Just thinking about the program I watched last night. I seen it before. The boffin Hawkings - "Master of the Universe". Fair enough he has done hell of a lot for Physics; more than anyone for a while. I said a while. He is good no.....he is the best in that field; but we should think different from the way given by the ruling party or Hawkings, as if you believe in what he says as gospel truth, you are going to be in trouble. Each and every individual being is driven by it's own logic. If I beleave in a certain logic of another person, then I do not have my own logic. That is what faith is. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola said to his followers to become like a piece of wood, and live like a piece of wood giving all actions to be of God and not to take any there of. Its the will of the God properly laid out by the Bible they followed. That way all thinking is of God. Yes it can be good if you can do it 100%. I dont think Saint himself was capable of doing it. Please do correct me if I am wrong here, but I am talking about 100% and Saint is dead.
So my point is Mr Hawkings have spent a lot of time on this subject and want to find a solution before he dies. So did Mr Einsein init? Some of what he proved at that time ...bless him.... has been reproved to a more closer point of accuracy, but some of them has been proven wrong. So will Mr Hawkings or anyone elses for that matter. That is the reason I want not to have total blind belief in this theory of everything.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Marijuana Smokee it Not But Good Medicine?
Well well well the US doctors have come out of the Dark Ages and wants to decriminalise Pot. Hmmmm.....
Read This.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Read This.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The World Hunger Is Growing
This is somethong which I noticed in the news recently. the food shortage in the world.
"Two million children in India die and turn into statistics every year. That's about 6,000 deaths everyday. A CNN-IBN Special Investigation travelled to the rural heartlands of UP to document deaths and cases of malnutrition for a special edition of 30 Minutes. Here's the first installment from UP's Varanasi and Lalitpur districts."
In Booming India, Hunger Kills 6,000 Kids Daily
"The United Nations body World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the rise in global food prices will reduce its ability to feed hungry and malnourished people.
Speaking last month in Rome, where the WFP is based, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, “Our ability to reach people is going down just as needs go up.... We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market.... Situations that were previously not urgent—they are now.”
In a press release, the WFP gave a new estimate for the funds needed for its work this year at nearly US$3.5 billion, half a billion more than estimated last year. This money is for approved projects to feed 73 million people in 78 countries throughout the world. It notes that this money is for projected feeding schemes and does not include unforeseen emergencies that may arise.
It also notes that the poorest people on earth will have to spend an increasing portion of their meagre income on food. The WFP warns that these people will be forced to buy less food, or less nutritious food, or rely on outside help."
Global Food Prices Rise And Famine Increases
After Philliphines and Indonesia Cambodia has banned export of rice.
"Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice – the staple food for half the world's population.
The government announced the two-month export ban to ensure "food security" on Thursday, blaming surging overseas demand – particularly in Africa and the Middle East - for the skyrocketing cost of rice."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Two million children in India die and turn into statistics every year. That's about 6,000 deaths everyday. A CNN-IBN Special Investigation travelled to the rural heartlands of UP to document deaths and cases of malnutrition for a special edition of 30 Minutes. Here's the first installment from UP's Varanasi and Lalitpur districts."
In Booming India, Hunger Kills 6,000 Kids Daily
"The United Nations body World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the rise in global food prices will reduce its ability to feed hungry and malnourished people.
Speaking last month in Rome, where the WFP is based, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, “Our ability to reach people is going down just as needs go up.... We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market.... Situations that were previously not urgent—they are now.”
In a press release, the WFP gave a new estimate for the funds needed for its work this year at nearly US$3.5 billion, half a billion more than estimated last year. This money is for approved projects to feed 73 million people in 78 countries throughout the world. It notes that this money is for projected feeding schemes and does not include unforeseen emergencies that may arise.
It also notes that the poorest people on earth will have to spend an increasing portion of their meagre income on food. The WFP warns that these people will be forced to buy less food, or less nutritious food, or rely on outside help."
Global Food Prices Rise And Famine Increases
After Philliphines and Indonesia Cambodia has banned export of rice.
"Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice – the staple food for half the world's population.
The government announced the two-month export ban to ensure "food security" on Thursday, blaming surging overseas demand – particularly in Africa and the Middle East - for the skyrocketing cost of rice."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Obama Or Not
I am not really intersted in US politics as it is the same whenever it comes out of the hell hole where it lives. Two party system controlled by the big companies. All the small people write blogs and write to the law makers and news papers but nothing changes. And it is getting worse as the law makers are getting rid of the constitution, one bit at a time, on which the whole country was built. But I could not ignore this article which brings out more about the election farce which is taking place now. Here is part of the article.
"A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives, or youth. Here are ten reasons why:
1. His biggest contributors are Wall Street banks and corporate law firms.
Seven of his top ten donors are some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions that are behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis and are now looking for big bail-outs and corporate welfare from the federal government, while the rest of us are left with the bill (see www.opensecrets.org for a list of Obama’s donors).
2. He won’t end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While Obama says he would end the war in 2009, like Clinton he has been very careful to call only for the removal of combat troops from Iraq. His position might look good when compared to McCain’s statements about staying in Iraq for 100 years. In reality, Obama’s plan would also maintain tens of thousands of troops, special operations forces, and bases – as well as private mercenaries like Blackwater - in Iraq for years to come.
3. He promotes the expansion of the U.S. military.
Like Bush, Obama has called for increasing the size of the U.S. military by 92,000 troops. He calls for redeploying thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to strengthen the U.S. occupation there.
As William Hartung writes, Obama has said “we will probably need to ‘bump up’ the military budget in a new administration.” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/21/08) At $614 billion (not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!), the proposed U.S. military budget for 2008 is already larger than the rest of the world’s military spending combined.
4. He has repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq.
While he spoke out against the war before entering the Senate, as a Senator Obama has voted for over $300 billion in funding to continue the war.
5. He supports the continuation of the for-profit healthcare system.
Michael Moore’s film Sicko has provided ample evidence to show the key problem with the U.S. healthcare system is that it is controlled by big, for-profit insurance companies and HMOs, yet Obama wants to leave power in their hands.
Moore points out that Obama is “now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary” and now takes “more money from the people committed to stopping universal healthcare than any of the Republican candidates.” (michaelmoore.com, 1/4/08)
6. He supports NAFTA and corporate free trade.
In the Ohio primaries, Obama decried how corporate free trade deals like NAFTA have hurt millions of working people. Yet within days, it came out that his top economic advisor was telling the Canadian government not to take it seriously – it was “more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” (AP, 3/3/08)
This hypocrisy is not new. As the Associated Press reported, “In his 2004 Senate campaign, [Obama] said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA.” (2/26/08)
7. He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act in 2005.
As Ralph Nader’s running mate Matt Gonzalez points out, this was “easily the worst attack on civil liberties in the last half-century. It allows for wholesale eavesdropping on American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.” (“The Obama Craze: Count Me Out,” beyondchron.com, 2/27/08)
8. He voted for the 2006 bill to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexican border.
This racist, anti-immigrant, nationalistic bill will force immigrants to cross in even more dangerous areas. Around 500 immigrants die each year attempting to cross the border, a number that has soared since the early 1990s owing to the growing militarization of the border.
9. He supported Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform.”
This bill disproportionately hurt poor blacks and Latinos by cutting off guaranteed federal aid to families with dependent children. Poor single mothers were forced to look for jobs to qualify for aid under the guise of “personal responsibility.” But the government failed to take responsibility for providing them with decent, living-wage jobs, meaning many have sunk even deeper into poverty, stuck working minimum-wage jobs or forced out onto the streets.
10. He is not campaigning against the racist criminal injustice system.
While Obama calls for the elimination of sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine, he has spent very little political energy speaking out on this or other issues relating to the racist criminal injustice system."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives, or youth. Here are ten reasons why:
1. His biggest contributors are Wall Street banks and corporate law firms.
Seven of his top ten donors are some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions that are behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis and are now looking for big bail-outs and corporate welfare from the federal government, while the rest of us are left with the bill (see www.opensecrets.org for a list of Obama’s donors).
2. He won’t end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While Obama says he would end the war in 2009, like Clinton he has been very careful to call only for the removal of combat troops from Iraq. His position might look good when compared to McCain’s statements about staying in Iraq for 100 years. In reality, Obama’s plan would also maintain tens of thousands of troops, special operations forces, and bases – as well as private mercenaries like Blackwater - in Iraq for years to come.
