From the Guardian -

British supermarkets accused over destruction of Amazon rainforest

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• David Adam in Maraba
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 May 2009 22.15 BST
• Article history

British supermarkets are driving rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest by using meat from farms responsible for illegal deforestation, according to a three-year investigation of the global trade in Brazilian cattle products.

The report names Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer among dozens of high-profile companies it says profit from products supplied by Brazilian farms on illegally deforested land. Much of the trade is in processed beef, used for pies, canned meat and frozen ready meals. The supermarkets insist it is not from the Amazon.

The Greenpeace investigation also tracked the global trade in other Brazilian goods made from cattle. It names Nike, Adidas, Timberland and Clarks Shoes among companies it says use leather linked to Amazon destruction.

Greenpeace wants companies to refuse to buy products sourced from farms that have carried out illegal deforestation. It wants consumers to pressure supermarkets and high-street brands identified in the report to clean-up supply chains.

Sarah Shoraka, Greenpeace forests campaigner, said: "Shoes, handbags and ready meals aren't normally associated with rainforest destruction and climate change, but we've found a smoking gun. UK companies are driving the destruction of the Amazon by buying beef and leather products from unscrupulous suppliers in Brazil. These products are ending up on our shelves." She added : "The cattle industry is the single biggest cause of deforestation in the world and is a disaster for the fight against climate change. Global brands must take a stand."

Officials from around the world gather in Bonn for talks on a new treaty on global warming, which is expected to include urgent efforts to protect forests. Clearing tropical forests for agriculture is estimated to produce 17% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions – more than the entire global transport system. Many of the companies named in the Greenpeace report promote their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Greenpeace report compiles government records, company documents and trade data from Brazil, China, Europe, Vietnam and the USA, to piece together the global movement of meat, leather and cosmetics ingredients made from Brazilian cattle.

Campaigners used satellite images, surveillance flights and undercover visits to assess deforestation on dozens of ranches across the Amazonian states of Para and Mato Grosso.

Cattle farming is now the biggest threat to the remaining Amazon rainforest, a fifth of which has been lost since 1970. Big ranches are blamed for 80% of all deforestation in the region; the number of cattle in the Amazon grew from 21m in 1995 to 56m in 2006.

The report, Slaughtering the Amazon, describes how ranches responsible for illegal deforestation sell cattle to slaughterhouses controlled by a handful of Brazilian companies. These ship beef or hides to facilities in the south of Brazil and process them for export. They are often processed again in the importing country.

Greenpeace says records show that cattle from hundreds of farms across the Amazon are mixed and processed in this way, making it currently impossible to trace the origins of products. "In effect, criminal or 'dirty' supplies of cattle are 'laundered' through the supply chain."

The investigation focused on three Brazilian companies, Bertin, JBS and Marfrig, which operate slaughterhouses and together control a third of Brazilian beef exports. Greenpeace says satellite images and trade records show that all three companies – part-owned by the Brazilian government– source cattle from farms that have carried out illegal deforestation in the Amazon. It says exports from the south of the country near São Paolo are "polluted" with products from animals raised on deforested land.

Britain is the second largest importer of processed Brazilian beef after the US, taking 50,000 tonnes last year.

Greenpeace says Marfrig facilities export processed beef to Green Isle Foods, an Irish subsidiary of Northern Foods. Product labels show Northern Foods supplies convenience foods that contain the Marfrig meat to Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons, the report says. It says Tesco and Marks and Spencer sell tinned Brazilian beef supplied separately by JBS.

Tesco and Marks and Spencer denied the meat came from the Amazon. Marks and Spencer said: "We do not accept and have never used any beef from the Amazon region. We have been working with our Brazilian beef supplier for over 20 years and through the traceability measures we have in place we can ensure that all the product supplied to us by them is from the exact location we specify."

Sainsbury's said it used "a small amount of Brazilian beef in our frozen and canned range". Morrisons said its suppliers provided documents to prove beef was not linked to Amazon deforestation. Asda said it was confident its beef did not come from the Amazon. It said: "If that isn't the case we'd take that very seriously indeed."

