34 Articles

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Can Stockholm Afford to Take a Chance?
The Nobel Prize of Alfred Nobel's will was intended to be edgy and current. It has become stodgy and the epitome of establishment. The difference is whether the prize commmittee seeks to reward current discoveries, or to wait until they pass the test of history.

Friday, October 9, 2009
Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
(7 comments) Let us hope that inspires our new President to live up to the honor.

Friday, October 9, 2009
Seize the Day - Demonstrate for Peace
(4 comments) President Obama's award of the Nobel Prize is our opportunity to amplify the message with which we elected him. Massive demonstrations at such a time are not angry and divisive, but a unifying expression of the mandate for peace.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
"Unary Executive" is now Bipartisan Consensus
(1 comments) Concentration of power in the Executive undermines the balance of powers among three government branches, which is one the key safeguards in our Constitution. Historically, concentration of power has been associated with despotism, corruption and abuse. Obama has lent credibility to extra-Constitutional powers assumed by his predecessor and this may block the road back to balance for generations to come.

Saturday, July 25, 2009
'Dismantle the Fed!' hits the Mainstream
(7 comments) Until recently 'Abolish the Fed!' has been the rallying cry of a fringe of libertarians. But there are now 200 Congressmen who are shocked, Shocked! to discover that the Fed has been creating money and giving it away to Wall St without accountability. And William Greider, writing this week in The Nation, makes the case for abolishing The Fed.

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Karl Rove and the Permanent Republican Majority
(2 comments) During the Bush Administration, Rove's office engaged the Justice Department to target hundreds of local politicians (Democrats and a handful of liberal Republicans) that got in their way. Justice would assign investigators to find dirt on each target, then coerce friends and family members into testifying against them using more political prosecutions.

Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sticks and Stones
(1 comments) Talk to the disabled people in your life. Ask them what it is like to be blind or lame or to have a chronic disease. Chances are they will move very quickly from talking about the disability to the disability's effects on the way they are perceived and the way they are treated. This article reviews a new book by Marsha Saxton.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
We Still Torture
(5 comments) The United States has always used torture, though it was officially acknowledged to be illegal, and the practice was hidden from the public. With the Bush regime, torture was mainstreamed. Now we cannot go back, argues Luke Mitchell in Harper's Magazine. We must either abolish the practice in reality, or accept this grotesque derangement of our constitutional democracy.

Thursday, April 9, 2009
More Real than Realpolitik: A Conversation Opener
(1 comments) The 'Realistic view' of American politics is that democracy has been eclipsed by a cynical electoral calculation. But reality is stranger than this - the Democrats seem to be oblivious to their own self-interest in one area after another. Who is really in charge?

Saturday, April 4, 2009
New Scientific Study: Smoking Gun Evidence of 9/11 Explosives in WTC Dust
(64 comments) A new article in the Open Chemical Physics Journal details chemical evidence from the 9/11 dust of thermite cutting charges.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
China Proposes a New International Medium of Exchange
(1 comments) In advance of the Economic Summit in London next week, China has proposed a new international currency to replace the US $ as the world's standard medium of exchange. Every American has benefited enormously from the US license to print money. We have behaved less than responsibly with the world's financial trust. Does China have the clout to change the rules of the game?

Thursday, March 19, 2009
Madoff : the Story behind the Story
(6 comments) Investigative reporter Wayne Madsen has pieced together a plausible story about the larger scandal behind Madoff's hedge fund. It involves a giant casino project for Manhattan and links the judge who will decide Madoff's prison sentence

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Obama disses Blackwater - then Renews their Contract
(4 comments) Pres Obama has announced that he wants to end the US practice of hiring mercenaries to do the work of American soldiers, paying six times as much per soldier per day, and losing control over their behavior. Blackwater is the worst, earning the hatred of Iraqis everywhere. So why has Obama just renewed Blackwater's contract?

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Single-Payer Health Care: 93 Co-sponsors and Counting
(5 comments) Just a few days ago, Rep John Conyers (D-MI) was lone voice in the darkness calling for national single-payer health insurance. As of this writing, his bill, HR 676, has 93 co-sponsors, and popular support is pouring out. Despite the power of the insurance lobby, it may be an idea that is too sensible to resist.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
New Smoking Bill in Congress based on Compromise with Philip Morris
(2 comments) Legislation was introduced to Congress this week that would subject tobacco products to regulation by the FDA. This sounds like a good thing. But HR 1256 has been compromised, and has the support of Philip Morris.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Obama poised to fulfill Reagan's dream
(15 comments) Obama signaled he will attack the Federal deficit by reducing Medicare and Social Security payments. This fulfills a cherished Right-wing goal since Reagan. We find ourselves in a cycle: Republicans create huge deficits with irresponsible tax breaks for the rich and bloody foreign wars. Then Democrats face huge deficits, and do the 'responsible' thing by cutting support to the poor and working class.

