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FOR STARTERS: WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE? The issues: 1. Are humans responsible for most of the global temperature rise of the past century or so, or is the increase just a typical fluctuation in global temperature? 2.  If most of the temperature rise can be attributed to increases in anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, what are the likely consequences if no action is taken to curb these emissions? What is the evidence?  Is it compelling? § What is the scientific consensus? § Climate models and their predictions § Consequences of the predictions § Strategies for change Chemistry we need to learn § The Earth’s energy balance - the greenhouse effect § The shapes of molecules - valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) theory § Molecular vibrations – how they absorb IR radiation § Masses and moles - weighing to count molecules Earth’s atmospher     a) The Earth is about 33 O C warmer than  expected  if we consider on...

"JH: You’ve written  a piece  in the  Christian Science Monitor. You wrote, “If Americans truly are our friends, they would shake us up and take away the keys. Because right now we are driving drunk. And without this wakeup call we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state.” Can you unpack that for us? What do you think the American government should be doing in terms of trying to advance a real peace in this region? JBA: There’s a hidden assumption in your question. When you say, "What should the American government be doing to promote peace?" you’re assuming the American government wants peace. Among liberals who give a lot of thought to American and Middle East issues there are two competing views. There are some, like Chomsky, who would say that the US is the dominant power, and within that there are various interests, like corporations. Any other player around the world basically does what the US bids them to do. There’s this co...

"D efense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) released this month a comprehensive and heartbreaking report, OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE: A WAR WAGED ON GAZA’S CHILDREN . detailing, that places that should have provided children with shelter and safety were not immune from attacks by Israeli forces. Missiles fired from Israeli drones and warplanes, artillery shelling, and shrapnel scattered by explosions killed children in their homes, on the street as they fled from attacks with their families, and as they sought shelter from the bombardment in schools. (DCIP) The lives of Palestine’s children should be better protected since 24 December 2014, when he Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) became binding in international law requiring states to end the transfer of arms that would be used in war crimes and genocide: Article 6: 3. A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) or of items covered under Article 3 or Article 4, if it h...

In "Manufacturing Consent," Noam Chomsky posits that Western corporate media is structurally bound to "manufacture consent" in the interests of dominant, elite groups in society. With "filters" which determine what gets to become "news" -- including media ownership, advertising, and "flak," he shows how propaganda can pervade the "free" media in an ostensibly democratic Western society through self-censorship. However, lot has changed since then. We now have the Internet. The so-called legacy media organizations which have been "manufacturing consent" according to Chomsky are in massive financial trouble. Has any of his analysis changed? I recently interviewed Noam Chomsky at his MIT office, to find out his views on the current media landscape. Seung-yoon Lee:  Twenty-seven years ago, you wrote in "Manufacturing Consent" that the primary role of the mass media in Western democratic societies is to mobili...

"As Iraq launches a new military operation to retake the city of Tikrit from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, thousands of Iraqi forces and militia fighters have converged in the city Samarra to strike nearby  ISIS  strongholds. The United States is expected to provide air support as part of its continued bombing campaign. The offensive comes as the Iraqi military prepares for a major U.S.-backed operation to retake Mosul from  ISIS  in the coming weeks.  ISIS  "is one of the results of the United States hitting a very vulnerable society with a sledgehammer, which elicited sectarian conflicts that had not existed," says Noam Chomsky. "It is hard to see how Iraq can even be held together at this point. It has been devastated by U.S. sanctions, the war, the atrocities that followed from it. The current policy, whatever it is, is not very likely to even patch up or even put band-aids on a cancer." TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not...

This is a very disturbing book about the exploitation of disaster shocked people and countries. It is how governments of the world use corporations and organizations do their dirty work. It is about how the CIA funded Dr. Ewan Cameron of the McGill University in the 1950’s to produce a manual on torture that is still used today by the US Military in Guantanamo prison, Cuba. The “manual” has been exported and sold around the world as the torture of choice training manual. Google>>Kubark torture manual. Naomi Klein presents very much a leftist point of view. However, she does provide enough balance for the reader to come to their own conclusion. After reading this book, you will never read a national or international publication in the same way as you have in past. You will have a deeper understanding on how our “free world” really works. If you are interested in investing in the world markets, this is essential reading. How does shock doctrine work?   The original disaste...

Redeployment "We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it Operation Scooby. I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot. First time was instinct. I hear O’Leary go, “Jesus,” and there’s a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he’d lap up water from a bowl. It wasn’t American blood, but still, there’s that dog, lapping it up. And that’s the last straw, I guess, and then it’s open season on dogs. At the time, you don’t think about it. You’re thinking about who’s in that house, what’s he armed with, how’s he gonna kill you, your buddies. You’re going block by block, fighting with rifles good to 550 meters, and you’re killing people at five in a concrete box. The thinking comes later, when they give you the time. See, it’s not a straight shot back, from war to the Jacksonville mall. When our deployment was up, they put us on TQ, this logistics base out in the desert, let us decompress a bit. I’m not sure what they meant by that. Decompr...