Blog Feed: And, yes, I DO take it personally

This Memorial Day, let us reflect on the sober reality of the U.S. post-9/11

Published on 2012-05-25 15:47:00

bill moyers and michael winship... Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. > read more

The question now is which fork in the road will Occupy take?

Published on 2012-05-25 11:08:00

more from adbusters... Occupy's Spiritual Quest The fork in the road ahead. Dear occupiers, jammers, dreamers,Three years after the May 1968 uprising that swept the world, the great French philosopher Michel Foucault observed that a key strategy of power is to “appear inaccessible to events.” Power, Foucault argued with a nod towards 1968’s failed insurrection, acts to “dispel the shock of daily occurrences, to dissolve the event … to exclude the radical break introduced by events [..] > read more

The Quebec protests evolves from student debt to austerity

Published on 2012-05-25 10:56:00

from adbusters... Quebec: Red Square Revolt It started with students — first a few at the Université Laval, and then hundreds of thousands, filling the streets every day and every night, wearing red squares (carrés rouges) to symbolize the giant debt they’d accrue if their government went ahead with proposed tuition hikes. Now the movement has turned into a bigger revolt against austerity measures in Quebec — a grève générale illimitée (#ggi) or unlimited general strike ques [..] > read more

A real choice for President in 2012

Published on 2012-05-23 12:33:00

mr. fish certainly has managed to grasp the essential reality of the u.s. presidential election charade... > read more

Adbusters: The largest student protest in the history of Canada

Published on 2012-05-23 09:34:00

from a quebec blogger site via adbusters... The largest student protest in the history of Canada is taking place. The premier of the Canadian province says that the police violence used against the uprising is keeping the public safe. The images you are about to see say otherwise.also this...On march 22, 2012. Many thousands of students marched the streets of montreal in opposition to tuition hikes. The sheer amount of people was just astounding... > read more

Paul Craig Roberts: Financial deregulation is likely to prove to be the mistake that destroys Western civilization

Published on 2012-05-22 13:03:00

whether or not roberts is right, i just wish the house of cards would go ahead and collapse...from counterpunch... The enormous cost of the financial crisis has one single source–financial deregulation. Financial deregulation is likely to prove to be the mistake that destroys Western civilization. While we quake in our boots from fear of “Muslim terrorists,” it is financial deregulation that is destroying us, with help from jobs offshoring. [...] Financial deregulation has had dangerou [..] > read more

Alternet: The relentless drive of corporations to maximize profit above everything else, including safety, fair working conditions, clean air and water, healthy communities, and common decency

Published on 2012-05-22 11:25:00

tara lohan writing in alternet... The corporate model we have today hasn't always been around and it doesn't need to remain the dominant way we do business. There is no reason we should be swabbing the decks of a sinking ship -- alternatives already exist and they are flourishing."What's underway is an ownership revolution. It's about broadening economic power from the few to the many and about changing the mindset from social indifference to social benefit," Kelly [Marjorie Kelly, a fello [..] > read more

Top organization spending on lobbying; top recipients of lobbying money

Published on 2012-05-22 10:43:00

yet more evidence of how our super-rich elites are buying our government and ruling our lives... via influence explorer...it's interesting to me that the home of the masters of the universe, goldman sachs, has spent more than double the amount of any other organization... thanks to glenn greenwald... > read more

Vets protest at NATO by throwing their medals away

Published on 2012-05-21 11:32:00

i know there will be a lot of people who will condemn the vets for their actions but, no surprise, i'm not one of them... as a vietnam vet and a civilian worker in afghanistan, i have had the opportunity to see the effects of the endless war mentality of the u.s. in person... and as one who receives his health care from the va, i am all to well aware of our own domestic human wreckage caused by that same mentality... i say cheers for those vets for having the courage to speak out...from msnbc... [..] > read more

Ten companies, thousands of products

Published on 2012-05-20 10:25:00

the graphic below lists ten companies and connects them with the products they produce... unfortunately, the graphic depicts only the products marketed by those companies in the united states... many thousands more similar products are sold in countries across the globe under different brand names... in my travels, i have made it a habit to always search for the name of the company on the product, usually found in very small print somewhere on the packaging and it almost always is one of those s [..] > read more

The United States is the most heavily armed nation in the world, with 90 guns per 100 people. Yemen is in second place, but only has 60 guns per 100 people

Published on 2012-05-19 17:01:00

the post title is drawn from a study by the graduate institute of international studies small arms survey as quoted by cenk uygur in a story on his young turks show about guns in the u.s...from raw story... Friday night on Current TV’s “The Young Turks,” host Cenk Uygur charged that there’s one party in the Trayvon Martin slaying that is truly, undeniably guilty, but it isn’t a person.[...]Citing the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies’s Small Arms Survey, Uyge [..] > read more

Chomsky: If the Obama administration decides they don't like somebody, they murder them

Published on 2012-05-18 10:01:00

from democracy now... As the United States carries out another deadly drone strike in Yemen, Noam Chomsky compares the counterterrorism policies of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. "If the Bush administration didn't like somebody, they'd kidnap them and send them to torture chambers," Chomsky says. "If the Obama administration decides they don't like somebody, they murder them." Chomsky also praises the whistleblowing activities of WikiLeaks, as well as the ongoing Latin Ameri [..] > read more

John Pilger: Obama is as reactionary and violent as George W. Bush, and in some ways he is worse

Published on 2012-05-17 16:53:00

john pilger is right up there with chris hedges in his unvarnished critique of the crap that is piled on our heads daily by our handlers... The width of a cigarette paper separates the Democratic and Republican parties on economic and foreign policies. Both represent the super rich and the impoverishment of a nation from which trillions of tax dollars have been transferred to a permanent war industry and banks that are little more than criminal enterprises. Obama is [..] > read more

Adbusters: The Globalization of Laughter

Published on 2012-05-17 16:18:00

riotously laughing flash mobs... what's not to like...?adbusters... > read more

A bit of good news on the NDAA

Published on 2012-05-17 16:07:00

NDAA's 'Indefinite Detention' Provisions Unconstitutional, says JudgeAn Obama-appointed judge rules provisions of NDAA likely violate the 1st and 5th Amendments > read more

Predators preying on poverty

Published on 2012-05-17 15:00:00

barbara ehrenreich... Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states.It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that th [..] > read more

Bernardine Dohrn: NATO is a global secret cabal. It is the military arm of the global 1 percent.

Published on 2012-05-17 14:34:00

bernardine dohrn on democracy now...We’re deeply involved [with the protests against the NATO summit this coming weekend] because NATO is a global secret cabal. It is the military arm of the global 1 percent. And really, I think NATO has become background to how we hear the news: "NATO forces, NATO bombings." And when you try to find out what NATO is, you realize that it is the largest global military alliance in human history and that its key elements are that it is about permanent war, it [..] > read more

Glenn: The War on Terror has normalized even the most warped powers

Published on 2012-05-16 16:50:00

from the wapo...President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen. The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrori [..] > read more

Highly recommended: Economic Alert: If You’re Not Worried Yet…You Should Be

Published on 2012-05-14 18:05:00

i won't even attempt to excerpt tyler durden's excellent article, you'll simply have to go read it yourself... > read more

Paul Buchheit: Five Facts That Put America to Shame

Published on 2012-05-14 17:19:00

from common dreams...1. We're near the bottom of the developed world in children's health and safetyAccording to a 2007 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranked last among 21 OECD nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.[...]2. We've betrayed the young people who were advised to stay in schoolOver 40% of recent college graduates are living with their parents, dealing with government loans that ave [..] > read more

Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior

Published on 2012-05-14 15:17:00

more on the social darwinian b.s. that is heaped on our heads on a daily basis...from the nyt... A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law.The only thing that puzzles me about t [..] > read more

Chris Hedges: Fear and instability ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival

Published on 2012-05-14 07:40:00

as the 2012 presidential election campaigns gather momentum and obama and romney face off against each other, it is increasingly apparent just how empty our political process really is... the united states - and indeed the rest of the world - is beset by problems and challenges so big as to be practically incomprehensible, yet we are treated day after day to reality show bites on mitt's "bullying," the secret service sex-for-pay scandal, and george clooney's $15M obama fundraiser... moreover, we [..] > read more

John Brennan: American drone strikes are “ethical and just," "wise," and "surgically precise”

Published on 2012-05-13 17:38:00

the exceptionalism of the united states...tom engelhardt... [C]onsider as Exhibit One a recent speech by the president’s counterterrorism “tsar,” John Brennan, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. > read more

The NYT on "spy balloons" in Afghanistan - a day late and a dollar short

Published on 2012-05-13 14:44:00

i've visited afghanistan, kabul in particular, at least a half dozen times over the past few years... when i arrived there in september 2009, the first thing i noticed was the surveillance airship floating over the vicinity of the main mosque and in fact i put up a blog post featuring a photo of it i had taken from the roof of our guesthouse (see here)... after inquiring, i was told that it had been there for a few months but that such tethered surveillance craft had been a familiar feature over [..] > read more

Matt Taibbi on the 2012 election: Two calculating centrists, fighting for the right to serve as figurehead atop a bloated state apparatus

Published on 2012-05-11 14:40:00

just a short dose of reality from glenn... Matt Taibbi has an excellent post > read more

Sibel Edmonds re-emerges - finally - with a book

Published on 2012-05-11 10:25:00

i've posted a great deal in the past about sibel edmonds (see here) but it's been nearly three years since my last post... the constraints of her gag order coupled with personal threats have been severely detrimental in getting her story out... now i see that she has a book which lays out everything and i can only hope that her re-emergence and renewed visibility will be sufficient to shield her from any unexplained, coincidental "accidents"... > read more

Adbusters: Spring re-occupations have largely failed here in North America

Published on 2012-05-11 09:13:00

once again, adbusters leads the way... > read more

JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon decide on a little derivatives sunshine

Published on 2012-05-10 16:36:00

bwahahahaha...! long overdue...from the ft...JPMorgan Chase announced surprise “significant mark-to-market losses” on credit derivatives in its chief investment office, an opaque unit whose aggressive trades have recently drawn controversy.The bank said in a regulatory filing that the portfolio at the CIO had “proven to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the firm previously believed”.On a hastily convened conference call, Jamie Dimon blamed “err [..] > read more

What is common-good conservatism?

Published on 2012-05-10 14:57:00

truthout via alternet... What is common-good conservatism? It is a political philosophy rooted in the stewardship ethic of traditional conservatism. It begins with three simple premises: that recognition of the shared dignity of all human beings is the essential predicate of a just society, that rights always correspond to duties and that we bear a collective responsibility toward one another. Forward-looking, solutions-oriented and committed to social, economic and environmental justice, [..] > read more

James Bamford talks with Thom Hartmann about the NSA's Bluffdale, Utah, project

Published on 2012-05-09 15:12:00

Welcome to America's biggest spy center here's some more from wired's threat level... Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the und [..] > read more

Obama endorses gay marriage

Published on 2012-05-09 14:21:00

about freakin' time...nyt... President Obama declared for the first time on Wednesday that he supports same-sex marriage, putting the moral power of his presidency behind a social issue that continues to divide the country.“At a certain point,” Mr. Obama said in an interview in the Cabinet Room at the White House with ABC’s Robin Roberts, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get m [..] > read more

The five rules that govern Big Pharma

Published on 2012-05-09 10:53:00

from alternet...Science > read more

Glenn: You can’t just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are

Published on 2012-05-09 07:59:00

glenn comments on the "accidental" killing of an afghan family and the latest cia foiled al qaeda bomb "plot"...No matter how many times the U.S. kills innocent people in the world, it never reflects on our national character or that of our leaders. Indeed, none of these incidents convey any meaning at all. They are mere accidents, quasi-acts of nature which contain no moral information... [...] We’ve all been trained, like good little soldiers, that the phrase “collateral damage” clea [..] > read more

Mr. Fish: The altruism and profound compassion of the 1%

Published on 2012-05-08 14:23:00

from truthdig... > read more

Chomsky: We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke.

Published on 2012-05-08 11:39:00

as always, chomsky's ability to recognize and describe the patterns and structures of our socioeconomic and political realities is unmatched...tomdispatch...There has always been a gap between public policy and public will, but it just grew astronomically. You can see it right now, in fact. > read more

Glenn: Why is the unprecedented increase in domestic surveillance and a corresponding increase in prosecuting whistleblowers not a campaign issue?

Published on 2012-05-07 14:35:00

yes... why indeed...glenn greenwald... [I]ssuing subpoenas to journalists to force them to reveal their sources is now obsolete — unnecessary — because the U.S. Government’s Surveillance State is so vast, so comprehensive, that it already knows who is talking to whom. It now subpoenas and harasses reporters simply to force them to confirm in court what they have already learned through surveillance, but the limitless Surveillance State it has created has rendered undetected whistleblo [..] > read more

Ernest Callenbach: A looter elite has fastened itself upon the decaying carcass of the empire

Published on 2012-05-07 12:13:00

from tomdispatch...Long-time literary agent Richard Kahlenberg wrote me that Chick [Ernest Callenbach] had left a final document on his computer, something he had been preparing in the months before he knew he would die, and asked if TomDispatch would run it. > read more

The definitive authoritarianism of the U.S. National Security State

Published on 2012-05-06 11:23:00

glenn speculates on the ramifications of ongoing efforts by the obama administration to force the internet industry to provide the u.s. government with “backdoor” access to all forms of internet communication... [F]or anyone who defends the Obama administration ... and insists that the U.S. Government simply must have access to all forms of human communication: does that also apply to in-person communication? Should home and apartment builders be required to install monitors in every r [..] > read more

Glenn: Not a single War on Terror victim and not a single government official has faced the courts - not one...!

Published on 2012-05-05 09:11:00

rule of law...? accountability... ? the justice system...? blind lady justice...? fuhgedaboudit...glenn...[O]f all the American institutions that have so profoundly failed in the wake of 9/11 to protect the most basic liberties — Congress, both political parties, the establishment media, the Executive Branch, the DOJ specifically — none has been quite as disgraceful as the federal judiciary, whose life tenure is supposed to insulate them from base political pressures that produce coward [..] > read more

Detainee Processing Technique

Published on 2012-05-04 15:02:00

this ought to inspire chills...Restricted U.S. Army Internment and Resettlement Operations Manual FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement OperationsDETAINEE PROCESSING TECHNIQUE 4-33. Upon capture, Soldiers must process detainees using the “search, silence, segregate, speed, safeguard, and tag (5 Ss and T)” technique. This technique provides a structure to guide Soldiers in conducting detainee operations until they transfer custody of detainees to another authority or location. Complete t [..] > read more

Adbusters Tactical Briefing #31 - Three challenges Occupy must overcome

Published on 2012-05-04 10:13:00

food for thought... TACTICAL BRIEFING #31 – GUT CHECKThree challenges Occupy must overcomeHey you nimble dreamers, believers and jammer tacticians out there.Our movement has reemerged from winter hibernation to find that this spring we are different but so too is the political and tactical situation. Occupy now faces a series of existential challenges that will define the month of May and set the tone for our long-term future.#1 challenge: Jump over the corporate mediaIt took the New York [..] > read more

Stiglitz: Moral deprivation, all the apples in the barrel are rotten and capitalism is broken

Published on 2012-05-03 16:29:00

when i read stiglitz' book, globalization and its discontents, in 2003, it opened my eyes... that was the first year i worked in international development and i was witnessing first-hand a lot of different dynamics that i was trying to make sense out of... sitting in a former communist country and watching the mad scramble to shift to a market economy would have simply been undecipherable chaos for me if i had not had stiglitz as a guide... i was left with a deep impression of a profoundly moral [..] > read more

Gareth Porter: None of the official line on bin Laden is true

Published on 2012-05-03 09:50:00

gareth porter has one of the more credible reputations in investigative journalism and in this truthout exclusive, blows the lid off the inflated and conflated mythology being dispensed as fact...A few days after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a "senior intelligence official" briefing reporters on the materials seized from bin Laden's compound said the materials revealed that bin Laden had, "continued to direct even tactical details of the group's mana [..] > read more

Glenn: The War on Terror is the end in itself, and Terrorism is merely its pretext

Published on 2012-05-02 07:42:00

as with so many other things i've posted about on this blog, i find myself endlessly posting about and repeating the same sad litany of abuses and outrages time after time...glenn greenwald... In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s summary execution one year ago, many predicted that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. Here’s what has happened since then:*With large bipartisan majorities, Congress renewed the once-controversial Patriot Act without a single reform, and it was signed int [..] > read more

Candidates for election in the U.S. have to be vetted by high concentrations of private capital

Published on 2012-05-01 10:27:00

chomsky talks with laura flanders on free speech tv via counterpunch...In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s > read more

Nation of Assassins

Published on 2012-04-30 16:45:00

jeremy scahill spoke at a weekend conference on u.s. drone policy... International law experts, peace activists, journalists and human rights advocates from around the world gathered in Washington, DC over the weekend to inform the American public about US drone policy and the impact it is having on human populations throughout the world. [...] During his speech, journalist Jeremy Scahill, who has done in-depth reporting on the US drone program in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, questione [..] > read more

Chomsky on May Day: If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions

Published on 2012-04-30 14:37:00

i'm inclined to think we're at that point...noam chomsky... People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That’s because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning. For example, Ronald Reagan designated what he called, “Law Day”—a day of jingoist fanaticism, like an extra twist of the knife in the labor movement. > read more

