they have to be stopped

[click image]

.

No one is going to do it for you.

.
love, 99
.

arundhati

[click image]

.
And here she is on Democracy Now! yesterday... oh, well... now... technically... day before yesterday....
.

holy mother of vishnu! some GOOD news!

[click image, crank it up, and bless our BB2!]

.

India refuses genetically modified crops, citing ‘inadequate’ science
Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 — 10:45 pm

India refused to grant permission Wednesday for the commercial cultivation of its first genetically modified (GM) food crop, citing problems of public trust and "inadequate" science.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said he was imposing a moratorium on the introduction of an aubergine modified with a gene toxic to pests that regularly devastate crops across India.

"It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach and impose a moratorium on the release," until scientific tests can guarantee the safety of the product, said Ramesh.

However, he added there was still no agreement among scientists on what constitutes "an adequate protocol of tests".

Ramesh said the moratorium was effective immediately and it would last "for as long as it is needed to establish public trust and confidence."

"I cannot go against science but in this case science is inadequate," he added. "I have to be sensitive to public concerns."

Indian regulators had approved the new aubergine back in October and its introduction would have made it the first GM foodstuff to be grown in India.

But the decision roused huge opposition and a broad spectrum of voices, including farmers, environmentalists and politicians of all stripes had urged the government to prevent its cultivation.

Ramesh spent the months since the decision travelling across the country holding public consultations with citizens.

Backers of the genetically modified aubergine said the product would boost yields by up to 50 percent, while reducing dependence on pesticides.

But critics pointed to possible long-term health problems, and warned it would open the doors to a flood of other GM food crops.

Mathura Rai, the Indian scientist who led the group that came up with the modified aubergine, declined to comment directly on the moratorium, but insisted that GM crops had a crucial role to play.

"We need a technology for increasing the quality production of vegetable crops," Rai, head of the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, told AFP from his headquarters in Varanasi city.

"In certain areas where traditional methods of breeding is not possible to improve the production or productivity, biotechnology can play a vital role," he said.

"So this is the best option for increasing the production of quality aubergine in the country," he added.

The government's decision on Tuesday came at a sensitive time with growing public frustration over soaring food prices, following a particularly poor 2009 monsoon.

But Ramesh said there was "no overriding food security argument" for the introduction of GM aubergines.

He said he had considered the views of different interest groups in making his decision but denied he had been pressured by members of his cabinet or by companies producing genetically modified crops.

"My conscience is clear. This is my decision and my decision alone," he said.

India is one of the largest aubergine producers globally.

The seeds had been developed by local scientists but would have been marketed by an Indian company partly owned by the US multinational Monsanto.

India already allows the use of genetically modified cotton and supporters say it has sharply improved yields.

Of course, uhm... this probably means war.........
.

big wet game of chicken impending

[click image]

I feel there were a lot of reasons the SCO brought in Afghanistan and Pakistan and India and Iran, but specifically excluded participation or monitoring from the U.S. Department of State. All these panicked people about what happens if they dump their dollar reserves is shaping up to be somewhat beside the point. I think they are interested in uniting the Asian continent as a bloc to back down our aggression there. I'm sure they're not into North Korea's nuclear nonsense, but I think also that they are all aware that we are doing everyone more harm than good, both financially and in the grand geopolitical chess game.

A snippet from a Jeremy Scahill interview sort of helps illustrate what I mean:

Let's step back and look at what we've seen happen over five months of the Obama administration when it comes to foreign policy.

We've seen a radical escalation of the war in Afghanistan. We've seen Obama continue to use a quarter-million U.S. contractors--50 percent of the force that's fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's increasing the number of mercenaries in Afghanistan by 29 percent and approximately 23 percent in Iraq.

He's continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and maintaining the monstrous U.S. embassy that was built, in part, on the basis of slave labor. He's continuing to dole out contracts to KBR, the single greatest corporate beneficiary of the war, despite the fact that its work has electrocuted [to death] U.S. soldiers.

He's pumping up the National Endowment for Democracy, the leading organ to promote U.S. neoliberal economic policy and interfere in the elections and democratic processes of countries where the outcome might not be favorable to U.S. interests. He's continuing to use the rhetoric of the war on drugs in Latin America.

Overall, he's implementing a U.S. foreign policy that in some ways--or, I think, in many ways--advances the interest of the American empire in a way the Republicans could only have dreamed of doing.

What people, I think, misunderstand about Barack Obama is that this is a man who is a brilliant supporter of empire--who has figured out a way to essentially trick a lot of people into believing they're supporting radical change, when in effect what they're doing is supporting a radical expansion of the U.S. empire.

I think that it's a bit disingenuous for people to act as though they were somehow hoodwinked by Barack Obama about this.

If people were playing close attention during the election--not just to the rhetoric of his canned speech that he gave repeatedly, and the commercials, and the perception of his supporters was that he somehow was this transformative figure in U.S. politics, but also to the documents being produced by the Obama campaign and the specific policies he outlined--you realized that Barack Obama was very much a part of the bipartisan war machine that has governed this country for many, many decades.

What we see with Obama's policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Arab and Muslim world, as well as his global economic policies, are a continuation of the most devastating and violent policies of the Bush administration--while placing a face on it that makes it easier to expand the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of the free market in a way that Republicans, I think, would have been unable to do at this point in history.

They've got to be darn certain they don't have to put up with our adventures in fuel monopoly anymore, not if they stick together, and I think they will... or at least I think they have every reason to.

SCO Joint Communiqué

Yekaterinburg Declaration

i thought the independent was supposed to be a good paper

[click image]

I guess not....

war pig

[click image]

Extra Credit from One of Danny's Favorite Blogs

You may recall me making some kind of a hairy deal out of exactly this a while back.

No one ever listens to me.

wonder if it's taking the pressure off the khyber pass

[click image]

NYT deigns to mention the dilemma....

buncha conspiracy nuts

[click image]

i'm in a coma somewhere

[click image]

i guess we just hold our heads

[click image]

Or... whut?



[If you are viewing on the IE browser, the comments here are likely to give you trouble. I hope this will be remedied soon, but you can switch to Firefox and it works... well... it works better than not at all.... Sorry.]

is it soup yet?

[click image]

Almost....

we gotta get india to declare war on 'em or we're dead in the water

[click image]

If you did not at least my excerpts from Arundhati Roy's The Monster in the Mirror yet, you really risk getting left in the dust by events.

arundhati

[click image]

...

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the "Bad Guys" he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11. [Somebody please muzzle that dangerous boob. Please.]

...

In much the same way as it did after the 2001 parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the government of India announced that it has "incontrovertible" evidence that the Lashkar-e-Taiba backed by Pakistan's ISI was behind the Mumbai strikes. The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies the Lashkar operates in India through an organisation called the Indian Mujahideen. Two Indian nationals, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal, have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.

So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy. Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen and undercover intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously. In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation state is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost impossible.

...

Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to.

...

If at this point India decides to go to war perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of "non-state actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbours. It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.

...Over three days and three nights we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men armed with guns and gadgets exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation.

While they did this they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion or nationality. (Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. The U.S and Israeli armies don't hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.) But this was different. And it was on TV.

The boy-terrorists' nonchalant willingness to kill – and be killed – mesmerised their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news. Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that's worth.

Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the standoff the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. ...

..."You're surrounded," the anchor told him. "You are definitely going to die. Why don't you surrender?"

"We die every day," he replied in a strange, mechanical way. "It's better to live one day as a lion and then die this way." He didn't seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.

If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, why didn't it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for? ... Even as the attack was being condemned by TV anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes were being magnified a thousandfold by TV broadcasts.

Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed (is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?). We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation. We had the death of former prime minster VP Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes and villain of Upper caste Hindus pass without a mention.

...Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and leftwing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army and virtually asking for a police state. It isn't surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of "pickings" is long gone. We're now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.

Dangerous, stupid television flashcards like the Police are Good Politicians are Bad/Chief Executives are Good Chief Ministers are Bad/Army is Good Government is Bad/ India is Good Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria. ...

Are you getting the picture? That this incessant "globalization" blather we've been getting from our presidents for the last couple decades is NOT an idealistic and peaceful plan? They are all talking Global Fascism, as, supposedly, was Hitler in his day. I mean all. Bill Clinton, not the least of them. The Clinton Global Initiative is not just a bunch of billionaires coming together every year to be cuddly.

You honestly should go read the whole piece. I know she's a notorious peacenik, but you skip reading her stuff at your own peril.

a break from corruption for a moment of narcissism

[click image]

Yeah, right, Asif, it's all about you.

balderdash!

[click image]

They're playing checkers. Al Qa'eda is a construct of the CIA and the rest of them are constructs of other intelligence agencies. It's a load of crap, across the board. Deadly crap, but crap none the less. It's the creation of the perfect atmosphere for the rise of global fascism. Bunch of dumb, greedy fucks, fucking up the world. My only consolation is that Russia is playing chess, and has a real chance of stopping this filthy murderating bullshit.

well, howz obummer gonna muscle his way through this?

[click image]

I'm thinkin' here, he's gotta have India solidly in his corner if he wants to be crabby with Russia, and, er, uh, uhm, ahem, well, there ain't no fucking way he's not checkmated into playing nice unless he's as psychotic as Fudd.

this is supposedly car bomb damage

[click image]

More like they got their drone bomb and their car bomb pictures mixed up. More likely still, there were no car bombs. Well... or... no... it could have been one of those double-decker bus car bombs you see all the time....

I think I'm going to write a novel about an outraged old bat who marshals an elite army of war pig assassins and saves the world. Doesn't that sound like a good book?

the india/pakistan thing so needs sorting out

[click image]

... because if they don't do it, it's going too damn easy for the Obummer administration to cozy up with India, from whence to take out the nukes threat in Pakistan while embroiling us in a bloody mess with both Pakistani and Afghani "extremists".

[OR....]

russian intelligence links mumbai mess to lashkar-e-taiba

[click image]

Reports are starting to come in that the situation is under control, but I think it's interesting that the Russians are linking these guys to Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose raison d'être is to screw with India. I'm sure the diamonds mentioned by Mr. Can't Make Up His Mind could have been heavily favored as inducement, and it's such a confused wreck, media-wise, we don't know anything for sure except that there has been ugliness in Mumbai by somebody... but it really looks to me as though it is pretty much business as usual for some rabidly anti-Indian guys from Pakistan, who also don't like us much either. I think this is particularly salient information because the Russians don't have any reason to falsely pin it on Muslims.

[Perhaps the most convincing bit yet....]

[And jo6pac points to Juan Cole who has a ton of information linked too.]

we have been cultivating this action for nearly eight years

[click image]

Damnably regular drone attacks killing innocent Muslims in Pakistan. Complete failure of its government to even begin to protect them. Outrageous nuclear deals with India made by *. U.S. and British companies have created an economic boom in India while paying off Pakistan's dictators and bombing the snot out of Pakistanis. And lort only knows how much aid for all this is coming out of India, who, we all know, is desperate for us to get the nukes away from Pakistan. I don't know. It seems to me that the guys whose families and friends are getting blown to smithereens might be moved to go out and kick some ass however they could manage....

That just seems reasonable to me, given all the givens.