July 2008 archive

A few weeks ago, Wisconsin peace activists successfully challenged the Army’s use of a “Virtual Army Experience” game, aimed at recruiting young people, at a lakefront music festival. As reported then, the festival asked the Army to shut down the game, which offered a chance to shoot at life-sized human targets from a Humvee, replace it with something less offensive, and set an age limit of 17 to participate.

Now comes the charge that by targeting young teenagers the Army is actually violating international law:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has found that Army use of the game, and its recruiting practice in general, violate international law. In May, the ACLU published a report that found the armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. Department of Defense instruction to recruiters, the US military’s collection of information of hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds, and military training corps for children as young as 11 reveal that students are targeted for recruitment as early as possible.

By exposing children under 17 to military recruitment, the United States military violates the Optional Protocol.” The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, ratified by the Senate in December 2002, protects the rights of children under 16 from military recruitment and deployment to war. The US subsequently entered a binding declaration that raised the minimum age to 17, meaning any recruitment activity targeted at those under 17 years old is not allowed in the United States.

Before complaints from Peace Action-Wisconsin, Veterans for Peace and others, recruiters at Summerfest were allowing teens as young as 13 to “play” the “game” and collecting their personal information, for recruiting purposes, before issuing them a card that gave them access to the tent with the Humvee, machine guns and lifesize targets moving on a big screen.  The Army first raised the age at Summerfest, but ended up shutting down the game and replacing it with a tamer offering with stationary targets and no Humvee.

By the time the Army’s exhibit opened at a Duluth air show, the Army had raised the age limit to 17. Here’s a link to a report from Yahoo gaming news on protests over the game in Milwaukee and Duluth, and a report from a Duluth area activist.

1. Reuters reports that U.S. and Iraqi forces launch crackdown in restive Diyala province. “Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police launched a major security operation in northeastern Diyala province on Tuesday in the latest move by the government to stamp its authority over militants… Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops have also been carrying out extensive operations in the northern Nineveh province, where al Qaeda is blamed for numerous attacks.”

   BBC News adds, “this latest operation was generally expected but its timing was kept secret, and army and police units were brought up from Baghdad unannounced.”

2. The Washington Post reports Sen. Ted Stevens has been indicted on seven criminal counts. The Alaskan Republican entered the Senate in 1968. “The indictment accuses Stevens, former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, of concealing payments of more than $250,000 in goods and services from an oil company. The items include home improvements, autos and household items.”

3. The Hill reports Rep. Henry Waxman believes Blackwater ‘misled’ officials to get contracts. “The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Inspector General on Monday released a report saying that “Blackwater or its affiliates obtained … a total of 39 contracts that were set aside for small businesses even though the bidder may not have met SBA’s criteria to be considered a small business.””

   According to Waxman, Bush administration officials “ignored blatant warning signs” to award Blackwater “dozens of lucrative federal contracts” for which it was ineligible.

4. From Boom… as the NY Times reports that the Gas rush is on, and Louisianians cash in.

   A no-holds-barred, all-American gold rush for natural gas is under way in this forgotten corner of the South, and De Soto Parish, with its fat check from a large energy company this month, is only the latest and largest beneficiary. The county leaders and everyone around them, for mile after mile, over to Texas and up to Arkansas, in the down-at-the-heels city of Shreveport and in its struggling neighbors, suddenly find themselves sitting on what could prove to be the largest natural gas deposit in the continental United States.

   Already, several dozen people who own parcels of land over the field are becoming instant millionaires as energy companies pay big money for the mineral rights to the gas, which like other energy sources is worth far more than it was last year.

   Jalopies are being traded in for Cadillacs, plans for swimming pools are being hatched in rusty trailers, and the old courthouse here is packed to the rafters day after day with oil company “landmen” (and women), whose job it is to frantically search the record books for the owners of the mineral rights to land that has become like gold.

   To Bust… as the Washington Post reports that a California oil field goes from rush to a reflection of global oil limits.

   In May 1899, a pair of oil prospectors wielding picks and shovels dug into a bank of the Kern River where some gooey liquid had seeped to the surface. About 45 feet down, they hit oil…

   After the discovery of oil, it took 85 years to produce the first billion barrels from the field. It took 24 more years for the next billion. And… Chevron [engineers] hope to milk out 650 million barrels or so more over the next couple of decades.

   If they succeed in retrieving those final drops, it would be an achievement of modern technology. But then all the oil that can be recovered here — the inheritance of a natural confluence of events lasting millions of years — will be gone.

   One of the really sad aspects of the Louisiana story is the “instant millionaires” rushing off to buy Cadillacs, big American gas guzzlers. With the rising cost of energy, these Louisianians are being bought off cheaply. Once the fossil fuels are gone, they’re gone.

On the day before leaving for Netroots Nation, I voted for Jim Martin for U.S. Senate in the July 15 General Primary Election here in Georgia.  

At the polling place I was the only voter but there were a dozen or so poll workers.  After voting (on one of those damned Diebold machines) I asked if I’d get a receipt.  In lieu of one I was given a cute little sticker with a graphic of a Georgia Peach with ‘I’m a Georgia Voter’ printed on it.  I laughed and said that makes me feel better…there were some chuckles.  

I said I wanted a receipt for my vote.  This is what they gave me.

~Remember…. don’t wRECk pony party~

Or: Socialism in the US: Good only for the rich!

Original article via socialistworker.org.

AFTER MONTHS of wrangling, Congress finally rushed through a housing bill–legislation, its Democratic sponsors say, that will provide some relief for people whose mortgage payments have increased while the value of their homes declined.

Department Of Justice

Hiring Questions:

Who Do You Love

More?

The Constitution Or

George Bush?

Which Law Is

Higher?

Gods Law

Or

The Rule Of Law?

You Know The Answers

Beijing losing battle against Olympic smog



By Clifford Coonan in Beijing

Tuesday, 29 July 2008

With 10 days to go until the Beijing Olympics opens, the smog simply refuses to lift and the Games organisers are preparing emergency measures to clear the air ahead of the big day.

The traffic on the streets of Beijing is noticeably lighter, and many of the big steelworks and coal-fired power stations have been silenced. But the capital was still enveloped yesterday in a haze that restricted visibility to a couple of hundred yards.

For years the authorities have been trying to clear the yellow-tinged smog masking the city, including a recent batch of measures as a quick-fix solution.

Report Faults Aides in Hiring at Justice Dept.



By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: July 29, 2008

Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broke Civil Service laws by using politics to guide their hiring decisions, picking less-qualified applicants for important nonpolitical positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility, an internal report concluded on Monday.

A longtime prosecutor who drew rave reviews from his supervisors was passed over for an important counterterrorism slot because his wife was active in Democratic politics, and a much-less-experienced lawyer with Republican leanings got the job, the report said.

USA

Lawmakers Agree to Ban Toxins in Children’s Items



By Lyndsey Layton

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 29, 2008; Page A01

Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of toxins found in children’s products, handing a major victory to parents and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove harmful chemicals from toys.

The ban, which would take effect in six months, would have significant implications for U.S. consumers, whose homes are filled with hundreds of plastic products designed for children that may be causing dangerous health effects.

Greg McKendry

Yesterday, when a stranger pulled a shotgun out of a guitar case and started firing into a crowd of 200 watching a children’s perfomance of the musical Annie at the Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, this 60 year old church usher stood up and did the right thing when everyone else was running away.