White Civil Rights : The Website for Europeans and Americans Wherever They May Live

by Jeff Davis

Officially, there is no draft in the United States, and our wonderful neocon rulers have made a great to-do about promising us that there will be no draft in the future. I doubt this exceedingly, since we are having trouble maintaining an adequate troop level in Iraq as our allies bail out one after another not to mention the oft’ rumored invasion of Iran and Syria which seems to be the neocons’ mentally disturbed game plan. While a draft has not yet materialized, there is however a “backdoor draft” whereby American soldiers who have completed their enlistments are not being discharged, but simply being told “No, you ain’t getting out,” and packed on board transport planes back to Iraq. They didn’t even do THAT in Vietnam; once your tour was up, at least your tour was up.

One news article reports “For more than 800 members of the Army’s Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), the most memorable part of the holiday season was a surprise stocking-stuffer from the United States Army. It came in the form of a blue and white Western Union Mailgram that ordered them to report for active duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Eric, a second-year law student, who completed four years of active duty in 2002, was at his parents’ house on Christmas Eve when they handed him what looked like an innocuous piece of mail from the Secretary of the Army. ‘I was pretty shocked,’ Eric (not his real name) says. ‘I went up to my room and hyperventilated for a bit and then came back down and didn’t tell anyone for two days. I didn’t want to ruin Christmas (for anyone else).” (more…)

by Charles Coughlin

A recent news article reports “‘ABC World News Tonight’ co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device. Both journalists suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also has broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and were being evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, ABC News President David Westin said Sunday night. ‘We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical,’ Westin said. Woodruff and Doug Vogt, an award-winning cameraman, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. They were wearing body armor and helmets but were standing up in the hatch of the mechanized vehicle when the device exploded, exposing them to shrapnel. An Iraqi solder was also hurt in the explosion.”

Any claim by Rumsfeld and company that the Iraq War is under control is just more neocon propaganda. It’s a safe bet that our military was trying its best to protect Bob Woodruff, and he almost got killed. There have been an increasing number of days with large numbers of casualties. One website notes that in January (so far) there were five days in which four or more US soldiers died. On Jan. 23rd five US soldiers died. On Jan. 20th six. On Jan. 13th four. On Jan. 7th, seventeen and on Jan. 5th, eleven US soldiers died. There have been sixty deaths in January with a couple days left to go. (more…)

by James Buchanan

A documentary on the anniversary of the Jan. 28th, 1986 Challenger disaster revealed a shocking series of events. Engineers at Morton-Thiokol were pushed aside while managers were allowed to make an important engineering decision. Meanwhile no one at NASA appeared to be aware of critical temperature problems with O-rings in the solid rocket boosters. The rubber O-rings lost their elasticity at cold temperatures and would not seal in the solid rocket fuel’s hot gases. NASA officials should have known enough to call off the launch. The temperature at the launch pad on Jan. 28th, 1986 was in the 30s –far below the minimum 53 degree launch temperature recommended by Morton-Thiokol engineers. Managers at NASA put pressure on managers at Morton-Thiokol, who then overruled their own engineers.

The solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle are made in Utah. Because of transportation problems, the outer-shell of the rocket is made in segments and each joint between the segments is sealed by O-rings. If the O-rings fail, red hot gases could escape and begin burning through the main fuel tank of the Shuttle resulting in an explosion that could destroy the Shuttle –as happened 20 years ago. The solid rocket boosters are recovered by parachute after each launch for re-use and also inspection for wear. Some of these recovered segments showed evidence of problems. NASA and Morton Thiokol had data from earlier flights showing that solid rocket gases had burnt by the first O-ring seal on a previous cold weather launch. This should have raised the alarm at NASA and set the minimum temperature for launch, but it didn’t. (more…)

by Jeff Davis

The last time I checked, this week’s excuse for the Iraq War was to bring those poor benighted Arabs the benefits of Western-style “democracy.” Right? Well, so we did. The pro-Iranian Shi’ite fundamentalists cleaned up in the Iraqi elections, and now the Palestinian people had a general election on Wednesday, and the people spoke, loud and clear. Did they ever! In a stunning upset, the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas party won 76 seats in the new Palestinian parliament compared to only 43 won by its long-ruling and thoroughly corrupt rival, the Fatah Party. Hamas remains officially committed to the destruction of Israel, has never formally renounced the use of violence and has borne the brunt of the last six years of armed struggle against the Israelis.

The Palestinian people have tried cooperating with the Israelis in the past. Years of negotiating go by and they find themselves living on a shrinking sliver of land. The great dog and pony show of 2005 involved the Israeli withdrawal of settlers from Gaza. For those unfamiliar with Gaza, it’s the last strip of seaside land that the Palestinians still have for themselves. Their population has been inflated by refugees from Israeli abuse. The Israeli “settlements” in Gaza would be analogous to some Frenchmen buying a few condos in Hong Kong and then claiming Hong Kong for France. There was never any serious chance the Israelis would take Gaza from the Palestinians. By abandoning the ridiculous settlements in Gaza, Ariel Sharon distracted the world’s attention from the Apartheid Wall, which has walled in the Palestinians on the West Back in the world’s largest concentration camps AND which will lead to the theft of a large portion of the West Bank land which is outside the wall. (more…)

Proposed by James Buchanan

Einstein may lose his Nobel Prize due to further thievery surrounding the photoelectric effect. If that happens, maybe we can still get him a Nobel Prize in literature or something. For that reason based largely on information that can be found here, I propose:

Einstein’s Theory of Moral Relativity

1).Find a homely, but brilliant Serbian girl to help you through the university and to write your first papers.

