By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports
Posted on May 4, 2009, Printed on May 8, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://rebelreports.com//139686/
New video evidence has surfaced showing that U.S. military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to "hunt people for Jesus" as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What’s more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge U.S. base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the U.S. military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.
In a video obtained by Al Jazeera and broadcast Monday, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him."
"The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says.
"Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That’s what we do, that’s our business."
The translated Bibles appear to be the New Testament. According to Al Jazeera, U.S. soldiers "had them specially printed and shipped to Afghanistan." On the tape, one soldier describes how his church in the U.S. helped raise money for the bibles. Al Jazeera reports that "What these soldiers have been doing may well be in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, their professional codes and the regulations in place for all forces in Afghanistan." The U.S. military officially forbids "proselytising of any religion, faith or practice." But, as Al Jazeera reports:
[T]he chaplains appear to have found a way around the regulation known as General Order Number One.
"Do we know what it means to proselytise?" Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.
"It is General Order Number One," an unidentified soldier replies.
But Watt says "you can’t proselytise but you can give gifts."
Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. The fact that the video footage is being broadcast on Al Jazeera guarantees that it will be seen throughout the Muslim world. It is likely to add more credence to the perception that the U.S. is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands.
Former Afghan prime minister Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai told Al Jazeera there must be a "serious investigation," saying, "This is very damaging for diplomatic relations between the two counties." Sayed Aalam Uddin Asser, of the Islamic Front for Peace and Understanding in Kabul, told the network: "It's a national security issue … our constitution says nothing can take place in Afghanistan against Islam. If people come and propaganda other religions which have no followers in Afghanistan [then] it creates problems for the people, for peace, for stability."
A U.S. military spokesperson, Major Jennifer Willis, denied that the U.S. military has allowed its soldiers to attempt to convert Afghans and said comments from sermons filmed at Bagram were taken out of context. She said the bibles were never distributed. "That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," she said. "The translated bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."
The video footage was shot about a year ago by documentary filmmaker Brian Hughes, who is also a former U.S. soldier. "[U.S. soldiers] weren't talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons," Hughes told Al Jazeera. "The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it … documenting it would be important."
The broadcast of this video comes just days after a new poll of White Americans found that, in the U.S., church going Christians are more likely to support the use of torture than other segments of the population. The Pew Research Center poll found: "White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did."
This is certainly not the first scandal where U.S. military forces or officials have been caught on tape promoting an evangelical Christian agenda. Perhaps the most high-profile case involved Lieut. Gen. William Boykin, who was a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Bush. Boykin was part of Donald Rumsfeld’s inner circle at the Pentagon where he was placed in charge of hunting "high-value targets." Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq.
In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform. Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at twenty-three religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two. Among Boykin’s statements, he said he knew the U.S. would prevail over a Muslim adversary in Somalia because "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Boykin also charged that Islamic radicals want to destroy America "because we're a Christian nation" that "will never abandon Israel." Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin declared, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
As for President Bush, Boykin said, "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." In another speech, Boykin said other countries "have lost their morals, lost their values. But America is still a Christian nation." He told a church group in Oregon that special operations forces were victorious in Iraq because of their faith in God. "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that the battle that we're in is a spiritual battle," he said. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army."
Watch Al Jazeera’s report here.
Go here for more on this developing story.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing appears at Rebel Reports.com.
© 2009 Rebel Reports All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://rebelreports.com//139686/
Friday, May 8, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Stocks surge; S&P 500 turns positive for 2009
By TIM PARADIS and SARA LEPRO, AP Business Writers Tim Paradis And Sara Lepro, Ap Business Writers 4 mins ago
NEW YORK – Another big rally on Wall Street has given the Standard & Poor's 500 index a modest gain for the year.
The S&P 500 index, the market barometer preferred by professional investors, is now up 0.5 percent for 2009. Many investments like mutual funds track or are measured against the S&P.
Stocks advanced after the National Association of Realtors said pending U.S. home sales rose for the second straight month. And construction spending rose in March after five months of declines.
According to preliminary calculations, the S&P 500 index is up nearly 30 at 907.24.
The Dow Jones industrial average is up 214 at 8,427. The Nasdaq composite index is up 44 at 1,763.
About five stocks rose for every one that fell on New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.7 billion shares.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street/print
NEW YORK – Another big rally on Wall Street has given the Standard & Poor's 500 index a modest gain for the year.
The S&P 500 index, the market barometer preferred by professional investors, is now up 0.5 percent for 2009. Many investments like mutual funds track or are measured against the S&P.
Stocks advanced after the National Association of Realtors said pending U.S. home sales rose for the second straight month. And construction spending rose in March after five months of declines.
According to preliminary calculations, the S&P 500 index is up nearly 30 at 907.24.
The Dow Jones industrial average is up 214 at 8,427. The Nasdaq composite index is up 44 at 1,763.
About five stocks rose for every one that fell on New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.7 billion shares.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street/print
Iraq insists on US leaving cities by June 30
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer 35 mins ago
BAGHDAD – Iraq's government Monday ruled out allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, despite concern that Iraqi forces cannot cope with the security challenge following a resurgence of bombings in recent weeks.
Asking U.S. forces to stay in the cities, including volatile Mosul in the north, would be embarrassing for Iraq's prime minister, who has staked his political future on claims that the country has turned the corner in the war against Sunni and Shiite extremists.
The departure of heavily armed combat troops from bases inside the cities is important psychologically to many Iraqis, who are eager to regain control of their country after six years of war and U.S. military occupation.
U.S. officials played down the Iraqi decision, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying it's up to the Iraqi government to request an extension of the U.S. presence in the cities and "we intend to fully abide by" terms of the security agreement.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Monday that violence had not risen to a level that would force a change in the withdrawal schedule.
Last month, however, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said he was worried that Iraqi forces won't be ready to assume full responsibility for Mosul by the end of June.
Privately, some U.S. officers fear the Iraqis may lose control of Mosul within a few months after American forces pull out of Iraq's third largest city, where al-Qaida and other Sunni militants remain active.
The U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year calls for American combat troops to leave urban areas by the end of June, with all U.S. forces out of the country by the end of 2011.
But a series of high-profile bombings has raised questions whether Iraqi forces can assume more security responsibilities, especially in Mosul.
Nationwide, at least 451 people were killed in political violence last month, compared with 335 in March, 288 in February and 242 in January, according to an Associated Press tally.
Even in Baghdad, where violence is down sharply from levels of two years ago, attacks are continuing.
On Monday, two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously near the Oil Ministry and a police academy, killing at least three people and wounding eight.
Although those casualties were relatively low, the attack was significant because it occurred in a sensitive, well-guarded area in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
The security agreement allows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to request an extension of the deadlines if he feels Iraqi forces need help. But the prime minister's spokesman said the withdrawal deadlines, including the June 30 date, were "non-extendable."
"These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the transfer and handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
However, many key Iraqi politicians, including the newly elected leadership in Mosul, oppose keeping U.S. combat troops in urban areas after the June deadline.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, needs the support of the Sunni leadership in Mosul as he prepares for national elections by the end of the year.
The new governor of the Mosul area told the AP on Monday that the departure of U.S. troops from the city will actually reduce violence, since much of it is directed at the Americans.
"A U.S. withdrawal will reduce the number of targets," Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi said. "We believe it's important for U.S. troops to stay in camps outside the cities to provide help only if needed."
The requirement to leave the cities applies only to combat troops and not to trainers, advisers and others in noncombat roles. The agreement does not preclude combat soldiers from patrolling in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities from bases outside the city limits.
But prominent Shiite lawmaker Abbas al-Bayati said extending the June 30 deadline would "send the wrong signal to the Iraqi people" that the Americans might remain in the country indefinitely.
"Thus both sides must stand together to fulfill the withdrawal timetable," he said.
