The War Drums Are Getting Louder and Sounding a Clear Message - "The way things are today, why on earth would those in charge in Washington ever want another war or maybe two of them. Already they're embroiled in two out-of-control debacles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the country is leaching multi-billions we don't have to pay for them. Despite this hopeless chaos, it looks almost certain we're now headed for a new one with Iran and may try to "double our displeasure" by adding still another with Venezuela to remove their twice democratically elected President Hugo Chavez. ... Readers should understand and never forget that Hugo Chavez gave the people of Venezuela a participatory democracy and an array of essential social programs for everyone, especially the 80% or more poor or desperately poor who never before had them. That's why the majority of Venezuelans love him, will likely fight to protect and keep him, and will never easily surrender the essential services they now have. That's also why the US hates him and will try to remove him. He represents the greatest of all threats to us - a good example, one that may spread to other nations, and we can never tolerate that. It's bad for business. By US rules it's corporations first, second, third, and to hell with the people. We're doing the same thing here in the US so why would we ever care about those dark-skinned Venezuelans - except the rich ones, of course. With them the only color that counts is green."
Sleuths look for the tiniest smoking gun that could lead to war on Iran - "A single stray picogram of plutonium, one trillionth of a gram, is all that is needed to raise suspicions that a civilian nuclear plant could be making weapons-grade material. "It is like looking for fingerprints," said Mr Donohue. "To make a bomb you need about 10kg of plutonium or enriched uranium, but we can find nanograms or picograms, which are about 15 orders of magnitude less than that. There's just no way you can hide it.""
Government in secret talks about strike against Iran - "A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran. It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme."
Keeping It Quiet: The Israel Lobby's Crushing of Dissent - "The first weapon of choice for the Israeli lobby when someone with prestige publishes a soundly researched paper or book critical of Israel or its powerful lobby is silence. If it's a book, it rarely gets reviewed; its author doesn't get interviewed. If it's a paper, there are no news stories in the big corporate press, no interviews with the authors, no television appearances. For the average American who depends on the press to tell him what's going on, it's as if the criticism never existed. The second weapon is, of course, to launch vicious personal attacks."
Most favored nation - "In all the controversy over a recent Kennedy School paper on 'the Israel lobby,' perhaps the most interesting question has gone largely unasked: Has the closeness of the US-Israel alliance been good for Israel?"
A just peace or no peace - "Do policymakers in Washington and Europe ever feel ashamed of their scandalous double standards? Before and since the Palestinian elections in January, they have continually insisted that Hamas comply with certain demands. They want us to recognise Israel, call off our resistance, and commit ourselves to whatever deals Israel and the Palestinian leadership reached in the past. But we have not heard a single demand of the Israeli parties that took part in this week's elections, though some advocate the complete removal of the Palestinians from their lands."
Editor hits back over Israel row - "The article has been praised by white supremacist and former head of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke - a move that Wilmers admits was 'unsettling'. 'I don't want David Duke to endorse the article,' he told The Observer from France on Friday. 'It makes me feel uncomfortable. But when I re-read the piece, I did not see anything that I felt should not have been said. Maybe it is because I am Jewish, but I think I am very alert to anti-Semitism. And I do not think that criticising US foreign policy, or Israel's way of going about influencing it, is anti-Semitic. I just don't see it.'"
Meeting Doctor Doom - "But there was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1), the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist."
Clean the Blood, Cure Bird Flu? - "California researchers say a blood-cleaning machine could save lives if bird flu becomes a pandemic. Fighting viruses by cleansing the blood might sound too good to be true, and many infectious disease experts say it is. The device, called the Hemopurifier, performs a type of dialysis. According to James Joyce, founder and CEO of Aethlon Medical in San Diego, it can also remove smallpox and the Ebola and Marburg viruses. The Hemopurifier works against so many different viruses, according to Joyce, that the device could one day serve as a "portable immune system.""
America's war on the web - "IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will. In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald."
New York mayor: Fairways would sufferif undocumented immigrants sent home - "While Congress debates immigration reform, weighing proposals ranging from making it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, to building a wall along the border with Mexico, to adopting a guest worker program that leads to full citizenship, New York City's billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg has weighed in against deporting illegal aliens because they are the ones who take care of the golf courses."
Poll: Most Open to Letting Immigrants Stay - "Americans are divided about whether illegal immigrants help or hurt the country, a poll finds. More than one-half of those questioned are open to allowing undocumented workers to obtain some temporary legal status so they can stay in the United States. At the same time, people doubt that erecting a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border could help to fix such a complex and enduring problem, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Two-thirds do not think it would work."
