The scandals for KBR just keep coming

The former Halliburton subsidiary responsible for the sexual assault of Jamie Leigh Jones and the accidental electrocution of a U.S. soldier is now subject of a class-action lawsuit for exposing employees to "unsafe water, food, and hazardous fumes" at the largest U.S. installation in Iraq.

According to the Army Times, Joshua Eller, a former technician with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said that while he was stationed at Balad Air Force Base in 2006, he experienced skin lesions that spread and became worse, along with debilitating blisters on his feet, vomiting, cramping, diarrhea, and severe abdominal pain.

As former KBR Water Purification Specialist Ben Carter described in this clip from Iraq for Sale and in his Congressional testimony, KBR failed to provide adequate water safety, resulting in toxic drinking and bathing water. This war profiteer also failed to manage a medical incinerator properly, instead disposing medical waste and human remains in an open air burn pit. Eller claims that at one point, he saw a wild dog running around the base with a human arm in its mouth that KBR had dumped into the pit. And the grizzly kicker, the suit accuses KBR of using mortuary trucks that "still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice" later served to U.S. troops.

It's high time we hold KBR and Halliburton accountable. Hopefully, Congress will pass Rep. Jan Schakowsky's bill to phase out private military contractors altogether over the next five years. Until then, I fear these scandals stemming from KBR's blatant disregard for the welfare of our soldiers in Iraq will continue.

.

The New Kotecki: Ron Paul a Capella

.

Love For Sale (Cole Porter) in Tree Versions

1. Libby Holman

2. Eartha Kitt

3. Liza Spinelli


When the only sound in the empty street,
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop.
When the moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of this wayward town.
That her smile becomes a smirk,
I go to work.

Love for sale,
Appetising young love for sale.
Love that's fresh and still unspoiled,
Love that's only slightly soiled,
Love for sale.
Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price,
For a trip to paradise?
Love for sale
Let the poets pipe of love
in their childish way,
I know every type of love
Better far than they.
If you want the thrill of love,
I've been through the mill of love;
Old love, new love
Every love but true love
Love for sale.

Appetising young love for sale.
If you want to buy my wares.
Follow me and climb the stairs
Love for sale.
Love for sale.

Bush: "I'm So Sorry..."

From ABC News: Bush on the Iraq War...

Looking back on his eight years in the White House, President George W. Bush said he was "unprepared" for war and pinpointed incorrect intelligence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as "biggest regret of all the presidency."
"I think I was unprepared for war," Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson in an interview airing today on "World News." "In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" he said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."

From AP: Bush on the economic crisis...

President George W. Bush expressed remorse that the global financial crisis has cost jobs and harmed retirement accounts and said he'll back more government intervention if needed to ease the recession.
"I'm sorry it's happening, of course," Bush said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC's "World News," which was airing Monday. "Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we're in. And if we need to be in more, we will."

From CNN: Bush on helping lose the election for McCain...

President Bush told an interviewer that his presidency may have helped Barack Obama win the White House.
"I think it was a repudiation of Republicans," he told Charlie Gibson of ABC News, according to a transcript released by the network Monday. "And I'm sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me. I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next four years explaining policy."

Open letter from Dr. Gerhard Knies (DESERTEC):

