Senior military officers and Ministry of Defence officials have taken up more than 3,500 jobs in arms companies over the past 16 years, according to figures that reveal the extent of the "revolving door" between the public and private sector.

The data, compiled by the Guardian from freedom of information requests, shows how the industry swoops on former officials and military personnel once they have left service, with hundreds of senior officers being given jobs every year.

The figures for 2011-12 show 231 jobs went to former officials and military personnel - a rise from the previous year's total of 101. Another 93 have been approved since January. In total 3,572 jobs have been approved since 1996.

The disclosure comes in the aftermath of a "jobs for generals" scandal that led to the resignation of the president of the Royal British Legion, Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely, who was embarrassed in a newspaper lobbying sting.

No longer is it good enough for the Kochs to spend unlimited money influencing elections. They are also touting candidates to employees while creating policies that have a chilling effect on employees' freedom of speech.

Much has been written about the owners of Koch Industries, brothers David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, trying to control the political process through hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to right-wing causes and candidates. Now, an In These Times investigation reveals that the billionaires have broken out another tactic to influence the 2012 elections: attempting to control their workers' votes.

In a voter information packet obtained by In These Times, the Koch Industries corporate leadership informed tens of thousands of employees at its subsidiary, Georgia Pacific, that their livelihood could depend on the 2012 election and that the company supports Mitt Romney for president. The guide was similar to one the company distributed before the 2010 midterm elections, which Mark Ames and I reported on in The Nation last year.

The packet arrived in the mailboxes of all 45,000 Georgia Pacific employees earlier this month. The cover letter, by Koch Industries President and Chief Operating Officer Dave Robertson, read:

While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit.

Electronic voting machines owned by Mitt Romney's business buddies and set to count the votes in Cincinnati could decide the 2012 election.

The narrative is already being hyped by the corporate media. As Kelly O'Donnell reported for NBC's Today Show on Monday, October 8, Ohio's Hamilton County is "ground zero" for deciding who holds the White House come January, 2013.

O'Donnell pointed out that no candidate has won the White House without carrying Ohio since John Kennedy did it in 1960. No Republican has EVER won the White House without Ohio's electoral votes.

As we document in the e-book Will the GOP Steal America's 2012 Election, George W. Bush got a second term in 2004 thanks to the manipulation of the electronic vote count by Ohio's then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell served as the co-chair of the state's committee to re-elect Bush/Cheney while simultaneously administering the election.

Portugal's centre-right government on Monday announced sweeping tax rises and spending cuts in its 2013 budget, which promises a third year of recession and hardship under the strict conditions of a 78-billion-euro (62.2 billion pounds) bailout.

Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar warned that failure to continue on the path of austerity could be catastrophic as about 2,000 protesters gathered outside parliament to demand the resignation of the government.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief has drafted a plan to cause an environmental disaster in the Strait of Hormuz to block seaborne oil exports with the goal of removing economic sanctions imposed on Tehran, the weekly Der Spiegel said in an unsourced report.

There was no independent confirmation of the report.

The German newsmagazine reported that Mohammad Ali Jafari's plan, codenamed "Muddy Water", envisages the Iranians steering a tanker onto the rocks in the Strait, the world's most important oil shipping waterway.

A new study from Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute finds that the number of Pakistani civilians killed in drone strikes are "significantly and consistently underestimated" by tracking organizations which are trying to take the place of government estimates on casualties, which the Obama administration won't comment on because the drone war is technically secret.

The study "warns that low civilian casualty estimates may provide false assurance to the public and policymakers that drone strikes do not harm civilians." Many low-ball estimates - like those from Long War Journal and New America Foundation - are due to reliance on news reports, which "suffer from common flaws" like trusting "anonymous Pakistani government officials or unnamed witnesses for the claim that 'militants' - rather than civilians - were killed."

The New York Times public editor is attacked for suggesting the paper should "aggressively challenge" government claims on drones

As I noted on Sunday, the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan devoted her weekly Sunday column to an excellent critique of her paper's coverage of US drone attacks. While noting that the Times has done some good work in attempting to bring transparency to the Obama administration's secret killings - in particular its May "kill list" article revealing that Obama adopted a ludicrously broad definition of "militant" that skews the "data" on civilian deaths - she then wrote:

"Since the article in May, its reporting has not aggressively challenged the administration's description of those killed as 'militants' - itself an undefined term. And it has been criticized for giving administration officials the cover of anonymity when they suggest that critics of drones are terrorist sympathizers."

There are, to put it mildly, numerous reasons for serious skepticism when it comes to administration claims about its drone program and civilian deaths. For one, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, was conclusively proven to be spouting outright lies about civilian deaths from US drones.

No matter who "wins", humanity loses.

Every four years, the deck chairs of the political Titanic that is the American empire get rearranged in the choreographed spectacle of another presidential "election". The 2012 charade is particularly disgusting; the lies more blatant and shrill, as the world continues to burn.

It is critical to focus on the cold, ugly reality facing the world with either prospective White House occupant.

On one side, the Obama administration, and the traditional brand of neoliberal imperialism and international consensus, and false domestic populism. On the other side with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, militant right-wing extremism, an apocalyptic war agenda and the politics of sadism at home.

The interests of the elite (Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberger, etc.) is dutifully served with either Obama or Romney in the White House. The question for the elite is purely over style and execution.

Obama has been a servile facilitator and protector of the political establishment; an insidious capitulator and "consensus man". For Wall Street's billionaires, the Pentagon's warmongers, and Washington's most shamelessly corrupt, there has been no greater gift than Obama and his presidency. But with Romney and Ryan, the agenda simply speeds up and destroys faster, more violently, with true theocratic maniacal fervor.

The final choice will not be made by voters (who will be disenfranchised again, via electronic vote fraud and other manipulations), but by the criminal elements who seize final control of the apparatus over the final month of the "contest".

The "children" are being allowed to fight it out amongst themselves. The side with ultimate command of the corporate media propaganda, the most effective back door deals, and the most effective dirty tricks and election night shenanigans, will prevail, the pre-determined result promptly encrypted into the software of controlled Diebold voting machines.

European satellite provider Eutelsat SA says it has stopped the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels following an order by the European Commission, Press TV reports.

The company ordered media services company, Arqiva, to take the Iranian satellite channels off one of its Hot Bird frequencies on Monday.

In a separate statement emailed to Press TV, Arqiva said that the decision was made by the EU Council.

"We terminated the contracts because it was the order of the European Commission. We have to follow it," Karen Badalov, area management of Eutelsat SA told Press TV.

For those individuals on the planet with their eyes open, with fear in their hearts and a deep pain that has numbed their souls, today is not beautiful. The light at the end of the tunnel is awful in its vivid portrayal of the horror that awaits all of us, and we have no one to blame for the situations that we find ourselves in other than ourselves.

EU moves closer to new Iran sanctions

The European Union provisionally approved new economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program on Friday, with senior diplomats giving their backing to measures against Tehran's banking sector, industry and shipping.

How refreshing. For the Iranians who are currently watching as their economy is destroyed by sanctions, as they are threatened with war on a daily basis by those in America and Israel, the now Nobel-Laureate EU champions the rights of the people to watch their children starve, all while the president of the parliament has "overwhelming emotion for awarding of Nobel Prize to EU." It must be terribly difficult to live comfortable lives, gut the economies of member states, and war-monger. I can just see historians' confusion: "so did peace actually mean malicious cruelty to the 'people' of the 21^st century?" Yes, yes it did. No one could make up the unimaginable evil that we are party to.