goodfellowsmansfield.com

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A reporter from Wikinews recently interviewed Jim Babka, chair of Libertarian organization Downsize DC. The organization claims to have arranged for 22,158 people to send a message regarding the “American Freedom Agenda Act” proposed by Ron Paul, in addition to supporting many other laws. The full text of the interview can be found below.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The human rights organisation Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon during the Israel-Lebanon conflict, calling the attacks “indiscriminate and disproportionate”. Israel has rejected the charge.

“The pattern, scope and scale of the attacks makes Israel’s claim that this was ‘collateral damage’, simply not credible,” said Kate Gilmore, of Amnesty International.

Amnesty International cites the magnitude of the destruction caused by Israeli air strikes and artillery bombings, and declarations such as the one made by Israeli Chief of Staff Lt Gen Dan Halutz, that “nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that”, as evidence that civilians were deliberately targeted.

Israel rejected the accusation, stating that the bombings of civilian areas was justified because Hezbollah uses civilians as “humans shields” : Lebanese infrastructure was “targeted only when that infrastructure was being exploited by the Hezbollah machine, and this is in accordance with the rules of war”, said the Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. “Unlike Hezbollah, we did not deliberately target the Lebanese civilian population”, Mr. Regev said.

Over 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians were killed during the fighting, while 161 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed by Hezbollah. The Israeli attacks also wounded about 4,000 people, and turned nearly 1 million people, a quarter of the population of Lebanon, into internal refugees.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The tsunami caused by Japan’s magnitude 8.9 quake on Friday destroyed the commercial fishing harbor of Crescent City, California, a coastal town still recovering from a devastating tsunami in 1964. Although most of the fishing boats were removed in advance, the 198 docking slips that the harbor had provided for boats, enabling the livelihoods of the fishing crews, were lost.

Harbormaster Richard Young said that the harbor is destroyed. “We’re facing not only physical but financial disaster,” he said during a briefing. “Our business activity came to a screeching halt yesterday, and that affects the entire community.” Councilwoman Kelly Schellong said, “This is going to have a trickle-down effect beyond the lost jobs.”

Crescent City’s unemployment rate was 13 percent before Friday’s tsunami destroyed its commerical fishing industry.

The 1964 tsunami that hit Crescent City killed 11, demolished the harbor and heavily damaged large portions of the business district. Although the city subsequently rebuilt, another tsunami again damaged the harbor in 2006. The city was in the midst of reconstructing the harbor when Friday’s tsunami hit. The harbor is surrounded by land and a breakwater built after the 1964 disaster. The tsunami’s huge waves entered through a small opening provided for the entrance and exit of boats.

Lori Dengler, director of the Humboldt Earthquake Education Center, says Friday’s tsunami was one of as many as 38 tsunamis to strike Crescent City within the last 78 years. She calls the city a “tsunami magnet” because of the topography of the ocean floor that contributes to its vulnerability. She also blames the breakwater built after the 1964 tsunami because it traps tsunami waves in the harbor, causing them to boil and churn.

A county supervisor found the view painful on Saturday as she surveyed the wreckage accompanied by state officials. She is hoping they will provide emergency assistance. “We don’t have the financial resources,” she said. “We need money. That’s what it takes to fix things…. Our poor little harbor.”