Needed In Storrs: A College Town
UConn launches a plan to build one from scratch

The project exemplifies the growing interest of colleges and universities in their surrounding communities. Many have realized that a building boom of dormitories, student centers and libraries isn't enough. Students don't want an “ivory tower” experience; they want to be part of broader communities that offer commerce, culture and cuisine.......more

Are The Blinders Finally Coming Off?

There seems to be a fear setting in amongst Republicans and pundits that what those of us on the left have been saying for years, just might be true. Namely that this President is crazy! He is an End Times believer and an ideologue and he is in charge of our foreign policy! It’s about time they started questioning his fitness to lead this country......more

Death Count 2,972 This Christmas Day 2006

6 U.S. Troops Die in Bloody Iraq Weekend

Some 12,000 Iraqi policemen have been killed since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the country's interior minister said Sunday, as clashes, a suicide bomber and weekend explosions killed more than a dozen Iraqi officers and six American soldiers......more

RIP: James Brown

Surging into the Abyss

It now looks like the administration has adopted the surge strategy as its mantra. Simply put it means no new political road map for Iraq in place of the “national unity government” formula that has so far failed has not delivered on the insurgency but has managed to alienated the Shias, and has actually caused more rather than less sectarian violence since the U.S. adopted it.......more

New Poll: Hillary Over McCain

A new poll from Newsweek has some interesting data on Hillary Clinton's electability. According to the poll, Hillary beats John McCain 50 to 43 percent, squeaks by Rudy Giuliani 48 to 47 percent and trounces Mitt Romney, 58 to 32 percent. Her presumptive rival, Barack Obama, narrowly loses to McCain and Giuliani but thumps Romney as well, 55 to 25 percent.....more

Noam Chomsky on Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation

World-renowned scholar and linguist Noam Chomsky spoke this weekend at an event sponsored by Massachusetts Global Action. The event titled, "What's Next? Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation" was held at the Emmanuel Church in Boston. Chomsky, who is a professor of Linguistics at MIT, returned from Latin America in October. He talked about the recent elections in the region, which have brought leftist, governments to power that are challenging U.S foreign policy. Chomsky also spoke about Iraq and Iran in the context of Latin America.....more

The U.S. Has a History of Using Torture

In April 2004, Americans were stunned when CBS broadcast those now-notorious photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked while U.S. soldiers stood by smiling. As this scandal grabbed headlines around the globe, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the abuses were "perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military......more

They Wash the Homeless people's feet

A Witness To What Faith Can Be

Something radical is happening every Friday night where homeless people congregate downtown under the Burnside Bridge. Car and vanloads of Christian volunteers swoop in with sleeping bags and coats to protect their dispossessed friends against the raw, wet weather that has moved in. They dispense hot meals and set up stations for shaves and haircuts. While a few pull out guitars and strike up their Jesus-themed songs, a small number of the volunteers commit one of the more audacious acts of compassion and humility I have ever witnessed......more

Bridgetown Ministries

Screen every child in school for mental illnesses

Pres. Bush has commissioned the mental health field to screen every child in school AND PRE-SCHOOL for mental illnesses. Once in the mental health system, they are given drugs that are NOT FDA approved for kids, mainly anti-depressants. I'm a nurse and I can tell you that these new drugs they are NOW giving these kids CAUSE suicidal and homicidal behaviors. I have a study in my hand that says they are targeting the MEDICAID children. From the year 2000 to 2005, there was an increase of 528% in these drugs given to Medicaid children. Almost 60,000 just in Florida alone. So, this cause will affect your future if it's continued. The way they get into schools is through TeenScreen mental health screening. We can stop the government from doing this by signing the petition below.

