Planet Earth in Peril: ALERT EVERYONE! Time for Radical Change...

I’m contstantly astonishing at the lack of response by the human society, with all of its specializations & preoccupations— to the growing planetary SURVIVAL crisis.

I mean what the hell good is your popularity, your bank accounts, your nicely shined car, your sports team victory or the size of your hard drive— when the planet is going to be turned into a burning wasteland? When you become aware that madmen are running the governments & militaries, armed with planet-scorching doomsday weapons, and on top of that the climate and atmosphere are degrading by the minute as solar flares are about to increase to maximum... don’t you think every living human should be taking emergency measures?

The truly crazy-making realization one comes to when addressing the mass extinction event underway is that most humans are completely oblivious, confused, or too desperate or drugged to care. Entire societies are obsessed with celebrity & entertainment, sports & economics— while outside the weather is battering at the roof & walls.

Award ceremonies, season games, the hot TV shows & gadgets keep churning away, while the last wild apes, our DNA cousins, are being slaughtered & eaten. The LAST rainforests are being burned along with their precious rare creatures & herbs. Plagues are being carried to new environments as the world warms. Madness & violence are rising to meet the corruption of our political systems.

You end up asking yourself if this is the sad, tragic, ridiculous end of the planet Earth as we know it? And what will the survivors be reminiscing about, in their underground hovels? Snack foods once in abundance, the great films once playing at the megaplexes, the myriad strange & beautiful creatures which millions of years of evolution unfurled upon the world? All wiped away by human hunger & stupidity... while the society partied & hurried along after money & entertainments.

Will the symbolic clock hands of doom change the downward spiral? One can hope among the mounds of trampled hopes that radical changes will occur in time to stop the storms & starvation & tragic ending of species.

I feel obligated to pass on the 3-point salvation plan from Haidakhan Baba: Truth, Simplicity & Love can save the world. Truth as in "The Truth shall set you Free." Simplicity as in the scientific rule that the simplest solution is usually the correct, and most practical one. Love seems self-evident & world-reaffirming, yet appears to be the most elusive, in a world filled with murderous disappointment.

Also, I must add the sage advice of Terence McKenna, who believed that only psychedelics ("Visionary Plants") could liberate the human chains of habitual doom in time to avert "Eschaton"— the end of the world as we know it— scheduled for the end of 2012. Unfortunately, these plants are mostly deemed illegal in the industrial society of citified folk.

Another avenue of addressing the epic endtime is questioning who benefits from the devastation & suffering? I suggest searching: Weapons, Drugs, Oil. All of which you will find leading the current US administration in the White House, whose friends are making billions upon billions of profit dollars while most of the world is going to hell.

Let us all pray that the changes in political sensibility in the new year will awaken a radical shift toward planetary survival. Otherwise, enjoy the luxuries & creamy essence of the world we are are witness to rapidly disappearing from under us. Shake up your community, go postal, make a scene. What do you have to lose? Only the livable planet & all its wonders...

"If the words ’life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on."
— Terence McKenna

Aloha from Mauna Kea

"There have never in history been so many opportunities to do so many things that aren’t worth doing."
— William Gaddis

Today marks the MDN’s launch of the winter 2007 "Hibakusha Hiroshima/Nagasaki" series, which emphasizes the importance of peace and calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The Hibakusha project, which provides testimonies from hibakusha — survivors of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — began in October last year with the autumn 2006 series of articles. In the project, 10 hibakusha from Hiroshima and 10 from Nagasaki were interviewed, and four yearly installments of articles tell their stories.

One reader also sent in a copy of the book "Postman of Nagasaki," which is modeled on 77-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi, one of the 10 hibakusha from Nagasaki. At the end of the book, Taniguchi says, "Looking at society recently, it seems there is a tendency to forget things like the suffering of the past. But I fear that forgetfulness. I fear that forgetfulness will lead to renewed affirmation of nuclear weapons.

"This is to make me the last hibakusha, carrying the message of abolishing nuclear weapons across the world," he says.

We also fear forgetting, and will continue to convey the voices of hibakusha.

Jan. 17, 2007 — Scientist Stephen Hawking described climate change Wednesday as a greater threat to the planet than terrorism.

