This Week at I Want Change

Table of Content NEWS: 1. Humans Drive Rare Dolphin to Extinction 2. 190,000 US weapons 'disappear in Iraq' 3. Republicans Defend Big Tobacco From Sick Children 4. Looking For a Leaker 5. New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed ATROCIOUS SH*T 1. Feds Train Clergy to "Quell Dissent 2. Democrats' Responsibility for Bush Radicalism 3. Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed 4. It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan 5. Sharing Knowledge About Eco-renovation CORPORATE RULE 1. Gore: Polluters Finance Research to Cast Doubt on Global Warming 2. Pollution risk for Olympic events 3. House OKs New Taxes on Oil Companies INDIE ART 1. Glastonbury music madness in England 2. YouTube Calling 3.What's Going On?! JUNE 2007 4. Bush Quotes Archive ********************* *************************** THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT

It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan
Shaun McCanna, Salon

Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile. The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off... --MORE-- *********************** Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism By Glenn Greenwald, Salon It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 -- almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history -- that George W. Bush can "demand" that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply (Meteor Blades has the list of the 16 Senate Democrats voting in favor; the House will soon follow). I just finished a discussion panel with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero which was originally planned to examine his new (superb) book about the work his organization has done for years in battling the endless expansion of executive power and presidential lawbreaking. But the only issue anyone in the room really wanted to discuss -- including us -- was the outrage unfolding on Capitol Hill. And the anger was almost universally directed where it belongs: at Congressional Democrats, who increasingly bear more and more responsibility for the assaults on our constitutional liberties and unparalleled abuses of government power -- many (probably most) of which, it should always be emphasized, remain concealed rather than disclosed. Examine virtually every Bush scandal and it increasingly bears the mark not merely of Democratic capitulation, but Democratic participation. In August of 2006, the Supreme Court finally asserted the first real limit on Bush's radical executive power theories in Hamdan, only for Congress, months later, to completely eviscerate those minimal limits -- and then go far beyond -- by enacting the grotesque Military Commissions Act... --MORE--

Feds Train Clergy to "Quell Dissent"
By Paul Joseph Watson,
Prison Planet

In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation. A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency. The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to “obey the government” when martial law is declared. It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the “cowboy mentality” of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure. It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that “this is for their own good.” Pastors were told that they would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance... --MORE-- ************** Pollution risk for Olympic events Dancers put on a show in Beijing to mark one year to go before the 2008 Olympics China is celebrating the one-year countdown to Beijing 2008 Olympic chief Jacques Rogge says air pollution could lead to some events at the 2008 Beijing Games being postponed. Speaking a year to the day before the start of the 2008 Games, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said: "It is an option. "Sports with short durations would not be a problem, but endurance sports like cycling are examples of competitions that might be postponed or delayed." Billions have been spent in an attempt to reduce pollution without success. A host of factories have been shut down, while many others have been moved out of town, but non-stop construction and booming car sales have made air quality even worse. SPORT EDITORS' BLOG "I get out of the airport into the polluted atmosphere that has unfortunately become all too familiar - visibility is barely a few hundred metres" Head of Major Events Dave Gordon in Beijing Beijing's filthy air and clogged traffic are known to have worried Beijing organizers and the IOC for some time, but this is Rogge's strongest statement on the subject... --MORE--