Sunday, October 15, 2006

Global Warming and Ice Cream

You scream, I scream we all scream for Ice Cream.

Global warming may melt caribou 'ice cream'
The residents of this island village eat dried seal meat, sell animal skins and hop on snowmobiles to hunt down polar bears and caribou. But the age-old traditions of Shishmaref are threatened by global warming which has already forced the 600 residents to vote to move to the continent as the sea chips away at the village's eroding shore.

Nope it's not ice cream for the caribou it is ice cream made from the caribou....

See:

Arctic


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Abbey on Anarchism


Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

- Edward Abbey




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Atlantis In Sardinia


Lost Continent' of Atlantis Stirs Debate; Scholars Gather to Debate Merits of Sardinia Theory

Ok add Sardinia to the list of possible sites for Atlantis including Spain,Crete, Cyprus, the Black Sea, Ireland, Bermuda Triangle etc.

See:

Atlantis Discovered

And Then They Built An Ark


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A Newfie Joke


Canada Fights Ban on 'Bulldozers of the Sea'; Minister Calls Measure 'Not Appropriate' Canada's decision not to follow an international ban on bottom trawling is appropriate, says Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries minister.Tom Rideout says Canada is right not to endorse a blanket ban on draggers because it would not be practical.

Ah yes the old it ain't practical argument. Always a good sound bite, though it is a baseless canard used by those in power to avoid change. Of course Rideout is a Tory like his Federal counterpart; Loyala Hearn. So birds of a feather....

Hearn is the idiot who proclaimed that the Royal Newfoundlanders fought and died at the Somme to protect Newfoundlanders right to hunt seals.

Now he and Rideout continue the hilarity with this justification for bottom trawling.
Rideout said he does not believe that bottom trawling will affect all fish stocks. "The evidence is to the contrary. Vast sections of the ocean are not affected," said Rideout.

Ohh stop it you are cracking me up. Of course vast sections of the ocean are not affected, its the areas that are fished that are affected.

See:

Bottom Feeders


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Out Of Iraq Into Afghanistan




The American General James Jones calling for more troops for Afghanistan, is the same General that criticized Rumsfeld for the failed war in Iraq.

Like the British General who also wants to withdraw from Iraq in order to deploy more UK Armed forces into Afghanistan, General James Jones who represents American Forces in NATO see's Iraq as a disaster.

It is a disaster because it was a misconcieved doomed mission to begin with.

It has resulted in the Americans fighting a war on two fronts, a historic military no-no if there ever was one.

The lesson here is that Iraq is a failure, and Afghanistan will soon be. One would think that at least the British would understand that given their historic failures in Afghanistan, not once , not twice, but three times. Do they think four times is lucky?

The US and UK Generals in charge of Afghanistan operations think that with troop reinforcements from Iraq they will have enough ground forces to stablizes the Southeastern and Northern borders. Unfortunately even with increased numbers they will not have enough men or fire power.

2 Signal Regiment ‘Afghan move’

SOLDIERS in York have been warned to prepare for a possible posting to war-torn Afghanistan, sources have revealed.

The York signallers, whose role in such operations is to provide communications support for other troops, are no strangers to dangerous postings abroad.

About 100 from the 246 Signal Squadron returned to York in January last year after a six-month tour of duty in Iraq.

In 2003, about 300 members of the regiment took part in the Iraq war, providing communications support, first during the war for British armoured brigades, and then in the post-conflict struggle to help restore civilian telephone services.

The Russians left Afghanistan after having underestimated the military force needed, like Rumsfeld. When they left they still had between 40,000 and 60,000 ground forces, and they had several battalions of tanks. More tanks than NATO has, since it has relied on US air support. Which is itself another failed strategy.

Like the debacle of Kosovo, even if NATO does pacify the border regions it is but a temporary victory. The problem is then of nation building, which considering Afghanistans history, is counter intuitive. It will not become a democratic capitalist state based on some European model. It never has been that kind of nation. It is a border state, with no natural resources, it is a transit point, a crossover, to other regions. Its federalism is tribal and has been for hundreds of years.

THE objectives of the British mission to Afghanistan could take as long as 20 years to achieve, according to a confidential Ministry of Defence briefing seen by The Sunday Times.


It is these tribal factions that divide Afghanistan up into territories, regions, provinces. There is no national Afghan identity. Because the country has not had a bourgoise, it remains a feudal throwback. There has been no national libertation struggle, no national identity formed as in the case of the European nations between the 18th and 20th Centuries.

The nationalist movements in Europe were a result of the French Revolution and the Bonapartist Counter-Revolution that followed. Much like the American Empire, Napoleon made himself the spirit, the zietgiest of the Revolution, while undermining at home the democratic nature of the Revolution. He took the spirit and used it to justify his Imperialist ambitions. Forever embodying the real spirit of the bourgoisie.

As a result the provincial European states were forced to unify ironically not only to oust the French but because of the Napoleonic civil code that allowed them greater freedoms. The origin of European Nation States and nationalism is in reaction to the Napoleanic wars.

Finding the Nation in Bremen: The Lower Class and Women after Napoleonic Occupation by Buse, Dieter K

While in the Levant , Middle East and Asia Minor the rise of the Ottoman Empire shows that a Muslim based Imperialism that contains within it the seeds of secular nationalism, the result was the creation of a single nation State Turkey, results not in nation states but in a replication of the Roman Empire. When the Empire collapses it does so into provincialism and religious sectarianism. Such is the case of Afghanistan.


