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[click image]Sliming penguins....
Doomed dairy....
Goldstone gives in....
BP drilling in the Gulf....
The war drones on as though it's stopping tomorrow....
Polymer didn't work....
Information that will not land on your synapses....
Worse than Dubya....
Corbett Report....
The banks....
UNSPEAKABLE....
Fidel....
For Phil....
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This policy is what the Nobel Peace Laureate — the first African-American president in history — is now perpetuating in the only nation to liberate itself from slavery. But of course, the most important thing is not the dispossessed in Haiti, nor the innocent people in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan being killed, day after day, by the Laureate's bombs, bullets and assassins. No, the main thing is — he's not John McCain! And we must put aside these trifles, these heaps of corpses, and rally around the prez to "defend our gains and regroup for a progressive counter-offensive in 2012!" The best is yet to come!
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[click image]Pro-Gaddafi Forces
We're not killing ordinary people.
We're killing one evil dictator who happens to be
cleverly disguised as thousands of ordinary people.
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[click image]Japan's prime minister insisted Tuesday that the country was on "maximum alert" [country, maybe; nukes industry, definitely not] to bring its nuclear crisis under control, but the spread of radiation raised concerns about the ability of experts to stabilize the crippled reactor complex.
...
"The removal of the contaminated water is the most urgent task now, and hopefully we can adjust the amount of cooling water going in," he said, adding that workers were building sandbag dikes to keep contaminated water from seeping into the soil outside.
The discovery of plutonium, released from fuel rods only when temperatures are extremely high, confirms the severity of the damage, Nishiyama said.
Plutonium is a highly toxic substance which breaks down very slowly, remaining dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years [which, you will agree, constitutes extreme "very slowly"].
"If you inhale it, it's there and it stays there [for a darn short] forever," said Alan Lockwood, a professor of Neurology and Nuclear Medicine at the University at Buffalo and a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group. 
[click image]To our son, his excellency, Mr Barack Hussein Obama.
I have said to you before, that even if Libya and the United States of America enter into a war, god forbid, you will always remain a son. Your picture will not be changed.
Al-Qa'eda is an armed organisation, passing through Algeria, Mauritania and Mali. What would you do if you found them controlling American cities with the power of weapons? What would you do, so I can follow your example.
[click image]WCTI-TV in New Bern reports those Marines, assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) at Camp Lejuene, are "preserving the sanctity of the city [of Ajdubiyah] and the safety of the civilians within it." [report has been updated]
Capt. Timothy Patrick with the 26th MEU told the station: "In Libya right now they are doing exactly what we need them to do. They are doing what they are told, and right now that's protecting Libyan people against Qadhafi forces."
Evidently the Marines' efforts are being successful. The commanding officer of the 26th MEU, Col. Mark Desens, says that following a second round of strikes by AV-8B Harrier jets, the Libyan dictator's forces "are now less capable of threatening the town than before."
According to the report, the 2,200 Marines with the 26th MEU are nearing the end of their deployment in the Mediterranean area and are due to be replaced with Marines from the 22nd MEU out of Camp Lejeune. A March 7 notice from the commanding officer of the 22nd MEU says that unit was being deployed to the Mediterranean Sea earlier than previously planned.A Libyan woman burst into a Tripoli hotel occupied by journalists and tried to tell them of her abuse and rape at the hands of Gaddafi's forces on Saturday. "Look at what Gaddafi's militias did to me," Eman al-Obaidi screamed, showing her bloodied leg and bruised face. 
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[click image]Whether or not you believe that occult elements are at play in this latest round of imperial slaughter and mayhem, what is obvious to all but the most duped and apathetic is that once again we have another war launched by the imperialist powers thinly veiled as a “humanitarian intervention”, dressed up as a mission of peace driven by the use of heavy bombardment and murder, where the truth lies diametrically opposed to the propaganda being pushed by the mainstream media. Nothing is what it seems; the lies and deceptions are as Orwellian as ever. The similarities with Iraq go well beyond the date of the opening salvo — indeed, there are many consistencies between the current attack on Libya and numerous other military interventions and acts of aggression carried out by the US, NATO and their allies in recent years.
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[click image]There was ample coverage of the loss of a US F-15 fighter jet over Libya Tuesday, and it always came with reassurances that the crew was safe. Less safe, however, were a group of Libyan civilians who came to the aid of one of the crew.
That’s because the civilians who met the plane’s weapons officer and offered him fruit juice while he waited to be rescued were attacked by US Marines during the brief ground incursion meant to rescue the crew. Some of the reports suggest the Marines arrived in a V-22 Osprey attack helicopter and opened fire on the crowd with it.
Six Libyan civilians were shot in the attack, including a young boy who local hospital officials say may lose his leg because of the attack. The weapons officer had been found in a sheep field and was met by the civilians, who were backers of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion.
The incident is news not just for the tragic outcome, but because despite the explicit UN prohibition on “occupation troops” being spun as a broad prohibition on ground troops, US Marines were indeed on the ground, in Libya, in a field full of sheep.
