.
Adapted from materials provided by Fox Chase Cancer Center.
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Monday, November 5, 2007
Not Everyone Wanted to Bomb Hiroshima
Contrary to conventional opinion today, many military leaders of the time -- including six out of seven wartime five-star officers -- criticized the use of the atomic bomb. "the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. "[I]n being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." President Eisenhower opposed using the atomic bomb on Japan the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." "the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment." to drop a bomb on women and children and the elderly, I draw a line there, and I still hold it." reject insistence that the atomic bombings were militarily and morally justified. +++ Not Everyone Wanted to Bomb Hiroshima Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 21:57:40 -0500 From: moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 22:02:02 -0500 From: moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG Subject: Not Everyone Wanted to Bomb Hiroshima Not Everyone Wanted to Bomb Hiroshima By Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan History News Service http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2007/110207a.html Paul W. Tibbets Jr., retired brigadier general and former businessman, died on Nov. 1. He'll forever be remembered for what he unleashed the morning of August 6, 1945. That day Tibbets's B-29 -- christened the "Enola Gay" after his mother -- dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast, fire and radiation killed 140,000 people. Many others were scarred and injured for life. Most of the bomb's victims were women, children, the elderly and other civilians not directly involved in the war. Those victims also included American and Allied POWs and thousands of Koreans forcibly conscripted by the Japanese as wartime labor. Thus began the nuclear age -- an age that grows ever more dangerous with the continuing spread of nuclear weapons. Tibbets stridently defended the atomic bombing of Hiroshima for the rest of his life. Like Harry S. Truman -- the president who made the decision to drop the atomic bomb -- Tibbets, whose job it was to implement the presidential directive, claimed never to have lost any sleep over the bombing. He went so far as to reenact the Hiroshima bombing in 1976 at a Texas air show. Tibbets insisted that the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki, destroyed by a second atomic bomb just three days later) was absolutely necessary to bring about Japanese surrender before a bloody American invasion of the Japanese home islands. Many Americans agree. For Tibbets, history was unambiguous: Unleashing nuclear weapons was justified; all criticism of the atomic bombing was suspect. For the last twenty years or so of his life, Tibbets repeatedly denounced "revisionists" for questioning the necessity or morality of the atomic bombing of Japanese cities. Through his many public statements Tibbets reinforced the widely held notion that only untrustworthy revisionists or members of the irresponsible 1960s generation have criticized the atomic bombings. Tibbets was dead wrong. Contrary to conventional opinion today, many military leaders of the time -- including six out of seven wartime five-star officers -- criticized the use of the atomic bomb. Take, for example, Adm. William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war. Leahy wrote in his 1950 memoirs that "the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Moreover, Leahy continued, "[I]n being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." President Eisenhower, the Allied commander in Europe during World War II, recalled in 1963, as he did on several other occasions, that he had opposed using the atomic bomb on Japan during a July 1945 meeting with Secretary of War Henry Stimson: "I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." Adm. William "Bull" Halsey, the tough and outspoken commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, which participated in the American offensive against the Japanese home islands in the final months of the war, publicly stated in 1946 that "the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment." The Japanese, he noted, had "put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before" the bomb was used. Nor do all Pacific war veterans agree with Tibbets's defense of the atomic bomb. To give but one example: Responding to a journalist's question in 1995 about what he would have done had he been in Truman's shoes, Joseph O'Donnell, a retired Marine Corps sergeant who served in the Pacific, answered that "we should have went after the military in Japan. They were bad. But to drop a bomb on women and children and the elderly, I draw a line there, and I still hold it." These are but a few of the military voices that have been critical of American use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Recalling these voices -- those of both influential and ordinary military figures -- should make us reject Tibbets's insistence that the atomic bombings were militarily and morally justified. Only by challenging and resisting Tibbets's comfortable view of history will Americans be able to confront, honestly and critically, one of the most disturbing episodes in the nation's past. Leo Maley III has taught at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of Maryland, College Park, and Uday Mohan is the director of research for the Nuclear Studies Institute, American University.
