Absolutely Everything Else: Aug 8, 2008

Friday, August 8, 2008

Operation Brimstone ended only one week ago.

This was the joint US/UK/French naval war games in the Atlantic Ocean preparing for a naval blockade of Iran and the likely resulting war in the Persian Gulf area. The massive war games included a US Navy supercarrier battle group, an US Navy expeditionary carrier battle group, a Royal Navy carrier battle group, a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine plus a large number of US Navy cruisers, destroyers and frigates playing the "enemy force".

The lead American ship in these war games, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN71) and its Carrier Strike Group Two (CCSG-2) are now headed towards Iran along with the USS Ronald Reagon (CVN76) and its Carrier Strike Group Seven (CCSG-7) coming from Japan.

They are joining two existing USN battle groups in the Gulf area: the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) with its Carrier Strike Group Nine (CCSG-9); and the USS Peleliu (LHA-5) with its expeditionary strike group.

Likely also under way towards the Persian Gulf is the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) and its expeditionary strike group, the UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal (R07) carrier battle group, assorted French naval assets including the nuclear hunter-killer submarine Amethyste and French Naval Rafale fighter jets on-board the USS Theodore Roosevelt. These ships took part in the just completed Operation Brimstone.

The build up of naval forces in the Gulf will be one of the largest multi-national naval armadas since the First and Second Gulf Wars. The intent is to create a US/EU naval blockade (which is an Act of War under international law) around Iran (with supporting air and land elements) to prevent the shipment of benzene and certain other refined oil products headed to Iranian ports. Iran has limited domestic oil refining capacity and imports 40% of its benzene. Cutting off benzene and other key products would cripple the Iranian economy. The neo-cons are counting on such a blockade launching a war with Iran.

The US Naval forces being assembled include the following:

Carrier Strike Group Nine
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered supercarrier
With its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines

Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer

Carrier Strike Group Two
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered supercarrier
With its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer

USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier
With its Amphibious Squadron Four
And with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer

USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

Carrier Strike Group Seven
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered supercarrier
With its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship

Also likely to join the battle armada:

UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal Carrier Strike Group with assorted guided missile destroyers and frigates, nuclear hunter-killer submarines and support ships

French Navy nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines (likely the Amethyste and perhaps others), plus French Naval Rafale fighter jets operating off of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as the French Carrier Charles de Gaulle is in dry dock, and assorted surface warships

Various other US Navy warships and submarines and support ships. The following USN ships took part (as the "enemy" forces) in Operation Brimstone and several may join in:

USS San Jacinto (CG56) guided missile cruiser
USS Anzio (CG68) guided missile cruiser
USS Normandy (CG60) guided missile cruiser
USS Carney (DDG64) guided missile destroyer
USS Oscar Austin (DDG79) guided missile destroyer
USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG81) guided missile destroyer
USS Carr (FFG52) guided missile frigate

The USS Iwo Jima and USS Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Groups have USMC Harrier jump jets and an assortment of assault and attack helicopters. The Expeditionary Strike Groups have powerful USMC Expeditionary Units with amphibious armor and ground forces trained for operating in shallow waters and in seizures of land assets, such as Qeshm Island (a 50 mile long island off of Bandar Abbas in the Gulf of Hormuz and headquarters of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps).

http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2008/08/massive-us-naval-armada-heads-for-iran.html

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Superbugs

by Jerome Groopman

Dr. Rajendra Kapila of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, New Jersey, shows X-rays of a patient with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection. (Photo: Daniel Hulshizer / The Associated Press)

The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat.

In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University's Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital's microbiology laboratory. At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit. "It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had," Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. "So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, 'My God, this is an organism that basically we can't treat.'"

Klebsiella is in a class of bacteria called gram-negative, based on its failure to pick up the dye in a Gram's stain test. (Gram-positive organisms, which include Streptococcus and Staphylococcus , have a different cellular structure.) It inhabits both humans and animals and can survive in water and on inanimate objects. We can carry it on our skin and in our noses and throats, but it is most often found in our stool, and fecal contamination on the hands of caregivers is the most frequent source of infection among patients. Healthy people can harbor Klebsiella to no detrimental effect; those with debilitating conditions, like liver disease or severe diabetes, or those recovering from major surgery, are most likely to fall ill. The bacterium is oval in shape, resembling a TicTac, and has a thick, sugar-filled outer coat, which makes it difficult for white blood cells to engulf and destroy it. Fimbria-fine, hairlike extensions that enable Klebsiella to adhere to the lining of the throat, trachea, and bronchi-project from the bacteria's surface; the attached microbes can travel deep into our lungs, where they destroy the delicate alveoli, the air sacs that allow us to obtain oxygen. The resulting hemorrhage produces a blood-filled sputum, nicknamed "currant jelly." Klebsiella can also attach to the urinary tract and infect the kidneys. When the bacteria enter the bloodstream, they release a fatty substance known as an endotoxin, which injures the lining of the blood vessels and can cause fatal shock.