U.S. combat troops largely pulled out of many cities in 2005 and 2006 but returned a year later as part of the U.S. troop surge that was designed to protect civilians from Shiite and Sunni extremists living in their neighborhoods.
This time, U.S. and Iraqi officials are gambling that Iraqi security forces are better trained and equipped to prevent the return of extremists than they were years ago.
Extending the deadline would also call into question al-Maliki's claim that his government has set the country on the road to stability — despite the occasional spike in violence.
On Monday, al-Maliki told an audience in Paris that he would not allow Iraq to be used as a "base for any terrorist organization" and that the country was ready for foreign investment.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials believe security in Iraq remains fragile because the various religious and ethnic groups have still not agreed on power-sharing arrangements necessary for long-term stability.
___
Associated Press Writers Mazin Yahya in Baghdad and Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Jenny Barchfield in Paris contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq/print
BAGHDAD – Iraq's government Monday ruled out allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, despite concern that Iraqi forces cannot cope with the security challenge following a resurgence of bombings in recent weeks.
Asking U.S. forces to stay in the cities, including volatile Mosul in the north, would be embarrassing for Iraq's prime minister, who has staked his political future on claims that the country has turned the corner in the war against Sunni and Shiite extremists.
The departure of heavily armed combat troops from bases inside the cities is important psychologically to many Iraqis, who are eager to regain control of their country after six years of war and U.S. military occupation.
U.S. officials played down the Iraqi decision, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying it's up to the Iraqi government to request an extension of the U.S. presence in the cities and "we intend to fully abide by" terms of the security agreement.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Monday that violence had not risen to a level that would force a change in the withdrawal schedule.
Last month, however, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said he was worried that Iraqi forces won't be ready to assume full responsibility for Mosul by the end of June.
Privately, some U.S. officers fear the Iraqis may lose control of Mosul within a few months after American forces pull out of Iraq's third largest city, where al-Qaida and other Sunni militants remain active.
The U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year calls for American combat troops to leave urban areas by the end of June, with all U.S. forces out of the country by the end of 2011.
But a series of high-profile bombings has raised questions whether Iraqi forces can assume more security responsibilities, especially in Mosul.
Nationwide, at least 451 people were killed in political violence last month, compared with 335 in March, 288 in February and 242 in January, according to an Associated Press tally.
Even in Baghdad, where violence is down sharply from levels of two years ago, attacks are continuing.
On Monday, two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously near the Oil Ministry and a police academy, killing at least three people and wounding eight.
Although those casualties were relatively low, the attack was significant because it occurred in a sensitive, well-guarded area in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
The security agreement allows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to request an extension of the deadlines if he feels Iraqi forces need help. But the prime minister's spokesman said the withdrawal deadlines, including the June 30 date, were "non-extendable."
"These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the transfer and handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
However, many key Iraqi politicians, including the newly elected leadership in Mosul, oppose keeping U.S. combat troops in urban areas after the June deadline.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, needs the support of the Sunni leadership in Mosul as he prepares for national elections by the end of the year.
The new governor of the Mosul area told the AP on Monday that the departure of U.S. troops from the city will actually reduce violence, since much of it is directed at the Americans.
"A U.S. withdrawal will reduce the number of targets," Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi said. "We believe it's important for U.S. troops to stay in camps outside the cities to provide help only if needed."
The requirement to leave the cities applies only to combat troops and not to trainers, advisers and others in noncombat roles. The agreement does not preclude combat soldiers from patrolling in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities from bases outside the city limits.
But prominent Shiite lawmaker Abbas al-Bayati said extending the June 30 deadline would "send the wrong signal to the Iraqi people" that the Americans might remain in the country indefinitely.
"Thus both sides must stand together to fulfill the withdrawal timetable," he said.
U.S. combat troops largely pulled out of many cities in 2005 and 2006 but returned a year later as part of the U.S. troop surge that was designed to protect civilians from Shiite and Sunni extremists living in their neighborhoods.
This time, U.S. and Iraqi officials are gambling that Iraqi security forces are better trained and equipped to prevent the return of extremists than they were years ago.
Extending the deadline would also call into question al-Maliki's claim that his government has set the country on the road to stability — despite the occasional spike in violence.
On Monday, al-Maliki told an audience in Paris that he would not allow Iraq to be used as a "base for any terrorist organization" and that the country was ready for foreign investment.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials believe security in Iraq remains fragile because the various religious and ethnic groups have still not agreed on power-sharing arrangements necessary for long-term stability.
___
Associated Press Writers Mazin Yahya in Baghdad and Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Jenny Barchfield in Paris contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq/print
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Latest Absurdity in the Fight to Conserve Water: Making Rainwater Harvesting Illegal
By Yee Huang , Center for Progressive Reform
Posted on April 13, 2009, Printed on April 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/136477/
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times described the latest absurdity in the never-ending search to quench the thirst for water: ownership of rainwater and, more precisely, the illegality of rainwater harvesting. Residents and communities in parts of Colorado are turning to this ancient practice of collecting and storing rain to fulfill their domestic water needs, including flushing toilets and watering lawns. Using this “grey” water, as it is called, relieves pressure on water resources and can be extremely efficient.
Many long-time water users, however, object to the practice.
These so-called water buffaloes argue that people who collect rainwater are taking away from their water by collecting the water before it has a chance to flow into a river from which they obtain water. Effectively, they argue, the rainwater belongs to them – they own the rain that falls from the sky as part of their water allocation, even though 97 percent of the rainfall that falls on soil does not reach a river. The bad news? The law in Colorado stands behind those water buffaloes.
Like most states west of the one-hundredth meridian, Colorado follows the doctrine of prior appropriation to allocate water. For all water uses that are non-domestic, a person must have a water right. Water rights are assigned a priority date, which is the date that the water use was initiated.
Under prior appropriation, these senior water users – many of whom have rights dating back to the 1800’s – have priority in times of water shortages based on the date of their initiation. Their water allocation is fulfilled before any junior users, who are often left with a nominal amount of water. People who harvest rainwater are “interfering” with the priority system by jumping ahead of all the senior users, who have the first right to use the water.
This dogmatic adherence to temporal priority blocks efforts to acquire water rights for newer or more efficient uses, such as in-stream conservation and recreation. These uses, initiated relatively recently, will always be subordinate to older, more consumptive uses.
Ownership of water has always been a tenuous proposition. Water and water rights linger on the perimeter of traditional property rights, eluding the solid “property” categorization of items like land or salad bowls. Individual water molecules cannot be marked or identified, and water is in constant motion, swirling below, above, and around the earth in the global hydrologic cycle. More significantly, water is survival for the vast array of living creatures on this planet, so privatizing the world’s most precious liquid would necessarily create a divide between haves and have-nots.
Whether or not water is definitively property has great legal implications for constitutional and civil claims, and courts have not given clear or consistent guidance. If, for example, water is considered a property right and the government required reduced water delivery to irrigators under the Endangered Species Act, those irrigators might have a valid claim for compensation under a Fifth Amendment takings claim. CPR Member Scholar Dan Tarlock blogged about this specific issue here. Categorizing water as a private property right also facilitates the commodification of water, which often ignores the common public interest in water quantity, quality, and viability.
Many water rights are colored by the public trust doctrine, which holds that certain natural resources cannot be privately owned and instead must be held in trust by the government for the use and benefit of the public. This doctrine, an inherent component of a water right, tends to support the argument that water is not a matter of private property. As inexpensive supplies of water dwindle, how water is viewed as a private property will become increasingly important to water allocation and priorities.
In other parts of the West, states are exploring the idea of rainwater harvesting. Santa Fe, New Mexico, became the first city to require by ordinance rainwater harvesting on all new residential or commercial structures of a certain size. Tucson, Arizona, became the first city to require rainwater harvesting to provide 50 percent of landscape-irrigation needs. Even Colorado has reconsidered its position, recently passing a bill that permits extremely limited instances of rainwater harvesting. It remains illegal for most individual residents to harvest rainwater.
