Chavez to discount oil for U.S. poor

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited a Harlem church Thursday and promised to more than double the amount of discounted heating oil his country ships to needy Americans.....more

Buy Your Gas at Citgo

O'Reilly's Sneak Attack on Bloggers!

Unbeknownst to me, however, the show turned out to be a total set-up job in which host Bill O'Reilly and guest Jed Babbin spent the entire time attacking the web site Media Matters for having posted commentary in the past critical of them both......more

Phyllis Busansky

"Phyllis Busansky is an outstanding leader who I have supported since her very first race for public office. Phyllis cares deeply about the people she represents......Senator Bob Graham

Demonstrators March Against Bush And War
While the lighted sign at Hillsborough Community College flashed a welcome to President Bush, dozens of demonstrators flashed signs of their own.

"If we gave peace a chance in World War II, Hitler would have won!" shouted one driver on Dale Mabry Highway......more

"Keep George Out Of Jail"
Senate Vote Advances President's Effort to Kill War Crimes Act

The 109th Congress, led by Republican Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham and with the acquiescence of many Democrats, is poised to legalize torture, trials with secret evidence, and annulment of the right of habeas corpus. The measure also protects administration officials from prosecution for war crimes. If this measure becomes law, its name will live in infamy......more

Hugo Chavez: An Exclusive Interview

You’d think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chavez’s behind. Not only has Chavez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina.......more

Peace On Earth: Love The Irish

It may be just me, but surely most now are aware that the people of the world are sleep-walking into World War III.....more

Civilian summer death toll in Iraq reaches record high of 6600

THE number of civilians killed in Iraq has reached a record high as a sectarian crisis continues to grip the war-torn country. In July and August, almost 6600 people were killed in violent attacks, which is far greater than initial estimates the United Nations said......more

Toxic shock: How Western rubbish is destroying Africa

Western corporations are exploiting legal loopholes to dump their waste in Africa. And in Ivory Coast, the price has been death and disease for thousands......more

Driving While Muslim

Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan left their homes in this historic Muslim-American enclave as college students and came home as terrorists. On August 8 Houssaiky and Abulhassan drove to an Ohio Wal-Mart to buy hundreds of cheap cellphones, intending to sell them back to a distributor they knew to earn some extra cash for tuition. The Wal-Mart employee, fearing two young men of Arab heritage were terrorists, called police, who promptly apprehended them......more

Black Men, Asian Women

The hype about interracial television couples is that Americans have moved so far past race they don’t even notice. “Honestly, we really don’t even talk about it or consider that it’s an interracial couple,”said ER’s David Zabel. He claims that a quick look at MTV proves that younger people don’t draw those lines.....more

And it smells of sulfur still today
Chavez Address to the United Nations

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books,
Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States
It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet......more

Memo details tensions in election office
Former assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Ken Tinkler describes his rift with Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson.
The eight-page memo, obtained by the St. Petersburg Times through a public records request, paints a picture of a paranoid elections chief: temperamental in his dealings with subordinates, secretive and sometimes deceitful about his office strategy, distrustful of his highest advisers......more

Profits for Europe, Sludge for Africa

Europe wouldn't take the ship's stinking, poisonous cargo. So it sailed to Africa and dumped the toxic mess into an Ivory Coast lagoon. Just the most recent example of western nations using Africa as a toxic waste dump......more

Thousands demonstrate against Iraq war and against Iran

Thousands of Iraq war protesters marched Tuesday to the United Nations, where President George W. Bush was presenting his vision for the Middle East to skeptical world leaders......more

China: Behind the Great Firewall

Like most people these days, I am looking for the answers to these or other questions on Wikipedia, undoubtedly one of the most frequented Web sites of our time. But unlike most of its users, I first have to activate my browser's proxy server before the world's accumulated knowledge will appear on my computer screen. That is because I currently live in China......more

Bush approval rating rebounds in new poll

Bush's approval rating edged up largely on the strength of Republicans coming back to the fold with 86 percent saying they support him now, compared to 70 percent in May, USA Today said. For the first time since December 2005, a majority of people polled did not say the war in Iraq was a mistake. The respondents were evenly split at 49 percent to 49 percent.......more

Same Poop Different Year

Jack Cafferty discussed the new Time article "What Would War With Iran Look Like" yesterday and questioned the intel reports we are hearing on the nuclear capabilities of Bush’s next target......more

Spin

Out to breakfast with friends this morning, my friend Pat points out the difference in the two headlines here. Same story, different papers. The Times-Union is from Jacksonville and has a reputation of being a conservative paper. The Gainesville Sun... well, I wouldn't say it's conservative generally but it's conservative for the town it comes out of a college town with a long history of progressive politics........more

Drums of War
Are we gearing up to attack Iran?

