Speaking truth to power

The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement negotiated in 1997 which went into effect on Feb. 16, 2005. Under it industrial countries which have signed on-which is all of them except for the U.S. and Australia-pledge to reduce their earth-heating carbon emissions by between roughly 5 and 7% below 1990 amounts by 2012. Some countries are going to make or exceed those pledges, and others are not.

Given the urgency of the climate crisis, the 5.2% average reduction of emissions is nowhere near enough. There is also a problem because formerly colonized, now industrializing countries like China and India are not part of this first phase of carbon reductions. That is justifiable; it is the industrialized west that is responsible for the vast majority of the carbon that's in the atmosphere now, and it is the industrialized west that needs to lead the turn away from its past and present dirty, polluting, energy production processes. But it is not a good thing at all that China and India are following in the west's footsteps by building far too many polluting coal plants.

Bush has photos of Pelosi

Bush has photos of Pelosi doing… WHAT?

Here's the situation Nancy Pelosi finds herself in.  A full 54% of Americans and 76% of Democrats want Dick Cheney impeached.  Cheney's 13% favorability makes him the least popular president or vice president ever.  The Washington Post reports that Republicans are turning against Cheney.  By failing to act, the Democratic Congress has made itself less popular than Bush.  Were the Congress to impeach Cheney and the Senate to acquit him, the Democrats would win a significant majority in the Senate because the public would toss some Republicans who voted for Cheney out on their asses.  So, the Democrats would not just do the right thing for the future of our nation but achieve electoral victories by moving on impeachment, whether they manage to succeed with it or not.  There's no known downside to trying.

Could there be an unknown downside?  Could there be a reason we don't know about to explain Pelosi's unconstitutional position that Congress will not impeach no matter what?  Couldn't Pelosi point out at least that she was only talking about Bush?  Couldn't she allow justice to run its course for Cheney? 

Slaves to Christ and compassion unite: free markets must prevail

[Warning: Satire Ahead]

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

–John Maynard Keynes

If you’re nodding your head in agreement with Keynes and expecting validation of your opinion as you read this piece, you’re in for a rude awakening.

Forget the humanitarian, bleeding heart nonsense. Let’s reflect on the words of Thomas Sowell instead:

“Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on ‘income distribution,’ the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”

We live in reality ladies and gentlemen. Not some utopian fantasy dreamt up by the likes of idealistic dreamers like Marx and Engels.

Ours is indeed a cold, cruel world. The sooner each of us accepts our lot, makes the most of it, and moves on, the better off we will all be. The ingenious and industrious Bill Gates deserves every penny he has. By the same token, the dregs of society inhabiting places like Skid Row and eating from dumpsters are reaping their just rewards for their depraved, lazy, and ignorant ways.

Did U.S. intelligence assets kill Antioch College?

At the time of its announced closure, Antioch College, perhaps America’s most progressive and well-known peace college, had a few visible capitalist hawks on its Board of Trustees.

Bruce P. Bedford, one of only three Trustees not a former alum, had been appointed to the board of Arlington, Virginia company GlobeSecNine in 2005. The company is described by a representative of investment corporation Bear Sterns as having "a unique set of experiences in special forces, classified operations, transportation security and military operations." One can only speculate why the nation’s longest-standing anti-imperialist education institution would appoint a trustee with extensive ties to the military and security industrial complexes.

Business Wire on May 4, 2005 described GlobeSecNine as follows: "GlobeSecNine invests in companies providing U.S. defense, security, global trade management and supply chain solutions to the public and private sectors, and has a strategic alliance with The Scowcroft Group, a business advisory firm headed by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft."

King CONG in California declares total "New Nukes" war against Solartopia

A major pro-nuke "surge" against the renewable solution to global warming is about to erupt in California.

State assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) has moved for a statewide vote to allow new nuclear power plants to be built in the Golden State. He wants to repeal the 1976 law requiring a solution to the nuke waste problem before new reactors are built. A business cartel says it wants to build a new reactor near downtown near downtown Fresno. (For more information on the California situation, visit http://www.a4nr.org/)

So the nation's biggest state may soon be at war over new nukes. In essence, it's King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes and Gas) versus Solartopia. The core issue is who will control our energy: corporations, or the public.

The irony is that we stand at the brink of the greatest technological revolution in human history. But we're being dragged away from it by Big Money's push for a technology with fifty years of proven ecological disaster and financial failure.

