4271 QuickLinks

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Newsweek Taps Bush Aide For Obama Reporting
A recent article in Newsweek states that Democrats could have won a "very significant number of Republican votes in Congress" for the stimulus -- had there only been a "meaningful tax-cut component." Political journalism is often imaginative, but this verges on delusion. Newsweek fails to mention in the writer's bio that he is a former aide to President George W. Bush.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
David Sirota: NEW POLL: Do You See What Happens, Max?
(1 comments) This is what happens to Democrats - even from red states like Montana - when they overtly and publicly shill for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries: U.S. Sen. Max Baucus' approval rating dropped significantly this year over two years ago in a Montana State University Billings poll released Monday.

Monday, November 16, 2009
Drug Makers Raise Prices in Face of Health Care Reform
Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years. In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion...

Thursday, November 12, 2009
From EFF's Secret Files: Anatomy of a Bogus Subpoena
the FBI subpoena's a list of EVERY visitor to indymedia and tries to gag them from even telling anyone . Can you spell fascism?

Thursday, November 12, 2009
Glenn Beck Loses Lawsuit Over ‘Murder And Rape' Website
It would be hard to find a current public figure more rigorously exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech than Glenn Beck. Alas for Beck, the First Amendment may not be his best friend in this instance.

Saturday, November 7, 2009
Abortion deal as Dems try to reach 218
(2 comments) To nail down a lousy health reform bill that falls far, far short of single-payer, Pelosi sells out women and access to abortion. WTG, Nancy!!

Thursday, November 5, 2009
Jon Stewart: Election losers do their best to ‘polish that turd' | Raw Story
Following Tuesday's elections, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart focused on the efforts of the losers to "polish that turd" by portraying themselves as having won no matter what the outcome.

Sunday, November 1, 2009
Jon Krakauer: McChrystal's Explanation For Pat Tillman Cover-up Is "Preposterous"
McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan during Army Ranger (and former football star) Pat Tillman's death. McChrystal was the one who approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that he had died in fratricide and not, as originally determined, enemy fire. This was once a big embarrassment for the army and, to a lesser extent, McChrystal himself

Sunday, November 1, 2009
Senate, White House agree on reporter protections, including protecting Bloggers and CItizen Journalists
new legislation is moving forward, which protects journalists' sources, including those of bloggers and citizen journalists-- good news, since earlier negotiations cut them out.

Saturday, October 31, 2009
BREAKING: Moderate Republican, Dede Scozzafava, drops out of Three Way Race in NY 23
(4 comments) The moderate, Pro-women's rights Republican candidate has dropped out of a race in which a far more conservative independent, backed by Newt Gingrich and other further right powers that be. She did not endorse either of the other two candidates.

Friday, October 30, 2009
Photos of Protests and Arrests at Philly BC/BS Single Payer Protest -
(1 comments) About 15 protesters FOR single Payer healthcare engaged in civil disobedience and were arrested outside the Blue Cross Blue Shield headquarters in downtown Philly Today, part of a nationwide wave of protests, civil disobedience and arrests.

Monday, October 26, 2009
Talking with Dr. Temple Grandin, Author of "Animals in Translation"
People may wonder why it's so important to be humane when,in the end,the animals are still dead and we eat them.Well,it causes pain if you're not nice to them.You wouldn't say to this person “It only takes a second to yank out a tooth so we're not going to use any anesthetics.”It's really important to prevent suffering and animals are definitely capable of feeling pain and fear. There's absolutely no question about it.

Saturday, October 24, 2009
PeopleofWalmart.com this is really funny
Hilarious pics with funnier captions

Friday, October 23, 2009
Think Progress: After Twitter shuts down GOP accounts impersonating Dems, party complains of ‘free speech' infringeme
(1 comments) Twitter has shut down 33 fake accounts created by Connecticut Republicans meant to impersonate Democratic state representatives. ...the GOP scheme was designed “to send out posts under the Democrats' names mocking the liberal tax-and-spend bastards.” Twitter strictly forbids impersonation “intended to mislead, confuse or deceive others.” GOP chair complained of free speech rights violation

Friday, October 23, 2009
Matt Taibbi : Elizabeth Warren for President
(1 comments) Obama's a bombed disappointment. Elizabeth Warren is a breath of fresh air. She should challenge Obama in 2012

Friday, October 16, 2009
US pays $400 per gallon for gas in Afghanistan
(1 comments) Last year, the price of gasoline in the US topped the $4 per gallon mark. This year in Afghanistan, the price has topped $400. The stunning revelation emerged Thursday in a report from the Pentagon to House officials. The information conveyed offers new insight into a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, which found that the US spends $1 million per year for each servicemember on the ground in Afghanistan.

Friday, October 16, 2009
Judge Halts Flu Vaccine Mandate For Health Workers
Health care workers in NY will no longer be forced to get the H1N1 swine flu vaccine... A state Supreme Court judge issued a restraining order Fri against the state from enforcing the controversial mandatory vaccination. The order came as the Public Employees Federation sued to reverse a policy requiring vaccination against the seasonal & swine flu viruses, arguing that state Health Commissioner overstepped his authority

Monday, October 12, 2009
Two Nobel Winning Economists Are Light-years From Chicago School--
One looks at the need for corporations, the other the strength of the commons. Did the Nobel committee send a message to the Chicago School of Raw capitalism?

Saturday, October 10, 2009
Catholic Bishops On Health Care - Change Bills Or Else - George's Bottom Line
(1 comments) Bishops William Murphy, and John Wester and Cardinal Justin Rigali outlined three primary areas they are concerned with: “that no one should be forced to pay for or participate in abortion, that health care should be affordable and available to the poor and vulnerable, and that the needs of legal immigrants should be met.”

Saturday, October 10, 2009
Argentine Congress Passes Bill to Break Up Big Media
don't expect this to be covered on TV. But it's a great idea, for starters. Then, why stop with media. Why not break up energy companies, banks, finance, food processors, insurers... anything big.

Thursday, October 8, 2009
Students Spend 17 hrs/week on Social Media, 7 on Studying
maybe that's why coaches are banning teams from using twitter.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Amy Goodman: Watch what you tweet
A social worker from NY City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home -- all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. He was posting to a Twitter feed (or tweeting, as it is called) publicly available information about police

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Threat of next world war may be in cyberspace: UN
next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief warned Tuesday as experts called for action to stamp out cyber attacks. "The next world war could happen in cyberspace and that would be a catastrophe. We have to make sure all countries understand that in that war, there is no such thing as a superpower," Hamadoun Toure said. "Loss of vital networks would quickly cripple any nation

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
FTC: Bloggers must disclose any freebies or payments they get for writing product reviews
(1 comments) The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The FTC said Monday its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final Web guidelines, which had been expected. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could bring fines up to $11,000 per violation.

Friday, October 2, 2009
14-year-old tied for lead in LPGA tournament
Ninth-grader Alexis Thompson shot a 3-under 69 on Friday for a share of the lead with top-ranked Lorena Ochoa and three others after the second round of the Navistar LPGA Classic.

Monday, September 28, 2009
Thomas Friedman; The New Sputnik
China is embarking on a new, parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation. It is the Sputnik of our day. Unfortunately, we’re still not racing.

Monday, September 28, 2009
The Art and Science of Smiling
Explores smile anatomy, pumping smile iron, smile psychomotor retardation-- Self awareness and control techniques can be used to train individuals to increase awareness and voluntary control of their emotional states, facilitating positive feelings, attitudes and expectancies. Our muscles not only move us through our world, they also mediate our experiencing of it.

Sunday, September 27, 2009
Face it, GOP doesn't really matter when it comes to health care | McClatchy
Do Republicans matter as Congress digs more deeply into the details of writing health care legislation? Probably not.

Sunday, September 27, 2009
Boehner Constituent May Have Died Of Swine Flu Because She Lacked Insurance | TPM LiveWire
Kimberly Young of Oxford, Ohio, died Wednesday morning a few days short of her 23rd birthday. Hospital officials have said she appeared to have the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu. But here's why Young's death is news beyond her southwest Ohio community: people who knew her are saying she resisted treatment that could have saved her life -- because she didn't have health insurance.

Saturday, September 26, 2009
Living in The Vein of Gold and Falling out.
We all have veins of gold, fantastic riches, in our lives, every one of us. "Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps a few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." Jonathan Swift We can discover new veins of gold and make better use of the ones we know of & the ones we discover.

Saturday, September 26, 2009
Quotations By Thoreau on Finding the Best Within Ourselves and Living It
When it comes to peak performance and finding the best in one's self, Thoreau was an unmitigated genius. Here is a large collection of quotations. For example, from his journal, "We live but a fraction of our life." It is extraordinary that one person could tap such a deep spring of wisdom and bring it to the surface for us all to process and be inspired by it.

Saturday, September 26, 2009
Poll: Even Republican Voters Favor The Public Option
The new CBS/New York Times poll not only shows overwhelming support for the public option -- it shows that a plurality of self-identified Republicans are for it, too. The poll asked this question: "Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance

Thursday, September 24, 2009
Appeasing right wing, US Justice Department launches ACORN probe
US Justice Department has agreed to open a formal investigation into whether the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) sought or received any Justice Department grant money, and if so, whether Justice officials reviewed the use of such funds. The decision by the Obama administration follows a campaign by Republicans and right-wing news outlets demanding the cut-off of public funds to the organization

Thursday, September 24, 2009
Scandal exposer calls on Congress to defund Blackwater
The House and Senate voted to end funding for ACORN in the wake of a video sting. Now some are asking why the same treatment isn't being given to corrupt defense contractors.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
India's lunar mission finds evidence of water on the Moon
(2 comments) Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after India's first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface. Data from Chandrayaan-1 also suggests that water is still being formed on the Moon. Scientists said the breakthrough — to be announced by Nasa at a press conference today — would change the face of lunar exploration.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Finally Figuring Out What Helps Troops with Posttraumatic Stress
(8 comments) We're finally figuring it out, people. Research from around the country is giving us the keys to helping our traumatized troops coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. The only problem is, it will be at least a year - maybe two - before these studies are published. Meantime, our warriors suffer mightily - PTSD is a terrible condition that often worsens over time.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
GOP senators declare war on Net neutrality
Six Republican senators have introduced an amendment that would block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing its recently announced Net neutrality policy. Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced the amendment to an appropriations bill. It would prevent the FCC from getting funding for any initiative to uphold Net neutrality. According to The Hill,

Monday, September 21, 2009
Do You Have the Right to Flip Off a Cop?
(9 comments) Cops in Pittsburgh, according to ACLU, arrested 188 people between 2005-2007 for flipping cops the bird or similar circumstances. These arrests are against policy, against the 1st amendment. Why the fuck are these cops being charged, fined and fired for gross abuse of their power. One man fought back and won. Another woman won $19,000 civil settlement.

Sunday, September 20, 2009
Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance | Reuters
A Harvard Study reports that Americans under 64 are dying every 12 minutes due to lack of health insurance. They have 40% higher risk of dying than those with insurance. This is a big jump from 1992 when the increased risk was 25%. Study was done on year 2000 data.

Saturday, September 19, 2009
Obituary: Irving Kristol, godfather of the right | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
As the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol blazed a trail. The progressive movement could use a figure like him

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Photos Taken By OpEdNews Journalist Cheryl Biren Before Being Arrested by Philly Police
(4 comments) An essential element of protest events is visibility. The media make that happen. When the mainstream media leave before police arrest protesters engaging in civil disobedience, they fail democracy. Some journalist leave because of police intimidation. That's what happened on Saturday. Cheryl Biren Wright did not run away. She didn't stand there as a protester, but she stayed within shooting range to document the arrests.

Monday, September 14, 2009
'Dirty Dancing' and Ghost star Patrick Swayze Dies at 57
Swayze live with pancreatic for the past 20 months, even finishing a series, The BEAST, in 2009. He died at home, with family.

Sunday, September 13, 2009
Who's afraid of Barack Obama? No-one!!
Obama seems to lack one item that most presidents find helpful to have in their White House tool box: Fear. Cheerleaders on the left are beginning to urge him, in the words of Maureen Dowd, to be "more Rocky, less Spocky."

Saturday, September 12, 2009
More Abortion Bloodshed. This Time ANTI-Abortion Protesters Killed
(2 comments) two michigan abortion clinic protesters killed. Police: Shooting suspect offended by anti-abortion material

Thursday, September 3, 2009
There's FLOTUS Michelle and SLOTUS, Jill Biden, Captain of the Vice Squad, finding her new role
The PhD is teaching, starting to give speeches, and supervises a staff of 8

Thursday, September 3, 2009
Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites
(3 comments) White House New Media operation aims to hire, seeking bids from tech vendors to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal info on millions of Americans from social networking websites. The info to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”

Thursday, September 3, 2009
Washington Post Calls on Rangel to Resign Ways and Means Chairmanship, But What About Criminality?
In an editorial today titled "Sorry Charlie," the Washington Post called on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) to step down as House Ways and Means Chairman. The editorial comes in the wake of Rangel amending his financial disclosure forms for the years 2002 to 2007, showing that his net worth was roughly double what he previously claimed. The Post called Rangel's revised filings “a treasure trove of outrage.”

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
2 Year Old Crying In Store Slapped By Stranger
(13 comments) When a crying baby didn't stop, Roger Stevens is accused of slapping the baby four times, trying to get her to "shut up." Normally, I oppose the use of tasers, but this guy... He's in jail, charged with felony cruelty to children.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Spitzer Reportedly Considering Run For NY Senate Seat, Against Gillibrand
The comeback kid? Not in the article, but word is, the Bush/Rove DOJ set Spitzer up. It would be nice to have him in the senate, kicking right wing butt

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Huffingtonpost: Beck's Book Bumped From 1st On Amazon By Progressive David Swanson's First Book, DAYBREAK
first in non-fiction politics, 6th on amazon. Swanson's Daybreak is kicking right wing butt.

Sunday, August 30, 2009
JAMA: Fiscal Responsibility and Health Care Reform; Single Payer Could Save $trillion/year
(1 comments) Unfortunately, legislators are ignoring the option of funding reform by harvesting available savings from within the health care system itself. All told, then, administrative expenditures, unnecessary care, and fraud probably account for $1 trillion or more in health care spending that does not go toward providing appropriate care. These are the areas in which the proper reform measures could generate savings that could pay

Sunday, August 30, 2009
Why Twitter is underhyped and is probably worth five to 10 billion dollars - scobleizer's posterous
The experiences I'm having with business owners in every city makes me understand some things: 1. Twitter has taken over the business world and this should be very worrying for other companies like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and others. 2. Twitter is underhyped. I'm now convinced that Twitter has locked up a whole raft of businesses and that Twitter is actually worth five to 10 billion dollars.

Saturday, August 29, 2009
Beware Authoritative "Inside Washington" Sources Who Say The Public Option is Dead | Robert Reich's Blog
(3 comments) Since most of our elected representatives would rather not stick their necks out lest they lose their heads, they tend to rush toward whatever consensus seems to be emerging -- which, of course, is based on authoritative reports about the emerging consensus. In the last few days authoritative sources have repeatedly told me that the public option is dead... Don't believe it.

Friday, August 28, 2009
Single molecule's stunning image
The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.

Friday, August 28, 2009
Elder Bush refuses to attend Kennedy's funeral
(1 comments) Former President George H. W. Bush, who has enough stamina to sky-dive each year on his birthday, apparently doesn't have the stamina to attend Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) funeral. All other living presidents of the US WILL be attending.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Doing a Josh Marshall, Washington Post Asks Readers to Check Data Dump on CIA Torture
just dig on in and report what you find-- crowdsourcing analysis. That's how the media will survive.

Sunday, August 23, 2009
Baucus: “I Want a Public Option”
A group of Montana Democratic leaders got together in a conference call and put it to Baucus, and he came out saying he wants the Public Option

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Competition lacking among private health insurers
One of the most widely accepted arguments against a government medical plan for the middle class is that it would quash competition — just what private insurers seem to be doing themselves in many parts of the U.S. Several studies show that in lots of places, one or two companies dominate the market.

Friday, August 21, 2009
What's Holding Up Holder in Firing Bushevik U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan? Ask Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Partisan Victim | B
(1 comments) there is some wisdom to cleaning one's own house before taking on the neighborhood. In that vein, Holder has no excuse for failing to have requested the resignation of U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Mary Beth Buchanan. Nor, for that matter, having taken this ong to respond to an ethics complaint filed by forensic pathologist and Buchanan victim Cyril Wecht.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
NJ Hate Mongering Blogger Was Paid by FBI
Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges. But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate “without crossing the line,”

Thursday, August 20, 2009
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
(2 comments) This is so cool. Couldn't decide if it was life/arts or sci/tech, but it's a thing of beauty as well as incredibly pragmatic, so I put it under arts. It visualizes an incredible range of ways to VISUALIZE ideas.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Rove op-ed reveals he had inside information about probe
Lawyer declines to say how he found out accuser didn't talk to Justice Department Karl Rove's latest attempt to proclaim his innocence and demand apologies from those who have accused him of being behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may backfire if it turns out that Rove was improperly receiving inside information after leaving his position as Deputy White House Chief of Staff.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
For First Time, Building Blocks of life Found In A Comet
(1 comments) A discovery has added to the prevailing notion that many ingredients for life came from asteroids and comets that made impact with the early Earth.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
This season, few flybys by butterflies
(1 comments) First the frogs started disappearing, now the count of butterflies is dropping.

Monday, August 17, 2009
Anthony Weiner: No Public Plan Will Cost "100 Votes" In the House
Weiner says there are at least 100 Dems in the house who will vote against a bill that does not include a public option

Monday, August 17, 2009
Anti-Immigration Activists See Opportunity in Health Care Debate
Town Halls Peppered With Anti-Immigration Questions, Outbursts As the heat gets turned up on the health care reform debate, anti-immigrant activists are using the issue to whip up fear and anger toward immigrants, portraying them as a costly and burdensome drain on any taxpayer-supported U.S. health care system

Monday, August 3, 2009
AlaskaReport.com: Todd and Sarah Palin to divorce
(3 comments) AlaskaReport has learned today that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage (including a former Palin staffer) have confirmed the split. A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska last week.

Sunday, July 26, 2009
Welcome to the ‘Club’
Whether one thinks race was a factor in this arrest may depend largely on the prism through which the conflicting accounts are viewed. For many black men, it’s through a prism stained by the fact that a negative, sometimes racially charged, encounter with a policeman is a far-too-common rite of passage.

Saturday, July 25, 2009
Henry Louis Gates: Deja Vu All Over Again
(1 comments) Gates and Obama are not only friends; they are in the same position, suspected of occupying a majestic residence under false pretenses. And Obama is a double offender. Not only is he guilty of being Housed While Black; he is the first in American history guilty of being P.W.B., President While Black.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Senate Dodges Obama Veto Threat By Removing Money From Defense Bill for Pricey F-22 Jets
Dodd, Lieberman and Chambliss fought FOR throwing away the money on these un=needed jets.

Friday, July 17, 2009
Arianna Huffington: Shattering the Right vs. Left Prism Once Again: The Wall Street Journal Goes After Goldman and the B
We've now reached the point where the only people defending the administration's Wall Street policies are the people benefiting from them -- or their good friends, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.

Friday, July 17, 2009
Arianna Huffington: Shattering the Right vs. Left Prism Once Again: The Wall Street Journal Goes After Goldman and the B
We've now reached the point where the only people defending the administration's Wall Street policies are the people benefiting from them -- or their good friends, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.

Saturday, July 11, 2009
Progressive Caucus Suddenly Axes Executive Director
(1 comments) The Congressional Progressive Caucus has fired Bill Goold, its executive director, leaving the House Democrats’ liberal wing without a staff-level chief as they head into a critical legislative fight on health care. Goold’s termination was effective immediately. The reasons behind the dismissal are not yet clear.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
HuffPo Aiming For DC Dominance? Makes Room For Froomkin
HuffPo may dominate the blogosphere but it appears they are aiming to dominate the Beltway-sphere also. Salon's Glenn Greenwald is reporting that HuffPo has hired recently fired Washington Post blogger Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.

Monday, July 6, 2009
The Salty Waters of Saturn's Moon Hint at Life
Flybys of Enceladus, one of Saturn's many moons, have discovered salty water — the kind that would exist in an underground ocean

Monday, July 6, 2009
My wife ate her own placenta.
Afterbirth-- It's what's for dinner. Apparently, there are some positive benefits. Do they outweigh the grossitivity of it all? Well, animals eat theirs... but they also eat their own poop. Where IS this going?

Sunday, July 5, 2009
Think of D.C. and the Ruling Oligarachy that Runs the Capitol as a Gated Community: The American People are Denied Entra
(2 comments) In America, we've been played like fools by a game that's fixed from the top to make ensure that only members of the gated community are allowed to abscond with huge chunks of the American economy -- send jobs overseas, receive taxpayer funded corporate welfare, get their taxes cut as a gift of thievery from the working class

Saturday, July 4, 2009
Honduras Pulls Out Of OAS, Refuses TO Restore Zelaya
Honduras rebuffed demands by the international community to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya and pulled out of the Organization of American States, thrusting the poor Central American nation deeper into political crisis and isolation.

Saturday, July 4, 2009
Khameni's Iranian Conservative Wall Cracks; Clerical Group Defies Leader on Disputed Iran Election
the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, the most important group of religious leaders in Iran has called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment. This is a major setback for Khameni who has tried to portray protestors as traitors

Friday, July 3, 2009
Watch royal military band play Thriller to stunned tourists
(2 comments) MICHAEL Jackson's mega hit Thriller has been given this hilarious revamp by the army's world-famous Band of the Coldstream Guards - just a stones throw from Buckingham Palace. Forty drummers, trumpeters, clarinet and trombone players belted out the song.

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Buzz Aldrin's Mars Vision
(2 comments) Buzz Aldrin was on of the first men on the moon and now he is pushing for a project that aims at landing "man" on mars, via Mars' moon, Phobos.

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Microbe Awakened from 120,000 Year Sleep
A microbe found two miles beneath a Greenland Ice sheet was re-awakened. Hmm if you can wake up a 120,000 year old brainless microbe,there is hope for conservatives.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Chris Bowers; Why You Should Help Build The Progressive Block
the Progressive Block is where a critical mass of House progressives threaten to join with Republicans in voting against Democratic legislation unless specific, progressive provisions are included in that legislation. It delayed the Democratic leadership for a few weeks on the Afghanistan-IMF supplemental appropriations bill, and has led Speaker Nancy Pelosi to declare health care reform without a public option will not pass

Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Nuns in the US Are Facing Scrutiny by the Vatican
(7 comments) The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

Saturday, June 27, 2009
House passes Friday Night Surprise "HIstoric" climate-change bill
(7 comments) By a very close vote, with 44 Dems opposing the bill, Nancy Pelosi "whipped" this bill's passage, in spite of an effort by John Boehner to fillibuster by reading the 300 new pages of the bill that had been introduced the morning of the vote. So much for Obama's transparency and sunlight.

Saturday, June 27, 2009
Michael Jackson Couldn't Sing and Had Predicted His Death In 6 Months Six Months ago
(3 comments) Jackson profile reveals some astonishing details about Jacko's life

Friday, June 26, 2009
Blogger Charged With Threatening Chicago-Area Judges
(1 comments) blogger charged with encouraging people to "take up arms" against three public officials in CT was arrested again Wednesday on charges that he threatened to assault and murder three federal judges in retaliation for a ruling upholding handgun bans in the Chicago area. "Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed," said the postings, which also included photos, phone #s, addresses, pic of bldg.

Friday, June 26, 2009
Iranian cleric urges executing some protesters
(6 comments) "Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution," Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking cleric, said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University. Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were "at war with God" and should be "dealt with without mercy."

Thursday, June 25, 2009
Farrah Fawcett Dies of Cancer at 62 - Farrah Fawcett, Ryan O'Neal : People.com
after a three year bout with cancer, the Former Charlie's Angels star lost her battle with cancer.

Thursday, June 25, 2009
The propaganda war against Iran
The US media, led by the New York Times , is continuing its concerted propaganda campaign against Iran over charges that the government stole the June 12 presidential election. There is not even a semblance of objectivity in the media coverage, which parrots the charges of the opposition headed by defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi as fact and dismisses the government's claims as lies.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
US files trade case against China over exports
The United States on Tuesday filed its first unfair trade case against China before the World Trade Organization, accusing the Asian power of restricting exports of key raw materials needed for the production of steel, aluminum and other products.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Moussavi's HQ Apparently Raided
Iran's state-run PressTV reports that some surely-super-serious "plot" has been disrupted thanks to a raid on Mir Hussein Moussavi's Tehran headquarters:

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut
(5 comments) He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Saturday, June 20, 2009
City requires Facebook, Google, Myspace passwords from job applicants
(2 comments) If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page. "Please list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," states a city waiver form applicants are asked to sign.

Thursday, June 18, 2009
University of Colorado team finds definitive evidence for ancient lake on Mars
first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet. Estimated to be more than 3 billion years old, the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
the Future of Free
If it's digital, the price will eventually be free. Fighting that is like fighting gravity.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Reuters:US State Dept asked Twitter to delay Mon. Maintenance
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.