Hawking made the remarks as other prominent scientists prepared to push the giant hand of its Doomsday Clock — a symbol of the risk of atomic cataclysm and now also of climate change — closer to midnight. Hawking warned that "as citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day."

It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the trans-Atlantic group of scientists is describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

But the organization added that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to the survival of human civilization.

"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth," said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.

"As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."

The bulletin’s clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin’s editor Mark Strauss said.

"There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse," he said, "That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat."

The threat of nuclear war, however, remains by far the organization’s most pressing concern. "It’s important to emphasize 50 of today’s nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people," he said.

The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin’s board, which is composed of prominent scientists and policy experts, in coordination with the group’s sponsors.

Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved 18 times, including Wednesday’s move.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) is moving the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock on January 17, 2007, from 7 to 5 minutes to midnight.

BAS announced the Clock change at an unprecedented joint news conference at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC, and the Royal Society in London. In a statement supporting the decision to move the hand of the Doomsday Clock, the BAS Board focused on two major sources of catastrophe: the perils of 27,000 nuclear weapons, 2000 of them ready to launch within minutes; and the destruction of human habitats from climate change.

Fourteen leading scientists and security experts writing in the January-February issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, explore further the potential for catastrophic damage from human-made technologies.

Created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted only 17 times prior to today, most recently in February 2002 after the events of 9/11. At that time, BAS underscored the slow progress on global nuclear disarmament.

By moving the hand of the Clock closer to midnight—the figurative end of civilization—the BAS Board is drawing attention to the increasing dangers from the spread of nuclear weapons in a world of violent conflict, and to the catastrophic harm from climate change that is unfolding.

At the announcement from London, Stephen Hawking, BAS Sponsor, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of the Royal Society, said: "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."

From Washington, Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin, said: "As we stand at the brink of a Second Nuclear Age and at the onset of unprecedented climate change, our way of thinking about the uses and control of technologies must change to prevent unspeakable destruction and future human suffering."

Sir Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, professor of cosmology and astrophysics, master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, and BAS Sponsor said: "Nuclear weapons still pose the most catastrophic and immediate threat to humanity, but climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences also have the potential to end civilization as we know it."

Lawrence M. Krauss, another BAS Sponsor and professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, said: "In these dangerous times, scientists have a responsibility to speak truth to power especially if it might provoke actions to reduce threats from the preventable technological dangers currently facing humanity. To do anything else would be negligent."

Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a BAS director and co-chair of the International Crisis Group, said: "Although our current situation is dire, we have the means today to successfully address these global problems. For example, through vigorous diplomacy and international agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency, we can negotiate and implement agreements that could protect us all from the most destructive technology on Earth—nuclear weapons."

The BAS statement outlines a number of steps that, if taken immediately, could help to prevent disaster, including the following:

* Reduce the launch readiness of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and completely removing nuclear weapons from the day-to-day operations of their militaries

* Reduce the number of nuclear weapons by dismantling, storing, and destroying more than 20,000 warheads over the next 10 years, as well as greatly increasing efforts to locate, store, and secure nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere

* Stop production of nuclear weapons material, including highly enriched uranium and plutonium—whether in military or civilian facilities

* Engage in serious and candid discussion about the potential expansion of nuclear power worldwide

Iran says it is pressing ahead with a plan to install 3,000 atomic
centrifuges and achieve industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel.
Analysts say this could also produce enough uranium for a bomb
within a year. A government spokesman told reporters in Tehran that
an official announcement would be made next month. He said the
country’s nuclear activities were being supervised by the United
Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA. The United States and
other members of the international community fear Iran could be
seeking to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear
programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Nuclear Power and Climate Change
To Begin: 18 February 2007 09:00 AM

When considering ways to limit carbon dioxide emissions, experts argue that all options should be considered—including nuclear power. But with nuclear power comes concerns about proliferation, waste disposal, and cost. Starting in late February, R. Stephen Berry, the former Special Advisor to the Director of Argonne National Laboratory for National Security, Amory Lovins, the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will consider the feasibility of nuclear power as a remedy to climate change in the Bulletin Online’s inaugural roundtable.

