Deaths as Israel storms aid ship

More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.

Armed forces boarded the largest vessel overnight, clashing with some of the 500 people on board.

It happened about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea, in international waters.

Israel says its soldiers were shot at and attacked with bars and knives; the activists say Israeli troops came on board shooting.

Jon Donnison reports.

READ MORE: Deaths as Israel storms aid ship

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The Exploitation of the Holocaust, by the Jews

An outspoken critic of the exploitation of the Holocaust, we ask what is the price of free speech?

Riz Khan - Professor Norman Finkelstein - 21 Jun 07

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Report: Israel to deploy nuclear submarines off Iran coast

Sunday Times quotes IDF official saying the 3 German-made long range submarines will gather intelligence, act as deterrent and potentially land Mossad agents.

On Friday, defense sources reported that an Israeli submarine had sailed the Suez Canal to the Red Sea last month, describing the unusual maneuver as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran.

Israel has long kept its three Dolphin-class submarines, which are widely assumed to carry nuclear missiles, away from Suez so as not to expose them to the gaze of Egyptian harbormasters.

Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, the Sunday times reported on Sunday.  Read more...

Unholy Alliance: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.  Read more...

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“The Wounded Platoon” The Devastating Impact of War on American Soldiers

By MIKE HALE



Post-traumatic stress, brought about by roadside bombs and longer, more frequent tours of duty, is only part of the story. The program explores how the Army, short of troops, began to accept recruits with criminal records that would have disqualified them in the past. (A military psychiatrist points out that this is not all bad: such soldiers are more likely to have behavioral problems, but they are also more likely to display heroism.)


Once these troops entered the cauldrons of Iraq and Afghanistan and began, predictably, to go around the bend in higher numbers than the Army was accustomed to, another new policy took hold. For the first time, the program says, soldiers in combat zones were allowed to take prescription drugs. At the time of the surge in 2007, more than 20,000 troops were on antidepressants and prescription sleep medications like Ambien, it says, in environments where close supervision of their treatment was impossible.  Read more...

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Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Health Questions

Dr. Gina Solomon provides answers to the health questions raised by the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig explosion and the efforts being made to contain it.

How do you think the health of local communities around the gulf will be impacted from the oil?

The petroleum vapors and mists can cause a variety of immediate health effects. There are also long-term health concerns because some of the contaminants from the oil will remain for a long time in the sediments and will accumulate in the food chain. Contamination in fish and shellfish—for many years into the future—may pose a significant risk of cancer and other health effects.

What’s actually in oil that could be hazardous to health?

Oil contains a mixture of chemicals. The main ingredients are various hydrocarbons, some of which can cause cancer (such as the PAHs or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons); other hydrocarbons can cause skin and airway irritation. There are also certain volatile hydrocarbons called VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which can cause cancer, and neurologic and reproductive harm. Oil also contains traces of heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and lead.

How can these chemicals get into our bodies?

VOCs and some of the other hydrocarbons can be inhaled, causing lung problems and other health effects. Skin contact causes irritation and rashes. The oil will contaminate fish and shellfish, causing health risks from eating these foods that could persist for years.  Read more...

Read comment attached from a worker in the Exxon clean-up who's health was affected.

The Great Falling Away, Blacks Leaving Chruch to Find Answers to Life.

By Chika Oduah and Lauren E. Bohn


Between 1990 and 2008, the number of nonreligious Americans nearly doubled, from 8 percent to 15 percent, according to the ARIS study. Among African-Americans, the increase was also nearly double, from 6 percent to 11 percent.
Howard University graduate student Mark Hatcher says African-Americans are largely invisible in a secular movement that has long been represented by white male thinkers.
Concerned that black religious skeptics were alienated on campus, he started a humanist student group this year. "It is extremely important to get these people in one room and say, 'Hey, you're not crazy,"' said Hatcher.
Mia Fite, a student at Johnson & Wales University in Colorado, attended the conference for that assurance. She counts herself as one of the few non-religious people among her predominantly black circle of friends.
"You expect it from white people, but it's rare for African-American people to talk critically about religion," she said.
Many black American humanists agree that religious principles get in the way of effectively addressing the social ills facing the black community, including a higher proportion of HIV and AIDS cases compared with other races and ethnicities.
Diane Griffin, a former lobbyist for the National Minority AIDS Council, said one of her challenges while working to pass legislation was getting black leaders to encourage condom use.
"They feel that's gonna say that they are somehow promoting homosexuality," she said.
Bey agreed that black churches can sometimes be part of the problem, not the solution. "We need clinics, jobs, and schools in black neighborhoods," she said. "We need proactive solutions, and praying and churches is not the answer."
But for so long, the church has been the only answer, says Los Angeles racial studies writer and lecturer Sikivu Hutchinson. "It's been a source of redemption, succor, and community-building throughout African-American history," she said.
Yet the movement is seen by some black leaders as more of a threat than an opportunity. On any given Sunday morning, the Rev. Kenneth Fowlkes' voice rises in dramatic crescendos from his pulpit at Kingdom Builders Church of God in Christ in Hanover, Md., rousing the congregation to clap, stomp, and dance.  Read more...