Monday, June 15, 2009
Barack Obama and the White House woo The New York Times
Where George W. Bush's team made a show of not caring about the Times, aides in this White House treat the paper with a deference that James Reston himself would have appreciated.

Monday, June 15, 2009
On Iran; Everybody Stand Back
(6 comments) With such transparently fraudulent election results, Khamenei's government seems to have lost its farr in the eyes of Iranians. What can we do to help? I propose this: extremely little. I will do one more thing on behalf of Iran's struggle for democracy: categorically condemn any calls for cessation of relations, additional sanctions or any sort of military or covert action designed to destabilize their government.

Monday, June 15, 2009
The day of destiny: Robert Fisk witnesses the courage of one million protesters who ignored threats, guns and bloodshed
It was Iran's day of destiny and day of courage. A million of its people marched from Engelob Square to Azadi Square – from the Square of Revolution to the Square of Freedom – beneath the eyes of Tehran's brutal riot police. The crowds were singing and shouting and laughing and abusing their "President" as "dust".

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Many in Congress Hold Stakes in Health Industry
(3 comments) As President Obama and Congress intensify the push to overhaul health care, financial reports show many lawmakers with a say have investments in the industry-- in insurance, pharmaceutical and prescription-benefit companies and in hospital interests, all of which would be affected by the administration’s overhaul of health care.

Thursday, June 11, 2009
Cher's daughter Chastity Bono Changing to Chaz-- changing gender from female to male
(3 comments) 40 Year old progeny is changing "his" gender to "honor his true identity," Bono's publicist announced.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
In An Attempt To Criticize Health Reform, Senator Coburn Smears Veteran Health Care As "˜Untenable To Most Americans'
Coburn laid out his criticism of the proposed public insurance option in Obama's health reform plan. Like other reform opponents, Coburn repeated the empty Frank Luntz- talking points claiming "bureaucrats" will be making health decisions. In doing so, Coburn derided the Veterans Health Administration, a program that boasts bipartisan support and has provided American veterans with some of the best health care in the world

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Health Professionals Tell Congress They Want Single-Payer
(4 comments) At a long-awaited House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, health-care professionals made it clear that they believe a single-payer system to be the best and perhaps only workable option for health care reform. "Single-payer is the only reform that can control health care costs," said Walter Tsou, a University of Pennsylvania professor and an adviser to Physicians for a National Health Program.

Saturday, June 6, 2009
The plot to kill Barack Obama
(1 comments) When police arrested two young white racists in Bells, Tennessee, did they foil a deadly plan?

Saturday, June 6, 2009
Report: Before Congressional Run, Scarborough Represented Killer Of Abortion Doctor
(1 comments) Before he ran for office, Joe Scarborough provided pro bono legal service to someone charged with killing an abortion doctor.

Saturday, June 6, 2009
Little-Enforced Law Opens Window for Suits Against Extremist Groups
A little used law may protect abortion doctors from fanatic killers and rabid hate organizations.

Thursday, May 28, 2009
On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy
(1 comments) In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents.

Thursday, May 28, 2009
Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
(22 comments) Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged. t least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and ...

Monday, May 25, 2009
Netanyahu defies Obama on Israeli settlement freeze
(2 comments) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rebuffed U.S. calls for a full settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank and vowed not to accept limits on building of Jewish enclaves within Jerusalem. Netanyahu's defiant stance set the stage for a possible showdown with President Barack Obama, who, in talks with the new Israeli prime minister in Washington last week, pressed for a halt to all settlement activity...

Monday, May 25, 2009
How Barack Obama set the tone for a quiet revolution in gay rights in the US
(1 comments) With two lesbians shortlisted for America's supreme court and more than 30 gay men and lesbians appointed to senior posts by the president, the US is witnessing an unprecedented cultural change that is reshaping politics, media, and popular culture

Sunday, May 24, 2009
N. Korea Conducts Nuclear Test
(4 comments) N. Korea exploded a nuclear device monday morning, leading to a 4% drop in stocks in S. Korea.

Saturday, May 23, 2009
How Do you get to Carnegie Hall? Upload to YouTube
(2 comments) people from over 40 countries uploaded to youtube to apply to participate in a symphony orchestra with San Francisco Orchestra's Michael Tilson Thomas.

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Must-read website: Fmylife - FML : HIlarious Everyday life top stories
You really have to visit this site. The anecdotes of people who have F'ed their life are hilariously pathetic and will cheer you up if you are feeling sorry for yourself.

Thursday, May 7, 2009
N.Y. doctor offers flat-rate care for uninsured
A New York doctor is offering flat-rate health care for the uninsured for $79 a month, but he has run afoul of state insurance regulations in a case that challenges the established norms of the U.S. health system. State complains, say he is breaking law, that they are protecting... consumers. Yeah right, consumers. That's the ticket. Not insurance companies, consumers. WTF?

Monday, May 4, 2009
Bill Gates funds British scientists in unorthodox health research
There is a magnet that can detect malaria at the flick of a switch, a flu-resistant chicken, an "antiviral" tomato & a vaccine enhanced with the use of a laser. The ideas are so bold that, as the scientists behind them admit, they can often struggle for funding. Today, though, more than 80 projects at the far edge of innovation in global health research will share millions of pounds of grants to support unorthodox thinking

Friday, May 1, 2009
If You Believe Banks are Recovering...
(1 comments) I believe I have uncovered the largest conspiracy in history. The government wants you to believe that banks are recovering, housing has bottomed, stimulus works, borrowing leads to prosperity and war leads to peace. President Obama and his cronies at Treasury and the Federal Reserve are trying to mislead the public regarding the health of our banking system. If you believe their spin on these issues, I have a bridge...

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts on YouTube - America is no longer ruled by the law
(1 comments) Obama and Bush are similar in many ways.

Thursday, April 23, 2009
Chinese police training manual offers tips on the best way to beat up offenders
(1 comments) training manual which advises officers on how to use violence without leaving incriminating evidence behind.

Thursday, April 23, 2009
Randi Rhodes to Return to Talk Radio
(1 comments) San Francisco's Green960 announces 'Goddess of Progressive Talk' to be syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, home to Limbaugh, Hannity and other rightwing talkers

Thursday, April 23, 2009
'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers
(8 comments) The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
America's Newest Profession: Blogging
(1 comments) In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters. But only one out of 50 bloggers are actually making a living at it.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dozens of Prisoners Held by CIA Still Missing, Fates Unknown
the CIA spent weeks during the summer of 2006 -- shortly before Bush acknowledged the CIA prisons and suspended the program -- transferring prisoners to Pakistani, Egyptian and Jordanian custody. The population inside the program had been shrinking since the existence of the prisons was detailed in a Washington Post article [7] in November 2005.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Where DID the original Star Trek cast boldly go?
(3 comments) Who did Ohura have an affair with? WHo was married four times, who ran for city council, who was hired because he looked like a pop star?

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases -- for starters
(2 comments) The Feds are investigating 20 cases of banks receiving bailout funds, with suspicion of criminal actions. The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars,

Saturday, April 18, 2009
Obama's Surprise Choice for Chief Technology Officer
Pres Obama announced a surprising choice for the new position of U.S. chief technology officer: Virginia Secty of Technology Aneesh Chopra. "In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities – from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure," said Pres Obama in his radio address. ...he could be a smart choice, bridging govt.& technology

Friday, April 17, 2009
YouTube - BRITAINS GOT TALENT 2009 SUSAN BOYLE (SINGER) (HQ)
(11 comments) She ain't pretty, matter of fact, she's anything but, but she has the voice of an angel that brings people to tears, including me.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
OpEdNews' Steve Leser Goes One on One on Fox News With Stuart Varney on the Tea Parties: 'These tax day tea parties are
(16 comments) OEN editor Steve Leser kicked some right wing FOX butt the other day. Watch the video or read the transcript. He was contacted by FOX when they discovered the article he'd posted to OEN panning the new right wing Tea Party phenomenon.

Sunday, April 12, 2009
Vatican blocks Caroline Kennedy appointment as US ambassador
(2 comments) Vatican sources told Il Giornale that their support for abortion disqualified Ms Kennedy and other Roman Catholics President Barack Obama had been seeking to appoint.

Sunday, March 29, 2009
911 Transcripts Reveal Natasha Richardson's Struggle to Survive
(1 comments) A few hours after her fateful fall on the ski slopes, Natasha Richardson appeared "disoriented ... with signs of confusion, a concussion," according to a medic who radioed hospital staff from the ambulance. In tapes of the 911 call obtained by Canada's Globe and Mail, the actress's condition initially appeared mild.

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Subprime Swindlers Reconnect to Homeowners in Scams (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Rescue scams are springing up across the U.S., says California Deputy Attorney General Angela Rosenau, exacerbating a housing crisis in its third year. The predators are persuading troubled borrowers they can intervene with their lenders and negotiate lower payments on their mortgages, law enforcement officials say.

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Perfect Running Pace Revealed
Overall, the optimal speeds for the group were about 8.3 mph (about a 7:13 minutes per mile) for males and 6.5 mph (9:08 min/mile) for females. The most interesting finding: At slower speeds, about 4.5 mph (13 min/mile), the metabolic efficiency was at its lowest. Steudel explains that at this speed, halfway between a walk and a jog, the runner's gait can be awkward and unnatural.

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Dan Kennedy: To survive, newspapers must engage more people in civic life
(1 comments) If journalists don't expand the community of people who are interested in civic life, then they face a hopeless battle. A new survey about public attitudes toward newspapers gets it precisely backwards. Supposedly most people don't think civic life would suffer all that much if their local newspaper shut down. But it's not that they don't care about their newspaper – they don't care about civic life.

Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Quiet Coup-- Finance Industry takes over the US
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the IMF, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government-a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.

Friday, March 27, 2009
Shouldn't Congress Hold the Pentagon to Account?
The Obama administration's willingness to let Department of Defense spending, which expanded at an exponential rate during George Bush's presidency, continue growing with few checks or balances does not sit well with grassroots groups that are worried about the devastating impact of the nation's economic downturn on urban and rural communities where so many needs went unmet during the Bush-Cheney interregnum.

Friday, March 27, 2009
Bachmann Blasts Obama's "Economic Marxism," Calls For "Orderly Revolution" To Save Freedom
(1 comments) "We are headed down the lane of economic Marxism," said Bachmann. "More quickly, Sean, than anyone could have possibly imagined. It's difficult for us to even keep up with it day to day." And then came this: At this point the American people - it's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution --

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Anti-capitalist group boasts of attack on Bank Head
(2 comments) An anti-capitalist group calling itself Bank Bosses Are Criminals has claimed responsibility for an attack on the home of Sir Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The organisation warned of further action against other targets minutes after police were called to Sir Fred’s house in Edinburgh. DO you get the feeling we'll be seeing more of this all over the world, like we've seen in Iceland?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
David Letterman finally marries longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko
"They say, 'Well, why did it take you so long to get married?' and, of course, the answer honestly is we wanted to make sure we had the prenup just right," he joked.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Error Detection in the Gray Matter: Have Scientists Discovered Intuition?
Whenever humans recognize a mistake, a mysterious wave of electricity passes through the brain. Researchers think the signal could explain addiction, error correction and even the sixth sense.

Saturday, March 21, 2009
James K. Galbraith Reponds to Geithner's Toxic Asset Plan
If I'm right & the mortgages are largely trash, then the Geithner plan is a Rube Goldberg device for shifting inevitable losses from the banks to the Treasury, preserving the big banks and their incumbent management in all their dysfunctional glory. The cost will be continued vast over-capacity in banking, & a consequent weakening of the remaining, smaller, better- managed banks who didn't participate in the garbage-loan f

Friday, March 20, 2009
Snowe To Dems: Grow A Pair
Congressional Democrats need to stand up for themselves when they disagree with President Obama, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said on Thursday evening. She was reflecting on the demise of her executive compensation provision, a move that allowed AIG to pay its top executives $165 million in bonuses. Snowe, who co-authored the amendment with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, knows a thing or two about standing up to her party.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
Madoff Employee Breaks Silence
(1 comments) one of the fraudster's employees tells Lucinda Franks that the supposedly legitimate brokerage operations were in fact just money-losing fronts for the fraudster's scheme. Plus, what Madoff's sons told staff the day after Bernie's arrest, trips to the company's secretive 17th floor, Bernie's obsession with the color black and employee neatness, the roles of other family members, and visits to the founder's Montauk home.

Monday, March 16, 2009
Bad Science: Medical scumbag's masterclass in fraud
(1 comments) Dr Scott S Reuben, an anaesthesiologist in Bayside Medical Centre in Massachusetts, is a double scumbag: this week, in the biggest fraud case from recent medical history, he has been caught out, rather unimaginatively, just fabricating his data. He simply never conducted various clinical trials he wrote about for 10 years.

Friday, March 13, 2009
Obama's Signing Statement Disappears Whistleblowers
(6 comments) Obama's signing statement profile looks like it takes away rights from whistleblowers and congress to shed the light of truth

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Salt is 'natural mood-booster'
(1 comments) salt may act as a natural antidepressant. Tests on rats found those with a salt deficiency shied away from activities they normally enjoyed - a sign of depression. but remember, too much salt is linked to high blood pressure. The body needs sodium - the chemical which along with chloride makes up salt - to function, but having too much and raising blood pressure is linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart attack.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Google's Sergey Brin starts study after finding he has Parkinson's mutation | The Australian
SERGEY Brin, the co-founder of Google, is to spend millions of dollars on an innovative genetic study of Parkinson's disease after learning that he has a mutation that confers a high risk of the incurable brain condition. The program will invite 10,000 Parkinson's patients to have their DNA analysed for a token fee to investigate inherited and environmental factors that contribute to the disease and to advance research

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
How To Create a Twitter Following
Guy Kawasaki advises how to get a lot f followers on twitter

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
One in Five Homeowners 'Underwater'
At least one in five U.S. homeowners who have mortgages-- or about 8.3 million people -- owed more on their homes by the end of 2008 than their homes were worth... That is an increase of at least 2% from the 7.6 million people who had no home equity at the end of September, according to the report. Another 2.2 million homeowners are approaching negative equity. 55% of Nevada homeowners are "under water.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Obama FCC Appointee Who Could Change The Face of Media
Obama to nominate his former Harvard Law classmate and current technology adviser, 46 y/o Julius Genachowski, to head the Federal Communications Commission. During the campaign he put together a detailed plan which expressed support for open Internet or "net neutrality" protections; media-ownership rules that encourage more diversity; and expansion of affordable broadband access across the country.

Monday, March 2, 2009
Is Obama embracing the lawless, ominpotent executive?
the Obama DOJ is now spouting the Cheney/Addington view of government in its purest and most radical expression.

Sunday, March 1, 2009
Obama, Reaching Outside the Bubble
(1 comments) Life mostly in, and on rare occasions, out of the White house-- what days are like for Obama.

Sunday, March 1, 2009
AIG; 80% US "Nationalized" Will Cost Another $60-$100 Billion
AIG is the most crippled of all the nation’s wounded financial institutions. If we let A.I.G. fail, institutions, including pension funds and American and European banks “will face their own capital and liquidity crisis, and we could have a domino effect.” A bailout of A.I.G. is really a bailout of its trading partners — which essentially constitutes the entire Western banking system.

Sunday, March 1, 2009
DEA to end medical marijuana raids
(1 comments) Supporters of programs to provide legal marijuana to patients with painful medical conditions are celebrating Attorney General Eric Holder's statement this week that the Drug Enforcement Administration would end its raids on state-approved marijuana dispensaries.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Taxing pot could become a political toking point
(1 comments) Reporting from Sacramento -- Could Cannabis sativa be a salvation for California's fiscal misfortunes? Can the state get a better budget grip by taxing what some folks toke? An assemblyman from San Francisco announced legislation Monday to do just that: make California the first state in the nation to tax and regulate recreational marijuana in the same manner as alcohol.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Rich Americans Sue UBS to Keep Names Secret
(1 comments) UBS was sued on Tuesday in a Swiss federal court by wealthy American clients seeking to prevent the disclosure of their identities as part of a tax-evasion investigation by the United States Justice Department.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The road to American nuclear disarmament begins with the generals
American military leaders know nukes are not useful – and it's time for them to say so

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Is There a Future for Progressive Talk Radio?
(1 comments) For liberal talk to succeed, they have to know how to play the radio game, rather than just build an ideological wall around themselves. ... People come back to listen to personalities they like, the ones that they are entertained by, and the ones that keep them from turning off the radio. That's the key in broadcasting -- keep 'em coming back and keep 'em tuned in.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Members of Congress twitter through Obama's big speech
Members of Congress twittered their way through President Obama's nationally televised speech Tuesday night, providing a first-of-its-kind running commentary that took users of the social networking site inside the joint session of Congress.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Self-Censoring Journalists Gave Favorable Coverage To Republicans: Study
The three major broadcast networks favored Republicans in elections from 1992 to 2004, according to a study that analyzed presidential campaign coverage. That effect was largely due to journalists censoring their own reporting out of frustration at being accused of a liberal bias

Monday, February 23, 2009
Health reform next on Obama's agenda
President Obama will host a White House summit on health reform next week, he said Monday, signaling that he means to push forward aggressively on an issue some thought would fall by the wayside. "We've scheduled a health care summit next week," Obama said during remarks formally closing a White House summit on fiscal reform. "We think that it's very important to have some forums," he said.

Sunday, February 22, 2009
Neural Circuitry Of Near-misses May Explain The Allure Of Gambling
Why do people gamble if they know that the house always wins? Researchers at the University of Cambridge argue that near-misses, where the gambler narrowly misses out on the jackpot, may provide part of the answer.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Israel shells Lebanon after rocket attack -
(9 comments) Israel shelled southern Lebanon Saturday after two rockets were fired towards Israel, Lebanese security officials said. At least six shells targeted an area where the rockets had been launched from

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Medics describe horror of Conn. chimp attack
(3 comments) Her hands looked like they were wrecked by a machine. Eyes wounded, hair yanked out. Face and scalp injuries so extensive, all the blood obscured whatever parts were left. Receives face transplant

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Soros: World Financial Turbulence Worse Than Great Depression
(19 comments) world financial system has effectively disintegrated

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners
(9 comments) The Obama admin, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys. "The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Nouriel Roubini Says Nationalizing the Banks Is the Market-Friendly Solution - WSJ.com
(1 comments) Roubini, known as Doctor Doom of economics, is calling for a Swedish style nationalization-- take them over, fix 'em up then privatize them.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
(4 comments) A "grid of streets" on the seabed at one of the proposed locations of the lost city of Atlantis has been spotted on Google Ocean. The network of criss-cross lines is 620 miles off the coast of north west Africa near the Canary Islands on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Friday, February 20, 2009
Got Govt. Transparency? Thank Vivek Kundra
Vivek Kundra, who revolutionized the data shared about Washington, D.C., was tapped to join the Obama Administration as OMB's Administrator for E-Government and Information Technology.

Friday, February 20, 2009
Legalizing Marijuana More Popular Than Republicans
(2 comments) Two recent polls show that legalizing marijuana, which is not treated as a mainstream position by either the political or media establishment, to be more popular than numerous other positions that are considered mainstream.

Friday, February 20, 2009
Dan Kennedy: US court ruling undermines freedom of the press
A US court ruling threatens to overturn the American legal principle that truth is an absolute defence against libel. Perhaps Jay Baitler should have thought twice before hitting the "send" button. Still, no one could have foreseen the consequences of his fateful e-mail: an assault on the long-established American legal principle that truth is an absolute defence against a libel suit.

Monday, February 16, 2009
Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies
facebook is getting really popular amongst boomers and older, as a way to reconnect and stay connected with faces from the past.

Sunday, February 15, 2009
Obama has picked the wrong hero for our times
In order to save the global economy, the President has to stop trying to satisfy everybody. He should follow the example of Roosevelt and leave Lincoln behind

Saturday, February 14, 2009
Saudi King fires radical cleric, adds moderates to religious council, appoints female deputy minister!
dismissed the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing the owners of TV networks that broadcast "immoral" content, signaling an effort to weaken the country's hard-line Sunni establishment. The shake-up - King Abdullah's first since coming to power in August 2005 - included the appointment of a female deputy minister, the highest government position a Saudi woman has attained.

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Top Obama Aides Embrace Bush's War on Terror Rhetoric and Enemy Combatant Policy: JONATHAN TURLEY
(4 comments) This has been a uniquely bad week for civil libertarians. The Obama Administration appears to be rushing to dispel any notions that Obama will fight for civil liberties or war crimes investigations. After Eric Holder allegedly assured a senator that there would be no war crimes investigation and seemed to defend Bush policies, Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan, Obama's Solicitor General nominee, reportedly told a Republican sen...

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Senate panel approves labor nominee Hilda Solis
Rep. Hilda Solis edged closer Wednesday to winning confirmation as the nation's next labor secretary, after more than a month of delays over questions about her husband's unpaid taxes and her work for a pro-union group. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee cleared her nomination in a voice vote with only two Republicans voting against her.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Merrill secretly moved up bonus payments: Cuomo
Reuters) - Merrill Lynch "secretly" accelerated bonus payments last year and gave at least $1 million to each of nearly 700 employees, even as the brokerage was amassing billions of dollars in losses, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a letter to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Suspicion mounts about 'burrowing' Bush appointees
Some liberals are beginning to suspect Bush loyalists in career government positions are doing their best to try to deflate and hinder President Obama's agenda.

Monday, February 9, 2009
Writing Down What You Eat, in a Diary, Doubles Weight Loss
(1 comments) writing down everything you eat can double the efficacy of your dieting efforts.

Saturday, February 7, 2009
Creator of iconic Obama portrait arrested
Artist Shepard Fairey, who created an iconic red, white and blue portrait of President Barack Obama which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, and that appeared on thousands of posters and T-shirts, was arrested in Boston on graffiti charges, police said on Saturday.

Friday, February 6, 2009
Mapping the Feminist web: presentation at Fem2pt0
top 30 list of Feminist sites and blogs, based on the linkfluence scoring

Friday, February 6, 2009
BBC NEWS: UN halts Gaza aid over Hamas 'thefts'
The UN aid agency in Gaza says it has suspended all relief imports after hundreds of tonnes worth of food aid were seized by the Hamas government.

Friday, February 6, 2009
Wonkette : McCain Campaign Office Manager Accused Of Child Molesting
A guy who ran the Pueblo, Colorado office of the McCain campaign has been accused, for the second time in a week and the fifth time since 1982, of molesting a child.

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Countdown video : Olbermann: Cheney doing the work of terrorists
Keith really, really rips into Cheney. A thing of beauty

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
White House Quietly Working To Coordinate With Outside Groups
Senior White House advisers are quietly beginning to put a system in place to ensure coordination between the White House and outside liberal groups and unions that are ramping up to push the Obama administration's agenda and target its foes-- to be overseen by Valerie Jarrett

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Surgeons remove healthy kidney through donor's vagina
"Removing the kidney through a natural opening should hasten the patient's recovery and provide a better cosmetic result,"

Monday, February 2, 2009
Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem & Materialism Goes Hand in Hand
(3 comments) Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases.

Monday, February 2, 2009
Global recession - where did all the money go? :guardian.co.uk
The global pyramid scheme revealed.

Monday, February 2, 2009
60th Senate Dem? Republican Sen. Judd Gregg accepts commerce secretary post
Could lead to Dem Gov. appointing 60th Dem to replace him... but Republican senators say Gregg promised he'd only accept if the gov. appoints a Republican.

Saturday, January 31, 2009
With New President, Progressive Faith Groups Trying to Shift Debate
Many faith groups close to President George W. Bush focused on abortion, stem cell research and same-sex marriage. Now, with a president they view as more sympathetic to their causes, progressive religious activists are pushing the new Obama administration for aggressive action -- on poverty, the environment and social justice issues -- that would mark a significant shift in the faith agenda that dominated the Bush years.

Saturday, January 31, 2009
Israeli group to help Palestinians sue over settlements
An Israeli leftist advocacy grou, Yesh Din, said Friday it was starting a campaign to help Palestinians sue the state of Israel for its use of their privately owned lands for Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Saturday, January 31, 2009
U.S. economy posts fastest decline in 26 years
The U.S. economy shrank at its fastest pace in a quarter century from October through December, the government reported Friday, as consumer spending and business investment collapsed, signaling more economic contraction in the months ahead. The U.S. Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product shrank at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Saturday, January 31, 2009
Australian PM Calls for new world order-- Social Capitalism
KEVIN RUDD has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of "social capitalism" in which government intervention and regulation feature heavily. In an essay to be published next week, the Prime Minister is scathing of the neo-liberals who began refashioning the market system in the 1970s, and ultimately brought about the global financial crisis.

Friday, January 30, 2009
Quietly, Michelle Obama lays the groundwork for policy role
While her inaugural wear, choice of a decorator and disapproval of unauthorized Sasha and Malia dolls make headlines, first lady Michelle Obama has quietly assembled a staff that's steeped in women's and workplace issues to support her role as a policy advocate.

