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Take action online to save polar bear: polar bear survival speaking tour

You can take action now to support the US Fish and Wildlife Service's proposal to list the polar bear as threatened at www.arcticrefuge.org.  With the Arctic Ocean expected to be ice-free in the summer as early as 2040, the polar bear is the canary in the coal mine for climate change.  Comments must be received by April 7.

Then you can bring the Arctic to your home town or campus by scheduling a stop in my upcoming tour by train around the continent.  Trains get up to 40 times better fuel efficiency per passenger mile and are a great solution to climate change.

I am launching a polar bear survival tour April –May to support mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions to protect the polar bear and so much more.  The tour will promote the permanent protection Of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain as wilderness.  That area has more polar bear dens than anywhere in the United States by far.  The tour will also support the effort to list the polar bear as threatened, and for the USFWS to take strong action to protect the polar bear by requiring greenhouse gas reductions.

Sudan

http://mattbors.com

Hollywood's latest hit: 300, a militarist fantasy

Hollywood has recently released a popular film that, once again, reveals much about the film industry. While Hollywood is not monolithic institution – the same entity is capable of producing some noteworthy works from time to time – it is still composed of conglomerates occupied by a large number of artistically ignorant executives, careerist filmmakers and actors concerned only with profit and careers. Typically, the "blockbuster" film brings out the worst of the film establishment. These movies often operate on a visceral level and whether the creators do so consciously or not, endorse the status quo by upholding the establishment's outlook on society. The film reviewed here is an example of this.

A measure of morality in Congress

If you could secretly tell a magic genie "Yes" and receive a million dollars but cause the deaths of a million people you've never met in China, would you say No?  This is no longer just a philosophical brain teaser.  The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Friday morning on funding for a war that has already caused the deaths of possibly as many as a million Iraqis.  Some of the money might very well go to funding an attack on another nation (Iran).  Many members of Congress are expected to vote Yes in order to keep their committee chairmanships, or in order to receive funding for projects in their districts, or in order to receive assistance or not face opposition in their next reelection campaigns.  Among the most principled few who are holding out and voting No, some of them are encouraging others to vote Yes.

Iraq @ 4: It's Not About the Troops - Either Way

Perhaps the most unremarked-upon aspect of the much-noted fourth anniversary of the Iraq debacle is the deeply confused way Americans talk about it.

Most egregious is the constant refrain from all sides that whatever they want is first and foremost about 'supporting the troops' - whether keeping them there forever, or bringing them home immediately.

While concern for American forces serving in Iraq is certainly well-intentioned, the rhetorical focus on 'the troops' is not just irrelevant, but dangerously misleading.

The most significant reason 'the troops' are not the central issue in Iraq is that they're all volunteers.

This is radically different from Vietnam, where almost all the soldiers, and certainly the grunts, were there because of a socio-economically unjust draft that allowed Bush and Cheney, for example, to avoid serving in a war they 'supported.'

As a result, the demand at that time to 'bring the troops home' had substance in both foreign and domestic realms, since the vast majority had not signed up for the armed forces, let alone guerrilla war in a tropical jungle.

New Ohio evidence exposes apparently illegal 2004 recount activity by Hocking County's GOP Election Director, and a stinging complaint is filed in Cleveland

The Republican executive director of the Hocking County Board of Elections (BOE) may have written at least one memo outlining possibly illegal behavior during the scandal-ridden 2004 Ohio presidential recount. And an explosive five-count complaint has been filed by Ohio's new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, against two GOP directors in Cuyahoga County. It is built in part on evidence gleaned from the federal report issued by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) after the 2004 election, from stories broken at the Freepress.org website, and evidence gathered by grassroots voting rights activists in Cleveland.

After the 2004 election, the Green Party and Libertarian Party paid $113,620.00 for a recount of the state's presidential balloting.

Lisa Schwartze, the executive director of the Hocking County Board of Elections, supervised the recount in that county. On Friday morning, December 10, 2004 as the recount was about to commence there, a technician, Michael Barbian, Jr. from Triad Governmental Systems, Inc., called the Hocking County BOE and informed them he would be in that afternoon "to check

Let Rove lie

I think Karl Rove should be permitted to testify to Congress in private, without taking any oath, and without any record being kept of what he says.  I had hoped we could avoid the indecency of having to spell out the reason why, but apparently we can't.  So please remember this and then never say it aloud again: he wants to lie.  Sssshhh.  There, we said it.  And you're making it very difficult for him, and that's not very nice or respectful.

Boycott the Democratic Party wing of the War Party

Friends, Romans, Countrymen,

I'm sorry that I haven't been up-to-date with every ebb and flow of this disaster, but believe me I have been following it all. A little background, please forgive me if you have heard this before. At my neighborhood peace group, Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War, back in November we were discussing what to do with Congress member Jerrold Nadler (NY 8th CD). We were considering making him our target. We were just about to challenge him on the issue of the war, considering sitting in at his office, etc. Then he came and stood with us at our weekly action: Chelsea Stands Up Against The War. He stayed a good while and we got to express ourselves on the need to stop funding the war. On January 12th he came out with his "Protect The Troops and Bring Them Home Act of 2007. We thought that this was as good as anything we had seen, endorsed it and started working for it.

We are all familiar with what has happend since January 12th. Here is my take:

Explosive new vote fraud developments continue to rock Ohio and Florida

Breaking news in vote fraud cases in both Ohio and Florida are feeding a firestorm of controversy that is likely to continue escalating, with major implications for the 2008 election and the future of e-voting machines.

In Ohio, Jennifer Brunner, the newly elected Secretary of State, has received two of the four resignations she requested from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE). The two Democrats on the Board, Edward Coaxum, Jr. and Loree Soggs, have complied with her call for their departures from Cleveland's scandal-ridden election authority.

However, Robert Bennett, who chairs both the Cuyahoga BOE and the Ohio Republican Party, has thus far refused Brunner's request. So has Sally Florkiewicz, Bennett's fellow Republican on the BOE. Should they continue with their refusal to resign, Brunner has threatened to hold public hearings, in the wake of which she could force the resignations.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that a criminal investigation is underway which centers on the Cuyahoga BOE's conduct of the November 2006 election. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason has turned again

Progressives stand strong against funding war

As I was walking across Memorial Bridge a young man I know ran up to me. He's a veteran of this war and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. After saying hello and a few words, he burst into tears. He said he had just been spat on, and it had just hit him what that meant. The people who spat on him were part of a relatively tiny group of pro-war demonstrators. The young man I was talking to did not spit back at them. He joined a group of other vets for peace and led the march to the Pentagon nonviolently.

The leaders of the marches for peace care what the war supporters think of them. The reverse is also true. The pro-war demonstrators were not executives of weapons and oil companies cynically promoting their own profits. Many of them were aging veterans of a previous war that had sent them into the horrors of death and violence for previous power and profit motives that they do not want to think about.

These people have identified themselves so closely with war and obedience that they feel compelled to denounce and threaten and spit on other people wearing the same uniform and waving the same flag. And they waive signs

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