U.S. Legislation Would Bring Wind Power to ‘Grinding Halt’
May 29th, 2007Power crisis? The only power crisis we have involves the people in power. Isn’t it interesting how this affects individuals who use wind turbines?!
Will the government’s service to the criminal mining and drilling interests be worth touching off armed standoffs over wind turbines?
Hmm. Even I can’t believe the U.S. Government would be that stupid. What percentage of wind turbine users will simply shoot any feds on sight who try to enforce this? 1%? 2%? 5%? How many dead feds would that be?
I doubt They’re this stupid.
Personally, I think it will play out like the NAIS thing. The feds will realize that it goes too far, for now, and they’ll back off.
If, however, this does go through…
Will it be Blackwater USA mercenaries who get the wind turbine inspection contract?
You can almost hear it now, “If you use an unlicensed wind turbine, you’re with the terrorists.”
Via: Renewable Energy Access:
Introduced this week by Congressman Nick Rahall (D. WV), and scheduled for action in early June at the House Resources Committee which he chairs, H.R. 2337 would burden wind power with sweeping new requirements that have never applied to other energy sectors, Swisher said, noting:
— Subtitle D of the bill would direct the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) to review every existing and planned wind project, a mandate far beyond the agency’s resources and capabilities, and criminalize operation of wind energy facilities not formally certified by USFWS.
— Under the legislation, landowners and farmers with wind turbines on their property would be subject to invasive inspection requirements.
— Landowners and farmers could face jail time or a $50,000 penalty for putting a wind turbine, regardless of whether it is for personal use or of a commercial scale, on their property without certification by the USFWS director.
A hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled for May 23 on the bill. “This bill is an unprecedented threat to clean, renewable energy,” said Swisher. “It would undermine an essential piece of the global warming solution. Wind energy is the one readily deployable, cost-effective option we have available to meet this challenge, and Rep. Rahall’s proposal would put a massive roadblock in its path.
Superbugs Emerge Among Urban Poor
May 29th, 2007Via: MyWay / AP:
Drug-resistant staph infections have spread to the urban poor, rising almost seven-fold in recent years in some Chicago neighborhoods, a new study finds.
Researchers said the crowded living conditions of public housing and jails may speed up the person-to-person spread of infection.
The superbugs, first seen mainly in hospitals and nursing homes, have turned up recently among athletes, prisoners and people who get illegal tattoos.
Called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, these staph germs can cause skin infections that in rare cases have led to pneumonia, bloodstream infections and a painful, flesh-destroying condition. MRSA is hard to treat because the bacteria have developed resistance to the penicillin drug family.
U.S., Iran End 27-Year Diplomatic Freeze
May 29th, 2007Incredible.
Which “Diplomatic Freeze” are we talking about, precisely? Halliburton has no problem with doing business with Iran. If you think that’s illegal under U.S. law, think again:
It’s just another Halliburton oil and gas operation. The company name is emblazoned everywhere: On trucks, equipment, large storage silos and workers’ uniforms.
But this isn’t Texas. It’s Iran. U.S. companies aren’t supposed to do business here.
Yet, in January, Halliburton won a contract to drill at a huge Iranian gas field called Pars, which an Iranian government spokesman said “served the interests” of Iran.
“I am baffled that any American company would want to have employees operating in Iran,” says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “I would think they’d be ashamed.”
Halliburton says the operation — videotaped by NBC News — is entirely legal. It’s run by a subsidiary called “Halliburton Products and Services Limited,” based outside the U.S.
And the war with Iran???
“Don’t ask me how it will be stopped…”
Via: Yahoo / AP:
The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security. The American envoy said there was broad policy agreement, but that Iran must stop arming and financing militants who are attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi told The Associated Press that the two sides would meet again in less than a month. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Washington would decide only after the Iraqi government issued an invitation.
“We don’t have a formal invitation to respond to just yet, so it doesn’t make sense to respond to what we don’t have,” Crocker told reporters after the meeting.
The talks in the Green Zone offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were the first formal and scheduled meeting between Iranian and American government officials since the United States broke diplomatic relations with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy.
An AP reporter who witnessed the opening of the session said Crocker and Kazemi shook hands.
The American envoy called the meeting “businesslike” and said at “the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.”
However, he said: “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”
Speaking later at a news conference in the Iranian Embassy, Kazemi said: “We don’t take the American accusations seriously.”
