http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5531995.html


Informant: NHNE

Dokumentarfilm über die Montagsdemonstrationsbewegung zeigt, dass diese womöglich mehr bewirkte, als man gemeinhin glaubte.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20618/1.html

The Religious Right has corrupted Christianity beyond recognition.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9588.htm

The US has already secretly established a "huge military surveillance base" in the Algerian city of Tamanrassat.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG29Ak01.html


From Information Clearing House

Sgt. 1st Class Gerold Pratt of the Utah National Guard said he saw unidentified U.S. personnel use the 15-inch wooden handle to hit prisoners.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5172867,00.html


From Information Clearing House

http://www.bendermandefense.org/


From Information Clearing House

by David Edwards

The truth is that we are trained to value the lives of our countrymen more highly by a socio-political system that has much to gain from a restricted, patriotic version of compassion, and much to lose from an excess of popular concern for suffering inflicted on ’foreigners’ by our governments and corporations.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9592.htm

Common Dreams

by Deborah James

07/28/05

At 12:03 am on July 28th, the House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. CAFTA, which would expand NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic, would devastate farmers, privatize essential public services, and accelerate the race to the bottom on wages in the US and all over Central America. At the end of the allotted 15 minutes of voting time the count was 180 to 175 against CAFTA, so the Republican leadership kept the vote open over an hour, in order to bully legislators into approving the bill. In the final tally, which was 217 to 215, a full 15 Democrats voted in favor of big business by supporting CAFTA, while 25 Republicans defied the Bush Administration and voted against it. ... The full roll call vote is available at

http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2005&rollnumber=443."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0728-20.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/07/29/120.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

07/29/05

The idea that Hollywood is a bastion of left-wing antiwar sentiment, a pocket of Blue State subversion amid a sea of Red State jingoism, ought to be dispelled by the premiere of this series. The fictionalization of a war that has yet to be concluded -- and on television yet -- lends itself easily to the suspicion that we are somehow being manipulated into believing this conflict is what it isn't: a winnable fight, an heroic quest, a noble cause betrayed. Over There has some good music, a haunting theme song, is photographed beautifully -- and holds out great promise as possibly the most effective war propaganda since Hollywood jumped on the pro-war bandwagon during World War II...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6798


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Kn@ppster
by Thomas L. Knapp

07/28/05

Political division on the war issue is already beginning to transform itself from 'for' and 'against' to 'knew it was a bad idea all along' and 'we could have won if it hadn't been for those people who kept insisting on bringing up inconvenient facts and sapping our morale.' This latter position is just a natural outgrowth of politics. Admitting error is difficult. Admitting multiple and massive errors is wrenching. Admitting total error is damn near impossible. We're going to have to learn to live with the fact that the neoconservatives will never, ever, ever be able to bring themselves even to the point of Arthur Fonzarelli's 'I was wr ... wrrrrrr ... wro ... well, you know what I mean.' They will go to their graves believing that imminent and glorious victory, followed by world hegemony, was within their reach, and that Justin Raimondo stole it from them. Look closely. The 'we were defeated at home meme' is already starting to grow like mold on the rotting underside of the Jacobin blogosphere...

http://knappster.blogspot.com/2005/07/things-fall-apart.html

Washington Times

07/28/05

U.S. Army soldiers have used 'excessive' and 'unauthorized deadly force' in Iraq to defend supply convoys because they did not have the proper weapons, according to a commander's secret internal memorandum. The memo says soldiers need precision-guided pistols, in addition to heavy-fire machine guns, to ensure that innocent people are not killed. The memo was written by Brig. Gen. Joseph J. Chaves, who commands an Army National Guard brigade that performs the perilous job of guarding convoys that move in and out of Camp Anaconda, a sprawling logistics base near Balad, north of Baghdad. Such convoys have been the targets of numerous attacks by terrorists using suicide car bombs and other types of ambushes. In the March 15 memo, Gen. Chaves tells top commanders in Baghdad that he does not have the right mix of weapons to fire from the turrets of armored Humvees and other vehicles that guard supply trucks...

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050727-115941-2568r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNN

07/28/05

A survey of troops returning from the Iraq war found 30 percent had developed mental health problems three to four months after coming home, the Army's surgeon general said Thursday. The problems include anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and an inability to concentrate, according to Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and other military medical officials. A smaller group, usually with more severe cases of these symptoms, is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD...

http://tinyurl.com/7cwno


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Cincinnati Enquirer

07/28/05

After days of Democratic deference to John Roberts, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Thursday that documents made public so far indicate the Supreme Court nominee holds a 'rather cramped view of the Voting Rights Act.' Materials that Roberts drafted while at the Justice Department and White House counsel's office during the Reagan administration 'certainly raise some questions in my mind about his commitment' to civil rights, said Kennedy, D-Mass...

http://tinyurl.com/a6wtl


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Las Vegas Review-Journal

07/28/05

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, mistakenly [sic] told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday. Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general in 2003 as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency into prewar Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said...

