In Chicago, Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Put NATO’s Endless War on Trial. Robert Naiman, Truthout: “More than two million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. CNN and Fox can focus on what they want, but you can’t hide the life experiences of two million people indefinitely. Just like there’s nothing that can turn you against gay bashing like being friends with a gay person, there’s nothing that can turn you against wars of choice like being friends with an anti-war veteran who served in combat”: here.
Criminalizing Dissent Is a Travesty to Democracy: Chicago is Only the Latest Example: here.
More NATO Summit Activists Charged; Five Linked by Two Informants. Steve Horn, Truthout: “When push comes to shove, [National Lawyers Guild legal worker Kris] Hermes and the NLG believe ‘Mo’ and ‘Gloves’ are the ‘thread’ among all five activists charged with plotting acts of domestic ‘terrorism.’ ‘The thread between all five was the informants that we believe were provoking criminal activity,’ said Hermes to Truthout. ‘We believe it was the same two informants, which has been ascertained from the arrestees‘”: here.
US Rep. Dennis Kucinich: NATO Talks a Sham: War in Afghanistan Is Not Ending: here.
The US Government Is Running a Massive Spy Campaign on Occupy Wall Street: here.
Melissa Gira Grant, Truthout: “Thursday, members of Occupy Wall Street … filed a federal lawsuit against the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, seeking to hold them accountable for violations of their constitutional rights, as well as subsequent smaller raids that targeted the People’s Library. In the course of the suit, the city may have to admit who called the shots during the eviction on November 15, 2011”: here.
Three of the five men arrested on frame-up “terrorism” charges during protests at the NATO summit in Chicago last month appeared in court Monday: here.
This video, from The Nation in the USA, says about itself:
Across Europe, people are vocally and actively rejecting austerity. But they’re not doing so as Europeans, Nation columnist Gary Younge points out. Global and regional solidarity has been limited, Younge explains in this video, even as people fight similar battles against income inequality and other forms of injustice.
Over the last thirty years, in parallel with deregulation and the rising power of money in American politics, significant portions of American academia have deteriorated into “pay to play” activities. No where is this more pronounced than in the realm of economics: here.
Tony Blair was interrupted on Sunday by US campaigners shouting “warmonger” and “criminal” during a graduation day speech at a private college in Maine.
The former British prime minister was telling 400 Colby College graduates and guests that “free enterprise and fair play
She was promptly hauled off by police with several other Code Pink activists and Occupy activist Lawrence Reichard after he continued to call out “war criminal.”
Other protesters remained standing silently with the placards.
Mr Reichard was released later in the day after posting a $250 (£158) unsecured bail. He faces a charge of disorderly conduct.
Britain: The government was ordered on Monday to publish parts of a 2003 phonecall between Tony Blair and US president George Bush which could shed light on the build-up to the Iraq war: here.
Police arrested at least 300 people and 20 were hurt overnight on Sunday, including 11 officers.
Quebec’s provincial government passed an emergency law on Friday that requires organisers to tell police eight hours before and detail the route if more than 50 people are taking part.
Sunday’s march was the 27th straight evening of protest. Police labelled it illegal shortly after its 8.30pm start.
A first group of protesters was cornered and 110 people arrested. More arrests were made after demonstrators climbed on cars and vans.
Saturday’s protest also ended with dozens of arrests.
The burgeoning movement against the fee increase gained celebrity support at the weekend. Montreal indie rockers Arcade Fire wore the movement’s iconic red squares during an appearance with Mick Jagger on Saturday Night Live.
Twitter erupted with questions about the meaning of the fashion statement.
Activist and filmmaker Michael Moore also boosted the students with links from his website.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest has refused to roll back the tuition increases, which will total £1,000 by 2016.
With their fellow Greeks reduced to poverty in huge numbers, with unemployment standing at over 22 per cent and the trade unions and progressive political parties almost permanently protesting on the streets of their cities, the voters of Greece are due at the polling stations on June 17.
So our crass and arrogant PM has taken it on himself to try to put pressure on the Greek people to back these disastrous policies, announcing that the result of the polls will amount to a decision on whether or not the country will leave the eurozone.
Now, whether he’s right or wrong – he’s wrong – and whether the policies themself are right or wrong (they are also wrong) the fact is that Cameron has absolutely no right to attempt to intervene in the Greek election in this manner.
