Water
"Every eight seconds, for example, a child dies from drinking dirty water. Every year, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China because of drought. In the developing world, 90% of wastewater is discharged untreated into local rivers. By 2050, 1.7 billion people will live in "dire water poverty" and be forced to relocate.
Women of South Africa collectively walk the equivalent distance to the moon and back, 16 times a day for water."
Secret Report: Biofuel Caused Food Crisis
Bread Subsidies Under Threat as Drought Hits Wheat Production
Economic Collapse Snapshot
Ultra-Deep Water Drilling
Extraordinary Rendition
American University Law Review article
About-Face on Iran
US Exports to Iran Increase in Bush Year
From the department of, "I'll give you something to protest about:"
Italy's Plan to Defuse Uproar Over Fingerprinting of Gypsy Children: Fingerprint Everybody
Impact of Plastic Bags
Looking to Reopen RFK Murder Trial 40 Years Later
The placement of the article says it all: It appeared in the gossip section.
Pickens [Energy] Plan Taps Social Networking
Brothel Offers Customers Gas Rebate
J.O.
I've actually reviewed a lot of the information and testimony about the murder of Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968. And as usual a lot of what the public would want to know about was never reported to them. In the Coroner's report L.A. Coroner Thomas Noguchi stated that RFK was killed by a bullet fired very close to the back of his head, yet observers put Sirhan Sirhan several feet in front of Kennedy and facing towards him.
ReplyDeleteCoroner Noguchi refused to buckle under the pressure on him to alter his Coroner's report away from the truth, and he was fired because of this. But he sued to get his job back, and as the true results of his own Coroner's report were about to be revealed during the trial, Federal authorities stepped forward and said that the results of the Coroner's report could not be openly discussed in the courtroom in the interest of National Security.
An agreement was then immediately reached to both end the trial and give Noguchi his job back as L.A. Coroner.
Finally even CBS News has now published an article titled, "The Decline of Suburbia?":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/07/eveningnews/main4329746.shtml
Good find with that decline of surburbia article. What gets me is the delusional comments that people left after the article. Of course there was no mention of Peak Oil in the article.
ReplyDeleteIf that water headline doesn't grab one's attention, not much will.
ReplyDeleteA couple of other stories to cheer us all up...
From the Independent UK - Unmanned Spy Planes to Police Britain.
And more coverage of our march down the backside of Hubbert's Peak: Japanese Airlines Cut Services
Since we've all read Mike's "Crossing The Rubicon", none of it surprises us. We just jot down a check mark as each event he laid out takes place. Thank you Mike. Knowing what to expect takes a lot of the fear and anxiety out of the equation and allows us to think more clearly.
With the Olympics opening today I find myself chuckling at all the hype around China's human rights violations. If we were really congruent about this as a nation then we would forbid our companies from doing business with them. But when money is involved we can preach about how horrible their government is treating its people, while we're making millions off of doing business with them at the same time.
ReplyDeletetest
ReplyDeleteAbout the use of un-manned (un-personed ?) aerial vehicles. There was a very interesting article linked to from Carolyn Baker's site on July 5, 2007. About 10 or 12 UAV's being positioned in the Yuba City area, some military base there.
ReplyDeleteThat's inland California, near Lake Tahoe.
The usage history of the Predator is - A/ surveilling suspected terrorists B/ killing suspected terrorists.
& now they're being deployed on civilian populations in the US ?
AND the UK ?
BUT - the article at Carolyn Baker's site I only saw once, it was not substantiated via another organization.
There's a group of serious amateur plane-spotters that were instrumental in ID-ing the CIA's rendition flights. I would expect to eventually see corroboration from technical specialists like these if Predator's (and similar) have been deployed in Northern California inland and/or the UK.
Gritzle - according to the article I linked in the Independent UK, the UAVs to be used in the UK are yet to be built. They plan to design and build their own and have them operational in a few years.
ReplyDeleteThe base near Yuba City is Beale AFB. It is home of the 12th reconnaissance squadron and they do training there for UAV operators being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US does use UAVs now to patrol the border with Mexico. There are six Predator Bs operated by US Customs. They plan six more for the Canadian border and six for Florida.
Businessman -- That is true. I'd just like to add that the US government has nothing to cackle about. Read the Chinese government's annual counter-reports about human rights in the US. Their sources appear to be mainly American media stories! Americans are given to believe that the US is a virtuous country, and the US government plays that worn card over and over domestically and internationally. But human rights abuses are rampant. And as we all know, torture is as American as apple pie.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05082004.html
The Riceman cometh!
ReplyDeleteIn follow-up, I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last night from Beijing. When the North Korean athletes marched into the arena they were met with a solid burst of cheers and applause from the more than 92,000 people in attendance. It made me realize that North Korea is most likely being framed as a wonderful model of a country to the Chinese people, and it's most likely considered to be a friend to the Chinese people, too.
I sometimes wonder how George Orwell both learned and understood so much over 60 years ago without the access that we now have to the Internet.