Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Iraq Attacks Kill 13

BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of bombings and shootings around Iraq Tuesday claimed 13 lives, including four policemen, an Iraqi army general and a 9-year-old girl, Iraqi officials said.


While violence has dropped overall across the country, the attacks underline the continued threat to government employees and members of the security forces, who are often targeted by insurgents trying to destabilize the country.

The four policemen were killed when an explosives-laden car detonated next to a police patrol in the town of Beiji, 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of Baghdad, said Iraqi police officials. A civilian in a nearby vehicle was also killed and at least seven civilians were wounded in that attack.

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Bravo comment: Take a second to think about the literally tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died since we started this war.  Now remember that this war was started on false pretenses (lies).  Now realize that it has not made you safer.  Now ask yourself what the world might be like if we had never allowed this bullshit war to begin with.  Thousands of Iraqi children would get to grow up.  Thousands of American soldiers, still alive.  Trillions of dollars, still in America and out of the hands of war profiteers.
 
I think we just struck the true motive for all this killing and misery.


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U.S. Quietly Building Armada Near Iran

Debkafile's military sources report that Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran's shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.



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Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth: News Media at War

For many Americans, one of the strongest reasons for accepting the official story about the shocking events of Sept. 11, 2001, is their deep-seated belief in the free press. We are taught from an early age that the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us many cherished freedoms, among which is freedom of the press.

If there were really any serious problems with the official 9-11 explanation, many Americans reason, this information wouldn't go unreported for long in our media-saturated society. Major news organizations such as CNN, Time, and the New York Times would most certainly investigate and report any serious problems almost immediately. Nearly all major American news organizations have embraced the government's version of events with few questions asked. Consequently, many Americans naturally conclude that it's safe to accept the official story at face value.

There is a very serious flaw in this line of reasoning, however: The United States is at war and, for nearly a hundred years, the U.S. government, major media companies and leading journalists have joined forces with the military during wars and other national emergencies to shape public opinion by carefully controlling what Americans are told about world events.


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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Pacific Garbage Patch Plastic Recycled As Vacuum Cleaners

Electrolux is known for pushing the envelope on design, including sustainable design. And their latest project has our full attention. Pointing out that there isn't enough recycled plastic on land to supply demand, Electrolux is backing a project that would pull plastics from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and recycle it into appliances like vacuum cleaners. The project would simultaneously create (slightly) more sustainable products as well as help clean up the oceans. But, does it make real sense?

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Bravo Comment: If you ask me, this is a much better way to reduce damage from the Pacific Garbage Patch than turning it into a floating island (see below).


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Iceland's gay prime minister weds partner

Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir has married her long-term partner, her office said on Monday, making her the world's first national leader with a same-sex spouse.


Sigurdardottir, 67, married writer Jonina Leosdottir on Sunday, the day a new law took effect defining marriage as a union between two consenting adults regardless of sex.


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Architecture Firm Wants to Make Ocean Pollution Into Floating Plastic Island

The idea for the massive Recycled Island was developed by WHIM architecture as a way to clean the oceans and create a new floating habitat dedicated to sustainable living, complete with beaches, farms, and buildings. Ideally placed in the Pacific, between San Francisco and Hawaii, the island would be some 4 thousand square miles of plastic 'land' upon which plastic communities would be built.

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Bravo comment: Since the danger of plastic leaching and settling on the ocean floor wouldn't be eliminated, does this really do what we want?


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Study Finds Body's Potential Universal Flu Defence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The human body makes rare antibodies effective against all flu viruses and these might be boosted to design a better universal flu treatment, researchers reported on Monday.

Bravo Comment: In a world where the WHO is connected to and corrupted by pharmaceutical companies who are interested in scaring people into buying their vaccines, shouldn't you want to educate yourself about alternatives?

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EWG's Cancer Prevention Tips

Four of every 10 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes, and two of every 10 will die from it. Beyond talking to your doctor about lifestyle changes that are known to make a difference -- stopping smoking, reducing drinking, losing weight, exercising and eating right -- there are things you can do to reduce your risk.

