Pot luck

Delicious forgotten words... we need to start using them now!

The mystery of Skeleton Lake in India.

The graph that shows what the US owes to everybody.

SEE!!  I told you raccoons were clever!

Eating at home v eating out.

Thank god my family and I live in California.

Anna Holmes and Jezebel.

Nate Silver's predictions for the Republicans.  Waving the Confederate flag at the most inappropriate time.

How Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild) probably died.

Could Boehner be playing to win?

Malala asks Obama to end drone strikes.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson critiques the film Gravity.  And we've been SuperNova'ed!

Finally!  Another planet we could call home, just in time, too!  We've really wrecked up this one!

Starting the week with a bang... Or maybe a whimper...

Louisiana's coast is feeling the sea-level rise.

While state officials continue to argue over restoration projects to save the state’s sinking, crumbling coast, top researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have concluded that Louisiana is in line for the highest rate of sea-level rise “on the planet.” * Indeed, the water is rising so fast that some coastal restoration projects could be obsolete before they are completed, the officials said.
NOAA’s Tim Osborne, an 18-year veteran of Louisiana coastal surveys, and Steve Gill, senior scientist at the agency’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, spelled out the grim reality in interviews with The Lens. When new data on the rate of coastal subsidence is married with updated projections of sea-level rise, the southeast corner of Louisiana looks likely to be under at least 4.3 feet of gulf water by the end of the century.

The Republicans are getting upset that the Democrats are standing back and letting them fall on their faces. Josh Marshall says it best:

Official Washington is accustomed to having a Democratic safety net — not cash transfers for those who fall through the cracks of the market economy — but that Democrats will come in and solve crises created by GOP government by crisis.

Cheney is afraid of being tried as a war criminal.

No chemicals, no GMO grain, India has record crop:

What if the agricultural revolution has already happened and we didn’t realize it? Essentially, that’s the idea in this report from the Guardian about a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind

And farmers are demanding control over the seeds:

Vandana Shiva: 'Seeds must be in the hands of farmers',Biodiversity campaigner accuses corporate giants of trying to take over the world's seed supply through genetic engineering,

I have here in my hand... McCarthyism style innuendo doesn't quite work the way it did before YouTube and the internets....

Stupid is as stupid does...

Ann Coulter said what?    You mean all those lone white male shooters were ... fake?

Harassing a man who helped during the Sandy Hook tragedy because... um... he uh.. because Sandy Hook is a conspiracy to take away your anti-tank gun.  And James Yeager, Tactical Response CEO is apologizing for threatening to kill people with the guns people are trying to take away from him because um.. bad press?...

No, rape does not happen by 'accident'.  And in India,  some are sure it's the Western World's fault.  (And thankfully, some are sure it's not.)

Fast food is killing us.

What denying access to abortions does to women.

What 'nuclear gerrymandering' will do.

From books to breasts

Or the lack thereof... Catcher in the Rye dropped from US school curriculum

Schools in America are to drop classic books such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye from their curriculum in favour of 'informational texts'. American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in US classrooms by 2014. A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will make it compulsory for at least 70 per cent of books studied to be non-fiction, in an effort to ready pupils for the workplace. Books such as JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by "informational texts" approved by the Common Core State Standards. Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council. The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Monsanto in India.


A pale blue dot:



Detroit, then and now.

Early onset breast cancer survivors.  (NSFW) Showing the faces and bodies of those who have dealt with the disease.

Update:  Solar Electric Light Fund.

SELF's mission is to design and implement solar energy solutions to assist the 1.5 billion people living in energy poverty with their economic, educational, health care and agricultural development. Since 1990, SELF has completed projects in more than 20 countries and pioneered unique applications of solar power such as for drip irrigation in Benin, health care in Haiti, telemedicine in the Amazon rainforest, online learning in South Africa and microenterprise development in Nigeria.

A car that runs on air!!

India's largest automaker is set to start producing the world's first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine's pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008.

Barring any last-minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car's carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car's built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn't mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian experiment — MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.