"This is a perfect ending to a challenging year for Electric Boat," EB President John P. Casey said.

Casey said the seven-year construction process took 10 million hours of work, which is 2 million less than what it took to build the USS Virginia. Improved efficiency will help the shipyard meet the Navy’s goal of building two submarines a year, Casey said.

But already, the mad scientists over at Darpa, the Pentagon’s way-out research division, are bored.

They want a sub that can run with a fraction of the crew of current boats. So Darpa has put together a new, $97 million effort to build the submarines of the future, code named Tango Bravo. Last week, the agency held a classified meeting with defense contractors and researchers interested in bidding on the project.

At the heart of the Tango Bravo project is a problem that’s older than U-Boats: how to run a sub without packing the crew in like fish in a can. Why the concern? Well, it’s not for the sailors’ comfort. "People are expensive," notes GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike.

For years, the Navy has been pushing to run bigger and bigger ships with fewer and fewer sailors. It took a crew of about 320 to run the World War II-era Fletcher destroyers. Today, an Arleigh Burke destroyer uses the same number of men – but, at 8300 tons, it’s three times as big.

Things have been different on submarines, however. While crew sizes have basically remained stable, sub sized have only doubled – a lot less than the destroyers’ three-fold increase.

One way to cut down on the number of people is to automate the sub, particularly its attack center and sonar battlestations. Those areas require 17 people on the Virginia class submarines, Darpa notes. The agency wants to see that crew cut to eight, with "a set of systems should be proposed which can replace the current VIRGINIA Class sonar, fire control, and tactical data display systems."

But even with a crew trim, space on a sub is still beyond cramped. "There’s never enough room for people," says retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force. "On the Los Angeles class [of subs], a third of the crew didn’t have bunks of their own. Seawolf – same problem."

The AN/SPQ-11 shipborne phased array radar is designed to detect and track ICBM’s launched by Russia in their west-to-east missile range. The Cobra Judy operates in the the 2900-3100 MHz band. The octagonal S-band array, composed of 12 288 antenna elements, forms a large octagonal structure approximately 7 m in diameter. and is integrated into a mechanically rotated steel turret. The entire system weighs about 250 tonnes, stands over forty feet high.

Chapters covered include:

It’s a disaster
Everything you ever wanted to know about nuclear war
To flee or not to flee
Home sweet hole
Nobody makes housecalls anymore

and MANY others that will keep you reading, and more importantly, will keep you alive no matter what the disaster.

The pronghorn antelope, "the prairie ghost," is capable of running at up to sixty miles an hour, twice as fast as any predator in its environment. That extra mileage might seem odd until you realize that, before the last great mammalian megafaunal die-out in North America, some 13,000 to 16,000 years ago, there were evidently creatures (perhaps lions or wolves) which could power along at something close to such speeds. So all those thousands of years, encompassing significant parts of our prehistory and the totality of recorded history from the first days of Ur to the latest disasters in Iraq, and the pronghorn still outraces its ghostly companion. So much time, in human terms, and it still hasn’t "registered" its loss; so much time and that niche in our environment remains empty.

It’s an evolutionary blink of the eye for the antelope (and its ghost partner). It’s not even an evolutionary blink for planet Earth. For us, it’s everything. If we wreck our planet, we can’t wait another 13,000-16,000 years, no less the millions of years normally involved, to forge a new, well-stocked Earth. For us, when it comes to our environment now is forever.

Bill McKibben has made something of a career of being ahead of the learning curve in this country on a variety of issues. He’s energetic and he’s a resource for us all. Thanks to the kindness of the editors of the New York Review of Books, you can check out his latest state-of-the-planet update below. Tom

How Close to Catastrophe?
By Bill McKibben

James Lovelock is among the planet’s most interesting and productive scientists. His invention of an electron capture device that was able to detect tiny amounts of chemicals enabled other scientists both to understand the dangers of DDT to the eggshells of birds and to figure out the ways in which chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were eroding the ozone layer. He’s best known, though, not for a gadget but for a metaphor: the idea that the earth might usefully be considered as a single organism (for which he used the name of the Greek earth goddess Gaia) struggling to keep itself stable.

