Posts by Matthew Wheeland

Matthew Wheeland is AlterNet's managing editor.

Is the NSA trolling MySpace?
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on June 9, 2006 at 10:18 AM.

When you apply for a job, it's a safe bet that your future boss is going to google you and see what bubbles up. Even two or three years ago, such a search probably wouldn't have turned up much personal info for most people. But with the explosion of blogging and social networks like MySpace, it seems like just about everyone has left some kind of footprint on the web, for better or worse.

But now, tilting that balance much further toward "worse," New Scientist reports that the NSA is funding research into the "mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks." The MySpace-mining project, it seems, is an extension of the NSA's illegal wiretapping program.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

A top al-Qaeda leader's dead, but what next?
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on June 8, 2006 at 9:27 AM.

With the news today that the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's al Qaeda leader, must bring some relief to proponents of the war on terror. As the president said in a statement this morning,

Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders.

Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al Qaeda. It's a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle.

But as Steve Benen points out at Washington Monthly, "Zarqawi could have been taken out years ago, on several occasions, but Bush decided not to strike."

At the time (June 2002), the Pentagon had solid intelligence that could have taken Zarqawi out at a weapons lab he'd set up in northern Iraq. But since building support for an attack on Iraq the government was more urgent to the White House than waging an actual war on terrorism, no action was taken at the time.

Now, 2,500-plus deaths and countless billions of dollars later, we've achieved the same end.

And as much as the president hopes to stake his party's future and his own legacy on waging a strong war on terror, a poll out released by Zogby International finds that al-Zarqawi's death is "unlikely to improve the President's numbers much." The situation has gotten so bad, it seems, that even catching Osama bin Laden wouldn't help Bush: "52 percent [of respondents] said they would give him no credit because he turned his attention instead to Iraq after the war in Afghanistan."

Go see 'An Inconvenient Truth'
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on June 1, 2006 at 4:56 PM.

I recently had the chance to go see "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's new global warming documentary, thanks to the good folks at the Sierra Club, and it's as powerful as the reviewers have said. If you already follow the climate crisis -- as Gore labels the impending catastrophe -- then the film marshals powerful evidence to support the truth of the situation. If you haven't been following the onslaught of news about how quickly our climate is changing, then this film will be a splash of cold water in your face.

Now, I've long believed that at this point in time, with all the evidence arrayed on the side of truth, whether or not you accept the reality of global warming has become a matter of faith. (Especially for people who somehow manage to convince themselves that it's not happening.)

But even though I've already seen the film once, I still intend to go see "An Inconvenient Truth" this weekend, and I urge everyone else to do so as well. As the peerless folks at Worldchanging put it:

If every person who reads this blog went to see AIT on the opening weekend, and brought three friends, this film would very likely open as the number one film in the country -- and that means other theaters will show it, and more people will talk about it, and climate change may well wind up where it ought to be: at the top of our national agenda.

... [As Al Gore said at a recent screening,] the same frozen moral perspective that prevents us from addressing climate change makes us see all sorts of other planetary challenges -- from poverty to HIV/AIDS to genocide to corruption -- as insolvable problems, rather than as artifacts of a broken political system, problems we lack only the will, not the means, to solve. Somewhere, the ice jam has got to melt. Some time, we have to warm to the possibility of a future which is sustainable, prosperous and fair to all.

The film opens in select cities in 13 states tomorrow, including some big ones: New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago. Google's got an easy link to find a screening near you.

Full text of Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on May 10, 2006 at 11:58 AM.

I'm posting below the full letter that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent to President Bush earlier this week. Considering the hype and fanfare around it, as well as the fact that we live in the Information Age, having access to the source material makes all the difference.

The text comes from Le Monde, and it's been slightly edited for readability.

And given Iran's grim record on human rights, this letter should be read this with some skepticism.

=-=-=

Mr. George Bush, President of the United States of America

For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism as a civilization model, Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, Make War and Terror his slogan, And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community -- a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern,

But at the same time, Have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years.

At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women -- as occupation troops -- put in harms way, taken away from family and love ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide ant those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments; while some are killed and their bodies handed of their families.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

CIA director Porter Goss resigns
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on May 5, 2006 at 11:17 AM.

At a press conference today in the White House, short-lived CIA director and former Republican congressman Porter Goss announced his resignation.

Goss was appointed to lead the CIA by Bush in August 2004, bumped up from the House of Representatives, where he served from 1989 until joining the CIA. His name has come up frequently lately in reports of an incredibly juicy ongoing corruption scandal on Capitol Hill, which, as the Progress Report detailed yesterday, involves poker parties, prostitution and corrupt limo companies, as well as high-powered politicians and defense companies.

