http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49975 <pre>The Diabolical Bank "Bail-In" Proposal by Professor Michel Chossudovsky Global Research (April 02 2013) Is the Cyprus Bank "Bail-in" a "dress rehearsal" for things to come? Is a "Savings Heist" in the European Union and North America envisaged which could result in the outright confiscation of bank deposits? In Cyprus, the entire payments system has been disrupted leading to the demise of the real economy. Pensions and wages are no longer paid. Purchasing power has collapsed. The population is impoverished. Small and medium sized enterprises are spearheaded into bankruptcy. Cyprus is a country with a population of one million. What would happen if similar "hair cut" procedures were to be applied in the US or the European Union? According to the Washington based Institute of International Finance (IIF) which represents the consensus of the global financial establishment, "the Cyprus approach of hitting depositors and creditors when banks fail, would likely become a model for dealing with collapses</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-21T00:01:27 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49971 <pre>by Ralph Nader The Nader Page (May 16 2013) Why are big, global US corporations so unpatriotic? After all, they were created in the USA, rose to immense profit because of the toil of American workers, are bailed out by American taxpayers whenever they're in trouble, and are safeguarded abroad by the US military. Yet these corporate goliaths work their tax lawyers overtime to escape US taxes. Many pay less than you do in federal income taxes. Imagine corporations, like General Electric, have not paid federal income taxes on US profits for years. Mega corporations have abandoned US workers by entrenching "pull-down" trade agreements that make it easier than ever to ship jobs and whole industries to fascist and communist regimes abroad which keep their workers near serfdom. Remember, the US has run large trade deficits for the past thirty years as a result of anti-American trade deals pushed by these global companies. These goliaths are pressing for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that will</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-20T12:12:09 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49970 <pre>http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/17/astoundingly_disturbing_obama_administration_claims_power Democracy Now! Friday, May 17, 2013 "Astoundingly Disturbing": Obama Administration Claims Power to Wage Endless War Across the Globe *"...one of the enduring legacies of the Obama presidency is going to be that he solidified this Cheneyesque view of the U.S. government, which says that when it comes to foreign policy, that the executive branch is effectively a dictatorship and that Congress only has a minimal role to play in oversight." * *-- Author Jeremy Scahill* A Pentagon official predicted Thursday the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates could last up to 20 more years. The comment came during a Senate hearing revisiting the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, enacted by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At the hearing, Pentagon officials claimed the AUMF gives the president power to wage endless war anywhere in the world, including in Syria, Yemen and the Congo. "Th</pre> Sid Shniad 2013-05-20T06:49:28 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49969 <pre>France to buy US-made Reaper drones for use in Mali: Report File photo shows a US-made unarmed Reaper surveillance drone. Sat May 18, 2013 12:43PM GMT 15 19 19  In February, a report published by the World Tribune indicated that the French military has used "Harfang" medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) drones manufactured by Israel in the war-torn country." Related Interviews: * 'US troops to fuel tensions across Africa' * ‘Mali war ends in France’s humiliation’ France has plans to purchase US-made unarmed Reaper surveillance drones in a bid to back up its military operations against fighters in the crisis-hit African country, Mali, a report says. According to the report published by Air et Cosmos specialist magazine on Friday, France will buy two American medium-altitude Reaper drones following a deal reached between Paris and Washington. The report added that the French Air Force, which has already deployed Israeli-made armed unmanned drones to the West African nation, intends to acq</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-20T04:28:04 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49968 <pre>Write letters of support to nuclear resisters The Nuclear Resisters are encouraging the anti-nuclear and anti-war community to write letters of support to imprisoned activists around the world, including Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli, currently imprisoned and awaiting sentencing for their breach of security at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. Please visit the Nuclear Resisters special webpage to write to imprisoned activists. Boertje-Obed, Rice and Walli will not be sentenced until mid-September. Even the Bush-appointed judge opined that "It is preposterous that Congress would pass a law that would not distinguish between peace protestors and terrorists." However, because the three were convicted of sabotage, which is considered under law as "an act of violence" against the United States, some thought the judge faced no other legal choice but to remand them in custody for now. Activists maintained a vigil outside the courthouse during the trial (Pictured</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-20T01:32:02 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49967 <pre>SORRY: The version I posted several hours ago didn't contain links to the pictures. This version does. --- I'm in my third year of keeping Japanese honeybees. I got started in 2011 when my good friend and mentor, Mr Takayuki Mori, introduced me to Mr Ikumi Shiga, a farmer as well as researcher at Kyoto University. Mr Shiga keeps bees, has made by hand more than a hundred beehives, and helps others like me get started in beekeeping. Mr Shiga brought me three beehives. They each are a stack of five boxes on a cement stand with an aluminum roof. Each box is 29 centimeters square and 15 centimeters tall. See these pictures: Our First Beehive, Bees at their Hive 1, Bees at their Hive 2, and Bees at their Hive 3. http://billtotten.