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Phone To Stop Mukasey & IMPEACH Cheney
[Call tonight and early Tuesday]
-------- Original Message --------
Labels: Impeach, Mukasey
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-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | The Mother of All Phone Actions: Call Today on Stopping Mukasey and Starting Impeachment |
|---|---|
| Date: | Mon, 5 Nov 2007 16:48:58 -0800 |
| From: | The Pen <democracy@peaceteam.net> |
This coming Tuesday will be the biggest decision making day yet of the entire Congress, 1) the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Mukasey for attorney general, AND 2) Dennis Kucinich will force the House to consider H.Res 333 to impeach Cheney. And that is why Monday [Tuesday early too] must be the biggest day ever for citizen activism. The entire future of our country and democracy will turn on whether you personally pick up a phone and make a toll free phone call or two on BOTH of these issues. It's a double header! Here are three fresh, tested, toll free numbers to use for your calls: 800-828-0498, 800-614-2803 and 877-851-6437. First We Have To Stop Mukasey Despite the fact that Mukasey still will not rule out torture as official U.S. policy, and refuses to even admit that waterboarding (a torture technique from the Spanish inquisition) IS torture, Dianne Feinstein (CA) says she is "planning" to vote for him. Despite the fact that Mukasey refuses to concede that the president must obey the laws of the land and not act as a law unto himself, Chuck Schumer (NY) is "planning" on voting for him. Well, here's what we're planning on doing. We're planning flooding their phone lines on Monday. We are planning on telling them that this is absolutely the last straw, and unless Democrats like them find a spine and start fighting on principle they can forget about any more campaign contributions. Without the votes of these two Democratic senators Mukasey is finished. What baseball team ever looked at the scoreboard in the 7th inning and gave up because they were two runs behind? What kind of crazy loser insanity would that be? And yet we heard a CNN fluff head gloating on the TV about how the White House bullies win again. Well we still have our power hitters coming up and those power hitters are you. Now, Feinstein in particular, and many of the other senators, have this cute little game they play where they let their answering machines fill up, to try to discourage people from even bothering to call. So what we have done is create a special function on the page below, where you can instantly look up all their LOCAL district office numbers. Stop Mukasey Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/no_mukasey.php Go the page above if you can't get through to their Washington offices, get all the local phone numbers and fax numbers, and call them all. Let's fill up the DC machines if they try to hide in their offices. Let's fill up all the local district office machines. In fact do both. And then just to be sure, submit the email action form on the same page to send them an instant email message. We have 39,000 participants in CA and 16,000 in NY who will receive this alert. You have the numbers to change the course of political history. You have the power, if you just pick up the telephone and make your toll free or local calls right now. Because members of the Judiciary committee represent us all, you do not have to be one of their direct constituents to call Feinstein or Schumer, but if you are make sure you make that clear. This means even those of you who do not have Democratic senators have a right to have an impact on this. And remember, the more pressure we put on all the other senators, the more the waywards on the Judiciary Committee will feel it, including others lurking around who have not disclosed their vote plans. On Fox News, they said that waterboarding torture was basically like swimming lessons. More like dying lessons if you ask us. The next thing they tell us is that the Iron Maiden is like acupuncture and the Rack is good for height enhancement. Are you outraged yet? Please make as many phone calls as you can an encourage everyone else you know to do the same. Second, We Must Support H.Res. 333 To Impeach Cheney Dennis Kucinich has stepped forward to bring the resolution to impeach Cheney as a privileged resolution. This means that the House is forced to consider it. So what are the so-called leaders of the House planning on doing? They are "planning" on trying to quash debate with an obscure parliamentary trick called a "motion to table". So what are we planning on doing? We're planning on calling each and every member of the House of Representatives and demand that they actually represent us. We're planning on demanding that they support H.Res. 333 and give it a full and free debate and hearing, and to reject the motion to table. We're planning on telling them that unless they stand up for the people now, we will find new and different candidates for their seats, through primary challenges if necessary in the very next election. Here again, we have created a special web page where you can lookup the local district office phone numbers of your own personal house member. H.Res 333 Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/hres333.php Again, if you can't get through to your house member in Washington, use the instant lookup function on the page above to get the name of your own representative and all their local phone numbers. Unless Cheney is impeached they will absolutely bomb Iran. Unless Cheney is impeached they will absolutely start World War 3, and very likely declare martial law and officially suspend the constitution, as just happened in Pakistan. They don't need any congressional resolution to do it. They are determined to ignore Congress entirely if necessary. There is no law they have not broken already. They are constitutional outlaws to the core. The only thing that will stop them is impeachment. And the only thing that will make impeachment happen is your voices. Please make your calls also to support H.Res. 333 now. If You Can, Step Up For Kucinich Too None of what is happening now would be happening without the courageous leadership of Dennis Kucinich on this issue. Who else has the sheer guts to call for what the American people want? If you want to thank him for his stand on this issue, please consider making a donation to him as well. Kucinich Donations: http://www.usalone.com/donations_kucinich.php Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible. If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at http://www.usalone.com/in.htm Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2007, Patent pending, All rights reserved
Labels: Impeach, Mukasey
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A ‘Paper Coup,’ & Police State With Help From Blackwater?
