[APR-news] October 13, 2006

Fri Oct 13 07:26:07 PDT 2006

Alternative Press Review - Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org - October 13, 2006

"The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook 
starts to get a lot better." - John Orrock, conservation biologist at the 
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, 
California

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http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=654&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
NORTH KOREA'S BOMB
By John Chuckman

You might think from all the political noise that something extraordinary 
happened when North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion. But 
let's put the test, apparently a small-yield, inefficient device, into some 
perspective. The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear 
tests, including 217 in the atmosphere. The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 
969 tests, including 219 in the atmosphere. France, 210, including 50 in the 
atmosphere. The United Kingdom, 45, with 21 in the atmosphere. China, 45, 
with 23 in the atmosphere. India and Pakistan, 13, all underground. South 
Africa (and/or Israel) one atmospheric test in 1979.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=653&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
The Illusion of Hope.Is all but gone
By Steven Woods

The situation we're stuck in leaves a question begging to be asked: What can 
we do about it? Unfortunately, an answer really isn't forthcoming, the 
courts, state, and federal government are apathetic, even hostile to us. We've 
tried lawsuits, please and petitions. Each has been futile, and it has 
sometimes resulted in further abuse of us and our outside supporters. One of 
our main problems is that an insufficient number of us speak up about the 
abuse. As the minds of our captors and their supporters "if they're not 
speaking up about it, it can't be that bad". Well, speaking up about it 
intelligently and effectively has been another problem. And even when it's 
done, our complaints seem to fall on deaf ears. Over the years, we've also 
tried several civil disobedience movements, ranging from general 
non-compliance to non-violent resistance to try and get our complaints 
heard. This, too, to no avail. So if legal remedies and direction aren't 
helping, what's to be tried next?

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Other articles of interest

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19225731.100
Imagine Earth without people
Bob Holmes, New Scientist

Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the Earth has ever known. 
In just a few thousand years we have swallowed up more than a third of the 
planet's land for our cities, farmland and pastures. By some estimates, we 
now commandeer 40 per cent of all its productivity. And we're leaving quite 
a mess behind: ploughed-up prairies, razed forests, drained aquifers, 
nuclear waste, chemical pollution, invasive species, mass extinctions and 
now the looming spectre of climate change. If they could, the other species 
we share Earth with would surely vote us off the planet.

http://www.communitysolution.org/06pconf1.html
Report on the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions
Megan Quinn, Community Solutions

"The solutions are not going to come from the same people who created the 
problem," Murphy said. "The answers are not in the corporations of 
technology but in the villages and neighborhoods." Murphy's theme was echoed 
by Bane, who zeroed in on the need for local, low-energy food production and 
consumption to replace energy-devouring long-distance transport of processed 
and packaged food. "Who feeds you and who do you feed will be the central 
questions for the next few decades," said Bane, publisher of the quarterly 
magazine, Permaculture Activist.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/1430244
Cable News Confidential: Jeff Cohen on his misadventures in corporate media
Jeff Cohen, Democracy Now!

I was inside as deep as a progressive media critic has ever gotten, and what 
I found at places like CNN and MSNBC, the number one fear among the working 
reporters, the producers is of doing anything that could get them or their 
channel accused of being liberal. And I saw the spectrum that's constructed. 
The spectrum of debate is center to right. And, you know, people blame that 
on FOX News -- Hannity & Colmes, a phony GE-to-GM spectrum -- but it was 
really CNN and PBS that invented that years before there was a FOX News. So, 
in the book, I describe how that gets constructed and why, and why almost 
half of the political spectrum is kept out of political debates on a regular 
basis on TV news, especially cable.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15270.htm
Torture, Moral Values, and Leadership of the Free World
Edward S. Herman, Information Clearinghouse

It is striking and chilling to see the leader of the Free World, George W. 
Bush, the Decider, seeking and gaining legislative approval for his 
government's now widespread use of torture, and exemption of himself and his 
top level associates for any earlier applications of torture. It has been 
pointed out that such ex-post exemptions have been sought by the most 
notorious state terrorists such as Augusto Pinochet and the Argentinean 
generals, whose ranks the Decider aims to join.

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/56/32/
"Boiling Point" - Eroding Freedom: From John Adams to George W. Bush
Mickey Z, Atlantic Free Press

I was reminded of the proverbial frog as I considered how the recently 
passed Military Commissions Act (MSA) managed to get lost in a shuffle of 
naughty e-mails and bipartisan accusations. This isn't meant to downplay the 
MSA. As Michael C. Dorf, a professor of Law at Columbia University, 
explains: "It immunizes government officials for past war crimes; it cuts 
the United States off from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions; and 
it all but eliminates access to civilian courts for non-citizens-including 
permanent residents whose children are citizens-that the government, in its 
nearly unreviewable discretion, determines to be unlawful enemy combatants." 
Nasty stuff, indeed...but since fiddling with human rights has long been a 
hobby for America's power elite, it'd be misguided to assign all the blame 
to the current administration. The erosion of freedom has been a slow steady 
process-not unlike boiling a pot of water.