A Tesco spokesman said: "Our canned beef is sourced from São Paolo, which is about 3,000 km away from the Amazon. I have also been informed that the cows cannot travel more than 300km."

Pathetic, Funny... who elected him, who chose him?

The most extraordinary claim was made by Mr Cook, who tried to claim for £5 he donated during a Battle of Britain memorial service.

A handwritten note attached to the claim by way of a receipt stated: “Battle of Britain church service, Sunday 17.09.06. £5 contribution to offertory on behalf of Frank Cook MP.”

The fees office wrote on his claim “Not Allowed” and refused to pay out on the claim. Markings on the note indicate the Commons authorities had been planning to blank out the word “offertory” before they were to be made public in the summer, meaning the precise nature of the claim would have remained hidden from the public if it had not been disclosed by the Telegraph.

It is particularly embarrassing because Mr Cook is an official supporter of the campaign to commemorate Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, who commanded the RAF’s 11 Group Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.

From Democracy Now

Despite No Links to Violence, Founders of Muslim Charity Sentenced to Lengthy Terms for Donations to Needy Palestinians in Occupied Territories

Five founders of the Holy Land Foundation, once the nation’s
largest Muslim charity, have received prison terms of up to sixty-five years on charges of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas. The five were never accused of supporting violence and were convicted for funding charities that aided needy Palestinians. The government’s case relied on Israeli intelligence as well as disputed documents and electronic surveillance gathered by the FBI over a span of fifteen years. We speak to Noor Elashi, daughter of Ghassan Elashi, the chair of the Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to sixty-five years; and Nancy Hollander, a defense attorney who represented former Holy Land CEO Shukri Abu Baker.

UKIP Policies - SPOT THE MISSING ELEPHANT!

So onto UKIP's website to see what they have to say about AGRICULTURE WHICH TAKES UP THE MAJORITY OF EU BUDGETS...

NOWT>>

UKIP Policies

Campaign policies Euro elections 2009

Friday, 8th May 2009

The UK Independence Party believes that the UK should withdraw from the European Union and that our membership should be replaced with a genuine free trade agreement similar to those enjoyed by other non-EU nations such as Switzerland, Norway and Mexico. More

Home Education: UKIP policy 2009

Wednesday, 25th February 2009

UKIP has issued a statement in response to the government's attempt to marginalise people who, entirely legally, choose to educate their children at home. More

UKIP policies in brief 2009

Tuesday, 19th August 2008

Here is a summary of the broad range of policies proposed by UKIP for an independent Britain in which democracy really works. More

Constitution: UKIP policy 2009

Tuesday, 19th August 2008

To read or download the UKIP Policy paper "How We Are Governed" as an Adobe PDF document (320 kb approx) Click here More

Criminal Justice: UKIP policy 2009

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

Read or download "Rebalancing Justice" as an Adobe PDF document – 320 kb approx Click here More

Defence: UKIP policy 2009

Monday, 7th April 2008

Read or download "In the National Interest" as an Adobe PDF document – 305 kb approx Click here More

Fishing: UKIP policy 2009

Thursday, 27th March 2008

Read or download and print an Adobe PDF document – 270 kb approx Click here More

Energy & Environment: UKIP policy 2009

Thursday, 10th January 2008

View or download an Adobe PDF document – 415 kb approx. Click here to view More

Immigration: UKIP policy 2009

Saturday, 6th October 2007

The UK Independence Party is calling for a five-year freeze on immigration into Britain and a future policy that would see migrants controlled by a points system similar to that operated by Australia and New Zealand. More

UK Independence Party Education Policy : August 2006

Tuesday, 17th July 2007

Download an Adobe PDF version (260kb file - approx) Click here to view An updated version of this policy paper is to be published shortly More

Page 1 of 2 [2] [next]

UK Farmers Suicides As High As Ever - From Defra

Core indicator 7.04: Farmer suicide rates

This indicator compares the rates of suicides for farmers and farm workers with that for the rest of the working population in England and Wales. The chart shows the proportional mortality ratio (PMR), where the suicide rate for all workers is 100. It shows data from 1993 to 2007. Care should be taken when interpreting PMR data - see fact sheet for explanation. Slight changes in classification mean that data from 2001 cannot be directly compared with previous years.

