Propeller.com Stories submitted by berkeley

Stop the attack on Iran

berkeley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:54:26 EDT

George Galloway goes a good job of laying out the reality of what the latest malevolent plan by the Bush administration will mean for the world in this seven minute clip.

Channel: Politics Tags: iran war bush cheney israel george galloway

You Say You Want a Revolution?

berkeley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:30:16 EDT

"We are at a stage in human history that is as monumental as changing from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society and from an agricultural society to an industrial society. Where we're headed now will be different because we have exhausted planetary space. We can no longer look at things through the lens of materialism.

Channel: Politics Tags: industrial revolution materialism money culture art Grace Lee Boggs

Warming West is ground zero for wildfires

berkeley — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:10:40 EDT

The peak time of melting snow is already about 10 to 15 days earlier in different parts of the West. Scientists have projected a speed-up of 25 to 35 days earlier by the end of this century. A study just released by Purdue University found that at the end of the century, the snowmelt could come 70 days earlier.

Channel: Science Tags: climate global warming james hansen california

TV networks fight shorter Olympic leash

berkeley — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:57:01 EDT

"Had the IOC known seven years ago that there would be severe restrictions on people being able to enter China simply to watch the Olympics, or that live broadcasting from Tiananmen Square would essentially be banned, then I seriously doubt whether Beijing would have been awarded the Olympics," the commissioner said.

Channel: News Tags: china olympics human rights media access

Rezko Pal, Rove Named In Plan To Fire Fitzgerald

berkeley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:46:05 EDT

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said Rove and Kjellander have been friends since college, but Rove does not remember Kjellander ever talking to him about Fitzgerald.

Channel: Politics Tags: karl rove tony rezko Robert Kjellander

New York Times Op-Ed: Israel Will Attack Iran

berkeley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:38:37 EDT

If you get the sense that Israel and the Bush administration are playing with fire, you wouldn't be the only one. Doubtless, domestic political considerations may have something to do with Bush's posturing.

Channel: Politics Tags: iran nie war cia cheney israel

Office of Special Counsel official quits in protest

berkeley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:28:32 EDT

James M. Byrne, second in command at the embattled Office of Special Counsel, resigned his post effective Saturday after leaving his boss, Scott J. Bloch, a stinging letter suggesting that Bloch's "political agendas and personal vendettas" were preventing the agency from fulfilling its mission.

Channel: News Tags: james byrne scott j bloch office of special counsel

Concern grows over a fiscal crisis for U.S.

berkeley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:00:08 EDT

"People seem to think the government has money," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "The government doesn't have any money." A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government's own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities.

Channel: News Tags: federal reserve credit crunch healthcare social security

Six Questions for Jane Mayer, Author of The Dark Side

berkeley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:41:13 EDT

She tried to ensure that a judge overseeing the case, who asked for all information regarding the Department's handling of Lindh, was given the full record, including her own contrary advice. But instead, she said she found that her superiors at Justice sent the judge only selective portions of the record, excluding her contrary opinion.

Channel: Politics Tags: empire police state law congress war iraq jane mayer the dark side

All aboard the nuclear power superjet. Just don't ask about the landing strip.

berkeley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:15:07 EDT

Yet to disregard the "vestigial risk" of nuclear energy is to misunderstand the cultural and political dynamic of the "residual-risk-society". The most tenacious, convincing and effective critics of nuclear energy are not the greens - the most influential opponent of the nuclear industry is the nuclear industry itself.

Channel: Science Tags: nuclear energy risk catastrophe nuclear waste radioactive waste

The bloody battle of Genoa

berkeley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:42:22 EDT

This public dishonesty was part of a wider effort to cover up what had happened. On the night of the raid, a force of 59 police entered the building opposite the Diaz Pertini, where Covell and others had been running their Indymedia centre and where, crucially, a group of lawyers had been based, gathering evidence about police attacks.

Channel: Politics Tags: genoa italy g8 demonstrations police law corruption

Britain feels the fallout from US banking crisis as Â£30bn is wiped out

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:52:07 EDT

The steep losses came as investors took flight from shares amid anxiety that severe fallout from US financial upheavals would hit British banks and financial companies. Investors have now seen that about Â£375 billion has been erased from the value of Britain's bluechip shares in the last year.

Channel: Money Tags: banks ftse write downs britain fannie mae

The facts behind the fiction of the Lebanon war of 2006

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:13:30 EDT

Today two dead Israeli soldiers have been returned to Israel by Hezbollah who kidnapped them before the Lebanon war. Their kidnapping was the official reason for the war, but was it also the factual reason?

