michelle
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Post by michelle on Aug 9, 2006 16:54:43 GMT 4
War's Toll on Our Environment
So we do not forget Mother Earth/Gaia in all the human created destruction, I am starting this thread. We have turned our planet, our home, into a DUMP with a very low frequency. Humanity as it is today is the evolutionary result of millennia of “survival of the fittest.” Nowhere can this be better witnessed than in viewing what we have done to our "home" through our undisciplined destructive force. This destructive force unleashed on our planet comes from the illusions that humans are “better than” and “separate from” Gaia’s other inhabitants. To survive we must liberate ourselves from these illusions. We must return to the cognition of Unity with all Life, there is NO separation. It is our responsibility as “The Keepers” to clear these wounds from Gaia’s land, water, atmosphere, and to become a united group, a model for our impending reality in which all creatures—land, sea, and sky live together in harmony and peace. In this new reality, on this New Earth, all wars are over; no longer do humans fight against Nature, against mammals, or against other humans.....Michelle The War's Toll on Environment By Bassem Mroue and Aron Heller The Associated Press Monday 07 August 2006 The Earth has been caught in the war's cross fire: A huge oil slick in Lebanon, scorched forests in Israel. Beirut, Lebanon - In this country of Mediterranean beaches and snowcapped mountains, Israeli bombing triggered an oil spill that has created an environmental disaster. Endangered turtles die after hatching from their eggs. Fish float dead off the coast. And flaming oil sends waves of black smoke toward the city. And cleanup cannot start until the fighting stops, the United Nations says. Meanwhile in northern Israel, huge swaths of forests and fields have been scorched by thousands of Hezbollah rocket strikes over the last three weeks. Experts said it would take nature at least 50 years to recover.
Charred branches stuck out of the ground like grave markers at the Mount Naftali Forest overlooking the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shemona, where entire fields have been reduced to heaps of ash and countless animals killed. Amid the hundreds of deaths in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the environmental damage has attracted little attention. But experts warn that the long-term effects could be devastating. About 110,000 barrels of oil poured into the Mediterranean two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant. One tank is still burning. An Israeli naval blockade and continuing military operations have made cleanup impossible. "The immediate impact can be severe, but we have not been able to do an immediate assessment," said U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner in Geneva. "But the longer the spill is left untreated, the harder it will be to clean up." The oil so far has slicked about one-third of Lebanon's coast, a 50-mile stretch centered on the Jiyeh plant 12 miles south of Beirut, said the country's environment minister, Yaacoub Sarraf. It has also drifted out into the Mediterranean, already hitting Syria. Cyprus, Turkey and even Greece could be affected, experts warn.
"Chances are, our whole marine ecosystem facing the Lebanese shoreline is already dead," Sarraf said. Lebanon, whose flag features a cedar tree and which is known by many as Green Lebanon for its forested mountains, is one of the few countries in the Arab world that pays attention to pollution. Minibuses that run on diesel are banned, and factories must abide by strict rules. Now, large parts of the country's sandy and rocky beaches, normally a magnet for tourists, are covered with thick black oil. Many fishermen have been forced out of business, and people are growing scared to eat fish. Baby turtles, usually born in late summer, die after they swim into the polluted water shortly after hatching. Syria was already experiencing similar problems, said Hassan Murjan, who heads the environment department in the Syrian city of Tartous. "The oil pollution has caused serious environmental damage because our coast is rocky, and this is very dangerous for marine life," Murjan told the official news agency SANA. Sarraf said last week: "We have no access to Lebanon territorial waters. This means that we are already 10 days delayed and, in terms of oil pollution, 10 days is a century." Sarraf said it would cost $30 million to $50 million to clean up the shorelines, and possibly 10 times that much for the entire effort. Optimistic assessments suggest it will take at least six months for the shore cleanup and up to 10 years to reestablish "the ecosystem of the eastern Mediterranean as it was two weeks ago," he said. In northern Israel, incoming rockets have destroyed 16,500 acres of forests and grazing fields, according to Michael Weinberger, the forest supervisor for the Jewish National Fund, the top administrator of Israel's forests. About one million trees were destroyed. The Mount Naftali Forest was hit by a series of Katyusha rockets last week, setting it ablaze. Afternoon gusts carried the flames, wiping out 750 acres and trapping gazelles, coyotes, jackals, rabbits and snakes. The stench of smoke lingered a day later. What was once green is now black and gray. More rockets pounded the forest Wednesday. Firefighters have been stretched to the limit battling the blazes caused by rockets in urban areas and are reluctant to enter the dry and potentially deadly terrain of the forest fires. "With all due respect to nature, I will not risk the lives of my men for it," said Danny Hananiya, the fire department chief in the Northern Galilee, whose men have battled 1,200 fires. "It is painful to see, but I have to decide between nature and the firefighters." Instead, the task of protecting nature falls on the shoulders of forest rangers, many of whom have risked their lives in recent weeks trying to limit the ecological damage. "Every green tree standing here is a result of our work," said Ido Rasis, 55. "I am here because we need to save every tree we can." The rangers are dispatched in teams of four to various locations in the woods, where they wait for the rockets and pounce on fires before they spread out of control. Wearing a wide-brim hat, Rasis awaits the next volley as he watches a fire rage in the distance. Unlike buildings, bridges and other infrastructure that can quickly be rebuilt, forests take 50 to 60 years to return to what they were before fighting started, said Omri Bonneh, the director of the Jewish National Fund's northern region. And unlike other services mobilized in this war, such as the army, police and paramedics, the rangers know their real work still lies ahead. "Our main job will be after the war ends, to rehabilitate the entire system," said Amikam Riglin, chief of law enforcement at the Jewish National Fund. The destruction of Mount Naftali is all the more painful since it is not a natural forest, but one meticulously planted by man. These mountains were bare when Israel was established in 1948. Yossi Biton, 53, a Jewish National Fund representative in northern Israel, has been with the service for 20 years, following in his father's footsteps. "My father planted this forest for 40 years, and now I have to do it all over again," he said. "An entire history has been erased in a single hour. It's like turning heaven into hell." SOURCE: www.truthout.org/issues_06/080706EA.shtml**************************************************** Lebanese Oil Spill Could Rival Exxon Valdez Disaster: UN Agence France-Presse Tuesday 08 August 2006 Nairobi - An oil spill caused by Israeli raids on a Lebanese power plant could rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster that despoiled the Alaskan coast if not urgently addressed, the United Nations has said. The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday the spill that poses severe ecological and human threats is already comparable to a 1999 oil tanker accident off the coast of France and had the potential to get far worse. "In the worst-case scenario and if all the oil contained in the bombed power plant at Jiyyeh leaked into the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese oil spill could well rival the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989," it said in a statement. "We are dealing with a very serious incident and any practical steps are still constrained by the continuation of hostilities," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a blunt appeal for immediate cooperation to stem any damage.