(CBS/AP) Thousands of people stuck it out in dark, unheated homes Wednesday and hundreds of others hunkered down in shelters waiting for restoration of electrical service knocked out by the snow and ice storm blamed for 56 deaths in nine states.

Nearly 290,000 homes and businesses in several states were still without electricity Wednesday because of the ice, snow, and high wind that battered an area from Maine to Texas, where roads and schools were closed Wednesday.

At the First Baptist Church in McAlester, Okla., where most of the city’s 18,000 residents have lacked power for four days, residents huddled under blankets and in front of space heaters.

"If it wasn’t for the shelter, I don’t know where we’d be," said Tara Guzman, 38, while playing board games with her four children. "We’re tough; we lasted when the power went out until (Monday). We brought mattresses out in the living room and cuddled."

Some 92,000 customers still had no electricity Wednesday in Oklahoma. Little sunshine was expected to help melt the ice until Thursday or Friday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Brown.

The wave of arctic air that trailed the storm system helped to kick off more freezing rain and snow Wednesday in Texas, closing schools and some businesses and government offices. Even the Alamo was closed to tourists in San Antonio because of cold and rain.

Houston and San Antonio were under rare ice warnings Wednesday, and icy roads in Dallas slowed morning highway commuters. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport canceled 100 flights. Austin’s airport canceled 32 outbound flights and 28 inbound, and ran out of de-icing fluid, officials said.

A 300-mile stretch of Interstate 10 in Texas from Fort Stockton to San Antonio had been closed since Tuesday because of fresh snow atop a layer of ice.

Tow truck driver Buddy Poole stationed himself near an overpass on Interstate 45 in Huntsville, Texas, on Tuesday.

"It’s bad out there because nobody knows how to drive on that ice," he told CBS affiliate KHOU-TV. "They run it too fast, and then when they get to the bridge, they slam on the brakes on the bridge, and that’s when they lose it."

"You always need to keep your speed down when driving in ice or snow," the American Automobile Association’s Robert Sinclair warned CBS News’ Wednesday. "Speed is the main cause for any crash in those conditions."

Joe and Sarah Stokhaug were turned away from two fully booked motels after I-10 shut down. They and at least 50 other motorists ended up in a convention center in Ozona.

"They have air mattresses and cots for everybody — and pizza and doughnuts," Joe Stokhaug said. "We’ve already made a couple friends here who are from Los Angeles."

Ozona Assistant Fire Chief Brian Morrow said the town was hard-pressed to cope with the stranded visitors.

"We had about 50 cots in route from Fort Stockton, but the roads closed up," Morrow said. "The jailhouse has provided blankets and pillows that are normally used for the inmates."

That same cold air mass icing up Texas also turned the Northeast into a freezer Wednesday, with morning lows of 16 below zero at Caribou, Maine, and 19 above in New York City, ending a lengthy unseasonable warm spell, the National Weather Service reported.

Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World

American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die."

By James Denver

"I’m horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It’s going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."

The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.

For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.

A Dirty Tyson

’Depleted’ uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For ’depleted’ sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth’s heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson’s punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. ’Crispy critters’ is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: "The children’s skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited." (Daily Mirror)

The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.

A Terrible Legacy

Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing ’at an alarming rate’. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1

On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year’s war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.

The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called ’safe limit’ of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there.

Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.

Doctors report that many women no longer say ’Is it a girl or a boy?’ but simply, ’Is it normal, doctor?’ Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.

Blue on Blue

What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.

Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that’s 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government’s failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans’ associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are ’on DU death row, waiting to die’.

Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.

They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.

The Vital Evidence

Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only ’low level’ radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied ’low-level’ radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells ’like flashes of lightning’ again and again in a single second.2 Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such ’lightning strikes’ can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.

Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body’s communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.

In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This ’radiation-induced genomic instability’ is compounded by ’the bystander effect’ by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.

The Price of Truth

That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, ’The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.’3

Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.

The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren’t used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was ’linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage’. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.5

A Culture of Denial

In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as ’weapons of mass destruction’ ’incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law’. Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.

Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, ’The [US government’s] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.’ He concluded, ’uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.’ Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.

During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says ’it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.’ Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called ’some’.

