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February 23, 2008
Blast from the past
Edit: OK, I was really excited about this article below until I got to the end when it started talking about "So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign." -- it was published in 2004. Sigh.
Ok; so now can we get something done?
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.
Posted by griffjon at 09:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Disenfranchise this!
Students at Prarie View A&M in Texas (a democratic stronghold) have a seven mile trek to their polling place -- not horrible, except that they're students with a lower than average number of cars (and certainly there's a place on or near campus to host a polling location?). Regardless, they marched, en masse, to go vote -- and blocked the highway in protest as they did it.
Posted by griffjon at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 16, 2008
Peace Corps, Espionage, and Bolivia, Part II
Bolivia charged a US embassy official with espionage. He's been removed from the country with promises from the US Embassy that he will never set foot in Bolivia again, after it came to light that he's been asking Fullbright scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to spy on Venezuelans and Cubans in Bolivia, says ABCNews:
... the first time in history that the Bolivian government has charged a U.S. embassy official with a criminal offense -- let alone for one as serious espionage.Officials from the two countries met for hours yesterday in La Paz in an attempt to quell the growing tension and called a truce last night. Both sides declared their intentions to better relations and made clear that the official in question -- Assistant Regional Security Advisor Vincent Cooper -- would not return to Bolivia.
"We accept the [U.S.] ambassador's explanations, and we want to get past the issue," said Foreign Relations Minister David Choquehuanca at the press conference that followed the more than three-hour-long meeting
A sad footnote that scooted in to the end of the ABC News article:
The U.S. Embassy in La Paz acknowledges the July incident, having received complaints from Peace Corps staff last year about the matter. But both the embassy and the State Department claim it was "an error," emphasizing that it should not have been interpreted as a request for U.S. citizens to spy.
What was the error? That the volunteers and scholars were asked at all, or that the ask was "interpreted" as espionage?
Posted by griffjon at 02:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 10, 2008
Peace Corps Spies?
Damnit, State Department; there's a reason why Peace Corps is set up outside of your purvue and has strict policies against volunteers who've served in intelligence roles. Volunteers can't /do/ anything if they're targeted for political violence and untrusted be the people they're supposed to be trying to help. Sure; there will always be conspiracy theories around anything the US does; that's the nature of the world today (and the global community has good reasons to be cautious, I might add.
But asking volunteers (and fullbright scholars) to keep tabs on Cuban and Venezuelan doctors (in Bolivia, no less) is shortsighted, petty, and stupid. You're asking a huge number of super-idealistic, mostly politically left, fresh-out-of-college folks to do low-level spying; and not (a) refuse (b) rebel against it (c) leak it to the press?
"I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here," Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz.Van Schaick's account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals.
..."He said, 'We know the Venezuelans and Cubans are here, and we want to keep tabs on them,'" said van Schaick who recalls feeling "appalled" at the comment.
"I was in shock," van Schaick said. "My immediate thought was 'oh my God! Somebody from the U.S. Embassy just asked me to basically spy for the U.S. Embassy.'"
A similar pattern emerges in the account of the three Peace Corps volunteers and their supervisor. On July 29, 2007, just before the new volunteers were sworn in, they say embassy security officer Vincent Cooper visited the 30-person group to give a talk on safety and made his request about the Cubans and Venezuelans.
"He said it had to do with the fight against terrorism," said one, of the briefing from the embassy official. Others remember being told, "It's for your own safety."
This of course is against PC policy and Bolivian law.
Posted by griffjon at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 01, 2008
:w saves
I saw that on a t-shirt last night at an OLPC meetup; setting the stage for today's xkcd, a emacs/vi/etc. beatdown:
(I use nano)
Posted by griffjon at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack