the myth of power

apparently, victoria's mayor and council don't actually hold any power. this is what my friend, who's currently studying canadian history, tells me. he says it's the city manager who holds the power because he/she's the person with the ability to spend the money. so, even if the mayor and council wanted to do something decent, like help people help themselves, they can't because a person in an unelected position is the only one with the power to actually spend the money and do anything. my history student friend says elected officials know this secret, that they are powerless and nothing more than figure-heads, but the masses don't know it so they go through the ritual of voting, believing they're participating in a democracy. people who have this knowledge, that the mayor and council is just a dog and pony show, don't tend to vote, because they understand the futility of it. there's no point in endorsing this facade. since the only thing that matters to the city manager is revenue and homeless people don't generate revenue, they're considered unimportant and will never get anything from city officials. it must be strange pretending to be powerful, all the while realizing you're just living a big lie, but i guess it explains the about face from the recently elected so-called 'progressives'. they're just bad actors on the colonialist stage.

The Natural Way Back Home

Good Afternoon;

I was thinking that it might be interesting to see where homeless people, when left to their own devices and without laws to hold them back, actually do set up temporary shelters before the City of Victoria goes ahead with enacting a new bylaw regulating tenting activity on public land.

If we jump right ahead and draft new bylaws, we don't even get a chance to see how things would be without the new bylaws. The City of Victoria is afraid that the city will be out of control if it doesn't severely restrict tenting activity. This fear-borne attitude is the disease of the modern mind, which worries that if it does not control life, then life will be out of control.

It is my experience that life tends to take very good care of itself when the calculating mind leaves it to its own devices. Things have a way of finding their way home, as surely as salmon detect their home-stream by the smell of it, even though they may travel thousands of miles out to sea. We might as a City have enough faith in the natural function of things to see where homeless people make their homes when laws don't prohibit them from doing so--at least for a few weeks. And then, after such a trial period, we could SEE what regulations need to be made.

And we might, as homeless people wanting or needing to shelter ourselves in public spaces, follow our natural instincts, and not get caught up in making a political game out of where we sleep tonight. I think our natural instincts might lead us to set up tidy, respectful shelters in quiet, out of the way places, keeping in mind the sensitivities of our neighbours.

Many of us are frustrated with because the City that claims to represent us and our neighbours don't want us around, and keep doing everything they can to make us go away. And so we push the envelope and assert our presence all the more. But there is an opening here for us to ACT NATURALLY, to forget these words "enemy" or "opponent," "Crown" or "City,"and just do the work of Being.

I am not denying that there are powerful forces of control at work wanting to block natural being at every turn---forces at work in our own minds as much as in the political and social structures we move in. But if we define ourselves by the martial tactics of those control-forces, we lose the chance to experience authentic life---that is, life as it is, defined by our connection to the force of Life from moment to firey moment, not some pseudo-life defined by the forces of control that delude us into thinking that the "enemy" (whether the enemy is, from our perspective, the "system" or the protesters of the system) can EVER take anything away from the raw, infinitely powerful, never-not-there FORCE of life itself. Raw life is terrifying, make no mistake--but there's nothing to be afraid of.

And to come back to basic tactical considerations---let us not forget that all the usual laws that apply to all citizens are still in place, and are still there to enable the police to enforce public order if they need to. So violence and drugs are still illegal, theft is still illegal, mischief is still illegal; we still have bylaws regulating everything from noise levels to littering to cooking and lighting candles in public spaces.

The only difference in light if the October 14th court ruling is that homeless people can set up tents in parks---and are not confined to mere blankets, sleeping bags, and tarp wrappings. The court ruling by no means allows for the kind of free for all the City seems to be afraid will occur. The appearance of a Tent City in Beacon Hill park right after the original ruling back in October helped to fuel the public fear that parks are about to be invaded by homeless people. So did the encampments in Centennial square. Those encampments were necessary to bring to light the fact that the city didn't handle the ruling in a legal manner---and achieved their goal of encouraging the City to draft a new bylaw.

Unfortunately, the camps had the side effect of making it seem to the public that homeless tenters would be in their face all the time if the City didn't regulate tenting activity. I think
the vast majority of homeless people would gravitate to out-of-the-way locations, for the sake of their privacy, and that we would hardly notice them. And neighbours always have the option of approaching tenters directly if there is a concern about tenting location. We forget in this mess of bylaws and police and courts that neighbours can and do work out arrangements between themselves all the time.

The police don't have to be called in every time one neighbour wants
to build a fence and another doesn't. Homeless tenters are neighbours too, and despite all the hype, they can be very approachable. If not, then a concerned neighbour can always call the cops if there is a suspicion of unhealthy or dangerous behaviour, as is the case with all dealings with neighbours.

I doubt that the bylaw proposed a couple of days ago (which would restrict tenting to the hours between 7 and 7) would hold up to a constitutional challenge. And beyond that, I think it artificially restricts the activities that homeless people need to engage in to protect themselves. That said, a function as natural and inevitable as sleeping will happen when and where Life needs it to, quite independently of any of our bylaws.

I say, let it be for a few weeks, and then see.

preferring harmony to peace,

Kristen Woodruff.

P.S. I look forward to seeing many of you at the show tomorrow night---8 p.m. at the Victoria Event Centre (doors open at 7 p.m.)

End Homelessness - just let them die

From: Chris Johnson

Two days ago Judge Brian McKenzie settled once and for all the constitutionality of the bylaw enforcement policy prohibiting the use of temporary emergency shelter in the City of Victoria. He reiterated Judge Carol Ross's October 14 ruling that certain Park regulation bylaws were of no force and effect insofar as they prohibit homeless people from erecting temporary shelter.

Judge McKenzie went on to suggest that if the City of Victoria was interested in enforcing any kind of regulations related to tenting, such as the 7 to 7 policy, they would need to amend their parks bylaws.

Questions arose immediately as to why the City of Victoria didn't amend their municipal code in October, when a BC Supreme Court judged suggested they do so. The city needed time, I suppose, to think it through and make sure they amended the bylaws properly.

So after all these months (years really, because you would imagine that going into this whole long legal drama that they had contingency plans for different options) what they have decided is the best thing to do is to keep pushing for a appeal and in the meantime, make it so that the police have enforcement powers to keep the situation from getting out of control.

The message they have been communicating is that they don't want tents, they want real housing, as do most people. They are so adamant that we don't have tents used as emergency shelter that they have spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to appeal a human rights victory, hundreds of thousands more to enforce an illegal bylaw, and continue to ticket, arrest and seize the belongings of homeless people every day.

Obviously, they've all had some kind of traumatic incident involving tents in their past. They see horrible things happening when they see tents. Imagine, such a small, simple structure striking such fear into people.

I went off on an angry tirade yesterday after hearing about the new bylaws being rushed through. It doesn't mean that myself and other alternative emergency shelter advocates are unwilling to sit down in good faith with the city and discuss how we might go about dealing with the disaster happening around us [1500+ homeless people in Victoria Canada outside again tonight in the cold and rain]. My unhappiness is about how I don't feel the city has made a reasonable decision, and I think if the public were well enough informed, which they sadly aren't, they would not support the approach the city is taking.

I alone would not be able to suggest to the City of Victoria how they should amend the bylaw.
That's why I think proper public consultation should be involved.

We need to involve the entire city in the discussion. We're talking supposedly about 'our' city and 'our' government, and I think that when decisions are being made that are going to effect the life, liberty and security of person of the most vulnerable in 'our' community, we should all have a say.

Honestly, I can't say that I'd be able to debate with anyone on that council that 'unregulated' camps are the way to go. We're not asking that people be immune to actual laws. (Tenting is still not a crime). Obviously, everyone in this city is regulated, not matter what covers their head at night.

If the police are concerned about drugs, then deal with the drug problem. Don't say that tents cause drug use because that's already been proven to be an asinine hypothesis.

I also do not ever want to give up the position that people should be able to live outside if they have to, and that homeless people and other allies in the community should be able to regulate themselves. There should not be a second layer of law for the poor.

Here's another thing that keeps going through my mind. At the press conference the other day, Dean Fortin declared that he was interested in ending homelessness, not managing it.

Let's dissect that statement a bit, starting with this proposition that we can 'End Homelessness'.

The only way I think Homelessness can end is by calling it something else.

Take all the poor people who can't afford rent or can't find a room to rent and put them in jail, the hospital, a homeless shelter, or a subsidized social housing unit. Now there is no homelessness. Just brutal poverty.

The new Our Place cost something like $15 million dollars. If you live in a $15 million building, you must not be poor. So the people inside are not poor. We can end poverty this way too.

Now let's end violence. And disease. Or fear.

Come on, seriously. Even if that was the plan, (and I seriously fear it is) it can't happen quick enough. There is still the question of where the people you can't arrest, institutionalize or coerce into a homeless shelter are going to sleep.

If not in tents, then what? That's all we're asking, and don't say warehouses and gymnasiums, because we already have that, and we're talking about creating something for people shut out of that option (for whatever reason).