WHO: one in four people in the United States suffers from chronic anxiety, a mood disorder or depression

Published on 2012-04-30 12:08:00

chris hedges in truthdig... When the most basic elements that sustain life are reduced to a cash product, life has no intrinsic value. The extinguishing of “primitive” societies, those that were defined by animism and mysticism, those that celebrated ambiguity and mystery, those that respected the centrality of the human imagination, removed the only ideological counterweight to a self-devouring capitalist ideology. Those who held on to pre-modern beliefs, such as Native Americans, who [..] > read more

Glenn exposes the manipulation and hypocrisy behind the latest Obama-Osama hype

Published on 2012-04-29 07:16:00

glenn shows it for what it is, a bald-faced abuse of executive power all in the name of secrecy and national security...Selective bin Laden leakingThe WH tells a court the bin Laden raid is top secret, as it keeps leaking snippets to glorify the Presidenta worthwhile read... > read more

Anonymous speaks out against CISPA

Published on 2012-04-28 13:14:00

another despicable piece of legislation carefully crafted by our super-rich elites to control the only free flow of information available to the masses...anonymous... Despite growing resistance to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA has cleared its first legislative hurdle. But the battle over the widely-criticized information-sharing bill is just heating up.In an earlier-than-expected vote Thursday evening, the House of Representatives voted 248 to 168 in favor [..] > read more

Mr. Fish hits one out of the park

Published on 2012-04-28 12:37:00

> read more

40,000 Norwegians sing about love for others, regardless of creed, gender or skin color

Published on 2012-04-28 12:31:00

this is truly inspiring... seeing people come together and re-affirm that we are all in this boat together is well worth celebrating...For proving that love for others, regardless of creed, gender or skin color, is still a powerful force in human affairs, we honor the 40,000 Norwegians who sang out in an Oslo square on Thursday against the violent dogma of mass killer Anders Breivik. They are our Truthdiggers of the Week.[...]Taken as a solemn pledge, the public chorus of “Children of the [..] > read more

Pay for United CEO Jeff Smisek jumps to USD$14.7 million from USD$4.4 million

Published on 2012-04-28 08:09:00

the obscenity of executive compensation is truly staggering...Compensation for Jeff Smisek, chief executive of United Continental Holdings, surged in 2011, reflecting greater responsibilities after a 2010 merger that created the world's largest airline, according to a filing.Total compensation rose to USD$14.7 million last year from USD$4.4 million the previous year, the company said in a proxy statement on Friday.Much of the increase came from a USD$7.5 million stock award that vests over [..] > read more

Stiglitz: Austerity is economic suicide

Published on 2012-04-28 07:51:00

but for our super-rich elites, austerity is boom times... Austerity Measures Leading Europe To ‘Suicide’, Nobel Economist Says Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said Europe is in a “dire” situation as a focus on austerity pushes the continent toward “suicide.” “There has never been any successful austerity program in any large country,” Stiglitz, 69, said in Vienna on Thursday. “The European approach definitely is the least promising. I think Europe is headed t [..] > read more

The month of May

Published on 2012-04-27 10:49:00

more from adbusters...The May 2012 Insurrection > read more

The prison industry needs a steady flow of new prisoners

Published on 2012-04-27 10:33:00

it's all about growth and profitability, right...? Prison Industries: "Don't Let Society Improve or We Lose Business"[...] If you have any doubt in your mind that improving society and lowering the number of prisoners in our country (normally considered a worthy social goal) is a threat to the prison industry business, all you need to do is to read about that concern in The GEO Group's 2011 annual report:In particular, the demand for our correctional and detention facilities and services a [..] > read more

CISPA heads for a vote in the House

Published on 2012-04-26 15:42:00

sopa, acta, pipa and now cispa... our rulers keep bringing this shit back in different guises, thinking that eventually we'll grow tired of fighting and let them have their way... it's a timely reminder that our super-rich elites will stop at nothing to control the internet and to make sure that absolutely nothing we do, whether it's on the internet or anywhere else, no matter how small or innocent, escapes the notice of the ptb... > read more

Glenn on Jose Rodriguez' new book

Published on 2012-04-26 14:19:00

in case you need a memory jog, rodriguez is the cia officer who destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody during congressional and legal scrutiny about the secret detention program and suffered zero consequences... the title of rodriguez' book: “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives”...glenn... Rodriguez thus joins a long line of Bush officials — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et. [..] > read more

Chomsky: "There is a sector that’s doing fantastically well, mainly in financial capital. For the general public it’s a different story."

Published on 2012-04-25 17:32:00

alternet posts excerpts from a conversation between alternet's joshua holland and noam chomsky... well worth reading/listening to...Noam Chomsky on America's Declining Empire, Occupy and the Arab Spring > read more

Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane

Published on 2012-04-25 16:27:00

i knew just as soon as i put up the last post, i would run across something that simply screamed to be posted... it never fails... william rivers pitt posting in truthout... It is brutally hard to be a Christian in America these days. Some of us Christians take that bit about doing unto the least of us deeply, deeply seriously. Some of us Christians think that it is wrong, sinful, and in fact a brazen form of Apartheid to deny certain Americans the rights enjoyed by other Americans based up [..] > read more

SSDD

Published on 2012-04-25 15:48:00

had nothin' yesterday, got nothin' today... yeah, there's stuff out there but, crikey, it's all crap i've been blathering about for years and, honest to god, i'm so-o-oooo sick of it... > read more

The bastards at American Airlines go to war

Published on 2012-04-23 17:04:00

yes, they ARE bastards... amr wants to emasculate the unions and is relying on a business-friendly judicial environment to do it for them... AMR Fires Opening Shot In Court Battle American Airlines kicked off a week-long court hearing on its bid to abandon union contracts, telling a judge on Monday that its bankrupt parent, AMR, cannot survive without major concessions from its workforce. Hundreds of people, including lawyers and airline workers, filled the courtroom and two overflow rooms in [..] > read more

Is capitalism in fact bankrupt?

Published on 2012-04-21 14:34:00

from al jazeera...With a world-wide financial crisis, towering government debt and the public outrage of the 99 per cent it is suggested that the free market is not free enough. Is capitalism in fact bankrupt? > read more

More on the American Surveillance State

Published on 2012-04-21 14:09:00

in the previous post, i highlighted yesterday's democracy now interview with nsa whistleblower william binney... glenn greenwald, naturally, is all over it...We love to tell ourselves that there is a robust freedom and a thriving free political press in the U.S. because you’re allowed to have an MSNBC show or blog in order to proclaim every day how awesome and magnanimous the President of the United States is and how terrible his GOP political adversaries are — cutting and > read more

"We Do Not Live in a Free Country"

Published on 2012-04-20 16:26:00

more on our rapidly expanding national security state...democracy now via information clearing house...National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State SurveillanceIn his first television interview since he resigned from the National Security Agency over its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the NSA’s massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower.Binney was a key source for investigative journalist [..] > read more

American terrorism - killing people by remote-controlled video game

Published on 2012-04-20 09:31:00

whenever i read stories about drones performing targeted killings, i can't help but think of what it would be like to be living in a place where robotic killing machines routinely fly overhead and never knowing who will be their next targets or when death will rain from the sky... i can't imagine how horrifying that must be...glenn...There are many evils in the world, but extinguishing people’s lives with targeted, extra-judicial killings, when you don’t even know their names, based on “pa [..] > read more

Take a look at the future of the privatization of water

Published on 2012-04-20 09:13:00

not only is the privatization of water resources another way the world's super-rich elites can continue to bleed the peasants by monopolizing what should be a freely available commodity and is the fundamental right of every living thing on this earth, we now can see how it's designed to make even MORE money by selling water to the highest bidder and treating the wastewater results...Shocking Conflict of Interest: Private Water Companies Partner With Fracking LobbySelling water to drillers, two o [..] > read more

Tom Friedman, ultimate wanker

Published on 2012-04-19 16:31:00

i completely forgot about atrios' top ten wankers of the decade, a list he compiled to celebrate his ten years in blogging... i'd followed the other nine but it slipped my mind that he was to announce number one on tuesday... so, without further ado, here it is...THE ONE TRUE WANKER OF THE DECADETom Friedman.He fetishizes a false "centrism" which is basically whatever Tom Friedman likes, imagining the Friedman agenda is both incredibly popular in the country and lacking any support from our curr [..] > read more

Sandy Weill, an architect of the economic collapse, is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Published on 2012-04-19 11:44:00

conclusively proving that my country's values are firmly in the right place... < /snark>from time to time on this blog, i have railed against individuals i consider to be high profile examples of what is wrong in this country and the world... karl rove, carl icahn, donald rumsfeld, george bush, lloyd blankfein, bill kristol and a number of others spring to mind... yesterday's post by robert scheer in truthdig added yet another name to my black list - sanford weill...How evil is this? At a time w [..] > read more

The history of James Johnson, Goldman director, "should disqualify him from service on the board of any public company"

Published on 2012-04-19 09:26:00

more pushback on the criminally negligent banksters... see the financial times article here... > read more

The asshole Allen West - god forbid we should have social and economic justice

Published on 2012-04-18 07:17:00

i don't ordinarily comment on the constant stream of bullshit associated with the left/right, democratic/republican, progressive/conservative divide but i find this deeply troubling...Rep. Allen West: Thin line between communism and progressivismRep. Allen West, a tea party Republican from Florida, said Tuesday that he did not regret describing the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus as communists.At a forum, he called on journalists to study the political spectrum of ideologies and [..] > read more

Citigroup - suck on this, Vikram Pandit

Published on 2012-04-17 15:40:00

any pushback on the criminal bankers is welcome...from the nyt...Citigroup Shareholders Reject Executive Pay PlanCitigroup’s shareholders rejected the bank’s plan to award its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, $15 million in compensation, in a show of frustration about Wall Street pay.At the bank’s annual meeting Tuesday in Dallas, a majority of investors voted against a proposal on executive compensation, which included approving Mr. Pandit’s pay package.The advisory vote comes amid wi [..] > read more

The rich have milked our society for everything

Published on 2012-04-16 20:22:00

from common dreams... well worth clicking through and reading the whole thing...Five Reasons Why The Very Rich Have NOT Earned Their Money1. They've Taken All the Middle Class Wage Increases2. They've Mismanaged Key American Industries3. They've Benefited from 50 Years of Public Research4. They've Increased Their Incomes By Not Paying Taxes5. They've Contributed Little to Societywhat it boils down to is that the country has been run for their benefit... > read more

Sgt Robert Bales, our super-elite predators, the foreclosure scam, endless war and unchecked violence

Published on 2012-04-16 11:36:00

mark ames posting at consortium news...The 1%’s Hand in the Afghan MurdersThis past Thursday, a Modesto, California, man whose house was in foreclosure shot and killed the Sheriff’s deputy and the locksmith who came to evict him from his condominium unit. Modesto authorities responded by sending 100 police and SWAT snipers to counter-attack, and it ended Waco-style, with the fourplex structure burning to the ground with the shooter inside.[...]These “death by foreclosure” killings h [..] > read more

Yesterday was International Pillow Fight Day - Who knew...?

Published on 2012-04-16 10:41:00

it's way past time for something on the light side...from raw story...Some 100 people did battle with feather-filled pillows Sunday in front of central Rome’s Santa Maria in Trastevere church, to celebrate International Pillow Fight Day.The pillow warriors, most between 18 and 30 years old, lined up face-to-face, then unleashed their fiercest pillow-fight moves when the church’s bells rang at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT).After about 20 minutes of battle, with clouds of feathers in the air and piled on [..] > read more

Julian Assange new show starts today on RT

Published on 2012-04-16 09:54:00

here's the trailer...and here's a 20-minute pre-show interview with assange on rt... > read more

Military violence that is smoothly regulated by laws that spare civilians -- is usually a sick joke

Published on 2012-04-15 18:03:00

the post title is taken from a tomdispatch post authored by chase madar who has recently published a book on the ongoing case of bradley manning entitled, The Passion of Bradley Manning...What the Laws of War AllowDo the WikiLeaks War Logs Reveal War Crimes -- Or the Poverty of International Law?[...]“International humanitarian law,” or IHL, is the trying-too-hard euphemism for the laws of war. And as it happens, IHL turns out to be less concerned with restraining military violence than lic [..] > read more

The view from China: the United States is no longer seen as “that awesome, nor is it trustworthy"

Published on 2012-04-14 17:43:00

from the nyt...China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country, according to the analyst, Wang Jisi, the co-author of “Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust,” a monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution in Washington and the Institute for International and Strategi [..] > read more

Bill Moyers talks with Angela Blackwell about optimism

Published on 2012-04-14 12:17:00

a stunning quote..."23 million people in the u.s. do not live within a mile of a place to get fresh fruits and vegetables"... > read more

The rich live in a foreign country at the top of the world at heights so rarified they can't imagine life down below

Published on 2012-04-14 09:58:00

bill moyers and michael winship expound on the old saw, "the rich are different from you and me"...from truthout...Top hedge fund managers collectively earned $14.4 billion last year." No wonder some of them are fighting to kill a provision in the recent Dodd-Frank reform law that would require disclosing the ratio of CEO pay to the median pay of their employees. One never wishes to upset the help, you know. It can lead to unrest.That's Wall Street - the metaphorical bestiary of the financial un [..] > read more

Corporate philanthropy as a cover for not contributing to the common good of your country

Published on 2012-04-13 10:21:00

another insightful post from glenn's guest blogger, murtaza hussain...A list of the most charitable companies in America shows some of the biggest tax evaders in the country. These include heavyweights such as Goldman, Wells Fargo, BoA and Exxon Mobil; a company which made $41.1 billion in profits last year and paid only 17 percent in effective taxes, a far lower rate than the average U.S. citizen. The savings here vastly outweigh any donation which is subsequently offered in the spirit of [..] > read more

Henry Kissinger: soldiers are “dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns of foreign policy”

Published on 2012-04-13 09:43:00

in a recent post, i referred to the obscenity of "sending our young adults desperate for work to fight and die in wars that only benefit the super-rich elites"...glenn greenwald's guest blogger, murtaza hussain, expands on that topic in a post from wednesday...The decision to send young men and women to kill and die in foreign lands is one which is often taken without much real thought for the welfare of these individuals, often barely past the age of adulthood, despite the massive amount of rhe [..] > read more

More from Adbusters: Will Occupy be co-opted and neutralzed? A call to action...

Published on 2012-04-12 21:14:00

spring is here...TACTICAL BRIEFING #29 – Battle for the Soul of Occupy Alright you jammers, occupiers and Springtime dreamers, First they silenced our uprising with a media blackout… then they smashed our encampments with midnight paramilitary raids… and now they’re threatening to neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation. This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. [..] > read more

Robert Scheer: Love the fetus and shun the child

Published on 2012-04-12 16:44:00

to me, it's the height of bald-faced hypocrisy to rail and fulminate over abortions and then to leave vulnerable children poor and hungry while sending our young adults desperate for work to fight and die in wars that only benefit the super-rich elites... and that's not even to mention the enormous death toll of citizens of other countries the is the grim legacy of our pursuit of endless war...from truthdig via common dreams...The death of American liberalism as a significant moral force can be [..] > read more

An instant classic

Published on 2012-04-12 15:12:00

> read more

Linh Dinh: Obama is only here to facilitate the wishes of the Military Banking Complex

Published on 2012-04-10 21:35:00

linh dinh posts at his blog, state of the union... this excerpt is via information clearing house...If even preschoolers or wheelchaired farts on their last legs must be frisked for underwear bombs, box cutters and ninja stars, not to mention contraband copies of the Constitution, is it any wonder that our cops are becoming more trigger happy? Post 9/11, the United States has entered a permanent state of psychotic paranoia, all to justify our endless war (profiteering) for oil, and with a host o [..] > read more

Yves Smith: The word “predatory” is not adequate to describe Wells’ conduct

Published on 2012-04-10 18:51:00

yves smith, writing in naked capitalism, is commenting on a louisiana bankruptcy judge's ruling awarding $3.1M in punitive damages for one loan...The word “predatory” is not adequate to describe Wells’ conduct. The bank is not simply willing to steal from consumers, via blatant, institutionalized violations of its own agreements on mortgages and later on bankruptcy plans. It has absolutely no respect for the law, whether it be contracts or court procedures. It’s a band of marauders that [..] > read more

Kunstler on the impending student loan implosion

Published on 2012-04-09 21:24:00

i'm very grateful to have been in a position to finance my daughter's graduate degree... the last thing i wanted for her was to see her handed a masters degree along with a multi-year debt load... owing dad is a whole lot different than owing the banksters...james howard kunstler...And is there a Millennial so dim who believes that the promised package of lifetime goodies once called "a job with benefits" waits like a liveried servant to conduct them without friction through the ceremonies of ca [..] > read more

Glenn: The Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices

Published on 2012-04-08 14:02:00

as someone who was subjected to this constitution-shredding outrage on 1 june 2006 (a date i will never forget), i'm now ever wary whenever i return to the u.s. and have to run the immigration and customs enforcement gauntlet...glenn...One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely sing [..] > read more

The prison-industrial complex in the U.S.

Published on 2012-04-06 16:14:00

from al jazeera via common dreams...The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world at 760 people per 100,000. Between 1999-2010 the use of private prisons increased by 40 percent at the state level and by 784 percent in the federal prison system. This rapid expansion of the private prison industry is the subject of much debate in the US, and has been termed the "Prison-Industrial Complex." > read more

Seymour Hersh reports on the U.S. trained terrorist group, the M.E.K.

