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Today's
Stories
May 14, 2008
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars
May 13, 2008
David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror
Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?
Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home
Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution
Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall
Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber
Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him
Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing
David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die
Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America
May 12, 2008
St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy
Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism
Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran
Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost
Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton
Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors
Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott
Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More
Peter Morici
Recession Watch
Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere
Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
May 10 / 11, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year
Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters
Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees
Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée
Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez
Alan Farago
The Social Engineers
Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink
Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos
Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush
Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On
David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80
Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine
John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?
David Michael Green
It's So Over
Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep
Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman
May 9, 2008
Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut
Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo
Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia
Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement
David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off
Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly
C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now
Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism
Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty
Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint
Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.
May 8, 2008
Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables
Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom
Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico
Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.
Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans
Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response
Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret
George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements
Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War
Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell
Website of the Day
State of the Air
May 7, 2008
Winslow T. Wheeler
Drowning in Dollars
Joanne Mariner
Torture After Dark
Col. Dan Smith
It's Lying and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops
Brian M. Downing
Reports From Foreign Provinces
Andy Worthington
Who are the Prisoners Released with Sami al-Haj?
John Stauber
Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online, But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?
Christopher Brauchli
Outsourcing Tax Collection
Nelson P. Valdés
Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Agosto: Mexican History and Manufactured Identities
Rep. Keith Ellison
High Court Deals Blow to Voting Rights
Dan Bacher
Undam the Klamath, Mr. Buffett!
Website of the Day
Green Porno
May 6, 2008
Pam Martens
The Obama Bubble Agenda
Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia
Marjorie Cohn
Under U.S. Law Torture is Always Illegal
Ralph Nader
America's Pay-or-Die Health Care System
Yigal Bronner
Archaeologists for Hire
Brian Cloughley
No Laws for Bush America
Jacob Hornberger
Killing Enemies Without Trial
Walter Brasch
People Who Don't Need People
Paul Krassner
An Open Letter to Michael Moore
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Running Mates from the Imaginary Plane
Website of the Day
Some People
May 5, 2008
Pam Martens
Obama's Money Cartel
Conn Hallinan
The Syrian Affair
Corey D. B. Walker
The End of Politics
Uri Avnery
Crusader Anxiety: Israel at 60
Dave Zirin
Refocusing Olympic Protest
Corporate Crime Reporter
Wiist's Crusade Against Corporations
Robert Jensen
The Selling and Shaping of Our Souls
Daniel White
What People Want to Hear About in Austin, Texas
Benjamin Dangl
May Day Raid on General Dynamics
Website of the Day
McCain's Pastor of Hate: "Starve. I Don't Care. Starve."
May 3 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?
Nikolas Kozloff
The Shameful Failure of the Black Congressional Caucus
Diane Farsetta
What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side
Tariq Ali
New Labour is Dead
Harry Browne
The USA's Other Island: Irish Leaders and the War on Terror
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan's New Daughter of Destiny? An Exclusive Interview with Fatima Bhutto
David Yearsley
A
Challenge to Jeffrey Eugenides
Greg Moses
Salamat, Riad Hamad
William Blum
Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing
Robert Fantina
The Rhetoric of John McCain
Fred Gardner
The Greatest Story Never Told
Dave Lindorff
Blame It On Paraguay: The Bush Family's Bad Real Estate Deal
Seth Sandronsky
Standardizing Learning
Binoy Kampmark
Brown, Boris and the British Council Elections
Howard Lisnoff
The Lost First Amendment
Daniel Cassidy
Slanguage: Paddy Works on the Erie
Bill Moyers
Shrink-Wrapping the Theology of Rev. Wright
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
John Holt / Akbar Khan
Website of the Weekend
Ed Abbey, Patron Saint of the Walker's Rights Movement
May 2, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
Secret Bush "Finding" Widens Covert War on Iran
David Isenberg
The Return of Limited Nuclear War?
