The willful neglect of the security of a nation.

...and Rudy Giuliani states the war in Iraq must continue to victory. Is that right? It's interesting to realize what a thirst for power can do to a man. The Republican Party has committed a coup against the USA Constitution including the provisions of habeous corpus. Where will you stand as the USA grapples with the intention of impeachment as the world continues to grow more dangerous rather than safer? Whom will you vote for come 2008? In the House, the Senate and the Executive Branch? It's time to take the country back from the treasonists.

Taliban Rockets Target Afghan President (click here)
Monday June 11, 2007 4:16 AM
AP Photo TOK110
By FISNIK ABRASHI
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban militants fired a barrage of rockets at President Hamid Karzai on Sunday as he spoke with a group of elders, but the Afghan leader did not flinch as the rockets landed about 200 yards away from him.
A purported Taliban spokesman said militants planned the strike after learning in advance about Karzai's arrival in Ghazni, a central Afghan province with a strong Taliban presence. Provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said no one was hurt in the attack. But it was a sign of the group's rising capabilities after a winter lull in violence.
It was the third attempt on Karzai's life since he became president.
``Please sit down, sit down,'' Karzai told the gathering under a tent in a school yard, gesturing for them to be seated after the rockets landed with a thud. ``Don't be scared. Nothing is happening.''
Several bearded men seated in front of Karzai immediately broke out in applause.
Karzai finished his speech and his security detail whisked him off by helicopter to Kabul, witnesses and officials said.
Sunday's attack underscored the dangers faced by the U.S.-backed government of Karzai, who holds shaky sway over a country plagued by relentless Taliban-led violence that has killed about 2,200 people this year - many of them militants, according to an Associated Press tally of numbers reported by the U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials. Violence elsewhere in Afghanistan on Sunday left 66 people dead....

The willful opposition of the United Nation's Security Council - The Iraq Invasion

2 million refugees. By the time the USA is able to extricate Bush's military from Iraq there will be at least one million dead from war. The debt for future generations of Americans will be insoluble.

As war breaks out between Turkey and the Kurds, will the USA attack both sides as they do the Shia and Sunnis in Baghdad or will the USA be forced to take sides with Turkey as an ally and begin ethnic cleansing of the Kurds from Turkey? Ten will get you twenty that Bush backs Turkey for the oil. Right? Right. I mean that is all the 'say' the American people have in this mess. Bush is willful in all he does and it's anyone guess what happens next.

We should counter Turkish invasion (click here)
Kurdishaspect.com - By Ali Kurdi
When Saddam carried out crimes against humanity, more or less, the entire Islamic world commiserated with him and the world powers shrugged off their humanitarian responsibilities to muscle in. They did not demonstrate a modicum of desire to imperil their interests for the sake of salvaging few million dispossessed Kurds until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In the wake of Turkey’s refusal to authorize American forces to use its airbases, the American administration became heavily obliged to involuntarily hinge on Kurdish assistance. As a substitute, the Kurds were assured more freedom and a greater sovereignty.
The scale of autonomy that the Kurds have enjoyed has become extremely alarming to Washington and particularly the neighboring countries. A self-determining Kurdish state has virtually crystallized. Even though Pentagon has bluntly proclaimed that it has no interest in the implementation of such a strategy, it appears to be too late to avert it.
Wedged in a new quagmire, the defense is sifting its focus from promoting sectarianism to patriotism in futile bid to rally diverse Iraqis groups under one national umbrella. Counterbalancing Kurdish progression toward absolute self-rule is the key goal of US military strategists in Iraq.
Turkish military forces are advancing into Kurdish autonomous region and targeting villages around Dohuk and Irbil, deep inside Iraqi territory. Iraq has lodged an official complaint to Turkey for shelling Kurdistan, warning against any attack. Some Iraqi political figures and factions have also voiced their objection and condemned the raids.

The willful and complete disrespect for Climate Science. Bush will believe the Brits about Yellow Cake but not about Human Induced Global Warming.

One nation produces 25 percent of all greenhouse gases as compared to the rest of the nations of the world and yet the USA can't come to terms with it's deadly effects.