Published on 2012-04-06 09:36:00

from the new yorker...[T]he Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training [at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site], beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that l [..] > read more

The movie, Thrive, is now available free online

Published on 2012-04-05 17:05:00

THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take? THRIVE is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what's REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream -- uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, THRIVE offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future. > read more

When profiteers send gas prices soaring in Germany, all they have to do is press a button

Published on 2012-04-05 12:50:00

what a concept...from spiegel online...Big Oil's Strategy for Jacking Up Gas PricesPrices have never fluctuated as wildly as they have over the past few months. Last week, the price of premium gasoline reached €1.70 per liter ($8.41 per gallon) nationwide -- a new record for Germany. Sometimes, prices at the pump spike upwards by over 10 euro cents per liter in the space of just minutes, usually followed by a gradual decline.[...]The price fluctuations are erratic and apparently without any de [..] > read more

Speaking of the greed of the 1%, let's hear it for Jamie Dimon and his fellow bailed out banksters

Published on 2012-04-05 10:41:00

hard on the heels of the story about bank of america ceo brian moynihan's $8.1M pay...Dimon’s $23m trumps pay of US bank rivalsJamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, earned $23.1m in total compensation last year, an 11 per cent increase over 2011, a higher level than the heads of the other large US banks.In its annual report, JPMorgan said Mr Dimon received $1.4m in salary, a bonus of $4.5m and $17m in stock and options. John Stumpf, chief executive of Wells Fargo, earned $19.8m, whil [..] > read more

The 1% is a social darwinist force bent on destroying the essential social contract

Published on 2012-04-05 09:39:00

i've said since i started posting on this blog back in 2005 that there is nothing our 1% desires more fervently than to drive a stake through the heart of any explicit or implied social contract... they are truly the champions of the "you're on your own" society, a dystopian, randian, survivalist nightmare that would turn a blind eye to any effort to support the common good...robert scheer equates the 1% with the republicans, an equivalency i believe is less than accurate, particularly given the [..] > read more

Obama DOJ argued for the SCOTUS strip search ruling

Published on 2012-04-04 09:35:00

glenn...The 5-judge conservative faction held that prison officials may strip-search anyone arrested even for the most minor offenses before admitting them to the general population of a jail or prison, even in the absence of a shred of suspicion that they are carrying weapons or contraband.i'd been reading about this development since it was announced but if i hadn't read glenn this morning, i would have continued to labor under the misconception that the recent supreme court ruling allowing st [..] > read more

SSDD

Published on 2012-04-03 22:13:00

and we all know what that means... > read more

DHS orders 450 MILLION high-performance, hollow-point bullets

Published on 2012-04-02 17:38:00

wtf...?from rt america...The US Department of Homeland Security and the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Office have placed a massive order for ammunition. The two departments are asking for 450 million rounds of bullets to be delivered in a time-frame of five years. The contractor, Alliant Techsystems, was awarded the contract and will produce .40 caliber high-performance bullets to the agencies. The order has many wondering why would DHS and ICE need so many bullets. > read more

More on worker-owned businesses

Published on 2012-04-01 17:24:00

as a follow-up to my post from last tuesday, here's a preview of a documentary to be released in july this year...SHIFT CHANGE - Putting Democracy to Work - previewAt a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, the economic crisis and growing inequality in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work is a new documentary (to be released in July, 2012) that highlights worker-owned enterprises in [..] > read more

Occupy - surviving the winter

Published on 2012-03-31 20:42:00

more from al jazeera's fault lines, chronicling the occupy movement...Occupy Wall Street: Surviving the WinterFault Lines follows key Occupy organisers through the winter as they continue to build a movement even after violent evictions across the country. > read more

The chances of George Zimmerman spending time behind bars for killing Trayvon Martin are about the same as Sergeant Robert Bales

Published on 2012-03-31 19:36:00

alexander cockburn in counterpunch...You Really Think the Killers of Trayvon Martin and Those 16 Afghan Villagers Will Ever Do Time?I’d say the chances of George Zimmerman spending time behind bars for killing Trayvon Martin are about the same as Sergeant Robert Bales doing time for killing those 16 Afghan villagers the night of March 11. Zero.agreed... > read more

It's good to be a (Bank of America) banksta

Published on 2012-03-29 16:24:00

at a time when bank of america is widely seen as one of the most voracious plunderers in the world, how can its ceo allow this to happen...? oh, wait... it's going in to his own pocket... well, how can the board of directors allow it to happen...? how can the shareholders allow it to happen...? how can we as citizens allow it to happen...?Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan's pay quadruplesIn a year when Bank of America’s stock plunged 58% and the company announced plans to lay off 30,000 emplo [..] > read more

War is a cash cow

Published on 2012-03-28 10:24:00

why is it so hard for us to acknowledge that those who continually push us to get involved in yet another war are those who either themselves stand to make the most money from it or work for those who will...?jeremiah goukla guest-blogs for glenn...For people in the national/homeland security business, war with Iran would be a cash cow. They and their clients stand to benefit handsomely. Just stoking fears of war can get money flowing, from studies to retrofitting naval vessels. Bombing wou [..] > read more

Worker-owned businesses

Published on 2012-03-27 18:19:00

good stuff...It may not be the revolution’s dawn, but it’s certainly a glint in the darkness. On Monday, this country’s largest industrial labor union teamed up with the world’s largest worker-cooperative to present a plan that would put people to work in labor-driven enterprises that build worker power and communities, too.Titled “Sustainable Jobs, Sustainable Communities: The Union Co-op Model,” the organizational proposal released at a press conference on March 26 in Pittsburgh, [..] > read more

Quantitative Easing - explained

Published on 2012-03-27 18:16:00

clarke and dawe... > read more

Chris Hedges: If there is no rolling back of the NDAA law we cease to be a constitutional democracy

Published on 2012-03-26 18:35:00

reading chris hedges is always a depressing proposition but, as hard as it is to read, it's also the cold shower of truth and reality...I spent four hours in a third-floor conference room at 86 Chambers St. in Manhattan on Friday as I underwent a government deposition. Benjamin H. Torrance, an assistant U.S. attorney, carried out the questioning as part of the government's effort to decide whether it will challenge my standing as a plaintiff in the lawsuit I have brought with others against Pres [..] > read more

The war on women and this one was just too good to pass up

Published on 2012-03-24 15:50:00

i just ran across this on firedoglake and i knew i had to re-post it...A Job Program and A Sales Program, All In One!(image: donkeyhotey/flickr) > read more

What it costs to buy an election

Published on 2012-03-23 13:41:00

high and getting higher...from CleanSlateNow...from OpenSecrets...ask yourself this question... where does all this money go...? in other words, who really benefits from all this money being spent...? as with most everything in our society, if you want to know what's really going on, follow the money... > read more

Matt Taibbi: Bank of America - "Too Crooked to Fail"

Published on 2012-03-22 17:02:00

from democracy now via common dreams...in our present context, the crookeder you are, the more profitable and successful you are... > read more

War crimes are war crimes no matter who commits them

Published on 2012-03-22 16:23:00

from war criminals watch... > read more

The bastards at American Airlines - we KNEW this was coming

Published on 2012-03-21 22:21:00

these pricks have telegraphed this move from day one...AMR To Seek Termination Of ContractsAMR, the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, will ask a US bankruptcy court to reject nine collective bargaining agreements with unions, after failing to secure cost-cutting concessions, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.Barring any last-minute agreement during ongoing negotiations with its unions, AMR will seek court approval to terminate the union contracts within a week in the Manhattan bankruptcy court [..] > read more

Business Insider: Change the behavior in the financial service industry for a full generation in just seven days

Published on 2012-03-21 19:05:00

seven days...? works for me...!We Now Know With Near-Certainty That Wall Street Execs Committed FeloniesIt’s now a near certainty that Wall Street executives committed felonies.[...]So what can be done about it? We can change the behavior in the financial service industry for a full generation in just seven days. [emphasis added][...]My seven day plan is based on a simple premise: When criminal laws are egregiously violated, the guilty parties should face appropriate punishment. Here’s the p [..] > read more

Al Jazeera starts its series on the history of Occupy

Published on 2012-03-21 19:01:00

from al jazeera's program, fault lines... > read more

Foreclosure fraud, false claims and stonewalling by Wells Fargo

Published on 2012-03-13 21:33:00

marcy wheeler...[T]he government has been sitting on evidence of significant crime for the last 18 months–crime that resulted in people losing their homes and the government being defrauded.she's got more and it makes for distressing reading... > read more

Update from Adbusters following the move of the G8 to Camp David

Published on 2012-03-13 10:54:00

i am a huge fan of humor as a way to address situations and issues that would otherwise be too fraught with tension and polarization to be addressed directly...TACTICAL BRIEFING #27 – MAY 18 GLOBAL #LAUGHRIOTIn a sudden about-face, the United States has conceded a victory to Occupy and moved May’s G8 summit to Camp David, an impenetrable military base in rural Maryland. Wow! Looks like the specter of 50,000 occupiers ready to swarm with a list of demands has turned the climactic Showdown [..] > read more

Paul Craig Roberts: The US is well on its way to becoming a third world country

Published on 2012-03-12 17:57:00

writing in counterpunch, roberts once again confirms what we already know...US economic policy continues to focus on the mega-rich at the expense of 99% of the population. US interest rates are kept at, or near to, zero in order to maximize mega-bank earnings, while depriving tens of millions of retired Americans of interest income on their lifetime savings, forcing them to spend their capital in order to live, thus depriving their heavily indebted children of inheritance.In short, the US is wel [..] > read more

So, who's crazy here? Must be me...

Published on 2012-03-10 10:21:00

glenn, in commenting on the execrable labeling of dennis kucinich as a crazy wacko for opposing the insane policies and endless wars of our government, dares to point the finger at those who are truly certifiable...The current President not only has seized the power to assassinate American citizens with no charges, but also to imprison people indefinitely with no charges, to bomb six different countries where no war is declared and where civilians are routinely killed, to invoke extreme, self-pa [..] > read more

Morris Berman on why America failed: "They eat each other"

Published on 2012-03-09 10:20:00

morris berman as interviewed by alternet on his latest book, Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline...There is a story, probably apocryphal, of a Native American scouting expedition that came across the starving members of the Donner Party in 1847, who were snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas and resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. The expedition, which had never seen white people before, observed the Donner Party from a distance, then returned to base camp to report what they ha [..] > read more

AIPAC and the 2012 US Presidential election - a report from Al Jazeera

Published on 2012-03-08 16:52:00

What role does AIPAC play in US elections? (click image or here to access video clip)The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US, is holding its biggest annual conference yet with around 13,000 delegates in Washington.For all those bidding to become the next US president, it has become an essential campaign stop. The group has strong ties to the religious right and evangelical voters. And it is a very influential force in Washington politic [..] > read more

Afghanistan or the United States? What must it be like to live in such a corrupt country that doesn't observe the rule of law?

Published on 2012-03-08 12:28:00

glenn comments on the utter irony of today's nyt article decrying corruption in afghanistan...It’s simply shocking to find a country which would allow its political class to be dominated by those who “have profited from the crony capitalism that has come to define its economic order” and who “nearly brought down” its banking system. What must it be like to live in such a country? But even more bewildering still is that the Afghans simply refuse to prosecute their high-levels financi [..] > read more

Stephen Colbert on the CIA killing of American citizens

Published on 2012-03-07 11:37:00

The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive > read more

Glenn: The attempt to make targeted killing of American citizens seem normal should insult anyone with the most basic understanding of American law

Published on 2012-03-06 14:11:00

first the aclu in response to attorney general holder's explanation yesterday for why the obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target u.s. citizens for execution by the cia without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond...Few things are as dangerous to American liberty as the proposition that the government should be able to kill citizens anywhere in the world on the basis of legal standards and ev [..] > read more

Chris Hedges: We have brought state terrorism, massive destruction, war and death to the Muslim world

Published on 2012-03-05 18:29:00

hard-hitting stuff...From a talk given by Chris Hedges on Saturday night in Washington, D.C., at the Occupy AIPAC protest, organized by CODEPINK Women for Peace and other peace, faith and solidarity groups.The battle for justice in the Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is about living rather than dying. It is about communicating rather than killing. It is about love rather than hate. It is part of the great battle against the corporate for [..] > read more

The insane cost and utterly dubious value of funding the American police state

Published on 2012-03-04 19:43:00

i've spent quite a large amount of bits, bytes and bandwidth railing against the advance of the national security state... now, i'm railing because it's here, big-time...stephen salisbury writing in tomdispatch...The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,” pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy e [..] > read more

Putting the Iranians in a position where they have to do something to keep from being totally screwed

Published on 2012-03-04 10:52:00

i just had yet another b.g.o. (blinding glimpse of the obvious)... the tactics being used by the management of american airlines i described in the previous post are the very same tactics being used by the obama administration against iran... the b.g.o. isn't recognizing that the obama administration is using tactics calculated to provoke a bellicose reaction from iran... that part is clear... the b.g.o., for me, is seeing how the two sets of tactics are connected... both are a game of plausible [..] > read more

The bastards at American Airlines say they want "consensual" agreements but I ain't buyin' it

Published on 2012-03-03 22:05:00

the game they're playing is to make all the right noises but not to offer a damn thing and then when the unions call them on it, they blame the unions for not being "a collaborative part of the solution"... this just sets the stage for american management to seek a solution from the bankruptcy court which they have already figured out is sympathetic to management... this will ensure that contracts are eviscerated, wages slashed and a staggering number of employees kicked to the curb... you don't [..] > read more

Crappy news day

Published on 2012-03-02 22:16:00

same ol', same ol'... > read more

Dina Rasor: Self-dealing is the No. 1 problem that is preventing our government from working

Published on 2012-03-01 12:29:00

self-dealing influence-peddling corruption... let's call it what it is...dina rasor posting at truthout...The overall self-dealing problem can hopefully begin to be reformed based on the knowledge gained from the accumulation of many examples of self-dealing in the system. The American public senses that the problem is there and hears about the deluge of corrupting money in the system, but they need individual examples to understand just how destructive this self-dealing is to our democracy.the [..] > read more

Dave Lindorff: President Obama his key advisors plus Biden, Clinton and Panetta are all currently war criminals for threatening Iran with attack

Published on 2012-02-29 18:24:00

so, is this why obama doesn't want to hold the war criminals from the bush administration accountable...?President Obama and His Key Advisors are a Gang of War CriminalsUnder the Nuremberg Principles, later incorporated into the United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, which is defined as a war started against another nation that does not pose an imminent threat of attack on the aggressor nation or [..] > read more

Male experts on women's reproductive health

Published on 2012-02-29 10:48:00

they're right... late middle age men know everything...! < cough, cough >Women's Health Experts Speak Out100% of male experts agree: nobody knows more about women's issues like birth control than late-middle-aged men and the Republican party is well aware.(click on image to watch video clip)nothing like humor to highlight pure bullshit... > read more

Adbusters: Prepping for the upcoming G8 and NATO meetings in Chicago

Published on 2012-02-29 10:00:00

here's a follow-up on my post from january 26 where adbusters calls for support for the #OCCUPYCHICAGO effort to focus world attention on the failure that is capitalism during the g8 and nato meetings in chicago in may...TACTICAL BRIEFING #26Anarchic Swarms – The Emerging Model[...]The stage is set for a climactic showdown in Chicago.The crisis of capitalism is deepening. Youth unemployment has reached 50% in Spain and Greece… 30% in Portugal and Italy… 22% in the UK… almost 20% in the U [..] > read more

The MF Global theft

Published on 2012-02-28 09:30:00

from the nyt...Federal investigators examining the final days at MF Global and how customer money went missing are poring over scores of wire transfers in and out of the brokerage firm, including the possible movement of $325 million that may have belonged to customers, according to people briefed on the matter.The suspicious transfer, which until now has not been made public, was first discovered in the early hours of Oct. 31, the day the firm filed for bankruptcy. Initially, the firm attribute [..] > read more

Linh Dinh: The only way we can compete with foreign slaves is to become slaves ourselves

Published on 2012-02-27 16:13:00

an articulate and unflinching overview of the state of our nation circa february 2012...linh dinh via information clearing house...We fancy ourselves indebted middle-class, but this mirage is quickly evaporating. Most of us are indebted slaves. Banks conjure money out of thin air to enslave most of us for life. We must go into debt to buy a house, a car or go to school. Many of us go into debt just to eat. Like you, you and you, I will carry my shitty credit score to a mass paupers’ grave, wit [..] > read more

Mr. Fish' take on corporate America remembering to serve the common good

Published on 2012-02-27 15:40:00

i seem to be on a bit of a visual streak...mr. fish...see more of mr. fish here... > read more

More Adbusters

Published on 2012-02-26 19:10:00

i like their stuff... see even more here... > read more

Why does the criminal banker Larry Summers continue to command a global forum?