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Radio Station Empowers Palestinian Women

A group of women in the West Bank this month launched one of the first all-women's radio stations in the Arab world.

Giving women hope for the future is one of the goals of the station, Nisaa FM, which started broadcasting this month from the West Bank town of Ramallah.

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U.S. Troop Deaths in Afghanistan Now at 53 for June

 U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said Sunday the American died Saturday. He did not provide further details because family members had not been notified.

June has been one of the deadliest months for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with 53 Americans killed including the latest death. That's approaching the toll of 59 dead in October 2009 - the deadliest month of the nine-year war for U.S. forces.

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Israel Revoking Residency for Palestinian Jerusalemites Who Work or Study Abroad

Palestinians who choose to study and work abroad are finding out - too late - that they have imperiled their right to return to their hometown.

Bravo Comment: Can you say "ethnic cleansing"?

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Friday, June 18, 2010

SC Dems Keep Alvin Greene in Play

An unemployed man who can't explain where he got the money to file as a political candidate and who is facing a felony obscenity charge will be the Democratic Party's candidate for the US Senate in South Carolina this fall.


The executive board of the South Carolina Democratic Party voted Thursday night not to overturn the results of the June 8 primary that saw Alvin Greene, a political unknown, defeat the establishment-backed candidate, Jim Rawl, with 59 percent of the vote.

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Utah Deathrow Prisoner Clenched Fist After Firing Squad Execution

Five sharpshooters fired bullets through the heart of double murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner on Friday, making him the first US prisoner in 14 years to be executed by firing squad.


Shackled to a chair and with a black hood covering his head, Gardner, 49, was put to death just after midnight in a brightly lit execution chamber at Utah State Prison.

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle, one of nine journalists who witnessed the execution, "focused on [Gardner's] fist."

At the bottom of his restraint, I focused on his fist. Gardner died much the way he lived -- with a clenched fist.

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Israeli Jews Protest School Integration With...Other Israeli Jews!

 Thousands of police were put on high alert on Thursday for the ultra-Orthodox protests over a supreme court ruling to jail a group of parents of European origin, or Ashkenazis, for refusing to send their daughters to a school with Jewish girls whose families originate from Arab countries, known as Sephardis.

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Thursday, June 17, 2010

International Criminal Court Makes Waging War a Crime

For the first time in the war stricken story of mankind, waging aggressive wars has become a prosecutable crime in international law and given precise meaning and teeth before the ICC - this on the strength of an unexpected consensus reached between member states of the Court (or in ICC terminology 'states parties').
The conference in Kampala concluded with the adoption of a resolution that at last defined the crime of aggression listed in Article 5 of the Rome Statute - the Court's founding treaty - using the UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) as a guide.

The resolution, in effect, criminalises the use of force (for example: blockades, invasions, bombardments) against another country in violation of the Charter of the United Nations; giving the Court the power to try future political and military leaders who plan, prepare, initiate or execute illegal wars, and to hold them (individually) criminally responsible for the commission of this new, and long-overdue, international crime.

Equally importantly, the Kampala resolution settled the conditions under which the ICC could exercise jurisdiction over the crime.

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War in Afghanistan Claims 3 More American Lives

On Wednesday, three Americans were killed by roadside bombs, pushing the death toll among U.S. troops so far this month to 31. NATO said one U.S. servicemember died in a bombing in southern Afghanistan, and two were killed in a bombing in the north.

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Israel Bans Pro-Peace Journalist From Jerusalem

The latest gimmick of the Israeli occupation under the guise of "security considerations" has emerged. The test subject: Nasser Laham, a Palestinian journalist from Bethlehem who is close with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and who advocates peace with Israel.


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Cheerios: Not As Healthy As They Say

Depending on the marketing campaign, boxes will have various slogans like “Clinically proven to help reduce cholesterol“. This gets the average consumer convinced that this cereal must be healthy and is definitely a way to fight cholesterol. However, just a little research into how clinical studies are run, will quickly show that they can be made to conclude in favor of whatever product is being tested. In the end, remember one important health rule:
“Never believe anything on the front of the box.”
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BP Spill May Be Unstoppable

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same.