25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real

By Michael Snyder

Any “recovery” that the U.S. economy is experiencing is illusory and will be quite temporary.  The entire financial system of the United States is falling apart, and the powers that be can try to patch it up and prop it up for a while, but in the end this thing is going to come crashing down.

But as obvious as that may seem to most of us, there are still quite a few people out there that are absolutely convinced that the U.S. economy will fully recover and will soon be stronger than ever.

So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real….

#1) food stamps
#2) foreclosure filings
#3) homeowners with a mortgage missed at least one payment in the January-March period.
#4) banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?
#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes,
#6) States on the verge of financial disaster?
#7) Dozens of U.S. states are preparing for biggest budget cuts in decades.
#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008.
#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010.
#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced a budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April.
#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015.
#12) Unprecedented environmental disasters.
#13) The FDIC’s list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high.
#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund.
#15) No more tax credit for home buyers.
#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money.
#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent.
#19) Gallup’s measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th.
#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession.
#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming.
#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3%.
#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.
Read more and get more details

North Korea cuts ties with South, is War next?

North Korea has severed key communication links with South Korea after vowing to cut all ties with its neighbour in response to the South's tightening of sanctions against Pyongyang over the deadly torpedoing of one of its warships.
In a statement early on Wednesday the North shut down communication lines between Red Cross authorities on either side of the border and also lines connecting maritime officials, Seoul's unification ministry said.  Read more...

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Local NYC board backs plan to build mosque near Ground Zero

After hours of emotional public comment, a New York city community board has voted overwhelmingly to support a plan to build a mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero.

"It's a seed of peace," board member Rob Townley said. "We believe that this is significant step in the Muslim community to counteract the hate and fanaticism in the minority of the community."

The vote late Tuesday by the Manhattan Community Board was 29-to-1 in favor of the plan, with 10 abstentions, the Associated Press reports.  Read more...

Jamaica gunfights claim 30 lives as police and army battle gangsters

"Jamaica gunfights claim 30 lives as police and army battle gangsters State of emergency to remain for a month, PM says, as security forces fight gunmen loyal to alleged drug lord in West Kingston"

At least 26 civilians and four members of the security forces have died as police and soldiers battle supporters of an alleged drug lord who faces extradition to the US, Jamaican police have said.

Thousands of heavily armed forces are raiding the capital's most violent central slums in a hunt for underworld boss Christopher Coke, known as "Dudus". Read more...

BP oil leak chemical shares molecular structure with anti-freeze (Oil spill live video)

Maryann Tobin

If BP came right out and told the public that they were pouring anti-freeze into the Gulf of Mexico to break up the oil spill, people would be outraged. 

However, sources inside the oil industry say the chemical BP is using, Corexit 9500, does indeed bear a striking molecular resemblance to anti-freeze.

The EPA told BP last week that they needed to stop using Corexit 9500 to battle the Gulf oil leak.
 
Although the chemical is EPA approved, the enormous amount being dumped on the spill has raised concerns about both the short and long term negative affects.  Official reports have confirmed the use of more than 670,000 gallons, so far.  Read more...

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10 Things You Thought Were Black Owned -- But Aren't

10. Black Entertainment Television
9. Def Jam Records
8. Marc Ecko
7. Jimmy Jazz
6. Essence Magazine
5. 'The Game'
4. The George Foreman Grill
3. Church's Chicken
2. T.V. One
1. SoftSheen Carson
Get detailed information

Rep Alan Grayson Introduces the War Is Making You Poor Act

Rep. Grayson introduces a bill to cut separate funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and uses the money to eliminate federal income taxes on every American's first $35,000 of income. Cosponsors of this bill include Ron Paul, Walter Jones, John Conyers, Lynn Woolsey, and Dennis Kucinich.

Rep Alan Grayson Introduces the War Is Making You Poor Act

Study Shows Blacks Will NEVER Gain Wealth Parity With Whites Under the Current System

Glen Ford

Contrary to the Big Lie that holds that Blacks have been making general progress in closing various economic “gaps” with whites since the Sixties, African American households have been getting poorer for the past 23 years. “The meter of progress is running backwards on Black America, toward greater inequality and relative poverty.”