Given an increase in population and per capita consumption, coupled with water needs to restore and maintain aquatic ecosystems, perhaps those water buffaloes need to lower their horns and let other creatures sip from the limited watering holes in the West.
Yee Huang, J.D., L.L.M, joined the Center for Progressive Reform as a Policy Analyst in December 2008. Her public interest experience includes internships with the Department of State in Vienna, Austria, and Windhoek, Namibia.
© 2009 Center for Progressive Reform All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/136477/
Posted on April 13, 2009, Printed on April 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/136477/
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times described the latest absurdity in the never-ending search to quench the thirst for water: ownership of rainwater and, more precisely, the illegality of rainwater harvesting. Residents and communities in parts of Colorado are turning to this ancient practice of collecting and storing rain to fulfill their domestic water needs, including flushing toilets and watering lawns. Using this “grey” water, as it is called, relieves pressure on water resources and can be extremely efficient.
Many long-time water users, however, object to the practice.
These so-called water buffaloes argue that people who collect rainwater are taking away from their water by collecting the water before it has a chance to flow into a river from which they obtain water. Effectively, they argue, the rainwater belongs to them – they own the rain that falls from the sky as part of their water allocation, even though 97 percent of the rainfall that falls on soil does not reach a river. The bad news? The law in Colorado stands behind those water buffaloes.
Like most states west of the one-hundredth meridian, Colorado follows the doctrine of prior appropriation to allocate water. For all water uses that are non-domestic, a person must have a water right. Water rights are assigned a priority date, which is the date that the water use was initiated.
Under prior appropriation, these senior water users – many of whom have rights dating back to the 1800’s – have priority in times of water shortages based on the date of their initiation. Their water allocation is fulfilled before any junior users, who are often left with a nominal amount of water. People who harvest rainwater are “interfering” with the priority system by jumping ahead of all the senior users, who have the first right to use the water.
This dogmatic adherence to temporal priority blocks efforts to acquire water rights for newer or more efficient uses, such as in-stream conservation and recreation. These uses, initiated relatively recently, will always be subordinate to older, more consumptive uses.
Ownership of water has always been a tenuous proposition. Water and water rights linger on the perimeter of traditional property rights, eluding the solid “property” categorization of items like land or salad bowls. Individual water molecules cannot be marked or identified, and water is in constant motion, swirling below, above, and around the earth in the global hydrologic cycle. More significantly, water is survival for the vast array of living creatures on this planet, so privatizing the world’s most precious liquid would necessarily create a divide between haves and have-nots.
Whether or not water is definitively property has great legal implications for constitutional and civil claims, and courts have not given clear or consistent guidance. If, for example, water is considered a property right and the government required reduced water delivery to irrigators under the Endangered Species Act, those irrigators might have a valid claim for compensation under a Fifth Amendment takings claim. CPR Member Scholar Dan Tarlock blogged about this specific issue here. Categorizing water as a private property right also facilitates the commodification of water, which often ignores the common public interest in water quantity, quality, and viability.
Many water rights are colored by the public trust doctrine, which holds that certain natural resources cannot be privately owned and instead must be held in trust by the government for the use and benefit of the public. This doctrine, an inherent component of a water right, tends to support the argument that water is not a matter of private property. As inexpensive supplies of water dwindle, how water is viewed as a private property will become increasingly important to water allocation and priorities.
In other parts of the West, states are exploring the idea of rainwater harvesting. Santa Fe, New Mexico, became the first city to require by ordinance rainwater harvesting on all new residential or commercial structures of a certain size. Tucson, Arizona, became the first city to require rainwater harvesting to provide 50 percent of landscape-irrigation needs. Even Colorado has reconsidered its position, recently passing a bill that permits extremely limited instances of rainwater harvesting. It remains illegal for most individual residents to harvest rainwater.
Given an increase in population and per capita consumption, coupled with water needs to restore and maintain aquatic ecosystems, perhaps those water buffaloes need to lower their horns and let other creatures sip from the limited watering holes in the West.
Yee Huang, J.D., L.L.M, joined the Center for Progressive Reform as a Policy Analyst in December 2008. Her public interest experience includes internships with the Department of State in Vienna, Austria, and Windhoek, Namibia.
© 2009 Center for Progressive Reform All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/136477/
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Jury: Colorado school wrongly fired professor
By IVAN MORENO, Associated Press Writer Ivan Moreno, Associated Press Writer 46 mins ago
DENVER – A jury ruled Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongly fired the professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, a verdict that gives the professor $1 and a chance to get his job back. "What was asked for and what was delivered was justice," Ward Churchill said outside the courtroom.
Then-Gov. Bill Owens was among the officials who had called on the university to fire Churchill after his essay touched off a national firestorm, but the tenured professor of ethnic studies was ultimately terminated on charges of research misconduct.
Churchill said claims including plagiarism were just a cover and that he never would have been fired if it weren't for the essay in which he called World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. Jurors agreed.
When the verdict was read, Churchill hugged his attorney, David Lane, and his wife, Natsu Saito.
"I can't tell you how significant this is," Lane said. "There are few defining moments that give the First Amendment this kind of light."
A judge will decide whether Churchill gets his job back. Lane said a reinstatement motion would be filed within 30 days and a hearing would likely be scheduled in June.
"What's next for me? Reinstatement, of course," Churchill said. "That's what I asked for. I didn't ask for money."
University spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the university will review its options before deciding whether to appeal.
"(The verdict) doesn't change the fact that more than 20 of his faculty peers found that he engaged in plagiarism and other academic misconduct," McConnellogue said.
He said the jury's $1 damage award sends a message about the merits of Churchill's civil claims.
Lane said the university will also be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in Churchill's legal bills.
Churchill's essay was written in 2001 but attracted little attention until 2005, when critics publicized it after Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
Churchill testified last week that he didn't mean his comments to be hurtful to Sept. 11 victims. He said he was arguing that "if you make it a practice of killing other people's babies for personal gain ... eventually they're going to give you a taste of the same thing."
Betsy Hoffman, who was president of the university at the time, had testified that Owens pressured her to fire Churchill and said he would "unleash my plan" when she told him she couldn't.
In his testimony, Owens denied threatening the university.
University officials concluded that Churchill couldn't be fired over the essay because of his First Amendment rights, but they launched an investigation of his academic research.
That investigation, which didn't include the Sept. 11 essay, concluded he had plagiarized, fabricated evidence and committed other misconduct. He was fired on those allegations in 2007.
The university has maintained that the firing was justified.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/embattled_professor_lawsuit
DENVER – A jury ruled Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongly fired the professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, a verdict that gives the professor $1 and a chance to get his job back. "What was asked for and what was delivered was justice," Ward Churchill said outside the courtroom.
Then-Gov. Bill Owens was among the officials who had called on the university to fire Churchill after his essay touched off a national firestorm, but the tenured professor of ethnic studies was ultimately terminated on charges of research misconduct.
Churchill said claims including plagiarism were just a cover and that he never would have been fired if it weren't for the essay in which he called World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. Jurors agreed.
When the verdict was read, Churchill hugged his attorney, David Lane, and his wife, Natsu Saito.
"I can't tell you how significant this is," Lane said. "There are few defining moments that give the First Amendment this kind of light."
A judge will decide whether Churchill gets his job back. Lane said a reinstatement motion would be filed within 30 days and a hearing would likely be scheduled in June.
"What's next for me? Reinstatement, of course," Churchill said. "That's what I asked for. I didn't ask for money."
University spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the university will review its options before deciding whether to appeal.
"(The verdict) doesn't change the fact that more than 20 of his faculty peers found that he engaged in plagiarism and other academic misconduct," McConnellogue said.
He said the jury's $1 damage award sends a message about the merits of Churchill's civil claims.
Lane said the university will also be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in Churchill's legal bills.
Churchill's essay was written in 2001 but attracted little attention until 2005, when critics publicized it after Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
Churchill testified last week that he didn't mean his comments to be hurtful to Sept. 11 victims. He said he was arguing that "if you make it a practice of killing other people's babies for personal gain ... eventually they're going to give you a taste of the same thing."
Betsy Hoffman, who was president of the university at the time, had testified that Owens pressured her to fire Churchill and said he would "unleash my plan" when she told him she couldn't.
In his testimony, Owens denied threatening the university.
University officials concluded that Churchill couldn't be fired over the essay because of his First Amendment rights, but they launched an investigation of his academic research.
That investigation, which didn't include the Sept. 11 essay, concluded he had plagiarized, fabricated evidence and committed other misconduct. He was fired on those allegations in 2007.
The university has maintained that the firing was justified.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/embattled_professor_lawsuit
8 Ways to Join the Local Food Movement
By Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine
Posted on April 1, 2009, Printed on April 2, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/134329/
1. From Lawn to Lunch
To convert your sunny lawn to a lunch box, remove turf in long, 18-inch strips. Cut the edges of each strip with a sharp-bladed edging tool. While one partner rolls up the grass like a jellyroll, another slices through grass roots with the edging tool. Remove about an inch of rooty soil with the top growth. When the roll gets heavy, slice it off and load it in a wheelbarrow.
To compost the strips, layer green sides together, then brown sides together, ending brown-side-up. Cover the stack with soil and mulch (straw, chopped leaves, or shredded bark) and let stand for 10-12 months.
Make beds 10 to 20 feet long and six to eight feet wide (so you can reach the center from each side). Mulch three to four-foot wide paths between beds (grass left in the path will infiltrate your beds) to accommodate a wheelbarrow. Now fork over the soil strips and remove as many roots as possible. Aerate beds with a garden fork, sinking it as evenly and deeply as possible.
Spread on two or three inches of compost, then set plants about six inches apart, in staggered rows. Top with a mulch containing corn gluten, a high-nitrogen protein that prevents weed seeds from germinating.
-- Ann Lovejoy is author of Ann Lovejoy's Organic Garden Design School (A Rodale Organic Gardening Book, 2004) and many other books.
www.YesMagazine.org/lawn
Look who wants to TransFarm the White House lawn…
2. Eat Your Vegetables
Some 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by meat production. The USDA attributes 14 percent of all deaths in the U.S. to poor diets and/or sedentary lifestyles. You can improve your health and the health of the planet by following food columnist Michael Pollan's simple rule: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
3. Party with Your Preserves
Ten quarts of pumpkin puree in the pantry, and not a jar of tomato sauce left? Throw a canning swap party. Here are some tips and recommendations from foodroutes.org:
Plan ahead.
Gauge interest with your friends early on. Then remind them throughout the planting, growing, and harvesting season to set aside extras for canning and swapping.
Don't be afraid to grow a lot of something.
If you're a budding salsa artist, plant that extra row of tomatoes. Or if you see a good deal on a box of local pears -- get them.
Try new recipes on your swappers.
Bust out that crazy 5-alarm salsa verde recipe you've always been scared to try. Make sure to can extra so you can pop a jar open for samples.
Be aware of what constitutes a "fair" trade.
This is simple. You're all friends and canners who know how time-consuming canning can be. Be open and ask what your neighbor feels comfortable receiving in exchange for one jar of Grandma Edie's apricot chutney.
Think outside the Ball Jar.
Not everything at the canning swap party has to be pressure-canned or boiled in a hot water bath. Dried items, homemade baked goods, candies, and homebrewed beer are all eligible. You'll be amazed by what can be preserved from the season's bounty.
4. Glean Those Fields Clean
A lot of perfectly good food is left to rot in farm fields and under fruit and nut trees. With a bit of work, you can gather a group to "glean" this free food, providing fresh, nutritious food to your community.
To glean in your area, talk to farmers, gardeners, and orchard owners. Explain your purpose, share a copy of federal "Good Samaritan" law, which protects them from liability, and ask for written permission to glean.
Recruit gleaners. Family, friends, students, and members of your faith community are potential volunteers. You can also put a notice on craigslist, bulletin boards, at farmers markets, or in the local paper.
Contact food banks, shelters, and other facilities to check on their needs, and to arrange delivery times.
On gleaning day, bring collection baskets and buckets, snacks, water, and other necessities that will ensure a successful expedition.
As the day ends, gather your freshly harvested food, thank the landowner, distribute something to each gleaner, and leave the land in better condition than you found it.
-- Kim Nochi
Source: University of Maine Cooperative Extension
5. Shop Outside of Supermarkets
It's easy to see, taste, and feel the benefit of locally produced food, but for many of us it's a hassle to locate alternative food sources. Local foods are not nearly as well-advertised or visible as chain supermarket foods, so even those who want to give locally harvested food a try may not know where to get it. Here are some ways you can find local food sources in your area.
Get the lay of the land; consider what types of agriculture are natural to your environment. Does your area have a history of blueberry farming or cod fishing? Are there traditional foods that have been neglected in the fast-food age?
Talk to old timers, ask around at farmers markets, look for road-side food stands and U-pick places. Watch for hand-painted signs. You may find a wide variety of freshly harvested foods and get to know new communities and regional traditions at the same time.
Visit localharvest.org, sustainabletable.org, and eatwellguide.org to find sources of affordable and environmentally friendly food.
-- Heather Purser
6. Start a Community Garden
Start by calling a meeting (or better yet, a potluck) to decide what kind of garden you want, what locations might work, and how to manage plots.
Identify possible sites. Look for land that gets plenty of sunlight, has a water source, is convenient to get to, and is free of soil contamination. You could consider combining back yards if several neighbors are involved.
Identify the owner of the land and negotiate a lease long enough to make it worth building the soil and the community involvement. Invite immediate neighbors to join.
Test the soil for nutrient levels and contaminants. Clean the site, mark plots with gardeners' names, and, if possible, include on-site storage for tools and equipment. Also designate a spot for compost.
When the first planting season comes around, consider hiring someone to turn the earth, or throw a work party to build raised beds.
Meet now and then with your fellow gardeners to swap seeds and seedlings, advice, and produce, and to resolve any difficulties. Have potlucks to enjoy the harvest.
For more ideas, including sample bylaws and insurance policies, go to communitygarden.org
7. Plant a Row for the Hungry
As unemployment rises, more people are wondering how they will put food on their table. How can you boost food security at home …
* Skip the so-called convenience foods; processed foods almost always cost more for what you get.
* Form a buying club to get healthy food in bulk at discount prices.
* Grow your own -- start a community garden, or transform your lawn or parking strip (see #1 and #6).
* Buy in season, or harvest and preserve it yourself.
* Study (and/or teach) the art of cooking and preserving tasty, nutritious food on a budget.
… and in your community:
* Contribute something from every shopping trip to local food banks.
* Glean (see #4 above).
* Plant a row for the hungry and donate the produce to a shelter, day care center, neighbor, or food bank.
* Start a food bank out of a faith center or community center if there are no similar programs nearby (see www.yesmagazine.org/pantry).
8. Share Your Table
The best antidote to fast-food culture is as simple as your table. Invite friends and a few strangers to a local-foods potluck. In good weather, eat outside. Share an evening of conversation and enjoy the good life.
www.YesMagazine.org/sundaydinner
Meet Jim Haynes, the man who invites the world to dinner.
Sarah van Gelder, Anne Lovejoy, Kim Nochi, and Heather Purser wrote pieces for this article as part of Food for Everyone, the Spring 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Sarah is the Executive Editor of YES! Magazine.