"While I fully understand the complexity and political implications, many are appalled ... there has been no on-the-ground assessment to support the Lebanese government, no moves possible towards a clean-up and indeed few practical measures to contain the further spread of the slick," he said. UNEP said 12,000 tonnes of leaking oil from the Jiyyeh plant, which was bombed by Israel on July 14 and July 15 a few days into its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, had already polluted more than 140 kilometers (87 miles) of the Lebanese coast and spread north into Syrian waters. The Exxon Valdez spilled 37,000 tonnes of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound after running aground on a reef on March 24, 1989, causing massive damage from which some scientists argue the area has yet to completely recover. UNEP said two environmental experts had arrived in Syria to begin assessing the impact of the Jiyyeh spill, which it said it feared had already affected marine life, particularly tuna and turtles, in the Mediterranean. "This oil slick definitely poses a threat to biodiversity," said Ezio Amato, one of the two UNEP consultants. Earlier Tuesday in Rome, an Italian environmental agency which monitors the Mediterranean said the spill posed a heightened risk of cancer.
The leakage "is a high-risk toxic cocktail made up of substances which cause cancer and damage to the endocrine system," Simonetta Lombardo of Info-Rac told reporters.
"It is not oil that has flowed but fuel for power stations," she said. "This contains substances such as benzene, categorised as a Class 1 carcinogen." Info-Rac monitors compliance with the so-called Barcelona Convention, drawn up in 1976 and designed to protect the Mediterranean. So far some 22 countries have signed up to the text. SOURCE: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080806R.shtml
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Sept 1, 2006 8:08:38 GMT 4
An environmental disaster emerges on Lebanon coast conflict in the middle east: Tons of heavy fuel oil, spilled into the sea during the battle with Israel, foul Lebanon -- may reach Syria, TurkeyChristopher Allbritton, Chronicle Foreign Service Monday, August 28, 2006 (08-28) 04:00 PDT Beirut -- The sand along the public beach in south Beirut is blackened and stained. The sea, normally a rich azure, is a noxious yellowish green. The water reeks of petroleum. All the fish are dead; there is not a single bird in the sky. These are the scars of the Lebanese oil spill, triggered July 15 when Israeli jets bombed the power station at Jiyeh, 18 miles south of Beirut. Between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of heavy fuel oil spilled into the Mediterranean Sea and began flowing north. After six weeks, the slick has spread an estimated 90 miles north and now could threaten the coastal waters of Syria and Turkey. And it's getting worse. Some of the oil has washed up on the Lebanese shoreline or sunk to the seabed in a layer up to 4 inches thick, according to a video shot by Lebanese divers and released by Greenpeace. Byblos, a UNESCO World Heritage site 22 miles north of Beirut, is a pretty tourist village with remains dating back 7,000 years that is considered by some scholars to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Seafood restaurants that depend on the sea for fresh fare rim its harbor, which is dominated by a 13th century Crusader castle. But the harbor is now an oil sump, with thick black liquid leaving its mark at the waterline on the stones of the castle. Just down the coast, Eddé Sands, one of the most popular beach resorts in the region, is closed until next summer -- a crushing blow for a tourism-based economy. In the Palm Islands Nature Reserve just off the coast near Tripoli, nesting grounds for sea turtles have been inundated with oil. The turtles had already laid their eggs by the time the Israelis began bombing. When the baby turtles hatch, they will have to crawl through an oil slick to get to the water. "We've never had an environmental disaster like this in Lebanon," said Tarek Moukkaddem, a volunteer from Tripoli who had come to help clean up the Beirut beaches. He and his friend, Alan Alameddine, were taking a break from shoveling sand into large piles on Ramlet al-Baida, a public beach on the southwest flank of the city. Beside them, a large bulldozer stood idle. Moukkaddem said volunteers and environmental groups such as Green Line had encountered nothing but obstacles from the Lebanese Environment Ministry. The ministry has only just begun issuing permits needed for cleanup projects to begin, and it had not yet sent its own employees to help get the job done, Alameddine said. The work is backbreaking and urgent. Almost no action was taken while the war continued, and the oil has coated the coastline for miles, killing marine life and turning beaches into health hazards. As oil emulsifies, it becomes more viscous and harder to recover from sand and soil. Tidal action is depositing oil farther from the waterline. "I was down on the coast here in Beirut," Professor Rick Steiner, from the University of Alaska Marine Advisory Program, who was advising the Ministry of the Environment, told Reuters. "Everything on it -- limpets, invertebrate fauna, algae, fish, crabs, mussels -- it was all dead." Ministry spokeswoman Ghada Mitri blamed the Israeli attacks and continuing sea blockade for the delay in getting the cleanup started, adding that extensive study, including aerial surveys, was needed before work could get started. "Lebanon is still under siege," said Mitri. "We need permission for any movement." The Israelis gave the United Nations permission Aug. 21 -- a full week after the cease-fire went into effect -- to conduct aerial surveys of the damage. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the U.N. Environment Program, said a team in Beirut was planning to do three or four flyovers to get a better idea of where the oil is. He said the current best guess is that 20 percent has evaporated and 80 percent has washed up on Lebanon's shore, sunk to the sea bottom or remained suspended in the water. "It's pretty unprecedented for an oil spill of this size to wait so many weeks before actions had been taken," Nuttall said. The ministry estimates it will cost $150 million over the next year to clean up the spill. Mitri defended the decision to delay beginning the cleanup on grounds that it took until Thursday to arrange a place to store the oil and dirty sand that would be recovered. And because of the Israeli bombing, many roads and bridges in the country had been destroyed, she added. "Do we have the resources, do we have the people, the space, the roads, the tractors and trailers and (trucks) to move all this stuff around?" she asked. She admitted that the ministry was overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and that "getting everything up and running is taking time." The delay is infuriating environmental groups, which see the need for urgent action. "Every day we lose, part of the oil will not be recovered, and it will enter the food system and the marine life," said Wael Hmaidan, coordinator for Green Line's Oil Spill Working Group. Steiner said, "It appears that the marine and coastal ecosystem is more contaminated than first thought." He has advised governments on oil spills, including the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, and he told Reuters news service that this spill was one of the worst he'd seen. He has put together a cleanup plan divided into three phases. A rapid-response plan for the rest of August would focus on shoreline cleaning at Byblos, Ramlet al-Baida, the area around Jiyeh and the Palm Island reserves. The rest of 2006 and 2007 would be concerned with expanded beach cleaning, including