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unhappycamper
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May 5, 2013
Pentagon Uses the Upcoming "Man of Steel" Superman Movie to Promote New F-35 Fighter Jet
By Sean McElwee
May 1, 2013 |
The new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will fly its first mission on June 14, 2013, but it won’t be over Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen. It’ll be over the mythical town of Smallville, in the upcoming Man of Steel.In reality, the F-35 may never fly. The program is currently grounded, due to flight difficulties, after the government poured $400 billion into it. Reuters reports that the final cost of the program might be, sit down… $1.5 trillion dollars.
It’s an open secret in Hollywood that before the MPAA reviews many movies, the Pentagon does. David Robb documents the practice in his book Operation Hollywood.Whenever movie producers want to use Pentagon equipment: helicopters, bases, submarines, etc. they send a request to the Pentagon, along with five copies of the script. The Pentagon replies with proposed changes to the script, which the producer must either accept, or forgo the equipment (which disinclines studios to finance the film, since it entails extra costs). Then, while the movie is shot, a “minder” hangs along, to ensure the director sticks to the script. Final approval comes from Pentagon brass who pre-screen and censor the film.
Man of Steelisn’t the first time that the Pentagon has used Hollywood as an advertising firm. Both Iron Manmovies made use of F-22s, in return
The F-35, Wired reports, has thirteen costly flaws, and yet they’ll soar in the movie – including technical failures in Pentagon-funded movies is a no-no. In the 1961 Lassieepisode “Timmy and the Martians,” Lassie howls to alert Timmy of a plane crash. In the original episode, once the military has re-assembled the plane they discover that a faulty wing had caused a high-pitched vibration which Lassie had detected. When the producers requested military assistance, the Pentagon declined, on the basis that children should not be exposed to the idea that the military makes faulty equipment.
Pentagon Uses the Upcoming "Man of Steel" Superman Movie to Promote New F-35 Fighter Jet
http://www.alternet.org/culture/pentagon-uses-upcoming-man-steel-superman-movie-promote-new-f-35-fighter-jet?paging=offPentagon Uses the Upcoming "Man of Steel" Superman Movie to Promote New F-35 Fighter Jet
By Sean McElwee
May 1, 2013 |
The new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will fly its first mission on June 14, 2013, but it won’t be over Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen. It’ll be over the mythical town of Smallville, in the upcoming Man of Steel.In reality, the F-35 may never fly. The program is currently grounded, due to flight difficulties, after the government poured $400 billion into it. Reuters reports that the final cost of the program might be, sit down… $1.5 trillion dollars.
It’s an open secret in Hollywood that before the MPAA reviews many movies, the Pentagon does. David Robb documents the practice in his book Operation Hollywood.Whenever movie producers want to use Pentagon equipment: helicopters, bases, submarines, etc. they send a request to the Pentagon, along with five copies of the script. The Pentagon replies with proposed changes to the script, which the producer must either accept, or forgo the equipment (which disinclines studios to finance the film, since it entails extra costs). Then, while the movie is shot, a “minder” hangs along, to ensure the director sticks to the script. Final approval comes from Pentagon brass who pre-screen and censor the film.
Man of Steelisn’t the first time that the Pentagon has used Hollywood as an advertising firm. Both Iron Manmovies made use of F-22s, in return
The F-35, Wired reports, has thirteen costly flaws, and yet they’ll soar in the movie – including technical failures in Pentagon-funded movies is a no-no. In the 1961 Lassieepisode “Timmy and the Martians,” Lassie howls to alert Timmy of a plane crash. In the original episode, once the military has re-assembled the plane they discover that a faulty wing had caused a high-pitched vibration which Lassie had detected. When the producers requested military assistance, the Pentagon declined, on the basis that children should not be exposed to the idea that the military makes faulty equipment.
May 3, 2013
April was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, according to the United Nations, with more than 700 people killed
April Iraq's deadliest month in almost five years
By David Blair
6:01PM BST 02 May 2013
This rising drumbeat of violence reflects an increasingly bitter political conflict. Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of a Shia-led government, has been accused of naked sectarianism, purging members of the Sunni minority from his administration.