Which, of course, they did in 2009, collapsing under the pressure of an arrogant Brussels and a weak domestic government.
Mr Cameron doesn’t even have the figleaf of respectability of worrying about the cost to Britain of any more bailout money – he’s already made it abundantly clear that Britain won’t be party to any further outlay.
And his credentials as a political economist are, by any measure, so flimsy as to make his advice to the Greek people totally worthless.
A background as special adviser to Norman Lamont and, later, Michael Howard doesn’t convince.
His assessment of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as having shown signs of a willingness to compromise – which she most certainly hasn’t – betrayed either his ignorance or his duplicity.
His oppo ex-chancellor Kenneth Clarke didn’t carry much authority either, his grasp of economics appearing as flimsy as his boss’s.
Mr Clarke’s comment, that the consequences would be “serious” if the Greek people elected “cranky extremists” and defaulted on their debts as a result, was arrogant and aggressive in equal measure.
He continued that Greek voters had to “face up to reality.
“These are hardships inflicted on them by the irresponsibility of their former politicians.”
But he clearly didn’t realise what he was saying when he noted that “our banks are heavily exposed to some of these countries.”
For heavily exposed means that “our” banks were happily screwing the Greek government for as much as they could manage on loan premiums and making a bad situation worse.
Incidentally, what do you mean by “our banks,” Mr Clarke? They might be yours but they’re certainly not ours.
From June 2007 Mr Clarke was on the Advisory Board of Centaurus Capital, a London-based hedge fund.
So the message to these Tory whingers must be “keep your nose out of Greek affairs.”
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has already noted that whenever Ms Merkel opens her mouth it’s to tell the Greek people what to do.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, issued the gravest warning yet on the state of the UK economy on Tuesday, indicating that as far as the IMF is concerned Britain stands right on the edge of financial and social collapse: here.
This video is called Australian Outback | Floods Transform Lake Eyre.
From Wildlife Extra:
Lake Eyre floods again
For a so-called ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’, Lake Eyre has flooded again for the fourth year in a row.
After a very quick initial pulse of water from significant local rains around Lake Eyre late February/early March, water on the lake receded rapidly, but more water has entered Lake Eyre North.
Lake Eyre North had dropped from 70% surface coverage in mid-March to below 15% at the start of May. Now water has entered from the Warburton Creek again so surface coverage is now back to around 20%. Water is travelling well down the Warburton Groove towards Belt Bay, but this will not be as significant as the last three years. Water in some locations along the Warburton Creek is already dropping, although there is still a little bit more water to come from the Diamantina catchment, which all locations are now below minor flood levels.
…
At 15 metres below sea level and Australia’s lowest point, Lake Eyre has only filled to the brim three times in the last 150 years.
How to visit Lake Eyre
Wrightsair (http://www.wrightsair.com.au/ ) has charter flights affording fantastic views of the prehistoric river systems that enter the lake, forming a magnificent pattern of colour.
2009. The 2009 Lake Eyre flood peaked at 1.5 m (5 ft) deep in late May which is a quarter of its maximum recorded depth of 6 m (20 ft). 9 km3 (2 cu mi) of water crossed the Queensland-South Australian border with most of it coming from massive floods in the Georgina River. However the greater proportion soaked into the desert or evaporated en route to the lake leaving less than 4 km3 (0.24 cu mi) in the lake which covered an area of 800 km2 (309 sq mi) or 12% of the lake. As the flood did not start filling the lake’s deepest point (Belt Bay) until late March little bird life appeared preferring instead to nest in the upper reaches of the Lake Eyre Basin, north of Birdsville, where large lakes appeared in January as a result of monsoonal rain.
The high rainfall in summer sent flood water into the Diamantina, Georgina and Cooper Creek catchments of the Lake Eyre basin, with the Cooper Creek reaching the lake for the first time since 1990. The higher rainfall has prompted many different birds to migrate back to the area for breeding.
Heavy rain in early March filled the southern end of the lake, with the north of the usually-dry salt pan about 75 per cent covered with water continuing to inflow from local creeks.
GroenLinks in trouble after leadership chaos, budget cut support
Monday 21 May 2012
Support for the left-wing green party GroenLinks has slumped to just four seats, according to the latest Maurice de Hond opinion poll. The party, one of the signatories to the new austerity pact, has 10 seats in the current parliament.
