World-News

Seattle Post Intelligencer
by David B. Berrian

04/17/06

To the IRS: I can't do this any more. I will no longer pay for war -- the murder of civilians -- with my tax dollars. For more than 40 years, I have paid federal taxes accurately and regularly. I've often supported new taxes when the proceeds would help people. Now I have to stop. Attached is my 2005 tax return that shows I have taxes due. I won't be paying them voluntarily. Although I'll continue to pay state and local taxes, I will no longer pay federal income tax...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/266765_firstperson17.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The wages of consensus

CounterPunch
by Norman Solomon

04/17/06

In MoveOn's mass email letter, the only reference to a non-nuclear attack on Iran came in a solitary sentence without any followup: 'Even a conventional attack would likely be a disaster.' ... 'Likely' be a disaster? Is there any U.S. military attack on Iran that plausibly would not be a disaster? ... Will those who put out MoveOn's email alerts and green light its advertising campaigns eventually use some of the group's resources to promote opposition to any and all bombing of Iran? It's probably a matter of time -- but every day of holding back from engaging in solid unambiguous opposition to any military attack on Iran is a day lost that can never be regained. ... There are significant efforts underway to utilize the Internet as part of efforts to prevent any attack on Iran. For example, as part of broader organizing campaigns, a coalition of groups has begun a Don’t Attack Iran petition. And TrueMajority is promoting an equally valuable Don’t Bomb Iran petition...

http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon04172006.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe
by Cathy Young

04/17/06

The most contentious recent battle between creationists and evolutionary biologists is not the debate about the newly discovered 'missing link' between fish and land animals. Rather, it is a bizarre incident that involves predictions of doomsday and charges of encouraging terrorism. At bottom, this conflict is not about religion versus science but about the clash of two religions. It started early in March when Eric Pianka, an ecologist at the University of Texas who was named Texas Distinguished Scientist of 2006, gave a speech at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Sciences, filled with dire warnings about the fate of humanity and the earth. About a month later, Forrest M. Mims III, chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, posted an article about the event in a Web magazine called The Citizen Scientist. He asserted that Pianka advocated the death of more than 5 billion people from a virus for the cause of saving the planet -- to enthusiastic applause from the audience...

http://tinyurl.com/zobve


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

In These Times
by David Sirota

04/14/06

For the first time in more than a decade, Democrats seem to have a shot at taking back Congress. But also for the first time in recent history, Congress is on the cusp of switching hands without a voter mandate. How is that possible? Because Democrats are only in the hunt thanks to gross Republican missteps -- and they are going out of their way to make sure their potential election to the majority is about nothing. Call it the Seinfeld strategy. Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein reports, 'Democratic leaders are drifting toward a midterm message that indicts Bush more on grounds of competence (on issues such as Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and prescription drugs) than ideology.' As a short-term electoral tactic, the Seinfeldian 'competence' strategy allows the GOP to right itself with new management. Sadly, it is not a strategy based on ideological differences that puts a boot to conservatives' neck when their hypocrisy trips them up and they fall down...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2600/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=hypocrisy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=David+Sirota

The American Prospect
by Robert Dreyfuss

04/17/06

Bad heart, errant shotgun, and Halliburton stock options in tow, Dick Cheney has ruled the White House roost for the past five years, amassing enough power to give rise to the joke that George W. Bush is 'a heartbeat away from the presidency.' Yet, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of words have been written on Cheney's role in the Bush administration, most of what's been written fails to explain how the vice president wields his extraordinary authority. Notoriously opaque, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) is very difficult for journalists to penetrate. But a Prospect investigation shows that the key to Cheney's influence lies with the corps of hard-line acolytes he assembled in 2001. They serve not only as his eyes and ears, monitoring a federal bureaucracy that resists many of Cheney's pet initiatives, but sometimes serve as his fists, too, when the man from Wyoming feels that the passive-aggressive bureaucrats need bullying...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=11423


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Cheney
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Halliburton
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Dreyfuss

Liberty For All
by Jonathan David Morris

04/18/06

In last week's article, I wrote that 'the only thing America's confident in anymore is its military.' Predictably, I got a couple of letters from people who angrily denied this assertion -- only to turn around and remind me we wouldn't be free if people hadn't 'shed blood' for our country. This was basically exactly what I was getting at. America's a nation enamored by its military. And judging by the way we use 'war' to describe mere differences in opinion (see: the War on Christmas), I think it's safe to say, as a people, we love a good war. The problem with this particular fetish is that it distorts our nation's priorities...

http://www.libertyforall.net/2006/april30/Failure.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Risky baby steps for creativity (and freedom)

