US funds to warlords for protection ends up being paid to the Taliban as bribes

Funding the Afghan Taliban - INSIDE STORY - Al Jazeera English
...

In an ironic twist of events, US citizens have discovered that it
is their tax money that indirectly funds Taliban - the very people their
troops are fighting in Afghanistan.
 
A congressional
investigation revealed that millions of dollars spent by the US
military for security puposes has inadvertently gone into the pockets
of the Taliban.

The US pays millions of dollars annually to local warlords across
Afghanistan in exchange for gunmen to protect the supply convoys.
 
Investigations
revealed that these gunmen in turn bribed the Taliban not to attack.
 
When
convoys refused to pay warlords, their trucks were often attacked.
 
The
report concluded that this has undermined US efforts to end corruption
and build an effective Afghan government. On the contrary, it has
unwittingly funded the insurgency.

...

Turkey: a rising star in the Middle East

Siddiqui: New Middle East hinges on Turkey - thestar.com
An interesting article about Turkey and its rise in importance in the Middle East and in the world.

Oil and gas leaking from fissures in the sea floor

Fillibluster: Video proves oil and gas leaking from sea floor
Potential environmental catastrophe on the level we have never seen before.
Excerpts:
BP denies it. But this video confirms it: oil is leaking from cracks in
the sea floor. It could spell the beginning of a far worse catastrophe
than anyone expected. If the sea bed fissures and collapses around the
well bore, the flood of oil will be of an order of magnitude that the
world has never experienced.


The sea floor in this area of the Gulf of Mexico is not solid rock, but
rather sand held together by a substance called methane clathrate, or
"fire ice", in which methane is trapped within ice crystals. It's the
same substance that fouled the "top hat" containment dome BP tried, and
forms when methane and water combine under high pressure. It's not
exactly dense or stable.

...
So, what happens if there's a collapse of the unstable seabed over the
existing gusher? That depends on the extent of the collapse. As the bore
hole continues to erode, eventually the casing will detach and relief
wells will become irrelevant. At that point, the entire reservoir of oil
-- approximately 2 billion barrels -- could empty over the course of
the next few decades.
...

Win a Gun!

Celebrate the day after 9/11, win a free gun! - Tea Parties | Tea Party Movement, Tax Day Tea Party - Salon.com

Support Libby Davies

Rusty Idols: Support Libby Davies
From Rusty Idols:
The Israel right or wrong crowd are in full gotcha mode, screaming for
Libby Davies' head on a platter.

Prime
Minister Stephen Harper called on NDP MP Libby Davies to resign as her
party's deputy leader after she suggested Israel has been occupying
territory since the country came into existence.

"Mr.
Speaker, this is a fundamental denial of Israel's right to exist,"
Harper said in the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It repeats the kind of
comments that were made by Helen Thomas on which she was forced to
resign and the member of the NDP who said those should be forced to
resign as well."

Thomas was the veteran White House correspondent
who resigned after saying Jews in Israel should "get the hell out of
Palestine" and "go back to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere
else."

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae also denounced
Davies' comments.

"To deny the state of Israel's right to exist
and to propose an international campaign of boycotts, divestments and
sanctions against a legitimate member of the world community for over
60 years is to reveal a level of hostility and ignorance that is truly
breathtaking," Rae said in a written statement.

In a media scrum
later, Rae argued that Davies' comments were not simply a slip of the
tongue and called for her to step down as deputy leader.

Earlier
this month, Davies was interviewed at a rally in Vancouver and asked
if she believes the occupation in Israel began in 1948 or 1967. After
hesitating, she answered:

"Forty-eight. I mean, it's the longest
occupation in the world. But I mean, I'm not going to argue numbers.
It's too long, right?" She went on to say, "I mean, this is the longest
occupation in the world. People are suffering. I've been to the West
Bank in Gaza twice so I've seen for myself what's going on."

The
state of Israel was established in 1948.

In the video, Davies is
also asked if she supports the international campaign of boycotts, divestments
and sanctions against Israel (known as the BDS movement).