The Mukasey hesitation on torture is our cue to call a halt to these crimes. (By the way, strapping victims to boards to prepare them for torture was common at Buchenwald.)
Congress must ask:
- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?
If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.
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Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage — after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size — if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration — or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?
Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government.
Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place.
Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency
Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans.
+++
A 'Paper Coup,' and Blackwater Eyes Midtown Manhattan
by Naomi Wolf
Published on Monday, November 5, 2007 by The Huffington Post
I have argued that in the closing stages of a `fascist shift', events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation's best-know feminist activist, and former adviser to Paul Keating, Anne Summers, who was also at the time this took place Chair of the Board of Greenpeace International. Summers was detained by armed agents for FIVE HOURS each way in LAX on her way to and from the annual meeting of the board of Greenpeace International in Mexico, and her green card was taken away from her. `I want to call a lawyer', she told TSA agents. `Ma'am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,' they replied. `You have not entered the United States.'
Apparently a section of LAX just beyond the security line is asserted to be `not in the United States' — though it is squarely inside the airport — so the laws of the US do not apply. (This assertion, by the way, should alarm any US citizen who is aware of how the White House argued that Guantanamo is not `in the United States' - is a legal no-man's land — so the laws of the US do not apply.) Toward the end of her second five-hour detention she asked, `Why am I being detained?' `Lady, this is not detention,' the TSA agent told her. `Detention is when I take you to the cells out back and lock you up.'
Last week in Boston, while attending Bioneers by the Bay, I heard that one of the speakers for our event, an environmentalist named Gunter Pauli, was going to miss the time of his scheduled speech; he had been physically taken OFF THE PLANE by TSA agents and had to take a much later flight. More chillingly, the camerawoman doing my interview said that another well-known environmental writer found that his girlfriend was effectively `disappeared' for three days as she sought to enter the US from Canada. Lisa Fithian, an anti-globalization activist, was denied entry across the Canadian border in 2001 and was offered the choice of turning back or being arrested.
A friend emails me a story from USA Today about a 24-year-old college graduate who testified before Congress about her family of immigrants and the difficulties they face; shortly afterward, the entire family was arrested by immigration agents. Another online piece reports that Blackwater is setting up operations along the US/Mexico border and an insightful post on Daily Kos describes how the TSA list will revert from the airlines to the management of the Department of Homeland Security shortly and that by February we may well face the need to apply to the State for permission to travel. If this proposed regulation goes through, we will move from 1931 to about 1934–when the borders started to close– with the stroke of a pen. Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long.
Why should Congress impeach and prosecute this instant, not waiting till February? Why should this impeachment and prosecution be solidly bipartisan? After February it is the leaders on both sides of the aisle — and the people writing these essays — who are at most risk of being turned back at the border. People who can't leave in a police state are effectively silenced. And history shows that Republicans are at the exact same risk as Democrats of being violently silenced once liberties are lost. I am reading about IBM's close, profitable involvement with Nazi Germany — much akin to Prescott Bush's well-documented close and profitable involvement with Nazi Germany through German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Right up to the top of the solidly Nazi hierarchy of the IBM affiliate, corporate executives were terrified of taking a wrong step in the eyes of the Party: `There are concentration camps', they would whisper to their US backers. The teenage son of one solid Nazi ally was taken hostage when he resisted Party orders. So alignment with the regime in a police state offers no ultimate protection.
Let us think like business consultants analyzing the decisions of a business that claims it is going to close its door in just a year. What kinds of decisions is it making? Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage — after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size — if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration — or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?
Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government. (He also spells out the basis for a rigorously modeled impeachment and criminal prosecution.) Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place. Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency — noting that those worrying about a coup are no longer so marginal. Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans. And Congress belatedly realizes as if waking from a drugged sleep that it might not be okay for the Attorney General to say the President need not obey the law. Congress may realize why Mukasey CAN'T say that `waterboarding is torture' — the minute he does so he has laid the grounds for Bush, Cheney and any number of CIA and Blackwater interrogators to be tried and convicted for war crimes. They are so keenly aware that what they have been doing is criminal that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 have been drafted specifically to protect them and the torturers and murderers they have directed from criminal prosecution. That is why insisting that Mukasey say that waterboarding is torture is, in spite of the alarming apparent defection of Feinstein and Schumer, an important tactic and even the perfect opening for the impeachment bid that Kucinich is bringing on November 6th to be followed by Congressional investigations into possible criminality.
This is the "Blackwater Tactical Weekly." (Yes, Blackwater has its own weekly e-newsletter.) Look at "Islamist protest in N.Y. - 'Mushroom cloud on way'" — it is reasonable to speculate that Blackwater is focusing on becoming more active domestically in managing domestic protests and rallies. (Regarding this particular rally, note the repetition of the White House `Mushroom Cloud' sound-bite and other signs bearing current White House talking points, that are attributed to alleged Muslim protesters in New York City. The US has a long history of using agents provocateurs — people dressed as those they are targeting, who pose as conveying a more violent or threatening message than that of the real group itself or who commit acts of violence to stigmatize the group. The Cointelpro program of the 1970's discredited many rallies in this way. An alleged or infiltrated violent, threatening Muslim rally would be the perfect defensible trigger for a Blackwater response.)
See also that Blackwater may be exploring the management of private flights in US airports because of a threat or `threat' to private aircraft. ("Extremists may target private US planes: TSA.") This entry point to the air travel system would seem defensible — after all Blackwater personnel do in fact guard airports around the world, for example in Bosnia. The danger is that a bleeding of Blackwater into US airport security in general would affect a coup in essence — quite quickly and serenely — even as a coup in fact need not be declared. It is a short step from managing private plane and private airport security to aiding the TSA — which is a branch of Homeland Security — and Homeland Security and Blackwater have already worked in alliance with one another in New Orleans. A TSA agent blogged about having signed up for Blackwater — at ten thousand a month, which is a lot more than TSA agents make now and a real incentive — but I have no evidence of reverse movement. The White House recently announced that the Watch List and No-Fly List together have 775,000 citizens and that they are adding 20,000 A MONTH. This trend on both sides, if not confronted, points to an easy slide to a paramilitarized domestic flight experience in the US and a routine aggressive searching of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the growth being exponential enough so that being aggressively searched could easily soon become a common experience at airports. Nothing at present prevents Blackwater agents from being deployed to help or replace the TSA domestically. Or from being deployed at the next New York City rally such as the one that is being featured on their website. And airports being the lifeline of freedom, if you are scared to fly or can be bullied, interrogated, tasered or worse when flying, you are no longer free. History shows that there is no easy retroactive movement toward a free society once travel is truly restricted.
The Mukasey hesitation on torture is our cue to call a halt to these crimes. (By the way, strapping victims to boards to prepare them for torture was common at Buchenwald.)
Congress must ask:
- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?
If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.
Naomi Wolf's essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller
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Congress must ask:
- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?
If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.
--
Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage — after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size — if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration — or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?
Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government.
Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place.
Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency
Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans.
+++
A 'Paper Coup,' and Blackwater Eyes Midtown Manhattan
by Naomi Wolf
Published on Monday, November 5, 2007 by The Huffington Post
I have argued that in the closing stages of a `fascist shift', events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation's best-know feminist activist, and former adviser to Paul Keating, Anne Summers, who was also at the time this took place Chair of the Board of Greenpeace International. Summers was detained by armed agents for FIVE HOURS each way in LAX on her way to and from the annual meeting of the board of Greenpeace International in Mexico, and her green card was taken away from her. `I want to call a lawyer', she told TSA agents. `Ma'am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,' they replied. `You have not entered the United States.'
Apparently a section of LAX just beyond the security line is asserted to be `not in the United States' — though it is squarely inside the airport — so the laws of the US do not apply. (This assertion, by the way, should alarm any US citizen who is aware of how the White House argued that Guantanamo is not `in the United States' - is a legal no-man's land — so the laws of the US do not apply.) Toward the end of her second five-hour detention she asked, `Why am I being detained?' `Lady, this is not detention,' the TSA agent told her. `Detention is when I take you to the cells out back and lock you up.'