rock washing, an effort to remove any recoverable oil on the sea surface. The final phase would address seabed contamination. The health effects of the spill could be dire. Thousands of families on the Lebanese coast depend on fishing for their primary food supply, but surviving fish may contain hydrocarbons and other carcinogens. The economic effects of the spill go far beyond the immediate coastline. More than 1.6 million tourists had been expected to visit this year -- bringing in $4.4 billion, said Tourism Minister Joe Sarkis. The economy had been growing between 5 and 6 percent because of the tourism boom. "Unfortunately, the war stopped everything," he said. Tourism accounts for about 12 percent of Lebanon's economy, and seaside resorts and restaurants accounted for more than half of that. "Without the sea, it would reduce the attraction of Lebanon," Sarkis said. "It might take between one and two years to clean." Lebanon has about 200 beaches and all have been affected, he said. He said resorts such as Eddé Sands and the Movenpick, both of which declined to comment for this article, have all been affected, and many will remain closed for an unknown period of time. "Over the longer term, one year, two years, three years, unless this is cleaned up, unless the oil is taken out of the sand and pebbles, there's always going to be a question mark as to whether this is a holiday destination spot to go to," echoed Nuttall of the United Nations. At a meeting in Athens on Aug. 17, the International Maritime Organization and the U.N. Environment Program agreed to spend an initial $64.4 million on cleanup and containment of the spill. Nuttall said equipment from Spain, France and other countries bordering on the Mediterranean was en route to the spill region. And Green Line has finally gotten permission to start the cleanup at Ramlet al-Baida. Hmaidan said they were able to bulldoze the sand into piles ready to be trucked away by the ministry. From there, Mitri said, the sand can either be reused in another industry, stored or cleaned and returned. The latter is the preferred solution, but she said the equipment and expertise do not exist yet in Lebanon. "The beach is bad, but this is the case with 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Lebanese coastline," said Hmaidan. "This is the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the eastern Mediterranean."Source:www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/28/MNGHDKQHK31.DTL
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Sept 13, 2006 10:04:00 GMT 4
UNDP Estimates Gaza Infrastructure Damage to be US$46 million in the Past Two MonthsReport, UNDP, 6 September 2006JERUSALEM -- The UNDP's Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP) released the findings of an extensive damage assessment it conducted of the infrastructure in the Gaza Strip over the past two months. Covering the damage incurred since the beginning of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operation that began on 28 June to August 27, 2006, the assessment examined physical and material damage to six sectors: municipal infrastructure, housing, public buildings, agriculture, energy and industry.The assessment was divided across 5 distinct geographic areas in the Gaza strip, namely the officially established Governorates: Gaza, Rafah, Khan Younis, Middle and North. The team of over 25 UNDP engineers and programme specialist, who assessed every single damaged site in the Gaza Strip, estimated that the total cost of the damage for the period between June 28 and August 27, 2006 is around US$ 46 million. Commenting on these initial findings, the acting Special Representative of UNDP/PAPP in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt.), Ms. Minna Tyrkko stated: "As a leading development agency in the oPt., with a long history of building essential infrastructure, we felt it necessary to take stock of the physical damage incurred by in the Gaza strip in the past two months" "We would not be able to begin the process of recovery if we did not empirically know the extent of the damage," she added. It is important to note that the figure of US$46 million reflects the actual estimated costs of damage and not estimates for the required repairs. Nor does this figure represent the total aggregated economic loss, which would be in the hundreds of millions.Below is a breakdown of the estimates. For a full copy of the damage assessment report visit PAPP's web site at: www.undp.psThe initial damage estimates per sector hitherto yielded are: 1. Municipal infrastructure (including bridges water and wastewater lines and roads) US$ 8 million 2. Energy (including the electricity lines and power station) US$ 8 million 3. Agriculture (including olives and citrus orchards, greenhouses, poultries and livestock farms, water wells) US$ 23.5 million 4. Housing US$ 2 million 5. Public buildings (both governmental and NGO) US$ 4.2 million; and 6. Industry US$ 0.3 million The damage estimates per Governorate are: 1. Gaza - US$ 13.5 2. Middle - US$12 million 3. Rafah - US$ 9.6 million 4. North - US$ 6.6 million 5. Khan Younis - US$ 4.2 millions Source: electronicintifada.net/v2/article5701.shtml
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Sept 23, 2006 17:35:06 GMT 4
This is awful. When will humanity learn to stop fouling their own nest?....MPoisonous clouds of pollution spread after Israel air strikeBy Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor Published: 10 September 2006 Lebanese minister says damage was deliberate, causing 'an even bigger disaster than the war itself'. More people will die as a result of pollution unleashed by Israel's bombing of the Lebanon than perished in the month-long war itself, the Lebanese government believes. Yacoub Sarraf, its Environment Minister, speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, said last week that a highly poisonous cloud spread over a third of the country - an area that is home to half its people - from a fire in a bombed fuel tank that burned for 12 days. The same bombing released about four million gallons of oil into the sea, in the largest ever spill in the eastern Mediterranean. He insists that the environmental damage was "deliberately" caused. Experts say that, if this was so, it would constitute a war crime, in breach of both the Geneva Convention and the statute of the International Criminal Court.Israel retorts that any such suggestion is "very ridiculous". The damage began on 13 July, when Israeli rockets hit a fuel storage tank at the Jiyyeh power station 18 miles south of Beirut. The government managed to repair the damage and prevent an oil spill. But two days later, he continued, the rockets returned, not merely hitting the same tank again - just 25 metres from the sea - but fatally damaging its protective burm, a concrete and earth barrier designed to stop any oil spilling from the tank from reaching the Mediterranean. "It was definitely deliberate.," he said. "They did not hit the power station, just the fuel storage, and this was the tank that was closest to the sea." He expects the greatest "catastrophe" from the toxic cloud that was blown by the prevailing wind over Beirut and one-third of the country. Tests have shown, he says, that it contains high levels of poisonous lead and mercury, and highly dangerous PCBs. CLIPSource: news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1433338.ece
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DT1
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You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
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Post by DT1 on Jan 16, 2007 5:53:48 GMT 4
You can't take your eye off these sorry bastards for a minute... For some reason,this didn't make the front page- except in Alaska,maybe...