I'm being evicted from my house next month, and I have no job and no money and no check from the government and no credit and no one who can take on the burden of supporting me until I get back on my feet.

I'll sleep in a tent if I have to, as I have for many months in the past, but I'd prefer something more solid myself. I want to be able to live simply and cheaply and not take up too many resources. I want to utilize some unused space, and work on my health and well-being before I throw myself back into the workforce. I can't work on my health and well-being at a shelter. That makes it worse. A tent will be fine, and preferably not alone. I'd like to not have to carry my belongings around all day as I go to meetings, appointments and odd jobs.

I'd like to be able to rest comfortably when I get a migraine, my neuro-muscular disorder is flaring up, or I am having a panic attack.

I realize that no level of government has anything it can give me right now, which means I have myself and my community to help me find shelter.

So anyway, to make a long story short, that's the question. What do any of us on the street or facing eviction do until this affordable housing appears?

We've been focused on alternatives to homeless shelters, working from the assumption that we need these alternatives regardless of what the shelters are like. I think we should have an inquiry into the poverty industry in this country, but in the meantime, it doesn't have to be about attacking the current services.

We're not DEMANDING anything yet, but when we realize, as a group of citizens, what it is we do need to achieve our goals, we may have to DEMAND it, and not just from the City of Victoria.

Space for temporary shelter needs to be made all over the CRD. And it will. If we, in cooperation with everyone involved (from homeless people to concerned neighbours) comes up with a plan, or plans, that we feel are reasonable and within our rights, we will make them happen. If any municipality makes a bylaw or chooses to enforce a bylaw that infringes on our right to shelter ourselves and each other, they will be asked to reconsider their behaviour. After all, they work for us, they are not our lords and masters. They are elected to represent the people, and if the people are behind this, they will have to overstep their authority to stop us.

Just because I don't want to work with city councils doesn't mean I want to work against them. It just means they don't seem to have the proper perspective to be able to provide much valuable input into our process. We don't want their money and its attached strings, and it's not against the law for a homeless person to shelter themselves, so we don't need them to make new laws for us.

When I say that I think that the council appears to want to see us dead, it's only because they have not worked hard enough to convince me otherwise. I mean no slander or libel. Just putting out some theories.

City votes to embarass itself, again, with Supreme Court appeal

Last night, January 28 2009, the recently elected City of Victoria Mayor and council voted unanimously to keep the voices of homeless people alive in the Justice system.

"We haven't heard the last of them yet," explained Mayor Fortagain, "we've got all kinds of money - did you hear about my 25% raise - and I haven't even done anything yet! Lawyers, legal fees, what the hell. Let's take this thing to the Supreme Court of Canada! Taxpayers hate these homeless and their attempts to look after themselves. What would happen to all our healthily paid service providers if the homeless all became self-sufficient? Keep poor-bashing alive! This country was founded on colonialism, and by God we're going to do the HBC proud!"

In addition to keeping tax dollars flowing to the already employed while successfully ignoring those who could really use a hand up, last night's council proved that the NDP and the Greens can actually work together.

Elected on a Green slate, councillors Blander and Lootus said with one voice "last night's vote proves that, no matter who you vote for, the government always wins. We're just thrilled to have a secure paycheque so we can raise our infant children in the style to which we never thought we'd be accustomed." When asked about Green values of environmental sustainability and fairness for all, Blander-Lootus explained "words are one thing, but living in a tent is quite another."

Former NDP MP Councillor Huntress concurred. "We could have used these five weeks to offer TASC (the Temporary Autonomous Shelter Coalition) an opportunity to show us how a tent city can really help the street urchins by building an environmentally gentle and sustainable community, but we didn't. We're showing solidarity with the Green Party, isn't that enough?"

It'll be five weeks until the City officials are potentially embarassed, again, with the commencement of another Court case that will likely side with those whose lives are at risk sleeping outside. And if they lose, we're off to the Supreme Court of Canada.

For those not paying attention, that's where we live. CANADA. Our home on Native land. It's freakin' cold, rainy and, especially since the skinning of Bear Mountain, very very windy here.

And they wonder why homeless (and their friends) have lost faith in electoral politics.

re: David's proposal to the Corporation of the City of Victoria

Dear Mayor, Council and Staff:

I have received the following proposal from David Arthur Johnston. In light of the conciliatory tone of Mr. Johnston and other "right-to-sleep" advocates in our city, I trust that you will responsibly steward our tax dollars by aiming for a co-operative solution to our city's homelessness crisis.

Mr. Johnston, Ms. Woodruff, and others have extended an olive branch that holds out the hope of saving considerable city funds that would otherwise be squandered on policing, bylaw enforcement, and legal fees. Some allowance for tenting within the city limits seems entirely reasonable (and inevitable) during the transition period while we work with senior levels of government to build non-market supported housing for every person in need. Regulation of tenting, rather than outright prohibition, would mitigate the impact on residents and visitors in our city, while meeting a basic humanitarian need for our most vulnerable citizens.

I am happy to meet with any of you to discuss this matter.

Sincerely,

Ben Isitt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: David Johnston
Date: Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Subject: My proposal to the Corporation of the City of Victoria

My proposal to the Corporation of the City of Victoria

Good day. I'm happy to write to you. I feel that we share a great
intimacy, having been through so much together. I realize we've been,
seemingly, poised against one another for a good long while, so there
is always concern of whether or not something is genuinely humble or
just some subtle way to bite, on both our parts, I presume.

That said, I believe we can come up with an amiable solution that
would even justify ceasing the appeal. Part of my proposal includes
the suggestion that I would not assert myself towards a tent-city if
the City could leave in place the ruling as it stands (maybe making a
list of places that cannot be used). In this way, the thing would
peacefully evolve, one way or the other. Put in a rule that says no
more than 4 tents. Patrol. Observe. Those practicing criminal
behaviour will remain easily recognizable from those good people just
putting their efforts to survival.

It is simple enough to work. The trust implied would be healthy and
enlightening on both sides. Industry need not be overtly affected and
the population would have a moment where they loved their government
for being wise enough to accept and face the hard times.

I ask, for a moment, not to be thought of as an adversary. There is a
huge problem here, and we here very much are feeling the indications
of the global condition. There is an opportunity here to do a right
thing that maybe has never been done before and understandably there
is apprehension. Patience be with us. Let us love truth and be
professional.

David Arthur Johnston

Victoria, BC, Canada

Hatrackman@Gmail.com

Obama's first blood

President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area

editor's note: since weapons are one of the only products americans actually build anymore, i suppose dropping bombs is not a surprising way they'd choose to 'stimulate the economy.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/pakistan-barack-obama-air-strike

Committee to End Homelessness Applauds Decision in Latest Anti-Camping Case

photo: planned expansion of centennial square, next to city hall, exemplifies elected officials' priorities.


Group plans creation of user-run encampments of temporary emergency abodes

Victoria, January 29, 2009 - The Committee to End Homelessness, a grassroots advocacy group in Victoria, BC, applauds yesterday's court ruling in the City of Victoria's case against homeless campers.

The Committee to End Homelessness believes that the only viable solution to homelessness is housing (and associated supports), but recognizes that it will take several years to provide real housing for most people on the street. Meanwhile, there remains a significant number of people who are vulnerable to the increased health and safety risks associated with living outside.

"Homeless people have – for now – the right to erect temporary shelter on city-owned land," says Chris Johnson, a member of the Committee to End Homelessness. "If they choose to assert this right, we want them to know that a large group of people are ready and willing to support them in a variety of ways."

The ruling comes at a time when the Temporary Autonomous Shelter Committee (TASC), a newly-formed collective of housed and unhoused individuals closely allied to the Committee to End Homelessness, is actively researching the viability and logistics of creating a community of temporary emergency shelters in Victoria.

TASC is launching a survey of homeless and unstably housed people to determine the demand for temporary shelter encampments and collect input into plans to create these encampments. Following this survey will be a consultation with the wider community, to address their fears regarding autonomous emergency shelter.

Research has proven that a user-run encampment, with a firm code of conduct and well- organized support, can be a viable short-term alternative to the current shelter system. A variety of sanctioned 'tent cities' across North America provide solid evidence that issues of safety, sanitation and unsightliness can be mitigated with proper planning and support.

The Committee to End Homelessness is supporting TASC to follow a transparent, collective process, and is aware that TASC is not ready at this point to undertake a temporary shelter project of it's own.

However, the Committee to End Homelessness supports the right of homeless individuals to erect and maintain temporary shelter, and are willing, along with members of TASC, to offer our support in the form of logistics and legal advice to those wishing to assert this right.