What?? All glue? Not in the US? Awww.... Why can't we have all glue car lanes on the freeway? All glue special parking? All glue special driving days?

Rats.

Makes you laugh, makes you cry...

Georgie Bush's fear of them common folk makes him wipe his hand on Clinton's shirt after shaking hands with Haitians. Really high class there, George.

Why Republicans hate Obama so much.

More unhinged unleashed ugliness and hate.

While India and Bangladesh were arguing about ownership, the island left. See? Global warming is actually good for something!

Why high fructose corn syrup is actually really really bad for you:

That high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) causes weight gain is not surprising; that it leads to a significantly higher weight gain than regular table sugar, even when overall caloric intake is the same? Surprising. Regardless of how innocent the sensitive souls from the Corn Refiners Association may purport HFCS to be, a Princeton University research team begs to differ with new research demonstrating that all sweeteners are not created equal in terms of weight gain.

In addition to causing considerable weight gain in lab tests, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

Russia and the US close to treaty:

WASHINGTON – All but the final details have been cleared away for a historic nuclear arms reduction pact between the U.S. and Russia, officials said Wednesday, with the former Cold War rivals reaching agreement on necessary documents for a new treaty that both countries consider an important measure of trust and cooperation.

Ripples from the Iraq war:

Why the U.S. Won't Leave Iraq... Hmmm let me guess... could it be? Oil? REALLY?

Oh NO!! They are letting a terrorist loose! OMG!

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pentagon to release a long-held Mauritanian captive held at Guantanamo Bay who was once considered such a high-value detainee that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated him for "special interrogation techniques."

U.S. District Judge James Robertson's ruling was classified, so there was no immediate explanation for why he granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamedou Slahi, 39. A notation in court files said an unclassified version of the ruling would be made available, but didn't say when.

Slahi is the 34th Guantanamo detainee ordered freed since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees could challenge their incarceration in federal court, but his name was already well known because of investigations into detainee abuse.

Those probes found that Slahi had been subjected to sleep deprivation, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, moved around the base blindfolded, and at one point taken into the bay on a boat and threatened with death. Investigators also found that interrogators had told him they'd his mother and have her jailed as the only female detainee at Guantanamo if he did not cooperate.

The interrogations were so abusive that a highly regarded Pentagon lawyer, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch , quit the case five years ago rather than prosecute him at the Bush administration's first effort to stage military commissions.

Real life Tetris is terrifying!

Cat health insurance company.

Monsanto and India

Monsanto 'faked' data for approvals claims its ex-chief

The debate on genetically modified (GM) brinjal variety continues to generate heat. Former managing director of Monsanto India, Tiruvadi Jagadisan, is the latest to join the critics of Bt brinjal, perhaps the first industry insider to do so.

Jagadisan, who worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations, spoke against the new variety during the public consultation held in Bangalore on Saturday.

On Monday, he elaborated by saying the company "used to fake scientific data" submitted to government regulatory agencies to get commercial approvals for its products in India.

[snip]

"At that time, Monsanto was getting into the seed business and I had information that a 'terminator gene' was to be incorporated in the seeds being supplied by the firm. This meant that the farmer had to buy fresh seeds from Monsanto at heavy cost every time he planted the crop," he said.

Jagadisan said the parent company also retracted from the assurance given to then minister for chemicals and fertilisers, Vasant Sathe, on setting up a manufacturing unit in collaboration with Hindustan Insecticides for the herbicide butachlor.

"The negotiations went on for over a year and in the meantime, Monsanto imported and sold large quantities of the product and made huge profits," he said.

Lovely. I guess Monsanto is indifferent to the Indian farmer suicides and the prevention of poor farmers to have seed crops.

They haven't heard that black is in this season?

(update for the credits):

Himachal Pradesh, India: A crowd watching a wrestling match at a local fair.
Portfolio - Homeland category winner, by Poras Chaudhary, India.

Isn't it beautiful?

No more tigers?

One of India's main tiger parks - Panna National Park - has admitted it no longer has any tigers.

The park, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, was part of the country's efforts to save the famous Royal Bengal Tiger from extinction.