Published on 2012-02-26 15:59:00

probably because the venue is the financial times, the newspaper of the 0.0001%...The US tax system needs rebuildingBy Lawrence Summersi won't even bother posting snippets from the above article... suffice it to say, summers starts out by sounding the alarm about "entitlements," social security, medicare, etc., and then goes on to suggest the plenary solution to everything that ails us is to revisit the catfood commission (simpson-bowles)...however, the most galling piece of information to come [..] > read more

Adbusters #100

Published on 2012-02-25 17:26:00

> read more

Alexander Cockburn: Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era

Published on 2012-02-24 19:46:00

living through the slow-motion train wreck that is the endless 2012 presidential election is one of the most painful experiences of my 64 years and candidates like rick santorum push the pain level to almost intolerable levels...from counterpunch...Surely Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era. Next to him Pat Robertson, billionaire founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who ran for the nomination in 1988, has t [..] > read more

The secret drone wars - the quiet expansion of presidential power under Obama

Published on 2012-02-24 09:45:00

from reuters...The Obama Administration has approved five times the number of covert drone strikes that his predecessor did. Thomson Reuters Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland sits down with Reuters' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist David Rohde to discuss his special report detailing the quiet expansion of presidential power under Obama.glenn...David Rohde, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and current Reuters columnist, explains how President Obama has significantly expan [..] > read more

Atrios: Stealing homes, then destroying them and their communities

Published on 2012-02-23 10:47:00

he's referring to this...Across the country, big banks and other large investors are buying up tens of thousands of foreclosed rental properties. They're not always model landlords, according to tenants and regulators. Some banks are failing to follow local and state housing codes, leaving tenants to live in squalor — without even a number to call in the most dire situations.[...]That's difficult even when there is a property manager. Luz Escamilla in Hyattsville, Md., says she sleeps with the [..] > read more

European Parliament puts ACTA on hold

Published on 2012-02-22 13:46:00

note that other nations are treating acta as a "proper treaty," not as the bullshit "executive agreement" signed by obama...good news but the battle is far from over...In a major victory for Internet freedom activists, the European parliament on Wednesday placed the ratification of a controversial copyright treaty on hold and asked the European Court of Justice to rule on whether the provisions align with the European Union’s “fundamental rights and freedoms.”The announcement came followin [..] > read more

James Howard Kunstler: The banking system is just blowing smoke up the shredded ass of what's left of the economy

Published on 2012-02-22 10:03:00

kunstler takes on the rantings of the unhinged repubs and compares them to the equally unhinged democratic denials of reality...[I]t's especially gratifying to see the Republicans sail off the edge of their own flat earth on the winds of religious idiocy. For forty years it has not been enough for them to just be a conservative party. They had to enlist the worst elements of ignorance and reaction, and they found an endless supply of it in the boom regions of the Sunbelt with its brotherhood of [..] > read more

Occupy reduced violence in Oakland

Published on 2012-02-21 09:08:00

rebecca solnit in tomdispatch...Now here’s something astonishing. While the camp was in existence, crime went down 19% in Oakland, a statistic the city was careful to conceal. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland," the police chief wrote to the mayor in an email that local news station KTVU later obtained and released to little fanfare. Pay attention: Occupy was so powerful a force for nonviolence that it was already solvin [..] > read more

Occupy the SEC - the Occupy suits take on the Wall Street suits

Published on 2012-02-21 07:49:00

a superb use of some of the higher-level talent in the occupy ranks...To attempt to oversee the unwieldy bloated tyrants, Congress passed 848 pages of financial reform legislation in 2010. But it was so difficult to comprehend that to implement just one piece of it, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) together with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency filed a 530-page public proposal seeking comment on h [..] > read more

U.S. human rights abuse hypocrisy

Published on 2012-02-20 15:52:00

glenn (of course)...Each year, the U.S. State Department, as required by law, issues a “Human Rights Report” which details abuses by other countries. To call it an exercise in hypocrisy is to understate the case: it is almost impossible to find any tyrannical power denounced by the State Department which the U.S. Government (and its closest allies) do not regularly exercise itself.hypocrisy is what we're all about... > read more

The "crisis of capitalism" has consolidated its dominance and exploitation over the rest of society

Published on 2012-02-20 15:25:00

james petras talks about why we might want to consider socialism in light of the unending rape and pillage of world resources by our super-rich elites...Finance capital, the principle detonator of the crash and crises, recovered, the capitalist class as a whole was strengthened, and most important of all, it utilized the political, social, ideological conditions created as a result of “the crises” to further consolidate their dominance and exploitation over the rest of society.In other words [..] > read more

Greece: If there had not been an explosion of anger, I would have felt adrift in a sea of depression

Published on 2012-02-20 14:31:00

john holloway in the guardian via information clearing house......Greece shows us how to protest against a failed systemI do not like violence. I do not think that very much is gained by burning banks and smashing windows. And yet I feel a surge of pleasure when I see the reaction in Athens and the other cities in Greece to the acceptance by the Greek parliament of the measures imposed by the European Union. More: if there had not been an explosion of anger, I would have felt adrift in a se [..] > read more

The bait-and-switch bank settlement

Published on 2012-02-19 09:24:00

yeah, like we didn't suspect all along that this was the case...Bank Settlement Was a Bait and Switch All Along > read more

Occupy in Solidarity with the Greeks: "We're all Greeks Now"

Published on 2012-02-18 10:48:00

what a sad state of affairs... the raping and pillaging continues unabated and we're all at great risk...Protest, Syntagma Square, Athens#OWS Joins International Day of Action: We Are All Greeks Now Tomorrow, the people of Greece will take to the streets again to occupy Syntagma Square in protest of the extreme austerity measures being imposed on the backs of the Greek 99% to the joy and benefit of the European financial elite. The 99% everywhere are under assault by the same global banking [..] > read more

Moyers: Freedom of and From Religion

Published on 2012-02-16 16:54:00

the war on contraception and birth control...Bill Moyers Essay: Freedom of and From Religion from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.The Catholic bishops had cast the president's intended policy as an infringement on their religious freedom; they hold birth control to be a mortal sin, and were incensed that the government might coerce them to treat it otherwise. The president in effect said: No quarrel there; no one's going to force you to violate your doctrine. But Catholics are also Americans, and if an [..] > read more

This is your democracy on meth

Published on 2012-02-16 10:24:00

post title courtesy of timothy egan in the nyt...Newt’s Shop of Horrorsari berman in tomdispatch...Tomgram: Ari Berman, The Politics of the Super Rich[T]he super PACs on both sides of the aisle are financed by the 1% of the 1%. Romney’s Restore Our Future Super PAC, founded by the general counsel of his 2008 campaign, has led the herd, raising $30 million, 98% from donors who gave $25,000 or more. Ten million dollars came from just 10 donors who gave $1 million each. These included three [..] > read more

Glenn on the drums beating for war with Iran

Published on 2012-02-16 08:38:00

where did we hear all this nonsense before...? oh, yeah... i remember...U.S. media takes the lead on IranMany have compared the coordinated propaganda campaign now being disseminated about The Iranian Threat to that which preceded the Iraq War, but there is one notable difference. Whereas the American media in 2002 followed the lead of the U.S. government in beating the war drums against Saddam, they now seem even more eager for war against Iran than the U.S. government itself, which actually ap [..] > read more

"Savage austerity measures" in Greece

Published on 2012-02-15 17:00:00

from the real news network with paul jay and michael hudson... More at The Real News Paul Jay: In Greece, the financial elites of Europe have gotten agreement from the Greek government to another round of what some people are calling savage austerity measures, for example, lowering the minimum wage by 22 percent, a new round of privatizations, and cuts to pensions and many other social programs.[...]Michael Hudson: Finance today achieves what military invasion used to do in times past. So the ne [..] > read more

When plunder becomes a way of life

Published on 2012-02-14 17:11:00

moyers & co...Here’s what we’re up against. Read it and weep: “America’s Plutocrats Play the Political Ponies.” That’s a headline in “Too Much,” an Internet publication from the Institute for Policy Studies that describes itself as “an online weekly on excess and inequality.”Yes, the results are in and our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. Only these kings aren’t your everyday poobahs and potentates. These kings are multi-billionaires, corporate mo [..] > read more

Perhaps "anarchy" has gotten a bad rap

Published on 2012-02-14 09:15:00

in this article from alternet by david morris, originally posted in on the commons, anarchy, as defined by petr kropotkin, is equated to cooperation and collaboration... Kropotkin honored Darwin’s insights about natural selection but believed the governing principle of natural selection was cooperation, not competition. The fittest were those who cooperated. “The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has atta [..] > read more

Glenn talks about immunity and disdain for the rule of law by the U.S. gov't and compares it to recent developments in Pakistan

Published on 2012-02-14 06:57:00

worth reading...It is virtually impossible to imagine the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the CIA to disclose documents about its treatment of detainees or, even more unrealistically, to permit the victims of CIA abuse to have their grievances heard in court. Anyone who doubts that can simply review the past decade of full-scale immunity bestowed by the Justice Department and subservient American federal courts on all executive agencies in the War on Terror. We should think about that the next time [..] > read more

Greece's death sentence

Published on 2012-02-13 17:06:00

mike whitney... here's a teaser...It’s just corporate pillaging gone haywire. Greece is a big pinata that’s just been cracked open and everyone is pushing and shoving to grab their fistful of candy. by all means, go read it all, but stay close to the toilet in case of retching... > read more

This is what happens when you push people too far and ask them to pay for your mistakes

Published on 2012-02-13 12:07:00

this is what austerity looks like in greece...from spiegel...here's the article...'The Troika's Policies Have Failed'European Doubts Growing over Greece Debt Strategy > read more

Powerlessness and Occupy

Published on 2012-02-13 09:53:00

chris hedges...The security and surveillance state has a vast arsenal and array of tools at its disposal. It operates in secret. It dissembles and lies. It hides behind phony organizations and individuals who use false histories and false names. It has millions of dollars to spend, the capacity to deny not only its activities but also its existence. Its physical assets honeycomb the country. It can wiretap, eavesdrop and monitor every form of communication. It can hire informants, send in clande [..] > read more

Greece should "tell the IMF and EU to go to hell"

Published on 2011-07-02 10:50:00

our super-rich, elites, their banksters and governmental puppets are bound and determined to continue stomping out any semblance of a middle class and any trace of a social contract anywhere they might still exist... since there are still a few gover > read more

Accountability...? Rule of law...? Pish-tosh... Fuhgeddaboudit... Not in MY country...

Published on 2011-07-01 11:22:00

to say that this is a sad moment for my country would be an understatement in the extreme... i read stuff like this and i http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifjust want to crawl into a hole and never come out...glenn...Torture crimes officially, perma > read more

Strauss-Kahn: when you're one of the super-rich elites, how easy it is to discredit the story of an immigrant hotel housekeeper

Published on 2011-07-01 09:36:00

all you need to know about the case is contained in the first sentence of the second paragraph...from the nyt...The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the cred > read more

A headline to love...

Published on 2011-06-30 07:08:00

probably...? PROBABLY...??? ain't it great...?Los Alamos Fire: Why Nuclear Waste Is Probably Safeyes, i did add the italics... > read more

Greek police are beating Greek citizens on behalf of internation banksters - "paper terrorists"

Published on 2011-06-29 14:06:00

max keiser...a big picture you can be sure we won't get from any traditional media source in the u.s... > read more

I now all but disregard what Obama says, and watch only what he does

Published on 2011-06-29 11:22:00

learning to disregard words in favor of actions is the oldest and hardest lesson anyone can learn... i've had to re-learn it many, many times in my life and yet i still choose to give the benefit of the doubt unless and until i'm given reason to thin > read more

At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered

Published on 2011-06-28 17:01:00

the good ol' us of a... is this a great country or what...!At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporat > read more

VoteVets endorses General Sanchez for U.S. Senate, the same Sanchez who approved torture at Abu Ghraib

Published on 2011-06-28 10:57:00

what is it with memory in my country...? either people don't remember, don't WANT to remember or never have bothered to find out in the first damn place...here's my response to votevets and their execrable endorsement of ricardo sanchez for the u.s. > read more

So devoted is the U.S. Government to defending the actions of Israel's that it will even preemptively justify violent attacks on its own citizens

Published on 2011-06-27 23:52:00

glenn follows up on my post yesterday about ray mcgovern and the gaza aid flotilla...[T]he Clinton State Department is now explicitly threatening Americans who participate in the flotilla with criminal prosecution (h/t Jason Ditz): > read more

Putting your beliefs - and, quite possibly, your life - on the line

Published on 2011-06-26 18:26:00

robert naiman is on the same vessel, along with ray mcgovern and numerous others...my hat is off to folks like this, putting their lives and their principles on the line in support of their deeply-held beliefs...Spirits of Justice Going to Gaza > read more

Silencing dissent through fear, intimidation, litigation and potential incarceration

Published on 2011-06-23 14:55:00

glenn has a lengthy and very important post up today describing the all-out war the obama administration is waging against anyone who dares to raise a voice in opposition to our government, its policies and/or its unconstitutional and often downright > read more

Terrorist: Anyone - especially Muslims and/or Arabs - who fights against the United States

Published on 2011-06-22 11:18:00

the money quote is in bold below...glenn...I've often written that Terrorism is the most meaningless, and thus most manipulated, term in American political discourse. But while it lacks any objective meaning, it does have a functional one. It means > read more

Mexico's war is how the future will look - global government by multinational banks

Published on 2011-06-21 12:40:00

a truly grim but nonetheless brutally accurate vision of capitalism run amok...from the guardian...Mexico's carnage is that of the age of effective global government by multinational banks – banks that, according to Antonio Maria Costa, the former > read more

Whaddaya know - a Republican candidate that isn't afraid to indict the banksters

Published on 2011-06-19 22:06:00

"the wall street banks are as greedy as ever and no one's going to jail"...son of a gun... who woulda thunk it...?more like this... > read more

The failure of social movements in the U.S.

Published on 2011-06-18 13:29:00

since i'm on a number of liberal, progressive mailing lists (and, yes, a few conservative ones too), i'm astonished at the number of requests i get on a daily basis asking for my support in this or that cause, everything from saving the whales to pre > read more

The Truth About the Economy

Published on 2011-06-18 11:48:00

robert reich courtesy of moveon...not bad... if there were traditional news outlets worthy of the name in the u.s., this would be continuing front page news... sigh... > read more

When Barack doesn't want to call a war a war, he goddam well GETS HIS WAY...!

Published on 2011-06-17 20:20:00

jeebus... i thought george bush was done and gone... guess not...Obama Rejects 2 Top Lawyers’ Views on War Power in LibyaPresident Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the le > read more

Juan Cole now, rightly so, questions just how far down the rabbit hole we've gone in pursuit of the National Security State

Published on 2011-06-17 13:19:00

professor cole asks a question that many of us have been asking for years...The Congress should revisit the PATRIOT Act in the light of the revelation of what was attempted in my regard, and should repeal the damn thing. Failing that, the federal jud > read more

Glenn gives us a short guide to understanding U.S. politics

Published on 2011-06-17 10:39:00

a clear, succinct and devastating indictment... go take a look... > read more

My first and last comments on Weinergate

Published on 2011-06-16 12:12:00

so, the compulsive sex addict is going to resign... woo-hoo...two comments...one, what anthony weiner does to pursue his sexual inclinations is absolutely none of anyone else's goddam business... period...two, how anyone, particularly someone of wein > read more

Wikileaks under Obama, Professor Cole under Bush - continuing to gut the 1st and 4th Amendments

Published on 2011-06-16 10:00:00

i had often wondered if professor cole hadn't attracted the interest of our propaganda and domestic surveillance-meisters... guess so...from juan cole's weblog... Eminent National Security correspondent at the New York Times James Risen has been tol > read more

Aw, C'MON, Barack...! You must think we're incredibly stupid...

Published on 2011-06-15 15:18:00

no comment necessary...War Powers Act Does Not Apply to Libya, Obama ArguesThe White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers hav > read more

A trophy security dog - the latest "must-have" for our super-rich elites

Published on 2011-06-12 12:58:00

there is nothing that our super-rich elites are not willing to spend obscene amounts of money on as long as it can protect and enhance their totally self-absorbed world of power and money...from the nyt...When she costs $230,000, as Julia did, the pr > read more

You owe it to yourself to go see Atrios' "junk shot" pic

Published on 2011-06-12 12:01:00

i love it...Afternoon ThreadJunk shot edition. > read more

Is Obama a co-dependent...?

Published on 2011-06-12 09:37:00

obama tries to make everybody happy and ends up making nobody happy, a genuine "people-pleaser"...i somehow never applied the term "co-dependent" to obama but the signs have certainly been there all along... i guess it was this that finally caused me > read more

Ok, ennui was only an excuse on Wednesday

Published on 2011-06-11 21:53:00

honestly, it was a legit excuse on wednesday...!however, i had to fly out very early on thursday and, on the return, due to a late arrival which didn't allow me to get home until this afternoon, i had to spend an unanticipated overnight in la last ni > read more

Oh, man... The ennui just got real bad again...

Published on 2011-06-08 16:26:00

i had four posts lined up when i was suddenly stricken with mental and emotional nausea over the garbage that's continuing to be strewn about by those who purport to lead us through our collective global experience... now i'm simply too disgusted to > read more

Scott Horton: The American empire must be stopped

Published on 2011-06-07 18:00:00

no comments necessary... just watch... > read more

Juan Cole: Our news and their news

Published on 2011-06-07 10:04:00

since i spend a great deal of my time outside the u.s., i am well aware of the sharp distinction professor cole draws between the drivel masquerading as news that we're fed in this country and the real news those elsewhere in the world receive...Amer > read more

Revolt now or be a debt slave

Published on 2011-06-06 16:30:00

max keiser talks about our beloved banksters, our super-rich, elite, financial terrorists, going about their daily business in the financial rape and pillage of the globe...from russia today... > read more

Has the government engaging in torture become as accepted as government official lying when the truth is inconvenient?

