Chomsky: Under Nuremburg Bush a War Criminal

Top US General in Mid East says we're Headed for WW3

Army General John Abizaid compared the rise of militant ideologies, such as the force driving Al Qaida, to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

"If we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we'll go through World War Three tomorrow," Abizaid said in a speech titled The Long War, at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge.

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Israeli killings pass unnoticed

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military since Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority seven months ago, despite the low number of Israelis killed by Palestinians during that time.

Palestinians, already subject to occupation by the Israeli military, have been killed at a rate of 26 Palestinians for every Israeli killed since Hamas took power on March 29, 2006.

Since July that ratio has risen to 76 Palestinians for every Israeli.

Though the mainstream media still reports on a "conflict" between "two sides", over the past seven months it has simply been a slaughter.

The Arab League has criticised the United States for blocking a UN Security Council resolution that sought to condemn Israeli actions in the Gaza Stri

The US used its veto to halt the draft resolution, sponsored by the Gulf state of Qatar, that criticised the Israeli tank shelling of a home in Beit Hanoun on Wednesday in which seven children and four women were killed as they slept.

Amr Musa, the Arab League secretary general, said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the US move and said: "This veto will only increase anger."

Now that Rumsfeld is gone, let's remember this future war criminal in his cuter moments

Why the Neocon Movement Is Dead

In one of the largest, "throw the bums out" elections, ever, Republicans have lost control of the House & Senate. Harper's Conservatives need to reinvent themselves or they too, will get a thumpin. If they don't change the playbook their message will fall on deaf ears.

For the last 30 years the staple of conservative attacks has been "they will tax & spend". In the last 15 years or so they added "they are morally corrupt". A heap of scandals and shocking revelations later, it becomes clear that no political party can claim to be morally superior and the Liberals have a better track record over the last 20 years of running the economy.

People won't believe the same lines anymore. Not unless there's substance to it.

If neocons want to survive they have to make a few changes that can best be summed up as: become libertarians. At least it's a consistent fluid belief system. Not what they have now: an unholy alliance of economic conservatives, libertarians, & the religious right. First thing: drop the religious right. Religion and politics don't mix. People increasingly regard their religious belief system as deeply personal and not public. Too many issues religion interjects into politics are wedge issues. I don't buy that you are more moral than me because you go to Church. And with all the sex scandals that have taken the high and mighty down from their towers, the public's not willing to trust someone who makes a point of showing how holy they are.

If Stephen Harper doesn't accept gay marriage he will not win. The public doesn't want to go over the issue because frankly, there are more important issues out there, so accept that gays can marry and move on. And don't try to make it into some kind of "civil union" - gays want the same rights and the majority of the public agrees.

But the achilles heel for conservatives has to be the environment. Conservatives are in danger of being seen as backwards buffoons for denying the overwhelming science surrounding climate change. Harper: the science is in. We must reduce human carbon emissions, develop an energy strategy, decrease our consumption of fossil fuels now. The weather is fucked up and anyone can tell you that. More people have asthma & weird breathing disorders than ever. Commercial fisheries will collapse in 50 years or less and your government people know it. You need to have a real policy. Like what you did with the GST. You lowered the tax. Now all you gotta do is lower the pollution.

What you need to do is make a Madonna esque transformation. Drop the ideologue. Don the pragmatist. All the great leaders in history knew about that. The only bad thing they can call you for that is a waffler but these days that gets a lot more cred, than staying the course, which sounds a lot like how Einstein defined insanity.

Maybe the Conservatives can develop a policy that harnesses the power of the profit motive, like the suggestion in the US to take impoverished areas and designate them "enterprise zones", tax havens to seek investment for development & employment. (If only someone ever enacted this idea we might know if it can succeed but alas, just another platitude). Environmentalists will support a clear plan to hit specific goals (short term & long term, like in... Kyoto, for example).

Support Kyoto and get the US to do the same. The economy won't collapse. In fact, it will be saved from an impending global depression if we don't get off fossil fuels that are running out, killing our air & water, & fuelling wars & regimes all over the place.

If the conservatives can find a way to address these key issues, they might have a future. There's a guy in Canadian politics who has at times demonstrated the right balance of pragmatism and principle, and whether you like him or not, he's someone the conservatives can learn the most from. His name: Jack Layton.
Too bad he can't get elected.
More on this later.

Cheney to spend Election Day hunting

Vice President Dick Cheney is going on his first hunting trip since accidentally shooting his companion earlier this year.

Cheney will work at the White House on Monday morning and then head to South Dakota to spend several days at a private hunting lodge near Pierre, his press secretary said. He will be accompanied by his daughter, Mary, and his political director, Mel Raines, who will help him keep track of the election returns.

Musharraf proposes mechanism to reconcile Muslims, non-Muslims

President General Pervez Musharraf on Monday proposed the establishment of an international dispute mechanism to resolve the political issues of the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

President Musharraf proposed this at the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) and urged the United States and the European Union (EU) to play active roles in solving the lingering Palestine issue, which is negatively affecting world peace.

“The Palestine issue has become the core issue of the Muslim world and has led to war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Musharraf addressing the second WIEF on Monday on the topic of ‘Challenges for Muslim Leadership in a Globalised World’. The president stressed the need for resolution of the Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan issues as imperative to world peace, which, in turn, would guarantee economic development in the world.

Musharraf also stressed the importance of Muslim countries empowering women – both politically and economically – in their efforts to develop.

He said it was easy to tackle terrorism, but very difficult weed out the roots of extremism, adding that that extremism could be curtailed by resolving the Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan issues.

The president also requested the EU to step forward and play an active role in resolving the political issues of the Muslim World.

Musharraf said that to solve its problems, the Muslim Ummah would have to adopt a path of enlightened moderation.

“We need to inform the world about the reality of Islam,” he told the meeting, adding, “Semiliterate clerics who hold sway over the masses (have contributed) to the rise of extremism in the Muslim world as opposed to moderation. This is the unfortunate reality because this is the critical malaise which spawns terrorism.” President Musharraf also called for an Islamic Economic Union and Islamic Fund to develop the economies of poor Muslim countries and also called for the restructuring of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and Islamic Development Bank.

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Toddler gets travel ban, arrest warrant

A two-year-old boy was briefly banned from boarding a Turkey-bound flight in the United Arab Emirates after his name appeared on a list of wanted suspects, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Emirates Today said the boy's passport details, including the date of birth, matched those in an arrest warrant. The reason for the mix-up was not known.
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AUSTRALIA might be facing the worst drought in one thousand years

Speaking at the conclusion of an emergency water summit in Canberra, South Australian Premier Mike Rann said that experts from the Murray Darling Basin Commission feared that the drought may be even worse than a one-in-one-hundred-year event.

Prime Minister John Howard said the assessment was sobering, but added it was an observation at the end of a formal report rather than a scientific conclusion.

But premiers were adamant that the figure had been raised and it pointed again to the urgency of dealing with global warming.

The meeting decided that contingency planning would begin to secure drinking water if there were insufficient autumn rains in 2007.

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All indications point to a return of Ortega

Preliminary results give Daniel Ortega about 40 percent of the vote, which is enough to defeat four other candidates and avoid a runoff. Election watchdogs also see victory for the man who has run in every presidential election since losing office 16 years ago. But no one is conceding defeat.

The U-S is also holding off. But Washington is threatening to cut aid to Nicaragua if Ortega returns.
Ortega insists he's changed from the days when he was a Marxist fighting a U-S-backed insurgency. Now 60 and balding, Ortega's fiery rhetoric was toned down. He's even promising to keep good relations with the White House.

Despite call, Rumsfeld will stay

An editorial in a family of newspapers read largely by a military audience calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation is more likely to result in his digging into his office rather than leaving it. "Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth: Donald Rumsfeld must go," states the editorial that appeared Monday in the Army Times.
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Hamas and Fatah Leaders in Government Talks

Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya failed Monday in their efforts to finalize a deal on a national unity government but planned to try again on Tuesday, aides said.

In another development, Israel began withdrawing tanks and other armored vehicles late Monday night from the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli forces entered the town six days ago to halt Palestinian rocket fire and clashed daily with Palestinian militants.

It was not clear if all or just some of the Israeli forces were leaving, and the Israeli military did not immediately comment.
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Just in Time for Holiday Season: Tie Domi on How to Decorate a Table

Harper Promises to Not Tax Income Trusts and Rick Mercer Explains Why Canadians Pay Taxes

Harper Lied. Again.



At Least Rick Mercer Tells it Like It Really Is

Bush fakes Spanish

Ex-defence adviser attacks Bush

A key US proponent of the invasion of Iraq has now said that devastating dysfunction has turned US policy in the country into a "disaster".

Richard Perle, a former defence adviser to the Bush administration, told US magazine Vanity Fair the president was responsible for the failure.

Mr Perle's comments come just three days before the US mid-term elections.

The neo-conservative said in hindsight he probably would not have advocated the invasion of Iraq.

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Microcredit campaign launches new goal of reaching 175 million of world's poorest by 2015

Three weeks after a Bangladeshi economist won the Nobel Peace Prize for revolutionizing banking for the poor, his followers said Wednesday they're determined to help 175 million people living on less than US$1 a day get small loans by the end of 2015.

Organizers of the Microcredit Summit Campaign had intended to reach its initial goal of 100 million people by last December, but fell short by about 18 million.

Still, 82 million people have recieved the loans since the campaign was launched in 1997. And that credit — to purchase basics such as a cow for milk or a mobile phone to sell calls — has improved the lives of 410 million family members, said Campaign director Sam Daley-Harris.

An estimated 1 billion of the planet's people live on less than a dollar a day; another 3 billion are believed to subsist on $2 (€1.57) a day, or half the world's population.

