Rather slim pickings today.
Politics:
Al Gore: I Waited 2 Years To Make Statements That Were Critical
Governor Huntsman to Resign and Join Obama Administration as Ambassador to China (An interesting choice.)
Under Rumsfeld, Pentagon published Bible verses on top-secret intell reports. (Update: You can see the actual cover sheets with the Biblical quotations at GQ.)
Miscellaneous:
Atlantis and Hubble Side by Side (A very impressive photo considering that the photographer had to be within a five-kilometer-wide strip of land, know the shutter speed needed to take a clear photo (1/8000th of a second), and catch the transit within a mere 0.8 of a second.)
Showing posts with label Al Gore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Gore. Show all posts
May 17, 2009
June 3, 2007
The BIG Lie
A couple days ago, I wrote that "Smaller countries make for better media." In particular, I showed (via some posts at bsalert.com here and here) that the American media sometimes dumbs down the message for the American public while giving the rest of the world straight talk about what's going on. Part of a post by Juan Cole today reinforces that message:
My fellow Americans, do us all a simple favor and THINK! Engorged on a diet of frivolous LCD (lowest common denominator) TV, celebrity gossip and Islamophobia (along with several tons of Cheetoz™), you've allowed your head to be filled literally with shit. You can't think critically, nor do you seem to want to. You're swallowing the BIG LIE once more. Just as you swallowed the big lie with regard to Iraq, now you're swallowing it with regard to Iran.
Let us be perfectly clear: Iran is not a threat to the U.S. To be honest, I don't believe it's even a threat to Israel. Even if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, they are almost certainly being developed as a defensive weapon. Assuming that Tehran seriously wanted to nuke Israel, the Israeli government would almost certainly strike back with a much larger nuclear arsenal. As Jacques Chirac recently said (as quoted by the New York Times), “Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.”
No, Tehran, if it is developing nuclear weapons, would be developing them to protect themselves and their oil fields from the rapacious West. Tattoo this on your brain: OIL. That's the only reason why we're in Iraq, that's the only reason why Cheney is trying to start a war in Iran:
My fellow Americans, stop being manipulated by using that forgotten organ of yours called a brain. Reject the propaganda that's being pile-driven into your head (turn off the f***ing TV set if you have to), and wake up before it's too late!
What is important about what Gore is saying is his focus on how the pollution of America's information environment by 1) corporate media consolidation (all television news is brought to Americans by five private corporations, the CEOs of which all vote Republican) and 2) government propaganda (i.e. lies purveyed to Americans using the money and resources of Americans).
Polling shows that the percentage of Americans who view Iran as the number one threat to the United States has risen to 27 percent now. I think it was only 20 percent in December 2006. First of all, how in the world can a developing country with about a fourth of the population of the US, about a $2000 per capita income (in real terms, not local purchasing power), with no intercontinental ballistic missiles, with no weapons of mass destruction (and no proof positive it is trying to get them), with a small army and a small military budget-- how is such a country a "threat" to the United States of America? Iranian leaders don't like the US, and they talk dirty about the US, and they do attempt to thwart US interests. The same is true of Venezuela under Chavez. But Tehran is a minor player on the world stage, and trying to build it up to replace the Soviet Union is just the worst sort of fear-mongering, and it is being done on behalf of the US military industrial complex, which wants to do to Iran what it did to Iraq. It is propaganda, and significant numbers of Americans (a 7 percent increase would be like 21 million people!) are buying it.
Why have those poll numbers gone up? Because the Bush administration is trying to hang the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq on Iran (and even trying to hang the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan on Iran). The message of administration and military spokesmen is that Iran is deliberately killing US troops and is a major source of insurgency in Iraq. No convincing evidence has ever been presented for either allegation, nor is it reasonable to assume that Iran plays a significant role in funding hyper-Sunni, Shiite-killing death squads to deliberately destabilize its client governments in Baghdad (al-Maliki) and Kabul (Karzai). Yet the New York Times and even the Guardian put this b.s. on the front page, and of course it is all over CNN, Fox Cable News, MSNBC, etc. Are US journalists trapped in the the dictates of the military-industrial complex by virtue of working for these mega corporations? We know that Roger Ailes at Fox Cable News orders his employees how to spin the day's news (he is a former high Republican Party official). Has any of the journalists counted up how many of the 127 US troops killed in Iraq in May was killed in Sunni Arab areas and how many in Shiite neighborhoods? Has any of them actually read the translated communiques on World News Connection of the Sunni Arab guerrillas and what they say about Iran and Shiites? Has any demanded air tight proof and non-anonymous sources before printing this garbage?
