Clipmarks | papananook's clips

Iraqi Military Orders Sadr City Residents To Evacuate

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:17:19 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: U.S. air strikes must be fun to endure. How many civilians dead --murdured--this time?

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces, after more than of 40 days of intense fighting, on Thursday told residents to evacuate their homes in the northeast Shiite slum of Sadr City and to move to temporary shelters on two soccer fields.

The military’s call indicated the possibility of stepped-up military operations and came as Iraqi security forces raided a radio station run by backers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the southern port city of Basra, militants launched rockets that struck a coalition base, killing two contractors and injuring four civilians and four coalition soldiers.

Sadr City has been a battleground since late March, enduring U.S. airstrikes, militia snipers and gunbattles between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Sadr.

Already some 8,500 people have been displaced from the sprawling slum of some 2.5 million people, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. For weeks, food, water and medical shortages have affected about 150,000 people

Lawmakers Seek Probe of ‘Media Generals’

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:06:27 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: ‘Not only must the inspector general now account for what it did and did not know about this state-sponsored propaganda effort, but they must also explain why, if they knew about the propaganda campaign, it was allowed to proceed,’ DeLauro said.

‘Additionally, we are calling for the inspector general to launch an investigation to ensure no detail surrounding this programme remains hidden,’ she added. The House members also want to know if the inspector general considers the programme to be illegal.

Retired officers who acted as military analysts for major news outlets were given V.I.P. access to the Pentagon, with regular briefings by then-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a sponsored trip to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

The operation was abruptly halted after it was reported by The New York Times. The paper’s massive probe revealed that some 75 retired military officers, prepped by the Pentagon, served as paid television commentators since the run-up to the

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

NEW YORK - As U.S. television networks continue their silence about their use of retired military officers to ’sell’ progress in Iraq, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are calling on the Defence Department Inspector General to investigate the Pentagon-sponsored public relations effort.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, and 40 others members of Congress, want the Inspector General (IG) to investigate how high-ranking officials within the Defence Department were allowed to operate a programme ‘aimed at deceiving the American people’.

‘When the Department of Defence (DoD) misleads the American people by having them believe that they are listening to the views of objective military analysts when in fact these individuals are simply replaying DoD talking points, the department is clearly betraying the public trust,’ the lawmakers wrote in a joint letter to DoD Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter.

The technological singularity

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:56:51 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

The technological singularity is a hypothesised point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.^[1]

Statistician I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. Vernor Vinge later called this event "the Singularity" as an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics near a gravitational singularity and the drastic change in society he argues would occur following an intelligence explosion. In the 1980s, Vinge popularized the Singularity in lectures, essays, and science fiction. More recently, some AI researchers have voiced concern over the potential dangers of Vinge's Singularity.

Tell Congress the Farm Bill can help end the Food Crisis

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:50:15 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: see link

Clip Source: act.oxfamamerica.org

Tell Congress the Farm Bill can help end the Food Crisis

Faced with a global food crisis, Congress has a major opportunity to provide desperately needed funding to help those facing increased hunger due to high food prices. Congress is in final negotiations on the farm bill right now and this legislation could help address the crisis. Currently farmers making $1 million a year receive support from the farm bill, but the poor affected by the food crisis do not. Does that sound right to you?

Even a small cut in subsidies to wealthy farmers could provide funds to help millions who are being pushed further into poverty by the food crisis. Food prices in some countries have gone up 80% in the last three years. Poor people around the world cannot wait any longer Please tell Congress to urgently address the food crisis today.

Ben Sargent on Hillary

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:15:12 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: She's just stringing it out 'til she figgers how to be graceful...for her, it's gotta be hard.

Clip Source: community.livejournal.com

Gift to the generations to come

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:09:32 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Hits home for me. Why I get riled up about environmental honesty here and suffer no fools foot-dragging, including the Gov't of my country.

Clip Source: cathy-edgett.livejournal.com

I first read these words over thirty years ago in the book Lady of the Lotus by William Barrett. It is from the Vedas.

It is a good guide on how to live for the future generations as well are our own.