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Harper Stands up EU Summit to Avoid Critcism Over Lack of Environmental Policy

Harper was supposed to take part in a Canada-EU summit in Finland at the end of November, but cancelled out, citing the need to stay close to home because of his government's fragile minority status.

EU officials are upset that Harper won't attend the summit even though he'll already be in the region, The Globe and Mail reports.

Critics suggest Harper backed out in order to avoid tough criticism he would have faced at the summit.

European leaders are upset with the Harper government for abandoning goals set under the Kyoto Protocol in favour of their controversial new Clean Air Act.

The Conservative legislation sets no short term targets for reducing emissions.

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Fisheries on the Brink of Collapse, Canada Won't Ban Bottom-Trawling

Canada's fisheries minister agrees with the authors of an international study that found world fish stocks are threatened with extinction.

However, Loyola Hearn insists Canada should not be pressured into signing on to an all-out ban on bottom-trawling, which environmentalists say causes ruin to fish habitat.

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World ozone meeting spares US big cuts on banned pesticide

Nations working to save the earth's protective ozone layer agreed yesterday to let the United States use thousands of tons of the pest-killing chemical methyl bromide. The decision applies to methyl bromide use for 2008 on American crops such as strawberries, peppers, and tomatoes. "This agreement is bad news for the ozone layer and bad news for our health," said David Doniger, climate policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He linked the decision to additional cancer and illness caused by radiation that comes through the hole in the ozone layer.

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Former Head Of World Bank Identifies Costs of Climate Change

Sir Nicholas Stern was commissioned to write a landmark report on climate change, amid growing fears about the human and economic cost of global warming. Stern, an internationally regarded economist, spent more than a year examining the complex problem. The conclusions: climate change is fundamentally altering the planet; the risks of inaction are high; and time is running out.

Out of this enormously complex report comes a simple conclusion: human activity has raised the amount of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

Stern uses the standard scientific measure to show how the amount has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to 430ppm now. The gas traps heat and has caused the Earth to warm by more than half a degree, with a further half degree at least to come over the next few decades.

If carbon emissions continue as they are, the level will reach 550ppm by 2050 or sooner. Scientists believe this will drive global average temperatures to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It could also release natural stocks of carbon from the soil or permafrost, making the situation worse.

Summary

Carbon emissions have already increased global temperatures by more than 0,5 degrees Celsius.

With no action to cut greenhouse gases, we will warm the planet another two to three degrees Celsius within 50 years.

Temperature rise will transform the physical geography of the planet and the way we live.

Floods, disease, storms and water shortages will become more frequent.

The poorest countries will suffer earliest and most.

The effects of climate change could cost the world 5% to 20% of GDP.

Action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the worst of global warming would cost 1% of GDP.

With no action, each ton of carbon dioxide will cause at least $85 of damage.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should be limited to the equivalent of 450 to 550 parts per million.

Action should include carbon pricing, new technology and robust international agreements.

More Read the Stern Review on the economics of climate change

Ocean study predicts the collapse of all seafood fisheries by 2050

All species of wild seafood will collapse within 50 years, according to a new study by an international team of ecologists and economists. Writing in the Nov. 3 issue of the journal Science, the researchers conclude that the loss of marine biodiversity worldwide is profoundly reducing the ocean's ability to produce seafood, resist diseases, filter pollutants and rebound from stresses, such as climate change and overfishing.

"Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood," said study co-author Stephen Palumbi, professor of biological sciences at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station.

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Sandinistas' Ortega poised for comeback

Nearly three decades after coming to power behind the barrel of a gun, Washington's Cold War-era nemesis Daniel Ortega has joined hands with former battlefield enemies, changed his campaign colors from revolutionary red to peace-loving pink, and could be on the verge of an electoral comeback.

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The Founding Fathers of The US would have opposed the Iraq war

James Madison, the principal architect of the U.S. Constitution, noted in 1795:

“Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. From these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

Similarly in 1821, John Quincy Adams stated the following about America:

“She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.”

Didn't you always know those preachy homophobic types were really just repressed all along?

In the US, there's another sex scandal involving someone from the "moral values" camp. His name is Reverend Ted Haggard and he just resigned as President of the organisation that represents evangelical Christians. He is a vocal proponent of "intelligent design" and a vocal opponent of gay rights. Now there are charges of hypocrisy that recall the Mark Foley scandal, as it is revealed the Rev was buying sex and crystal meth from a hot muscular "sensual massage" guy that puts ads in the back of weeklies.

In this clip from Jesus Camp, the documentary, The Rev lays out the angry christian law on gays, and adds some oddly prophetic and ironic comments at the end.

We should make gay bashers watch gay porn for hours on end, so they could get over their squeamishness and realise, it's a not a fuckin big deal, just a different combo of sticks and holes, and maybe they should be doing things like Jesus did, like showing love, feeding the hungry, offering comfort, healing the sick, promoting charitable works, and not preaching hate.