The following is a photographic essay from the recent "NoNATO" demonstrations in Chicago.


Freedom of the press: a concept lost on the club-wielding Chicago Police Dept.


And the award for bravery this past weekend goes to these kids. Undeterred by an arbitrary police order to disperse- and thus relinquish their rights to free speech and to freely assemble- this group of young protestors decided that, even in the face of threats of violence, they would hold their ground and defend their right to be there and have their voices heard. This was taken just moments before a flurry of CPD batons would connect with their bodies.

One of the biggest questions in the space technology world today is will "missile defense" (MD) really work? Recently we've seen articles making a case that it does not work and never will. I would suggest that depending on where you are standing, a strong case could be made that MD is working quite well. It's all a matter of perception and definition.

When looked at from the point of view of the Russians or Chinese one might consider that they view it very differently than some of the critics. Critics see scripted Missile Defense Agency tests while Russia and China see a hyperactive deployment program, which is directly connected to a larger U.S./NATO military expansion ultimately leading to their encirclement.

Critics might see the MD system today largely as a corporate boondoggle while the Russians and Chinese are looking toward 2020 and beyond when new generations of a well funded research and development program (now committed to by NATO's 28 members) has delivered faster, more accurate and longer range interceptor missiles.

This Memorial Day, our nation should honor our war dead by either withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or, better yet, completely dismantling the obsolete Cold War defense pact. NATO exists today not to defend against aggressive authoritarian Communism, but to steal resources from weaker non-European countries by military force. Its two most recent military actions made the May 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago a gathering of war criminals.

NATO was established in April 1949 at the height of the Cold War and the creation of the so-called "Iron Curtain" dividing Eastern and Western Europe. In 1955, the Soviet bloc countered with its own military organization, the Warsaw Pact. The current 28 NATO member nations account for an estimated 70% of the world's defense spending.

East and West Germany reunified in October 1990. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 along with the Warsaw Pact. NATO achieved its goal as a defensive pact of defending Western Europe from the Soviet bloc.

Last night Ohio’s State Assembly passed Senate Bill 315, what will one of the worst fracking laws in the nation.
The bill heading to Gov. Kasich’s desk fails to reinvest in Ohio communities, fails to adequately protect them from the toxic impacts of the fracking industry, and fails to help Ohio address the growing climate crisis.
It means that Ohio will allow bigger health and safety loopholes and ask the gas industry to pay less than almost any other state in the country, exposing our communities to the worst excesses of the fracking industry. Doctors will be prevented from talking openly about the sickness they see seeping into our water, and the gas industry will keep all of the profits flowing out of our communities.

The rumblings you hear when this bill is signed is not the sound of another injection well caused earthquake (though another is now likely inevitable) – it is the rumblings of a backlash against the politicians who have been bought out with millions of dollars of the gas industry’s money, and have chosen to sacrifice Ohio in return.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Police said they seized one million illicit methamphetamine pills, weeks after discovering nearly 50 million legal tablets to treat common ailments had been stolen from Thailand's hospitals, to make powerful speed drugs to sell to addicts.

An additional two billion similar tablets to treat common colds have been smuggled in from Taiwan and South Korea, also to make illegal drugs, in a complex international racket that appears too entrenched and massive for Thai authorities to stop.

Corrupt chemists and drug dealers have been extracting ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from legal cold remedies and similar medicine in Thailand and secretly shipping it across the border into Laos and Myanmar, a country also known as Burma, where gangs use the ingredients to create a range of amphetamine-based drugs.

Myanmar's drug gangs work among heavily armed minority ethnic insurgents including the Shan, Wa, and other tribes in lawless, mountainous jungles near the border where the two countries meet.