"I haven't even actually gone that far. You gotta understand, I'm
probably the strongest supporter in Parliament. There is virtually no
information in the political arena or understanding about the BDS movement.
People are actually afraid to speak out on this issue.… Elected people
who are sympathetic are actually afraid to speak out," Davies answers.

Later in the video, Davies says she personally supports the BDS movement,
adding, however, that she's not "someone who's there" but is instead a
Canadian politician demanding the Canadian government speak out more on
the issues.

The interview was posted on YouTube.

Since
her comments were made public, Davies has posted on her website a
letter she sent to the editor of The Ottawa Citizen.

"My
reference to the year 1948 as the beginning of the Israeli occupation
of Palestinian territory was a serious and completely inadvertent
error," she wrote. "I apologize for this and regret any confusion it
has caused. I have always supported a two-state solution to the ongoing
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have never questioned Israel's right
to exist and the Palestinians' right to a viable state."

Sorry
for the length of the quoted material - I just thought it was worth
demonstrating that its only finally at paragraph
15 that the story mentions that Libby Davies apologized for
saying 1948 when she meant 1967, that she doesn't question Israel's
right to exist and that she supports a two state solution.

For
that matter,
as Murray Dobbin writes, ask an Arab villager driven out of his
home in 1948 if he thinks his land is occupied. Ask an Arab Israeli
whose family have lived in the same house in Jerusalem for
decades...until they were forcibly evicted last summer to give their
home to a Jewish family.

Many historians in and out of Israel
consider it a
settled issue that Israel engaged in large scale ethnic cleansing
in 1948, complete
with massacres
- there's actually a whole academic
movement based around it in Israel scholarship.

All or
nothing, black or white, support Israel unreservedly and uncritically
and condemn anyone who criticizes her or you hate Israel and deny it's
right to exist. These are false choices. Libby Davies should not be
sacrificed to these deliberate, simplistic Manichean distortions.

Will the minister of "fake lakes" please rise?

Accidental Deliberations: Can we get that in writing?
This is a good one. Read the link.

The planning of a Conservative news network in Canada

Impolitical: Harper's lunch in New York with the Fox News biggies

Canadian
Press has some news that paints some important background optics for
Harper and Teneycke as tomorrow's public media announcement by Quebecor
is set to occur. These are the kind of details that make it look
like there is indeed a Conservative intent to set up a network aligned
with Conservative interests:
...

The Thing About Israel

The Thing About Israel « Politics, Re-Spun
Excellent post on the spin around Israeli policy and criticism of that policy.

What's happening in Kyrgystan

Q&A: Kyrgyzstan's ethnic violence - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Al Jazeera English

Violence
in southern Kyrgyzstan started on Thursday, when armed mobs
attacked Uzbek neighborhoods - called mahallas - in the city of Osh.
Hundreds of people were killed, homes were set on fire, tens of
thousands of ethnic Uzbeks fled towards the border with neighboring
Uzbekistan, and supplies of food and
water are running low.

The scale of the violence makes it the worst to hit Kyrgyzstan in
decades - but tensions between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz have long been a
problem in and around Osh.

Uzbeks flee Kyrgyzstan violence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergana_Valley
...
The Soviet and post-Soviet periods [History of the Fergana Valley 1924 to present]
In 1924 the new boundaries separating the Uzbek SSR and Kyrgyz SSR cut off the eastern end of the
Ferghana Valley, as well as the slopes surrounding it. This was
compounded in 1928 when the Tajik ASSR became a fully-fledged republic, and
the area around Khodjend was made a part of it. This blocked the
valley's natural outlet and the routes to Samarkand and Bukhara, but
none of these borders was of any great significance so long as Soviet
rule lasted. The whole region was part of a single economy geared to
cotton production on a massive scale and the over-arching political
structures meant that crossing borders was not a problem. Since 1991
this has changed, for the worse. Uzbekistan regularly closes its borders
with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, causing immense difficulties for trade
and for those who live in the region. Travellers from Khodjend to Dushanbe,
unable to take the route through Uzbekistan, have to cross a high
mountain pass between the two cities instead, along a terrible road.
Similarly communications between Bishkek
and Osh pass
through difficult mountainous country and are endangered by the attitude
of President Islom Karimov of
Uzbekistan. Ethnic tensions also flared at one stage, most notably in
the town of Uzgen, near Osh, where were Uzbek-Kyrgyz riots in 1990.
There has been no further ethnic violence, and things appeared to have
quietened down, although the potential for serious conflict remains
palpable.^[6]
However, the valley is a religiously conservative region which was
particularly hard-hit by President Karimov's legislation fighting the
taint of Islam in Uzbekistan, together with his decision to close the
borders with Kyrgyzstan in 2003. This devastated the local economy by
preventing the importation of cheap Chinese consumer goods. The
deposition of Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan in April 2005, coupled with the
arrest of a group of prominent local businessmen brought underlying
tensions to a boil in the region around Andijan and Qorasuv
during the May 2005
unrest in Uzbekistan in which hundreds of protestors were killed by
troops.

