Sunday, November 29, 2009

Rewarding loggers that first caused the damage is NOT progress. Prison is progress.

There is far too much that hangs in the balance to leave it to chance.

The Road to Copenhagen (click here)
Tree Harvester Offers to Save Indonesian Forest
...Canals — used legally and illegally — extend from surrounding rivers nearly into the peninsula’s impenetrable core. By slowly draining and drying the peat land, they are releasing carbon dioxide, contributing to making Indonesia the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States....

The Indonesia government has been at the forefront of species preservation. There are innumerable species protected in that archepeligo. Indonesia has been very supportive of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (click title to entry - thank you).

The UN program was specifically designed to help countries at the greatest risk of ecosystem damage to protect their countries from degradation, WHILE, supplying their people with jobs and income. The problem is that there isn't enough emphasis to this assessment with the implementation mentored by QUALIFIED botanists and plant ecologists that believe in preservation and restoration of ecosystems rather than exploitation of them. The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment has been abused by CEOs that were allowed access to ecosystems in 'good faith.' There is no such thing as 'good faith' when companies want to make money at any cost.

Basically, whom is helping countries like Indonesia?

Bush or Obama?

The United Nations needs to take the bull by the horns and stop the mismanagement of ecosystems of these countries, including their fisheries. In the Sea of Thialand, the once abundant area now has a majority of squid where diversity used to exist. That is NOT effective management. Where the land degrades the waterways, seas and oceans follow. Gravity makes water run downhill. In case that wasn't obvious to the most novice observer. "Runoff" startes with 'overland flow' from rains on terra firma and add to that raw drainage from storm and sewers.

With the degradation of the peat forests in Indonesia, the sealife surrounding it and its seas that receive the runoff from this land will degrade along with the mismanagement of the land. Native species of flora and fauna need to be re-established where there is damage and the loss of precious habitat to preserve this carbon sink has to begin immediately

The United Nation has Peacekeepers. Yes? Well, now they are going to have to recognize their need in policing the ecosystems of the world, because, so long as governments fluctuate in finicky elections there will be no consistency in the preservation of these lands.

The United Nations has to push for 'enforcement' of environmental laws through an autonomous Ecosystem Peace Force that stops poaching and jails offenders. If necessary, through the World Courts, including, CEOs of companies that have caused such widespread damage and have no inkling to ever stop. Placing these lands in the hands of corporations is the ABSOLUTE WORSE idea I have ever heard. They will mismanage the lands and call it a 'better engineered carbon sink.'

I don't think so.

The meeting in Copenhagen is a chance to 'get it right.' We have at the leadership globally men and women sincerely interested in attaining the goal of reversal of Greenhouse Gases through aggressive measures that insure energy to their nations through renewable sources, alternate transporation in magnetic rail and electric cars and land preservation through laws that uphold the best integrity of ecosystems, especially those as valuable as these.

The UN Secretary General is a vital partner to the outcome of the meetings and it will be he that can make the greatest contribution by demanding vast changes to the way countries protect their lands and contribute to the well being of the home planet of future generations. It is up to the UN to lead the best efforts to bring real change and enforcement of environmental integrity at these summits.

The administration in DC is going to be the world's best opportunity to write treaties and have them ratified before another 'nut case' like Bush shows up in the American elections complaining about the 'price and size of government' and willing to 'melt down the Arctic Ocean' for the sake of oil exploitation. There is nothing SANE or MORAL about that. By all means, the meetings in Copenhagen need to be comprehensive and thorough with plenty of botanists and plant ecologist to insure the best outcome of Earth for future generations.

The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment is worthless without proper enforcement of its intent to uphold the integrity of the countries that participate without intention of corruption. If 'carbon credits' are to be purchased than it can't be with visions of 'engineered' carbon sinks on the dreamscape of the corporate world, that are smaller but pack a bigger punch.

Horsehockey.

We witnessed the 'face' of the corporate world at the end of 2008. We are better off without them. That is why Bush bailed them out with the assistance of Paulson. If it were up to the moral people of the world, the corporations wouldn't exist, but, replaced by companies run by the people that work in them with products that reflect their values.

Support Greenpeace, they understand the planet and the need to increase the quality of life of impoverished nations to bring preservation to ecosystems WITHOUT corporate or government corruption.

November 2008: (click here) Fires in a peatland consession, Kampar Peninsula, Indonesia. The Kampar Peninsula is the last large intact area of peat swamp forest in Riau.




Obama will go to Copenhagen... a week too early (click here)

...President Obama needs to be there at the same time as all the other wold leaders – December 18. This is the last day of the negotiations, when all the heads of state show up, are presented with the agreements achieved so far by their delegates, and do the high-level negotiations that lead to a final agreement.


The Latest Right Wing Conspiracy to raise ratings. They are running their own political party.