The gap between Black and white household wealth quadrupled from 1984 to 2007, totally discrediting the conventional wisdom that the U.S. is slowly and fitfully moving towards racial equality, or some rough economic parity between the races. Like most American myths, it’s the direct opposite of the truth. When measured over decades, Blacks are being propelled economically downward relative to whites at quickening speed, according to a new study by Brandeis University.  Read more...

Israel is not above the law: Australia expels Israeli over fake passports

Greg Barns

The decision yesterday by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to expel a Mossad agent working in the Israeli Embassy in Canberra for his role in his country's forging of four Australian passports used in an assassination of a senior Hamas figure in Dubai earlier this year is one that may help to reduce violent extremism in Australia.In fact, this one action of standing up to Israel might do more good in reducing home grown extremism than the $9.7 million the Rudd government announced on May 11 it was throwing at the issue. Read more...

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During tough economic times, more explore the reality of 'Doing For Self!'

By Nisa Islam Muhammad and Jesse Muhammad

According to a report on SmallBusinessTrends.com, from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the fourth quarter of 2009, the number of self-employed Blacks increased 5.7 percent while the number of self-employed Whites decreased 3.4 percent. Self-employment among Asians decreased 10.5 percent, and self-employment among Latinos remained flat. Nationally, the total number of non-agricultural self-employed people fell.

“If one just sits around reading unemployment statistics all day, you can get depressed. It seems like there is no hope for Blacks in the job market. But instead of sitting around waiting to be hired, I decided to become self-employed,” said Mr. Wilson.  Read more...

Trial Begins for Ex-Chicago Police Lt. Accused of Torturing More than 100 African American Men

A former police commander accused of overseeing the torture of more than 100 African American men goes on trial today in Chicago. Former Lieutenant Jon Burge is accused of lying when he denied in a civil lawsuit that he and other detectives had tortured anyone. He faces a maximum of forty-five years in prison if convicted of all charges. The accusations of torture date back forty years, but Burge has avoided prosecution until now. For nearly two decades, beginning in 1971, Burge was at the epicenter of what has been described as the systematic torture of dozens of black men to coerce confessions. In total, more than 100 people in Chicago say they were subjected to abuse, including having guns forced into their mouths, suffocation with bags placed over their heads, and electric shocks inflicted to their genitals. Read more...

Murder City: How the IMF, NAFTA, Corp. America & Drug Culture created Hell on Earth

Once a city heralded by the promoters of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Juarez, Mexico has now become a global epicenter of the failed so-called “war on drugs.” Just across the border from El Paso, Texas, the northern Mexican metropolis home to 1.3 million people has garnered a grittier reputation in recent years as a place where cartels battle for control, murders are rampant and poverty remains high in the backdrop of hundreds of foreign owned factories offering wages that can’t begin to compete with the allure of drug trafficking. As part of his drug war policy, Mexican President Felipe Calderon dispatched 10,000 soldiers to the city in March 2008, but murders multiplied just the same as many residents in Juarez want the military gone. The facts and figures of the city’s social descent into chaos are staggering. Four months into the new year, the rate of violent deaths has accelerated upward as 686 lives have already been claimed in the maelstrom. Ciudad Juarez could be headed to its deadliest year on record if it eclipses the 2,600 murders that occurred in 2009 alone. The femicide of young women and girls, a social issue that once drew international attention to the city before seemingly being overshadowed in recent years, continues unabated. More than fifty women have been killed this year; their bodies often mutilated showing signs of torture and abuse. According to the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission, there are at least 20,000 abandoned houses in Ciudad Juarez and could be as many as 30,000. Privileged residents, fearing being caught in the constant crossfire of violence, have fled across the border in droves to El Paso. Painting this portrait in words, award-winning author and critically acclaimed journalist Charles Bowden plunges deep into the soul of Ciudad Juarez in his newest book “Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields.” With gripping prose, he broadens the understanding of the ongoing violence beyond the headlines of the U.S. and Mexican media’s explanations of who is doing the killing and who is doing the dying. “Murder City” interweaves the story of the city through a myriad of personalities from a pastor who runs a desert asylum, a reformed killer for hire, and a woman broken by trauma. Luis Alberto Urrea has said of Bowden’s latest work that “there are moments when the book threatens to burst into flames and burn your hands.”  Listen to the rebroadcast

 

BP Oil Spill + Hurricane Season = Apocalypse

BP's oil spill could make for one of the highest-stakes U.S. Gulf hurricane seasons on record.

