PUTIN'S CHILDREN, ESTONIAN EGRESS, POLONIUM POISON, MPLS BRIDGE COLLAPSE

PUTIN'S CHILDREN Our primo commentary on the creepy Putin Youth organizations made IHT, leading an explosion of coverage of Nashi, et al, at their current neo-fascist summer camp with SU-27 flyovers and visits by both Presidential successors. And other reporters picked up my Putin Youth phrase, so although Saddamnesty failed to catch on (when he released the criminals before the invasion), I may have finally coined a word- 50,000 links now.

International Herald Tribune- Scan July 6 -new from Moscow The Putin Youth groups: Nashi, Young Guard, Young Russia; badger and terrorize anyone who even differs with Kremlin positions; By propagandizing the vulnerable, is the Kremlin poisoning the seed corn of young minds? On June 12th, Russian Independence Day, Red Sq. was reserved for the Party faithful Original

ESTONIAN EGRESS

Having to leave and return before 6 months in one of the nonsensical Russian visa laws, we decamped for beautiful Tallin, 14^th century medieval perfect walking capital of Estonia, which has long fascinated me, since my first girlfriend here, accomplished artist sweetheart Olga in St. Petersburg, was from there. “Michael, you can buy a house in Estonia for $20”, she implored, then in ‘92. My response, “I’ll give you $40, buy me one too”, was unfortunately taken as ridicule when I was serious. The joke was on me, since Estonia was the only CIS country that didn’t have hyperinflation and complete collapse, because they introduced their Kroon (crown, 11.6 EEK /$) quickly, then stabilized and defended it, with Finnish + Swedish help. I could have bought a house then for $100, that now, with prices skyrocketing due to tourism, EU, + NATO membership… would be worth $200-300K. “Ow-ow- home”, as Jenny used to say when I was hurting some part of her. It also was the most free of neo-Soviet theft, which made any long term purchase a 7% crap shoot in Russia.

Tallin is loaded with picturesque children’s toy medieval high castle towers, overlooks, walls, ramparts, and has almost no cars in the gorgeous Old Town, where we spent a week. Moreover, there are no visas, no face control vermin, and everyone loves Americans- I almost forgot what that was like. I didn’t pay for 1 museum or even club admission there. There are a host of young loud Brit drinking tourists, who are now common in the Eastern Block. One guy was talking to me in the chique all white Stereo Lounge and I couldn’t make out one word. “Do you speak Estonian?” No. Russian? No What do you speak? Cockney.

Another item of interest was the huge dustup over the Esties moving a Soviet statue and some graves in the city center (now covered with flowerbeds) that Russia(ns) went ballistic over- inc. violent Tallin riots that injured 200 and killed 1, and a provoked a host of sanctions against Estonia- no more oil- that are still in place. The Russians just held a Finno-Ugric festival- with exactly 3 such countries in the world: Finland, Hungary, and Estonia; guess which one was left out? The Russians are angry about discrimination against the 30% Russian minority, who were largely shipped in after WW2 to Russify the place after the Estonians brief 21 year moment in the sun of freedom between the Wars.

Before WW1 they were dominated by the Russians for 200 years, the Swedes for 150, the Germans, the Danes, the Lithianians/Poles, and Microsoft- in the horrendous great power wars on their territory they were almost annihilated 3 or 4 times- reduced to under 50,000 population (now 1.4 mil). They retained their cultural identity by holding a huge 2 day 40,000 youth Songfest every 4 years since 1880’s, where they all sing in Estonian simultaneously- which incredibly coincidentally took place just when I arrived. I first thought the beautiful native costumes were normal school uniforms and was very impressed, but I had a sleepless hot upper bunk. Train tickets were stiff: $100 for a 1w 450 mile train trip- 15 years ago I went 3500 miles to Irkutsk for 80 cents- I could have flown for the same price, but it was a thrill to buy 50 cent pastries when they are $6 in Mockba. My cabin mate Artur was a Vesti Russ-tonian* Tallin newspaper reporter, who had just returned from 2 week Gov. invited trip where he got to question hoards of top Russian officials. left photo+passport copyright Michael Hammerschlag 2007

There are tensions between the Russians + Estonians, who have instituted a language + history test for citizenship (8% still have Russian citizenship + 8% have a bizarre alien passport- “please allow this creature we disavow entrance into your country”- ET call home; about half the Russian-speakers have Estonian citizenship- they must chose between easy admission into the EU or Russia). The Russians bitch about discrimination in jobs or shops (“true”, says a returning prodigal Estonian restaurant-opening world travelless, “but they are guests in our home who won’t learn or speak our language”); the Estonians complain about thuggish bullying (skateboard kid, “They rob me”, and a college girl- “a guy just punched my friend in the face walking down the street”), and loud or gauche behavior… but truthfully the combination of Scandinavian precision, coolness, and civilization.. and Russian passion, energy, and eroticism makes for good people, and beautiful babes. With the various foreign occupations, deep interbreeding, and commuting Finns across the narrow Gulf, linguo-ethnic identities are an uncertain mélange. “My first language is Russian,” said a 22 year old girl who spoke 4 languages, “my father was Finnish and my mother was Russian, but I am Estonian,” she said proudly.

You get the sense that few Russians here would rather live in Russia, than the incredibly comfortable and friendly Estonia (at least in Tallin). “Russia is better for business,” said Vasily, a cool Russ-tonian who had just returned from St. Petersburg, “but this is my home.” He exulted in the native freedom of his linguistic homeland, though. We were drinking beers on a bench (nelzya here)- a moment earlier a drunk Estonian thug had insanely almost attacked me when I asked for a bottle opener (his girlfriend had restrained him). He swaggered up and demanded a cigarette- Vasily responded in perfect Estonian, “What will you give me?” The eastern parts of Estonia are predominantly Russian: Narva, Kohtla Yarve. Estonia features a startling low 4% unemployment, and first world income of $20,000/yr.

According to a guy who seemed to know, the 20 year old Russian-speaking-citizen Estonian-residing demonstrator, Dmitri Ganin, killed (stabbed) during the April 26-8 Bronze Soldier riots had been smashing windows of a bar with people inside, when the rioters started to prepare Molotov cocktails, patrons inside were armed and counterattacked. This is unsubstantiated though. In the Nashi pictures of him, he looks 14 years old (and maybe is in the picture), he may have just been the smallest or slowest in getting away. The Estonian police arrested 13 people who had supposedly beaten him, but let them all go, saying they couldn’t prove who had killed him. Over 200, including police, were injured and they arrested some 1200 in the week period. In watching maybe 40 minutes of U-tube video, one can’t see a single instance of police brutality that Russians were claiming in fevered rhetoric. Including several Duma members, they also claimed the statue was destroyed and cut up- a lie- it was moved whole to it’s new home, along with the 13 graves of 12 men and one woman. A blogger described the heaviest action.

The Estonians have bitter memories of the 48 year Soviet occupation, when perhaps 70-80,000 were killed (32,000 in just 2 deportations after the Soviets returned after Hitler and Stalin concluded their peace in our time VR-M pact); and their language and culture suppressed. When the Soviets retook Estonia in 1944 against fierce resistance from Estonian brigades (Germans had fled), the whole government and tens of thousands more were “repressed”. In the Museum of the Occupations, the Soviets are the meanies, very little space is given to the Germans (3 year occupation), who were welcomed as liberators. Because of their Aryan complexion, the Estonians suffered far less than almost anyone under the Nazi yoke. This is another grievance of Russians- that the Esties were Nazi sympathizers who had their own SS battalions, and this is true (pic), but so did many other occupied countries. There was a statue of an Estonian SS soldier erected briefly in 2004 by a neo-nazi mayor in an eastern town, but it was taken down by the government within 3 weeks. Not a word on the fate of 950 Jews in that museum, though (99% slaughtered says a Baltic Times piece).

In the directly opposite direction, watching long videos on the Soviet collapse 1986-1991 (liberation) in the Estonian history museum, you can’t help not getting choked up at the monumental inspiring wonder of the geo-political earthquake that was setting them free and their fortitude at wrenching loose - which I’d never really seen from the historical viewpoint of a near satellite (Ukraine was during). The 1989 Songfest and amazing chain of 2 million holding hands throughout the Baltics were instrumental. No people, of course, suffered more under the Soviets than the Russians themselves; which is why their silence at Vlad’s attempts to whitewash history is so disturbing.

