Last night I put up a quick diary at DKOS about a live online broadcast on a forum, debate, on the Future of Energy being held at the University of Charleston and streamed live to what looked like a full house. They have quickly broken up the video into three parts and placed them on YouTube as well as the Real News Networks website. The forum is about an hour and a half long and while civilized, as it should be, Kennedy keeps putting down pretty much every sorry excuse Blankenship tries to use in defending what he and the coal corporations are doing to West Virginia and the Heritage and Beauty of that State and this Country in the name of Great Wealth for the very few and less and less for the workers and residents of West Virginia and well beyond their state borders!

Below are a series of reports from the PBS NewsHour on Jan. 18th 2010 show, the first is of a very heartwarming rescue when all hope should have been gone especially in that pile of rumble once a building. For many the interview with the American Ambassador should be paid close attention to. While everyone would like to see much more rapid rescues and aid supplies to reach those tens of thousands of Haitians who need it so desperately Haiti is one of the many poor countries, not a resort island, where what is needed, like a larger airport or seaport and warehouses, where when extreme devastating natural occurrences aren’t available for such a massive undertaking. Those thousands there as volunteers and more as well as the Haitians understand that.  

After some four decades of activism and advocacy by many, many doing much more then I was able to do especially prior to this technology becoming so widespread, but ignoring by the greater majorities, finally the issues of life, and experiences in living, are becoming better understood and more are paying the much needed and long overdue attention, especially related to the children.

And more continuing reporting on the British Iraq War Inquiry in the lead up to Tony Blairs testimony, as well as many others.

Blair ‘should face war charges’

16 Jan 2010 Almost a quarter of voters (23%) believe Tony Blair deliberately misled MPs over the Iraq war and should face war crimes charges, an opinion poll has found.

Snip

The YouGov survey for the Sunday Times found less than a third (32%) accepted that Mr Blair “genuinely believed in the threat” which he used to publicly justify sending UK troops, while 52% thought he had “deliberately misled” the country.

And by a similar margin (49% to 31%), they also said they believed his former communications director Alastair Campbell was not truthful when he gave evidence to Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry this week….>>>>>

Bill Moyers Journal: Education and Peace in Central Asia

January 15, 2010

Author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson, whose best-selling books Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools argue that education is the best way to peace in Afghanistan and across the Islamic world.

BILL MOYERS: Beyond his domestic woes, certainly the issue that has preoccupied President Obama the most since he took office is Afghanistan. The war he inherited from George W. Bush is now its ninth year and seems no closer to resolution. Almost daily, it seems, there are more stories of fighting in far off mountains, of suicide bombers killing CIA operatives, of drones raining bombs down on villages and killing innocent people. THE NEW YORK TIMES reports this week that unlike the past, when Afghanistan’s brutal winters would slow the violence for awhile, “both sides seem determined to make a larger political point by continuing to fight through the snow season.”

Hard sometimes to remember that this whole thing began in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices in the attacks of 9/11….>>>>>

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This is going to be short but might be helpful to some for a wide variety of reasons.

Google has teamed up with GeoEye to bring updated aerial views of the devastation from the Haiti Earthquake.

Google Earth Reveals the Devastation in Haiti    

Spin Doctor or His Master’s Voice, how many times have you heard those used as to former office holders who hit the airways after their no longer in government here, a couple of names quickly pop up, one being a recently former Vice president who seemed to have led the charge into invading an innocent country, one Dick Cheney. Another has strong ties apparently to the previous, his daughter Liz Cheney, who frankly, unless Daddy is spilling top secret information so she doesn’t spin to much out of his reality, doesn’t have the expertise nor experience to be speaking up on much of anything, nor might I add the knowledge needed.

But back to the two phrases. Seems the Brit press don’t have any problem calling a spade a spade especially on “Spin Doctor”, there’s a number of reports on the Campbell testimony quickly coming out as this session of the Inquiry is still going on, that have readily posted that up before tearing into his testimony. By the way, he’s pretty good, especially for keeping on the talking points from back then with little deviation, pure politic, Blair should be a hoot.

This report is more about the civilian contractors we’ve hired to do the service work for the military in these theaters, not the mercenaries working for the Sate Department for security or now finding out working for the CIA.

The out of theater hires from here in the states and the many brought in from so called third world countries. Also about the in-theater hires like interpreters and other civilian support personal. In the discussion he talks about how the insurance companies are, in many cases, refusing to pay for the needs if these civilians are injured or loose limbs, PTSD etc., i.e. War Profiteering. Many aren’t even informed they can get, by law, disability payments even if not from this country.

Tax Payers have already paid for the insurance yet many of these civilians don’t know they even have it, so Insurance Companies just keep those gains.

There wasn’t much reporting on last weeks testimonies especially concerning any bits and pieces as to what counterparts here in the States were either saying or doing, except for this testimony from fridays session, as it seemed to follow what previously had already been testified too.:

Iraq military coup a possibility, ambassador tells Chilcot inquiry

The establishment of democracy in Iraq is “not a done deal”, Britain’s ambassador to the country warned today. A military coup was “a real possibility”, he said.

Snip

“There is clearly a balance to be drawn between using the professional competence and experience of former army officers under Saddam to provide the backbone of the modern Iraqi security forces, and dealing with the suspicions and fears of others that this is the reintroduction of irreconcilable elements of the Ba’ath party,” Jenkins said…..>>>>>