Channel: News Tags: israel iran war media lebanon syria

Image and reality in Iran

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:24:17 EDT

Apart from ongoing secret anti-Iran ops, cross-border ops from Southern Iraq, with the prez's blessing, including seizing Al Quds, commandos of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and hauling them to Iraq for interrogation; and the hunt for high-value targets to be killed or captured, the new scale of Iran ops have been widely expanded.

Channel: Politics Tags: iran nie war cia cheney israel

Will the Antiwar Movement Strangle the State?

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:05:13 EDT

The state needs war, it craves war, and it will have war. If you love the state, you necessarily love war. If you respect the state, you embrace war. And some, perhaps many, in the antiwar movement, really believe that the state, that national level government, is or can be a real source of solutions for community and for the country.

Channel: Politics Tags: empire police state law congress karen kwiatkowski war

Drug war mayhem instills a new fear

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:58:15 EDT

Nearly a third of Mexico's drug-related killings in this record year have been registered in Juarez. Take last month, for example: In one not particularly unusual weekend, 17 people, including a journalist, were killed; the sister-in-law of a U.S. congressman was kidnapped; and a dozen businesses were set ablaze after receiving threats.

Channel: News Tags: mexico crime drug war

Opposition, From Both Parties, Over Bailout Plan

berkeley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:26:32 EDT

The Republican opposition threatened to incite an ugly intramural fight with the White House. In a high-stakes election year, the resistance reflected the deep fear among some lawmakers that the plan could set off a large taxpayer bailout, touching off a wave of voter anger in November.

Channel: Politics Tags: election congress bailout

Iran Shows Its Cards

berkeley — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:23:49 EDT

There is virtually no chance the U.S. Navy would be able to prevent Iran from interfering with shipping through the strait. There is every chance the Navy would take significant casualties, in both ships lost and personnel killed or wounded, as it struggled to secure the strait.

Channel: Politics Tags: iran navy war bush cheney scott ritter

'Fat Man' bomb art explodes notions of peace and security

berkeley — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:47:00 EDT

Instead of a steel-clad, 5-ton teardrop packed with plutonium, Wilhite's bomb is 135 pounds of molded poplar, mahogany and airplane-grade spruce plywood. It's more a thing of beauty than an instrument of horror.

Channel: Art & Design Tags: sculpture bomb

Olympics suck up China's already scarce water

berkeley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:35:44 EDT

"Whether diverting surface water or digging deeper for groundwater, the underlying solution proposed is like trying to quench a thirst by drinking poison."

Channel: News Tags: china olympics water

The Long War of Genaro GarcÃ;Âa Luna

berkeley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:04:54 EDT

When Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico's top police official, arrived in Tijuana in January, the city was in the middle of a storm of violence that he found, as he put it to me with clipped understatement soon after his visit, "surprising.

Channel: News Tags: mexico gangs murder genaro garcia luna

Monsanto patent fight ensnares Missouri farm town

berkeley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:16:57 EDT

So when the biotech giant named Brumback and more than 100 other local farmers in a subpoena seeking five years of sales records, his first reaction was befuddlement. Then anger. "With Monsanto, you're guilty until you're proven innocent," he said.

Channel: Do No Evil Tags: monsanto gmo biotech roundup

Iraq - Ricochet

berkeley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:06:44 EDT

Joseph Dwyer was the subject of a highly publicized photograph I'd taken as an embedded photojournalist during the first week of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. It captured the young medic running toward safety with an injured Iraqi child in his arms.

Channel: News Tags: iraq war bush blair joseph dwyer

Pakistani criminals, Taliban find easy cash in kidnapping

berkeley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:13:24 EDT

According to Article 18 of the Taliban's shadow constitution in the tribal areas they control, a "holy warrior who detains a foreign soldier, journalist or aid worker has the right to ask for money or exchange them for Taliban prisoners."

Channel: News Tags: afghanistan pakistan taliban kidnapping

Fears for 100,000 jobs as sector suffers 'worst conditions for 50 years'

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:57:36 EDT

The collapse in the house building sector will mean that Gordon Brown's target of building 240,000 new homes every year until 2020 will be missed, leading to a significant shortfall in the target of three million new homes. Housing Minister Caroline Flint admitted that building three million new houses by 2020 was going to be a challenge.

Channel: News Tags: britain housing

Betrayed by Obama

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:49:13 EDT

I've admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don't admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgivable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him misstep for misstep.