State Minister of Forests Rajendra Shukla said that the reserve, which three years ago had 24 tigers, no longer had any.

A special census was conducted in the park by a premier wildlife institute, after the forest authorities reported no sightings of the animals for a long time.

This is the second tiger reserve in India, after Sariska in Rajasthan, where numbers have dwindled to zero.

Does this surprise anyone?

Foreign oil firms reject Iraq terms

Iraq's long-awaited licensing round to develop some of its massive oil reserves has run into trouble as international oil and gas companies rejected all but one deal, demanding more money for their efforts than the government was willing to pay.

Following Tuesday's initial bids, of the six oil and two gas fields on offer, Iraq had only struck a deal with a BP-led consortium for Rumaila, the largest oil field available.

Bids on the others came in far above the maximum fee the government was willing to pay for every extra barrel of oil produced.

But as the auction closed, Iraq's oil ministry said it had received seven revised bids from oil companies, not made public, which have been sent to the cabinet for consideration.

The process, which had been televised earlier, coincided with Iraq assuming formal control over its cities, a step towards ending the United States' combat role in the country.

A total of 32 firms, including US and European giants ExxonMobil and Shell and companies from China, India and other Asian states, have been chasing the opportunity to get 20-year service contracts to develop Iraq's resources.

The government was hoping the high-profile licensing round would help bring in foreign expertise to the country's energy industry, which is looking to boost output of a resource that provides 90 per cent of the government's revenues.

Some analysts have said the companies may have been unwilling to commit to major ventures, opting to wait and see how the security situation develops after the US pullout from urban areas.

When climate change affects the weather patterns

People die. We're going to see lots of articles like these as the water wars start, the oceans' rising temperatures make fish die off or stop breeding....:

"No one will call us for work and the children will have to go hungry. We won't have anything to eat."

Devi is among roughly 600 million people in India who make a living off the land. That is about 60 percent of India's population of 1.1 billion.

Most of the country is suffering from a rain deficit. The Monsoon has been delayed in some parts of the country. Usually the season begins around the first of June.

In developed countries, irrigation is common and electricity readily available, but both are a luxury for most Indian farmers.

Rainwater is key to crop survival and the livelihoods of those who work the farms.

Devinder Sharma is a food and trade policy analyst. He says "65 percent of farmers in India rely on rainwater."

Fish will become harder and harder to find:

French fishermen hit back at stars' bid to save bluefin tuna

[snip]

It has been a long few weeks for captain Jean-Louis Donnarel and the crew of the Provence-Côte d'Azur II. Long, rough and not very profitable. After sailing a total of 6,600 nautical miles - first to Cyprus, then the length of the Egyptian coast, to Malta, around the Balearics and then home - the Provence-Côte d'Azur II returned with 84 tonnes of bluefin tuna, a catch that will barely cover the costs of the voyage.

"We found fish on the last day," Donnarel said last week. "Without that, we would have been finished. Someone has to take a decision. Do they want us to fish or not? If not, they should put us out of our misery."

Donnarel and his crew are at the sharp end of an increasingly bitter row: one that links globally known restaurants, top celebrities, huge international conglomerates, sushi shops and supermarkets across half the world to the livelihoods of a few thousand fishermen.

At stake is the survival of the bluefin tuna, a single specimen of which can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars - a price that has seen stocks decline in some areas by up to 90%.

It apparently hasn't dawned on the fishermen that if there are no more fish, there WILL BE no more jobs....

Update:

A severe heatwave has claimed the lives of nearly 100 people across India, reports say.

The eastern Indian state of Orissa appears to be the worst affected with 58 people dying from heat stroke, according to local officials.

Unofficial figures in the Orissa media put the number of dead closer to 200.

Want to hike in Nepal?

Wil Robinson of International Political Will is adventuring in the mountains and has pictures.

Meanwhile, back at the farm...

Another impact of global warming, bad government planning, and corporate heartlessness:

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine

"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well."

Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.

No wonder fish are pissed at us

PATANCHERU, India – When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.

Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.

What would you do if your country was invaded?