The Way Ahead

Britain and America not only used DU in this year’s Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn’t limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq’s cities. This means that Iraq’s cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.

The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?

So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide.

Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

Further information

Corruption rules the world. What we can get away with is our highest hope. Mark Twain said good luck is when the arrow hits the man next to you. He also said, "Luck never gives, it only lends."

CITIZEN EVACUATION UPDATE (prognosis for AD 2007): Scuttlebutt from Naval Intelligence: The global warming scare will facilitate the implementation of microwave devices throughout the world that will enable the corporate controllers to beam electric pulses into the brains of everyone nearby, as is now being done in Iraq, scrambling the brains of U.S. troops as well as the besieged locals. This scenario could happen in the U.S. unless you believe that America has an honest government still actually working for the people, in which case you should ignore all this and let it catch you unawares. Have you noticed all those new cameras at your local intersections? That means the towers are probably in place in your area.

Also, during the inevitable mass insurrections about to occur, be prepared for fentanyl drops from Blackwater helicopters like the stuff that killed hundreds in a Moscow theater. Don’t be surprised. Your life has already been on the line for longer than you know. Everyone should be buying facemasks at this point.

The great Neocon dislocation is about to begin. The great anesthetization. Tribulation, perhaps. I guess, really, that it happened some time ago and I am very late in reporting it.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, Chuang Tzu recounted the story a recluse told to the Marquis Wu of Wei:

The Wandering Boy who hid in libraries found the library of his dreams in cyberspace and learned more in a few years that he had learned in his entire life, read on:

The recluse, Hsi! Wu-kuei, said, "Heaven and earth provide nourishment for all things alike. To have ascended to a high position cannot be considered an advantage; to live in lowliness cannot be considered a handicap. Now you, as sole ruler of this land of ten thousand chariots, may tax the resources of the entire populace of your realm in nourishing the appetites of your ears and eyes, your nose and mouth. But the spirit will not permit such a way of life. The spirit loves harmony and hates licentiousness. Licentiousness is a kind of sickness, and that is why I have come to offer my comfort. I just wonder, my lord, how aware you are of your own sickness?"

Marquis Wu said, "I have in fact been hoping to see you for a long time, Sir. I would like to cherish my people, practice righteousness, and lay down the weapons of war — how would that do?"

So, two and half millennia later, you have to wonder why they call it evolution.
Chuang Tzu goes on ....

The unity of the Way is something that virtue can never master; what understanding does not understand is something that debate can never encompass. To apply names in the manner of the Confucians and Mo-ists is to invite evil. The sea does not refuse the rivers that come flowing eastward into it — it is the perfection of greatness.

The sage embraces all heaven and earth, and his bounty extends to the whole world, yet no one knows who he is or what family he belongs to. For this reason, in life he holds no titles, in death he receives no posthumous names. Realities do not gather about him, names do not stick to him — this is what is called the Great Man.

The foot treads a very small area of the ground, but although the area is small, the foot must rely upon the support of the untrod ground all around before it can go forward in confidence. The understanding of man is paltry, but although it is paltry, it must rely upon all those things that it does not understand before it can understand what is meant by Heaven. To understand the Great Unity, to understand the Great Yin, to understand the Great Eye, to understand the Great Equality, to understand the Great Method, to understand the Great Trust, to understand the Great Serenity — this is perfection. With the Great Unity you may penetrate it; with the Great Yin, unknot it; with the Great Eye, see it; with the Great Equality, follow it; with the Great Method, embody it; with the Great Trust, reach it; with the Great Serenity, hold it fast.

It is most important to be precise in your perceptions. See things for what they really are. Although it is exceedingly difficult to choose among issues upon which to focus in this overdeveloped age of cyberinformation, cut to the chase.

Realize that our bond with the planet has been severed by abstraction. We have projected the very images of our worst nightmares into third-dimensional reality, and the result is a plethora of plastic poisons that foul our seas and undermine our genetic structures.

This ubiquitous black cloud of our own nightmares, now vividly manifested in reality, consumes the planet and asphyxiates all living species with its nauseating synthetic flatulence. The real human aroma smells like shit.