Hobbit movie news

David Yates to Take on The Hobbit? - CraveOnline.com
David Yates, the director of several of the most recent Harry
Potter films, is said to be in the running to take over
direction on The Hobbit, says a report by /Film.
...

Thor movie interview video

First Video From Thor - CraveOnline.com
Some of the first images from the set of the set of Thor
have debuted online, courtesy of a 4-minute clip that ran on Entertainment
Tonight, featuring interviews with Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman
and Kenneth Branagh.


The Marvel adaptation is shooting now just outside Santa Fe, NM where
the character of Thor meets Portman's Jane Foster (and where Clark
Gregg's Agent Coulson was headed at the end of Iron Man 2).

Jack Layton - Ready to govern

Accidental Deliberations: Ready to govern
... the NDP is the most dynamic party in Canada. In three elections under
Jack Layton, the party has increased its popular vote and seat count in
the Commons. The Tories have flatlined; the Grits have slid; even the
Bloc has slipped.

And the NDP is dead serious about coalitions.
Layton has on his desk a thick binder of successful and failed
coalitions worldwide, including the local example of the Peterson-Rae
coalition that governed Ontario well in 1985-87.

Layton drew on
those examples in his failed bid to win over the Grits in a coalition
that would have toppled the Tories two years ago. His eminence gris,
Brian Topp, wrote a book about it. Read it if you have any doubts the
current NDP caucus is ready to co-govern this country.
...

Mineral riches found in Afghanistan

US finds vast Afghan mineral riches - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Al Jazeera English
Another reason America will continue to wage war in Afghanistan.

...
A report in the New York Times said previously unknown reserves of lithium, iron, gold, niobium, cobalt and other minerals could transform the impoverished country into one of the world's most lucrative mining centres.
"There is stunning potential here," General David Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, told the paper in an article published on Monday.
"There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant."
The New York Times was reporting the final results of a study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and a Pentagon task force, initiated in 2006.
...

Proposed referendum on funding for seperate schools

The Ginger Project: Resolution 7: A Resolution Concerning a Referendum on Seperate School Funding
Yes! Let's have a referendum on this.

Be it resolved that the Ginger Project believes in democratic
principles; therefore, it endorses a province-wide referendum, to be
held during the next provincial general election, that will ask whether
to continue to financially support separate-school funding, or make all
publicly-funded schools, non-sectarian and fully public.

Frazetta cover sells for $380,000

Frank Miller and Frank Frazetta set records for comic-book art auctions

The Great Dying

Why did nearly all life on Earth die 250 million years ago?

AT&T iPad security breach could affect all American iPad users

Apple's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed
A security breach has exposed iPad owners including dozens of CEOs,
military officials, and top politicians. They—and every other buyer of
the cellular-enabled tablet—could be vulnerable to spam marketing and
malicious hacking.