Crocker declined to detail what Kazemi had said in the session, but the Iranian diplomat — formerly a top official in the elite Revolutionary Guards Quds Force — said he had offered to train and equip the Iraqi army and police to create “a new military and security structure” for Iraq.
Kazemi said U.S. efforts to rebuild those forces were inadequate to handle the chaos in Iraq, for which he said Washington bore sole responsibility. He said he also offered to provide what assistance Iran could in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, which he said had been “demolished by the American invaders.”
The icebreaking session, according to both sides, did not veer into other difficult issues that encumber the U.S.-Iranian relationship — primarily Iran’s nuclear program and the more than a quarter-century history of diplomatic estrangement.
The Education of Cindy Sheehan
May 29th, 2007Sadly, bottom up political activists tend to figure it out the hard way.
If you know someone who’s tumbling down the rabbit hole/honey pot of political activism, I strongly suggest, Endgame Volume 1 by Derrick Jensen. Even though Jensen’s anti civilization ramblings are silly, his level of hypocrisy is unbelievable and half of the book is about psychoanalyzing his personal trauma within the context of the wider collapse, his critique of political and environmental activism is right on target.
As an analyst, I make a point of not shooting the messenger; that’s how I managed to complete both Endgame tomes. (A while ago, I accepted paid advertising for the books and was sent copies for review.) Endgame contains a lot of excellent information. I found that about 10% of the books covered fascinating stuff that I’d never heard about. The desire to find those nuggets among the other 90% of, well, Jensen’s convoluted, dysfunctional meditations, kept me going. The more casual reader, or the reader expecting coherent and relevant support of a point or points, over roughly 1000 pages of material (both volumes), won’t stick with it.
Activists, though, should force themselves to read it, at least volume 1.
If you’re an activist—or you know an activist—who’s having “second thoughts” about allocating time, money and effort to accomplish-nothing-go-nowhere activities, Endgame is essential reading.
If you want a very short summary of the nature of political activism, here’s a section from a piece I wrote about militant piracy as a form of asymmetric warfare. ACS is short for American Corporate State:
Whether or not political activists know it, even with very mundane levels of political activity, they are engaging in low intensity conflict with the ACS.
The U.S. military classifies political activism as “low intensity conflict.†The scale of warfare (in terms of intensity) begins with individuals distributing anti-government handbills and public gatherings with anti-government/anti-corporate themes. In the middle of the conflict intensity scale are what the military refers to as Operations Other than War; an example would be the situation the U.S. is facing in Iraq. At the upper right hand side of the graph is global thermonuclear war. What is important to remember is that the military is concerned with ALL points along this scale because they represent different types of threats to the ACS.
Making distinctions between civilian law enforcement and military forces, and foreign and domestic intelligence services is no longer necessary. After September 11, 2001, all national security assets would be brought to bare against any U.S. insurgency movement. Additionally, the U.S. military established NORTHCOM which designated the U.S. as an active military operational area. Crimes involving the loss of corporate profits will increasingly be treated as acts of terrorism and could garner anything from a local law enforcement response to activation of regular military forces.
Most of what is commonly referred to as “political activism†is viewed by the corporate state’s counterinsurgency apparatus as a useful and necessary component of political control.
Letters-to-the-editor…
Calls-to-elected-representatives…
Waving banners…
“Third†party political activities…
Taking beatings, rubber bullets and tear gas from riot police in free speech zones…Political activism amounts to an utterly useless waste of time, in terms of tangible power, which is all the ACS understands. Political activism is a cruel guise that is sold to people who are dissatisfied, but who have no concept of the nature of tangible power. Counterinsurgency teams routinely monitor these activities, attend the meetings, join the groups and take on leadership roles in the organizations.
It’s only a matter of time before some individuals determine that political activism is a honeypot that accomplishes nothing and wastes their time. The corporate state knows that some small percentage of the peaceful, idealistic, political activists will eventually figure out the game. At this point, the clued-in activists will probably do one of two things; drop out or move to escalate the struggle in other ways.
If the clued-in activist drops his or her political activities, the ACS wins.
But what if the clued-in activist refuses to give up the struggle? Feeling powerless, desperation could set in and these individuals might become increasingly radicalized. Because the corporate state’s counterinsurgency operatives have infiltrated most political activism groups, the radicalized members will be easily identified, monitored and eventually compromised/turned, arrested or executed. The ACS wins again.
Sheehan finally figured it out.
(To see how the corporate state deals with leaderless resistance cells who refuse to stand down, click through to continue reading my essay from which the passage above is taken.)