To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, [the failure of Top Kill] was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.
What does this mean?

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8 House members investigated over fundraisers held near financial reform vote

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating eight lawmakers who held fundraisers within 48 hours of a major House vote on a Wall Street reform bill or received substantial donations from business people with a financial stake in the bill, according to congressional sources and letters.


The probe is focused on whether the timing of accepting the campaign checks created an unacceptable appearance of a conflict, according to sources familiar with the investigation and letters sent by the OCE to lobbyists requesting information.

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Lieberman Wants To Give President Internet 'Kill Switch'

A new US Senate Bill would grant the President far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of, or even shut down, portions of the internet.

The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.


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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Death by BP: It's Not Just For Americans Anymore

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A construction worker was killed at BP's Rotterdam refinery after a wall collapsed on him, a spokesman for the oil major said on Wednesday.
The man, who was working for an external contractor, was hit after a piece of the wall fell from a crane.

The BP spokesman said the accident did not affect the running of the refinery, which is the second largest in Europe and processes around 386,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil. (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde)

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SC Vote Machines Have "Systemic" Failure

"There are numerous complaints. Everything from having my name show up on a Republican primary ballot to all sorts of issues with regard to the computer cards, with regard to the difference between the absentee votes versus the actual vote during the day of the machine voting. We are convinced that there is something amiss with regard to either the software or the machines themselves," Rawl told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
"My understanding is they're machines that have been -- there have been serious problems with them in Arkansas and Florida and Louisiana and other places. They have a history. The biggest problem, of course, they didn't have a paper trail whatsoever," Rawl continued.


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Green Peace Wet Dream: Whale Poo Fights Climate Change

PARIS (AFP) – Southern Ocean sperm whales are an unexpected ally in the fight against global warming, removing the equivalent carbon emissions from 40,000 cars each year thanks to their feces, a study found on Wednesday.

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Scientists: BP Leak Might Equal Exxon Valdez Every 4 Days

Scientists provided a new estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday that indicates it could be leaking up to 2.52 million gallons of crude a day.

"That is roughly 2.5 million gallons of oil a day, and it means an amount equal to the Exxon Valdez spill could be gushing from the well about every four days," the New York Times notes.

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Wikileaks Says It Has Video of U.S. Massacre in Afghanistan

Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange says he has obtained video of a US "massacre" that took place in Afghanistan in 2009.
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Sasquatch Encounter in North Carolina

Tim Peeler thought he was calling coyotes, but he got something that frightened even this self-proclaimed North Carolina mountain man.

“Instead of them, there was him,“ he bellowed. “The thing was 10 feet tall with beautiful hair, yellowish hair and a yellow beard,“ said Peeler.


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Loose Ends: Proof of 9/11 Put Options Destroyed

It appears documents that would have shown us exactly who knew about 9/11 BEFORE it happened have been destroyed in not one but BOTH organizations where they would have been found.  The perps were human and made a number of mistakes, but this is one important loose end they seem to have tidied up handily. 

Said the SEC to the FOIA request for the put option documents and investigation:
This letter is in response to your request seeking access to and copies of the documentary evidence referred to in footnote 130 of Chapter 5 of the September 11 (9/11) Commission Report...We have been advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed.
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Mapping the Best Spots for Solar Energy Collection

Aerial mapping company Bluesky is developing ground-breaking technology to automatically pinpoint the best locations for solar panels. Using aerial remote sensing technology including aircraft mounted lasers and digital aerial photography, the 3D solar energy maps will identify homes and other buildings with roofs that may be suitable for mounting solar panels to generate renewable energy.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Republican Suggests Landmines on Border

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- The Republican nominee for a New Mexico congressional seat suggested during a radio interview that the United States could place land mines along the Mexican border to secure the international boundary.

Bravo comment: Just another example of "compassionate conservatism"!

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Expert Suggests BP Hiding Carcasses

Speaking on MSNBC's "Countdown" Monday night, Marine toxicologist Riki Ott alleged that oil giant BP is actively attempting to curb coverage of the recent oil spill by removing oiled animal carcasses from Gulf beaches.

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