Look what the Decider did while he was supposed to be agonizing over his next Iraq strategery...President Bush Lifts Ban on Oil Drilling in Fragile Alaska Waters opednews.comsierraclub.org WASHINGTON - January 10 - President Bush today exercised his executive authority to lift the ban on drilling off the southwest coast of Alaska in the fragile, salmon-rich waters of Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay, one of the world's most productive marine systems for fish, marine mammals and migratory birds, has enjoyed federal protection since the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. In response,Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope issued the following statement: "Bristol Bay is one the most important fisheries in America and in the world. It's incredibly reckless to risk such an outstanding natural resource just to satisfy Big Oil. Most Alaskans and Americans would agree that it doesn't make sense to sacrifice the world's largest salmon run and an entire local economy to give the oil industry another gift on its wish list. "This move will do nothing to lower gas prices for American families or energy costs for American businesses, and will keep our nation dangerously dependent on oil. By contrast, if our cars, trucks and SUVs together averaged 40 miles per gallon - something that is achievable with existing technology - we would save as much oil as the United States currently imports from the Persian Gulf, with another million barrels to spare." sierraclub.org Bristol Bay is home to the world's largest wild salmon run, high value red king crab, large pollock and cod fisheries, huge herring schools that sustain the Bering Sea, and a primary halibut nursery ground. This rich marine life could be harmed by the seismic testing, potential oil spills, and contaminated drilling muds and produced water associated with offshore drilling. The region's residents are heavily dependent on the local marine life for both direct sustenance through subsistence and for sustainable livelihoods through commercial fishing. Bristol Bay is an economically-critical salmon fishery, with an estimated net present value as high as $10 billion, and the area is prized by sportsmen for its salmon and halibut fishing opportunities. Its lush wetlands support vast bird populations and it provides essential habitat for the endangered Right whale. More than 25 million fish are harvested (commercial, sport and subsistence) annually, contributing more than $300 million and providing some 12,500 jobs. Sport fishermen eager to test the famed fishing grounds spend about $120 million a year. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) recently completed a public comment period, including more than 10 public hearings in Alaska, on their draft Five-Year OCS Leasing Program that proposes opening Bristol Bay in 2010. Ten years ago, Alaska bought back oil company drilling rights after an outcry that drilling could damage the state's most important salmon run. Bush rescinded President Clinton's longstanding "Executive OCS Leasing Withdrawals" that were to protect Alaska's fragile North Aleutian Basin (Bristol Bay) until June 30, 2012. A similar bipartisan congressional OCS moratorium protected Bristol Bay starting with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 until Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) led an effort to lift the ban in 2003. Today's announcement could spur action to reinstate the congressional moratorium. For more information on Bristol Bay, please visit www.akmarine.org/ourwork/fbb.shtmlwww.akmarine.org/pressroom/issuepaper-bristolbayoilandgas.pdf ### GFB signed off on this travesty five days ago,without a ripple in the Matrix Media mudpuddle... I closely observe this experiment in Presidential Malpractice,and I just learned of this. It makes me mad as hell that people don't know about it... If you don't have computer access,you would never know about it,until it's too late. With a stroke of a pen,an ancient,diverse,immeasurably important ecosystem could be decimated... And for what? For oil that Isn't even top-grade!!! What the hell is goin' on around here!?!? Can't the Congress stop him? Will they even bother to try? Can we make them do their jobs? Let's find out...www.house.gov/writerep/... Take a minute,and lay it on the line. Because,like it or not, your ass is already on the line... Just copy/paste the above And hope and pray that somebody listens... And if you need a comment-box idea,how's this: The Executive Branch refuses to be reasonable. It is time to Impeach. This time,Evil Dick Cheney goes first. The High Crimes and Misdemeanors he has committed against his Office and this Nation are numerous,repulsive,documented,and ongoing. We are compelled to put forward the charge of War-proffiteering,which is nothing short of Treason. Invoke the Article.
That would take a lot of steam out of the neocon engine...
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on May 9, 2007 13:53:23 GMT 4
IRAQ: River Tigris becoming a graveyard of bodies BAGHDAD, 8 May 2007 (IRIN) - The River Tigris has long been a symbol of prosperity in Iraq but since the US-led invasion in 2003, this amazing watercourse has turned into a graveyard of bodies. In addition, the water level is decreasing as pollution increases, say environmentalists. Pollution in the river is caused by oil derivatives and industrial waste as well as Iraqi and US military waste, they say. The river was one of the main sources of water, food, transport and recreation for the local population but after four years of war and pollution, it has been transformed into a stagnant sewer, according to environmentalists. "The situation is critical. The river is gradually being destroyed and there are no projects to prevent its destruction," said Professor Ratib Mufid, an environment expert at Baghdad University. "A large part of the river has been turned into a military area, forcing families to leave their homes around the riverbanks and close restaurants. Fishermen are prohibited from fishing where the river passes through the capital and all vessels are banned in the area," Mufid said. The river is contaminated with war waste and toxins, and residents of the impoverished Sadr City suburb are often left with no alternative but to drink contaminated water from the Tigris. This is why, specialists say, many Sadr City residents are plagued by diarrhoea and suffer from recurring kidney stones. In the hot dry summer months, when the water level drops, mud islands can be seen, and water levels appear to be decreasing every year. "The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains. Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which help to decrease the water flow. The idea [of dam-building] was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow," Seif Barakah, media officer for the Ministry of Environment, said. Ban on shipping, fishing Military forces have banned shipping and fishing in the river, and many families who depend for their income on fishing have been deprived of their means of survival. "Many fishermen have been killed trying to fish at night because they encountered insurgents looking to plant bombs on the riverbanks. It is still possible to find some men trying to fish, but it is rare," Barakah said. During the day, military boats can be seen making their daily patrols, and in more secure areas, such as those near the fortified Green Zone, snipers are on guard 24 hours a day preventing insurgents from entering the zone. Dead bodies Every day local police haul bodies from the Tigris bearing signs of torture. Locals who live near the river constantly see floating bodies. The situation is even worse in Suwayrah, a southern area of the capital, where the government has built barriers with huge iron nets to trap plants and garbage dropped in the river but now this is also a barrier for bodies. "Since January 2006 at least 800 bodies have been dragged from those iron nets, and this figure does not include those collected from the central section of the river. Most of the bodies are unidentified and buried without family claims," said Col Abdel-Waheed Azzam, a senior officer in the investigation department of the Ministry of Interior. According to Azzam, 90 percent of the bodies found in the river show signs of serious torture. "Because of the state of the bodies, it is not useful to try to have an autopsy done, and if the bodies are not claimed within 24 hours they are automatically buried," he said. Highly polluted During Saddam Hussein's regime people caught dumping garbage in the river were punished, but today mountains of rubbish can be seen on the riverbanks; and these affect the normal watercourse and pollute the area. "With dams decreasing the water flow, the salt level rises and in conjunction with the high level of pollutants dumped in the river by northern cities, this reduces oxygen levels, making an unpropitious environment for any living being," Barakah said. Fishermen said that years ago it was easy to catch a fish in the river but today even if you use nets it is practically impossible to catch a fish and many can be found floating, having died of pollution and lack of oxygen. "Today, the only fish you can catch are those floating and which died from pollution after ingesting toxic waste and eating rubbish," said Ateif Fahi, 56, a fisherman in the capital, Baghdad. as/ar/cb Source: www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/bbc635469a6b3073f9b596fc7cf9fdae.htm
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Sept 14, 2007 11:53:04 GMT 4
IRAQ: WHO CHOLERA ALERT IN THE NORTH, BAGHDADI thought about putting this article under the thread, Precious Water, but changed my mind. Here, water is merely the vehicle of infection, as is normally the case with cholera. And speaking of cholera, images of disease and pestilence come to mind, images the Western World hasn't dealt with since the 1830s when cholera epidemics ravaged European cities. I doubt that the once modern country of Iraq much worried about cholera epidemics before we invaded and devastated everything in sight.
