Thursday, July 23, 2009

revolution2009

The emergency we are faced with is corporate rule. We are ruled by multinational corporations.

Here are some of the symptoms:

The war industry keeps our legislatures like concubines. Contributions for just last year amount to nearly $24 million, and 59% of that went to Democrats. You know, the rational, liberal party that's going to get us out of the wars? That one. fifty-nine percent. and it works. In past years the lions' share went to the Republicans. It's not a matter of ideology. It's whoever is in power.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=D

We have imperial bases in most nations; in many, our soldiers are despised for their violence and arrogance. A BBC report from last February is typical: "In the latest of a string of incidents involving US troops, the man is accused of raping a Filipino woman at a hotel.

"The alleged rape happened before a 24-hour curfew was imposed on US troops, their families and civilians working for the military on Okinawa. "....Another American serviceman is accused of rape on Okinawa, the second alleged incident in 10 days.

"The first complaint was made by a 14-year-old schoolgirl, the second by a woman from the Philippines who says she was attacked in a hotel. In the last few days another soldier was found drunk asleep on a sofa in a house he had broken into, while another was arrested for drunk-driving."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7256056.stm

The BBC article has a certain familiarity to it. Move thousands of miles to the Koreas, and the story is the same. "According to the south Korean government's official statistics, 50,082 crimes were committed by US soldiers from 1967 to 1998 (including those by soldiers' families), and 56,904 US soldiers were involved (including soldiers' families) in these crimes. "

http://www.iacenter.org/Koreafiles/ktc-civilnetwork.htm

We don't call the war industry "the war industry." We call it "the defense industry." That's because it defends us against having to act likhttp://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=De reasonable people to the rest of the world. It defends itself against the change that the people desire. It defends the fortunes of the hyper-rich. It defends against liberty, equality, and compassion, and keeps us all in fear. Now we have two inexcusable wars of aggression and occupation, but at least we have the infotainment industry to keep us abreast of developments. For example, during one of the invasions of Iraq, Jay Leno made a joke about how old some US soldiers were, saying they could do the job, but might leave the left turn signal on the tank blinking all the way to Baghdad. Everyone laughed, remember? Then he told the one about so-called smart munitions, about the guy who found his wife's arm two blocks away, with her hand still holding the teapot. Remember that one? I don't either. That's because Jay Leno will never tell that joke. Actual war isn't funny, but propaganda is a laugh riot. NBC profits depend on that.

The emergency is corporate rule, the symptom is war.

Desperation and poverty are increasing. "The Real Unemployment Rate Hits a 68-Year High

Comparing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' “U-3” and “U-6” rates.

By John Miller

"Although you have to dig into the statistics to know it, unemployment in the United States is now worse than at any time since the end of the Great Depression.

"From December 2007, when the recession began, to May of this year, 6.0 million U.S. workers lost their jobs. The big three U.S. automakers are closing plants and letting white-collar workers go too. Chrysler, the worst off of the three, will lay off one-quarter of its workforce even if it survives. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and giant banking conglomerate Citigroup have both laid off thousands of workers. Alcoa, the aluminum maker, has let workers go. Computer maker Dell and express shipper DHL have both canned many of their workers. Circuit City, the leading electronics retailer, went out of business, costing its 40,000 workers their jobs. Lawyers in large national firms are getting the ax. Even on Sesame Street, workers are losing their jobs.

"The official unemployment rate hit 9.4% in May-already as high as the peak unemployment rates in all but the 1982 recession, the worst since World War II. And topping the 1982 recession's peak rate of 10.8% is now distinctly possible. The current downturn has pushed up unemployment rates by more than any previous postwar recession ...."

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709miller.html

The emergency is corporate rule, the symptom is mass unemployment.

Education is nearly inaccessible to the poor, and ignorance is the new normal. In an international measurement of quality of life, the US slipped from second in 1980 to fifteenth today.

"The American Human Development Index is calculated from measures of three dimensions:

• A long and healthy life is measured using life expectancy at birth, calculated from mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2005.

• Access to knowledge is measured using two indicators: school enrollment for the population age three and older, and educational degree attainment for the population twenty-five years and older. Both indicators are from the American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, 2005.

• Decent standard of living is measured using median earnings from the American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, 2005.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/13658/the-human-development-indexa-better-measure-of-where-we-stand

We're fifteenth. We're next to Turkey now.