~snip~
In March, they (Armed Sunni extremists) destroyed the justice ministry with four bombs, killing at least 20 people. Last year, al-Qaeda was down to a few hundred operatives in Iraq. Today, experts believe it has about 2,000.
The UN's assistance mission, which tracks the level of violence in Iraq, said that "712 people were killed and another 1,633 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence" during the course of April.
Of the dead, 595 were civilians and a further 117 were security force personnel. Almost 30 per cent of all the killings took place in Baghdad.
April Iraq's deadliest month in almost five years
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10032814/April-Iraqs-deadliest-month-in-almost-five-years.htmlApril was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, according to the United Nations, with more than 700 people killed
April Iraq's deadliest month in almost five years
By David Blair
6:01PM BST 02 May 2013
This rising drumbeat of violence reflects an increasingly bitter political conflict. Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of a Shia-led government, has been accused of naked sectarianism, purging members of the Sunni minority from his administration.
~snip~
In March, they (Armed Sunni extremists) destroyed the justice ministry with four bombs, killing at least 20 people. Last year, al-Qaeda was down to a few hundred operatives in Iraq. Today, experts believe it has about 2,000.
The UN's assistance mission, which tracks the level of violence in Iraq, said that "712 people were killed and another 1,633 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence" during the course of April.
Of the dead, 595 were civilians and a further 117 were security force personnel. Almost 30 per cent of all the killings took place in Baghdad.
May 3, 2013
Within the Profit Margin, the Stench of Death
ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Thursday, 02 May 2013 13:47
“Everywhere near the building, the stench of death was overpowering. Men in surgical masks sprayed disinfectant in the air.”
We move from tragedy to tragedy with hellish regularity.
“The scope of injuries,” Jim Yardley writes in the New York Times, “was horrifying: fractured skulls, crushed rib cages, severed livers, ruptured spleens. One survivor lost both legs. . . . A teenage girl named Sania lost her right leg. Another teenager, Anna, lost her right hand.”
This wasn’t from a bomb in Boston. It was from a collapsed building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh — another shocking sweatshop disaster, this one claiming the lives, according to the most recent count, of 385 people, with many more missing and at least 1,000 injured. Eight people, including the owner of the building, which housed five separate garment operations employing more than 3,000 people, were arrested. Workers, the Times reported, saw cracks in the walls of the building the day before it collapsed. They were told to go to work anyway.
Within the Profit Margin, the Stench of Death
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17945-within-the-profit-margin-the-stench-of-deathWithin the Profit Margin, the Stench of Death
ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Thursday, 02 May 2013 13:47
“Everywhere near the building, the stench of death was overpowering. Men in surgical masks sprayed disinfectant in the air.”
We move from tragedy to tragedy with hellish regularity.
“The scope of injuries,” Jim Yardley writes in the New York Times, “was horrifying: fractured skulls, crushed rib cages, severed livers, ruptured spleens. One survivor lost both legs. . . . A teenage girl named Sania lost her right leg. Another teenager, Anna, lost her right hand.”
This wasn’t from a bomb in Boston. It was from a collapsed building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh — another shocking sweatshop disaster, this one claiming the lives, according to the most recent count, of 385 people, with many more missing and at least 1,000 injured. Eight people, including the owner of the building, which housed five separate garment operations employing more than 3,000 people, were arrested. Workers, the Times reported, saw cracks in the walls of the building the day before it collapsed. They were told to go to work anyway.
May 3, 2013
Tomgram: Ellen Cantarow, Big Energy Means Big Pollution
by Nick Turse | May 2, 2013 - 8:53am
Gary Judson had just been removed from his shackles when they slapped the handcuffs on him. The 72-year-old Methodist minister had chained himself to the fence surrounding a compressor station -- part of the critical infrastructure associated with hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking -- a stone’s throw from Seneca Lake in upstate New York. The sheriff and his deputies freed him only to arrest him for trespassing.
