The U.S. government is getting good press for its plan to "require that after 2018, more than 99 percent of the bomblets in a cluster bomb must detonate." But as Democracy Now pointed out, this is actually a step backwards, since "in 2001 a defense policy issued by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen called for a similar reduction in submunitions from cluster bombs by 2005."

This one another wedding party (this report says 27 dead), just days after another 22 Afghan civilians were killed by another air strike. There are rather conflicting reports of the latest incident, to put it mildly.

Twenty-two civilians, including women and children, were killed in an air strike by U.S.-led forces on Friday in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nuristan, an official said.

"The civilians were evacuating the district as they were told by the U.S.-led troops to do so because they wanted to launch an operation against the Taliban," he said.(Source)

As usual, the U.S. military sees (or claims to see) the situation differently:

The U.S. military confirmed the mission, but said there was no report of civilian injuries.

There have been a number of famous attacks on airplanes in the last 50 years: the 1976 mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455 (the first in the Western Hemisphere) by mercenaries hired by CIA agents Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, which took the lives of 73 people and whose perpetrators are to this day being protected by the United States, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, attributed (emphasis on that word) to Libyan agents, which took the lives of 270 people, and the 1983 mid-air shootdown of Korean Air Flight 007 by Russian jets as the plane strayed over Russian territory, which took the lives of 269 people.

Joseph Cirincione, the former head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (I should probably put a "sic" after that) and now the head of the equally peaceful sounding "Plowshares Fund," has been consistent on Iran. Twice in 2006 (here and here), I wrote about his taking the "not if, but when" attitude toward Iran developing nuclear weapons. You might think the National Intelligence Estimate in late 2007 might have given him pause, but no, there he was on Democracy Now this morning, pushing the same line still, with statements like

The Committee to Protect Journalists has a fine-sounding name, but, like the even more scurrilous CIA-linked Reporters Without Borders (who trade on the respected name of Doctors Without Borders to ply their anti-communist agenda), their priorities have rather strong biases. On June 26, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, a frequent guest reporter on KPFA's Flashpoints and Pacifica's Democracy Now!, was returning from receiving a prestigious journalism prize in Britain, when he was attacked, abused, and tortured by Israeli border agents as he attempted to re-enter Gaza. The attack received limited press coverage (Reuters), but has been largely ignored in the West.

An article in USA Today today reports that the military is facing a $100 billion bill for repairs; no doubt that money has not been included in what we've been told is the "cost" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But buried in the story is this nugget:

Humvees, for example, travel as much as 100,000 miles a year in Iraq, five times the peacetime rate.

Now there is an "as much as" in that sentence, and I don't know how many Humvees are in Iraq, but we also know that Humvees are not exactly high-mileage or low-emission vehicles, and just one Humvee driven for 100,000 miles is generating one heck of a lot of emissions and burning one heck of a lot of gasoline. I don't know if anyone has recently computed the amount of pollution being generated by American vehicles (including planes, of course, as well as Humvees, tanks, and everything else on the ground) in Iraq, nor the amount of non-renewable fossil fuels that have been burned up by that war (as well as in Afghanistan), but I think it's safe to say it's one heck of a large number.

"The perpetrators of these crimes have been able to live in freedom for so long. And some say why go after old men in their last years? Because, in fact, they should not have the opportunity to live out their lives without being held responsible for these horrendous acts. These murders are 30 or 40 years old. Obviously they're difficult to investigate and to prosecute because evidence has been lost or destroyed, witnesses and defendants have died, and memories have dimmed. We must act quickly to bring the long-overdue justice to these victims and their families."

The corporate media spews out a daily stream of propaganda, but so much of it is taken for granted by is readership it's rarely seen as such. A typical example from the Washington Post today discusses al-Hurra, the Arabic-language television network financed by the U.S. government. Now at first, you might think this is a wonderful example of the "free press"; after all, the basis for the article is how "the station is widely regarded as a flop in the Arab world, where it has struggled to attract viewers and overcome skepticism about its mission." But in the course of reading that, you're forced to put up with such propagandistic nuggets as how al-Hurra is "the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East" (as if!). You also read the preposterous assertion that "propaganda has become a primary front in the war against terrorism, with the United States and al-Qaeda each investing heavily to win over hearts and minds." Yeah, "propaganda" and several hundred billion dollars worth of bombs and bullets.

In the latest in a long-running series, we take note of yet one more piece of evidence that "terrorism" is one of the last things that requires attention if saving lives is one's concern:

The World Health Organization says more than 4,000 people die every day of water-borne diseases in developed and undeveloped countries.

It further warns that it will kill around 1.6 million people this year unless governments make a concerted effort to clean up their supplies.

I was surprised to read in yesterday's paper: "prices at the gas pump are finally easing in California." Really? And the evidence? Brace yourself:

Diesel in California: down nearly half a cent. Gas costs in Oakland: down a quarter of a cent. Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Yolo, Merced, Santa Barbara: slight declines. The nationwide average is down slightly and the statewide average in California has fallen, albeit one-hundredth of a cent to $4.609 a gallon from $4.610 earlier this week.

Whether it's private corporations or public operations like parks, schools, or mass transit, the operative philosophy in this capitalism run amok society is that everything must turn a profit (or at least break even). Imagine what would happen if it didn't. Well, you needn't imagine in the case of mass transit, because yesterday Bay Area transit agencies offered free rides (I think as a "marketing tool" rather than as a result of a "Spare the Air" day, because free ridership on the latter has been discontinued as "too costly") and here's what happened:

BART set a single-day record with an estimated 394,000 passengers, and Caltrain saw an 88 percent jump from its average weekday ridership.

Ridership on buses run by the Valley Transportation Authority increased 21 percent, with 123,993 riders compared with 102,500 for a typical Thursday. Light-rail ridership also soared, with 42,809 passengers up from 32,134 a week ago for a 33 percent jump.

Ferry ridership nearly doubled, and ridership on the ACE trains was up 17 percent.

McClatchy has just published a major series detailing not only the extensive abuse of American detainees in Afghanistan (in particular) and elsewhere, but also the fact that a great many of the detainees were not only not terrorists of any kind, they were in fact allies of the U.S.!

John McCain and George Bush say offshore oil drilling is the answer to the high price of gasoline. Actually George Bush assiduously avoided the words "offshore drilling" in referring to the subject; he kept talking about "access to the OCS" ("Outer Continental Shelf") because he knows the words "offshore drilling" are anathema to the public.

Here are two numbers to consider:

• Gallons of gas consumed in the U.S. each year: 146 billion gallons
• Oil company profits in 2007: $123 billion

Oil company profits per gallon? $0.84. Fill up your tank with, say, 15 gallons? $12.60 profit to the oil companies, every time you fill up your tank.

The latest episode in the all-out economic warfare being waged by the United States against Cuba that the former insists on calling a mere "embargo," but which examples like this make very clear deserves the name the Cubans use - "blockade" (or, to be precise, "bloqueo"):

A Somerset [U.K.] health shop selling Cuban sugar and a London tobacconist dealing in Habanos cigars are among British businesses told by a bank to cut their ties with the island or move their accounts.

Lloyds TSB has written to customers who have dealings with Cuba saying they will have take their accounts elsewhere, apparently in the wake of threats by the US government, which operates an embargo against Cuba.

The US has said it will prosecute any businesses that have any dealings with Cuba and also have a branch in the US.

Dennis Kucinich is speaking on the floor of Congress (and on C-SPAN) right now, introducing articles of impeachment.

Go, Dennis!

[As suggested in comments]:Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives right now introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Yes, 35.  He'll be reading for a while. [Update: at an hour and a half, he's up to #14 :-) ]

In another in a long series of outrageous decisions in the case, an appeals court has upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five, although it did order the reduction in sentences of three of them, including two of the three life sentences. You can read all about it at the website of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. I'd write more about it, but I've been working all day on a press conference that was held this morning, and now on the demonstrations, so a more insightful/detailed/scathing analysis will have to wait. Suffice it to say that the Cuban Five are heroes, now in their tenth year of outrageous imprisonment for the "crime" of trying to prevent acts of terrorism being committed by right-wing forces in Miami, actions that have been directed over the years not just at Cubans in Cuba but at Americans as well - close to 200 terrorist acts in Miami, 70 more in the New York-New Jersey area, and an additional 30 in Puerto Rico. It was to allow the continuation of such activities that the U.S. government arrested and imprisoned the Cuban Five, unarmed men whose only mission was to report on and prevent such activities.

No, it's not a direct quote, or even a paraphrase. But what other meaning can you take from this:

The U.S. government has opened its first permanent office here for Iraqi refugees seeking to settle in the United States.
...
The office, which began interviewing applicants May 10, has already finished processing 80 embassy employees for departure.
...
"The whole goal is to provide greater access to people who are in trouble or in threat based on their association with the U.S.," said an American official in Baghdad.