This thread is titled War's Toll on Our Environment. Maybe this isn't the place for the lecture I'm about to give on our place in any given ecosystem, but I can't leave it for another time. You know, as I listen to people speak of any one of the multitude of environmental disasters we sit in the middle of, I'm continually amazed that when they speak of The Environment, they talk as if humans aren't part of it; that it is something out there, outside of them. For God's sake, we are part of the Environment. Any elementary school study of biology will explain that an ecosystem is made up of the community of organisms within it. We, the superior Earthlings we think we are, are one of those organisms within the various ecosystems!
Because of the war in Iraq, the Environment, or People here, are affected and killed off in a less obvious way than is usually reported. I don't think this article tells enough about what this organism does to one it invades. First off, cholera is nearly always fatal and it doesn't take much of a concentration of organisms either. A few tens of organisms per milliliter of water is all it takes to be infectious. This is significant when you consider that organisms in say a food poisoning case would have to reach a level of millions per gram. So, you really don't need much sewage in your drinking water to become ill and die. Given the conditions of water in Iraq, I'm surprised we haven't seen epidemics much sooner....or maybe they've been going on all along and just haven't been reported. As I watch any news on TV here in the united States, any mention on deaths of Iraqis is said casually in passing as if their lives don't count.....Sorry, I'm bouncing all over the place here....
OK, death from cholera, what is it like? You suffer from acute watery diarrhea which is accompanied by severe vomiting and cramps, and suppression of urine until you finally collapse and die. Not such a dignified way to die, is it? ....MichelleIRAQ: WHO CHOLERA ALERT IN THE NORTH, BAGHDAD(AGI) - Geneva, Sept 12 - A cholera epidemic has affected at least 7,000 people in the northern provinces of Iraq and may reach Baghdad in the next few weeks. The accomplices were the terrible conditions of the water system and Iraqi infrastructures due to the war. The alert was raised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been confirmed by Baghdad authorities. The most affected areas are those of Kirkuk and Suleimaniya, where at least 10 people have died in the last month. However, according to the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, Said Hakki, the "vibro cholerae" bacterium may have reared its head also in Erbil and Nineweh. Hakki's foremost concern is that of the latest contagion case, a young woman in a village between Kirkuk and Diyala, about 50 km from the capital. 'Baghdad is close,' he said. 'Cholera can spread through water like fire in a barn.' According to the WHO, grave cholera epidemics such as that which has appeared in northern Iraq "are usually caused by contaminated drinking water". Therefore, the organisation will establish a surveillance system for drinking water, which local health authorities have committed to disinfecting with chlorine and other preventive measures, as well as aiding the diseased with re-hydration kits. At present, there is no drinking water in many Iraqi villages and the sewage system is inadequate. (AGI) Source:www.agi.it/world/news/200709131753-cro-ren0080-art.html
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Apr 7, 2008 9:13:44 GMT 4
Speak Out Against New Nuclear WeaponsOK, Folks, here's some postive action you can take to Co-Create Our Future....and go on the record while you're at it. Silence is assent. If you don't speak up and let your Senators and Representatives, or in this case the DOE, know your views, they'll assume you agree with "Nuclear Insanity Forever."......MichelleSpeak Out Against New Nuclear Weapons
A Whole New Generation of Bombs?
There's no military need for them whatsoever. Speak out against these plans with a comment to the DOE. The U.S. Department of Energy (the federal agency responsible for building and maintaining our nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons) is currently moving ahead with plans for a whole new generation of nuclear bombs. Click here to tell the DOE to focus on safely reducing our existing stockpile, not making new weapons: act.credomobile.com/campaign/stop_the_bombplex These proposed new weapons would not enhance our national security whatsoever; in fact, they would only encourage other countries to "go nuclear" in an effort to catch up. Our military leaders have not asked for these weapons -- so why in the world is the DOE moving forward with these plans? Submit an official public comment today in opposition to the DOE's plans. The DOE is legally required to accept public comments on this plan as part of their environmental impact statement -- but the comment period ends this coming Thursday, April 10th. So please take action today. Click here to take action:act.credomobile.com/campaign/stop_the_bombplexThank you for working to build a better world. Will Easton, Activism Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets P.S. -- Is your current mobile phone company speaking out against nuclear weapons? If not...why not sign up for mobile service from the company that supports the causes you believe in? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: act.credomobile.com/campaign/stop_the_bombplexSay No to a New Generation of Nuclear WeaponsThe U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently planning a system-wide upgrade of the entire American nuclear weapons complex, returning the U.S. to a Cold-War-level capability of designing and producing new nuclear weapons. Instead of recreating the capacity to produce new and unnecessary nuclear weapons, the DOE should shift its focus instead to shrinking the still-oversized nuclear weapons manufacturing complex. The DOE should also focus on maintaining the safety and security of our existing weapons arsenal (currently numbering more than 5,000 -- with each weapon more than sufficient to destroy a city) as it is drawn down. The DOE also appears to be putting the cart before the horse here. The broader question of whether or not our nation needs more nuclear weapons is one for the president and the Department of Defense, not the DOE -- and Congress has already mandated that the next president undertake such an analysis. If the DOE is allowed to move forward with these plans, it will send exactly the wrong signal to the rest of the world -- that nuclear weapons represent a path to security. Fortunately, a mandatory environmental review of the DOE's "Complex Transformation" initiative allows you to submit comments on their ill-advised plan -- but please act soon, as the comment deadline is this coming Thursday, April 10. For more information, please visit the web sites of: the Union of Concerned Scientistswww.ucsusa.org/Alliance for Nuclear Accountabilitywww.ananuclear.org/Issues/NuclearWeapons/Complex2030/tabid/94/Default.aspx Tri-Valley CAREswww.trivalleycares.org/action.asp
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Sept 5, 2008 14:15:16 GMT 4
The Future of Death at the Pentagon The Wild Weapons of DARPAThis is really interesting. Two years ago, I received reports from protesters at demonstrations being spied on by hovering insect-like cameras....dragonfly robots, I believe. What if the PTBs took that a step further and actually controlled insects' movements and mammals' too? Remember, you're a mammal also, The Naked Ape. What if they could control their warriors' actions and thinking via electrodes inserted in the brain? Well, they're working on it....MichelleTomgram: Nick Turse, The Future of Death at the Pentagonposted August 26, 2008 4:42 pm [Note for TomDispatch Readers This is the second post in a pre-Labor Day "best of TomDispatch" series. The first was Chalmers Johnson's 2005 "Smash of Civilizations." Now, we backpeddle another year to 2004 and reconsider the Pentagon's ceaseless efforts to dream up and build ever more effective, ever more invasive and destructive weaponry not just for 2010, but for 2020, 2030, 2040, and beyond. The new model car or the next version of the iPhone has nothing on the Pentagon, which fully expects to roll out the next version of destruction until Hell freezes over. This makes TomDispatch Associate Editor Nick Turse's 2004 piece -- in those distant days he still signed his posts "Nicholas" -- on ways the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was planning to weaponize the wild kingdom as shiny new as tomorrow's HDTVs.