The emergency is corporate rule, the symptom is misery.

Health care is inaccessible to unemployed and poor, and often inadequate even for the middle class. According to an article in the BBC:

"The American healthcare system is a paradox of excess and deprivation. The United States spends more money on medical care than other nation: $2.5tn in 2009, over $8,000 per person.

Yet 46 million Americans - 15% of the population - don't have any health insurance. They are disproportionately the working poor, often employed by small firms that cannot afford to offer healthcare coverage (most Americans under age 65 get health insurance from their employers). Even many insured Americans lack adequate protection against the financial risks of illness. Medical care is consequently a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US."

Ron Williams - Aetna

Total Compensation: $24,300,112

Details: Williams earned $24,300,112 in total compensation for 2008, with more than half of that ($13,537,365) coming from option awards. He also received an additional $6,456,630 in stock awards to go along with his base salary of $1,091,764.

Personal use of a corporate aircraft and vehicle, as well as financial planning and 401(k) company matches added up to $101,487 for Williams.

....H. Edward Hanway - CIGNA

Total Compensation: $12,236,740....

Angela Braly - WellPoint

Total Compensation: $9,844,212.......

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/26/735411/-Health-insurance-industry-CEO-salary-survey,-stay-calm-for-this

The emergency is corporate rule, the symptom is death.

It's really too bad about corporate health care denial. Too bad if you die from it. Too bad if you're born, according to a report from the Environmental Working Group studying the umbilical cords of newborn babies. The body burden pollution, the melange of pthalates,mercury, lead, flame retardants, biphenyls, polymers, et cetera, comes with the act of birth now.

EPW writes "Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied."

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php

The emergency is corporate rule; the symptoms are: Forests destroyed, rivers polluted,Appalachia is a moonscape, our oceans are dying, the atmosphere is overheating, glaciers are melting.

The emergency is corporate rule; the symptom is an elected President who is a collaborationist with the Fascist state that brought us Guantanamo, shoeless airports, police who are feared by minorities, and deadly dangerous to all.

The emergency is corporate rule, the symptoms are: Prisons are overcrowded, 2.3 million in chains, 7 million are under probation, parole, or incarceration.

Trillions have been given away to the hyper-rich banker class, undermining the currency.

Habeas corpus has been lost, the 4th Amendment is lost.

Enough!

Close all imperial bases, close Guantanamo

Cease fire and really withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan

Open the prisons, release the prisoners of our racist drug war. Institute corrections not revenge.

Minimum wage $15/hour, 36 hour work week, 6 weeks vacation,

Maximum allowed personal wealth $3 million per year, $3 million property

Outlaw rents and mortgages/guarantee land rights to all

Seize and reorganize all corporations over $1 million sales as cooperatives

Nationalize banks, seize offshore assets, guarantee work or pensions

Outlaw all coal production after one year

Create an emergency mobilization project to decentralize the power grid, add solar/wind/wave/geothermal power

Socialize medicine and higher education

Institute people's newspapers, journalists, and media, elect and pay staff from tax

Sunset gasoline and diesel transportation, implement $3/gallon tax

Cease all night contrail formation

Restore full habeas corpus rights, cease all torture, prosecute torturers and war schemers

Restore all human rights, instantly shut down factory farming

Start a Manhattan project to remediate pollutionand the toxic body burden

Mandate media election coverage, ban all election media sales

Revolution................

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Vice President Joe Biden said today that Guantanamo Bay's anti-habeas-corpus prison would be shut down by next January. AFP and BBC report this quote:

"We are going through every single detainee's records... to make a judgement about whether or not they should be tried [or] ... released and if so, what country might take them if we can't get them back to the country of origin because they're going to be tortured or mistreated," he said.

Speaking during a trip to eastern Europe taking in Georgia and Ukraine, he added: "We expect before January -- well before January -- we will have a decision on each and every individual being held." The Catholic Worker reported that one boy of 13 years of age, arrested in Afghanistan in 2002, was held in solitary for more than a year at Bagram and Guantanamo, and made to stand in stress position and deprived of sleep. If you were listening to Democracy Now earlier this morning, you heard the following: "The Obama administration meanwhile is facing a Friday deadline on whether to continue jailing Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohamed Jawad. The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged Jawad's indefinite imprisonment, saying he's been abused, threatened, and deprived of sleep in US custody. The case has received further scrutiny because it's believed Jawad was jailed when he was twelve years old. Federal District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle has given the Justice Department until tomorrow to explain why Jawad should still be jailed. Huvelle called the government's current case “an outrage” and “riddled with holes.” [no excuse.]

