Phi Beta Iota: Based on in-country reporting from Cynthia McKinney and others, we are quite certain that it is NATO that is committing the war crimes, and the rebels who are genociding black Libyans. We are equally certain the International Tribunal does not have a clue in terms of validated intelligence (decision-support) and therefore conclude that in this instance the warrants lack legitimacy and credibility and are an act of state–similar to the act of state against Martin Luther King; the act of state that sanctioned Israeli murder of US personnel aboard the USS Liberty; and the act of state that told 935 lies to create an elective three trillion dollar war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Each week, on a Friday, Alexander Cockburn publishes a weekly diary in the weekend edition of Counterpunch, which he co-edits with Jeffrey St. Claire. Last week’s diary included a particularly important entry that expands on earlier CP essay analyzing the possibility of increased infant deaths in the western US resulting from the poisons spewed out by the multiple meltdowns in the Fukushima nuclear power facility in Japan.
Cockburn enlisted Pierre Sprey, a recognized expert in the proper use of nonparametric statistics to extract unbiased information out limited but important data samples, to examine the data/analysis in the original CP essay and to expand or critique the analysis, if possible. (caveat: Pierre is a close friend of mine)
Attached below is Cockburn’s summary of Pierre’s findings … it makes for very important reading for two reasons: it is a good discussion of the limits implicit in in quality statistical analysis, and it is a sobering discussion of a danger that has receded from the public consciousness.
Last weekend on this site we ran a piece by Dr. Janet Sherman and Joseph Mangano, reviewing some recent figures from the Center for Disease Control: here's how they interpreted the data in the context of the disaster at Fukushima on March 11, 2011:
“The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
“4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week).
“This amounts to an increase of 35 per cent (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3 per cent ), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is expanding its shadowy battle against militants in Yemen, including a planned new CIA base nearby in the Persian Gulf, in an attempt to stop a lethal branch of al-Qaida from capitalizing on the political turmoil in Yemen.
The White House has increased the numbers of CIA officers in Yemen, and has signed off on the new base from which to fly armed drones to hunt militants in Yemen, to be completed by next year.
Even as we withdraw troops, the enormity of the US embassy compound in Baghdad sends the wrong message.
— By Peter Van Buren
Mother Jones, 11 June 2011
EXTRACT:
Eight disastrous years after we invaded, it is sad but altogether true that Iraq does not matter much in the end.
Click on Image to Enlarge
It is a terrible thing that we poured4,459 American lives and trillions of dollars into the war, and without irony oversaw the deaths of at least a hundred thousand, and probably hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis in the name of freedom. Yet we are left with only one argument for transferring our occupation duties from the Department of Defense to the Department of State: something vague about our “investment in blood and treasure.”
Think of this as the Vegas model of foreign policy: keep the suckers at the table throwing good money after bad. Leaving aside the idea that “blood and treasure” sounds like a line from Pirates of the Caribbean, one must ask: What accomplishment are we protecting?
The war's initial aim was to stop those weapons of mass destruction from being used against us. There were none, so check that off the list. Then it was to get rid of Saddam. He was hanged in 2006, so cross off that one. A little late in the game we became preoccupied with ensuring an Iraq that was “free.” And we've had a bunch of elections and there is a government of sorts in place to prove it, so that one's gotta go, too.
What follows won't be “investment,” just more waste. The occupation of Iraq, centered around that engorged embassy, is now the equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone, useful only to itself.
Monday, June 06, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
EXTRACT:
Although the actual process is more complicated than this, the upshot is that creating a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight classes of antibiotics requires repeated, sustained expose to those antibiotics. It is virtually impossible to imagine how this could happen all by itself in the natural world. For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we've been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables?
When considering the genetic evidence that now confronts us, it is difficult to imagine how this could happen “in the wild.” While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics — in combination — simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild. Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild. And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab.
Comment from another of the Gold Warriors in Asia:
The laboratory engineering of the e.coli bacteria so that it will kill humans fits perfectly into the scenario I described in an earlier email. Germany, Spain and farmers in other EU countries were humiliated and lost many millions in produce and labor. Therefore it fits into a scenario where the EU is being weakened. The primary beneficiary is the USA. Therefore the Pharmacological/Chemical cartel in the USA probably did the engineering, and the purpose is to further weaken the EU at a time when the dollar is dying (or already dead). Notice how all the major news media is talking about thhe Euro collapsing and the EU fragmenting, when they really should be talking about the USZ dollar being dead and America survives on a life-support system of fraud, lying, military interventions, and Ponzi schemes at the top banks.Comment and See Also Below the Line.
Libya, Amnesty questions the Hague‘s findings: Are the rebels making up claims of mass rape?
