9/11; Fox News Thinks You're Idiots; US Soldiers Kill Afghans for Sport; Immigration Lies from the Right; United States of Fear; Quran Burning Racists; MLK and Racist Glenn Beck have NOTHING in Common

- The United States of Fear: Ten Examples Who would have thought that there once was a US president who said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”?
You tell me what happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave since September 11, 2001.

- US Soldiers 'Killed Afghan Civilians for Sport and Collected Fingers as Trophies' Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

- Racist Florida Pastor Calls Off Quran Burning Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., called off plans to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he said Thursday.

Jones's decision came after his plans came under heavy criticism from national political and military leaders, who warned that the inflammatory plans would spark violence against U.S. soldiers stationed overseas.

The controversial anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., which has long staged pickets of soldiers' funerals, reportedly has vowed to host its own Quran burning if Jones canceled his.

- This 9/11, Let’s All Take Responsibility for Ending a Summer of Hate ...This summer marks the worst anti-Muslim backlash we’ve ever seen here. As the nine years since 9/11 have passed, Americans have forgotten an essential fact: Extremists can use any religion to justify murder, and the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists sacrifices both American values and community safety. While we welcome national leaders condemning not just Quran burning, but all the less obvious forms of Islamaphobia along the way, the daily interruption of hatred is a job for all of us.

- Still striving for MLK's dream in the 21st century Martin Luther King III responds to last months Washington DC rally for white people organized by racist Glenn Beck/Fox "News"

- Fear and Loathing in Prime Time Media Matters Action Network undertook this study in order to document the rhetoric surrounding immigration that is heard on cable news. When it comes to this issue, cable news overflows not just with vitriol, but also with a series of myths that feed viewers' resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria.

- Immigrants Don't Take Jobs From Americans, Fed Study Says  Immigration has no 'significant' effect on the number of jobs available to U.S.-born workers and helps boost incomes and productivity over time, according to a paper by an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

- 5 Myths about Immigration Despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants -- or perhaps because of it -- immigration continues to be one of America's most contentious topics. The new law in Arizona authorizing police to arrest individuals who cannot show documents proving that they are in the country legally has set off a fresh bout of acrimony. But as in the past, much of the debate is founded on mythology.

- When Sensationalism Rules the News We live in a culture in which propaganda is passed off as news regularly with little sustained contextual confrontation by responsible reporters and news outlets. We live in the land of the argumentative, where nothing sells better on TV than a shouting match that typically signifies next to nothing beyond the sound and fury of its participants.
[NOTE from Sean: this article points out the reality of today's news media, however ignores the fact that all sensationalism is right-leaning. There is virtually NO liberal or left leaning approach to mainstream news coverage (that is to say, FACTUAL news coverage), let alone any left leaning sensationalism. If just the facts were reported on the incredibly dire problems of climate change, or the criminality of our corporate right leaning governments, for example (causes ignored by the Right), these stories would surely be far more attention grabbing than the right-wing lies we see on our cable news programs (like "Obama's a Muslim", the fake controversy over the "ground zero mosque", lies about immigrants, etc). But the 6 Right-leaning media corporations that own all the networks in the USA ignore reality and focus on shallow nonsense that will inspire racists, idiots and other cavemen to pay attention. After all, getting conservatives angry helps the Right-wing achieve their goal of corporate dominance over government and tax cuts for the ultra rich).

- White House Turns Down 'Free Solar Panel' Offer... I just walked out of a disappointing meeting with the White House: they refused to accept the Carter solar panel we came to Washington to deliver and said that they would continue their "deliberative process" to discuss putting solar panels back on the White House roof.

Fox News Thinks You're All Idiots
Published September 10, 2010 at MediaMatters.org

Though the conservative media are fueled by overhyped, often-false, phony "scandals," every so often a story comes along that is so mind-bogglingly absurd that it exposes in no uncertain fashion the entire conservative media for what it is: a propaganda machine far more interested in pushing pre-determined narratives than conveying accurate information.