You would not surrender even though the soldiers promised a wonderful new government and lots of perks. You would either fight or sabotage their efforts. The occupying military would always be invaders, never friends.

At the time of the invasion, you would not overthrow your own government but hold tightly to it no matter what. You would not be so stupid as to invite even more instability, thus even if you hated your own administration, you would rally behind it. The more the soldiers demanded you give up your support of your government, the more you would protect it.

Two stories come to mind. The police often say that answering a domestic disturbance is one of the most dangerous calls to make. Fighting couples immediately join together to attack the third intrusive party, even if they hate each other. Disagreements are temporarily forgotten.

The second is an old allegory of the sun and the wind having a competition: The sun and wind bet each other they could remove the coat of the man walking far below across the meadow. The wind inhaled deeply and blew and blew. The man gripped his coat tightly and wrapped his arms about himself. As the wind tugged at his coat, the man bent almost double but the wind could not rip the coat away. At last the wind gave up. Then the sun tried. The meadow grew warm and bright. The man straightened up and opened his coat. The sun shone more strongly still. The heat rose from the earth and the air shimmered. The man removed his coat.

What you want cannot be taken by force but must be given by choice. If you take peace by force, it will not be peace. Diplomacy not military might will be the thing that saves the day.

Israel cannot force the Palestinians in Gaza to forsake Hamas when they were the ones building schools and answering their needs. Demanding Palestinians submit to the will of Israel will make them cling more tightly to Hamas. The brutalization of Palestinian innocents by Israel exposes Israel for the thug it has become.

Pakistan and India will not be able to destroy enough of each other so that Kashmir can be claimed, they cannot undermine the other because the blowback comes straight into their cities. And both of them have nukes. Just how far are they willing to go before their political dangers become destabilizing for themselves?

And how about ourselves? How about if our military is turned on us?:

EL PASO -- A U.S. Army War College report warns an economic crisis in the United States could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Nathan Freir wrote the report "Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development," which the Army think tank in Carlisle, Pa., recently released.

"Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities ... to defend basic domestic order and human security," the report said, in case of "unforeseen economic collapse," "pervasive public health emergencies," and "catastrophic natural and human disasters," among other possible crises.

The report also suggests the new (Barack Obama) administration could face a "strategic shock" within the first eight months in office.

Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said the Army post is not involved in any recent talks about a potential military response to civil unrest.

The report become a hot Internet item after Phoenix police told the Phoenix Business Journal they're prepared to deal with such an event, and the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Khan, said social unrest could spread to advanced countries if the global economic crisis worsens.

So many times in the last eight years the things we thought would never happen have happened. Preventive war, the destruction of Habeas Corpus, torture.... so who is to say the military will not be turned on American civilians?

What would you do if your country was invaded?

Shouldn't this be a huge red alert?

You know: Hair on fire, claxon alarms, shrieks, the clattering of hundreds of shoes as diplomats rush to planes to talk these two countries down?

Pakistan Moves Thousands Of Troops Toward Indian Border

Because... you know... both countries have nukes? Hello Bush administration? The article continues:

The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States, which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said all troop leave had been canceled.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Both countries have said they want to avoid military conflict over the attacks. But India has not ruled out the use of force as it presses its neighbor to crack down on the Pakistani-based terrorist group it blames for the attack.

Wait ... surely Bush must be on it!

The United States has urged India and Pakistan to avoid unnecessarily raising tension amid reports of troop movements to the border.

[snip]

Air strikes against militants in the restive Swat and Bajaur regions had been scaled down as some of the airpower had to be redeployed to the country's eastern border, a senior Pakistani military official told Asif Farooqi, the Islamabad-based correspondent of the BBC Urdu service.

There have been reports of possible forthcoming "surgical" strikes by India on the headquarters and camps of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group India blames for the Mumbai attacks.

The group and Pakistan's government deny any involvement.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times."

He said the US remained "in close contact with both countries to urge closer co-operation in investigating the Mumbai attacks and in fighting terrorism generally".

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says the troop movements do not appear to be greatly significant and that both countries have said they want to avoid military conflict. However they warn they will act if provoked.