Between 1993 and 2007 the proportional mortality ratio for farmers varied between 153 and 254 and for farm workers between 81 and 156. Figures show that the proportion of deaths from suicides relative to other causes of death since 1993 for farmers has been consistently higher than for both farm workers and all workers.

Farmer Suicides

1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

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Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine

"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well."

Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.

In another village nearby, Beturam Sahu, who owned two acres of land was among those who committed suicide. His crop is yet to be harvested, but his son Lakhnu left to take up a job as a manual labourer.

His family must repay a debt of £400 and the crop this year is poor.

"The crop is so bad this year that we will not even be able to save any seeds," said Lakhnu's friend Santosh. "There were no rains at all."

"That's why Lakhnu left even before harvesting the crop. There is nothing left to harvest in his land this time. He is worried how he will repay these loans."

Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association: "Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death."

Mr Prakash added that the government ought to take up the cause of the poor farmers just as they fight for a strong economy.

"Development should be for all. The government blames us for being against development. Forest area is depleting and dams are constructed without proper planning.

All this contributes to dipping water levels. Farmers should be taken into consideration when planning policies," he said.

This article is from The Belfast Telegraph

From Mike

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

>

> Commencement Address to the Class of 2009

> Paul Hawken

>

> University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

>

> When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a

> simple short talk that was ³direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate,

> lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.² Boy, no pressure there.

>

> But let¹s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are

> going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth

> at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of

> decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation ­ but not

> onepeer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute

> that statement.

>

> Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the

> programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

>

> This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to

> have misplaced them. Important rules like don¹t poison the water,

> soil, or air, and don¹t let the earth get overcrowded, and don¹t touch

> the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that

> spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue

> that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per

> hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really

> good food ­ but all that is changing.

>

> There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will

> receive, and in case you didn¹t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can

> tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The

> earth couldn¹t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school.

> It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and

> that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And

> here¹s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not

> possible in the time required. Don¹t be put off by people who know

> what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it

> was impossible only after you are done.

>

> When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my

> answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is

> happening on earth and aren¹t pessimistic, you don¹t understand data.

> But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and

> the lives of the poor, and you aren¹t optimistic, you haven¹t got a

> pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing

> to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore

> some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet

> Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot

> with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary

> power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description.

> Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action

> is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses,

> companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

>

> You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups

> and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day:

> climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger,

> conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the

> world has ever seen.

>

> Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it

> strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it

> works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one

> knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and

> meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea,

> not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants,

> businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government

> workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers,

> weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders,

> grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United

> States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the

> Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

>

> There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and

> the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is

> true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may

> befall us; it resides in humanity¹s willingness to restore, redress,

> reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you

> finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around

> you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver¹s description of

> moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to

> the living world.

>

> Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the

> evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of

> strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific

> eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to

> create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those

> they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance

> except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely

> unknown ­ Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood ­ and

> their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of

> four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what

> human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was

> greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the

> abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and

> activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive

> England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of

> people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from

> whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today

> tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world

> of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and

> non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and

> environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope

> and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

>

> The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What

> do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life

> creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no

> better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of

> abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned

> people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed

> regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the

> only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We

> have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in

> real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money

> to bail out a bank but you can¹t print life to bail out a planet. At

> present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and

> calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an

> economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We

> can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the

> future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And

> whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold

> suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way

> to be rich.

>

> The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago,

> and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally

> you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by

> Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our

> fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is

> to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90

> percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and

> without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each

> human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes

> between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human

> body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one

> with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has

> undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the

> universe ­ exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science

> would discover that each living creature was a "little universe,

> formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute

> and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

>

> So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?

> Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on

> simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore

> it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who

> is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully

> not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are

> conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want

> you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate

> wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

>

> Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came

> out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of

> course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be

> ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the

> stars come out every night, and we watch television.

>

> This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and

> the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened,

> not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as

> complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done

> great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring

> creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging,

> stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations

> before you failed. They didn¹t stay up all night. They got distracted

> and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your

> existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn¹t ask for

> a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic,

> not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn¹t make

> sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your

> life depends on it.

Bertrand Russell Day

"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so."-Bertrand Russell

A NEw Church and Awesome Blog

Campaigns

The Immediate Life's various campaigns focus on three interdependent initiatives:

• Supporting and advocating for sustainable consumption
• Encouraging and establishing strong local economies
• Defending the First Amendment and public space

2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour

Two weeks touring the UK, performances and actions

The United Kingdom has been rocked by the G20 and their Parliament's scandalous shopping habits...they need the Life After Shopping Gospel!

View campaign >

Union Square Not for Sale

Parks are for People Not for Profit!

For over 130 years, the park‘s pavilions have served as a playspace for children, a bandstand, a reviewing stand, a speakers’ rostrum, and as a focal point for labor rallies and social protests. Despite this illustrious history, the Union Square Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) is attempting to turn the pavilion into an upscale restaurant. Demanding transparency and consideration of our communities' needs, Union Square Not for Sale is a campaign based in the belief that parks are for people, not for profit.

View campaign >

Defending the First Amendment

An Ongoing Defense of Our Nation's Civil Liberties

Defending the First Amendment is an ongoing defence of our nation's civil liberites - the right to free speech and expression, the freedom of the press, the right to express grievances, the right to public space.

View campaign >

Save Coney Island

Defending Coney Island From Retail Devil-opment

Coney Island is the land of the free and the home of the freaks, Playground of the People, The Poor Man's Riviera – the developer Joe Sitt and Thor Equities have been buying up property there for years and have big plans for development. The City of New York, led by petit tyrant Mike Bloomberg, has a brutal rezone in the works that would reduce the amusement area to just 9 acres. King Neptune and Queen Mermaid join the battle to Save Coney Island.

View campaign >

Ecologically Sustainable Futures

Exposing the relationship between unsustainable consumption and climate change.

View campaign >

Supporting Strong Local Economies

Emboldening healthy neighborhoods everywhere to fight their own extinction

The East Village is internationally recognized as a site where flourishing shops and culture are seriously threatened by a rapid influx of chain stores. Currently, between 2nd Avenue and Avenue D and Houston Street and 14th Street there are less than 10 chain stores, making it one of the last few commercial sites in Manhattan where independently owned business predominate. The struggles to defend the East Village therefore set precedents for communities around the world. In protecting and strengthening neighborhood diversity, we build critical case studies that emboldens healthy neighborhoods everywhere to fight their own extinction.

View campaign >

Carlo Petrini

Roots - English Culture

AWesome Song - COUNTRY LIFE

This sums it up really...

Why so many more epidemics ?

The world's reaction to the outbreak of swine flu shows the important gains we've made in understanding infectious diseases on the one hand, and how far we have to go in understanding and preventing their spreading on the other. Whether its flu, cholera, AIDS, or another disease, the issues are largely the same.

Allotments of Land

There's more fun to be had on an allotment than gardening

Allotments should be about escapism not how much produce you can grow, says Rowan Pelling.

By Rowan Pelling
Last Updated: 7:38AM BST 27 May 2009

Comments 17 | Comment on this article

Allotments should be a place to escape to Photo: JAY WILLIAMS

Woe betide the bureaucrat who comes between a man and his marrows. Council officials in Cheltenham have just evicted John Weston from his two plots on the town's Midwinter allotments. The 61-year-old stands accused of neglect, since only half of his land is under recognisable cultivation, where the council demands that at least 75 per cent should be producing fruit and veg. Weston protested that: "It is designed as a rural retreat. It might look wild, but it's got character and it produces enough crops to suit me."