For much of the summer, conservatives have been aggressively working to blur the lines between the radicals who attacked us on September 11 and the moderate Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in order to claim his planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan is some sort of "victory mosque." This week, when conservatives were not busy trying to equate Rauf with lunatic pastor Terry Jones and his plan to burn Qurans, they were suggesting that Rauf literally commands the forces of Al Qaeda.

On Wednesday, Rauf went on CNN's Larry King Live and warned of the dangers of perceived anti-Islam sentiment in the United States, especially as it relates to his Park51 project. Specifically, Rauf said that outspoken opposition to his project creates "danger from the radicals in the Muslim world to our national security." Before we get to the resulting epic conservative freak-out, it's important to point out that Rauf's comments track closely with comments from national security experts -- including Gen. David Petraeus -- who have repeatedly warned of the security implications of anti-Muslim protests.
Undeterred by reality, conservatives claimed Rauf was "threatening" America when he made this entirely non-controversial statement of fact.

Fox Nation broadcast as its top story that "Imam Threatens U.S., Says If Mosque Moves, Terror Will 'Explode.'" Pam Geller -- whose anti-Muslim bigotry leads her to view the world as a Magic Eye book filled with hidden Islamic crescents --announced in a headline that "Ground Zero Supremacist Imam Rauf Threatens America." Jim Hoft claimed in a post about Rauf's "threat" that the "radical" Rauf "warned that if America did not get down on its knees and allow the victory mosque to be built on the bones of dead Americans that ...'They will attack.'" Hoft instructed Rauf to "take your victory mosque and shove it."

Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer and Media Research Center's Brent Baker speculated that Rauf may be engaging in "blackmail." Fox News hosted Debra Burlingame to say that Rauf had given an "ultimatum" and that his comments represented a "form of extortion." Fox also gave a 9-11 firefighter a platform to smear Rauf as a "tax-evading, terrorist sympathizing, Armani-wearing slumlord" who is "try[ing] to extort America" and "wants to build a Tower of Triumph on the graveyard of my friends." Bill O'Reilly fearmongered that Rauf's warning about violence may be a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

This morning, the Fox & Friends hosts (and the accompanying on-screen text) referred to Rauf's comments as a "threat" at least ten times. Gretchen Carlson interpreted his "troubling" statement as "If you move it now, we're gonna attack you."

The lone voice of sanity in the conservative wilderness was Chris Wallace, who twice stated that he did not hear Rauf's comments as a "threat." As always, this acknowledgment of reality made him the exception, not the rule.

There is no gray area here: by pushing this story, conservative media figures have revealed -- as they do pretty much every week -- that they are either completely oblivious to reality, or they think their viewers/listeners/readers are. And they do this all the time -- remember the forty-eight hours during the 2008 presidential campaign when conservatives decided to pretend Barack Obama had compared Sarah Palin to a pig when he said "you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig" to describe McCain's policies? 

When the top-rated cable news organization in the country joins with leading conservative bloggers and radio hosts to smear someone as "threatening" to attack America for stating something that is widely agreed-upon by security experts, their dishonesty should be news. Unfortunately, since media conservatives seem to have a knack for escaping consequences for their serial mendacity, their role in the unwarranted demolition of Rauf's character will likely disappear down the memory hole.

The damage will already be done, and conservatives' perpetual dishonesty machine will roll on.

Sean

Immigrants GIVE more than they take; Republicans Got NOTHING; No Universal Health Care KILLS PEOPLE; Celebrating War; Iran More Free than USA (posted 10/05/09)

- Lack of Universal Health Care Is a Mass Killer Nearly 45,000 deaths in the United States each year are attributable to the lack of health insurance, according to a Harvard University study released in September... As startling as this 45,000 figure is, I fear it underestimates the problem.

- The Politics of Spite There was what President Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago's bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games.

"Cheers erupted" at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine's staff, with the headline "Obama loses! Obama loses!" Rush Limbaugh declared himself "gleeful." "World Rejects Obama," gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.
 
So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation's two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they're against it - whether or not it's good for America.
To be sure, while celebrating America's rebuff by the Olympic Committee was puerile, it didn't do any real harm. But the same principle of spite has determined Republican positions on more serious matters, with potentially serious consequences - in particular, in the debate over health care reform.