3. He promotes the expansion of the U.S. military.
Like Bush, Obama has called for increasing the size of the U.S. military by 92,000 troops. He calls for redeploying thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to strengthen the U.S. occupation there.
As William Hartung writes, Obama has said “we will probably need to ‘bump up’ the military budget in a new administration.” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/21/08) At $614 billion (not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!), the proposed U.S. military budget for 2008 is already larger than the rest of the world’s military spending combined.
4. He has repeatedly voted to fund the war in Iraq.
While he spoke out against the war before entering the Senate, as a Senator Obama has voted for over $300 billion in funding to continue the war.
5. He supports the continuation of the for-profit healthcare system.
Michael Moore’s film Sicko has provided ample evidence to show the key problem with the U.S. healthcare system is that it is controlled by big, for-profit insurance companies and HMOs, yet Obama wants to leave power in their hands.
Moore points out that Obama is “now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary” and now takes “more money from the people committed to stopping universal healthcare than any of the Republican candidates.” (michaelmoore.com, 1/4/08)
6. He supports NAFTA and corporate free trade.
In the Ohio primaries, Obama decried how corporate free trade deals like NAFTA have hurt millions of working people. Yet within days, it came out that his top economic advisor was telling the Canadian government not to take it seriously – it was “more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” (AP, 3/3/08)
This hypocrisy is not new. As the Associated Press reported, “In his 2004 Senate campaign, [Obama] said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA.” (2/26/08)
7. He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act in 2005.
As Ralph Nader’s running mate Matt Gonzalez points out, this was “easily the worst attack on civil liberties in the last half-century. It allows for wholesale eavesdropping on American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.” (“The Obama Craze: Count Me Out,” beyondchron.com, 2/27/08)
8. He voted for the 2006 bill to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexican border.
This racist, anti-immigrant, nationalistic bill will force immigrants to cross in even more dangerous areas. Around 500 immigrants die each year attempting to cross the border, a number that has soared since the early 1990s owing to the growing militarization of the border.
9. He supported Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform.”
This bill disproportionately hurt poor blacks and Latinos by cutting off guaranteed federal aid to families with dependent children. Poor single mothers were forced to look for jobs to qualify for aid under the guise of “personal responsibility.” But the government failed to take responsibility for providing them with decent, living-wage jobs, meaning many have sunk even deeper into poverty, stuck working minimum-wage jobs or forced out onto the streets.
10. He is not campaigning against the racist criminal injustice system.
While Obama calls for the elimination of sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine, he has spent very little political energy speaking out on this or other issues relating to the racist criminal injustice system."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know
That Clinton Family employs slaves? I mean the Expresident of US. Hmmmm no....you wouldn't as the media blocks this kind of news. Ok read this arcle.
Why the Clintons’ profiting off near-slavery is not a campaign issue
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Why the Clintons’ profiting off near-slavery is not a campaign issue
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Did You Know
That Mr Bush has exempted Pakistan from a law that limits funding to countries where the head of state was deposed by a military coup, as President Pervez Musharraf had done in Pakistan.
The White House released a copy of a memorandum sent by Mr Bush to US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, entitled "a determination to waive military coup-related" provision.
While it does not reveal any details of appropriations, Mr Bush has asked the US congress to approve $300 million in security assistance for Pakistan.
Mr Bush granted Pakistan the waiver although President Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999. "I hereby determine and certify, with respect to Pakistan, that a waiver .. would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan and it is important to US efforts to respond to deter, or prevent acts of international terrorism," said Mr Bush in the memorandum
US waives Pak aid restrictions
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The White House released a copy of a memorandum sent by Mr Bush to US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, entitled "a determination to waive military coup-related" provision.
While it does not reveal any details of appropriations, Mr Bush has asked the US congress to approve $300 million in security assistance for Pakistan.
Mr Bush granted Pakistan the waiver although President Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999. "I hereby determine and certify, with respect to Pakistan, that a waiver .. would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan and it is important to US efforts to respond to deter, or prevent acts of international terrorism," said Mr Bush in the memorandum
US waives Pak aid restrictions
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Did You Know
That "After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time," Bush said. The comment referred to a 1993 claim by the Kuwaiti government—accepted by the Clinton administration—that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) had plotted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush during a trip to Kuwait that spring. Ever since, armchair psychologists have suggested that personal revenge may have been one reason for the president's determination to overthrow Saddam's regime.
Saddam’s Files
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saddam’s Files
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know
That the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
No wonder Bush and Co is not into Global Warming thingy init?
Bits From The Military-Petroleum Complex
"And the deployments DoD has “rushed its forces” to in recent years – in Afghanistan and Iraq – have sucked up massive quantities of oil. According to Fuel Line, the official newsletter of the Pentagon’s fuel-buying component, the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), from October 1, 2001, to August 9, 2004, the DESC supplied 1,897,272,714 gallons of jet fuel, alone, for military operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, in less than a year and a half, from March 19, 2003, to August 9, 2004, the DESC provided U.S. forces with 1,109,795,046 gallons of jet fuel for operations in Iraq. In 2005, Lana Hampton of the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the military’s aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles were guzzling 10 to 11 million barrels of fuel each month in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet, while the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
With such unconstrained consumption, recent U.S. wars have been a boon for big oil and have seen the Pentagon rise from the rank of hopeless addict to superjunkie. Prior to George Bush’s Global War on Terror, the U.S. military admitted to guzzling 4.62 billion gallons of oil per year. With the Pentagon’s post-9/11 wars and occupations, annual oil consumption has grown to an almost unfathomable 5.46 billion gallons, according to the Pentagon’s possibly low-ball statistics.
As a result, the DoD had some of the planet’s biggest petroleum dealers, and masters of the corporate universe, on its payroll. In 2005, alone, the Pentagon paid out more than $1.5 billion to BP PLC – the company formerly known as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (on whose behalf the CIA and its British counterpart covertly overthrew the Iranian government back in 1953) and then British Petroleum. In 2005, the Pentagon also paid out over $1 billion to N. V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij -- also known as the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (and best known in the United States for its Shell brand gasoline) – and in excess of $1 billion to oil titan ExxonMobil.
In 2005, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Petroleum, and BP ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth on the Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s five hundred largest corporations in terms of revenue. The next year, they bumped their way up to first, third, and fourth, respectively. They also ranked 29th, 30th, and 31st on the DoD’s 2006 list of top contractors, collectively raking in over $3.5 billion from the Pentagon. The big three petrogiants are, however, only the tip of a massive, oily iceberg. Also on the Pentagon’s 2006 list were such oil services, energy, and petroleum conglomerates as:
Ranking
Company name
Total take from the DoD (in dollars)
Ranking: 6
Company name: Halliburton
Total take from the DoD (in dollars): 6,059,726,743
34
Kuwait Petroleum
1,011,270,194
45
Valero Energy
661,171,541
55
Refinery Associates of Texas
576,557,185
66
Abu Dhabi National Oil
494,286,000
70
Bahrain Petroleum
477,535,378
83
CS Caltex
356,313,452
94
Tesoro Petroleum
310,564,052
It’s almost impossible to catalog all the companies with at least some ties to the oil game that are doing business with the Department of Defense, but if just the most obvious names on DoD’s payroll are any indication, the U.S. military is mainlining petroleum from a remarkable assortment of places. For instance, in 2005 alone, the Pentagon payroll listed 145 companies (from A & M Oil to Wyandotte Tribal petroleum).
These 145 companies -- far from constituting a complete list of energy-related firms on the DoD dole – took in more than 8 billion taxpayer dollars in 2005. To put that figure in perspective, that was more than the army paid out in the same year to the military-corporate powerhouses Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Electric, and the Bechtel Corporation, combined. Or over $2.7 billion more than it spent in 2005 on bombs, grenades, guided missiles, guided missile launchers, unmanned aerial vehicles, bulk explosives, all guns, rockets, rocket launchers, and helicopters.
No doubt due to his outfit’s penchant for petroleum guzzling, in 2005, then secretary of defense Rumsfeld issued a memo calling on DoD staff to develop plans for employing alternative power sources and energy-saving technologies. As defense technology expert Noah Shachtman noted in early 2007, while the “Department of Defense might not care about the environment,” it had met its green goals ahead of schedule. As a result, the Pentagon now touts itself as environmentally conscious, drawing attention to its use of wind power at the naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and its dabblings in “cleaner, ‘greener’ hybrid fuel.” On March 24, 2006, the Pentagon’s American Forces Press Service published an article, “Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Help U.S. Military Cut Gas Usage,” speculating that someday such technology might significantly reduce the military’s “dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels for transportation needs.”