Media contact: Chris Johnson - 778-430-3310 - forestaction@yahoo.ca

Temporary Autonomous Shelter Research Portal

editor's note:

in similar fashion as the previous mayor, dean fortin appears entirely unprepared for the judge's ruling which was 2 weeks in the making. city hall has no offer of appropriate space for homeless tenters (ellice park remains empty and entirely appropriate except for the fence and no trespassing signs), neither have they prepared any bylaws or other 'rules' to regulate where tents will and will not be accepted. it's almost as if the city's hoping for another takeover of beacon hill park so they can garner public disapproval quickly. it's a divide and conquer tactic - very unprofessional and unproductive, especially given the fact this discussion has been on-going for over two years and the new mayor is allegedly concerned about those less fortunate.

Click here to access another article about the judge's most recent ruling, honouring the previous bc supreme court ruling that finds it unconstitutional to criminalize people who attempt to protect themselves from the elements.

URGENT! Leonard Peltier's Safety in Jeopardy!

Jan. 20, 2009

Dear LP Supporters,

I am so OUTRAGED! My brother Leonard was severely beaten upon
his arrival at the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. When he went
into population after his transfer, some inmates assaulted him.
The severity of his injuries is that he suffered numerous blows to
his head and body, receiving a large bump on his head, possibly
a concussion, and numerous bruises. Also, one of his fingers
is swollen and discolored and he has pain in his chest and
ribcage. There was blood everywhere from his injuries.

We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI
orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about
his safety. It may be that the attackers, whom Leonard did not
even know, were offered reduced sentences for carrying out this
heinous assault. Since Leonard is up for parole soon, this could be
a conspiracy to discredit a model prisoner. He was placed in solitary
confinement and only given one meal, this is generally done when you
won't name your attackers; incidentally being only given one meal
seriously jeopardizes his health because of his diabetes. Prison
officials refuse to release any info to the family, but they need
to hear from his supporters to protect his safety, as does President
Obama. His attorneys are trying to get calls into him now.

This attack on LP comes on the heels of the FBI's recent letter,
prompting this attack by FBI supporters as an attempt to discredit
LP as a model prisoner. Anyone who has been in the prison system
knows well that if you refuse to name your attackers or file charges
against them, then you lose your status as a victim and/or given
points against your possible parole and labeled as a perpetrator. It
is not uncommon, in fact is quite common for the government to use
Indian against Indian and they still operate under the old adage
"it takes an Indian to catch an Indian". In 1978, they made an
attempt to assassinate him through another Indian man who was also
at Marion prison with LP. But Standing Deer chose to reveal the
plot to him instead of taking his life in exchange FOR A CHANCE
AT FREEDOM. When Standing Deer was released in 2001, he joined
the former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee as a board member. He
also began to speak on Leonard's behalf until his murder six years
ago today. Prior to his murder, Standing Deer confided with close
friends and associates that the same man who visited him in Marion
to assassinate Peltier, had came to Houston, TX and told him that
he had better stay away from Peltier and anything to do with him.

We are aware that currently, the FBI is actively seeking support
for his continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier and also also
seeking support from Native People. So please be aware, and keep
Leonard in your prayers. The FBI is apparently afraid of the impact
we are having. If they will set him up to blemish his record just
before a parole hearing, what will they do when it looks like his
freedom will become a reality? We need to make sure that nothing
happens to him again!

Please write the President, send it priority or registered
mail. Email to Change.gov or email President Obama. Call your
congressional representatives and write letters, not email, to
them. Do what you can to get the word out to insure that LP is
receiving adequate medical attention for his injuries.

I am asking you, supporters of Leonard and advocates of justice at
this time to help. I don't know what else to do. Please Help!

Thank you Betty Peltier-Solano Executive Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

Also call and request Leonard be treated with dignity and
respect. Canaan Federal Prison @ 570-488-8000
Leonard's register number is: 89637-132

Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier

what a difference a day makes

today i spent an hour and a half sitting on the floor in a yoga space, talking about the three tiers of the ancient teachings of yoga: tapas (self-discipline), svadhaya (self-study), isvara pranidhana (surrender to the universe). we also talked about the klesas (causes of human suffering): avidya (ignorance), asmita (egoism), raga (attachment), dvesa (aversion), and abhinivesah (clinging to life).

yesterday i spent an hour and a half in a room dominated by yelling, finger-pointing, and name-calling. it was childish and greedy and selfish. the ego was ruling. a few of us sat quietly, watching, listening, while the egos raged out of control attempting to establish their dominance, their self-importance above all others. the spirit of cooperation was silenced, giving way to a quest for purely material individual gain - the right of the individual at the expense of the collective.

at one point, today, it occurred to me that the trouble with yesterday is that, although i'm actively attempting to practice ahimsa (harmlessness) and to evolve so my spirit can graciously ascend this mortal coil, i'm surrounded by a society filled with individuals who are decidedly not on a similar path.

anitya asuci duhkha anatmasu nitya suci sukha atma khyatih avidya - yoga sutra II-5, as interpreted by BKS Iyengar: mistaking the transient for the permanent, the impure for the pure, pain for pleasure, and that which is not the self for the self: all this is called lack of spiritual knowledge, avidya.

today we talked about death - not in a morbid way, but in an attempt to counter the messages we receive from a predominantly consumerist society that encourages us to deny aging and death and instead offers a superficial promise of eternal youth - if you can afford it. we shared stories of watching friends die, of near-death experiences, of childtime obsessions with death. we talked about the possibility of reincarnation, on this and possibly other planets. we agreed that there is no ultimate knowing in this area, and that it's okay to acknowledge that our feelings and beliefs about the mysterious workings of the universe will ebb and flow throughout the various phases of our lifetime or lifetimes.
klesamulah karmasayah drsta adrsta janma vedaniyah (II-12) - the accumulated imprints of past lives, rooted in afflictions, will be experienced in present and future lives.

i wonder if it's necessary, for my own spiritual growth, to endure days like yesterday. the universe does like to challenge us. do i fail if i choose to remove myself from abusive and venemous situations, rather than staying and confronting the emotions and the physical discomfort that emerges? or is my challenge to learn to walk away from exploitative and offensive situations?

drastrdrsyayoh samyogah heyahetuh (II-17) - the cause of pain is the association or identification of the seer (atma) with the seen (prakrti) and the remedy lies in their disassociation.

the questions are many, the answers .... not always simple.

oh, bombs a-bursting in air

i wish i could jump on the obama bandwagon, i really do.  it's very cool that a man of african american heritage has replaced that slimy little goofball and some of his evil friends.

obama seems very adept at winning over the right-wing.  he's appointed several of them not only to advise him, but to occupy positions of power.  the bombs continue bursting in air.

when obama appoints ralph nader, and/or sister cynthia mckinney, then he'll have won my faith and hope, and probably others like me who weren't impressed with the clinton years.

One Vegan's Story

It was 1987, and I was a first year student at De Anza College in California when my environmental/social justice awakening began. Their Liberal Arts degree program got me thinking about evolution, ancient history, and the magical ecological processes of planet Earth. With other concerned students and supportive professors we launched the Green Future Club, hosted a Rainforest Awareness Week, and established an on-campus recycling project that exists to this day. I gave up my traditional Alberta raised, British parent influenced meat centred diet, learned to soak beans and spice tofu, and reveled in my new ‘direct action’ veggie lifestyle.

Years later, still studying, still living in poverty, I was searching for affordable accommodation in Victoria. I found an opportunity with a compromise attached – the animal rights occupant insisted on a vegan flat-mate. What the heck, I thought, it’s time for the next phase of my personal evolutionary growth. Who knew the rather enormous learning curve involved in living without any animal products at all! I’m now adept at reading labels, scanning websites for hidden animal products in products from soap to dental floss to beer and wine. I’ve never been physically healthier, or more spiritually self-satisfied.

As mainstream corporate culture catches up with the awareness that scientists and informed citizens have been broadcasting for years, decades, about our need to make more environmentally friendly lifestyle choices, I’m eternally grateful to those who helped me learn, and think, and live as gently as possible on this beautiful planet. I hope this story, and the information that follows, inspires you to consider ways you can live a healthier and environmentally gentler lifestyle – for the good of all.

Beyond Carbon … What’s Your Methane Footprint?

Though some continue to dispute it, the reality of the global climate crisis is now common knowledge. Phrases like ‘greenhouse gases’, and ‘carbon footprint’ are an integral part of our common lexicon. The discussion has shifted from whether we ought to act, to determining our best strategies. While mainstream discussions often focus on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, other environmentally minded folk are considering the impact of our collective methane (CH4) footprint.

Basic Methane Facts

Methane is the main component in natural gas, and can be burned as fuel for heating, cooking, and transportation. Because it’s commonly found throughout the solar system, NASA is considering methane as a potential rocket fuel.