Conservative senators correct the PMO

Bowie's Blog: Marjorie Lebreton signals end of Harper party rule
Excerpt:
I thank Senator Cowan for the question. I saw the article in La Presse
yesterday and wondered how Mr. Soudas could be so misinformed about the
work of the Senate. I raised the matter with colleagues in cabinet and
in caucus. They acknowledged the great work done in the Senate and that
more government bills have passed the Senate than the House of Commons.
They are well aware of this effort. I have not had an opportunity to
speak to Mr. Soudas and I regret that he was so misinformed. When I do
speak to him directly, I intend to report that fact to him.

-------------------

I
am completely floored that any Conservative, let alone the leader in
the senate, would take a run like this at anyone in the PMO. I
particularly like the admission from the PMO that "They acknowledged the
great work done in the Senate and that more government bills have
passed the Senate than the House of Commons." It completely and directly
contradicts the spin and lies from Harper and the PMO on what the
senate is doing/has done.

Coupled with the comments from another
Conservative senator opposing Harper on senator elections and calling
for more independent thinking from senators, the Conservative majority
in the senate they have been desperate for may be more than they wanted.

Liberals vote to support "abuse of power" and support the Conservatives

Green Assassin Brigade: Abuse of Power
Liberals = spineless and confused:
Excerpt:
What has me bent out of shape today is a quote I saw in this
CTV article on the Liberal refusal to support an amendment to the
budget bill pulling out all the bits and pieces that don’t belong in the
budget.

Liberal Leader Michael
Ignatieff has criticized the budget legislation as a "dumpster bill" but
says he's not prepared to force an election over what he calls "an
abuse of power."

We all differ on
policy issues, that’s the nature of the game. I can even understand
taking a boot to the groin once in awhile and voting for a bill you
don’t really like for expediency but don’t you dare announce that a bill
is an “abuse of power” and then support it.

There is nothing
more important in our system than standing up against the abuse of power
and to openly label the budget bill an abuse and then support it is
nothing less than legitimatizing abuse.

Be very clear on this,
Michael Ignatieff is now on record as both minimizing the importance of
and supporting the continuation of the abuse of power. Those Liberals
who voted with the government yesterday should be ashamed of themselves;
they are now officially enemies of good government.

It's quite
simple, if you support the abuse of power by others you are no more
worthy to serve Canadians than those who actually abuse power.

Hypocritical law-breaking Conservative party members should be thrown in prison

kirbycairo: Don't throw the Bums out, put them in prison. . . .
... It is clear, time and again, that this government has no respect for the
law and the principles of parliament. ...

Google May Offer Alternate Gmail View Without Conversations

Google May Offer Alternate Gmail View Without Conversations | Maximum PC
Well, it's about time!
For certain uses of email, the conversation mode makes Gmail almost unusable. The forced Conversation Mode is one big reason why I've been using it through Thunderbird all these years, instead of accessing it on the web site.

Conservatives continue to show their contempt for parliament and democracy in Canada

Contempt in the guise of accountability - Hill Queeries
The Conservative contempt for Parliament continued unabated yesterday
with a showdown at the Government Operations committee that nearly erupted in a fistfight. Four
Conservative cabinet ministers showed up at committee, uninvited, rather
than their staffers, and proceeded to run roughshod over the
proceedings – and at the centre of it was John Baird, who just a few
hours later would be named “Parliamentarian of the Year.”


Liberal MP Siobhan Coady was having none of it, and she called out Baird
for being a bully and warned him against trying to intimidate her. But
Baird’s behaviour


For the Conservatives to send ministers to committee when their staff
have been called – and curiously not have those very same ministers show
up when they’ve been summoned – and yet call it ministerial
accountability is an insult to the basic tenets of Parliamentary
democracy. They are not responsible in the traditional manner, and their
only purpose is to obfuscate and claim they appeared, therefore they
have been responsible. It’s nothing short of doublespeak and the
undermining of our system of government, and Canadians shouldn’t stand
for it.
was completely shameful, as he tried to
bully the chair and run roughshod over the established rules of the
committee to suit his purposes. (I later heard Baird say that he sent
Coady a note that said, “Damn, you’re good.” Not that it excuses his
behaviour in the slightest).


Read the link for more.

