Renowned cancer scientist was paid by chemical firm for 20 years

A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal.
Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.
While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer.
Documents seen by the Guardian reveal that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and two other major companies, Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer – a conclusion with which the World Health Organisation disagrees. Sir Richard’s review was used by the manufacturers’ trade association to defend the chemical for more than a decade.

Posted by: annie | Dec 9 2006 20:49 utc | 4

Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda

I thought it only right now to pose the same questions to a Democrat, especially one who will take charge of the Intelligence panel come January. The former border patrol agent also sits on the Armed Services Committee.
Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.
We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players.
To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?
The dialogue went like this:
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

No comment on that, just desperation …

Posted by: b | Dec 9 2006 21:12 utc | 6

b,
PL blocked one of my comments, and we had back&forth e-mails until he was convinced I had miltitary record. I think he actually checked it out. For some reason some commenters there are afforded more latitude of opinion than others. I think he’s a very astute observer, but can’nt forget he is first a military man.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 9 2006 21:32 utc | 8

@faux
– nothing remarkable in Hamburg about the Russian exile fraud stuff
– evangelicals are stupid
– the Berube “dialog” is funny
@anna – agree – I have a military (and militant) record too – though he probably had no way to check that. Anyhow – I probably challenged his frame on thoughts too much and he would not allow that.
Besides that – he has first grade information and analysis.

Posted by: b | Dec 9 2006 22:28 utc | 10

its not clear why anyone still thinks the US will attack Iran before GWB’s term is over. Its a little surprising that PL does.
the Papa Bush posse (Baker, Gates …) are the vanguard now. Their natural mode of operation is more covert/clandestine. They will exhaust that before thinking of war, especially uncontrollable open-ended war with Iran. Plus any conflict started with Iran is going to go on past 2008. These guys do not want to look bad just to make Bush Junior happy.
Plus war is not good for business, unless its quick & decisive.
also the neo-cons are rallying against Baker. They will attack him & try to undermine him. Leaving him even less motivation to support their current pet project – attacking Iran.
Plus look how Afghanistan & Iraq are turning out. The only people who will be pushing for immediate war against Iran are the fanatical dead-enders.
If theres anyone in the establishhment, in a position to block a war with Iran, its Bakers guy – SecDef Gates.
And if they really wanted war with Iran, they would have remained in the shadows and left it to Cheney/Rumsfeld & Co., rather than take charge.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 9 2006 23:02 utc | 12

@ Ms. Manners (#11): We need a mooncam, maybe?
(I’ll take pictures but they may not be nice)
😉

Posted by: beq | Dec 10 2006 0:39 utc | 14

Iraqis Near Deal on Distribution of Oil Revenues – NYT p. 1
And a smorgasbord of other offerings on the same subject in today’s media:
The View from Turkey
The View from the Kurds
Financial Times (UK)

Posted by: Bea | Dec 10 2006 1:04 utc | 16

Corruption, crime inside Homeland Security

Buried in what would otherwise have been a dry summary of financial audits and inspections, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s semiannual report to Congress (pdf) also contains dozens of reports of misconduct and criminal activity perpetrated by DHS employees themselves.

Transportation Security Administration employees, including federal air marshals, found themselves arrested for stealing from passengers, child pornography, money laundering, and drug smuggling.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 1:33 utc | 18

Test.

Posted by: Laura | Dec 10 2006 2:10 utc | 20

better watch yourself, uncle, could be misslaura of dkos.

Posted by: conchita | Dec 10 2006 2:40 utc | 22

@conchita
Yikes! Uh, wait, er, uh, who is misslaura of dkos?…lol

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 2:47 utc | 24

can you imagine, what could be accomplished if we/they were to put the time, energy, research and money into peace as they do war and destruction?
or the ENVIRONMENT?? or GLOBAL WARMING??
sometimes i just wonder what life would be like w/out power hungry greedy people. is that so much to ask?

Posted by: annie | Dec 10 2006 3:24 utc | 26

Another great post from Glenn Greenwald:
Neoconservatives: Exposed, Scorned, but Still in Control
~Snip

Never before have the reasons we are in Iraq — and staying indefinitely — been as clear as they are now.
Most notable is the frothing intensity of the personal attacks on Jim Baker coming from the neoconservatives and other assorted warmongers….
Hateful rants directed towards Baker like those from Peretz, Limbaugh and the AEI luminaries (even as Baker endorsed an indefinite presence in Iraq) illustrate just how radical they are. And as they are now quite openly admitting, neoconservatives hate Jim Baker for three reasons — Israel, Israel and Israel….
All of the American anti-war sentiment and Baker-Hamilton Reports in the world do not change the one fact on which neoconservatives and warmongers are (understandably) placing all of their war-hungry hopes and dreams — namely, that the President, who is in fact still the Commander-in-Chief, will remain convinced that both his historical legacy and theological goodness depend upon Victory in the Epic War of Civilizations, the Great Challenge of the 21st Century. Thus, unburdened and unrestrained by any future elections, they hope that Bush will continue to wage war, and will escalate those efforts — in Iraq and beyond.