...Temperature change also has effects upon the hydrological cycle, which effectively translates into changes in where rain falls, and where water ends up. As global warming increases, the world will see more and worse droughts and floods. By the year 2020, climate change in Britain is likely to correspond roughly to a northward shift in climate characteristics of some 100 to 200 km. This and other changes will have major effects upon the habitats and ranges of many species of plants, animals, and micro–organisms. Many of the species, and indeed ecosystems, thus affected will not be able to respond fast enough to “move with the temperature change.” The overall effects are extremely complicated, and vary from region to region, in all cases surrounded by a good deal of uncertainty. Rather than make an attempt to survey these questions, I observe that a major recent study has attempted to assess the economic value of the “ecosystem services” delivered by natural ecological processes: soil formation, water supplies, nutrient cycling, waste processing, pollination, and much else. The assessment, necessarily very rough, is around £10–£34 trillion per year, with a best guess of around £21 trillion, most of it outside the market. This is roughly twice the conventional global GNP, at around £11 trillion per year. Large swathes of this £10–£34 trillion are at risk from the possible environmental and ecological changes sketched by the IPCC....




China may halt production of liquefied coal (click here)
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-06-10 13:42
China, which is rich in coal but poor in petroleum and gas, may put an end to projects which are designed to produce petroleum by liquefying coal, an official with the country's top economic planning agency has said.
The consideration came after evaluation of the nation's limited energy resources and its econological environment, a deputy director of the industry department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) told a seminar on China's fuel ethanol development, held in Beijing on Saturday.
"Liquefied coal projects consume a lot of energy, though the successful industrialization of liquefied coal could help reduce the country's dependence on petroleum," said the official who declined to be named.
The Chinese government said earlier it would invest more in developing alternative energy resources including biomass fuel and liquefied coal to substitute petroleum during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010) period, amid concerns over the country's growing dependence on petroleum.
China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, imported 162.87 million tons of oil in 2006, driving the country's reliance on imported oil up 4.1 percentage points from a year earlier to reach 47 percent, official statistics show.
The country is also confronted with huge capital demand and higher consumption of water and coal in producing the liquefied coal, the official said.
A project in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with a designed capacity of 1.08 million tons would need more than 50 billion yuan (6.58 billion U.S. dollars) of investment, according to him.
He said the country had begun the coal-liquefying projects without trial industrialization operation, and the technologies involved were not sophisticated yet.
And both coal and petroleum are irreproducible energy resources, he said.
However, the country has never slackened its efforts to find substitutes for petroleum.
China said on Tuesday it has successfully excavated combustible ice--a kind of natural gas hydrate--from below the floor of the South China Sea after nine years of research in this field.
The Chinese government said recently it upheld the development of renewable resources as an important national strategy, and would continue to boost the development of hydro power, solar power, wind power, biomass fuel and methane.
The current seminar was hosted by Chinese Academy of Engineering with sponsorship from Denmark-based Novozymes, the world's leader in enzymes and microorganisms. Discussions focus on the industrializaton of China's fuel ethanol.

The willful anti-Moscow rhetoric to spawn more war spending for cronies? Bush Brinkmanship - Guaranteed Profits

NYMEX to Assist St. Pete Oil Exchange (click here)

By Simon Shuster Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG -- The government inked a deal Friday with the New York Mercantile Exchange to set up an oil exchange in St. Petersburg by year's end to better control the prices at which Russian oil is sold.
Russian crude -- specifically the blend known as Russian export blend crude oil, or REBCO -- is underpriced by $7 per barrel when sold at $60 per barrel, said Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, who signed the agreement Friday.
"These are huge losses not only for Russian oil companies but for our federal budget," he said. "The state is now moving toward real market mechanisms for trading oil."
President Vladimir Putin approved a proposal Tuesday allowing state agencies to organize the sale of oil and oil products on exchanges from Aug. 1. Such exchanges so far operate only in London, New York, Dubai and Tehran....

Putin to Be Quizzed by Affable CEOs (click here)

By Nikolaus von Twickel Staff Writer
President Vladimir Putin will face pointed questions about government policy and the image he is trying to project for Russia when he sits down with foreign business leaders Saturday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
But the invitation-only audience of 100 CEOs from more than 20 countries will be far from hostile during the 90-minute roundtable Saturday evening. Putin will find that they are enthusiastic about the opportunities available in Russia and eager to invest billions of dollars.
"We would like to explore what Russia has to offer," said Aly Aziz, chairman and CEO of Dashwood Group, a London-based investment company looking to invest $1 billion in Russia. "I remember that there was great potential in the sugar industry. We would be looking [to see] if such a possibility still exists."
Dashwood, which operates mainly in Southeast Asia and Latin America, specializes in agro-industrial and renewable energy projects.
Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of advertising giant WPP, said he would like to ask Putin what kind of brand image he wanted to give Russia and to market around the world.
Sorrell, whose company earned $100 million in Russia last year, would not say what answer he hoped to hear from Putin: "I would leave it to him as we do with all our clients. We are just implementing it."...