“They don’t have the right to do this -- to put the lake in jeopardy. We’ll all end up paying for their mess,” Judson told a small group of supporters on hand to witness his act of civil disobedience. The “this” he was protesting, Sandra Steingraber recounts in a recent issue ofOrion magazine, was the plan of Missouri-based Inergy Midstream to turn abandoned salt caverns beneath the lake’s shores into storage areas for millions of barrels of natural gas piped in from Pennsylvania’s fracking fields. “Inergy has been in violation of the Clean Water Act at this facility every single quarter for the past three years,” Judson said. “Since 1972, there have been fourteen catastrophic failures at gas storage facilities. Each one of them has been at a salt cavern.” A “failure” at Seneca Lake could be particularly catastrophic because, Steingraber writes, it provides the drinking water for 100,000 people. (Last month, Steingraber was jailed for 15 days for her own act of civil disobedience against Inergy.)
In Pennsylvania, where gas is currently being forced out of the shale rock in which it’s resided for millions of years, “failures” are already an everyday affair, as TomDispatch regular Ellen Cantarow reports in the latest in her series of articles from fracking’s front lines. Once upon a time, coal miners, tunnel workers, and “radium girls” faced the horrors of their dangerous trades in seclusion, deep below ground, inside mountains, or hidden behind factory walls. They worked and died unseen and unheard.
Today, industrial safety issues have come home -- literally. Toxic chemicals aren’t just reserved for Superfund sites; they are increasingly in our houses, our water, and our food. When something goes wrong at a fertilizer plant, it doesn’t just mean workers are in danger any more, but also -- as in the case of the town of West, Texas -- a nursing home, a school, an apartment complex, and five blocks of residences in a small town. As Cantarow writes, Pennsylvania farming communities are being turned into huge, open-air laboratories by energy companies eager to make North America a twenty-first-century Saudi Arabia, with ordinary people serving as its guinea pigs. And those people are paying a heavy price: mystery illnesses, dead animals, polluted water, land made worthless, and the loss of a way of life. In the midst of this new hell, however, there’s also hope. Like Gary Judson in New York, Pennsylvanians are speaking up, organizing, and doing what they can in the face of long odds and tough times.
Tomgram: Ellen Cantarow, Big Energy Means Big Pollution
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/nick-turse/49366/tomgram-ellen-cantarow-big-energy-means-big-pollutionTomgram: Ellen Cantarow, Big Energy Means Big Pollution
by Nick Turse | May 2, 2013 - 8:53am
Gary Judson had just been removed from his shackles when they slapped the handcuffs on him. The 72-year-old Methodist minister had chained himself to the fence surrounding a compressor station -- part of the critical infrastructure associated with hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking -- a stone’s throw from Seneca Lake in upstate New York. The sheriff and his deputies freed him only to arrest him for trespassing.
“They don’t have the right to do this -- to put the lake in jeopardy. We’ll all end up paying for their mess,” Judson told a small group of supporters on hand to witness his act of civil disobedience. The “this” he was protesting, Sandra Steingraber recounts in a recent issue ofOrion magazine, was the plan of Missouri-based Inergy Midstream to turn abandoned salt caverns beneath the lake’s shores into storage areas for millions of barrels of natural gas piped in from Pennsylvania’s fracking fields. “Inergy has been in violation of the Clean Water Act at this facility every single quarter for the past three years,” Judson said. “Since 1972, there have been fourteen catastrophic failures at gas storage facilities. Each one of them has been at a salt cavern.” A “failure” at Seneca Lake could be particularly catastrophic because, Steingraber writes, it provides the drinking water for 100,000 people. (Last month, Steingraber was jailed for 15 days for her own act of civil disobedience against Inergy.)
In Pennsylvania, where gas is currently being forced out of the shale rock in which it’s resided for millions of years, “failures” are already an everyday affair, as TomDispatch regular Ellen Cantarow reports in the latest in her series of articles from fracking’s front lines. Once upon a time, coal miners, tunnel workers, and “radium girls” faced the horrors of their dangerous trades in seclusion, deep below ground, inside mountains, or hidden behind factory walls. They worked and died unseen and unheard.