Meteorologists say that climate conditions are ripe for an unusually destructive hurricane season, the storm-prone period that runs from June 1 to the end of November in the Gulf. Oceanographers say that could hurt the clean-up.

"If a storm comes into this situation it could vastly complicate everything," said Florida State University oceanography professor Ian MacDonald.

"All efforts on the shoreline and at sea, the booms and structures and rigs involved in clean-up and containment, could stop working."  Read more...

• Click here for Hurricane History
•  Revelation 8:10-11 (New International Version)  ¹⁰The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— ¹¹the name of the star is Wormwood.^[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
• "Wormwood" What the Bible says about it is amazing!
  
  
   We should emphasize that we are dealing with something (a "great star") that is large and big or well known. Now we know that most of the population of the Earth lives along the banks of the thousands of rivers that exist. BUT NOTICE that no one dies from the cataclysmic impact of the star with the Earth in these places! They only die from the bitter waters, which were affected by the star. This fact is a major clue about what is being portrayed in this prophecy.

In Texas, social studies textbooks get a conservative make-over

By Brad Knickerbocker

The Texas State Board of Education has approved controversial changes to social studies textbooks, pushing high school teaching in a more conservative direction.

In a move that has potential national impact, the Texas State Board of Education has approved controversial changes to social studies textbooks – pushing high school teaching in a more conservative direction.

The Dallas Morning news reports that the curriculum standards adopted Friday by a 9-5 vote along party lines on the elected board have “a definite political and philosophical bent in many areas.”“For example, high school students will have to learn about leading conservative groups from the 1980s and 1990s in U.S. history – but not about liberal or minority rights groups that are identified as such.  Read more...

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First 'synthetic life': Scientists 'boot up' a bacterial cell with a synthetic genome

Scientists have developed the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome. They now hope to use this method to probe the basic machinery of life and to engineer bacteria specially designed to solve environmental or energy problems.



The research team, led by Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute, has already chemically synthesized a bacterial genome, and it has transplanted the genome of one bacterium to another. Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell," although only its genome is synthetic.
"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer," said Venter.  Read more...

• Church warns cell scientists not to play God

Readers: Children learn attitudes about race at home

In the study, white children had an overwhelming bias toward white, and black children also had a bias toward white, but it was not nearly as strong as the bias shown by the white children.
Many users of the site thought parenting was the issue behind the results, some thought the kids were too naive and others thought the testing method was flawed.  Read more...

Kids' test answers on race brings mother to tears

States' budget woes hitting programs for kids hard

By DON BABWIN


In Arizona, a program that helped blind high school students care for themselves and find jobs is suspended. In South Carolina, all five state-run group homes for kids closed and a program that helped paroled youths get jobs is shuttered. And in Hawaii, a program to reduce child abuse and neglect was cut so much that two years after serving 4,000 families, it now serves 100.

All over the country, the financial crisis has forced states to make historic cuts to close what the National Conference of State Legislatures found was an overall budget gap of $174.1 billion this fiscal year and has lawmakers looking to trim another $89 billion next year. That means slashing services to the one population they've long protected: children.

The scope of the cuts is unprecedented, child advocates say.  Read more...

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  Children Suffer as States Cut Health Budgets

Denied Entry: Israel Blocks Noam Chomsky from Entering West Bank to Deliver Speech

On Sunday afternoon, Noam Chomsky was stopped by Israeli border guards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan. After over three hours of questioning, Chomsky’s passport was stamped with "Denied Entry." He was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah and was scheduled to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. No reason was initially given for the decision, but the Interior Ministry later told Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that officials were now trying to get clearance from the Israel Defense Forces. Noam Chomsky joins us now from Amman, Jordan.  Read more...

French cabinet approves veil ban

The French cabinet has approved a draft law to ban the wearing of full-face veils in public spaces, opening the way for the text to go before parliament in July.

The bill calls for $185 fines and, in some cases, citizenship classes for women do not comply with the ban.  Read more...

Veil Ban Bill to French Cabinet, Women Protest

America's Underclass: The Growing Gap Between the Rich and Poor

by Peter Gorenstein

Macro economic data suggest the great recession is over. But the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing, thanks, in large part, to a jobless recovery. Wall Street Cheat Sheet’s Damien Hoffman says the growing underclass now accounts for about 10% of the U.S. population.

In this clip, he and his brother Derek, who jointly run the Wall Street Cheat Sheet website, point to several signs America is turning into a two-class society: 

 

Read more…