Green energy is poised to remake our world.

Gender savagery in Guatemala

On the outskirts of Guatemala City the body of an 18-year-old woman of indigenous ethnicity was recently discovered by her frantic parents who had been searching long and hard. Forensic evidence showed that she had been repeatedly raped and tortured and that her head had been severed from her body with a blunt knife while she was still alive.

This killing was more than just a passing aberration. Nightmarish crimes against women have been occurring with horrifying frequency in Guatemala. In the last seven years, over 3,200 Guatemalan women have been abducted and murdered, with many of them raped, tortured, and mutilated in the doing. The number of victims has shown a striking increase in the last few years with some six hundred murdered in 2006 alone.

The victims often are from low-income families deracinated from their rural homesteads during the civil war and forced to crowd into Guatemala City and other urban areas in search of work.

Save the fishes at Franklin Park

Drop a dime on the eco-criminals at Franklin Park. Call the City of Columbus Hotline at "311" on your phone to complain about the slow death of the ponds at Franklin Park (Broad Street and Nelson Road) due to a faulty pump. For the past several months the elaborate ponds and waterways perfected at the park for Ameriflora in 1992, home to a thriving ecosystem of ducks, geese, fish, frogs, and other wildlife - has almost completely dried up killing in an unknown number of aquatic and other life forms.

If it was Les Wexner's pond and in New Albany, the city would have fixed it a long time ago. But an inner-city pond is allowed to go dry from neglect or indifference.

You you care about the natural ecosystem at Franklin Park and the lives of our fellow creatures, call the Mayor and tell him to get that pump fixed!

311 is the 911 on this emergency!!

Governor of Massachusetts favors impeachment

On Friday, 13 July, Governor Deval Patrick showed his skills at working with the Massachusetts Legislature by passing all but $40 million of a $28.4 billion legislative budget for fiscal year 2008, which starts on 1 July 2007.

On the beautiful Summer's eve of 12 July, in a lower field at the Patrick's secluded country retreat in Richmond, Massachusetts, a fund raiser was being held. For a mere minimum of $250, over three hundred supporters and elected officials gathered under a series of catered white tents with three bars flowing beverages to go with the hors d'oeuvre.

I bit the bullet, paid the entry fee, and armed with the March 2007, National Priorities Project's "War Costs to Massachusetts", I headed right for the governor. I dutifully waited for him to conclude his hello's to others ahead of me. In time he turned to me, "Hello, Bob", Deval offered his hand and warm smile, "Thanks so much for coming out tonight to see me."

Forbidden channel

FRANCE -- In a home near the Seine, four American women are engaged in what the Bush administration may consider an act of treason.

            They are watching the Forbidden Channel.

            They are watching Al Jazeera. If you watch it, They say the terrorists win.

            Of the four women, one is a card-carrying member of the Religious Right who twice voted for Bush. Another woman voted for him in 2000 but not the second time.

            The remaining women, one a registered Democrat, the other a Socialist -- which aren't the same thing -- are still angry about Hurricane Katrina and over 3,000 dead troops in Iraq.

            So this caucus across the Atlantic isn't about shared interests. Coco, Nikita, Sabine and Irma -- not their real names -- are drawn to the TV out of common curiosity.

            They want to see for themselves if Al Jazeera, at least the English-language version, is as bad as They said.

            So they quietly engage in the revolutionary act of supporting freedom of expression.

            They watch the Forbidden Channel.

Ohio Environmental Council’s Comments on U.S. Department of Energy’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

On behalf of the Ohio Environmental Council, I respectfully submit these comments on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP-PEIS). The OEC is a statewide environmental advocacy group representing over 100 environmental and conservation organizations and thousands of individual members throughout the state of Ohio. OEC’s mission is to advocate for healthy air, land, and water to make Ohio a better place in which to live, work, and play. In light of our mission and our role as a statewide environmental advocate, OEC has some grave concerns with DOE’s decision to consider the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio as a site for GNEP’s nuclear fuel recycling center and/or its advanced recycling reactor.

In response to the DOE’s request for comments on the proposed scope, alternatives and environmental issues to be analyzed by GNEP PEIS, OEC respectfully submits the comments below. OEC requests the DOE take these issues into consideration, and address these questions before moving forward on the GNEP program.

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