Thursday, January 1, 2009
Support Obama - Demonstrate for Peace
(4 comments) Obama needs a big show of force from the peace constituency in order to do the right thing in Iraq. Obama's first week in office is a perfect time for a peace march. He has promised an administration that is more open and responsive. If we wait three months and demonstrate for peace, it will reported as a rebuke; if we demonstrate now as Obama takes office, it can only be interpreted as a mandate.

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Conspiracy Theorist!
(10 comments) Two computer experts who have been Bush insiders have now come forward with details about how Republicans have stolen elections. They are Mike Connell and Stephen Spoonamore. Where are the headlines?

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Chemical Traces of High Explosives in WTC Debris
(45 comments) A new article in a journal of environmental science describes chemical evidence that the World Trade Center towers were demolished not by fires but by high-explosives and thermal beam-cutter charges.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Open letter to Jonathan Schell
(4 comments) Suggestion to Jonathan Schell, lifelong advocate for nuclear disarmament, that he is the right person to bring 9/11 truth into the mainstream media. The Kean report was replete with contradictions and physical impossibilities. We need to call for a new, clean investigation in to the events of 9/11, and Schell's patient, unflinching style is exactly what is called for.

Monday, May 12, 2008
The Franchise: Our Founding Fathers and the Universal Sufferance
(1 comments) Making sure that only the right people vote, we can make sure that only the right people get elected. Isn't that what our democracy is really about?

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Open Letter to Eliot Spitzer
We need you to stand tall and denounce the only prostitution that is of consequence to the public: that is the prostitution of the Federal Justice Dept to the partisan interests of a criminal administration.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
In memoriam, MLK
Philosophers and religious sages tell us in absolute terms that war is an abomination. Political realists tell us that war is sometimes necessary. In this case, it is the philosophers who are being realistic.

Saturday, December 29, 2007
Who killed Benazir Bhutto?
(1 comments) We don't know who killed Benazir Bhutto. There is no credible evidence, and no one we trust who is investigating. It is not beyond the pale that our own government could have had a hand. We have no 'free press' that we might count on to investigate and report on such a sensitive and charged event.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Welcome, Stranger
(1 comments) The man who passes us on the street doesn't want to be separate or private any more than we do. We greet each other with smiles, and heartfelt if tentative openness. We speak of something that is real to us: It is a thought or a perception that we imagine makes us different and separates us from The Others around us. We are surprised and delighted to find that he has been thinking the same thing.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
A Political Halloween
(1 comments) The specter of an international terrorist threat is a fabrication of the Bush Administration. They have invented this myth and promoted it with relentless propaganda, explicitly in order to justify war profiteering, constraint of civil liberties, domestic spying and government secrecy.

Sunday, April 29, 2007
The Pivotal Ohio vote in 2004: Who did the counting?
(1 comments) Election night 2004. Despite trashed registrations, voter intimidation, and selective machine shortages, it looks as though Kerry will still beat Bush in Ohio, and assume the presidency. There is only one thing left to do. The job of counting votes is 'redirected' from the computer designated by the Ohio Dept of State to a computer run by the RNC - the same computer on which White House emails are protected from Congress' eyes

Sunday, April 8, 2007
Resveratrol: candidate for anti-aging pill
An extract of red wine may provide some of the longevity benefits of weight loss without the dietary restriction.

Monday, March 19, 2007
Lives of Others and Our Own Lives
The Bush Administration's power is founded in lies. Keeping the truth from the public requires a web of coercion and intimidation that touches all our lives.

Friday, December 8, 2006
Why we're not getting out of Iraq
(4 comments) There's a reason we can't withdraw our troops from Iraq. We're there to protect the oil fields which we have privatized for the profits of Western multinationals. The day that we are crying in the streets, 'Give the Iraqis back their oil!' is the day Congress will compel the Administration to effect a military withdrawal from Iraq.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Election Editorial Spiked by Phila Daily News
This Guest Editorial speaks about the 2006 election in the context of stolen elections in 2000, 2002 and 2004. It was submitted to the Daily News last week and accepted for publication the day before Election Day, and spiked by management at the last minute. The Daily News and Phila Inquirer were recently sold by Knight-Ridder to Philadelphia Media Holdings.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Former FDA Commissioner says FDA is Grossly Underfunded
A new report from the Woodrow Wilson Ctr warns that the agency's $1.9B budget is less than half what it needed to do its 'old' job. The report focuses on its new responsibilities: microencapsulation technology that promises to deliver medication where it is needed, to enhance the effectiveness of everything from cancer therapies to skin creams. FDA doesn't have the funds to begin the job of managing this promising new field.

Monday, October 2, 2006
Letter to my Comrades
(1 comments) So, you find grounds for pessimism in the observation that the Congress has just granted a psychopathic president an arrogation of power not seen since 1215, and the fix is in for another rigged election? Take courage from lessons of biology as well as history!

Thursday, September 14, 2006
An Independent, Public Interest Exit Poll
An election activist and a mathematician have teamed up with a polling expert to conduct independent, public interest exit polls designed from the ground up to verify election results. A pilot program will be collecting data this November in a hotly-contested Congressional district.