Maclean's magazine selects the worst parliamentarian as the Parliamentarian of the Year

A BCer in Toronto: John Baird, buffonery, and journalism
...
"Balanced journalism isn't letting one side spout its bullshit, and then
letting the other side spout its bullshit, and patting yourself on the
back for being so balanced. Journalism means when someone spouts
bullshit, you say no, that's bullshit, so please don't piss on my leg
and tell me it's raining.

We seem to have forgotten that. "

Canadian beaten by Israelis

Canadian detained on Gaza aid flotilla says he was beaten - thestar.com
Excerpts:

“The Israeli soldiers beat me on the ship,” said Audeh in a telephone
interview with CBC from Jordan.

“They had us bound, handcuffed
... and we were detained for an extensive period of time and were not
allowed to go to the washrooms ... or sleep. It's been a rough 24 to 48
hours, let's put it that way.”

...

Audeh said the attack began in the early hours of Monday morning when
Israeli naval ships began firing live rounds, rubber bullets and sound
bombs at the flotilla.

Troops then boarded the ships via
helicopter and began shooting at the passengers, Audeh said, adding that
dozens were injured in the attack.

Audeh denied Israeli reports
that the flotilla passengers responded to the raid with violence and
resistance, calling such accusations “ridiculous.”

“The question
is, why were they coming after us in international waters and attacking
us? It was a humanitarian aid ship. We were all civilians, we were
unarmed and we did not attack them.”

...

Eco Architecture

The Alternative Consumer - Eco Architect Michael Reynolds’ off-grid Global Model Earthship

How the Israeli government and it's supporters are harming Israel

Rusty Idols: If you hate Israel...
"...and you pray for its destruction, you should:

    * Support the blockade of Gaza and the methods used to sustain it unreservedly and uncritically.
    * Support Netanyahu and his far right coalition of Likudniks, racist supporters of ethnic cleansing and petty grafters.
    * Denounce anyone offering even the mildest criticism as antisemites.
    * Describe those who attack foreign flagged vessels in international waters as victims when those on those vessels resist.
    * Oppose any compromise on settlements, Jerusalem or water rights.
    * Support and sustain the current government of Israel and any tactics it uses to maintain the current status quo.

If your goal is the isolation, abandonment and ultimate destruction of the state of Israel, these tactics will drastically accelerate your goals."

Israel's attack on the aid flotilla was "an act of illegal warfare"

The Legal Position on the Israeli Attack

...

A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a
foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not
piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is
rather an act of illegal warfare.

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean
however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of
the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place

on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the
applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the
incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish
territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf
of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In
that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls
under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli
military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If
Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then
it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under
Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law
which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not
Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to
initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted
personnel for prosecution.
...

Israeli raid on humanitarian aid flotilla condemned by the UN Security Council

UN decries Israeli flotilla raid - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

The UN Security
Council has condemned acts leading to the deaths of civilians during
Monday's Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid convoy that was headed to
the Gaza Strip.

In a formal statement adopted after more than 10 hours of closed-door
negotiations, the council requested the immediate release of ships and
civilians held by Israel and called for an impartial investigation.

...

See also:

Previous Activists Killed By Israel
One of the ships in the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy is named Rachel Corrie, in honour of an American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer.

US Middle East policy in spotlight
... among some quarters in Washington, questions over unqualified US support for Israel remain.

Mr. Mulroney acted inappropriately

Mulroney acted inappropriately in accepting cash, inquiry finds - thestar.com

OTTAWA – A two-year inquiry into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with
German-Canadian arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber has concluded that the
former prime minister acted in an “inappropriate” way when he accepted
large amounts of cash from Schreiber.

The report by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant said Mulroney “failed to
live up to the standard of conduct that he himself adopted in the 1985
ethics code.”

The judge said he could not accept Mulroney’s testimony that his
acceptance of at least $225,000 in cash was an error in judgment.
Rather, it was an attempt to hide the transactions, Oliphant said.

...

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops
intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on
Monday, Israeli radio reported.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

Read the link above for more information.

More related news:

Turks rally against Israeli Attack

Gaza's real humanitarian crisis

On Board the Freedom Flotilla