WolfesBlog
by Claire Wolfe

04/17/06

I'm astonished over and over again by people who say they love freedom (and often know absolutely, in great detail what society and their own lives would look like if the Great Blue JuJu in the Sky or the Next American Revolution suddenly made us all free again) but who are absolutely unwilling to take any personal risks, here and now, to become more free. Freedom is risk. If we don't accept risk, then we might rightly say we value prosperity or property rights or being left alone or license to indulge in our pleasures or vices or some of the other bi-products of a free society. But anyone who is so chronically risk-averse that they constantly talk about freedom but never act to increase the level of autonomy and independence in their lives is not just risk-averse but also freedom-averse...

http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00002010.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Slate
by Juliet Eilperin

04/17/06

"It's hard to find a defender of the current process: It's engineered to favor not only incumbents, but also typically the most ideological ones who derive their power from pandering to party extremists. House incumbents seeking re-election now have a 98 percent chance of winning, up from the lower 90s in the 1990s. It's a system in which party operatives manipulate sophisticated computer software to maximum effect, shuffling voters across district boundaries to guarantee their candidates have the best chance of winning election every two years...

http://www.slate.com/id/2140054/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Four problems

The Weekly Standard
by Irwin M. Stelzer

04/18/06

Suddenly, several policy issues that have until now been swept under the rug are being brought into the open: * With 11 million illegal immigrants scattered around the country, it has been difficult for politicians to close their eyes to the need for a more sensible policy, but close their eyes they have managed to do. * America's trade deficit is running at close to 7 percent of GDP, but policy makers have contented themselves with a few warnings to the Chinese about currency manipulation and theft of intellectual property, a lot of sound and fury, signifying policy paralysis. * Some 46 million Americans are without health insurance, but no politician has been willing to come to grips with what many see as an important problem, or with the rising cost of healthcare. * Gasoline prices are on the rise, with no energy policy in sight that can relieve the plight of America's motorists as they head into the driving season. And as if to ruin congressmen's Easter recess, all four divisive issues popped into the news just as the people's representatives headed home for an early start on their November election campaigns...

http://tinyurl.com/m3rqk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Ivan Eland

04/18/06

If active generals oppose the policy of any administration so much that they are beside themselves, they should resist going public until after they resign. As private citizens, they are no longer in the chain of military command and should be able to say anything they want. But what if, as many believe, the retired generals are acting as a mouthpiece for the widespread dissatisfaction among active officers under Rumsfeld, because of his domineering management style and his incompetent handling of Iraq? This outcome is optimal for the republic because it alerts the public that many active military experts are critical of the administration's performance, but does not undermine civilian control over the armed forces by having active military officers publicly criticizing their civilian leadership...

http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=8867


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Tweedledum or Tweedledee

No Force, No Fraud
by Bob Smith

04/18/06

There is no disputing the headlock that the old parties have on political offices, at least at the state and national levels. The D's and R's have voted themselves many advantages and given other opponents many hurdles to overcome. By using tax money and by soliciting contributions in return for political votes, they've also raised the cost of running a successful campaign almost out of reach. In so doing, the Democratic and Republican parties have virtually destroyed the idea of representative government. While we disparage other nations that don't have competitive elections, and even militarily intervene in the name of open elections, our own elections are a sham in favor of two parties that are so similar as to be two sides of the same coin...

http://libertyed.org/noforce/2006/04/tweedledum-or-tweedledee.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rebirth of Reason
by Tibor R. Machan

04/18/06

It isn't often that I will relinquish my chance of sounding off on a vital topic to someone else but this time I find it just the thing to do. My friend Alex Alexiev, who is now vice president at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D. C., has been promoting an idea related to the effort to repel terrorism that simply hasn't received the attention that it deserves. In a paper, titled 'America's Iran Crucible: Beyond Yapping Dogs and Superpowers Made of Straw,' Dr. Alexiev outlines a strategy for undermining terrorism by means that should appeal to all those who find direct military action premature and perhaps even unjustified...

http://tinyurl.com/q2mnp



Know Your Enemy

Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson

07/29/10

NATO deliberately targeted power and water infrastructure in Serbia, in order to demoralize the civilian population. As NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said, ‘If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he has to do is accept NATO’s five conditions and we will stop this campaign.’ And in Iraq, the death toll from two decades of strategic bombing, sanctions and infrastructure damage is into the millions. The United States unleashed the equivalent of two Haiti earthquakes on two defenseless countries. The penalty for disobedience to the new hegemon is death from the skies. The neoconservatives of the Project for a New American Century agitated for both wars with everything they had. The organization’s name says it all: Their goal is to lock the United States permanently into place as the world’s sole military superpower, and destroy any nation that challenges that supremacy...

http://c4ss.org/content/3321


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=superpower
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=terrorism
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=sanctions
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=neocons
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=New+American+Century
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tibor+R.+Machan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Kevin+Carson