A version of this piece would later became part of Turse's 2008 book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, which will someday be considered a classic on the militarization of American society and should be in your library -- yes, I mean you! It's a shame, really, that TomDispatch pieces, now collected in a new book, The World According to TomDispatch, America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), hold up so well. If only a better world had made them obsolete -- but no such luck. As Chalmers Johnson did, so here Turse provides a new introduction to his old post, reconsidering a world in which, however new its weaponry, the Pentagon is starting to look its age. Tom] The Pentagon: Some-Things-Never-Change DepartmentWhat a difference four and a half years makes. When I first penned "The Wild Weapons of DARPA," in March 2004, I was a new TomDispatch writer; the war in Iraq was not yet a year old; the war in Afghanistan had been bubbling for less than two and a half years, and I suggested that "what's left of the USSR is a collapsed group of half-failed states, while the U.S. stands alone as the globe's sole hyperpower." Today, I'm the long-time associate editor of TomDispatch.com; the United States, now far from a "hyperpower," continues to be bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan with no end in sight in either occupation; and a resurgent Russia, now an energy superpower, has only recently invaded the hardly-failed state of Georgia. Similarly, at that time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's blue-skies research outfit, still looked young and vigorous. Today, DARPA is beginning to show the stresses of age. The agency turned 50 this year and, as Sharon Weinberger reported at Wired Magazine's Danger Room last month, "its birthday present appears to be another $100 million in budget cuts, according to a Defense Department document…" -- and this was on top of a $32 million loss the month before. Still, much remains the same. Despite current budget cuts, the agency is still "both intellectually and financially, a fabulous and alluring gravy train," and its funding for the life sciences still offers "a fertile area to further the science of death and destruction." For example, back in 2004, I wrote that "DARPA has been creating insect databases while increasing efforts to 'understand how to use endemic insects as collectors of environmental information,'" and I asked: "How long until they start thinking about weaponizing insects as well?" Earlier this year, I answered my own question. Not long was the reply. I reported that DARPA was now working to create cyborg insects for surveillance purposes, and -- an even more frightening prospect -- "that such creatures could be weaponized, and the possibility, according to one scientist intimately familiar with the project, that these cyborg insects might be armed with 'bio weapons.'" I wish I could claim some special prescience, but that prediction was a total no-brainer. After all, this is just the way the Pentagon operates, whatever changes or budget cuts come down the pike. Four years later, plenty of people have written about various DARPA projects, but most still fail to ask the most salient question: Why does the U.S. government foster unfettered, blue-skies creativity only in the context of lethal technologies (or those that, indirectly, enhance lethality by aiding the functioning of the armed forces)? Some things never change. Nick Turse, August, 2008 The Wild Weapons of DARPABy Nick Turse When, in October 1957, the USSR launched the first man-made earth satellite, the basketball-sized Sputnik, it caught the United States off guard and sent the government into fits. Not only had the Soviets exploded an atomic bomb years before the Americans predicted they would, but now they were leading the "space race." In response, the Defense Department approved funding for a new U.S. satellite project, headed by former Nazi SS officer Wernher von Braun, and created, in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to make certain that the United States forever after maintained "a lead in applying state-of-the-art technology for military capabilities and to prevent technological surprise from her adversaries." Almost half a century later, what's left of the USSR is a collapsed group of half-failed states, while the U.S. stands alone as the globe's sole hyperpower. Yet DARPA, the agency for an arms-race world, seems only to be warming up to the chase. There may be no country left to take the lead from us, the nearest military competitor being China which reportedly had $65 billion in military expenditures in 2002 (compared to our $466 billion according to GlobalSecurity.org) and which, only in 2003, put its first "Taikonaut" into outer space. Undaunted, DARPA continues to develop high-tech weapons systems for 2025-2050 and beyond -- some of them standard fare like your run-of-the-mill hypersonic bombers, others more exotic. In an August 2003 article, Los Angeles Times reporter Charles Piller noted that DARPA has put forth some of the "most boneheaded ideas ever to spring from the government" -- including a "mechanical elephant" that never made it into the jungles of Vietnam and telepathy research that never quite afforded the U.S. the ability to engage in psychic spying. As former DARPA Director Charles Herzfeld noted in 1975, "When we fail, we fail big." Little has changed. According to DARPA's current chief, some 85%-90% of its projects fail to meet their full objectives. Still, Piller points out, DARPA "has been behind some of the world's most revolutionary inventions" -- "the Internet, the global positioning system, stealth technology and the computer mouse." DARPA's spectacular failure rate and noteworthy successes stem from its high-risk ventures. For years DARPA has funded extremely unconventional, sometimes beyond-the-pale, avant-garde research in all realms of science and technology. It is, perhaps, the most creative place in our vast government for a scientist who wants to stretch his or her mind in adventurous directions and be well paid to do so. If you have a wild idea, DARPA's the place to try it out. Said Harvard University pathologist Donald Ingber in a 2001 Los Angeles Times article, "DARPA [has] funded things that a lot of people thought were ridiculous, and some that people thought were impossible. They make things happen." There's only one caveat -- in one way or another most every project, however mind-stretching, invariably must end, directly or indirectly, in the incapacitation or death of future American enemies. The projects are often some of the most lethal ever conceived. Over the years, DARPA research has led to a plethora of products designed to maim and kill, among them the M-16 rifle, Hellfire-missile-equipped Predator drones, stealth fighters and bombers, surface-to-surface artillery rocket systems, Tomahawk cruise missiles, B-52 bomber upgrades, Titan missiles, Javelin portable "fire and forget" guided missiles, and cannon-launched Copperhead guided projectiles, to name but a few. A question seldom asked is why pie-in-the-sky creativity exists unfettered and fostered only in the context of lethal technologies? As the U.S. continues its mad dash into a post-Cold War, one-nation arms race, fears of a missile gap or the menace of a technologically advanced foreign foe drop away as explanations; nor can it just be a generalized fear of falling behind the rest of the world. Look at the state of education in