Category: World News

By Christian Cotroneo / Huff Post Canada

So long humans.

And thanks for all the jellyfish.

If the oceans are indeed in steep decline, it may just be a triumph of the brainless — namely, the humble jellyfish.

“The number of case studies is increasing,” Lucas Brotz of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre told the Huffington Post, “And it certainly seems we are having a severe impact on the oceans that is making them less favourable for fish and more favourable for jellyfish in some places.”

So far, the most direct impact — aside from swimming into a cloud of the critters — is being felt at the world’s nuclear reactor sites.

By John Lawrence

Boulder, CO –The rain began to fall on Monday, September 9. Experts would ultimately call it a 1,000-year rain and a 100-year flood. By Thursday September 12, Little James Creek began ripping buildings from their foundations and sending roofs plunging into basements. Roads were closed and still the rain kept coming.

In the city of Boulder, Boulder Creek was roaring at a rate of 3,104 cubic feet per second, according to Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner. Two days before, it had been flowing at a leisurely 54 cfs.

At 1:40 AM on Thursday University of Colorado officials issued a text alert ordering faculty and staff residents living in university housing near Boulder Creek to evacuate. Soon, CU and the Boulder Valley School District would both announce they were closing down.

By Christian Cotroneo / The Huffington Post Canada / October 4, 2013

Last month, a UN-sponsored panel expressed “extreme confidence” that the world is in the throes of climate change — a situation that sees oceans bear much of the brunt.

And now, a review from an international team of the world’s leading scientists suggests emerging dead zones may be stirring up mass extinctions in the world’s oceans.

“We have been taking the ocean for granted,” a study from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) claims. “It has been shielding us from the worst effects of accelerating climate change by absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.

“Whilst terrestrial temperature increases may be experiencing a pause, the ocean continues to warm regardless.”

On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify

By Congressman Alan Grayson / The New York Times / Sept. 6, 2013

WASHINGTON — THE documentary record regarding an attack on Syria consists of just two papers: a four-page unclassified summary and a 12-page classified summary. The first enumerates only the evidence in favor of an attack. I’m not allowed to tell you what’s in the classified summary, but you can draw your own conclusion.

On Thursday I asked the House Intelligence Committee staff whether there was any other documentation available, classified or unclassified. Their answer was “no.”

by Frank Thomas and John Lawrence

Is the Gassing of 1400 Syrians More of a Crime Against Humanity Than the Slaughter of 100,000 Syrians?

Frank Thomas’ take:

Russia’s ongoing multi-dollar sales of advanced massively destructive weapons to Assad’s government has exacerbated the killing fields in Syria. Yet Russia sanctimoniously thinks the rest of the world, namely the U.S., has no right of humanitarian intervention to protect the lives of innocents being slaughtered by chemical weapons and more so by Russia’s own prolific arms sales to Assad’s military forces.

Russia would remind us that for many years (1980-88) Saddam Hussein’s army blatantly used mustard and nerve gases at will against Iran and even the people of Iraq. Foreign Policy has just published CIA documents confirming Washington and other western nations knew of Iraq’s production and use of chemical gases and even delivered some raw materials.

by Marjorie Cohn and Jeanne Mirer / Common Dreams

The drums of war are beating again. The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong.

“What we are talking about here is a potential response . . . to this specific violation of international norms,” declared White House press secretary Jay Carney. But a military intervention by the United States in Syria to punish the government would violate international law.

Comparisons between WikiLeaks and Pentagon Papers cases raise serious questions about government and judicial discretion.

By David Gespass/Military Law Task Force

Today, Bradley Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years for the “crime” of revealing the seamy underside of US diplomacy and war-making. The sentence is substantially less than sixty years the prosecution asked for, but greater than what the defense requested. It was predicated on alleged damage done to the US, though it remains unclear what actual damage, aside from embarrassment, occurred.

By Glenn Greenwald / theguardian.com / July 31, 2013

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.

The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian’s earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.

The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.

By Julie Tate / Washington Post

An Army judge on Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy by disclosing a trove of secret U.S. government documents, a striking rebuke to military prosecutors who argued that the largest leak in U.S. history had assisted al-Qaeda.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning guilty of most of the more than 20 crimes he was charged with. She also acquitted him of one count of the espionage act that stemmed from his leak of a video that depicted a fatal U.S. military airstrike in Farah, Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning arrived at court to hear the verdict in his military espionage and aiding the enemy trial at Fort Meade Tuesday. Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy.

As the residents of Ocean Beach ponder the future and fate of its infamous Marshmallow Wars, looking for some parallel cultural events in other countries and cities is a useful task. If the village of OB ends up keeping a tradition that most agree has become out of control, then why not take a brief peak at two other similar – yet different – events around the world.

In Northern Italy there is the Battle of the Oranges and in Spain, there is La Tomatina, the Battle of the Tomatoes.

Below is a summation of what’s available on these two spirited traditions from wikipedia. Both events sound like a lot of fun for locals and visitors alike, and over the years, both have been forced to have controls, rules, and restrictions.

The Battle of the Oranges

In the northern Italian city of Ivrea, the Battle of the Oranges is a festival which includes a tradition of thousands of townspeople throwing oranges at each other. But the throwing of oranges is between organized groups, where people are divided into nine “combat teams”.

Restore the 4th Protest Planned for San Diego in Balboa Park – July 4

Public support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is growing across the country in leaps and bounds.

Already over 62,000 people – as of 10:30 am 6/20/13 – have signed an online petition in support of Snowden. The petition can be accessed here.

The online petition at RootsAction states:

Thank NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

Our country is in the midst of a struggle between the growing surveillance state and our precious civil liberties. Now a whistleblower has boldly stepped forward to expose the National Security Agency’s vast spying on our phone records and online communications.

Explaining his actions, the 29-year-old computer expert said:

“I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

Let this moment be a educational one so let’s have the Debate that the President calls for

By Frank Gormlie

What a dastardly crazy last week and half it’s been.

Beginning Thursday, June 6th, with the Washington Post and the Guardian in London both running with the explosive news about the National Security Agency surveillance programs, we’ve been hit with daily revelations – that are still continuing every news cycle – that have created quiet a long list of whistle blower-delivered disclosures about what the government and the NSA are and have been doing to us – the American people.