http://tinyurl.com/b7ylq


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Mark Drolette

I was heartened by the reaction a group of about fifty of us received the other day when, prior to attending a Downing Street Memo (DSM) House Party, we all stood at a busy Sacramento intersection for an hour or so displaying signs and banners emblazoned with messages about the leaked highly classified British government papers that prove the Bushies cooked the Iraq war books. Honks of support a-sounded, and I personally had only one official bird sighting. It was encouraging, but there’s obviously a very long way to go before the millions of Americans who are still unaware of the documents finally learn of their existence...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Drolette0727.htm

by Jack Random

If we accept the premise that New York Times reporter Judy Miller chose to go to jail rather than reveal a source who blew the cover of a CIA agent, then who in the White House has forsaken a loyal servant and one who went to the ends of the earth to support the president’s foreign policy, even to the extent of treating a notoriously unreliable source as if he were the one true Bohdi Satya?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Random0728.htm

by Paul Rogat Loeb

From the moment the John Roberts nomination was announced, the media called it a done deal. NPR and the New York Times gushed over his humility, humor, and congeniality. With Roberts's belief system barely mentioned, you'd think Bush had just nominated Mister Rogers. In the wake of this media love fest, I keep encountering people who oppose everything Roberts has stood for, but see no use in trying to stop what seems his inevitable confirmation. But we can make a powerful impact by raising the discomforting truth that Roberts may be closer to a smiling Antonin Scalia. However the Senators vote -- and it's not foreordained, the more we raise key issues and principles, the more they'll echo down the line around future nominations and policies...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Loeb0728.htm

by Mike Whitney

The “evil ideology” that underscores the war on terror is predicated on two basic theories: preemption and enemy combatants. Both of these run counter to fundamental principles of human rights and democratic governance. Both must be met head on and defeated. There is no wiggle room for equivocating or appeasement; this ideology is the greatest manifestation of fanaticism in the world since the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and must be collectively challenged. As Tony Blair says, “This is not an isolated criminal act” but “an extreme and evil ideology” thrusting us towards global war and ever-increasing human rights abuse...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Whitney0728-3.htm

by Ken Sanders

It was all I could do not to let out a guffaw when I heard House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay talk about the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) the other day. While discussing the Republicans' urgent need to pass CAFTA (in the name of national security, no less), DeLay remarked, without a touch of irony, "We find ourselves today with Democratic leaders browbeating members against voting their principles for politics sake." DeLay's hypocritical self-righteousness is simply awe-inspiring. There he was, the man with such a penchant for browbeating that he is not-so-affectionately called "The Hammer," condemning Democrats for allegedly following his lead, albeit in a far less bludgeoning fashion. I mean, this is the guy who threatens to take committee seats away from fellow Republicans who, because of their damnable principles, won't vote the way he wants them to. DeLay has also been known to "primary" recalcitrant Republicans by actively recruiting primary opponents to run against them...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Sanders0722.htm

by Bill Berkowitz

One of the first orders of business for George W. Bush in January 2001 was to establish a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the cornerstone social policy of his presidency. At a ceremony attended by numerous religious leaders, Bush announced executive orders that instructed the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban Development to set up Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within their agencies. That done, Bush moved to cement his executive actions in congressional legislation. There he was rebuffed, however, over objections that government money would be used for religious proselytization, and that recipients of government grants would be allowed to discriminate in their hiring, based on religion. Bush called on Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to craft a legislative compromise. When they failed to win a consensus, the president went back to issuing executive orders. Now, House allies are trying to come up with a legislative package that will pass muster. One of the keys to the compromise is a "Sense of the Congress" resolution dealing with the religious hiring question...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Berkowitz0728.htm

by Mike Whitney

“The bottom line is this, failure in Iraq is now considered an ‘existential threat” to America’s continued dominance in the world. We should not anticipate that that is something that American elites will easily relinquish...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Whitney0728-2.htm

by Paul Street

How about that wild and wacky world capitalist system? The United States is clearly the world's "hegemonic" military power. The U.S. government's capacity for "forward global force projection" is stupendous and its imperial "defense" budget" matches the combined military expenditures of all potential enemy states many times over. Things are a little different in the economic sphere, however, and all the money the U.S. is spending on militarism and empire is part of the problem for Uncle Sam...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Street0728.htm

Defying predictions, the sun continues to ignore its established 11-year solar cycle. It has remained extremely active long past what should have been the beginning of the solar minimum, and now another group of enormous sunspots has appeared on the far side and is rotating in our direction.

Eight coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have exploded away from the sun since July 22nd. This high level of activity is not producing auroras on Earth, however, because none of the CMEs is heading our way. All of the blasts have been on the farside of the sun.

That's about to change, though, according to solar observers, because the active area is rotating in earth's direction.

Last year, the sun may have signalled a period of unrest when the solar magentic pole shift, which takes place every 11 years, failed to complete. The sun's magnetic field is now in a more-or-less horizontal position, because the shift between north and south poles did not complete.

Whether or not this has anything to do with high levels of solar activity is unknown.

Normally, not even the most violent solar explosions have a significant effect on earth, beyound disrupting radio and satellite communications and, in extremely rare cases, affecting power grids that are improperly shielded against solar energy.

However, sufficiently strong coronal mass ejections also bring heat with them, and this can cause ground temperatures to soar over the short term, especially in dry areas. Given the large number of dry forests on earth at this time, should such a CME head toward the planet, further heating and drying can be expected, and, in some cases, there is the possibility of spontaneous combustion, especially of plants rich in volatile oils.

http://www.unknowncountry.com


Speaking of forest fires, as I travelled through the Rockies on my way west I drove through a mountain town called Barriere. About two years ago, a careless volunteer fire-fighter threw his still-lit cigarette butt away and ignited a couple of mountains. The resulting inferno destroyed thousands and thousands of acres of heavily forested mountainside, on both sides of the river and almost took out the town of Barriere. Thanks to the tireless and desperate efforts of the townspeople and firefighters, the town was saved. This was my first look at the area since the fire and it was a sad, depressing sight to see mile and miles of blackend trees, the only remains of what was once deeply wooded and teeming with life.

The fire-fighter came forward and confessed to his deed and was charged thousands of dollars in fines, but his days will be far from easy for a very long time as many are suing because their homes and livelihood (a lumber mill) were lost.

Di

http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_fires20030806
http://tinyurl.com/a59fr