Along with carbon dioxide, and some fluorinated gases, methane was an important part of the 2005 Kyoto Protocol discussion.1 Based on the amount of warming it causes, and the amount in the atmosphere, methane is considered the number two greenhouse gas.2 Over a hundred year time period, methane emissions have 25 times more impact on temperature than carbon dioxide emissions of the same mass.3”

Methane is produced by coalmining, landfills, decaying organic waste, and wastewater sludge, but animal agriculture is the number one source of emissions at 100 million tons per year.4 Interestingly, about 16% of the world’s annual methane emissions are the result of cow burps.5 As cows digest their food, microorganisms break down the fibers and other nutrients. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide are released, and bacteria transform these into methane, up to 100 gallons of it per cow per day. The cows get rid of it mainly by burping.6

Capturing livestock methane

Ranchers and feedlot owners across America are working to capture livestock methane. “Energy recovery from methane, where economically viable, is of considerable benefit to the environment.”7 A New Jersey landfill has been collecting methane since 2001 and currently generates about 13 megawatts of electricity, enough for about 13,000 homes for a year.8

In Argentina, researchers are managing cow burps by reducing grains, instead feeding alfalfa and other plants that are easier to digest. In an attempt to capture remaining cow burps, big red plastic tanks are strapped to the cow’s backs, with tubes connecting the tanks to the cows’ stomachs.9

Reducing your Methane Foodprint

Vegetarians, and especially vegans, sometimes marvel at the lengths people will go in order to protect their ‘right’ to consume animals. While methane capturing technology may prove useful in some instances, livestock methane can practically be eliminated with a simple paradigm shift – to a plant based diet.

In the 70s Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess distinguished between ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ ecology. While shallow ecologists search for ‘environmentally friendly’ ways to live without significantly changing our often elaborate lifestyles, deep ecologists recognize the inherent value of all living beings and shape environmental policies accordingly. Deep ecologists “are motivated by love of nature as well as for humans. They recognize that we cannot go on with industrialism's ‘business as usual.’”10

There are many reasons, aside from reducing greenhouse gases, to consider a plant based diet

Leaders pledged, at the 1995 World Food Summit, to cut global hunger and extreme poverty in half by 201511 but, while world meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years, approximately 840 million (about 14%) of earth’s human population are still undernourished.12 The fact is, there are currently 3.5 times more livestock than humans on the planet - about 21 billion livestock animals which are, every day, consuming grains and cereals that might be fed to humans.13 “In 1900 just over 10% of the total grain grown worldwide was fed to animals; by 1950 this figure had risen to over 20%; by the late 1990s it stood at around 45%.”14

While 1.5 billion people have no access to clean drinking water,15 about 70% of fresh water resources are diverted specifically for agriculture.16 According to Professor David Pimentel at Cornell University, 500 litres of water are needed to produce 1kg of potatoes, 900 litres per kg of wheat, 3,500 litres per kg of digestible chicken flesh and 100,000 litres for 1kg of beef.17

In addition to inadequate food distribution systems, current methods of global food production also play a significant role in the continuing global food crisis. The industrial world exports grain to ‘developing’ countries, where an “efficient, plant-based agricultural model is being replaced with intensive livestock rearing, which also pollutes the air and water and renders the once-fertile land dead and barren.”18


Health Considerations of a plant based diet

A Science Advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research reports "the vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented simply by adopting a plant-based diet.”19 We also know that the risk of death from heart disease for vegetarians is half that of non-vegetarians, and vegetarians have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, kidney disease, obesity, and colon disease.20 And let’s not forget that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, first surfaced in England in 1986, with the most recent case in Canada reported in February 2008.21

It’s easy to attain all the necessary vitamins and minerals from a plant based diet. The Vegetarian Society of England reports “excess dietary protein may lead to health problems … one of the benefits of a vegetarian diet is that it contains adequate but not excessive protein … it would be very difficult to design a vegetarian diet that is short on protein.”22

Some vegans supplement their diets with vitamins and minerals including B12, iron, and calcium. There’s plenty of good information available about how to live a healthy vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, and lots of people, including professional athletes, are doing it.

Animal Rights Reasons to consider a plant based diet
John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and Healthy at 100, suggests it’s time to consider the impact of living alongside six billion others. “I just don't see any way that free range grass-fed beef can be anything other than a food for the privileged. It's just too resource intensive. If there were fewer of us, then I could see how it would work. But I can't turn my back on the literally billions of us who are hungry. …. We can't continue to exploit the Earth, we've got to protect it and preserve it.”23

George Monbiot, in a Guardian article titled Why vegans were right all along, concluded “as a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorise veganism as a response to animal suffering or a health fad … it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue. We stuff ourselves, and the poor get stuffed."24

Lee Hall, Legal Director with Friends of Animals, believes “the life of the vegetarian is direct action. It is direct action for environmental justice. It is direct action for global food security, and thus for world peace. It is direct action for the liberation of other animals. The vegetarian addresses the most urgent social justice issues, and works not at the branches, but at the roots.”25

Conclusion

A 2005 University of Chicago study, which examined both direct and indirect emissions gases (i.e., CO2 emissions due to fossil fuel combustion, and methane and nitrous oxide CO2-equivalent emissions due to animal-based food production), finds “a person consuming a mixed diet with the mean American caloric content and composition causes the emissions of 1,485 kg CO2-equivalent above the emissions associated with consuming the same number of calories, but from plant sources. Far from trivial, nationally this difference amounts to over 6% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. We conclude by briefly addressing the public health safety of plant-based diets, and find no evidence for adverse effects.”26

From various perspectives, it’s clear that a plant based diet is healthier for individuals and for the planet overall. Of course there are those in unique circumstances who will disagree for various reasons, but the time is now to engage the dialogue, do the research, and consider that direct action to save the world is as close as your next meal.

Resources
1 http://www.alternate-energy-sources.com/kyoto-treaty.html
2 http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/oct/25/co-2-gases-fuel-climate-fears
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#cite_ref-4
4 http://earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm
5 Miller, G. Tyler. Sustaining the Earth: An Integrated Approach. U.S.A.: Thomson Advantage Books, 2007. 160. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
6 http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0816/p13s01-sten.html
7 http://www.tva.gov/greenpowerswitch/landfill.htm
8 New Jersey Landfills Capture The Methane They Produce, Turn It Into Energy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/new-jersey-landfills-capt_n_138076.html
9 http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/cow-burps-climate.php
10 http://www.deepecology.org/movement.htm
11 FAO, 'The State of Food Insecurity in the World' 2002; republished at www.vegansociety.com/environment/land
12 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Agricultural Data 2002 www.fao.org; republished at www.vegansociety.com/environment/land
13 ibid.
14 Prof. V. Smil, 'Rationalizing Animal Food Production,' in Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, MIT Press, London, 2000; republished at www.vegansociety.com/environment/land
15 www.blueplanetproject.net/documents/RTW_handbill.pdf
16 FAO, Review of agricultural water use per country www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw/aquastat/water_use/index.stm; republished at www.vegansociety.com/environment/water
17 R. Goodland & D. Pimentel, 'Sustainability and Integrity in the Agriculture Sector,' Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation and Health, D. Pimentel, L. Westra, R. F. Noss (eds), Island Press, 2000; republished at www.vegansociety.com/environment/water
18 http://www.all-creatures.org/tytt/env-animalag.html
19 T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., Senior Science Advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research; republished at madcowboy.com
20 Virginia Messina, coauthor of the American Dietetic Association position paper on vegetarian diets, Messina, Mark, and Messina, Virginia, The Dietician's Guide To Vegetarian Diets: Issues and Applications, Aspen Publishers, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 1996, pg. 58; republished at madcowboy.com
21 www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23360165
22 www.vegsoc.org/info/protein.html
23 http://www.healthyat100.org/display.asp?catid=6,28&pageid=168_live_where_our_ecological_footprint_is_lighter.
24 George Monbiot, "Why Vegans Were Right All Along," Guardian Unlimited, 24 Dec. 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/dec/24/christmas.famine
25 “Bringing Social Justice to the Table” - http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/Hall0727.htm
26 “Diet, Energy, and Global Warming” - geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutriEI.pdf

a note from the author --- i busted my ass researching and writing this article when it can all be summed up in just a few words: it's better, all around, to remove oneself from the non-human holocaust that's occurring. a big thank you to delores, from the watershed sentinel, for agreeing it'd be an interesting article to create. i learned a lot in the process. to be good and clear about all the factoids, i think it's fair to let you know that delores chose to publish an edited version, including a first draft, and she forwarded this note:

Hey Janine –w e were doing a fact check on your article and found this to be in error, Just FYI : “Livestock production contributes to climate change, with fossil fuel consumption being the main factor. It is also the main source of man-made methane gas which is released by sheep, cattle and goats.” Not – it’s 15% of anthropomorphic methane.

Cheers,
D

Delores Broten,
Editor, Watershed Sentinel,
PO Box 1270, Comox BC V9M 7Z8
Ph: 250-339-6117

www.watershedsentinel.ca

Shame! Canada's Singular Support of Israel's Crimes at the United Nations Human Rights Commission

by C. L. Cook

It begins with the lies told a supine and disinterested populace; big lies are best, history advises if you are to commit big crimes. From the lie come the policies, rationalized by the lie, and codified by the lie's repetition. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth we're informed.