That day is not yet in sight. In fact, on March 23, 2006, the day before that article was published, the Pentagon quietly announced a series of DoD contracts that demonstrated the degree of its continuing addiction to oil: a $241,265,176 deal with Valero Energy; a $171,409,329 agreement with Shell Oil; separate contracts of $156,616,405 and $23,923,354 with ConocoPhillips; a $124,152,364 agreement with Refinery Associates of Texas; a $121,053,450 deal with Calumet Shreveport Fuels; a $118,374,201 jet fuel contract with Gary-Williams Energy Corporation; a $75,094,613 agreement with AGE Refining; a $43,994,360 deal with Tesoro Refining; and a $29,524,800 contract with Western Petroleum – all of which had a completion date of April 30, 2007.
Couple this with the fact that, on Rumsfeld’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency granted the DoD a “national security exemption” on trucks that failed to meet current emissions standards; that the army canceled plans to introduce “hybrid-diesel humvees” (the current military model gets just four miles per gallon in city driving and an equally dismal eight miles per gallon on the highway); and that it similarly dropped plans to retrofit the fuel-guzzling Abrams tank with a more efficient diesel engine (the current model, in service in Iraq, gets less than a mile per gallon), while the air force deep-sixed plans for the possible replacement of aging “surveillance, cargo and tanker aircraft engines” – and you’re looking at a Pentagon patently incapable of altering its addiction-addled ways in any near future.
Since then, it’s been more of the same. In March 2007, the Pentagon, now under Rumsfeld’s replacement, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, went on a two-day bender of epic proportions. On March 22 and 23, the DoD announced that it had struck “fixed price with economic price adjustment” deals, to be fulfilled by April 30, 2008, with ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Refinery Associates of Texas, and ten other petrogiants to the tune of $4 billion. Another petro-binge occurred around the 2007 Labor Day holiday. Over the course of three days, the DoD acknowledged fuel contracts with BP, Chevron, Tesoro, and four others worth more than $1.4 billion.
The Pentagon needs two things to survive: war and oil. And it can’t make the first if it doesn’t have the second. In fact, the Pentagon’s methods of mass destruction -- fighters, bombers, tanks, Humvees, and other vehicles -- burn 75 percent of the fuel used by the DoD. For example, B-52 bombers consume 47,000 gallons per mission over Afghanistan. But don’t expect big oil (or even smaller petroplayers) to turn off the tap for peace. Such corporations are just as wedded to war as their most loyal junkie. After all, every time an F-16 fighter “kicks in its afterburners and blasts through the sound barrier,” it burns through $300 worth of fuel a minute, while each of those B-52 missions means a $100,000 tax-funded payout.
According to retired lieutenant general Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., the president of the National Defense Industrial Association (“America’s leading Defense Industry association promoting National Security”), the Pentagon is “the single largest consumer of petroleum fuels in the United States.” In fact, it’s the world’s largest energy consumer, according to Shachtman. That, alone, guarantees the military-petroleum complex isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon – just some fuel for thought next time you head out to a Shell, BP, Exxon, or Mobil station to fill ’er up."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
No wonder Bush and Co is not into Global Warming thingy init?
Bits From The Military-Petroleum Complex
"And the deployments DoD has “rushed its forces” to in recent years – in Afghanistan and Iraq – have sucked up massive quantities of oil. According to Fuel Line, the official newsletter of the Pentagon’s fuel-buying component, the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), from October 1, 2001, to August 9, 2004, the DESC supplied 1,897,272,714 gallons of jet fuel, alone, for military operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, in less than a year and a half, from March 19, 2003, to August 9, 2004, the DESC provided U.S. forces with 1,109,795,046 gallons of jet fuel for operations in Iraq. In 2005, Lana Hampton of the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the military’s aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles were guzzling 10 to 11 million barrels of fuel each month in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet, while the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden’s daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels.
With such unconstrained consumption, recent U.S. wars have been a boon for big oil and have seen the Pentagon rise from the rank of hopeless addict to superjunkie. Prior to George Bush’s Global War on Terror, the U.S. military admitted to guzzling 4.62 billion gallons of oil per year. With the Pentagon’s post-9/11 wars and occupations, annual oil consumption has grown to an almost unfathomable 5.46 billion gallons, according to the Pentagon’s possibly low-ball statistics.
As a result, the DoD had some of the planet’s biggest petroleum dealers, and masters of the corporate universe, on its payroll. In 2005, alone, the Pentagon paid out more than $1.5 billion to BP PLC – the company formerly known as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (on whose behalf the CIA and its British counterpart covertly overthrew the Iranian government back in 1953) and then British Petroleum. In 2005, the Pentagon also paid out over $1 billion to N. V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij -- also known as the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (and best known in the United States for its Shell brand gasoline) – and in excess of $1 billion to oil titan ExxonMobil.
In 2005, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Petroleum, and BP ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth on the Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s five hundred largest corporations in terms of revenue. The next year, they bumped their way up to first, third, and fourth, respectively. They also ranked 29th, 30th, and 31st on the DoD’s 2006 list of top contractors, collectively raking in over $3.5 billion from the Pentagon. The big three petrogiants are, however, only the tip of a massive, oily iceberg. Also on the Pentagon’s 2006 list were such oil services, energy, and petroleum conglomerates as:
Ranking
Company name
Total take from the DoD (in dollars)
Ranking: 6
Company name: Halliburton
Total take from the DoD (in dollars): 6,059,726,743
34
Kuwait Petroleum
1,011,270,194
45
Valero Energy
661,171,541
55
Refinery Associates of Texas
576,557,185
66
Abu Dhabi National Oil
494,286,000
70
Bahrain Petroleum
477,535,378
83
CS Caltex
356,313,452
94
Tesoro Petroleum
310,564,052
It’s almost impossible to catalog all the companies with at least some ties to the oil game that are doing business with the Department of Defense, but if just the most obvious names on DoD’s payroll are any indication, the U.S. military is mainlining petroleum from a remarkable assortment of places. For instance, in 2005 alone, the Pentagon payroll listed 145 companies (from A & M Oil to Wyandotte Tribal petroleum).
These 145 companies -- far from constituting a complete list of energy-related firms on the DoD dole – took in more than 8 billion taxpayer dollars in 2005. To put that figure in perspective, that was more than the army paid out in the same year to the military-corporate powerhouses Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Electric, and the Bechtel Corporation, combined. Or over $2.7 billion more than it spent in 2005 on bombs, grenades, guided missiles, guided missile launchers, unmanned aerial vehicles, bulk explosives, all guns, rockets, rocket launchers, and helicopters.
No doubt due to his outfit’s penchant for petroleum guzzling, in 2005, then secretary of defense Rumsfeld issued a memo calling on DoD staff to develop plans for employing alternative power sources and energy-saving technologies. As defense technology expert Noah Shachtman noted in early 2007, while the “Department of Defense might not care about the environment,” it had met its green goals ahead of schedule. As a result, the Pentagon now touts itself as environmentally conscious, drawing attention to its use of wind power at the naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and its dabblings in “cleaner, ‘greener’ hybrid fuel.” On March 24, 2006, the Pentagon’s American Forces Press Service published an article, “Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Help U.S. Military Cut Gas Usage,” speculating that someday such technology might significantly reduce the military’s “dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels for transportation needs.”
That day is not yet in sight. In fact, on March 23, 2006, the day before that article was published, the Pentagon quietly announced a series of DoD contracts that demonstrated the degree of its continuing addiction to oil: a $241,265,176 deal with Valero Energy; a $171,409,329 agreement with Shell Oil; separate contracts of $156,616,405 and $23,923,354 with ConocoPhillips; a $124,152,364 agreement with Refinery Associates of Texas; a $121,053,450 deal with Calumet Shreveport Fuels; a $118,374,201 jet fuel contract with Gary-Williams Energy Corporation; a $75,094,613 agreement with AGE Refining; a $43,994,360 deal with Tesoro Refining; and a $29,524,800 contract with Western Petroleum – all of which had a completion date of April 30, 2007.