The pilot was initially picked up by rebel soldiers, who the Marines reported treated him “with dignity and respect” before handing him over to the troops. It does not appear there was any incident with regards to him. The Marines have yet to comment on the shootings in the recovery of the weapons officer.
The F-15 was flying out of Italy at the time of the crash, and officials are blaming a system malfunction. It is the first aircraft reported lost since the US and France started the Libyan War on Saturday. An F-15E Strike Eagle costs approximately $31 million.
[click image]What balls! What hubris! What hypocrisy! What happened to America?The BBC World Service is to receive a "significant" sum of money from the US government to help combat the blocking of TV and internet services in countries including Iran and China.We will not let Libya be lost like Palestine, Iraq or Somalia. We are arming the people. If western countries come to Libya they will have to fight house by house. If Libya goes down, Europe goes down. If we are attacked we will fight to the death. Every man and woman. ...
Nor is there any sign that Gaddafi's loyal supporters are preparing to abandon him. "Without Gaddafi," said a mourner, "Libya will be like Somalia. There will be chaos. This is not like Iraq or Afghanistan, where someone else will take power. We don't have a Maliki or a Karzai here."Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.Medvedev defended his order to abstain from the vote on the U.N. resolution which Putin vehemently criticised. He also steered clear of chiding the United States, while Putin lambasted Washington.
"The resolution is defective and flawed. It allows everything," Putin told workers at a ballistic missile factory in Votkinsk in central Russia. "It resembles medieval calls for crusades.
Medvedev defended his decision not to use Russia's veto.
"We did not use it for one simple reason: because I do not consider this resolution wrong. Moreover, on the whole I believe this resolution reflects our understanding of what is going on in Libya as well, but not in every way."
The 45-year-old Kremlin chief's comments were widely reported on state television. Putin's crusade comment was quietly dropped from some state television news bulletins after Medvedev's criticism.
Putin, in some of his harshest criticism of the United States since President Barack Obama began a campaign to improve ties, compared the Libya intervention with the invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush and said it showed Russia was right to spend billions to bolster its military.
Medvedev did not mention the United States and stressed the international nature of diplomatic efforts over Libya.
"We did not use our veto... so to be flapping our wings and saying we did not know what we were doing would be wrong. We did this consciously," he said. "I gave the instructions to the Foreign Ministry, and they were carried out."
[click image, mp3, via Phil]Rupert Murdoch, aside from owning FOX News and the Wall Street Journal has also managed to scoop up a large portion of Britain's newspapers. Well, it ends up Murdoch's papers have been hacking the phones of the liberal politicians and using the info gleaned to chase them out of office, ruin their character, etc. Besides politicians they have been hacking phones of both the rich and the famous...including the Princes of England.
[click image, via The North]Hours after the attacks, sources in Libya have reported that three medical facilities were bombarded. Two were hospitals and one a medical clinic. These were civilian facilities. Al-Tajura Hospital was hit as was Saladin Hospital in Ain Zara. The clinic that was bombed was also located in the vicinity of Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Not only where these civilian structures, but they were also all far away from the combat zone. ...
According to internal Libyan sources, two French jets were also shot down by the Libyan military near Janzour (Janzur/Zanzur). Another French military jet was shot down by the Libyans near Anjile. People in Benghazi are also fleeing the Libyan city, because of the war. Surt (Sidra) and Misratah have also been attacked by the French, the U.S., the British and their coalition allies.
The U.S. and its allies are now the ones that are creating a real humanitarian disaster. They talk about peace while they arm the Benghazi-based opposition rebels via the Egyptian military junta, which is as much a military client as its so-called civilian predecessor. This is also a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolution that the U.S. and its allies passed, which states that no weapons are to be sent to Libya.
Hillary Clinton was in both Tunisia and Egypt in context of the operations against Libya. Both the regime in Tunis and the military junta in Cairo are overtly and covertly supporting the war against Libya. The autocrats of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have also indictated that they will send military forces to attack Libya.The truth has come to light. Clearly this rebellion does not, and did not, have the massive popular support that we were led to believe. Otherwise, the US would not have had to so blatantly intervene. The Obama regime has made various statements about the evils of Qaddafi (Clinton even saying that he WOULD commit atrocities if left alone), and has -in true Bush fashion- claimed that we are trying to help the people of Libya. This entire situation is beginning to seem like Bush redux. The propaganda and lies are flying fast and furious, and the only people that will truly suffer are the people of Libya (who will, as the innocent victims of Imperialism always do, bear the brunt of the death and destruction the US causes).
The Obama regime has changed its populist slogan "Yes we can!" to the dictatorial "Yes you will!", and we have been caught in the trap again. ...
I would ask the world: Who is the real enemy? Which government is the real rogue government? Which regime should be defeated?The Arab League on Sunday criticized Western military strikes on Libya, a week after urging the United Nations to slap a no-fly zone on the oil-rich North African state.
"What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians," Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa told reporters.
"From the start we requested only that a no-fly zone be set up to protect Libyan civilians and avert any other developments or additional measures," Mussa added.
[click image]At Fukushima, around 300 engineers were working round-the-clock inside an evacuation zone to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986.
