Zoriah: Humanitarian Photojournalism

Go look at some amazing pictures of the world and the people of the world.

Afghanistan: What hope is there for the lost children of the bazaar?

On Chicken Street, under the serene azure sky, it is almost possible to imagine that the last 30 years never happened. Kabul's craft market is open for business, its rows of glass-fronted, two-storey shops replete with the iconic wares of the hippy trail, that in the 1960s and 1970s found their way off this street and around the world. There are Afghan coats here, and hookahs. There are majestic kaftans here, and lapis lazuli jewels. There is brassware, and china, carved wood and turquoise pottery.

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Who are you going to believe? The government or your thinning wallet?

The government really does like to mess with its numbers, although the Bureau of Labor Statistics did state in their report that the price of gasoline was up, when it came time to record the price change for gasoline in their seasonally adjusted index, they recorded a decline in the price of gasoline.

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Fake Al Qaeda

"Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet". A very common and widespread use of the word "Al-Qaeda" in different Arab countries in the public language is for the toilet bowl. This name comes from the Arabic verb "Qa'ada" which mean "to sit", pertinently, on the "Toilet Bowl". In most Arabs homes there are two kinds of toilets: "Al-Qaeda" also called the "Hamam Franji" or foreign toilet, and "Hamam Arabi" or "Arab toilet" which is a hole in the ground. Lest we forget it, the potty used by small children is called "Ma Qa'adia" or "Little Qaeda".

So, if you were forming a terrorist group, would you call yourself, "The Toilet"?

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Osama bin Laden: a dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government

Just in case we hear from him again soon... - Ed.

Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.

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Bush: letting Iran have nuclear arms 'unforgivable'

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will tell Israel's parliament on Thursday that letting Iran acquire nuclear weapons would be an "unforgivable betrayal of future generations."

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Hagee's apocalyptic support of Israel

When Sen. John McCain was forced to distance himself from Pastor John Hagee earlier this year, he denounced the pastor’s attacks on Catholicism. But asked why he wouldn’t “repudiate” Hagee’s endorsement of him, McCain found something to praise.

“I'm grateful for his commitment to the support of the state of Israel, and I'm very grateful for many of his commitments around the world, including to the independence and freedom of the state of Israel,” he told CNN’s Campbell Brown on April 29.

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Planned US Israeli Attack on Iran: Will there be a war against Iran?

The media has failed to cover the history of US war preparations directed against Iran. News coverage of US sponsored war preparations in relation to Iran started to surface in early 2007 in scanty press reports.

Although confirmed by official military documents and reports, public opinion has largely been kept in the dark and misinformed on these war preparations.

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What Michael Pollan hasn't told you about food

As both obesity and hunger are on the rise, a new book shows why we shouldn't feel guilty about our food choices but angry with a corrupt food system.

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Former US Intelligence officer reveals US listed Palestine Hotel in Baghdad as target

Last month marked the fifth anniversary of the US military shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The attack killed two journalists: Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. The Pentagon has called the killings accidental, but in this broadcast exclusive Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne (Ret.) reveals she saw secret US military documents that listed the hotel as a possible target. Kinne also discloses that she was personally ordered to eavesdrop on Americans working for news organizations and NGOs in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]

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Worried about price of gas? End US wars.

There is evidence that the heightened price of energy is a direct consequence of the destabilizing wars and geopolitical insecurity in the region. These include not only the raging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the threat of a looming war against Iran, says Ismael Hossein-zadeh.

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Deconstructing Lies: "Israel didn't push for Iraq war"

Says who??? Obviously someone NOT IN THE KNOW! In this case it was one Doug Feith, a former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense… a name that is not quite what we call a ‘household word’… for obvious reasons.

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Survivors of quake urged to hang on as troops arrive

Thousands of Chinese troops fought to avert further disasters last night after "extremely dangerous" cracks appeared in a massive dam, and hydropower stations were said to be badly damaged, after Monday's earthquake. As the official death toll rose to almost 15,000 - with another 26,000 still buried and 1,400 missing in Sichuan province alone - the state media warned that the city of Dujiangyan and much of the Chengdu plain would be swamped, if the Zipingpu hydropower dam burst.

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Bush pushes peace, says US 'best friend' to Israel

Be careful. You might throw up in your mouth a little. - Ed.