No.
It is this sort of thing that Gore is alarmed about. He is a man of enormous experience in public life, and he is saying that he sees a sea change for the worse in this regard. I concur.
My fellow Americans, do us all a simple favor and THINK! Engorged on a diet of frivolous LCD (lowest common denominator) TV, celebrity gossip and Islamophobia (along with several tons of Cheetoz™), you've allowed your head to be filled literally with shit. You can't think critically, nor do you seem to want to. You're swallowing the BIG LIE once more. Just as you swallowed the big lie with regard to Iraq, now you're swallowing it with regard to Iran.
Let us be perfectly clear: Iran is not a threat to the U.S. To be honest, I don't believe it's even a threat to Israel. Even if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, they are almost certainly being developed as a defensive weapon. Assuming that Tehran seriously wanted to nuke Israel, the Israeli government would almost certainly strike back with a much larger nuclear arsenal. As Jacques Chirac recently said (as quoted by the New York Times), “Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.”
No, Tehran, if it is developing nuclear weapons, would be developing them to protect themselves and their oil fields from the rapacious West. Tattoo this on your brain: OIL. That's the only reason why we're in Iraq, that's the only reason why Cheney is trying to start a war in Iran:
"Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
"This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an 'end run strategy’ around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles)." (Source)
My fellow Americans, stop being manipulated by using that forgotten organ of yours called a brain. Reject the propaganda that's being pile-driven into your head (turn off the f***ing TV set if you have to), and wake up before it's too late!
May 16, 2006
An Inconvenient Truth
The following is a trailer for Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth:
While watching this trailer (run time: 2:30), I was startled by a new image I hadn't yet seen. First, there is the set of photographs showing the massive retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina (which I wrote about in late March; see What will they call Glacier National Park...). However, the trailer then showed the lack of snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. I was actually a little incredulous that this was really the case until I found the following article on the internet (from NASA, no less).
Some scientists say Kilimanjaro’s peak may soon shine no more. According to Professor Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, Kilimanjaro’s ice fields could be gone by the year 2020. In his October 18, 2002, article in the journal Science, Thompson and his co-authors note that the ice on the summit, which formed more than 11,000 years ago, has dwindled by 82 percent over the past century. The authors note that the recent, dramatic decline in Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is particularly remarkable given its persistence through many previous shifts in climate, including a severe 300-year-long drought that impacted human populations living in the area about 4,000 years ago.
...
At least four surveys made since 1912 reveal there has been an ongoing decline in the extent of the ice.
As you can see below, the snow and ice on top of Kilimanjaro has melted significantly. The first photo was taken on February 17, 1993; the second on February 21, 2000, seven years and four days late (i.e., the same time of year, almost seven years to the day).
Is global warming an inconvenient truth to conservatives?
Absolutely!
While watching this trailer (run time: 2:30), I was startled by a new image I hadn't yet seen. First, there is the set of photographs showing the massive retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina (which I wrote about in late March; see What will they call Glacier National Park...). However, the trailer then showed the lack of snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. I was actually a little incredulous that this was really the case until I found the following article on the internet (from NASA, no less).
Some scientists say Kilimanjaro’s peak may soon shine no more. According to Professor Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, Kilimanjaro’s ice fields could be gone by the year 2020. In his October 18, 2002, article in the journal Science, Thompson and his co-authors note that the ice on the summit, which formed more than 11,000 years ago, has dwindled by 82 percent over the past century. The authors note that the recent, dramatic decline in Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is particularly remarkable given its persistence through many previous shifts in climate, including a severe 300-year-long drought that impacted human populations living in the area about 4,000 years ago.
...
At least four surveys made since 1912 reveal there has been an ongoing decline in the extent of the ice.
As you can see below, the snow and ice on top of Kilimanjaro has melted significantly. The first photo was taken on February 17, 1993; the second on February 21, 2000, seven years and four days late (i.e., the same time of year, almost seven years to the day).
Is global warming an inconvenient truth to conservatives?
Absolutely!
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