I don't think Lou Dobbs will be getting the Hispanic vote. These white guys need to retire and live happily ever after.

Two of the country's worst bigots are going into politics. Lou Dobbs wants to be New Jersey's next Senator and Beck is going to exorcise George Washington the first chance he gets.

And the Right Wing extremists are guaranteed to have the Wall Street Journal behind them. The WSJ is already backing any candidate that isn't Lou Dobbs. No mention of whom Beck is thinking about promoting. Talk about Murdoch having a stake in 'The Big Game.'

It is laughable to believe The Wall Street Journal is actually taking this mess seriously. This is nothing more than a 'ratings grab.' First Beck is going to lead the charge that no Republican seems to be able to muster and then Dobbs is going to ride directly in the USA Senate to 'take control' of the issue.

Now, all the 'real people' of the USA need to ask themselves, "Did a shiver run down one's spine as soon as these jokers said they were going to be 'gaming politics' by active participation?" Go ahead. Admit it. As soon as the words, Beck is promoting his own party and Dobbs is running for the Presidency or the Senate, didn't everyone reach for the remote or the radio or both? Come on, get over it. They are never going to lead anything worthwhile, except, a mob scene maybe. These bozos never bothered to put their own narcissistic interests aside to explore the long existing and well established 'Third Parties' of the USA.

The Populist Party (click here)
The Rise of PopulismThe People's Party (or Populist Party, as it was widely known) was much younger than the Democratic and Republican Parties, which had been founded before the Civil War....

Their website today (click here)

The Libertarian Party website (click here)

The Constitution Party website (click here)

The Green Party website (click here)

Those are the other major Third Paries in the USA. There are others, but, their chance of winning a federal office isn't good. There has to be enough grassroots movement by any party to promote the platform and the candidates. The small third parties are having luck though, but, primarily at the local level, which is a darn good start.


Lou Dobbs Already Backpedaling on His Signature Issue (click here)
11/25/09 at 12:50

...But apparently Dobbs is aware that targeting the nation's only Hispanic senator might not reflect well on someone already burdened with a reputation for hostility toward Hispanic illegal immigrants. Maybe that's why Dobbs has already begun to reverse his outspoken opposition to what he used to call "amnesty," a path to legalization for illegal immigrants. The Wall Street Journal reports that in an overlooked interview with Telemundo last Friday, Dobbs "twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that 'we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.'" Looks like he's getting the hang of the politician thing already.


Glenn Beck, on Fox News, is planning a series of conventions for his followers. "I'm going to teach you how to be a community organizer next year, oh, because two can play at that game," Beck said on the radio. "It's time to find our teeth and sharpen our teeth, and we're going to do it." (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / March 2, 2009)

It helps that a community organizer at FOX will have the backing of his media bosses. I mean who needs donors, right?

The voluble Fox News television host says he hopes (click here) to transform his personal celebrity into political action and has begun to assemble a movement to "change America's course." Beck announced his intentions at a weekend rally at a retirement community outside Orlando, Fla., where he was promoting his new book, "Arguing With Idiots." He continued outlining his ideas during his radio and TV shows Monday."America, we cannot wait for a leader anymore," Beck said. "The people must lead, and the leader will follow."

At least when the Democrats promote a media star for Congress, he can draw all the forty-eight mainland USA States on a map, while raising his own funding.

I'd like to see more than $10,000 reward. Seattle has a problem. Cop killers.

The Seattle AREA police need to meet at varying places and not simply 'the usual hangout' when they are preparing to go to work.

It might even be better to meet at the station house before any shift as the police cars don't stick out like sore thumbs as they would at a coffee shop. At least until this mess is nailed down.

I certainly hope the FBI is working this by now.

The coffee shop is near McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, about 35 miles south of Seattle.

Unless there is a sincerely strong reason to 'link' the Air Force Base with the shootings, I would not think there was anything related. I realize military bases might be the source of ideas of violence following the Fort Hood episode, but, at this point I think that is more sensationism than reality. Let's catch these people before the people of the area have their lives turned into nightmares. We don't need a return of Al Capone.

It looks to me the people assassinating police officers at vulnerable moments are freelancers and not organized crime necessarily. They might be getting weapons from someone connected with the Air Force Base, but, I doubt all the weapons come from any place, except, the neighborhood. I would be really surprised if the Base had any connections to this.



Chris Monfort
...Thanks to the hard work of reporters at the Seattle Times and P-I, we now know a lot more about Christopher Monfort, the 41-year-old Tukwila man suspected of killing Officer Timothy Brenton on Halloween night....