Couple this with the fact that, on Rumsfeld’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency granted the DoD a “national security exemption” on trucks that failed to meet current emissions standards; that the army canceled plans to introduce “hybrid-diesel humvees” (the current military model gets just four miles per gallon in city driving and an equally dismal eight miles per gallon on the highway); and that it similarly dropped plans to retrofit the fuel-guzzling Abrams tank with a more efficient diesel engine (the current model, in service in Iraq, gets less than a mile per gallon), while the air force deep-sixed plans for the possible replacement of aging “surveillance, cargo and tanker aircraft engines” – and you’re looking at a Pentagon patently incapable of altering its addiction-addled ways in any near future.
Since then, it’s been more of the same. In March 2007, the Pentagon, now under Rumsfeld’s replacement, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, went on a two-day bender of epic proportions. On March 22 and 23, the DoD announced that it had struck “fixed price with economic price adjustment” deals, to be fulfilled by April 30, 2008, with ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Refinery Associates of Texas, and ten other petrogiants to the tune of $4 billion. Another petro-binge occurred around the 2007 Labor Day holiday. Over the course of three days, the DoD acknowledged fuel contracts with BP, Chevron, Tesoro, and four others worth more than $1.4 billion.
The Pentagon needs two things to survive: war and oil. And it can’t make the first if it doesn’t have the second. In fact, the Pentagon’s methods of mass destruction -- fighters, bombers, tanks, Humvees, and other vehicles -- burn 75 percent of the fuel used by the DoD. For example, B-52 bombers consume 47,000 gallons per mission over Afghanistan. But don’t expect big oil (or even smaller petroplayers) to turn off the tap for peace. Such corporations are just as wedded to war as their most loyal junkie. After all, every time an F-16 fighter “kicks in its afterburners and blasts through the sound barrier,” it burns through $300 worth of fuel a minute, while each of those B-52 missions means a $100,000 tax-funded payout.
According to retired lieutenant general Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., the president of the National Defense Industrial Association (“America’s leading Defense Industry association promoting National Security”), the Pentagon is “the single largest consumer of petroleum fuels in the United States.” In fact, it’s the world’s largest energy consumer, according to Shachtman. That, alone, guarantees the military-petroleum complex isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon – just some fuel for thought next time you head out to a Shell, BP, Exxon, or Mobil station to fill ’er up."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tibet
Well well well even the most hard working researchers do not see the whole view at once. I have an article written by Michael Parenti. It looks as if it is well reserched but I will have to look into it. I did not really know about Tibetan life style and the history of it. Now I got this Article. Hmmmm...I am not quite sure that I shall hate the Chinese for Tibet. But what I found about this article is that most of the reseached articles by Michael Parenti are anti CIA and US. So I have to go deeper to find out about the Tibetan issue.
"In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”45 In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity."
You live and learn. Dalai Lama CIA asset?
"Since the first Dalai Lama appeared, his successors have been the effective leaders of one of the five religious schools of Tibet, the Gelug.1 Starting in 1642, the Dalai Lamas were also the political rulers of the central provinces of the huge area now called Tibet. This gave the Dalai Lamas a mix of religious and political authority that has been difficult for historians to sort out. Were the Dalai Lamas the recognized religious leaders of Tibet? And is the current Dalai Lama the religious leader of all Tibetans today? His supporters say yes. But many Tibetans disagree. They hold that the four religious schools outside of the Dalai Lama’s own Gelug governed themselves autonomously back in Tibet—and that they continue to run their own affairs today, without reference to the authority of the Dalai Lama."
Reincarnating Lamas
Basically we know that untill 1911 the Tibet was under Chinese patronage. But after the Chinese revolution in 1911, the British in India used Tibet as a buffer zone against Cina and Russia. Soon after Mao's peasant armies took power in Beijing in 1949, the Chinese army seized Tibet and in 1951 it was formally incorporated into China.
This is the Sino-Tibetan Agreement, Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, [17-Point Agreement of May 23, 1951
(1) The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist aggressive forces from Tibet; the Tibetan people shall return to the big family of the Motherlans- the People's Republic of China.
(2) The local governemtn of Tibet shall actively assist the PLA to enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences.
(3) In accoradnce with the policy towards nationalities laid own in the Common Programme of the CPPCC, the Tibetan people have the right of exercising national regional autonomy under the unified leadership of the CPG.
(4) The central authorities will not alter the exisiting political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual.
(5) The established status, functions and powers of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni shall be maintained.
(6) By the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni are meant the status, functions and powers of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and of the ninth Panchen Ngoerhtehni when they were in friendly and amicable relations with each other. The policy of freedom and religious belief laid down in the Common Programme of the CPPCC shall be carried out. The religious beliefs, customs and habits of the Tibetan people shall be respected and lama monasteries shall be protected. The central authorities will not effect a change in the income of the monasteries.
(8) Tibetan troops shall be reorganized step by step into the PLA and become a part of the national defence forces of the CPR.
(9) The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(10) Tibetan agriculture, livestock-raising, industry and commerce shall be developed step by step and the people's livelihood shall be improved step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(11) In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, the will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. the local government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet.
(12) In so far as former pro-imperialist and pro-Kuomintang officials resolutely sever relations with imperialism and the Kuomintang do not engage in sabotage or resistance, they may continue to hold office irrespective of their past.
(13) The PLA entering Tibet shall abide by all the above-mentioned policies and shall also be fair in all buying and selling and shall not arbitrarily take a needle or thread from the people.
(14) The CPG shall have centralized handling of all external affairs of the area of Tibet; and there will be peaceful co-existence with neighbouring countries and establishment and development of fair commercial and trading relations with them on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territory and sovereignty.
(15) In order to ensure the implementation of this agreement, the CPG shall set up a Military and Administrative Committee and a Military Area HQ in Tibet and- apart from the personnel sent there by the CPG- shall absorb as manylocal Tibetan personnel as possible to take part in the work. Local personnel taking part in the Military and Administrative Committee may include patriotic elements from the local government of Tibet, various district and various principal monasteries; the name-list shall be set forth after consultation between the representatives designated by the CPG and various quarters concerned and shall be submitted to the CPG for appointment.
(16) Funds needed by the Military and Administrative Committee, the Military Area HQ and the PLA entering Tibet shall be provided by the CPG. The local government of Tibet should assist the PLA in the purchase and transport of food, fodder and other daily necessities.
(17) This agreement shall come into force immediately after signature and seals are affixed to it.
Signed and sealed by delegates of the CPG with full powers:
Chief Delegate- Li Wei-Han (Chairman of the Commission of Nationalities Affairs)
Delegates- Chang Ching-wu, Chang Kuo-hua, Sun Chih-yuan
Delegates with full powers of the local government of Tibet:
Chief Delegate- Kaloon Ngabou Ngawang Jigme (Ngabo Shape)
Delegates- Dazasak Khemey Soanm Wangdi, Khentrung Thupten Tenthar, Kenchung Thupten Lekmuun, Rimshi Samposey Tenzin Thundup.
Peking, 23rd May, 1951.
But Chinese did not understand the Tibetan way of life and had lots of problems in Tibet; and the West used it to create more problems for Chinese in the World forum. After the Chinese take over in 1950 the CIA trained guarillas to sabotage the Chinese rule. Now the CIA exploits are leaking out as the former employees of CIA started boasting about the work they carried out as far back as 1956. While the Dalai Lama, keen to preserve his image as a man of peace, claims not to have been directly involved, his elder brother Gyalo Thondup was at the centre of the operations. According to the magazine's report: “Gyalo Thondup now says he didn't inform his exalted sibling about all of his intelligence connections at the time: ‘This was a very dirty business'.”
The Newsweek article explained: “Beginning in 1958, American operatives trained about 300 Tibetans at Camp Hale in Colorado. The trainees were schooled in spy photography and sabotage, Morse Code and minelaying. Between 1957 and 1960, the CIA dropped more than 400 tonnes of cargo to the resistance. Yet nine out 10 guerrillas who fought in Tibet were killed by the Chinese or committed suicide to evade capture, according to an article by aerospace historian William Leary in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine.”
In 1959 Dalai Lama fled Tibet with the aid of CIA snd started a government-in-exile in Napal. “By the mid-60s,” Newsweek explained, “the Tibet operation was costing Washington $1.7 million a year, according to intelligence documents. That included $500,000 subsidy to support 2,100 guerrillas based in Nepal and $180,000 worth of ‘subsidy to the Dalai Lama'.”