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From waynemadsenreport.com

THAILAND Flu toll rises to 44, with 6,776 infected

Writer: BangkokPost.com

Published: 22/07/2009 at 12:32 PM

The swine flu death toll has more than doubled from 20 last week to 44, while the total number of confirmed A(H1N1) flu cases has rocketed to 6,776, the Public Health Ministry reported on Wednesday.

Health deputy permanent secretary Paichit Varachit said 6,697 patients had recovered. Thirty-five others remained in hospitals and seven of them were in critical condition.

Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said he had instructed provincial governors, doctors and nurses nationwide to implement more stringent measures to curb the A(H1N1) flu outbreak.

"Provincial authorities need to educate people about the disease and ways to protect themselves from being infected so they do not panic," Dr Witthaya said.

Government officials and employees of state enterprises with flu-like symptoms can rest at home without having to get medical certificates, and they would not lose their holidays and other benefits, he said.

"Thailand's ranking in the number of swine flu cases and fatalities has not really risen to fourth place, as other countries have stopped reporting on the flu situation," the minister said.

He also expressed his concern for people who go to watch the friendly soccer match between Thailand and Liverpool on Wednesday evening. People with flu symptoms should definitely not go to the game, he said.

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Intensive Care Beds Fill in New Zealand as Flu Hits (Update2)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aPH1AdRquEIY

By Jason Gale

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Intensive care units in some New Zealand hospitals are full and a spike in flu cases has prompted doctors to postpone non-essential surgery to ease pressure on medical services, the country's health ministry said.

Seventy-four people are hospitalized with the H1N1 pandemic virus, also known as swine flu, with 26 in intensive care, in the nation of 4.2 million people, the ministry said in a statement today.

New Zealand, suffering the worst influenza season in more than a decade, may be a harbinger for other countries that have yet to experience the pandemic virus during winter, when colder, drier weather favors transmission. Disease trackers are watching how the pandemic evolves during the Southern Hemisphere winter to gauge its impact in the U.S. and Europe.

“It's a salutary warning to other countries,” said Lance Jennings, a clinical virologist with Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch. “It's certainly been a strain on resources.”

Shortages of equipment, including respiratory support units, have been localized, Jennings said. Even with the pressure from both pandemic and seasonal flu, the nation's health services “are coping well,” Health Minister Tony Ryall said. Hospitals, some of which have deferred elective surgeries, may come under more strain as the flu season worsens, he said.

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http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

KCNA Terms Story of "Chain Reaction" Hypocritical

Pyongyang, July 22 (KCNA) -- The U.S. is now spreading in the countries around the DPRK the rumor that "chain reaction" may occur in Japan and south Korea unless the DPRK's access to nukes is checked.

The rumor has it that the DPRK's access to nukes may prompt Japan and south Korea to go nuclear, fearful of its "threat".

It sounds plausible at first but one can easily guess this is a sheer speculation as it is a departure from a reality.

Humankind wishes to see a nuclear-free world.

Had countries vied with each other to have access to nukes because of nuclear threat there might have already appeared a great number of nuclear weapons states in the world.

When a country is exposed to very potential and serious nuclear threats and when it finds no other way to cope with them, it is compelled to have access to nukes as its last resort.

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

americOINK

Obama ambassadorships bought:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/another-batch-of-obamas-ambass.html

Bailout salary limit evaded:
http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/june15a.html

Sachs behind crashes:
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/rolling-stone-expose-goldman-sachs-behind-every-market-crash-since-1920s/

Ultra-rich doing just fine:
http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/june29a.html

EPA global warming censorship fraud:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/climate_skeptic_i_was_hoping_people_at_epa_would_p.php?ref=fpb

Sea ice melting:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/090701-shrinking-sea-ice.html

Melting raises seas:
www.chinaview.cn 2009-07-02 16:07:52

Swine flu mutation escaping notice
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06300901/H274Y_Swine_Silent.html

Swine flu serious in Argentina
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jQwSxWr8T5XODB8rmTgb2MKuHNVw






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This is PressWatch, counterpropaganda and Left opinion on KBOO community multimedia. I'm Theresa Mitchell; join me for a brief peek behind the video veil, and an examination of the News You're Not Supposed To Know....