As humans, we have lost control of our structures and ourselves to clever puppeteers who are cynical about what they really believe, and as a consequence, prey on their brethren for profit. This cost is intolerable to all except those who participate in the scam.

The human being alone among all earthborne lifeforms has the power to determine the fate of the planet. Will this responsibility be totally erased by the fear that is engendered by the temporality of existence?

The only way out is to realize what an honor and a privilege it has been for me to do all this, and I thank you for that.

Gratitude is the pathway to happiness. Learn from the mistakes you observe. The truth is actually in the error, sitting there for all to see and learn from.

The human race must make a choice, and soon. It must decide that happiness, and not fear, is the most important thing. Our fear is killing us, only our happiness will save us.

To make happiness reign beyond the sun for as long as the future shall be is the goal we must follow if we are to survive as a species. It’s not that hard to do. All you have to do is love someone and simply respect that they are on the same path as us. And that is the way of the universe.

To make Planet Earth a beacon of hope and liberty whose warm light will spread throughout the universe as the new norm of interspecies behavior, characterized by automatic hospitality, concern, and love, an eternal demonstration to every living thing that we are all in this together.

‘He who amongst you sees something abominable should modify it with the help of his hand; and if he has not strength enough to do that, then he should do it with his tongue; abhor it from his heart; and that is the least of faith.’
— Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) Sahih Muslim Hadith 79

Mayors Urged to Link War, Climate
by Judy Fahys

SUNDANCE - Former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart called the Iraq war "massively immoral" for feeding America’s voracious demand for fossil fuel with the lives of its soldiers.

"We are trading lives for oil," he told an audience at the 2006 Sundance Summit.

Hart said mayors can make the case in Washington that climate change, energy security and national security are inseparable issues that ought to be the nation’s top priorities.

The Sundance meeting has been for the past two years a place where mayors can share tools for tackling climate change at home.

This year’s two-day summit looked a lot like last years’, with 29 mayors from Alaska to Florida assembled at actor Robert Redford’s ski and meeting resort in American Fork Canyon. And, while a smaller number attended this year - 46 participated in 2005 - their ambitions appeared a bit bigger, with an eye on how to get national leaders to take meaningful action.

Hart urged the mayors to use their clout with members of Congress to elevate climate change on the national agenda. He said reducing the nation’s dependence on Mideast oil would help save the lives of soldiers, improve energy security, national security and reduce greenhouse gases that have created a climate crisis.

"You have great might," he told the mayors.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a co-founder of the summit, is working with Hart and others on a bipartisan "Climate Action Plan" for 2008 presidential candidates.

It would be a blueprint the next president can apply during the first 100 days in office for cutting the pollution - much of it produced by the engines that heat our homes, power our industries and fuel our cars and trucks - blamed for global warming. The blueprint also offers ideas for saving energy.

"The successes in municipalities are going to help lead to a sensible national policy," said Anderson.

Yet the Salt Lake City mayor added local action alone will not be enough to turn the tide on climate change. "In the end, we need huge changes in federal policy."

Gainsville, Fla., Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan agreed. She said cities can do a lot by applying the kinds of ideas discussed at the summit, such as planting trees, energy-efficient lighting and heating, and smart traffic management.

"Ultimately," she concluded, "the state and national policies need to change."

Dear friends,

Humanity today is in danger, not because it does not know how to solve the problems it faces, but because it has been brainwashed into believing that the only legitimate way to solve these problems is by using the “grammar” of international relations invented by Sumerian Kings 5000 years ago. This grammar, by definition, was a human invention, and not a Law of Nature. It is based on two methods commonly known as “diplomacy” and “war”. Its principles are that

nº 1. Only states are legitimate international actors - humans have no international standing, and
nº 2. it makes no difference to a state’s legitimacy if it mistreats, tortures or kills people.

The existing world political architecture is based, still, on fundamentally anti-human principles: principles that deny human freedom, deny human dignity and deny humanity itself, principles which emerged under absolute monarchy, and which still define the “World-Machine”. Present global rules are the outgrowth of fundamentally unjust initial conditions which emerged historically in the pre-democratic age. And the world order is still pre-democratic, feudal and militaristic.