But our correspondent says any significant cut in the Pakistani military presence along the Afghan border would worry Washington, which relies on Islamabad to stem cross-border Taleban attacks on Nato forces.

What? This standoff could start WWIII (or is it IV?). Do we have anyone going over there? Like... you know... Rice? Anybody? Did Bush fire the entire diplomatic corps? And what does it mean: the US is in close contact? What does that mean? On the phone? IMing? Email? Why do I think nobody's home .....?

President-elect Obama?

Dec. 12, 2008 | A consensus is emerging among intelligence analysts and pundits that Pakistan may be President-elect Barack Obama's greatest policy challenge. A base for terrorist groups, the country has a fragile new civilian government and a long history of military coups. The dramatic attack on Mumbai by members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Tayiba, the continued Taliban insurgency on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the frailty of the new civilian government, and the country's status as a nuclear-armed state have all put Islamabad on the incoming administration's front burner.

But does Obama understand what he's getting into? In his "Meet the Press" interview with Tom Brokaw on Sunday, Obama said, "We need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region -- Pakistan and India and the Afghan government -- to stamp out the kind of militant, violent, terrorist extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in the international community." Obama's scenario assumes that the Pakistani government is a single, undifferentiated thing, and that all parts of the government would be willing to "stamp out" terrorists. Both of those assumptions are incorrect.

Pakistan's government has a profound internal division between the military and the civilian, which have alternated in power since the country was born from the partition of British India in 1947. It is this military insubordination that creates most of the country's serious political problems. Washington worries too much about other things in Pakistan and too little about the sheer power of the military. United States analysts often express fears about an internal fundamentalist challenge to the chiefs of staff. The main issue, however, is not that Pakistan's military is too weak, but that it is too strong. And that is complicated by the fact that elements within the military are at odds, not just with the civilian government, but also with each other.

[snip]

The United States, going back to the Cold War, has long viewed the Pakistani army as a geopolitical ally, and Washington tends to prefer that the military be in power. Since Gen. Musharraf was forced out, U.S. intelligence circles have been lamenting the country's "instability," as though it were less unstable under an unpopular dictatorship. If Pakistan -- and Pakistani-American relations -- are to have a chance, it will lie in the incoming Obama administration doing everything it can to strengthen the civilian political establishment and ensure that the military remains permanently in its barracks. The military needs to be excluded from political power, and it needs to learn to take orders from a civilian president. At the same time, Obama should follow through on his commitment to commit serious diplomatic resources to helping resolve the long-festering Kashmir issue.

OoOoohhhhhhHHh boy.... January 20th can't come fast enough...

Cindy McCain lied

She didn't forget. She didn't misspeak. She didn't embellish. She didn't stretch the truth.

She lied:

The latest embellishments come from the McCain camp. Cindy McCain has repeatedly referred to herself as an “only child.” This week came news that she actually has two half sisters, although apparently she had very little contact with them.

The McCain campaign had also put out the story that Mother Teresa “convinced” Cindy to bring home two orphans from Bangladesh in 1991.

Mrs. McCain, it turns out, never met Mother Teresa on that trip. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)

Such exaggerations may simply be the product of a faulty memory or a desire to be “better” than one is in a political culture that requires larger-than-life idols. But with the advent of the fact-checking obsessed blogosphere – and a media racing to keep up – such self-aggrandizement doesn’t last as long as it once did.

“It’s all about myth-making,” says Darrell West, the director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Politicians love to turn their stories into great epics, and sometimes they have to embellish to smooth out the story line.”

“But now there are too many professional and amateur fact-checkers,” he says. “And there are hundreds if not thousands of bloggers who have detailed knowledge on specialized information, so you really can’t get away with stretching the truth anymore.”

Can you imagine what would have happened in the media if Michelle had lied like Cindy lied?

Exactly.

crossposted at American Street

So when did the illegal alien influx slow down?

That we have workers from India treated like this?:

More than 100 Indians who moved to the US for jobs have marched hundreds of miles to Washington DC in protest at being forced to work "like slaves".