The hysterical propaganda campaign against Estonia was appallingly effective: 95% of Westernized sophisticated Russians were convinced the Estonia police were beating innocent protesters, treating ethnic Russians like animals, and had murdered Ganin in cold blood. Just trying to explain what I had discovered to a worldly Ukrainian Moscovite who hosts foreigners and thinks Yanukovich is a thug, descended into a screaming match. Such is the power of blind patriotism, and the chilling ease with which Russians can be manipulated. They have lost the cynicism that once provided immunity from government indoctrination (now maybe 40% of all pronouncements), and are quick to accept the “evil foreigners plotting against Russia” paranoia that is crazy in a wealthy, modern, powerful country. [They mostly believe the laughable “Brits + Berezovsky killed secret agent Litvinenko” story the Kremlin was peddling.] The xenophobia crudely promulgated by the government over the last year could have long lasting malignant consequences.

Returning home on the train, I chatted with 2 obnoxious chauvinistic Estonian girl students on their way to Moscow to study Russian for a month, “Russian girls are slutty,”^Å loudly in a restaurant car with 40% Russians, “don’t worry, I know when to be quiet.” “Don’t touch me,” said the other to my tiny conversational emphasis pats. I hadn’t heard that kind of crap since… oh yeah.. America. They should have a good time in Mother Russia.

*Russ-tonian= Russian speaking Estonian citizen who also speaks Estonian

+ - I did hold hands with some Russian girl at a café table, “What do you do for work?”, I asked innocently. “Sex,” she replied. “Oh… never mind.”

POISONING RUSSIA

The latest from the Litvinenko investigation points squarely at the Russian government. According to London's The Times, the polonium-210 that killed him, is from Sarov (secret nuclear city Arzamas-16), where over 90% of the world’s supply is made. But the clincher is that this stuff is A. about the most lethal substance known to man, with a 50% fatal dose only 50 billionths (nano) of a gram, or 3 million times less than cyanide; and B. perhaps the most expensive- they claim the amount used to dispatch Litvinenko was worth $9 million dollars, significantly more than your average hit- in fact the most expensive assassination ever (scant comfort for Lit). How this squares with it being used in antistatic dust brushes is a mystery. Litvinenko had only one sip of the poisoned tea, which the barman claims he saw one of the men spray something into. A vicious alpha particle emitter used to warm spacecraft electronics and only created in nuclear reactors, it has a half life of 138 days and attacks all the body organs- destroying the liver and spleen. Had they identified it much sooner- chelating agents used to remove heavy metals- mercury, lead, and arsenic, may have saved him.

The supposed assassination plot against Berezovsky (with a strangely incompetent deported hitman with child) is the reason the Brits reacted so strongly with the 4 expulsions of Russian embassy workers. Not only was there powerful evidence of a state sponsored reckless assassination with dangerous nuclear material.. it seemed they weren't finished yet.

MPLS BRIDGE COLLAPSE

The collapse of the 40 year old downtown I-35 W bridge crossing the Mississippi is a shock, since that was my standard crossing East from where I lived by Lake of the Isles there manoga got nazat. 50 cars tumbled 60 ft., many into the water, killing maybe 5. Mpls is one of the most livable and decent cities in America (if you leave 3 months every winter), with sober, fun, decent, smart semi-Scandanavians. It is arctic hell, though, with the entire downtown connected by skybridges and underground passageways so one never has to venture into the bitter howling cold blowing southwest from the Arctic taiga of Canada. In 4 winters in Russia, inc Murmansk- above the Arctic Circle, and far Siberia, I’ve never seen colder temps than 1 winter in Mpls- -25F, -32C. This undoubtedly is the most salient factor, because metal at such cold temps becomes brittle- instead of flexing with the load- it cracks with barely visible hairline cracks. I remember changing a van clutch in -5 to 0 F weather and being very worried that the bolts would snap rather than unscrew. Another huge question is how much Mn used salt over the 40 years to melt ice.

From Google Maps, you can see locks just 200 ft north of the 8 lane bridge, so high variable water flow may have eroded foundations. CNN has the video from a security camera, where you can see the entire roadway portion of the 458 ft superstructureless pierless deck metal truss bridge over the river pancaking flat into the river, the access portion follows a second or 2 later. 140,000 cars a day cross the major river bridge, and it was crowded with crawling bumper to bumper traffic- even looking at the before pics, it's obvious the concrete support pillars look too small and steel connections too spindly.

Crashing into the water in a car is one of the most deadly experiences there is: in crash tests into a canal with divers standing by, even trained underwater people were almost killed by the total disorientation, sealed doors, icy water, blind panic. I used to travel often with scuba gear (till some clown on the Interstate rear ended the trunk where the charged tank was) just in case I came across such a scene- I think of the poor slobs trapped underwater, unable to open or break window. Agonizingly, the water there is only 7-8 feet deep, though the current makes free-swimming recovery hard because you are constantly blown downriver. This could have been much much worse- the shallow water, below bridge framework and horizontal collapse meant the roadway stayed above water, no superstructure came smashing down on the cars, and most cars weren't thrown off or submerged.

There are probably dozens or hundreds of structural failures waiting to happen in US bridges and bldgs are - they are more common in the rest of the world, but there are so so many such objects in America. "As of 2003, there were about 160,570 bridges deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete (like this one was), according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. The number represented 27.1 percent of the nation's bridges." A 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss. The study suggested that the design of bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked.

This is where the $3 trillion of tax breaks for the rich (and $600 billion for Iraq) Bush has issued could have come in handy.

For an altogether more creepy explaination, rent the Richard Gere movie The Mothman Prophecies, a partially true story about a 1967 West Virgina bridge collapse that killed 46.

GONZALES GOING; IRAQ CUTOFF; WOLFOWITZ WAVERING; GULIANI's SLANDER, THE BEST + THE BRIGHTEST, ANTARCTIC TSUNAMIS, PADILLA TRIAL + FT DIX PLOT

MAY 10 After 13 years away, I’ve returned to Russia with the new year, and the changes are staggering. Huge post about Back in the USSR to follow.

GONZALES GOING GOING:
The grilling of Gonzales by the Senate Committee was deeply gratifying, but the truth was, this was one of the worst appointments in history- a total unqualified toady to Bush becoming head cop of America, where every outrageous illegal request from the White House would be dutifully carried out. The Republicans were going to confirm him no matter what in 2005, as he smugly arrogantly deflected all questions with a contemptuous half smile during his confirmation. Now what is so striking, is those same craven Republicans slow roasted him like a shish kabob, having heard the message of the elections and disgusted at their decimation and irrelevance. The head of US law enforcement lied like a rug, saying 71 or so times “I can’t recall”, connected with his Dec. massacre of US attorneys who were prosecuting Republican criminals, or who failed to go after Dems on specious grounds (voter fraud to intimidate Dems). Gonzales lasting claim to be one of the most despicable characters in any government is his authorship of the torture memo justifying the unprecedented violation of International Law, where he argued that to be considered torture, there must be "major organ failure or death". They have given his White House liaison Monica Goodling immunity to get her to testify, but Condi and other leading Bushmen have vowed to ignore subpoenas. Time Contempt of Congress findings start be used. Bush must stick with Alberto no matter what, because if he is driven out, they won’t be able to keep the bodies buried in the wide ranging Constitutional crimes of this administration- in particular the illegal spying controversy, which I know included journalists and Democrats. That finally should send many people to prison. FULL COVERAGE

WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR: Al Sadr sniper
It’s kind of stunning, the wide ranging support for withdrawing the Iraq troops, esp. hearing respected ex-West Point instructor Sen. Jack Reed lead the charge (though still don’t understand how he could brag to me that he coined the phrase The Long War, which I feared would create a self-fulfilling mentality). But make no mistake about it- for our arrogance, recklessness, and incompetence in devastating the heart of the Arab world and Vatican of the Shiite faith, America should be sentenced to police-keeping duties in Iraq for the next 20 years. The only reason America has had enough of this war is because Americans keep dying, not because we reduced a modern society back to the stone age, not because 100 or 400 or 700,000 Iraqis have been killed, not because we allowed the bombs that are shattering their world to all be looted (losing the war in the first 4 months), not because we made US soldiers torturers, not because 2 billion people around the world hate us. No, it just wasn’t fast enough for US sensibilities. Americans are bored and tired with this war, but imagine how tired the Iraqis are, living in that hell on earth. Who in America cares about them?- the threats that “Iraqis get their act together, or else” are laughable if they weren’t so contemptible. Even for US security, we should stay in Iraq, the costs may be less than the horrendous effect of the coming Iraq Civil War, 1000-2000 a day dead instead of 100.

