Estimated 2,000 US Troops Wounded Through Early July. With 2010 just scarcely halfway over, the record tolls of the Afghan War are coming fast and furious, pointing to yet another year that will be by far the worst on record for the international invasion force. The current statistic relates to wounded soldiers in Afghanistan, with ABC News reporting an estimated 2,000 American soldiers have been wounded from the beginning of 2010 through July 3. The number is four times as many as were wounded in the same period in 2009 and nearly as many as were wounded in the entire year last year, which was itself the worst of the war. In fact in the depths of winter Gen. Barry McCaffrey predicted that the United States should expect “500 casualties a month” by Summer, and while many people were appalled at this prediction, it seems he aimed a bit low, with June’s casualty figure for Americans running closer to 600 and July shaping up to be at least as bad. PressTV: 2010 to set record for US injuries.

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world.

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace. So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

The officials said that the denial of access to the information was the key factor in the refusal to extradite the film maker to the U.S., according to the letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland. A district attorney's spokeswoman said their office was never notified of the Swiss request and did not know that the Justice Department had turned it down. The letter dated Monday was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday night. It provided a time line of when the request was filed and when it was turned down. The letter blamed the denial of extradition solidly on the refusal by the Justice Department to show transcripts of testimony by the film director's original prosecutor to Swiss officials.

Plan aimed at ridding Israel of any responsibility for Strip calls to lift blockade entirely, rehabilitate Hamas-ruled territory with European assistance. Five years after Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has proposed a new plan aimed at ridding Israel of any responsibility for the coastal enclave, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Friday. Lieberman is troubled by the fact that despite the evacuation of all Israeli settlements in Gaza and a full IDF withdrawal, the disengagement was not acknowledged by the international community, which still demands that Israel provide the Strip's residents with their basic necessities.

[Editor's Comment:] This hardly is anything new. The Zionists have been planning for years to sever all connection between the West Bank and Gaza and to continue the illegal squatting activity ("settlements") in the West Bank. Having finished the "legal" framework for the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, they will transfer them all to Gaza. Finally the aggressive Zionists will start squatting within Gaza proper, stealing even this sliver of land, bit by bit. Eventually the desperate Palestinians will be given to choose between jumping into unseaworthy dinghies and fishing boats or be loaded like cattle on to ships requisitioned by the colluding UN.

Passing through the Suez, many of them will be dumped in Al 'Aqabah and forced into camps under the new regime in Jordan. (The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will be overthrown by the Zionists well ahead of this.) "Festung Europa" will most likely receive none of the remaining, destitute Palestinians. Some will be left to fend for themselves in a hostile Egypt. -Extremely bleak prospects as far as we can tell. Those who keep their silence and do nothing will be complicit in these unforgiveable crimes. The stain on their ignoble souls will be indelible.

I have written extensively in the past about Noam Chomsky and the reasons I an not an admirer of his. My main criticisms of the man can be found in THIS post. He continues to ‘add insult to injury’ every time he opens his mouth lately. He sees himself as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, as an activist. Nothing is further from the truth. At one time he might have been the glorious ‘Knight’ he thinks he is, but his armor has been tarnished beyond recognition. The time is long overdo for him to take it off and stop playing at this game of his.

Xymphora: Up to their old tricks: I think it odd that primitive tribalism is considered to be downright embarrassing in modern society unless the tribesman is Jewish, in which case it is so common, and so expected, we don't even notice.

The Prince of Wales has accused climate change sceptics of using 'pseudo science' and 'intimidation' to stop the world from addressing catastrophic global warming. He likened the failure to combat rising temperatures across the world to playing "Russian Roulette with the future of our children". But instead of acting, the Prince said more and more people are listening to the "siren voices" of climate change sceptics who argue that the theory of man-made global warming is simply a "sinister attempt to undermine the capitalist system".

Researchers with the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology have released a new computer model which tracks the potential spread of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill over a period of one year. The model predicts oil could make its way around the Florida peninsula and up the east coast of the United States by autumn, where currents will then pull it out into the Atlantic Ocean. In a press release entitled “The long-term fate of the oil spill in the Atlantic,” researcher Fabian Schloesser explains the method behind the study. The model follows 8 million buoyant particles, representing the oil spill, released from the Deepwater Horizon site between April 20, when the blowout occurred, to September 17, 2010 in ocean flow data from simulations provided by the Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator (OFES).

“The paths of the particles were calculated in 8 typical OFES years over 360 days from the beginning of the spill,” says Schloesser. “From these 8 typical years, 5 were selected to create an animation for which the calculated extent of the spill best matches current observational estimates.” Researcher Axel Timmerman says of the projection, “After one year, about 20 percent of the particles initially released at the Deepwater Horizon location have been transported through the Straits of Florida and into the open Atlantic.” Timmerman says the projection shows the importance of collecting oil in the channel between Florida and the Grand Bahama Island before it can make its way to the Atlantic Ocean. [Image: NASA Goddard Photo and Video's photostream]

Back when David Cameron was first trying to rebrand the Conservative Party, he touched down on the melting Arctic tundra to be photographed looking pensive and hugging huskies. He promised to lead "the greenest government ever". "Vote blue, go green," his posters said. Some of us were sceptical, because the only time he had ever publicly discussed global warming before was in a statement where he mocked wind farms as "giant bird blenders". Now, two years later, he was building one on his house. But I hoped I was wrong. The evidence is plain. Yes, David Cameron hugged the huskies in opposition. But as soon as he got into government, he walked them into the Downing Street garden, and shot them in the head.

More than 20 people have been killed and over 100 others have been wounded after two explosions hit the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan Province. "Two explosions in the front of Zahedan's Grand Mosque have left more than 20 martyrs and over 100 injured," Fariborz Rashedi, the head of Sistan-Baluchestan's emergency unit told IRNA. The first explosion occurred at 9:20 p.m. local time (1650 GMT) in front of the city's Grand Mosque, and was followed by a second blast within minutes, IRNA said. Jalal Sayyah, a police official, said emergency forces have arrived at the scene of the incident, adding that an investigation into the incident was underway. Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi described the incident as a "terrorist act," Fars news agency reported.

Researchers in Gabon are studying fossils containing signs of life dating back two billion years. To the un-trained eye, they are just stones. But for researchers from all over the world, it is a fabulous treasure trove.

Said Abderrazak El Albani a geologist from the University of Poitiers: “We took a sample or two, then back in France we went to a specialist and he told us, “Ok, you’re working on fossils that are 600 million years old!” so from then I knew we were onto something.”

These 600 million year-old fossils were excavated from earth which dated from 2 billion years ago. So scientists did further tests, using a three-dimensional scanner. There could be no further doubt; this find threw the chronology of the entire planet into question. If we say that the first single cell organisms appeared 3 billion years ago, the complex forms of life that we knew about up until now dated from 600 million years ago. But the Gabon fossils push back the date of the appearance of multicellular life. It’s a fundamental discovery for researchers and now they want to protect the site in Franceville, Gabon, because it could be the place where life on earth began.