I can’t really do this long and thoughtful post justice in a little excerpt… it says much more than this. It’s well worth taking the time to read it all.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 10 2006 4:05 utc | 28

More on the CIA’s torture methods:
Torture 101

Posted by: Bea | Dec 10 2006 4:17 utc | 30

Press continues to smear McKinney after “election”
McKinney Introduces Bill to Impeach Bush

In what was likely her final legislative act in Congress, outgoing Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney introduced a bill Friday to impeach President Bush.
The legislation has no chance of passing and serves as a symbolic parting shot not only at Bush but also at Democratic leaders. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has made clear that she will not entertain proposals to sanction Bush and has warned the liberal wing of her party against making political hay of impeachment.
McKinney, a Democrat who drew national headlines in March when she struck a Capitol police officer, has long insisted that Bush was never legitimately elected. In introducing her legislation in the final hours of the current Congress, she said Bush had violated his oath of office to defend the Constitution and the nation’s laws.
In the bill, she accused Bush of misleading Congress on the war in Iraq and violating privacy laws with his domestic spying program.
McKinney has made no secret of her frustration with Democratic leaders since voters ousted her from office in the Democratic primary this summer. In a speech Monday at George Washington University, she accused party leaders of kowtowing to Republicans on the war in Iraq and on military mistreatment of prisoners.
McKinney, who has not discussed her future plans, has increasingly embraced her image as a controversial figure.
She has hosted numerous panels on Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and suggested that Bush had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks but kept quiet about it to allow friends to profit from the aftermath. She introduced legislation calling for disclosure of any government records concerning the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.
But it was her scuffle with a Capitol police officer that drew the most attention. McKinney struck the officer when he tried to stop her from entering a congressional office building. The officer did not recognize McKinney, who was not wearing her member lapel pin.
A grand jury in Washington declined to indict McKinney over the clash, but she eventually apologized before the House.

BTW, her so-called “loss” was just another instance of the power of the Israeli lobby smear job and diebold cheat.
Here’s why:
Cynthia McKinney takes on Donald Rumsfeld

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 5:23 utc | 32

bea:
I’m sure you have it, but if not there is a very good paper discussion of the rape of Iraqi oil at Crude Designs: The rip-off of Iraq’s oil wealth
The Iraqis do not need foreign “investment”. Once the helpful foreigners stop wrecking death and devastation in their nation they can easily finance further development of their resources internally. Nor do they need “management” help. Their industry was quite well-managed before Iraq was purposefully destroyed by the US and its puppy dog. If they do need specialised expertise they can hire it, just as Exxon-Mobil does. No. Baker is the “smooth” front man for the American Oil Patch. The difference between “capitalism” and organized crime has disappeared completely at this particular point in time.
And thank you for the pointer to the Glen Greenwald.
When I read Karen Kwiatkowski’s last post at LewRockwell I was struck by the particular aspect of the neocon phenomenon that she described :
We Must Do What?

Neoconservatism encourages our natural reluctance to believe that other countries might be populated with mothers and daughters just like us, sons and fathers like our own, caring friends and neighbors who look out for us, and happy children filled with dreams. While advocating democracy and “freedom” for these other people for whom we “care” so much, neoconservatism demands that we simultaneously see them as subordinate to our wishes. We are happy to meet them, subject to our economic and military boot – or else we are happy to meet them in a hell of our own creation.
Neoconservatism – indeed American foreign policy – is unscathed and unthreatened by Democratic success in recent elections. We might have known that any foreign policy that celebrates our natural reluctance to deal with the mote in our own eye before we obsess about the speck in our neighbor’s eye would be secure in populism.
Our sordid tendencies toward rage and bloodlust are fed and nurtured by neoconservative prescriptions in foreign policy. Knowing this, I was still shocked to see Joshua Muravchik’s November 19th opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.
I was surprised that an essay of such ignorance, such hatred, and such embarrassing lack of credibility was published at all in a major newspaper. I was surprised that Joshua Muravchik has an audience; that he apparently does is frightening.

What struck me at the time was the striking resemblance of the neocon eruption to that of the KKK amidst our previous major imperialist adventure at the turn of the last century.
I wrote to her in response to her article :

Are not the neocons very, very much like the KKK? Should this similarity not be pointed out? Should they not be treated as the KKK and the neo-Nazis are treated… alllowed to march, to exercise their rights of free speech, but recognized as exactly the racist bigots and inciters to violence that they are and shunned by all decent folk?
Is it not time to marginalize the neocons just as ordinary Americans marginalize the KKK and the neo-Nazis?
Would the LA Times print an editorial written by the KKK or the neo-Nazis? Would their readership stand for it?
George W Bush (Dick Cheney, really) is standing with the LA Times and Woodrow Wilson [speaking of “Birth of a Nation”] saying, “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”
Apparently George W Bush was sworn in as Neocon in the White House, just a Warren Harding was sworn into the Ku Klux Klan.
Why does the LA Times print this neocon hate trash?
Why does its readership stand for it?
The Washington Post is on the bandwagon as well with Needed: A Big Stick.
What we must do is point up the similarity of the KKK the neo-Nazis and the Neocons.
They deserve a capital letter themselves in their “supremicist” company.

