More Than One Million Iraqis Killed in U.S. Invasion

This is the top censored story of 2009. The deaths will continue for years to come as people—including American veterans—are sickened by depleted uranium and produce children with birth defects. The maimed veterans will be tossed aside and abused by their own government, and a disproportionate number will become homeless. And to think that it was all based on a lie.

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.

ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.

Read more at Project Censored.

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EPA Head: Lack of Warming Doesn’t Prove Lack of Warming

Double-speak doesn’t get any better than this! Isn’t it interesting that the story says Jackson reasserted her “faith”? Is that what science is about? Faith? Or is faith–dare I ask–what cults are about?

(CNSNews.com) – Fifteen years with no statistically significant increase in global temperatures does not mean that the human race is not causing the climate to change, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told CNSNews.com on Tuesday.

Jackson reasserted her faith in manmade global warming in response to a question from CNSNews.com asking if she agreed with the recent statement by prominent climate scientist Phil Jones that there had been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.

Read more at CNS News.

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Greenspan: Financial Crisis is Worse than Great Depression

Green shoots anyone? As if! The global financial system has broken down systemically.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday the U.S. economic recovery was “extremely unbalanced,” driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.

Small businesses and the jobless are still suffering from the aftermath of a credit crunch that was “by far the greatest financial crisis, globally, ever” — including the 1930s Great Depression, said Greenspan in an address to a Credit Union National Association conference.

Read more at Reuters.

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Judge: The Fourth Amendment is Gone

We’ve known for quite some time that the Fourth Amendment has been invalidated, but it’s nice to hear a judge confirming the fact.

Last week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied an en banc rehearing of the case United States v. Lemus, which dealt with a warrantless police search of a suspect’s home after he was arrested outside of it. As a result of the 9th Circuit’s denial, the search will stand, which has left Chief Judge Alex Kozinski none too happy. In dissent, Kozinksi basically accused his colleagues of abandoning the Fourth Amendment:

“This is an extraordinary case: Our court approves, without blinking, a police sweep of a person’s home without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion and without exigency—in other words, with nothing at all to support the entry except the curiosity police always have about what they might find if they go rummaging around a suspect’s home. Once inside, the police managed to turn up a gun “in plain view”—stuck between two cushions of the living room couch—and we reward them by upholding the search.”

Read more at Reason.com.

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Microsoft Forces down Whistleblower Site Cryptome

Cryptome is a tremendous source of documents that the public’s not supposed to see, and John Young is to be saluted for running it. Microsoft is very angry that John Young posted Microsoft’s guide to law enforcement agents who seek to subpoena information about Microsoft customers and users. Copies of the document remain online in various places.

As of the morning of Feb. 25, the document was available at Wikileaks.org. Silly Microsoft. Don’t they know that people now are going to be clamoring to see a document they previously didn’t care about? Wired.com is now publicizing the document as well.

Microsoft has managed to do what a roomful of secretive, three-letter government agencies have wanted to do for years: get the whistleblowing, government-document sharing site Cryptome shut down.

Microsoft dropped a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young on Tuesday after he posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the company gives to law enforcement agents seeking information on Microsoft users. Young filed a counterclaim on Wednesday — arguing he had a fair use to publishing the document, a full day before the Thursday deadline set by his hosting provider, Network Solutions.

Read more at Wired.com.

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