MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER, - The New York Times
Stephan: This is what the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld policy of creating and utilizing mercenary forces has loosed upon the world. It's been done before, and does not end well. Think late Roman empire.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Abu Dhabi and Washington, and Emily B. Hager from New York. Jenny Carolina González and Simon Romero contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia. Kitty Bennett contributed research from Washington.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps […]
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SEVEN REINBERG, - USA TODAY
Stephan: This report tells us two things: From Ayn Rand's view -- that is to say the Far Right end of the spectrum -- this would be called population control; a war amongst the proles. But notice also the fact that gun suicides are lower in urban areas, than the nation as a whole.
The report is correct in my opinion that the focus should be on alternatives. As of 2009, the United States had a population of 307 million people. Based on production data from firearm manufacturers, as of 2010, there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States. We are way past gun control.
The real problem is poverty and alienation. We are eating our young with reductions in child care, degradation of education, etc.; and they are eating each other. To this must also be added the largest incarceration rate and population in the world.
This is a social cancer devouring our liver.
Large metropolitan areas suffer about two-thirds of all firearm homicides in the United States, with inner cities most affected, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘The central cities really bear the burden of firearm homicides,’ said Linda L. Dahlberg, the associate director for science in CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, noting that the gun murder rate was highest among male children and teens.
These findings ‘speak to the importance of addressing youth if we really want to do something about the gun violence problem,’ Dahlberg said.
According to the CDC, 25,423 murders by gunfire took place in the United States in 2006 through 2007 – the years of the most recent available statistics.
Among these deaths, the rate of firearm homicides was higher in inner cities than in other parts of cities and higher than the murder rate of the country as a whole, Dahlberg said. People living in 50 of the largest cities, in fact, accounted for 67% of all firearm homicides.
In addition, children and teens aged 10 to 19 in these areas – more than 85% of them male – accounted for 73% of all firearm homicides, Dahlberg noted.
In the United States, ‘gun violence […]
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, - National Academy of Sciences
Stephan: The alarms ring louder, and nearly half the American Congress is pledged, bound to corporate masters, to do nothing about it. I urge my readers to read two books: The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman (possibly out of print, try www.abebooks.com); Collapse by Jared Diamond. I suggest this because not only is it possible for humanity to destroy its cultures, it has happened. More than once.
The National Academy of Sciences should be taken very seriously.
The new report builds upon the four previous America's Climate Choices panel reports: Advancing the Science of Climate Change; Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change; Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change; and Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change.
The America's Climate Choices studies were sponsored by NOAA. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are independent, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under an 1863 congressional charter. Committee members, who serve pro bono as volunteers, are chosen by the Academies for each study based on their expertise and experience and must satisfy the Academies' conflict-of-interest standards. The resulting consensus reports undergo external peer review before completion. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org/studycommitteprocess.pdf.
WASHINGTON – Warning that the risk of dangerous climate change impacts is growing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere, a National Research Council committee today reiterated the pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare to adapt to its impacts. The nation’s options for responding to the risks posed by climate change are analyzed in a new report and the final volume in America’s Climate Choices, a series of studies requested by Congress. The committee that authored the report included not only renowned scientists and engineers but also economists, business leaders, an ex-governor, a former congressman, and other policy experts.
‘The goal of the America’s Climate Choices studies is to ensure that climate decisions are informed by the best possible scientific knowledge, analysis, and advice, both now and in the future,’ said committee chair Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor, University of California, Los Angeles.
The new report reaffirms that the preponderance of scientific evidence points to human activities — especially the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — as the most likely cause for most of the global warming that has occurred over the last […]
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IAN POWER-LUETSCHER, - TPM
Stephan: The trend of the Great Schism is reaching its tipping point. The world of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California -- Cascadia -- has only a limited tangency with the world of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. And the divergence is widening. As the corporate takeover of the Congress proceeds the forces of state's rights and regional linkages will become more compelling. Both the Far Right and Social Progressives seek a realignment of political power as the future, although for very different reasons. Consider Texas Governor Rick Perry's dalliance with secession.
It’s hard out in Arizona for a liberal. From recently announced deep cuts to health care and education, to the now infamously tough immigration law currently tied up in court battles, Arizona remains one of the country’s more reliably conservative states. However, a group of Arizonans from the Tucson area are looking to distance themselves from the more conservative policies of their state, literally, by seceding. Headed up by Tucson attorney and former state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Eckerstrom, SOS or ‘Start Our State,’ is calling for the progressive alcove of Pima County, located near the Mexican border, to break off from the rest of Arizona and form the 51st state, tentatively called ‘Baja Arizona.’
It’s a daunting task and one with little hope for success, but with a petition drive in full gear, SOS’s political action committee has grown from a group of democrats with an idea, to a fledgling movement. ‘Start Our State,’ in their own words, aims ‘to establish a new state in Southern Arizona free of the un-American, unconstitutional machinations of the Arizona legislature and to restore our region’s credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors.’
Baja Arizona wouldn’t be […]
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DARRELL PRESTON and AARON KURILOFF, - Bloomberg
Stephan: This is how distorted the values of the Right have become. Texas, home of the book commission that supported Creationism, assaults on women's healthcare, and slashing the social safety net for children has come up with this. Yet another example -- read the justifications -- of profit above anything, even the education of the next generation of Texans.
Texas, which may balance its budget by firing thousands of teachers, plans to commit $25 million in state funds to Formula One auto racing each year for a decade.
Four years after motorsports’ most popular series left the U.S., Texas investors including Clear Channel Communications Inc. co-founder B.J. ‘Red
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