I've had an awesome vacation and now I'm back after two weeks' absence, which is a geologic era so far as radio is concerned, especially weekly radio. So I'll re-introduce myself. I am Theresa Mitchell, a transgendered woman, actually a hermaphrodite mutated by Lily Pharmaceutical's now-banned drug diethylstilbestrol. Pleased to meet you. I'm also an anarcho-socialist firebrand, and I come to you once per week to attempt to destroy the manufactured consensus that corporate media produces in order to keep us all in quiet, orderly, grateful lines to the factory farm slaughterhouse.

While I was away I did think about what changes were necessary to the program, and so I'm going to post my comments on the Web in a different way. This time, and subsequently, I'm going to have a little list at the top of the page, which will essentially be a list of topics, with each topic followed by a(n) URL link. So if you're wondering where the hell I get my ideas and facts, the answer will be right there on top, click and voila! --you're there. That is, unless my idea has come merely from the rusting pile of facts and memories in my aging brain, in which case you can use your favorite search engine or just decide what you will.

I hope to have kboo.fm/presswatch working some time today, but failing that, you'll find the list of topics and links, followed by part of today's script, at theresaspresswatch.blogspot.com .
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If you ask yourself what it is you really want in health care-- I mean for yourself and for people you care about-- the answer is easy and simple. You want to be able to get medical care when you need it; nor would you deny health care to anyone. That's true for everyone. We all agree that it's cruel to withhold needed care; if someone comes to you with a bleeding cut, and you have a bandage, you give it to them. It's human nature.

We all know, too, that other, more civilized countries have health care. So we insist to our legislators, for decade after decade, that health care must be provided. Sometimes they make more noise in response to our request, and other times they ignore it, but the bottom line is always the same, the same answer: No. No, you can't have health care, America. The rich would be inconvenienced by it. And no, you're certainly not allowed to ask for "single payer" socialized medicine.

Why is this?

It's a free country, after all, as the saying goes, which is odd in view of the fact that this is the world's most imprisoned country, but you're free to participate in politics--and on an equal basis, at that. Your dollar contributed to a politician's media election fund goes just as far as each of the other half-million dollars contributed in bundle by a rich person, and your voice is therefore proportionately considered. One million votes for two rich people, and fifty votes for you and your spouse. Perfectly reasonable, no? Would we expect any rational media-buying politician to act otherwise? They wouldn't get elected if they did. (Of course, some say that media should be forced to run free election ads, and that money should be banned from politics. Those radicals!)

Meanwhile, in the Land of the Free, you can get whatever you want with a half-million dollar contribution, and for that matter, you can stop any group of people from getting what they want, if it goes against your money. Why stop at preserving your health insurance stock investments? Why not leave it all behind, and find yourself a fabulous lifestyle in a foreign country, say as a real Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for the United States of America? Buying ambassadorships is a long American tradition, and it's become even more common since Reagan. According to opensecrets.org:

"...[President] Obama, to date, has nominated 50 individuals for ambassadorships. Of these, 19 have been career officers in the Foreign Service, 26 have given money to political candidates and five are not career diplomats but nor do they have known histories of campaign contributions.

"These 26 individuals, along with their immediate family members, have contributed roughly $3 million to federal candidates, committees and parties since 1989, with 92 percent of that going to Democrats — including more than $139,800 to Obama and $43,100 to former Sen. Hillary Clinton, who now heads the State Department.

"Sixteen of them are also responsible for bundling at least $5 million to Obama's campaign committee and at least $500,000 to the campaign of Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain. Additionally, according to Public Citizen's records, eight of these bundlers also directed at least $1.78 million toward his inaugural committee."

For example:
"Bruce J. Oreck, [nominated] for ambassador to Finland. Oreck, a lawyer who previously served as general counsel and vice president of his family's famous vacuum company, bundled more than $500,000 to Obama's presidential campaign. He and his wife, Charlotte, also bundled another $75,000 Obama's inauguration. (Existing disclosure requirements for inauguration bundlers don't make it clear whether that includes his personal contribution of $50,000.) Along with his wife and children, he has contributed $261,550 to federal Democratic candidates, parties and committees since 1989. That includes $9,200 to Obama and $1,000 to Hillary Clinton last cycle.

