In the National Post today I argue that the extreme anti-coal stance of UN officials and green activists harms both people and the environment.

By James Wall | Wall Writings | December 2, 2013

With the U.S. Congress safely in his back pocket, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned his charm offensive on the Vatican. How is that working out for him?
It does not look promising. The Prime Minister forgot the first rule of charm school: Target your prey gently. Avoid all punches to the mid-section.

Voice of Russia
December 4, 2013
“NATO is worse than an atavism, it is a threat to 21st century security”– Rick Rozoff
John Robles
Audio

US Navy fleet in Asia-Pacific
China’s recent attempt to establish an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over disputed territory in the East China Sea was met with shock and horror from the U.S. and its Asian allies. But the shock and horror, as always with American foreign policy, is cynically selective.

RT | December 3, 2013

In the first ever public hearing, Europe’s human rights court examined Poland’s role in CIA ‘black site’ prisons and torture of suspects.
Lawyers of two terror suspects currently held at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, accused Poland of abuse during Tuesday’s hearing at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

The Obama administration’s fumbling policy on Syria turned out better than it might have this past fall when unprecedented public and international opposition to a punitive U.S. strike against the Assad regime staved off another reckless U.S. war in the Middle East. The Obama administration was embarrassed and one-upped by Russia’s diplomatic solution, and that’s much better than war.

 by Alan Hart
I don’t wish to offend readers other than perhaps those of the parties of my headline, but I have to say that it, the headline, was the first thought that came into my mind when I learned from the BBC that, according to leaks to the French media, a team of French scientists do not believe Arafat was poisoned and that he died of a “generalized infection.”

For almost 50-years, the Pew Research Center has been polling on the question of whether Americans think the U.S. “should mind its own business internationally,” but only now, for the very first time, have a majority of Americans answered in the affirmative.

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | December 3, 2013

 

 
After the humiliation of the last papal visit.  Will the Pope insist on seeing Gaza this time? Or should he, too, boycott Israel until Jerusalem and the Christian and Muslim communities are freed from occupation?
 
 by Stuart Littlewood           Intifada Palestine

RT | December 4, 2013

The City of Montreal has purchased 24 drones to help law enforcement tackle crime as authorities look to cut back the police force over the next 15 years. The UAVs, equipped with facial recognition technology, will be armed to ‘neutralize suspects’.
“It’s very exciting,” the chief of police for the borough where the drones will be deployed, Montreal North, told the Montreal Journal.

UPDATED: News about the GPS- scroll down UPDATE #2 scroll down- Stolen radioactive material 'likely' recovered?

I don't suppose Lizard Man conferred with Elizabeth Warren before he offered a free pass to reelection to Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown. But the reptilian Schumer was boasting to Isaac Chotiner for an interview in the New Republic that that is exactly what he did in 2012.

Press TV
December 4, 2013
US seeks ‘carte blanche’ in Afghanistan
Audio
The United States is putting pressure on Afghanistan in order to continue its military presence in the country for “the indefinite future”, said Rick Rozoff of Stop NATO International.

====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Heinrich Böll: I’m going to die soon and before the war is over. I shall never know peace again.
====
Heinrich Böll
From The Train Was on Time (1949)
Translated by Richard Graves

by Judith Curry It’s your turn to introduce topics into discussion; this thread will be more lightly moderated than topical threads.Filed under: Uncategorized

James Corbett joins Greg Carlwood of The Higherside Chats to discuss Japanese society, Fukushima, the global balance of power, open source journalism, and much more.

Why are Israel, Saudi Arabia, and their congressional allies in both American political parties trying to kill an interim nuclear deal with Iran that effectively freezes (and in some instances rolls back) the Iranian nuclear program until a comprehensive deal can be reached to permanently limit the program so that Iran cannot build a nuclear […]

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Once upon a time, you might have said that someone “disappeared.” But in the 1970s in Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere, that verb grew eerily more active in its passive form. He or she no longer “disappeared,” but “was disappeared” – up to 30,000 Argentineans by their own military in the course […]

How many times has the Pew Research Center for People and the Press come out with a poll showing that the American people are going "isolationist"? I’ve lost count. The latest poll results show that: "The public’s skepticism about U.S. international engagement – evident in America’s Place in the World surveys four and eight years ago – has increased. […]

I know this isn't going to go over well, but a deranged Jewess went ballistic on me the other day for mildly criticizing Israel and the Jewish congressmen who carry water for its harsh policies in Washington. She accused DWT of being a right-wing anti-semitic site. Ken and I are both ethnically Jewish. I recollect, in fact, that his pops was a rabbi.

Suicide bombers attacked several security-oriented locations across Iraq. In those and other attacks at least 67 people were killed and 98 more were wounded. Bombers briefly held one police station hostage in Tikrit.

A senior European Union official today discussed the possibility of the EU causing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority if the current round of peace talks fail, with an eye toward pressing Israel to make some serious moves toward Palestinian statehood.
The official, who was not named, noted that the funding was supposed to be to prepare the PA for the establishment of statehood, and said there was no point to keeping the spigot flowing if the Palestinians weren’t going to get a state anyhow.

 
Damascus (AsiaNews) – Islamist rebels have kidnapped a group of nuns from the Greek Orthodox monastery of St Thecla (Mar Taqla) in Maaloula (north of Damascus). Mgr Mario Zenari, the Vatican nuncio in Damascus, confirmed the information after speaking with the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate. Through the Vatican diplomat, the latter “calls on all Catholics to pray for the women religious.”

