The New York Times has confirmed that Iraqi security forces have executed hundreds of Sunni men. They have been taken from their homes by men in Iraqi uniforms and either “found dead in ditches or fields, with bullet holes to their temples, acid burns to their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electrical drills. Many have simply vanished”.

In January Pentagon officials told Seymour Hersh that the Pentagon was going to trigger “The Salvador Option”; a strategy involving the training of “death squads” to execute a bloody secret war against “alleged” insurgents. One official told Hersh;

Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador? We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.

Ghali Hassan writes that the U.S. continues to indiscriminately attack Sunni cities blanketing the towns, from the ground and from the air, with artillery shells, cluster bombs and napalm bombs with the full knowledge that civilians, particularly women and children, would be killed. After the shelling, the Marines entered the city to fight those who were still alive. Humanitarian aides and medical supplies were prevented from entering the town, in gross violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions.

Qaim last 29 August, a thriving town of 150,000 people in western Iraq, they cordoned it off, cut electricity, water and food supplies. Then they indiscriminately and disproportionately blanketed the town, from the ground and from the air, with artillery shells, cluster bombs and napalm bombs with the full knowledge that civilians, particularly women and children, would be killed.

The cities of Qaim and Tel Afar have been decimated and hundreds of innocent people killed. Iraqi news reports revealed, “’scores of casualties’ due to indiscriminate bombing” by U.S. forces. Paralleling the atrocities committed in other towns and cities, all of which savagely attacked and destroyed the entire population of Tel Afar are now ‘ethnically cleansed’ refugees.

Virtually everything we see and hear about the war is mere rhetoric and spin. The White House strategy can come to no good end. Congressman Murtha has stood up and told the truth, but he is mighty lonely in that position.

Even in this election off-year, the potential perils of electronic voting systems are bedeviling state officials as a Jan. 1 deadline approaches for complying with standards for the machines’ reliability.

Across the country, officials are trying multiple methods to ensure that touch-screen voting machines can record and count votes without falling prey to software bugs, hackers, malicious insiders or other ills that beset computers.

Click here for link.

Only months after Congress passed a six-year, $286.4 billion highway bill including the now famous “bridge to nowhere,” the US Chamber of Commerce reports that the federal Highway Trust Fund is running out of money and needs new revenue sources.

Revisiting the highway bill might mean losing some of the billions of dollars of pork projects that were in the bill, so Congress is considering ways to raise additional revenues. One proposal would charge a vehicle fee on owners of hybrids and other alternative fuel vehicles, arguing that drivers should bear their fair share to fill potholes and fix bridges, regardless of how much or what kind of fuel they use.

In the face of rising fuel prices and uncertain oil supplies, the natural reaction to this proposal would be; “are you nuts?” But given the last five years, there seems to be no idea so ludicrous that it won’t be considered.

The Yellowstone cutthroat trout population in the nation’s oldest national park “appears to be in peril,” according to a new scientific journal article by National Park Service scientists.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency in charge of endangered species programs, has cited Yellowstone Lake’s abundant population as one major reason not to list the fish. Environmentalists point to loss of habitat and cross breeding with non-native fish outside the park as a reason to list it.

“The park’s doing everything it can,” said Steve Kelly, a Bozeman environmentalist who has pushed for the trout’s listing. “If they can’t make it happen there, maybe they can’t make it happen. Normally, the park is a stronghold for a species.”

Click here for link.

A new report out by the European Environment Agency in coordination with Global Footprint Network estimates that humanity is consuming 23% more ecological resources than the earth is producing. This compares with their estimate of a 20% overshoot last year. In order to do this we are drawing down the ecosystem’s ability to produce in future years.

We are eating the seed corn.

The National Footprint Accounts use over 4,000 data points per year to calculate each country’s demand on nature and to asses its biological capacity. National accounts currently exist for over 150 countries in hectares and acres, for each year from 1961 to 2002.

As this figure shows, human demands upon the environment have been growing steadily and for the last decade have surpased the Earth’s capacity to support them.

The consumer economy is very literally going to kill us.

Something to think about this holiday season.

Biodiesel Energy Industry Sparks Interest in Maryland Soybeans

Larry Jarboe’s quest for energy independence began years ago in the mangrove swamps of the Florida Keys, with a 15-foot canoe he bought for $75 at Sears. He installed an electric trolling motor to chase lobsters and realized along the way that “it was a really great way to live and very clean.”