I stand firmly beside him. Before we turned to cultivating children, my husband had a plot on a gloriously verdant site near Cambridge's botanical gardens. At the far end, there was a huge tangle of brambles that yielded the most delicious blackberries, while a strange mound in the middle boasted nothing more productive than a dog-rose. The rhubarb patch defied our best attempts to contain it, and I was always pleading the cause of picturesque weeds.

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We enjoyed it when certain crops ran amok – fennel and rocket look glorious when they flower – and relished the sightings of pheasants and muntjac, despite their frequent sabotage. While my husband laboured, I took to lolling about on a daisy-strewn patch of grass, declaiming verse.

Allotments should be about escapism, about the unparalleled joys of pottering. But this attitude brings you into conflict with horticulture's sergeant-majors, who believe plots are all about browbeaten lettuce and maximised yield. They will report you to the council for every transgression, hoping to sequester your soil for themselves. A gay couple two plots down got squealed on for sipping tea in deckchairs while their potatoes ran to seed, and there was muttering about the artist who used her site as a rambling flower garden, and the manic depressive who took to living in his hut. (However, it took three years before anyone noticed that one chap was growing a fine annual crop of cannabis.)

What makes British allotments glorious is the varied and eccentric way holders interpret the freedom of that limited space. Let's not turn them into box-ticked cabbage factories.

*Were Ealing comedies still in production, they could create a blinding film about allotments: for example, the heroic but futile battle to preserve Hackney's Manor Gardens from Olympic bulldozers. These are the kind of heart-warming movies we want in recessionary times: little people versus corporate or civic bullies. Indeed, figures show that cinema audiences are up 16 per cent on last year, as people flee the travails of real life.

This makes perfect sense to me: I'm part of a babysitting cabal in our street, where we're taking turns to mind each other's children so the grown-up kids can escape to watch the new Star Trek film – which seems infinitely less outlandish than our politicians' expenses. But what audiences really need is a cross-generational, feel-good comedy. During the last recession, I saw Strictly Ballroom twice within a fortnight, and on both occasions it received a standing ovation. Beat that, Richard Curtis.

*If my life were a film, the years editing The Erotic Review would be followed by something far more unlikely, such as becoming a Carmelite nun. Failing that, I wouldn't mind being editor of The Lady, the "journal for gentlewomen". To my astonishment, a diarist claimed I was in the running for that very post last Friday.

Although it wasn't the case, I couldn't help wondering how candidates are put through their paces. I presume they arrange dahlias, show how decorously they can disembark from a Bentley, and end with a bake-off, where the top job goes to the person who presents the best Victoria sponge.

In the email today.... MR CHENEY..

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters, 1. Watch this video 2. Donate 3. Digg this video Dick Cheney says that torturing detainees has saved American lives. That claim is patently false. Cheney's torture policy was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of American servicemen and women. Matthew Alexander was the senior military interrogator for the task force that tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and, at the time, a higher priority target than Osama bin Laden. Mr. Alexander has personally conducted hundreds of interrogations and supervised over a thousand of them. "Torture does not save lives. Torture costs us lives," Mr. Alexander said in an exclusive interview at Brave New Studios. "And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool...These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse....literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives." Watch our exclusive interview with Matthew Alexander. As Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post reported, "Alexander easily takes down Cheney's arguments...The video is at once an effective rebuke of the former vice president and a sign of how the changing media landscape can flatten the field of political debate." Professional interviews like this one are possible because your support has helped us build Brave New Studios, a state-of-the-art studio at our Culver City offices. Brave New Studios allows us to do the work the mainstream media routinely fails to do: to rebut lies from people like Dick Cheney with the personal testimonies of those like Mr. Alexander who have seen the facts on the ground. We are committed to bringing you more exclusive interviews and need your help. Contribute to Brave New Studios with a $20 donation. With the mainstream media obsessing over the personal feud between the President and the former Vice President instead of on the critical question of whether torture has led to thousands of American casualties, the work at Brave New Studios and your contribution are more important than ever. Yours, Robert Greenwald and the Brave New Foundation team