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/our-first-beehive.gif Our First Beehive http://billtotten.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bees-at-their-hive-1.gif Bees at their Hive 1 http://billtotten.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bees-at-their-hive-2.gif Bees at their Hive 2 http://billtot</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-20T00:54:29 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49966 <pre>Should climate change academics lead by example? by Kevin Anderson http://kevinanderson.info/blog (April 12 2013) (The arguments outlined in this commentary apply equally to any politician, civil servant, journalist, NGO or business leader calling for stringent mitigation) From the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers through to Stern and the International Energy Agency, analyses increasingly demonstrate how, without urgent and radical reductions in emissions, global temperatures are set to rise by four degrees Celsius or higher - with, as the IEA emphasise, "devastating" repercussions for the planet. But whose responsibility is it to initiate such radical mitigation? ***** My partner and I recently arrived in Sicily for a couple of weeks' camping and rock climbing - not exactly sun-kissed limestone (fifteen degrees Celsius and damp), but still a little warmer than the Arctic blasts battering the UK at the moment. As we try to avoid flying we've travelled here by train: Manchester to London and the</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-20T00:01:35 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49965 <pre>Housing Crisis on the Rez: Why Haul a Run-Down Shack From the Plains to DC? Sunday, 19 May 2013 11:08 By Mark Andrew Boyer, Yes! Magazine Tribal leaders trucked the battered old home to Washington to show the nation’s leaders what the housing crisis on reservations looks like in person. Last month, a new building joined the Washington Monument and the Capitol building on the National Mall. The small, run-down shack had previously housed 13 people, and it was brought to Washington, D.C., from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to raise awareness about the critical need for housing on reservations around the country. "It's very difficult to get anybody to leave Washington to see it first-hand, and until you see it first-hand, it doesn't have the impact," explained Thomas Boesen, a Washington-based housing lobbyist who was at the April 17 demonstration. At 2.8 million acres, Pine Ridge is one of the largest Indian reservations in the country. It's also one of the poorest. Housing i</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-19T21:15:39 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49964 <pre>I'm in my third year of keeping Japanese honeybees. I got started in 2011 when my good friend and mentor, Mr Takayuki Mori, introduced me to Mr Ikumi Shiga, a farmer as well as researcher at Kyoto University. Mr Shiga keeps bees, has made by hand more than a hundred beehives, and helps others like me get started in beekeeping. Mr Shiga brought me three beehives. They each are a stack of five boxes on a cement stand with an aluminum roof. Each box is 29 centimeters square and 15 centimeters tall. See these pictures: Our First Beehive, Bees at their Hive 1, Bees at their Hive 2, and Bees at their Hive 3. Our First Beehive Bees at their Hive 1 Bees at their Hive 2 Bees at their Hive 3 I attracted my first colony with a Kinryohen plant in a stand surrounded by a net. Kinryohen is a kind of Orchid. The aroma of the Kinryohen flower attracts the bees while the net prevents the bees from harming the flower. If successful, the net collects a colony of bees. See these pictures: Kinryohen next to beehive, B</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-19T12:19:49 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49963 <pre>by John Michael Greer The Archdruid Report (May 15 2013) Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society One of the wry pleasures that's repeatedly come my way since the beginning of this blog seven years ago is that of watching a good many of my predictions come true in short order. Now it's true that I've also made a certain number of failed predictions over that time. Back in 2007 and 2008, for instance, I insisted that the US government wouldn't be dumb enough to try to cover its ballooning budget deficits by spinning the printing presses; some idiocies, I thought, were too extreme even for the inmates of the current American political class. As the Fed proceeds merrily through yet another round of quantitative easing, that assumption has proved to be rather too naive. Even so, my batting average so far has been pretty respectable. In the early days of this blog, for example, Daniel Yergin was insisting at the top of his lungs that the price of oil would settle down