US made up with the Chinese after China is allowed to take a seat in UN in 1971. 1972 US President Nixon visits China. US cuts down financing Dali Lama's exiled government and the funds dry up. The Newsweek article quoted the rather bitter remarks of the Dalai Lama: “They [the CIA] gave the impression that once I arrived in India, great support would come from the United States. It's a sad, sad story... The US help was very, very limited.” By 1974, the Dalai Lama was forced to publicly call for an end to armed resistance in Tibet.
Even though the US seems to have stopped the support for Free Tibet movement; right wing people in both parties still have connections and funding. Tibet and Taiwan is the hobbyhorse of these people who are using them for their own ends.
At the same time we should not forget that prior to 1950 the Tibet was ruled by a theocracy rooted in the backward semi-feudal practices of the past. Things were hard for the majority of the Tibetan population, except the rich Lamas including Dalai.
"For instance, Mary Craig in her book Tears of Blood—A Cry for Tibet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, provides the following grim picture: “In this strange theocracy administered from Lhasa, all land belonged to the state. Much of this had been granted in the form of hereditary manorial estates to aristocratic families or important monasteries. The government retained a few holdings for its own use, but most of the remaining arable land was leased in strips to small-holding peasants.
“It was a mediaeval feudal society and whether he worked on government property, the monastic estates or on the lands held by the two hundred or so great aristocratic families, the Tibetan peasant was undeniably owned by his master. He had to render a certain amount of compulsory labour in exchange for his own bit of land; and give up the greater portion of his crops to his landlord, keeping the barest minimum necessity for himself and his family. The landlord not only had the right to exact whatever rents he wished, but could also impose cruel punishments for failure to conform. Capital punishment and limb amputation were quite common in some regions.”
Having painted this picture, Craig in the next breath tells us: “Life for the ordinary Tibetan was harsh, but it was not the unmitigated hell claimed by Chinese propaganda... Generally speaking, the Tibetans were not aware of being downtrodden or exploited, and their enormous zest for life was undimmed by desire for a freedom they had never known... Despite the yawning divide in terms of money and material possessions, there was so little resentment of the rich by the poor that in all Tibet's history there had seldom been a popular uprising.”
They had food, shelter and clothes—what more could they want? At any rate, they didn't rebel so they must have been content. All of this reeks of the same appalling indifference and contempt towards the plight of the oppressed as was exhibited by the high lamas themselves and could no doubt be found—with the appropriate changes—among the justifications trotted out by the apologists of, for example, the British Raj in India or Czarist Russia."
There are three main characters in Tibetan system of rule Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, and Karmapa Lama. They are all Tulkus. Tulku is a Tibetan Buddhist Lama who keeps on been reborn to take the place of the one who died. According to the Tibetan custum the Tulku inherits the wealth of the dead lama. But he is from a different family but of the same school of Buddhism.
The first recognized tulku of this kind within the Vajrayana traditions was the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism; precisely, the first to be recognized as a re-manifestation was the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1024-1283) first Karmapa was Düsum Khyenpa (1110-1193). The Karmapa is now in his 17th incarnation. The wealth of this school is immense.
“If the boy-lama was sent to secure the spiritually vital Black Crown and be installed at Kagyu's Rumtek headquarters, his presence in India could aid Chinese designs both on Sikkim and the Tibetan exile community. He who controls Rumtek also controls the school's $1.2 billion worldwide wealth and commands influence over many Buddhists living in the strategically sensitive Indian Himalayan arc from Arunchal Pradesh to Ladakh. What undergirds India's concerns is the fact that China on its maps still shows Arunchal Pradesh as its territory, Sikkim as independent, and Jammu and Kashmir (other than the parts it occupies) as disputed.”
Blimey that is lots of loot init. No wonder all these super powers want a peice of action on it. See the little kingdoms involved. Now I can understand a bit of the conspiracies involved by the various powers.
Present Dali Lama in the Gelugpa (Dge-lugs-pa) School of Tibetan Buddhism (the school which controlled Tibet from the 16th century until the Communist takeover) was already there in 1950. We all know of him. He is the incarnation of Gendun Drup (1391 – 1474), who was not known as Dalai Lama, First who become known as Dalai Lama was actually the third incarnation Sonam Gyatso, until he was dubbed "Dalai Lama" as an adult, after which he applied the title posthumously to his predecessors and declared himself the 3rd Dalai Lama. It was Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), the 5th Dalai Lama, who established the Dalai Lamas as Tibet's predominant political power. After that the Dalai Lama ruled the country and was powerful enough to stop the reincarnation of Shamarpa (red hat) who was the second in command to Karmapa in 1792. This ban remained in place until 1952 when DL lost power. Well the Karma Kagyu school has said they kept on finding Shamarpa reincarnations secretly all these years. Man this is getting complicated init. So many bloody high class lamas. So in 1981 the senior regent Shamarpa Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche fell out with DL and the rest of the regents who were to select the next Karmapa Lama.
"According to an article in the New York Times, “On August 2, 1993, a second brawl broke out, far worse than the first. Versions of what occurred are as different as inner peace and outer space. What is certain is that the split within the monastery's walls had become irreparable. Dozens of monks slept in the woods that night—or in a hospital or in jail.” Monks loyal to the Dalai Lama continue to control the valuable monastery"
Conduct unbecoming of a senior monk of Buddhism. It is all to do with money. Buddha never had any. So why?
So without Shamar, Ogyen Trinley Dorje has been recognized by Situ Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. In July 1992, both asked the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala to confirm their recognition. The 14th Dalai Lama confirmed the recognition of Ogyen Trinley Dorje. The head of the Sakya school, H.H. Sakya Trizin and the head of the Nyingma school at that time, H.H. Mindroling Trichen Rinpoche also recognised Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and composed long-life prayers for him.[3] The government of the People's Republic of China has also accepted him.
But The first born Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje, has been recognized by H.H. Shamar Rinpoche - the senior Kagyu official below the Karmapas themselves.
On top of all these happenings, Dawa Sangpo Dorje, who was born in Mangan in north Sikkim in 1977 (before the death of the 16th Karmapa) and subsequently resided in Damthang in South Sikkim. As recently as December 2003 he requested the opportunity to prove his "supernatural power" to the Dalai Lama.
So now we have three Karmapas residing and doing religious rituals. But the all the moneys involved is cotrolled by a fund Karmapa Charitable Trust.
The Panchen Lama was appointed by 5th DL to honour his Tutor Lobsang Chökyi Gyalsten head of Tashilhunpo Monastery and exclusively reserved the title Panchen for him,[2] and this title has continued to be given to his successors and, posthumously, to his predecessors starting with Khedrup Je. Panchen means great scholar. There is a problem about who is the Panchen lama? Chinese arrested Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the youngest political prisoner ever recorded, in 1995. Qoigyijabu who has been put there as PL by the Chinese and the Tibetan Government in Exile does not recognize him. Now it is getting a bit more easier to understand all these init. But Chinese are trying to simplify it further by getting rd of all these bullshit and put just numbers on them. Ha ha ha
Check wikipedia for most of the stuff above.
And From: "The flight of the Karmapa Lama from Tibet"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”45 In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity."
You live and learn. Dalai Lama CIA asset?
"Since the first Dalai Lama appeared, his successors have been the effective leaders of one of the five religious schools of Tibet, the Gelug.1 Starting in 1642, the Dalai Lamas were also the political rulers of the central provinces of the huge area now called Tibet. This gave the Dalai Lamas a mix of religious and political authority that has been difficult for historians to sort out. Were the Dalai Lamas the recognized religious leaders of Tibet? And is the current Dalai Lama the religious leader of all Tibetans today? His supporters say yes. But many Tibetans disagree. They hold that the four religious schools outside of the Dalai Lama’s own Gelug governed themselves autonomously back in Tibet—and that they continue to run their own affairs today, without reference to the authority of the Dalai Lama."
Reincarnating Lamas
Basically we know that untill 1911 the Tibet was under Chinese patronage. But after the Chinese revolution in 1911, the British in India used Tibet as a buffer zone against Cina and Russia. Soon after Mao's peasant armies took power in Beijing in 1949, the Chinese army seized Tibet and in 1951 it was formally incorporated into China.
This is the Sino-Tibetan Agreement, Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, [17-Point Agreement of May 23, 1951
(1) The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist aggressive forces from Tibet; the Tibetan people shall return to the big family of the Motherlans- the People's Republic of China.
(2) The local governemtn of Tibet shall actively assist the PLA to enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences.
(3) In accoradnce with the policy towards nationalities laid own in the Common Programme of the CPPCC, the Tibetan people have the right of exercising national regional autonomy under the unified leadership of the CPG.