This is yet another major blow for the Administration. As georgia10 writes on DailyKos:

This isn't part of some White House shake-up. This is a scandal-plagued Bush appointee resigning just as an investigation into another Republican corruption scandal hits too close to home.

Former Republican lawmaker and current CIA Director Porter Goss's name has surfaced time and time again in the Republican bribe scheme, which began with a focus on disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham and his Republican lobbyists.

Flooding the streets for immigrant rights
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on May 1, 2006 at 5:22 PM.

Here's a quick roundup of what happened across the country today during the National Day of Action for immigrant rights. Most sites haven't updated since this morning, but the news that is trickling out this early is that the protests were huge.

On DailyKos, georgia10 attended the Chicago rally, and this was the scene where 300,000 or more protesters gathered:

For over three hours or so, the protesters chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" Non-stop. Their chants were broken only by a thunderous roar of cheers as the trains on the Loop passed by.

I saw streaming in front of me a sea of people, carrying for the most part huge American flags. (I saw a couple of Greek flags too, which brought a smile to my face). A small boy, about 10 years old I would guess, marched with a handwritten sign that said "I am not a terrorist." A mother with a child had taped a sign reading "Deportation= Broken Families" to her baby's stroller. "We work hard for this country," read another bright orange sign. Many signs read "No Human Being Is Illegal." I'm sure there were counter-protesters, but I didn't see any from my viewpoint.

It's difficult to describe the energy that radiated from the mass of humanity before me. Their chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" caused this section of the city to pulsate. Whether you believe protests are effective or not, whether you agree with those protesting or not, it's hard to deny that these people, with their mere presence, have proved that the art of protest is still alive in the streets of America.

As the expected epicenter of the nationwide protest, Los Angeles this morning was eerily quiet. The picture above, taken by Will Campbell on the indispensible blogging.la, tells the story as well as the massive protest pictures from Reuters, AP and countless Flickr users can.

The Los Angeles Times has been live-blogging the marches all day, and over at the Nation's blog, Jon Weiner posted his observations of this afternoon's march:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Two takes on Earth Day
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 21, 2006 at 5:42 PM.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, once again. Time to get out your best pair of Birkenstocks and hempen hacky sack and go to the park. But a celebration that has for many years felt like little more than lefty back-patting has finally gained a bit more traction in the media, due in large part to our looming energy crisis, the obvious and increasing seriousness of global warming, and the ongoing desecration of our natural resources by the industrialists in the White House.

I was particularly struck this week by the wildly different tone that people take when discussing Earth Day, and more to the point, the future of our planet. A perfect example comes today, with a side-by-side comparison of the Christian Science Monitor and The Center for American Progress's Talking Points.

For those of you who don't already receive them, CAP's daily Talking Points newsletter offers a quick, concise and fact-filled rundown of the day's biggest issue, and is often an invaluable resource. Here's a paraphrase of today's talking points:

• Climate change is happening and we have only ourselves to blame.
• The air we breathe is still too dirty, and our wilderness lands are under constant threat.
• The environmental cause is bringing together an unlikely group of activists.

For comparison's sake, here's a snippet from an article by Brad Knickerbocker in the Monitor. He writes:

• Air pollution has decreased 50 percent overall, with sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides dropping steadily.
• Lakes in the Northeast are recovering from their earlier dousing with acid rain.
• Endangered species, including bald eagles, wolves, and grizzly bears, have rebounded.
• Cars no longer burn leaded gasoline.
• Ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have been generally phased out.

It's in sharp contrast to the first Earth Day in 1970 when there were signs of serious trouble.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McClellan resigns; Rove, too?
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 19, 2006 at 8:21 AM.

In a short, to-the-point news conference this morning, White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation. After giving the usual thanks and bons mots about looking forward to spending more time with his family, Bush responded thusly:

I, first of all, I thank Scott for his service to our country. I don't know whether or not the press corps realizes this, but his is a challenging assignment dealing with you all on a regular basis. And I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity. He really represents, you know, the best of his family, our state and our country.

It's going to be hard to replace Scott. But nevertheless, he's made the decision, and I accept it.

One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done.

What's with Bush and rocking chairs? First it was rocking with Frist on his front porch, now it's more of the same in Texas with Scottie.

ITV News is reporting the more earth-shattering news that Karl Rove has resigned as deputy chief of staff as well. There will be much more on this to come later today.

