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Tuesday, June 5, 2007 |
EUObserver: "Two thousand anti-missile shield protestors picketed government buildings in Prague on Monday (4 June) night as US president George Bush landed in the Czech republic to start a week long European tour, with Mr Bush set to chide Russia over democratic standards in a major speech on Tuesday."
So calamity George, war criminal first class, is going to chide Putin, eh?
11:10:27 AM 
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ClimateScienceWatch: "On June 4 the Associated Press reported on the looming crisis in the U.S. satellite-based global climate observing system. An internal 'pre-decisional' report to the White House by NASA and NOAA, which Climate Science Watch provided to AP, explains how the decision by the Pentagon and NOAA to drop key climate-monitoring sensors from the National Polar-orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) - the core of the next generation of Earth-orbiting climate-monitoring instruments - places in grave jeopardy scientists' future ability to monitor key variables necessary for understanding climate change and its consequences. We are making the report (pdf) available here, to encourage wider attention to this problem and to increase pressure on the President and Congress to deal with it."
GAP: "The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases."
11:07:26 AM
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"This week, the leaders of the biggest polluting countries in the world are meeting in Germany at the G8+5 summit. Between them, their countries produce over 70% of global warming emissions. But while climate change is the top issue on their agenda, the Bush administration is trying to prevent any serious commitment to action.
Your voice is needed now to tell world leaders to stand strong on climate change. Sign our petition to send a message that the world is calling for action to avert a climate catastrophe."
10:58:35 AM
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MiddleEastOnline: "The man who led coalition forces in Iraq during the first year of the occupation says the United States can forget about winning the war.
'I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will - not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat,' retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview.
Sanchez, in his first interview since he retired last year, is the highest-ranking former military leader yet to suggest the Bush administration fell short in Iraq.
'I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time,' Sanchez said after a recent speech in San Antonio, Texas."
"I believe that this war is lost."
10:56:23 AM
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TimesOnline: "Israel's parliament is to debate a draft law today that could lead to a consumer boycott of all British goods.
The proposed Bill is aimed at punishing Britain for recent threats from its largest trade union and UCU, the university lecturers' union, to boycott Israel for occupying Palestinian land. The prospect of a boycott has prompted concern among the Israeli public. Leading commentators denounced the moves as anti-Semitic. Now a group of politicians has promised a harsh response, calling for Israel to begin its own boycott against Britain.
Others want the musical Mama Mia! cancelled. The British production is due to open in Tel Aviv this month."
10:51:49 AM
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SFGate: "One of the most contentious issues of the U.S. presidential campaign will be how to fix what many agree is a malfunctional health-care system. Adding fuel to the fire is a study published last month detailing the shortcomings of U.S. health care when compared to the systems of other developed countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The study, entitled 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care', released by the Commonwealth Fund in New York, finds that not only is the U.S. health care system the most expensive in the world (double that of the next most costly comparator country, Canada) but comes in dead last in almost any measure of performance."
And we all know that the NHS in Britain is in a pretty mess; still, much better than in the USA. Privatization and deregulation are only benefiting health insurers, health companies (drugs, appliances), not the people.
10:47:43 AM
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FPIF: "Nine days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, I opened up The Washington Post and stared right into the flinty mind of one Robert B. Zoellick, the Bush administration's pick for new World Bank president.
But is a tone-deaf, name-calling steely opportunist a good choice to lead the World Bank? The Bank's official mission, after all, is to fight global poverty, not promote U.S. corporate interests. And after the Wolfowitz uproar, one might have expected the Bush administration to pick a more genteel and broad-minded successor to lead this global institution.
For more than 60 years, however, the United States has enjoyed the unwritten privilege of crowning the Bank's leader. And unfortunately, despite the wreckage of the Wolfowitz debacle, there appears to be little resistance from the rest of the world to the imposition of yet another Bush administration insider. Even the Brazilian government has decided to adopt a 'can-do' attitude on the Zoellick nomination."
AlterNet: "During Bush's first term the US actually lost private-sector jobs.
Yes, average income is up during the tenure of the current administration.
The joke about average income is: Bill Gates walks into a bar. The average income of every person in the room immediately goes up 10,000 percent. But median income, the amount that people in the middle of the group earn, barely budges. So let's look at that figure. Median income is down. The average person makes less now than when Bush came into office.
Not only that, the downward pressure on wages is no longer just a blue-collar issue, it's moved up to white-collar workers, the educated classes, even doctors.
If we are to invest public funds - through government borrowing or spending or through simply spending tax revenues - we have to be aware that rich people running around with bags of money won't necessarily do what is good for the wealth of our nation. They may run us into bankruptcy, the way the smartest guys in the room ran Enron into bankruptcy."
10:37:57 AM
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