Pakistan Floods Threaten Fragile Government

Pakistan's historic floods have displaced millions of people and covered over one-fifth of the nuclear armed South Asian state.  They now threaten to destabilize its government. The scope of the crisis is so vast with the aid flowing in so slowly, the Taliban has seized the initiative to capitalize on growing anger to turn desperate people to their cause.

Aid is difficult with Pakistan because of a history of corruption and suspicion that monies will flow either to officials or to the Taliban with little going to the people in need. NGOs such as Save the Children, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders have pointed out that their aid does not flow through the Pakistani government, but is sent to support the people directly.   Continued...

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The U.S. Military's 1947 Warning on Intolerance

by Janet Ritz

A film produced by the U.S. Military in 1947 was meant to present the case for the desegregation of the armed forces. Though not initially intended for broadcast to the general public, it speaks to the divisions present in society today.

The production is dated by current standards. The message is prescient given the current strife and division: the ostracization of the "other," whether through protests of mosques, by Glenn Beck's scheduled through-the-looking-glass rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, or by the funding of climate science denial and extreme tea party activism against the current administration by the Koch Brothers, two of the biggest polluters on the planet.

The film was shot to convince members of the military that desegregation was the right idea. The subsequent integration of African-Americans into the armed forces has since become an integral part of the command structure with our strategy in war. (See: Powell Doctrine).

It now serves as a warning to the future as produced by a military that had fought years of heartbreaking war where millions had lost their lives due to prejudice and intolerance. Continued...

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Hurricane Earl Intensifies into Massive Storm (Video)

NASA has provided footage of Hurricane Earl as a Category 4 storm in the mid-Atlantic as it approaches the East Coast of the United States. The Hurricane is so large that, even if it does not make landfall, it is dangerous because of its winds, high waves, surges and rip currents.

NASA has provided footage of Hurricane Earl from the Space Station. The Hurricane has grown so large that it is expected to do some damage as far north as New England even without landfall. The governors of North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia have declared a state of emergency. President Obama has declared a national state of emergency for North Carolina. Mandatory evacuations are underway. Other states are expected to follow suit once there is more certainty of its path. Continued...

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Activist

by Dr. James Hansen

"How did you become an activist?" I was surprised by the question. I never considered myself an activist. I am a slow-paced taciturn scientist from the Midwest. Most of my relatives are pretty conservative. I can imagine attitudes at home toward "activists".

I was about to protest the characterization – but I had been arrested, more than once. And I had testified in defense of others who had broken the law. Sure, we only meant to draw attention to problems of continued fossil fuel addiction. But weren't there other ways to do that in a democracy? How had I been sucked into being an "activist?"

My grandchildren had a lot to do with it. It happened step-by-step. First, in 2004, I broke a 15-year self-imposed effort to stay out of the media. I gave a public lecture, backed by scientific papers, showing the need to slow greenhouse gas emissions – and I criticized the Bush administration for lack of appropriate policies. My grandchildren came into the talk only as props – holding 1-watt Christmas tree bulbs to help explain climate forcings.

Fourteen months later I gave another public talk – connecting the dots from global warming to policy implications to criticisms of the fossil fuel industry for promoting misinformation. This time my grandchildren provided rationalization for a talk likely to draw Administration ire: I explained that I did not want my children to look back and say "Opa understood what was happening, but he never made it clear."

What had become clear was that our planet is close to climate tipping points. Ice is melting in the Arctic, on Greenland and Antarctica, and on mountain glaciers worldwide. Many species are stressed by environmental destruction and climate change. Continuing fossil fuel emissions, if unabated, will cause sea level rise and species extinction accelerating out of humanity's control. Increasing atmospheric water vapor is already magnifying climate extremes, increasing overall precipitation, causing greater floods and stronger storms.  Continued...

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New Yorker: Koch Brothers Waging War Against Obama

by Janet Ritz

Jane Mayer, reporting on The New Yorker Magazine, has written a comprehensive article entitled: Covert Operations, The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.  In it, Mayer gives an exhaustive report on the Koch brothers'  funding of extreme right-win opposition to the current administration.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

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Nationwide Egg Recall: Recall expands to more than half a billion eggs (LIST)

The recall from U.S. factory farms has expanded to more than half a billion eggs. The recalled lots (list) are confirmed to have been tainted with Salmonella and have sickened more than one thousand people. The enormity of the contamination has renewed concerns about the dangers of factory farming:

Dr. Marion Nestle of the department of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, and the author of "Food Politics" and "What to Eat", is a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. She toured several factory farms last year.

"It's hard to explain unless you actually see one of these places," she tells CBS News. "Try to imagine an enormous warehouse, as long as two or more city blocks, packed with hundreds of thousands of chickens. And that's 'free range.' Otherwise they are caged six to nine in a cage. If one gets sick, they all get sick."

Links and lists follow with recall information. One possible way to avoid the consequences of factory farming is to buy local, small farmed and, where possible, organic.

Farmer's markets (worldwide): Link.

The egg recall is expected to continue to grow with reports of illness expanding as the Centers for Disease Control record more incidents. Continued...

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