President George W. Bush, in the Middle East to encourage struggling Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, has emphasized historic ties with Israel saying the United States was its "oldest and best friend in the world."

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ACLU: US violates UN protocols in treatment of Iraqi, and American, children

A new US government report reveals that nearly 2,500 children, being held in military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States, are not uniformly protected as mandated by United Nations protocol. Neither, contends the American Civil Liberties Union, are those the government seeks as new recruits here at home.

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Wayne Madsen: It is definitely fascism when it happens to you

In Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's world of an "Israelized" America, the terms SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) and BDO (Behavior Detection Officer) are the new acronyms of Stasi-like control of the American citizenry by a government that treats anyone as a suspicious person in the same manner that Israel mistreats its own Arab citizens and Palestinians.

Sunday, this editor and his colleague faced the Chertoffian menace at Washington's Reagan National Airport while heading to the gate to board a flight to Houston.

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US: Nearly 400 immigrant workers arrested in slaughterhouse raid

In one of the largest ever government dragnets against immigrant workers, federal agents swooped down upon a meatpacking plant in northeastern Iowa Monday, rounding up nearly 400 workers.

Heavily armed squads of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, backed by state and local police, stormed Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville, Iowa, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the world, while two government helicopters hovered overhead.

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Greenwald: Tom Friedman's latest declaration of war

Today's a very exciting day in America. Our nation's most Serious foreign policy expert, the brilliant Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, has today declared our latest new war:

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president -- but this cold war is with Iran.

So congratulations to us. After years of desperately searching, we've finally found our New Soviet Union.

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American Goy: The plan all along...

Source: cooperativeresearch.org.

For the record, cooperativeresearch.org is a fantastic site, a wet sex dream for an intelligence analyst or an amateur historian like myself.

This gem comes from that site, under the title:

Autumn 1992: Influential Neoconservative Academic Advocates Breaking Up Middle Eastern Countries, Including Iraq

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Burma: Foreigners, Cameras banned in cyclone hit areas

Images of the dead keep trickling out of Burma. The most moving are those of children who died when Cyclone Nargis tore through their world in the populous Irrawaddy delta.

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Scott Ritter: Taking a Stand Against War

As someone who has been urging focused citizen activism for some time now, I find it heartening that there are those in the United States who put action to words and seek to lead by example. This is the case with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who, together with seven of his 49 colleagues (Toni Preckwinkle, Sandi Jackson, Eugene Schulter, Robert Fioretti, Freddrenna Lyle, Ricardo Munoz and Mary Ann Smith), has prepared a resolution for the Chicago City Council opposing war on Iran. By itself, this resolution most probably will not serve to alter the policies currently being pursued by the Bush administration. But when a great American city such as Chicago takes the lead in expressing its rejection of irresponsible national policy, other cities should, and will, take notice.

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Time is running out for Israel

Something positive is happening, I would even call it a shift of awareness, a realisation that the Palestinian struggle is leading somewhere after all.

Yesterday, at Exeter University, to a very crowded theatre, in an event of that was a commemoration of 60 years of the Nakba, I had a chance to listen to Dr Manuel Hassassian (at the left), the Palestinian Ambassador to Britain. I may as well say it, Palestinian eloquence cheers me up and fills me with hope and pride and Dr Hassassian has plenty of it.

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Nothing governments can do about rising oil prices

TONY JONES: Now to tonight's interview with Richard Heinberg. He's one of the world's leading experts on the phenomenon of peak oil. That's the point at which the world's oil reserves go into decline. The idea is that having reached its peak it's all downhill from there and there's evidence that global rates of oil discovery have been declining since the 1960s, and that new oilfields are becoming more and more inaccessible.

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Washington's Great Inflation Hoax

Billionaire California bond manager Bill Gross calls it "a haute con job." Bloomberg News columnist John Wasik describes it as "a testament to the art of economic spin." More and more shoppers and consumer simply disbelieve it.

The subject of this scorn is the federal government's vaunted Consumer Price Index or CPI. Americans are now beginning to understand that this indicator has its own share of gimmicks not unlike a sub-prime mortgage or the six pages of fine print that accompanies your credit card agreement.

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Sexual Terrorism

The “New York Times’” recently revealed the existence of a little-known executive order issued by President Bush in the summer of ’07 that permitted U.S. intelligence operatives to circumvent restrictions on the use of humiliating and degrading interrogation techniques.