In the article previously cited several times here in this thread Paul Craig Roberts cites the same Muracvchik screed and goes on to quote Anthony Sullivan (no citation) :

As Middle East expert Anthony Sullivan writes, the neoconservatives are “fifth columnists” whose “real concern is not the United States but Israel.” Sullivan writes that “it is past time that neoconservatives and their movement be left to drown in the deepest reaches of the ocean.”

The allusion to the depths of the sea, and thence to millstones and to those who would give scandal is very well taken.
It occurs to me now as I type away that we are well on our way here to effecting the classic “divide and conquer” strategy applied to the present criminal regime in the US.
Oil and Israeli “interests” are now like oil and water.
How now to peel off the War Lobby from the Oil?
For the remaining leg of the triad is the War Lobby itself. Baker et al. pointedly assured them that, given the helm, they would be sure to reward and rebuild the armed forces for being so patiently and poorly used. (Yeah… right.)
In response we ought to dig deeply into the military corruption that has taken place in Iraq and tie the armed forces tightly to the unpatriotic Halliburton and the others of the military industrial complex, drawing parallels to the Oil patch’s corrupt ulterior motives in starting and supporting this war.
Then it’s their turn to walk the plank.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 10 2006 5:35 utc | 34

On the heels of jj’s above #35…
White House hostility to Iraq report grows
Bush aides seek more alternatives to panel’s ideas
Snip:

WASHINGTON – Administration officials say their preliminary review of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s recommendations has concluded that many of its key proposals are impractical or unrealistic, and a small group inside the National Security Council is now racing to come up with alternatives to the panel’s ideas.

Snip:

“The president’s obligations sometimes require him to be very lonely,” he said.
Bush has empowered the “Crouch Group,” a small group of advisers being coordinated by Jack D. Crouch II, the deputy national security adviser, to assemble alternative proposals from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, the Treasury Department and staff of the National Security Council.

Snip:

For example, the administration is embracing a recommendation that it put energy into reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Rice is planning a trip to the region early next year, and the administration says it plans to build on a new initiative by Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 8:24 utc | 36

Robert Parry uses Gary Webb’s suicide to illustrate the sorry state of the US media.
Fucking yes!

When Americans ask me what happened to the vaunted U.S. press corps over the past three decades – in the decline from its heyday of the Watergate scandal and the Pentagon Papers to its failure to challenge the Iraq WMD lies or to hold George W. Bush accountable – I often recall for them the story of Gary Webb.

Gary Webb’s Death: American Tragedy

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 8:47 utc | 38

Note that while the U.S. colonial master says it is decided, the Afghans say it is not:
Afghan Poppies to Get Herbicide Spray

The top U.S. anti-drug official said Saturday that Afghan poppies would be sprayed with herbicide to combat an opium trade that produced a record heroin haul this year, a measure likely to anger farmers and scare Afghans unfamiliar with weed killers.
John Walters, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Afghanistan could turn into a narco-state unless ”giant steps” are made toward eliminating poppy cultivation.
…
Afghans are deeply opposed to spraying poppies. After nearly three decades of war, Western science and assurances can do little to assuage their fears of chemicals being dropped from airplanes. Because of those fears — and because crop dusters could be shot down by insurgents — spraying would need to be done on the ground.
The Afghan government has not publicly said it will spray, and President Hamid Karzai has said in the past that herbicides pose too big a risk, contaminating water and killing the produce that grows alongside poppies.
But Walters said Karzai and other officials have agreed to ground spraying.
”I think the president has said yes, and I think some of the ministers have repeated yes,” Walters said without specifying when spraying would start.
…
Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for counter-narcotics, said the government hadn’t made any decisions yet. But a top Afghan official close to Karzai said the issue was being looked at closely.
”We are thinking about it; we are looking into it. We’re just trying to see how the procedure will go,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 9:44 utc | 40

What happens if either the Russians or the Chinese pony up that IMF money (to the Iraqi government) that mandate these new “oil laws”?

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 10 2006 10:39 utc | 42

opps, that should have read, “Bush sr.talked Reagan into making Carlton Turner the Reagan admininstration’s first Drug Czar”. Abit Loopy over here from not much sleep…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 10:57 utc | 44

