Notsilvia Night

An American Supreme Court decision “invoked a rarely used procedure giving (Anthony)Davis, (a man on death row), an opportunity to challenge his conviction” using what is called an original writ of habeas corpus.

Two of the Supreme Court Judges Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas opposed the decision writing:

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent.

The post on the above linked blog “Think Progress” has gotten by now 140 comments. One those calls Scalia a “devout uber-Catholic” thinking with the twisted logic of medieval theologians.

But here I beg to differ, while the medieval religious courts had some more than questionable ways of “truth-finding”, something like torture, witch-marks or throwing people in rivers, if a defendant could prove his or her innocence it was always ground for stopping his or her execution and setting them free. Scalia´s twisted interpretation of the law would not even have stood up before the cruel courts of the Spanish Inquisition.

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Scott Horton

Today, John Yoo returns to teach at Boalt Hall, the prestigious law school of the University of California at Berkeley. Alumni and students are marking the occasion with a protest. Their circular states:

As a direct result of Yoo’s legal memos thousands have been subjected to torture, tens of thousands incarcerated, tens of millions spied upon, and a million plus have died in U.S. imperialist wars. Without the provision of “legal cover,” many of these crimes would not have been possible.

But Boalt Hall Dean Chris Edley has risen once again to Yoo’s defense. In an email message to faculty sent on Saturday morning, Edley states that he intends to address the protesters and explain why he opposes any sort of action against Yoo:

I believe the University should not take any steps along the lines demanded by the protesters, because no law enforcement or even bar proceedings have been initiated, much less completed. Furthermore, UC faculty and administrators are not competent to act on their own to discover the facts at issue or make informed, formal judgments about the ultimate policy and legal claims.

In the overall order of things, it’s good that the dean of a professional school stands up for a faculty member under broad public attack for unpopular views. It’s right to insist on proper process and to oppose a rush to judgment, even though it’s ironic in this case, since Yoo’s offenses include some measure of just that. Academic freedom is important, particularly for a university, and a faculty member should not be expelled simply because of public agitation.

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James Cogan

By any measure, today’s presidential election in Afghanistan is a travesty. The poll takes place under conditions of a continuing foreign military occupation to prop up a puppet government that is notorious for its human rights abuses, corruption and failure to provide for the basic needs of the vast majority of the population.

The incumbent president and leading contender, Hamid Karzai, who was installed in office in 2002 by the US, is widely despised by the Afghan people. Excluded from the field of major candidates is anyone who opposes the US-NATO occupation, despite the fact that it is opposed by a large majority of the population, particularly in the southern Pashtun region, where Taliban influence is strong. Karzai’s leading rival and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, was previously a spokesman for the Northern Alliance militias that helped the US topple the Taliban.

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By: B.A. Brooks

The CDC and many doctors have been warning for years that it is not an issue of “if”, but “when” a major H5N1 Avian Flu outbreak will decimate humanity. A pandemic that would make the 1918 Spanish Flu look small in comparison. Hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled over the past several years in order to stop just such outbreaks from presenting themselves. Today we find ourselves a few months into a major H1N1 Swine Flu global pandemic which according to WHO and The CDC has killed 700 people worldwide to date.

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Jay Lehr

[Address given by Dr Jay Lehr, Science Director of the Heartland Institute, on August 7, 2009, at the Institute for Private Enterprise in conjunction with the Australian Climate Science Coalition.]

I will explain as simply as I can that carbon dioxide plays essentially no role in determining the temperature of the planet. Secondly, that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and that without the carbon dioxide we have on the planet we could not exist because vegetation would not exist. Hundreds of millions of years ago when the dinosaurs roamed the world we had five times more carbon than we have today.

My primary concern with climate control legislation is the disaster it will have for the less advantaged. If we are going to see poor people throughout the world, particularly in Africa, advance and improve their standard of living it can only be by supplying them inexpensive energy. But with climate control legislation our energy will increase in value and their chances of improving their plight is going to diminish.

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By Emily Spence

What an enjoyable summer many Americans experienced! Living in their own small air conditioned bubbles, they confirmed that whatever happened in the outside environment could be of little concern. Detached from the natural world, they passed between various cool zones with relative ease and no discomfort.

So for many, did it matter, for instance, that it was the hottest July on record for Wyoming, Montana and Idaho according to the NOAA National Weather Service? Who cared that Boise, Idaho’s average high temperature, a blistering 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C), was more than nine degrees F (five degrees C) above average so that July 2007 was Boise's hottest month ever documented? What difference did it make that drought conditions worsened in parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic while more than 5 million parched acres burned in the contiguous U.S. by early August according to the National Interagency Fire Center? So what that August, for the most part, was even worse [1]? Likewise, so it goes relative to the floods, hurricanes, droughts and other weather related extremes being faced in Europe, Australia, Africa, and all other land masses. So what if countless species are slowly being destroyed in the process while a vastly increasing amount of terrain is rendered unusable for any life [2]?

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Gilad Atzmon

There is an old Jewish joke that tells the story of a dying Jewish merchant who calls his son to his sickbed just before he perishes. He tells him, “Listen to me Moisha’le, life is not just about money… you can also do gold and diamonds.”

Monitoring Israeli and Jewish news reveals a devastating fact, it is not ‘just’ about money. It may also be about human organs. A few weeks ago we learned about a ring of American Rabbis who had been arrested in New Jersey upon suspicion of human organs trafficking (amongst many other crimes). Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, we read, enticed “vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000." Not too bad, I thought to myself then. We are living in hard times, financial melt down, credit crunch, Wall Street is licking its wounds, the car industry is evaporating. Seemingly, kidney trafficking is still booming.

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Pepe Escobar

As for the sham election, who cares who's the winner - Pashtun President Hamid Karzai, aka "the kebab seller", Tajik Abdullah Abdullah or anyone else? Afghanistan will be ruled by Barack Hussein Obama anyway.

America's convoluted, Alice-in-Wonderland interpretation of this summer's top political show - the "free expression of the people" in the Afghanistan election - reads like an opium dream. In fact, it is actually a pipe dream - as in Pipelineistan. With the added twist that no one's saying a word about the pipe that's delivering the opium dream.

As in an opium dream, delusion reigns. The chances of United States President Barack Obama actually elaborating what his AfPak strategy really is are as likely as having his super-envoy Richard Holbrooke share a pipe with explosive uber-guerrilla warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Obama says "success in Afghanistan" involves "diplomacy, development and good governance" - but all dazed and confused world public opinion sees are packs of extra marines being deployed to "fight the Taliban".

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by Rita Inklovich

They come in their thousands, waiting up to 36 hours to receive the only free medical care in America from Remote Area Medical, founded to provide basic free medical care in the 'third world' by Englishman/angel Stan Brock, shown holding the megaphone.

I am English (and a dual citizen of England and the United States) and I am increasingly frustrated with the misinformation reported regarding socialized medicine. Several opponents of health care reform--including major conservative radio and TV commentators and several republican politicians--claim that in England major surgery is not given to those over 59. This simply is NOT TRUE!

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by Stephen Lendman

Part II continues Petras' analysis of the global depression, regional wars, and the decline of America's empire.

Obama's Latin American Policy

At all times under all administrations, policy, not rhetoric, defines priorities, and it's no different for Obama. With regards to Latin America and its people, he's been hostile and dismissive by:

-- allocating half a billion dollars "in military and related aid" to aid the right wing Calderon regime and militarizing the US - Mexican border;

-- on the pretext of fighting drugs trafficking and regional security, funding to Mexico and Colombia goes for military purposes; Colombia gets the most - billions under Plan Colombia; economic aid is ignored;

-- beyond the timeline of Petras' book, Hugo Chavez and other regional leaders voiced concern over Washington's intention to supply Colombia with new weapons and technology, continued billions for the hardline "Uribe doctrine," and of greatest concern the plan to access seven new military bases - three airfields, two naval installations, and two army bases besides nine others currently stationing US forces all supplemented by the reactivated Fourth Fleet in April 2008;

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