Friday, January 30, 2009
The Father Factor: How Dad's Age Increases Baby's Risk of Mental Illness
It is widely recognized that a 40-year-old woman has an increased risk of bearing a child with Down syndrome. What is not known is that a 40-year-old man has the same risk of fathering a child with schizophrenia- and even higher odds of his offspring having autism. The risk of bipolar disorder appears to rise as well. Birth rates for men older than 40 have jumped as much as 40 percent since 1980.

Friday, January 30, 2009
Jason Leopold; Air Force E-Mail Described Jews as 'Whiners'
(3 comments) This is not the first time that Air Force base e-mail lists have been hijacked by both chaplains and senior Air Force officials to proselytize base personnel. It's a frequent practice at numerous military installations. Tell Obama to order these military leaders to cut the religious crap and keep the church state separation as they are legally obligated to do.

Thursday, January 29, 2009
28% Teared Up At Inauguration
More than one of four voters -- 28 percent -- got teary-eyed or cried during the ceremony. Those most likely to say they cried include Democrats (38 percent), women (36 percent) and blacks (58 percent). and 83% of Americans watched Obama's Inauguration compared to 46% for Bush

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Lawmakers, Auto Industry Work on Cash-for-Clunkers Plan
Auto-industry officials are in advanced talks with Capitol Hill lawmakers on a proposal that would aim to revive vehicle sales by giving federal tax credits of as much as $4,500 to consumers who scrap gas-guzzling clunkers and replace them with new, fuel-efficient cars.

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Dozens believed dead in reprisal attacks as Hamas retakes control
Evidence is emerging of a wave of reprisal attacks and killings inside Gaza that have left dozens dead and more wounded in the wake of Israel's war. • Suspected collaborators shot during and after war • Escaped criminals killed by relatives of their victims •there have also been attacks on security officials from Fatah, the bitter rival of Hamas

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Icelandic Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, Would Be World's First Gay PM
(1 comments) Icelandic Social Affairs Minister Johanna Sigur�ardottir would be the world's first openly gay leader if she becomes Prime Minister of Iceland, as is widely expected. Although Per-Kristian Foss served as acting Prime Minister in Norway very briefly in 2002, this represents the first time that a gay leader would assume the reins of a modern state.

Sunday, January 25, 2009
How China's '50 Cent Army' Is Astroturfing the Web and could Ruin Web 2.0
(1 comments) hundreds of thousands of Chinese are being paid to say positive things about the Chinese Communist party.

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Obama Had The Dalai Lama's Scarf In His Pocket During His Swearing In
(1 comments) given to him by husband of Diane Feinstein.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Ten Dems Obama should watch out for
The president's friends might not become his enemies. But here are 10 Democrats - and some runners-up - who could soon find themselves on the White House Frenemies List:

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Byrd, Kennedy fall ill at luncheon
Kennedy apparently had siezures, Byrd is reported to by "fine."

Monday, January 19, 2009
Harvard, MIT profs join Obama team
Professors from Harvard and MIT and a top aide to Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign will be joining the Obama budget office, his team announced this afternoon.

Monday, January 19, 2009
What Obama Should Read
Twenty-five books the new president should have by his bedside.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Evangelical generation gap? : Why Young Evangelicals Voted for Obama
painful generational divisions within evangelical ranks. Disagreements revolve around priorities: how best to express Christian values in a fast-changing world.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
As challenges mount, ardor for Obama cools abroad
Barack Obama got a global standing ovation long before he was elected president. But in a fickle and fast-moving world, the overseas reviews are already turning mixed.

Thursday, January 15, 2009
GOP Surprisingly Nervous About Texas Senate Seat
Do Republicans think could actually lose a seat in Texas, of all places? Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) has taken another major step towards running for governor, The Hill reports, transferring nearly $8 million from her federal account into a state fund. Hutchison has also left the door open to resigning later this later, way ahead of the gubernatorial election itself. Could this give the Dems a shot at their 60th seat?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Egypt tells Hamas it must commit to one year cease-fire in Gaza
Hamas asks for modifications. Both sides say they want this over by Obama's innauguration

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
What if Economics is at the Stage of Development Medicine Was At When Leeches Were State of th Art?
(4 comments) economists largely failed to predict the scale of the current crisis. Since they did not diagnose the disease, there is little popular confidence that they know the cure. What if economics is, actually, at the same level as medicine was when doctors still believed in the application of leeches? Or what if economics has indeed made great progress, but we are facing a new type of economic virus with no known cure?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire: the first film of the Obama era
Slumdog Millionaire – Golden Globes winner and hot candidate for Oscars – is a movie whose influence will be felt all over the world.

Monday, January 12, 2009
Obama Signals His Reluctance to Look Into Bush Policies
Obama signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects. CIA officers oppose investigations of CIA misuse of wire tapping, etc. So? Obama is going just go along, to keep them happy? Maybe Madoff should express his displeasure with investigations too. Maybe Obama will cut him a break

Monday, January 12, 2009
Obama Signals His Reluctance to Look Into Bush Policies
(2 comments) Obama signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects. CIA officers oppose investigations of CIA misuse of wire tapping, etc. So? Obama is going just go along, to keep them happy? Maybe Madoff should express his displeasure with investigations too. Maybe Obama will cut him a break

Friday, January 9, 2009
Obama snubs Dean
(2 comments) The conspicuous absence of Howard Dean from Thursday's press conference announcing Tim Kaine's appointment as Democratic National Committee chairman was no accident, according to Dean loyalists. Rather, they say, it was a reflection of the lack of respect accorded to the outgoing party chairman by the Obama team.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Ten extinct beasts that could walk the Earth again
THE recipe for making any creature is written in its DNA. So last November, when geneticists published the near-complete DNA sequence of the long-extinct woolly mammoth, there was much speculation about whether we could bring this behemoth back to life. Creating a living, breathing creature from a genome sequence that exists only in a computer's memory is not possible right now. But someone someday is sure to try it,

Monday, January 5, 2009
Obama's Justice nominees signal end of Bush terror tactics
Obama's pick of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit that's churned out the legal opinions that provided a foundation for expanding President George W. Bush's national security powers. Johnsen has publicly assailed "Bush's corruption of our American ideals."

Monday, January 5, 2009
Sen. Feinstein May Block Leon Panetta As CIA director
(8 comments) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who this week begins her tenure as the first female chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said today that she was not consulted on the choice and indicated she might oppose it. Feinstein said. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

Monday, January 5, 2009
Rewarding Mr. Ayers' courage
"Since I began writing about Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a street musician I met almost four years ago in downtown Los Angeles, I've been asked to speak at mental health symposiums, skid row fundraisers, universities and high schools and all kinds of award banquets." A movie based on Ayers is coming out in April

Sunday, January 4, 2009
Balance Of Power Swings To Liberal Legal Group
(1 comments) The past eight years were a good time to be in the Federalist Society. Members of that conservative legal group occupied every level of the Bush administration. Now that the Democrats are ascending, a different legal group is on the rise in Washington: the American Constitution Society.

Saturday, January 3, 2009
Sources: Reid pressured governor on Senate replacement
(2 comments) Reid reportedly made it clear he didn't want Jackson, Davis or Jones to be appointed, fearing they'd lose to a GOP opponent in a future election

Saturday, January 3, 2009
Israeli ground forces enter Gaza in escalation
(2 comments) Israeli tanks and infantry rolled into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, launching a ground offensive in a widening war against Hamas that the Israeli defense minister said "will not be easy and will not be short."

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Poll shows FDR would beat Reagan among current Americans
America is a center-right nation...really? Why did voters (in a nationwide survey by Rasmussen Reports) just elect Franklin Roosevelt over Ronald Reagan in a political dream match-up, by a solid margin?

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Rob Kall: Middle East Politics Divides Progressives
(21 comments) I wrote this in 2006, during the time of the Israel-Lebanon war. Much of it still applies.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Israeli Army launches YouTube Gaza channel
The Israeli army announced yesterday the creation of its own YouTube channel, through which it will disseminate footage of precision bombing operations in the Gaza Strip, as well as aid distribution and other footage of interest to the international community. "The blogosphere and new media are another war zone," said IDF Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich. "We have to be relevant there."

Monday, December 29, 2008
Kerkorian sells off Ford shares at deep loss
Kirk Kerkorian has sold off all of his remaining 100 million+ shares of Ford Motor Co, completing a retreat from a high-profile stake in the No. 2 U.S. automaker that cost him hundreds of millions of dollars.

Monday, December 29, 2008
Sen. Webb Sets His Sights On Prison Reform
(1 comments) Webb aims much of his criticism at enforcement efforts that he says too often target low-level drug offenders and parole violators, rather than those who perpetrate violence, such as gang members. He also blames policies that strip felons of citizenship rights and can hinder their chances of finding a job after release. He says he believes society can be made safer while making the system more humane and cost-effective.

Saturday, December 27, 2008
Israel strikes demolish Hamas compounds, kill 192
Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing nearly 200 people and wounding 270 others in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years. Most of those killed were security men, but civilians were also among the dead. Hamas said all of its security installations were hit

Friday, December 26, 2008
How to Live Rent Free in NYC
(1 comments) buy a boat on ebay, moor it offshore and you too can float a great deal for living in the big apple.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Healthcare Costs Prevented Nearly 40 Million Americans From Filling Their Prescriptions in 2008
(1 comments) Nearly 40 million U.S. adults decided not to fill a prescription medication from a doctor in the past year because of the cost... A tudy found that women and patients with neurological and mental health conditions were the most likely to give up their medication due to cost.

Monday, December 22, 2008
Juan Cole: Rick Warren: "I love Muslims . . . I happen to love Gays and Straights"
I was in Long Beach,Ca. on Saturday for the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where Pastor Rick Warren and I were both headliners. Also appearing on the stage Saturday evening were Melissa Etheridge and Salman Ahmad, singing Ring the Bells.

Friday, December 19, 2008
PAUL KRUGMAN; The Madoff Economy
surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole? The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it.

Friday, December 19, 2008
Photos shed light on Barack Obama student years
The pictures, taken in 1980 by Lisa Jack, a fellow student at Occidental University, lay forgotten in her basement for years until she hunted them out during the election build-up. Jack said she kept them hidden in a safety deposit box until after the election for fear that the photographs might be used to attack Obama's campaign.

Friday, December 19, 2008
The Worst Ballot Challenge Of All
it's become painfully clear that Norm Coleman's big problem is that his ballot challenges are made up almost entirely of brazenly frivolous attempts to get votes for Al Franken thrown out. This one might just be the worst of all. The Coleman campaign tried to get a vote for Franken thrown out because the voter had written on the ballot. What'd they write? Thank you for counting my vote!

Friday, December 19, 2008
Baby born with 'foot in brain'
urgeons operating on a brain tumour in a baby boy found a tiny foot inside his head. while removing the growth, they also found a nearly perfect foot and the partial formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh. The growth may have been a case of "foetus in foetu" in which a twin begins to form within its sibling.

Friday, December 19, 2008
Student Sentenced to 15 Years for YouTube Terror Video
An Egyptian engineering student was sentenced in the United States on Thursday to 15 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to uploading a 12-minute video to YouTube that demonstrated how to convert a remote-control toy car into a bomb detonator.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Hillary Clinton tells supporters to back off Caroline Kennedy
Hillary Clinton has called off the dogs, telling her supporters to stop trashing Caroline Kennedy, sources told the Daily News. It's the latest sign the way is clearing for Kennedy to move into New York's celebrity Senate seat once Clinton ascends to secretary of state. The choice ultimately is Gov. Paterson's, but the roar for Kennedy is becoming deafening on Capitol Hill.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Eviction by Facebook?
Australia OKs Facebook for serving lien notice. A court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook to notify a couple that they lost their home after defaulting on a loan.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Interstitial Publishing: A New Market from Wasted Time
For a day filled with IMs and music and slathered over with email, one opportunity for publishers is to promote interstitial reading, reading that is done in the brief moments between other engagements, whether those claims on our attention are other media or simply the wiggle room in a schedule: the time spent waiting for a plane, a doctor, or for a meeting to begin. That's a huge number of minutes in any day...

Monday, December 15, 2008
Let's Get Real On The Environment
(1 comments) After the failure in Poznan, it's time to be honest: the world is not going to be cutting greenhouse gases anytime soon. Our problems, especially the climate crisis, are not going away anytime soon. The alternative technologies we need to reduce our carbon emissions to essentially zero – what scientists are now telling us is necessary – simply aren't there, and won't be anytime soon. Nor is the sense of crisis really there.

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Pentagon Iraq Report: Incredible Levels of Fraud, Waste and Incompetence
We spent as much money as we could, (over $100 billion)and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us.

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Pentagon Iraq Report: Incredible Levels of Fraud, Waste and Incompetence
We spent as much money as we could, (over $100 billion)and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us.

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Acid Blinded Iranian Woman Persuades Court to Similarly Punish Spurned Suitor Who Splashed Acid On Her
Four years ago, a spurned suitor poured a bucket of sulfuric acid over her head, leaving her blind and disfigured. Late last month, an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker's eyes, acceding to her demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime. The sentence has not yet been carried out

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Southern Auto Industry - Some Backstory
last month Toyota decided forego huge recruitment incentives from US states and committed to building a new factor in Canada. Why? The workforce in the US south is so stupid, even illiterate, that the offers weren't worth it. Where does the money to recruit foreign manufacturers to southern states come from? Cuts in education budgets. Supporting these faux US car manufacturers keeps the rednecks extra stupid.

Saturday, December 13, 2008
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?
A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat. Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions...

Saturday, December 13, 2008
US shuts down 'scareware' sellers Who Duped Millions
The US government has moved to shut down sellers of fake security software. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has won a restraining order that stops several sellers of "scareware" from continuing to trade. Millions of people are thought to have been caught out by the software which, once installed, issues false alerts about viruses and illegal porn.

Saturday, December 13, 2008
Israeli experts help India prepare commando raids into Pakistan
(2 comments) New Delhi has asked Jerusalem to assist in the operational and intelligence planning of Indian commando cross-border strikes against Islamist terrorist havens in Pakistan - including al Qaeda, Indian counter-terror sources report.

Friday, December 12, 2008
Obamas can't move into Blair House early
President-elect Barack Obama asked the White House if his family could move to Washington earlier than normal, but aides say the White House couldn't give them the official guest house as early as his family wanted. The Obamas had asked White House officials to move into Blair House about two weeks before the traditional date so their two daughters could start their new school when classes resume Jan. 5.

Friday, December 12, 2008
What Image Has Opened Your Eyes to Human Rights?
Witness is an international non-profit organization that uses video and online technologies to shine a light on human rights abuses around the world. For the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Witness staff discuss some of the videos and images that have touched them over the past few years. At the end of the video, viewers are asked what image has opened our eyes to human rights.

Thursday, December 11, 2008
Mumbai Terror Group Trained American Jihadists
A growing chorus of intelligence officials in the U.S. and in south Asia have pinned the Mumbai attacks on the Kashmir-based militants Lashkar-e-Taiba. But there's been hardly any mention of the extremist group's deep ties to American-based jihadists. Since 2003, at least five U.S. citizens have been convicted in federal court of conspiring to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Pakistan Shell Game
(1 comments) it is finally dawning on some in Washington--if not exactly those packing their bags and shredding their files in the Bush White House--that Pakistan has played us for fools ever since September 11, 2001.

Thursday, December 11, 2008
Greenland, the Colony, Breaks Away from Denmark as Melting Ice Reveals Riches
(1 comments) bet you didn't know Greenland was a colony. As climate changes uncovers much of what was hidden by ice, Greenland is seeking its independence.

Thursday, December 11, 2008
Obama Picks Team to Guide Energy, Environment Agendas
(2 comments) President-elect Barack Obama has picked a Nobel laureate, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and officials from New Jersey and Los Angeles to run his energy and environmental initiatives, putting heft into roles likely to dominate domestic policy in his first years in office.

Monday, December 8, 2008
Congress to J-Street: "Where Have You Been!"
J-street, the new, Jewish Peace lobby, the alternative to AIPAC, met with some of the 40+ congressional reps who supported the new lobby's endorsement. They were pleasantly suprised at the response: "Where have you been?"

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Showdown in the Big Tent Over Prop 8
Liberal Hollywood's loyalty to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and its role in the fight for civil rights has been unstinting. But recently the A-list discovered that this love is unrequited. Last month, Proposition 8 passed, making gay marriage illegal in California, and the demographic that lent insult to injury was the state’s African-American voters. 7 in 10 blacks voted in support of traditional marriage.

Sunday, December 7, 2008
'KopBusters' reality show turns tables on crooked officers
(1 comments) 'KopBusters' is a reality TV program that aims to sink crooked officers.

Friday, December 5, 2008
Happiness is contagious, study finds
the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy. And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness... The study also fits in with other data that suggested -- in 1984 -- that having $5,000 extra increased a person's chances of becoming happier by about 2 percent. "A happy friend is worth about $20,000,"

Friday, December 5, 2008
Israeli Troops Evict Settlers in the West Bank
Israeli troops forcibly evicted about 200 hard-line Jewish settlers from a contested building in this volatile biblical city on Thursday, the first serious clash in what seems to be a spiraling confrontation between the government and defiant settlers.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket
Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it's a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move. The eye he's considering replacing is not a working one -- it's a prosthetic eye he's worn for several years.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Canadian PM wins Shutdown of Parliament to Prevent Defeat by Left
(1 comments) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament on Thursday, managing to avoid being ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative government's economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Anxiety among Democrats as Pelosi tightens her grip
Nancy Pelosi's moves since the November elections have shaken up some of her colleagues, with some looking over their shoulders and others worried about how the Speaker will lead her expanded majority in 2009. Liberals are worried about Pelosi's vow to govern "from the middle" and centrists are concerned that the make-up of the House leadership team has shifted noticeably to the left.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wonkette : Catfight! Geithner Doesn't Like Bair
Rumor: Tim Geithner, Treasury Sec-to-be, does not care for Sheila Bair and her maverick ways. Bair is the chairman of the FDIC and one of the few high-profile Bush admin appointees to very repeatedly and publicly bang the drum about how if our financial crisis is ultimately due to people's mortgages going south, maybe we ought to work on fixing those bad mortgages. She's a working class hero! So naturally, Geithner hates her

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Financial crisis a distraction, says Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus
(6 comments) The global financial crisis is distracting attention from other pressing issues such as high food and energy prices, and environmental damage, says Yunus. The Bangladeshi economist warned that not addressing those other issues would lead to a "much bigger crisis ahead" that would have political and financial implications. "What we see as a financial crisis is a part of many more crises, which are going on simultaneously...

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Standing up to Jewish terrorism - Haaretz - Israel News
(1 comments) For a long time now, settlers in Hebron and other areas of Judea and Samaria (and East Jerusalem) have engaged in unruly behavior whose only goal is to violently threaten the Palestinians while undermining Israel's sovereignty. By any official standard recognized worldwide, this is terrorism that sows fear and disrupts the proper management of a state. Like the US, right wing religious extremists are BAD NEWS

Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Higher Education May Soon Be Unaffordable for Most Americans, Report Says
Tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Copper Thieves Threaten U.S. Infrastructure, FBI says
Copper thieves, sometimes acting as "organized groups," are threatening what the FBI said is "critical" U.S. infrastructure, from electrical sub-stations, cellular towers, telephone land lines to railroads and crops, the agency said in an unclassified report unveiled Wednesday.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Republican party must abandon its anti-intellectualism
(2 comments) Republicans should stop embracing the anti-intellectualism of George Bush

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Nationalize GM - Los Angeles Times
The federal government should buy GM. We can run it, then sell it at a profit once it recovers.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Google Buys 20 Million Pages of Diginal Newspaper Records
Google has completed the purchase of 20 million digitized historical newspaper pages

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Good News for Franken? Ramsey County Minnesota finds 171 uncounted ballots
a county that went strong for Franken finds a whole load of uncounted ballots.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Mumbai attacks: Jews tortured before executed during hostage crisis
Israeli hostages killed by Islamic terrorists during the attacks on Mumbai (formerly Bombay) were tortured by their captors before they were bound together and killed, according to officials in both countries.

Monday, December 1, 2008
Obama aims at broad shift in national security
The shift, which would come partly out of the military's huge budget, would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states.

Monday, December 1, 2008
I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq
Air Force interrogator of al-Zarqawi in Iraq says torture is happening, does not work, makes us less safe.

Monday, December 1, 2008
Map: Show Me the TARP Money -
(2 comments) A map which shows where in the US the TARP bailout money is going, who gets it and how much.

Monday, December 1, 2008
Obama donors help cover transition cost
These costs should be paid for by the government. But they're not, so Obama keeps doing the money raising machine thing.

Monday, December 1, 2008
Dig unearths Stone Age sculptures
carving has a feminine form, reminiscent of "Venus" figurines found from Siberia to the Pyrenees

Friday, November 28, 2008
Murdoch, Ailes "˜absolutely despise' O'Reilly
"It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.'s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O'Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator," Wolff wrote, "but [Fox News chief executive] Roger Ailes himself who loathes him. Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other."

Friday, November 28, 2008
Sex invariably spells trouble, says Dalai Lama
(12 comments) he Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and "more freedom."

Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Gladiator Diet
study of a gladiator burial ground has enabled archaeologists to figure out what gladiators were fed and how they were killed.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
BBC: Obama in charge
You could be forgiven for thinking that Chicago is the new Washington, that the president-elect is already running the country from there and that the West Wing has just become the Mid-West wing.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Eyeing Obama Era, DailyKos Launches Blog to Press Congress
"It'll be a place where we'll try to explain Congressional rules and procedure so that the netroots community gets a better handle on it and can become more effective advocates for their priorities," said David Waldman, an attorney and former Congressional aide who blogs on the front page of DailyKos under the name Kagro X.

Monday, November 24, 2008
Malaysian Muslim Fatwa Yanks Yoga
Islamic council issues edict prohibiting exercise, fearing Hindu roots could corrupt people. "We are of the view that yoga, which originates in Hinduism, combines a physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to be at one with god. For us, yoga destroys a Muslim's faith. There are other ways to get exercise. You can go cycling, swimming...

Monday, November 24, 2008
Meet the Kelpies, a Pair of 100 Foot Tall Horses
(1 comments) They will create one of the most dramatic gateways through which to enter Britain: two vast equine heads, centrepiece of a £49m eco-park near Edinburgh, are to guard the entrance to a canal link connecting the Firth of Forth with the Clyde in Glasgow. Each the height of a 10-storey building, the sculptures will be known as the Kelpies, after the mythical water horses in Scottish lochs and rivers.

Monday, November 24, 2008
GOP Image Continues to Tank
Gallup polls show the GOP image is getting even worse, and on top of that, Republicans want the GOP to become even MORE conservative. Can you visualize southern redneck right wingers flipping the flush handle as they wash themselves down the toilet?

Monday, November 24, 2008
Stuffing Recipes?
(2 comments) what are your favorite stuffing recipes and ingredients?

Friday, November 21, 2008
Horror as teenager commits suicide live online
as many others watch online, some jeering.

Friday, November 21, 2008
US clout down, risks up by 2025 -intel outlook
U.S. economic and political clout will decline over the next two decades and the world will be more dangerous, with food and water scarce and advanced weapons plentiful, U.S. spy agencies projected on Thursday. The National Intelligence Council analysis "Global Trends 2025" also said the current financial crisis on Wall Street is just the first phase of a global economic reordering. The U.S. dollar's role will drop too.

Friday, November 21, 2008
Waxman's takeover signals a shift to the left
Rep. Henry Waxman's successful coup against Energy and Commerce Chair John Dingell on Thursday leaves the storied former chairman with a ceremonial role and steers the Democratic agenda sharply left. The 137-122 vote which handed Waxman the gavel dealt a serious challenge to the Democrats' seniority system and put key aspects of Pres-elect Obama's agenda in the hands of a liberal, aggressive and activist chairman.

Friday, November 21, 2008
Fed's Geithner to be tapped for Treasury: reports
a late friday afternoon announcement-- at the dead of newstimes. Better than Summers, but the NY Fed Reserve Bank Head. Not much change here

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Administration Protects W Appointees by Converting Positions to Career Civil Servants
Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies-- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts. The transfer of political appointees into permanent fed positions, called "burrowing," will deprive Obama of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Beijing orders demolition of leading activist's home
Beijing authorities have issued an order to destroy the home of one of China's leading rights activists who has been in police custody for more than 200 days, her husband and lawyer said Tuesday. Beijing's Xicheng court ordered developers to level the home of Ni Yulan and told the family to vacate the premises by the end of last week, husband Dong Jiqin told AFP, adding he had refused to leave.

Monday, November 17, 2008
Stan Lee, Creator of Spiderman Comic, Receives Medal of Arts Honors
When Stan Lee was told that he'd received the National Medal of Arts, he "thought it was a gag." The award to artists and arts patrons is billed as the highest bestowed by the U.S. government. The humanities medal is considered the most prestigious in its field.

Monday, November 17, 2008
Dan Rather's Lawsuit Shows Role of G.O.P. in Inquiry
Evidence seems to support Dan Rather’s assertion that CBS wanted its investigation into a segment about President Bush’s National Guard service to mollify GOP Bush supporters, so CBS would maintain access to the White house. Rather has spent over $2 million on this case, but is making solid progress showing unfair treatment, including the set up of a supposedly balanced review panel, which was, in reality, GOP vetted.