Frank Rich: The Sunshine Boys Can’t Save Iraq

There was the gala publicity tour on opening day, starting with a President Bush cameo timed for morning television and building to a “Sunshine Boys” curtain call by James Baker and Lee Hamilton on “Larry King Live.”
The wizard behind it all was the public relations giant Edelman, which has lately been recruited by Wal-Mart to put down the populist insurgency threatening its bottom line. Edelman’s vice chairman is Michael Deaver, the imagineer extraordinaire of the Reagan presidency, and “The Way Forward” had a nostalgic dash of that old Morning-in-America vibe. In The Washington Post, David Broder gushingly quoted one member of the group, Alan Simpson, musing that “immigration, Social Security and all those other things that have been hung up for so long” might benefit from similar ex-officio bipartisanship. Only in Washington could an unelected panel of retirees pass for public-policy Viagra.
…
Its recommendations are bogus because the few that have any teeth are completely unattainable. Of course, it would be fantastic if additional Iraqi troops would stand up en masse after an infusion of new American military advisers. And if reconciliation among the country’s warring ethnicities could be mandated on a tight schedule. And if the Bush White House could be persuaded to persuade Iran and Syria to “influence events” for America’s benefit. It would also be nice if we could all break the bank in Vegas.
…
By prescribing such placebos, the Iraq Study Group isn’t plotting a way forward but delaying the recognition of our defeat. Its real aim is to enact a charade of progress to pacify the public while Washington waits, no doubt in vain, for Mr. Bush to return to the real world.
…
As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq. The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still may salvage, starting with Afghanistan.
The members of the Iraq Study Group are all good Americans of proven service to their country. But to the extent that their report forestalls reality and promotes pipe dreams of one last chance for success in this fiasco, it will be remembered as just one more delusional milestone in the tragedy of our age.

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 11:23 utc | 46

Anthony Shadid again manages to write a long A1 piece on Hizbullah without ever mentioning the disfranchise of Shia through the Lebanese weird “democracy” rules.
Journalism?
Lebanon’s Shiites Grapple With New Feeling of Power

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 11:53 utc | 48

Britain stops talk of ‘war on terror’

Cabinet ministers have been told by the Foreign Office to drop the phrase ‘war on terror’ and other terms seen as liable to anger British Muslims and increase tensions more broadly in the Islamic world.
…
Not all British government figures are abiding by the advice, issued by the Foreign Office’s Engaging with the Islamic World Unit. Writing in the Sun recently, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, referred to ‘our police and armed forces in the front line of the war on terror’.
‘One of the problems will be getting all parts of government to abide [by the new guidelines],’ said Hindle, the RUSI expert. ‘Whether the Home Office will want to follow remains to be seen. And politicians all have their own agendas.’

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 13:43 utc | 50

Gideon Levi on Gaza: Elbow to elbow, like cattle

Without anyone paying attention, the Gaza Strip has become the most closed-off strip of land in the world – after North Korea. But while North Korea is globally known to be a closed and isolated country, how many people know that the same description applies to a place just an hour away from hedonist Tel Aviv?
The Erez border crossing is desolate – Palestinians are not allowed to cross there, foreigners are rarely allowed to cross and Israeli journalists have also been prohibited from crossing during the past two weeks. Only wheelchairs are occasionally pushed through the long “sleeves” of the security check, leading a deadly ill person or someone seriously injured by the IDF to or from treatment in Israel. The large terminal Israel built, a concrete and glass monster that looks like a splendid shopping mall, juts up like a particularly tasteless joke, a mockery. At the Karni crossing, the only supply channel for 1.5 million people, only 12 trucks per day have passed since January. According to the “crossings accord” signed a year ago, Israel committed to allowing 400 trucks a day to pass through. The excuse: security, as usual.
But there has not been any security incident at Karni since April. The ramifications: Not only severe poverty, but also $30 million in damage to Gaza’s agriculture, which is almost the only remaining source of livelihood in the Strip. According to the UN report published last week, Israel has violated all of the articles of the agreement. There is no passage to Israel, no passage to the West Bank and even none to Egypt, the last outlet.

Ze’ev Schiff: Gates testimony / Preserving nuclear ambiguity

Israeli officials were shocked by Robert Gates’ statement to Congress that Israel has nuclear weapons, and they are worrying over why the U.S. secretary of defense-designate made this statement.
In particular, they want to know two things: First, whether this statement was a private initiative by Gates, or whether he coordinated it with the top levels of the American administration. And second, whether he was implying that since Israel has nuclear weapons, it can deal with any nuclear threat from Iran on its own.
If this was his intention, it would contradict what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert heard from U.S. President George W. Bush at their recent meeting.

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 15:35 utc | 52

Gates knows that weapons are in themselves ideology free and can be dropped anywhere and countries do not have friends only interests.

Posted by: jlcg | Dec 10 2006 15:51 utc | 54

Today’s fun fact: The left hand [in Saudia Arabia and arabic culture] is considered unclean and reserved for hygiene… Do not point at another person and do not eat with the left hand. (Source: http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/saudi-arabia.htm )
So, what does this tell us? (Source: “Iraq President Rejects Baker-Hamilton Report”, CNN / AP)

” ‘We can smell in it the attitude of James Baker,’ Talabani said, referring to the report’s co-chair who served as secretary of state under President George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Iraq war.”

