Lebanon, Cuba, Electro-swat, Qinghai-Tibet Rail,DU

I refuse to link to Robert Fisk's latest article, instead of outrage at the ZE bombing of civilians, he blathers on about Syria. I recall in '03 as GulfWarII began, RF used to rile the hawks by getting technical details of weapons incorrect. I counted myself as a fan, but now I would urge caution, even try a bit of Fisking, he seems to be humming a Zionist tune.

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where are the real ANGRY ARABS, like Hatem Bazian, Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi, Jess Ghannam, Shahid Alam, just to mention a few courageous and outspoken Arabs?

- a criticism of angryarab

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info
video interview with Mordechai Vanunu

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Thrashing about the blogs:
palestinianpundit . .electronicintifada . .electronicintifada . . wearewideawake . . stevegilliard . . consortiumnews . . hammeroftruth . . tnr

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Report made public last Monday by the U.S. State Department concerning Cuba...Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba..a budget of $80 million during the next two years to ensure a transition, rather than a succession of leadership, in Cuba. The Report also contains a classified attachment that contains a secret plan for regime change in Cuba.
..It mentions Venezuela at least nine different times..
This "Castro-led axis," ..they are finding some resonance with populist governments and disenfranchised populations in the region."
..One of the more troublesome of the Commission's recommendations is the threat to apply Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, known as "Helms Burton", to Venezuela.
Title III ..permits lawsuits in U.S. courts brought by individual citizens against businesses that operate on property the Cuban government nationalized after the 1959 revolution...
.. the White House is now prepared to apply, for the first time, Title III to individual countries that are "engaged in a process of support for regime succession (with Cuba)." ..
..President Chávez.. "Rather than thinking of a transition plan for Cuba, he added, "the United States ought to elaborate a transition plan for themselves because this is the century that will see the end of the U.S. empire."

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"There is no power so convinced of its own benevolence as the United States. The culture is delusional in its commitment to this mythology, which is why today one can find on the other side of the world peasant farmers with no formal education who understand better the nature of U.S. power than many faculty members at elite U.S. universities."

-- Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at UT Austin, in a recently delivered speech at the Brisbane (Australia) Social Forum titled "The Threats to Sustainable Democracy"

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uruknet

Using the same calculation method that the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority employed in their 1990 projection of potential DU consequences in Iraq, the estimated 250 tons of DU from the 2,000 recent air strikes carried out in Afghanistan from March to May 2006 could result in as many as 2,500,000 cancers within the next ten years. The bomb dropped near Capt. Goddard produced 250 pounds of DU that could cause as many as 1,250 cases of cancer in that village within the next ten years. But, the bombing in the initial 2001 invasion could cause as many as 9,000,000 additional cancers within ten years.

counterpunch
... As Robert Jensen warned the Brisbane Social Forum, "The world is at risk."

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dailywarnews

But perhaps the most revealing moment in Suskind's book ["The One% Doctrine," which "paints a portrait of an administration drunk on lawless power"] is a brief vignette that captures the quintessence of Bush's callous disregard for the American people -- and the regime's strange, preternatural calm in the face of imminent attack. In August 2001, while Bush dawdled on his Texas dude ranch, the entire national security system was, in Tenet's words, "blinking red" in expectation of a major terrorist strike. On Aug. 6, a CIA official brought the infamous "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo to Crawford and read it out personally to the president. In response, he got nothing but a snide dismissal: "All right, you've covered your ass now."

That was it. Bush had nothing else to say about this stark threat of impending slaughter. He had no questions, no advice, no commands -- just smirking contempt. Even if we give Bush every benefit of the doubt, even if we put the most charitable construction possible on his behavior, the very best you could say of his reaction is that it represents a blood-curdling degree of depraved indifference and criminal negligence worthy of Nero.

Beyond this "best-case" scenario, you tumble into an abyss of ever-darker implications, a deep murk that may never be dispelled. But what we know, what is plain as day, is bad enough: Tyranny has come -- aggressive, remorseless, murderous, mad.

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huffingtonpost
I ran into Colin Powell and asked him if we are ever going to get out of Iraq. "We are," he told me, "but we're not going to leave behind anything we like because we are in the middle of a civil war." Powell and Jack Murtha both talking about civil war in Iraq -- shouldn't that be headline news?

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techwebsound Jefferson Airplane redux

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cognitivedaily
kanji plays pac-man

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eurocosm
coolest
- These Bug Swatters are the coolest thing, they may change the way we experience space. 'Outside' may become less threatening, now that biting insects can be despatched with a langourous wave of the arm. We no longer need to cower indoors from the insects. Children love these bats, watch them prowl the undergrowth, rousing resting mossies, and experience their joy at the satisfying zzzst! and blue flash.

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Qinghai-Tibet Rail, Oxygen required:
In the past five years, 100,000 workers laid about 700 miles of track over some of the harshest geography on the planet.... the new portion runs with elevations between 13 - 16,000 feet..
.. half of the new track crosses permafrost , which can become unstable if it thaws... oxygen, mixed with some outside air, is pumped throughout the train.. 23% O2 .. like they’re at only 10,000 feet... Woozy travelers can plug the hose of their “individual diffuser” into an outlet anywhere on the train..

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hotelchelseablog yes that Hotel Chelsea
theatlanticClinton witnessed
Lebanon Cuba swat Rail