America -- in 2002 the U.S. ranked 18th in UNICEF's list of teenagers in 24 industrialized countries falling below international academic benchmarks. Despite the poor showing, no one is rushing to set up an Advanced Education Research Agency. According to the CIA's annually-published World Factbook, "the US is the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels," yet the Environmental Protection Agency's "National Center for Environmental Innovation" is a far cry from a DARPA-like entity. It doled out a mere $737,500 in seven state-innovation grants in 2003. DARPA, by comparison, spent about $3 billion on some 200 projects that ranged from space weapons to unmanned aerial vehicles. But just because the government isn't pouring money into the projects of scientists eager to attack environmental problems doesn't mean environmental research is of no interest to it. Quite the opposite. DARPA has taken up the torch and is funding a rigorous research program aimed at finding novel ways to weaponize the natural world. As evidenced by their Vietnam-era mechanical elephant project and a recent grant to researchers developing a robotic canine called "Big Dog" for the Army, DARPA might be said to have something of an animal fetish, reflected perhaps in various projects whose very names evoke the ethos of the wild kingdom. Among them: WolfPack, a group (pack) of miniaturized, unattended ground sensors that are meant to work together in detecting, identifying and jamming enemy communications; Piranha, a project to "enable submarines to engage elusive maneuvering land and sea targets"; and Hummingbird Warrior, a program to produce a helicopter-like vertical take-off and landing unmanned air vehicle (UAV). The agency also embraces the imagery of the natural environment in its "Organic Air Vehicles in the Trees" project, which sounds downright "green," though it's actually a tiny UAV that will fly in the forests, over hills and through cities searching for enemies. Allusions to the natural world, however, are the least of it. While the military is well-versed in employing all sorts of creatures to do its bidding, from Army guard dogs to Navy dolphins used for locating sea mines, DARPA is keen on branching out from class Mammalia. One way is through its "Bio-Revolution" program which seeks to "harness the insights and power of biology to make U.S. warfighters and their equipment… more effective." Willard and His Wild Pals Killer BeesAfter all those years of warnings about sinister African killer bees inexorably heading toward the U.S., DARPA decided to draft bees into military service. In 2002, projects examining the performance of honeybees trained to detect explosives and locate other "odors of interest" were launched. Since then, DARPA has been creating insect databases while increasing efforts to "understand how to use endemic insects as collectors of environmental information." DARPA says it has already tested "this endemic insect system in key operational demonstrations here and abroad." How long until they start thinking about weaponizing insects as well? Instead of your plain old, garden variety Stinger missiles, you could have a swarm of missile stingers. Fly BoysAt the University of Florida, DARPA-sponsored researchers are working on biologically-inspired "eyes" patterned after those of flies. "We think we can use this concept to make smart weapons smarter," says professor of materials science and engineering Paul Holloway, the project's lead researcher. It's a safe bet that a new set of eyes would help, since the current crop of smart weapons couldn't get much dumber! Despite the pronouncements of U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Timothy Keating who, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, bragged of a military "plan that… reduces to an absolute minimum, if not eliminates, noncombatant casualties," nothing proved further from the case. While 68% of munitions used in Operation Iraqi Freedom were precision-guided, as opposed to only 6.5% in the 1991 Gulf War, the ratio of civilian to military deaths turned out to be almost twice as high this time around, according to Carl Conetta of the Massachusetts-based think-tank, Project on Defense Alternatives. Are fly eyes the answer? Perhaps… at least until some rogue state develops a fly-paper missile defense shield. Little Shop of HorrorsIn July 2003, DARPA held a workshop to "help researchers in various disciplines self-assemble into teams capable of developing plant inspired actuation systems that will ultimately have application in military adaptive or morphing structures." What's on the horizon then? Giant Venus flytrap-inspired fighting vehicles? A brigade of Swamp-Thing warriors? (Octo)Pie in the sky camouflage According to the agency's 2003 strategic plan, "DARPA-supported researchers are studying how geckos climb walls and how an octopus hides to find new approaches to locomotion and highly adaptive camouflage. The idea is to let nature be a guide toward better engineering." Imagine the ink-squirting, suction-cup-covered frogman of the future! Remote-Control Robo-RatsIn 2002, DARPA researchers demonstrated that they could remotely control the movements of a rat with electrodes implanted into its brain using a laptop computer. In 2003 and 2004, DARPA's "Robolife" program researchers will turn their attention to the "performance of rats, birds and insects in performing missions of interest to DoD, such as exploration of caves or covert deposition of sensors." Militarizing the animal world, however, carries its own risks. Take World War II's Project X-Ray in which bats with incendiary explosives strapped to their bodies turned on their military masters and set fire to a U.S. Army airfield. Just imagine what an army of Army rats might do! Anybody remember Willard? The Wildest of Apes When Captain America throws his mighty shield…Perhaps the most frightening of DARPA's weaponized science projects are those that deal with militarily enhancing that most violent of apes -- man. In its 2003 strategic plan, DARPA touted the "Enhanced Human Performance" component of its "Bio-Revolution" program whose aim is to prevent humans from "becoming the weakest link in the U.S. military." Lest rats, bees, and trees become the dominant warriors, Enhanced Human Performance will "exploit the life sciences to make the individual warfighter stronger, more alert, more endurant, and better able to heal." Yes, what now captivates DARPA researchers once captivated comic-book readers -- the dream of creating a real-life Captain America, that weakling-turned-Axis-smashing-super-patriot by way of "super soldier serum."
Just Say "No" to No Doze, but "Yes" to Endless Combat The U.S. military has long plied its fighting men with uppers. In Vietnam, medics sated soldiers' need for speed by doling out government-issue amphetamines. In 2002, U.S. pilots under the influence of Air Force "go-pills" (which Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Jennifer Ferrau calls a "fatigue management tool") killed four Canadian soldiers and injured eight others when they dropped a laser-guided bomb on a Canadian military training exercise in Afghanistan. Today, DARPA's Continuous Assisted Performance (CAP) program is aimed at creating a 24/7 trooper by "investigating ways to prevent fatigue and enable soldiers to stay awake, alert, and effective for up to seven days straight without suffering any deleterious mental or physical effects and without using any of the current generation of stimulants."