Posted by: Austin Cooper | Dec 10 2006 18:06 utc | 56

Sounds like the demo was even bigger than the one last week. Then AP put the numbers at “800,000-1,000,000” and the opposition at 1.5 million.
Beirut rally piles pressure on U.S.-backed govt

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of chanting protesters swamped Beirut on Sunday in a Hezbollah-led rally that marked a leap forward in the opposition’s drive to unseat Lebanon’s Western-backed government.
In a huge show of force, crowds waving a forest of red-and-white Lebanese flags crammed into two vast squares to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
…
There were no official estimates of the crowd size on Sunday, but both police and army sources said the rally was enormous. Opposition sources said 2 million men, women and children had taken part — roughly half Lebanon’s population.
…
“I tell you that after the (Israeli) aggression … there is no place for America in Lebanon,” said Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem, speaking behind bullet proof-glass.
The crowd responded: “Death to America, death to Israel, long live a dignified Lebanon.”

Well, what would you shout after having bombed by Israel warplanes with U.S. bombs …

Posted by: b | Dec 10 2006 18:24 utc | 58

bea, link isn’t working

Posted by: annie | Dec 10 2006 18:56 utc | 60

Surely the Baker report is an American-Americano (translating a French expression which I like, une affaire Franco-Francaise, meaning just BS internal French politics) in the sense that it purports to lay out a centrist or consensual position, and as mentioned above, open up discourse, consider possibilities within that frame?
The reported emphasis on ‘talks’ (?) with Iran and Syria, the mention of the Palestine issue (if it was, I only read some comments and descriptions..) seem to me to be red herrings. The US exagerates the role of external influence as it wants to demonise its axis-of-evil list, so then it traps itself into according them too much importance. Talks with Syria are pertinent to global foreign policy, but will have no influence on the carnage in Iraq, or what the US can possibly accomplish (or not), what its aims might now be, what it should do, etc. Complete waste of time and avoidance of the real issues.
Israel’s hysteria is right on cue, not really related to Iraq, but due to their correct perception of being in the doghouse after the Lebanon invasion. (?)
As for Oil, it is important to distinguish between Oil Companies, who are for stability always, and are wary of taking on more than they can chew, and Gvmts. that wish to grab and/or lock up resources, or ‘reserves.’ The US cannot take over, or ‘nationalise’ foreign assets, it can only attempt to enforce ‘foreign investments’ and ‘the free market’, using bombs to prop up an economic system that suits it. That is why the invasion of Iraq was ‘light’ – in some sense – it was not meant to completely take over a country, but merely impose a certain economic functioning in one sector.
That has failed for the moment, at least the plans did not work out; they can still, hopefully, be rectified (Baker Rpt.)… It looks like that has now been admitted, and the only question is how to withdraw with honor, and how to save the furniture (oil contracts…), as the French say.
India, and particularly China, like to claim they are unafraid of poor conditions, and can beat the sissy West at that game; that is all very well, hubris, but the truth of the matter is that everyone is willing to work in conditions where it is possible to work, and again, China specially, is not willing to waste time and money on hopeless situations. What has gone down is that China and others is that they have locked up, as best as they could, gas and oil futures with bi-lateral national contracts with nationalised entitites (eg with Venezuela, Russia) and the bulk of ‘all liquids’ is now no longer a free for all sea where bucks can buy you what you want. That is exactly what one would expect when awareness of scarcity hits – you buy up as much as possible, and sit pretty (you hope!)
shotwell’s letter was good…

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 10 2006 19:28 utc | 62

Devastating criticisms of micro credit, from libertarian and socialist perspectives:
link
link
One article I read (no link, from a French paper) pointed out studies have shown that between 80 and 95% of micro credit is used not for productive activities but to pay for food (first), health care and habitat; these are generally unexpected and large expenses, and that explain why women are the borrowers.
It serves to tide families over until pay comes in, like the pawn shop used to do, but without the burden of interest payment… Meanwhile, families go into debt. In that sense, it fulfills a function, as it keeps families afloat when they might sink, but just like students in the ‘west’ and poor households everywhere, the debt keeps them poor…
this article, in French, is critical also, it is not the one I read:
link

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 10 2006 20:02 utc | 64

disclaimer: haven’t had time to read here as thoroughly as i would like, so if this has already been posted, please excuse me.
on friday cynthia mckinney, stating no american is above the law, filed house resolution 1106 to impeach bush, cheney, and rice:

President George W. Bush has failed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; he has failed to ensure that senior members of his administration do the same; and he has betrayed the trust of the American people.
With a heavy heart and in the deepest spirit of patriotism, I
exercise my duty and responsibility to speak truthfully about what is before us. To shy away from this responsibility would be easier. But I have not been one to travel the easy road. I believe in this country, and in the power of our democracy. I feel the steely conviction of one who will not let the country I love descend into shame; for the fabric of our democracy is at stake.
Some will call this a partisan vendetta, others will say this is an unimportant distraction to the plans of the incoming Congress. But this is not about political gamesmanship.
I am not willing to put any political party before my principles.
This, instead, is about beginning the long road back to regaining the high standards of truth and democracy upon which our great country was founded.
Mr. Speaker:
Under the standards set by the United States Constitution, President Bush—along with Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Rice— should be subject to the process of impeachment, and I have filed H. Res. _ in the House of Representatives.
To my fellow Americans, as I leave this Congress, it is in your hands— to hold your representatives accountable, and to show those with the courage to stand for what is right, that they do not stand alone.
Thank you.

