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* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta? * What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore? * Was the Mossad Tracking the 9/11 Hijackers in the US? * How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?
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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS? * Those Celebrating "Movers" and Art Student Spies
* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta?
* What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore?
* Was the Mossad Tracking the 9/11 Hijackers in the US?
* How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
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Today's Stories February 14, 2007 Dick J. Reavis February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
February
10 /11, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Kevin Alexander Gray M. Shahid Alam Greg Moses Paul Craig
Roberts George Ciccariello-Maher Kevin Zeese Turner / Kim George Duke Walter Brasch Shepherd Bliss Missy Beattie Peter Harley Pat Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Conn Hallinan Gary Leupp Lee Sustar Nikolas Kozloff Newton Garver Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff David Swanson Website of the Day
February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh Marjorie Cohn Trish Schuh Ron Jacobs Laura Carlsen Ramzy Baroud Brenda Norrell Bryan Farrell Judith Scherr Website of
the Day
February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
the Day
February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
the Day
Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
Werther Kathy Kelly Uri Avnery Franklin Spinney William S. Lind Pariah Mike Whitney Rev. William
E. Alberts Fran Shor Anthony Arnove Website of the Day
Nurit Peled-Elhanan Patrick Cockburn JoAnn Wypijewski Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Reza Fiyouzat Pat Williams Website of the Day
January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Eliza Ernshire Patrick Cockburn David Rosen Greg Moses Bernard Chazelle Tao Ruspoli Hermán
Uribe Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Fred Gardner Brian Cloughley James Abourezk John V. Whitbeck Seth Sandronsky Alan Cabal Pam Martens Website of
the Weekend
Charlotte Laws Mike Ely /
Linda Flores Joe DeRaymond Phil Donahue Zia Mian Jeb Sprague Evelyn Pringle Missy Beattie Martha Rosenberg Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn John Ross Jeremy Scahill Frida Berrigan Paul Craig Roberts Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir Christopher Brauchli Holger W. Henke Dave Lindorff Julia Landau Website of the Day
January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Paul Craig
Roberts Lt. Gen. William Odom Sharon Smith Brian M. Downing Heather Gray Ron Jacobs James Brooks Robert Day Website of
the Day
Trish Schuh Robert Bryce
Stephen Soldz John Blair Gloria La Riva Joshua Frank Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Uri Avnery Website of the Day
January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Jen Marlowe George McGovern Paul Craig
Roberts Norman Solomon Amira Hass Mike Whitney Ramzy Baroud John Walsh Website of
the Day
January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn
Gail Dines
Newton Garver
Gilad Atzmon
Seth Sandronksy
Raphaelle Bail
Jim Goodman Larry Portis
Website of
the Weekend
Jonathan Cook
Glen Ford Dave Lindorff
Larry Portis
Website of
the Day
William Peace
Virginia Tilley
Michael Donnelly
B.R. Gowani
Larry Portis
Jason Hribal
Website of
the Day
Franklin Spinney John Ross Susan George Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank David Lindorff
Col. Sam Gardiner
Marjorie Cohn
Saul Landau
Ron Jacobs
Susan Block Ken Couesbouck Website of
the Day
Roger Morris Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly William Blum Ralph Nader Saul Landau January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn David Rosen William S.
Lind Laith al-Saud Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross George Ciccariello-Maher Christopher Brauchli Robert Buzzanco Evelyn Pringle Peter Rost,
MD. Mike Whitney Yifat Susskind Saul Cohen Missy Beattie Stephen Lendman Website of
the Weekend
January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Jeff Leys Richard W.
Behan Col. Douglas MacGregor Website of
the Day Speech of the Day
Peter Linebaugh Robert Fantina Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Ben Tripp Evelyn Pringle Ron Jacobs Mike Ferner Dave Zirin Website of
the Day Bootleg of the Day
R. T. Naylor Jonathan Cook Mike Ely and Linda Flores Joshua Frank Norman Solomon Sen. Russell
Feingold Joe Allen James T. Phillips Brian Concannon Leonard Peltier Website of the Day
January 8, 2007 Werther Jeff Leys Paul Craig Roberts Shulamit Aloni Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor Seth Sandronsky Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Franklin C.