From 9-11 Narcissism: “But escaping Iraq is a no win situation. We can stay forever and maintain the eroding status quo against ever increasing terror, or we can get out- leading to a 10 year civil war that will kill maybe a million (Odom aud) Iraqis, create the unlimited training ground for terrorists that Bush claimed to be stopping, stop the 1.6 million barrels of oil a day coming from Iraq, and destabilize the entire Mideast. Or the swelling civil war will drive us out. Iraq is a jackpot that the ignorant arrogant fools of this Administration bullied, blustered, and badgered us into- without the slightest understanding of the consequences.” We have, in effect, turned the country over to Iran, our most dedicated enemy; and the promulgation of this war will be seen as an act of treason.

Bush can veto this bill, but in 6 months, Congress will have a veto proof majority, and Bush will be utterly neutralized, 7 years too late. If only the Dems had rustled up this fortitude when it mattered in Oct 2002, when I was sure the Senate would toss Bush's Wanton War back in his legacy face. Maybe sooner- 11 Congressman just read Bush the riot act in a WH meeting, "There is no credibility!"

WOLFOWITZ WAVERING: The monstrous PC controversy over Paul Wolfowitz’s corruption because he gave his girlfriend a job is almost laughable- one has a different view of corruption being in Russia. Being the guiding light and motivating force behind the illegal, strategically insane, and (neo-con) religiously inspired invasion of Iraq weren’t enough to prevent the hack’s appointment to the World Bank. For some inexplicable reason, Bush’s reelection and notable vindictiveness perhaps, the Europeans didn’t revolt over that appalling unqualified appointment- now however, the situation is different and everyone wants the neo-nut gone, and his penny ante neo-nepotism is grounds. Maybe next Bush can give him an appointment as head of Federal Prison… Inmates. Wolfy-wish is, incredibly, fighting like a banshee for his job, and has hired Wash. superlawyer Bob Bennett. Not a speck of acknowledgement of guilt in these people, no matter what they’ve done.

THE BEST + THE BRIGHTEST: First it was Boris Yeltsin, the Urals bear, who passed away on April 23, a day that begin with a little blizzard (video) in Moscow. Read my eulogy to a historical giant, who was the only one of his administration I never questioned. Then later, the classy comprehensive journalistic artisan David Halberstam, died in a SF traffic accident after a Berkeley lecture and a dream career. I spent some time with him at an intimate speech at Brown Alumni Club 2-3 years ago, and he was a elegant decent guy, whom I wish I had kept in touch with. I haven’t read much of his vastly diverse voluminous writings, but may remedy that. “Halberstam wrote 15 bestsellers, including "The Best and the Brightest" on the Vietnam War, "Summer of `49" on the 1949 pennant race between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Box and his latest book, "The Education of a Coach" on New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.”

On Friday cello legend, Wash Symphony Dir., and famous dissendent Rostropovich, who returned to Russia in Aug 1991 to play to Yeltsin supporters at the White House and in front of the KGB, died. He was laid to rest Sunday next to his friend Boris in Novodevichy Cemetary.

GIULIANI’s SLANDERS + REPUB ALTS: In a NH speech, Rudy Giuliani, who somehow has become the front runner due to McCain’s “surge” beliefs, took a page from Rove’s book, saying electing Dems would lead to more terrorism:

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued: "But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

The great Keith Olbermann (will Columbia give this guy a Pulitzer already) delivered a long scathing dissection and diatribe against the rank hypocrisy of Giuliani, who mishandled so many things before 9-11 (emergency center in the buildings that were attacked), and after (asbestosis of 70% of ground zero workers).. in what has become a regular event. There is no one to compare Olbermann to but Edward R Murrow- he started these eloquent truth soliloquies when the Bushistas were crushing dissenting voices right and left and US journalism has never seen anything like it: as devastating, powerful, crisp, relentless, and overdue 5-10 minute video commentaries pour tank fire into the crumbling edifice of the House of Bush and the corrupt Republican cabal. America has suffered through a reign of lies and propaganda unparalleled in its history- KO is ripping off the veil and forcing us to see the truth, at long last, with a sense of decency. “How dare you, sir!! This is the language of Bin Laden!!”, KO inveighed against Giuliani.

If you’ve never heard KO’s killer commentaries, you must click on that link. Giuliani is given the inside track on the Repub nomination, but the nation doesn't know how rash, beligerant, and ignorant many of his actions were as mayor- I think there' a good chance he'll self-destruct. Mitt Romney is a scary possibily- as a Mormon, he is crisp, clean, polite, smart, sharp, more than a little facist, and deeply wierd. See the Frontline PBS doc they just did on the Mormons. The most interesting idea yet is a pairing of Chuck Hagel + Mike Bloomberg- unlimited money, limited Iraq guilt, clear talking, Vietnam vet, moderates- they seem to have much going for them. There is that little matter of Hagel's touch screen paperless voting machines (he was president of co.) giving him the biggest margins in Nebraska history from a neck in neck Senate race.

But I am sick with worry that both Hillary and Obama are too radical and discomforting to too many Americans to be elected- the 7 year jihad against the Clintons allienated tens of millions forever and Newsweek's Howard Fineman self-servingly speculated whether Obama would be assasinated. Bill Clinton has finally weighed in with a TV commercial for Hillary. Can you say 2 for 1? If Hillary were elected President for 8 years that would be 36 straight years with a Bush or Clinton in the White House as Prez or Veep, which means we've returned to the ancient idea of a hereditary leader.

MARCH 30 Hot as hell and I'm going to keep taking it + so will you
It’s a brisk 63 degrees today and you didn’t need a coat, jacket, or sweatshirt- warmest winter in Russia in 126 years. Was happy at the sun streaming through the windows when got place, thank god have some defense against cold, I thought. Ha ha. It's already hot with the windows open and heat off. What it will be in June-July don’t know, but the only summer (but this is 4th winter) I spent here in ‘93, the only hot period was 3-4 days in beginning of May, and they were 80-85 degrees. Anyone who lives to 2050 will probably see the deaths of millions by catastrophic tidal waves and sea level jump from the Antarctic ice cap sliding into the ocean. Don’t believe it? Check out this incredible map. (not one pictured) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AntarcticaRockSurface.jpg

Antarctica is about 70% below sea level, which means 1-2 miles of ice is sitting on the OCEAN FLOOR. Inertia tends to keep it there, but salt water penetrating under the liquid shield of melted bottom and top water (several huge lakes under Antarctica, inc the South Pole) will melt it enough, I’m convinced, to break huge chunks of it loose, esp the bulge of West Antarctica (which is 85% below sea level). The Larsen B shelf collapsed in 40 days in 2002, the massive Ross Ice Shelf is 2000 ft thick and the size of Cal.. Imagine the effect of 1½ mile thick 1x100 mile chunk of ice cracking off the continental shelf into the deep ocean- it will make Indonesia tidal wave look like child’s play.. and it would happen over and over for centuries. Over 600 million people live under 33 ft altitude, about half within 100ft altitude. Or maybe the Northern hemisphere should be more worried about Greenland, where warning will be far shorter (1-3 hours)- on the southeast tip, the continental shelf is only 100 miles wide.