...Sunday's shooting comes a month after Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton (click title to entry - thank you) was shot and killed Halloween night as he was sitting in a cruiser with trainee Britt Sweeney. Sweeney was grazed in the neck....
...Christopher Monfort, 41, of suburban Tukwila, was charged in the shooting. Days after the shooting, Seattle detectives attempted to question Monfort at his residence. Police say that Monfort then ran from the detectives and tried to use a gun. The detective shot him.
Authorities also linked Monfort to the October firebombing of four police vehicles, with prosecutors saying Monfort waged a "one-man war" against law enforcement....


4 police officers killed in Wash. coffee shop (click here)
Sheriff's official says at least one gunman walked in and opened fire

..."This was a targeted, selected ambush," Troyer said, adding that customers and baristas were in the Forza Coffee shop at the time but no one else was shot at or injured....

This is what bothers me about the predisposition of news media services and politicians that want to turn a 'jerk' that was a psychiatrist into a martyr of jihad. It is stupid. The man at Fort Hood was a lone gunman that was misguided by his own perverted ideas of his own priorities for his life. It is outrageous to believe this is a mass movement within military bases to annihilate the police of a region of the country.

The fact of the matter is simple. None of these police officers would have died if they didn't have their guard down. Police aren't necessarily 'ready to jump to arms' at any second. They expect citizens to act in a non-violent manner unless the circumstances dictate otherwise. This is more or less a predatory person that seeks out police officers to satisfy his idea of justice or self-righteousness.


Imam's e-mails to Fort Hood suspect Hasan tame compared to online rhetoric (click here)
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, November 29, 2009
By BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News
begerton@dallasnews.com
E-mails between a U.S. Army officer and a radical Muslim cleric did not worry anti-terrorism investigators, they said, because nothing in the correspondence presaged violence. But elsewhere on the Internet, the imam was urging people to kill soldiers and others.
After accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan started e-mailing in December, the cleric increased the pace of his fundamentalist rhetoric on the Web, a Dallas Morning News investigation found.
"I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies," Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, wrote in a February blog entry.
The cleric and the Army major are believed to have met at least eight years ago, when al-Awlaki preached at a northern Virginia mosque attended by Hasan's family. Both were born in the United States to prosperous Middle Eastern parents nearly 40 years ago; both earned advanced degrees at American universities....

...Instead, investigators determined there was no need to probe further because Hasan's questions to al-Awlaki were consistent with his psychiatric research, there was no indication he was planning violence, and he was not "directed to do anything," officials said.
But the Muslim cleric didn't need to give specific direction by e-mail. His exhortations about killing – soldiers, innocent women and children, blasphemers, even oneself – were readily available until his online site went dead a few days after the Fort Hood shootings. The News found al-Awlaki's speeches and blogs by combing through Web archives and reviewing online recordings and transcripts....


I don't believe he was influenced by this cleric either. He could answer that better than anyone and being that he is alive and in confinement, he should be interrogated so long as his lawyer is present. But, the evidence is overwhelming.

The man should just plead guilty rather than put a nation through a trial. I realize his attorney is doing the very best he can given overwhelming evidence to his guilt, but, the military should maintain Nidal Hasan in confinement until they are allowed to understand his state of mind at the time of the killings.

I sincerely believe a lot of the anger has to do with his own priorities and not that of this cleric. I believe he didn't know how to confront violence and fell into familiar patterns of violent Muslims.

I like the idea that this cleric doesn't have access to the 'violence markets' of the USA though.

Good job.

Do more.

Definately. I can't believe Homeland Security hasn't shut this mess down before now. I mean for real. What was the idea? Get the 'Home Boys' of the USA angry as hell so they would pick up a gun and go to a battlefield? That's pretty stupid priorities if that what the thinking was. Shut 'em down. Every government, especially those directly dealing with this mess, should shut them down. Throw 'em in prison for advocating the death of other people.

You know there is such a thing as a 'death threat' that is considered a crime in the USA. Seriously. The websites that advocate 'death threats' to citizens, even unidentified citizens, should be shut down and their contributors charged. Make 'em face a judge. They'll figure it out after that.

There can be a lot more at work here than meets the eye.

La Familia’ drug cartel members indicted (click here)
By Mike Robinson
November 20, 2009
CHICAGO -
Fifteen people with ties to the Mexican drug cartel La Familia Michoacana have been indicted on charges of taking part in a major Chicago-area cocaine conspiracy, prosecutors announced Friday. The people charged in indictments returned Thursday were arrested in August as part of the government’s Operation Coronado, an effort launched in 2007 to break La Familia’s grip on the U.S. cocaine market. The cartel is named for the State of Michoacan in southwestern Mexico and is accused by federal prosecutors of being responsible for hauling vast quantities of cocaine into the United States from south of the border. Drug Enforcement Agency officials have arrested more than 300 people in 19 states as part of the operation, prosecutors said....