Last week in Boston, while attending Bioneers by the Bay, I heard that one of the speakers for our event, an environmentalist named Gunter Pauli, was going to miss the time of his scheduled speech; he had been physically taken OFF THE PLANE by TSA agents and had to take a much later flight. More chillingly, the camerawoman doing my interview said that another well-known environmental writer found that his girlfriend was effectively `disappeared' for three days as she sought to enter the US from Canada. Lisa Fithian, an anti-globalization activist, was denied entry across the Canadian border in 2001 and was offered the choice of turning back or being arrested.
A friend emails me a story from USA Today about a 24-year-old college graduate who testified before Congress about her family of immigrants and the difficulties they face; shortly afterward, the entire family was arrested by immigration agents. Another online piece reports that Blackwater is setting up operations along the US/Mexico border and an insightful post on Daily Kos describes how the TSA list will revert from the airlines to the management of the Department of Homeland Security shortly and that by February we may well face the need to apply to the State for permission to travel. If this proposed regulation goes through, we will move from 1931 to about 1934–when the borders started to close– with the stroke of a pen. Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long.
Why should Congress impeach and prosecute this instant, not waiting till February? Why should this impeachment and prosecution be solidly bipartisan? After February it is the leaders on both sides of the aisle — and the people writing these essays — who are at most risk of being turned back at the border. People who can't leave in a police state are effectively silenced. And history shows that Republicans are at the exact same risk as Democrats of being violently silenced once liberties are lost. I am reading about IBM's close, profitable involvement with Nazi Germany — much akin to Prescott Bush's well-documented close and profitable involvement with Nazi Germany through German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Right up to the top of the solidly Nazi hierarchy of the IBM affiliate, corporate executives were terrified of taking a wrong step in the eyes of the Party: `There are concentration camps', they would whisper to their US backers. The teenage son of one solid Nazi ally was taken hostage when he resisted Party orders. So alignment with the regime in a police state offers no ultimate protection.
Let us think like business consultants analyzing the decisions of a business that claims it is going to close its door in just a year. What kinds of decisions is it making? Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage — after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size — if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration — or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?
Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government. (He also spells out the basis for a rigorously modeled impeachment and criminal prosecution.) Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place. Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency — noting that those worrying about a coup are no longer so marginal. Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans. And Congress belatedly realizes as if waking from a drugged sleep that it might not be okay for the Attorney General to say the President need not obey the law. Congress may realize why Mukasey CAN'T say that `waterboarding is torture' — the minute he does so he has laid the grounds for Bush, Cheney and any number of CIA and Blackwater interrogators to be tried and convicted for war crimes. They are so keenly aware that what they have been doing is criminal that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 have been drafted specifically to protect them and the torturers and murderers they have directed from criminal prosecution. That is why insisting that Mukasey say that waterboarding is torture is, in spite of the alarming apparent defection of Feinstein and Schumer, an important tactic and even the perfect opening for the impeachment bid that Kucinich is bringing on November 6th to be followed by Congressional investigations into possible criminality.
This is the "Blackwater Tactical Weekly." (Yes, Blackwater has its own weekly e-newsletter.) Look at "Islamist protest in N.Y. - 'Mushroom cloud on way'" — it is reasonable to speculate that Blackwater is focusing on becoming more active domestically in managing domestic protests and rallies. (Regarding this particular rally, note the repetition of the White House `Mushroom Cloud' sound-bite and other signs bearing current White House talking points, that are attributed to alleged Muslim protesters in New York City. The US has a long history of using agents provocateurs — people dressed as those they are targeting, who pose as conveying a more violent or threatening message than that of the real group itself or who commit acts of violence to stigmatize the group. The Cointelpro program of the 1970's discredited many rallies in this way. An alleged or infiltrated violent, threatening Muslim rally would be the perfect defensible trigger for a Blackwater response.)