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Sunlight Foundation report on congressional wealth

Propelled by her husband's post-White House earnings, Sen. Hillary Clinton's average net worth soared from red ink to $30.7 million between 2000 and 2006, the fastest financial climb among members of Congress who arrived without assets, a watchdog group reported Tuesday.

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Bush: I quit golf over Iraq war

What a guy. - Ed.

US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

"I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview for Internet hub Yahoo! and Politico magazine.

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Questions surround DHS presence in Waterloo

People in Waterloo are trying to figure out what sort of operation federal officials are conducting in town. This week, the Department of Homeland Security took-over and sealed-off the grounds of the National Cattle Congress on the west side of Waterloo.

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ID fraud claims lead to Iowa's largest raid

Buses have begun arriving at the Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo after hundreds were detained in an immigration raid on a Postville meatpacking plant today.

Officials are not allowing media or others near the entrance. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have declined to say how many buses are being used in the raid on the Agriprocessors Inc. plant.

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Weapons were not made in Iran after all

In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.

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The shrinking map of Palestine

Click here to see maps

Citizens take part in FBI training

They deal with drug dealers, hostage takers and crazed gunman -- all to keep people safe. And KFOX got a firsthand look at how the El Paso FBI trains.

As part of the El Paso FBI's Citizens Academy, average citizens got to stand and watch just feet away as the elite, FBI Swat Team practiced how they would handle a sniper situation.

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The pictures we see - Do you get the picture?

Let's try an experiment. Think of opinions you may have formed, beliefs that may have arisen due to one or a group of photographs that were distributed in the media. When you saw those images, did you feel anger, bitterness, or even hate? Were you elated, joyous, or perhaps confused? Were you compelled to somehow change the way you perceived the world based on the emotions that were triggered by an image?

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At least 245 cases of taser deaths between June 2001 and June 2007, but don't talk about it

Well, it looks like something fishy is going on with a topic that has been in the news for quite awhile now: deaths due to Tasers.

We begin our little story with an article from NorthCountryGazette.org:

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9/11 conspiracy connection to DC Madam murder

Former NSA analyst and Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen tells the The Alex Jones Show that one of the key motives behind the DC Madam's murder may have been the information her call girls picked up from Washington's top brass concerning foreknowledge and government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

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Deadly animal virus may soon come to US mainland

The nation’s food supply may soon be under significant threat as the result of a Bush administration decision to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland, placing it near herds of livestock.

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Ex-officials: Bush admin ignored Iraq corruption

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

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Bush calls Iran 'single biggest threat' to Mideast peace

Catapulting the propaganda...heh heh... - Ed.

US President George W. Bush on Monday called Iran the "single biggest threat" to peace in the Middle East ahead of a visit to the region centered on celebrations of Israel's 60th anniversary.

"To me it's the single biggest threat to peace in the Middle East, the Iranian regime," because of its nuclear programme and its support of groups like the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Bush told Israel's Channel 10.

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'Untimely Deaths' that benefited RM Scaife, the CIA and the Bush family

In a twisted, right wing brain like that of Richard Mellon Scaife, murder may be justified by endless ideological rationalizations. Not only lives are lost but truth itself. It is a sick mentality that sacrifices the voice of reason for lies and bullshit. Short-term, short-sighted victories are pyrrhic and the very fabric of society is corrupted.

The whole fabric of society will go to wrack if we really lay hands of reform on our rotten institutions. From top to bottom the whole system is a fraud, all of us know it, laborers and capitalists alike, and all of us are consenting parties to it.--Henry Adams

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The Prosecution of George W Bush for Murder

There is direct evidence that President George W. Bush did not honorably lead this nation, but deliberately misled it into a war he wanted. Bush and his administration knowingly lied to Congress and to the American public — lies that have cost the lives of more than 4,000 young American soldiers and close to $1 trillion.

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US terrorism report: Selective data, wrong lessons

The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions. The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror".

Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation?

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Hizbollah rules west Beirut in Iran's proxy war with US

Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.

And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.

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Are the clashes in Beirut a signal of the inception of a new war for the 'New Middle East'?

Is it possible that the US sponsored bloody "civil war" situation in Iraq could spread to other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia for the purpose of creating a new map for the whole region, that would behoove the economic needs of the super powers and the multinational corporations?