© 2009 YES! Magazine All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/134329/
Posted on April 1, 2009, Printed on April 2, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/134329/
1. From Lawn to Lunch
To convert your sunny lawn to a lunch box, remove turf in long, 18-inch strips. Cut the edges of each strip with a sharp-bladed edging tool. While one partner rolls up the grass like a jellyroll, another slices through grass roots with the edging tool. Remove about an inch of rooty soil with the top growth. When the roll gets heavy, slice it off and load it in a wheelbarrow.
To compost the strips, layer green sides together, then brown sides together, ending brown-side-up. Cover the stack with soil and mulch (straw, chopped leaves, or shredded bark) and let stand for 10-12 months.
Make beds 10 to 20 feet long and six to eight feet wide (so you can reach the center from each side). Mulch three to four-foot wide paths between beds (grass left in the path will infiltrate your beds) to accommodate a wheelbarrow. Now fork over the soil strips and remove as many roots as possible. Aerate beds with a garden fork, sinking it as evenly and deeply as possible.
Spread on two or three inches of compost, then set plants about six inches apart, in staggered rows. Top with a mulch containing corn gluten, a high-nitrogen protein that prevents weed seeds from germinating.
-- Ann Lovejoy is author of Ann Lovejoy's Organic Garden Design School (A Rodale Organic Gardening Book, 2004) and many other books.
www.YesMagazine.org/lawn
Look who wants to TransFarm the White House lawn…
2. Eat Your Vegetables
Some 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by meat production. The USDA attributes 14 percent of all deaths in the U.S. to poor diets and/or sedentary lifestyles. You can improve your health and the health of the planet by following food columnist Michael Pollan's simple rule: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
3. Party with Your Preserves
Ten quarts of pumpkin puree in the pantry, and not a jar of tomato sauce left? Throw a canning swap party. Here are some tips and recommendations from foodroutes.org:
Plan ahead.
Gauge interest with your friends early on. Then remind them throughout the planting, growing, and harvesting season to set aside extras for canning and swapping.
Don't be afraid to grow a lot of something.
If you're a budding salsa artist, plant that extra row of tomatoes. Or if you see a good deal on a box of local pears -- get them.
Try new recipes on your swappers.
Bust out that crazy 5-alarm salsa verde recipe you've always been scared to try. Make sure to can extra so you can pop a jar open for samples.
Be aware of what constitutes a "fair" trade.
This is simple. You're all friends and canners who know how time-consuming canning can be. Be open and ask what your neighbor feels comfortable receiving in exchange for one jar of Grandma Edie's apricot chutney.
Think outside the Ball Jar.
Not everything at the canning swap party has to be pressure-canned or boiled in a hot water bath. Dried items, homemade baked goods, candies, and homebrewed beer are all eligible. You'll be amazed by what can be preserved from the season's bounty.
4. Glean Those Fields Clean
A lot of perfectly good food is left to rot in farm fields and under fruit and nut trees. With a bit of work, you can gather a group to "glean" this free food, providing fresh, nutritious food to your community.
To glean in your area, talk to farmers, gardeners, and orchard owners. Explain your purpose, share a copy of federal "Good Samaritan" law, which protects them from liability, and ask for written permission to glean.
Recruit gleaners. Family, friends, students, and members of your faith community are potential volunteers. You can also put a notice on craigslist, bulletin boards, at farmers markets, or in the local paper.
Contact food banks, shelters, and other facilities to check on their needs, and to arrange delivery times.
On gleaning day, bring collection baskets and buckets, snacks, water, and other necessities that will ensure a successful expedition.
As the day ends, gather your freshly harvested food, thank the landowner, distribute something to each gleaner, and leave the land in better condition than you found it.
-- Kim Nochi
Source: University of Maine Cooperative Extension
5. Shop Outside of Supermarkets
It's easy to see, taste, and feel the benefit of locally produced food, but for many of us it's a hassle to locate alternative food sources. Local foods are not nearly as well-advertised or visible as chain supermarket foods, so even those who want to give locally harvested food a try may not know where to get it. Here are some ways you can find local food sources in your area.
Get the lay of the land; consider what types of agriculture are natural to your environment. Does your area have a history of blueberry farming or cod fishing? Are there traditional foods that have been neglected in the fast-food age?
Talk to old timers, ask around at farmers markets, look for road-side food stands and U-pick places. Watch for hand-painted signs. You may find a wide variety of freshly harvested foods and get to know new communities and regional traditions at the same time.
Visit localharvest.org, sustainabletable.org, and eatwellguide.org to find sources of affordable and environmentally friendly food.
-- Heather Purser
6. Start a Community Garden
Start by calling a meeting (or better yet, a potluck) to decide what kind of garden you want, what locations might work, and how to manage plots.
Identify possible sites. Look for land that gets plenty of sunlight, has a water source, is convenient to get to, and is free of soil contamination. You could consider combining back yards if several neighbors are involved.
Identify the owner of the land and negotiate a lease long enough to make it worth building the soil and the community involvement. Invite immediate neighbors to join.
Test the soil for nutrient levels and contaminants. Clean the site, mark plots with gardeners' names, and, if possible, include on-site storage for tools and equipment. Also designate a spot for compost.
When the first planting season comes around, consider hiring someone to turn the earth, or throw a work party to build raised beds.
Meet now and then with your fellow gardeners to swap seeds and seedlings, advice, and produce, and to resolve any difficulties. Have potlucks to enjoy the harvest.
For more ideas, including sample bylaws and insurance policies, go to communitygarden.org
7. Plant a Row for the Hungry
As unemployment rises, more people are wondering how they will put food on their table. How can you boost food security at home …
* Skip the so-called convenience foods; processed foods almost always cost more for what you get.
* Form a buying club to get healthy food in bulk at discount prices.
* Grow your own -- start a community garden, or transform your lawn or parking strip (see #1 and #6).
* Buy in season, or harvest and preserve it yourself.
* Study (and/or teach) the art of cooking and preserving tasty, nutritious food on a budget.
… and in your community:
* Contribute something from every shopping trip to local food banks.
* Glean (see #4 above).
* Plant a row for the hungry and donate the produce to a shelter, day care center, neighbor, or food bank.
* Start a food bank out of a faith center or community center if there are no similar programs nearby (see www.yesmagazine.org/pantry).
8. Share Your Table
The best antidote to fast-food culture is as simple as your table. Invite friends and a few strangers to a local-foods potluck. In good weather, eat outside. Share an evening of conversation and enjoy the good life.
www.YesMagazine.org/sundaydinner
Meet Jim Haynes, the man who invites the world to dinner.
Sarah van Gelder, Anne Lovejoy, Kim Nochi, and Heather Purser wrote pieces for this article as part of Food for Everyone, the Spring 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Sarah is the Executive Editor of YES! Magazine.
© 2009 YES! Magazine All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/134329/
Sunday, March 29, 2009
States Rebellion Pending
Thursday, March 26, 2009
By Walter E. Williams
Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war.
Today it’s the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George’s actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance—perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we’ve become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants—has made us easy prey for Washington’s tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans’ characteristic spirit of rebellion.
Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. There’s speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.
You might ask, “Isn’t the 10th Amendment that no-good states’ rights amendment that Dixie governors, such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, used to thwart school desegregation and black civil rights?” That’s the kind of constitutional disrespect and ignorance that big-government proponents, whether they’re liberals or conservatives, want you to have. The reason is that they want Washington to have total control over our lives. The Founders tried to limit that power with the 10th Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
New Hampshire’s 10th Amendment resolution typifies others and, in part, reads: “That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General (federal) Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Put simply, these 10th Amendment resolutions insist that the states and their people are the masters and that Congress and the White House are the servants.
Put yet another way, Washington is a creature of the states, not the other way around.