2).When people ask you how you found the time to write a brilliant paper while working a full time job as a third class patent clerk and raising a family, tell them all the brilliant ideas came to you in your dreams. (more…)

by Paul Craig Roberts

Is there a person anywhere in the world who still thinks there is an ounce of sanity in the Bush administration? If so, let that person read John Bolton’s orders to Syria in the Jan. 24 online edition of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.

Bolton is Bush’s unconfirmed ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, a neoconservative warmonger, has managed to get the UN Security Council on Jan. 23 to instruct Syria to disband and disarm the Lebanese militias. Bolton says, “I hope in Damascus they read it very carefully and then comply.”

How is Syria to meet this demand?

Last year, Syria complied with U.S. demands to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. As Syria has no military presence in Lebanon, it could not disarm a local police force, much less the Shia militias that defeated the Israeli army, drove it out of Lebanon, and have representatives in the Lebanese parliament. (more…)

by Jeff Davis

A Washington Post article reports “The Bush administration is spending foreign aid money to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas. The approximately $2 million program is being led by a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development. But no U.S. government logos appear with the projects or events being undertaken as part of the campaign, which bears no evidence of U.S. involvement and does not fall within the definitions of traditional development work. U.S. officials say their low profile is meant to ensure that the Palestinian Authority receives public credit for a collection of small, popular projects and events to be unveiled before Palestinians select their first parliament in a decade. Internal documents outlining the program describe the effort as “a temporary paradigm shift” in the way the aid agency operates. The plan was designed with the help of a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer who worked in postwar Afghanistan on democracy-building projects. U.S. and Palestinian officials say they fear the election, scheduled for Wednesday, will result in a large Hamas presence in the 132-seat legislature.”

George Bush and his neocon friends are now spending foreign aid money to “increase the popularity” of the notoriously corrupt and sycophantic Fatah party on the eve of crucial elections. Since when is it OK for our government to pay money to influence democratic elections in foreign nations? What if the Red Chinese or the European Union decides to influence our election by funneling untraceable cash to the party they like most? A few Americans may remember charges that the Clinton regime was trading nuclear weapon and missile technology to the Chinese for big bags of cash. The Bush Republicans are simply slaves for Israel fighting war after war to soothe the paranoia of Israel. (more…)

by Charles Coughlin

On Friday, the stock market dropped 213 points, falling well below 11,000, where it’s been for most of the Bush Presidency. The US economy is heavily based on consumer spending. It would make some sense that things like continuing high gas prices, outsourcing of jobs and the disappearance of good quality American jobs would eventually have some effect. While gas prices have slipped back from near $3 per gallon, the prices are still higher than they should be and act as a drag on the economy.

The massive one day drop in the stock market was followed by Ford announcing the lay off of 30,000 workers. One news article notes “Ford and GM (have) shown all the signs for companies going down towards… bankruptcies. They will be cutting jobs, benefits and lower costs and prices of cars to survive. Federal money will try to buoy them…Ford Motor will axe almost a quarter of its north American workforce and close seven vehicle factories by 2012 as the world’s third-biggest carmaker aims to return… to profit by 2008.” (more…)

by James Buchanan

For all our lives, we’ve been told by the mass media that the most brilliant scientist of all time was Albert Einstein. Ironically, the only serious criticism against Einstein to see the light of day was by feminists, who suggested that Einstein’s Serbian wife, Mileva Maric, may have written some of his greatest work.

Mileva was not especially attractive and suffered from a displaced hip and a limp, but Einstein latched onto her during his first year in the university. One website reports “He (Einstein) demands all her time. She sacrifices her studies as well as her friends. In the summer of 1900, they both fail their final exams. He somehow gets a diploma, but is one of the few graduates without a job waiting. While he looks for work, she supports him emotionally and financially.” (more…)

by Ian Mosley

Albert Einstein is today revered as “the Father of Modern Science”. His wrinkled face and wild hair has become a symbol for scientific genius and “his” famous E = mc^2 equation is repeatedly used as the symbol for something scientific and intellectual. And yet there has for years been mounting evidence that this “Father of Modern Science” was nothing but a con man, lying about his ideas and achievements, and stealing the work and the research of others.

The most glaring evidence against Einstein concerns “his” most famous equation. One website notes “The equation E=mc^2, which has been forever linked to Einstein & his Theory of Relativity was not originally published by Einstein. According to Umberto Bartocci, a professor at the University of Perugia and a historian of mathematics, this famous equation was first published by Olinto De Pretto …two years prior to Einstein’s publishing of the equation. In 1903 De Pretto published his equation in the scientific magazine Atte and in 1904 it was republished by the Royal Science Institute of Veneto. Einstein’s research was not published until 1905… Einstein was well versed in Italian and even lived in Northern Italy for a brief time.”

It is unheard of to pass over the original inventor of an equation and to give credit to someone, who claims to have derived it AFTER the equation and its derivation have been published. The equation “E=mc^2″ should be called the “De Pretto Equation” not the “Einstein Equation.” (more…)