Spy Museum adds another former spy to staff in DC

The International Spy Museum in Washington has recruited an ex-spy as its new historian.

The museum said Monday that Mark Stout would become historian after spending 13 years in intelligence. He is the museum's first research chief with an intelligence background.

Stout worked at the CIA and the State Department in intelligence and at the Defense Department. He is earning a doctorate in history and holds degrees in political science, mathematics and public policy.

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END:CIV - Resist or Die

END:CIV is a film that examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: "If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?" END:CIV is currently in production.



endciv.com

When ‘Scholars’ become Pawns of The Propagandists

By Shahid R. Siddiqi, Axis of Logic

Among those who lay claim to scholarship, yet instead of being objective in their analysis they openly promote bias, readily lend their pen to support vested interests and put their 'scholarly stamp of approval' on false propaganda to lend credibility, Mr. Selig Harrison immediately comes to mind.

At times in league with the Indian propagandists, and finding a willing partner in New York Times where his articles generally find space – he engages in smear campaign against Pakistan. In this, his ability of crystal ball gazing comes handy too.

In 2006, Mr. Harrison, who styles himself as a specialist on Balochistan, saw in his crystal ball the success of Baloch insurgency movements which he reported in his articles in the New York Times and the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique. He predicted that the world would soon see a Free Balochistan, an entity that would also include the Iranian Balochistan & Sistan province. Promoting a Pentagon dream authored by a retired Col. Ralph Peter in his treatise 'Blood Borders', Mr. Harrison also predicted that Sindhis will join hands with the Balochis.

Gilgit Baltistan

While he awaits that dream to come true, Mr. Harrison chose this time to adopt the script of the Indian propagandists about Pakistan's Northern Areas, now called Gilgit Baltistan. If in the process he made some gross misstatements, it is another matter. In his piece in the New York Times of August 26, captioned 'China's Discreet Hold on Pakistan's Northern Borderlands', Mr. Harrison claimed that: “A quiet geopolitical crisis is unfolding in the Himalayan borderlands of northern Pakistan, where Islamabad is handing over de facto control of the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan region in the northwest corner of disputed Kashmir to China”. He went on to state that the Chinese had deployed 7,000-11,000 troops in the area.

During his crystal ball gazing, Mr. Harrison rightly saw some Chinese faces in the Gilgit Baltistan region. But he made two errors: he counted their numbers wrong and he mistook the coveralls of the Chinese workers for military uniforms. They were neither 7,000 to 11,000 in number nor were they troops of the People's Liberation Army. In fact, they were either humanitarian team members sent by the Chinese Government at Pakistan's request to help in rescue and relief work for 25,000 people stranded after recent heavy floods and landslides, or they were construction workers engaged in the repair of Karakoram Highway and undertaking communication infrastructure projects along with Pakistani counterparts, under government to government arrangement.

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NJ Watchdog Sues State Over Carbom Auction “Secrets”

New Jersey Watchdog's battle over the "secret" records of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative's cap-and-trade auctions will be waged in a Trenton courtroom.

Investigative reporter Mark Lagerkvist filed suit against the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in Mercer County Superior Court for "wrongfully and knowingly" denying access.  Under the state Open Public Records Act (OPRA), Lagerkvist is asking the court to order NJDEP to release documents showing who bought what at RGGI's auctions of carbon dioxide emission allowances.

In its first eight auctions, RGGI sold $662 million in CO-2 allowances, including $72 million in New Jersey permits.  Those costs are eventually passed along to consumers in higher electric rates.

At the auctions, utilities competed with speculators and financial heavyweights like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lunch and JPMorgan Chase, as reported by New Jersey Watchdog last month in an investigative report – "The Secrets Ten States & Wall Street Don't Want You to Know." Authorities have refused to identify auction winners and how many permits each purchased.

New Jersey Watchdog initially sought the records from RGGI, but the New York-based regional non-profit cooperative contends it is not a public agency subject to OPRA.  The next request went to NJDEP, the agency that supervises New Jersey's participation in RGGI.

NJDEP claims it does not have the requested records – despite regulations mandating the agency to approve auction results, issue permits to winning bidders and oversee the allowance tracking system.

~ Watchdog.org ~

Bee decline already having dramatic effect on pollination of plants

Researchers have found that pollination levels of some plants have dropped by up to 50 per cent in the last two decades.

The "pollination deficit" could see a dramatic reduction in the yield from crops.

The research, carried out in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, is the first to show that the effect is real and serves as a "warning" to Britain which if anything has seen an even greater decline in bees and pollinators.

"This serves as a warning to other countries," said Professor James Thomson at the University of Toronto, who carried out the research.

"For quite some time people have been suggesting that pollinators are in decline and that this could have an effect on pollination.

"I believe that this is the first real demonstration that pollination levels are getting worse. I believe it is a significant decline. I believe the pollination levels have dropped by as much as 50 per cent.

"Bee numbers may have declined at our research site, but we suspect that a climate-driven mismatch between the times when flowers open and when bees emerge from hibernation is a more important factor."

According to a previous study, England's bees are vanishing faster than anywhere else in Europe, with more than half of hives dying out over the last 20 years.

Butterflies and other insects are also in decline due to habitat loss and climate change.

The situation is so serious that the government has launched a £10 million project to find out what is causing bees and other insects to disappear.

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