Tisch Hospital has four intensive-care units, all in the east wing on the fifteenth floor, and at the time of the outbreak there were thirty-two intensive-care beds. The I.C.U.s were built in 1961, and although the equipment had been modernized over the years, the units had otherwise remained relatively unchanged: the beds were close to each other, with I.V. pumps and respirators between them, and doctors and nursing staff were shared among the various I.C.U.s. This was an ideal environment for a highly infectious bacterium.

It was the first major outbreak of this multidrug-resistant strain of Klebsiella in the United States, and Wetherbee was concerned that the bacterium had become so well adapted in the I.C.U. that it could not be killed with the usual ammonia and phenol disinfectants. Only bleach seemed able to destroy it. Wetherbee and his team instructed doctors, nurses, and custodial staff to perform meticulous hand washing, and had them wear gowns and gloves when attending to infected patients. He instituted strict protocols to insure that gloves were changed and hands vigorously disinfected after handling the tubing on each patient's ventilator. Spray bottles with bleach solutions were installed in the I.C.U.s, and surfaces and equipment were cleaned several times a day. Nevertheless, in the ensuing months Klebsiella infected more than a dozen patients.

http://www.truthout.org/article/superbugs

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The pot and the kettle

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Barack Obama Is Flip-Flopping Himself to a November Defeat

by Bonnie Erbe

I said it three weeks ago. And I've been sensing it ever since Sen. Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination two months ago. Where's his massive lead in the polls? Democrats score higher than Republicans on generic polls this season. And why wouldn't they, given the destructive impact of the Republican Bush administration on our nation's economy, military prowess, and strength as the world's leader? Nonetheless, Senator Obama has failed to pull convincingly ahead of rival Sen. John McCain, and some daily presidential tracking polls show them dead even. As I wrote way back in July:

Taking all these caveats into account, Obama should still be ahead by 10 to 15 percentage points at this moment in the contest. It is a tight race, when it should have been an easy sprint for the Democratic nominee.

Now, the New York Times's David Brooks is asking, "Where's the Landslide?" He attributes Obama's problem to his aloof demeanor:

There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged.

Perhaps that's a factor. And it is well put by Brooks, an eminent scribe. But it's not THE answer, IMHO.

THE answer is that the far-left wing of the Democratic Party nominated a charismatic unknown, who has turned out not to be ready for primetime politics. His impeccably choreographed jaunt through the Middle East and Europe last week produced an 8-point bounce in the polls that lasted for about eight seconds.

The boost from his trip was wide, but it wasn't deep. And since Obama clinched the nomination, he has alienated important segments of his young, liberal base by flip-flopping on a range of issues from offshore oil drilling, to government surveillance to gun control and abortion rights.

Why can't Obama hold on to a credible lead in the polls? Because the Democrats nominated an off-the-charts liberal and the United States is a moderate-to-conservative nation. As he changes positions seeking the support of independents and alienated Republicans this fall, he turns off the far-left base that got him the nomination in the first place.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2008/8/5/barack-obama-is-flip-flopping-himself-to-a-november-defeat.html

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Yo-yo champion

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EPA: Corn ethanol is awesome!

The discredited agency upholds the biofuel mandate

by Tom Philpott

The environmental value of corn ethanol got a ringing endorsement Thursday from EPA chief Stephen Johnson.

Johnson declined a request to cut the Renewable Fuel Standard embedded in the 2007 Energy Act. The RFS mandates 9 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be blended into the fuel supply this year, rising steadily to 15 billion gallons by 2015, and then holding steady at 15 billion gallons until 2022.

To produce 9 billion gallons this year, ethanol makers will churn through about a third of the U.S. corn crop. If corn production holds steady through 2015 -- not an unreasonable assumption, considering that it's already pretty much maxed out -- we'll be turning 55 percent of the U.S. corn crop into car fuel within seven years.

Consider that the U.S produces about 40 percent of the world's corn -- more than any other nation by a wide margin. The U.S. mandate has been pretty definitively linked to a rise in global food prices that could push 100 million additional people into poverty conditions.

Consider also that corn is an extremely heavy user of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which emits a greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide. The EPA itself terms nitrous oxide a greenhouse gas "about 310 times more powerful than carbon dioxide."

Finally, consider that every gallon of ethanol that gets mixed into the fuel supply costs taxpayers $0.51. Given the mounting challenges of climate change and energy scarcity, do we really have $4.5 billion-$7.5 billion to drop on a program that most serious people consider environmentally worthless, at best?

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/7/141938/2550?source=daily

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Hu Jintao: "There are no Olympics, go away"

August 8th, 2008

The Olympics begin today ... if you buy into the media lies. Hu Jintao thinks otherwise. Read his Olympic blog on News Groper. Elsewhere on NG, Morgan Freeman had a terrible, no good, very bad week and Ahmadinejad wonders if this is a world he wants to raise his nuclear weapons in...

