Tuesday, January 2, 2007


US plunges to 53rd place

Cuba, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea: The worst violators of press freedom

New countries have moved ahead of some Western democracies in the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, issued today, while the most repressive countries are still the same ones.....more

Librarians took them off the shelves and dumped them

Like Borders and Barnes & Noble, Fairfax is responding aggressively to market preferences, calculating the system's return on its investment by each foot of space on the library shelves -- and figuring out which products will generate the biggest buzz. So books that people actually want are easy to find, but many books that no one is reading are gone -- even if they are classics......more
Officers Won't Let Protesters Cross Bridge

Police took 10 war protesters into custody Monday at the Golden Gate Bridge after a three-hour standoff that backed up New Year's Day traffic and frayed tempers of tourists and bicyclists hoping for a jaunt across the span. The confrontation began at noon when about a dozen members of the women's peace organization CodePink prepared to walk across the bridge as a vigil to remember the 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Officers from the California Highway Patrol, the Golden Gate Bridge District and the San Francisco Police Department barred their way and also refused to let tourists onto the span.....more

Ret. Col. Ann Wright

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq."
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, 21 July 2003
A UFO at O'Hare? Some Pilots Thought So

Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport last fall.....more
Socialist senator makes US history
"Anybody read your website?" he asks the BBC brusquely at the beginning of an interview ahead of taking his seat in the Senate. Assured that millions do, he says: "OK, let's talk to them.".......more

Monday, January 1, 2007

Howard Dean in December 2003: The US is No Safer with Saddam in Captivity than Before. And Now?

Dean's candidacy catapulted to near coronation by an otherwise disdainful media corps precisely because he alone of any major candidate opposed the war from the outset. He gained unflinching grassroots support that translated into historic amounts of money, nearly all from small donors, because he literally spoke truth to power. Most regrettably, this weekend's confluence of Saddam's execution with passing the 3,000 mark in the number of American soldiers dead in Iraq proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dean was right three years ago. At the time Dean made his much-criticized remark, about 500 American's had died in Iraq. Five times that many have died since.......more
Darfur, Uganda and the U.S. campaign to destabilize Sudan

In a little publicized speech earlier this year to the conservative think tank Freedom House, President George Bush had this to say when asked about U.S. efforts to end the unfolding tragedy in Darfur: “We [himself and Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo] talked about the need for a parallel track [a parallel track to the fighting in Darfur], a peace process that needs to go forward, that there needs to be unity amongst the rebel groups,” he said. This seems a strange means by which to achieve peace in Darfur, creating unity between the rebel organizations and isolating the national government. A more fair and realistic approach would be to engage both the government and rebels to negotiate solutions to common grievances......more


Help stop the genocide in Darfur!

Wal-Mart hosts Communist Party

US retail giant Wal-Mart has set up a new branch of the Communist Party at its China headquarters after allowing unions to operate in its stores earlier this year......more


Kucinich for president 2008
kucinich.us
YouTube
2006: A Deadly Year For Journalists

A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists found that at least 55 journalists were killed this year in direct connection to their work. The most violent country was Iraq where 32 journalists lost their lives......more