shor</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-19T00:10:59 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49962 <pre>Stop Ignoring How Routine the Occupation Has Become By Ori Nir on May 14, 2013 9:23 AM | 4 Comments By Ori Nir Israel TV Channel 2 recently ran a lengthy report of pre-dawn arrests of Palestinian children -- rock-throwing suspects -- at a West Bank Palestinian refugee camp. The TV crew was embedded with an Israeli unit that raided the camp. No, there was no blood, no violent confrontations and no big drama. Everything was done routinely, efficiently, as if scripted. Including the polite soldiers ("please get dressed") and the business-as-usual reactions of tweens who moments ago were in bed and are now handcuffed and blindfolded, in a military jeep. One of them, a boy named Ahmad who seemed around 10, tried to negotiate. "Tomorrow I have an exam. I will be thrown out of school if I don't take the test," he tried to reason with the soldiers. "Had you come any other day, I would have gone with you. Please!" Then he manned up and joined the soldiers. So what's new? What's the big deal, my wif</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-18T14:56:40 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49961 <pre>by Dmitry Orlov Club Orlov (May 14 2013) A tiny blip in the news media registered the fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide has exceeded four hundred parts per million for the first time in the history of the human species, with no sign of slowing down. Among other things, it means that ocean levels will be going up by at least thirty feet, putting most of the world's major cities underwater. Almost the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States - the most densely settled strip of land in the country, with the most infrastructure and physical assets - will become uninhabitable. Other countries - Bangladesh, Netherlands, a long list of low-lying island nations - will disappear under the waves entirely. In other news, the actress Angelina Jolie just had a double mastectomy to make extra-double-sure that she gets to live long and cancer-free. The brave woman has decided to face extinction breastless. I pray that her extinct breasts find peace, if not in this world, then perhaps the next ... Although I am c</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-18T12:01:48 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49959 <pre>http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11361#more FEMA Plans Clear-Cutting of 85,000 Berkeley and Oakland Trees by Randy Shaw‚ May. 16‚ 2013 The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is moving to chop down 22,000 trees in Berkeley's historic Strawberry and Claremont Canyons and over 60,000 more in Oakland. This destructive plan is rapidly moving forward with little publicity, and FEMA cleverly scheduled its three public meetings for mid and late May while UC Berkeley students were in finals or gone for the summer. UC Berkeley has applied for the grant to destroy the bucolic Strawberry and Claremont Canyon areas, claiming that trees pose a fire hazard. The school has no plans to replant, and instead will cover 20% of the area in wood chips two feet deep. And it will pour between 700 and 1400 gallons of herbicide to prevent resprouting, Including the highly toxic herbicide, Roundup. People are mobilizing against this outrageous proposal, which UC Berkeley has done its best t</pre> Mitchel Cohen 2013-05-18T05:00:21 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49958 <pre>Pressure-Cooker and Cluster Bombs "Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim," a New York Times headline shouted. U.S. cluster bombs have done the same in places like Afghanistan and Yemen.  Shouldn't we end that hypocrisy? Pressure-cooker bombs and cluster bombs are both extremely cruel -- shredding human flesh to produce maximum pain, injury and death. "Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim," a New York Times headline shouted. Click here to help put an end to it now.  Cluster bombs have been banned since 2010 by a treaty that 81 nations are already party to. Another 27 nations have signed but not yet ratified. The United States is not among the signers, serving rather as the chief opponent of the treaty. That's morally unacceptable. The Pentagon's cluster bombs caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon. Those actions were illegal at the time, under the Geneva Conventions. When cluster bombs are dropped in residential areas, many bomblets fail to explode and </pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-18T03:06:46 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49957 <pre>by James Howard Kunstler Clusterfuck Nation (May 13 2013) Whenever the Federal Reserve wants to tweak the dials of the economy - or pretend that it can - it turns first to its sock puppet at The Wall Street Journal, John Hilsenrath, and "leaks" a rumor of policy change. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-maps-exit-from-stimulus-2013-05-10-191031815?dist=beforebell They like to do this late on Fridays when financial markets are about to close, so that market players will have a whole weekend to ponder the Fed's actions like medieval viziers reading goat entrails. Last Friday's puddle of steaming guts was a supposed preview of the Fed's "exit strategy" from its reckless policy of "quantitative easing" or "money" creation (or "liquidity", if you like). In other words, they supposedly intend to stop juicing the financial markets with fake wealth, this is, capital not accumulated from real productive activity, but just fictively created on computer hard drives. For the past year they have been doing this t</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-18T00:10:18 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49956 <pre>Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?By Alan Strathern Oxford University Of all the moral precepts instilled in Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead? This is happening in two countries separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean - Burma and Sri Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable and small minority. In Sri Lanka, the issue of halal slaughter has been a flashpoint. Led by monks, members of the Bodu Bala Sena - the Buddhist Brigade - hold rallies, call for direct action and the boycotting of Muslim businesses, and rail against the size of Muslim families. While no Muslims have been killed in Sri Lanka, the Burmese situation is far more serious. Here the antagonism is spear</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-17T23:24:17 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49954 <pre> Dalai Lama Decries Buddhist Attacks On Muslims In Myanmar Reuters  |  Posted: 05/07/2013 1:37 pm EDT  |  Updated: 05/07/2013 6:16 pm EDT By Ian Simpson COLLEGE PARK, Md., May 7 (Reuters) - Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tuesday decried Buddhist monks' attacks on Muslims in Myanmar, saying killing in the name of religion was "unthinkable." The Dalai Lama, a foremost Buddhist leader, told an audience at the University of Maryland at the start of a U.S. tour that the root of seemingly sectarian conflict was political, not spiritual. "Really, killing people in the name of religion is unthinkable, very sad. Nowadays even Buddhists are involved in Burma," another name for Myanmar, with monks attacking Muslim mosques, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said after delivering the Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace at the university. "I think it is very sad," he said, adding, "I pray for them (the monks) to think of the face of Buddha," who had been a protector o</pre> Romi Elnagar 2013-05-17T19:25:11 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49953 <pre>Just Doing What's Popular Would Make Us Healthier, Wealthier, Wiser, and Less Indebted. by Mattea Kramer TomDispatch (April 11 2013) After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th. Then there's the bad news. For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment. Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want - and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, re</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-17T14:28:20 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49946 <pre>by William Blum http://williamblum.org (May 03 2013) Boston Marathon, this thing called terrorism, and the United States What is it that makes young men, reasonably well educated, in good health and nice looking, with long lives ahead of them, use powerful explosives to murder complete strangers because of political beliefs? I'm speaking about American military personnel of course, on the ground, in the air, or directing drones from an office in Nevada. Do not the survivors of US attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and elsewhere, and their loved ones, ask such a question? The survivors and loved ones in Boston have their answer - America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bomber has said in custody, and there's no reason to doubt that he means it, nor the dozens of others in the past two decades who have carried out terrorist attacks against American targets and expressed anger toward US foreign policy. {1} Both Tsarnaev brothe</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-17T00:01:24 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49941 <pre>http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/15/chris_hedges_monitoring_of_ap_phones Chris Hedges: Monitoring of AP Phones a "Terrifying" Step in State Assault on Press Freedom Democracy Now: May 15, 2013 NERMEEN SHAIKH: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is heading to Capitol Hill today, where he’s expected to be grilled over the Justice Department’s decision to secretly seize the work, home and cellphone records used by almost a hundred reporters and editors at the Associated Press. On Tuesday, Holder defended the move as a necessary step in a criminal probe of leaks of classified information. The phones targeted by the subpoena included the general AP office numbers in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Hartford, Connecticut; and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. The records were from April and May of 2012. Among those whose records were obtained were Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, three other reporters and an editor, all of whom worked on a story about an operation </pre> Ed Pearl 2013-05-16T14:00:12 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/49940 <pre>by Spengler Asia Times (November 27 2012) It is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that fifteen Asian nations, comprising half the world's population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States. President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn't. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came. Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form a club and leave out the United States. As three billion Asians become prosperous, interest fades in the prospective contribution of 300 million Americans - especially when those Americans decline to take risks on new technologies. Americ</pre> Bill Totten 2013-05-16T12:47:34 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.politics.communism.environmental