Wednesday, February 25, 2004

"Humanity hanging from a cross." FEATURED ARTICLES - Colombian rebel wanted in the murder of Ingrid Washinawatok, Indian Country Today - Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us, Observer/UK - Cheney's Grim Vision: Decades of War, SF Chronicle - MoveOn ALERT  -  The Bush-Cheney energy bill is back, MoveOn - CAREFUL WITH THAT PLANET, MR PRESIDENT, By Diana Liverman, The Guardian QUOTE OF THE DAY "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." - - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower  (Former Commander of Allied Forces during World War Two) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - FEBRUARY 25th 1870 - Hiram R. Revels (R-MI) becomes 1st African American U.S. Senator 1910 - The Dalai Lama flees from the Chinese, taking refuge in India. 1986 - In the wake of a tainted election, mass peaceful demonstrations in The Philippines overthrow President Ferdinand Marcos who flees after 20 years of rule. Corazon Aquino assumes the presidency. Pres. & Mrs. Marcos were accused of accumulating billions of dollars and thousands of pairs of shoes. 1995 - Former US President Jimmy Carter winds up a 54-hour visit to Haiti, denying he'd been given a chilly reception by Haitians whom he'd helped save from a potentially bloody U.S.-led intervention. 1999 - In Colombia, in the Arauca District, U'wa Indian leader Roberto Cobario and his three American guests: the much beloved Indigenous people's activist, Ingrid Washinawatok, along with Lahe'ena'e Gay and Terence Freitas, were taken prisoner by FARC. Less than two weeks later, the bodies of Washinawatok, Gay and Freitas were found across the Arauca River in Venezuela. The activists were in Colombia to assist members of the U'wa nation... Colombian rebel wanted in the murder of Ingrid Washinawatok http://www.indiancountry.com/?1051395140 RHINO HERE: While Tony Blair et al & the shrub gang et al continue to poo poo any talk of the dangers of climate change... (Their greatest fear seems to be PREMATURE IRAQ-ULATION...) Across the pond & just over the river, the frustrated folks at The Pentagon are preparing for THE CLIMATE WARS. Meanwhile, back on the farm, Cabin Fever & Winter just won't go away...   yet. Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us Secret Report Warns of Rioting and Nuclear War; Threat to the World is Greater than Terrorism by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York, Observer/UK , February 22, 2004 ... A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'... VERY SCARY: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html But dick sez it's not about climate, it's about the bad guys comin' to get us if we don't get them first. Cheney's Grim Vision: Decades of War By James Sterngold,  The San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday 15 January 2004 Vice president says Bush policy aimed at long-term world threat Los Angeles -- In a forceful preview of the Bush administration's expansionist military policies in this election year, Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday painted a grim picture of what he said was the growing threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States and warned that the battle, like the Cold War, could last generations. The vice president's tone, in a major address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, was sobering, unlike many other comments recently by senior administration officials that have stressed successes in the war on terrorism... ...He also said the administration was planning to expand the military into even more overseas bases so the United States could wage war quickly around the globe. ITS CHILLY IN HERE: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011704A.shtml UG! If you read those 2, you'll need something to do about them. Call Your Senators et al & give em a what for. MoveOn ALERT  -  The Bush-Cheney energy bill is back, and it could come up for a vote at any moment.  Republicans have signaled that they'll give as little as 24 hours' notice. We've got to get out ahead of it.    Please call your Senator. Urge them to filibuster the energy bill. 1. Delays clean-up in smoggy cities, which would increase asthma attacks and other health problems, especially among children and elderly people. 2. Pollutes rivers and coastal waters by exempting oil and gas drilling from clean-up safeguards 3. Allows energy companies to rip off consumers by repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act. 4. Includes billions in subsidies for big oil, nuclear, timber, and coal companies. 5. Increases air pollution and global warming with new incentives to burn coal for electricity without adequate pollution controls. 6. Threatens drinking water by allowing the underground injection of diesel fuel and other chemicals during oil and gas development. 7. Weakens environmental safeguards to pave the way for more oil and gas drilling on sensitive public lands in the Rocky Mountain West. At least sixteen national hunting and fishing organizations oppose these provisions. 8. Locks in American dependence on foreign oil by adding new roadblocks to better fuel economy. 9.Tramples on states' abilities to protect their coasts from harmful oil and gas exploration by weakening their input on federal coastal projects. 10. Promotes nuclear proliferation by reversing long-standing U.S. policy against reprocessing waste from commercial nuclear reactors, and using plutonium to generate commercial energy. Please let MoveOn know you're calling, at: http://www.moveon.org/callmade3.html?id=2392-637244-RjF3PLMEZJJy9mrKp50I8Q For more information on filibusters, see: http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html 8:11:10 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - CAREFUL WITH THAT PLANET, MR PRESIDENT CAREFUL WITH THAT PLANET, MR PRESIDENT By Diana Liverman , The Guardian, February 19, 2004 In 1980, when I left England to do postgraduate work in California, the United States was a world leader in environmental policy supported by a respected and well funded environmental science community. I had few regrets about leaving what seemed at the time to be a narrowly disciplinary, unexciting, irrelevant and rather chauvinistic British research culture. How things have changed. Almost 25 years later, I'm back in England, attracted by the chance to direct the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford, with its focus on the policy challenges of climate change, energy and conservation. It's a relief to be in a country where climate change is seen as a high priority. To be a scientist working on climate change in the US is to be frustrated by the backlash against environmental science, research budgets cuts and by the American media's general lack of interest in environmental issues. It's not the American scientists. More than a thousand of them turned out last week to hear the UK government's chief scientist Sir David King, at a meeting in Seattle, challenge the Bush administration to take climate change more seriously. Writing in Science earlier, he argued: "Climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism." He said the US market approach doesn't help. The "market cannot decide that mitigation is necessary, nor can it establish the international framework in which all the actors can take their place".Colleagues in Seattle are pessimistic his analysis will sway the views of the Bush administration -- the leadership has used science selectively, they say, has a narrow view of America's global duties, and its views on global warming are influenced by the fossil fuel lobby... THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE & LINKS TO FURTHER READING AT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1150894,00.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:13:53 AM    comment

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