Earth Day is coming...
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 18, 2006 at 9:02 AM.

It's that time of year again: April 22, 2006, marks the 26th annual Earth Day. Even though in many ways Earth Day is a lot of show without much action, as I wrote last month, there are many signs that Americans have turned a corner and are ready to take serious action to stop global warming.

And thus it's a mixed blessing that even a magazine like Vanity Fair is trumpeting their first-ever "green issue," out on newsstands now. On the plus side, it's great that a magazine so dedicated to glitz, glam and gluttony is praising the work of people who are trying to do right by the planet. But the downside is that, as AlterNet's executive editor Don Hazen wrote this weekend:

The VF editors appear to think the environmental movement in all its facets has no grass roots, no problems with the enormous amount of corporate dumping of toxic waste in poor communities and environmental racism and classism overall. ... While there are some wonderful people mixed in, it is kind of preposterous to just celebrate a gaggle of multi-millionaires, six white male mayors, and Governors Pataki and Schwarzennegger as saviors of our environmental future.

To that end, this week AlterNet is looking to you for some balance in this issue. Who are your environmental heroes? Who are the individuals and groups in your community who are working at the grassroots to make the planet cleaner, greener and healthier?

Go to http://alternet.org/heroes today to nominate your heroes, and we'll tally up the finalists to put them up for a vote tomorrow. The whole shebang will culminate in a celebration of your eco-heroes this Friday, Earth Day Eve. So tell us: who are your heroes?

Making farmed fish good for you
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 14, 2006 at 2:31 PM.

Way back when, in 2003, the journal Science reported that fish raised in captivity - farmed fish - were dramatically higher in toxic pollutants like dioxin, PCBs and pesticides than wild fish. Contaminated enough that the EPA said eating more than one serving a month of farmed fish posed a serious health risk.

Obviously, that's bad news for everyone involved. Fish farmers and the fish industry get hosed because they regularly tout their product as healthier than other animal-based foods. Health-conscious eaters, who think they're doing a body good by eating fish, are actually stockpiling PCBs and dioxins at a much higher rate than they would be if they stuck to hot dogs and chorizo. And obviously, the fish suffer because they're crammed into floating pens to maximize profits.

An interesting wrinkle in the aquaculture phenomenon developed this week as Canadian scientists announced that vegetarian salmon can be much healthier than traditionally carnivorous salmon.

It's a complex problem: Carnivorous fish are hit doubly hard by our human pollution. Since they exist downstream from our waste flows, they are literally swimming in our pollution. And by feeding on other fish that live in similar situations, salmon further increase their pollution intake.

For farmed fish, living in such tight quarters, being fed processed fish meal and fish oil, means the health problems are all the more increased. As the David Suzuki Foundation shows, antibiotics and pesticides are regular additions to farmed fishtanks and fish feed to keep the fish alive and free from sea lice infestations.

The Suzuki foundation has a solid examination of the many problems caused by aquaculture, including:

• Sewage from farms pollutes surrounding waters.
• Drugs, including antibiotics, are required to keep farmed fish healthy.
• Escapes of farmed fish (alien species) threaten native wild fish.
• Net loss: Farmed fish are fed pellets made from other fish - depleting other fish species on a global scale.

So the obvious solution to this is perhaps to stop farming fish, right? Try to rein in water pollution (which in the case of the Gulf of Mexico is due in large part to just a few farm counties) and let the fish thrive naturally? Nope. The obvious solution, from the aquaculture industry's perspective, would be to change salmon biology so the fish could tolerate plant-based foods instead of meat. Not only would fundamentally altering fish biology theoretically decrease the amount of toxins in fish-meat, but plant food is substantially cheaper than fishmeal.

It's hard to beat the profit motive, I suppose. Of course, perhaps some influential aquaculturalists read instead this news report from the University of Chicago that found vegan diets are best for people and the planet, and just took the idea to its extreme.

Two takes on biotech
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 7, 2006 at 12:01 PM.

In the last year or so, it seems like the biotechnology debate has fizzled out. There hasen't been much to capture the public attention lately: no controversial GMO bans on local ballots lately, no major contamination of food crops or uncontrollable spreading of biotech crops.

But don't be fooled: the biotech industry is alive and well, and are pushing their agenda to businesses, scientists and policymakers starting tomorrow at the BIO conference.

