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Today's Stories September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z   August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest Paul Craig Roberts The War Criminal in the Living Room Ray McGovern Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran? Robert Weissman The Benchmarks Iraq is Missing Matt Vidal Subprime Lending and Shady Mortgages Robin Mittenthal The Biofuels Trap Chris Kutalik Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis Richard Forno Watching Freedom's Watch Binoy Kampmark Dianified Dave Zirin Kenneth Foster Lives Website of the Day Free the Jena 6   August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation             Subscribe Online

September 19, 2007 The $9 Billion Bailout to Big Water Schwarzenegger's Boondoggle By DAN BACHER Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's office today issued a press release for the $9 billion water bond boondoggle he is trying to ramrod through the California Legislature. For those us of us concerned about the alarming collapse of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem, this is very bad news, since the measure will fund the peripheral canal and the building of two new dams and the expansion of an existing dam. The measure provides for $5.1 billion in surface storage and identifies three sites for this storage - Sites, Temperance Flat Reservoir and the Los Vaqueros Expansion Project. The Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley and Temperance Flat Reservoir in the San Joaquin Valley are included in the bond, in spite of the fact that the water would cost $1,000 to $2,000 per acre foot. Who is going to buy this water? Schwarzenegger also disguises his plan to build a peripheral canal with his trademark euphemism - the development of a "new conveyance system." The Governor cannot be truthful with the press and public and just call it for what it is - a peripheral canal or delta canal. Of course, to give the proposal an environmental window dressing, the proposal includes some token "restoration" money. "The Governor's comprehensive plan also includes significant funding toward restoration of the ailing Delta and would lead to the development of a new conveyance system," the Governor's office claims. No mention is made of the dire need to conserve water and retire drainage impaired agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley in order to restore the Delta ecosystem. In Schwarzenegger's mind, the Delta is not an ecosystem that provides water supply, but a water supply that happens to include an ecosystem. "Twenty five million Californians rely on the Delta for clean, safe water. It also irrigates hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland and it is the backbone of California's $32 billion agricultural industry," according to the Governor's Office. As he did this summer at a series of carefully choreography press conferences and events pushing for the peripheral canal and more dams, Schwarzenegger again tries to paint a disastrous future for California water supplies if his water bond is not approved by the legislature. "Our water crisis has gotten worse with the dry conditions and the recent federal court action that is going to have a devastating impact on the state's economy and the 25 million Californians who depend on Delta water. We need a comprehensive fix," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "That is why we are introducing two bills to solve California's water crisis in both the short and long-term. I look forward to working and negotiating with my partners in the Legislature so we can approve a comprehensive upgrade to California's water infrastructure." The San Francisco-Bay Delta Estuary is the most significant estuary on the entire West Coast. State and federal scientists have documented a shocking collapse of four pelagic species - Delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad - since 2002. The "Pelagic Organism Decline" (POD), as the scientists describe it, has been spurred by massive increases of federal and state water exports amounting to over 1,000,000 acre feet of water in recent years. As these pelagic species decline, populations of other species dependent on the Delta estuary for spawning and rearing purposes are expected to plummet. These species include winter-run chinook salmon, fall-run chinook salmon, spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento splittail, white sturgeon, green sturgeon and American shad. Valuable commercial species such as Dungeness crab, California halibut, herring and anchovies are also highly dependent upon the estuary for their survival. The building of the peripheral canal and the proposed increase in water exports from the Delta, if it is allowed to happen, could result in the complete destruction of the Bay-Delta estuary and commercial and recreational fisheries up and down the coast. Recreational angling groups, commercial fishing organizations, Delta farmers, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, conservation groups and Delta residents are mobilizing to defeat Schwarzenegger's dam and canal proposal. We must stop the Governor from strong-arming this water bond proposal through the Legislature so it appears on the February ballot. Here's the press release from the Governor's Office: For Immediate Release: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Contact: Aaron McLear Bill Maile 916-445-4571 Gov. Schwarzenegger Submits Comprehensive $9 Billion Water Infrastructure Proposal for Legislative Special Session Governor Schwarzenegger announced a $9 billion comprehensive water infrastructure proposal to be introduced in the legislative special session that he called in response to California's water crisis. The plan invests $600 million from Propositions 50, 84 and 1E to immediately relieve pressure on the Delta from environmental challenges and to respond to a recent federal court ruling that will reduce water deliveries to Southern California. It also includes $5.6 billion in water storage, nearly $2 billion in Delta restoration (in addition to the above-mentioned $600 million), $1 billion in grants for conservation and regional water projects and $500 million for specific water restoration projects. Written in two bills authored by Assembly Republican Leader Michael Villines (R- Fresno) and Senator Dave Cogdill (R - Modesto), the proposal represents a combination of ideas previously detailed in proposals by the Governor and legislative leaders. "Our water crisis has gotten worse with the dry conditions and the recent federal court action that is going to have a devastating impact on the state's economy and the 25 million Californians who depend on Delta water. We need a comprehensive fix," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "That is why we are introducing two bills to solve California's water crisis in both the short and long-term. I look forward to working and negotiating with my partners in the Legislature so we can approve a comprehensive upgrade to California's water infrastructure." Details of the $9 billion comprehensive water infrastructure proposal include: - $600 million from Propositions 50, 84 and 1E to immediately relieve pressure on the Delta from environmental concerns - $5.6 billion in above and below ground water storage - $5.1 billion in surface storage - $500 million in groundwater storage - Identifies three locations for surface storage (Sites, Temperance Flat Reservoir and Los Vaqueros Expansion Project.) - Specific criteria to assure public benefits and environmental benefits - $1.9 billion for Delta Restoration and water supply reliability - $1.4 billion for habitat restoration - $500 million in early actions to address environmental concerns in the Delta - $500 million in grants for specified watersheds throughout the state, including the San Joaquin River, Klamath River, Los Angeles River and others In January, building on his Strategic Growth Plan from last year, the Governor introduced a comprehensive plan to invest in additional surface and groundwater storage to meet the needs of population growth and manage the effects of climate change on California's hydrology and water delivery systems. The plan will help communities protect against flooding, and capture water from storms and snowmelt run-off to supply cities, farmers and business with water during drought conditions. The Governor's comprehensive plan also includes significant funding toward restoration of the ailing Delta and would lead to the development of a new conveyance system. Twenty five million Californians rely on the Delta for clean, safe water. It also irrigates hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland and it is the backbone of California's $32 billion agricultural industry. Last year, the Governor directed the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force to develop a Delta management plan. The task force will present its findings and recommendations by January 1, 2008 and its Strategic Plan by October 31, 2008. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is also underway, being developed with broad participation from water agencies, environmental organizations and local representatives. Dan Bacher can be reached at: danielbacher@fishsniffer.com Your Ad Here

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