August 2009 archive

Dandelion Salad’s got the skinny:  http://dandelionsalad.wordpres…

Crossposted at Agent Orange, ~7pm EDT, Saturday

This short essay started as a comment on a Docudharma Diary,  but its something that’s been percolating in my head for a while, now.

First, yes, of course, the Administration is acting like a representative of the moderate wing of the Corporate Party, because after all … that’s what they are. That is, after all, what they ran on … if they had pivoted to act as progressive populists, they would, indeed, have given substance to the radical reactionary lies about running as a moderate while secretly yearning for a radical agenda.

Instead, it turns out that the radical reactionary charge is more of the same projection … since they have for such a long time been running as more moderate than their actual radical agenda. The marketing genius of labeling a program of ripping out not just the New Deal of the Democratic Roosevelt but also the Square Deal of the Republican Roosevelt “conservative” … the tagline of the Fox Noise Channel as “Fair and Balanced” is just a pale shadow of that rhetorical trick.

Still …

 

America’s three “benchmark” glaciers are melting and over the past two decades they have been shrinking at an accelerated rate because of global warming.

The glaciers in Alaska and Washington have undergone a “rapid and sustained” loss of mass since 1989. Scientists at the U.S. Geologic Survey think this “decline could be the result of recent climate changes” overcoming seasonal fluctuations that impact the glaciers’ size.

These findings, “Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA“, were released in a report by the USGS on Thursday.

The southern-most glacier in the study, South Cascade Glacier in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, has lost almost half of its volume and a quarter of its mass since the USGS began collecting data in 1957.

This picture sequence shows the retreat of the South Cascade Glacier during the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st century. This glacier is melting at a rate that may cause it to disappear in 50 years.

Crossposted from Antemedius

Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer. McGovern was employed under seven US presidents for over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. McGovern was born and raised in the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

In this interview McGovern talks with Real News Network CEO Paul Jay about the paper trail on the Iraq war, as revealed in the British “Downing Street Memo”.

Selling children into prostitution

The latest horror show from the Blackwater saga illustrates how absolutely dangerous white supremacy is when empowered with federal dollars and the power to kill.

Instead of being run out of all civilized society, Erik Prince’s huge donations to the GOP earned him massive federal contracts and the backing of the US government as his employees raped children under the banner of an American flag.

White power politics is not a matter of free speech when used by the state as a tool of war. It is a war crime. Erik Prince is a war criminal…………..Rest Here

U.S. and Britain Again Target Afghan Poppies

Farmers Would Be Paid Not to Grow Crop

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, August 8, 2009

The U.S. and British governments plan to spend millions of dollars over the next two months to try to persuade Afghan farmers not to plant opium poppy, by far the country’s most profitable cash crop and a major source of Taliban funding and official corruption.

By selling wheat seeds and fruit saplings to farmers at token prices, offering cheap credit, and paying poppy-farm laborers to work on roads and irrigation ditches, U.S. and British officials hope to provide alternatives before the planting season begins in early October. Many poppy farmers survive Afghanistan’s harsh winters on loans advanced by drug traffickers and their associates, repaid with the spring harvest.

Interest in organic food on the rise in China

A small group of Chinese farmers is devoted to growing natural foods. But gaining consumers’ trust is an obstacle.

By Joshua Frank

August 8, 2009

Reporting from Beijing — Unlike most farms in China, no heaps of blackened sewage sludge are piled on the fields at the Green Cow farm. No workers spray pesticides from pumps strapped to their backs. No animals are in quarantine.

An oasis in a Beijing suburb, the organic farm’s modest 6 acres boast pepper and tomato plants, fields of corn and wheat, and sunflower patches that pop up in between. Two rotund cows chomp on grasses; under a grove of fruit trees, three young pigs slurp water.

Restaurateur and environmentalist Lejen Chen started Green Cow with her husband in 2004, fearful of the pesticides, chemical fertilizers and sewage sludge used in the cultivation of most domestic produce.

In China, the organic food movement is growing steadily, led by Chen and a small, dedicated group of like-minded farmers. It’s a battle in a country of recurring food scares, loosely enforced regulations and skepticism about paying more for produce that looks the same as regular market fare. But interest in natural food is on the rise.

Open Thread