Monday, November 17, 2008
Gallup’s New Job Market Measure-- not looking good
A new employment indicator from Gallup reports how many people say their company is hiring, and how many say their company is letting employees go. The results aren't pretty, an economist writes.

Monday, November 17, 2008
Obama Needs a Protest Movement
the disorder, stoppages and institutional breakdowns generated by collective action threaten politicians. These periods of mass defiance are unnerving, and many authoritative voices are even now pointing to the dangers of pushing the Obama administration too hard and too far. Yet these are also the moments when ordinary people enter into the political life of the country and authentic bottom-up reform becomes possible

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Albino Africans live in fear after witch-doctor butchery and Cannibalism
A series of horrific murders of albinos in Tanzania has shocked the nation. As children are hacked to death for their body parts, believed to bring good luck, the authorities are failing to stop a trade in organs that relies on superstition and greed

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Why hasn't the U.S. gone after Mullah Omar in Pakistan?
For 7 years, the Bush administration has pursued al Qaida but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban leadership in its sanctuaries in Pakistan, and that's left Mullah Mohammad Omar and his deputies free to direct an escalating war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The administration's decision, U.S. and NATO officials said, has allowed the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit at bases in SW Pakistan

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Alaska vote tally drama: 1 vote margin in state rep race
The closest race of this fall's election in Alaska drew even tighter Friday night, as Rep. Mike Kelly's lead on Democratic challenger Karl Kassel narrowed to a single vote. Just imagine all the ways that extra vote could have been reached.

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Clinton as Secretary of State? Obama’s Talk With Hillary Starts Buzz
(5 comments) For Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, there would be pros and cons to a partnership if she were secretary of state.

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Indian Spacecraft Successfully Enters Orbit Around Moon
On November 9, India became the fifth member of the global moon club with Chandrayaan-1 entering the lunar orbit at 5.04 pm (IST). The other four members are the US, Russia (former Soviet Union), Japan, China and members of European Space Agency (ESA).

Friday, November 14, 2008
SC Priest: Voted for Obama? No Holy Communion
A Roman Catholic Priest in South Carolina told parishioners this week that they should not receive holy communion any longer if they voted for president-elect Barack Obama.

Friday, November 14, 2008
The decline of the Republican Party
(1 comments) There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party's defeat on Nov. 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200K

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Largest Military Budget Passed
WHILE THE NATION REMAINED fixated on the nearly $1 trillion Congress gave to criminal bankers and investment firms on Wall Street, the House and Senate quietly passed the largest military spending legislation to date loaded with pork and gifts for the military-industrial complex.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her own face
Korean woman addicted to plastic surgery has been left unrecognisable after her obsession led her to inject cooking oil into her face

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Google Flu Trends-- Predicts Flu Outbreaks Using Search Patterns
(2 comments) philanthropic arm, has launched a service to help medical experts and the public track the incidence of influenza across the U.S. Google Flu Trends presents a map of current flu activity throughout the nation.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Federal Reserve Refuses to Disclose $2 Trillion in Loans
won't provide transparency expected

Monday, November 10, 2008
Obama Hires Progressive Liaison For Transition Team
Former Clinton team member Mike Lux, who currently blogs for openleft.com and huffingtonpost also helped co-found a number of progressive institutions including: Americans United for Change, Center for Progressive Leadership, Grassroots Democrats, Progressive Majority, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and Women's Voices/Women Vote. He writes for the Huffington Post.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Obama plans Guantanamo closure, US terror trials
President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Bush is less popular than Nixon in final days
76% disapprove, much worse than Nixon in days before he left office.

Monday, November 10, 2008
RFK Jr.: Too controversial for EPA?
Last year, Kennedy said that global warming skeptics should be treated as "traitors," which garnered the ire of Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, whose deep skepticism about the causes of climate change is well-known.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Nicholas Kristof: Obama and the War on Brains
American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual. Maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

Sunday, November 9, 2008
Dems get new crop of military voters
With McCain facing a diminished role in the GOP, and Chuck Hagel retiring from the Senate, there are few prominent Republican leaders left with military bona fides. This is in stark contrast to the Democratic Party, which has seen the emergence of a new generation of veteran leaders. President Bush has almost single-handedly ended the GOP's lock on veteran & military voters through his tragic mismanagement of the war in Iraq

Sunday, November 9, 2008
UK's Brown: Now is the time to build global society
The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

Sunday, November 9, 2008
Obama to use executive orders for immediate impact
– President-elect Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Jerusalem Post: Israeli Analysis on Obama's Effect on US Relations with Israel
(2 comments) Can we trust an Obama administration to stand by us in our time of need? Yes, we can. Unless, of course, we elect an extreme right-wing government that - completely unprovoked - initiates a war with the entire Arab world. Can we fly over Iraqi airspace to hit Iran's nuclear facilities? No, we can't. Can we ask America to look the other way while our jets find another way into Iran? No, we can't.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
What You Can Make With Dryer Lint
(2 comments) finally, an answer to the question you didn't know you were asking

Friday, November 7, 2008
Plouffe to the Senate?
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager may be a candidate to replace a senator who is resigning.

Thursday, November 6, 2008
SOMETHING SMELLS VERY FISHY IN ALASKA
Turnout Rate Reported as Lowest Ever in State, Down 11% From '04 Even With Both Palin and Obama on the Ballot Hanging in the Balance in the Diebold State: Felon Ted Stevens' U.S. Senate Race, Corrupt Don Young's House Race & Much More...

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
'Jurassic Park' author Michael Crichton dies at 66
(1 comments) Also a vocal global warming denier.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
So Little Time, So Much Damage Bush is Planning to Do
(2 comments) Most presidents put on a last-minute policy stamp, but in President George W. Bush’s case it is more like a wrecking ball. Bush, staying consistent as the most despicable, worst president in history, will inflict more damage upon the US in his last days-- giving gifts to financial institutions, gutting environmental regulations, eroding rights to information and access to abortion and birth control...

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Intrade Political Odds-- usually a lot better predictors than polls
In trade is based on people betting real money on races. The odds and predictions are usually far more accurate than polls.

Monday, November 3, 2008
Strange Portal Connects Earth to Sun
(1 comments) Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth & sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star. Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say. Called a flux transfer event, or FTE, such cosmic connections not only exist but are possibly twice as common as once thought.

Monday, November 3, 2008
Democratic Governors May be the Saviors of Free and Fair Elections
In 2000 and 2004, the states to watch were Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. All three had Republican governors in 2000, and two of the three had Republican governors in 2004. Now only one state is in Republican hands. Things have changed.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Will Monday testimony from this Bush/McCain computer expert reveal 2004 Ohio vote tampering?
(1 comments) Connell and his associates may have compromised the presidential election in Ohio in 2004 by inserting a computer, among other tactics, into the Ohio secretary of state's vote information transferal system. Such tampering, they say, could explain how votes were "tuned" to Bush and away from Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president that year.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
My wife made me canvas for Obama; here's what I learned
A former bush voter: I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It's about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Bush administration denies funding for FBI probe of mortgage mess
Bush is withholding money needed by FBI to investigate known corruption and problems. WTF, spend $700 billion on bailout but nothing on investigating the bad guys.

Friday, October 31, 2008
Studs Terkel, Oral Historian And Radio Legend, 96
His conversations with the prominent and the uncelebrated became books that chronicled much of the history of the 20th century. Terkel often said that America suffers from what he described as a sort of national Alzheimer's disease. So he wrote books such as Working, Hard Times & his Pulitzer Prize winner, The Good War - oral histories of labor, the Great Depression and WW II, respectively - to help jog the nation's memory

Friday, October 31, 2008
Dems sketch Obama staff, Cabinet
Here is the list of names being widely discussed in Democratic circles, compiled with the help of ABC's Jonathan Karl and Politico's Ben Smith. Some of the names are more likely than others, but all are being seriously considered by Obama advisers. Some of the sources would be involved in decision making, and some were making educated deductions.

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship
starting with porn, where will it end?

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Goldman Sachs ready to hand out $13 BILLION salary and bonus package... after its $11 bn bail-out
Americans are ever the dumbshits. The billions in taxpayer financed bailout money is going to pay multi-million bonuses to those who caused the problem.

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text
Carbon dated at 3000 years old in Valley of Elah, could impact on decisions about Jerusalem

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Rasmussen Poll: Alaska's Stevens Falls Hard After Conviction
Republican Senator Ted Stevens has fallen eight points behind Dem Mark Begich in his bid for re-election, and most Alaska voters now believe Stevens should resign from office. The latest Rasmussen Poll of Alaska voters, conducted a day after Stevens was found guilty of filing false financial disclosure forms, finds that 52% plan to vote for Begich while 44% support Stevens. Only 74% of Republicans will vote for him

Monday, October 27, 2008
Plot to Kill Obama Uncovered
(5 comments) ATF (Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco) discovers skinhead white supremacy group that planned to kill Obama and shoot or decapitate black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Republicans fear long exile in the wilderness
In America's conservative heartland the talk now is not just of a win for Obama. With the Democrats poised for gains in the Senate and the House, moderate Republicans fear a wipeout that would leave their party in the grip of evangelicals increasingly out of touch with the public. Could the country be on the brink of change as deep as that ushered in by Reagan?

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Loose Cannon Palin Going Rogue, Rejecting McCain Handler "Guidance"
(5 comments) Palin allies report rising campaign tension

Friday, October 24, 2008
The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure
(3 comments) A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds. The unpleasant aroma of the gas, called hydrogen sulfide (H2S), can be a little too familiar, as it is expelled by bacteria living in the human colon and eventually makes its way, well, out.

Friday, October 24, 2008
Judge rules for officer Ehren Watada, who refused Iraq duty
If the Army tries to court-martial 1st Lt. Ehren Watada a second time, it cannot prosecute him for refusing to deploy to Iraq, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The judge dismissed two specifications of a second charge, of conduct unbecoming an officer, related to statements Watada made against the war and against President Bush. He made the statements at a news conference and in a speech at a Veterans for Peace convention.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Alaska funded Palin kids' travel
Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

Monday, October 20, 2008
Chomsky says pick the lesser of two evils
Noam Chomsky: People should vote against McCain and for Obama - but without illusions

Saturday, October 18, 2008
The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role - SPIEGEL ONLINE
The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. And now, of all times, the world is faced with a preeminent power that no longer seems capable of leading and a US president who is not even able to unite his divided nation.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Sadr urges rejection of U.S.-Iraq pact
Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraq's parliament to reject a pact that would extend U.S. presence in Iraq for three years as tens of thousands of his followers marched through Baghdad's streets Saturday to reinforce that demand. The large turnout points to trouble ahead for the U.S.-Iraqi security deal as Sunni and Shiite lawmakers weigh the political risks associated with the far-reaching agreement.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Consumer Confidence Drops Record Amount in One Month
US consumer confidence has fallen more sharply this month than in any month since records began in 1978, a widely followed survey showed on Friday, raising fresh fears about consumer spending. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell from 70.3 in September to 57.5 in October, well below economists’ expectations. Raises danger nation could go into even deeper recession.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Obama Rally Draws 100,000 in St. Louis MO-- And MO is turning blue
Obama attracted 100,000 people at a Saturday rally here, his biggest crowd ever at a U.S. event. For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as 10% behind McCain. It was widely believed that McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state’s conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn’t happened. A Rasmussen poll released on Friday shows Obama leading in MO 52% to 46%

Saturday, October 18, 2008
On the Bush administration's approval of the abuse of detainees
What does a country do when compelling evidence shows its leaders have authorised international crimes? At the very least, the next US president must ensure the full facts are established. It will then be for others to decide what follows. But if the US doesn't get its own house in order and restore its reputation for the rule of law, others will surely step in.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Paul Krugman: Let’s Get Fiscal
(2 comments) To get out of the economic slump, the next president should increased government spending and put the concerns about the budget deficit on hold.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Supreme Court blocks Ohio Repblican Effort to Disenfranchise 200,000 Ohio Voters
Republican effort to The US Supreme Court has blocked attempts by the Republican Party to challenge the right of 200,000 new voters to cast their ballots in Ohio. An appeal court had previously backed a complaint brought by the party, which argued that the voters' details did not match federal records.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Ex DOJ Voting Rights Chief: Ex-Voting Rights Chief: ACORN Probe Sign Of DOJ Politicization
"It's Going to Take a Long Time to Cleanse" Department" "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue." "That's really not the proper role for the DOJ, and why their policies counsel otherwise.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Secret Service investigating "Kill Him" threat from Palin rally
(1 comments) will make arrest if perp identified

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Pakistani, Chinese presidents meet in Beijing
"China is the future of the world. A strong China means a strong Pakistan."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Lone Ranger: Is Sarah Palin Playing with Fire? - SPIEGEL ONLINE
Obama misses the point when he denies that McCain can "in any way" be compared to George Wallace. It was Wallace's stirring up and tolerance of the mob mentality that remains his legacy. Lewis only wanted to warn McCain and Palin that they, too, run the risk of "playing with fire, and, if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Who Runs the McCain Campaign; Or Why Aren't We Talking About McCain/Lieberman "˜08? : Rolling Stone
(1 comments) Stop me if you've heard this before: "They" didn't let John McCain pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Who is the "they" that has veto power over John McCain? Isn't this his campaign? Isn't he running for the highest executive office in the land. Isn't he aiming to be "the decider" part deux? How is it possible that John McCain isn't even the decider in his own campaign?

Monday, October 13, 2008
Is Drudge Priming a McCain "Reboot" Narrative?
Something is a little bit funny when Matt Drudge is treating 1-2 point gains for McCain in the Rasmussen and Zogby tracking polls as "BREAKING" news. Naturally, Drudge ignores other results like the just-released ABC/WaPo poll that show Obama continuing to gain ground. Drudge has a nose for news, and he knows that a one-point gain in a tracking poll is not news -- unless someone desperately wants it to be.

Monday, October 13, 2008
McCain was not tortured during captivity in North Vietnam, PoW guard claims
(1 comments) The chief prison guard of the jail in which he was held has claimed, "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."

Friday, October 10, 2008
GM, Chrysler hold merger talks
General Motors has held discussions about acquiring Chrysler, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Petraeus Talk Bolsters Obama
While McCain Backs Petraeus, General Sounds Notes That Harmonize With Democratic Nominee. ...waded into areas of dispute between Obama and McCain involving Afghanistan, negotiating with adversaries and other recent campaign controversies. Each time, the general either lent tacit support to Obama or denied tacit support to McCain.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Palin's approach to big oil: more mainstream than mavericky
Ever since Gov. Sarah Palin joined John McCain, the ticket has touted Palin's in-your-face relationships with oil and gas companies. But a review of the Palin administration's record on big oil shows a stance that's in many ways less maverick than mainstream.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
San Francisco Bay Guardian Endorses Cindy Sheehan
Major newspaper endorses Sheehan

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Palin As the Treasonous Trojan Horse for the Secessionist Alaska Independence Party
(2 comments) Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband have been courting the A.I.P. (Alaskan Independence Party), a treasonous Anti-American group who's founder up to his death in 1993 cursed the American Flag. This is not being taken out of context either. This is not based on sound bites. You have to ask yourself: If someone knows what this groups intentions are before joining or having close associations with them, what do they think of them?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Jerome Corsi, Obama Smear Author, Detained In Kenya
Slime artist Corsi goes to a nation where Obama is beloved and they basically throw the creep out.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Twitter: An Antidote to Election Day Voting Problems?
We believe that Twitter can be instrumental in this election in correcting for some of the information imbalances that plagues American elections... there is an intersection of heavy voting registration (coinciding with large number of young voters) in battleground precincts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina Ohio and Colorado where Twitter can best be put to use to direct Tweeters to specific information or actions...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Palins' un-American activities
"My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand." Sarah Palin's problem is the quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. "Keep up the good work..."

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Man shot three times by gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt
(2 comments) a man in London was shot for wearing an "I Believe" tee shirt with a picture of Obama on it.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Andrew Sullivan on the debate: This Was a Mauling
(3 comments) a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. ...simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survive this.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Half of mammals 'in decline', says extinction Red List
Nearly 40 percent of 44,838 species catalogued are listed as "threatened" with extinction, with 3,000 of them classified as "critically endangered," meaning they face a very high probability of dying out.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
McCain gives up on Michigan in a major retreat
Republican presidential candidate John McCain conceded battleground Michigan to the Democrats on Thursday, GOP officials said, a major retreat as he struggles to regain his footing in a campaign increasingly dominated by economic issues. These officials said McCain was pulling staff and advertising out of the economically distressed Midwestern state. He also canceled a visit slated for next week.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Obama surges in key swing states
(1 comments) In the last 20 days, Sen. Barack Obama has gone from seven points down to eight points up in FL, while widening his leads to eight points in OH and 15 points in PA," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement. "Sen. McCain has his work cut out for him if he is to win the presidency and there does not appear to be a role model for such a comeback in the last half century

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Even in Alaska, Palin's popularity is taking a tumble
Palins support has dropped precipitously and she is no longer the most popular governor in America.

Monday, September 29, 2008
John McCain's fans are flipping as he flops
Perhaps most unexpected is the way that conservatives have begun to serve John McCain his head on a plate.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Kucinich says not enough votes for bailout
"I will tell you right now I don't know if they have votes," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). "If the votes were there, this would be on the floor. The votes aren't there."

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Hollywood great Paul Newman dies at the age of 83
(4 comments) Paul Newman, one of Hollywood's greats, Oscar winner and possessor of quintessential movie-star looks, has died at the age of 83 after a long battle against cancer.

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Did Palin lie about 'trade missions' with Russia?
In an interview with Katie Couric, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin cited "trade missions" with Russia as her one tangible piece of foreign policy experience. What trade missions? Research doesn't show a single Alaska-Russia trade mission since former Democratic governor Tony Knowles visited Siberia in 1997, when Palin was running Wasilla, according to Salon.com.

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Subpoenaed Palin aides could be found in contempt
Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg, a Palin appointee, filed a lawsuit late Thursday asking the courts to declare the subpoenas invalid so the state employees would not be punished for ignoring them.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Sen. Coburn Blocked Efforts to Fix Mortgage Problems Last Year Because of $1.6 billion Cost
OEN article reported, in November 2007, that Freddie Mac was in deep trouble and one lone senator blocked passage of legislation to help. Too bad Coburn's not up for re-election until 2010

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Google offers $10M for ideas that can 'change the world'
(2 comments) Google Inc. unveiled a $10 million effort to implement ideas that can "change the world by helping as many people as possible." As part of the Project 10^100 (pronounced Project 10 to the 100th), Google plans to ask its users to submit ideas until Oct. 20 for ways to improve people's lives. Google will choose what it feels are the 100 best ideas and then allow its users to vote on which of them should be funded.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Following the Bailout Hearing
(1 comments) excellent observations and quotes from senators-- The Republicans are standing up opposing Bush. They could be the ones who save america from this poisonous solution.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire
emocrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
House votes to rein in credit-card fees, interest rates
Over the objection of the White House, the House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed legislation to curb what its sponsors regard as abuses and unfair practices in the credit-card industry.

Monday, September 22, 2008
Potentially Largest Cut Diamond Found
could be worth tens of millions

Monday, September 22, 2008
Speaking of OY! John McCain's chief of staff is GAY!!!! "" Political Byline
(2 comments) Over the past month I've been contacted by three different individuals (two of them members of the Log Cabin Republicans) claiming that McCain's Senate chief of staff, Mark Buse, is gay.

Monday, September 22, 2008
Evangelical leader smacks McCain for lack of "˜principle'
Republican Richard Cizik is one of the country's most powerful and outspoken Christian evangelical leaders says, ""I thought John McCain was a principled person," Cizik says. "But John McCain has backed off, not just on climate change but on torture and a sensible tax policy - in other words, he's not the John McCain of 2000. ... He seems to be waffling on issue after issue."

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Krugman on Bailout: No Deal
(1 comments) I hate to say this, but looking at the plan as leaked, I have to say no deal. Not unless Treasury explains, very clearly, why this is supposed to work, other than through having taxpayers pay premium prices for lousy assets. As I posted earlier today, it seems all too likely that a “fair price” [...]

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Josh Marshall: Put on the Brakes (on the Bailout)
(1 comments) the more I look at this plan, the more wrongheaded it seems. But if I'm understanding this deal, the taxpayers are going to pony up close to a trillion dollars to take bad debts off the hands of financial institutions who were foolish enough to make the deals in the first place. And in exchange, I think the tax payers get nothing?

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle
Paulson's rescue plan is all sugar for the villains, lasting pain for the rest of us. Don't let Wall Street get away with this without enacting significant reform.

Sunday, September 21, 2008
McCain Would Banish Political Office Rove Filled
(1 comments) "I would move the political office out of the White House and into the Republican National Committee," McCain said on CBS' "60 Minutes." "We've gotta have a White House that is without politics."

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Pakistan Flew Resupply Missions for Taliban During Fierce Battle With the US
ews from the battlefields in Afghanistan. Apparently, a few Marine officers have noted and reported that Pakistani helicopters are running resupply missions for Taliban fighters inside Afghanistan.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Clay Shirky Busts The Myth Of Information Overload At Web 2.0 Expo - Digital Life Blog - InformationWeek
Clay Shirky wrote the book, Here Comes Everybody, which I really enjoyed. He's a cutting edge thinker on the ways of the web and worth a read or three.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Trillion Dollar Bailout; But Will It Work?
Some are skeptical of the Treasury plan, despite wide agreement on the need for a broad intervention. Paulson and Bernanke are going to scoop up a trillion in bad loans. Which Banks will sell them at a better price than they would have dumped them for, thus giving them a "gift?" And who'll decide which banks get sweet deals? Congress must reject Bush request for $700+ billion

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Firedoglake: Hank Paulson's Raid on the Treasury
The more I look at the Paulson "plan" the more I come to the conclusion it's just an old fashioned stickup. A scam. The Republicans know they have only a few more months, and this is their last raid on the treasury. Republicans created this crisis, and in the way of scam artists everywhere now that there's a crisis they're demanding money and power to fix their own mistakes.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Federal billions for Wall Street will handcuff next president
(1 comments) The next president will take office in January with little hope of getting his pet programs enacted quickly, if at all, because of already-massive budget deficits likely to balloon even further from the hundreds of billions expected to be used to bail out Wall Street.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Palin's office now run by McCain campaign
(1 comments) In an angry editorial, the Anchorage Daily News accuses Gov. Sarah Palin of surrendering her office to operatives of the McCain presidential campaign. The newspaper notes that it was a McCain press aide who announced that Todd Palin wouldn't testify in 'troopergate' and that the governor's state-paid press aide wasn't even informed when the campaign held a news conference Monday on 'troopergate.'

Friday, September 19, 2008
Palin nixed from Iran rally
Sarah Palin has been uninvited from attending a rally against Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week in New York, one day after Hillary Clinton nixed her appearance at the event because the Alaska governor was slated to be there.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Hillary Clinton: Blocking Care for Women
Last month, the Bush admin launched the latest salvo in its 8-year campaign to undermine women’s rights and women’s health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Dept of Health & Human Services that would ... require that any health care entity that receives federal financing... certify that none of its employees are required to assist with medical services they find objectionable

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout; Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up
(1 comments) Emergency Loan Effectively Gives Government Control of Insurer; Historic Move Would Cap 10 Days That Reshaped U.S. Finance. The U.S. government seized control of American International Group Inc. -- one of the world's biggest insurers -- in an $85 billion deal that signaled the intensity of its concerns about the danger a collapse could pose to the financial system.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Sarah Palin's Personal E-Mail Account Hacked
Sarah's Yahoo account was hacked. Problem is, what was she doing using a Yahoo account for official govt business-- That's what we can expect from this extremist who will make Cheney's secrecy look tame.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Israeli Exit polls show clear victory for Livni - First Female Israeli Leader in Over 30 Years
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won yesterday's Kadima primary, according to exit polls from all three television networks. Livni will now try to form a government as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert steps down amid the corruption investigations against him. According to the polls, Livni will not need a second-round runoff; Livni beat Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz 49 percent to 37 percent

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A Dissenting Voice as the Genome Is Sifted to Fight Disease
this prodigious labor has produced just a handful of genes that account for very little of the overall genetic risk. “After doing comprehensive studies for common diseases, we can explain only a few percent of the genetic component of most of these traits” we have cracked open the human genome and can look at the entire complement of common genetic variants, and what do we find? Almost nothing. That is beyond belief

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin Appointed Middle-School Coach to Board of Game
Alaska's Board of Game is a seven-member body that meets throughout the year for purposes of "conservation and development of game resources." Hunting is an important part of the local culture and attracts tourists. You'd think Palin would find the most qualified people to sit on that board. In Palin's judgment, one of the most qualified people she could find was her retired middle-school basketball coach, Lewis D. Bradley.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
WaPo's Richard Cohen: The Ugly New McCain
(1 comments) McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. His opportunistic & irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
McCain Neuters His Press
a bit of Stockholm Syndrome has developed within the McCain press corps, a sense of awe at how deftly and brazenly the McCain campaign has rendered them useless and plugged its ears to their investigations.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
What illegal "things" was the government doing in 2001-2004?
reporter Barton Gellman's new book on the Cheney Vice Presidency provides still more details on the intense confrontation in March, 2004 between the Bush Justice Department and the Cheney-led White House over the DOJ's refusal to certify the legality of the NSA's domestic spying activities.

