Ordc Forum/Blog

President Obama has shown himself to be weak in his dealings with the Middle East, says Robert Fisk, and the Arab world is turning its back with contempt. Its future will be shaped without American influence

by
Robert Fisk
London Independent
Monday, 30 May 2011

President Obama at Middle East peace talks in Washington last year with Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak, and King Abdullah

This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

=> Read more!

This piece by Clay Claiborne from his blog explains what the real threat to internet integrity and information flow is and why the issues discussed on Democracy Now! last Friday missed the point.

From my Daily Kos blog today:

On Friday's Democracy Now, Amy Goodman spent a long segment with Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org talking about threats to the Internet.

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Note: Germany gets 25% of its electricity from nuclear. We get 21%
By JUDY DEMPSEY and JACK EWING
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/world/europe/31germany.html
Published: May 30, 2011
BERLIN — The German government agreed on Monday to phase out all nuclear power by 2022, a sharp reversal by Chancellor Angela Merkel aimed at appeasing the country’s intensified antinuclear movement. The announcement came after marathon talks held at the chancellery on a new report by the Ethics Commission for Security Energy that recommended closing all 17 of the country’s nuclear plants.

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This is truly chilling! What the hell is going on? Apparently "dancing" is now equated with demonstrating, for which you can be violently arrested? What happened to the First Amendment right to freedom of expression? I know the "pigs" have been beating people for exercising their Constitutional rights for a long time, I first saw it in person in Chicago in 1968, but this is way out of hand.

Are China's factories running out of power?
JEFF RUBIN
Special to Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:07AM EDT
Why has Global Sticks, a manufacturer of wooden ice cream sticks, moving from Dalian, China, to Thunder Bay, Ontario?

It’s the kind of low margin manufacturing that is never supposed to come back after it leaves North America for cheaper labour abroad.

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The former chief of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has reportedly accused the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, of being part of a plot to have him fired from his post.

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by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

The police and the prostitute media have made it impossible for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to get a fair trial. From the moment of the announcement that he had been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, and before he was ever indicted, the accounts given by the police were designed to create the impression that the director of the International Monetary Fund was guilty. For example, the police told the media, which duly regurgitated to the public, that Strauss-Kahn was in such a hurry to flee the scene of the crime that he left behind his cell phone. The police also put out the story that by calling airlines and demanding passenger lists, they managed to catch the fleeing rapist just as his plane was departing for France.

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by Brian Moench
Published on Sunday, May 22, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

""I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure. [It] amounts to a shakedown, so I apologize."

How about Barton’s grasp of CO2 as a greenhouse gas? “It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer... there’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning. Hell, “CO2 is in our Coca-Cola!'"

Even better is Barton's explanation of how wind power could speed up climate change. "Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about.”


Congressman Joe Barton, Texas (R) Ranking Member House Energy and Commerce Committee

Yes, Joe, that sure is something to think about!

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Analysis by Wendell Potter:

Wendell Potter explains Vermont Single Payer

The state's facing big debt, but also big opportunity.

by Ellen Brown
posted May 16, 2011
California is the eighth largest economy in the world, and it has a debt burden to match. The state has outstanding general obligation bonds and revenue bonds of $158 billion, largely incurred for building infrastructure. Over $7 billion of California’s annual budget goes to pay interest on the state’s debt.

=> Read more!

Posted on May 16, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The moral philosopher Cornel West, if Barack Obama’s ascent to power was a morality play, would be the voice of conscience. Rahm Emanuel, a cynical product of the Chicago political machine, would be Satan. Emanuel in the first scene of the play would dangle power, privilege, fame and money before Obama. West would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never be sacrificed on the altar of power.

=> Read more!

Posted on May 16, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The moral philosopher Cornel West, if Barack Obama’s ascent to power was a morality play, would be the voice of conscience. Rahm Emanuel, a cynical product of the Chicago political machine, would be Satan. Emanuel in the first scene of the play would dangle power, privilege, fame and money before Obama. West would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never be sacrificed on the altar of power.

=> Read more!

I very rarely purchase food at fast food outlets. But today I stopped at Carl's Jr. in Lone Pine.

I ordered in the drive up and when I went to the window and was paying the kid said, "$3.85 please. Would you like to add $1 to support the troops?"

The ignorance behind such a suggestion was deafening! Besides complicity in imperialist aggression and mass murder, our entire infrastructure and economy are being destroyed by the wasting of trillions on these criminal, senseless wars and now I am asked to add $1 to the cost of a $1.84 hamburger? Insane.

I would rather beat Carl's junior ass than give an extra dollar on my sandwich to support the war machine.

The kid didn't give up either - "But you get $15 in coupons too," he added incredulously. Good luck kid when you are toting a malfunctioning AR-15 in some godforsaken canyon and sleeping on a cold rock in Afghanistan next year when you sign up for the military because a job with Carl's Junior won't pay the rent.

by John Nichols
Published on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by The Nation

House Republicans like to talk -- and talk, and talk -- about their regard for the founders and the Constitution.

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This interview with Debra Bowen is about the issues she deals with as Secretary of State. It was done before Jane Harman resigned from the 36th District, but it gives a good idea of who Debra is and what she is about.

PF

For some reason the links in this post work in preview, but when I save to post they seem to be broken. If you click on the image or the link itself and your screen just goes white, try copying the url and pasting it into your browser and it should work that way.

Note that you will have to add an "h" to the start of the url when you get it in your browser. I had to leave that off or you would get the white screen by clicking on it.

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrmvEHhyU38&feature=related

I've excerpted the following from a summary of the recent ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) conference in Brussels. Interesting to see that cyclists are not treated as pariahs there. Click the title for the full article.

"...On a sunny day in April we left the hotel early in the morning on a pleasant walk to the venue. Brussels is a pleasant city, very walkable, and though Belgians are famous for not being the best drivers in Europe, the traffic is slow and quiet. Bikes everywhere, in every direction, for they have the priority in the city and most traffic signs do not apply to them (why can't it be like that where I live?) They tell me that in Flanders the bicycle cult is even deeper..."

by Michael C. Ruppert

Follow the link to listen to a 1-1/2 hour interview on German radio with Ruppert on 9/11 and Peak Oil.

May 5, 2011, 1400 PST, SEBASTOPOL – I have personally interrogated underage criminal suspects who could lie better than White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. It has been four days since the P.T. Barnum proclamation of the death of Osama bin Laden (OBL). President Obama’s account of the firefight has had zero credibility from the outset and it continues to fray and wear thin as each day passes.

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by Noam Chomsky

Published on Saturday, May 7, 2011 by Guernica Magazine

It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them.

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Friday
May 6, 2011
10:14 am
By Michelle Chen
from In These Times

Never underestimate the power of a good public shaming. Western electronics firms were mortified in 2010 by reports of gruesome suicides of young workers in China, employed by the multinational tech giant Foxconn.

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by Paul Fretheim

I was watching the news recently like everyone else after the commando raid in a decrepit filthy farmhouse near Abbottabad, Pakistan, where, we are told, the infamous Osama Bin Laden was summarily executed. In my opinion it makes the U.S. government of the past ten years, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, look pretty foolish.

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Jeffrey D. Sachs

In Project Syndicate’s newest video, Jeffrey D. Sachs expands upon the views expressed in this commentary. Click here to watch.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/video#sachs

NEW YORK – The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.

=> Read more!