Vijay Prashad
Driven to Terror: the Case of the Lackawana Six
William Blum
Spies Without Borders
David Macaray
Shutting Down the West Coast Ports:
the ILWU's May Day Strike
Rannie Amiri
Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?
William James Martin
The Carter Coup
Stephanie Westbrook
As Italy Lurches Rightward, a Ray of Hope from Vicenza
Linn Washington, Jr.
A Battle Over Murals in Parisian Ghettos
Anthony Papa
How the Byrne Fund Corrupts Cops and Destroys Lives
Website of the Day
The Serota Petition
May 1, 2008
Michael Hudson
The Fed Sinks the Dollar
Behzad Yaghmaian
Blaming the Yuan for the Deficit with China
Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight: the Real Rise of Obama
Dedrick Muhammad
Senator Obama, Please Come to Your Senses
Cynthia McKinney
Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity
Corporate Crime Reporter
Farm Broadcaster Fired After Ripping Monsanto's Goon Squads
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Speech That Might Have Been
Reza Fiyouzat
Stop Obliterating Yourself!
Leigh Saavedra
Suspending the Federal Gas Tax
Tom Semioli
Hollywood Hypocrite: an Open Letter to Michael Moore
Website of the Day
Why Won't McCain Release His Medical Records?
April 30, 2008
William P. O'Connor
The Day I Lost My Innocence
Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Did the Supreme Court Just Elect John McCain?
Tariq Ali
Storming Heaven: 1968 Revisited
John Ross
Bad Jazz in NOLA: Three NAFTA Leaders Sit It for the Last Time
Glen Ford
Pop Goes the Race-Neutral Campaign!
Joshua Frank
Election Season Piffle: Thinking Outside the Voting Booth
Ashley Smith
Iraq After Basra
Robert Weissman
Medical R&D That Works in the Developing World
Sen. Russ Feingold
Bush's Shroud of Secrecy
Website of the Day
Richard Nixon, April 30, 1970
April 29, 2008
Uri Avnery
The Military Option
Roedad Khan
Why Gen. Musharraf Must Go
Chris Floyd
The Torture Election
Paul Craig Roberts
The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War
Dave Lindorff
Invasion of the Pumpheads
Mats Svensson
Mental Barriers in Palestine
Peter Morici
Will the Fed Broaden Its Focus?
Mike Ferner
Inside American Royalty's Security Bubble
John Weisheit
Towing Icebergs to San Pedro
Amit Srivastava
China Olympics, Tibet Crackdown, Coke Profits
Website of the Day
Tom Friedman Gets Creamed
April 28, 2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
On Queen's Boulevard, the Night Sean Bell's Killers Got Off
Mike Whitney
Jeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch: But Will It Topple Obama?
Iris Keltz
The Fruiting Fig Tree: Memories of East Jerusalem
Steve Niva
The New Walls of Baghdad: the Israeli Model Surges Toward Iraq
David Macaray
CAFTA's Bloodtrails
John Ross
"Adelitas" Shut Down Mexico's Congress
Stephen Lendman
The Politics of Green Scare
Malou Innocent
On "Withdrawing Responsibly" from Iraq
Christopher Brauchli
Want to Learn the Ins-and-Outs of the Slumping Economy? Just Ask Ashley ...
William Kaufman
Michael Moore's Embrace of Obama:
a Polemic Devoid of Politics
Website of the Day
Get Your Fix
April 26 / 27, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Nothing Will Get Hillary Out of the Race
Ralph Nader
A World of Hunger
Peter Camejo
A Crying Shame: the Wages of Left Capitulation
Harvey Wasserman
Making You Pay for the Next Chernobyl--in Advance!
Franklin Lamb
Will U.S. Policy in Lebanon and the Middle East Ever Change?
Wajahat Ali
Fisk Fighting: an Exclusive Interview with Robert Fisk
Mike Whitney
Food Riots and Speculators
Andrew Wimmer
Obliterate Them!