Go to this website and sign this on-line petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

Also visit: www.nurses4humanrights.org

Bill defies Bush, visits Syria

In a direct affront to the Bush administration, a Democratic senator spent an hour Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, emerging from the meeting to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border.....more

Meet: Maj. Megan McClung

A roadside bomb killed her a month before coming home

She was known for sprinting along the Tigris River in Iraq, competing in a triathlon in Brazil and doing a back flip in North Carolina to prove to police she was sober.With her copper-red hair, athletic ability and sense of humor, Maj. Megan McClung was a memorable figure to the troops and journalists she worked with as a Marine Corps public affairs officer......more

America Loses Another War
Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping, or just a pathetic trouncing? Ugly disgrace? Choices, choices

The good news is, we're all back in harmony. All back on the same page. No more divisiveness and no more silly bickering and no more nasty and indignant red state/blue state rock throwing because we're finally all back in cozy let's-hug-it-out agreement: The "war" in Iraq is over. And what's more, we lost. Very, very badly......more

Clueless

Pinochet's grandson kicked out of army

The grandson of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was booted out of the army today for criticising the judiciary in a highly politicised speech at his grandfather's funeral. In his funeral speech, the younger Pinochet described his grandfather as "a man who, at the height of the Cold War, defeated the Marxist government which tried to impose its totalitarian model, not through the ballot box, but through direct use of force."......more

The Fall of the Mighty Dollar

Is an end of an era looming in the foreign exchange markets? The dollar has been depreciating against the euro for weeks. Currency experts and the German government don't yet see this as cause for alarm. The US currency's role as a lead currency isn't as important as it used to be, they say......more

Blame the Iraqis and run

As George W. Bush agonises over which bits of last week’s Baker-Hamilton re­port to adopt for his forthcoming “new way forward in Iraq” announcement, an­other consensus is emerging in Washington on how to handle the situation: blame the Iraqis.....more

December 10, 2006: Human Rights and Impeachment (Prison) Day
here

European Left see better ties with US after Democrat win

The chairman of the national committee of the US Democratic Party, Howard Dean, told the gathering his party now "has a say" in US policy and wants to restore close political ties with Europe. "It is time for the US to renew its ties with the rest of the world. It is time for us to treat our allies with respect and honesty," he said to applause from participants.......more

A New Game

If you’re like me, you’ve got a wingnut friend or two that persists in trying to “convert you” by sending you foolish spam emails and chain letters. Sometimes the emails aren’t so bad - I got one from a devout Christain friend the other day that spoke of respect for the troops during the holidays. Jingoistic? Sure… But it was touching, nonetheless......more

The Dixie Chicks Earn Five Grammy Nominations

Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Country Album........more

The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American.”.........Harvey Weinstein

Changes Are Expected in Voting by 2008 Election

By the 2008 presidential election, voters around the country are likely to see sweeping changes in how they cast their ballots and how those ballots are counted, including an end to the use of most electronic voting machines without a paper trail, federal voting officials and legislators say......more

Dean calls for another election in District 13

"You cannot seat someone if you don't have an election that's valid," Dean said in a taped interview scheduled to air Sunday on Bay News 9, Tampa Bay's cable news channel......more

George Bush "in denial"

"Make no mistake about it, sir, I understand how bad it is, I talk to the families who die," Mr Bush went on, leaning forward past his podium to hammer home his point with a string of trademark malapropisms......more

Are Saudis funding Iraq terror?

Report says millions sent to Sunni insurgents for weapons

Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, according to Iraqi officials and The U.S. Iraq Study Group report said Saudis are a source of funding for Sunni Arab insurgents. Several truck drivers interviewed by reporters described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents.......more

Al Gore:

"The worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States.”

I would urge the president not to — to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it’s not about him. It’s about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there.....more

All the President's men are down to one

They were all this President's men - Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and Bolton - neoconservatives, hard-line conservatives, iron-fisted conservatives, unyielding conservatives. Once they were not only The Untouchables but also The Unbudgeables. Now there is only one.....more

Wealth distribution disparity growing

The richest 2 percent of adults still owns more than half of the world's household wealth, perpetuating a yawning global gap between rich and poor, according to research published Tuesday by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research.....more