Monday, September 15, 2008
A Game Where Resources Dwindle and Partners Shift
In this sweeping, often audacious survey of contemporary geopolitics, Parag Khanna argues that the United States, the European Union and China are imperial powers busy reshaping the globe to suit their interests. Among the superpowers, the big loser could be the United States, which Mr. Khanna describes in contemptuous terms. His admiration for the European Union,

Monday, September 15, 2008
Pink Floyd member Richard Wright dies at age 65
The band released a series of commercially and critically successful albums including 1973's "Dark Side of the Moon," which has sold more than 40 million copies. Wright wrote "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Us and Them" for that album, and later worked on the group's epic compositions such as "Atom Heart Mother," "Echoes" and "Shine on You Crazy Diamond."

Monday, September 15, 2008
Google To Link Green Data Navy at Sea
The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km) offshore. The "water-based data centres" would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google's costs. Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which are sited across the world

Monday, September 15, 2008
Stopping At Nothing To Win
In May 2006, after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for the sake of winning. "I don't want it that badly," McCain answered. "I will continue to do what is right. . . . If that means I can't get the Republican nomination, fine. I've had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil." He was right.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Obama Strategy: Wait for McCain-Palin to Implode?
either the campaign is just organically careful and unwilling to take chances at this point or they have a stealthy double-reverse psychology type of plan. While I fear the former, I'm hoping it's the latter and it goes something like this (follow along).

Saturday, September 13, 2008
McCain campaign systematically targets the news media
Ever since McCain chose Palin as his running mate, his campaign has waged an intensive assault on the news media. Capitalizing on errors, rumors and perceived sexism in the frenzied first round of reporting on Palin, the McCain campaign has taken advantage of a changing media landscape, grouping together blogs and supermarket tabloids with mainstream newspapers and television to tar the media as one corrupt monolith

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Thank God for Barbara Walters?
(1 comments) The View made the front page of the New York Times website. Why? Because unlike so many other mainstream journalists right now, Barbara Walters actually did her job yesterday. John McCain appeared on her show Friday morning in an obvious atempt to pander to its audience of mostly middle aged, white women. Walters took McCain to task. To say that McCain was floundering would be a tremendous understatement.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Obama Press Secretary: sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history
and McCain's people hit back, accusing Obama of campaigning during Hurricane Ike. Hello!! Some people can multi-task.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Barack Obama under fire for ignoring advice on how to beat John McCain
senators, governors and union leaders with experience winning hard-fought races in swing states have been bombarding Obamas campaign HQ with telephone calls offering advice. But many of those calls have not been returned. A senior Democratic strategist, who has played a prominent role in two presidential campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph: "These guys are on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the hi

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Paul Theroux on why moose hunting is now seen as a possible Republican vote-getter
(1 comments) The killing of a moose is in Thoreau's view always a tragedy. He witnessed one being shot, and "nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose".

Friday, September 12, 2008
Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska
(3 comments) Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

Friday, September 12, 2008
Paul Krugman: Blizzard of Lies
(1 comments) Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere? These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Oil brokers sex scandal may affect drilling debate
A scandal involving sex, drugs and - uh, offshore oil drilling. It's a strange mix, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for those in Congress pressing to expand oil and gas development off America's beaches while trying to stave off an election-year rush by Democrats to impose new taxes and royalties on the oil industry. An Interior Department investigation describes a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity...

Thursday, September 11, 2008
No victory in Iraq says Petraeus
(1 comments) When asked if US troops could withdraw from Iraqi cities by the middle of next year, he said that would be "doable".

Thursday, September 11, 2008
McCain saysSarah Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the USA."
asked about her national security credentials, he says Oil. Asked about ability to deal with Islamic Terrorism, he answers OIL.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Did McCain Tamper with the Drug Enforcement Agency to Protect His Career?
A whistleblower is coming forth against John and Cindy McCain, and the picture he is painting is not a pretty one. it appears that McCain used his Senate staff and resources to cover up Cindy's drug use, and potentially to prevent the Drug Enforcement Agency from investigating his wife's theft of illegal prescription drugs.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women
Before the Democratic National Convention in late August, Obama held an 8-point lead among white women voters, 50 percent to 42 percent, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll. After the Republican convention in early September, McCain was ahead by 12 points among white women, 53 percent to 41 percent, that survey found.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
No Consensus on Who Was Behind Sept 11-Global Poll
(2 comments) On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator. One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Paul says he turned down appeal to endorse McCain
Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas lawmaker who attracted a devoted following in the GOP primaries, said Wednesday he rejected an appeal to endorse John McCain's presidential bid.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Saving Fannie and Freddie was nationalisation pure and simple
(1 comments) It's the free-marketeers who are to blame but, by not seizing the moment, it's the left that could well end up carrying the can

Monday, September 8, 2008
MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat
(3 comments) MSNBC is Pulling Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from their election anchor chairs, leaving David Gregory to be the sole anchor of MSNBC’s coverage of the presidential debates and election night.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Ban on Political Endorsements by Pastors Targeted
(1 comments) Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules. The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
How not to rescue the Big Three
Detroit is no more deserving than many other US industries – textiles, furniture, toys – that have failed to compete well against foreign companies. But if Congress does decide to risk money on the US automakers – and overcome President Bush's opposition – it ought to at least demand big changes from the Big Three and their unions.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
McCain's history of hot temper raises concerns
At age 2, McCain's tantrums were so intense that he'd hold his breath for a few minutes and pass out. His parents would dunk him in cold water to "cure" him, he wrote in his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."

Friday, September 5, 2008
Sarah Palin's Strange eBay Exaggeration
Why would she lie when she knows she'll get caught. Habit?

Friday, September 5, 2008
Abramoff sentenced to 4 years in prison
Abramoff could have received up to 11 years in prison, but Judge Ellen Huvelle decided he deserved a more lenient sentence for helping the Justice Department convict a congressman and nine others. But Huvelle rejected calls from prosecutors to hand down an even lower sentence.

Friday, September 5, 2008
Convention Police Bust the Press
(1 comments) What was different in St. Paul was that the police seemed especially intent on singling out independent journalists and activists covering the Republican convention for the Internet and other alternative forms of media.

Friday, September 5, 2008
US Govt to Take Control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
A plan would replace the leaders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and virtually wipe out their shareholders but let them continue to work with the government standing behind their debt. Bush goes for even BIGGER government

Friday, September 5, 2008
Mean Old Party
I was tempted to call Sarah Palin the queen of mean, but that might be sexist (RIP, Leona Helmsley). It would also imply that she was the only one onstage in St. Paul, Minn., this week with a case of the twitchy nasties.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Stalling the Troopergate investigation?
A key witness in the Alaska State Senate Ethics investigation of Gov. Palin has backed out of testifying today, the state senator in charge of the investigation tells NBC News. The senator -- Democrat Hollis French -- says Frank Bailey's decision not to testify will slow down the "Troopergate" investigation into the current candidate.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Advisers craft , coach Palin's introduction
VP pick likely to focus on policy expertise rather than biography or gender

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
McCain Camp Battles National Enquirer Over Alleged Palin Affair
John McCain's presidential campaign is threatening a lawsuit against the National Enquirer over a print edition story the tabloid ran today alleging that Gov. Sarah Palin has had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Angry Amateurs-- McCain Camp's War Against the Press
The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
McCain Team Whines, Lashes Out Because Media is Not Serving Them
McCain's 'little rove' Steve Schmidt is lashing out at the media for discussing Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol's out of wedlock pregnancy. Meanwhile, McCain has been locked down and his "Straight Talk Express" talks to reporters and open-ended press conferences have been eliminated... ostensibly to prevent further gaffes, which McCain seems to do constantly.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Jason Leopold: Documents Suggest Palin Obsessed Over Retaliating Against Ex-Brother-in-Law
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate, filed several formal complaints against her ex-brother-in-law, an Alaskan state trooper, over the course of three years alleging he engaged in widespread illegal behavior while on duty that relied heavily on second-hand information, some of which was later determined to be suspect and unverifiable, according to a review of documents obtained

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The Palin Choice: Democrats Need to Shine a Light on the Shared Anti-democratic Ideology of McCain and Palin, by George
Palin's job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating political discourse.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The "Eagleton Scenario"-- If McCain Drops Palin
(2 comments) Could Sarah Palin become the first running mate since Thomas Eagleton in 1972 to be dropped from a major-party ticket? Joshua Green offers a look at how such a scenario would unfold.

Monday, September 1, 2008
Where Carp Feed, and Ducks Walk Across Their Backs
(2 comments) A 70-year-old practice of throwing bread to feed the carp in Pymatuning Lake, Penn., may soon come to an end.

Monday, September 1, 2008
Palin's unmarried daughter is pregnant
(6 comments) "Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned," the Palins said in the statement. "As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support."

Sunday, August 31, 2008
poll: Undecideds Don't Like The Palin Pick
59% of undecideds say Palin unready to be president. 69% say she is conservative, not moderate.

Friday, August 29, 2008
New giant clam species discovered
The species, found in the Red Sea, may now be critically endangered, researchers report. Any guesses how many gastronomes this news will lead to buying the clams for eating, in spite of their being endangered?

Friday, August 29, 2008
Is Sarah Palin the first Pentecostal to make it onto a major political ticket?
rapture, speaking in tongues, anti-science, creationism... just lovely

Thursday, August 28, 2008
Some Clinton Donors Are Contributing to McCain
(1 comments) More than 85 of Clinton's fundraisers, including Donald Trump, Univision chief executive Joseph Uva, cable mogul Charles Dolan, philanthropist Norma Hess and one of Florida's biggest lobbyists appear to be skipping Barack Obama when it comes to writing checks for the general election, according to an ABCNews.com review of campaign finance records.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Obama Campaign Wages Fight Against Swiftboat Group’s Ads
(3 comments) Senator Obama’s campaign is waging a forceful campaign against a new conservative group running ads linking him to the 1960s radical William Ayers Jr.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Brazil set for Indigenous Indian land ruling
Brazil's Supreme Court is preparing to deliver a landmark decision on the rights of indigenous people. The court has been asked to rule on whether an indigenous reservation known as Raposa Serra do Sol can remain a single unbroken territory. Indian leaders believe the case will set a crucial precedent regarding the protection of their rights and land.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
John NIchols: The Right Speech -- For Clinton and Obama
Hillary Clinton succeeded in backing Barack Obama while making herself an even more essential player in the party.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
New Space tTelescope map shows the sky as if viewed through gamma-ray glasses
During its first 95 hours of operation, the telescope generated a gamma-ray map of the sky similar to the one obtained by Nasa's now-defunct Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, which took years of observations to produce. The Fermi telescope has now carried out its "first light" observations The gamma-ray map of the sky from the LAT's "first light" observations shows the glowing gas of the Milky Way, blinking pulsars, and...

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Debra Bartoshevich Betrays Women in Support of Choice by Stating that McCain is Not for Overturning Roe V. Wade When He
Debra Bartoshevich is a former Clinton delegate who John McCain is now featuring in an ad. She says, in he ad, she's supporting McCain. This article pulls some background on her together.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monkeys experience joy of giving, too, study finds
(2 comments) unlike rightwingers. It appears the evolutionary tree is a bit twisted when it comes to conservatives. They are lower on it than monkeys.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party : Rolling Stone
A president driven by ideology. A Congress rife with corruption. A leading scholar examines the radicals who hijacked the Republican party.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Why the GOP has a crush on Hillary
Just a minute ago, the Republicans wanted to peel Hillary Clinton's skin with a butter knife and a smile and reach for lemon and salt. But now they're throwing their arms around her as if she's the little sister who needs protection from Barack the bully. They love Hillary so much. But they love those so-called disaffected Clinton Democratic votes even more.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Co-author of 100 Things To Do Before You Die dies at 47
(3 comments) get that bucket list written already!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Bloggers at Democratic convention plant their stake |
Five hundred strong, Netroots workers in the Big Tent near Denver's Pepsi Center gain camaraderie - and affirmation.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Conyers Praises Court Order Denying Stay of Subpoena Ruling - Nancy Pelosi | News from Presidential Candidates, the Hous
(1 comments) Today, United States District Judge John Bates denied the Administration's request for a stay of his July 31 ruling that no White House official is immune from Congressional subpoena. The effect of the denial of the stay is that Harriet Miers must appear and testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding her role in the politicization of the Department of Justice, including the firing of U.S. Attorneys in 2006.

Sunday, August 24, 2008
Economist sees new, uncertain stage for financial crisis
(1 comments) Losses expected to double, while Fed remains under microscope. The financial crisis has entered a new phase and will likely bring total credit losses above $1 trillion, according to a leading academic who has been studying the turmoil since its beginning a year ago.

Sunday, August 24, 2008
Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes | washingtonpost.com
A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges. The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years

Saturday, August 23, 2008
Associated Press (AP) Proves, AGAIN, they are Right Wing, Partisan Media
(1 comments) article attacks Obama: Title: Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence opening text: In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness - inexperience in office and on foreign policy - rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.

Friday, August 22, 2008
Smears and Slurs without Legal Consequences: How the Law Protects Jerome Corsi's Malicious Attacks on Barack Obama
(1 comments) Jerome Corsi is a right-wing hatchet-man, a very nasty fellow who makes his living hurling false claims and charges at public figures. Corsi gets away with it only because he can hide behind a body of law that protects lies and insults on the assumption that they will be corrected in the marketplace of public debate.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Patrick Buchanan: Who started Cold War II?
The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO. If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks
free digital textbooks are starting to take off. "Publishers have broken an implicit contract with academics, in which we gave our time and they weren't too greedy," Free digital text author McAfee wrote on the web page for his book. McAfee said many publishers, going for the lowest common denominator, were making some books too simple.

Monday, August 18, 2008
Musharraf to Resign as President of Pakistan
Under Pakistani law, the chairman of the Senate will become the de facto head of state until party elections for a new president can be held. The current Senate chairman, Mohammedmian Soomro, 57, a member of Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, was governor of the southern province of Sindh from 2000 to 2002 before he was later elected to the Senate in February 2003. A former banker...

Monday, August 18, 2008
Why Obama Lost and McCain Won Saturday Night's Forum
(1 comments) It was a cringe-worthy two hours, both of which demonstrated why Republicans, despite all their liabilities, win national elections. While the Democrat is loquaciously appealing to reason, the other guy is busy with concise pandering and the amputation of logic.

Monday, August 18, 2008
U.S. Not Ready for Georgia-Style Computer Attacks
While Internet attacks continue in Georgia, security experts say the U.S. is not prepared for similar attacks that could steal confidential data and wreak havoc on U.S. computer systems. National intelligence officials earlier this year told a Senate committee that unlike the U.S. military, the federal government and private sector are not prepared for cyber attacks and pointed to China and Russia as threats to consider.

Monday, August 18, 2008
PEW Study: Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources
Net Newsers are younger, Integrators are older, Traditionalists are oldest, less income and less education

Saturday, August 16, 2008
Zogby Poll: Majority Want Libertarian Bob Barr Included in Presidential Debates
Majority of Independents - 59% - also favor inclusion of Ralph Nader in debates this fall. More than half of likely voters nationwide - 55% - want Republican-turned-Libertarian Bob Barr to participate in presidential debates this fall, while nearly half - 46% - said they think Ralph Nader should be allowed into the on-stage fray, the latest Zogby Interactive polling shows.

Saturday, August 16, 2008
Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely
As it turns out, you are one fascinating SOB, and people need to know what you're doing. You can almost feel the yearning. What are you doing? You already have a phone, an email account, a blog-but what about the moments too small to blog? (Snacking on pretzels.) Too insignificant to email? They're happening every second! How can you share the moments between the moments worthy of note? Enter Twitter.

Saturday, August 16, 2008
The October Surprise Shouldn't Come as One
(1 comments) We would all actually be safer if McCain had a better chance of winning. If the odds were more even, then Cheney's people might not feel compelled to risk everything on a fourth quarter Hail Mary pass that will so destabilize the world and petrify undecided voters that they will experience a last-minute conversion to McCain. What will it be? A nod to Israel to bomb Iran? An American-engineered coup in Pakistan?

Saturday, August 16, 2008
McCain alarms base with abortion comment
McCain's comments Wednesday to the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge's pro-abortion rights views wouldn't necessarily rule him out quickly found their way into the in-boxes of Christian conservatives. For those who have been anxiously awaiting McCain's pick as a signal of his ideological intentions, there was deep concern that their worst fears about the Arizona senator may be realized.

Saturday, August 16, 2008
McClatchy: Did Washington waste millions on faulty voting machines?
(3 comments) Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that have gone to upgrade the nation's voting machines since 2003 were used to purchase touch-screen systems that many states are now scrapping because of concerns about their security and reliability. Optical scanning equipment is the preferred replacement because it leaves a paper audit trail in the evnt of a recount.

Saturday, August 16, 2008
Harrassed Anti Bush protesters get $50,000 state settlement
State records show that a $50,000 judgment has been awarded to two retired school teachers who were strip-searched during a 2004 campaign stop by President Bush.

Friday, August 15, 2008
JoeTrippi: "Big Trouble in Little Havana," Miami GOP seats being seriously challenged for the first time in 20 years
formerly long safe GOP seats no longer are. (picked up from trippi's twitter.)

Friday, August 15, 2008
Even the Right Gets it Right on Swiftboat author, Obama Attacking Author Jerome Corsi
you have to give them credit for calling a piece of * dirtball what he is.

Friday, August 15, 2008
Neocon flap highlights Jewish divide
A mushrooming media controversy pitting neoconservatives against a prominent Jewish-American political commentator could mark a new stage in the growing battle over who speaks for the U.S. Jewish community on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the Middle East.

Friday, August 15, 2008
Top CEOs give 10 times more to McCain than to Obama
The top executives of America's biggest companies are more willing to open their wallets for John McCain than his Democratic rival, donating 10 times as much to the Arizona senator's campaign as to Barack Obama's. Obama's campaign seized on the findings of The Hill's review of campaign finance records to suggest that the gap was due to "special favors" McCain has given corporations.

Friday, August 15, 2008
FCC decision against Comcast lays blueprint for Internet battle
(1 comments) The agency's move was the first time it waded into the complex "net neutrality" debate - the push for open, unrestricted access to broadband networks - by directly acting against a cable provider. It could set a precedent for future penalties and provide the legal framework for legislation from Capitol Hill.

Thursday, August 14, 2008
Troops Deployed Abroad Give 6:1 to Obama, 4: 1 to Ron Paul
(1 comments) According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Thursday, August 14, 2008
Pelosi warns Lieberman for undercutting Obama
(2 comments) Nancy Pelosi blasted Sen. Joe Lieberman on Wednesday for making what she called "totally irresponsible" remarks about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and warned that the Senate might retaliate by revoking Lieberman's committee chairmanship.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Obama's Boomer Strength
(5 comments) Not only is Obama getting the best of McCain with under 40's, but he's also beating the GOP candidate with Boomers under 60. McCain has the edge with over 60's

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
One Third of New Owners Owe More Than House Is Worth
(1 comments) almost one-third of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last five years now owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, according to Zillow.com, an Internet provider of home valuations. Second-quarter home prices fell 9.9 percent from a year earlier, giving 29 percent of owners negative equity,

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Justice Staffers Won't Be Prosecuted For Law-Breaking
(1 comments) Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday said former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Georgia's volatile risk-taker has gone over the brink
Lots of angles and perspectives before you figure out who the good and bad guys are.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum
(1 comments) Inflatable artwork blown from moorings and brings down power line

Monday, August 11, 2008
Russian oligarch 'invader' pays record $750 million for Riviera villa
(1 comments) Russian excess is feeding discontent among poorer people. Pierrette, a housekeeper for one Russian, said: "I attended a party where the guests had fun throwing burning €500 notes into the air while everyone split their sides laughing. The domestic staff were later told to collect the ashes. It was sickening."

Monday, August 11, 2008
Rice: Israel can decide for itself on Iran
(3 comments) "We don't say yes or no to Israeli military operations. Israel is a sovereign country," she said in response to a question from The Politico Web site as to whether she was concerned that America would be blamed in the case of an IDF attack on the Islamic Republic.

Monday, August 11, 2008
Chris Wallace Exposes McCain Lies and Third Bush Term (Warning: Graphic Acts of Journalism Inside)
In his first stunning act of journalism, this morning Chris Wallace called out the McCain campaign on their latest but most egregious (and potentially effective) lies. He began his interview of Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, by playing McCain's scandalously false commercial, which accuses Obama of seeking to raise taxes on the middle class. Of course, Obama's proposed tax cuts for the middle class...

Monday, August 11, 2008
Leaked McCain Memo: Paint Obama As A "Job Killing Machine"
(1 comments) McCain campaign will paint Obama as being "aligned with trial lawyers" and "unions (card check, trade, education reform)," and push the frame that he "raises taxes" and "will kill jobs." In contrast, McCain will be positioned as a bold leader on economic matters, someone who has a "record of taking on corporate interests" and will "fight speculation driving up prices of oil and food" as well as "the lawsuit culture."

Monday, August 11, 2008
Jane Smiley: My Edwards Diary, Day Two
Going out and getting stupidly laid and then coming home and reconciling with the wife is not the same as going out, getting stupidly laid, divorcing the crippled wife and marrying the pretty young thing.

Sunday, August 10, 2008
Michael Moore gives the Democratic party some hints on how they might lose the US elections again
(1 comments) So you would think, with more than 200 million eligible voters, the Dems would be cleaning up, election after election. Obviously not. The Democrats appear to be professional losers. They are so pathetic in their ability to win elections, they even lose when they win! Al Gore won the 2000 election, but for some strange reason he didn't become the president of the United States.

Sunday, August 10, 2008
Old media dethroned
When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism. From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media.

Sunday, August 10, 2008
Platform Fight: Activists Win Commitment to Guaranteed Health Care For All Americans
What is significant about the platform committee's endorsement of language calling for guaranteed health care for all is that the statement goes a good deal further than the Obama campaign would have preferred. A clear example of the effectiveness of progressive activism, spearheaded by PDA and other Single Payer Universal Health Care advocacy orgs.

Sunday, August 10, 2008
At Least 100 Killed in Pakistan Tribal Region
(1 comments) Pakistani forces bombed dozens of houses in the Bajaur tribal region near the Afghan border Sunday, officials and witnesses said, amid reports that days of clashes have killed at least 100 insurgents and nine paramilitary troops. This is where OEN correspondent Muhammad Khurshid lives. We're hoping he's okay.

Saturday, August 9, 2008
John Edwards' statement
I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then. I am and have been willing to take any test necessary to establish the fact that I am not the father of any baby,

Saturday, August 9, 2008
Seats for Obama's Denver speech snapped up in a day
campaign receives more than 60,000 applications in 24 hours.

Friday, August 8, 2008
John Edwards Affair With Rielle Hunter: Will Admit Infidelity On ABC Tonight
(18 comments) John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today. In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Friday, August 8, 2008
Lina Newhouser, CommonDreams.org Co-Founder, 1951-2008
She co-founded commondreams.org with her husband, Craig Brown

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Judge OKs 'free speech zones' at upcoming Democratic National Convention
(1 comments) Protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver can be restricted to fenced-in areas, federal judge ruled on Wednesday, saying that security needs outweighed curbs on their rights. A dozen groups who intend to protest at the August convention sued the U.S. Secret Service and the city of Denver over plans to confine their activities to a parade route and fenced-in zone...

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Did Queens couple really give $61,600 to McCain, GOP?
Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Monday, August 4, 2008
Morgan Freeman injured in car accident
one of the best actors alive has been injured in an accident in which the vehicle rolled several times and then down into a ditch.

Monday, August 4, 2008
Mentally Impaired Chronically Ill Man faces foreclosure because he didn't pay parking fine
(1 comments) An unresponded to $50 fine is costing a man diagnosed with psychological disorders that limit his "ability to understand, remember and carry out detailed instructions,", diabetes, respiratory disease and chronic pain is losing his house.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
New York Times 2Q profit drops 82 percent
Revenue dropped 6 percent to $741.9 million, missing the average Wall Street estimate for $754 million. Ad revenue slipped down 11 percent, hurt mostly by fewer classified ads. Chief Executive Janet Robinson says business was hurt by the "U.S. economic slowdown and secular forces playing out across the media industry."

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
GM, Ford On Verge of Bankruptcy
(2 comments) GM and Ford Motor Co., the two biggest U.S. automakers, have about a 46 percent chance of default within five years, according to Edward Altman, a finance professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. ''Both are in very serious shape and the markets reflect that,'' Altman, the creator of the Z-score mathematical formula that measures bankruptcy risk, said the model shows that these companies are on the verbe of bankruptcy

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
McCain on ABC; Not a Gaffe: A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Iraq
(1 comments) John McCain made a mistake this evening, which as far as I'm concerned, disqualifies him from being president. It's a real misunderstanding of what has happened in Iraq over the past year. If we are going to have an Iraq-centric war on terror policy, he should at least understand what he is talking about.