See also that Blackwater may be exploring the management of private flights in US airports because of a threat or `threat' to private aircraft. ("Extremists may target private US planes: TSA.") This entry point to the air travel system would seem defensible — after all Blackwater personnel do in fact guard airports around the world, for example in Bosnia. The danger is that a bleeding of Blackwater into US airport security in general would affect a coup in essence — quite quickly and serenely — even as a coup in fact need not be declared. It is a short step from managing private plane and private airport security to aiding the TSA — which is a branch of Homeland Security — and Homeland Security and Blackwater have already worked in alliance with one another in New Orleans. A TSA agent blogged about having signed up for Blackwater — at ten thousand a month, which is a lot more than TSA agents make now and a real incentive — but I have no evidence of reverse movement. The White House recently announced that the Watch List and No-Fly List together have 775,000 citizens and that they are adding 20,000 A MONTH. This trend on both sides, if not confronted, points to an easy slide to a paramilitarized domestic flight experience in the US and a routine aggressive searching of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the growth being exponential enough so that being aggressively searched could easily soon become a common experience at airports. Nothing at present prevents Blackwater agents from being deployed to help or replace the TSA domestically. Or from being deployed at the next New York City rally such as the one that is being featured on their website. And airports being the lifeline of freedom, if you are scared to fly or can be bullied, interrogated, tasered or worse when flying, you are no longer free. History shows that there is no easy retroactive movement toward a free society once travel is truly restricted.
The Mukasey hesitation on torture is our cue to call a halt to these crimes. (By the way, strapping victims to boards to prepare them for torture was common at Buchenwald.)
Congress must ask:
- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?
If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.
Naomi Wolf's essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller
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View these blogs:
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Sunday, November 4, 2007
Kucinich Takes IMPEACHMENT To Congress Tuesday
Calling the Question — In the House — on Impeaching Cheney
by John Nichols
Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by The Nation
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/02/4988/
Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by The Nation
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/02/4988/
Broadcast media’s gate-keeping “stars” have done just about everything in their power to keep the matter of presidential accountability off the radar of the American people. That was evident during the most recent Democratic presidential debate, when NBC anchors Brian Williams and Tim Russert meticulously avoided following up on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s three references to impeachment but somehow found time to grill the contenders on UFOs and what costume Barack Obama would be wearing on Halloween.
Pollsters are almost as bad. Rarely are questions about impeachment included in statewide or national surveys.
Despite the lack of media coverage, however, when citizens are asked what they think about holding members of the Bush administration to account, they respond with an enthusiasm far greater than that displayed for impeaching Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal. It is this reality — as opposed to the state of denial fostered by so much of the media and the political class — that Congressman Dennis Kucinich will act upon next week, when he offers a privileged resolution on the House floor to bring articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
Kucinich will face an uphill fight in a chamber led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who continues to say that impeachment is “off the table.”
The Ohio congressman and long-shot presidential contender may not be following the rules of engagement as dictated by major media and his party leaders. But when Kucinich raises the issue of impeachment, he will be speaking for a great mass of Americans who agree with his argument that, “Congress must hold the Vice President accountable.”
How great?
A fresh poll conducted for Vermont’s WCAX television station finds that citizens of that state enthusiastically believe that Congress beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush.
Sixty-one percent of the Vermonters surveyed favor taking steps to impeach the president, while just 33% oppose doing so.
The numbers are even higher for impeaching Cheney. Sixty-four percent of Vermonters favor beginning the process of holding the vice president to account, where only 31 percent are opposed.
The greater level of support for impeaching Cheney parallels the few nationwide figures that have been ascertained. When the American Research Group conducted a national survey in early July of this year, it found that 54 percent of American adults wanted the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Cheney — with 76 percent of Democrats, 51 percent of independents and a striking 17 percent of Republicans favoring the step.
Forty-six percent of Americans surveyed backed impeachment proceedings against Bush — with support for impeachment at 69 percent among Democrats, 50 percent among independents and 13 percent among Republicans.
What is notable is that, when Time magazine surveyed Americans in the late spring of 1974, after the Watergate scandal had evolved into a full-scale crisis of confidence in Nixon’s presidency, only 43 percent favored impeachment.
A media that actually had a sense of history, not to mention reality, would focus on the fact that Americans are more supportive of a congressional intervention to thwart Bush and Cheney’s wrongdoing than they were of moves to hold Nixon to account just months before the former president resigned in disgrace.
Now, it falls to Kucinich to speak the reality that, “The momentum is building for impeachment. Millions of citizens across the nation are demanding Congress rein in the Vice President’s abuse of power.”