Congress and the White House will laugh off these state resolutions. State legislatures must take measures that put some teeth into their 10th Amendment resolutions. Congress will simply threaten a state, for example, with a cutoff of highway construction funds if it doesn’t obey a congressional mandate, such as those that require seat belt laws or that lower the legal blood-alcohol level to .08 for drivers. States might take a lead explored by Colorado.
In 1994, the Colorado Legislature passed a 10th Amendment resolution and later introduced a bill titled “State Sovereignty Act.” Had the State Sovereignty Act passed both houses of the legislature, it would have required all people liable for any federal tax that’s a component of the highway users fund, such as a gasoline tax, to remit those taxes directly to the Colorado Department of Revenue. The money would have been deposited in an escrow account called the “Federal Tax Fund” and remitted monthly to the IRS, along with a list of payees and respective amounts paid.
If Congress imposed sanctions on Colorado for failure to obey an unconstitutional mandate and penalized the state by withholding funds due, say $5 million for highway construction, the State Sovereignty Act would have prohibited the state treasurer from remitting any funds in the escrow account to the IRS. Instead, Colorado would have imposed a $5 million surcharge on the Federal Tax Fund account to continue the highway construction.
The eight state legislatures that have enacted 10th Amendment resolutions deserve our praise, but their next step is to give them teeth.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45680
By Walter E. Williams
Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war.
Today it’s the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George’s actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance—perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we’ve become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants—has made us easy prey for Washington’s tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans’ characteristic spirit of rebellion.
Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. There’s speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.
You might ask, “Isn’t the 10th Amendment that no-good states’ rights amendment that Dixie governors, such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, used to thwart school desegregation and black civil rights?” That’s the kind of constitutional disrespect and ignorance that big-government proponents, whether they’re liberals or conservatives, want you to have. The reason is that they want Washington to have total control over our lives. The Founders tried to limit that power with the 10th Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
New Hampshire’s 10th Amendment resolution typifies others and, in part, reads: “That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General (federal) Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Put simply, these 10th Amendment resolutions insist that the states and their people are the masters and that Congress and the White House are the servants.
Put yet another way, Washington is a creature of the states, not the other way around.
Congress and the White House will laugh off these state resolutions. State legislatures must take measures that put some teeth into their 10th Amendment resolutions. Congress will simply threaten a state, for example, with a cutoff of highway construction funds if it doesn’t obey a congressional mandate, such as those that require seat belt laws or that lower the legal blood-alcohol level to .08 for drivers. States might take a lead explored by Colorado.
In 1994, the Colorado Legislature passed a 10th Amendment resolution and later introduced a bill titled “State Sovereignty Act.” Had the State Sovereignty Act passed both houses of the legislature, it would have required all people liable for any federal tax that’s a component of the highway users fund, such as a gasoline tax, to remit those taxes directly to the Colorado Department of Revenue. The money would have been deposited in an escrow account called the “Federal Tax Fund” and remitted monthly to the IRS, along with a list of payees and respective amounts paid.
If Congress imposed sanctions on Colorado for failure to obey an unconstitutional mandate and penalized the state by withholding funds due, say $5 million for highway construction, the State Sovereignty Act would have prohibited the state treasurer from remitting any funds in the escrow account to the IRS. Instead, Colorado would have imposed a $5 million surcharge on the Federal Tax Fund account to continue the highway construction.
The eight state legislatures that have enacted 10th Amendment resolutions deserve our praise, but their next step is to give them teeth.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45680
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Commander confirms Netanyahu war plans
Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:36:18 GMT
The last Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip claimed the lives of at least 1,350 Palestinians.
Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.
Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for "all possible scenarios", indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
The confirmation comes as US President Barack Obama seeks "new beginnings" with its arch-rival Iran. The US offer has been met with world praise but with fury in Tel Aviv.
Israeli media outlets late on Sunday began propagating wild scenarios that Iran is using the Lebanese Hezbollah to recruit Palestinian fighters to carry out terror attacks on Israel.
Citing anonymous sources, the reports began to surface after Tel Aviv countered an alleged bombing attempt outside a shopping mall in the northern city of Haifa.
"We are treating the attempted attack in Haifa with great gravity. A huge disaster was prevented by a miracle," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting after the bomb was defused on Sunday.
Israel has long accused Iran of arming Hezbollah and Palestinian groups via Syria, in an attempt to demonize the two Muslim countries.
Tel Aviv also accuses Tehran of developing nuclear weaponry -- a charge denied by the UN nuclear watchdog.
At a conference held in Tel Aviv, Golan also confirmed the likeliness of Israel staging another military confrontation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although Israel does not consider rocket attacks from Gaza as a serious threat, there is the possibility of "dangerous" missile attacks by other countries, he said.
He failed to elaborate how such missile attacks would relate to Gaza.
His remarks came as reports claim that the soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans for "a major military conflict in the coming months."
The commander also revealed that Tel Aviv will install new warning systems across Israel in preparation for its war plans.
The last Israeli-waged war on the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, killed at least 1,350 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,450 others in the densely-populated sliver.
The aggression was the last in a series of operations carried out by the Israeli forces against the natives of the land since occupying Palestine in 1948.
SB/AA/MD
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=89413§ionid=351020202
The last Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip claimed the lives of at least 1,350 Palestinians.
Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.
Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for "all possible scenarios", indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
The confirmation comes as US President Barack Obama seeks "new beginnings" with its arch-rival Iran. The US offer has been met with world praise but with fury in Tel Aviv.
Israeli media outlets late on Sunday began propagating wild scenarios that Iran is using the Lebanese Hezbollah to recruit Palestinian fighters to carry out terror attacks on Israel.
Citing anonymous sources, the reports began to surface after Tel Aviv countered an alleged bombing attempt outside a shopping mall in the northern city of Haifa.
"We are treating the attempted attack in Haifa with great gravity. A huge disaster was prevented by a miracle," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting after the bomb was defused on Sunday.
Israel has long accused Iran of arming Hezbollah and Palestinian groups via Syria, in an attempt to demonize the two Muslim countries.
Tel Aviv also accuses Tehran of developing nuclear weaponry -- a charge denied by the UN nuclear watchdog.
At a conference held in Tel Aviv, Golan also confirmed the likeliness of Israel staging another military confrontation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although Israel does not consider rocket attacks from Gaza as a serious threat, there is the possibility of "dangerous" missile attacks by other countries, he said.
He failed to elaborate how such missile attacks would relate to Gaza.
His remarks came as reports claim that the soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans for "a major military conflict in the coming months."
The commander also revealed that Tel Aviv will install new warning systems across Israel in preparation for its war plans.
The last Israeli-waged war on the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, killed at least 1,350 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,450 others in the densely-populated sliver.
The aggression was the last in a series of operations carried out by the Israeli forces against the natives of the land since occupying Palestine in 1948.
SB/AA/MD
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=89413§ionid=351020202
IMF director warns of war
25 March 2009
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned on Monday that the global economic situation is "dire" and could lead to social upheaval and war. The statement is the latest in a series of worried pronouncements from leading international figures in the financial and political establishment.
The IMF is projecting a 1 percent decline in the global economy this year, which Strauss-Kahn noted would be "the first setback of the world economy in over 50 years." The IMF chief was speaking before a meeting of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The economic crisis, Strauss-Kahn said, would affect "dramatically unemployment for many countries. It will be at the roots of social unrest, some threats to democracy and maybe for some cases, it can also end in war."
Without citing specific countries, Strauss-Kahn also warned of regions of the world where "the financial collapse risk does exist."
The implications of the economic collapse for working people internationally are still in their initial stages. The ILO predicted in January that up to 50 million jobs would be eliminated throughout the world in 2009. This is likely an underestimation, as the economic crisis has sharply accelerated over the past several months.
Strauss-Kahn's position is one of concern over the prospect of mass opposition to the policies of the ruling elite as the economic situation deteriorates. He pleaded for the capitalist powers to implement policies that would prevent the crisis from "becoming a wasteland of unemployment." The major architects of the capitalist system over the past several decades are keenly aware that they have created an economic catastrophe that threatens social upheaval.