Thursday 29 March 2007 Amundsen Sea ice shelves thinning, raising fears of sea level rise.
Houston - A Texas-sized area of Antarctica is thinning and could cause the world’s oceans to rise significantly in the long-term, polar ice experts said in wrapping up a three-day conference. “Surprisingly rapid changes” are occurring in Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment, an ice drainage system that faces the southern Pacific Ocean, the experts said in a statement, adding that more study was needed to determine how fast it was melting and how much it could cause sea levels to rise. The warning came Wednesday at the end of a conference of U.S. and European polar ice experts at the University of Texas in Austin. (Amundsen faces Baja Cal.)

The scientists blamed the melting ice on changing winds around Antarctica that are causing warmer waters to flow beneath the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea. The shelves hold back ice that is grounded on the continent and known as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Should the shelves collapse, grounded ice would start flowing into the sea much more rapidly, raising sea levels. The wind change, they said, appeared to be the result of several factors, including global warming,ozone depletion in the atmosphere and natural variability. The thinning in the two-mile-thick West Antarctic Ice Sheet is being observed mostly from satellites, but it is not known how much ice has been lost because data is difficult to obtain in the remote region, they said.

In an important ratification of my immense global warming article, China is scheduled to bypass USA as the world's greatest greenhouse gas producer by the end of 2007 because of their explosive increase in coal-burning, previously not thought to happen till 2010. If anyone is serious about limiting carbon emmisions they must immediately give China technology to improve the efficiency of their wasteful primitive plants. Thats only possible up to point, each ton of coal burnt creates over 3 tons of CO2!

PADILLA TRIAL OPENS IN MIAMI, FT. DIX JIHADDIS
Famous so called "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla finally goes on trial, 5 years after Ashcroft's hysterical press conference from Moscow announcing his capture. After years of torture (sleep deprivation, stress positions, sensory deprivation) Jose's lawyer claim he is so vegetative that he can't help in his defence. Whatever he's done, US "justice" that could allow such abuses- the destruction of a person without recourse to lawyers, defense, or even formal charges- is on trial with him. Even now, they aren't allowing reporters to ask any questions of anyone, even when the court isn't in session in an unprecedented restriction on the press.

The pizza terrorists planning to attack Ft. Dix seem to be the real deal, judging by their brilliant strategy of mugging and high-fiving their way in court. My father trained there for the Bolshoi Vainya (WW2), but the amazing thing is that this hasn't happened before. George Tenet, under relentless fire for his self-serving but still important book, asked just what I have for several years: "how come some AQ or homegrown cell doesn't walk into the central food court of a big shopping mall, and open fire with machine guns"? They could easily kill hundreds before being taken down.

The only answer, is that Al Qaida, as it was sold, as this immense international hydra.... doesn't exist.

CHAFEE FADING in RI- Bizarre Ad Loses; LIEBERMAN"S LOSS;

CHAFEE FADING in RI- Bizarre Ad Loses Support by Michael Hammerschlag

SENATOR CHAFEE's support vs expected Dem. nominee Sheldon Whitehouse has dropped to a 6 point deficit in the slow steady decline he's suffered since he had a 6 point lead in February. This means Dems are really going to take 1 or 2 houses, so this will be THE DIRTIEST ELECTION IN US HISTORY.

parentheses show earlier polls fm. RIFuture
Sheldon Whitehouse (d) - 44% (46) (42)

Lincoln Chafee (r)- 38% (41) (44)

Chafee hasn't by helped by his right wing pandering to beat extremist Mayor Steven Laffey in the Repub primary. Witness this bizarre Chafee mailing I got, "LAFFEY IS STRADDLING THE FENCE ON IMMIGRATION" excoriating Laffey for not being the real right winger because he:
"said we should recruit illegal labor at the border"
"accepted controversial (Mexican and Guatemalan ID) cards"
"visited the border to sympathize with illegal immigrants"

This is sure going to fly in RI, which has a massive immigrant pop, both new- Hmong, Liberian, Guatemalan, Cambodian; and older unabsorbed- Italian, Portuguese, French (maybe 70% immigrant total pop in last 70 years).. and always had a welcoming open arms position towards immigrants, since the Indians welcomed Roger Williams (under death sentence from fundamentalist Pilgrims). They would of course, be sorry 40 years later when they were annihilated in one of the first Indian genocides-The Great Swamp Massacre.

I can't think of a single anti-immigrant rally or position anyone has ever taken in this state. Laffey is widely considered a clown, and runs 30 points behind Whitehouse. So what explains this insane ad, sure to alienate virtually everyone, and Linc's paranoia about a marginal challenger. Simple- Sheldon has someone writing Chafee's ads.

---------------------------------

LIEBERMAN"S LOSS

Lamont's win is great, and the flipping of every Dem towards his side amazing, but I don't think at all it's a done deal. He only won by 4 points in a mid-summer primary, which draws a more liberal crowd, and Joltin Joe hasn't left and gone away- he can be assured of 10-15% more of the state from the 40% Republicans (most of whom are moderates), since the Repub nominee, Alan Schlesinger, is supposedly a nobody.

From Hartford Courant: "A Quinnipiac University poll released in July showed that 51 percent of likely voters would support Lieberman in a three-way race. That's compared with 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for Schlesinger, an attorney who was formerly a lawmaker and mayor. Though having both Lieberman and Lamont on the ballot could split the Democratic vote, Schlesinger is not considered a major threat. His campaign stumbled in July after revelations that he used a fake name to gamble at a Connecticut casino and had been sued over gambling debts at two New Jersey casinos."

It's still an uphill battle for Lamont, though the Dem's pressure, and the media ridicule has to have taken a heavy toll on the Joe-mentum. We should see a wholesale flight of Dems and Repubs from Bush and all of his sick positions- including beating him down on some votes to "show their independence". It may mean the Rovian "cut and run" and "weak on Nat. Security" slanders just won't fly. This will depend on the Dem's having the courage to call the Repub liars and fools, and hammer the strategic criminality of invading Iraq.

I've long had a beef with Joe, since he came out with the stunning self-serving attack on Clinton during the pre-impeachment in July? 1998 that came a hair from causing the wholesale flight of Dems and Clinton's destruction. "I am the voice of morality", Joe intoned, as he did just after he became the Veep candidate. We helped save Clinton in an org I started a week or so after Move-On that hand delivered petition-letters-argument books to 22 Repub Senators in Jan-Feb 99. I think we swayed maybe 3 Senators into voting against conviction, (and also did one of the very first blogs).

KOS SLAMS CHAFEE-Interview, ABRAMOFF TIED TO MOB HIT, WHO KILLED ELECTRIC CAR?, ELECTION STOLEN-RFK, JPL GUY-TITAN LANDING, WHY NEW OMEN

CALIFORNIA ENERGY RIPOFF WASN'T JUST CRIME, BUT TERRORISM- new 6 power companies, led by Enron, by manipulating power production, raised rates up to 90 fold; CAL paid in one day what it had been paying in 3 months; Used this vast scam to punish Gore voting state (+12%) and depose Dem governor; secret Cheney Energy Task Force likely plotted Iraq war - Bartcop, Buzzflash

(DAILY) KOS Speaks- Markos Moulitsas Slams Chafee- Interview

Providence, RI REALAUDIO - 9 min WINDOWS MEDIA
Markos Moulitsas, proprietor of Daily Kos, the most popular liberal blog web site, came to Providence May 22. The famous blogger, who looks like John Cryer, was promoting his book, Crashing the Gate (about how to effect progressive change with the Internet), with coauthor Jerome Armstrong, who hosts MY DD and helped set up Howard Dean's Internet operation that was emulated by Kerry and others. I saw him at Trinity Brew House, along with almost every top Dem political campaign assistant for the various RI campaigns. Daily Kos Site costs $4000 a month to maintain, about $50K a year to handle 1/2-1 million hits a day, though ad income may defray that.

He slammed Senator Lincoln Chafee on his enabling of the Republican agenda, "They want to destroy everything we stand for. NARAL, NOW, League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club pretend that Lincoln Chafee isn't the corrosive influence he is on their interests. He confirms every single one of George Bush's judges, and the ones that he didn't vote to confirm, like Sam Alito, he voted for cloture, so the vote that would matter, he voted the wrong way. He's enabling the judges who are going to make war on progressivism for the next 30 to 50 years on the federal bench.* There is no such thing, in today's landscape, as a moderate Republican, who may be an alright guy. His good votes have all been meaningless, and the one that could have mattered, he voted the wrong way." MORE

ABRAMOFF PAL TIED TO MOB MURDER
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A man who purchased SunCruz Casinos with lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2000 has told authorities he knows who killed the casino's founder the following year, according to a report published Friday.