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9844
America's Demise: Bush regime proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime 
proceeded
Paul Craig Roberts, Antiwar.com

The neoconservative drive to achieve hegemony over the American people and 
the entire world is similar to Hitler's drive for hegemony. Hitler used 
racial superiority to justify Germany's right to ride roughshod over other 
peoples and the right of the Nazi elite to rule over the German people. 
Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism" and "the war on terror." 
There is no practical difference. Hitler cared no more about the peoples he 
mowed down in his drive for supremacy than the neoconservatives care about 
655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled American troops, and 2,747 dead ones.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200610160028
Too busy fondling their self-esteem
John Pilger, New Statesman

A parallel world of truth and lies, morality and immorality dominates how 
the crime in Iraq is presented to us. In recent months, the invaders have 
vanished. The US, having murdered and cluster-bombed and napalmed and 
phosphorus-bombed, is now a wise referee between, even a protector of, 
"warring tribes". The buzzword is "sectarianism", blurring the truth that 
most of the attacks by the resistance are against the foreign military 
occupiers: on average, one every 15 minutes. That the majority of Iraqis, 
Sunni and Shia, are united in their demand that US and British forces get 
out of their country now is of no interest. Has journalism ever been so 
voluntarily appropriated by black propaganda?

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5838.shtml
A Re-run of the Lebanon War in Palestine?
Hasan Abu Nimah & Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada,

There are ominous signs that the long-contemplated plan to overthrow the 
democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet is about to 
enter its most dangerous phase: a political coup, supported by local 
militias, with foreign and regional backing. This could ignite serious 
intra-Palestinian violence. With Iraq providing a dreadful warning of how 
foreign occupation can foster civil bloodshed, everything must be done to 
expose and thwart this dangerous conspiracy.

http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin10102006.html
Brother of the Fist: The Passing of Peter Norman
Dave Zirin, CounterPunch

The backlash endured by Smith and Carlos is well documented. Less known are 
Norman's own travails. He was a pariah in the Australian Olympic world, 
despite being a five-time national champion in the 200 meters. He desired to 
coach the highest levels, yet worked as a Physical Education teacher, the 
victim of a down under blacklist. . As John Carlos said, "At least me and 
Tommie had each other when we came home. When Peter went home, he had to 
deal with a nation by himself. He never wavered, never denied that he was up 
there with us for a purpose and he never said 'I'm sorry' for his 
involvement. That's indicative of who the man was."

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NewsWire

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/iraq-o13.shtml
Why is the press silent on the 655,000 deaths?

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt10_9_6.htm
Secret Iraq Meeting Included Journalists

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1892627,00.html
US free speech row grows as author says Jewish complaints stopped launch 
party

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=69280
BBC guilty of venality in Venezuela reporting

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9A630ED2-D7F7-40F2-A04E-DF6D08CBC7F6.htm
UK minister urged Al-Jazeera bombing

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/1430231
Minuteman Founder Jim Gilchrist Storms Off Democracy Now! Debate

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145247
New Jersey Prisoners Threaten Hunger Over "Abu-Ghraib-like" Conditions

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145258
Abu Ghraib at Home: New Human Rights Watch Report Says US Using Dogs to 
Terrify Prisoners

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101106A.shtml
Army: Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2010

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2006/10/11/01245.html
Mass Murder: US responsible for 2 million deaths in Iraq since 1991

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20565819-661,00.html
Pentagon predicts 52,000 US military casualties, one million civilian dead 
in the first 90 days of conflict if US attacked N. Korea

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145238
Did VA Hide Figures Showing 1 in 4 US Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan 
Disabled From Service?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15277.htm
Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=11175
Indigenous teachers defend ´a just cause´; build and defend thousands of 
barricades throughout Oaxaca City

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15281.htm
Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11433
Study Shows Earth Wobbles Linked to Mammal Extinctions

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1011-03.htm
Water for Millions at Risk as Glaciers Melt away

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2849/
China's growing desert

http://www.gwynnedyer.net/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Feeding%20the%20World.txt
How long can the world feed itself?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ati6ptPjRTuQ&refer=home
New house prices will fall for first time in 15 years

http://mondediplo.com/2006/10/02finance
Weapons of financial mass destruction

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