taliban in pakistan

NYTimes | Even as C.I.A. drone aircraft pound Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region, there is growing concern among American military and intelligence officials about different militants’ havens in Pakistan that they fear could thwart American military efforts in Afghanistan this year.

American officials are increasingly focusing on the Pakistani city of Quetta, where Taliban leaders are believed to play a significant role in stirring violence in southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban operations in Quetta are different from operations in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan that have until now been the main setting for American unease. But as the United States prepares to pour as many as 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan, military and intelligence officials say the effort could be futile unless there is a concerted effort to kill or capture Taliban leaders in Quetta and cut the group’s supply lines into Afghanistan.

From Quetta, Taliban leaders including Mullah Muhammad Omar, a reclusive, one-eyed cleric, guide commanders in southern Afghanistan, raise money from wealthy Persian Gulf donors and deliver guns and fresh fighters to the battlefield, according to Obama administration and military officials.

“When their leadership is where you cannot get to them, it becomes difficult,” said Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who until June was the senior American commander in Afghanistan and recently retired. “You are restrained from doing what you want to do.”

earth-killing economics...,

New Scientist | This graph is a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet. Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency.

But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.

This, of course, is economic heresy. Growth to most economists is as essential as the air we breathe: it is, they claim, the only force capable of lifting the poor out of poverty, feeding the world's growing population, meeting the costs of rising public spending and stimulating technological development - not to mention funding increasingly expensive lifestyles. They see no limits to that growth, ever.

theory of self-deception

ABSTRACT: An evolutionary theory of self-deception—the active misrepresentation of reality to the conscious mind—suggests that there may be multiple sources of self-deception in our own species, with important interactions between them. Self-deception (along with internal conflict and fragmentation) may serve to improve deception of others; this may include denial of ongoing deception, self-inflation, ego-biased social theory, false narratives of intention, and a conscious mind that operates via denial and projection to create a selfserving world. Self-deception may also result from internal representations of the voices of significant others, including parents, and may come from internal genetic conflict, the most important for our species arising from differentially imprinted maternal and paternal genes. Selection also favors suppressing negative phenotypic traits. Finally, a positive form of self-deception may serve to orient the organism favorably toward the future. Self-deception can be analyzed in groups and is done so here with special attention to its costs.

deception and self-deception

Seed | In the 1970s, a Harvard class taught by evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers ignited a controversy that would escalate into the "sociobiology wars." His papers provided a Darwinian basis for understanding complex human activities and relationships. Across town at MIT, revolutionary linguist Noam Chomsky had earned a reputation as a leading opponent of the Vietnam War. Throughout those pivotal years, and in the following decades, the two explored similar ideas from different perspectives. Long aware of each other's work, they had never met until a couple of months ago, when they sat down to compare notes on some common interests: deceit and self-deception.

Noam Chomsky: One of the most important comments on deceit, I think, was made by Adam Smith. He pointed out that a major goal of business is to deceive and oppress the public. And one of the striking features of the modern period is the institutionalization of that process, so that we now have huge industries deceiving the public—and they're very conscious about it, the public relations industry. Interestingly, this developed in the freest countries—in Britain and the US—roughly around time of WWI, when it was recognized that enough freedom had been won that people could no longer be controlled by force. So modes of deception and manipulation had to be developed in order to keep them under control.

Transcript available here.

shocking brutality spills over into u.s.

AP | Just as government officials had feared, the drug violence raging in Mexico is spilling over into the United States.

U.S. authorities are reporting a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels. And to some policymakers' surprise, much of the violence is happening not in towns along the border, where it was assumed the bloodshed would spread, but a considerable distance away, in places such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators fear the violence could erupt elsewhere around the country because the Mexican cartels are believed to have set up drug-dealing operations all over the U.S., in such far-flung places as Anchorage, Alaska; Boston; and Sioux Falls, S.D.

"The violence follows the drugs," said David Cuthbertson, agent in charge of the FBI's office in the border city of El Paso, Texas.