David Yearsley
Nero, Frederick the Great, Nixon ... They All Did It Better Than Clinton
Greg Moses
Chicago: the Stupid Experiment
Ron Jacobs
Walking the Lonely Road
Robert Fantina
Bush v. Carter:
Let History Judge
Missy Comley Beattie
Introducing President McCain
Linn Cohen-Cole
The Criminalization of Raw Milk:
a Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away
Paul Krassner
Remembering Ruben Salazar
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Buknatski, Khaiyat, Lair, and Kowit
Website of the Weekend
Justice for Sean Bell
April 25, 2008
George Ciccariello-Maher
Embedded with the Tupamaros
Dave Lindorff
The Bitter and the Biased: How Clinton Courted Racists in Pennsylvania
Franklin Lamb
The Israeli Project Has Failed in Lebanon
Alan Farago
Hacking the Development Code:
the Politics of Zoning in Florida
John W. Farley
Syiran Nukes:
the Phantom Menace
Kathleen M. Barry
Some Questions for "Femininists for Clinton:"
Is There Really Any Difference Between Hillary and Condi?
Mohammed Alireza
Cowboys and Iranians
Nick Dearden
Haiti and the Black Hole of Debt
Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
Why Biotech is Betting on Biofuels
Bruce Springsteen
Farewell to Danny
Website of the Day
It's Bigger Than Hip Hop
April 24, 2008
Linn Washington, Jr.
Duplicity Demeans Clinton Campaign (or When Bill Praised Farrakhan)
Franklin Lamb
Bush to Nasrallah: an Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?
Jennifer Van Bergen
The High Crimes of John Yoo: the President's Executioner
Joanne Mariner
U.S. Hypocrisy and the Malaysian Guantánamo
Mark Engler
Trade Politics and the Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party
Dave Lindorff
The Politics of Obliteration: Hillary's Monstrous Threat
John Blair
Obama's Missed Opportunities in Evansville: Did He Even Know It Was Earth Day?
De Clarke / Stan Goff
Politics is Food is Politics
Binoy Kampmark
Bowling for Boris: the Tories, Red Ken and the London Mayoral Race
Philippe Marlière
Sarkozy and the Specter of May 68
Peter Morici
The Bank of England Misses the Point
Website of the Day
Fair Food Nation
April 23, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
Straggling to Denver
Vijay Prashad
McCain's Mask
Paul Craig Roberts
What the Iraq War is About
Stephen Soldz
The Involuntary Drugging of U.S. Detainees
Laura Santina
Hillary: Another Feminist Perspective
John Stauber /
Sheldon Rampton
Pentagon News Networks
Dave Lindorff
What Double Digit Win? Media Round Up in PA
George Ciccariello-Maher
Radical Chavismo Growls a Challenge
Ralph Nader
Andy Stern's Rackets
John Weisheit
Rearranging Deck Chairs at Glen Canyon Dam
Website of the Day
Wal-Mart's "Cost of Admission"
April 22, 2008
David Isenberg
Spinning Saddam's Linkages
Stan Cox
The Political Economics of Greenwashing
David Macaray
Memo to the Clinton Campaign: They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia
Jeff Birkenstein
Playing the Opposite Game: Or Why Can't I Sell Out?
Mike Whitney
Memo to Bernanke:
Enough With the Rate Cuts, Already!
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush's Paraguayan Fiasco
Floyd Rudmin
From Lhasa to Bilbao: Journey of a Double Standard
Carlos Villarreal
Why John Yoo Should be Dismissed From Boalt Law School--And Prosecuted
Ray McGovern
What About the War, Pope Benedict?
Michael Gould-Wartofsky
El Barrio Fights Back Against Globalized Gentrification
Robert Ovetz
A Fish Tale
Pat Wolff
Rightwing Power Grab in Cornhusker State
Website of the Day
Defend the Rutgers 3!