Today, industrial safety issues have come home -- literally. Toxic chemicals aren’t just reserved for Superfund sites; they are increasingly in our houses, our water, and our food. When something goes wrong at a fertilizer plant, it doesn’t just mean workers are in danger any more, but also -- as in the case of the town of West, Texas -- a nursing home, a school, an apartment complex, and five blocks of residences in a small town. As Cantarow writes, Pennsylvania farming communities are being turned into huge, open-air laboratories by energy companies eager to make North America a twenty-first-century Saudi Arabia, with ordinary people serving as its guinea pigs. And those people are paying a heavy price: mystery illnesses, dead animals, polluted water, land made worthless, and the loss of a way of life. In the midst of this new hell, however, there’s also hope. Like Gary Judson in New York, Pennsylvanians are speaking up, organizing, and doing what they can in the face of long odds and tough times.
May 3, 2013
How Planet Money, This American Life and NPR Have Become Key Players in the Bankers’ War on What's Left of Our Social Contract
by Mark Ames | May 2, 2013 - 9:12am
Just over a week ago, my Twitter feed started getting bombarded with links to the latest — and quite possibly the scummiest — Planet Money/This American Life propaganda piece on NPR for the financial industry, disguised as highbrow progressive journalism.
The piece was called "Unfit For Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America" and it essentially argued — using wildly flawed research and straight-up lies — that our Social Security program is burdened by a glut of freeloader disability queens, faking their disabilities in order to live high on the Social Security disability insurance hog.
Why would NPR run such a flawed, biased story? The answer takes us right to the heart of Wall Street’s plans to privatize government benefits, which Wall Street bond holders want to slash for their own profits. This battle pits powerful Wall Street interests and their media and political lackeys on the one side, versus an overwhelming majority of Americans — Republicans and Democrats both — on the other. In the middle stands a radio piece from a trusted source, NPR/This American Life/Planet Money, telling its progressive, educated audience that there is in fact a problem with Social Security, and that problem is a bunch of human parasites faking disability to suckle from the Social Security teat.
It’s the sort of rancid old 1930s anti-New Deal propaganda that the American Liberty League or NAM or the Chamber of Commerce used to puke out on a regular basis. But this is 2013, meaning this time around, the battleground is on the putative left, pitting the Democratic Party leaders including Obama against the people who voted for him, and who have nowhere else to turn. On the Democratic Party’s side: their funders on Wall Street, and their neoliberal propagandists in pundit-land and in universities. The key isn’t winning over right-wing conservatives, but rather affluent progressives — i.e., Planet Money's and NPR’s audience. If they can flip that demographic, Social Security is privatized toast.
How Planet Money, This American Life and NPR Have Become Key Players in the Bankers’ War on What's L
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/49368/how-planet-money-this-american-life-and-npr-have-become-key-players-in-the-bankers-war-on-whats-left-of-oHow Planet Money, This American Life and NPR Have Become Key Players in the Bankers’ War on What's Left of Our Social Contract
by Mark Ames | May 2, 2013 - 9:12am
Just over a week ago, my Twitter feed started getting bombarded with links to the latest — and quite possibly the scummiest — Planet Money/This American Life propaganda piece on NPR for the financial industry, disguised as highbrow progressive journalism.
The piece was called "Unfit For Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America" and it essentially argued — using wildly flawed research and straight-up lies — that our Social Security program is burdened by a glut of freeloader disability queens, faking their disabilities in order to live high on the Social Security disability insurance hog.
Why would NPR run such a flawed, biased story? The answer takes us right to the heart of Wall Street’s plans to privatize government benefits, which Wall Street bond holders want to slash for their own profits. This battle pits powerful Wall Street interests and their media and political lackeys on the one side, versus an overwhelming majority of Americans — Republicans and Democrats both — on the other. In the middle stands a radio piece from a trusted source, NPR/This American Life/Planet Money, telling its progressive, educated audience that there is in fact a problem with Social Security, and that problem is a bunch of human parasites faking disability to suckle from the Social Security teat.