The violence takes many forms: Drug customers who owe money are kidnapped until they pay up. Cartel employees who don't deliver the goods or turn over the profits are disciplined through beatings, kidnappings or worse. And drug smugglers kidnap illegal immigrants in clashes with human smugglers over the use of secret routes from Mexico.

So far, the violence is nowhere near as grisly as the mayhem in Mexico, which has witnessed beheadings, assassinations of police officers and soldiers, and mass killings in which the bodies were arranged to send a message. But law enforcement officials worry the violence on this side could escalate.

mexican general slain

Washington Post | The general didn't get much time. After a long, controversial career, Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones retired from active duty last month and moved to this Caribbean playground to work for the Cancun mayor and fight the drug cartels that have penetrated much of Mexican society. He lasted a week.

Tello, 63, along with his bodyguard and a driver, were kidnapped in downtown Cancun last Monday evening, taken to a hidden location, methodically tortured, then driven out to the jungle and shot in the head. Their bodies were found Tuesday in the cab of a pickup truck on the side of a highway leading out of town. An autopsy revealed that both the general's arms and legs had been broken.

The audacious kidnapping and killing of one of the highest-ranking military officers in Mexico drew immediate expressions of outrage from the top echelons of the Mexican government, which pledged to continue the fight against organized crime that took the lives of more than 5,300 people last year. Military leaders, who are increasingly at the front lines of the war against the cartels, vowed not to let Tello's death go unsolved or unpunished.

Collapse Of The Entire World Economy In 24 hours

Look for the explanation close to the four minute mark.

pakistan frees khan

NYTimes | Washington’s concerns were defiantly dismissed by Mr. Khan, who, beaming and smiling, was thronged by supporters and television cameras outside his residence in an affluent neighborhood upon news of his release.

“Let them talk,” he said. “Are they happy with our God? Are they happy with our prophet? Are they happy with our leaders? Never, so why should we bother what they say about us?”

Mr. Khan added, “I would be more worried about what you say about me, not what Bush says or what Dick Cheney says.”

canada urged to forge energy ties with russia, china

Canada.com | Two weeks before Barack Obama's visit to Canada, the leaders of three top Canadian think tanks are urging Ottawa to broaden its energy horizons and initiate discussions for a North Pacific Energy Security Framework that would include Russia and China.

And depending on the U.S. President's direction on climate change, cap-and-trade and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard - measures that Mr. Obama is championing as part of his green agenda that would be harmful to Canadian energy development - Canada could accelerate the drive to diversify its energy markets, the leaders said.

"Exporters depend on a robust international trading system, and discussions surrounding a North Pacific Energy Security Framework provide Canada with the opportunity to defend a trading system aligned with Canadian interests," they said. The paper, released this week, was produced by Pierre Alvarez, former president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and chairman of the Canadian Centre for Energy Information; Michael Cleland, president of the Canadian Gas Association; and Roger Gibbins, president of the Canada West Foundation.

urban backyard food production program

Republic of the Phillipines | Executive Order No. 776 Rolling Out The Backyard Food Production Programs In The Urban Areas

WHEREAS, two-thirds of the world is in recession, though the Philippines is not;

WHEREAS, it is not business as usual; government agencies must hit the round running;

WHEREAS, the government should take advantage of the window of opportunity, i.e. declining inflation and interest rates and good weather;

WHEREAS, the government has committed Three Hundred Billion Pesos (P300,000,000,000.00) to economic stimulus programs, including comprehensive livelihood and emergency employment program (CLEEP), that will save or create millions of new jobs.

WHEREAS, part of CLEEP consists of backyard food production programs like Gulayan ng Masa and the Integrated Services for Livelihood Advancement (ISLA) for subsistence fisherfolk.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GLORIA M. ARROYO, President of the Philippines, by the power vested in me by law, do hereby order:

SECTION 1. The Gulayan ng Masa and ISLA shall be rolled out into a massive government food production program in the urban areas with the active participation of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the local governments and the Philippine Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).