Are these countries going to be divided by religious denomination, ethnicity, the amount of wealth they possess, and their geographic location?

That is a big, bloody and profitable job for the Military Industrial Complex!

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Video: You Can't Picture This

Thousands of UK residents have signed a petition against a law preventing photography and filming in certain public places. Yet this all turned out to be a misunderstanding, and no such law was proposed. Rajesh investigates the way we view the lens and the way it views us.

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Five million orphans in Iraq

We show this segment courtesy of www.aliveinbaghdad.org. Alive in Baghdad employs Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq.

The number of Iraqi orphans increased in the last few years due to the war. According to official Iraqi government statistics released in December 2007, the number of Iraqi orphans had reached at least five million over the last three years. Many due to the Sunni-Shia conflict. There are several social organizations caring for a small number of these Iraqi orphans, such as Child Aid International. There are approximately 26 orphanages that Alive in Baghdad has been able to locate around Iraq. Eight orphanages are in Baghdad and another 18 are distributed all over Iraq and generally they accept kids between the age of 6 and 18 years old.

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UN demands Israeli probe into killing of Gaza mother

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Sunday demanded an Israeli army inquiry into the death of a mother of six during an Israeli army operation in the Gaza Strip last week.

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Lying, Murdering Scoundrels and the People Who Believe Them

Before I go on to whatever it is that I say today and… I usually don’t know what that’s going to be, I want all of you to read this fine article from one of the better and more courageous writers going, Israel Shamir and then I want you to read this article on Ted Olsen.

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US may offer Israel powerful new radar

The Bush administration appears set to offer Israel a powerful radar system that could greatly boost Israeli defenses against enemy ballistic missiles while tying it directly into a growing U.S. missile shield.

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Iraq, Depleted Uranium and a song for sanity

'I would like to see it sung all over the world.' Dr Chris Busby.

Dr Chris Busby is an internationally renowned scientist and founder of the Low Level Radiation Campaign ( www.llrc.org ) His scientific studies and Reports on the dangers of radiation, proving it unsafe at any level, wrong foot the nuclear and arms industry on an ongoing basis. His meticulous research includes the effects on the health of the veterans of the British nuclear testing in the Pacific in the 1950's and subseqent detriment to their children and granchildren, to excess cancers in those living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants and the health impact from depleted uranium weapons use in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq and the devastating effects of the Chernobyl disaster both medically and on the environment. His work gives lie for all time to the assurances of pro-nuclear scientists and government Ministers of the safety of 'clean' nuclear energy, above natural sources.

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Drug pilot, election machine executive killed on CIA plane

One week after the crash outside Caracas, Venezuela of a twin-engine Piper Navajo (N6463L), an air of intrigue surrounds almost everything about the flight, including the plane’s ownership, passengers, and pilot.

Woven into one small story about a plane crash in Venezuela that killed seven people are visible threads from two perennial American cover-ups: one surrounding vote fraud, and one covering-up the CIA’s role in drug trafficking.

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Why all of our efforts won't stop the attack on Iran

May 9. I read tonight a brief article by Philip Giraldi posted on the American Conservative website: “War with Iran Might Be Closer than You Think.”

“There is considerable speculation,” writes the former CIA officer, “and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods [Revolutionary Guards]-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran.”

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Frightening Silence

(It appears that Bush's man mini-Hariri has backed down in the confrontation with Hassan Nasrullah, so possibly the new Lebanese civil war will not take place, at least not now.)

Meanwhile, on the level of what is actually taking place in Sadr City, the reports of conditions there are fragmentary, minimized by the corporate media except for their "parental-guidance" type of entertainment value--CNN currently has a clip with the Hollywood PG rating attached to it--and except for the endless interpolations about how the US forces are merely following the lead of those crime-fighting Iraqis. But the reality is frightening.

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Hundreds Arrested Protesting Police Abuses

NEW YORK, May 8 (IPS) - She was as happy and excited about getting married that day as any young person in love. But fate had something else waiting. Just a few hours ahead of her wedding, on Nov. 25, 2006, New York City police officers killed her fiancé Sean Bell in a hail of 50 bullets.

On Wednesday, handcuffed like the more than 200 other detainees who participated in a forceful demonstration against police oppression, Paultre Bell shouted in rage: "They killed Sean all over again. I'm still praying for justice. This is far from over. Every march, every protest, I'm going to be right up front."