Spinney Paul Craig
Roberts Ralph Nader Walden Bello Marleen Martin Brian Cloughley Uri Avnery Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Joseph Nevins William S. Lind Gary Leupp Elisa Salasin George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Michael Leonardi Richard Rhames Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara LaMorticella Website of the Weekend Song of the
Weekend
Jorge Mariscal John Walsh Christopher Brauchli Travis Sharpe Tom Barry Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese Tiffany Ten Eyck Mahmoud El-Yousseph Lucinda Marshall Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler M. Shahid Alam Raed Jarrar Bert Sacks Kathy Rentenbach Stephen Fleischman George Bisharat Peter Rost, MD Evelyn Pringle Website of the Day
January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Paul Craig
Roberts William Johnson Stan Cox Trita Parsi Declan McKenna Joe Bageant Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Website of
the Day
Michael Watts Amina Mire James Brooks Alevtina Rea Al Krebs Peter Rost Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Stanton Website of the Day
January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Joshua Frank
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February 14, 2007 Hyrids, Biofuels and Other False IdolsWhat's Being Left Out of Solutions to Fossil Fuel?By DON FITZ Everyone from the Republicans to Democrats to major environmental groups are singing hosannas to biofuels and hybrid cars as the salvation from peak oil and global warming. Will trusting corporations to manufacture environmentally friendly cars make a dent in the world's ecological crises? Or could the "solutions" actually be making the problem worse? The planned obsolescence and massive production of consumer objects in the overdeveloped countries is responsible for catastrophic climate change and species extinction. The question which we obviously need to address is how to improve the quality of life while decreasing the quantity of useless junk and not throwing anyone out of work. But unflinching loyalty to a growth economy prevents corporate environmentalists from searching for serious transportation options. Cars are a huge problem, both for global warming and the exhaustion of oil reserves. With less than 5% of the world's population, the US produces 25% of carbon emissions. Transportation causes a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. The wastefulness of the automobile is staggering. Roughly 10% of the chemical energy of gasoline makes wheels turn around. Amory Lovins computes that, with a 10% efficient car with a driver, passenger and luggage weighing 300 pounds (which is about 10% of the car weight), only 1% of the fuel's energy actually moves what needs to be moved. There is an unending stream of stories in the corporate media that biofuels and hybrid cars are the answer. Biofuels promise to reduce oil use and decrease pollution by making fuel from corn and soy instead of petroleum. By generating their own electricity, hybrid cars use less gasoline and therefore emit fewer greenhouse gases. Techno-fantasies fixate on one portion of transportation: the use of fuel to make a machine go. In reality, transportation is a system for getting around. That system requires energy for manufacture and disposal of machines, land use for moving and storing the things that move, related impacts of moving machines, and an ideology that weaves transportation into a society.
Let's look at seven dimensions of the destructiveness of gasoline-powered cars.
