Canoe: Dim future for life on Earth - study

"'Nearly two thirds of the services provided by nature to human kind are found to be in decline worldwide. In effect, the benefits reaped from our engineering of the planet have been achieved by running down natural capital assets.

'In many cases it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children.'"

This story was widely highlighted in the international press but largely ignored in the US.

Scary stuff to have reality thrust upon you but an international group of scientists. And it is entirely believable. We all know, from everyday experience, that it has become all to easy to overconsume. The Brits and the Yanks seem to think that their "economies" depend upon this overconsumption and thus one should simply ignore that it is for a limited time only at current levels.

Bubba Bush won't let Kyoto get in the way of the American economy. Blair doesn't want to have to pare back the 48 hour workweek in Britain (contrast to 35 hours in France). Bush wants to drill in ANWR, destroying an entire and rare ecosystem for a few days' oil.

This state of affairs seems to lend more credence to the Bush strategy, which reminds me enormously of former Interior secretary James Watts (under Reagan, yeah it's been a while). James Watts was a proponent of industrializing the forests. Part of his argument was "The world is coming to an end soon, anyway."

The Bush administration is fairly close to another group of this sort, the "Left Behind" group. These folks are also proponents of the end of the world and they are making a mint selling this "upbeat" vision. The idea, much like the Social Security privitization scam, is that "you" can go to heaven after the end of the world even if everyone else is going to hell. And what better way? But the "Left Behind" series of books. And believe! (And pay, of course!)

The Victoria Advocate | Foreign Students in La Grange

The Victoria Advocate put a local piece in today's paper about visiting students from Germany.

Some interesting commentarty:

"What surprised the German students was that America's reputation for free speech didn't extend to the classroom.

'I thought in America you can have more of your own opinion,' Feineb Hamdi said. 'We seem to have more freedom in Germany.'

...

Other students said school dress codes is another way U.S. students are denied freedom of expression."

That's right: more freedoms in Germany. Not to mention France. But now that fundamentalism has become so rampant here in France, the "no overt religious symbols in public schools" law has been passed in an attempt to keep public institutions secular. So in France you can wear a miniskirt to school but no headscarves, while in Texas you can't wear the miniskirt but the religious symbols are fine. Go figure.

A chilling sidebit in the Advocate:

The church activities in particular surprised the German students who explained that most of them rarely attend services other than for the major church holidays. And at least one admits to being essentially agnostic.

The way the Advocate tells it, it'd be fine for these "jungen" to be neo-nazis as long as they are "good Christians". Imagine that: an agnostic! Horror!

And of course it's also an interesting sign of the times that these students are from Germany whereas "La Grange" is named after the chateau of the famous Marquis de La Fayette, who also gave his name to "Fayette County". (But, of course, we just choose to ignore those french guys that helped out America way back when.)

The New York Times | Frank Rich: The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay

"The president was not about to be outpreached [...] . The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,' flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Within hours he turned Ms. Schiavo into a slick applause line at a Social Security rally. 'It is wise to always err on the side of life,' he said, wisdom that apparently had not occurred to him in 1999, when he mocked the failed pleas for clemency of Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Texas death-row inmate, in a magazine interview with Tucker Carlson."

The horse-hooey is getting pretty deep in Christland. Founding fathers rolling over in the graves and all that.

The New York Times | Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News

"Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting."

This sounds pretty much as if it were straight out of "Manufacturing Consent".

The New York Times | Bush Ends Southern Tour Promoting Private Accounts

"Hecklers tried to interrupt Mr. Bush four times during his appearance in Memphis. This was the second consecutive day in which the White House let opponents slip through its normally tight control over crowds at presidential events. But the dissenting voices on Friday - each raising an objection to a point Mr. Bush was making about Social Security - could barely be heard. "

Bubba Bush prefers a crowd full of Gannons -- he can't take the scrutiny of thinking Americans.

"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves": Paul Robeson Appears Before HUAC

"Many African-American witnesses subpoenaed to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearings in the 1950s were asked to denounce Paul Robeson (1888 --1976) in order to obtain future employment. Robeson, an All-American football player and recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa key at Rutgers, received a law degree at Columbia. He became an internationally acclaimed concert performer and actor as well as a persuasive political speaker. In 1949, Robeson was the subject of controversy after newspapers reports of public statements that African Americans would not fight in 'an imperialist war.' In 1950, his passport was revoked. Several years later, Robeson refused to sign an affidavit stating that he was not a Communist and initiated an unsuccessful lawsuit. In the following testimony to a HUAC hearing, ostensibly convened to gain information regarding his passport suit, Robeson refused to answer questions concerning his political activities and lectured bigoted Committee members Gordon H. Scherer and Chairman Francis E.Walter about African-American history and civil rights. In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen"s right to travel could not be taken away without due process and Robeson's passport was returned. "

Got this off of cursor.