Monday, July 21, 2008
Why No Outrage?
(3 comments) Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street's damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace

Friday, July 18, 2008
Proposed George W. Bush Sewage Plant makes ballot
(4 comments) Finally, a fitting monument to Bush is planned by San Franciscans

Friday, July 18, 2008
Obama's Rashomonic Trip
Who he'll be visiting, what Obama, McCain and the pundits will be watching for on the trip

Friday, July 18, 2008
McCain Economic Adviser Gramm Quits Campaign
Phil Gramm, a top adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, is resigning from the role as campaign co-chairman after his comments that the United States had become a "nation of whiners" who constantly complain about the state of the economy.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk
(2 comments) Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there

Monday, July 14, 2008
Barack Obama NY Times Op-Ed: My Plan For Iraq
(4 comments) McCain's approach is is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war. Unlike McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in S. Korea

Monday, July 14, 2008
McCain's List Of 300 Economists Supporting his plan Filled With Skeptics
Many express reservations, some don't even support McCain Nevertheless, McCain again touted the support of the economists during a townhall event last night.

Monday, July 14, 2008
Obama Beats McCain 5 to 1 in Britain
Obama is overwhelmingly Britain's choice to be the next US president, five times more popular than his Republican rival, John McCain, a Guardian/ICM poll shows today. Carried out ahead of the Democratic candidate's visit to Britain next week, the poll reveals that 53% feel certain he would make the best president, with only 11% favouring McCain

Monday, July 14, 2008
Scientists plan to bring back rocks - and perhaps even life - from Mars
(3 comments) mission, which is proposed for launch between 2018 and 2023 and could cost up to $8bn, would require expertise and funding from both Nasa and the European Space Agency, as well other national space agencies. "If you can't bring a rock back you are not going to be able to bring people back... bringing samples back from Mars is absolutely essential if we are going to continue our Martian exploration program"

Monday, July 14, 2008
John McCain, Confessed Computer Illiterate, Learning to Go Online
McCain, who admitted in January that he is a computer "illiterate," now says he is "learning to get online." just the basics though. Imagine not getting the power of the net, not understanding how it works, how it is changing the world. Imagine if we were talking about economics. Oh. That's right, he confessed to being ignorant on that too, and has a "let em eat cake" kind of economic advisor who says all is wonderful

Saturday, July 12, 2008
Red Cross finds Bush administration guilty of war crimes
(1 comments) n a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday. The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.

Friday, July 11, 2008
French Discover Sarkozy Won Presidency the Same Way As Bush--
(2 comments) The wonders of E-voting technology seem to have acted magically different than non-evoting locations, helping to give Sarkozy his victory. When will elected officials take responsibility and stop enabling technology that can so easily endanger our democracy?

Friday, July 11, 2008
Michael Kinsley to Angry Hillaryites; Get Over It
In the case of Hillary Clinton's erstwhile supporters, all of these feelings seem overwrought to me. But there is no point in arguing about this, or at least not now. Now is the time to just get over it.

Friday, July 11, 2008
Robert Redford; If Obama loses, you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye",
(1 comments) ". Where my country is at the moment, I'm not confident of anything. I'm hopeful. "I think Obama is not tall on experience . . . but I believe he's a really good person. He's smart. And he does represent what the country needs most now, which is change."

Friday, July 11, 2008
Fascism's US Foothold: Alabama US Attorney denies any involvement in university editor's termination
This 'case is definitely about the first amendment,' says Harper's journalist The abrupt dismissal of a veteran University of Alabama employee who blogged about the firing of seven US Attorneys has added a bizarre new twist to allegations that the state's US Attorneys targeted political opponents for prosecution.

Friday, July 11, 2008
Investment banks' now blamed for spike in oil prices
Congress is zeroing in on a new alleged villain for today's record oil prices: investment banks, the same ones who've been instrumental in the housing meltdown. During two highly partisan hearings Thursday, Democratic lawmakers alleged that the lack of regulation for complex financial instruments is contributing to the oil price run-up, while Republicans defended the investment banks...

Friday, July 11, 2008
Army Sec Asks for Probe of Firing Of Woman Who Tried to Stop Blocking Media Coverage of Arlington Cemetary Funerals
(1 comments) After assuming her director position three months ago, Gina Gray discovered that cemetery officials were trying to impose new media restrictions on funerals of Iraq war dead, despite families of the fallen having granted permission for coverage. Gray believed the new restrictions were wrong and were not supported by Army regulations. First she was demoted, then, on June 27th, fired.

Thursday, July 10, 2008
The New Old Age: What I Wish I’d Done Differently
The four biggest mistakes I made while caring for my mother. Looking back on the last few years of my mother’s life, with 20/20 hindsight and the belated knowledge that came from four years of reporting about aging for The New York Times, my single biggest mistake was not finding a doctor with expertise in geriatrics to quarterback her care and attend to the quality of her life, not merely its length.

Thursday, July 10, 2008
China Jails Activists and Dissenters in Sweep Preparing for Olympics
China seems to think that visitors want more than clean streets and air-- that they want fascist repression, totalitarian bans of free speech and open communications. Will they also censor American and British reporting from China. Will the MSM even mention Chinese repression while reporting the glories of the Olympics. Expect little

Thursday, July 10, 2008
Fox News Shows It Can Go Lower and Sleazier-- Screwing Jesse Jackson
When there a break, between live interviews, the unwritten rules of journalism are clear. You don't record what the interviewee says off the air. It's supposed to be off the record. But when Jesse Jackson used that time to criticize Obama, saying he'd like to "cut his nuts out," Fox, the most disrespected, unbalanced news company, used the footage, embarassing Jackson and Obama. Fair and balanced? You decide.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Congress Ratings Hit Historic Low; Poll hits single digit low
(1 comments) Congress's rating by Rasmussen pollster had dropped to 9% with only 13% of Dems rating congress as good or better. Put that on the table Nancy, Harry, Stenny, Chuck and the Bluedogs who keep it deserving such low ratings.

Monday, July 7, 2008
Charlie Crist: don't get married just to be VP. If you are gay, just open the closet door already.
Some may tell you that Crist's engagement is a front, as it were, for his vice presidential ambitions. After all, the last VP who was a bachelor was Rufus King. King, like Crist, was reported to be a homosexual, though King lived for a long time with James Buchanan, our only bachelor president.

Monday, July 7, 2008
Church vote opens door to female bishops
In an emotional, sometimes bitter debate lasting more than seven hours, the General Synod voted against introducing separate structures and "superbishops", to oversee parishes opposed to women bishops, because they were seen as amounting to institutionalised discrimination.

Sunday, July 6, 2008
G-8 Climate Scorecard Puts U.S. In Last Place
The U.S. has done the least among the world's eight largest economies to address global warming, a study released Thursday found.

Saturday, July 5, 2008
Billboards Claim Rev. King Was Republican
(1 comments) A black Republican group has put up billboards in Florida and South Carolina saying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, a claim that black leaders say is ridiculous. The National Black Republican Association has paid for billboards showing an image of the civil rights leader and the words "Martin Luther King Jr. was REPUBLICAN."

Friday, July 4, 2008
The presidential election: White men can vote
Democrats' failure to take white men seriously is the main reason they keep losing presidential elections. The party captures liberal white men-typically prosperous professionals-but scores badly among businessmen and white male workers. If the Democrats paid more attention to "Bubba" (the white male rural voter), they could get a lock on the presidency for 30 years...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Entire town of Big Sur, Calif., evacuated for fire
california fires have gotten so bad, the whole town has been evacuated

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
US talk radio host Rush Limbaugh signs $400m contract - Telegraph
$100 Million signing bonus and $38 million a year for doing the Big stupid

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Feds may euthanize wild horses
(1 comments) Population in holding pens jumps in Nevada, elsewhere as adoptions dip

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Hersh: Cheney "˜Privately' Says He Prefers U.S. "" Not Israel "" Strike Iran Because "˜We'll Get Blamed Anyway'
(1 comments) HERSH: If Israel goes - I'll tell you what Cheney's says privately, and whether or not you, how I know this is, - what he says privately is, "we can't let Israel go because, first of all, they don't have the firepower, we do. We have much more firepower. And secondly, if they go, we'll be blamed anyway."

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Wesley Clark hits McCain: getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."
(3 comments) After saying, "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war," he added that these experiences in no way qualify McCain to be president in his view:

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Credit ripoff: How a $100 purchase turns into a $1,000 debt
It's hard to tell who the criminals are any more. Good chance if there's a bank involved...

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Bill Clinton: Barack Obama must 'kiss my ass' for support
(1 comments) former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

Saturday, June 28, 2008
Cindy McCain Millionaire Deadbeat? Pays Back Taxes on San Diego Condo FOUR YEARS LATE
She just paid taxes that she hadn't paid in four years, and still owes penalties.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Matt Stoller: The Money Laundering Operation at the Heart of the Democratic Party
Blue Dogs and Stenny Hoyer, channelling right wing corporate money, paying with support for right wing causes

Sunday, June 22, 2008
Haditha victims' kin outraged as Marines go free
residents of Haditha, after being told they could depend on U.S. justice, feel betrayed. "We put our hopes in the law and in the courts and one after another they are found innocent," said Yousef Aid Ahmed, the lone surviving brother in the family. "This is an organized crime."

Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tom Brokaw Will Take Over ‘Meet the Press’
volunteered to fill role through end of this election year

Sunday, June 22, 2008
Thomas Friedman; Mr. Bush, Lead or Leave
It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight.” It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is.

Sunday, June 22, 2008
Lander Finds Ice on Mars, Scientists Say
(1 comments) Scientists with the Phoenix Mars mission yesterday declared for certain that there is ice on the Red Planet, putting them an essential step closer to answering the question that has driven three decades of Mars exploration and centuries of Earth-bound speculation: Could there have been life there?

Saturday, June 21, 2008
Newsweek Poll: Obama Opens Up 15-Point Lead
(1 comments) 51 percent to 36%, with strongest support from women and under 40's. Only 22% identify themselves as Republican, 55% say they lean democrat to 36% leaning Republican. But remember, Michael Dukakis had a 54 to 38% lead over George H. W. Bush in 1988, which was totally upset.

Saturday, June 21, 2008
McCain Bush Offshore Drilling Plan Splits Florida GOP
ditorial in The Miami Herald called McCain's proposal "a shameful, cynical calculation." Environmental groups, already furious over McCain's opposition to funding for Everglades cleanup, condemned it as a disastrous approach that would do nothing to bring down gas prices. And Democrats, of course, turned the outrage dial to maximum

Saturday, June 21, 2008
McCain, Helped by Republican Party, Has More Money Than Obama
McCain, an Arizona senator, had $31.6 million as of May 31, compared with $33.3 million for Obama, Federal Election Commission records show. The RNC had $53.5 million to just under $4 million for the Democrats. The party committees act as shadow campaigns, concentrating their efforts on backing the presidential candidates. With Dem congress's well deserved low ratings (Telecom immunity, etc) this may not be likely to change.

Saturday, June 21, 2008
Obama Making Christian Push
Obama held a closed-door meeting in Chicago with almost 40 Christian leaders, including evangelical heavyweights such as the Rev. Franklin Graham, publishing magnate Steve Strang and megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes. Obama's campaign is also launching a grass-roots effort, tentatively called Joshua Generation, with plans to hold concerts and house meetings targeted at young evangelicals and Catholics.

Friday, June 20, 2008
Kerry's Vietnam Allies Go After Major Swift Boat Funder T. Boone Pickens
(3 comments) On Thursday, ten veterans who witnessed or served with John Kerry in Vietnam penned a lengthy letter to T. Boone Pickens - the Texas oil tycoon and major SBVT financier - taking him up on his challenge to prove false one element of that group's attacks from the 2004 campaign.

Friday, June 20, 2008
Internet addiction is a 'clinical disorder'
(2 comments) Obsessive internet use is a public health problem which is so serious it should be officially recognised as a clinical disorder, according to a leading psychiatrist.

Friday, June 20, 2008
Bumper Stickers = Road Rage
(1 comments) Researchers have long known that drivers who have a strong sense of personal space while in their vehicle are more likely to be road-ragers, and the more someone plasters his vehicle with bumper stickers and decals the more territorial he feels about the space inside.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
Former Bear Stearns managers under arrest
(2 comments) The former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, surrendered to the FBI today. They are expected to be charged by US prosecutors with securities fraud. These would be the first indictments of Wall Street execs that rise from the credit crisis.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wexler Looking Forward to Willing Witness in McClellan
Rep. Robert Wexler is hoping for a change of pace when it comes to the testimony of a top Bush Administration official before the House Judiciary Committee Friday morning: "How about the truth for a change? That would be something different for starters." This time, he might get it. On May 28, Wexler called for former Bush Administration Press Secretary Scott McClellan to testify before the committee

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Targeting Steny Hoyer for his contempt for the rule of law - Glenn Greenwald
It is now definitively clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)is the driving force behind a bill to vest the President with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty. Even as his office dishonestly denies that he is doing so, still more reports yesterday confirm that a so-called "compromise" is being spearheaded by Hoyer and the House Democratic leadership.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Study: Health Costs To Rise Nearly 10 Percent, Study: Employer Health Care Costs Expected To Increase Nearly 10 Percent
(1 comments) Employer health care costs are poised to rise almost 10 percent in 2008 _ more than double the annual inflation rate _ and nearly that much again in 2009, according to an industry report released Tuesday. The study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts that medical costs will increase 9.9 percent in 2008 and an additional 9.6 percent in 2009.

Saturday, June 14, 2008
Bush's exit helps U.S. image abroad, survey shows
On the one hand, the image of the United States has improved slightly in many countries over the past year. On the other, the new optimism appears to be driven largely by the fact that Bush will soon be leaving office.

Friday, June 13, 2008
How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life
On Oct. 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile. In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US actions, he pulled a barely conscious McCain out of the lake

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Those loyal to the Clintons take note of those who were not
(2 comments) "The Clintons get hundreds of requests for favors every week," said Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. "Clearly, the people you're going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you." "revenge is not what the Clintons are about." The accounting is more about being practical, he said, adding, "You have to keep track of this."

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
McCain Calls Arizona a Swing State
Despite representing the state in Congress for 26 years, McCain is now confronting a resurgent state Democratic Party and a burgeoning number of unpredictable independent voters. While AZ Republicans are bogged down with nasty infighting and a slumping number of registered voters, Arizona Democrats are gaining voters daily. Powered by Sen. Barack Obama's voter registration drive, Democratic voter registration is up 2.8%

Sunday, June 8, 2008
Democrats in rural strongholds refuse to give backing to Obama
(2 comments) Former Williamson, WV Clinton supporter says, "We'll end up slaves. We'll be made slaves just like they was once slaves,' he said. Telvor, a white Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in West Virginia's primary, said he planned to vote for Republican John McCain in November. 'At least he's an American,' he added with a disarmingly friendly smile." His town is a typical slice of Appalachia.

Sunday, June 8, 2008
Gay Anglican U.S. bishop enters into civil union
The openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop at the center of the Anglican church's global battle over homosexuality, has entered into a civil union with his longtime partner at a private ceremony.

Sunday, June 8, 2008
The wife John McCain callously left behind
(8 comments) returning as a famous prisoner of war to a former bathing beauty wife who gained weight and who was disfigured by a serious auto accident, he dumped her. Friends say he was "a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons." And he calls himself pro-family.

Monday, June 2, 2008
Ted Kennedy Brain Tumor Surgery At Duke University Medical Center Successful
(1 comments) Sen. Edward M. Kennedy underwent what his doctors called successful surgery Monday to treat his cancerous brain tumor, and told his wife shortly after that he felt "like a million bucks," a family spokeswoman said. The surgery at Duke University Medical Center took about 3 1/2 hours. He is expected to undergo chemotherapy and radiation in coming weeks, and will remain at the North Carolina facility for about a week.

Monday, June 2, 2008
Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use
The parent company of CNN will start chargeing extra to people who use more bandwidth, just like cell some cell phone companies do. The project starts in Beaumont Texas. They'll roll it out if it works. It might be a good idea to tell Time Warner just how disgusted you are with this naked attack on the net. All the more reason broadband wireless should be made available free everywhere.

Monday, June 2, 2008
Byrd hospitalized after suffering a high fever
Byrd, 90, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, was taken to a Virginia hospital in the early evening and will stay there overnight after feeling ill throughout the day

Saturday, May 31, 2008
Obama Will Overturn Unconstitutional Bush Laws In First 100 Days
(14 comments) "I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama Other goals for his first 100 days: work out a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq; make progress on alternative energy plans and launch legislation to reform the health care system.

Saturday, May 31, 2008
Obama quits his Chicago church after long controversy
(7 comments) This will put one major albatross behind him... and he says press was harassing shut-in church members

Saturday, May 31, 2008
Rockefeller: Hayden's "˜Upbeat Assessment' On Al Qaeda "˜Not Consistent' With Intel Reports To Capitol Hill
Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee replied to Hayden, "The positions attributed to you are not consistent with assessments that have been provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee over the past year."

Saturday, May 31, 2008
It's love or bust for Yangtze turtles
(1 comments) With only three males and a single female left in the world, a team of experts is battling to save a species on the edge of extinction

Saturday, May 31, 2008
Clinton camp enraged by Michigan, Florida delegate solution
(4 comments) Following a formula that tried to divine the wishes of voters by using exit polls as well as write in votes for Obama that weren't counted at the time, the panel took four delegates away from Clinton, and gave them plus all of the state's uncommitted delegates to Obama. The result had little impact on the nomination battle, But it outraged Clinton supporters, many of whom stormed out of the meeting.

Saturday, May 31, 2008
The right-wing Politico cesspool - Glenn Greenwald
I once thought that Politico would be a pernicious new addition to our rotted media culture. Instead, it actually provides a valuable service by packing every destructive and corrupt journalistic attribute, in its most vivid form, into one single cesspool.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Upstart, Open Source Firefox, Challenges the Big Web Browsers
Based on my experience, it's not even close. Firefox is far superior to Microsoft's Internet explorer. Now there's a new release.

Monday, May 26, 2008
Sydney Pollack, Film Director, Dies at 73
Mr. Pollack’s star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s.

Monday, May 26, 2008
A Superhighway to Bliss
(1 comments) JILL BOLTE TAYLOR was a neuroscientist working at Harvard’s brain research center when she experienced nirvana. But she did it by having a stroke. On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great.

Friday, May 23, 2008
Democrats seek Iraq embezzlement probe
(1 comments) 2 Dem senators have asked the Treasury Department to investigate allegations that Iraqi leaders have embezzled or misspent billions of U.S. tax dollars intended for the country's relief and reconstruction. They call the scope of corruption within the Iraqi government staggering. ...should examine whether any Iraqi officials have set up bank accounts outside of Iraq "that might contain ill-gotten proceeds.

Friday, May 23, 2008
Group wants Wi-Fi banned from public buildings
(1 comments) A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Are You On Drugs? Odds Are, Yes. Over half of Americans on chronic medicines
more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows. The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol - problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Experts say data reflect, worsening public health, better medicines for chronic conditions and more aggressive treatment by doctors, & aggressive TV Ads

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Barbara Ehrenreich: Hillary's Gift to Women
n Friday's New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton's destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton's "no-holds-barred pugnacity" and her media reputation as "nasty" and "ruthless." Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, "when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys."

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Fox commentator: Ron Paul revolt could be 'disaster' for Republicans
(2 comments) Rep. Ron Paul is still in the GOP race and even drew 16% of the vote in the recent Pennsylvania Republican primary. Now his supporters are planning to stage a "revolt" at the Republican National Convention in September, possibly with the aim of securing Paul a prime time speaking slot.

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Hardball: Smerconish Likens Arianna To A Hooker Outing A John For Saying John McCain Didn't Vote For Bush
(1 comments) she says John McCain made a point of saying at a Hollywood party that he didn't vote for George Bush. Now honestly, considering what the Bush campaign did to him in 2000, I don't blame him. The problem is that he denies it now and says he did vote for Bush. That makes him a liar. He either lied to Arianna (and actors Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford back up Arianna's version) back then or he's lying now.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Did Rush Limbaugh Tilt Result In Indiana?
In Indiana, 10 percent of Democratic primary voters described themselves as Republicans, a higher rate than in any state but Mississippi, and they went for Clinton by eight percentage points, according to exit polls. In North Carolina, they were 5 percent of the electorate, and went for her by 29 points.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Chris Matthews Admits: MSNBC Bosses Were "Basically Pro-War"
(1 comments) In a speech at Harvard's Institute of Politics on Monday, Chris Matthews admitted that MSNBC bosses were "basically pro-war during the war." The remark came in a larger discussion of top-down editorial control at the network - of which Matthews claimed there was none, citing the fact that many of his bosses supported Hillary Clinton while he has been very vocal for Obama.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Broke GOP Leaders Warn Shellshocked Reps of Election Disaster
Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party's message isn't good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC's money. Recent defeats in long held republican strongholds in Illinois and Louisiana have put the RNCC members in a panic.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Malaysian blogger charged with sedition for implying deputy PM involved in murder
Sedition is punishable by up to three years in jail. Raja Petra's supporters called the government's move a blow to freedom of speech

Monday, May 5, 2008
Clinton Camp Considering Nuclear Option To Overtake Delegate Lead
With at least 50% of the Dem Party's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could -- when the committee meets at the end of this month -- try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member FL and 156-member MI delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama. Asked about this article, Clinton said she's always called for seating MI and FL

Monday, May 5, 2008
Myanmar believes 10,000 dead from cyclone
Myanmar's military junta believes at least 10,000 people died in a cyclone that ripped through the Irrawaddy delta, triggering a massive international aid response for the pariah southeast Asian nation. "The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing,"

Sunday, May 4, 2008
Thomas Friedman: Who Will Tell the People?
(3 comments) Friedman endorses Obama and observes, after seeing the Singapore airport, "We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II." and tells us that the nation building people want to do is in America.

Sunday, May 4, 2008
CBS Poll: Support For Obama Rebounds, In Wake Of Controversy Over Former Pastor, Illinois Senator Builds Lead Over McCai
(1 comments) Barack Obama appears to have rebounded from some of the damage caused by the controversy surrounding his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll. On one key measure, Obama has seen a big reversal since his denunciation of Wright's remarks on Tuesday. He now leads presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the hypothetical fall contest by eleven points, 51 percent to 40%

Thursday, May 1, 2008
Pittsburgh, Los Angeles have worst U.S. air pollution
Pittsburgh, a former steel-making center once known for its sooty skies, is the worst U.S. city for short-term particle pollution, the American Lung Association announced on Thursday. It was the first time a city outside California topped any of the association's three lists for different kinds of pollution in its annual "State of the Air" report. Greater Los Angeles was listed as the worst city for ground-level ozone

Thursday, May 1, 2008
White House Lamely Tries to Spin 'Mission Accomplished' banner
PATHETIC! as the anniversary approaches and the banner becomes a symbol of historic levels of stupidity... Dana Perino is not very persuasive in her spinmeistery

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Web in infancy, says Web Inventor
The future web will put "all the data in the world" at the fingertips of every user, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said. "The web has been a tremendous tool for people to do a lot of good even though you can find bad stuff out there." Making the web free to use had a vital role in spreading its use worldwide. There are now 165 million different websites around the world, according to internet research firm Netcraft.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Father of LSD Takes Final Trip
(4 comments) Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died aged 102. Hofmann discovered LSD -- lysergic acid diethylamide, which later became the favored drug of the 1960s counter-culture -- when a tiny quantity leaked on to his hand during a laboratory experiment in 1943. A few days later Hofmann intentionally took a dose of LSD and experienced the world's first "bad trip"

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Barack Obama, Rev. Wright, and Racism, America Responds: We're Not Done With You Yet
(1 comments) Hagee, Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, and countless other religious leaders of the fundamentalist cloth have delivered countless white versions of "God Damns America" statements. The only difference is that they don't "say it black" in black churches, and then see it looped endlessly around on FOX TV and other cable networks, not to say rerun again and again on talk radio.

Monday, April 28, 2008
NY Times Sunday Circulation Plummets 9.2% While 'WSJ' Gains
(1 comments) Print circulation continues on its steep downward slide, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed this morning in releasing the latest numbers for some of the country's largest dailies for the six-month period ending March 31, 2008. When a full analysis appears it is expected to find, according to sources, the biggest dip yet, about 3.5% daily and 4.5 for Sunday.

Monday, April 28, 2008
In the Rezko Trial, A New Name Surfaces: Karl Rove
. Former Illinois state official Ali Ata is expected to testify about a conversation he had with Rezko in which the developer alleged Rove was "working with" a top Illinois Republican to remove the Chicago U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

Monday, April 28, 2008
OpEdNews Poll: Has Reverend Wright Helped or Hurt Obama with Talks and Interviews
(6 comments) click through to vote in the poll

Monday, April 28, 2008
Officials: 31 of 53 girls from sect ranch have been pregnant
53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were living on the ranch in Eldorado. Of that group, 31 already have children or are pregnant.

Sunday, April 27, 2008
TRANSCRIPT: OBAMA ON Fox News with Crhis Wallace
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois, sat for an interview Saturday in Indiana with Chris Wallace. The interview aired on "FOX News Sunday."