SECTION 2. The rollout shall consist of the setting up of urban vegetable gardens and backyard fisheries, including vacant lots and unused government land.

President Arroyo really gets it. We should all pray that President Obama breaks through the haze of bankster economist fog, smoke and mirrors to the point of understanding the exact nature of the predicament facing the U.S. and steps up his game to this level of concrete practical engagement. Good on the Philippines.

balkanization....,

When the situation gets bad enough, the United States will break up just like the former Soviet Union did. That's what "collapse" (to simplify) is all about.

State of Arizona House of Representatives Forty-ninth Legislature First Regular Session 2009

HCR 2024 Introduced by Representatives Burges, Ash, Biggs, Boone, Gowan, Mason, Montenegro, Pancrazi, Seel, Williams: Barto, Campbell CL, Court, Crandall, Crump, Driggs, Fleming, Goodale, Hendrix, Kavanagh, Lesko, McComish, McGuire, Miranda B, Murphy, Nichols, Pratt, Quelland, Stevens, Tobin, Weiers JP, Senator Harper

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

Whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

Whereas, today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

Whereas, many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and

Whereas, Article IV, section 4, United States Constitution, says in part, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government", and the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

Whereas, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring, that:

1. That the State of Arizona hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.

2. That this Resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

3. That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.

4. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state's legislature and each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona.

the california tea party...,

The most fiscally irresponsible state government is beginning to discover that it cannot continue its high handed ways. It is one thing to tell taxpayers they will have to wait for their tax refund checks until the state comes up with cash. But it is quite another to tell counties, which collect certain taxes on behalf of the state, that they will have to wait for their state aid. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Counties in California say they've had enough – and they aren't going to take it anymore. In what amounts to a Boston Tea Party-style revolt against the state Capitol, they're threatening to withhold money. Los Angeles is considering such an option. And Colusa County supervisors said they authorized payment delays for February.

I think they call this anarchy. Can you blame the Counties? They are the ones on the front lines having to deal with all of this. Where are the recall petitions? Where are the bus loads of Californians protesting around the capitol? A recall drive on the capitol steps would send a clear message to the State officials. I hear Fridays will be slow downtown. Furlough Friday or Recall Friday?

Of course it's not just the counties. MSNBC reports:

"We have been borrowing since July 12, 2007. That was the last day the general fund had any cash in it, and we've been relying on internal funds and borrowing from wall street to tide us over," said Garin Casaleggio, spokesperson for the state controller. But now, the cash crunch has hit critical mass with taxpayers getting the short end of the stick.

The theme of "revolt" is rapidly spreading. Economic riots and large scale civil unrest have already rocked France, Greece, Russia, China, and Britain. Now, unrest is beginning to taking hold in the U.S. - though for the most part at this early stage - it is taking the form of financial revolt

¡Que se vayan todos!

Guardian | It's not just governing elites that the world is rising up against - it's the entire model of deregulated capitalism. Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles in 2002: "You are Enron. We are Argentina."

Its message was simple enough. You - politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit - are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We - the rabble outside - are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") - and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model: this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism.

It has taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment. The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale. As Italy's students have taken to shouting in the streets: "We won't pay for your crisis!"

here it comes....,

Speaking Truth | There is a tremendous amount of anger rising in America. You don't see it - yet - in public, but it is there, simmering just under the surface. President Obama made note of it when it was revealed that nearly $20 billion was paid out in bonuses to Wall Street firms this year - after they took $70 billion of taxpayer money in direct assistance. That's about 30% of the total that went right out the door as bonuses. In effect, we are now paying taxes so that Wall Street can hand it out to the very people who got us into this mess!