This is your brain on DARPA… any questions? DARPA researchers are also at work on the "Brain Machine Interface" ("neuromics") project, designed as a mind/machine interface, allowing mechanical devices to be controlled via thought-power. Thus far, researchers have taught a monkey to move a computer mouse and a telerobotic arm simply by thinking about it. With arrays of up to 96 electrodes implanted in their brains, the animals are able to reach for food with a robotic arm. Researchers even transmitted the signals over the internet, allowing remote control of a robotic arm 600 miles away. In the future they hope to develop a "non-invasive interface" for human use. Says DARPA, "The long-term Defense implications of finding ways to turn thoughts into acts, if it can be developed, are enormous: imagine U.S. warfighters that only need use the power of their thoughts to do things at great distances." For years, the U.S. military has been improving its ability to reach out and kill someone. What's the mantra of the future? Maybe, if you think it, they will die. Life (and Death) Sciences Leonard J. Buckley, a program manager in materials chemistry at DARPA's Defense Science Office, has said, in regard to insect-inspired optics research, "Inspiration from nature… will allow more life-like qualities in the system." And, says DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker, "We're interested in investigating biological organisms because they have evolved over many, many years to be particularly good at surviving in the environment… and we hope to learn from some of those strategies that Mother Nature has developed." Poor Mother Nature! What hope has she when faced with an over $400 billion dollar defense budget? What can she do when the most powerful impetus for free-thinking scientists to consider her lies in the urge to weaponize her offspring? Under DARPA, the life sciences have become a fertile area to further the science of death and destruction in an effort, in the words of the DARPA Defense Sciences Office, to overcome the "Frailties of Life" to achieve "Super Physiological Performance." How wonderfully Nietzschean! Such is the state of government-sponsored innovation in our land. If you're a researcher in crucial fields and want the time, funding, and latitude to be creative, your work must benefit the Pentagon in its race to make sure that the next Saddam can be, in the words of Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, "caught like a rat" by Capt. Ben Willard of the Army's rat patrol. Other than finding new ways of circumventing international law (e.g. bypassing violations of national airspace with space-launched weapons), which the U.S. already does quite well with current technology, or the mountain climber's mantra "because it's there," it's hard to fathom why the government is still locked in a Cold War-style arms race in a single hyperpower world. The only explanation available lies in the driving will of the ever-expanding military-industrial complex, first named by President Eisenhower back in 1961. This would certainly help explain why we have no educational or environmental DARPAs. For today's researchers, DARPA is, both intellectually and financially, a fabulous and alluring gravy train, the only agency that puts real money into and rewards creative and maverick thinking. The freedom to dream and create, DARPA's mandate, is seductive and exceptional and, as such, so dangerous that we have to ask ourselves whether war-making isn't now America's most advanced product. Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Adbusters, the Nation, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, was recently published by Metropolitan Books. His website is Nick Turse.com.
Copyright 2004 & 2008 Nick Turse Source:www.tomdispatch.com/post/174969
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DT1
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You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
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Post by DT1 on Nov 13, 2008 9:26:07 GMT 4
Whales Lose As Supreme Court Sides With NavyCopyright 2008 The Associated Press. WASHINGTON (Nov. 12) - The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California. Writing for the majority in the court's first decision of the term, Chief Justice John Roberts said the most serious possible injury to environmental groups would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals the groups study. Mod's Note:Follow the link,if you can stomach it:news.aol.com/article/supreme-court-says-navy-trumps-whales/245763 I am absolutely stunned with this asinine decision...It is just obscene! My personal opinion that 1000 humans are not worth one Humpback whale is besides the point. This is outrageous!!! Can you imagine being unexpectedly blasted with a hundred thousand decibles and having your eardrums explode within your skull? And they wonder why whales are beaching themselves at an unprecedented rate... Is there any reason these training missions cannot be conducted,say,on Lake Michigan? (We have already killed that biosphere). I am so completely ashamed and disgusted about this. How dare we? Yeah,I said we-it's our tax dollars at work,dammit!!! Damn it to helll!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excuse me while I go jam some Cat Stevens before my head explodes...Care to join me?www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2rDp6FnbP0
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Dec 14, 2008 15:28:39 GMT 4
The race for ratification of landmark cluster bomb banAs I stated in an earlier intro, humans are part of the environment: « Reply #6 on Sept 14, 2007, 11:53am » airdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=oenr&action=display&thread=25&page=1#442Let us envision the 30 needed states ratifying the convention, now....MichelleThe race for ratification of landmark cluster bomb ban9 December 2008 At last week's signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions - which bans the production, stockpiling, use and export of cluster bombs - four countries also ratified the agreement. Norway, Ireland, Sierra Leone and the Holy See signed and ratified the Convention at a conference in Oslo last week. The treaty cannot take effect until 30 countries have ratified. In total, 94 countries have now signed the Convention. They include three of the worst affected by the use of cluster bombs – Afghanistan, Lebanon and Laos. "This historic ban will greatly reduce the devastating impact of cluster munitions on human rights, It is vital now that states ratify the convention so it can enter into force without delay,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International's arms control manager, Further signatories are expected in the coming months. Civil society campaigners predict that at least 100 states will eventually sign. Following the signing in Oslo, the treaty will now go to the United Nations in New York. The treaty, which was negotiated in Dublin in May 2008, requires states to provide adequate assistance to victims of cluster munitions and for states to destroy their stockpiles For more than 40 years, cluster bombs have killed and wounded innocent people, causing untold suffering, loss and hardship for thousands in more than 20 countries. These weapons cause death and injury to civilians during attacks and for years afterwards because of the lethal contamination that they cause when they fail to detonate on impact.The weapon caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system. Israel's massive use of the weapon in Lebanon in August 2006 resulted in more than 200 civilian casualties in the year following the ceasefire. Alongside cluster munitions from the US, Chinese 122mm Type 81 cluster munition rockets and MZD-2 submunitions for such rockets were also found in Lebanon.A cluster munition is a weapon comprising multiple explosive submunitions which are dispensed from a container. Cluster bombs hamper post-conflict rebuilding and rehabilitation and the dangerous work of cluster bomb clearance absorbs funds that could be spent on other urgent humanitarian needs. The appearance and size of cluster bombs make them look interesting, and toy-like. An estimated 60 percent of civilian casualties are children. The countries that signed the Convention on Cluster Bombs in Oslo, on 3 and 4 December are: Afghanistan; Albania; Angola; Australia; Austria; Belgium; Benin; Bolivia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Botswana; Bulgaria; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Canada; Cape Verde; Central African Republic; Chad; Chile; Colombia; Comores; Republic of Congo; Cook Islands; Costa Rica; Côte D`Ivoire; Croatia; Czech Republic; Denmark; Equador; El Salvador; Fiji; France; Gambia; Germany; Ghana; Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea Bissau; The Holy See; Honduras; Hungary; Iceland; Indonesia; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Kenya; Lao PDR; Lebanon; Lesotho; Liberia; Liechtenstein; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Malta; Mexico; Republic of Moldova; Monaco; Montenegro; Mozambique; Namibia; Nauru; Netherlands; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Niger; Norway; Palau; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Portugal; Rwanda; Samoa; San Marino; Sao Tomé and Principe; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Slovenia; Somalia; South Africa; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Togo; Uganda; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; United Republic of Tanzania; Uruguay and Zambia. Source/Read More/Go toLandmark cluster bomb treaty signed in Oslo (News, 3 December 2008) www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/race-ratification-landmark-cluster-bomb-ban-20081209
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