Here are a few of the topics that BIO will focus on this weekend, and which corporations are sponsoring them:

• Biodefense (Sponsored by Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)
• Bioethics (Sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated)
• Drug Discovery and Development (Sponsored by Wyeth)
• Food and Agriculture (Sponsored by BASF Plant Science and Bayer CropScience and Ceres, Inc and Dow AgroSciences and DuPont and Monsanto Company and Syngenta)
• Manufacturing (Sponsored by City of Chicago and Dowpharma)
• Nanotechnology (Sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Corporate Office of Science & Technology (COSAT) and Woodcock Washburn LLP)
• Policy (Sponsored by Pfizer Inc.)
• Regenerative Medicine (Sponsored by Government of Victoria -- Melbourne, Australia and Invitrogen Corporation

Of particular note is the angle that biotech companies are using to scoot the technology in under the public's radar: by suggesting that biotech can end our addiction to oil with plant-based fuels. I'll refrain from ranting here, but simply put: planting massive fields of chemical-intensive GMO corn is not a sustainable way to end our oil addiction.

For last year's BIO conference, AlterNet's writer was denied access because, in the organization's words, we "don't cover cover biotech." Which I of course took to mean that we just don't cover it the way they'd like us to.

Fortunately, there is an antidote to corporate-controlled biotechnology. Timed to coincide with the BIO industry conference is the BioETHICS 2006 conference, aimed at providing a voice of reason in the ongoing debate about how we're manipulating our food supply.

Included in the many speakers and events -- all of which are free and open to the public -- are Percy Schmeiser, Jeffrey Smith, Anna Lappe, Michael Hansen, Jane Akre, Rick North and Dr. Sam Epstein.

If you're in Chicago this weekend, be sure not to miss one or both of these events.

T-Shirts as a new force in politics
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 6, 2006 at 11:38 AM.

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting take this morning on the immigration debate. It's not the story of how Spanish-language radio hosts are helping coordinate the massive protests that happened nationwide last month and are repeating this coming Monday (though that's a great story as well), but rather about how t-shirts have become the weapon of choice for political activists of all stripes. Reporter Chris Gaylor writes that at last month's pro-immigration rally in Washington, thousands of marchers strolled onto the National Mall in identical "Legalize the Irish" t-shirts:

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform says it handed out 3,000 shirts that day, but that is just an ink drop compared with the ocean of political T-shirts printed each year. From campaign boons to political lampoons, more and more Americans are wearing their political hearts on their short sleeves.

"[Political T-shirts] are absolutely catching on," says Pia Catton, fashion editor for the New York Sun. "It's really an interesting movement to watch.... It's totally democratic and really kind of fun."

The Monitor article singles out CafePress.com as a "one-stop shop for buyers of virtually every political view. With a staggering 22 million products -- including scores on the immigration debate."

The article quotes silk screener Andrew Laidlaw, who runs the conservative clothing line Authentic GOP, as saying business has been slow lately: "I don't know what to say. Conservatives dominate talk radio," he says. "I guess liberals have T-shirts."

Checking out CafePress's politics section backs this argument up:

• "Pro-Bush gear" has 1,630 designs on 21,925 products.
• "Anti-Bush gear" has 29,087 designs on 345,017 products.
• "Conservative gear" has 15,474 designs on 197,396 products.
• "Liberal gear" has 31,869 designs on 374,528 products.
• "Republican gear" has 20,928 designs on 258,424 products.
• "Democrat gear has 23,737 designs on 283,505 products.

Clearly, the much-vaunted t-shirt demographic dislikes Bush (intensely), leans heavily to the left, but isn't exactly pro-Democrat. From my perspective, that paints a pretty accurate picture of the political scene in this country. After all, Hillary Clinton is the most-reproduced face of all political candidates, with 40 percent of t-shirts dedicated to supporting or bashing her, with Governator Schwarzenegger in a distant second place in the 'teens.

"If the 2008 [presidential] election were based off T-shirt sales," [CafePress spokesman Marc] Cowlin says, "Hillary [Clinton] would win by a landslide."

Taking denial to the next level
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on April 3, 2006 at 1:24 PM.

Last week I blogged about the Time cover story and a new poll that showed the vast majority of Americans are deeply concerned about global warming, and that getting the government to make serious efforts to fight it is a high priority.

It seems like perhaps the Bush administration and its pro-industry, anti-Earth backers are stepping up the fight. In his syndicated column yesterday, George Will wrote:

Eighty-five percent of Americans say warming is probably happening, and 62 percent say it threatens them personally. The National Academy of Sciences says the rise in the Earth's surface temperature has been about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. Did 85 percent of Americans notice? Of course not. They g