It was not so very long ago that the most horrific, anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, un-American procedings were taking place in full daylight with a full following within the US.

These things have continued to some extent to this day. Guantanamo is such a case, for instance. The press has not shed much light on these current-day activities so there is no uproar. Gannongate goes unnoticed. HST's death is more than symbolic -- we are seeing the worst sort of Fear and Loathing in the current administration.

Bubba Bush and the Christian Coalition (sic) are bringing back the glory days of McCarthy. America is getting HUACed-up!

washingtonpost: Differences in Information in Shooting of Italian Journalist/Security

"The day after the shooting, a spokesman for the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad said the checkpoint was a temporary one and may have been difficult to see at night.
...
According to the Italian government's version of events, given earlier this week by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, the Italians drove to the airport at a moderate speed of less than 40 mph because it was raining. During the drive Calipari had the light on in the car so he could make calls informing his superiors and U.S. military authorities of their travel to the airport, Italian officials said.
...
As the car emerged from a half-flooded underpass, it slowed down to make a sharp right around blocks of concrete, they said. Halfway through the turn, a sharp beam of light hit the car from some 30 yards away from the right side of the road. 'As the driver consequently put on the brakes, bringing the vehicle almost immediately to a halt, fire from probably two automatic weapons opened up and lasted approximately 10 to 15 seconds,' Fini told the Italian Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday. "

That's from the WashPost.

Associated Press had some coverage from Italy yesterday. The title makes it sound like a Human Interest piece: "Hostage's Joy Quickly Turned to Disaster". But the article is much scarier:

"Fini [Italian Foreigh Minister] says photos of the vehicle show the shots "reached the right side of the car," where both windows are shattered and bullet holes are visible.

RAI TV shows photos of the car, saying there's no evidence of bullet holes in the engine block. Sgrena says the fire was coming from "the right-hand side and from behind."

"It's not true that they shot into the engine," she says."

So the US story is nowhere confirmed. The car was not speeding, it did not refuse to stop, the US checkpoint did not shoot into the engine.

And about that checkpoint, from CNN:

"The fact that shooting apparently occurred at curve in the road raises questions about visibility -- from the perspective of both the temporary checkpoint and from the car, the official said on Friday."

This is not going to go away, not like Gannongate. Bubba Bush has lost a toehold in old Europe.

New York Times | Gonzo Gone, Rather Going, Watergate Still Here

"Read 'Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72' - the chronicle of his Rolling Stone election coverage - and you find that his diagnosis of journalistic dysfunction hasn't aged a day: 'The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists.'
...
But even Thompson might have been shocked by what's going on now. "The death of Thompson represents the passing from the Age of Gonzo to the Age of Gannon," wrote Russell Cobb in a column in The Daily Texan at the University of Texas.
...
Though a few remain on the case - Eric Boehlert of Salon, mediamatters.org, Joe Strupp of Editor and Publisher - the Gannon story is fast receding. In some major news venues, including ABC and CBS, it never surfaced at all."

You read it here first!

CNN.com | U.S. sorry over Italian hostage shooting

"U.S. President George W. Bush has phoned the Italian prime minister to express his regrets after American troops opened fire on a car carrying a freed hostage, killing one of her bodyguards.

Bush's call came after Silvio Berlusconi demanded the U.S. ambassador to Italy explain what happened. U.S. military officials said the incident is being investigated.

Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari was killed when he tried to shield 56-year-old former hostage Giuliana Sgrena from gunfire as they approached a military checkpoint near the airport in Baghdad.

Calipari, who has worked to release other Italian hostages, died when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her."

This is hardly a unique or isolated incident. The number of killings of Iraqi families in cars that have made the news is countless -- and is probably a thin proportion of the real number of such incidents. Remember: no press was in Fallujah. We don't know what happened there, although the few stories to get out are horrifying.

Eason Jordan was fired from CNN for suggesting that the US Army targetted reporters. Many reporters have been killed in Iraq by US forces, including these (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Perhaps it is not so much that reporters are targetted but that anything that moves is targetted. Shoot 'em up and let Allah sort 'em out!

This strategy clearly backfires for all intents and purposes. Since Iraq, the US is renowned for being a ruthless, reckless killer, at least outside the US. Insurgents feel justified in their bombings because they are attacking the great Satan. Nothing gets better.

But no apologies arise unless, oh my, a "friend" is hurt. In this case, the "friend" was Italy. An Italian secret service member was killed while saving the Italian reporter who had just been released as a hostage. We are given to understand that being a hostage is perhaps "safer" than being at the business end of US Army weapons.

Hostility to the Berlusconi government is on the rise in Italy and this case will certainly bring on more heat. We may soon witness in Italy a reenactment of the Spanish regime change. Keep it up Bubba Bush, you will have alienated your administration from the entire world!