Published on 2011-06-05 19:26:00

an articulate voice of reason, all too rare in today's public discourse...morris davis...In the fall of 2005, when I was chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, I sat down for a lengthy discussion with a veteran member > read more

Hating on Chomsky for telling the truth

Published on 2011-06-03 19:10:00

there's nothing in today's world more guaranteed to earn vitriol, hatred and death threats than telling the truth...In a move likely to spark another annual round of healthy controversy, the veteran American linguist, social scientist and human right > read more

When anybody starts ranting about ending "entitlement" programs, be sure to mention "corporate welfare" as one of 'em

Published on 2011-06-01 11:27:00

how's that austerity thing workin' for ya...?from think progress... > read more

Due-process-free: to a collapsing Empire, security is the ONLY cognizable value

Published on 2011-06-01 09:41:00

glenn...It will never cease to amaze me how acquiescent the country is to the seizure by this President of the extremist and warped power to target American citizens, far from any battlefield, for killing, all without a shred of due process. It's no > read more

Chomsky: Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world

Published on 2011-05-31 22:12:00

chomsky...Pakistan is the most dangerous country on Earth, with the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. The revenge killing on Pakistani soil only stoked the anti-American fervor that had long been building. In his new book, “Pakistan: A Hard Country, > read more

More on Afghanistan: Bagram, worse than Guantánamo but further away and, thus, less visible

Published on 2011-05-31 14:04:00

i've posted on bagram many times... one of these days, the shit will hit the fan over bagram and it can't come too soon... when i'm in kabul, i shudder every time i think of what's going on there, just 80km up the road...from john hanrahan at nieman > read more

Not only doesn't the U.S. care what its own people think, it doesn't care what leaders of other countries think

Published on 2011-05-31 12:33:00

glenn has pointed out repeatedly (most recently here) - as has noam chomsky and others - that, for our ruling, super-rich, global elites and their bought-and-paid-for governmental puppets who claim to act on our behalf, listening to the citizenry is > read more

The reality of post-legal America: our real rulers are unelected & supported by a religious attitude toward security and the U.S. military

Published on 2011-05-30 21:06:00

accountability...? rule of law...? pish-tosh...tom engelhardt...Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden’s killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those “enhanced in > read more

Saturday photoblogging: Monterey

Published on 2011-05-28 19:19:00

yes, one of my favorite spots in the whole world is the monterey peninsula in california... we took a walk down along the bay today and i snapped some photos... suffice it to say, it's a relief to be out of the dust of afghanistan...no captions neces > read more

Lawrence Wilkerson: Congress rallied around a foreign leader in opposition to the policy of their president

Published on 2011-05-28 12:23:00

it's nice to know that SOMEBODY is actually running the country even if it IS the israeli prime minister...larry wilkerson appearing on the real news...from raw story...“Even the obsequiousness of the United States Congress from time to time during > read more

Hopey-changey strikes again

Published on 2011-05-27 10:17:00

disgusting...Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extensionMinutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists. > read more

Max Keiser: Paul Craig Roberts, Goldman Sachs, austerity, fraud, punish the innocent & reward the guilty

Published on 2011-05-25 18:51:00

and, here's the real irony... this is an excerpt from press tv, a news service from iran... you'd certainly never see this in u.s. media... you can call it iranian propaganda, you can call it anything you want, but do yourself a favor, at least watch > read more

Glenn cites a commenter on Congress: "...avoid unpredictable democratic floor action, and the accountability of public debate"

Published on 2011-05-24 08:31:00

once again, glenn hits the nail on the head...in his latest post, he takes on the smarmy and generally odious david brooks who should be taken on always and everywhere out of general principle...But more generally, what Brooks so envies about British > read more

There is no hope for a correction or a reversal within the formal systems of power

Published on 2011-05-23 04:29:00

chris hedges decries the hypocrisy and embarrassing devotion to their own self-interests of the thoroughly corrupted and co-opted u.s. liberal class...The liberal class, despite becoming an object of widespread public scorn, prefers the choreographed > read more

Americans: Better to let the rich keep their money than to have it benefit economic and social inferiors

Published on 2011-05-22 21:28:00

a remarkably thoughtful piece from the guardian's peter wilby on why there isn't more populist anger over the obscene amounts of money and power accruing to our super-rich elites...Between 1996-7 and 2007-8, the earnings of someone in the middle of t > read more

Political pornography

Published on 2011-05-21 11:53:00

bill moyers...There’s an interesting study out from the University of Michigan about how people don’t want to listen to the facts. Even if they know a fact is authentic, if they know it’s true, but if it offends their—or insults or undermines > read more

Thursday photoblogging - Istalif, Afghanistan

Published on 2011-05-20 01:26:00

i had a wonderful experience on wednesday... i went with a small group to the village of istalif, approximately an hour drive northwest of kabul... i have been dying - no pun intended - to get out to the afghan countryside ever since i first came her > read more

DSK resigns from IMF... Good guy...? Creep...? No matter... An erect penis is STILL a tool of power and domination...

Published on 2011-05-19 00:31:00

hmmmmmmm...Strauss-Kahn Resigns From I.M.F. in Wake of His ArrestDominique Strauss-Kahn resigned Wednesday as head of the International Monetary Fund after explosive accusations that he had sexually attacked a housekeeper in a Midtown Manhattan hotel > read more

Glenn continues to lament the lack of accountability of our ruling elites and the National Security State

Published on 2011-05-17 21:00:00

no excerpts... just go read it... > read more

Chomsky: the one foreign policy option that's never mentioned - a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East

Published on 2011-05-17 04:53:00

yes, it's over an hour and a half long and, yes, some of it you may have heard before, but, as with everything that comes out of the fertile and ever-articulate mind of noam chomsky, it's well worth the listening and viewing...the wonderful thing abo > read more

Cornel West on Obama: I was completely wrong

Published on 2011-05-16 20:27:00

chris hedges quoting obama campaign worker and princeton university professor cornel west on west's serious disillusionment and 180-degree u-turn after obama was elected...“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of > read more

Is the nation’s expanding secret intelligence bureaucracy beyond meaningful accountability?

Published on 2011-05-16 10:26:00

i think the answer to that question is a resounding "yes"... it not only is beyond accountability but it has been for a good many years... now, however, we're moving to a new level of reprisal for any and all attempts to force transparency... it's a > read more

Glenn comments on the latest instance of children being killed needlessly in Afghanistan

Published on 2011-05-15 22:08:00

glenn commenting on an nyt story about the second time in three days that a child has been killed in afghanistan by nato forces...It's the perfect self-perpetuating cycle: (1) They hate us and want to attack us because we're over there; therefore, ( > read more

A taste of accountability for a heretofore unaccountable member of the elite ruling class

Published on 2011-05-14 20:29:00

the people who pull our strings and tell us how to live our lives ain't exactly paragons of virtue themselves (as if we didn't already know that)...I.M.F. Head Is Arrested and Accused of Sexual AttackThe managing director of the International Monetar > read more

A headline to gag a maggot

Published on 2011-05-14 02:25:00

gee... how nice for them...Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone CareThe nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Ameri > read more

More Greenwald on Osama: the Nuremberg connection

Published on 2011-05-13 20:52:00

excellent, thought-provoking stuff as always...glenn...Benjamin Ferencz is a 92-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, American combat soldier during World War II, and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted numerous Nazi war crimina > read more

Blogger's was down all day yesterday (and so was I)

Published on 2011-05-13 20:48:00

i would have put up some posts yesterday (friday) but blogger was down all day - or at least it said it was down... maybe it had something to do with where i'm accessing it from (afghanistan)... in any case, friday is my one-day weekend here and, giv > read more

If dictators support the U.S., and the population is under control, then what’s the problem?

Published on 2011-05-12 00:46:00

you can see this policy playing out every day around the world...chomsky... The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. The reason is very simple. Across the region, an overwhelming majority > read more

A permanent state of legalized thievery by the defense industry supported by disenfranchised, taxpaying serfs

Published on 2011-05-11 21:17:00

what is the matter with these fuckheads...? if they were being honest, they would simply put the cards on the table and say they were declaring a permanent state of legalized thievery by the defense industry, supported by hordes of indentured, taxpay > read more

What we’re experiencing right now is a top-down disaster

Published on 2011-05-10 03:10:00

krugman...The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness.So this seems like a good time to point out that this blame-the-public view isn’t ju > read more

Chomsky: more on the execution of Osama

Published on 2011-05-07 20:35:00

as with my previous post citing glenn greenwald, noam chomsky makes a typically articulate, well-reasoned case against the u.s. policy of extrajudicial assassinations and, for good measure, throws in the incredibly offensive use of a native american > read more

Glenn: the case against the execution of Osama

Published on 2011-05-07 08:09:00

leave it to glenn to make a powerful, reasoned argument for due process and the rule of law, principles we seem to have forsaken in the united states...The Allied powers could easily have taken every Nazi war criminal they found and summarily execut > read more

Poor country gov'ts accept bribes; rich country gov'ts enable corporate theft

Published on 2011-05-06 00:00:00

it's a beautiful friday morning here in kabul after a very rare cloudburst cum hail yesterday afternoon that left the air cool and fresh and mud puddles on some of the streets up to the bumpers of small cars...friday is our one-day "weekend" here, ch > read more

Rejoicing in a corpse with half its head blown off

Published on 2011-05-03 20:44:00

observing the orgasmic reactions of the news media over bin laden's murder from here in afghanistan is an interesting experience to say the least... probably about half the afghans i know have said over the past few years that they aren't so sure tha > read more

How our world is being engulfed in a corporate takeover and what we can do about it

Published on 2011-05-01 20:29:00

the more i am exposed to the thoughtful and unyielding common sense of vandana shiva, the more impressed i am... she's a force of nature...Vandana Shiva: Understanding the Corporate Takeover"The American people should see that corporations have aband > read more

Goldman Sachs - the big lies

Published on 2011-04-29 09:33:00

yes, it's ugly, but we already knew that, didn't we...?Lie #1: 'Putting our Customers First'Lie #2: 'Our interests are aligned with our customer’s interests'Lie #3: 'Honest, we didn’t try to rig the market'Lie #4: 'We’re only doing all this to > read more

Same circus, same clowns, different costumes

Published on 2011-04-27 07:11:00

changing up the defense, CIA and afghan teams...Administration sources say President Barack Obama plans this week to name CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan > read more

Understanding the war on the gold dinar as a means of stepping "out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed"

Published on 2011-04-26 23:09:00

john perkins...According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and i > read more

Economic Hit Men Now Used on Americans

Published on 2011-04-25 22:25:00

john perkins talks with max keiser on rt...it's no mystery about what's happening... all you have to do is look around you... > read more

The money quote: "...patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal"

Published on 2011-04-24 20:44:00

the nyt does another unchallenged dump of secret documents while bradley manning is being tortured for doing the same thing...A trove of more than 700 classified military documents provides new and detailed accounts of the men who have done time at t > read more

Obama on Bradley Manning: Guilty until proven innocent

Published on 2011-04-24 01:02:00

glenn...Protesters yesterday interrupted President Obama's speech at a $5,000/ticket San Francisco fundraiser to demand improved treatment for Bradley Manning. After the speech, one of the protesters, Logan Price, approached Obama and questioned h > read more

The U.S. public is angry but as long as "everything is under control," there is nothing wrong" and the public doesn't matter

Published on 2011-04-22 09:12:00

noam chomsky... (watch the full video of this speech that i posted back in mid-march here...)Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing ca > read more

Work 'Til We Die

Published on 2011-04-21 22:34:00

> read more

WOO-HOO...! Nevadans finally shake off Ensign...!

Published on 2011-04-21 22:24:00

even from here in kabul, i can rejoice to see that arrogant loser bite the dust...Nevada Sen. John Ensign announces resignationNevada Sen. John Ensign announced Thursday he will resign amid an ethics investigation, insisting he's done nothing wrong b > read more

A bit lighter than "light" posting

Published on 2011-04-21 22:15:00

yes, the posting gaps have been increasing and, yes, part of that is due to the usual ennui... however, more than that has been the intensity of the work i've been doing here in afghanistan... i actually have my hands on one of the biggest, most comp > read more

Bradley Manning being moved to Leavenworth

Published on 2011-04-19 21:02:00

no mention of whether or not he will get to see any outside observers there... it will be certainly a more inconvenient trip...The Army private suspected of giving classified data to WikiLeaks is being moved to a state-of-the-art facility at Fort Lea > read more

The three myths of Israeli insecurity - the elephant in the room

Published on 2011-04-17 20:58:00

in my work with organization development, i frequently talk about "undiscussables," those elements that everyone knows are there but that simply can't be addressed in open forums, akin to the concept of the "elephant in the living room"... as ira che > read more

Yes, Virginia, the banksters are really indictable crooks

Published on 2011-04-14 21:57:00

when will accountability and the rule of law that we so sanctimoniously preach to the rest of the world return to our shores...?Fiscal Scandals: Goldman Sachs May Have Misled Investors, Banks Investigated for CollusionAt this point, news of big banks > read more

Fuck Barack Obama, his super-rich, elite clients and...

Published on 2011-04-13 08:54:00

the horse he rode in on...i rarely resort to crudity in my post headlines but i am SO-O-O-OOO sick of this shit...robert scheer...There is currently no shortage of corporate profits or excessive executive compensation to explain away the failure of t > read more

The UN special rapporteur on torture, said: "I am deeply disappointed and frustrated by the prevarication of the US government"

Published on 2011-04-13 07:04:00

i love diplomatic-speak...pre·var·i·cat·ed pre·var·i·cat·ingDefinition of PREVARICATEintransitive verb: to deviate from the truth : equivocate— pre·var·i·ca·tion noun— pre·var·i·ca·tor noun most of us would call it lying...A senio > read more

"A naked attempt to redistribute yet more money to the country's rich at the expense of everyone else"

Published on 2011-04-12 03:03:00

i don't recognize my own country any more... it's being run entirely by the super-rich, elites hell-bent on getting every scrap of power and money into their own greedy hands...Government by People Who Hate YouHouse Budget Committee Chairman Paul Rya > read more

Hedges: Transforming a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs

Published on 2011-04-11 23:49:00

which has been the plan all along...chris hedges...A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and b > read more

Killing real people from your Barcalounger

Published on 2011-04-10 23:03:00

MQ9 Reaperi've mentioned in previous posts that for the past two consecutive summers, i've parked my rv in a park right next to military folks who were either flying or commanding drone missions in afghanistan and pakistan... both were very, shall we > read more

Very light posting

Published on 2011-04-09 20:23:00

i've been so damn busy that i haven't had time to post... i'm following the news, of course, from the kabuki theater of the threatened u.s. government shutdown to the libyan farce to the news blackout on bahrain to the even more ominous virtually com > read more

The government shutdown

Published on 2011-04-08 03:38:00

william rivers pitt...The impact of a shutdown on the populace will be dynamic, ehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifspecially if you're waiting for the IRS to send you a tax refund. Ain't happening. Social Security checks won't be delayed, at least > read more

"We are worse than old Europe"

Published on 2011-04-08 03:31:00

again, none of this is news, but it certainly bears repeating...joseph stiglitz...The point is that there has been this growing inequality, not only in income, but actually the inequality of wealth is even much greater. There’s a shrinking of oppor > read more

Why would any self-respecting progressive, liberal or even a loyal Democrat consider re-electing Barack Obama...?

Published on 2011-04-06 05:28:00

not me... burn me once, etc., etc...glenn...One thing is for certain: right now, the Democratic Party is absolutely correct in its assessment that kicking its base is good politics. Why is that? Because they know that they have inculcated their base > read more

Dylan Ratigan: Banksters & Government Exposed in Biggest Con & Cover-Up in US History; Madoff: Ponzi Scheme

Published on 2011-04-06 04:08:00

you want the truth...? can you handle the truth...?dylan ratigan...MSNBC - Banksters & Government Exposed FINALLY by Mainstream News! bernie madoff...Madoff Says Entire U.S. Government a `Ponzi Scheme' > read more

Looks to me like Obama has taken a 180-degree turn on virtually everything we thought we were electing him for

Published on 2011-04-04 22:08:00

bipartisanship = pandering...?the story...Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to Be Tried by Military Commission at Guantánamo, in ReversalIn a major reversal, the Obama administration has decided totry Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for his role in the attacks ofSept. > read more

Chris Hedges: Civil Disobedience is the only tool we have left

Published on 2011-04-04 20:40:00

sure looks that way...chris hedges...The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil disobedience is the only tool we have left.We will not halt the laying of > read more

In Kabul

Published on 2011-04-04 07:39:00

i arrived here yesterday afternoon and have spent most of the day today in meetings... this morning was a glorious spring morning... this afternoon...? well, see for yourself...Current conditions as of 4:20 PM AFTWidespread DustCurrent Temperature: 5 > read more

The essence of freedom is an informed citizenry empowered by critical thinking

Published on 2011-04-02 21:24:00

as i am moving slowly here in dubai of a sunday morning and contemplating boarding the flight to kabul, i am reading glenn's post on the trust we blindly are expected to place in our elected leaders, in this case, obama...I don't dispute that trust p > read more

Burning a Koran really pisses some folks off...