(more at http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/another-batch-of-obamas-ambass.html )
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But it's not fair to say that the ultra-rich are simply buying whatever items they want on the Washington menu. Not fair at all. In fact, the situation is far worse than that--they've been buying whatever they want for so long that the waiters--excuse mean, I mean the elected representatives, Senators, President, and appointees--rush to the table with an eager smile, and a little white towel, and know without being told exactly how to act. Take this whole business of executive pay caps--you didn't really think that the ultra-rich were going to let you, the stingy know-nothing tax payer, get away with limiting their annual bonus to half a million dollars, did you? Oh, sure, you can whine away about it being your tax money being used in a bailout, and that you intended it to stimulate the economy not line their pockets when they're obviously failing in their jobs, yada yada yada. God, you little people can be annoying. But rest assured it's not going to happen.
From an article in Too Much online by Sam Pizzigati :

http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/june15a.html

"Geithner’s new directives essentially erase the executive pay cap President Obama announced in February. Geithner's new rules, in effect, turn that $500,000 maximum into a minimum.
Under these rules, a new federal pay czar will “automatically approve” any pay package the nation’s most troubled enterprises dish out that doesn’t top half a million."

In the same article, we read:

"How high above this half million can these pay packages now go? The original White House $500,000 cap on cash compensation did allow execs to collect additional stock awards, on an unlimited basis, so long as they didn’t cash those awards out until their firms had paid back their bailouts.

"But the bonus restriction that Congress then passed — limiting bonuses to one-third of total pay — effectively placed a lid on these additional awards at $250,000, a figure that would translate into one-third of total pay if cash compensation were limited to $500,000.

"The new regs Geithner released last week knock this lid off. They turn full responsibility for executive pay at firms now getting “exceptional assistance” — a group that now includes AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, Chrysler, GM, GMAC, and Chrysler Financial — over to a new pay czar, Washington superlawyer Kenneth Feinberg.

"Feinberg, for his part, spent last week reassuring Wall Street how reasonable his pay judgments will be. He even urged reporters not to call him a “czar.”

“It makes it sound as if my goal is to impose certain restrictions on the private marketplace,” Feinberg explained, “whereas I am much more interested in working with these companies.”

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But surely this confindence is justified! From Raw Story today:

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/rolling-stone-expose-goldman-sachs-behind-every-market-crash-since-1920s/

Rolling Stone expose: Goldman Sachs behind every market crash since 1920s

Goldman Sachs has played a crucial role in creating every market bubble since the 1920s -- and has profited from not only the bubbles, but from the crash that followed as well, says a new expose in Rolling Stone magazine.

An article in the July 9-23 issue of the magazine, written by Matt Taibbi, lists five asset bubbles that the 140-year-old investment bank helped create -- and one that Taibbi asserts the firm is currently working to make happen.

The five bubbles the article says Goldman was central to creating are the Wall Street stock bubble in the 1920s, which led to the Great Depression; the tech-stock bubble of the late 1990s, which ended in the 2001 recession; the housing bubble of the past decade, which resulted in the current economic crisis; the oil price run-up last summer, when oil shot up to $140 a barrel, likely helping tilt the entire world into recession; and what Taibbi describes as "rigging the bailout," when Goldman Sachs' well-placed alumni inside the U.S. government engineered last fall's bank bailout in such a way that the company profited massively.
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But wait a minute, am I being to harsh on the ultra-rich? Didn't they take it hard in the stock crash? Not according to Pizzigati:
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http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/june29a.html

"The world’s high net worth individuals turn out to have ended 2008 with $32.8 trillion in wealth, not much less than the $33.4 trillion they held at the end of 2005. In other words, 2008’s great meltdown cost the world’s wealthy the gains they registered in 2006 and 2007 — and nothing more.

"These wealthy, especially those individuals who fall into the World Wealth Report “ultra” high net worth category, continue to hold a stunningly disproportionate share of the world’s wealth.

"About 80,000 individuals worldwide qualify as ultras. These super rich make up roughly 0.001 percent of the world’s population. They hold, even after the 2008 economic collapse, 10 percent of our planet’s entire wealth.

"These wealthy, to be sure, did “scale back” some on their personal spending in 2008. In the United States, home to 28.7 percent of the world’s high net worth individuals, fine art auction sales totaled only $2.9 billion in 2009, “down $1 billion from 2007,” the new World Wealth Report relates, and U.S. sales of Lamborghini luxury cars dropped 21 percent last year.

"But the amount of cash sloshing in wealthy pockets, meltdown notwithstanding, remains enormous. In December 2008, the new World Wealth Report observes, one historic diamond gaveled off in London for $24.3 million, “the highest price for any diamond or jewel ever sold at auction.”

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Remember when the head of NASA was officially silenced by the Bush Administration, so that he could not talk about global climate change from a scientific perspective? Evidently someone in the corporate Right's propaganda mill does, because they've been trying to create an opposite story to stick in your ear.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/climate_skeptic_i_was_hoping_people_at_epa_would_p.php?ref=fpb

By Zachary Roth - July 1, 2009, 8:43AM
"Conservatives are jumping up and down over a report by an EPA analyst expressing skepticism about climate change, which, they claim, was suppressed by agency brass because it didn't conform to Obama administration orthodoxy on global warming. The story has sparked explosive claims, on Fox News and other right-wing outlets, that the EPA censored scientific data for political reasons. And Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called for an outright criminal investigation into the matter.

"But [Roth writes,] it's hard to blame EPA for not paying much attention to the study. And it's more than a little ironic that DC Republicans have chosen its author as their new standard-bearer in the defense of pure science against politics. Because the author, EPA veteran Al Carlin, is an economist, not a climate scientist. EPA says no one at the agency solicited the report. And Carlin appears to have taken up the global warming topic largely as a hobby on his own time. In fact, a NASA climatologist has called the report -- whose existence was first publicized last week by the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) -- "a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at."
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The question is, may we please have some serious action against the devastation promised by global climate change? And the answer is No. Raising this question has alerted your handlers that there is some agitation en route to the slaughterhouse platform, and so you are being goaded with the ideological cattle pod. Git along there, little dawgies, nothing to see here. Unless it's this:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/090701-shrinking-sea-ice.html
"A reconstruction of sea ice reveals the lowest levels in 800 years, according to new research published in the journal Climate Dynamics.

"Researchers modeled sea ice levels between Greenland and Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of Europe, from the 13th century to present using data from a natural climate "archive" and from historic human records.

"We have combined information about the climate found in ice cores from an ice cap on Svalbard and from the annual growth rings of trees in Finland and this gave us a curve of the past climate," Aslak Grinsted said in a press release. Grinsted is a geophysicist with the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "We see that the sea ice is shrinking to a level which has not been seen in more than 800 years."

"The scientists also combed through harbor records and logbooks of ships that traveled the area to record human observation of sea ice levels. Then they pieced together a picture of how much sea ice has existed through this time period.

"Sea ice melting and re-freezing is a complicated process that is influenced by a number of factors such as wind patterns, ocean currents, and how much ice has frozen or melted in recent years. The authors did not point to any causes for the changes in sea ice levels in their study.

"The scientists noted that even though the 13th century was a relatively warm period and ice levels were low then, 20th century sea ice levels are still the lowest. The "Little Ice Age," from 1700 to 1800 had the greatest cover of sea ice, according to their data.

"Other studies have found that Arctic ice is getting thinner over time, so that when the normal summer melt occurs, the entire polar cap is retreating compared to decades past. Last year, this melting opened up the fabled Northwest Passage, as a substantial amount of older ice melted. Climate scientists say the North Pole could be ice-free during summer within a few decades.
[....]
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--Aaaaand what effect might that have?
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/02/content_11640463.htm

NZ scientist warns of Antarctic ice melt, sea rise
www.chinaview.cn 2009-07-02 16:07:52 Print

WELLINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A New Zealand scientist warned on Thursday of rising sea levels due to Antarctic ice melt.

Tim Naish said new evidence showed that changes to Antarctica's most vulnerable element, the West Antarctic ice sheet, could raise global sea levels by up to 5 metres (16 feet).

The Director of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre will present this new evidence at his inaugural professorial lecture on July 7 at Victoria University.

"Polar ice sheets have grown and collapsed at least 40 times over the past 5 million years, causing major sea-level fluctuations," he said in a media release. "The most recent ' interglacial' has lasted 10,000 years, during which time global sea-level and atmospheric temperatures have remained more or less constant, and human civilisation has flourished."