But there comes a point where the lies cannot bear the light of truth, and Canada is coming to just such an unearthing of the ugly truth behind its present masters' ethical bankruptcy.

Monday January 12, 2009 saw Canada's government, as represented by Stephen Harper's minority Tories, stand in defense of the mighty in the form of Israel's military machine, currently chewing up the near defenseless Palestinians trapped in Gaza.

True to form, Canada's monopolist media uttered hardly a word about this disgraceful abrogation of the precepts of human rights, often espoused as the founding principles of Canada. For millions of Canadians, the news of what "their" country has come to represent is yet not known.

The truth of its cowardly refusal to condemn, as did 33 other members of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Israel's grotesque and wanton slaughter of the innocents of Gaza and the rest of remnant Palestine in their hundreds, maiming thousands more, and rendering tens of thousands shelterless in the teeth of winter brings an end to the comfortable lie: Canada cares about human dignity and the rights accorded to humans as basic principles, as so ceremoniously signed by it in declaration after declaration at the United Nations.

On January 12, 2009, Canada stood alone among the 47 nations of the U.N.H.R.C., 33 of those desperate to see an end to Israel's bombardment of the trapped population of the Gaza Strip, in opposition to that body's resolution of condemnation of Israel's actions these last terrible weeks.

Surrounded by eight meter high walls on three sides, and the deep blue sea on the fourth, Palestinians, civilians and officials of the hated Hamas government alike, have no place of refuge to run to within the oldest refugee camp in the world. Overhead, helicopter gunships, aerial drones, and F-16 fighter jets wheel and turn, spitting fire and steel into the single-most densely peopled area on the planet.

Watching the horror recorded through telephoto lenses from the safety of the Israeli-claimed territory beyond the concrete and razor wire girding Gaza, the Canadian government still assumes the Israeli Defense Force line, which states: Those being slaughtered pose an existential threat to the survival of Israel.

And so, the slaughter must not be halted, nor even criticized for the abomination it clearly is. Is there a single word in the entirety of the english lexicon to describe this craven disregard of humanity and abandonment of morality?

Obscenity hardly describes it fully, but obscene it certainly is.

Standing in for Israel and the United States, neither of which having a seat on the human rights commission, Canada did its yeoman service to the two most profligate abusers of human rights and dignity, as it did during the equally criminal destruction of southern Lebanon in 2006. Like that not prosecuted war crime, Israel is deploying both banned and experimental weapons against the civilians in Gaza. Today, (Jan. 14, 2009) reports coming from the region estimate more than 1,000 dead, with fully a third of those being children.

This despicable and savage campaign, unabashedly supported by Canada's quisling Harper minority government, (as was the outrage in Lebanon in 2006) is a stain on Canada's hard won respect on the world stage as a champion for human rights and justice. It brings this nation down to the sub-moral level of "great friends" Israel, and its primary sponsor and weapons supplier the United States of America; both criminals whose depravity is without historical precedent.

For Canadians, the cowardly and grim distinction Monday's vote represents should serve as a moment of national reflection, a time for we as a people comprised of peoples from the world over to consider what kind of country we wish to create in this already too bloody young 21st Century. It is, as Barak Obama might say, a much needed "teaching moment" for a country that has lost its way, mired in one war of aggression and occupation, and supporting two others.

Jews in Solidarity with Palestine

Stop the U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli war on Gaza!

Sign the Statement
View list of Signers
Donate

 Nearly a thousand women, men and children killed by U.S.-made Israeli bombs
 Thousands more wounded
 1.5 million under siege for the past 18 months, without food, water, medicine, fuel
 Collective punishment for resisting occupation; emergency aid blocked
 Massive violations of international law
 Apartheid wall
 Racist oppression
 Homes and land stolen
 Forced into refugee camps
 60 years of occupation, from the river to the sea

We Say Enough!

We Are Jews in Solidarity with Palestine

No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!

The whole world is horrified by the murderous Israeli assault against the suffering people of Gaza. From Seoul to Caracas, from Johannesburg to Amman to London, millions of people have poured into the streets to demand an end to this genocidal campaign, which is funded by the United States and carried out with U.S.-supplied weaponry.

There have also been protests in U.S. cities. While most of those marching are Arab-Americans, many African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites have joined in. Many Jewish people, outraged at Israel's war crimes and anguished that they are carried out in their name, are speaking out.

It's good that Jewish people of conscience are disassociating themselves from the Gaza aggression. But it's not enough. This atrocity is only the latest, and it's no aberration. It reflects the program of the Israeli settler state which is based on the theft of Palestine, the ouster and suppression of the Palestinian people, and the racist ideology of Zionism and of its primary sponsor, the Pentagon and U.S. business establishment.

It's not enough to oppose the bombing. It's not enough to demand an end to the 41-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We stand in complete and unconditional support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to return to Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the right to democratically determine the form and the future of the Palestinian state.

Nothing less will undo the historic crime of al Nakba - the 1948 catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel based on the ouster of the Palestinian people from their homeland, oppression and inequality.

That crime betrayed the whole history of the Jewish people. From helping topple the czar in Russia and build the unions in New York, to resisting pogroms and fighting to the last breath in the Warsaw Ghetto, opposition to persecution, oppression and racism was central to the Jewish heritage.

We call on Jewish people around the world, including those inside Israel, to join us in reclaiming that heritage. Reject racism and genocide. Reject the Zionist state, the very concept of which is racist to the core. Take the hand of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Defend their righteous struggle to restore their stolen land and build a democratic Palestine.

This is not an impossible quest. Remember how mighty the settler state in South Africa seemed, only a little over two decades ago? The racist regime there was buttressed by U.S.˜and Israeli˜support. But it was battered by the unstoppable political and military struggle against apartheid, which gained worldwide support. Apartheid fell, replaced by a new state based on legal equality.

A future of equality for all is possible in Palestine too. Until this future is won, the Palestinian struggle will go on. We stand with that struggle.

Initial list of signers:

Toni Arenstein, NY
Dave Axelrod, NJ
Tibby Brooks, NY
Ellen Catalinotto, NY
Sara Catalinotto, NY
Hillel Cohen, Doctor of Public Health, NY
Naomi Cohen, NY
Heather Cottin, Long Island Troops Out Now Coalition, NY
Barbara Dorritie, Teacher, MA
Ellie Dorritie, ret., APWU*, WNY
Rachel Duell, prof., NJ
K. E. Durkin, NY
Sharon Eolis, nurse-practitioner, ret., NY
Shelley Ettinger, NY
Leslie Feinberg, Co-founder, Rainbow Flags for Mumia, NY
Irving Fierstein, artist, NY
Laurie Fierstein, NY
Michele Finkelman, AFSCME L. 215*, NY
Sherry Finkelman, UFT L. 2*, NY
Julie Fry, V-P., Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*, NY
Gavrielle Gemma, NJ
Michael Gimbel, del., NYC Central Labor Council*
Carl Glenn, NJ
Jerome Goldberg, attorney. MI
Marsha Goldberg, NY
Fred Goldstein. NY
Lila Goldstein, Students for Justice for Palestine*, MA
Judy Greenspan, CA
Sue Harris, Ph.D., NY
Joyce Kanowitz, NY
Stevan Kirschbaum, chair, Grievance Comm., USW L. 8751*, MA
Tova Klein, CA
Michael Kramer, I.D.F. veteran, Veterans for Peace, Chap. 021*, NJ
Donna Lazarus, UFT*, NJ
Milt Neidenberg, ret., Teamsters L. 840*, NJ
Frank Neisser, CWA L. 1701, ret.*, MA
Cornelia Rakow, NY
Arthur Rosen, NY
Anita Rosenblithe, AFT*, NY
Malcolm Sacks, Montreal
William Sacks, attorney, NY
Karina Mellos-Schechter. NY
Dave Schechter, NY
Susan Schnur, Transit Union L. 268*, OH
J.R. Singer, Ph.D., NY
David Sole, Pres., UAW L. 2334*, MA
Al Strasburger, NJ
Paul Teitelbaum, International Action Center, AZ
Jill White, EdD, IL
Eddie Yood, NY

*For purposes of identification only.

Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
Action.News-subscribe@organizerweb.com

Subscribing and unsubscribing can also be done on the Web

From: Actioncenter@action-mail.org

Keren Levy, Realtor : A Little Bit Fascist

From the hill tops Israelis follow the bombardment of Gaza, while enjoying soft drinks and snacks ....

Bear Mtn Sold to Dubai? (and more)

from Zoe .....

Quick news roundup: It's reported that Len Barrie has sold Bear Mountain Resort to a Dubai real estate group. Also, the interchange site is flooding badly, and we're celebrating "The Joy of Dissent" in Victoria on Friday, Feb. 13. Here's the details.

Rumours have been flying for months, and there's no official confirmation, but The Sports Network reports: "Sources tell TSN Len Barrie has sold Bear Mountain, a golf and real estate development in British Columbia, for $500 million to a group from Dubai. The enormous sale is expected to close in mid-February." The Times Colonist adds: "Barrie was unavailable for comment."