Published on 2011-04-01 13:30:00

can't say as i blame 'em for being pissed altho' i do have a problem with mob psychology where innocent people end up dead... it would be nice if the nutcase u.s. pastor who thought it necessary to perform such a reckless and intolerant act in the na > read more

Light posting - heading back to Afghanistan

Published on 2011-03-31 05:49:00

unusually high traffic the past few days at least for this low-traffic site... most of it's been going to the kill team post from last week...anyway, mostly the same ol' stuff going on and i'm feeling like all i've been doing is repeating myself... h > read more

A great obituary for a great man

Published on 2011-03-29 17:11:00

go read it... it's damn good...Bageant Moves OnWe don't last, and there's no warranty Joe Bageant and Fred Reed in Ajijic, Mexico, 2008 By Fred Reed > read more

Joe Bageant passes away

Published on 2011-03-28 12:33:00

it's only been fairly recently that i became acquainted with joe bageant... i became an instant fan and now he's gone...Joe Bageant, 1946-2011 After a vibrant life, Joe Bageant died yesterday following a four-month struggle with cance > read more

The unrestrained power ... enjoyed by oligarchs is the single greatest political problem the country faces

Published on 2011-03-27 13:58:00

glenn has a very important post up that captures the essence of what is happening in the u.s. and, indeed, in many places in the world where our super-rich elites are fighting to extend their privileged anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd largely > read more

More than 250,000 march in London "to let them know this is wrong"

Published on 2011-03-26 18:49:00

this is what the "will of the people" looks like...Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Metropolitan Police confirmed that more than 250,000 people had marched peacefully...[...]Britain is facing 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) of public spending cuts fr > read more

This is just plain disgusting and completely uncalled for

Published on 2011-03-26 14:00:00

glenn...Top Bush-era GITMO and Abu Ghraib psychologist is WH's newest appointmentwhat in the freakin' hell is obama thinking...? oh, never mind... he's has long since lost whatever scraps of confidence in him i might have been desperately clinging to > read more

Saturday videoblogging: celestial beauty

Published on 2011-03-26 11:25:00

not mine but wish it was... one of my lifelong dreams is to see the aurora borealis as vividly as this... i've seen it only a couple of times, once faintly in the skies above the twin cities and once fairly clearly from the window of an airplane flyi > read more

Juan Cole has a run-down on the escalating events in the Middle East

Published on 2011-03-26 11:12:00

All Hell Breaks Loose in the Middle East > read more

Yep, we're totally off the rails

Published on 2011-03-26 10:38:00

sometimes, despite thinking that i'm staying on top of what's going on in the world, i suddenly discover that a huge fact has entirely escaped my attention... for instance, i didn't know that bob herbert was leaving the nyt...This is my last column f > read more

Ennui - I can't seem to get away from it

Published on 2011-03-25 22:10:00

too much shit and a severe lack of anything resembling good news... > read more

With a "stroke of the pen," the right to be Mirandized disappears (if you're a domestic terrorism suspect)

Published on 2011-03-24 09:57:00

the obama administration is out of control...glenn...Today, the Obama DOJ unveiled the latest -- and one of the most significant -- examples of its eagerness to assault the very legal values Obama vowed to protect. The Wall Street Journal reports > read more

A humanitarian military intervention in Libya...? Glenn: "Please."

Published on 2011-03-22 17:31:00

glenn has the same visceral reaction to glaring hypocrisy that i do...[W]hat I cannot understand at all is how people are willing to believe that the U.S. Government is deploying its military and fighting this war because, out of abundant humanitaria > read more

Yes, it's more than "merely" torture, it's full-bore exploitation

Published on 2011-03-22 17:06:00

a special report from truthout reveals the full extent of the CIA/DoD torture program...retired air force capt. michael kearns was party to the hiring of dr. john bruce jessen, the psychologist who was under contract to the CIA and credited as being > read more

Watching from outside the U.S. or looking on from the inside, insanity is still insanity

Published on 2011-03-22 11:02:00

the criminal banksters go scot-free, government leaders current and former who shred the constitution with impunity are not held to account, yet another unapproved, illegitimate war is underway, our super-rich elites continue to amass ever more power > read more

The "Kill Team" photos are not unusual and are not the work of "rogue" U.S. soldiers

Published on 2011-03-21 13:34:00

yes, i know that spiegel is trying to soften the story by blaming it on "rogue" individuals but that's simply not the case... photos are routinely taken by soldiers commemorating their work just as miscellaneous body parts - fingers, toes, etc. - and > read more

Helen Thomas on Al Jazeera

Published on 2011-03-20 14:39:00

i'm watching riz khan interviewing helen thomas right now on al jazeera english... it's very good... you can watch here... i will post the youtube video as soon as it's put up... > read more

Not everything going on in Japan is as the media is reporting... < Duh >

Published on 2011-03-19 20:38:00

from ode magazine...Signs of hope in SendaiOnce again I want to write to you about what is happening here. The TV news is frightening beyond belief. In fact, this entire phenomenon seems totally surreal. Beyond the edges of one’s wildest imaginatio > read more

Oh, yay...! A new war...!

Published on 2011-03-19 15:37:00

yes, gadhafi is a complete and total nutcase and, yes, killing his own people is a very bad thing, but WHAT THE FUCK does the united states think it's doing, getting involved in an air war in libya...? oh, wait... it's going to require defense contra > read more

Level 5 headed to Level 7...? Hmmm... Let's bury the bastard...

Published on 2011-03-18 05:32:00

another morning and more increasingly bad news from fukushima... Japan's nuclear safety agency raised the severity rating of the country's nuclear crisis Friday from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on par with the > read more

Japan nuclear crisis worsens

Published on 2011-03-17 02:27:00

every morning i get up and find the situation is getting worse...The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal on Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government ha > read more

Fake Democracy - Noam Chomsky, March 13

Published on 2011-03-17 01:47:00

great stuff from professor chomsky - as always... > read more

They say "blood money" - I say "bullshit"

Published on 2011-03-16 09:35:00

this is wrong on so many levels...American Who Worked for C.I.A. Freed in PakistanAmerican officials on Wednesday won the release of a C.I.A.contractor under investigation for two counts of murder,after spending more than six hours at the jail with t > read more

Fukushima team going back in

Published on 2011-03-16 05:39:00

i'm sure the members of that team realize that they are probably sacrificing their lives in this effort...Japan ordered emergency workers to withdraw from its stricken nuclear complex Wednesday amid a surge in radiation, temporarily suspending effort > read more

Fukushima: there's nothing left to do but throw in the towel

Published on 2011-03-15 23:40:00

this definitely wasn't the news i wanted to wake up to today...Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plantJapan suspended operations to keep its stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after surging radiation made it too dangerous to sta > read more

Obama's team seeks new ways to fire up his base - HAHAHAHAHAHA...!

Published on 2011-03-15 03:40:00

i think a lot of us have some really good ideas for what those "ways" might look like... first of all, how about demonstrating you give a crap for the common good instead of the corporatocracy...? how about stopping the torture of bradley manning... > read more

Spent fuel storage pond on fire at Fukushima

Published on 2011-03-15 03:05:00

words fail...Japan has told the UN nuclear watchdog a spent fuel storage pond was on fire at an earthquake-stricken reactor and radioactivity was being released "directly" into the atmosphere, the Vienna-based agency said.[...]Closer to the Japan's c > read more

A third blast and damage to the containment vessel

Published on 2011-03-14 23:33:00

holy crap...!Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday, after an explosion at one crippled reactor damaged its crucial steel containment structure and a fire at another reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the > read more

Partial melting of the fuel rods in all three Fukushima reactors

Published on 2011-03-14 10:21:00

O.M.G...Japanese nuclear authorities said that there was a high possibility that nuclear fuel rods at a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power's Dai-ichi plant may be melting or have melted, Jiji news agency reported.Experts have said that if the fuel rods > read more

The Founding Fathers deeply feared popular democracy ... They rigged the system to favor the elite from the start

Published on 2011-03-14 07:26:00

again, nothing we don't know but it never hurts to be reminded...chris hedges...The liberal class has busied itself with the toothless pursuits of inclusiveness, multiculturalism, identity politics and tolerance—a word Martin Luther King never used > read more

Fuel rods fully exposed at Japan nuclear plant

Published on 2011-03-14 06:11:00

the news coming out of japan is looking worse and worse...Fuel rods are entirely exposed at Fukushima Daiichi No.2 reactor; cannot rule out fuel meltdownwhatever your belief system - love, light, higher power, or just the power of good intentions - s > read more

Krugman - The rich are different from you and me: when they break the law, it’s the prosecutors who find themselves on trial

Published on 2011-03-14 04:49:00

krugman's column in yesterday's nyt highlights, once again, the extreme lack of accountability our banksters have come to expect while fleecing us poor peasants out of every single dime...The immediate flashpoint is a proposed settlement between stat > read more

Second explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant; first announcement of injuries in first explosion

Published on 2011-03-13 23:52:00

japanese authorities keep insisting that any radioactive release are "within legal limits"... i think they're whistling past the graveyard...The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, > read more

P.J. Crowley: tell the truth, get the ax

Published on 2011-03-13 23:27:00

i saw the first announcement of this story just before hitting the sack last night and remembered what glenn had had to say about crowley's statement a few days ago when he first said it...glenn on thursday...I don't recall an instance where one admi > read more

The Japanese disaster

Published on 2011-03-13 09:11:00

i've been glued to the tv off and on since the news of japan broke here in south africa early friday morning... to say that it's the most indescribable event of my lifetime would be an understatement... watching the shock wave shoot up from the explo > read more

The US government itself and its regulatory agencies ... are being privatized as the "final stage" of neoliberal economic doctrine

Published on 2011-03-12 07:40:00

we're headed there with the speed of a bullet train...The Plan to Steal Everything and Sell the People into SlaveryWisconsin Death Trip[...]Economics textbooks, along with Fox News and shout radio commentators, spread the myth that fortunes are gaine > read more

Reactor explosion in Japan

Published on 2011-03-12 03:59:00

worst case scenario comes to pass...Japan's fears mount with nuclear plant blastThe Fukushima power plant's cooling system failed after Friday's massive earthquake. Residents flee the area. Nationwide, the death toll from the quake and tsunami coul > read more

Bullshit

Published on 2011-03-12 03:55:00

ain't buyin' it...Obama Defends Detention Conditions for Soldier Accused in WikiLeaks CasePresident Obama has defended conditions in a Marine Corps jail for Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking classified government documents to WikiLea > read more

Marcy's takedown of the Consumer Advisory Council report on wrongful foreclosures

Published on 2011-03-11 05:44:00

how much time, energy and money is spent by our super-rich elites and their puppets in government proving that they are totally blameless for any of the ills that bombard we, the peasants, in a daily rain of gooey turds...?marcy wheeler...The folks a > read more

Manning's request for less harsh treatment denied; Amnesty Int'l calls for protests

Published on 2011-03-11 04:01:00

glenn details the latest developments in the treatment of bradley manning at the marine corps facility in quantico, virginia...Yesterday, the Quantico base commander denied Manning's formal request for less harsh treatment -- including an end to his > read more

The fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wis., no less than it is in Tahrir Square

Published on 2011-03-11 03:47:00

money = power = money = power...noam chomsky...Concentration of income confers political power, which in turn leads to legislation that further enhances the privilege of the super-rich: tax policies, deregulation, rules of corporate governance and mu > read more

8.8 earthquake in Japan and a possible tsunami wave of 32 ft. [UPDATE: 8.9]

Published on 2011-03-11 00:33:00

from the usgs...Magnitude8.8 Date-TimeFriday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46:23 UTCFriday, March 11, 2011 at 02:46:23 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location38.322°N, 142.369°E Depth24.4 km (15.2 miles) set by location program > read more

Rachel Maddow | Michael Moore: The Rich and the GOP Are Destroying America's Working Class

Published on 2011-03-10 22:47:00

via truthout...Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyyep, that's what it's all about...john nichols adds his thoughts...Wisconsin State Representative Mark Pocan, the former co-chair of the legislature's powerful J > read more

Just one of those SSDD days...

Published on 2011-03-10 10:02:00

ennui catches up with me every now and then... guess it's just an occupational hazard when i spend as much time as i do keeping up with the state of the world... > read more

Using the economic crisis the super-rich elites created to further enrich and empower the super-rich elites

Published on 2011-03-10 01:05:00

among other tactics, the possibility of privatizing municipalities by fiat...from democracy now...As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country in the wake of Wall Street financial crisis, many analysts are picking up on the theory > read more

Here's a headline that is false on its face

Published on 2011-03-09 10:03:00

ya gotta get a little perspective here... what if the headline read "hearings on 'catholics' in america will be fair," or "hearings on 'japanese' in america will be fair," or "hearings on 'italians' in america will be fair" or "hearings on 'jews' in > read more

Tunisia now freer than the U.S...? Arguably, yes...

Published on 2011-03-09 08:41:00

as juan cole points out in the headline of his blog post...It’s Official: Tunisia Now Freer than the U.S. Posted on 03/08/2011 by Juan Tunisian Prime Minister Béji Caïd Essebsi announced on Monday the dissolutio > read more

Meanwhile, Egyptians are busy documenting their fallen government's use of torture

Published on 2011-03-09 02:02:00

do you think we in the u.s. could take a lesson here...?With Mubarak out of power, Egyptians turned today on the brutal State Security Services he used to cement his reign. Thousands of protestors stormed the agency's main headquarters in Cairo, rans > read more

Why is Bradley Manning being subjected to abuse

Published on 2011-03-09 02:01:00

scott horton at harpers via information clearing house...Department of Defense spokesmen have insisted that Manning is “being treated just like every other detainee in the brig.” They have responded to questions about the enforced nudity regime b > read more

Glenn: Obama's Executive Order only reinforces what he's done from the start of his Presidency

Published on 2011-03-08 22:40:00

what with the time zone difference, i didn't get to see glenn's response to the new obama executive order on military tribunals and guantánamo until this morning but it's pretty much as i expected...Obama -- for reasons having nothing to do with Con > read more

Seeing Islam in a different light - FINALLY...!

Published on 2011-03-08 10:24:00

The Disappearance of the Nightmare ArabHow a Revolution of Hope Is Changing the Way Americans Look at IslamPerhaps the two biggest surprises of all here: out of a culture that has notoriously disempowered women has sprung a protest movement rife with > read more

Statement from The Constitution Project on resuming Guantánamo tribunals [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-03-08 02:58:00

the obama administration sinks ever lower...White House Says Military Tribunals Can Resume at GuantánamoPresident Barack Obama issued an order on Monday approvingthe resumption of military trials for detainees at GuantánamoBay, Cuba, The Associated > read more

More public protests that don't seem to be "newsworthy" enough to merit national coverage

Published on 2011-03-08 02:40:00

people are crying out for accountability while our traditional news media look the other way...A coalition of watchdogs and activists released a new report revealing how the wealthiest bailed-out banks have caused the current economic crisis by dodgi > read more

War crimes and whistleblowers

Published on 2011-03-08 00:26:00

yeah... medea benjamin and charles davis make an excellent point: god help anyone who dares to speak out about the horrors and outrages being perpetrated by our esteemed leaders... but if you're one of the ones who have committed those horrors and an > read more

Michael Moore's view of Madison

Published on 2011-03-07 01:35:00

looks like michael moore has a lot more three-dimensional, human perspective on what's taking place in wisconsin than we're getting via our esteemed news media...first, his speech...now, the background...How I Got to Madison, Wisconsin ...a letter fr > read more

Yeah, boomers (like me) aren't going to sit still for Social Security and Medicare rape and pillage

Published on 2011-03-06 23:56:00

Madison a Foretaste of Things to Come: the Next Big Occupation Could be Boomers Taking Over the Capitol Buildingra > read more

South Africa Sunday photo and YouTube blogging: the Hadada Ibis right off my terrace

Published on 2011-03-06 02:01:00

i had heard the squawking call of what i had presumed to be a species of crow or raven several times yesterday but had never caught sight of the source... yesterday afternoon, i was kicking back with the terrace door wide open and was startled by the > read more

More Glenn on Bradley Manning

Published on 2011-03-05 09:45:00

because it's so important that the behavior of our government be exposed for the horror it's wreaking on one young whistleblower, i'm taking the liberty of re-posting glenn's latest in its entirety...To follow-up on yesterday's observations about the > read more

The Israeli-occupied West Bank

Published on 2011-03-05 03:57:00

they say a picture is worth a thousand words... well, this one is worth about a million...(click on image for interactive version)The map lays out the presence of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, each of which is connected to each othe > read more

Here's a novel thought: the well-being of other people is hardwired into humanity

Published on 2011-03-05 03:43:00

actually, it's novel only in the context of our present-day society, brainwashed as it is in ayn randian, social darwinian concepts...read lisa dodson's account of her first-person experiences in community altruism and empathy...The Moral Underground > read more

Glenn has more on the utter degradation being suffered by Bradley Manning

Published on 2011-03-04 23:51:00

and the jaw-dropping lies that the obama administration is using to try to cover it up... > read more

So sad... So pathetic... So hate-filled... So disgusting...

