[ Oil reserves elsewhere are not what they once were … It is not easy and it is not cheap, and through most of the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was not attractive to pursue, because there was plenty of crude oil available from more convenient sources and the market price was too low to reward large-scale tar sands development. –BL ]31 August 2004 | New York Times by SIMON ROMERO
Monthly Archives: September 2004
91 posts
September 2, 2004 | AlterNet.org Keyword: Lakoff by George Lakoff Last night was red-meat night. Tear up the opposition and throw them to the dogs. This is traditionally a vice-presidential task so that the president can keep his hands clean. But this time Vice President Dick Cheney had the help of Zell Miller, a nominal Democrat who almost always votes with Republicans. It is important to distinguish between honest framing on the one hand, and framing by distortion and spin on the other. Arnold Schwarzenegger may actually believe that everyone and anyone can make it in this American economy, even […]
President Bush photographed wearing Air Force award he never earned 1 Sept 2004 | The Raw Story by John Byrne A closer examination of a photograph included in President George W. Bush’s Air Force records, released by the White House earlier this year, shows then-Second Lieutenant Bush wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award which he never earned. The photograph is also displayed on George H. W. Bush’s Presidential library website. Read the full story Ben Barnes to break silence on “60 Minutes”: The Republican campaign gets ready for shock waves, as the former Texas official who says he pulled […]
When Dr Thomas Butler noticed vials of plague bacteria were missing from his Texas university lab, he did the right thing and informed the FBI – only to find himself the prime suspect in a bio-terrorism investigation. Now he’s in jail, but his fate was sealed by paranoia and prejudice. Rose George investigates. 31 August 2004 | The Independent
2 September 2004 | Boston Globe by Marcella Bombardieri NEW YORK — A year and a half ago, Robert Sarra was a Marine sergeant in Iraq, where, he says, he once fired his M-16 at a black-cloaked old woman who failed to stop when she was told. Instead of a suicide bomb, the bundle she carried to her death held only bread, tea, and a white flag.
2 September 2004 | DemocracyNow! The New York Times is reporting that Warner Brothers has decided not to distribute director David O. Russell’s new antiwar documentary when it re-releases his 1999 Gulf War movie, “Three Kings,” this fall. The studio said the anti-war documentary was “totally inappropriate” for a political season. It features interviews with Iraqi refugees and veterans of the current war in Iraq.
[ As Slate’s Eric Umansky points out, Dana Milbank, in his usual fashion, fact-checks [the Miller address at the RNC], pointing that Miller–who three years ago called Kerry “one of this nation’s authentic heroes”–was basing his charge on just one vote and that then SecDef Cheney “was demanding even deeper cuts.” Milbank also clarifies a number of other doozies. But the effort is wasted, stuffed on A25 with the please-skip-this-story head: “TOPIC OF TERROR OVERSHADOWING ALL OTHERS.” The other papers by and large ignore Zell’s zingers (in some instances, lies). –BL ] Topic of Terror Overshadowing All Others: Bush Pushes Aside […]
[ In case you haven’t heard, USA Today has given Michael Moore press credentials to write a column from the Republican National Convention this week: Political conventions have become predictable rituals, four-day cheerleading sessions for both parties. So USA TODAY is offering readers an alternative perspective. Michael Moore, director of Fahrenheit 9/11, is writing daily from the Republican convention in New York. A month ago, conservative National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg weighed in from the Democratic convention. This is one of the installments of Moore’s column. –BL ] 1 September 04 | USA Today by Michael Moore Poor John McCain. Here’s […]
August 31, 2004 | Counterpunch by MIKE WHITNEY “We are ready to do everything necessary to give guarantees that we won’t seek nuclear weapons.” –President Mohammad Khatami When did “liberal” NPR become a champion of American aggression against Iran? Listeners to National Public Radio are increasingly apt to criticize the “rightward shift” in the station’s news coverage. The August 30 “Morning Edition” program, however, reached a new low for slanted journalism and for making the Bush Administration’s case for war with Iran. The commentary titled “US Presses UN Agency on Iran Nuclear Program” was a textbook example of propaganda dressed […]
[ Recall that the U.S.-installed leader of Haiti, Latortue, was to replace the Lavalas Party’s democratically elected Aristide because of Aristide’s alleged failures. Aristide’s failures were in large part due to U.S. policies designed to punish him for failing to give in to Washington’s neo-liberal agenda. What of Latortue’s? –BL ] 1 Sept 2004 | Reuters by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince Former soldiers who in February helped overthrow Haiti’s then president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have taken over a town to back their demands to set up a new army. Yesterday they were out in camouflage uniforms trying to win support in […]
[ Thanks to Melissa Rabe for forwarding this Kristof piece. –BL ] 1 September 04 | New York Times by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF ASHLAND, Ore. — The most common literary allusion to President Bush is Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, the hard-drinking, wild-living young man who sobers up, reforms and emerges as the great English warrior King Henry V. So, as the Republicans once again crown Mr. Bush as their nominee, I decided to seek lessons from an expert on King Henry who is also one of the shrewdest analysts of current American politics and international affairs. That’s right: Shakespeare. I went to […]
At Least 900 Arrested in Major RNC Protests 1 September 04 | DemocracyNow! In New York, nearly 1,000 people were arrested yesterday in widespread protests against the Republican National Convention. The protests were organized by the A31 Action Coalition, a decentralized umbrella group made up of scores of activist organizations and affinity groups. Yesterday’s arrests brought the number of arrests over the past five days to over 1500.
1 September 04 | DemocracyNow! The International Atomic Energy Agency is preparing to release a report that states U.N. inspectors have not uncovered definitive evidence that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program. This according to a report in the Washington Post based on interviews with diplomats who have seen the study. The Bush administration has claimed that Iran is three to five years away from building a nuclear bomb. In June the US shared intelligence tips with the UN atomic agency but the intelligence did not lead to any discoveries.
26 August 2004 | Intervention Magazine by Lawrence J. McNamee Review of: Take the Rich Off Welfare (New Expanded Edition) by Mark Zepezauer; Consortium, 160 pages, 2004 Charles Dickens? memorable character Mr. Bumble, from the novel Oliver Twist, was an ironic spokesman for Victorian England?s parish welfare system. He had a simple rule for administering aid to the destitute: ?Give ?em plenty of what they don’t want.? Theresa Funacello?s 1980?s nonfiction book A Tyranny of Kindness alerted modern America to the reality that New York City?s welfare system was so maladministered and bureaucratic that few would want to remain on […]
1 September 04 | Misleader.org Last week, the Census Bureau released statistics showing that for the first time in years, poverty had increased for three straight years, while the number of Americans without health care increased to a record level.1 But instead of changing its economic and health care policies, the Bush administration today is announcing plans to change the way the statistics are compiled. The move is just the latest in a series of actions by the White House to doctor or eliminate longstanding and nonpartisan economic data collection methods.
August 29, 2004 | AlterNet.org A visionary biologist says mushrooms are potent antiviral and antibacterial agents, as well as key boosters to the human immune system. They also might end up saving the Earth. by Kelly Hearn, AlterNet To lots of folks, a middle-aged man who says mushrooms can save the world falls into the category of turbo-freak. But to some environmentalists, scientists and major investors, Paul Stamets is the trippiest of profitable kings. “Mushrooms restore health both on the personal and ecological level,” says Stamets, mycologist and owner of Fungi Perfecti, a family-owned mushroom business in Shelton, Wash. “Mushrooms […]