Adam Kidan told authorities in a 2 1/2-hour interview last month that John Gurino, who was later killed by a business partner, shot SunCruz founder Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis in 2001, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The paper did not say how it obtained the taped interview.

Of course he knows who killed him, since he was probably responsible. After Florida forced Boulis to sell because suddenly non-citizens couldn't own a cruise ship line, Abramoff and Kidan "bought" the line by forging a $23 million wire transfer on a closed account and using borrowed "flash" funds- they invested nothing. When an enraged Boulis confronted Kidan about the $147 million fraud, there was a fight.. and a few weeks later he was dead, shot in his car in a mob hit. The MSM has been startling silent about the fact that this giant pal of Bush and every top Republican, not just stole hundreds of millions, but killed people who protested. MORE

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR
Check out the NOW tragic tale of auto companies' contempt at regulation by crushing and destroying almost all electric cars (GM EV1 was beautiful) when they finally beat CA 100% non-polluting regulation in 2002. Another long story has the semi-scam of biofuel alcohol co- from corn supposedly only 13% less polluting than gasoline because of the oil and coal used in producing, fertilizing, harvesting, and distilling it... and how ADM is getting huge payoffs- another crummy technology that is pushed to payoff the corporation rather than fix the problem.

This week, NOW talks to director Chris Paine about his upcoming documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The film looks at the hopeful birth and untimely death of the electric car, an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving salvation to some, but a profit barrier to others.In a film that has all the elements of a murder mystery, Paine points the finger at car companies, the oil industry, bad ad campaigns, consumer wariness, and a lack of commitment from the U.S. government."[The film] is about why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil. And for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure electric car," Paine said.

2004 Election Stolen?- RFK Rolling Stone SALON dubious CRITIQUE

Kennedy overreached but Manjoo seems prof. debunker- My LETTER to SALON

I broke the first comprehensive story on the media mistakes in the 2000 election ("WHOOPS"- How the Networks Got it Wrong- PROBLEM POLLING POLICY - Intellectual Capital- 11/25/00 MediaChannel 12/26/00 http://members.surfbest.net/mikehammer/whoops.htm ), an account of the most blatant fraud of 2000 Florida (SAMPLE BALLOT DECEPTIVE, DIFFERENT- Dems denied hand count in Duval Co.), and huge story on the Congressional Investigation (NETWORK NEWS HEADS IN THE DOCK - Tauzin Hearings Confused by Red Herrings, Election Woes) and there is absolutely no question that Al Gore won Florida by 20,000-40,000 votes had the 10-15 cases of illegal and unethical Republican tampering been reversed. But, it is very dangerous to project definitive allegations of fraud and supposed proper results on the basis of polls, exit or any other. Polls can be spectacularly wrong, as they were sometimes in 2000, and obviously in 2004. Yet the instant Stalinistic “correction” of Mitofsky’s poll numbers was deeply creepy and troubling. It could have been an embarrassed pollster trying to correct gross error (but way too fast) or something much much more insidious- the widespread media tendency to manicure the facts to avoid embarrassing or exposing Bush’s illegitimacy (like the invisible 2000 Inauguration protests, except on CSPAN).

I read Kennedy’s piece hopefully, like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, but thought there were some flaws in his methodology and nothing really new or any smoking gun. I think his contention that Kerry was way ahead in all the exit polls, beyond the margin of error, isn't correct. That said, I believe in his integrity and good faith, and think his rebuttal of Manjoo was persuasive. Manjoo makes some good points, but shows his bias in the extraordinary statement that voters who gave-up were evenly split between Dem and Repub. MORE

MASSACRES INEVITABLE WHEN ATORNEY GENERAL ENDORSES THEM

Massacres are inevitable with AG who says anything short of death or major organ failure isn't torture, only a handful are slapped on the wrist for Abu Ghraib or Afghan prisoner killings, and soldiers blast unknown cars on the "principle" that it might be a terrorist. Almost every time troops riddled a car of innocents, it was a war crime. When you hear one of the Canada deserters say, "Hey, I'm a hero- I did crazy stuff over there... but they wanted me to shoot women and children,", he is talking about these roadside ambushes. One reporter said US soldiers were hiding invisibly by the road while they were shooting up their car. (below)

HIGHWAYMEN SOLDIERS + TRIAL BY FIRE http://hammernews.blogspot.com/2005/08/trial-by-fire-gaza-gazing-admin.html

Why New OMEN when old one was a classic? - My IMDB review from seeing the original world premiere in LA.
Why do the brainless dopes remake even crummy movies like The Poseidon Adventure (3rd try)when there are so many great untold stories?

JPL's Torrence Johnson on TiTAN landing (realaudio) 4-27-06 Brown U
TITAN LANDING MOVIE - spectacular high resolution movies of landing on the only Earthlike pressure world in the Solar System- 80-153 meg; Took them 4 months to make this, putting together stills in a seamless movie where Titan expands from a dot to the perilous deceleration and descent through the thick (1.5 Earth) frigid neg 180C clouds to landing in the dark empty basin of a methane sea! Seriously nobody has ever done anything like this in any other landing (Mars, Venus, Moon) and it will knock your socks off.
CLOUD WORLD: MISSION to TITAN- Jan 14 the 11 year $3 billion Cassini mission to Saturn, successfully dropped a landing probe into the most earthlike atmosphere in the Solar System, Titan. Bigger than planets Mercury or Pluto, it has a nitrogen atmosphere 1.5 X Earth’s pressure and 4½X as dense. But it is a bitter –178ºC, leading to speculation of lakes, oceans, and volcanoes of liquid methane- photos seem to show that (inc.); w interview of Huygens scientist ESA, Germany- SCOOP (NZ), MSN-UK



SARAH WEDDINGTON (realaudio) new Winner of Roe vs. Wade case discusses Supreme Court cases and changes, historic struggle on abortion; Former Tx Congresswoman- Brown U., Salomon Hall 4:15 min- WINMEDIA March 14 BIO

After viewing a 15 part ProvJournal series on RI Revolutionary hero Nathanael Greene, the greatest General after Washington, I was inspired to view his homestead in Coventry. To honor the sacrifices of these founding fathers, a chump legislator in Coventry and another proposed a bill that lets State and local police demand internet, phone, and bank records at their whim, worse than anything ever tried by the feds. Time to bring back tarring and feathering.
Bill opens access to Internet records

Critics say the meaures, sought by the state police and currently before the General Assembly, would also give the authorities warrantless access to subscribers local and long-distance phone records as well.

04:03 PM EDT on Monday, June 12, 200 BY BRUCE LANDIS

PROVIDENCE -- The General Assembly is close to giving the police the right to obtain any Rhode Islander's Internet and "local and long-distance telephone connection records," along with credit card and bank information, without a warrant or other court review.

Lawyers familiar with that area of law say the police would be able to get the records of any person's phone calls without a warrant, including who was called, when and for how long.

React to the bill to allow police access to your Internet records without a warrant
The state police deny that, saying they only want warrantless access to Internet-session records and the identity of persons using the Internet. The critics, however, say the measures would give Rhode Island police the same information that some of the nation's biggest telephone companies have been accused of illegally giving to the National Security Agency. The difference, according to Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, is that the state bills would make it legal. Either way, the legislation would dramatically expand the ability of the police to obtain information about private communications without review by a court. The critics say the bill includes no standards the police would need to get the customers' information other than the assertion by a chief of police that the information "is necessary for an investigation."

KING BUSH IGNORES LAWS, GAS FLOATS UP, PORTER DROSS FIRED, COLBERT EVISERATES BUSH, IMMIGRANT UPRISING, ENVIROS ENDORSE CHAFEE, KING MUSABI

HAMMERNEWS

SELF STYLED KING BUSH IGNORES LAWS

In an incredible story in Boston Globe , Bush has arrogated to himself the power to ignore any provisions of any law he wants by adding “signing statements” that just reverse them, and did so with
“750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.”