While Strauss-Kahn did not specify what he meant by the danger of war, his remarks came in the midst of hardening conflicts between the major powers over economic policy in the run-up to the G-20 summit meeting of major economies in London next month.
On Tuesday, German President and former IMF chief Hörst Koehler echoed some of Straus-Kahn's concerns and urged the countries participating in the G-20 summit to come up with a common plan for restructuring the world financial order. "I stand by my suggestion of organising a Bretton Woods II under the auspices of the United Nations to push forward a fundamental reform of the international economic and financial system," Koehler said. He warned that the outcome is a "test for democracy as a whole. Many citizens are unsettled. The coming months will be very tough."
In the back of the minds of many heads of state and figures such as Strauss-Kahn is no doubt the last time world leaders gathered in London to discuss a financial crisis. At the 1933 London conference, the major powers failed to come up with any coordinated agreement to respond to the Great Depression. The breakdown of the conference accelerated protectionist and beggar-thy-neighbor policies, which intensified the slump and exacerbated national antagonisms, culminating in the eruption of World War II.
As in 1933, world leaders are today proclaiming the need for international coordination, even as they fiercely defend the national interests of their respective financial and corporate elites.
In a column published in many world newspapers on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama asserted that "the leaders of the Group of 20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jump-starts recovery, but also launches a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again."
The US continues to insist that European countries implement expanded stimulus packages, while Europe—particularly France and Germany—are insisting that the summit focus on new international financial regulations. While making vague reference to new regulations, Obama wrote that the efforts of the major powers "must begin with swift action to stimulate growth" and that fiscal stimulus "should be robust and sustained until demand is restored."
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon argued on Monday that France had already committed sufficient resources to stimulus and that it was necessary to "avoid creating a bubble of public debt." The major European powers have opposed further stimulus packages, in part over concern over inflation and the stability of the euro.
Whatever Obama's talk of "coordinated action," the US is implementing a policy that approaches the financial equivalent of preemptive war. The government has committed trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street and US banks. Capitalizing on the still privileged position of the US dollar, the American ruling class is intent on funding these bailouts through the sale of massive volumes of debt on world markets, sucking up available financing and making it more difficult and expensive for other countries to get funding for their own programs.
The United States has initiated a policy of printing vast quantities of money—in part to finance the very debt that it is creating to bail out its banks. This potentially inflationary policy has generated an extremely nervous reaction from other powers, most noticeably China, which has over $1 trillion in dollar-denominated assets. These assets would plunge in value in the event of a major decline in the value of the dollar.
The head of the Chinese central bank argued on Monday for a new international currency to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency. On Tuesday, Li Xiangyang of the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences called the Fed's new policy of purchasing US Treasuries "irresponsible." He said that China would likely ask for "specific measures" on the part of the US to ensure the value of Chinese holdings.
Behind these policy differences are competing interests. The financial stakes are considerable. Tens of trillions of dollars in paper wealth have been destroyed on world markets since the crisis began. The combined wealth of the world's billionaires has declined by almost a half. How will these losses be allocated?
Whatever the hopes of Strauss-Kahn and Koehler for a more coordinated policy that will help head off social conflict, there is an inexorable logic to the class interests involved. On the one hand, the ruling class in every country will work ruthlessly to impose the burden of the economic crisis on the backs of working people. This is already taking place through massive job- and wage-cutting and attacks on social programs. On the other hand, the economic crisis will exacerbate the struggle over resources between the major powers—a struggle that, within the capitalist system, can ultimately be resolved only through war.
Joe Kishore
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/pers-m25.shtml
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned on Monday that the global economic situation is "dire" and could lead to social upheaval and war. The statement is the latest in a series of worried pronouncements from leading international figures in the financial and political establishment.
The IMF is projecting a 1 percent decline in the global economy this year, which Strauss-Kahn noted would be "the first setback of the world economy in over 50 years." The IMF chief was speaking before a meeting of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The economic crisis, Strauss-Kahn said, would affect "dramatically unemployment for many countries. It will be at the roots of social unrest, some threats to democracy and maybe for some cases, it can also end in war."
Without citing specific countries, Strauss-Kahn also warned of regions of the world where "the financial collapse risk does exist."
The implications of the economic collapse for working people internationally are still in their initial stages. The ILO predicted in January that up to 50 million jobs would be eliminated throughout the world in 2009. This is likely an underestimation, as the economic crisis has sharply accelerated over the past several months.
Strauss-Kahn's position is one of concern over the prospect of mass opposition to the policies of the ruling elite as the economic situation deteriorates. He pleaded for the capitalist powers to implement policies that would prevent the crisis from "becoming a wasteland of unemployment." The major architects of the capitalist system over the past several decades are keenly aware that they have created an economic catastrophe that threatens social upheaval.
While Strauss-Kahn did not specify what he meant by the danger of war, his remarks came in the midst of hardening conflicts between the major powers over economic policy in the run-up to the G-20 summit meeting of major economies in London next month.
On Tuesday, German President and former IMF chief Hörst Koehler echoed some of Straus-Kahn's concerns and urged the countries participating in the G-20 summit to come up with a common plan for restructuring the world financial order. "I stand by my suggestion of organising a Bretton Woods II under the auspices of the United Nations to push forward a fundamental reform of the international economic and financial system," Koehler said. He warned that the outcome is a "test for democracy as a whole. Many citizens are unsettled. The coming months will be very tough."
In the back of the minds of many heads of state and figures such as Strauss-Kahn is no doubt the last time world leaders gathered in London to discuss a financial crisis. At the 1933 London conference, the major powers failed to come up with any coordinated agreement to respond to the Great Depression. The breakdown of the conference accelerated protectionist and beggar-thy-neighbor policies, which intensified the slump and exacerbated national antagonisms, culminating in the eruption of World War II.
As in 1933, world leaders are today proclaiming the need for international coordination, even as they fiercely defend the national interests of their respective financial and corporate elites.
In a column published in many world newspapers on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama asserted that "the leaders of the Group of 20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jump-starts recovery, but also launches a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again."
The US continues to insist that European countries implement expanded stimulus packages, while Europe—particularly France and Germany—are insisting that the summit focus on new international financial regulations. While making vague reference to new regulations, Obama wrote that the efforts of the major powers "must begin with swift action to stimulate growth" and that fiscal stimulus "should be robust and sustained until demand is restored."
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon argued on Monday that France had already committed sufficient resources to stimulus and that it was necessary to "avoid creating a bubble of public debt." The major European powers have opposed further stimulus packages, in part over concern over inflation and the stability of the euro.
Whatever Obama's talk of "coordinated action," the US is implementing a policy that approaches the financial equivalent of preemptive war. The government has committed trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street and US banks. Capitalizing on the still privileged position of the US dollar, the American ruling class is intent on funding these bailouts through the sale of massive volumes of debt on world markets, sucking up available financing and making it more difficult and expensive for other countries to get funding for their own programs.
The United States has initiated a policy of printing vast quantities of money—in part to finance the very debt that it is creating to bail out its banks. This potentially inflationary policy has generated an extremely nervous reaction from other powers, most noticeably China, which has over $1 trillion in dollar-denominated assets. These assets would plunge in value in the event of a major decline in the value of the dollar.
The head of the Chinese central bank argued on Monday for a new international currency to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency. On Tuesday, Li Xiangyang of the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences called the Fed's new policy of purchasing US Treasuries "irresponsible." He said that China would likely ask for "specific measures" on the part of the US to ensure the value of Chinese holdings.
Behind these policy differences are competing interests. The financial stakes are considerable. Tens of trillions of dollars in paper wealth have been destroyed on world markets since the crisis began. The combined wealth of the world's billionaires has declined by almost a half. How will these losses be allocated?