To change this destructive world architecture, we must understand that it is a paradigm, which I call the Old Paradigm, not just a set of more or less benign rules that could be adjusted on a case by case basis. In reality, it is the Old Paradigm which killed 8 000 men in Srebrenica, which killed 800 000 people in Rwanda, which is killing hundreds of thousands in Darfur today. It permits the killing under our noses because we believe -schizophrenically- that though it is normal to prevent the Mayor of a City from killing its people - and we have laws against it - it is abnormal, nearly “impolite”, to prevent the President of a State from killing its people. This demonstrates the vise-like mental grip of the Old Paradigm which says that States are more important than Humans, that States have an inherent legitimacy to do what they want, though States are a human invention, and not the other way around.

The Old Paradigm thus shapes our beliefs about what can be done, and prevents us from applying to global problems the concepts we accept in modern times as central to human progress. What are these “new” concepts that contradict it? Concepts universally recognized today normatively -though often not applied- and if so, only nationally?

They emerged 2500 years ago in Athens (though only for some of its people), and are based on the subversive notion that people matter, that humans have innate dignity. A precedent was set and these principles gave rise to a “New Paradigm”, defined by freedom, democracy, accountability, justice, the rule of law, transparency, consent, checks and balances, civilian power, constitutions, parliaments; in short, the idea that political sovereignty belongs to a people composed of individuals with equal dignity, and that “Right makes Might”. In comparison, the Old Paradigm is based on fear, force, coercion, military power, on secrecy, spying and arbitrariness, on the rule of Men and the cult of Kings, Heroes, Messiahs and other Strong Men who will save us in exchange for unchecked power. The Old Paradigm is based on the idea that sovereignty comes from above and is mediated by one man and an elite, and that “Might makes Right”. By nature, it structurally allows -even invites- abuses of power, which is why it cannot be reformed.

Because of its arbitrariness, the Old Paradigm is inherently immoral while the New Paradigm, based on human freedom and dignity, is inherently moral. In mythological or religious terms, the Old Paradigm is the one of Darkness and Evil, and the New Paradigm is the one of Light and Good.

Using the prism of these paradigms, we see History as an epic struggle, and we see that human civilisation progressed most when elements of the New defeated elements of the Old. The rapid developments of the last 200 years bear witness to the New Paradigm’s powers, reborn in the American and French revolutions. This is when the Old Paradigm started dying in national political architectures, ultimately freeing billions of minds from feudal shackles.

The ethical case for replacing the Old Paradigm by the New Paradigm is clear, but there is also a pragmatic case now. Before, the co-existence of pockets of tyranny and of freedom did not endanger Humanity as such. But because of globalisation and the shrinking of the planet to a village, if we do not consciously kill off the Old Paradigm, it will kill us (including its own proponents now blinded by ignorance and arrogance). And if it does not kill us, it may lead to a nightmarish global regime based on fear, arbitrariness, war and the cult of personality.

We must also kill the Old Paradigm because it is actively corroding the New Paradigm which is still fragile nationally. Global feudalism and national democracy cannot coexist for long. How could national democracy die? In an easy two-step process. First, the structural injustice of the Old Paradigm feeds terrorism and wars instead of preventing them, and its logic forces national democracies to create a control and surveillance infrastructure because of the international chaos which it itself maintains. The next step is a catastrophe which governments use as excuse to “flip the switch” and turn on the control infrastructure formerly constrained by flimsy safeguards, thus legally turning former democracies into police states. This is how democracy could die, killed by the Old Paradigm, and why we must replace it before it destroys the New Paradigm even nationally.

Here halfway through my speech, I wish to state my conclusion so that the explanation of how we get there is easier to follow: for Humanity to preserve its freedom, and to survive at all, we must consciously design and invent a global social contract in the classical political sense of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, based on human dignity and a global ethos. Such a process should be open, broad-based, iterative and itself be part of creating our contract in a global feedback loop. What we need to do is switch off the existing World-Machine and replace it with another one based on the principle of human dignity.