April 21, 2008
Bill Quigley
The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
Uri Avnery
The Lion and the Gazelle
Dave Lindorff
The U.S. Economy and the Costs of War
Wajahat Ali
Finding Osama Bin Laden with Morgan Spurlock
Andy Worthington
Hollow Gestures at Guantánamo
Robert Jensen
The Sorrows of Race and Gender
Ron Jacobs
Clampdown at Evergreen
Dan Bacher
The Great Salmon Closure
Harvey Wasserman
Where's George?
Danny Alexander
Remembering Danny Federici
Website of the Day
Save Our Taco Trucks!
April 19 / 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
McCain: What Really Happened When
He Was a POW?
Patrick Cockburn
A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq
Wajahat Ali
Zinn Speaks
Andrew Wimmer
Papal Benedictions
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jeremiah Wright and America's Continuing
"Separate and Unequal" Societies
David Rosen
Texas Two-Step: The Polygamy Raid and
the Regulation of Sexual Life
Robert Fantina
McCain Detests War?
Ramzy Baroud
The Politics of Armageddon: McCain's
Pastors and the Middle East
Saul Landau
The No Escape Clause on Iraq
Dr. Susan Block
Raelians, Aliens and Evolution
David Yearsley
Suitcase Arias and Ithacan Jazz
Phyllis Pollack
On the Red Carpet with the Rolling
Stones
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Hartz, Newberry and Khaiyat
April 18, 2008
John Ross
The
Bush Legacy: Losing Latin America
Dave Lindorff
Courage and Conviction: In Praise of Bill Ayers
Dan Glazebrook
An Interview with Robert Fisk
Carl Finamore
A Look Inside the Hangars
Rannie Amiri
J Street: Do We Really Need Another Pro-Israel Lobby?
Richard Morse
A Creepy Roadblock at Midnight
Ko Young-dae
CONPLAN 8022: Inside Bush's Nuclear War Plan for the Korean Peninsula
Farooq Sulehria
A Himalayan Surprise
April 17, 2008
Michael Hudson
Hillary
Joins the Vast Rightwing Financial Conspiracy
Robert Bryce
The
Ethanol Apologists
Kathy Kelly
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate
Madis Senner
The Carrion Feeders' Ball: How Hedge Funds Reap Billions Off
Economic Misery
Peter Morici
The G7, the Banks and GE
Ron Jacobs
Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias
William S. Lind
A Confirming Moment in Basra
James Murren
Obama's Disconnect with Small Town America
Ben Terrall
Losing Haiti
Walter Brasch
Political Log Rolling in Clinton County, PA
Website of the Day
Stealth Attack: Homegrown "Terrorism" Bill
April 16, 2008
Bill Kauffman
The
Candidates from Nowhere
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Colonization and Massacres
Saul Landau
How to Leave Iraq
Peter Morici
McCain's Economic Plan: GOP Out of Ideas (But So are the Democrats)
Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Bankers Saved, Human Rights Sacrificed
Jeff Ballinger
Inside Nike's Asian Sweatshops: Squeezed Vietnamese Workers Strike
Back
David Macaray
Union Strikes and Replacement Workers
Gary Leupp
Electoral Revolution in Nepal
Richard Morse
The Food Riots in Haiti
George Ciccariello-Maher
Einstein Turns in His Grave
Dave Lindorff
Letters from the Bitter Belt
Website of
the Day
Surviving Prozac
April 15, 2008
Ralph Nader
The
Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism
Uri Avnery
Manifest
Destiny and Israel
Brian Cloughley
Arrogant
Lies
David Price
Outrageous
Pre-Tour de France Ban
Joe Bageant
Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality
Steve Early
The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn
Mats Svensson
To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian
State
Michael Donnelly
Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist
April Howard /
Benjamin Dangl
Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's
Next President
Laray Polk
Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble
Charles Modiano
What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated?
Website of
the Day
The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree
April 14, 2008
Carl Finamore
Airline
Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing
Michael Hudson
A
Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers
M. Shahid Alam
Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match?