'Paedophiles are outed. Why shouldn't those involved in abortion be, too?' - ""Naming and shaming is fine by me," Mr Dowson, the leader of the pro-life UK Life League, says with a somewhat self-satisfied smile. "Paedophiles are outed, why shouldn't those involved in abortion be, too? After all, they are murderers. A child may survive a paedophile. No child survives an abortion clinic.""
The Prostitution of John McCain - "In case you missed it, this past week completed the transformation of John McCain from GOP maverick to Republican prostitute. In his no-holds barred pursuit of the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, the Arizona Senator has exchanged his seething hatred of George W. Bush for a fawning courtship and high-profile bootlicking of the Bush political machine."
Catholic Billionaire Envisions City of God - "America's newest town is rising up in the midst of a dusty tomato field in southwest Florida. And if the Catholics building it have their way, this ultraconservative community with a 65-foot crucifix at its center will be the closest thing to heaven on Earth. They envision a town that adheres to strict religious values, a place void of adult bookstores, strip clubs, massage parlors and abortion clinics. At one time they had planned to prohibit the sale of contraceptives at drugstores and bar X-rated channels from cable television. But the law got in the way." -- Well, then who the hell would want to live there?
Experiment: Closed-Heart Surgery - "Dr. Samuel Lichtenstein cut a 2-inch hole between an elderly man's ribs. Peering inside, he poked a pencil-sized wire up into the chest, piercing the bottom of the man's heart. Within minutes, Bud Boyer would have a new heart valve -- without having his chest cracked open. Call it closed-heart surgery. ... The hope is that one day, replacing a heart valve could become almost an overnight procedure."
Ohio set to pass zero tolerance 'drugged driving' law - "Activists groups that focus on the decriminalization of marijuana are outraged that the almost-certain-to-become law will also target individuals found with trace amounts of tetra-hydro cannabinol or THC - the active ingredient in the drug - still in their system, even if they weren't "drugged" at the time. Marijuana can remain in a user's system for up to weeks afterward."
Battle Brews As Porn Moves Into Mainstream - "Harmer is part of a cadre of anti-porn activists seeking new tactics to fight an unprecedented deluge of porn which they see as wrecking countless marriages and warping human sexuality. They are urging federal prosecutors to pursue more obscenity cases and raising funds for high-tech brain research that they hope will fuel lawsuits against porn magnates. "We don't think it's a lost cause," said Harmer, a Utah-based auto executive and former politician who's been fighting porn for 40 years. "It's the most profitable industry in the world," he said. "But I'm convinced we'll demonstrate in the not-too-distant future the actual physical harm that pornography causes and hold them financially accountable. That could be the straw that breaks their back.""
A Burning Need for More Porn - "If you could buy a porn video, download it in about an hour and burn it to a DVD that will play in any standard drive, would you do it? What if it had built-in digital rights management (DRM) code that only let you burn the file to disk one time, and one time only? Vivid, arguably the most tech-savvy of the big adult entertainment studios, is launching a new Burn to DVD service on April 3 with the expectation that you, and millions like you, will. "We expect the service to be extremely popular," says Hirsch. "Just hit the button, download and burn." The prices for a DVD by download are the same as a traditional DVD, about $25 per feature, and your homemade DVD sports the same menu system, chapter navigation and any interactive features included with the original. Print the jacket art, add a jewel case and it's just like the real thing, without a plain brown wrapper or a trip to the store."
New Maine Law Shields Animals in Domestic Violence Cases - "In the past, she said in a telephone interview yesterday, he had retaliated against her by running over her blind and deaf border collie named Katydid, shooting two sheep and wringing the necks of her prized turkeys. "It wasn't just the cats and the dogs I had, it was the sheep and the chickens I was terrified for their welfare," Ms. Walsh, 50, said. "I knew if I were to leave, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them. He had done it before." Experts on domestic violence say accounts like that of Ms. Walsh, who is now divorced, are not unusual. They say many men who abuse wives or girlfriends threaten or harm their animals to coerce or control the women. To address the problem, Maine's governor, John Baldacci, signed a bill yesterday that allows animals to be included in protection orders in domestic violence cases. ... Maine is believed to be the first state with such a law. But the issue has captured attention around the country as police departments, domestic-violence programs, animal protection societies and state officials become increasingly aware of a link between domestic violence and animal abuse."
Pet food is healthier than fast food! - "It may seem a bit over the top, but a new study has found that the tins of cat and dog food you feed your favourite pet is not only good for their health but yours as well, for it contains less fat, salt and sugar levels than fast food."
Quote of the Day
"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death."
~ Adolf Hitler
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