At the beginning of the 19th century, as Napoleon surged back and forth across Europe, the subject Christians of the Balkans became more and more restless, and Russia began to try again and again to retrieve Constantinople for Christendom and break through the Straits. The Ottomans, although achieving some successes, were not going to be able to resist this. The Empire's status as the "Sick Man of Europe" was now becoming quite established. It was Realpolitik that came to the rescue of the Sult.ân: Britain did not want Russia to be too successful and so entered into a long policy of supporting the Turks against the forces, from Russia or Egypt or wherever, that might result in the collapse of Ottoman rule. Nevertheless, Britain could not allow too much oppression of subject Christians, and as the century wore on, small Christian states, from Serbia to Greece to Bulgaria, were allowed autonomy and then independence by the agreement of the Great Powers. This did not get any of them all they wanted, and it certainly limited Russian gains, but it kept the geo-political dam from bursting and kept the Sult.ân from falling off his Throne.

Finally, it was the internal forces of Turkey that began to shake things up after a pattern that would become all too familiar in "underdeveloped" countries later: A military coup, the "Young Turks," against the detested Sult.ân 'Abdül-Hamîd II in 1908. This did not help much when the Balkan states fell on Turkey in 1912. The choice of Germany as a European ally would then be fatal for the Ottoman future. Another ill effect was the transformation of the Mediaeval Cause of Islâm into a more modern Turkish nationalism. This did not work well, and never would, with the Arabs, Armenians, and Kurds living within Turkish borders. The disaffection of the first exploded in a pro-Allied revolt in World War I. Suspicion about the second led to shameful deportation and massacre about the same time. And conflict with the third continues, with campaigns of terrorism and suppression, even today. Woodrow Wilson impotently called for an independent Armenia state, in an area where there were by then few Armenians left, and soon almost none after Turkey pushed the Armenian Republic back east of the Araks (Aras) River in 1920. No Power has called for an independent Kurdish state. Meanwhile, the British and French were perfectly happy to detach the Arab lands from the Empire, not for independence, to be sure, but to further British and French imperial projects. This turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, especially when the Zionist colonization of Palestine, allowed by the British, led to the creation of Israel and to a conflict, including five major wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982), that continues until today. The settlement of World War I has thus been aptly called "the peace to end all peace."The Ottoman Sultans of Turkey & Successors in Romania

The Ottoman empire lasted until the twentieth century. While historians like to talk about empires in terms of growth and decline, the Ottomans were a force to be reckoned with, militarily and culturally, right up until the break-up of the empire in the first decades of this century. The real end to the Ottoman culture came with the secularization of Turkey after World War II along European models of government. The transition to a secular state was not an easy one and its repercussions are still being felt in Turkish society today; nevertheless, secularization represents the real break with the Ottoman tradition and heritage.
The Ottomans

See:


Iraq




Afghanistan



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Burma A Good Place To Do Business


The effectiveness of dictatorship should never be underestimated.

Certainly the exisiting capitalist states never miss a chance to embrace their brothers in arms...
.

Myanmar removed from list of money-laundering countries

A dubious distinction at best.



See:

Burma



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Saturday, October 14, 2006

The Misuse of Acid

Once agian the State misuses a non-toxic, non-narcotic, psychohallucinogen that they ban the public from accessing. As the CIA had in the fifties and sixties. And folks think this is unusual, outrageous, they couldn't possibly do this in this day and age....LSD Mystery: In 2002, Justice Dept. OK'd Dosing Detainees

To his credit the editor at TPM couldn't believe it either but he did uncover the Justice department documents approving it. Where I diasgree with his article is in the proposition that the U.S. Government used PCP. This is too powerful a somatic disruptor, and its psychohallucenogenic properities are too unpredictable.

I would suspect given the ease of manufacture they would use MMDA derivatives (X, exstacy).

The American state misuses LSD and then creates lies about its negative impacts to create fear in the public.

Tim Leary
laughs from beyond the grave.
Its the same old scenario with the same old players.


See:

Torture

CIA

Gitmo











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Friday, October 13, 2006

More PMO Censorship


Today on CBC's Politics with Don Newman during the journalist panel, Don blurted out that the PMO has ordered the communications directors for each Cabinet Minister to DELETE reporter contacts from the Ministers Blackberry. Which meme like reminds me of that famous Russian BlackBeria.




SEE:

PMO

Harper

Stalin



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Surprise

New species discovered in Europe

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Jack Abramoff. The guy who brought down Republican Speaker Tom Delay, is the gift that keeps on giving.

It just is not the Republicans week. We had the continuing saga of Foley Fallout. And then the expose of how Karl Rove used f***ing Faith Based Intitatives for political purposes.

And less than a month to the elections. More Republican scandal makes the headlines. Giving new mean to "You Don't Know Jack".


Representative Ney Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy in Abramoff Case

Senate blasts non-profits for working for Abramoff
one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, ``perpetrated a fraud'' on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff

Jewish Religious Right Agency Shuts Down in Abramoff Scandal

"Citizens Against Government Waste has said some highly critical things about open source software in the past. They've also pounced on supporters of the OpenDocument Format along the way. Alas, it seems their close ties to Jack Abramoff have drawn the (unfavorable) attention of Senate staff."

More evidence of less-than-savory ties between Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Jack Abramoff.

AP Exclusive: Records suggest Abramoff, Pombo lobbying contacts

Powerful Assistant Not Without Controversy
As the top administrative aide to Bush strategist Karl Rove, Ralston brings the scandal of imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff right into Bush’s inner circle.

Prosecutors seek 30 to 37 months for ex-Bush aide Safavian


See:

Abramoff





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