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Nothing Wrong With Perseverance, Right?
Underneath it all is her dangerous willingness to let race finally finally infect the consciousness of this country. The longer we go, the longer she hangs in, the more Hillary Clinton has been able to make the country wonder if, indeed, it is ready to elect a black president. We hoped we were past that. We talked of Obama as the post-racial candidate. In their retro-shrewdness, the Clintons have called our bluff.

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Obama Plans May General Election Organizing Launch
Pivoting to general election mode, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign announced a 50-state voter registration drive that will kick off four days after the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. "Vote for Change" will summon the volunteer army that Obama has amassed in the 47 states and territories that have already held primaries or caucuses this year, along with the nine yet to come.

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Major Clinton fundraiser defects to Obama
(1 comments) uneasy with the tone of the Clinton campaign and was beginning to worry about what this would mean for the general election. It's unclear if this defection will lead to others;

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Leave Taliban alone, Afghan president tells West | World news | The Observer
Karzai says US and British troops are undermining his authority and stopping insurgents from laying down their arms

Saturday, April 26, 2008
If Clinton can't run campaign, can she run White House?
Despite Hillary Clinton's big win in Pennsylvania last week, the story of her campaign is often one of mismanagement and missed opportunities, and it raises questions about how she'd organize and run the White House.

Friday, April 25, 2008
China to Meet with Representatives of Dalai Lama,
China, in an abrupt shift, announced that it will meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader Beijing had accused of masterminding deadly antigovernment protests in Tibet.

Friday, April 25, 2008
Consumer Confidence Hits 26 Year Low
he Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index decreased to 62.6, from 69.5 the previous month. The measure was down from a preliminary estimate of 63.2 issued on April 11. Consumers are growing increasingly anxious because the economy has lost almost a quarter million jobs so far this year, gasoline is up 17 percent and property values have fallen. Sales of houses and cars have declined...

Friday, April 25, 2008
Limbaugh "Dreams" of - Doesn't Advocate - Denver Riot
(1 comments) Rush Limbaugh says he was not calling for a riot in Denver during the Democratic National Convention - he only "dreams" of it, to the tune of "White Christmas." For a second day in a row today, the conservative talker discussed the potential for protests and power struggles at the August convention

Thursday, April 24, 2008
How Republicans Plan on Ganging Up on Obama for Being "Weak" on Street Gangs
Scum of the earth swiftboater Floyd Brown has plans to take the low road (rectal road?) to swift boat Obama about gang violence.Brown apparently thinks he can "willie hortonize" Obama. It may even work on irredeemable racists, but there's no doubt, Obama will be able to deal with this one. (This description of news is decidedly one editor's opinion.)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Bush's disapproval rating worst of any president in 70 years
(5 comments) In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt. The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

Monday, April 21, 2008
Colorado U's 4/20 pot smoke-out draws crowd of 10,000
Police issue zero tickets during annual marijuana celebration

Sunday, April 20, 2008
Obama building war machine to respond to 'Swift Boat' attacks
(2 comments) "He's not going to sit there and sing 'Kumbaya' as the missiles are raining in," David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, tells Newsweek for its Apr. 28 issue. "I don't think people should mistake civility for a willingness to deal with the challenges to come." The Obama campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response outfit to repel planned "Swift-Boat" like attacks, the magazine will report.

Sunday, April 20, 2008
Food crisis threatens security, says UN chief
· Warning of instability and backlash for economies · Progress on development goals could be wiped out "If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others ... and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world," UN's Ban told the conference. World Bank estimates food prices have risen by an average of 83% in the past three years

Saturday, April 19, 2008
Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra
In Congressional testimony last week, Gen. Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's late March offensive in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what U.S. officials had expected. What Petraeus did not reveal is that al-Maliki was deliberately upsetting a Petraeus plan to put U.S. and British forces into Basra for a months-long operation to eliminate the Mahdi Army from the city.

Friday, April 18, 2008
Clinton slams Democratic activists at private fundraiser
"We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party," said Clinton, heard on an audio clip at Huffington. "MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers.

Friday, April 18, 2008
New Lobby Seeks to Redefine 'Pro-Israel' - by Jim Lobe
new group of prominent U.S. Jews who believe that the so-called "Israel Lobby" has been dominated for too long by neoconservatives and other Likud-oriented hawks has launched a new organization to help fund political candidates who favor a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a stronger U.S. role in achieving it. Almost two years in the making, the J Street project plans to spend some $1.5 million

Friday, April 18, 2008
Dean: I need a decision 'now'
(1 comments) Dean says he wants Superdelegates to decide NOW.

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Superdelegates Unswayed by Clinton’s Attacks
A cross-section of superdelegates showed that none had been persuaded much by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s attacks on Senator Barack Obama.

Thursday, April 17, 2008
In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC
When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News,

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Paul Krugman; Obama Wrong On Most of his Bitter Comments
(1 comments) Barack Obama’s “bitter” comments combined assertions about economics, sociology and voting behavior. In each case, his assertion was mostly if not entirely wrong. let’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton, he’ll stop denigrating the very good economic record of the only Democratic administration most Americans remember.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A changing Philly could be key to Pa. primary
Change is the buzzword in Philadelphia and its suburbs as Pennsylvania's Democratic primary approaches. Its neighborhoods have become more diverse, thanks largely to a 14 percent boost in its foreign-born population, according to Census Bureau figures, and to a strong migration of New Yorkers lured by cheaper housing and a civilized rail commute to their Big Apple jobs.

Monday, April 14, 2008
Poll: 98% of Historians View Bush a Failure
(3 comments) Not only that, more than 61 percent of the historians say the current presidency is the worst in American history. In 2004, only 11.6 percent of the historians rated Bush's presidency in last place. Among the reasons given for his low ratings: invading Iraq, "tax breaks for the rich," and alienating many nations around the world.

Saturday, April 12, 2008
Obama winning big in West Virginia county conventions today
There's a large gap in West Virginia in the grassroots support and county level Democratic activists for Sen. Barack Obama well out of proportion to the polls that showed Sen. Hillary Clinton ahead in West Virginia by a large margin.

Friday, April 11, 2008
Consumer Confidence Hits 26 Year Low
(2 comments) The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of confidence fell to 63.2 in April from 69.5 in March, well below economists' median expectation of a 69.0 reading. The April result was the lowest since March 1982's level of 62.0, when the "stagflationary" period of low growth and high inflation was still fresh in the memory of many Americans.

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Starving Haitians riot as food prices soar
Demonstrators have tried to storm the presidential palace in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, as protests over hunger and rising food prices spread across the developing world. Demanding the resignation of President Ren� Pr�val, the protesters attempted to break through the palace gates before being driven back by a contingent of Brazilian United Nations peacekeepers who used tear gas and rubber bullets.

Monday, April 7, 2008
Texas officials remove 219 from polygamist ranch
(1 comments) Texas officials removed more people on Sunday from a ranch belonging to a breakaway Mormon sect linked to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs but have yet to find a young woman whose complaints sparked the raids.

Monday, April 7, 2008
The Last Wish of Martin Luther King
as always, he lifted hope from the bottom of his soul. He urged the congregation to be alive and awake to great revolutions in progress. “I say to you that our goal is freedom,” he cried, “and I believe we’re going to get there because — however much she strays from it — the goal of America is freedom!”

Monday, April 7, 2008
Glenn Greenwald: Cokie Roberts Lies About the War and Where the American People Stand
The single most dishonest and propagandistic tactic of establishment journalists is to take their own opinion and assert as a fact that "most Americans" agree with them, even when that assertion is indisputably false.

Sunday, April 6, 2008
Charlton Heston Dead at 84
(4 comments) The film Icon who played Moses, and who later served as president of the Nationial Rifle Association, developed alzheimers, as was portrayed by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine

Sunday, April 6, 2008
Anti-McCain groups lag in fundraising
Despite the millions of dollars pooling around Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, anti-McCain funds have fallen far short of the hopes set in November, when a key organizer, Tom Matzzie, reportedly told The Washington Post that the "Fund for America" would raise more than $100 million to support the activities of a range of allied groups.

Friday, April 4, 2008
A Lie or Terrifying MSM Negligence: Why Won't Journalists Demand an Answer?
(2 comments) Mukasey Appears to have either lied or disclosed a secret that will damn the Bush admin as failing to pursue evidence that could have prevented 911. And the mainstream media are not covering this story. Shame on them. No... shame them into covering it.

Thursday, April 3, 2008
Mariah breaks Elvis chart record
(3 comments) Singer Mariah Carey has beaten Elvis Presley's US chart record by scoring the 18th number one of her career. Touch My Body, from her new album E=MC2, is the new number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has also topped its download chart. The achievement means she has now surpassed Elvis Presley's 17 number ones. The Beatles are in front on 20.

Thursday, April 3, 2008
Daily caffeine 'protects brain'
Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests. The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans
The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents. The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department...

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Republican War on Voting
(3 comments) Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Pennsylvania Turning Bluer and Bluer
(2 comments) Democrats now have more than a 900,000 advantage in voter registration in Pennsylvania, which tended to be a fairly evenly divided state in the past. In relative terms, nearly 30 percent more Pennsylvanians are registered as Democrats as are registered as Republicans.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Scientists set out to unlock secrets of Stonehenge
(1 comments) Archaeologists set out on Monday to unlock one of the secrets of Stonehenge, the majestic monument in southern England -- when were the first standing stones placed at the ancient religious site?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
USA 2008: The Great Depression
British Paper says US is in Great Depression. 28 million Americans receive Food Stamps.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Alice Walker: Obama is the change that America has tried to hide-- Like King and Mandela
(3 comments) If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill.

Saturday, March 29, 2008
Black House Rep Lee (D-TX) Booed by Constituents for Supporting Hillary
Sheila Jackson Lee is backing Hillary, even though 90% of the blacks in her mostly black district are supporting Obama. They booed her at a recent event. Will it affect her re-election efforts?

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Protesters enter Bear Stearns building in New York
About 60 protesters opposed to the U.S. Federal Reserve's help in bailing out Bear Stearns entered the lobby of the investment bank's Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday, demanding assistance for struggling homeowners. Demonstrators organized by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America chanted "Help Main Street, not Wall Street" and entered the lobby for around half an hour before being escorted out by police.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Pastor Of Clinton's Former Church: Don't Use Wright To Polarize
Tthe pastor at the church that Clinton did once attend has recently expressed public support for Wright. He's even proclaimed it a "grave injustice" to make a judgment on Wright based off of "two or three sound bites," and criticized those who would "use a few of [Wright's] quotes to polarize." ...released a little noticed statement offering a sympathetic defense of the totality of Wright's work.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Is 'success' of U.S. surge in Iraq about to unravel?
A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government. Simultaneously, in the strategic southern port city of Basra, where Sadr's Mahdi militia is in control, the Iraqi govt. launched a crackdown in the face of warnings...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Don't discount Gore-led ticket
(2 comments) we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement. "If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don't be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,"

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Clinton camp in lockdown mode over Bosnia flap
"We've said all we're going to say on that," said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters. A video from CBS News had shown that Clinton's version of having come under sniper fire was not correct. Her campaign chalked up the discrepancy between her account and the video as a case of Clinton misspeaking.

Monday, March 24, 2008
HOw Bad is Economy? Worst since Records Started in 1960!
By the end of 2007, 36% of consumers' disposable income went to food, energy and medical care, a bigger chunk of income than at any time since records were first kept in 1960, according to Merrill Lynch.

Monday, March 24, 2008
Elephant man transformed by Face transplant
horrific image but fascinating and surely life-changing surgery

Monday, March 24, 2008
Supreme Court Allows Inmates to Get Abortions
Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, noted for his harsh, treatment of inmates, wanted the justices to allow him to enforce a jail policy that bars transporting inmates for abortions without a court order.

Monday, March 24, 2008
China Bans Media over Tibet coverage
Chinese ban reporters from Tibet, Ban Websites and news broadcasts covering Tibet protests, including BBC, NY Times, CNN, Youtube. The government has also increased its propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the Chinese public that the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, instigated the violence in Tibet on March 14 and that China was a victim of separatist terrorist activity.

Monday, March 24, 2008
GOP state parties are in dire straits
At a time when the GOP presidential nominee will need more assistance than ever, a number of state Republican parties are struggling through troubled times, suffering from internal strife, poor fundraising, onerous debt, scandal or voting trends that are conspiring to relegate the local branches of the party to near-irrelevance.

Monday, March 24, 2008
Clinton acknowledges a "misstatement" on Bosnia sniper fire
Clinton acknowleged today for the first time that it was a "misstatement" when she said in a major prepared foreign policy speech last week that "I remember landing under sniper fire" but also tried to brush off the entire issue as "a minor blip." She also gave a revised account of her airplane landing and her tarmac greeting at the Tuzla Air Force base 12 years ago -

Sunday, March 23, 2008
Video: 80,000 Angry Men. Is the US Surge collapsing?
In an investigation, we uncover how thousands of Iraqis employed at $10 a day by the US to take on al-Qaida are threatening to go on strike because they say they have been used by the 'Americans to do their dirty work' and haven't been paid

Sunday, March 23, 2008
Echoes of 1968 return to haunt the divided Democrats | World news | The Observer
(1 comments) The Democrats head for their convention beset by splits and overshadowed by a war, just as they did 40 years ago when Chicago became the focus for extraordinary anti-Vietnam riots.

Sunday, March 23, 2008
Roger Stone; Sleazebag Swinger, May Have Had Role in Bringing Spitzer Down
You might not have heard of sleaze ball GOP operative Roger Stone, a sort of combination of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove with a penchant for swinging -- of the sexual kind.

Sunday, March 23, 2008
McCain's ties to Airbus could cost him votes in Kansas
A lot of people, all over, are angry with John McCain for pushing a lucrative contract that could ultimately exceed $100 billion, to the French company, Airbus. Now we find out also, that McCain hired as his finance director, someone from airbus. Money guy for McCain... former airbus lobbyist... raises questions, doesn't it?

Sunday, March 23, 2008
Will Joe Lieberman be John McCain's Assisted Living Caretaker and Vice-President as They Bomb Iran?
(2 comments) In case you've been so caught up in the battle royale of the Democratic primaries, Joe Lieberman has been escorting John McCain around Iraq and Israel, acting as his assisted living caretaker.

Saturday, March 22, 2008
Barney Frank calls for decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana
(1 comments) "I now think it's time for the politicians to catch up to the public," Frank said. "The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. I'm going to call it the 'Make Room for Serious Criminals' bill."

Saturday, March 22, 2008
US scientists find more 'hobbits' in Pacific
The former island cave inhabitants, some "as small as just over a metre", shared features with the controversial Homo floresiensis specimens discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004,

Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Origin of Obama's Pastor Problem and the Unanswered Question
By asking voters to understand the context of Wright's anger, though, Obama is counting on voters to accept nuance in an arena that almost always rewards simplicity over complexity. Politicians tend to offer deliberately banal choices... Obama's formulation was different. Explicitly asking Americans to grapple with racial divisions and then transcend them - that's a bolder, riskier request.

Thursday, March 20, 2008
LAT: USA Threatened Corruption Prosecutors to Stay Silent
attorneys in disbanded office specializing in public corruption told to keep mum on real story.

Thursday, March 20, 2008
Chris Bowers: Moving Beyond Transactions, Finding Our National Purpose
Yesterday, I blogged about how connecting the Iraq war to the bad economy held transformative progressive potential since such an argument implied that such large scale military spending was fundamentally a waste of money. Today, Barack Obama made a speech connecting the war to the bad economy, which is a good first step. Unfortunately, Obama's framing was steeped in transactional politics, rather than transformational values

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Dalai Lama: China causing 'cultural genocide'
A spokesman for the Tibetan exile government said it has confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday's violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital on Sunday, further undermining China's hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. What kind of person will, facing this reality, buy tickets to and attend such Olympics?

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Crane falls and crushes building in NYC, four dead
A giant crane fell and crushed a residential building in Manhattan on Saturday, killing four construction workers and injuring more than 10 other people, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Obama I know -- chicagotribune
15 year colleague from the U. of Chicago Law School describes a conversation with fellow law professor Obama, discussing legal issues and nuances of FISA spying. The U of Chicago is by far the most conservative of the great American law schools. It helped to provide the academic foundations for many positions of the Reagan administration. But at the U. of Chicago, Obama is liked and admired by both Republicans and Dems."

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Craigslist Isn't Liable for Biased Postings
The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said Internet-classifieds company Craigslist Inc. can't be held liable for discriminatory real-estate postings. The ruling is a victory for Internet companies such as Craigslist, eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and others by protecting companies that provide online forums for users' speech.

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Obama's Rezko narrative -- chicagotribune
Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. When he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday, Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko in his personal and political lives. At the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Through Bush-Colored Glasses- NY Times
(2 comments) President Bush admitted on Friday that times are tough. So much for the straight talk. Mr. Bush’s denial of the economic truth underscores the need for Congress to push forward with solutions to the mortgage crisis — especially bankruptcy reform to help defaulting homeowners. Lawmakers also must prepare to execute a government rescue of people whose homes are now worth less than they borrowed to buy them

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Late Calls Rarely Merit Snap Decisions
(1 comments) Former presidential advisors say that middle of the night wakeups are not for decisions, more to keep the president in the loop. Historic examples of middle of the night wakeup calls all show the president did not have to make a snap decision.

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Bogus Iranian Election: Hardline critics scoop up votes as rivals are barred
(1 comments) In Iran, they just refuse to allow strong opposition candidates to run. In the US, Corporate Owned media trash the candidates they don't like. Examples: Dean Whoop, Obama's Minister, Kucinich UFO question...

Sunday, March 16, 2008
Clinton, Fighting FOR FL and MI Vote to Count, Tries to Block Count of TX Caucuses
(1 comments) using delay tactics to prevent votes of close to a million caucus goers from being counted. Not asking that of FL or MI voters. Bloggers are saying this is an attempt to delay the primaries and drag them out as long as possible-- Recounts? Same strategy that cost Gore Florida? Just what we need more of

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Clinton Fundraisers Threaten To Take Back Contributions to DNC
Some of Clinton's biggest fundraisers are asking for their money back if they don't get what they want in Florida. The Clinton camp is using this kind of leverage on the DNC to force a capitulation to their demands to allow the Florida and Michigan primaries, which Clinton broke her non-participation vow on.

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Obama expands delegate lead
Picks up some Edwards delegates

Friday, March 14, 2008
Australia will be first to excel at mining the ocean floor
great idea. Strange that the US is not in the lead on this. Ahhh, but it's not about oil...

Friday, March 14, 2008
Dollar falls below parity vs Swiss franc
You used to be able to buy four Swiss Francs for a buck. Thanks GOP!

Friday, March 14, 2008
Right now, feds might be looking into your finances
Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans � without their knowledge. The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution.

Friday, March 14, 2008
Muslims nations: Defame Islam, get sued?
(1 comments) The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots. Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. Idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of many western govts

Friday, March 14, 2008
Pelosi's Delegate Stance Boosts Obama
"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections," said Pelosi, "it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."

Thursday, March 13, 2008
Sex-Trade Clients Speak
A Web site gives men a chance to write anonymously about the complicated reasons they buy sex. Their explanations may surprise you.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
House Approves New Panel To Probe Ethics Questions
The House agreed last night to create an outside ethics panel to investigate alleged wrongdoing by its members. The late-night vote showed Congress is willing -- though just barely -- to increase oversight of its members. A six-person, bipartisan panel will be set up to review suspected ethics violations by House lawmakers.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Fla. House Members Oppose Mail-In Vote
Just when a solution seemed within reach for the thorny issue of what to do about Florida's Democratic delegates, late last night it appeared to have vanished. Florida's entire House Democratic caucus -- including both supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- issued a joint statement that aimed to shoot down a proposal to redo the Florida Democratic primary through a mail-in vote.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
UK top cop who led CIA probe found dead
(2 comments) UK top cop who led CIA probe found dead Manchester Police Chief Who Cleared Britain of Helping Secret CIA Flights Is Found Dead ROB HARRIS AP News Mar 11, 2008 13:45 EST A city police chief who led an investigation into charges that Britain cooperated with secret CIA flights to transport terrorism suspects without formal proceedings has been found dead, his deputy said Tuesday.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Spitzer's Hooker's MySpace Page
(1 comments) pictures, here her sing. She's 22, was a runaway... used drugs

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Lawyer questions whether Spitzer was set up, noting political prosecutions
prominent New York lawyer who has written for Harper's Magazine about the politically-motivated dismissals of US Attorneys in the Bush Justice Department says he believes there's a strong case that the fall of New York governor Eliot Spitzer was politically motivated. The house and senate judiciary committees should investigate this immediately

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
At MSNBC, 'Tucker' Is Out, And David Gregory Is In
(3 comments) "Tucker," the struggling early-evening talk show led by the often bow-tied Tucker Carlson, was canceled on Monday by MSNBC and replaced by a new politically oriented program featuring David Gregory, chief White House correspondent of NBC News.

Saturday, March 8, 2008
Bush vetoes waterboarding bill
(7 comments) Bush vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques

Saturday, March 8, 2008
Tucker Carlson unintentionally reveals the role of the American press - Glenn Greenwald
(2 comments) In one of the ultimate paradoxes, for American journalists -- whose role in theory is to expose the secrets of the powerful -- secrecy is actually their central religious tenet, especially when it comes to dealing with the most powerful. Protecting, rather than exposing, the secrets of the powerful is the fuel of American journalism. That's how they maintain their access to and good relations with those in power.

Saturday, March 8, 2008
Obama Crushing Clinton 59 to 40 with 78% of Caucus Votes In Wyoming
(2 comments) as expected, Obama clearly conquers Clinton in caucus competition

Saturday, March 8, 2008
Dem Beats Hastert's GOP Replacement in Devastating GOP Defeat
(2 comments) In a devastating defeat, the GOP lost the congressional seat held by former speaker of the house Dennis Hastert. In what was considered a Republican stronghold,held by Hastert for 20 years and won by Bush in 2004, The RNC outspent the DNC, $1.25 to $1.04 Million, spending 20% of its cash on hand. An RNC spokesperson denied that the major loss is a sign of a trend.

Friday, March 7, 2008
Why Iraq war veterans have not had much impact on the debate over the war.
(1 comments) Next week, Iraq Veterans Against the War will hold "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan"- designed to draw attention to the failures of U.S. foreign policy, the dehumanizing effects of counterinsurgency, and the inadequate provision of veterans' benefits. The event, meant to recall the famous 1971 Winter Soldier Hearings, highlights how little Iraq war veterans have featured in the national political debate over the war

Friday, March 7, 2008
RNC Massively Out Fundraising DNC
Let's see. Ratings od Dem congress in low teens. No war end, no impeachment, sellout bluedogs... what a surprise.

Thursday, March 6, 2008
Seven dead as gunmen hit Jerusalem religious school
(1 comments) Deadliest attack in three years is dramatic escalation in conflict... at least seven people were killed and dozens injured when gunmen opened fire into a crowd of students at one of Jerusalem's largest religious seminaries, the worst attack in the city for at least three years. The attackers, who reportedly disguised themselves as Jewish religious students, were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Atheist soldier says Army punished him
A soldier claimed Wednesday that his promotion was blocked because he had claimed in a lawsuit that the Army was violating his right to be an atheist.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Three Right Feet Wash Ashore in Western Canda; Authorities Stumped
(1 comments) mystery over three separate incidents of feet washing ashore.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Michelle O Meets Jackie O; Why Michelle Obama Is Fueling Visions of Camelot
there ARE similarities

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney
(1 comments) Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas...
An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces' reserves, have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas. It now appears that this opinion is gaining traction in the wider public, which until recently vehemently rejected such negotiations.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Buffett Plans to Back Dems in 2008
Obama or Clinton could run a business.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Limbaugh urges listeners to vote for Clinton
Limbaugh has been actively urging his Texas listeners to cross over and vote for Clinton in that state's open primary Tuesday, arguing it helps the Republicans if the Democratic race remains unsettled for weeks to come.

Friday, February 29, 2008
Going Nowhere; The DLC Sputters to a Halt
(1 comments) the right wing, republican lite part of the Democratic party is looking dingy, grey and tattered. Ain't it a shame!

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Comcast Pays to Push Public out of Internet Debate-- Killing Free Speech the Comcast Way
save the internet dot com caught cable giant Comcast stacking a FCC hearing with paid (and apparently sleepy) seat fillers. The hearing was set up to investigate Comcast's recent blocking of the Internet. But the cable giant filled the room with paid sitters so that the public couldn't get in to voice their support for a free-flowing Internet.

Monday, February 25, 2008
DNC to File FEC Complaint Against McCain Campaign
his is an issue of integrity -- and John McCain's lack of it. What the DNC is asking the FEC to do is fairly simple: Require McCain's campaign to abide by the legally binding contract it created with the federal government to enjoy the benefits of the public financing system -- benefits his campaign has already used -- in return for abiding by the program's spending limits.

Monday, February 25, 2008
McCain Withheld Controversial Abramoff Email
In the 2006 Senate report concerning Abramoff's activities, which McCain spearheaded, the Arizona Republican conspicuously left out information detailing how Alabama Gov. Bob Riley was targeted by Abramoff's influence peddling scheme.