It’s the sort of rancid old 1930s anti-New Deal propaganda that the American Liberty League or NAM or the Chamber of Commerce used to puke out on a regular basis. But this is 2013, meaning this time around, the battleground is on the putative left, pitting the Democratic Party leaders including Obama against the people who voted for him, and who have nowhere else to turn. On the Democratic Party’s side: their funders on Wall Street, and their neoliberal propagandists in pundit-land and in universities. The key isn’t winning over right-wing conservatives, but rather affluent progressives — i.e., Planet Money's and NPR’s audience. If they can flip that demographic, Social Security is privatized toast.
May 3, 2013
Pay in Blood: May Day and Modern Politics
by Chris Floyd | May 2, 2013 - 9:18am
~snip~
Modern politics can be hard to fathom, a bizarre mix of mind-bending complexities and bone-stupid banalities coming at us in a howling sandstorm of chaotic noise. How to sift the relentless, contradictory arcana of current events and make sense of it all? I find that a simple phrase helps thread the labyrinth – four little words that capture the grand, overarching political philosophy of the age:
This is the lodestar guiding leaders of every political stripe across the breadth of western civilization. If you want to make your way through their billows of bullshit, hold fast to this phrase. It’s what they’re really saying to you.
Of course, elite attitudes toward the lower orders have never been exactly tender; but in times past, a rather large number of sufficiently quiescent peasants and proles were required to create the wealth for plutocratic plundering and maintain the machinery of power and privilege. Thus some attention had to be paid to the rabble’s basic needs and even -- occasionally – their pitiful aspirations for a more meaningful, more humane life for themselves, their families and their communities. But now the means of production (to borrow a phrase) are largely mechanized and digitized; you don’t need many warm bodies -- and certainly not skilled or experienced or well-paid ones – to keep the money rolling in. And perhaps more importantly, the means of control -- the technologies of violence and surveillance -- are now vastly more powerful and pervasive and efficient than ever.
Pay in Blood: May Day and Modern Politics
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/49369/pay-in-blood-may-day-and-modern-politicsPay in Blood: May Day and Modern Politics
by Chris Floyd | May 2, 2013 - 9:18am
~snip~
Modern politics can be hard to fathom, a bizarre mix of mind-bending complexities and bone-stupid banalities coming at us in a howling sandstorm of chaotic noise. How to sift the relentless, contradictory arcana of current events and make sense of it all? I find that a simple phrase helps thread the labyrinth – four little words that capture the grand, overarching political philosophy of the age:
Fuck Off And Die.
This is the lodestar guiding leaders of every political stripe across the breadth of western civilization. If you want to make your way through their billows of bullshit, hold fast to this phrase. It’s what they’re really saying to you.
Of course, elite attitudes toward the lower orders have never been exactly tender; but in times past, a rather large number of sufficiently quiescent peasants and proles were required to create the wealth for plutocratic plundering and maintain the machinery of power and privilege. Thus some attention had to be paid to the rabble’s basic needs and even -- occasionally – their pitiful aspirations for a more meaningful, more humane life for themselves, their families and their communities. But now the means of production (to borrow a phrase) are largely mechanized and digitized; you don’t need many warm bodies -- and certainly not skilled or experienced or well-paid ones – to keep the money rolling in. And perhaps more importantly, the means of control -- the technologies of violence and surveillance -- are now vastly more powerful and pervasive and efficient than ever.
May 3, 2013
A Jordanian soldier keeps watch on top of a military vehicle as Syrian refugees cross the border from Syria into Jordan (unseen), near Mafraq, on the border with Syria, on February 18, 2013. Jordan says it is hosting around 350 Syrian refugees, including more than 90,000 at Zaatari desert refugee camp, near the border with Syria.