There are 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. Currently, the right-wing “Liberal” VVD party is the biggest party in the Rightist minority government coalition; and in parliament, with 30 seats. According to polls, the opposition Socialist Party, critics of the austerity pact, may become the biggest party at the general election of 12 September.
Not just the recent decision by the GroenLinks leaders to have the austerity pact with the Rightist minority government, is against the wishes of GroenLinks voters and members. The austerity pact-supporting parties are called the “Kunduz coalition.” That is because they are the same parties which earlier, before the downfall of the Rightist minority coalition (now a caretaker government after their collapse) made a deal, including the Right, to send Dutch soldiers to Kunduz province in Afghanistan. That decision by GroenLInks lesaders to prolong Dutch participation in the Afghan war was against the wishes of the GroenLinks party conference.
The party’s popularity fell in last week’s poll following the decision to sign up for a package of spending cuts and new taxes. It is now down by a further three seats this week because of the chaos surrounding the leadership contest, De Hond said.
Leader Jolande Sap has been challenged for the job by Tofik Dibi, an MP since 2006, who says the party needs to broaden its appeal.
Dibi’s candidature has been derided and dismissed by the party’s board which deemed him to be ‘unsuitable’ and have a ‘lack of depth’. After protests, the board has now reconsidered and allowed him to challenge Sap. She, in turn, is said by Trouw to have put pressure on Dibi behind the scenes to drop the challenge.
Eurosceptics rise
The new De Hond poll also shows a loss of three seats for the VVD, currently the biggest party in government. De Hond says the right-wing Liberals would take 25 seats if there was a general election tomorrow, while the euro-sceptic Socialists are on 29.
Labour and the anti-immigration PVV are both on 23 seats in the De Hond poll.
The poll shows combined support for the five parties which agreed a €16bn austerity package earlier this month is down from 73 to 67 seats – well below the majority needed. Just 30% of voters are positive about the agreement, the De Hond poll shows.
Paul Krugman | Europe’s Leaders Double Down on a Failed Strategy. Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: “I guess we knew this was coming, but in the face of the French and Greek election results and the broader evidence that Europe’s economic strategy is an utter failure, the usual suspects are, you guessed it, doubling down. Simon Wren-Lewis, an economics professor at Oxford, has looked on in horror as the Dutch have agreed on completely unnecessary austerity measures, as a way of showing their commitment to Europe’s totally misguided fiscal pact”: here.
Tarbosaurus (pronounced /ˌtɑrboʊˈsɔrəs/ TAR-bo-SOR-əs; meaning “terrifying lizard”) is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur that flourished in Asia between 70 and 65 million years ago, near the end of the Late Cretaceous Period. Fossils have been recovered in Mongolia with more fragmentary remains found further afield in parts of China. Although many species have been named, modern paleontologists recognize only one, T. bataar, as valid. Some experts contend that this species is actually an Asian representative of the North American genus Tyrannosaurus; if true, this would invalidate the genus Tarbosaurus altogether.
Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are considered closely related genera, even if they are not synonymous.
Elbegdorj Tsakhia says the skeleton, unearthed in the Gobi Desert, came from Mongolia and that exporting fossils found in the country is illegal.
The auctioneers, Heritage Auctions, say the specimen was imported legally. A restraining court order in the name of Mr Tsakhia was put on the sale.
Tyrannosaurus bataar is an Asian cousin of the meat-eating Tyrannosaurus rex.
The skeleton in New York is thought to be one of the most complete and well preserved ever discovered, says the BBC’s Jonathan Blake in Washington.
“When it comes to dinosaurs, number one, dinosaurs in general are extremely rare. But the rarest of the dinosaurs are the carnivores, the meat eaters – the top of the food chain if you will,” David Herskowitz, director of natural history at Heritage Auctions, told APTV.
“And, of all the meat eaters that are out there, the most famous are the Tyrannosaurids. They are the most desirable, but they are the most elusive. They are the most difficult to find. Even though they are so big, there are not that many of them around.”
Found about seven years ago in the Gobi Desert, the T-bataar remained in storage in England.
The T-bataar was slightly smaller and had longer arms than its cousin, Mr Herskowitz said.
This is the second Tyrannosaurid to be sold at auction, says Mr Herskowitz. The first was a T-rex named Sue sold in 1997 for more than $8m.
Lawyers for the auction house say the sale did not break any US laws – but it will not be confirmed until it has been approved by a US court.
One of Australia’s rarest birds, the princess parrot, has been discovered on Newhaven Reserve, about 500 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.