(4) The central authorities will not alter the exisiting political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual.
(5) The established status, functions and powers of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni shall be maintained.
(6) By the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Ngoerhtehni are meant the status, functions and powers of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and of the ninth Panchen Ngoerhtehni when they were in friendly and amicable relations with each other. The policy of freedom and religious belief laid down in the Common Programme of the CPPCC shall be carried out. The religious beliefs, customs and habits of the Tibetan people shall be respected and lama monasteries shall be protected. The central authorities will not effect a change in the income of the monasteries.
(8) Tibetan troops shall be reorganized step by step into the PLA and become a part of the national defence forces of the CPR.
(9) The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(10) Tibetan agriculture, livestock-raising, industry and commerce shall be developed step by step and the people's livelihood shall be improved step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
(11) In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, the will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. the local government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet.
(12) In so far as former pro-imperialist and pro-Kuomintang officials resolutely sever relations with imperialism and the Kuomintang do not engage in sabotage or resistance, they may continue to hold office irrespective of their past.
(13) The PLA entering Tibet shall abide by all the above-mentioned policies and shall also be fair in all buying and selling and shall not arbitrarily take a needle or thread from the people.
(14) The CPG shall have centralized handling of all external affairs of the area of Tibet; and there will be peaceful co-existence with neighbouring countries and establishment and development of fair commercial and trading relations with them on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territory and sovereignty.
(15) In order to ensure the implementation of this agreement, the CPG shall set up a Military and Administrative Committee and a Military Area HQ in Tibet and- apart from the personnel sent there by the CPG- shall absorb as manylocal Tibetan personnel as possible to take part in the work. Local personnel taking part in the Military and Administrative Committee may include patriotic elements from the local government of Tibet, various district and various principal monasteries; the name-list shall be set forth after consultation between the representatives designated by the CPG and various quarters concerned and shall be submitted to the CPG for appointment.
(16) Funds needed by the Military and Administrative Committee, the Military Area HQ and the PLA entering Tibet shall be provided by the CPG. The local government of Tibet should assist the PLA in the purchase and transport of food, fodder and other daily necessities.
(17) This agreement shall come into force immediately after signature and seals are affixed to it.
Signed and sealed by delegates of the CPG with full powers:
Chief Delegate- Li Wei-Han (Chairman of the Commission of Nationalities Affairs)
Delegates- Chang Ching-wu, Chang Kuo-hua, Sun Chih-yuan
Delegates with full powers of the local government of Tibet:
Chief Delegate- Kaloon Ngabou Ngawang Jigme (Ngabo Shape)
Delegates- Dazasak Khemey Soanm Wangdi, Khentrung Thupten Tenthar, Kenchung Thupten Lekmuun, Rimshi Samposey Tenzin Thundup.
Peking, 23rd May, 1951.
But Chinese did not understand the Tibetan way of life and had lots of problems in Tibet; and the West used it to create more problems for Chinese in the World forum. After the Chinese take over in 1950 the CIA trained guarillas to sabotage the Chinese rule. Now the CIA exploits are leaking out as the former employees of CIA started boasting about the work they carried out as far back as 1956. While the Dalai Lama, keen to preserve his image as a man of peace, claims not to have been directly involved, his elder brother Gyalo Thondup was at the centre of the operations. According to the magazine's report: “Gyalo Thondup now says he didn't inform his exalted sibling about all of his intelligence connections at the time: ‘This was a very dirty business'.”
The Newsweek article explained: “Beginning in 1958, American operatives trained about 300 Tibetans at Camp Hale in Colorado. The trainees were schooled in spy photography and sabotage, Morse Code and minelaying. Between 1957 and 1960, the CIA dropped more than 400 tonnes of cargo to the resistance. Yet nine out 10 guerrillas who fought in Tibet were killed by the Chinese or committed suicide to evade capture, according to an article by aerospace historian William Leary in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine.”
In 1959 Dalai Lama fled Tibet with the aid of CIA snd started a government-in-exile in Napal. “By the mid-60s,” Newsweek explained, “the Tibet operation was costing Washington $1.7 million a year, according to intelligence documents. That included $500,000 subsidy to support 2,100 guerrillas based in Nepal and $180,000 worth of ‘subsidy to the Dalai Lama'.”
US made up with the Chinese after China is allowed to take a seat in UN in 1971. 1972 US President Nixon visits China. US cuts down financing Dali Lama's exiled government and the funds dry up. The Newsweek article quoted the rather bitter remarks of the Dalai Lama: “They [the CIA] gave the impression that once I arrived in India, great support would come from the United States. It's a sad, sad story... The US help was very, very limited.” By 1974, the Dalai Lama was forced to publicly call for an end to armed resistance in Tibet.
Even though the US seems to have stopped the support for Free Tibet movement; right wing people in both parties still have connections and funding. Tibet and Taiwan is the hobbyhorse of these people who are using them for their own ends.
At the same time we should not forget that prior to 1950 the Tibet was ruled by a theocracy rooted in the backward semi-feudal practices of the past. Things were hard for the majority of the Tibetan population, except the rich Lamas including Dalai.
"For instance, Mary Craig in her book Tears of Blood—A Cry for Tibet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, provides the following grim picture: “In this strange theocracy administered from Lhasa, all land belonged to the state. Much of this had been granted in the form of hereditary manorial estates to aristocratic families or important monasteries. The government retained a few holdings for its own use, but most of the remaining arable land was leased in strips to small-holding peasants.
“It was a mediaeval feudal society and whether he worked on government property, the monastic estates or on the lands held by the two hundred or so great aristocratic families, the Tibetan peasant was undeniably owned by his master. He had to render a certain amount of compulsory labour in exchange for his own bit of land; and give up the greater portion of his crops to his landlord, keeping the barest minimum necessity for himself and his family. The landlord not only had the right to exact whatever rents he wished, but could also impose cruel punishments for failure to conform. Capital punishment and limb amputation were quite common in some regions.”
Having painted this picture, Craig in the next breath tells us: “Life for the ordinary Tibetan was harsh, but it was not the unmitigated hell claimed by Chinese propaganda... Generally speaking, the Tibetans were not aware of being downtrodden or exploited, and their enormous zest for life was undimmed by desire for a freedom they had never known... Despite the yawning divide in terms of money and material possessions, there was so little resentment of the rich by the poor that in all Tibet's history there had seldom been a popular uprising.”
They had food, shelter and clothes—what more could they want? At any rate, they didn't rebel so they must have been content. All of this reeks of the same appalling indifference and contempt towards the plight of the oppressed as was exhibited by the high lamas themselves and could no doubt be found—with the appropriate changes—among the justifications trotted out by the apologists of, for example, the British Raj in India or Czarist Russia."
There are three main characters in Tibetan system of rule Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, and Karmapa Lama. They are all Tulkus. Tulku is a Tibetan Buddhist Lama who keeps on been reborn to take the place of the one who died. According to the Tibetan custum the Tulku inherits the wealth of the dead lama. But he is from a different family but of the same school of Buddhism.
The first recognized tulku of this kind within the Vajrayana traditions was the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism; precisely, the first to be recognized as a re-manifestation was the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1024-1283) first Karmapa was Düsum Khyenpa (1110-1193). The Karmapa is now in his 17th incarnation. The wealth of this school is immense.
“If the boy-lama was sent to secure the spiritually vital Black Crown and be installed at Kagyu's Rumtek headquarters, his presence in India could aid Chinese designs both on Sikkim and the Tibetan exile community. He who controls Rumtek also controls the school's $1.2 billion worldwide wealth and commands influence over many Buddhists living in the strategically sensitive Indian Himalayan arc from Arunchal Pradesh to Ladakh. What undergirds India's concerns is the fact that China on its maps still shows Arunchal Pradesh as its territory, Sikkim as independent, and Jammu and Kashmir (other than the parts it occupies) as disputed.”
Blimey that is lots of loot init. No wonder all these super powers want a peice of action on it. See the little kingdoms involved. Now I can understand a bit of the conspiracies involved by the various powers.