Biofuels such as ethnol from corn and biodiesel from soy are often touted as the world's great salvation from the scarcity of oil and its polluting consequences. Biofuels do neither and introduce problems even worse than oil. Brian Tokar's summary documents that "every domestic biofuel sourceproduces less energy than is consumed in growing and processing the crops." The small reductions in greenhouse gases from burning biofuels are outweighed by their environmental damage of increased deforestation, pesticide usage, nitrate runoff, and water depletion. Biofuels do nothing to lessen the energy used for manufacturing or disposing of cars or lessen land usage for driving and parking cars. But biofuels require massive land use for growing crops, which means less food for people as there is more food for cars. Widespread use of biofuels would massively increase world hunger and transform wars for oil to wars for land to grow biofuel crops. Hybrid cars, on the other hand, offer real advantages by combining the use of electricity with gasoline. According to Consumer Reports, "All hybrids save fuel by using an integrated starter motor. It automatically shuts off the gasoline engine when the vehicle comes to a stop, such as at a stop sign or traffic light. The engine automatically starts again when needed." This results in fewer carbon dioxide emissions from the use of less gasoline. The advantage of hybrids is not as much as their enthusiasts might have us believe. The Consumer Reports rating for overall fuel economy of Toyota's Prius is 44 mpg (not 50 to 60 mpg). This is better than 34 mph for the Volkswagon Jetta TDI, but hardly a night and day difference. Since hybrids average $3000 more than comparable cars, it is reasonable to ask if they require more energy to manufacture. Maybe not, because the $3000 could include initial costs for research and development. But a much higher cost to manufacture could be hidden by government subsidies to help hybrids gain a share of the market. There is a real possibility that hybrids transfer energy from the driving portion of their use-cycle to the manufacturing phase. There is no reason to believe that hybrids offer any advantage over conventional cars in terms of energy used for disposal, land used for roads or parking lots or road kill. The amount of fuel needed for driving is a real issue and no one doubts hybrids excel in this area. The hybrid with the best fuel economy is the Honda Insight, which Consumer Reports rates at 51 mpg. To get this fuel savings, the Insight is a two-seater. This leads to the question: If the greatest fuel saving in a hybrid comes from reducing the number of passengers, why not reduce it again from 2 to 1 and ride a motorcycle? Are there advantages of hybrids that have not been available for decades via motorcycles? There is good reason for suspecting that motorcycles might have less total negative effect than hybrids. Being smaller, they certainly require less energy for manufacture and disposal than any car. Though they require road space, a "motorcycle lane" would be more enforceable and more narrow than a "carpool lane." Parking 1000 motorcycles would certainly require less space than parking 1000 cars. Despite their popularity among some environmentalists, both biofuels and hybrids leave the consumerist mentality untouched. They both create an obscenely false sense of security, much like advising someone to put a band-aid on an arterial wound. If hybrids were promoted as part of a larger plan to reduce automobile production by 95% and require that those few cars that are manufactured be hybrids (or get equivalent gas mileage), we could be far more enthusiastic about them. I don't think that's what Toyota and Honda have in mind. At least Philip-Morris pretends to believe that smoking is bad. The current fad for hybrids has more in common with a campaign to improve health by smoking low tar and nicotine cigarettes than it does with confronting the need to quit the addiction.
Shared rides and mass transit involve collective solutions rather than individual life style changes. There is so much hype that people should make the moral decision to car pool that it is easy to overlook the fact that ride sharing is a collective rather than an individual approach. Car pooling, even with designated lanes, will have minimal environmental effects if the same number of people own cars and simply rotate whose turn it is to drive. Though it does reduce the number of cars on the road, it has no effect on the energy to manufacture cars and little, if any, effect on car ideology. Hitchhiking is car pooling with a new friend. Since those who hitchhike are less likely to own cars, the practice helps combat the ideology of consumerism. Perhaps the greatest barrier to hitchhiking is that it can land you in jail. For politicians who whine that environmentally friendly transportation is too expensive, a zero-cost option would be repealing laws against hitchhiking. If corporate media had a genuine concern with global warming, they would suspend car ads and replace them with messages encouraging drivers to pick up hitchhikers. Motor pooling goes beyond car pooling because it involves an intentional reduction in the number of cars. Many state agencies and businesses have cars that employees can reserve for job-related travel. One of the most practical ways to decrease cars would be for housing cooperatives or co-housing groups to have a certain number of cars for every 100 families. People could use mass transit, bicycles or walking for the vast majority of their travel. They would reserve a car only for trips where mass transit was unlikely or they had things to haul. Mass transit must exist for motor pooling to effectively reduce the number of cars. Mass transit is often promoted as one of the best options for energy reduction. The recognition is well-deserved. Nevertheless, there is a downside to mass transit: a lightly loaded bus or train will use more energy per passenger than a car. Auto companies have done their best to push car addiction and undermine mass transit. In the 1940s auto companies bought up several urban rail systems and ran them into the ground. Many US bus systems are so awful that it takes over two hours for what would be less than a 30 minute car ride. This includes long waits in weather that is often cold or wet. Biofuels and hybrids actively undermine development of environmentally friendly mass transit in two ways. To be effective, mass transit must have a large number of users. Promotion of individual modes of transportation lowers the average occupancy on buses and trains. In addition, low costs for mass transit are based on people living in close proximity. Since biofuels and hybrids fail to reduce land use for parking lots, they help spread out space needed for living and working, thereby working against the high density that mass transit depends on. However, shared rides and mass transit are not positive across the board. Though definitely less damaging than gasoline-powered cars, buses and trains require energy to manufacture and energy for disposal. Mass transit requires less land use for operation and vastly less land use for storage.