Hearing scheduled for meth cartel’s ‘puppet master’ (click here)
By Staff, City News Service
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A preliminary hearing was scheduled Thursday for one of 13 people arrested in San Diego during a nationwide sweep targeting a fast-moving Mexican drug cartel known for its violence and control over the methamphetamine trade.
Angel Quintero Castillo was arrested last month as part of Project Coronado, an ongoing federal government campaign against La Familia. One local prosecutor described Castillo as a “facilitator.”
“Angel was a puppet master who arranged the deals through telephone conversations,” Deputy District Attorney Carlos Campbell alleged....

The most recent 'Cosa Nostra' of Mexico. I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility of the 're-establishment' of still more drug crime networks. The northwest USA has a lot of ports, and the La Familia Port City of Wilmington, North Carolina has recently been shut down. I think anything is possible here and police 'on the street' should conduct themselves accordingly. Body armor, etc., if they don't already. I don't care who they are. I don't care if they are Park Police.

In some ways this mimics what Mexico is going through. Brazen drug gangs out to kill police and military to have control over their networks. They are no different than any other organized crime network in that they adhere to 'religious dogma' and the 'reign of poverty' to justify their actions. They believe they have better law than the law that exists and are threats to a nation's sovereignty.

The rise of Mexico's La Familia, a narco-evangelist cartel (click here)

By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer
from the November 22, 2009 edition
Mexico and the US are working together bring down Mexico's newest, most violent drug cartel. Last month, 303 alleged La Familia members were arrested in 38 US cities. Fifteen members were indicted Friday in Chicago.

Apatzingan, Mexico - They hand out Bibles to the poor in the rural foothills of the state of Michoacán. They forbid drug use, build schools and drainage systems, and declare themselves the protectors of women and children.
But this is no church group. This is La Familia Michoacána, Mexico's newest drug-trafficking gang, which now reigns over Mexico's methamphetamine trade. What began as a self-declared vigilante group doing "the work of God," now is seen as the nation's most violent criminal group.
Its influence stretches well beyond this patch of Mexico called "La Tierra Caliente" or "Hot Land." Last month, in the largest coordinated action against a Mexican trafficking organization north of the border, the United States arrested 303 alleged La Familia affiliates in 38 US cities. It was the culmination of "Project Coronado," which has nabbed more than 1,100 suspects in 44 months....

..."La Familia doesn't kill for money. It kills only those who deserve to die."...

Who decides among them 'what act' is deserving of death? That is what that statement means. Someone is deciding 'those who deserve to die.' Really? Just on a whim? Or. Are there actual 'Credos' that dictate such judgements? Just curious.

They didn't leave a stone unturned. They do have their own 'credos in print.'

"The Craziest One."

Nazario Moreno González (click here for Wiki), the group's preacher.

Mexico offers $2 million for top drug lords (click here)
Most-wanted list a challenge to cartels' violent grip along the border

updated 6:48 p.m. ET, Mon., March. 23, 2009
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's government on Monday offered $2 million each for information leading to the arrest of 24 top drug lords in a public challenge to the cartels' violent grip on the country.
The list indicated that drug gangs have splintered into six main cartels under pressure from the U.S. and Mexican governments. The two most powerful gangs — the Pacific and Gulf cartels — each suffered fractures that have given rise to new cartels, according to the list published by the Attorney General's Office....

...La Familia’s boss and spiritual leader Nazario Moreno González, (click here) (a.k.a.: El Más Loco or The Craziest One) has published his own 'bible', a copy of this 'bible' seized by Mexican federal agents reveals an ideology that mixes evangelical-style self help with insurgent peasant slogans. Moreno González seems to base most of his doctrine on the work by a Christian writer John Eldredge. The Mexican justice department stated in a report that Gonzalez Moreno has made Eldredge’s book Salvaje de Corazón (Wild at Heart) required reading for La Familia gang members and has paid rural teachers and National Development Education (CONAFE) to circulate Eldredge's writings throughout the Michoacán countryside. An idea central to Eldredge’s message is that every man must have "a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue and an adventure to live." Eldredge quotes from Isaiah 63, which describes God wearing blood-stained clothes, spattered as though he had been treading a wine press. Then he writes: "Talk about Braveheart. This is one fierce, wild, and passionate guy. I have never heard Mister Rogers talk like that. Come to think of it, I never heard anyone in church talk like that, either. But this is the God of heaven and Earth."...

...The La Familia members use murder and torture to quash rivals, while building a social base in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is the fastest-growing cartel in the country’s drug war and is a religious cult-like group that celebrates family values. In one incident in Uruapan in 2006, the cartel members tossed five decapitated heads onto the dance floor of the Sol y Sombra night club along with a message that read: "The Family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice."...

These boys have got 'God Complexes' big time. I guess they believe 'God is on their side.' Huh?