Many global problems cannot be solved in the short-term and demand intergenerational deals. Scientific discoveries confirm what we knew empirically: that humans are not rational, and that they "discount" the future even against their own interests. This has crucial implications for the survival of our species. It means that we need to find ways to counteract the tendency to think short-term. This problem has always existed, and in the past, it was solved by autocratic governance. If there was an enlightened ruler or dictator, he could take the wiser longer-term view against popular will. In some cases, benign dictatorship was better. But it is not sustainable because it inevitably degenerates. Today, with democracy expanding and ordinary people gaining influence, this seems good, but it could be bad for long-term thinking. An example: what if, for the world to achieve ecological equilibrium, consumers need to reduce their consumption? Can this be done if consumers are also voters who refuse to act rationally now, even if it is to reduce real global risks?

This is where the concept of a global social contract is useful not just politically, but most crucially, symbolically and psychologically:
– it helps to explain, conceptualize and rationalize the need for commitment today for rewards tomorrow, as a contract between peoples and generations,
– it thus helps to educate the citizens of the world why there is a need to behave well today in a certain way, as part of a reciprocal deal
– it follows the insights of evolutionary biology which teach us that humans have a very keen sense of reciprocity and fairness: the main pillars of contracts and of ethics itself.
– it is a simple, obvious and basic notion that no serious politician could oppose.
– it is a notion known by and supported by major religions, especially those seeking justice.

The idea of a general global social contract is needed because many problems are interrelated, and even if they are not, since some countries would gain and others lose from a global deal, a global contract provides the overall win-win framework. There always was an implied social contract, but, it was not global, it was not explicit, and it was not negotiated consciously by the people.

Our collective mind is trapped in a way of thinking which prevents us from solving the big issues and therefore, as the world system continues to produce misery, we keep on trying to alleviate symptoms, but we don’t have the strategic vision to stop the hemorrhaging. Standing in our way is the mistaken belief that values we accept nationally are not valid internationally. Most do-gooder organisations do not address the fundamental systemic issues that cause the problems: the inherent unjust structure of the global political architecture. And so our World-Machine produces misery and injustice on a massive scale every day, with industrial efficiency. Unless we rethink and redesign the existing global framework, which is only a slightly improved Law of the Jungle, then people will continue to believe deep down that the world really can’t be changed, that there always has been and always will be misery and war, and that therefore, what is the purpose of fighting for a better world if only marginal improvements are possible? This leads to large-scale existential despair, alienation, depression and diseases, and selfish, wasteful or amoral behaviour.

The fact that there is no global social contract based on human dignity also means that the view that the world is intrinsically evil is comforted, which leads millions to reject science, embrace superstition and sects, further reducing the chances of a just world, and increasing the risk that our end will be precipitated voluntarily by fanatics.

The conclusion is simple: without a global social contract, the chances for a future global dictatorship that will rule the world with an iron fist under the pretext of "saving Humanity" is much larger. Environmental devastation will bring chaos and then, authoritarian government. This will bring wars and millions will die, until global tyranny is established by a powerful elite that, in the worst case will enslave us with computers and nanotechnology, genetic engineering, drugs and other more subtle controls. Already some are suggesting that millions of poor Mexican immigrants be marked like cattle with RFID radio-activated microchips.

What should today’s “Heroes”, Elder Statesmen in general, and those here today, do? The right and moral thing for them to do is to use their courage, wisdom and intelligence to extend the human-centered paradigm to the global realm, and bury, once and for all, the Old Paradigm. In so doing, they may save Humankind from extinction or global tyranny, and will be remembered forevermore. They should give the impetus for Humankind to consciously build and negotiate a global social contract with several components. The most obvious one is a basic document stating the fundamental principles of the planetary rules of conduct. It should be based on universal principles, and its core should be that global rules be based on human dignity and human freedom.

Another component is mythological. To survive, and to convince humans everywhere to cooperate, we need to develop the sense of belonging and solidarity to one human race on one planet, to deepen the idea that we are all world citizens. Nationally, this was done throughout history by the invention of “national creation myths” that tell the mythical story of a nation, usually forged in blood and sweat against some enemy. Today, we need to invent a “global creation myth” that tells the story of the birth of the “nation” of Humanity, not one based on an enemy, but instead on the scientific fact that Humanity is one species living on one small planet. There is no “Outside” anymore, the world is now one “Big Inside”.