The willful neglect by Homeland Security of the nation's food network

E. coli, again?

Contaminated beef sickens 14, recall expands (click here)


Posted 6/9/07BAKERSFIELD - A California meat supplier has expanded aground beef recall to include 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen meat sold in Western states because they may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.
Federal regulators announced Saturday that a recall of meat distributed by United Food Group will now cover products with thesell-by dates of April sixth through April 20th.
None of the beef is in stores now but consumers may still have some in their freezers.
United Food Group meat is suspected in an E. coli outbreak blamed for 14 illnesses.
All the victims recovered.
The meat was shipped to California and ten other states and sold in Albertson's and other markets.
It was sold under the following brand names: Moran's All Natural, Miller Meat Company, Stater Brothers, Trader Joes Butcher Shop, Inter-American Products and Basha's.
A U-S-D-A official announced on Saturday that the recall would be expanded to include products with sell-by dates from April sixth through April 20th.

The willful disrespect for the nation's health

Lack of health care coverage for Latinos takes center stage (click here)
By Javier Erik OlveraMercury News
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 01:29:14 AM PDT
Rose Olazcoaga is a San Jose legal secretary who starts every weekday by sending her 15-year-old son to school before she heads into the one-attorney office where she works part time.
Her life is typical, except for one thing: She has no health care insurance.
"Everyone should be eligible for adequate health care," said Olazcoaga, whose employer doesn't provide insurance, but who makes slightly too much money to get public aid. "We work hard, we pay taxes and we should be entitled to universal health care."
The issue will take center stage Tuesday as part of a town hall forum hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that will tackle the issue, not only for Latinos, but the estimated 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
Association leaders chose the issue to launch its 25th annual journalism conference this week in San Jose because, more than any other social problem, "health care impacts everyone" regardless of ethnicity, said conference co-chair Veronica Villafañe.
But Latinos are among ethnic groups affected the most, with roughly 28 percent of California's Latino population lacking health care insurance coverage - more than three times the percentage of whites without coverage, according to the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
That, coupled with a shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors, and a disproportionately higher rate of diabetes for adults and the highest rate of invasive cervical cancer for women in the state, makes the group vulnerable, especially when they are trying to acquire health care that might help prevent such diseases....

The willful dismantling of the USA educational system

The willful underfunding of "No Child Left Behind." The willful dummying down of America.

Poll finds most Americans want No Child Left Behind act changed or abolished (click here)
Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III, Scripps Howard News ServiceSaturday, June 9, 2007

Nearly two-thirds of American adults want Congress to rewrite or outright abolish the landmark No Child Left Behind Act that mandates nationwide testing of elementary students to determine if public schools are performing adequately.
Opposition is especially high among people most familiar with the law, according to a survey of 1,010 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.
Controversy about the law has grown in recent months as Congress begins the debate on whether to reauthorize the measure that President Bush has touted is one of the most important achievements of his administration.
"The No Child Left Behind Act has worked for America's children, and I ask Congress to reauthorize this good law," Bush urged legislators during his last State of the Union address.
But dissent against reauthorization has developed within his own party. Fifty-two Republican House members and five GOP senators are calling for a repeal of the law in favor of a more flexible system of achievement standards to be negotiated between the Department of Education and individual states.
"This expensive and largely unsuccessful legislation has broadened the scope of the federal government's role in education," Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan said while introducing his bill.
Participants in the poll were told that No Child Left Behind "requires states to test elementary students to determine if schools do a good job teaching. Critics say the law forces teachers to teach to a particular test. From everything you've heard, do you think the No Child Left Behind Act has been good for public schools or not good?"
Only about a third said they think the law has had a positive influence on public education. Slightly less than half said it has had a negative impact and a fifth were undecided....

The willful disregard for 'the truth.'

Setting Stage For Libby Pardon (click here)

June 10, 2007

By MARGARET COLGATE LOVE

...For example, excessive harshness (which is one of Libby's complaints) is a time-honored reason for reducing a prison sentence. Carter commuted the sentence of heiress Patty Hearst, Reagan did the same for former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, and President Bill Clinton cut short the prison terms of a group of Puerto Rican nationalists, all because they considered these prisoners' sentences disproportionate to their crimes. If Bush begins now to exercise his pardon power with more intention and greater liberality, with more sympathy for human error and less aversion to controversy, there is at least a chance that the public will regard with equanimity any relief he ultimately chooses to grant to Scooter Libby.