- Migrants Give More than They Take, Says US UNITED NATIONS - Often vilified and mistreated, migrant workers benefit both the countries they move to and the ones they leave behind, says the latest Human Development Report released Monday.

The perceived negative burden of migrants on host societies does not correspond to reality, according to the report, produced annually by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).

- Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war. The hushed voices, the well-tended grass, the flapping of the flags allow us to ignore how and why our young died. They hide the futility and waste of war. They sanitize the savage instruments of death that turn young soldiers and Marines into killers, and small villages in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq into hellish bonfires. There are no images in these memorials of men or women with their guts hanging out of their bellies, screaming pathetically for their mothers. We do not see mangled corpses being shoved in body bags. There are no sights of children burned beyond recognition or moaning in horrible pain. There are no blind and deformed wrecks of human beings limping through life. War, by the time it is collectively remembered, is glorified and heavily censored.

- Men Arrested for G-20 Twittering say It's Free Speech The US media heralded it as a great thing when Iranian protestors did it during recent protests, but if you try it in the USA, you get arrested!

- Bush Administration Lied: Watchdog Says Treasury and Fed Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not 'Healthy' The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve lied to the American public last fall when they said that the first nine banks to receive government bailout funds were healthy, a government watchdog states in a new report released today.

- UN Warns of 70 Percent Desertification by 2025 Drought could parch close to 70 percent of the planet's soil by 2025 unless countries implement policies to slow desertification, a senior United Nations official has warned.



Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk
With the world's oceans absorbing six million tonnes of carbon a day, a leading oceanographer warns of eco disaster
Published on Sunday, October 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
by Robin McKie

Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.

(Juniors Bildarchiv/Alamy)

"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish - like mussels - to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.
This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.
His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.

The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral - unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.

"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.

"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase - and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."

This was backed by other speakers at the conference. Daniel Conley, of Lund University, Sweden, said that increasing acidity levels, sea-level rises and temperature changes now threatened to bring about irreversible loss of biodiversity in the sea. Christoph Heinze, of Bergen University, Norway, said his studies, part of the EU CarboOcean project, had found that carbon from the atmosphere was being transported into the oceans' deeper waters far more rapidly than expected and was already having a corrosive effect on life forms there.
The oceans' vulnerability to climate change and rising carbon-dioxide levels has also been a key factor in the launching of the EU's Tara Ocean project at Barcelona. The expedition, on the sailing ship Tara, will take three years to circumnavigate the globe, culminating in a voyage through the icy Northwest Passage in Canada, and will make continual and detailed samplings of seawater to study its life forms.

A litre of seawater contains between 1bn and 10bn single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, between 10bn and 100bn viruses and a vast number of more complex, microscopic creatures known as zooplankton, said Chris Bowler, a marine biologist on Tara.

"People think they are just swimming in water when they go for a dip in the sea," he said. "In fact, they are bathing in a plankton soup."

That plankton soup is of crucial importance to the planet, he added. "As much carbon dioxide is absorbed by plankton as is absorbed by tropical rainforests. Its health is therefore of crucial importance to us all."

However, only 1% of the life forms found in the sea have been properly identified and studied, said Bowler. "The aim of the Tara project is to correct some of that ignorance and identify many more of these organisms while we still have the chance. Issues like ocean acidification, rising sea levels and global warming will not be concerns at the back of our minds. They will be a key focus for the work that we do while we are on our expedition."

The toll by 2100

■ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast in 2007 that sea levels would rise by 20cm to 60cm by 2100 thanks to global warming caused by man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. This is now thought to be an underestimate, however, with most scientific bodies warning that sea levels could rise by a metre or even higher. Major inundations of vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh would ensue.

■ The planet will be hotter by 3C by 2100, most scientists now expect, though rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Deserts will spread and heatwaves will become more prevalent. Ice-caps will melt and cyclones are also likely to be triggered.

■ Weather patterns across the globe will become more unstable, numbers of devastating storms will increase dramatically while snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains.

Sean