In 2006, Barrie outraged people across BC when he approved the destruction of a sacred First Nations cave to build a golf course at his resort in Langford, on Vancouver Island. A second sacred cave was filled with concrete in 2008 when the city began building an overpass to connect Highway 1 with Bear Mountain Parkway. Thousands of people petitioned, rallied, and occupied trees near the second cave, but a massive police raid on February 13, 2008, cleared the protestors out and cordoned off the area while all the trees were cut down.

Today, massive flooding downstream from the overpass construction zone seems to indicate that engineers shouldn't try to outsmart Mother Nature. Water pouring down from Skirt mountain overflowed drainage pits in the wetlands between the highway and Spencer's Pond, drowning many of the remaining large hemlocks and the baby firs planted to partially replace the former forest. The water is cloudy from construction zone runoff, especially from the on and off ramps made of fill dirt half a kilometer long and up to 50 feet high - and the silt is likely to choke the red-legged frogs and tree frogs that live and breed in Spencer's Pond. The rest of Langford has mostly dried out from this week's floods, but the lake along the highway has nowhere to go. The entire basin - about half a kilometer square - is under many meters of muddy water.

The prevailing opinion is that Langford and Bear Mountain "won" the battle for the interchange. If true, it's a bitter victory, given that both have dug themselves a massive financial hole in the midst of an economic meltdown. For one thing, all construction has stopped on the
mountain "indefinitely" and many hundreds of people have been laid off. In any case, I don't agree that they "won." The tree sit crew and our thousands of supporters never conceded defeat, and there are still more sacred sites to protect on that mountain.

For the anniversary of the police raid at Langford Lake Cave, we're celebrating the unbeatable spirit of the tree sit and the incredible energy and unity of this movement. Please join us February 13 as we kick off "The Joy of Dissent," a series of events, music, discussions and stimulating multimedia, looking back at the past year and ahead to 2010.

The Joy of Dissent
Friday, February 13, Camas Books (2590 Quadra St, Victoria)
5 pm - potluck with Food Not Bombs
Celebration of the Bear Mountain Tree Sit and The Joy of Dissent
6 pm - The Stimulator, Live!
Frank "The Stimulator" Lopez of subMedia.tv discusses "Media Activism in a Police State" and fills us in on how he got the story, and got away with it too. Find out why we're recruiting "video ninjas" to report on the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
7 pm - "Ground Noise & Static," subMedia and PepperSpray Productions' video about the crackdown on dissent at the Republican and Democratic National Convention (30 minutes) followed by more discussion. http://submedia.tv
8 pm - Live Beats and Jams with the Outspoken Wordsmiths, dancing and socializing 'til 11 pm. (More details to be announced.)

Plus - retro bike auction, 50/50 draw, fine art raffle and lots more!
All ages - accessible - admission by donation. Proceeds benefit subMedia and Forest Action Network.

Thanks to everyone for your unbeatable help!

For the frogs,
Zoe

More info:
http://treesit.blogspot.com
http://www.spencerspond.ca
http://forestaction.ca

editor's note: as far as i know, ingmar lee and the bare mountain bonanza mining corporation still own the mineral rights .... see video ....

Gaza for Palestinians Rally Jan 09

US and Israel Targeting DNA in Gaza?

DIME Bomb: Yet another genotoxic weapon ::
by James Brooks
(Monday, December 4, 2006)
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/38389

"This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims?"

It’s been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been dropping a “mystery weapon” on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run stories depicting the strange and “horrific” wounds inflicted by the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics who say Israel’s new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks. [1][2]

In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of US “counterinsurgency warfare”. Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). [3]

DIME is an LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic).[4-11]

It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel’s new weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people—reason enough for the media to suppress it. [12]

Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have introduced Americans to their government’s DIME weapons program. This three-part article will ask whether Israel is ‘testing’ US DIME bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and projected use of DIME weapons and their roots in depleted uranium (DU) research. These parallels will lead us to consider DIME in its historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military’s long-running development of genotoxic weapons.

“They cannot return to life again”

The first reports about ‘Israel’s new weapon’ came from Dr Joma Al-Saqqa, chief of the emergency unit at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using “a new ‘chemical’ weapon” and its siege was “a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200.” He observed that, “despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body.”[13]

“There were usually entry and exit wounds,” Dr. Al-Saqqa reported. “When the wounds were explored no foreign material was found. There was tissue death, the extent of which was diff icult to determine….A higher deep infection rate resulted with subsequent amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher mortality.” The effects of the weapon seemed “radioactive”. [14][15]

According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa “confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again.”[16]

“When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues around the bones…it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon.”[17]

However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre wounds. On the first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had conveniently destroyed Gaza’s only criminal laboratory. [18]

Despite his pleas to the “international community” to investigate and lend assistance in treating the victims, “no one has lifted a finger”, the doctor was quoted in mid-July. “What we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community, nothing.” [19]

On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-Saqqa’s hospital, “where the staff is struggling to deal with wounds resulting in an unusually high number of amputations.” Commissioner AbuZayd commented that “what we saw in Al-Shifa...was rather horrific.” [20]

According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), “75 per cent of war-wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed amputations” following an Israeli attack on Gaza City. [21]

The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an investigation into the injuries. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel “agreed to take away fragments of tissue from the bodies of Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza for possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an international investigation.” [22]

Tungsten in Tissue Samples: A DIME Weapon?

On October 19, Italy’s Rai24news televised an investigative report that supplied crucial new information. The Italian investigators had tissue samples from the victims in Gaza analyzed by Dr. Carmela Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr. Vaccaio reportedly found “a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials, such as copper, aluminum and tungsten.” The doctor concluded that her "findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME."

Rai24news reporters also talked to Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel, former chief of the IDF's weapons development program. General Ben-Israel appeared to be familiar with DIME weapons. He explained that, "one of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons." [23]

The US Air Force refers to this emerging realm of weaponry as FLM (Focused Lethality Munitions). FLM is expected to provide the ‘weapons of choice’ for targeting “terrorists hiding among civilians”, as a cheerleading Wall Street Journal article put it. [24]

With “focused lethality [and] higher energy materials...nano particles, intelligent fuzing, [and] mass focus lethality”, the Air Force “will be able to strike effectively, wherever and whenever necessary, with minimal collateral damage.” Ominously, the military thinks these weapons will allow it to target sites "previously off limits to the warfighter." [25][26]

This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims? These disturbing questions will be explored in the next installment of this article.

“Horrific” wounds in Gaza may be warfare of the future

In early July, shortly after the beginning of Israel’s bloody military siege of the Gaza Strip, reports began to appear that Israeli forces were using a new weapon that inflicted strange and untreatable wounds, and significantly increased the death tolls of Israel’s attacks. [27][28]

Italian investigators have reported evidence that the unidentified Israeli weapon is probably Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME, a so-called LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed by the United States Air Force. [29]

DIME bombs blast a superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA). Studies indicate that HMTA embedded in the body disrupts biochemistry and rapidly causes cancer. Like depleted uranium (DU), HMTA is genotoxic—it is capable of inflicting genetic mutations. [30-36]

Publicly slated for deployment in 2008, DIME bombs are small but unusually powerful. Their carbon fiber casings make “more of the blast energy…available as blast as opposed to being absorbed in [a] steel case". The carbon reportedly breaks into “thousands of harmless fibers” to prevent unintended casualties from casing shrapnel. [37]

The ‘footprint’ of the DIME blast is much smaller than a conventional bomb’s, because gravity and air resistance quickly drag the dense, finely powdered “micro-shrapnel” to the ground. The blast radius is reportedly as small as 25 feet. [38][39]

DIME is part of the Air Force’s Focused Lethality Munitions (FLM) program, which is expected to “allow” the targeting of “terrorists” wherever they are, even in places "previously off limits to the warfighter." [40]

The ideal of FLM is to reliably kill every human within the blast zone—one way or another. It is ‘total war’ on a 50-foot circle, within which deaths are not admitted as collateral, but purchased as insurance.