The willfulness of a DC administration to undercut the quality of government caused the largest deaths ever recorded by a hurricane

Under any other administration, there would have been impeachment for the level of incompetency surrounding this event on USA soil. Bush and Cheney is responsible for the deaths that occurred as a result of Katrina.

Deaths from Katrina continue, medical officials say (click here)
People dying of suicide, hopelessness, stress are linked to storm, they say

NEW ORLEANS
The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later, many in the medical community think that the storm is still killing.
Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Katrina is still killing our residents,” Dr. Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish coroner, said this week.
He gave examples: “People with pre-existing conditions that are made worse by the stress of living here after the storm. Old people who are just giving up. People who are killing themselves because they feel they can’t go on.”
Some say that an in-depth federal analysis is needed, despite a new state report that found no significant increase in deaths in the New Orleans area from January 2006 through June 2006. The state Department of Health and Hospitals is still compiling figures for the last six months of 2006.
Dr. Raoult Ratard, the state epidemiologist, said that “the only slight increase” in deaths was in the first three months of 2006 in Orleans Parish.
But New Orleans medical officials say that jump, from 11.3 per 1,000 deaths to 14.3 per 1,000, — a leap of more than 25 percent — was anything but slight. Moreover, the report doesn’t take into account evacuees who died while away from the city and were returned for burial.
“Our death rate was already high. That’s huge,” said Dr. Kevin Stephens Sr., the director of the New Orleans Health Department.
Some New Orleans doctors questioned the accuracy of the population figures used to determine the death rate, suggesting that they might have been too high. Dr. Fred Cerise, the DHH secretary, said he is comfortable with the population data, which he said came from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The official death toll in New Orleans stands at about 1,100. State health officials said that since the end of 2005, deaths have not been listed as Katrina-related except for bodies found under storm wreckage. But Minyard said he believes that the hurricane is still behind many deaths.
Local mental-health professionals say they are encountering more people with psychological problems.
“We’re seeing triple the number of people with mental-health problems as we were before Katrina,” said Leah Hedrick, a social worker at Ochsner Hospital. “Depression, suicidal, anxiety, abuse of drugs and alcohol — and along with that comes a lot more physical problems.”
Another possible sign that there are more deaths are paid death notices in The Times-Picayune. Before Katrina, the newspaper usually printed about a page daily. Now, three and four pages are not uncommon.
Stephens analyzed the death-notice pattern before and after the storm and said he believes that it confirms that more local people are dying.
His study will be published this month in the Journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, the American Medical Association’s new publication on disaster management.
Minyard believes that the medical community’s different observations reach the same conclusion, and one day will be proved correct.
“Years from now, when they talk about post-traumatic stress, New Orleans after Katrina will be the poster child,” he said.

The willful attack on women by the Right Wing

Partial Birth Abortion was rarely used in the USA and only to save a woman's life, yet, it was legislated as illegal in order to assault thirty years of respecting a woman's right to choose.

Willful intent to declare women incompetent to decide. This is America?

Like what? Is Joe Lieberman running for President or just too scared for Israel than words can say?

Reactionaries. That is what is in DC when it comes to 'nerves of steel' when dealing with 'the mess' generated by the Neocons.

There are currently 'social' issues mounting in Iran in that people are being detained. It's a concern and international organizations are reporting that concern. Bombing Iran isn't going to reverse that trend which is probably a reaction to the Iranian legislative elections of 2006, where Ahmadinejad lost support. With Iranian presidential elections again in 2009 it has to be speculated what exactly is going on with Iran.

But what Lieberman is proposing is simply outrageous and has nothing to do with the concern regarding the internal stability of Iran currently under sanctions. There is every indication the sanctions are unnerving the current leadership in Iran to act to control the social/political reaction within the country. At a point when there could be real progress in actually liberating Iran and limiting it's nuclear program, a radical right wing independant from Connecticut believes dropping bombs is going to solve the problem in Iraq?

Man. Those monies sent to Bush on emergency military budgets must be making some in the USA Senate feel like they can conquer the world. At what point in time does someone like Joe Lieberman declare attonement for invading Iraq in the first place as an international incident whereby those responsible have to be held accountable. There is this dual lunacy that pervades the Iraq issue in DC. On one hand they are guilty as sin for an illegal invasion and the mass deaths of Iraqis and on the other hand there is this 'idea' the USA still has the solution to anarchy in Iraq.

When does that duality end? When all the Iraqis are dead and there are only Americans left standing?

The willful misuse of the powers of the USA Supreme Court.

The waterways of the USA are no longer protected by law, without legislation reversing the adverse 'decisions' made on at least two occassions in the past year, the water quality and beauty of our natural areas will be destroyed.