Published on 2011-03-04 04:30:00

i'm speechless...hate in orange county (courtesy of glenn greenwald)...ya know what particularly disgusts me...? i met with congressman ed royce in his office in d.c. a year and a half ago in the company of a friend and colleague, an afghan muslim an > read more

Is Wikileaks the "enemy" Bradley Manning is charged with "aiding"

Published on 2011-03-04 03:42:00

good god, we have sunk so low in my country...glenn...In light of the implicit allegation that Manning transmitted this material to WikiLeaks, it is quite possible that WikiLeaks is the "enemy" referenced by Article 104, i.e., that the U.S. militar > read more

A union member, a CEO and a Tea Party member are sitting at a table with 12 cookies

Published on 2011-03-04 02:17:00

the only part of the following i have a quarrel with is where he says, "our military spending grabs 11 cookies"... it may seem like a small thing, but all of the money that nominally goes to the military actually doesn't... it goes to the defense con > read more

Big news from SCOTUS: "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally"

Published on 2011-03-03 07:18:00

this is going to have far-reaching and - imho - very positive implications...The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Tuesday that AT&T and other corporations do not have personal privacy rights under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).The Fre > read more

Now, HERE'S a speech...!

Published on 2011-03-03 05:58:00

california congressional representative george miller offers a damning indictment of those who seek to destroy the u.s. middle class along with most of the values our country stands for...from the transcript (thanks to daily kos)...How do you build a > read more

A call for a direct focus on our super-rich elites, the ones who are calling the shots

Published on 2011-03-03 04:54:00

one of the real benefits of the "global awakening," particularly as it's being played out currently in the u.s. (in places like madison, wisconsin), is that it's drawing back the curtain on those behind those they have installed as their puppets... c > read more

The ripple effects of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya continue to spread

Published on 2011-03-02 00:27:00

in addition to what's happening in northern africa, the near east and the u.s., we're starting to see tremors in the balkans (croatia and albania, specifically) and southern africa (zimbabwe)... having just been in zimbabwe last week and had a member > read more

Henry Giroux, among others, characterizes what's happening as an outpouring of student protest

Published on 2011-03-01 00:55:00

yes, but that's not all it is...Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for DemocracyWithin the last few months, we have seen an outpouring of student protests from all over the globe.[...]Counterpublic spheres and modes of resistance that w > read more

AnonNews: David and Charles Koch have long attempted to usurp American Democracy

Published on 2011-02-28 03:30:00

this is good...Dear Citizens of the United States of America,It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermin > read more

YES, let's have another war for oil, the only thing that gives these bastards wet dreams

Published on 2011-02-28 02:52:00

whether they're operating under the umbrella of PNAC or the FPI, these are truly evil people who, as sincere in their beliefs as i'm sure they are, wouldn't hesitate to kill a few thousand more people in libya than gaddafi has already killed in order > read more

"People here have acted lawfully and responsibly. There's no reason to consider arrests."

Published on 2011-02-28 00:13:00

this is extremely cool...The occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol by protesters fighting efforts to strip public workers of union bargaining rights carried on Sunday after police decided not to forcibly remove demonstrators and end a nearly two-week-l > read more

Why should our super-rich elites keep sucking us dry and refusing to pay their fair share...?

Published on 2011-02-27 08:30:00

robert parry writing in consortium news via alternet...The Solution to Our Budget Problems Is So Obvious: We Need to Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAPThe answer to many of our country’s domestic problems is obvious -- the rich need to pay their fair sh > read more

Chomsky: "democracy is dangerous and intolerable" and stability "means obedience to US domination"

Published on 2011-02-26 12:06:00

as usual, professor chomsky 'splains it ever so much better than most...There is a reason why there is so much concern about the democracy uprising in the Arab world than in, say, the sub-Saharan Africa. This is where the major energy resources of th > read more

Wisconsin protests go national

Published on 2011-02-25 07:09:00

a compilation of news reports on states where protests are either underway or building, thanks to think progress...us uncut has called for protests across the u.s. tomorrow, saturday, 26 february..."I paid my taxes. Why doesn't Bank of America?" ask > read more

Photoblogging - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Published on 2011-02-25 04:44:00

Victoria Falls through clouds of mistat sunrise this past wednesday morning, i walked to victoria falls, not knowing quite what to expect but prepared to be astounded... i wasn't disappointed...the first glimpse was of a small cataract barely visible > read more

Life without our controllers

Published on 2011-02-23 22:40:00

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails.Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail.We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someon > read more

Was Raymond Davis trying to ignite a false flag war to pre-empt the collapse of the global economy...?

Published on 2011-02-22 21:49:00

if true, this could be one of the final nails in the coffin of the super-rich elite domination of global affairs and the beginning of the real changes i have been fervently praying for for so very, very long..."CIA spy" Davis was giving nuclear bomb > read more

Glenn recaps the latest U.S. hypocrisy, disdain for the rule of law and reflects on "why they hate us"

Published on 2011-02-22 01:41:00

glenn offers a detailed run-down on the pakistan/cia/raymond davis affair here and here, laments the u.s. veto of the u.n. security council condemnation of the continuing israeli settlements in palestine here and reflects generally on the abysmal job > read more

Some photos from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Published on 2011-02-21 22:55:00

at sunrise yesterday morning, i walked to the zambezi river gorge overlook... i wasn't prepared for the sheer ruggedness and vertical drop, particularly after walking through the almost flat surrounding vegetation... and, of course, the photo doesn't > read more

More from Wisconsin - "This is what democracy looks like"

Published on 2011-02-21 05:16:00

john nichols writing in common dreams...[T]he governor’s radical proposal went to such extremes in its anti-labor bias that it sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and so determined in its demands that it is now commonly compared with the > read more

Hello from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Published on 2011-02-21 03:27:00

i arrived yesterday and took this photo as i was leaving the airplane... it's an amazing place...! stay tuned for more pics...! > read more

Immunizing our leaders past and present from any accountability for observing the rule of law

Published on 2011-02-19 09:16:00

glenn waxes sadly righteous on a saturday...After the U.S. Government implemented a worldwide regime of torture, lawless detention, and other abuses, the doors of the American justice system have been slammed shut in the face of any and all victims s > read more

Democracy by Leonard Cohen

Published on 2011-02-19 08:54:00

"Democracy""I'm sentimental, if you know what I meanI love the country but I can't stand the scene.And I'm neither left or rightI'm just staying home tonight,getting lost in that hopeless little screen.But I'm stubborn as those garbage bagsthat Time > read more

Is Wisconsin the United States' Egypt...?

Published on 2011-02-18 16:16:00

ya know, that would be infinitely cool if it was... god knows, we're long over due...katrina vanden heuvel...A friend e-mailed me this morning, "Do you think events taking place in Wisconsin might be as important as what's happening in Cairo, if the > read more

Russ Feingold talks to Rachel Maddow about what's happening in Wisconsin

Published on 2011-02-18 10:06:00

empowering u.s. workers...! wow...! what a concept...!!Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyNOW, we're TALKING'... > read more

Nobody goes to jail ... because the entire system set up to monitor and regulate Wall Street is fucked up

Published on 2011-02-17 15:27:00

yeah... something finally grabbed me...matt taibbi in rolling stone...Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scan > read more

Ennui sometimes just catches up with me

Published on 2011-02-17 11:36:00

reading today's news, i'm once again in that familiar head space where i just want to dig a hole, climb in and never come out... i'll leave open the possibility that something might trigger my righteousness or, at minimum, pique my interest later tod > read more

For 30 years, your nation financed & supported me, politely overlooking corruption and repression all the while

Published on 2011-02-16 19:56:07

tom tomorrow strikes again...Click image for larger version > read more

Odds & ends, Tuesday, 15 February - read 'em and weep...

Published on 2011-02-15 13:28:00

yeah, i know, i talk a good story but i sometimes don't follow through... back in early january, i said i was going to "post links to things i've come across in my day's reading that i think might be worthwhile to share with others but don't quite gr > read more

Argentina seizes US cargo plane - the United States has "more interests than friends"

Published on 2011-02-15 10:19:00

without a doubt, there's a lot more to this than meets the eye...just sayin'...US Air Force C17 Globemasterin Buenos Aires Argentina to protest US Air Force cargo incidentArgentina said it will lodge a formal protest with Washington after seizing wha > read more

Factory farming - a complete disregard for life

Published on 2011-02-15 09:56:00

our super-rich elites have no respect for anything except themselves... human life, plant life, animal life, the health of our planet - none of it matters... it's all there just to be exploited... this video captures just one slice of it...(thanks to > read more

Glenn doesn't think the story of this scandal should die

Published on 2011-02-15 08:52:00

and neither do i...as an intended victim of a vicious and illegal smear campaign (other intended victims include think progress and brad friedman), greenwald's considered opinion of just how vulnerable people are who speak out against our super-rich > read more

Published on 2011-02-14 19:40:00

from truthout..."Austerity" Comes to AmericaRichard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School Uni > read more

The Egyptian military shows good faith

Published on 2011-02-13 10:30:00

i may be wrong (cuz, lord knows, i am the LAST person you would want to be attempting to deliver a credible prediction on anything about egypt - or any other country for that matter), but i think the egyptian military is going to pull off this transi > read more

A passive-aggressive jerk complements highly verbal asses on the Supreme Court

Published on 2011-02-13 09:41:00

what is this guy's problem...?A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument.If he > read more

Small house movement

Published on 2011-02-12 14:05:00

egypt was uplifting in an earth-shaking way... here's something else uplifting, not on as grand a scale, but still big in its own right... > read more

Crossing the "fear barrier"

Published on 2011-02-11 13:30:00

listening to rania, a human rights activist, speaking to al jazeera from the 6th of october bridge in cairo... she says that once the egyptian people crossed the "fear barrier," there was no stopping them...i've said all along that fear is the princi > read more

Celebrating Egypt - fireworks in Beirut, Gaza and Tunisia... Even some good words from a former Israeli cabinet minister

Published on 2011-02-11 12:08:00

there's no historical precedent... i've said before, i've been waiting for something like this all my life...Celebrations erupted across the Middle East on Friday after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egypt's president. From Beirut to Gaza, people rush > read more

While we celebrate Egypt, let's not forget what's going on here at home - the plutocracy is playing for keeps

Published on 2011-02-11 10:51:00

john cole with thanks to glenn greenwald...One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empower > read more

They didn't fight, they didn't kill, and they didn't rely on someone who claimed to "lead" them

Published on 2011-02-11 10:21:00

they simply came out en masse, took care of each other and said, in no uncertain terms -NO MORE...!!they've reclaimed the power that is the birthright of every one of us... > read more

Power to the people of Egypt...!

Published on 2011-02-11 10:10:00

tahrir square is exploding with joy...!after 30 years, it took the combined will of the egyptian people 18 days to topple the regime... god bless them... i'm in awe of their courage and pray for better days for them, their country and, indeed, for al > read more

MUBARAK STEPS DOWN...!!

Published on 2011-02-11 09:59:00

egyptian army tanks guarding the presidential palace in cairo with their gun barrels pointed at the protesters just turned them aside... is that symbolic or what...?suleiman is making a statement right now... watch al jazeera here...he just announced > read more

Twitter of the day: Mubarak is Egypt's first zombie president

Published on 2011-02-11 09:46:00

i love it... > read more

The uprising in Egypt has discredited every Western media stereotype about the Arabs

Published on 2011-02-10 18:58:00

john pilger...The uprising in Egypt has discredited every Western media stereotype about the Arabs. The courage, determination, eloquence and grace of those in Liberation Square contrast with “our” specious fear-mongering with its al-Qaeda and Ir > read more

The Egyptian regime has tested positive for cancer but Mubarak and Suleiman think they only have a migraine

Published on 2011-02-10 18:49:00

on al jazeera live... > read more

Mubarak keeps givin' the same speech

Published on 2011-02-10 18:32:00

it's the same speech he gave two weeks ago and i have the same reaction i did then... what an arrogant asshole... > read more

This isn't just about Egypt [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

Published on 2011-02-10 12:20:00

it's about ALL of us and we would all do well to pay attention... the tectonic plates are shifting and this will have ripple effects around the world in ways that we can only guess at...obama is scheduled to take the stage in michigan in about 10 min > read more

The Egyptian Supreme Military Council just issued a statement [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

Published on 2011-02-10 09:38:00

there's quite a lot of room for interpretation, but it sounds like the military announced that the protesters demands are going to be met... the people in tahrir square are pretty energized and the rumors are flying...watch al jazeera here...[UPDATE] > read more

The universal obsession with identifying a "leader" for a self-organizing system - the anti-government protesters in Egypt

Published on 2011-02-09 11:58:00

it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad... even the most comprehensive and generally straightforward reporting (yes, i believe that would be al jazeera), seemingly can't get past the fact that no leader has yet emerged to be anointed as the spokesp > read more

For the first time in history, "mankind is politically awake" - Zbigniew Brzezinski's darkest fear

Published on 2011-02-08 14:41:00

dr. evil 'splains it all for you in this excerpt from a speech to the council on foreign relations in montreal last may... > read more

The UK isn't afraid to ask the banksters to shoulder their fair share, why is the U.S.?

Published on 2011-02-08 13:01:00

yes, of course, the uk banksters are boo-hooing about how unfair it all is, but, c'mon... they're making all the goddam money, why shouldn't they pitch in in equal measure...Britain saddled banks with an extra 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion) in tax > read more

More people in Tahrir Square than ever before

Published on 2011-02-08 09:48:00

watch al jazeera live feed here...meanwhile, mubarak, israel and the u.s. are still angling to keep the status quo...mubarak remains defiant...Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square for the latest protest calling fo > read more

Glenn's back with a roar

Published on 2011-02-07 19:02:00

this is only glenn's second post since being released from the hospital after a bout with dengue fever, not something you just bounce back from... in any case, the episode didn't dampen glenn's piercing insight one bit... he's literally on fire here > read more

Mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors in D.C.

Published on 2011-02-07 10:39:00

worth noting...Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is convening an unprecedented mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors.The top envoys from nearly all of America's 260 embassies, consulates and other posts in more than 180 countries will be gathering > read more

"Good" democracies vs. "bad" democracies - the dirty secret of the US call for "orderly transition" in Egypt

Published on 2011-02-07 09:51:00

pepe escobar writing in the asia times via alternet...For bipartisan Washington, there are "good" democracies (those that keep serving US strategic interests) and "bad" democracies which vote "wrong" (such as in Gaza, or in a future Egypt, against US > read more

Al Jazeera reporter Ayman Mohyeldin detained by Egyptian Army [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-02-06 15:16:00

this happened just a few hours ago and they don't know where he's been taken... reporters without borders is on the case...watch here...[UPDATE & BUMPED]good news...Ayman Mohyeldin, an Al Jazeera correspondent who was detained while covering the unre > read more

I swear to God, the U.S. and the E.U. are fucking clueless about Egypt

Published on 2011-02-06 08:42:00

but, in the process of being clueless, nevertheless reveal their true dark intentions...West Backs Gradual Egyptian TransitionThe United States and leading European nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt’s vice president, Omar Suleiman > read more

Saturday photoblogging - back in the high desert

Published on 2011-02-05 20:58:00

the second of my four flights was delayed arriving in frankfurt yesterday so i had to spend last night there... after my initial pique (united basically slammed the aircraft door in my face after i huffed and puffed up the concourse trying to make th > read more

The U.S. is trying to maintain the status quo in Egypt

Published on 2011-02-04 22:55:00

calling for an "orderly transition" led by omar suleiman is hypocrisy of the most disgusting variety...some background...A Familiar Story Resort to the language of order, stability, incrementalism, and moderation is hardly new and existed well befor > read more

This is what happens these days when you attempt to present "un-spun" news

Published on 2011-02-04 11:43:00

Al Jazeera’s Cairo office burned down by pro-Mubarak ‘thugs’Al Jazeera's office in Cairo was stormed by a "gang of thugs" and set on fire along with all the equipment inside it, the Arab news network said Friday."It appears to be the latest att > read more

Mubarak is "fed up"...?? Boo-freaking-hoo

Published on 2011-02-04 09:30:00

pardon my crudity, but what fucking arrogance...Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he would like to resign immediately but fears the country would descend into chaos if he did so.In his first interview since anti-government protests began, he > read more

Read the caption on this Al Jazeera screen shot from their coverage of Egypt today [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-02-04 08:35:00

i'm tellin' ya, it's still giving me chills... i've been waiting to see stuff like this my whole life...all walks of life, regardless of age, gender or religion... wow...![UPDATE]i'm stuck overnight here in frankfurt after missing a connecting flight > read more

"Day of Departure" in Egypt's Tahrir Square

Published on 2011-02-04 03:06:00

watch on al jazeera here... > read more

The White House "succession plan" for Egypt is pure bullshit

Published on 2011-02-04 02:28:00

a transitional government headed by suleiman is no better and in fact may be even worse than letting mubarak stay on... it's just another way for the u.s. to keep propping up dictators, torturers, and generally bad men while keeping its lips glued to > read more

Israel, Palestine and the Middle East - once again Professor Cole 'splains it all for you

Published on 2011-02-03 08:22:00

insightful, informed, thoughtful and spot on...a teaser... go read the whole thing...The US-backed military dictatorship in Egypt has become, amusingly enough, a Bonapartist state. It exercises power on behalf of both a state elite and a new wealthy > read more

Egyptian state media journalist resigns: "I'm not going to be part of the propaganda machine"

Published on 2011-02-03 06:16:00

"i'm relieved," she says...shahira amin resigned her job with egyptian state media - nile television - today because it's not presenting the reality of what's happening...watch on al jazeera... > read more

20,000 people on the streets in Sanaa, Yemen

Published on 2011-02-03 05:26:00

i'm getting those chills up and down my back again...Over 20,000 take to streets in Yemen "Day of Rage"More than 20,000 Yemenis filled the streets of Sanaa on Thursday for a "Day of Rage" rally, demanding a change in government and saying President A > read more

McClatchy points out what has become disgustingly obvious

Published on 2011-02-03 01:28:00

at least one major news outlet has decided to shine a spotlight on the vile, barbaric individual who has been the beneficiary of u.s. support for lo these many years...Wednesday's crackdown was vintage MubarakNot long after Egyptian President Hosni M > read more

Anti-Mubarak protesters have re-taken Tahrir Square

Published on 2011-02-03 01:07:00

and more people are joining them, bringing food and medicine... is this amazing or what...?watch here... > read more

Juan Cole spells out the big picture of the events in Egypt

Published on 2011-02-02 23:18:00

professor cole...On Wednesday, the Mubarak regime showed its fangs, mounting a massive and violent repressive attack on the peaceful crowds in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. People worrying about Egypt becoming like Iran (scroll down) should worry > read more

Descent into chaos in Cairo [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

Published on 2011-02-02 08:20:00

not good... watch here...[UPDATE]you know, it occurs to me, when i was watching this morning - central european time - the army had just made a public appeal for the protesters to go home and get back to the routine of their daily lives and, at that > read more

Internet back up in Egypt

Published on 2011-02-02 04:07:00

that's according to a tweet from sharif kouddous who's in cairo and has been reporting for democracy now... > read more

US faithlessness and wilful blindness in the Middle East

Published on 2011-02-02 02:02:00

marcy wheeler calls my attention to this piece by robert grenier, a retired, 27-year veteran of the cia's clandestine service...Events in the Middle East have slipped away from us. Having long since opted in favour of political stability over the ris > read more

Al Jazeera - the tide is turning

Published on 2011-02-01 08:48:00

my first real exposure to al jazeera came in afghanistan when it was offered as one of several global news networks - cnn international, bbc world, france 24 - that were carried on the satellite service that provided tv access in the guest house wher > read more

Out of Egypt, a work-around for the internet "kill" switch and Twitter

Published on 2011-02-01 07:59:00

this is the kind of creativity and technological innovation that gives me hope...[A] group of hackers is close to delivering software that could turn laptops into low-cost Internet routers—and help protesters organize.Hours after the government in > read more

It's spreading...!