Israel’s new weapon “slices” off its victims’ legs, leaving “signs of heat and burns near the point of the amputation”. It’s “as if a saw was used to cut through the bone”, according to Dr. Habas al-Wahid, head of the ER at Gaza’s Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital. [41]

Viewing photographs of the living and dead Palestinian victims of this device, many of whom are children, we notice patches of darkened but unburned skin, possibly where metal powder was driven into and/or through the skin by blast force. A child's torso is peppered with holes, some of which, judging from doctors’ reports, probably tunnel through to exit wounds in the back. The skin and muscle of one victim is ripped into a blood-encrusted pulp, as if blasted at close range with tiny birdshot. Some of the corpses are unrecognizable. Most of the recent photos of “strange” wounds from Gaza appear to be consistent with what is known about DIME weapons. [42]

The area of a DIME blast should be treated with caution until it has been decontaminated (assuming this is possible). Depending on the local HMTA concentration, soil in the blast area may remain barren for an indefinite period of time, or it may grow plants internally contaminated with HMTA. [43][44]

The “who knew?” charade

In the scientific literature on tungsten and its alloys, the toxicity of HMTA stands apart. This formula (roughly 9 parts tungsten and one part nickel and cobalt or iron) damages DNA even when powders of the metals are simply mixed together. [30][31][35]

Implanting four tiny bits of weapons-grade HMTA in lab mice induced terminal cancer in 100 percent of the subjects. A powdered HMTA recipe was tumor-generating and capable of “genotoxic effects”. At least one experiment found parallels in the way DU and HMTA attack DNA. The results of another suggested that HMTA may pass its genetic damage down to the next generation. [34][31][35][36]

HMTA may be much more carcinogenic than DU when it is embedded in the body—as intended. “Tumors developed rapidly” in rats implanted with pellets of HMTA, but researchers “did not observe tumor formation in the DU-implanted rats.”

Multiple syndromes of heavy metal poisoning have also been attributed to this alloy, including polycythemia, which can be induced by cobalt overdose. Because HMTA contains far too little cobalt to cause the disease by itself, researchers suspected a synergistic effect among or between the metals. [34]

In a 2005 article reviewing the “status of health concerns” about depleted uranium and “surrogate metals” such as HMTA, three scientists at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) wrote that “medical and political controversies surrounding the use of DU” had spurred “a search for substitute metals in armor-penetrating munitions.” [45]

“[N]ew alloys of tungsten/nickel/cobalt and tungsten/nickel/iron…rival DU in armor-penetrating performance”, and are “among the leading candidates to replace DU in selected munitions”. Some of this ordnance “has already been deployed, although on a relatively small scale.”

The article then reviews the science detailing the alarming health risks of HMTA, much of it conducted by the authors, whom we thank for their work. It then attempts to explain how the military’s favorite “surrogate metal” turned out to be almost as genotoxic as DU, and probably more carcinogenic:

“In many ways the development of substitutes for DU in munitions has followed a pattern similar to that for DU deployment, in that incomplete toxicological information was available prior to their release…it was assumed that many years of industrial use of tungsten and alloys such as tungsten carbide…meant they could be used as safely in armaments.”

We infer that it was reasonable for the military to deploy DU weapons, because the toxicological information was “incomplete”. It’s a strange scientific rigor that requires us to know exactly how a known poison works before we stop giving it to people.

The cold fact is that there never was a scientifically valid reason to “assume” that depleted uranium could be used “safely in armaments”. Quite the opposite; as we shall see in part three, the Army realized more than 60 years ago that finely powdered uranium products could make extremely potent antipersonnel weapons. [46]

We currently have “incomplete toxicological information” about HMTA, but for more than fifteen years we have had clear warnings about the health risks of combining these metals. US weapons scientists should have known as early as 1992 that mixing cobalt with tungsten could greatly increase the resulting alloy’s cancer potential. [47][48]

It is hardly news that nickel is carcinogenic and genotoxic, and specialists have long noted that heavy metal alloys tend to unpredictably amplify the toxicities of their component metals. With this kind of “incomplete” information at hand, could military scientists have reasonably “assumed” that nickel would be a “safe” addition to HMTA?

Concerns have been voiced about tungsten sport ammunition for several years. Tungsten alloy bullets, some also containing nickel and cobalt (for superior hardness), were found to pose potential environmental hazards in several studies. A probable link between industrial tungsten and leukemia has been identified. Compared to these findings, however, the toxicity of HMTA may be of a different order. [43][44]

The “who knew?” apologia offered by the AFRRI researchers asks us to assume that the scientists who developed DIME weapons proceeded in sheer ignorance of the existing science. They were so incompetent that they merely “assumed” that they could use any tungsten alloy.

Does this implausibility jibe with the rest of the picture? A multi-billion dollar military weapons program is stung by the “controversies” surrounding its toxic DU-uranium weapons, and is under pressure to produce an expedient alternative. Would this program’s scientists have been allowed to be so cavalier about consulting the literature? Would the replacement metal be chosen on blind faith, without bothering to conduct even simple studies of its potential health impacts?

Logically, we must conclude that the military developed HMTA in the knowledge that it could have significant carcinogenic and genotoxic effects. Did they “assume” that saying “tungsten is safer than DU” would take care of the matter?

Perhaps relatively non-toxic tungsten carbide, famed for its hardness and cutting ability, would not have sufficed for the purposes of the DIME bomb. Focused Lethality Munitions like DIME must kill all of their victims. Slicing off their arms and legs is not enough.

The last installment of this article will trace the roots of HMTA in depleted uranium and decades of US warfare with poisonous, DNA-damaging powders. Then we will return to Gaza to consider the damage done, and the damage to come, if the warmakers have their way.

The human genome: target or innocent bystander?

Since early July, Israeli forces have been using a new weapon in the Gaza Strip that inflicts strange and deadly wounds. Doctors and medics say the unidentified device has significantly increased fatalities from Israel’s attacks. [49][50]

In the first two parts of this article we reviewed evidence that Israel’s new weapon may be Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a “low collateral damage” weapon developed by the US Air Force. The DIME bomb’s “micro-shrapnel” is reportedly made of HMTA, a tungsten alloy that disrupts body biochemistry, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic). [51-56]

The Road to DIME

DIME weapons are "spin-offs" from the military’s “bunker buster” research. Initially, “bunker busters” were made with depleted uranium (DU), which had already been used in armor-piercing bombs, bullets, and artillery shells. [57]

The former director of the US Army’s Depleted Uranium project, Dr. Douglas Rokke, warns us that DU is an “illegal…radioactive toxic material”, the use of which “is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity.” [58]

During Gulf War I, US forces deployed more than 300 tons of DU in Iraq. A few years later, more was dropped during Operation Desert Fox. Iraqi doctors reported alarming rises in the incidence of cancer, leukemia, and birth defects, in clusters closely correlated with US bombsites. Scientists found strong links between DU and Gulf War Syndrome, which is slowly killing thousands of veterans. [59-61]

Despite the science, the vets, and the tragedies in Iraq, the US has stubbornly refused to end its use of DU. US-UK forces may have expended more than 2000 additional tons of DU in Iraq since March 2003. Nowadays, however, commanders are supposed to warn GIs to avoid contact with the results of their work. [62]

After the 2001-2002 bombing of Afghanistan, the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) found that the urine of Afghanis living near US bombing sites contained 4 to 20 times the normal level of non-depleted uranium (NDU). These unexpected results could not “be explained by…any known geological or other features in the area.”

UMRC researchers were “shocked” that, “without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill…[with] symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium.” [63]

Their field results indicated that our weapons scientists had “progressed” beyond DU to NDU, a processed form of pure uranium that is even more toxic than the depleted form. The “slightly enriched” uranium reported from recent Israeli bombsites in Lebanon may possibly be NDU from modified GBU 28 ‘bunker busters’ supplied by the United States. [64][65]

Dual-Purpose Munitions

Considering the scope of their destructive power, DU and NDU may be said to function as Dual-Purpose Munitions, like cluster bomblets that kill both tanks and people. As their exotic metallurgy “burns” through concrete and steel, DU and NDU bombs are converted to micron-sized particles that sicken and kill and murder the next generation in the womb. [66][67]

Agent Orange, an herbicide heavily used during the war on Vietnam, also performed two functions. It obliterated the ‘jungle cover hiding the Viet Cong’ while it ‘weakened the enemy’ with burns, illness, and death, and corrupted the DNA of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. The third generation of its disfigured and suffering victims is now being born. [68][69]

This madness seems to have begun during World War II, within the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. In a 1943 memo to Brigadier General L. R. Groves, three researchers proposed steps to develop:

“a gas warfare instrument” [of radioactive material, such as uranium] “ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke….in this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty.” [70]

The good doctors were concerned the Germans might be preparing such a weapon. They urged the Army to be ready to respond, or act, in kind. General Groves promptly followed their recommendations.

The toxic HMTA “micro-shrapnel” spewed by DIME weapons appears to be the latest development in a long string of carcinogenic and genotoxic weapons developed and deployed by the US military.

Return to Gaza: The mythology of murder

Israel has denied using DIME weapons. Nonetheless, Israel’s military has used the occupied Palestinian territories as a weapons development zone for decades, testing bright ideas like depleted uranium and poison gases. It would not surprise us to find that it is now testing a weapon for the US Air Force on Palestinians in Gaza. [71]

Unfortunately, the DIME hypothesis is the most plausible explanation for the grotesque effects of Israel’s new weapon. We can only pray that we have not witnessed the first experiment in the effects of embedded HMTA in human subjects.