Whatever the hopes of Strauss-Kahn and Koehler for a more coordinated policy that will help head off social conflict, there is an inexorable logic to the class interests involved. On the one hand, the ruling class in every country will work ruthlessly to impose the burden of the economic crisis on the backs of working people. This is already taking place through massive job- and wage-cutting and attacks on social programs. On the other hand, the economic crisis will exacerbate the struggle over resources between the major powers—a struggle that, within the capitalist system, can ultimately be resolved only through war.
Joe Kishore
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/pers-m25.shtml
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
China calls for new global currency
By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer Joe Mcdonald, Ap Business Writer Tue Mar 24, 10:23 pm ET
BEIJING – China is calling for a new global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.
The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.
The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."
Zhou did not mention the dollar by name. But in an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for a foreign audience.
China has long been uneasy about relying on the dollar for the bulk of its trade and to store foreign reserves. Premier Wen Jiabao publicly appealed to Washington this month to avoid any response to the crisis that might weaken the dollar and the value of Beijing's estimated $1 trillion in Treasuries and other U.S. government debt.
For decades, the dollar has been the world's most widely used currency. Many governments hold a large portion of their reserves in dollars. Crude oil and many commodities are priced in dollars. Business deals around the world are done in dollars.
But the financial crisis has highlighted how America's economic problems — and by extension the dollar — can wreak havoc on nations around the world. China is in a bind. To keep the value of its currency steady — some say undervalued — the Chinese government has to recycle its huge trade surpluses, and the biggest, most liquid option for investing them is U.S. government debt.
To better insulate countries from the ills of one country or one currency, Zhou said the IMF should create a "reserve currency" based on shares in the body held by its 185 member nations, known as special drawing rights, or SDRs.
He said it also should be used for trade, pricing commodities and accounting, not just government finance.
President Barack Obama described China's proposal as unnecessary during a prime-time news conference Tuesday.
"I don't believe that there's a need for a global currency," Obama said.
The president also pointed to the current strength of American money. "The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world."
Earlier in the day, both U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took similar positions at a congressional hearing. They were asked by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., if they would "categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency," and both said they would.
And the European Union's top economy official said the dollar's role as the international reserve currency is secure despite China's proposal.
"Everybody agrees also that the present world reserve currency, the dollar, is there and will continue to be there for a long period of time," EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Tuesday after a meeting of the European Commission.
Zhou also called for changing how SDRs are valued. Currently, they are based on the value of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and British pound. "The basket of currencies forming the basis for SDR valuation should be expanded to include currencies of all major economies," he wrote.
Beijing has been unusually bold in recent months in expressing concern about Washington's financial management and pushing for global economic changes. That reflects both its relative financial health and growing concern that increased globalization means missteps abroad could harm its own economy.
Zhou's comments are also part of China's longstanding push to reform the IMF, World Bank and global financial system to give greater voice to China and other developing economies — another theme that will be heard from China, Brazil, Russia and India at the summit of Group of 20 major economies next week.
"Overdue reforms should give proper representation to and increase the say of the emerging and developing economies," Yi Xianrong, a researcher with the Institute of Economics and Finances at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank, wrote in the government newspaper China Daily.
"Proper representation and a bigger voice for the developing countries are the need of the hour. For instance, being the world's third-largest economy and the largest foreign reserves holder, China should get its due place in the monetary body."
Another idea Yi raised was that the U.S. and Europe should give up their traditional privileges of appointing the heads of the World Bank and the IMF.
The idea of a creating a new global reserve currency isn't new. But analysts say the proposal isn't likely to gain much traction because it faces major obstacles. It would require acceptance from nations that have long used the dollar and hold huge stockpiles of the U.S. currency.
"There has been for decades talk about creating an international reserve currency and it has never really progressed," said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management.
Managing such a currency would require balancing the contradictory needs of countries with high and low growth or with trade surpluses or deficits, Pettis said. He said the 16 European nations that use the euro have faced "huge difficulties" in managing monetary policy even though their economies are similar.
"It's hard for me to imagine how it's going to be easier for the world to have a common currency for trade," he said.
___
Chinese central bank (in Chinese): http://www.pbc.gov.cn
Chinese central bank (in English): http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090325/ap_on_re_as/as_china_global_currency/print
BEIJING – China is calling for a new global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.
The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.
The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."
Zhou did not mention the dollar by name. But in an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for a foreign audience.
China has long been uneasy about relying on the dollar for the bulk of its trade and to store foreign reserves. Premier Wen Jiabao publicly appealed to Washington this month to avoid any response to the crisis that might weaken the dollar and the value of Beijing's estimated $1 trillion in Treasuries and other U.S. government debt.
For decades, the dollar has been the world's most widely used currency. Many governments hold a large portion of their reserves in dollars. Crude oil and many commodities are priced in dollars. Business deals around the world are done in dollars.
But the financial crisis has highlighted how America's economic problems — and by extension the dollar — can wreak havoc on nations around the world. China is in a bind. To keep the value of its currency steady — some say undervalued — the Chinese government has to recycle its huge trade surpluses, and the biggest, most liquid option for investing them is U.S. government debt.
To better insulate countries from the ills of one country or one currency, Zhou said the IMF should create a "reserve currency" based on shares in the body held by its 185 member nations, known as special drawing rights, or SDRs.
He said it also should be used for trade, pricing commodities and accounting, not just government finance.
President Barack Obama described China's proposal as unnecessary during a prime-time news conference Tuesday.
"I don't believe that there's a need for a global currency," Obama said.
The president also pointed to the current strength of American money. "The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world."
Earlier in the day, both U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took similar positions at a congressional hearing. They were asked by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., if they would "categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency," and both said they would.
And the European Union's top economy official said the dollar's role as the international reserve currency is secure despite China's proposal.
"Everybody agrees also that the present world reserve currency, the dollar, is there and will continue to be there for a long period of time," EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Tuesday after a meeting of the European Commission.
Zhou also called for changing how SDRs are valued. Currently, they are based on the value of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and British pound. "The basket of currencies forming the basis for SDR valuation should be expanded to include currencies of all major economies," he wrote.
Beijing has been unusually bold in recent months in expressing concern about Washington's financial management and pushing for global economic changes. That reflects both its relative financial health and growing concern that increased globalization means missteps abroad could harm its own economy.
Zhou's comments are also part of China's longstanding push to reform the IMF, World Bank and global financial system to give greater voice to China and other developing economies — another theme that will be heard from China, Brazil, Russia and India at the summit of Group of 20 major economies next week.
"Overdue reforms should give proper representation to and increase the say of the emerging and developing economies," Yi Xianrong, a researcher with the Institute of Economics and Finances at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank, wrote in the government newspaper China Daily.
"Proper representation and a bigger voice for the developing countries are the need of the hour. For instance, being the world's third-largest economy and the largest foreign reserves holder, China should get its due place in the monetary body."
Another idea Yi raised was that the U.S. and Europe should give up their traditional privileges of appointing the heads of the World Bank and the IMF.
The idea of a creating a new global reserve currency isn't new. But analysts say the proposal isn't likely to gain much traction because it faces major obstacles. It would require acceptance from nations that have long used the dollar and hold huge stockpiles of the U.S. currency.
"There has been for decades talk about creating an international reserve currency and it has never really progressed," said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management.
Managing such a currency would require balancing the contradictory needs of countries with high and low growth or with trade surpluses or deficits, Pettis said. He said the 16 European nations that use the euro have faced "huge difficulties" in managing monetary policy even though their economies are similar.
"It's hard for me to imagine how it's going to be easier for the world to have a common currency for trade," he said.
___
Chinese central bank (in Chinese): http://www.pbc.gov.cn
Chinese central bank (in English): http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090325/ap_on_re_as/as_china_global_currency/print
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