Dear supporters of the DESERTEC Concept,
the original visions of the Transmediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation TREC of EUMENA as a "Community for Development, Climate Stabilisation and Good Neighbourhood", as conceived in the TREC founding paper from October 6th 2003 (see attachment - it is very interesting to read this over 5 years old paper!) are beginning to become a reality, thanks to the Union for the Mediterranean and its Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP).
This is a very good message to all of us who worked for this goal since 5 years.
In fact, essential targets of the MSP are based on the DESERTEC Concept presented in our White Paper summarizing the DLR studies MED- and TRANS-CSP, and furthermore, as a senior member of the French Ministry for economy and finance told me at the end of the Ministerial meeting on the Solar Plan, on Saturday, 22/11 in Paris, also the conception of the Solar Plan was directly stimulated by our work. After the sessions had ended, he approached me to tell me: " Mr. Knies, you should know: TREC is the father of the Solar Plan."
I replied that each success has many fathers, and that I know that there are many who contributed! But he insisted that our work gave the decisive kick to the French government, at the end of 2007.
He told me that he had been reading the TREC web sites since some time and that he copied material, in particular the fresh White Paper on DESERTEC, and gave it to colleagues in the government who were working on the plans for the Mediterranean Union (now: Barcelona Proces: Union for the Mediterranean), and that the information about the DESERTEC Concept was recieved with great interest.
Indeed, I remember how we were surprised when Michael Straub was approached by the French Embassy in Berlin because of the DESERTEC Concept, on January 17th 2008, and then at January 25th, when I received an e-mail from Tristan Mocilnikar from the French Presidential office which said: "We are very much interested in these ideas. Can we have a talk about that?"
We immediately had one and several long phone conversations followed.
The approach by the French embassy was triggered by our presentation of the DESERTEC-Concept at the "Zukunftssalon" of 4 MdBs (Hans-Josef Fell, Josef Göppel, Michael Kauch, and Michael Müller) in Dresdener Bank, at November-6 2007, and the approach by the Presidential Office went back to a recommendation to Tristan Mocilnikar by Paul Suding from REN21.
The DESERTEC Concept had also been brought to the attention of the European Parliament at a public event, organized by 4 MEPs (Matthias Groote, Rebecca Harms, Vittorio Prodi and Anders Wijkman) in Brussels, by His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal from Jordan, on November 28th, and by handing over of the White Paper to the Parliament's president Prof. Gert Pöttering. As a follow up, this presentation led later to an appeal of 25 MEPs to the President of the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy, and to the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.
Our communication with the French authorities in January then lead to an invitation to the French embassy in Berlin at February 12th, to a 2+1/2 hour meeting with 3 representatives from the embassy, where we then were asked about many details and about the status of the DESERTEC project.
At this meeting we were assured that France was seriously looking into solar energy projects with the intent to create cooperation between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, along the lines rolled out in the DESERTEC Concept, even though France was pushing for nuclear energy projects in this region at the same time. We were informed that its nuclear power plans France would continue to pursue bilaterally and
directly with countries in this region. The solar energy projects as envisaged in the MED-CSP and TRANS-CSP studies of DLR and then summarized in our White Paper "The DESERTEC Concept", would be needed in addition for the upcoming power demands, and could be the core of joint efforts in the EUMENA region and become an important activity of the Union for the Mediterranean.
We were also asked if we would know or what we would expect how the German government might react when approached with this proposal.
The DESERTEC Concept then became a basic part of the first French preliminary working paper for the Solar Plan from February 6th.
The communication and the cooperation with French President's office and with French government branches in the run-up to the July 13th event was very pleasant. We are glad that we not only contributed to the CSP studies for the German Government, but by our work also to the transfer of the outcome of these studies to European politics.
Now there is the Solar Plan, and it is officially called the flagship project of the Union for the Mediterranean!
This is exactly what TREC originally wanted to achieve, but it is more than most of us believed we ever would achieve.
With pleasure we here acknowledge the role of Minister Jürgen Trittin, who approved the financial support for the DLR-studies so swiftly at the end of 2003, and the approval of the AQUA-CSP study by BMU under Minister Sigmar Gabriel. We also enjoyed supporting efforts from various sides, in particular from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Change Impact Research (PIK), from the e-parliament network, and from ESTELA association.

I thought you all should be informed on this very important process.

The new DESERTEC Foundation will now accompany and support the further development of this great endeavour, to make it a real success on the ground, and to spread this concept to other parts of the world with the aim: DESERTEC - clean power from deserts for a sustainable world of 10 billion people.

My best regards,
Gerhard

PS: feel free to pass on this e-mail to further people with an interest
in DESERTEC.

.

Let's Talk Bling !!

Michel Obama's $13,000 ring?


Yesterday's Kotecki: Sarah Palin for Congress?


.

Ysabella Brave: They All Laughed (cover 1937)

Woohoo! This one was FUN! Lyrics:

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly

They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony
It's the same old cry
They laughed at me wanting you
Said I was reaching for the moon
But oh, you came through
Now they'll have to change their tune

They all said we never could be happy
They laughed at us and how!
But ha, ha, ha!
Who's got the last laugh now?

They all laughed at Rockefeller Center
Now they're fighting to get in
They all laughed at Whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat
Hershey and his chocolate bar

Ford and his Lizzie
Kept the laughers busy
That's how people are
They laughed at me wanting you
Said it would be, "Hello, Goodbye."
And oh, you came through
Now they're eating humble pie

They all said we'd never get together
Darling, let's take a bow
Ha, ha, ha!
Who's got the last laugh?
Ha, ha, ha!
Let's at the past laugh
Ha, ha, ha!
Who's got the last laugh now?"

love always Ysabella!!!