Published on 2011-02-01 06:56:00

i don't want to run the risk of overstating what's happening here but i'm not sure that's possible...AlJazeera: Jordan's King Abdullah dismisses government, names new PM amidst protestsJordan's King Abdullah has dismissed his government and appointed > read more

I have chills running up and down my spine

Published on 2011-02-01 05:30:00

i'm watching the al jazeera english live stream from cairo... it's stunning... the world is changing under our feet... > read more

11% - 18.4M to be exact - of U.S. homes are vacant

Published on 2011-02-01 03:05:00

damn...! that's a LOT of empty houses...!Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. 74.8 million are owned, and that's only dropped by about 30 thousand in the past year. 38 million are rented, but that's up > read more

Social networking

Published on 2011-02-01 01:34:00

a few observations on social networking...despite my advanced age - 63 - i've generally been and continue to be pretty much up on the latest electronic media and related gadgets... i guess it's a necessity in my line of work where i regularly find my > read more

Is ElBaradei THE ONE...?

Published on 2011-02-01 01:00:00

i posted on elbaradei just the other day along with a number of other posts on elbaradei dating back to 2007...so, the obama administration is wondering if elbaradei is somebody they can deal with...? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...! he's already demonstrated he c > read more

Egypt graffiti

Published on 2011-01-31 04:46:00

super... > read more

Today or tomorrow, Mubarak will step down

Published on 2011-01-31 02:32:00

yeah, well, what the hell do i know... it's just a gut feeling...Egypt's most prominent democracy advocate took up a bullhorn Sunday and called for President Hosni Mubarak to resign, speaking to thousands of protesters who defied a curfew for a third > read more

The screwing of the American people: understanding the banksters and the bailouts

Published on 2011-01-30 23:13:00

understanding how badly we've been screwed isn't rocket surgery... > read more

Bill Keller and Wikileaks

Published on 2011-01-30 02:52:00

as good an analysis as i've read anywhere... > read more

Hosni Mubarak finally responds to his fellow Egyptians

Published on 2011-01-29 14:02:00

> read more

Freedom to access the internet

Published on 2011-01-29 02:01:00

robert gibbs, presidential press secretary...We believe in the basket of individual freedoms includes the freedom to access the Internet and the freedom to use social networking sites.this is a statement that should be engraved and perhaps even consi > read more

Now we hear the internet's down in Syria [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-01-28 13:42:00

oh, my... things are really moving FAST...!On the same day that Egypt has suspended online activity, Syria has also blocked internet service, according to reports. Syria is known for a tight control of the internet, which was tightened further afte > read more

Narus, Israeli-founded and now Boeing-owned, rears its ugly head in Egypt

Published on 2011-01-28 12:48:00

aha... and why are we not surprised...?timothy karr via the huffpost on narus...Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant phone and Internet service provider, is a state-run enterprise, which made it easy on Friday morning for authorities to pull the pl > read more

Egypt update: several of the policemen stripped off their uniforms and badges and joined the demonstrators

Published on 2011-01-28 11:36:00

not lookin' good for mubarak...In one of many astonishing scenes Friday, thousands of anti-government protesters wielding rocks, glass and sticks chased hundreds of riot police away from the main square in downtown Cairo and several of the policemen > read more

This makes me so very sad

Published on 2011-01-28 07:47:00

An injured woman is escorted out of the supermarket in Kabul,Afghanistan, where a suicide bomber killed several people. Photograph: Rahmat Gul/APi've shopped at this supermarket a number of times... it's right next door to a most pleasant restaurant > read more

Sarkozy lashes out at the banksters at WEF in Davos

Published on 2011-01-28 06:34:00

i love it... i love it a LOT... 's about time one of the leaders of the industrialized nations put the cards on the table... i'm no sarkozy fan but he's got this one right...The world has paid with tens of millions of unemployed, who were in no way t > read more

Pulling the plug on the internet in Egypt - what our handlers would like to be able to do in the U.S. [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-01-28 03:11:00

[UPDATE]here's an arresting visual...make no mistake... what happened early this morning in egypt is precisely what our super-rich elites and their bought and paid-for puppets in government would like to be able to do to us if, at some point, Things > read more

Mohamed ElBaradei returns to his native Egypt

Published on 2011-01-27 04:55:00

which may perhaps spell the end of the nearly 30-year rule of hosni mubarak... i have a lot of respect for ElBaradei, particularly when his leadership at the international atomic energy agency was under attack by the bush administration for refusing > read more

Three-Month Rollout for Gays in Military Policy

Published on 2011-01-27 01:38:00

some headlines just stop me in my tracks and this is one of them... > read more

Hypocrisy, double-speak and denial ran amok in the SOTU

Published on 2011-01-26 06:18:00

robert scheer...The speech was a distraction from what seriously ails us: an unabated mortgage crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and a debt that spiraled out of control while the government wasted trillions making the bankers whole. Instead the pr > read more

Still more ennui

Published on 2011-01-26 00:50:00

maybe it's being in pristina, kosovo, in the dead of winter, but i'm seeing a pattern here... > read more

Of COURSE the mortgage giants are sticking it to us even more than we thought...!

Published on 2011-01-24 02:22:00

why would we think for a moment that they would do otherwise...? privatize profits, socialize costs - that's the american way of capitalism... bend over and grab your ankles...Mortgage Giants Leave Legal Bills to the TaxpayersSince the government too > read more

And we would have expected something different...?

Published on 2011-01-23 11:56:00

from an israeli probe of an israeli atrocity...? in your dreams...Israeli probe: Gaza flotilla raid was ‘legal’it's bizarrely comforting that, if the u.s. was investigating itself on a similar incident, the results would no doubt be depressingly > read more

Hilarious...! Chinese reverse engineering...

Published on 2011-01-23 08:36:00

hey... you gotta admire the chinese... they can sure figure things out... u.s. stealth technology was adapted from technology developed by the germans in the last years of wwii (another interesting story, i'm sure) and first put into regular use in t > read more

American wars will continue until the country's giant corporations ... become financially u

Published on 2011-01-22 04:50:00

pretty much...American wars will continue until the country's giant corporations, which pay the politicians in Washington's corridors of power, become financially unsustainable, says senior fellow at the Nation Institute, Chris Hedges. > read more

Lieberman ... devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war

Published on 2011-01-21 10:15:00

glenn, as usual, takes no prisoners and i, for one, am so glad there's someone willing to call b.s. on our seemingly endless national hypocrisy, particularly when a senator as odious as lieberman is being lionized... > read more

State bankruptcy as a tactic to destroy public sector unions and eat their pension plans

Published on 2011-01-21 08:07:00

it's a terrible thing to feel ashamed of your own country, but after watching private sector unions, pension plans and jobs being lobotomized by the corporate strategy of declaring bankruptcy, i don't have the stomach for this...Path Is Sought for St > read more

Thursday photoblogging: sunrise/moonset

Published on 2011-01-20 09:56:00

7:20 a.m. pacific time, high desert, nevada... > read more

Obama may be a nice man personally but he's the spokesperson for American hypocrisy

Published on 2011-01-19 16:39:00

and nothing exemplifies that hypocrisy better than the ritual bearding of chinese leaders over human rights as obama did today with chinese president hu jintao...read this carefully, particularly the section where i have taken the liberty to add emph > read more

Secrecy is the biggest danger to democratic society

Published on 2011-01-18 10:07:00

rt...Cryptome.org was publishing classified and secret documents long before WikiLeaks made headlines. Cryptome co-founder John Young told RT such sites are allowed to stay online so that spy services might keep an eye on their visitors. There is no > read more

Is the house of cards built by our super-rich elites starting to tumble...?

Published on 2011-01-17 12:34:00

well, we can only hope...today's nyt...A former senior Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion > read more

Yes, I know Hillary's portfolio is focused OUTSIDE the U.S.

Published on 2011-01-16 19:29:00

and, yes, as secretary of state, i know that's the way it is for hillary... however, when you're dishing out advice to other countries, you should REALLY be careful of the old "those who live in glass houses" dilemma...here's hill talking about recen > read more

Where we ARE vs. where we COULD be

Published on 2011-01-15 11:00:00

where we are...macro...max keiser on rt...micro...a very disturbing but amazingly accurate perspective...compare the above to where we COULD be...community co-housing... > read more

Ennui, part 3

Published on 2011-01-14 22:38:00

sorry, i got nuthin'... > read more

Back in San Jose and dead on my butt

Published on 2011-01-13 10:56:00

the drive to the ontario airport this morning was smooth and fast... i was amazed at the volume of traffic on the riverside freeway headed in to la at 5 a.m... bumper-to-bumper and slow-and-go at that time of the morning was strange to see to say not > read more

More ennui

Published on 2011-01-12 15:28:00

altho' i've got a better excuse today... i'm in the san jose airport awaiting a flight to the la area after getting up early this morning and driving over donner pass in slush and spitting snow and rain... i'm back here early tomorrow morning to meet > read more

Gerald Celente appears on RT & predicts a global youth revolt and cyberwar

Published on 2011-01-11 21:30:00

ok, i saw this and folded... it's a "gotta post"...Gerald Celente, the founder of the Trends Research Institute, believes that the Internet will empower the youth of the world to unite to start a revolution that will overthrow the existing deadlocked > read more

Ennui

Published on 2011-01-11 17:25:00

all i see is the same old shit and i just can't get motivated to post anything today... > read more

My biggest concern with the Arizona shooting - the internet

Published on 2011-01-10 14:52:00

yes, violence targeting anybody, be they ordinary u.s. citizens, elected officials of our or any other government, or innocent civilians in the endless "war on terror," is something to be condemned and, by all means, prevented... but, as glenn points > read more

The U.S. military is used to conquer countries for the rich, to seize markets, land, resources and labor for Wall Street

Published on 2011-01-10 09:46:00

the title is part of a quote from iraq war veteran michael prysner, a co-founder of march forward, a veterans group against war and rasicm... the quote is part of chris hedges latest post in truthdig...Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich > read more

Odds & ends, Sunday, 9 January

Published on 2011-01-09 17:17:00

let's hear it for mcclatchy and its spot-on indictment of the u.s. news media for abandoning wikileaks...i've been meaning to post a note about one of my favorites and a first-class character in his own right, joe bageant, who recently revealed his b > read more

Is the U.S. complicit in Iran civil aviation disasters?

Published on 2011-01-09 14:40:00

another sad state of affairs exacerbated by the foreign policy of the hegemon...An IranAir passenger jet carrying around 100 people crashed as it was making an emergency landing Sunday in a snowstorm in the country's northwest and broke into several > read more

Keith on the insanity of our guns and violence-obsessed society

Published on 2011-01-09 11:11:00

our nation needs to face the fact that a dedication to endless war, fueled by fear-mongering and the bottomless greed of super-rich elites who are totally committed to manipulating us by any means at their disposal, can expect this kind of horror... > read more

Extremely disturbing [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

Published on 2011-01-08 13:25:00

Congresswoman, 6 Others, Killed By Gunmana very bad feeling in my tummy...Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, was shot and killed today at a public event outside a grocery store.[UPDATE]According to Darci Slaten, University M > read more

The only reason we know about the Wikileaks Twitter subpoena is because it was ordered unsealed [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-01-08 09:44:00

which begs the question...glenn...And the key question now is this: did other Internet and social network companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) receive similar Orders and then quietly comply? It's difficult to imagine why the DOJ would want informatio > read more

Glenn: Getting exercised about Bill Daley's empowerment is like going to the beach and being angry that it's full of sand

Published on 2011-01-07 13:46:00

in yesterday's odds & ends post, i commented on how "obama continues to show his true colors"... glenn expands on that thought... > read more

An "angry individual" with a "grudge" who sends packages that burst into flames isn't a terrorist?

Published on 2011-01-07 09:24:00

wtf...?Terrorism Not Suspected in Md. Burning PackagesTwo mail packages caused some kind of incendiary reaction when opened, burning the fingers of two employees in separate incidents at two state office buildings in Maryland at almost the same time > read more

Odds & ends, Thursday, 6 January [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-01-06 11:06:00

in the "something a tad bit different" post from a couple of days ago, i opted to begin serving up occasional interesting stuff that i run across in the course of any given day that doesn't necessarily merit a full-fledged, dedicated post... i've dec > read more

The media feeds us information about what's good for our super-rich elites but not what's good for us

Published on 2011-01-06 10:08:00

more confirmation of what those of us who have been paying attention already know... and, yes, confirmation is indeed the real value of things like this which helps ease the burden of suspecting that i'm really a paranoid, closet, conspiracy-theorist > read more

Who would be on a deficit commission if we lived in a real democracy...?

Published on 2011-01-05 15:55:00

we can only dream...Here is the real deficit commission that you would expect to see if we were a democracy instead of a plutocracy: It would have 100 members:# 98 of the 100 members would make less than $250,000 a year.# 50 of the members would come > read more

The Very Wealthy Man

Published on 2011-01-04 21:05:00

tom tomorrow... > read more

Something a tad bit different [UPDATE]

Published on 2011-01-04 12:54:00

probably like many of you, i read multiple articles and blog posts from multiple sources on a daily basis... however, as i'm sure you've noticed, i average only 1-2 posts a day on this blog and occasionally skip days altogether, a distinct departure > read more

After lobotomizing private sector unions and reducing American workers to slaves, public employees are next on the chopping block

Published on 2011-01-04 10:12:00

it's the perfect set-up and the nyt is the perfect forum for showcasing it... now that workers in the private sector have been demoted to being the slaves of our super-rich elites by having any collective power they might have wielded effectively neu > read more

Recognizing Palestine vs. recognizing Kosovo

Published on 2011-01-03 19:02:00

noam chomsky...International lawyer John Whitbeck estimates that 80-90 percent of the world’s population live in states that recognize Palestine, while 10-20 percent recognize the Republic of Kosovo. The U.S. recognizes Kosovo but not Palestine. Ac > read more

Bush, Obama, McCain - what's the difference...? It's all manipulation by oligarchy...

Published on 2011-01-03 10:00:00

chris hedges...Obama, like Bush and McCain, funds and backs our unending and unwinnable wars. He does nothing to halt the accumulation of the largest deficits in human history. The drones murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as > read more

Welcome to the next pogrom - public employees

Published on 2011-01-02 15:14:00

you can always tell when our super-rich elites have issued the latest instructions for talking points to their political and media puppets... it seems the catfood commission didn't do its job of trashing what's left of a social contract that's alread > read more

One step closer to the Panopticon - reality intrudes on optimism

Published on 2011-01-02 13:46:00

as much as i would like to pursue a thread of optimism in this new year and as much as i'd like to keep the ugliness of current reality at bay, i guess i'm not genetically equipped to stick my head in the sand...when i was last in afghanistan, i note > read more

All you need is a garden

Published on 2011-01-02 12:31:00

maintaining the thread of hopefulness inspired by a new year, here's a follow-on to yesterday's post...in this video clip, geoff lawton highlights a demonstration permaculture project his organization undertook near the dead sea in jordan... having t > read more

Starting the new year on an optimistic note - a brief peek at two sustainable food cultures

Published on 2011-01-01 10:33:00

australian geoff lawton researches permaculture, specifically around a concept new to me called "food forests"... here's two video clips, one from morocco and one from vietnam, two dramatically different climates, featuring food forests... the one in > read more