An emergency shelter on India's Nicobar Islands (Photo: IPS News)
TSUNAMI PREPAREDNESS IN THE COUNTRIES AROUND THE INDIAN OCEAN?—NOT SO MUCH.
(IPS News)
Countries including some island nations along the continents of Australia, Asia and Africa are mostly ill-prepared to protect their people from recurring tsumanis in the Ocean. In some places, governments do not bother to warn people in certain areas of impending disaster, if the area is not a “usual” locale for tsunamis. Others have evacuated people to areas of lesser hazard, only to have them subjected to damage in these refuges in tsunami “unusual” places.
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IS THERE A JOHN DEAN AMONG OBAMA’S ADVISORS?
(Counterpunch)
Alexander Cockburn, reflecting on recent accounts of the President taking a personal role in deciding on the launching of drone attacks, evokes the memory of Dean’s famous “cancer on the presidency” warning to Richard Nixon nearly 40 years ago. These reports from administration “insiders” depict Obama as supremely self-confident that his own judgment, guided by the moral principles of Augustine and Acquinas, allow him the ability to correctly decide when risks of collateral damage are to be taken with operations that are (supposedly) militarily justified. This hubris could well presage the destruction of another presidency, as it did that of Nixon.
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THE AWESOME POWER OF A $200 CONTRIBUTION TO THE BUCKS COUNTY SPCA
(Dissident Voice)
This is the amount (plus payment of court costs) that allowed a Philadelphia gun club to settle a suit against them for their “pigeon shoots” which had been instituted by an animal rights activist group. This, notes Walter Brasch, is an all-too-typical case of a prevalent power of the gun lobby to dominate judicial as well as legislative processes in Pennsylvania.
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DEAR VOTER: OUR RECORDS SHOW YOU ARE DEAD—PLEASE CONFIRM.
(Houston Chronicle)
Election officials in Texas routinely send out such notices to those whom they suspect of being no longer alive though their names remain on the rolls. Only a relatively small percentage of “suspected dead” people report that they are alive, and voter rolls are “purged” on the the basis of such non-responses.
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THE HIGH COST OF KEEPING A FEDERAL DETENTION CENTER OUT OF YOUR TOWN.
(Miami Herald)
City of Pembroke Pines in south Florida learns about this, as it has already spent more that $100,000 in legal costs to keep a detention center from being built in nearby Southwest Ranches. In a state which allegedly has many undocumented immigrants subject to deportation under the constant threat of severe immigration enforcement policies, the state and federal agencies are digging in to prevail against Pembroke Pines
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Quote of the day…
The dearth of US domestic criticism is astounding. The last time a president indulged in an illegal bombing campaign in the sovereign territory of allies (Richard Nixon in 1969, in Cambodia and Laos), the policy nearly got included in the articles of impeachment.
Clive Stafford Smith, on the expanded use of drone warfare by U.S. military forces.
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Claiming to uncover “dead” voters is a lie and coverup. 400,000 minority voters are going to be disenfranchised in Texas.
The new Confederacy is doing all it can to bring Jim Crow back to the polls. Instead of knuckle draggers in sheets and hoods. They are using the shirt and tie clad tea baggers to do the dirty work!