Now it will be left to be seen who picks up the torch she is handing off.

Posted by: conchita | Dec 10 2006 20:23 utc | 66

Re Microcredit – The man who started it, Grameen(sp?) Only Loaned to women ‘cuz the guys threw it all away in pursuit of idiotic ego trips, while the women used it in productive pursuits. It was great. Threw Patriarchy in the Garbage. Of course, once the Patriachal Predator Elite finds something that works it twists it to its own purposes.

Posted by: jj | Dec 10 2006 20:30 utc | 68

bea, if you would like something inspirational, try bigpicture-tv. a host of inspirational human beings and lessons there.

Posted by: conchita | Dec 10 2006 20:37 utc | 70

jj,
Reducing population is important, but it is only relevant insofar as it reduces consumption. Amount of people isn’t the issue as much as it is amount of food, buildings, oil, that they need. And population isn’t directly related to consumption, as the USA and its world 4% population/25% consumption demonstrate.

Posted by: Rowan | Dec 10 2006 22:29 utc | 72

Anybody else here, besides me, see this:
Rahm to oil industry: The honeymoon is over

Rahm to oil industry: The honeymoon is over
by John in DC – 12/10/2006 12:38:00 PM
This is what you get when no-more-nonsense, tough-as-nails Democrats take over the congress: real accountability (and hopefully lower gas prices). From the NYT:
House Democratic leaders vowed Friday to pursue a broad overhaul of tax breaks and other subsidies to oil companies in January, saying that their first target would be an investigation of how the government collects billions of dollars in royalties on oil and gas produced on federal property….
“This is a warning to oil and gas companies,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “When you get a Democratic Congress, you are going to get a cop on the beat.”

as the opening shot in the Baker vs the “Lobby” coming war?
While this gang war between these two criminal, criminal syndicates plays out, I believe it will be brutal and there will be much fall out (pun intended). If you get my drift.
Ever been in a cross fire between two street gangs? Because that is what this all seems to be leading to.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 10 2006 23:06 utc | 74

$cam :
The NYTimes is busy creating new “facts in your mind”. The next line after your quote :

The dwindling political influence of the oil industry was apparent on Friday, even as House Republicans handed it a modest victory by passing a bill opening up new areas in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling.

The Oil Lobby is Greedy and Bad and Getting What it Deserves! The Oil Lobby and the ISG should be consigned to the trash bin of history! Emanuel Rahm D (Il) is on the Job!
(The Il is said by some to stand for Illinois rather than Israel.)

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 11 2006 1:56 utc | 76

I take it that ‘b’ and ‘b real’ are different people?
There’s a reason we all have “real” names you know.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 11 2006 4:56 utc | 78

@65 & @71
also, some British guy recently disclosed that the Brits had opposed disbanding the Iraq Army and also opposed the nature of de-Baathification that occured after the invasion.
this is consistent with the often heard concern from the Brits regarding what they see as excessive contempt for the natives by their US partners.
in addition to other pre-war concerns on the part of the Brits (Downing memo …), they also did not grasp the full dimension of the intent of their partner, going into the war. Neither did the State department which actually had a post-war plan that was ignored.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 11 2006 7:48 utc | 80

“I don’t see why we need to stand idly by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
Thus spake Henry Kissinger about the Chileans he helped murder and disappear. Pinochet is dead. Kissinger still strides beneath the sun. Only the good die young.
What strikes me now though is the irony of watching the United States, become the rapacious aggressor that it has “due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 2:50 utc | 82

After reading that, fauxreal, America really is bankrupt. Perhaps it should be simply shut down, and the entire population minus the Native Americans should be relocated to other countries for re-education. After the Native Americans clean up the mess these Euro White Boys have made of things, perhaps they’ll invited us back a few at a time, in small numbers so they can keep a close eye on us & teach us to do things right…
Paul Craig Roberts new col. is up…
According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College in London, the US has 700,000 more of its citizens incarcerated than China, a country with a population four to five times larger than that of the US, and 1,330,000 more people in prison than crime-ridden Russia. The US has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners. The American incarceration rate is seven times higher than that of European countries. Either America is the land of criminals, or something is seriously wrong with the criminal justice (sic) system in “the land of the free.”
In the US the wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. One reason is that hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. No peers have heard the evidence against them and found them guilty. In the US criminal justice (sic) system, more than 95% of all felony cases are settled with a plea bargain.America’s Injustice System is Criminal

Posted by: jj | Dec 12 2006 8:13 utc | 84

@jj – 84 – Monbiot on torture: Routine and systematic torture is at the heart of America’s war on terror

But Padilla’s treatment also reflects another glorious American tradition: solitary confinement. Some 25,000 US prisoners are currently held in isolation – a punishment only rarely used in other democracies. In some places, like the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, they are kept in sound-proofed cells and might scarcely see another human being for years on end. They may touch or be touched by no one. Some people have been kept in solitary confinement in the US for more than 20 years.
At Pelican Bay in California, where 1,200 people are held in the isolation wing, inmates are confined to tiny cells for 22 and a half hours a day, then released into an “exercise yard” for “recreation”. The yard consists of a concrete well about 3.5 metres in length with walls 6 metres high and a metal grille across the sky. The recreation consists of pacing back and forth, alone.
The results are much as you would expect. As National Public Radio reveals, more than 10% of the isolation prisoners at Pelican Bay are now in the psychiatric ward, and there’s a waiting list. Prisoners in solitary confinement, according to Dr Henry Weinstein, a psychiatrist who studies them, suffer from “memory loss to severe anxiety to hallucinations to delusions … under the severest cases of sensory deprivation, people go crazy.” People who went in bad and dangerous come out mad as well. The only two studies conducted so far – in Texas and Washington state – both show that the recidivism rates for prisoners held in solitary confinement are worse than for those who were allowed to mix with other prisoners. If we were to judge the US by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption.
From this delightful experiment, US interrogators appear to have extracted a useful lesson: if you want to erase a man’s mind, deprive him of contact with the rest of the world. This has nothing to do with obtaining information: torture of all kinds – physical or mental – produces the result that people will say anything to make it end. It is about power, and the thrilling discovery that in the right conditions one man’s power over another is unlimited. It is an indulgence which turns its perpetrators into everything they claim to be confronting.

Posted by: b | Dec 12 2006 9:49 utc | 86

@ jj (84) – I got an email last week from an engineer I used to work with. He’s excited about his new job. He wrote:

“Just wanted to let everyone know I am taking a new job next week at M*****y Architects. I will be working in the structural engineering department designing schools, office buildings and most importantly prisons“.

[my bold]
Prisons more important than schools?! WTF?!

Posted by: beq | Dec 12 2006 12:32 utc | 88

Japanese follow Shell on Sakhalin

The Japanese partners in the Sakhalin-2 gas project have said they will follow the lead of Shell after reports that the oil group may hand control of the project to the state-run Russian company, Gazprom.
The paper cited unnamed sources, and analysts say that Gazprom would pay about $4bn to obtain a 50 per cent stake in the project.
The take of Shell, the consortium leader, would consequently drop from 55 to 25 per cent.
Shell’s Japanese partners, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, which own 25 and 20 per cent respectively, would sell 10 per cent each, the Financial Times said.
Sakhalin-2 was to be the largest privately funded energy project in the world, worth $20bn, and has caused friction between Russia and Shell.

Shell and Japan to Russia :
“You thought we were serious about cutting you out of your own oil deal?!
Shucks… we were only kidding!
Wanted to teach how the Americans would have done the deal… good thing you didn’t deal with them!
Thought you kneeeew that… !
Still friends! right?”

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 12 2006 13:52 utc | 90

No wonder there are so many folks in prison: Justice on Katrina time – Hundreds, if not thousands, languish behind bars without their day in court.

In October 2005, less than two months after Hurricane Katrina struck, Pedro Parra-Sanchez was arrested for allegedly stabbing a man with a broken bottle during a fight. With the city’s prison damaged by flooding, he was taken to a makeshift jail at the Greyhound bus station, then transferred to a correctional facility about 70 miles away, and later to a prison in southwest Louisiana.
That’s where Parra-Sanchez sat for more than a year — never seeing a lawyer or setting foot in a courtroom. At the time of the fight, he had been in New Orleans only six days: He’d left his family in Bakersfield, Calif., and come to help with the storm cleanup effort.
…
The students and lawyers are reviewing about 1,800 pre- and post-Katrina cases. They include people who have been imprisoned well beyond any sentence they might receive for such charges as probation violation, failure to pay a fine or prostitution.
…
They learned of Parra-Sanchez’s case from other inmates: His name didn’t appear on the sheriff’s list of prisoners in custody because of a booking error.
…
Leah Shaver, a woman in her 50s, is another of the team’s cases. She has been in jail since July 2005 on prostitution and drug-possession charges. She was arraigned a week after her arrest. Two status hearings were called in her case earlier this year, but no public defender brought her to court until May — nine months after her arrest. She is still incarcerated.
Iben O’Neal was charged with possession of heroin in October 2004 and was out on bail until spring 2005, when the court revoked his bond in error. In June of that year, O’Neal had a pretrial hearing. An August 2005 trial date came and went. His case was scheduled on the court calendar several times, but he was never brought to court. Instead, he spent another 14 months in jail without seeing a lawyer or a judge.
The public defenders office had no file on O’Neal, Metzger said, “not a scrap of paper” since 2004. Her team secured O’Neal’s release on Oct. 31, 16 months after his last court appearance.

And it’s not only Katrina that is the culprit here …

Posted by: b | Dec 12 2006 14:16 utc | 92

O’ it’s coming Clueless joe, it’s coming and they know it…until then, it’s grab all you can.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 16:49 utc | 94

The Bush Administration as Global Jailor

11/03/06 “TomDispatch” — — Today, the United States presides over a burgeoning empire — not only the “empire of bases” first described by Chalmers Johnson, but a far-flung new network of maximum security penitentiaries, detention centers, jail cells, cages, and razor wire-topped pens. From supermax-type isolation prisons in 40 of the 50 states to shadowy ghost jails at remote sites across the globe, this new network of detention facilities is quite unlike the gulags, concentration-camps, or prison nations of the past.
Even with a couple million prisoners under its control, the U.S. prison network lacks the infrastructure or manpower of the Soviet gulag or the orderly planning of the Nazi concentration-camp system. However, where it bests both, and breaks new incarceration ground, is in its planet-ranging scope, with sites scattered the world over — from Europe to Asia, the Middle East to the Caribbean. Unlike colonial prison systems of the past, the new U.S. prison network seems to have floated almost free of surrounding colonies. Right now, it has only four major centers — the “homeland,” Afghanistan, Iraq, and a postage-stamp-sized parcel of Cuba. As such, it already hovers at the edge of its own imperial existence, bringing to mind the unprecedented possibility of a prison planet. In a remarkably few years, the Bush administration has been able to construct a global detention system, already of near epic proportions, both on the fly and on the cheap.
Sizing Up a Prison Planet
Soon after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the U.S. began the process of creating what has been termed “an offshore archipelago of injustice.” In addition to using “the Charleston Navy Brig” and locking up “one prisoner of war in Miami, Florida,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Bush administration detained people from around the world in sweeps, imprisoned them without charges and kept them incommunicado at U.S. detention facilities at a CIA prison outside Kabul, Afghanistan (code-named the “Salt Pit”), at Bagram military airbase in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, among other sites.
Since it was set up in 2002, the detainment complex at Guantanamo Bay has been the public face of the Bush administration’s semi-secret foreign prison network — a collection of camps, cells, and cages that today holds 437 prisoners. But “Gitmo” has always been the tiny showpiece, the jewel in a very dark crown, for a much larger, less visible foreign network of military detention facilities, CIA “black” sites, and outsourced foreign prisons. It is a prison camp that rightly attracts opprobrium, but it also serves to focus attention away from shadowy ghost jails, borrowed third-nation facilities, much larger prisons holding thousands in Iraq, and a full-scale network of detention centers and prisons in Afghanistan.

Further, the sub rosa is everything we seem to be doing abroad merely models what we do in State, I.E., at home and visa versa.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 18:12 utc | 96

The Bush Administration as Global Jailor

11/03/06 “TomDispatch” — — Today, the United States presides over a burgeoning empire — not only the “empire of bases” first described by Chalmers Johnson, but a far-flung new network of maximum security penitentiaries, detention centers, jail cells, cages, and razor wire-topped pens. From supermax-type isolation prisons in 40 of the 50 states to shadowy ghost jails at remote sites across the globe, this new network of detention facilities is quite unlike the gulags, concentration-camps, or prison nations of the past.
Even with a couple million prisoners under its control, the U.S. prison network lacks the infrastructure or manpower of the Soviet gulag or the orderly planning of the Nazi concentration-camp system. However, where it bests both, and breaks new incarceration ground, is in its planet-ranging scope, with sites scattered the world over — from Europe to Asia, the Middle East to the Caribbean. Unlike colonial prison systems of the past, the new U.S. prison network seems to have floated almost free of surrounding colonies. Right now, it has only four major centers — the “homeland,” Afghanistan, Iraq, and a postage-stamp-sized parcel of Cuba. As such, it already hovers at the edge of its own imperial existence, bringing to mind the unprecedented possibility of a prison planet. In a remarkably few years, the Bush administration has been able to construct a global detention system, already of near epic proportions, both on the fly and on the cheap.
Sizing Up a Prison Planet
Soon after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the U.S. began the process of creating what has been termed “an offshore archipelago of injustice.” In addition to using “the Charleston Navy Brig” and locking up “one prisoner of war in Miami, Florida,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Bush administration detained people from around the world in sweeps, imprisoned them without charges and kept them incommunicado at U.S. detention facilities at a CIA prison outside Kabul, Afghanistan (code-named the “Salt Pit”), at Bagram military airbase in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, among other sites.
Since it was set up in 2002, the detainment complex at Guantanamo Bay has been the public face of the Bush administration’s semi-secret foreign prison network — a collection of camps, cells, and cages that today holds 437 prisoners. But “Gitmo” has always been the tiny showpiece, the jewel in a very dark crown, for a much larger, less visible foreign network of military detention facilities, CIA “black” sites, and outsourced foreign prisons. It is a prison camp that rightly attracts opprobrium, but it also serves to focus attention away from shadowy ghost jails, borrowed third-nation facilities, much larger prisons holding thousands in Iraq, and a full-scale network of detention centers and prisons in Afghanistan.

Further, the sub rosa is everything we seem to be doing abroad merely models what we do in State, I.E., at home and visa versa.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 12 2006 18:33 utc | 98