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The Gospel of Consumption

PRIVATE CARS WERE RELATIVELY SCARCE in 1919 and horse-drawn conveyances were still common. In residential districts, electric streetlights had not yet replaced many of the old gaslights. And within the home, electricity remained largely a luxury item for the wealthy.

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'Liberal' Israelis: Still crying and shooting after all these years

"Crying and shooting" is the term used in Israeli political discourse to describe those Israelis who agonize over what they are doing to the Palestinians, but carry on doing it anyway. It's a way for Israelis to feel better about themselves, by reasserting their liberal, progressive and humanitarian values, even as they carry out illiberal, regressive and murderous actions.

There was a wonderful example of the phenomenon last week in a column written for Ha'aretz by Bradley Burston. He wrote an agonized column - Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism - about the disproportionate number of civilians among the Palestinians killed by the IDF, and specifically about Israeli's collective refusal to acknowledge their responsibility for the killings.

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Philadelphia police beating

Trilateral Commission: Global Elite gather in DC

The Trilateral Commission—one of the three most powerful globalist groups in the world—held closed-door meetings right here in Washington, D.C. from April 25 to 28. True to form, those members of the media who knew about the meeting—or were themselves participants in the proceedings—refused to discuss what went on inside or report on the attendees. Luckily, AFP’s own editor, Jim Tucker, was on the scene to bust this clandestine confabulation wide open.

Luminaries at the Trilateral Commission meeting in Washington expressed confidence that they own all three major presidential candidates, who, despite political posturing, will support sovereignty-surrendering measures such as NAFTA and the “North American Union.”

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US immigration raids are about to get ugly

Letters listing millions of Social Security “no-match” workers are ready to mail to employers.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency personnel are trained and ready. Buses and vans are standing by for raids. Detention facilities have expanded.

All that is lacking is clearance from the courts.

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Olmert suspected of receiving funds

The powers that be must want him out because it always raises an eyebrow when all of a sudden known criminals get 'caught' doing something wrong. - Ed.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, responding to fresh accusations that he illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a U.S. citizen, on Thursday said he will step down if he is indicted.

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Report pushes passage of thought crimes bill

The Internet is now becoming a new front in the phony terror war. Legislation like the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 that is in the forms of HR 1955 and S 1959 which seek to give the government powers to define thoughts and belief systems as homegrown terrorism, is on the brink of being pushed down our throats. HR 1955 was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 404-6 and now it appears as if the U.S. Senate is attempting to justify its future passage.

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Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State

It was David Hume's 1758 Of the First Principles of Government that stated:

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular.

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12 stepping our way to Armageddon

I recently received an email from a reader, frustrated with my insistence on holding a vision of what is possible alongside the dismal, inevitable current realities of civilization's collapse. Admonishing me to bear in mind America's Oprah and NASCAR world view and therefore abdicate any sense of optimism I might have, this reader accused me of suggesting that we should 12 Step our way through Armageddon. Rather than being offended, however, I was overcome with gratitude for this reader's image, frustrated with me as he may be, because in spite of the regular "wordsmithing" that I do as a writer, I always feel a sense of relief and validation when someone else gives words that I may not yet have for what I've been thinking, feeling, or doing.

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Twilight of American Empire

The fall of the American empire resembles that of Rome in several areas but primarily --military and economic. The economies of the US and Rome ultimately depended on conquest. To this end, the US was sold to the Military/Industrial complex for whom 'conquest' is both an addictive drug and a life's blood. By the time the Roman Empire was sold at auction to one Didius Julianus, Rome's currency had already collapsed, as the dollar is likewise endangered. The smart money had already dumped sestercius for Greek Drachmas and the sale of the empire was concluded in Greek currency --not Roman.

Today, the currency of choice is neither the US dollar nor the Euro. It's oil and because Iran would prefer to sell oil for Euros, nations wishing to buy oil must exchange their dollars for Euros. Iran is threatened because it possesses a precious resource no longer produced economically in the US --oil! Rome was likewise impoverished. The sestercius was essentially worthless. It doesn't require an economics degree to conclude that Rome invaded Dacia for its gold and that the US will attack Iran for its oil.

Lacking oil, lacking a currency of choice, the American empire is finished! Just like Rome!