The decisions being handed down by the Supreme Court are completely 'out of the blue' and contradictory to past decisions and policies. I don't know if 'the court' now decides these issues over 'dinner at Alito's house' but the bizarreness of the 'tend' is more than disturbing. Without an impeachment of the 'dummying' down of The Supreme Court, the USA will never maintain any high standards of quality of life. Money and the exploitation of American assets is all the Robert's Court understands. The very basis of our national laws are in the hands of incompetents.

There was a time in the USA when we would never have risked it.

There was a time when a failed shuttle system would have been abandoned for another avenue of space flight. When the destruction of two shuttles and the death of two crews would have ended a program of ill conceived agendas. The space shuttle was supposed to prove that flight to outer space was 'cost effective.' What is proved was that when the USA puts 'false' expectations on exploration it is doomed to failure.




Now, we have yet another space crew 'at risk' but alas, this time it's just a matter of minimizing the risk and keeping one's fingers crossed in hopes that all will turn out well when in fact it should never have been attempted in the first place. Sort of like Iraq. Iraq should have never been attempted in the first place.




The USA today is a risk taker nation at the expense of American integrity, standards and esteem. But, hey, who ever said the USA Constitution guaranteed Americans their dignity.

What kind of citizens have Americans become to allow willful acts against the US Constitution?

It's Sunday Night

"Willful Suspension of Disbelief" by Modest Mouse

Everywhere everywhere everywhere
It's all so plain it's all a plan
The sky doesn't ever end
The air just gets much thinner further up
You could keep diggin' down and down
A thousand graves down without turnin'
Around or finding hell
You find you're digging up again
Everywhere everywhere everywhere
Willful suspension of disbelief

Half of the country of China on flood watch. Where is the conscience of the USA Global Warming Polcy? This is insane !

June 10, 2007
1906 gmt
East Asia Satellite

A motorcyclist wades through waist-deep flood waters in Yongzhou, Central China's Hunan Province June 8, 2007. Floods, triggered by heavy rains, ravaged the city. (Click here) [Xinhua]

The USA policies on many things have become unconscionable, but, to put human life second to economic wealth is far more than tragic, it's criminal.

Death toll rises to 66 from S. China storms (click here)

TORRENTIAL rainstorms that have drenched southern China for days have killed at least 66 people, injured dozens and left 12 missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said last night.The resulting flooding has destroyed 48,000 homes, damaged 94,000 structures and forced 591,000 people to evacuate, a ministry official said.The flooding also destroyed 53,000 hectares of cropland, he said.From Wednesday to Saturday, continuous torrential rainstorms, mudslides and floods hit Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, causing 2.9 billion yuan (US$371 million) in economic losses.Reports from the individual provinces were fragmentary and did not reflect the ministry totals.In Guangdong Province, at least 18 people were killed, four are missing, 28 were injured and more than 20,000 were displaced by floods and landslides, officials there reported on Saturday.The bad weather knocked down 3,100 houses and damaged 26,000 hectares of cropland and caused 500 million yuan in economic losses.In Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 13 people were killed in the downpours, one is missing and 3,751 houses and 89,800 hectares of crops were destroyed in 31 counties.The flooding also killed 500 farm animals, suspended operations at 87 factories and coal mines, damaged 36 reservoirs and 477 dams and caused 651 million yuan in economic losses.The storms had subsided by yesterday, but the water levels in major rivers will keep rising for the next few days, according to the region's meteorological bureau.In Guizhou Province, at least seven people were killed, four are missing and economic losses totaled 117 million yuan.In Hunan Province, the storms killed at least three people, one is missing and 158,000 are homeless.Jingzhou County in the city of Huaihua, one of the worst hit areas, received 146.4 millimeters of rainfall on Friday and Saturday.The entire province is on alert as the upper reaches of the Xiangjiang River have risen to 4.6 meters above the warning level - the highest in 20 years."We have stepped up our guard against flooding as two more heavy rainstorms are forecast over the next four days," said Xie Kangsheng, an official with the Hunan Provincial People's Congress. He said reservoirs on the upper reaches of the river would have to discharge more water as the situation deteriorates.Sichuan Province reported seven deaths and nine injuries on Friday in the Liangshan Autonomous Prefecture of the Yi nationality after continuous rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday brought hailstorms, lightning strikes and landslides.One person was reported dead in Jiangxi Province.Meanwhile, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, hailstorms, rainstorms and floods slammed into six towns on Thursday, washing away one farmer near a canal.