This guy is simply a criminal and needs to be impeached- now he’s messing with the Constitution directly- imperially taking actions no President has ever dared. He has never vetoed a law- he just voids it with these statements. Other Presidents have made these signing statements, but more as a real legal opinion of what a law meant and what action they would take. Bush just decides to flout anything he doesn’t like. This is as or more impeachable than the Iraq War lies.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over ''the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.
''Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional," Golove said. Golove said that to the extent Bush is interpreting the Constitution in defiance of the Supreme Court's precedents, he threatens to ''overturn the existing structures of constitutional law." A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ''disappear." which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy,"
Bruce Fein, deputy AG under Reagan, said. ''There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/?page=full


SPY GAME- More Phone Tag

And right in keeping with the previous story, Bush's NSA has been collecting all records of calls made in US for years due to the craven cooperation of the phone cos (with the laudable exception of Quest). Billions of records, though the phonecos, realizing their infinite liabilty (hundred billion $) to lawsuits already filed, are now saying, "never happened". Sure, but Bush didn't deny it. They can instantly obtain such records for suspect phones- the only reason to have everyones' calls is to punish their critics- journalists, Dems, anti-war activists without anyone knowing. The next shoe to drop, is that of course they were bugging all these critics for years, what I said in Jan. THIS is now the third impeachable crime Bush has commited, with the Iraq War lies, and the unconstitutional signing statements. When that last shoe drops, even the money grubbing Repub hacks in Congress will have to entertain serious punishment, and if Dems take a Chamber- Bush is cooked.

GAS FLOATS OUT OF SIGHT

See how spot on we were at the start of my brilliant career: ---"We must acknowledge that the age of oil is over or very soon (20-30 years) will be. Oil is the raw material for nearly all of our organic chemicals, plastics, and drugs; and a future world may look back with incredulity at our stupidity, 'They just burned it….for heat.'" - Energy for the Long Run 1980

And it could get much worse. Once Iraq descends into full Civil War, whichever side doesn’t have control will destroy the pipelines, soon bringing production to a halt (1.7 million barrels a day); if we attack Iran, they may cut production by half for a while, and Chinese and Indian demands are going up 3-9% a year for as far as the eye can see. $5 a gallon within the year is quite possible, at which point the entire framework of business, transportation, travel will break down. It will be uneconomical to ship things thousands of miles for purchase without huge premiums. Chilean fruits in Jan will disappear, along with 20-40 percent of all businesses that rely on cheap oil. Can you say earthquake?

Bush hasn't a clue on what to do with the energy crisis (more tax breaks?). An immediate campaign for conservation could quickly cut our oil usage 8%, and partially relieve it, because we use so much oil that a 2% drop in demand immediately lowers prices. He abolished CAFÉ mileage standards that were in place through 6 Presidents and 3 decades- the little Texas tumbleweed turd- now he's calling for it again, but it would take 5 years to have any effect. Mind you, some of this is happening-natural conservation from price shocks- so prices may drop from the expanded pumping to tap these insane prices- but every such jump has led to recession. A friend getting a doctorate in "peak oil" says there is still 25-35 years before the peak oil production is reached, after which, according to THE END of OIL by Robert , it will plateau for a decade or so, then fall off rapidly.

In Asia Times The US's geopolitical nightmare explains how Bush's clumsy, stupid, and goonish behavior has turned the entire oil world against us: Iran, Bolivia (coca-Prez just nationalized oil fields), Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, even Saudi Arabia is forming oil alliances with the Russians and Chinese against us. The Shangai Cooperative Org., Russia and China and four former Soviet Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are a month from offering full membership to Iran. This is the backdrop where Cheney just warned Russia about bullying oil neighbors in advance of G8 meeting in Mockba.

We believe the solution is a 20% excess profits tax on oil co. over last year and a half, take the 25-30 billion and fund a electric car contest, with prizes 17 and 10 billion going to the best US design that meets criteria. It would rejuvinate the dying US car industry, alleviate the crush on oil (because only ~12% of power plants use oil), vastly cut pollution and CO2 emmisions (central power plants make 10x less polution compared to separate internal combustion cars), cost 1/5th of gasoline prices (with '98 electric technology at $3/gal). Vote on my proposal in MoveOn. http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=266

PORTER DROSS FIRED

Detested political hack CIA director Goss was finally canned, but not before he forced out the top 5 people of the agency and much of the Middle East division, hundreds of man-years of expertise wasted because these contemptible fools decided to punish everyone that opposed the Iraq War. Think about this. Even as it was proven to be an unmitigated disaster to all but the most obsessive Bush-lovers, the Administration was purging everyone with the wisdom to realize that (some of whom leaked the torture, incompetence, and corruption scandals), crippling our ability to monitor and deal with the terrorist threat. It’s surprising that Goss wasn’t removed with prejudice, because his partisan criminality leaves us much more defenseless to Al Qaida. The final straw was when one of his appointees Foggo (who just quit), carrying on a personal vendetta against those who had slighted him when he was an agent, was tied to Abramoff + Co.

Hayden looks good at first blush, but this is the guy that already defended Bush's illegal spying, and it is a huge jump towards the militarization of the American government to appoint a Pentagon man to head a civilian agency. --With Hayden’s installation, active duty or retired military officers would run all the major spy agencies as well as the intelligence hub, the National Counterterrorism Center. -- The crazy neocons have already poisoned our foreign policy and military standards in torture and ethics- all we need is a yes-man general to run the nation's secret agent men. Opposing the Bush appointments are some Republicans, but don't expect them to actually do more than tsk tsk questioning in hearings.

Meanwhile, the world is waiting for Rove to be indicted by the new Grand Jury, for if the smear-meister in chief is removed from the equation, the Dems have a chance. Jason Leopold says it's coming, or has happened, or is in the cards, or wind. The fat slug may have gone 10 times too many to the well of fear, hate, and divisiveness.

COLBERT EVISERATES BUSH
Stephen Colbert destroyed Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner to his face in the most couragous slams ever of the chump chimp. This guy is the new brilliant, sly, ironic host of The Colbert Show, that takes more risks and scores more than any comedy show in memory. He's gone from the doppy Mr. Goodwrench to torturing the President of the US in front of TV audience of millions in only a year. Somehow, these people didn't understand Colbert's faux Republicanism was a sly sarcastic slam and that he was the most dangerous man in America to GB2. Dana Millbank, Richard Cohen, and many others weighed in how Colbert wasn't funny, was rude, a bully (blah, blah), while E+P's Greg Mitchell did a scathing piece about Bush's Correspondents dinner 2 years ago where he peered under the table looking for those pesky missing WMD's. A riot. Read my letters to Cohen, Olbermann on it. FULL TEXT COLBERT SPEECH (must see)
VIDEO http://youtube.com/watch?v=8FBDPCyiFqY&search=colbert%2Bbush%2B%22white%20house%20correspondent%22

TO BE or NOT TO BE (HERE)

The Immigrant uprising in mass demonstrations brings a welter of conflicting feelings. As the first member of my family born in America, a have great sympathy for immigrants and the welcome America provides. INS (or whatever they’ve become) has always been the most insanely arbitrary agency, pursuing multiple opposite objectives simultaneously. Whether an immigrant is allowed to enter the land of plenty, or sent back to be tortured or killed or simply live in poverty deeper than most Americans can imagine, depends entirely on the whims of interviewing agents. Get a nice one and you have a future, come the next day and you get the back of a hand. And the deportations of 20 year legal residents because they had some old minor criminal conviction were senseless and cruel. They are so tough on people visiting America, that the ratio of foreign College students coming to study here vs China has changed from 4 to 1 before 9-11 to 1 to 4 the other way! Sure, let the bright people of the world absorb Chinese values. A young friend in Moscow who had married a Russian girl was delayed over a year in getting her into the US- she was an “immigration risk”, whereas if she had come as a tourist and married here, there would have been no problem. No, she was a wife. Now they are trying to appease the right with a few random publicized roundups, even as Halliburton is shipping in thousands of semi-slaves for hurricane repair.