Don't believe the media's lies, we aren't hosting any Olympics by Hu Jintao

Morgan and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week by Morgan Freeman

I'm not racist, I passed the home racism test by Bill Clinton

Is this a world I want to raise my nuclear weapons in? by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Between the rich white guy and the attention whore, I don't know who I love more! by Donald Trump

Top six actors I refuse to act with by Samuel L. Jackson

Regards,

The News Groper Editors
www.newsgroper.com

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Denver bars poop protests during Dem convention

DENVER (AP) — The Denver City Council has passed an ordinance barring protesters from carrying buckets of feces during the Democratic National Convention.

Three protest groups say they've already promised not to toss, smear or spray feces, and they call the new ordinance insulting and excessive.

The council approved the ordinance 12-0 on Monday. It also bars protesters from possessing chains, locks or other materials they could use to create human barricades or cause other disruptions.

Members of Re-create 68, Unconventional Action and Tent State University say the ordinance is overkill because they have signed an agreement not to use excrement.

The convention will take place Aug. 25-28.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-05-denver-poop_N.htm

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Fiscal conservatives

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Can’t Win in Afghanistan? Blame Pakistan

	uruknet.info اوروكنت.إنفو
	informazione dall'iraq occupato information from occupied iraq أخبار من العراق المحتل

by Eric Margolis

Soon after the US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, I predicted that Taliban resistance would resume in four years.

My fellow pundits, who were ****-a-hoop over the US military victory over a bunch of lightly-armed medieval tribesmen, became drunk on old-fashioned imperial triumphalism, and denounced me as "crazy," or worse. But most of them had never been to Afghanistan and knew nothing about the Pashtun tribal people. I had covered the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980's and was well aware of the leisurely pace of warfare favored by Pashtun warriors.

"Do not stay in Afghanistan," I warned in a 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times. The longer foreign forces remained in Afghanistan, the more the tribes would fight against their continued presence. Taliban resumed fighting in 2005.

Now, as resistance to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against Pakistan and its military intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, better known as ISI.

The White House just leaked claims ISI is in cahoots with pro-Taliban groups in Pakistan's tribal agency along the Afghan border and warns them of impending US attacks. The New York Times, which allowed the Bush administration to use it as a mouthpiece for Iraq War propaganda, dutifully featured the leaks about ISI on front page. Other administration officials have been claiming that ISI may even be hiding Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders.

The Bush administration claims that CIA had electronic intercepts proving ISI was behind the recent bombing of India's embassy in Kabul. India and Afghanistan echo this charge. No hard evidence has yet been produced, but the US media has been lustily condemning Pakistan for pretending to be an ally of the US while acting like an enemy.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m46228&hd=&size=1&l=e Sphere: Related Content

Harmful if swallowed

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How to Put Rove Behind Bars for Years

By David Swanson

Last August, a group of Congressman Henry Waxman's constituents met with him and urged him to make use of inherent contempt. They were then obliged to explain to him what inherent contempt is. While the current (110th) Congress has probably seen more requests, subpoenas, and contempt citations ignored than all previous Congresses combined, Waxman has certainly endured more such insult than all other committee chairs combined in the current Congress. He's single-handedly destroyed whole forests with the flood of letters and requests and subpoenas he's sent down Pennsylvania Avenue, and yet he was apparently unaware of a procedure commonly used by Congress through most of this nation's history that would actually compel people to show up and answer questions and produce documents.

Over the past 12 months a vague sort of awareness of inherent contempt has crept into the minds of certain committee members and party leaders, almost entirely as a result of thousands of citizens demanding that they immediately make use of it. Quasi-grass-roots groups afraid to demand impeachment have taken up the cry for inherent contempt, but pro-impeachment groups have not all paid sufficient attention to it, their eyes set on a bigger and better prize. And, of course, in a sane world we would see impeachment happening. The latest overwhelming piece of evidence of the most egregious impeachable offense conceivable comes from Ron Suskind's book released this week reporting that Iraq's intelligence chief had informed the United States prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction. George Tenet and the White House have admitted the truth of this, but absurdly dismissed it as unimportant.

However, here's an additional vital piece of information: our so-called representatives only intend to pretend to work for two more weeks this year, and those two weeks are scheduled for September. If anything could move them to impeachment (and more days at the office), perhaps a fight over inherent contempt could. Therefore, I propose we all demand one. (And if you bear with me, I'll tell you exactly what inherent contempt is.)

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/35360

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Big Brother Is Watching: Orwell's Diaries to Be Published as Blog

by Julie Hanus

1984 Beginning August 9^th, the late George Orwell's diary will be published as a blog, each entry appearing 70 years to the day after the British writer first penned it. Orwell (1903-1950) is best known for the classics 1984 and Animal Farm, although he was also a fiery essayist. The online publication of his diary is a project of the Orwell Prize, a British award for political writing.