Patrick Cockburn
A
Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior
Paul Craig Roberts
Petraeus Sets Up Iran
Joanne Mariner
Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off?
Martha Rosenberg
Suicide and Cymbalta
Dave Lindorff
The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader
P. Sainath
Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal
John V. Whitbeck
On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection
Website of the Day
Spying on Environmental Groups
April 12 /
13, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Olympic
Torch Toasts US Candidates
Patrick Cockburn
Warlord:
the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Mike Whitney
Want to Save the Economy?
David Yearsley
Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire
Robert Fantina
Bush's Brand of Morality
Conn Hallinan
Another Defining Moment in Iraq
Bill Hatch
In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture
Ramzy Baroud
The Basra Battles
George S. Hishmeh
Back to Square One
Ron Jacobs
The New New Left in Latin America
Nikolas Kozloff
Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires
Charles Thomson
The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit
Alexander Billet
The Disney-fication of CBGB
Missy Beattie
Huffing and Puffing to Failure
David Michael Green
America's Jones for War
Seth Sandronsky
Education Entrepreneurs
Prairie Miller
Meeting David Wilson
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves
Website of
the Weekend
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights
April 11, 2008
Nikolas Kozloff
The Clintons and Their Sordid
Colombia Advocacy
Wajahat Ali
Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot
Diaz
Sharon Smith
Let
Them Eat Ethanol!
Yigal Bronner
/ Neve Gordon
Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem
Alan Farago
Eating South Florida
Dave Lindorff
On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China
George Wuerthner
Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve
Program
Christopher
Brauchli
Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals
Website of the Day
Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video
April 10, 2008
Mathieu Vernerey
Tibet
for the Tibetans!
Elizabeth Schulte
Slavery
in the Fields
David Macaray
Labor
Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake
Ashley Smith
The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Peter Morici
Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth
Jacob Hornberger
The Military's Distintegrating Family Life
Harold Austin
Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs
Website of the Day
Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos
April 9, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Fading American Economy
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Congressional
Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings
C. Hand
Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera
Paul Krassner
Sex and Violins
Paul Wolf
Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years
Wajahat Ali
Alien Invasion!
Karyn Strickler
Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox
Dan La Botz
Confronting the Economic Crisis
Eric Walberg
The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop
Robin Millenthal
Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy
Website of the Day
Conservative
Nanny State
April 8, 2008
Mike Whitney
Should
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush
Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal
Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas
Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft
John Ross
Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS
Michael Donnelly
Hillary's Western Swing
John V. Walsh
Why Obama Lost Massachusetts
Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates
Bill Piper
Last Shot for a Bush Legacy?
Sen. Russ Feingold
Legal Representation and the Death Penalty
Website of the Day
Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later
April 7, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Irish Black Thing
Harry Browne
Irish
Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported
Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine
Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy
Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free
Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role
Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests
Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War
April 5 / 6,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Did
the Elites Want MLK Dead?
Ramzy Baroud
There
are No Checkpoints in Heaven
Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts
David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down
Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show
Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot
Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig
John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students
in Ecuador Bombing
Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values
David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad
Missy Beattie
McCan't
Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe
Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press
Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Diamand
and St. Clair
Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop
|
May 14, 2008
Of Dams and Water Buffaloes
California Water Politics
By
FELICE PACE
California Governor Schwarzenegger wants to build two new dams - Sites and Temperance Flat. They are being sold as necessary to cope with the reduction in Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains snowpack expected as a result of climate change. New and “enhanced” storage are being marketed by Lester Snow, director of California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) as part of a "portfolio approach" which, in addition to “enhanced" storage, calls for urban water conservation, better groundwater facilities, improved wastewater processing and research into lowering the cost of desalination. The dams are to provide increased capacity in order to catch earlier runoff that – according to climate change data and predictions - will no longer be held in mountain snowpack.
