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1. War is immoral.
Murder is the one crime that we're taught to excuse if it's done on a large enough scale. Morality demands that we not so excuse it. War is nothing other than murder on a large scale.

Over the centuries and decades, death counts in wars have grown dramatically, shifted heavily onto civilians rather than combatants, and been overtaken by injury counts as even greater numbers have been injured but medicine has allowed them to survive.

Deaths are now due primarily to violence rather than to disease, formerly the biggest killer in wars.

Death and injury counts have also shifted very heavily toward one side in each war, rather than being evenly divided between two parties. Those traumatized, rendered homeless, and otherwise damaged far outnumber the injured and the dead.

The idea of a "good war" or a "just war" sounds obscene when one looks honestly at independent reporting on wars.
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Ohioans were horrified to hear news stories about the spill of toxic material into the Ohio River from a West Virginia coal company. Some of our neighbors to the southeast still cannot drink their water.

What most Ohioans have not heard about is the intentional dumping of 20,000 gallons of radioactive and toxic fracking waste water into Ohio’s Mahoning River. Three tanker trucks full of so-called “brine” were deliberately pumped into a storm drain leading into the Mahoning on Thursday, January 31, 2013. More than a year later, it is still not clear exactly what chemicals the illegally disposed of waste contained.

The presence of radioactivity in the fracking waste could potentially keep Ohioans from drinking water in areas near the Mahoning River for thousands of years.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. military begins its biggest training exercise in the Asia-Pacific region next week in Thailand where Washington does "not want to see a coup" by Bangkok's armed forces amid post-election protests attempting to overthrow a crippled democracy.

U.S. forces team up with two of their closest former Vietnam War allies, Thailand and South Korea, in a three-team "field training exercise...designed to enhance interoperability and strengthen regional relationships," the American Embassy said, announcing Exercise Cobra Gold 2014 which runs from Feb. 11-21.

Military services from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia join them for training "in a multinational force team that responds to a simulated scenario, executing a pre-developed operations plan."

Away from the heaviest training, military personnel from China "will participate in humanitarian and civic assistance projects designed to improve the quality of life and local infrastructure for the Thai people," alongside forces from the other countries.

Cobra Gold's annual multinational military exercise uses locations
Why is Attorney General DeWine making unfair and untruthful statements to Ohio voters? DeWine recently rejected the petition language for the citizen’s initiative entitled the “Voters Bill of Rights.” The proposed amendment would have granted Ohioans the same rights recognized in the European Union – making voting a Constitutional right.

DeWine was quoted in the Columbus Dispatch as saying he rejected the petition’s language because it failed to provide “fair and truthful statements” about matters concerning voter identification practices and voters being purged from the voting rolls due to failure to vote.

“The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”

This is how we talk about learning, growth and the human future?

Things are getting worse in the American classroom, not better. The experts and the special interests purporting to fix the educational system are continuing, instead, to asphyxiate it.

The grandiose quote, above, in which “our young people” show up as abstractions needing to be prepped for some simplistic, highly competitive imaginary future (fully understood by the experts), is part of the mission statement of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the Obama administration’s showcase education reform initiative.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Tens of thousands of protesters are attempting to "shutdown Bangkok," blockading streets and crippling banks, businesses, and government ministries while authorities do little to stop the campaign to topple the elected government and replace it with appointed technocrats.

The American Embassy e-mailed a security alert to U.S. citizens in Bangkok, advising them to stockpile a "week’s supply of cash … [and] two-week supply of essential items such as food, water and medicine."

The embassy's alert, published in local media, fueled some panic buying.

At least eight people died in clashes during the past few weeks leading up to Monday's (Jan. 13) start of the blockade, and one protester was shot in the neck before dawn.

Throughout the day, festive protesters at seven key intersections and on dozens of main streets blew loud whistles, danced to live bands, photographed themselves in selfies, and listened to speeches by leaders atop huge makeshift stages.

Tens of thousands of protesters laid blankets and woven mats on the streets to sleep in the open during the warm dry weather or in small tents.
I'd like to insert a joke about "freedom is on the march!" here but am too disgusted to do it. I just received a lengthy report from Dr. Muhamad Al-Darraji, President of CCER (Conservation Center of Environmental & Reserves), Fallujah City, Iraq.

It documents the attacks of the past year on the people of Fallujah by the government of Iraq. The U.S. government has rushed weapons to the Iraqi government for this assault. A petition opposing further U.S. arms sales to the government that decades of U.S. violence left behind in Iraq is here.

The U.S. has moved, over 30 years, from arming a brutal government in Iraq, to attacking it, to bombing and sanctioning that nation, to utterly destroying it, and back full-circle to selling weapons to a brutal government left behind by yet another nation-building humanitarian war that built no nation and ripped humanity's heart out to stomp it in the dust.

President Obama is now considering whether to order the Central Intelligence Agency to kill a U.S. citizen in Pakistan. That’s big news this week. But hidden in plain sight is the fact that Amazon would be an accessory to the assassination.

Amazon has a $600 million contract with the CIA to provide the agency with “cloud” computing services. After final confirmation of the deal several months ago, Amazon declared: “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”

The relationship means that Amazon -- logoed with a smiley-face arrow from A to Z, selling products to millions of people every week -- is responsible for keeping the CIA’s secrets and aggregating data to help the agency do its work. Including drone strikes.

Drone attacks in Pakistan are “an entirely CIA operation,” New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti said Tuesday night in an interview on the PBS NewsHour. He added that “the Pakistani government will not allow the [U.S.] military to take over the mission because they want to still have the sort of veneer of secrecy that the CIA provides.”

In the star studded nightfall memoirs of me look intently
Your heart was out there blowing in the breeze of
The Spring, how have you become forlorn to picture
The Summer heated the earth frenzied and droughty?
Together with viewing shady trees on gray mountains
Open your insight and see the dejection of my mind
The rock-strewn yard covered with the tiptoeing rosemary

That stands before your eyes, with aroma returns our sanities
Must I feel the gravity, illustrious arroyo of love that you nurture
At heart for years, as I took it to mean your moments of denial
You lived at; still you urge to soar high in the blue like a seagull

In the star studded twilight memoirs of me say obviously
Sweetly sad sounds the flute Sonata played a wonderful
Way to falling in love stroked you deeply from far and away
Over the moon else lit up in me no ebb but the flow of lust
On highways of my core a red carpet reception for you solely
Ignoring all social medians and preferences we know risks
Us becoming the outcasts, still we’ll float on romanticism

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