Noting that recent orders have put U.S. ships on standby in the Persian Gulf, the cover piece weighs the likelihood of war against Iran......more

Texan works to impeach president

Since he arrived in Lawrence a week ago to collect signatures from people who would like to see President Bush impeached, Jim Goodnow has received a mostly positive or at least tolerant response.....more

Democrats gain as November vote nears

Polls show, and politicians from both parties agree, that a steady drip of bad news from Iraq, anger over high fuel prices and a spate of corruption scandals have soured the public's feelings toward the ruling Republicans. President Bush, with his approval rating hovering near 40 percent, does not have the political clout he had in past campaigns......more

Ron Klein 2006

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 260
click here

Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day

That's right. But "Fun with Guns" is just one of the ways College Republicans at several campuses across the U.S. will be trying to get twenty-somethings enthusiastic about this fall's elections. Another is "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" days, in which volunteers dressed in orange t-shirts and representing "mock immigrants" will hide around campus and those "catching" them will be awarded prizes......more

Dean Sends Mehlman Letter

Chickenhawk Sean Hannity Condemns Veterans Against Torture

Sean Hannity, who declined to serve in the military when he had the chance, condemned General Colin Powell and Republican Senators Graham, McCain and Warner, all of whom did serve, for taking a stand on behalf of the legal rights of prisoners and maintaining the Geneva Conventions’ standards for humane treatment......more

Summit Examines U.S.-Muslim Relations Five Years After 9-11

Five years after 9-11, U.S.-Islamic relations continue to deteriorate at a rapid pace. Recent polls reveal that 90 percent of residents in predominantly Muslim countries view the U.S. as the primary threat to their country. To examine this relationship, 300 young leaders from around the Muslim world and the U.S. came together to develop a blueprint for long-term engagement between the U.S. and the Muslim world.....more

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

War Is Over If You Want It.........more

Fortress America is an ugly America

"Capitol Hill is a zone of fear, welcoming the tourists with fences, slanted concrete barriers, steel walls that pop out of the pavement and steel posts called bollards that are designed to hold a vehicle-delivered bomb at bay,".....more

Mall sues war protesters

Kings Mall has filed a civil suit against protesters who read the names of dead soldiers and distribute anti-war literature in front of the military recruitment center at the U.S. Route 9W mall. The mall's attorney, Jon A. Simonson, said the suit stems from tenants' complaints over loss of business from the protests, with damages estimated at $50,000. The suit follows the dismissal in late May of trespassing charges against two of the defendants, Jay Wenk and Joan Keefe, both members of the group Veterans For Peace. The two were arrested Feb. 4, and Wenk was arrested again Feb. 11, on charges of harassment.....more

Iraq: Experts Fear a Lost Generation

At first glance, the games occupying Sameer, Salwa, Batul, Taghreed, Yasir and Fawzi seem much like those enjoyed by any children as they play happily in a Baghdad street with friends from school and the neighbourhood.On closer inspection, however, their games are far from innocent, and offer a brutal reflection of daily life in Iraq. This group of five- to seven-year-olds is re-enacting a beheading, a scene they have most likely seen on television or on one of the many graphic videos circulating in the country......more

Congress May be Prosecutable For Participating In Bush War Crimes

Members of Congress are thus on notice that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate what forms of procedure a military commission should adopt. If members participate in a plan to do so or are complicit in the deprivation of minimum due process guarantees under customary international law incorporated by reference in common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions or any other rights or protections under common Article 3 (e.g., concerning the right to humane treatment even at the hands of CIA interrogators), they would be participating in the denial of rights, protections, and duties under Geneva law. Such denials are war crimes......more

Advantage, Davis

The first rule of thumb for candidates for governor is to do no harm to their campaigns when selecting running mates. Charlie Crist and Jim Davis passed that test, selecting serious men knowledgeable about state issues and shoring up support among key voting blocs. While Crist played it safe as the Republican front-runner, Davis' decision was uncharacteristically bold and potentially historic......more

George Clooney Addresses The U.N. On Darfur

The right likes to attack "liberal Hollywood" for speaking out on political matters but isn’t that their right and responsibility as Americans? As fellow members of the human race? Clooney (and every other person on the face of this earth) has that right and responsibility to do their part in trying to bring an end to preventable mass killing and suffering......more

Las Vegas in the Arabian Desert

Dubai has sold its soul to globalization like few cities have. A glittering capitalist fantasyland has taken shape at the heart of the Arab world. It's a center of international trade, a holiday paradise and a carnival rolled into one......more

Candidate Franken

Gearing up for a possible Minnesota state senate run, Al Franken is changing his image from provocateur to politico. Will he still call Rush Limbaugh a big fat idiot?......more

Why Blogs?

With an innumerable amount of flashy, take-forever-to-load mainstream websites teeming with must-read items about pseudo-people like Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Moore...why do so many bother maintaining a blog that's read by (maybe) 75 outcasts?.....more

"War on Terror" Numbers To Silence Republican Candidates

When George W. Bush made a prime-time television appearance Monday night to give a political speech -- under the guise of commemorating the five-year anniversary of September 11 -- he started right off by telling both a lie and the truth in one short sentence."Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe," said Bush, which means he was batting .500 with the truth in just one short statement. Not bad for him. It is undeniably true that we are not yet safe, but to imply that we are safer than we were before Bush turned the world against us is demonstrably false......more

Study finds Neanderthals survived longer

The work contends that Neanderthals were using a cave in Gibraltar at least 2,000 years later than their presence had been firmly documented anywhere before, researchers said.....more