The men plan to take their protest to the Indian ambassador.

The men say recruiters tricked them into paying up to $20,000 each for a new life in the US, where they then had to work in exploitative conditions.

The Mississippi firm that employed them, Signal International, has denied they were mistreated.

It says the men were paid wages above the local average and given good accommodation.

It accuses the recruitment firm of deceiving the Indians and has now ended its contract.

It is also demanding the recruiters return the fees the men paid them.

Apparently businesses are missing their yearly dose of cheap exploitable labor...

We have undocumented workers, recent 'illegal aliens' and those who have lived in this country for decades in 'detention centers' being run by private companies where the people in these prisons have no legal recourse, no voice, no ability to see their American-born children. What is happening there?

Why am I getting continual hits on my 'Slavery is good' posts?

WTF?

GM crops attacked and destroyed by Brazilians

Strange... sounds like they didn't like what Monsanto was doing. (Via Katrinacrat, Dizzy's Ten Post round-up:)

SAO PAULO (AFP) — Around 300 women rural residents in Brazil burst into a property owned by the US company Monsanto and destroyed a plant nursery and crops containing genetically modified corn, their organization said.

The women were protesting what they saw as environmental damage by the crops.

They trashed the plants within 30 minutes and left before police arrived at the site in the southern state of Sao Paulo, a member of the Landless Workers' Movement, Igor Foride, told AFP.

The Brazilian government had "caved in to pressure from agrobusinesses" by recently allowing tinkered crops to be grown in the country, he said.

In Brasilia, a protest by another 400 women from an umbrella group, Via Campesina (the Rural Way), was held in front of the Swiss embassy against Syngenta, a Swiss company that is selling genetically modified seeds in Brazil.

[snip]

Via Campesina said in a statement that "no scientific studies exist that guarantee that genetically modified crops won't have negative effects on human health and on nature."

It added that on Tuesday, another 900 of its members had entered a property owned by the Swedish-Finnish paper giant Stora Enso and ripped out non-modified eucalyptus saplings they claimed were illegally planted.

Goodness! Why on earth would they not trust such a nice company as Monsanto? Just because they've created the terminator gene? And sue farmers when their genetically modified crops pollinate the farmer's crops accidentally? Or ignore suicides by Indian farmers? And force people to drink rBGH (BST) without knowledge? Or support the return of DDT? Or smear the name of Rachel Carson?

Why are the Brazilians more aware than us of the dangers of corporations ignoring the needs and rights of people?

And I said no no no

Habits are so hard to break. Like ignoring the wishes of the people and forcing them to accept someone they didn't vote for.

Think Progress:

Despite the defeat of President Pervez Musharraf’s party in the Pakistani parliamentary elections, the Bush administration is still trying to “construct a coalition that will keep Mr. Musharraf in power as president.” Officials admit that Musharraf “remains the administration’s preferred Pakistani leader.”

AP:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's president will not step down as head of state and intends to serve out his five-year term, his spokesman said, despite a sweeping victory by his opponents in an election that President Bush on Wednesday judged to be fair.

But with the vote count nearly complete, two opposition parties have won enough seats to form a new government, though they will likely fall short of the two-thirds needed to impeach the president.

The result is seen as a major political setback for Musharraf, a key ally of Washington in fighting Taliban and al-Qaida, whose popularity has plummeted over the past year. The victors were secular political parties; Islamic hard-liners fared badly.

Bush, the Pakistani leader's chief foreign backer, declared Wednesday that the elections were a "victory in the war on terror."

"There were elections held that have been judged as being fair, and the people have spoken," Bush said in Ghana during his current trip to Africa.

Let me interrupt the article to point out the supportive threat ... statement Georgie makes:

"It's now time for the newly elected folks to show up and form their government," Bush said. "The question then is 'Will they be friends of the United States?' I certainly hope so.

You called Osama and his band of merry men 'folks', too, George. Just saying...

So Pakistan tries to figure out what to do next:

As the fallout from Pakistan's general elections comes into focus, one enormous question mark has emerged: who will be included in the new government? Some major domestic political players have made hasty, if strategic, retreats from the government-making process and have adopted policies of wait and see.