Syria: The Only Red Line Should Be To Stay Out
Doug Bandow
4/29/2013 @ 10:23AM
The Syrian civil war lurches on, adding new casualties every day. The campaign to push the U.S. into the Syrian civil war also marches on, threatening to add American casualties to the human toll. Possible use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government is another reason to stay out, not to get in.
Washington’s foreign policy should be one of peace. There are tragic times when war becomes necessary, but thankfully not often. Especially for America, which enjoys a privileged international position.
~snip~
Nor do wars, against even seemingly weak opponents, such as Iraq, usually turn out the way one expects or wishes. Inadvertent and unintended consequences are the rule rather than the exception.
Syria stands out as a conflagration in which the U.S. should play no role. There is no threat to America. President Bashar al-Assad is evil, not stupid. He wouldn’t attack the U.S. or an allied government, such as Israel, before; he certainly wouldn’t do so now with his regime under siege.
Syria: The Only Red Line Should Be To Stay Out
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2013/04/29/syria-the-only-red-line-should-be-to-stay-out/A Jordanian soldier keeps watch on top of a military vehicle as Syrian refugees cross the border from Syria into Jordan (unseen), near Mafraq, on the border with Syria, on February 18, 2013. Jordan says it is hosting around 350 Syrian refugees, including more than 90,000 at Zaatari desert refugee camp, near the border with Syria.
Syria: The Only Red Line Should Be To Stay Out
Doug Bandow
4/29/2013 @ 10:23AM
The Syrian civil war lurches on, adding new casualties every day. The campaign to push the U.S. into the Syrian civil war also marches on, threatening to add American casualties to the human toll. Possible use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government is another reason to stay out, not to get in.
Washington’s foreign policy should be one of peace. There are tragic times when war becomes necessary, but thankfully not often. Especially for America, which enjoys a privileged international position.
~snip~
Nor do wars, against even seemingly weak opponents, such as Iraq, usually turn out the way one expects or wishes. Inadvertent and unintended consequences are the rule rather than the exception.
Syria stands out as a conflagration in which the U.S. should play no role. There is no threat to America. President Bashar al-Assad is evil, not stupid. He wouldn’t attack the U.S. or an allied government, such as Israel, before; he certainly wouldn’t do so now with his regime under siege.
May 3, 2013
Trust In the British Establishment Has Been Destroyed
By Mick Meaney
General News 5/2/2013 at 10:26:55
According to a new survey of British citizens, public trust in the establishment has declined. Results show that politicians, banks and the media are all trusted by fewer than 10% of those polled.
The survey, conducted by OMD UK as part of a year-long research project, asked 2,000 adults their opinion on various aspects of British society. In its polling, OMD UK discovered that only 3% of the people trust politicians, while 6% trust the media and 7% trust the banks.
It should be no surprise that trust continues to decline in Britain. More and more people are beginning to wake up to the fact that our society is controlled by criminal psychopaths who only care about their own wealth, power and preservation.
In light of a myriad of scandals, which include MP's expenses, media silence about high-profile pedophiles, and the crimes of the banking elite, it's finally become clear to the majority of citizens that elements of our establishment will stop at nothing to hide their misdeeds.
unhappycamper comment: Sounds familiar, eh?
Trust In the British Establishment Has Been Destroyed
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Trust-In-the-British-Estab-by-Mick-Meaney-130502-903.htmlTrust In the British Establishment Has Been Destroyed
By Mick Meaney
General News 5/2/2013 at 10:26:55
According to a new survey of British citizens, public trust in the establishment has declined. Results show that politicians, banks and the media are all trusted by fewer than 10% of those polled.
The survey, conducted by OMD UK as part of a year-long research project, asked 2,000 adults their opinion on various aspects of British society. In its polling, OMD UK discovered that only 3% of the people trust politicians, while 6% trust the media and 7% trust the banks.
It should be no surprise that trust continues to decline in Britain. More and more people are beginning to wake up to the fact that our society is controlled by criminal psychopaths who only care about their own wealth, power and preservation.