Believe me, the point of all of this isn’t to depress you, and no, I’m not going to tell you go blow up a dam like Jensen. HAHA! (I know way too much about traditional insurgency tactics—from spending years in the basement of this place—and the climate in the U.S. couldn’t be any less conducive to it, regardless of how bad things seem to people like you and me. Besides, if you want insurgency training, you’d be better off with the Keystone cops than with Jensen.)
So if waving signs doesn’t work, and shooting the bastards won’t work (because of corporate state PSYOP), what should we do?
For now, I’ll just say, “Devise innovative tactics with the tools before you.” Also, read about Aikido. You don’t have to get your ass kicked by a one hundred pound girl—like I did when I took Aikido classes. Just think about the underlying principles. Keep a notepad handy to write down ideas that come to you.
One answer lies in the efficient and innovative allocation of resources to values. (Sorry, that essay isn’t ready yet.) I don’t remember the name of the tiny girl who wiped the mat with my 6 foot 2 inch, 180 pound carcass, but I’d like to thank her for teaching me an invaluable lesson. Smart activists will learn from ass kickings. The best lessons cause us to think differently about the situation we’re facing, the nature of the threat and better responses.
Via: Dailykos:
I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.
The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”
…
Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland.
Related: Democrats in Oblivion
The Worst Wing: The God Couple
May 29th, 2007Glad to see that Dermot is hammering away! Help him out by using those reddit and dig buttons.
Via: idleworm:
HEH HEH! This can’t possibly backfire, eh, Dick?
Dick?
U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda to Attack Iran
May 28th, 2007Via: Prison Planet:
Recent revelations illustrating the fact that the U.S. government is using a Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 to carry out bombings in Iran undermines the entire war on terror as a monumental hoax that is being exploited purely to realize a geopolitical agenda.
“President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert “black” operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
“The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan,” the London Telegraph reported yesterday.
Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Even if you believe the official story of 9/11 to the letter, the fact that Bush has personally authorized U.S. support for this group completely dismantles the facade of the war on terror.
Making Less Than Dad Did
May 28th, 2007Via: CNN:
American men in their 30s are earning less than their father’s generation did, challenging a long-held belief that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it, according to a new study published Friday.
The report, the first in an ongoing 18-month study on economic mobility in the United States, also revealed that the income growth of the median American household is declining.
Creationist Museum Brings Dinosaurs on Board Noah’s Ark
May 28th, 2007I wonder how many people will tell me about their plans to leave the U.S. today.
Via: timesonline:
A vegetarian Tyrannosaurus rex frolicked alongside human beings only a few thousand years ago in the Garden of Eden until Eve decided to munch on that apple, according to the Creation Museum, which opens in Kentucky today.
The $27 million (£14 million) exhibition is funded by evangelical Christians, who apparently believe that by reclaiming dinosaurs and fossils for their literal biblical interpretation of natural history, teenagers are less likely to look at internet pornography or get pregnant out of wedlock.
This sprawling 50-acre (20hectare) site is the latest effort to counter the evolutionary science taught in state schools that Answers in Genesis, the religious group behind the museum, claims has chipped away at the nation’s moral fabric.
It uses much of the same technology seen in mainstream museums. There are realistic moving, roaring dinosaurs and a lifesized model of a ship being built by animatronic craftsmen. In this corner of northern Kentucky the dinosaurs get to go on the ship, which happens to be none other than Noah’s Ark.
UK on the Brink
May 28th, 2007I don’t know why they just don’t get on with it.
Via: Guardian:
The home secretary, John Reid, made clear yesterday he is prepared to declare a “state of emergency” to suspend key parts of the human rights convention if the law lords do not overturn a series of judgments that have weakened the anti-terrorist control order regime.
Greetings What Really Happened Readers
May 27th, 2007My name is Kevin Flaherty, I’m the editor of Cryptogon.com. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to all What Really Happened readers. I hope that you find the information and analysis presented here to be useful.
The archives contain thousands of stories, but here are just a few recent posts that are representative of the type of content I provide on Cryptogon:
Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers’ Brains
High-Traffic Colluding Tor Routers in Washington, D.C., and the Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity
Wal-Mart to Open 400 In-Store “Health†Clinics
Virginia Tech Shooting: I’ve Already Seen Enough
Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets
Waiting for Clarity on the Brink of Oblivion
Thanks for visiting, and I hope that you decide to make Cryptogon one of your daily stops.