Schwarzenegger and Snow are counting on the climate change predictions to be fairly accurate. If the actual climate does not follow the predictions, the new and “enhanced’ reservoirs might never fill. Furthermore, increasing surface storage would result in more extensive water loss through evaporation. In 1998 the measured evaporation from California reservoirs was about a million acre feet - that's enough water to cover a million acres of land with a foot of water. That’s a lot of water but the amount will rise if new and “enhanced’ reservoirs are developed. Furthermore, if climate change results in higher summer temperatures evaporation from all reservoirs will increase.
The Schwarzenegger/Snow “portfolio approach” ignores the states largest “reservoir” – upland forest soils - and its biggest water user – irrigated agriculture. Let’s look at the forests first.
Upland forest soils in the Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains are the states largest reservoir. Healthy forest soils are on average about 1/3 empty spaces. In the winter wet season these spaces fill up with water which is released slowly to springs, streams and groundwater during the summer/fall dry season. Road building and logging are known to compact forest soils – reducing their ability to store water.
Increases in flood flows in streams and rivers and a corresponding decreases in base flow as a result of intensive logging are well documented in research and by experience on the ground. But apparently no one in the California state establishment is looking at how upland California forests should be managed to restore the ability of California’s forest soil reservoirs to store water. The state is not even looking at hard research that tells us we can maximize snowpack retention by limiting clearcuts to no more than an acre.
The failure to address upland management in the “portfolio approach” may have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of Sierra Forests are owned by Sierra Pacific Industries – a private forest products company that is California’s largest landowner.
The other big California forest “owner” – the Forest Service – has a research focus on climate change that also ignores the forest soil reservoir. Instead Forest Service climate change scientists prefer to look at how climate change may impact fire behavior. Few who know Forest Service’s history and culture are surprised that the agency’s preferred response to climate change is more logging to “fire proof” our forests.
California officials are also ignoring the state’s #1 water consumer – irrigated agriculture. Irrigation engineers tell us that – depending on current irrigation methods used – agricultural operations in California can reduce consumptive water use by 20% to 70% by installing modern irrigation methods and adopting modern irrigation management. This leads one to suspect that California’s water supply “crisis” has been created or exaggerated in order to convince California taxpayers to build new dams and reservoirs. Since California irrigation interests are already leasing water to urban water agencies, they stand to gain billions if new reservoirs are built.
Thus it comes as no surprise that one of the most vocal backers of the Schwarzenegger/Snow “portfolio approach” is the California Farm Bureau (CFB) – an organization that has never seen a dam it did not like. The proposed Sites dam/reservoirs is very near the site of the Paskenta-Newville dam proposed back in the early 70’s when Ronald Reagan was California’s governor. That reservoir was intended as the terminus of a tunnel to transfer Northcoast California water to the Central Valley where it could be used to expand corporate agriculture. Conspiracy theorists will be tempted to see the Sites dam/reservoir proposal as part of a long-term CFB strategy to get a hold of more Northcoast water. If the new reservoir is built but there is not enough water to fill it calls to transfer more Northcoast water south may gain new impetus.
In the 1970s Northcoast California leaders rebuffed efforts to send more Northcoast/Klamath water south. In 1982 California voters also defeated an initiative to build the “Peripheral Canal” which was designed to send more water from the Sacramento River south. Voters correctly saw the reservoirs and canal as water grabs by irrigation and other Southern California interests.
One lesson in this history is that corporate agriculture and its operatives in the Farm Bureau Federation and California state government can be beaten back but never defeated. I guess that’s why they call them “water buffaloes”. The water buffaloes are back now riding the climate change wave. It remains to be seen whether California citizens will once again see through the propaganda and defeat the latest effort to move more Northern California water south.
Felice Pace is a longtime forest and river activist. He has lived in Northern California’s Klamath River basin since 1975. Felice currently resides at Klamath Glen near the mouth of the Klamath River. He can be reached at: unofelice@gmail.com
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