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Greenwald: Neocons and the Truth: Bitter enemies to the end

In a July, 2006 article in Rolling Stone -- entitled "Iran: The Next War" -- the superb journalist James Bamford detailed the shady activities of numerous neoconservatives inside and out of the U.S. Government to plan an attack on Iran. Bamford focused on the role played by Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute and National Review, who created and began implementing an attack scheme in coordination with the Pentagon's then number-three official, Doug Feith, and Feith's deputy, Larry Franklin (subsequently convicted of felonies for passing classified information to AIPAC).

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Palestine Think Tank site is born today

Haitham Sabbah, Mary Rizzo and Gilad Atzmon are very pleased to announce their new site, Palestine Think Tank. It is a site containing news, analysis, art and more to further the cause of justice for Palestinians. It concentrates on many aspects of the resistance, but also focuses on the issues affecting the entire Middle East. Please visit us at www.palestinethinktank.com, share this news with those who might be interested, and if you have a blog or site, consider linking to us. We also have a forum for those interested in interactive communication.

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Palestine Think Tank

Russia 'expels US embassy staff'

Russia has ordered the expulsion of two military attaches from the American embassy in Moscow, US officials say.

The US state department said it would comply with the order although it objected to it.

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Newspaper Criticized for Publishing Photo

Americans shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that children are being killed in Iraq by the US military. - Ed.

WASHINGTON -- Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”

Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.

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Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War

The Levant could be the starting point of a major international conflict with global ramifications and which could quickly spin out of control. Such a conflict could even involve the use of Israeli or American nuclear weapons against Iran and Syria. Syria has additionally declared that it is preparing for an inevitable war with Israel despite the fact that it believes that the chances of a war in 2008 are slim.

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Special Counsel (Scott Bloch) shut down probe of Seigelman case last year

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Office of Special Counsel last year shut down a previously undisclosed investigation into the federal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, according to an internal memo made public Wednesday.

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More info here.

Condi Stomps the Mullahs

The war drums are again beating. It's beginning to look like the neocons have cranked up their useful idiots in the Bush administration for a fall offensive, target Iran. And maybe also Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians. The bad guys' list, which is remarkably similar to a roll call of Israel's enemies, seems to have expanded both vertically and horizontally at a time when the U.S. military is using paper clips and chewing gum to hold together its efforts in Iraq. The critique of Iran has sharpened and intensified and new friends of Iran have been discovered in Afghanistan and Gaza.

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Whatever Happened to Never Again?

The Above is a speculative map of known ICE DRO, FEMA, and Military personnel holding facilities in the United States, either Completed, Empty, In Use, or under construction in the United States. Click the image for a clearer view. My apologies for not having a link to the original interactive map.

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Lying our way to Tehran

As can be seen from our earlier post (Maybe We Should Just Relax, below), we are concerned that the Bush Administration is fixated on a bombing campaign designed to cripple Iran’s nuclear program, although this topic has largely disappeared from the media. We watch nervously for signs of activity, remarks by Bush or Cheney, unexplained force deployments or curious arrangements of the tea leaves in our cup.

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Jack Carter: What really happened at Minot?

A Minot airman has supplied Project Camelot with detailed answers to these and other questions. The information is of such importance that we have felt obliged to present it as a stand-alone follow-up report.

The name we have given our source, Jack Carter, is a pseudonym. We have not yet met him, but have conducted extensive correspondence by e-mail. We are confident that he is exactly who he says he is: an experienced airman with extensive personal experience of nuclear weapons security procedures at Minot AFB.

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Feds take over NCC Fairgrounds (Iowa) for May training exercise

But it's all a big secret and the public may not have the details. - Ed.

WATERLOO--- Normal operations on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds have been suspended for most of May as the federal government has leased out virtually the entire facility for a training exercise, NCC general manager Doug Miller said Saturday.

Miller said he could release few details. But activity on the NCC fairgrounds was apparent Saturday, as contractors installed massive generators adjacent to many buildings on the NCC fairgrounds and windows of many of the buildings were covered up, blocking views of any work going on inside. A number of large mobile home-size trailers also have taken up residence on the site in the past several weeks.

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Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?

Is NASA fiddling with data? - Ed.