They have been spraying the coastal complex with sea-water so fuel rods will not overheat and emit radiation. But hopes for a more permanent solution depend on connecting electricity cables to reactivate on-site water pumps at each of the reactors.
"I think the situation is improving step by step," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama said amid news workers, in suits sealed by duct tape, had managed to connect power cables to the No. 2 and 5 reactors.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said engineers aimed to extend power to No. 1 reactor, which is linked to No. 2, and then test systems later on Monday.
The U.N. atomic watchdog said there had been some positive developments but the situation remained very serious.
If the pumps cannot restart, drastic and lengthy measures may be needed like burying the plant in sand and concrete.
Even if the situation is contained, cases of contaminated vegetables, dust, milk and water are already stoking anxiety despite Japanese officials' assurances levels are not dangerous.
The government prohibited the sale of raw milk from Fukushima prefecture and spinach from another nearby area, and said more restrictions on food may be announced later on Monday.
The health ministry asked residents of one village about 40 km (25 miles) from the plant to stop drinking tap water after levels of radioactive iodine three times above the regulated limit were found, Kyodo news agency said.
Much smaller traces of radioactive iodine have also been found in Tokyo, 240 km (150 miles) south of the plant.
Many expatriates and local residents have left the capital. Those who remain are subdued but not panicked.
"There's no way I can check if those radioactive particles are in my tap water or the food I eat, so there isn't much I can really do about it," said Setsuko Kuroi, an 87-year-old woman shopping in a supermarket with a white gauze mask over her face.U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the Obama administration believes the worst of the crisis is over. Unit 2, where Tepco connected a 1.5-kilometer (1 mile) power cable March 18 as it tried to revive cooling systems knocked out by the magnitude-9 temblor and tsunami, is the main source of concern, [!!! OMFG OMFG OMFG !!!] Chu said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“Because of the higher levels of radiation there, we take that as evidence that there might be a breach in that containment vessel,” he said. “But they’re not extraordinarily high, so it appears if there is a breach, it would be a limited breach. But, again, we don’t really know.”
[click image]Japan has confirmed the presence of radioactive iodine contamination in food products from near a crippled nuclear plant and is considering whether to order a halt to the sale of such products from the area, the U.N. nuclear body said on Saturday.
"Though radioactive iodine has a short half-life of about 8 days and decays naturally within a matter of weeks, there is a short-term risk to human health if radioactive iodine in food is absorbed into the human body," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement.I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.Technicians prepared to vent radioactive gas into the air Sunday because of a new spike in pressure at Japan's crippled, leaking nuclear complex....
While four of Fukushima's six nuclear reactors have been dangerously overheating since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disrupted cooling systems, Unit 3 has proved particularly troublesome.
After the government said Saturday that the unit appeared to be stabilizing after being doused with water, nuclear safety officials said the efforts may not have worked. Pressure was rising again inside the reactor's containment vessel, requiring a release of radioactive gas to prevent a more dangerous buildup, said safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama.
The venting is an "unavoidable measure to protect the containment vessel," Nishiyama said. He warned that a larger amount of radiation would have to be released than when similar venting was done a week ago because more nuclear fuel have have degraded since then.
While battling Unit 3, emergency teams used an unmanned vehicle to spray water at another at-risk reactor — Unit 4 — while preparing to switch power back on for the first time since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's crucial cooling systems.
However, there was no guarantee the cooling systems would still work, even once power was restored.The operation for filling the spent fuel pool with water at Unit 4 started around 08:20 today. Through this operation 80 tons of water was sprayed till 09:30 by Japan Self-Defense Forces with 11 fire-extinguishing vehicles. Self-Defense Forces told that water reached the pool. The operation will resume afternoon by The Fire and Disaster Management Agency. There is immediate threat of radioactive nuclides release from the spent fuel pools of Unit 3 and 4, because of incapability of cooling these pools.The operator of Japan's overheating, leaking nuclear plant backed away Sunday from a tricky venting of radioactive gas from a troubled reactor as concerns grew about wider contamination of food and water.
After the cascading troubles at the Fukushima plant appeared to lessen Saturday, pressure inside the vessel holding the reactor of Unit 3 rose again Sunday, dealing a setback to the government and forcing officials to consider the dangerous venting. Nuclear safety officials said one of the options could release a cloud dense with iodine as well as the radioactive elements krypton and xenon.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., temporarily suspended the plans Sunday after the pressure inside the reactor stopped climbing, though it was at a relatively high level.
"It has stabilized," Tokyo Electric manager Hikaru Kuroda told reporters.
[click image, Daiichi reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4, counting from the bottom up]
No one has to "marry" anyone else politically; no one has to embrace every tenet or belief that an anti-imperialist ally might hold. You simply have to say: "All of us, regardless of our other views, believe this truth to be self-evident: dismantling the empire will bring immediate and enormous benefits to our nation and to the world."
If in your travels you meet the Buddha, throw him through your tv set.
—Davis Fleetwood
I've found that culture, however useful and important, is neither the foundation nor the ceiling of human experience, even if it is commonly used for walls.
I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States. —Hillary Clinton