But on the other hand, illegals have no “right” to be here, and their public protest was amazing. The reason they do the crummy jobs is because they are illegal. If the 11 million here were legalized they would bring 20-25 million of their family over, and we would need 11 million more illegals. One report has half of Mexico willing to come here if they could, and why should Mexicans and Central Americans be able to flood US at will, when all the millions of other Asians, Africans, et al, can’t. Now New Orleans is losing it’s funky polyglot gumbo character as the masses of imported Mexicans working for the huge Repub contractors threaten to turn the Big Easy into just another Hispanioland SW city. Miami is already that- if you don’t know Spanish, you can’t talk to or understand half the people- I went into government offices where the clerks couldn’t speak English. The illegal influx is an absolute crush in eastern Arizona (420k a year-40% of total illegals), where a wild buddy who fled from there has described the prolific drug, smuggling, and coyote murders in the sparsely populated desert area.

We sympathize somewhat with the nativist alarms of Lou Dobbs, but they are straying into Bill O’Liely demagoguery- he’s discovered the ratings potential of extremism. Even the goonish Sensenbrenner has had to admit that deporting 11 million people is impossible. But for a flip side true nightmarish scenario to the many successful productive immigrant ones, read this post from Salon.

SIERRA CLUB, ENVIROS ENDORSE CHAFEE

Would you vote for Martin Luther King if he belonged to the Nazi Party?
I exaggerate, but that's somewhat the case here. I like the diffident legacy- I first told him Wellstone had died at a conference. Chafee is a nice guy and taken some good positions (only Repub against the war), but his support of and position in the Repub Party allows them to wage their vicious Neanderthal campaign against all things sacred, esp. the environment. If greens want anything but the scraps off Exxon's plate, they must help Dems take back America. And Dem Sheldon Whitehouse actually has consistently and extensively battled for the environment. Chafee has done figurative acts like voting against a candidate or position when it doesn’t matter, but in many things, when he had the swing vote and could actually stop bad candidates or legislation in committee, he rolled over and sided with the Administration (80% of time). He strangely believes that the President has a right for a full Senate vote on any candidate, no mater how execrable.

RI Dems have the option of voting for right wing Repub challenger Steven Laffey in the primary, who would almost certainly be crushed by the porpoise faced* former AG 51-32%, but that requires further study. Deadline for Dems becoming unaffiliated (to vote in Repub primary) is June 14. Whitehouse is taking no position on the semi-subversive diddling. Sheldon was in my Dean group, back when we were planning to run the world, and is a good egg. *benign, likable

Meanwhile, huge solid methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the ocean were once released 55 million years ago (methane is much more potent greenhouse gas: 8-23 times stronger than CO2), raising temperatures 15-20 degrees over today (North America was a tropical jungle, redwoods grew to the top of Greenland, and one could swim at the North Pole), caused a mass global extinction where 40% of oceans microfauna died, the ocean was heated from top to bottom and acidified from CO2 6-8 times higher (methane breaks down into CO2), and ocean currents reversed). [On the plus side, the huge primitive mammals- shrews the size of horses- died out and small ones developed that became dogs, horses, sheep, and primates-us.] This could happen again if temps get raised enough, because only thing keeping methane solid is extreme cold and pressure. So again, we are talking the fate of the earth and our endless capacity to alter it.
http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/0301/warm/index.html Eocine Age warming 55 mil years ago

KING MOUSABI

(line from Tonto in The Lone Ranger) Zacarias Moussaoui may have successfully pulled a triple cross, acting so heedless, so contemptuous, so fervent that he just had to be crazy. Nobody could be that heedless of his fate- of the risk of being executed unless he was A. Crazy, or B. wanted to die... so he could get 72 virgins (great cartoon shows 72 vermin as Zakarias enters the cell). Either way, if he wants to die, by gum, we won’t give it to him. Which maybe is what he really wanted. Still, there were some chilling grains of truth to his hate filled eloquent denunciations of our little Union, that should give us pause.

Now, he says it was all a mistake (he thought he was on Jerry Springer), and he wants to plead innocent. He was surprised Americans were so fair, and didn't have him executed. Zippo chance, Zak.

THE LAST DAYS of the FISHERIES, CORAL CATASTROPHE , DIMMING the SUN, HU'S ON FIRST

The Last Days of the Ocean
VERY IMPORTANT HUGE SERIES (below) about the widespread destruction of ocean's fisheries in MOTHER JONES this month- worth buying issue though it's all online. Essentially we've wiped out the base algae eating fish that all other carnivorous fish eat- the oily foot-long menhaden (so thick when white man came that the ocean was carpeted by square miles of them that would stop the boats ("net loses" below). So the cod is gone, the swordfish almost gone, and most other Atlantic food fish badly hurting cause we cut off an essential rung of the food ladder at the bottom. Despite ever more boats and more countries, fish catch has been declining since 2000.

The only place menahaden still exist is Chesapeake Bay, but millions of tons are taken from there because it's the only place still legal. Now the nightmare protozoa/plant/parasite/ pfiesteria has infested almost all the striped bass in the Chesapeake, causing instant disintegration, open sores, like salmon after they spawn. (doesn't connect them in story-says due to hunger stress, but this is classic symptom of pfiesteria). Read a book in 97-98 about this almost space-alien like odd creature, created by the giant factory pig-farm shit ponds dumping into North Carolina estuaries, which causes Alzheimer's like memory loss and brain damage when people get hit with it swimming. The NC State U scientist Joann Bulkholder, who wrote the book (can't find it, but here's another), had a level 4 containment lab set up to analyze it (and had to struggle for 5 years to prove it, because the bizarre organism has 24 life stages and will also go quiescent for 2 years at bottom of river-bay), but the workmen put the air pumps in wrong and they were all contaminated and suffered lasting brain damage. The creature emits toxins so powerful it stuns or immobilizes the fish, then infests it and vampire-like consumes them. Now this nightmare is wiping everything out in Chesapeake in mass fish kills, the most fecund and productive bay on the planet, once largest oyster source (that's gone). First article is main ten page piece- Fate of Oceans.

The eskimoes of northern Greenland and Canada are so contaminated by man-made poisons (mercury, PCB, DDT, pesticides, brominated + chlorinated hydrocarbons) concentrated by the seals, whales, and fish they eat at 10-30 times above the safe limit- that the mother's breast milk is considered toxic to their children and has 20-50 times the level of a major city dweller. "Only 10 percent of all large fish (tuna, swordfish, marlin) and groundfish (cod, halibut, skate, and flounder) are left anywhere in the ocean. Fishing fleets kill an estimated 100 million sharks per year across the globe. In the Gulf of Mexico, the number of oceanic whitetip sharks has plunged 99 percent since the 1950s."

"But long before Katrina, the Gulf had become one of the world’s most polluted marine ecosystems, with mercury loads among the highest ever recorded, including levels in blue marlin 30 times above what the EPA deems safe."" Equally alarming, a sizable portion of the Gulf is so biologically dysfunctional on a seasonal basis that it’s known as a dead zone—the largest such area in the United States and the second largest on the planet, measuring nearly 8,000 square miles in 2001, an area larger than New Jersey. As these fertilizer-generated plankton die and settle to the bottom, they fuel a bloom of bacterial decomposers, which consume all the available oxygen in the water. The resulting condition is known as hypoxia —an annual summertime event in the warming waters of the Gulf since the 1970s. For sea life, it’s as if all the air were suddenly sucked out of the world. Close to 50 hypoxic zones fester on the coasts of the continental United States, affecting half of all our estuaries. The situation is worse in Europe, with 14 persistent dead zones that never go away, and almost 40 others occurring annually"

RI's Narragansett Bay suffered such a fate in 2001 when polluted runoff from storms massively poisoned the bay, causing a stinking millions-large fish kill in Greenwich Bay. The effects were much more long lasting- 4 1/2 billion mussels, in massive mid bay reefs were killed, enough that they could filter the entire Bay water in 20 days. The required time is 4-5 times longer now. They are building a huge 3 mile tunnel under Providence to hold storm/sewer runoff till it can be treated so these horrors don't happen again.