A paper published in scientific journal Nature this week has reignited the debate about Global Warming, by predicting that the earth won't be getting any warmer until 2015. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences have factored in cyclical oceanic into their climate model, and produced a different forecast to the "consensus" models which don't.

But how will we know whether the earth is warming or cooling? Today, it all depends on the data source.

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Don Clark's Big Lie about Roland Carnaby

I'll try to make this brief. Being modern Americans, both you and I have short attention spans. That's how stories like the following get memory holed. We don't pay attention.

On April 29, 2008, Roland Carnaby was shot down in the street by the Houston Police Department. The capital crime he committed was running from the cops after a traffic stop.

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FBI raids special counsels office

This guy heads up the office responsible for protecting government whistle-blowers, and it looks like he's dirty, dirty, dirty. I know...imagine my shock. - Ed.

The FBI has raided the office of U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch in an inquiry of whether he obstructed justice by having his computer files erased.

FBI officials said computers and documents were seized from Bloch's office during the raid Tuesday morning.

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More info here, including this quote:

"It is shocking that the individual who is primarily responsible for investigating federal whistleblower complaints would be the target of an investigation in which he and his staff are suspected of obstructing justice."

"The Bush administration must take whistleblower protection seriously, relieve Mr. Bloch of his position, and appoint a Special Counsel who possesses the necessary qualifications and integrity to do the job right."

Primary Results favor Obama

Update from WSJ: David Axelrod, the top Obama strategist, told reporters that Barack Obama would compete for the six remaining Democratic contests, where 217 delegates are at stake. But he said that the campaign would soon focus on the general election because likely Republican nominee John McCain had “basically run free for some time now because we’ve been consumed with this.” He added: “I don’t think we’re going to spend time solely in primary states.”

Gee, d'ya think? This entire interminable democratic primary campaign has been an awesome diversion benefiting George Bush, John McCain, the Republican Party, etc. - Ed.

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Death's Factotum: Michael Gordon and the Times pour Pentagon poison into nation's ear

Judith Miller might have been the poster child for the corporate media's collaboration with the Bush Administration's war of aggression against Iraq -- but her New York Times colleague and co-writer, Michael Gordon, was every bit as culpable and complicit, happily playing stovepipe to the bloodthirsty bullshit gurgling up from the White House and Pentagon cesspits.

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Kunstler: The Risk Economy

As the West's industrial regime sputters toward a cheap-energy-crackup conclusion, there have been attempts to recast what our economy is actually about, how to account for whatever wealth we manage to produce, and project what our society will actually be organized to do in the years ahead.

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Do you have a plan?

Great advice here. - Ed.

Despite the propaganda coming out of Washington, DC., millions of Americans are in deep financial trouble. Last week the media cranked up the mantra that Wall Street may be getting more optimistic. Really?

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Democrats prepare to sell out on Telecom Immunity

As revelations of the Bush administration's illegal surveillance programs continue to expose the criminal nature of the regime in Washington, new reports suggest that House Democrats are preparing to capitulate to the White House on warrantless wiretapping and amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.

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Pandemic Response Plan: let the elderly, the sick, and the poor die

It's very difficult not to view this is part of some larger planning. - Ed.

The Bush-Cheney administration’s Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have collectively set guidelines that recommend---in the event of a "pandemic" or mass crisis---that the elderly, the sick, the severely injured, and the poor will be denied life-saving medical treatment.

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Pay Attention, This is how they'll sell war with Iran

I think we’re going to war with Iran, and I think it’ll happen this summer. I think it’s already been decided and all we’re looking for now is a way to motivate the American sheeple into getting behind it. Here’s a list of ways to do just that.

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General Petraeus: Zionism's Military Poodle. From Surge to Purge to Dirge

When President Bush appointed General David Petraeus Commander (head) of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, his appointment was hailed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post as a brilliant decision.

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Cheney's Total Impunity

How far will Vice President Cheney go to shield himself and his office from public scrutiny?

Last spring, Cheney asserted that he wasn't subject to executive-branch rules about classified information because he wasn't actually part of the executive branch.

Now his office argues that he and his staff are completely immune from congressional oversight. That's right: Completely immune.

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Iran rejects nuclear inspections unless Israel allows them

GENEVA - An Iranian envoy said Monday his government will not submit to extensive nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global treaty to curb the spread of atomic weapons.