Present Dali Lama in the Gelugpa (Dge-lugs-pa) School of Tibetan Buddhism (the school which controlled Tibet from the 16th century until the Communist takeover) was already there in 1950. We all know of him. He is the incarnation of Gendun Drup (1391 – 1474), who was not known as Dalai Lama, First who become known as Dalai Lama was actually the third incarnation Sonam Gyatso, until he was dubbed "Dalai Lama" as an adult, after which he applied the title posthumously to his predecessors and declared himself the 3rd Dalai Lama. It was Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), the 5th Dalai Lama, who established the Dalai Lamas as Tibet's predominant political power. After that the Dalai Lama ruled the country and was powerful enough to stop the reincarnation of Shamarpa (red hat) who was the second in command to Karmapa in 1792. This ban remained in place until 1952 when DL lost power. Well the Karma Kagyu school has said they kept on finding Shamarpa reincarnations secretly all these years. Man this is getting complicated init. So many bloody high class lamas. So in 1981 the senior regent Shamarpa Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche fell out with DL and the rest of the regents who were to select the next Karmapa Lama.
"According to an article in the New York Times, “On August 2, 1993, a second brawl broke out, far worse than the first. Versions of what occurred are as different as inner peace and outer space. What is certain is that the split within the monastery's walls had become irreparable. Dozens of monks slept in the woods that night—or in a hospital or in jail.” Monks loyal to the Dalai Lama continue to control the valuable monastery"
Conduct unbecoming of a senior monk of Buddhism. It is all to do with money. Buddha never had any. So why?
So without Shamar, Ogyen Trinley Dorje has been recognized by Situ Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. In July 1992, both asked the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala to confirm their recognition. The 14th Dalai Lama confirmed the recognition of Ogyen Trinley Dorje. The head of the Sakya school, H.H. Sakya Trizin and the head of the Nyingma school at that time, H.H. Mindroling Trichen Rinpoche also recognised Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and composed long-life prayers for him.[3] The government of the People's Republic of China has also accepted him.
But The first born Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje, has been recognized by H.H. Shamar Rinpoche - the senior Kagyu official below the Karmapas themselves.
On top of all these happenings, Dawa Sangpo Dorje, who was born in Mangan in north Sikkim in 1977 (before the death of the 16th Karmapa) and subsequently resided in Damthang in South Sikkim. As recently as December 2003 he requested the opportunity to prove his "supernatural power" to the Dalai Lama.
So now we have three Karmapas residing and doing religious rituals. But the all the moneys involved is cotrolled by a fund Karmapa Charitable Trust.
The Panchen Lama was appointed by 5th DL to honour his Tutor Lobsang Chökyi Gyalsten head of Tashilhunpo Monastery and exclusively reserved the title Panchen for him,[2] and this title has continued to be given to his successors and, posthumously, to his predecessors starting with Khedrup Je. Panchen means great scholar. There is a problem about who is the Panchen lama? Chinese arrested Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the youngest political prisoner ever recorded, in 1995. Qoigyijabu who has been put there as PL by the Chinese and the Tibetan Government in Exile does not recognize him. Now it is getting a bit more easier to understand all these init. But Chinese are trying to simplify it further by getting rd of all these bullshit and put just numbers on them. Ha ha ha
Check wikipedia for most of the stuff above.
And From: "The flight of the Karmapa Lama from Tibet"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know
That US is giving military aid to Kosovo which is ruled by a ex-terrorist organisation who is against the Serbs.
Russia: US plan arms ex-terrorists
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Russia: US plan arms ex-terrorists
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Gaffe [ Gaf ] (plural Gaffes) or Gaff [ Gaf ] (plural Gaffs)
This is a new feature from to day.
The precidental candidate J McCain's Al Qaeda-Iran gaffe.
"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."
Does he know that Alqaeda is Sunni and Iran is majority Shite country.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The precidental candidate J McCain's Al Qaeda-Iran gaffe.
"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."
Does he know that Alqaeda is Sunni and Iran is majority Shite country.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The woman who nearly stopped the war
I remember something about Mr Annan saying to one of our ministers to go out of his office and walk if you want to talk about something serious as the place is full of bugs. But this is really nasty coming from a nice democratic country like US of frigging A. What sort of people can do thses things? Answer people who take up these shite jobs.
"Koza insisted that he was looking for "insights" into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, "plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc". In summary, he added: "The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The scope of the operation was vast: "Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes," wrote Koza."
Why We Said No: Three Diplomats’ Duty
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Koza insisted that he was looking for "insights" into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, "plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc". In summary, he added: "The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The scope of the operation was vast: "Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes," wrote Koza."
Why We Said No: Three Diplomats’ Duty
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Betrayal Iraq War Ch4 on 3rd March
Col Lawrence Wilkinson Former Chief of Staff to Gen C Powell says that, needs $ 100 billion, to get the army back in to the state which was before invation...... the morale of the troupes are conflicted now. US cannot deploy troups elsewhere.
Col Paul Hughes Former Director Coalition Strategy Office says
When Gulliver is tied down in Iraq what happened to him is happening to US army. So Us cannot do anything if somewhere else anything happens to undermine the US authority. Eg China's authority been spread around the world.
Gen William Odom Former Naational Security Agency Officer says: that there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq but they are there now. Instead of destrying them we have increased their cadre.
Funny init these guys when they were working they did the job and carried out the orders without a question mark; then after retirement they come out with all these stuff. I believe in people who leak, about, whatever questions their conscience, out to others while they are working and be proud about it. Sybel Edmonds comes to mind. But with the present Western Governments you cannot do it as you will get sacked, gagged, jailed or shot; in other words punished. I pray for more transparency in all the governments in their work.
At the moment dollar is taken a funny drive downwords and still not levelling out. Col Lawrence Wilkinson says that they were not there when we came here but they are here now, and they will be gone when we are gone. Al Qaeda have atleast 6000. But being a Sunni based group the moment US get out of Iraq there will be 100's of thousands to stop the Shites taking power.
Yes of course I remember when Bush was sounding off to go and bomb Afghanistan Bin Laden said that his aim is to tie up the military of the West and bankcrupt US Dollar. Not bad for a terrorist to forsee and plan it; or is it done with the agreement with the people who are controling the most of the governments? bankers? Because the petral prices and the precious metal prices have gone up massively. Who is creaming in the loot?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Col Paul Hughes Former Director Coalition Strategy Office says
When Gulliver is tied down in Iraq what happened to him is happening to US army. So Us cannot do anything if somewhere else anything happens to undermine the US authority. Eg China's authority been spread around the world.
Gen William Odom Former Naational Security Agency Officer says: that there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq but they are there now. Instead of destrying them we have increased their cadre.
Funny init these guys when they were working they did the job and carried out the orders without a question mark; then after retirement they come out with all these stuff. I believe in people who leak, about, whatever questions their conscience, out to others while they are working and be proud about it. Sybel Edmonds comes to mind. But with the present Western Governments you cannot do it as you will get sacked, gagged, jailed or shot; in other words punished. I pray for more transparency in all the governments in their work.
At the moment dollar is taken a funny drive downwords and still not levelling out. Col Lawrence Wilkinson says that they were not there when we came here but they are here now, and they will be gone when we are gone. Al Qaeda have atleast 6000. But being a Sunni based group the moment US get out of Iraq there will be 100's of thousands to stop the Shites taking power.
Yes of course I remember when Bush was sounding off to go and bomb Afghanistan Bin Laden said that his aim is to tie up the military of the West and bankcrupt US Dollar. Not bad for a terrorist to forsee and plan it; or is it done with the agreement with the people who are controling the most of the governments? bankers? Because the petral prices and the precious metal prices have gone up massively. Who is creaming in the loot?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
About Climate Change and the Exxon Mobile
We all know big companies bribe anyone polititians to the dustman to get their own way. Here is a bit of proof about the subject.
"SCIENTISTS and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the UN climate change report.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush Administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The institute has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil - which yesterday announced a $50 billion annual profit, the biggest ever by a US company - and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush Administration. A former head of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, is the vice-chairman of the institute's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work", and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described it as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims," said David Viner, of the University of East Anglia in Britain.
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at the institute, who confirmed that it had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the UN report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M University, turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said the UN report would underscore "the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said the institute "is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush Administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra".
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the UN report."
And on the other hand Dr. James Hansen the top advisor to the US government has been gagged and his reports subdued by the US government for atleast 3 decades. This is very good to hear from an imminant scientist, who is not afraid to talk about it.
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"SCIENTISTS and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine the UN climate change report.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush Administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The institute has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil - which yesterday announced a $50 billion annual profit, the biggest ever by a US company - and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush Administration. A former head of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, is the vice-chairman of the institute's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work", and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described it as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aims," said David Viner, of the University of East Anglia in Britain.