I have a son.
I owe a debt to my son,
To the children of my son
And to their children.
Each gift that I give,
I give many times;
To my son,
To the children of my son
And to their children.
I must take care
That I give no evil
For the evil will be multiplied.
The seeds of my example
Shall grow into trees in their lives.
I would give a fair forest
To my son
To the children of my son
And to their children.

I pray that this may be.

OCEANS 21--Will Congress help?

Fri, 09 May 2008 14:12:24 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: With the Oceans dying and many species in peril, positive action is desperately needed.

Clip Source: marinebio.org

Today, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans is marking up the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act (OCEANS 21). To date, this bill represents the most comprehensive package of ocean conservation reforms recommended by two blue-ribbon panels. “Almost five years after the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy warned that our oceans were in serious trouble, Congress is finally poised to act.”

“OCEANS 21 establishes a national policy to protect, maintain and restore the health of our marine ecosystems. It creates a process by which federal, state and local government agencies can better coordinate their activities to achieve goals and milestones for improving ocean health. This bill also gives the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for the first time, a clear, statutory mission to carry out ocean observation, research and conservation.”

If We Really supported the Troops...

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:10:57 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks:
Go to http://anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/ and then click on a soldier-contact's name, read the blurb he or she has posted about what his or her unit wants, and then click again to request a form (asking for your own addy and name) to get the appropriate address for that unit. You must not send porn, and you must not send packages that contain both food and soap/sunscreen/etc in the same box. No pork products. No anti-islamic tracts in bulk. No political content. No flea collars. No depictions of naked or partly naked people. No explosives, firearms, other shit that is illegal to mail anyway. Don't send chocolate, it melts. You must request the address to send your package to on the same day you mail it, so it's hard to really meet the requests. I am thinking of assembling a bunch of common cheap items, and boxing them up at the last minute. even someone as poor as me can spring for toothbrushes and lip balm, for crying out loud.

Things particularly in need:
* Personal letters from

Clip Source: community.livejournal.com

on_the_issues
[gwyd]

The Republicans are trying to ban all skin mags on military bases. Let me repeat that, they are willing to let people bleed and die for Haliburton, but it's not okay for some guy in Fort Bragg to whack off to Playboy. Because that's really what's destroying America. WTF!!!

Meanwhile, poor bastards in Iraq are begging for things like socks, toothbrushes, and sunscreen. They are begging for bras, tampons, foot powder and lip balm.

Seriously. We are willing to pay big bucks to contractors to defend themselves from sexual assault charges, but we aren't willing to give our soldiers basic toiletries, pens, and stationary.

Not cool. In fact, I'm furious.

So here's what you and I can do on a basic level to make things a little more bareable for men and women in the feild.

The reality of Palestinian-Israeli History

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:56:05 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: And we wonder why Palestinians fight Israel.

Clip Source: www.brasschecktv.com

Sands of Sorrow - 1950

[Video]

A people made homeless (1950)

There is an astonishing amount of ignorance about the basic facts of the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict.

This footage was shot in the late 1940s to educate the public about the plight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had been made homeless as a result of the violence and intimidation that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.

What most Palestinians thought would be a temporary dislocation lasting only a few weeks at most became permanent. Homeless with just the clothes on their backs, they were left in the desert without food, water, and medical care to die.

Moon Meets Mercury

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:51:58 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Beauty in the morning!

Clip Source: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov

Explanation: On Tuesday, May 6, while standing on planet Earth and sweeping your binoculars along the western horizon just after sunset, you might have encountered this arresting skyscape. The view features a slender crescent Moon and bright planet Mercury separated on the sky by only about 2 degrees. Cradled in the sunlit lunar crescent, the night side of the Moon is faintly illuminated by earthshine -- sunlight reflected from planet Earth. Of course, the clouds in silhouette and fading twilight colors are common elements in pictures of the sky after sunset, but much less often seen is inner planet Mercury, usually hiding close to the Sun in Earth's sky. Still, the coming week will be a good time to spot Mercury near the western horizon about 30 minutes after sunset. As for the Moon, tonight and tomorrow night the crescent Moon will wander close to Mars in the early evening sky.