Not much fossil fuel is needed for cycling and walking. This is far from their only advantage. Energy required to manufacture and dispose of bikes is tiny compared to autos and mass transit. Manufacturing to prepare for walking includes an extra winter coat and a hat for a sunny day. Land use for biking and walking paths is minuscule in comparison to roads for cars. Bikes require a little storage space and walking, none. For every machine mode of transportation, usage involves road kill and the release of toxins which make the "other effects" a negative. For cycling and walking, the "other effects" take on a positive value. They are the only forms of transportation where people actually receive health benefits from moving from place to place. With our country suffering epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, it is unpatriotic to oppose tearing up roads and replacing them with walking paths. The way we move about is not an isolated issue unrelated to other areas of our lives. Types of transportation we utilize affect other modes of transportation and how our communities are structured. Bicycling and walking can only become major ways to get around if our homes are located near work, schools, churches and recreation. They lead us to ask, "Do we want mega-grocery stores, WalMarts, Home Depots and shopping malls, or do we want small businesses that we can get to without a traffic jam?" The most valuable part of person-powered transportation is that it encourages a collective reassessment of how we want to organize society. We need to decide together how we want to construct urban space so that people can readily get to where they need to go without contaminating their community.
It cannot be stated too often that the value of biking and walking is not limited to saving the fuel from driving a machine. It includes savings from the fuel used to build and dismantle the machine, land usage and storage, bodily movement instead of breathing poisons while watching animals die, and the creation of communities which share resources instead of mindlessly consuming. There is a sharp divide between a "deep green" look at the social nature of ecological problems and the "shallow green" approach of corporate environmentalism. Deep greens emphasize that America can improve its health and quality of life while manufacturing fewer objects and shortening the work week. Shallow greens are loathe to say anything about the need to produce less and flee from addressing moral and political dilemmas of a growth economy. Shallow greens often accuse deeps of being uncompromising and refusing to accept small steps in the right direction. Mass transit shows the opposite to be true. While mass transit has negative aspects, it is a step in the right direction because it reduces the number of cars. But mass transit needs population density and high use to be effective. Preserving cars via biofuels and hybrids requires using land space for driving and parking, thereby lowering population density. They encourage people to drive cars instead of ride trains. In both ways, the shallow green approach undermines mass transit. Chasing after techno-fixes to a social problem is not a small step in the right direction - it is a blind step in the wrong direction.
As Moses smashed the 10 Commandments on the golden calf and climbed the mountain for a back-up copy, little did he know that he would return to find those who worshipped a silver calf. For they imagined that substituting silver for gold would mean their behavior was no longer idolatrous. Those who worshipped the silver calf begat followers, who begat more followers, and so on, until they begat those who use biofuels and drive hybrid cars with silver calves as hood ornaments. And they imagine that adorning the hood of their Prius with a silver calf means that it is no longer an idol. Don Fitz is editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, which is sent to members of The Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at fitzdon@aol.com Sources Fitz, D., Half hour hurricanes: Where were the warnings about St. Louis's ultra storm? http://counterpunch.com/fitz07282006.html Heinberg, R. The party's over. New Society Publishers, 2003, p. 161. Heywood, J., Fueling our transportation future. Scientific American, September 2006, p. 60-61. Stix, G., A climate repair manual. Scientific American, September 2006, p. 47. Tokar, B., The real scoop on
biofuels, Synthesis/Regeneration 42, Winter 2007, pp. 8-9
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CounterPunch Books The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal   Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn           Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                  |