Meanwhile, Washington has moved to mend bridges between embattled President Pervez Musharraf and the opposition camps in order to preserve its interests in the regional "war on terror". Analysts believe that if Islamabad is gripped by further political turmoil, and if Musharraf exits the corridors of power, the US-led operation could flounder.

"We shall prefer to sit in the opposition and would rather provide support for the issues of national interest instead of making any bid to be a part of any set-up," Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, secretary general of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-i-Azam (PML-Q), told Asia Times Online. "I think there are a lot of issues where any future set-up needs our support, especially in the 'war on terror', and we would provide our support while sitting in the opposition benches."

Most Pakistanis view this vote as a denial of American might:

Washington officially applauded the election process in Pakistan, which it termed transparent, among other praises. At the same time, however, the US has grave concerns that the vulnerability of a new government, or its unwillingness to cooperate with the US, could spell doom for the "war on terror".

"I suggest that political parties should demand that until Musharraf's resignation they would not take the oath in the parliament. Because, if they take the oath, it means they legitimize Musharraf's presidency," said retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who has recently played a major role in organizing Pakistani veterans' groups to demand retired general Musharraf's resignation.

Gul was optimistic that the present vote against Musharraf and his allies was a vote against American domination of the region. He expressed hope that eventually mass support would push Islamabad to abandon all military operations in tribal areas.

"Americans cannot do anything if we stop the operations in tribal areas. If they stop military aid, they are welcome to do so. We don't need military aid. All we need is economic aid and they just cannot afford to stop it. Why? Because all NATO supply lines pass through Pakistan and if they stop economic aid, Pakistan can stop supply lines which would end their regional war on terror theater once and for all. This is the biggest crime of Musharraf - that he could not understand the strategic value of Pakistan in the region and could not exploit it," said Gul.

Amid all this, who is watching ... you know... the nukes? India is freaking out:

NEW DELHI (AFP) — India should be deeply concerned about the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremists, a top official was reported as saying.

"The nature of the dangers which nuclear weapons pose has dramatically intensified with the growing risk that such weapons may be acquired by terrorists..." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy Shyam Saran said on Monday

"The mounting concern over the likelihood that in a situation of chaos, Pakistan's nuclear assets may fall into the hands of jihadi elements... underscores how real this danger has become," Saran was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India at a lecture in New Delhi.

[snip]

The United States and other Western countries have expressed mounting concern over the security of Islamabad's estimated 50 warheads, with Pakistani forces battling a growing insurgency by Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

So what will Musharraf do?:

The remaining question is what will happen to Musharraf. Among those who have come into personal contact with him, there is a sense that he will understand the depth of his current predicament.

"He is an intelligent man. He will know he is not in a position to dictate things," says Mahmood Shah, who helped coordinate Musharraf's policies in the tribal belt as former secretary of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. "Even if he tries to cling to power, it will be very difficult," Mr. Shah continues.

The coming days or weeks will be a test of whether Musharraf's legendary survival instincts have their limits, say others. "He will first try to see if he has any future working with these political parties," says Ikram Sehgal, editor of Defence Journal. "If it is not tenable, he will lay out a plan to say good-bye."

"He knows very well that the Army will not support him" if he challenges the parliament, Mr. Sehgal adds.

Should Musharraf prove confrontational, however, Zardari has said he would not rule out impeachment. This is particularly bad news for Musharraf, since Zardari's PPP has generally been more tolerant of Musharraf than Sharif's PML-N, which has categorically refused to work with Musharraf, partly because Musharraf overthrew Sharif in his 1999 coup.

The process of impeachment is relatively simple, requiring only a two-thirds vote in the general assembly and the Senate. The Senate is still filled with Musharraf's allies, since it is not up for reelection until next year. But senators might be tempted to abandon Musharraf if his situation looks untenable. The Army, however, would be loath to see its former leader humiliated in such a way and could step in to convince Musharraf to go, if it came to that point, says Sehgal.

crossposted at SteveAudio