Says the congressman, “Despite this groundswell of opposition to the unconstitutional conduct of office, Vice President Cheney continues to violate the U.S. Constitution by insisting the power of the executive branch is supreme… The Vice President continues to use his office to advocate for a continued occupation of Iraq and prod our nation into a belligerent stance against Iran. If the Vice President is successful, his actions will ensure decades of disastrous consequences.”
Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney several months ago, and his H. Res. 333 has attracted almost two dozen co-sponsors. All Democrats, they are Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Robert Brady (D-PA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Henry Johnson (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. James Moran (D-VA), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD).
Frustrated by the refusal of Democratic leaders to set up a process for holding hearings on his proposal, Kucinich will use an arcane House rule allowing for the prodding of the process with privileged resolutions to try and force consideration. Once introduced, a privileged resolution must be addressed within two legislative days.
Kucinich is expected to offer his privileged resolution on Tuesday. He expects to continue pushing it until the House acts. That action is likely to be a successful move by Democratic leaders to table the measure. Such a vote could be instructive, however, in that it would provide a rare measure of the willingness of at least some House members to respond to the popular will — which is that Dick Cheney be held to account.
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Saturday, November 3, 2007
Disinformation? On USA? Israel? Bombing Syrian Nuclear? Site? With Nuclear Weapons On Board USAF Planes
[Perhaps some of these have some actual facts, perhaps some have disinformation. See if you can find any source(s) of substance for any of these 'news' articles.]
===
www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/washington/14weapons.html -Similar pages
===
Nuclear Weapons Programs - Syria
| GlobalSecurity.org is the leading source for reliable WMD news and WMD information, directed by John Pike. www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/nuke.htm - 29k - |
NTI: Country Overviews: Syria: Nuclear
| However, no nuclear weapons program has ever materialized or been initiated. It appears that the Syrian nuclear program continues to be focused solely on ... www.nti.org/e_research/ |
NTI: Country Overviews: Syria: Nuclear Chronology
| Mustafa Tlas has stated that "the USSR is moving toward supplying Syria with nuclear weapons." A Soviet spokesman denies that the USSR provided any such ... www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Syria/Nuclear/2079.html - 95k - [ More results from www.nti.org ] |
News results for syria nuclear
Is Syria A Nuclear Threat? -
|
Syria's Secret Nuclear Threat
| In his testimony, Mr. Bolton said: "..on the nuclear side we are concerned about Syria's nuclear R&D program and continue to watch for any sign of nuclear ... www.aina.org/news/20050104115532.htm - 18k - |
Photo suggests quick cleanup of suspected Syrian nuclear site ...
| New commercial satellite images show a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site has been wiped clean since it was bombed September 6 by Israeli aircraft. www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/26/syria.photos.ap/ - 70k - |
Report: Israeli airstrike targeted Syrian nuclear reactor - CNN.com
| An Israeli airstrike on Syria last month targeted a partially built nuclear reactor that was years away from completion, the New York Times reported ... www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/14/israel.syria.ap/ - 67k - |
'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site' | Jerusalem Post
| On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and ... www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380718519& |
Syria: Israel targeted nuclear facility | Jerusalem Post
| 'USAF struck Syrian nuclear site'. Comments: 188 .... US should get off its knees and get tough on Syria and support Lebanon's efforts to remain secular ... www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380576317& [ More results from www.jpost.com ] |
Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’ - Times Online
| IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ |
Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid - Times Online
| Also from Sarah Baxter: Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis 'blew apart Syrian nuclear cache' | Secret US air force team to perfect plan ... www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ |
US claims photos show Syrian nuclear reactor - Independent Online ...
| US security experts have published what they believe to be photographs of a secret nuclear facility in Syria, which was bombed by Israeli jets last month. ... news.independent.co.uk/ |
Counterterrorism Blog: Additional nuclear sites in Syria?
| While proof of a Syrian nuclear site is trickling down, including in this Washington Post article, the question now remains: what exactly do we know about ... counterterrorismblog.org/2007/ |
Counterterrorism Blog: Syrian nuclear program quite advanced
| Recently, Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Seyassah quoted European intelligence sources as saying that "Syria has an advanced nuclear program" in a secret site ... counterterrorismblog.org/2006/ |
Syria's Nuclear Site | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com
| A satellite image appears to show that Syria had a nuclear project that was a secret from the CIA. www.newsweek.com/id/62164 - 51k - |
- Syria
| Syria is a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) having ... Some U.S. officials have issued warnings about a Syrian nuclear weapons program ... www.sipri.org/contents/expcon/cnsc1syr.html - 23k - |
Israel Struck Syrian Nuclear Project, Analysts Say - New York Times
A site attacked last month by Israel was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, according to Israeli and American intelligence.www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/washington/14weapons.html -
‘USAF Struck Syrian Nuclear Site’
by Jerusalem Post Staff
Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/02/4985/
Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/02/4985/
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.