Meanwhile 1/3 of the coral around US Virgin Is. and Puerto Rico has died in last 4 months from warming and parasites(?), coral there to greet Columbus bleached bright white in the visual evidence of the devastation sweeping the oceans (Great Barrier has similar thing- apparently coral is very sensitive to temp. rises. big TIME warming series) . Part article below.

The Last Days of the Ocean
News: We're Pushing Our Seas to the Brink. Can They be Saved? A Mother Jones special report.

The Fate of the Ocean By Julia WhittyAssaulted by pollution, overfishing, climate change, trash, and noise, our oceans are approaching a point of no return. The health of the world they feed and protect won't be far behind. P L U S : Whales hit the beaches Polar bears face extinction

The Catch By Michael W. RobbinsIf America's fisheries are regulated, how can they be overfished? Because the regulators and the fishermen are one and the same.P L U S :Video: Mike Robbins talks fishery reform on
The ocean's top enemies A field guide to failing fish

Net Losses By H. Bruce Franklin How a football tycoon took George H. W. Bush's oil company and used it to declare war on the fish that built America.
Navigating the Catch of the Day By Daniel DuaneOverfishing...mercury...but they taste so good! How to eat fish
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Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death Mar 30, 10:17 PM (ET)By SETH BORENSTEIN

(AP) This Oct. 2005 photo provided by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows a...Full Image
WASHINGTON (AP) - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.
Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.
"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."
Some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime a year, Miller said.

(AP) Graphic shows weeks of water heating for coral reef bleaching; two sizes: (AP Graphic) Full Image Coral reefs are the basis for a
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DIMMING the SUN- PBS NOVA show

A very important NOVA aired April 19th that pretty much proved that high altitude air pollution has blocked about 10% of the sunlight we normally would be receiving over the last 60 years. Most potent are the jet contrails that deposit particles that circulate in the low stratosphere for months, which they discovered in the 3 days after 9-11 when planes were grounded. The temps across the US went up 2 degrees F just from that. A more intensive analysis of world weather since about 1920 shows that that is roughly the amount that pollution is reducing the temperature (2-2 1/2 deg F) all over the world, about as much as it's gone up in the last 100 years. In fact the cooling is over half that of the total global heating, 54%, which means the real global warming (if the cooling were stopped from cleaning up pollution) is over twice what we see.

This finally explains why the temperature rises were so much smaller than expected, and showcases the extraordinary risk if this cooling were quickly stopped (from massive plane groundings from bankruptcies or gas prices or war). In fact, if this effect ceased we would be dealing with 50 million year hothouse effects, 5F rise by 2050, from 9-18F (5-10C) rise by the end of the century, enough to melt the ice caps and totally change the ecology of earth. Luckily the Chinese and Indians and US will continue to burn growing immense amounts of coal, feeding the dimming effect, but also the warming effect. They also mentioned my point that methane, stored in millions of tons at the bottom of the oceans, is an 8 times more powerful global warming gas (and could be vastly set free from the rotting biomass in the melting tundra and in the oceans); and nitrogen oxides from every car are 3-4 times more potent. So electric cars would prevent global warming and ease the oil crunch in 3 different ways. Particulate pollution also cools by providing seed points for water droplets, which form in greater number and smaller size, thereby making clouds more reflective than with larger droplets.

Nice to see that evil civilization does provide competing forces to deleterious change, but still this is a breathtaking development in climate science, and worrying because pollution has been stabilized or is dropping in the last ten years, which could cause quick large warming effects.
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HU's on FIRST

For a pants pissing funny take on (audio) the Who's On First routine check out Harry Shearer from his Le Show NPR-web radio show. This has a conversation between Bush and Ahnold about Who (Hu Jintao), and When (Ho Lee), and (Michelle) We; and honestly believe it's better than the Lewis + Costello original (and not just saying that since he gave me a plug on his Huffington Post Blog). It's the sputtering Schwartznegger that does it. Shearer has been doing primo comedy for decades, inc. the Spinal Tap movie, several seasons on Sat. Night Live, and the voices of Mr. Burns, his assistant Smithers, Flanders, Skinner, and many others on The Simpsons, now the most successful comedy, or TV SHOW in history- 16 seasons and still going strong in 90 countries (made that up but sounds good). Met Hairy at a showing of his latest movie, and the crowd swooned when he started doing those voices. Here's another written take on Hu's on First.

Less funny is the Bush clowns charging that screeching Falun Gong journalist with "threatening/intimidating/coercing/harrassing a foreign leader" felony.. or as we used to call it, legitimate protest. They have to do this because they so humiliated the dictator by only giving him an offical visit, not a state one; calling it the Republic of China, which is Taiwan, and dragging him off like an errant steer (Hu looked at Bush's hand on his sleeve like he wanted to pop him). She wrote for the Epoch Times, which is a very professionally produced foreign affairs/environmental mag funded by Sun Yung Moon? with Falun Gong connections. Only have seen it in the laundry, though.

MORASS MELTDOWN, DUPING DUBAIYA, PATRIOT COWARDS, CHERKOFF COMEUPPANCE, DEATH of a CITY, CARTOON VIOLENCE, IMPEACHMENT TALK, DESTROYING the INTERNET

MORASS MELTDOWN, DUPING DUBAIYA, PATRIOT COWARDS, CHERKOFF COMEUPPANCE, DEATH of a CITY, CARTOON VIOLENCE, IMPEACHMENT TALK, DESTROYING THE INTERNET, SAT SAPS

MORASS MELTDOWN
As we predicted in OVER THERE, ---"I fear that Sunni disenfranchisement will lead to a civil war. As the Shiites take control, they are likely to react in savage fashion to the Sunni terrorism, especially when they go after the Shiite Mullahs and mosques." After the destruction of the Golden Dome, about 600 people were killed and 200 Sunni mosques burned. They recovered from this attack, but the next one or the one after that will probably start the long-delayed conflagration.- the Civil War that so many have been forecasting as the almost inevitable result of their “freedom”. On March 3rd, there again was a total daytime curfew in response to rumors of a mass attack. The latest spate of kidnap murders by strangulation seems to be from Shiite police/military on suspected insurgents (or just Sunnis). March 14: "Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses - men shot to death execution-style - as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare." The Shiite Ashura pilgramages now will provide more opportunities for terrorist spectaculars- over 60 a day are dying now. Things were almost much worse. "A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot." March 27- US/Iraqi forces attacked a Moqtada kidnapping squad and killed 17 in a Shiite neo-mosque, so now we are fighting a 2 front war- Sunni insurgents on one side and Shiite terrorists on the other. Iran's sudden desire for "talks" with America is probably to explain just how they will make Shiite Iraq erupt if we attack their nuclear plants (which I believe we must do). Another Sunni mosque was also reported bombed.

America can’t stop the civil war or control it, and when it erupts in the full throated madness fueled by 83 years of atrocities, we can’t stay. No matter what Bush says, it’s likely much or most troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year. We can try to guard the oil lines, but when the first significant US unit gets annihilated trying to separate warring factions, the public will force a quick withdrawal. This civil war will dwarf anything seen in Yugoslavia or Beirut, with ethnic cleansing and mass murders perhaps approaching a million over the next 10 years.

Neocon thinker Francis Fukuyama made a near complete break with the corrupt, exhausted neocon movement, calling them Leninist, extremist, and undemocratic in a NYT piece- "By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at." Wm Buckley weighed in “It Didn’t Work.” Oh yeah?

DUPING DUBAIYA
With almost spectacular tone deafness, GB2 decided to make a stand on the on one thing that finally should immolate his inexplicable reputation for being "good on security"- turning US ports over to an Arab country. UAE is a loose collection of city states- modern gleaming skyscrapers arising out of the ocean and humongous water parks inside malls mixed with ancient blood feuds and Bedouin ways. A friend recently tried to drag me there on business opportunities (he knows princes and presidents), but as a PR disaster, little could exceed it. Every bit that Bush digs in his feet is more certainty that the Repubs will be swept out to sea like a foul tide that had putrified in their harbor of fiendish corruption and payoffs. Congress and the people are over 70% against this- af