Taxpayer anger and falling tax receipts, plus the government continuing to hand money to people who demonstrably not only made bad bets but engaged in outrageous and perhaps even illegal and fraudulent conduct, yet have returned nothing of what they stole sets up a very real risk of a tax revolt by Americans. It would be ruinous and nearly impossible to control if Americans decided en-masse to simply refuse to pay and to the extent possible went "off grid" through barter and underground transactions, or started modifying W4s to greatly limit withholding and then simply didn't file. Anecdotes related to this occurring are already popping up. I realize this is extremely illegal but at some point the American public is going to reach it's breaking point with the government literally stealing their money to bail out those who robbed them in the first place!

Government must be prepared to provide the basic necessities of life for at least five to ten million Americans and possibly as many as fifty million - one in six. As I have noted before this means barracks-style places to sleep, food, clothing and basic medical care. Hungry, homeless and unemployed people are dangerous.

Government must deal with the illegal alien issue. We simply cannot have tens of millions of illegal aliens consuming public resources at a time like this in our nation - period. Americans will pick strawberries if they're unemployed; that we have illegal immigrants doing this sort of work with 5 million Americans out of work is an outrage. Again, if government does not act there is a high probability that the American people will, with disastrous consequences.

entheogen

collective consciousness and the obama inauguration?

The red arrow points to the moment when the oath of office was being recited.

dopamine

We are all addicted to "dopamine." Dopamine is a drug produced by our body which makes us "feel good." We buy things because the "buying" (more than the "owning") gives us a dopamine rush. That's why we never get enough stuff. It's like an orgasm. No matter how many orgasms we have, we want to have at least one more.

"Dopamine belongs to a group of brain chemicals called monoamines, a family of neurotransmitters involved in many different aspects of behavior -- personality, depression, drug and alcohol use, aggression, eating, and sex. It is tyrosine, a common amino acid found in many foodstuffs, with a few little changes at one end. Dopamine alone is not enough to give us a rush. Dopamine is a key that opens a lock. The lock is called a receptor, a large protein that sits on the surface of brain cells. The receptor is recognized by dopamine but by no other chemical, just like a lock can only be opened by the correct key. When the dopamine snuggles into the waiting receptor, the tumblers turn. Inside the brain begins a series of chemical reactions."

[pp. 35-36, LIVING WITH OUR GENES: Why They Matter More Than You Think, by Dean H. Hamer & Peter Copleland; Anchor, 1999]

pandemic preparedness chief to head cdc

Reuters | Dr. Richard Besser, who heads disaster and pandemic preparedness for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was named on Thursday as acting director of the agency.

Besser, trained as a pediatrician and infectious diseases expert, replaces Dr. Julie Gerberding, the high-profile CDC head who announced her resignation quietly last week. William Gimson, who is not a medical doctor, has been acting director.

"This designation will be effective until a permanent CDC ... director is appointed and enters on duty," the Health and Human Services department said in a statement.

Besser has been director of the Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response, which is responsible for public health emergency preparedness and emergency response.

He helped coordinate the agency's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 along the Gulf Coast and has helped oversee CDC's spending to help states get ready for a pandemic of influenza or other disease.

it's not going to be ok....,

Alternet | The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won’t have to wait long to find out.

the unthinkable option

NYTimes | When it comes to Iran, the choice of metaphor is limited. The United States’ role in the 1953 coup here that deposed the Middle East’s first democratically elected government lives in memory. Any U.S. attack would propel 56-year-old Iranian demons into overdrive and lock in an America-hating Islamic Republic for the next half-century.

From Basra through Kabul to the Paris suburbs, Muslim rage would erupt. The Iranian Army is not the Israeli Army, but its stubborn effectiveness is in no doubt. Rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, and newly tested Iranian long-range missiles, would hit Israel.

Chaos would threaten Persian Gulf states, oil markets and the grinding U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. war front, in the first decade of the 21st century, at a time of national economic disaster, would stretch thousands of miles across the Muslim world, from western Iraq to eastern Afghanistan.

It is doubtful that a bombing campaign would end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, so all the above might be the price paid for putting off an Iranian bomb — or mastery of the production of fissile material — by a year or so.

In short, the U.S. military option is not an option. It is unthinkable.