Channel: Politics Tags: obama fisa election

American Capitalism: The Murder Culture vs The Gift Culture

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:36:04 EDT

Much as the cancer kills its host - and itself - by expropriating and consuming the host'senergy, the institutions of capitalism are expropriating and consuming the living energies of people, communities, and the planet. And like a cancer, the institutions of capitalism lack the foresight to anticipate and avoid the inevitable deathly outcome.

Channel: Do No Evil Tags: capitalism gift culture gift economy

Judge dismisses home-schooling credentials case

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:14:05 EDT

There was a public outcry over the appellate court ruling, which could affect an estimated 166,000 California children who are home-schooled. The state's Republican governor and Democratic superintendent of public instruction and attorney general all agreed that the judges erred.

Channel: News Tags: california home school home schooling law

White House denied in bid to withhold visitors' names

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:09:09 EDT

Despite the ruling against the White House, public disclosure of visitor logs is by no means assured. The Bush administration still can raise a variety of legal arguments in an attempt to keep the identities of White House visitors secret.

Channel: Politics Tags: bush cheney empire secrecy foia

The Russian-Israeli Mafia: Off-limits to FBI, US intelligence

berkeley — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:20:53 EDT

FBI agents have been hamstrung by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, led by two individuals, Michael Mukasey and Michael Chertoff, whose close links to the Russian-Israeli Mafia in New York and New Jersey have seen case after case involving Russian-Israeli mobsters going un-investigated and virtually ignored.

Channel: Politics Tags: fbi israel russia mob mafia

Thirsty orchards' plight in Central Valley

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:05:33 EDT

Being a farmer in drought-prone California always has been a struggle. This year, natural and man-made water shortages will cost the agriculture industry more than $160 million, along with the reduced plantings for next year and the ripple effect through banks, farming equipment businesses and consumers who could pay even higher prices for food.

Channel: Food Tags: california drought climate change water

McCain's Eligibility Is Disputed by Professor

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:44:37 EDT

In an examination of Senator John McCain's eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain's birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the requirement that the president must be a natural-born citizen.

Channel: News Tags: mccain election law

Voice Seeking Answers for Parents About a School Collapse Is Silenced

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:39:02 EDT

"They've been using this method for a long time," said Zhang Jianping, a contributor to the Web site who has known Mr. Huang since 2005. Nobody knows the grounds for his arrest, but many people have the same idea. Mr. Zhang said, "It may be because the schools collapsed, and so many children died."

Channel: News Tags: china earthquake criminal negligence state secrets

Britons Ponder: Stay In or Quit

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:21:09 EDT

Nearly half of the members of British armed forces regularly think of quitting, according to a major Defense Ministry survey that comes amid concerns that sustained war in Iraq and Afghanistan is hurting morale.

Channel: News Tags: britain iraq war afghanistan armed forces

Sudan Leader To Be Charged With Genocide

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:18:29 EDT

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years.

Channel: News Tags: sudan darfur international law genocide

Saying 'Islamic threat' over and over doesn't make it real

berkeley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:06:35 EDT

Pick up any newspaper today in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, switch on the TV or tune in to any radio station, and you're very likely to get the impression that "our societies" - if not western civilisation in its entirety - face an imminent Islamic threat, on a par with the old dangers of fascism.

Channel: Politics Tags: britain media lies war islam

Marine's graphic interview describes killing of prisoners in Iraq

berkeley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:20:22 EDT

A hearing officer, at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, will recommend to Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland whether the case should go to court martial, be dropped or be handled through an administrative procedure.

Channel: News Tags: marines iraq war murder

Fiorina fights critics on campaign trail

berkeley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:25:31 EDT

But the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard has a new challenge: As a leader of the Republican National Committee's 2008 Victory drive and a chief adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, she's being buffeted by intense criticism that, as a star campaign surrogate, she is playing fast and loose with the facts.

Channel: Politics Tags: mccain election Carly Fiorina

Remembering the Black Power protest

berkeley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:14:12 EDT

Though mention of their names would draw blank expressions from most people, we all owe a great debt to Tommie Smith and John Carlos. The American sprinters made history when they mounted the Olympic victory stand and thrust their clenched, black-gloved fists into the night sky over Mexico City, on October 16 1968.

Channel: Sports Tags: china olympics tommie smith john carlos 1968

Senate Passes Unconstitutional Spying Bill And Grants Sweeping Immunity To Phone Companies

berkeley — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:17:45 EDT

We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans' international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment."

Channel: News Tags: fisa bush congress law democrats aclu telecom immunity 4th amendment privacy 1984