In light of a myriad of scandals, which include MP's expenses, media silence about high-profile pedophiles, and the crimes of the banking elite, it's finally become clear to the majority of citizens that elements of our establishment will stop at nothing to hide their misdeeds.
unhappycamper comment: Sounds familiar, eh?
May 3, 2013
US drone strikes being used as alternative to Guantánamo, lawyer says
Dan Roberts in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 2 May 2013 09.26 EDT
The lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.
John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members.
~snip~
An estimated 4,700 people have now been killed by some 300 US drone attacks in four countries, and the question of the programme's status under international and domestic law remains highly controversial.
~snip~
We are about the only country in the world that thinks we are in an armed conflict with al-Qaida," Bellinger said. "We really need to get on top of this and explain to our allies why it is legal and why it is permissible under international law," he added.
US drone strikes being used as alternative to Guantánamo, lawyer says
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/us-drone-strikes-guantanamoUS drone strikes being used as alternative to Guantánamo, lawyer says
Dan Roberts in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 2 May 2013 09.26 EDT
The lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.
John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members.
~snip~
An estimated 4,700 people have now been killed by some 300 US drone attacks in four countries, and the question of the programme's status under international and domestic law remains highly controversial.
~snip~
We are about the only country in the world that thinks we are in an armed conflict with al-Qaida," Bellinger said. "We really need to get on top of this and explain to our allies why it is legal and why it is permissible under international law," he added.
May 2, 2013
Sand Land: Fracking Industry Mining Iowa's Iconic Sand Bluffs in New Form of Mountaintop Removal
Wednesday, 01 May 2013 10:40
By Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog | Report
Within immediate vicinity of a central battleground of the Black Hawk War of 1832, land rife with a resource necessary for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is in the crosshairs of an industry prepared to turn the area into a battle zone once again.
The resource? Frac sand -- officially known by the industry as fine-grained silica sand -- used as a proppant when blasted thousands of feet down the well during the ecologically volatile fracking process as part of the chemical cocktail that serves as the subject of Josh Fox’s new documentary film, “Gasland 2.”
The rolling hills of Northeastern Iowa’s Allamakee County defy the state’s stereotypical flat-land geography, and local residents boast of the serene beauty and rich geological history. Yet those same bluffs also play host to robust reservoirs of frac sand.
In order to extract the frac sand, mining corporations have adopted a method of newfangled mountaintop removal of sorts, blasting away entire hills laced with this frac sand to access this new “prize.” While devastating the landscape, it’s justified by Big Oil as necessary because the Midwest’s unparalleled geological characteristics have transformed it into a “New Saudi Arabia for frac sand.”
Sand Land: Fracking Industry Mining Iowa's Iconic Sand Bluffs in New Form of Mountaintop Removal
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16111-sand-land-fracking-industry-mining-iowas-iconic-sand-bluffs-in-new-form-of-mountaintop-removalSand Land: Fracking Industry Mining Iowa's Iconic Sand Bluffs in New Form of Mountaintop Removal
Wednesday, 01 May 2013 10:40
By Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog | Report
Within immediate vicinity of a central battleground of the Black Hawk War of 1832, land rife with a resource necessary for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is in the crosshairs of an industry prepared to turn the area into a battle zone once again.
The resource? Frac sand -- officially known by the industry as fine-grained silica sand -- used as a proppant when blasted thousands of feet down the well during the ecologically volatile fracking process as part of the chemical cocktail that serves as the subject of Josh Fox’s new documentary film, “Gasland 2.”
The rolling hills of Northeastern Iowa’s Allamakee County defy the state’s stereotypical flat-land geography, and local residents boast of the serene beauty and rich geological history. Yet those same bluffs also play host to robust reservoirs of frac sand.
In order to extract the frac sand, mining corporations have adopted a method of newfangled mountaintop removal of sorts, blasting away entire hills laced with this frac sand to access this new “prize.” While devastating the landscape, it’s justified by Big Oil as necessary because the Midwest’s unparalleled geological characteristics have transformed it into a “New Saudi Arabia for frac sand.”
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