After that came the homemade electric riding lawnmower, the solar-powered electric Toyota MR2 with lightning bolt on the side (known as the “Green Hornet”), the electric bicycle and the wood-and-gas-powered sawmill. Now Jarboe, a Republican St. Mary’s County commissioner, has laid his hopes on a hard vegetable the size of a pencil eraser grown throughout Southern Maryland: the soybean.

Click here for link.

The heart of the Kensington historical district is the mansion originally built by Brainard Warner, who in 1891 established Kensington as a residential community based around the newly built railroad station. The mansion is now used as a nursing home and the grounds around it are available to the residents.

Earlier this year the owners of the property decided to sell it to developers who wanted to replace the mansion with housing developments. Hoping to preserve the town’s historical heretige, the town council turned to the county planning board which has a program to buy up “Legacy Open Space Heritage Resources.”

The town approached the Board and thought they had an agreement to buy the property and preserve it, but when it came time to sign the agreement they found out that the Board planned to close the nursing home and build housing on half of the property.

Once again the Planning Board secretly negotiated with developers. Nothing was said to the residents of the Board’s agenda for the property at the town meeting in July. Instead the town was presented with a “take it or leave it” deal.

Confronted with this the town persuaded the Board to postpone signing the agreement and to hold a public meeting on Nov. 28th. Board Chairman Berlage and County Councilman Tom Perez have agreed to participate in the meeting. They are likely to hear some bluntly frank opinions.

Ministers in the British department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, are pushing for a plan, drawn up by Essex county council, to be adopted by other local authorities as they try to accommodate the 1.2m new homes the government has said must be built in southeast England by 2021.

This blueprint for a “sustainable suburbia” maps out a future in which cars glide along at 10mph, children play in the streets and back gardens are reduced to tiny yards.

Developers must meet an elaborate system of “green points”, in which they must install features to encourage biodiversity, from ponds and climbing creepers to nectar-laden flowers and bat boxes.

Electricity will have to come from street-corner stations powered by wind, ground heat or other renewable sources.

Cars will be allowed into play streets, but obstacles such as trees, cycle racks and sand pits will be placed so that drivers have to slow down to 10mph to weave through them.The idea is that parents will feel confident enough to let their children play in the street without worrying about the traffic.

To achieve the required density of housing and minimise the amount of countryside destroyed, the government wants householders in the new developments to settle for spaces such as roof gardens, play streets and balconies rather than private gardens. Because of the need to pack many more homes into each acre, few will be allowed private gardens or yards of more than 15ft by 15ft.

Kitchens in the new homes will have to have six fitted recycling bins, each for a different material. The bins must be of 10-litre capacity for one-bed properties and 20 litres for larger homes.

As America moves more and more toward McMansions with more and more space, much of which a single family will never use, Europeans are beginning to seriously face up to a future where energy and resources are limited and precious and fhe ecological damage of human society must be limited.

Ministers in the British department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, are pushing for a plan, drawn up by Essex county council, to be adopted by other local authorities as they try to accommodate the 1.2m new homes the government has said must be built in southeast England by 2021.

This blueprint for a “sustainable suburbia” maps out a future in which cars glide along at 10mph, children play in the streets and back gardens are reduced to tiny yards.

Developers must meet an elaborate system of “green points”, in which they must install features to encourage biodiversity, from ponds and climbing creepers to nectar-laden flowers and bat boxes.

Electricity will have to come from street-corner stations powered by wind, ground heat or other renewable sources.

Cars will be allowed into play streets, but obstacles such as trees, cycle racks and sand pits will be placed so that drivers have to slow down to 10mph to weave through them.The idea is that parents will feel confident enough to let their children play in the street without worrying about the traffic.

To achieve the required density of housing and minimise the amount of countryside destroyed, the government wants householders in the new developments to settle for spaces such as roof gardens, play streets and balconies rather than private gardens. Because of the need to pack many more homes into each acre, few will be allowed private gardens or yards of more than 15ft by 15ft.

Kitchens in the new homes will have to have six fitted recycling bins, each for a different material. The bins must be of 10-litre capacity for one-bed properties and 20 litres for larger homes.

As America moves more and more toward McMansions with more and more space, much of which a single family will never use, Europeans are beginning to seriously face up to a future where energy and resources are limited and precious and fhe ecological damage of human society must be limited.

Supporters of Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) appear to be turning on Planning Board Chairman Derick Berlage , whose management of the agency has come under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the controversy over alleged building violations at Clarksburg Town Center.

With Duncan running for governor, some of his loyalists appear to be worried that the planning agency’s woes are undermining his campaign.

Click here for link.