Professor Naish said much of his research has focused on the international drilling program in the sedimentary layers of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

"Evidence shows that this sheet is expected to melt first, along with Greenland. West Antarctica sits below sea level, so as the ocean warms, the ice sheet also warms. ... [....]
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Here's the latest on the swine flu pandemic from Dr. Henry Niman:

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06300901/H274Y_Swine_Silent.html

...[A] patient ...[in Denmark has] developed a pandemic H1N1 infection while taking a prophylactic dose of oseltamivir (Tamiflu). The [reported lapse of] five days suggests the patient was infected after her contact, who was infected overseas, returned. The patient was given Tamiflu because of her infected contact, and developed flu-like symptoms while taking Tamiflu, which led to the isolation of the virus and sequence data (generated in Denmark and England), showing [that her infection had developed] resistance ...[to Tamiflu]).

The ... [foreign press] description [of the infection incident] made no mention of [the existence of] an isolate from the patient who traveled overseas, and no indication that an isolate was collected. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a wild type sequence from the overseas traveler or the patient with resistant H1N1 exists. This absence was also signaled by statements from Roche and other agencies who used the qualifiers of "appears" and "probably" when describing the development of resistance, because there is no evidence that resistance developed in the patient in Denmark.

A more likely scenario involves the silent spread of oseltamivir resistant H1N1. Denmark, like most countries in Europe, has focused on detection of H1N1 in travelers and contacts. Consequently, the number of H1N1 positive cases has been low.
[....]
The publicity associated with the Danish case will likely lead to more isolates and more sequences, and the explosion of cases in England may lead to a more serious approach toward testing for community spread in European countries like Denmark, which are focused on airport travelers and contacts.
Airport screening will only detect a small subset of infected patients, because those infected shortly prior to travel will not yet have symptoms, and about 30% of infected patients don't develop a high fever. Moreover, others take medication for flu-like symptoms, which lowers fevers. Thus, infected patients have been flying into these countries undetected for months, and community spread is significant, but not reported because of a lack of testing.

The detection of H274Y in pandemic H1N1 has parallels with H274Y in seasonal H1N1. The resistance was widely reported in early 2008 in Norway, but subsequent testing demonstrated that the resistance was widespread in the fall of 2007 and had silently circulated for months prior to detection. The limited number of NA sequences for most countries outside of North America allows for a repeat of [the] silent spread of Tamiflu resistant pandemic H1N1 at this time. [....]
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jQwSxWr8T5XODB8rmTgb2MKuHNVw

Buenos Aires (AFP) - the number of dead by h1n1 influenza in Argentina has registered a great increase in the last five days, elevating from 26 to 43 , according to the minister of Health, Juan Manzur. " Between 43 and 44 deaths" , Manzur responded, referring to the swine influenza in this South American country, where official data had not been reported on the evolution of the disease from the past Friday. With this number, Argentina is the third country of the world in number of died by pig influenza, behind the United States and Mexico. The situation by the pig influenza is serious, diffĂ­cult" , the civil servant said, and warned that " we are attending a curve that still is in ascension" , in relation to the austral winter period and the seasonal increase of the influenza and the respiratory diseases. In its first contact with the press, Manzur announced a series of measures, among them, the creation of a special account in the scope of the ministry of Health with an allocation of 1,000 million pesos (263.1 million dollars) to fortify the sanitary structure in all the country. The civil servant anticipated in addition the decision to protect vulnerable social groups, like pregnant women, and informed that they will be able to ask for a preventive license in his works as of this Thursday and by a lapse of 15 days. Mazur summoned to the sectors of the health public, deprived and of union social works to face the pandemic and explained that any patient who enters a state hospital and needs internment, could be derived to any private hospital, and the cost will be confronted by the State. Before the advance of the epidemic, the provincial cities presented/displayed during the day an almost total paralysis and 17 of the 24 districts of the country advanced receso winter student they extended and it until July end. The governments of the Argentine capital and the province of Buenos Aires (center-this), the majors districts with almost 18 million inhabitants and where the greater amount of deaths was concentrated, declared the sanitary emergency. The Buenosairean provincial government announced the call to 2,000 professionals of the health, even retired and advanced Medicine students, to contain the increase of the demand for services. " We have a 40% of absenteeism within the system of health due to the contagion by A" influenza; , it said the minister of Buenosairean Health, Claudius Zin. ....

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(breaking) --biggest US operations since Fallujah
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i1AG3j0rXOC1d2LtkRdbFcK3PoVg