"The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states," Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told a meeting of the 190 countries that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

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Ritter says attack on Iran 'virtual guarantee'

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among the original experts to question Bush Administration claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, now says he believes an attack on Iran is a "virtual guarantee."

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Soldier Suicides could trump war tolls: US health officials

Suicides and "psychological mortality" among US soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan could exceed battlefield deaths if their mental scars are left untreated, the head of the US Institute of Mental Health warned Monday.

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General Petraues: Zionism's Military Poodle: From Surge to Purge to Dirge

Scathing. - Ed.

When President Bush appointed General David Petraeus Commander (head) of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, his appointment was hailed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post as a brilliant decision: A general of impeccable academic and battlefield credentials and a warrior and counter-insurgency (terrorist) intellectual. The media and the President, the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and Congress, described his appointment as ‘America’s last best hope for salvation in Iraq’. Senator Hilary Clinton joined the chorus of pro-war politicians in praise and support of Petraeus’ ‘professionalism and war record’ in Northern Iraq. In contrast, Admiral William Fallon, his predecessor and former commander, had called Petraeus’ briefings ‘a piece of brown-nosing chicken shit’.

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Bush-Cheney Israel Disinformation Campaign to Justify an Attack on Iran

The Bush administration and Israeli government appear to be operating a joint disinformation campaign, whose objective is to establish a media based alternative reality from which to accuse Syria/Iran of developing nuclear weapons with help from North Korea, by using a real event combined with planted stories establishing a defining narrative. This accusation in turn is augmented with stories about Iranian sponsored "Special Groups killing US troops in Iraq" and purported naval incidents the Persian Gulf, creating self-reinforcing, media based crisis.

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Global Famine

Famine is the result of a process of "free market" restructuring of the global economy which has its roots in the debt crisis of the early 1980s. It is not a recent phenomenon as suggested by several Western media reports. The latter narrowly focus on short-term supply and demand for agricultural staples, while obfuscating the broader structural causes of global famine.

Poverty and chronic undernourishment is a pre-existing condition. The recent hikes in food prices have contributed to exacerbating and aggravating the food crisis. The price hikes are hitting an impoverished population, which has barely the means to survive.

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'Perhaps 60% of today's oil price is pure speculation'

The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?

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Is this man John McCain's worst nightmare?

Bob Barr, former GOP congressman from Georgia, is an all-but-announced presidential candidate - as a Libertarian.

The possibility of a run by Barr has sent shudders through the mainstream of the Republican party.

Barr, who will probably not declare his intentions for several days, has already been labeled a "spoiler."

In an interview with the Inquirer, Barr dismissed those accusations as whining.

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Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis

Imagine my shock. All that funny money the financial giants refuse to write off as losses is being shuffled around into commodities like food and oil, driving up the prices and leading to poor people starving to death. - Ed.

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

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Golden Nuggets: Sexing up an Iranian war

How many Muslim lives can you get for a "golden nugget"?

Back in 2003, after the start of the Iraq invasion, then chairman of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and current head of British overseas intelligence agency MI6, requested that "ten golden nuggets" be included in the US-backed Iraq Survey Group's report on WMD's in Iraq.

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US is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.

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Smoking Mirrors: Pick up your magic wand and let's do some magic

No doubt most of us have heard of a factor called ‘home court advantage’ in relation to sporting events. In some sports this is a bigger factor than in others. That it is a truth is undeniable. It’s an interesting fact that if a smaller dog attacks a larger dog on its home turf that the larger dog will generally be driven off. We’ve seen this in war zones like Vietnam and the present day Middle East conflicts where more superior armed invaders have been driven back or had their advantage neutralized because they were fighting an ‘away war’. I was thinking about ‘home court advantage’ earlier and in the process a number of things came into my mind about it.

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Slavery and Involuntary Servitude

The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, adopted at the end of the civil War in 1865, abolished slavery, but this same amendment expressly permits prison slavery and involuntary servitude.

AMENDMENT XIII – SECTION 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population and almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Are Americans more criminal than other folks? Or are there incentives that give the US the dubious honor of leading the world in prison population.

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Tell me again why 'conspiracy theory' is a dirty label

Whenever any claim is made that the government has done anything wrong, government apologists say "that's a conspiracy theory!"

Well, let's examine what the people trained to weigh evidence and reach conclusions think about "conspiracies". Let's look at what American judges think.

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