The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.
The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.
At the beginning of October, Israel’s military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.
On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.
In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: “In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect.”
The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.
According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.
On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that “such facilities do not exist in Syria.”
A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.
However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.
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Friday, November 2, 2007
Ban Old Style Light Bulbs - Reduce The Need For Many Power Plants
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ECOLOGY & NATURE
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HOW BAD IS A LIGHT BULB?
[From Be Turtle]
Q - Are traditional light bulbs really that bad? They're so small-- how much harm can they really do?
A - If we decided to ban traditional light bulbs 5-10% of our power stations could be turned off. In the case of China, a ban on traditional light bulbs could mean that the Chinese didn't need to build 25-50 of the 500 coal power stations they are currently planning to construct over the next decade, whilst a similar ban in the US could mean that 25-50 of the power stations which already exist could be turned off. . .
At the domestic level, using 70% less electricity to make the same amount of light also saves approximately L9 ($18) worth of electricity per bulb per year.
An average, rather small, British house has been estimated to contain 23.5 light bulbs. While a good quality energy saving light bulb from one of our biggest supermarkets, Tesco, costs as little as 81p.
This means that replacing all of the light bulbs in a typical British house, at a cost of L19 ($38), with energy saving bulbs which have a 6 years lifetime could in theory allow you to save up to L1,057 ($2114) on household electricity bills over the lifetime of all the new light bulbs.
These savings are even greater if you install some of longer lasting energy saving light bulbs, which have lifetimes of up to 8 - 15 years.
If you still think this is too small a saving to justify they effort, then I would like to ask for your help with identifying other politically acceptable measures which would allow us to reduce our energy imports (whilst experiencing little obvious pain), to save large amounts of money (at little upfront cost) and to cut our carbon dioxide emissions by millions of tonnes (within the next couple of years).
[Dr Matt Prescott Director, Ban The Bulb]
http://www.beturtle.com/question/are-traditional-light-bulbs-really-that-bad--theyre-so-small---how-much-harm-can-they-really-do
http://www.banthebulb.org
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ECOLOGY & NATURE
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
HOW BAD IS A LIGHT BULB?
[From Be Turtle]
Q - Are traditional light bulbs really that bad? They're so small-- how much harm can they really do?
A - If we decided to ban traditional light bulbs 5-10% of our power stations could be turned off. In the case of China, a ban on traditional light bulbs could mean that the Chinese didn't need to build 25-50 of the 500 coal power stations they are currently planning to construct over the next decade, whilst a similar ban in the US could mean that 25-50 of the power stations which already exist could be turned off. . .
At the domestic level, using 70% less electricity to make the same amount of light also saves approximately L9 ($18) worth of electricity per bulb per year.
An average, rather small, British house has been estimated to contain 23.5 light bulbs. While a good quality energy saving light bulb from one of our biggest supermarkets, Tesco, costs as little as 81p.
This means that replacing all of the light bulbs in a typical British house, at a cost of L19 ($38), with energy saving bulbs which have a 6 years lifetime could in theory allow you to save up to L1,057 ($2114) on household electricity bills over the lifetime of all the new light bulbs.
These savings are even greater if you install some of longer lasting energy saving light bulbs, which have lifetimes of up to 8 - 15 years.
If you still think this is too small a saving to justify they effort, then I would like to ask for your help with identifying other politically acceptable measures which would allow us to reduce our energy imports (whilst experiencing little obvious pain), to save large amounts of money (at little upfront cost) and to cut our carbon dioxide emissions by millions of tonnes (within the next couple of years).
[Dr Matt Prescott Director, Ban The Bulb]
http://www.beturtle.com/question/are-traditional-light-bulbs-really-that-bad--theyre-so-small---how-much-harm-can-they-really-do
http://www.banthebulb.org
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