Earth’s average temperature has risen nearly one degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, and another increase of about four degrees over the next century would “imply changes that constitute practically a different planet,” said James Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

Yet, NASA is censoring me, says Hansen

Nasa’s senior climate scientist accused the Bush administration yesterday of trying to stop him speaking out about global warming.

James Hansen said Nasa officials ordered his lectures, papers and website postings to be reviewed before publication after he called last month for an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

He said he had been told there would be “dire consequences” if he repeated his warnings about climate change.

And even Bush’s poodle says global warming is happening.

The threat posed by climate change may be greater than previously thought, and global warming is advancing at an unsustainable rate, Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a report published Monday.

Here’s why Dubya continues to ignore global warming.

For anyone stunned by the size of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s $36.13 billion profit in 2005 – the highest ever for a U.S. company – some Wall Street analysts have a message: there’s more to come.

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The NSA has spent six years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to kick-start a program, intended to help protect the United States against terrorism, that many experts say was doomed from the start.

I’m a database programmer, and have long been suspicious of the alleged ability of NSA to monitor millions of communications a day in multiple formats, plucking out the relevant (i.e. possible terrorist) information, then presenting it nearly real-time in a way it can be used effectively.

Looks like I was right. Their project to do this has the usual lack of financial controls and is way over budget - someone is getting rich while taxpayers get hosed, but the real problem is that the task is too massive, it simply can’t be done, and those close to the project say it never will.

The best way to get intelligence of course, is to have people on the ground infiltrating groups you want to watch. This NSA project echoes the same mistaken strategem the US used in Vietnam and now Iraq. Watch them, bomb them from the air. Use technology in the sky instead of people on the ground. The belief is, the US can win by using super high tech weapons and monitoring alone.

Meanwhile, al Qaida, I’ve read, passes their truly important messages by messenger, by voice, face-to-face, an Old School technique totally immune from NSA spying.
[tags] NSA [/tags]

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Traces of prescription drugs found in Southern California aquifers

“There is no place on Earth exempted from having pharmaceuticals and steroids in its wastewater,” said Shane Snyder, head toxicologist at Las Vegas’ water provider, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and one of the nation’s leading experts on pharmaceuticals in water. “This is clearly an issue that is global, and we’re going to see more and more of these chemicals in the environment; no doubt about it.”

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Lawmakers from both parties say Palestinians should get no U.S. aid until the group gives up violence

These would be the same lawmakers from both parties who enthusisatically supported the war Iraq (based on lies), the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (a country we are not at war with), and who are silent when Dubya makes bellicose threats against Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Their hands are soaked in blood, yet they piously and hypocritically say Hamas should renounce violence without asking Israel to do the same. For a conflict to end, both sides need to put down their weapons.

Update: A friend emails -

There is an irony here that I am not about to try to solve: Hamas was elected because the Palestinians lived in poverty and oppression.  By cutting off funding to the Hamas government, we worsen that poverty and oppression.

What does our government think will happen?  Spontaneous reduction in militancy?  That hungry people will respond to our punishment in a positive fashion?  “Oh, clearly these people causing us to starve are not the Great Satan after all…”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I cannot think of a single example where increased poverty led to improved democracy.

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A full-page ad taken out in the January 25th San Francisco Bay Guardian announces…yet another rally—two upcoming, in fact!—designed to bring down Bush. For January 31st, the organizers ask citizens to “Bring the Noise and Drown Out Bush’s Lies.” For February 4th, they will apparently take their “demand” to the White House, chanting “Bush Lied. Bush Spied. Bush Step Down.”

Do any of my readers have a clue as to what kind of energy and resources it takes to organize such events? Too much, I can tell you, unless the payoff is slated to be huge. Or the seeds sown unprecedented. Neither of which applies to the above.

As an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition, I know full well the months of non-stop work needed to pull off a successful mass demonstration. That’s why the message needs to be on target and why the event should lead to increased on-the-ground organizing.

What they are guaranteed to accomplish, however, is Another Monumental Distraction from the challenge we all face. The typical person attending such rallies does not have the wherewithal to take part AND to contribute to taking apart Our Enemy. The hard work of meeting face to face with one another to hammer out some new approach for the emergencies that face us, then, is never given breathing room.

Precisely, unless you take all that energy and turn it into real organizing, then it’s just a feel-good day preaching to the choir, accomplishing little.

Bush will NOT step down as a result of their efforts. And even if I’m wrong, he’ll be replaced by someone else who serves the interests of those who are the real (ongoing) enemies of the protesters. Obviously.

That’s the real problem with the anti-Bush rallies. Bush is not the problem. He is a symptom. The message is wrong. Worse, by implication (or maybe design), it channels all that energy into the Democratic Party in the bizarre belief that, say, a President Hillary, will somehow be a vast improvement. As if Beltway Democrats aren’t completely complicit in all of this. Further, the change won’t come by people imploring their elected representatives to change, it’ll come from people in the streets forcing the change.

The upcoming March 18-20 Global Days of Action, spearheaded by ANSWER here in the States, sees through the “It’s all Bush’s fault” trap.

Our massive mobilizations will not simply target the Bush administration. Bush and the neo-conservatives share the same fundamental class interests with all sectors of the leadership in the Republican and Democratic Parties. It is naïve and an exercise in misleadership to focus all of the attention of the rising progressive movement against the Bush administration. Such an orientation implies that the removal of Bush and his replacement by a Democrat will fundamentally alter the imperialist war drive and the assault against working class communities and young people at home. The Republicans and the Democrats alike are the twin parties of the war machine. They share the same corporate and banking contributors, their real constituents are big oil, the big banks and the military-industrial complex.

We have learned the lessons of the civil rights, women’s, LGBT, labor, and anti-war movements: Real change comes not as a gift from the politicians but from the sustained mass mobilization of the people. In order to realize the demand “Money for jobs, housing, education, and healthcare, Not for war and occupation” we must create a national grassroots movement.

The problem is systemic. Again, Bush is a symptom, not the problem. Pretending otherwise simply channels real and genuine energy and protest into the Democratic Party where it will be co-opted and defused.

[tags] anti-Bush, Democrats [/tags]

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