Bird enthusiasts from across the country are travelling to see the arid zone bird, which has only been sighted a handful of times over the last 100 years.
One of the world’s biggest environmental crimes has been more or less forgotten. This is part of our collective guilt as the world’s ecosystem continues its accelerated collapse. But the new documentary film The Big Fix takes a detailed, daring look at what happened in the Gulf of Mexico with BP‘s Macondo offshore oil drilling rig. The story and facts that emerge are more than disturbing.
The movie is soon getting its major national release in theaters and on Netflix. Viewers will be made to recall the unsettling images of oil slicks, fouled fowl, suddenly unemployed fisher folk, and empty assurances by BP and the Feds.
The partially U.S.-owned British oil company has its origins in geopolitical skullduggery in Iran, explained in the film’s narration and images. The history makes more convincing the subsequent telling of of the corporation’s and the U.S. government’s going to great pains to lie that all was being done that could be done to minimize the blowout’s damage and to clean up the mess.
But there was even more going on, undisclosed to the public, such as the extent and effects of massive application of toxic Corexit. This amounted to a double assault on the Gulf, done deliberately. Those who believe that the whole episode from start to finish was an accident, and that industry and government did their best with a bad situation, are sadly ignorant. Or, they wish to simply keep driving and consuming petroleum in other ways, because deep change is inconvenient or frightening.
Corexit, a dispersant banned in the UK, was immediately employed by BP soon after the blowout, and was ordered stopped by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But BP kept on openly using it, and then secretly so, as The Big Fix tells us.
Even more outrageous was that when the undersea oil well was capped, and scrutiny by the average news-consumer slacked off, people were soon misled by corrupt spokespersons that the oil was benignly disappearing. There were contradictory reports of remaining oil pollution that flew in the face of U.S. and industry claims that the oil was 75% gone. It certainly was not gone, and the bulk of it remains today — perhaps in part from additional ocean floor oil leaks. The oil has slowly been moving into the Atlantic, and may damage the Eastern U.S. seaboard.
What to do? The activist response
Some environmental activists during the crisis’ height did more than hand-wringing and crying out for a clean energy economy some day. We instead called for an immediate step-down in U.S. oil consumption to compensate for what the BP blowout was spewing. Our coalition, World Oil Reduction for the Gulf, was gathering steam when the blowout was capped, but everything naturally went back to business as usual.
But some activists, such as Josh and Rebecca Tickell, were just getting heated up. They could not keep their muckraking lens away from the Gulf, and be like almost everyone else who just moved on in their minds and ignored the plight of the Gulf. The BP blowout and subsequent reports of persistent damage to wildlife and human health were enough to draw the filmmakers to the New Orleans region, Josh Tickell’s boyhood home, to check out the whole situation in 2011. Along for the ride with the Tickells on their rolling headquarters-bus was Peter Fonda, friend to the sea and bait for star-struck Cajuns. The Big Fix’s first dramatic device was to show footage of Fonda in Easy Rider, synced with Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild hard-rock tune.
Oil Spill Residue Still Present – In Minnesota: here.
Two years on, the national spotlight seems to have turned away from the Gulf oil spill, but a massive assessment of the environmental impacts is quietly under way. As Cyrus Martin reports, several recent observations, and a study of deepwater coral communities, suggest we may not be out of the woods yet: here.
Department Of Justice Investigates BP For Faulty Oil Spill Estimates: here.
Greg Palast: BP Covered Up 2008 Caspian Sea Deepwater Blowout and Already Knew Cap Wouldn’t Work: here.
USA: It’s a Fact: Domestic Drilling Doesn’t Affect Gas Prices: here.
Britain: The bosses of the world’s biggest multinational defence and oil companies, including BAE Systems and BP, will be asked to account for why hundreds of millions of pounds of government money was used to help military dictators build up their arsenals, and facilitated environmental and human rights abuses across the world: here.
BP Demands Scientist Emails in Gulf Oil Spill Lawsuit: here.
It’s been a little over a year since Olivia Bouler came to visit the Lab and taught an arts workshop for local kids. Olivia made headlines during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, when she raised more than $200,000 for wildlife by painting pictures of birds. Since then, she hasn’t looked back, taking her art and her irrepressible personality to tours, exhibitions, schools, and festivals to talk about what’s possible if people—and kids in particular—believe in our ability to change the world: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 