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at the institute, who confirmed that it had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the UN report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M University, turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said the UN report would underscore "the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said the institute "is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush Administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra".
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the UN report."
And on the other hand Dr. James Hansen the top advisor to the US government has been gagged and his reports subdued by the US government for atleast 3 decades. This is very good to hear from an imminant scientist, who is not afraid to talk about it.
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Did You Know
That the Easter Date is the first Sunday after the full moon after the Spring Equinox.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Hilary Clinton and the Christian Fundamentalists
I want to record this for the furure conciderations as I have not understood the CF in US at the moment. So here is the link.
I wrote something about this in here. It shows how far the CF has gone into in the military.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
I wrote something about this in here. It shows how far the CF has gone into in the military.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Did You Know
According to my estimates after living in this unique world, is that the rich countries get their way of life imposed on the poor countries top down; the poor countries get their way of life imposed on the rich countries bottom up.
Check the indian curries? Check the arms trade?
May be there is a moral here but who am I to let you know?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Check the indian curries? Check the arms trade?
May be there is a moral here but who am I to let you know?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Autoimmune Disease In America
The Americans better be praying to their own God Almighty for deliverance from this plague. Their god is different than any one elses as they are a different sect living in a bubble of glue which makes them invincible they reckon. Ok you don't believe me check this out. hmmmm no.... check this about the Mr President. And rest of the sane world laugh at them, and they don't realise it at all. Pure buggers.
"Imagine, if you can: the tingling foot and ankle that turns out to be the beginning of the slow paralysis of multiple sclerosis. Four hundred thousand patients. Excruciating joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes, and never-ending flu-like symptoms that lead to the diagnosis of lupus. One and a half million more. Relentless bouts of vertigo -- the hallmark of Ménière's. Seven out of every one thousand Americans. Severe abdominal pain, bleeding rectal fissures, uncontrollable diarrhea, and chronic intestinal inflammation that define Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans.More than 2 million patients. Dry mouth so persistent eight glasses of water a day won't soothe the parched throat and tongue and the mysterious swallowing difficulties that are the first signs of Sjögren's. Four million Americans. And, with almost every autoimmune disease, intolerable, life-altering bouts of exhaustion. If fatigue were a sound made manifest by the 23.5 million people with autoimmune disease in America, the roar across this country would be more deafening than that of the return of the seventeen-year locusts."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Imagine, if you can: the tingling foot and ankle that turns out to be the beginning of the slow paralysis of multiple sclerosis. Four hundred thousand patients. Excruciating joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes, and never-ending flu-like symptoms that lead to the diagnosis of lupus. One and a half million more. Relentless bouts of vertigo -- the hallmark of Ménière's. Seven out of every one thousand Americans. Severe abdominal pain, bleeding rectal fissures, uncontrollable diarrhea, and chronic intestinal inflammation that define Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans.More than 2 million patients. Dry mouth so persistent eight glasses of water a day won't soothe the parched throat and tongue and the mysterious swallowing difficulties that are the first signs of Sjögren's. Four million Americans. And, with almost every autoimmune disease, intolerable, life-altering bouts of exhaustion. If fatigue were a sound made manifest by the 23.5 million people with autoimmune disease in America, the roar across this country would be more deafening than that of the return of the seventeen-year locusts."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Did You Know
That the MOD is trying to "write" the history of the Iraq War to teach in British schools and the history is not accurate. Man we all know the history was written by the victors and it is not accurate. But this is lunacy.
Have a look at this little bit from the article.
"What the MoD’s guide says… and what it omits
* “Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops… Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program”. After the first Gulf War, “Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction…”
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The “coalition of the willing” was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* “The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq”.
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* “Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq… to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces… They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency.”
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations.
* “The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m.”
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was “surprised” by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* “Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy).”
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* “A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq.”
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* “From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.”
The reality: Five years after “liberation”, Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."
British Teachers Told to Rewrite History of Iraq War
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Have a look at this little bit from the article.
"What the MoD’s guide says… and what it omits
* “Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops… Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program”. After the first Gulf War, “Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction…”
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The “coalition of the willing” was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* “The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq”.
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* “Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq… to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces… They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency.”
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations.
* “The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m.”
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was “surprised” by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* “Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy).”
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* “A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq.”
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* “From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq.”
The reality: Five years after “liberation”, Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."
British Teachers Told to Rewrite History of Iraq War
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Food I Eat Again
I will have to eat biofuel from now onwords. And if I want to make money invest on companies like: Seed innovators Monsanto (MON, news, msgs) and Syngenta (SYT, news, msgs); fertilizer makers Potash of Saskatchewan (POT, news, msgs), Mosaic (MOS, news, msgs), CF Industries (CF, news, msgs) and Agrium (AGU, news, msgs); tractor maker Deere (DE, news, msgs); and, for exposure to the food futures themselves, the exchange-traded funds PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA, news, msgs), iPath AIG Agriculture (JJA, news, msgs) and iPath AIG Grains (JJG, news, msgs).
Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Nice EU and UK passed bills n their respective paliaments to increase the production of biofuel in the future. Ha Ha. some of us petitioned the MPs and MEPs not to but to no avail. Funny init reading this article appeared.
This is what I said
Dear MEP,
I am writing to ask you to vote against increased EU biofuel targets as proposed by the European Commission in the draft Directive on renewable energy.
You may be aware of the overwhelming evidence published over the last few months that the large scale production of biofuels will
- have devastating effects on the world's most important habitats- have disastrous consequences for the poorest people and
- do little to tackle climate change.
Despite this evidence the European Commission has held on to its proposal to include a 10% target for biofuels by 2020.
The Commission proposes to avoid negative impacts from biofuels through the introduction of sustainability criteria.
In reality sustainability criteria fail to solve problems like the pressure biofuel crops exert on other agricultural land uses, pushing them into rainforests and other habitats (a problem known as leakage). And there are not even attempts to address social issues like land rights conflicts and the effects on the world's food prices.
If you feel you cannot vote against the target I would like to hear from you how you propose the problems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels will be tackled. You can contact me by email or at the following address:
Flat 1 34, Badminton RoadBristolBS2 9QL
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
23 Feb 2008
Reply 1.
Dear Chris Bury,
Thank you for your email. I am of the belief that biofuels still present us with a greatopportunity, both for farmers, and to deal with our energy dependancy.However it is imperative that biofuel growth is sustainable.
I believe that the EU was not wrong to initially introduce ambitioustargets on the amount of fuel that should be replaced with biofuels butunfortunately many farmers in Britain have not felt they had the supportfrom the government to venture into biofuel production. The key to thelong-term viability of biofuels is ensuring our fuels are grown as closeto home as possible and that any growth is sustainable. Cutting down therainforest and digging up food crops when we have a world shortage offood is clearly not the best way to meet the targets.
However, with the future potential of second generation biofuels, whichare both cleaner and do not affect our ability to grow food, and with aproper accreditation scheme which can ensure that imports come fromsustainable sources, I still believe that biofuels can play an importantrole in our future energy needs. Therefore I do not support a furtherreduction in what is now a more modest target for biofuel use.
Yours sincerely, Neil Parish MEP
Reply 2
Dear Constituent
Please forgive my addressing you in this impersonal way but I have hadso many identical letters about biofuels that it is the only way I canreply quickly.
I do believe that biofuels have the potential to offer an alternativeform of energy that can help to alleviate Europe's dependence uponimported oil. Given that our transport sector is almost entirelydependent upon oil, the price of which doubled from 2003-6, biofuels mayoffer, in part, a means by which to cope with a severe security ofsupply challenge. Secondly, in an era in which climate change poses areal and significant threat, biofuels may offer greenhouse gas savings;the combustion of biofuels only releases carbon into the atmosphere thatwas absorbed by the biofuel crop during its growth. It is thereforehoped that biofuels may offer a carbon neutral solution to transport fuels.
The proposal to which you refer has not yet arrived in the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety Committee, of which I am a member. When itdoes, I agree with you that rather than blunder onwards towards such anarbitrary target with potentially weak sustainability criteria, weperhaps need to reassess what we are trying to do with biofuels andreconsider the whole approach. It is quite likely that the Parliamentreport will say something on similar lines and hopefully address theproblems of leakage and the social impacts of biofuels. How this will bedone will not be known until the rapporteur, the MEP responsible forsteering the dossier through the Parliament and the responsiblecommittees, has published his draft report.
Yours sincerely Caroline Jackson MEP
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)