Still, DIME may not explain all of the evidence. For example, one of the metals found in victims’ wounds was copper. DIME bombs are not known to contain significant copper, but another US marvel, the Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW), sprays slugs of molten copper at its targets. Is Israel also testing the SFW? [72][73]
If DIME weapons are designed to reduce civilian casualties, why has Israel’s ‘mystery weapon’ increased the civilian death toll? Perhaps this question should be addressed to the advocates of Focused Lethality Munitions, and to the remote-control operators of Israel’s drone aircraft and their commanders and politicians.

Although much remains unclear about Israel’s new weapon, a few devastating facts are indisputable:

The weapon causes enormous and indiscriminate pain and suffering.

It operates as both a chemical weapon and an anti-personnel explosive. At the very least, it is likely to induce heavy metal poisoning in its surviving victims.

The weapon has significantly increased civilian mortality rates, in part because it inflicts virtually untreatable wounds.

Despite this public parade of horrors, Israeli forces have continued to use this weapon against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for nearly five months.

“Whenever and wherever necessary”

If the DIME hypothesis is confirmed, authorities will probably explain that it is a new class of weapon not regulated by international law. The truth is that existing conventions and treaties have already prohibited some of the most egregious effects of the new weapon.

To cite one example, the bomb may be in direct violation of Protocol I of the 'Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons', which "prohibits the use of any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays." [74]

We will likely be told that DIME weapons provide a more “humane” way to fight “terrorism” by “reducing collateral damage” and “helping US troops win hearts and minds”. At the same time, we’ll be assured that the new weapon “packs quite a punch” and will “give our troops more options” to “take the battle to the enemy”, even if he is “hiding among civilians”.

Whether Israel’s new weapon is the Air Force’s DIME bomb or another similarly dreadful invention, the horrors unfolding in Gaza make it clear that “Focused Lethality” is a blood-drenched lie. It promises only a deadlier form of indiscriminate warfare.

US plans to explode payloads of cancer-causing genotoxic heavy metal powder “wherever and whenever necessary” may portend an escalation of a campaign currently limited to the vicinity of “hard targets” we attack with DU and NDU. Whatever we make of the intent behind these weapons, the habitual result is chemical-genetic warfare. It cannot be allowed to continue.

Notes:

[1]. Palestinian injuries suggest Israel is using chemical weapons in Gaza
Ma'an News, 7/10/2006
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php? opr=ShowDetails&ID=13044
[2]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/
isra-o24.shtml
[3]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894
[4]. Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)
GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/
systems/munitions/dime.htm
[5]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/
query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&
list_uids=11873492&dopt=Abstract
[6]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115
[7]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/
du_library/reports/projects/dod122.htm
[8]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf
[9]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html
[10]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u8830 115617471jl/
[11]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
By Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
http://www.aacrmeetingabstracts.org/cgi/
content/abstract/2006/1/448-b
[12]. If Americans Knew
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
[13]. Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza
By Duraid Al Baik, Centre for Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? context=viewArticle&code=
AL%2020060713&articleId=2730
[14]. Are New Weapons Being Used In Gaza and Lebanon
By David Halpin MB BS FRCS, Electronic Intifada, 8/14/2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5528.
shtml
[15]. Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by Gaza City medical sources
Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2006/
jul/week2/130706/report5.htm
[16]. ibid.
[17]. Doctors Report Unusual Weapon Used in Gaza
Pacifica/Free Speech Radio News 7/11/2006
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/fsrn/
fsrn_060711.html
[18]. Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza
Centre for Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? context=viewArticle&code=
AL%2020060713&articleId=2730
[19]. Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by Gaza City medical sources
Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2006/
jul/week2/130706/report5.htm
[20]. UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd: "Please don't forget what's going on in Gaza"
ReliefWeb/UNRWA, 8/3/2006
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/
db900SID/EVOD-6SBJDR? OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR
[21]. Hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed and running out of supplies
Electronic Intifada/Merlin, 8/8/2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5455.
shtml
[22]. Gaza doctors encounter 'unexplained injuries'
Donald Macintyre, The Independent 9/4/2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/
middle_east/article1359830.ece
[23]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/12/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894
[24]. Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang
By Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06096/679996-84.stm
[25]. Munition Technology Drivers
By Col. Thomas “Mas” Masiell, Air Force Research Laboratory, 12/1/2006
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2001munitions/masiello.pdf
[26]. USAF Unfunded Priority List (UPL)
SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007, February 2006, Page 54
http://wwwd.house.gov/hasc_democrats/
Issues%20109th/unfunded/AF%20UFR%
20FY07.pdf
[27]. Israel accused of using 'Dime' bombs
AlJazeera, 10/13/2006
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
B79DF070-B20C-47A7-A204-
08297E5FC1B2.htm
[28]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/isra-o24.shtml
[29]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894
[30]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.
fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids
=11873492&dopt=Abstract
[31]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115
[32]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_
library/reports/projects/dod122.htm
[33]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf
[34]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html
[35]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
u8830115617471jl/
[36]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
By Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
http://www.aacrmeetingabstracts.org/cgi/
content/abstract/2006/1/448-b
[37]. Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang
By Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06096/679996-84.stm
[38]. Cancer Worries for New U.S. Bombs
DefenseTech.org, 5/20/2006
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/
002434.html
[39]. Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)
GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/
systems/munitions/dime.htm
[40]. USAF Unfunded Priority List (UPL)
SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007, February 2006, Page 54
http://wwwd.house.gov/hasc_democrats/
Issues%20109th/unfunded/AF%20UFR%
20FY07.pdf
[41]. Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=772894
[42]. Effects of Israel's New Weapon
Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel
http://www.vtjp.org/report/neweapon
images.htm
[43]. Possible Health And Environmental Impacts Of Tungsten In Lead Replacement Shot
Paul Harrison and Karen Bradley, MRC Institute for Environment and Health 2005
http://www.defra.gov.uk/ENVIRONMENT/
chemicals/achs/050906/achs0516a.pdf
[44]. Tungsten Effects on Soil Environments
Nikolay Strigul, et al, UMass, Annual International Conference on Soil, Sediments and Water, 10/18/2004
http://www.umasssoils.com/abstracts2004/
Tuesday/trainingranges.htm#Tungsten%
20Effects%20on%20Soil%20Environments
[45]. Status of Health Concerns about Military Use of Depleted Uranium and Surrogate Metals in Armor-Penetrating Munitions
D.E. McClain, A.C. Miller, and J.F. Kalinich, NATO, 2005
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/mcclain_NATO_2005.pdf
[46]. Memorandum to: Brigadier General L. R. Groves From: Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey
Midfully.org/War Department, United States Engineer Office, Manhattan District, Oak Ridge Tennessee, 10/30/1943
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-
Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm
[47]. Abstract: Comparative study of the acute lung toxicity of pure cobalt powder and cobalt-tungsten carbide mixture in rat
Lasfargues G., et al, Toxicology and Applied
Pharmacology, 1992
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt
=5201679
[48]. Evaluation of the role of reactive oxygen species in the interactive toxicity of carbide-cobalt mixtures on macrophages in culture
D. Lison and R. Lauwerys, SpringerLink//Archives of Toxicology, 6/1/1993
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
k2u94u07558q6224/
[49]. Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
By Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, 10/18/2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/
0,,1924675,00.html
[50]. Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza
By Jean Shaoul, Centre for Research on Globalization/wsws.org, 10/24/2006
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/
isra-o24.shtml
[51]. Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.
fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_
uids=11873492&dopt=Abstract
[52]. Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects
Miller, AC, et al
Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/
full/22/1/115
[53]. Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys
Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_
library/reports/projects/dod122.htm
[54]. Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant
alpha particle decay
Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/
pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf
[55]. Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats
Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/
7791/7791.html
[56]. Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2)
By Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
http://www.springerlink.com/content/
u8830115617471jl/
[57]. Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring
By Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006
http://www.aacrmeetingabstracts.org/cgi/
content/abstract/2006/1/448-b
[58]. Cancer Worries for New U.S. Bombs
DefenseTech.org, 5/20/2006
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/
002434.html
[59]. Depleted Uranium and US-Israeli Bombs
By Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD, Media Lens, 7/24/2006
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/
msg/1153759483.html
[60]. Dirty Weapons - Casualties From Iraq War Will Mount
By Chalmers Johnson, Pacific News Service, 5/3/2003
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view
_article.html?article_id=84a8df02a7c1f37
0c5ca152d5ef14d6b
[61]. Uranium Radiation Levels in Afghanistan Not Attributable to Depleted Uranium
Centre for Research on Globalization - Middle East, 6/5/2003
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/
UMR306B.html
[62]. Depleted Uranium Radioactive Contamination In Iraq: An Overview
By Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi, Centre for Research on Globalization - Middle East, 8/31/2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=
AL-20060831&articleId=3116
[63]. Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Lingers as Health Concern
By Larry Johnson, Common Dreams, 8/4/2003
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines
03/0804-04.htm
[64]. Further Evidence Of Enriched Uranium In The Air In Lebanon Following The Recent Conflict
Stop Uranium Wars/Pandora DU research Project, 11/22/2006
http://www.stopuraniumwars.blogspot.com/
[65]. Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, 10/28/2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/
article1935945.ece
[66]. The Real Dirty Bombs: Depleted Uranium
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