"Bob Kocher, who was a special assistant for health care in the White House in 2009 and 2010, did a report for Lawrence Summers on the past sixty years of health-care legislation, and found that when Congress seriously considered enacting health-care reform the rate of health-care spending often slowed for a year or two. Just talking about medical costs, it seems, limits medical costs."-- James Surowiecki, in his New Yorker "Financial Page"piece this week (Dec.

 by Sami Jamil Jadallah
Israel, a terrorist, illegitimate state from day one, a constant threat to world peace, a nuclear power that is a threat to its safety and that of the world including the US is the last country that can talk about the rights of other countries to have nuclear technology even nuclear weapons. No one, not God, not the UN, certainly not the US or Europe endowed Israel with a “veto’ over war and peace in the world.

Paul J. Richards/AFP-Getty Images.
 
 
 By JAMAL KANJ
 
 Just over a week ago Palestine had a chance to cast its first vote at the UN General Assembly appointing a Judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Rehmat’s World | December 4, 2013

On Monday, the Obama administration called for the immediate release of Jewish-American Alan Phillip Gross from Cuban imprisonment, saying his continued captivity for anti-state activities was “gravely disappointing”.

Lawyers for Zubaydah and al-Nashiri present evidence of torture at black site in Poland to European Court of Human Rights….Click here for free audiobook and support the PBC Podcast!

By Sami Kleib | Al-Akhbar | December 3, 2013

Israel has recently decided to increase its number of official statements supporting closer relations with Saudi Arabia. As the West and Iran struck their nuclear deal, Israeli media leaks on secret meetings between representatives from the two countries intensified, prompting the Arab press to treat Riyadh and Tel Aviv as allies.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 102. I was reminded recently of the excellent Canadian libertarian podcast Ed and Ethan: The Voice of Liberty in Canada when they were guest co-hosts on a recent episode of the superb Freedom Feens radio show. And that I had been a guest about a year ago. Here is my November […]

Mississippi Press
December 3, 2013
Northrop Grumman begins building NATO drones in Moss Point
April M. Havens
MOSS POINT, Mississippi: Many NATO countries have “a crying need” for the capabilities that will be provided by five unmanned aircraft being built by Northrop Grumman Corp., NATO’s Jim Edge said today.

Prague Post
December 3, 2013
NATO condemns crackdown in Ukraine
Daniel Bardsley
NATO foreign ministers have condemned “the use of excessive force against peaceful demonstrators in Ukraine,” their comments coming after police broke up protests in central Kiev over the weekend. Police are said to have used truncheons, stun grenades and tear gas to break up protests in central Kiev on Saturday.

PLEASE SUPPORT BOILINGFROGSPOST.COM: CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO BFP.
by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
December 3, 2013

no, not in play-- thanks to Steve IsraelYesterday was the deadline for congressional candidates to file in Illinois-- the first in the nation. (Next up: Texas, December 9 and, in January, West Virginia and Kentucky.) But Illinois is all set now in terms of congressional candidates. The lucky ones are the candidates with no-- or only token-- opponents. They can spend their election dollars building power by helping their colleagues.

December 3, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - After clashes with police in Bangkok and the taking of several government buildings, anti-regime protesters prepared for the next phase of their resistance - the protracted encampment of key governmental centers. Thousands of protesters are now permanently entrenched in an area winding for nearly a mile through the capital city.

RT | December 3, 2013

The United Nations is set to carry out an investigation into the spying activities of the US and UK, a senior judge has said. The probe will examine the espionage programs and assess whether they conform to UN regulations.

Civil Georgia
December 3, 2013
Georgian FM Meets U.S. Secretary of State in Brussels

Tbilisi : Georgian Foreign Minister, Maia Panjikidze, met U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, in Brussels on December 3.
Panjikidze said after the meeting that “all the issues of bilateral relations”, as well as Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations and relations with Russia were discussed.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
December 3, 2013
Foreign Ministers agree partners are key to Alliance’s future

Voice of Russia
December 3, 2013
John Kerry meets with NATO, snubs Ukraine for Moldova, heads to Israel
John Robles

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | December 3, 2013

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 3, 2013

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | December 3, 2013

Trust is in short supply these days in the United States.
Only about 30% of Americans say most people can be trusted—down from 50% in 1972.
For most people (nearly two-thirds), their view of others can be summed up with: “you can’t be too careful.”

Alasdair Macleod said recently that Gulf State billionaires are sending their .995 pure 400 ounce gold bullion bars to Switzerland to have them cast into .9999 pure gold kilogram bars. Dr Jim Willie has said that the one kilogram gold bar will be the center piece of the new system of international trade designed by China to replace the dollar. Dr Willie has said he was told that the price of gold will be set at $7,000 an ounce.

Another crackpot teabagger wants to go to CongressThe GOP civil war is ravaging the party in Iowa, mostly because of the half dozen or more Republicans vying for the U.S. Senate nomination (and the near certainty of being beaten by Democrat Bruce Braley next November). But now the bloody fraternal warfare has come to the 3rd CD, the southwest part of the state from Council Bluffs to Des Moines. All of Des Moines. Obama won this district in 2008 (52-46%) and again last year (51-47%).

U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa
December 3, 2013
US Air Force participates in first Israeli Blue Flag exercise
By Senior Master Sgt. Dwayne Gordon
48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

F-15E Strike Eagles taxi following a combat mission during the Blue Flag exercise on Uvda Air Force Base, Israel

By Jonathon Cook | December 3, 2013

I hadn’t heard of the novel The Almond Tree and I shall now avoid it, having read Susan Abulhawa’s review. There is an insufferable cultural arrogance to Israelis and Jews who think they can create a Palestinian protagonist not only as the vehicle for their “art” but as a way to heal wounds between Israelis and Palestinians, as Abulhawa documents here.

Interventions Watch | December 3, 2013

From an article published December 2nd: