http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want to keep from the public eye.
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Common Dreams:
"UNITED NATIONS - As U.N.-led talks on disarmament resume in Geneva Monday, calls are growing for nuclear-armed nations to cut spending on their stockpiles and instead divert resources to development.
'The amount still being spent on nuclear arms makes no sense, just as continued reliance on the weapons themselves makes no sense,' David Kreiger, president of the U.S.-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told IPS.
His remarks alluded to the fact that nine out of 193 U.N. member states continue to increase budgetary allocations for the maintenance and modernization of nuclear weapons, despite promises to reduce their stockpiles.
Last year, the nuclear states spent around 105 billion dollars on their arsenals, according to independent estimates. The share of the United States alone was 61 billion dollars."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/28-0
-->The NY Times didn't bother its readers with this news about tens of billions being spent on nuclear arms. It's the Olympics, for God's sake; there are better things to write stories about.
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Reuters:
"A New York man agreed on Tuesday to pay a $6,500 fine to settle a long-running dispute with the U.S. Treasury Department over a trip he made to Cuba as an unauthorized tourist 14 years ago.
Zachary Sanders, now 38, said he was 23 and had been living and teaching English in Mexico when he decided to go to Cuba for a couple of weeks in 1998.
'I wanted to learn about how a socialist country worked in practice,' Sanders said in an interview. 'I had no illusions. ... I'm not like some diehard supporter of the (Cuban) government or anything like that.'
The United States has long restricted U.S. travel to Cuba as part of a 50-year-old trade embargo aimed at punishing Cuba's communist government. The actual restrictions and the degree of enforcement have varied with different U.S. administrations and with the evolving state of U.S.-Cuba relations."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/us-usa-cuba-travel-idUSBRE86N1MC20120724
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story. Fining someone for visiting a foreign country just doesn't look good for the United States, that supposed bastion of freedom and democracy.
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Common Dreams:
"A recent University of Texas study, which claims to prove that the natural gas extraction process known as fracking does not cause environmental damage or water contamination, was led by a gas industry insider who currently holds up to $1.6 million in stock at a large fracking company. The information was revealed in a new exposé released by the Public Accountability Initiative (PAI).
The 400-page pro-fracking review in question was led by author Charles Groat of the University of Texas. Neither Groat nor the University openly reported that Groat himself is on the board of a fracking company, Plains Exploration and Production Company.
As a board member, Groat receives 10,000 shares of restricted stock a year. His holdings as of July 19th were worth $1.6 million. He also receives an annual fee, which was $58,500 in 2011, according to filings.
Groat did not reveal his position with the company when the report was released and told reporters that the university had turned down all industry funds for the study."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/27-7
-->This article should have been printed in the NY Times because it reveals the depth of the corporate fracking scam. Putting it on the NY Times' "Dot Earth" blog minimizes the damage to corporate and college reputations.