Monday, February 25, 2008
Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists
(1 comments) Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
How Would Jesus Vote?
(9 comments) As an evangelical who worked in Democratic politics before entering journalism, I'm used to getting looks from liberals who are embarrassed for me when I use the E-word to describe myself. Confusion flickers across their faces as they instantly reassess my political leanings and intelligence. People who have known me for years start asking whether I watch Fox News and brace for spontaneous proselytizing.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Polls: Texas and Ohio By Region for Clinton and Obama
The poll says they're even in Texas, but with Obama ahead in Dallas, Houston and Austin, he looks stronger. Hillary's ahead in Ohio, especially the vote theft region-- cuyahoga county.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Kristol: "˜I Recommend The Politics Of Fear'
(2 comments) This morning on Fox News Sunday, New York Times columnist Bill Kristol recommended that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) employ the "politics of fear" to attack Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): KRISTOL: [Obama's] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear... focusing on Iran

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Raull Castro elected Cuba's new president
a perfectly managed and carefully orchestrated succession of power that caused little stir in Havana or Miami. In a clear sign of what role the ailing Fidel Castro will play in the coming years, moments after taking office, Ra�l asked the nation's assembly to allow him to consult his brother on key matters.

Saturday, February 23, 2008
McCain Disputed On 1999 Meeting
Broadcaster Lowell "Bud" Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf. Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the AZ senator wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Bob Corker Refuses To Say That McCain Is "˜Temperamentally Suited To Be President'
Last night on Hannity & Colmes, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) coyly suggested that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) does not have the temperament to be president. When asked by Alan Colmes whether McCain is "temperamentally suited to be President of the United States," Corker refused to say

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
NBC reprimands employee for using picture of bin Laden behind Obama story
NBC News said Tuesday it has reprimanded the employee responsible for mistakenly flashing a picture of Osama bin Laden on MSNBC as Chris Matthews talked about Barack Obama. "This mistake was inexcusable," MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Obama Wins WI, Broadens His Base
(2 comments) Obama is now eating into Senator Hillary Clinton's core support. The make-up of Wisconsin should have worked in Mrs Clinton's favour. Almost 90% of those voting were white, most of them working class and more than 50% of them women - in other words, the group that until now has proved to be her base. But this time she barely won among white women, and lost ground among less educated and lower-income voters.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
"Experienced" Clinton Team Fails to Cover Basics for Delegate Registrations in PA
Governor Ed Rendell bails Clinton out by extending the deadline "due to bad weather."

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
NY Times: Did McCain Have Affair with Lobbyist
(3 comments) A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself, instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him...

Monday, February 18, 2008
Taking Play Seriously; For Kids AND Adults
...the biological and spiritual underpinnings of play. ...Play is part of the ‘‘developmental sequencing of becoming a human primate. If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.’’ This is a long article. Consider selecting the single page view or print friendly.

Monday, February 18, 2008
A Presidential Candidate Until Just a Short Time Ago, Dennis Kucinich Now Faces a Primary Challenge for His Congressiona

Sunday, February 17, 2008
Same Gun Dealer Sold to 2 Campus Killers
(1 comments) online gun dealer who sold a weapon to the Virginia Tech shooter also sold to the man who killed five students at Northern Illinois University.

Sunday, February 17, 2008
Wheat prices surge 90% to new high
A surge on Friday in prices for wheat used in bread to an all-time high of $19.88 a bushel – the highest yet paid for any wheat contract and a three-fold increase from a year ago – prompted the US baking industry to call for wheat exports to be curtailed. The American Bakers Association stopped short of asking for an export moratorium but pressed for curbs on foreign sales.

Friday, February 15, 2008
MySpace 'Friend Request' Violates Protection Order

Friday, February 15, 2008
Obama's Ties Might Fuel 'Republican Attack Machine'
(4 comments) Hillary Clinton questions whether Barack Obama would be able to withstand what she calls the ''Republican attack machine.'' If Obama does become the Democratic presidential nominee, his Chicago ties might provide the fuel. While the Illinois senator has never been accused of wrongdoing, some of the associations he formed as a community organizer and politician in Chicago may provide fodder for attacks, Dem and Republican

Thursday, February 14, 2008
Clinton banks on Texas as defection adds to woes
Clinton suffered an even more personal rejection yesterday when David Wilhelm, who managed her husband's 1992 campaign for the White House, endorsed her opponent. The defection came as Obama began to peel away sections of Clinton's supporting coalition among working-class households, women, Catholics, and older voters, to win primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC by overwhelming margins on Tuesday night.

Thursday, February 14, 2008
House finds Bolten, Miers in contempt of Congress
(2 comments) The House voted Thursday to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys. Ahead of the vote, Republicans had walked out...

Thursday, February 14, 2008
Romney flipping his support, delegates to John McCain

Thursday, February 14, 2008
NBC Apologizes For Jane Fonda Saying "C**t" On "Today"
watch the videos. It's stupid, really.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Budget Deficit Running at Faster Pace
The federal budget deficit is running at a pace that is more than double last year's imbalance through the first four months of the budget year. In its monthly review of the government's finances, the Treasury Department said Tuesday that the budget was in surplus in January, but totals $87.7 billion so far this budget year, double the $42.2 billion imbalance recorded during the same period in 2007.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Analysis: Obama Cuts Into Clinton Base
Hillary Rodham Clinton has set up Texas and Ohio as her firewall, but the results from Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama's most recent victories give her plenty of reason to worry whether it will hold up. Clinton has been depending upon older or lower income or white or Hispanic or, of course, women. But exit surveys conducted Tuesday showed she can't rely on those groups any more.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Barack Obama and the KKK
(1 comments) This article was published on OpEdNews a year ago. It popped up in our web stats program as one of the top 25 articles viewed this month.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Boulder weighs 'impeaching Bush'
(1 comments) Boulder's elected leaders are expected to decide next week whether to draft and vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Ron Paul scales back ,refuses to back McCain
(1 comments) "I cannot support anybody with the foreign policy he advocates, you know, perpetual war," said Paul. "That is just so disturbing to me."

Monday, February 11, 2008
Colin Powell Likes Obama, hints he may vote against Republicans
(7 comments) ...praised Democratic hopeful Barack Obama...I think he's been an exciting person on the political stage. He has energized a lot of people in America. He has energized a lot of people around the world," Powell told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "And so I think he is worth listening to and seeing what he stands for." But Powell added he did not share all Obama's views, nor did he completely share the views of the other candidates.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Obama sweeps 3 states, Huckabee takes 2
(4 comments) Sen. Barack Obama swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday night, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Illinois senator also won caucuses in the Virgin Islands, completing his best night of the campaign.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Maine Puts Topper On Obama Weekend Sweep, Obama Takes Delegate Lead With Wins In 4 States; Clinton Manager Steps Down
Obama pulls ahead of Clinton in number of delegates

Friday, February 8, 2008
Pasing the Torch; Kennedy's Touch on Obama's Words
t's no accident the Kennedy magic has infused itself into the campaign of Barack Obama. Theodore "Ted" Sorensen, the adviser whom John F. Kennedy once called his "intellectual blood bank," is lending his unabashed support -- and eloquence -- to the Obama campaign.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Bush, Congress hit bottom in AP poll
It's almost as if people can barely stand the thought of Prez Bush and Congress anymore. Bush reached his lowest approval rating in The AP-Ipsos poll on Friday as only 30 percent said they like the job he is doing, including an all-time low in his support by Republicans. Congress' approval fell to just 22 percent, equaling its poorest grade in the survey. Both marks dropped by 4 percentage points since early January.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Clint Eastwood: Ann Coulter, others, 'masochistic'

Friday, February 8, 2008
Gloves off: The Dem plan to hit McCain
(1 comments) The playbook starts to evolve

Friday, February 8, 2008
Music cannot change the world, says Neil Young, as he also Bashes Bush
"I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality," Young told reporters. "I don't think the tour had any impact on voters."

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Senate Passes Stimulus Plan
(1 comments) would speed $600 to $1,200 in rebates to most taxpayers and $300 checks to low-income people, including disabled veterans and the elderly. The 81-16 vote capped more than a week of political maneuvering that ended only when majority Democrats dropped their demand that the proposal offer jobless benefits, heating aid for the poor and tax breaks for certain industries.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is 'unavoidable', says Archbishop of Canterbury
says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty". Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a "constructive accommodation" in areas such as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
See-through fish is created to give a clearer idea of how cancer spreads
Each internal organ of the fish and its bones can be seen clearly throughout its life. Observations have shown already that the spread of cancer cells is not random – they home in on a particular area.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Gangs Turn To Social Networking Sites To Recruit
Young people who visit social networking sites to download music and pictures glorifying criminal street gangs can unwittingly set themselves up to be recruited by those gangs, according to law enforcement officials and youth counselors.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Obituary: Meditation Guru: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
(1 comments) The man who probably did more to popularize mediation in the west, much through his teaching of the Beatles, in the late sixties, has passed away, at an estimated 91 years of age.

Monday, February 4, 2008
Dem battle 'is nearly too close to call'
Clinton a four-point lead over Mr Obama - 47 per cent to 43 per cent - the closest margin yet in a year of fierce campaigning. Obama's advisers believe the 10 per cent of "undecideds" are more likely to move to the Illinois senator than the former First Lady. A Zogby poll gave Obama a narrow lead in California, while other polls gave Mrs Clinton the edge there.

Monday, February 4, 2008
McCain Claims Iraq "Casualties Are Coming Down," But Casualties Actually Increased In January

Monday, February 4, 2008
Lakoff On Obama-If Only!
(1 comments)

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Why The Right Loves A Disaster | Naomi Klein
Washington lobbyists had every reason to believe that the current recession fears would provoke a new round of corporate gift-giving. Yet it seems that the public is getting wise to the tactics of disaster capitalism.

Friday, February 1, 2008
Ohio's Blackwell could be subpoenaed
Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has been asked to testify next Friday in Washington, D.C., by the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, is investigating election irregularities, including long lines and challenges to voter registrations.

Friday, February 1, 2008
McCain nearly abandoned GOP
(2 comments) According to Tom Daschle and others, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.

Friday, February 1, 2008
Atlantic: Will Gore Pull The Endorsement Trigger for Obama?
Gore has said he won't endorse. He's happily retired from politics now, a senior statesman, a big-shot investor. He's won an Oscar and a Nobel. The cause he crusaded for has become central to the public conversation in a way even he could never have imagined. All of these are good reasons to stay out of the fray. But they're equally good reasons to jump into it. What would be the risk?

Friday, February 1, 2008
Super Tuesday Battleground Rapidly Expanding
Clinton's campaign appears to have reached it's national zenith on about January 20th, the day after the Nevada caucuses, according to Gallup. At that time, Clinton led Obama 48%--28%. Since then, however, Obama has closed the gap almost every day. The gap has become so close, that Super Tuesday now has a wide-range of battleground states

Friday, February 1, 2008
Chris Bowers: The Disaster Scenario In 2008
a quick timeline of recent major political events since the Democratic takeover of Congress, and explain how the progressive movement is in serious jeopardy in 2008 unless we can reverse the current trends of the debate on the Iraq war: the disaster scenario we face on the electoral front in 2008. The central cause of this scenario is timidity on Iraq.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Harry Reid done good today -- Stands Strong on FISA
(2 comments) Reid met with progressive media leaders yesterday. Maybe he caught some of their attitude juice!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Washington Liberals Lead Clinton backlash
Washington's liberal establishment - members of Congress, fundraisers and commentators - has coalesced around the view that Bill Clinton is soiling his legacy and wounding Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects as he rambles around the country in a peevish, piece-of-my-mind monologue ostensibly devoted to helping her win the Democratic nomination.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
FL: Rudy Routed, McCain 36 Romney 31, Hillary 51, Obama, 32, Edwards 15
Say good by to Rudy. The Florida experiment failed. Rumors that Giuliani will endorse McCain Wednesday.

Saturday, January 26, 2008
NYPD analysis opposed WTC command center site
A detailed 1998 New York Police Department analysis opposed the city's plans to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center but then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration overrode the objections, The New York Times reported on Saturday

Saturday, January 26, 2008
Leahy And Cornyn: White House Trying To "˜Eliminate' FOIA Office
(1 comments) Bush White House is doing everything it can to neuter the Freedom of Information Act law, trying to de-fund office.

Saturday, January 26, 2008
Jaguars at risk as US blocks their border crossing
(1 comments) Will Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and freinds be responsible for the extinction of the Jaguar? Anti-immigrant hysteria that's building "the wall" is also killing a program that could help the decimated, endangered Jaguar population recover

Saturday, January 26, 2008
Obama overwhelms Clinton in SC; "This Election is about the Past vs. the Future"
(1 comments) Barack Obama won overwhelmingly the South Carolina primary tonight, giving his campaign a boost ahead of the nationwide Democratic contest on February 5. That gives Obama a delegate lead: Obama 63, Hillary 48, Edwards 26, not including superdelegates (members of congress, governors, etc.) where Hillary has a lead.

Saturday, January 26, 2008
Orbiting U.S. spy satellite could crash to Earth
(6 comments) A U.S. intelligence satellite has lost power and could fall to Earth sometime in February or March, a government official said on Saturday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the spy satellite can no longer be controlled and it was not known where on the planet it might come down.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Why does AT&T want to know what you're downloading? - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine
Has AT&T Lost Its Mind? Last week AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws. The prospect of AT&T, already accused of spying on our telephone calls, now scanning every e-mail and download for outlawed content is way too totalitarian for my tastes.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
David Cay Johnston Shows That the Rich Are Getting a 'Free Lunch' -- and Guess Who's Picking Up the Tab?
here is no such thing as deregulation. What you have is new regulations. And the new regulations, in many cases, take Adam Smith's "invisible hand of the marketplace" and handcuff it. They diminish competition. They insulate businesses from bad decisions. They drive prices up, not down.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Kucinich Starts New Impeachment Drive
to introduce Articles of Impeachment against Bush on 1/28 the day of Bush’s State of the Union speech. Kucinich said he did not need to hear the president’s assessment. “We know the State of the Union, It’s a lie.” He also fired at Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi, saying “If impeachment is off the table, truth is off the table. If truth is off the table then this body is living a lie.”

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Candidate economic plans; Solutions or Pandering?
Help for seniors who still pay into Social Security. Tax rebates for almost everyone. Big tax breaks for business. Presidential candidates are engaging in a virtual bidding war these days over who can stimulate the weakening economy most effectively. But analysts wonder whether voters will see this sudden burst of generosity as serious antidotes for the ailing economy or blatant political pandering.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Oscar Awards Nominated
'No Country,' 'Blood' Tie for Oscar Lead

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Group's internal memo points to Obama's struggle with Jewish vote
As the Democratic presidential candidates prepare for Feb. 5's "national primary," a leaked memo from a major Jewish organization shows that Senator Barack Obama may have a difficult time winning votes from the important demographic of Jewish voters.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Study: Rich Countries Do $1.8 Trillion Damage To Poor Countries
UC Berkeley researchers report that environmental damage caused by rich nations affects poor nations so much, it costs them more than their combined foreign debt. The study examined the impacts of the expansion of agriculture, deforestation, overfishing, loss of swamps and ozone completion from 1961 to 2000.

Monday, January 21, 2008
Black Monday! Stock Markets Plunge Worldwide
(5 comments) Stocks fell sharply worldwide Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government's stimulus plan to prevent a recession. U.S. markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the downbeat mood from last week's market declines there circled through Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Sunday, January 20, 2008
Women, Latinos Propel Clinton To First Place
(1 comments) Nevada results contained some worrisome signs for Obama along demographic lines.

Saturday, January 19, 2008
Close contest could make Edwards kingmaker
(1 comments) Edwards could play a major role in deciding who wins, if the contest ends up at the Dem convention

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Fox & Friends livid at report that Olbermann 'runs MSNBC'
Fox hosts have serial hissy fits over Olbermann

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Microsoft seeks patent for office 'spy' software
Big brother gets ever more personal. Sorry Microsoft, but biofeedback practitioners and researchers have been doing this for decades...

Thursday, January 17, 2008
New inflation data explain middle-class squeeze
New data from the Labor Department confirm what most middle-class Americans already know: Inflation is squeezing them.

Thursday, January 17, 2008
$300 to Learn Risk of Cancer of the Prostate
Researchers have reported that a simple DNA test can help predict a man’s risk of getting prostate cancer.

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Obama Joke leaves Colorado Crowd gasping :
it could get a lot uglier. Just imagine the anonymously started, forwarded emails that will soon be heading into your email box. the speaker, pretending to read a telegram, says, " "I have a telegram from the White House." Then he added, "They're going to have to change the name of that building if Obama's elected." Classy?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Rove previews strategies against Clinton, Obama
Speaking to GOP leaders, Rove outlined talking points for ways to defeat leading Democratic candidates Clinton and Obama. Rove did not mention former Sen. John Edwards. He pointed out that Clinton has a problem giving straight answers, has voted for big spending and against tax breaks. Obama's vulnerability is his lack of experience.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
How the Pentagon Planted a False Story
(1 comments) Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
New Huckabee Adviser Called For "˜A Cop In Front Of Every Mosque' Just "˜For Safe Keeping'
Next- evangelical ambassadors sent to Roswell, New Mexico, to Baptize any aliens on the premises to

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Greenspan joins hedge fund Paulson
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is set to join the US hedge fund Paulson & C. as an adviser. Paulson manages $28bn of assets and last year earned billions of dollars when it called correctly the collapse in the sub-prime mortgage market, a collapse which was caused by Dr Greenspan who kept interest rates too low for long, according to some economic commentators.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Discovered: a rodent bigger than a bull
The four million year old heavyweight champ of rodents looks more like a capybara, the largest living rodent, which also harks from South America and enjoys an aquatic lifestyle. The huge capybara-like rodent weighed between one and 1.4 tons. The behemoth, which once lived in forests near fresh water, was uncovered by an amateur palaeontologist on the coast of Rio de La Plata

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Bush Admin Fudged Iraq Gov Budget Numbers to Look Better
GAO questions report on Iraq. The Bush admin, in its last so-called Iraq "benchmark" report, used questionable financial data to assert that the Baghdad government was making progress in managing its budget, a new study says. It focused specifically on whether Iraqis were spending their capital budget, that is money for infrastructure needed to boost the country's lagging economic growth and improve poor public services.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Special counsel sought in CIA tapes case
(1 comments) Conyers, 18 Other Democrats Want Special Counsel for CIA Videotapes Case. Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a Tuesday letter to Mukasey that the Justice Department's ability to conduct an independent investigation is compromised because the CIA apparently consulted Justice and White House lawyers about the tapes and their destruction. "The department has no business conducting the investigation...

Monday, January 14, 2008
Judge Grants Kucinich Entry to NV Debate
anti-democratic NBC execs who think THEY should decide who Nevada citizens will appeal the judge's ruling.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
Campaign exposes deep rifts in GOP coalition
The house that Ronald Reagan built is in danger of collapsing. All the men running for the Republican party's presidential nomination invoke Reagan's name repeatedly. But all of them offend at least one wing of the party enough that they'd find it difficult, and perhaps impossible, to pull the disparate elements of the old coalition together.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
Bush Mideast speech draws cool response
Bush appears unlikely, based on the regional reaction to his address, to find many Arabs to heed his alarms against Iran, a powerful neighbor and trading partner. Nor did many endorse his speech's other theme - a vision of "free and just society" featuring broad political participation and a voice for moderate Muslims in a region where money and family are common keys to leadership.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
80 Arrested Outside Supreme Court, Protestors Worldwide, Adorned In Orange Jump Suits, Demand Shutdown of Guantanamo Bay
Demonstrators wearing orange jump suits intended to simulate prison garb were arrested inside and outside the building. "Shut it down," protesters chanted as others kneeled on the plaza in front of the court. They were charged with violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstrations of any kind on court grounds.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
New organs hope as scientists use cells to grow beating heart
Scientists have grown a whole beating heart in the laboratory, bringing the goal of growing replacement organs for humans a step closer. About 22 million people around the world live with the threat of heart failure and there is a global shortage of replacement tissue.

Saturday, January 12, 2008
Bob Herbert; Of Hope and Politics
The significance of Barack Obama’s achievement is the fact that he might well be fashioning a positive change in the very character of our nation.

Friday, January 11, 2008
Drug 'can reverse Alzheimer's symptoms in minutes'
arthritis drug, injected weekly, into spine, helps 15 subjects.

Friday, January 11, 2008
Kucinich Granted New Hampshire Recount
(8 comments) The New Hampshire secretary of state will conduct hand recounts of Tuesday's Democratic and Republican primaries. Kucinich said he doesn't expect the recount to affect the results. He alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Hillary Clinton.

Friday, January 11, 2008
Paul Warns Against Rush To War With Iran, All Other GOP Candidates "˜Ready To Attack'
(1 comments) all the GOP chickenhawks were ready to call for armageddon based on a Gulf of Tonkin type bogus conflict. Only Ron Paul had calm perspective. These candidates are frightening.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
9 soldiers killed in attacks north of Baghdad
Six U.S. soldiers were killed and four wounded Wednesday when an improvised explosive device was detonated in a house they were searching in Diyala province, according to a Multi-National Division-Baghdad press release. The Army also announced that three U.S. soldiers were killed and two were wounded Tuesday in an attack in Salahuddin province to the east.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Nevada Culinary Union endorses Obama
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has won the endorsement of Nevada's largest labor union, giving the underdog candidate a significant boost against frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the Nevada contest. The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 joined with parent organization UNITE-HERE to endorse Obama, union officials announced this morning.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Study Suggests That Amputee Holds an Unfair Advantage
Track and field’s world governing body is expected to announce that Oscar Pistorius is ineligible to race against able-bodied athletes because his prosthetics give him an unfair advantage.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Women’s Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism
(2 comments) By losing in Iowa, Hillary Rodham Clinton may have gotten more women to see her as a candidate trying to break a glass ceiling.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Partisanship surfaces in Supreme Court arguments over voter-ID law
During lively oral arguments, conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the 2005 law, which the state's Republican-controlled legislature passed to combat vote fraud. The more liberal justices questioned whether the law is aimed at suppressing the votes of Democratic-leaning poor, elderly and minority voters, who are least likely to have driver's licenses.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Blackwater dropped blinding tear gas on Iraqis, US soldiers in 2005
Blackwater security contractors employed in Iraq dropped a blinding riot-control gas on Iraqi civilians and US military personnel on a busy Baghdad street in May 2005, according to the reporter who first broke the NSA wiretapping scandal in the New York Times.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Clinton Relies on Quirky Message Guru
Texas advertising guru and branding whiz who spent most of October on a spiritual soul quest trying to reconnect with "the heart of America," has been tapped for a bigger role in Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Roy Spence, 60, longtime friend of the Clintons, is the quirky Austin-based advertising legend who coined the phrase "Don't Mess With Texas" and developed the Southwest Airlines slogan: 'You are now fre

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary dies
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” Sir Edmund Hillary, along with Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first to conquer Mount Everest, has died. He was 88. "Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Proposed Anti-Obama 527 Stirring Controversy
Emily's List, an organization that backs Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, and the two labor unions, have each set up independent expenditure (IE) subsidiaries for this election cycle to be able to finance thousands of dollars worth of television ads in support of Clinton.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Ron Paul Applauds Kucinich Pans Giuliani, Fox

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Clinton rebellion
he question going forward is, did anything else happen in those 24 hours? Did voters decide that experience wasn't so bad after all, and that maybe change was overrated? Did they start to buy the Clinton argument - not credible, in my view - that Obama is without substance? Did Bill Clinton's shameful "fairytale" rant, which deserved to cost his wife thousands of votes, instead have a positive effect for her?

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The west has not just repressed democracy. It has aided terror
Pakistan has as many paradigms as pundits. What is clear, however, is that meddling will only ever foment disorder

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
France is healthcare leader, US comes dead last: study - Yahoo! News
(3 comments) France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective healthcare to its citizens, according to a survey Tuesday of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries. The study by the Commonwealth Fund, measured developed countries' effectiveness at providing timely and effective healthcare.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Glenn Greenwald - Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds warn of "social unraveling" if Obama loses
Over at National Review, Jonah Goldberg has a "theory" about what might help Obama win in the general election...imagine he loses. I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. subscription site.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008
McCain beats Romney in New Hampshire; Democrats in a duel
(1 comments) McCain tops Romney, then Huckabee, with Giuliani and Paul Neck and Neck. Hillary leads Obama in early poll reports, by two percent.

Saturday, January 5, 2008
ABC Cuts 3 From Presidential Debate
(3 comments) Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich filed a complaint with the FCC on Friday after ABC News excluded him, fellow Democrat Mike Gravel and Republican Duncan Hunter from its prime-time debates on Saturday. Kucinich argued that ABC is violating equal-time provisions by keeping him out of the debate and noted that ABC's parent Walt Disney Co. had contributed to campaigns involving the four Dems who WERE invited

Saturday, January 5, 2008
NH GOP drops sponsorship of FOX debate
(2 comments) The New Hampshire Republican Party dropped their affiliation with a Republican debate sponsored by Fox News tomorrow night because they have limited the number of candidates that can participate. The Fox debate is excluding Ron Paul even though he polls higher in New Hampshire and has raised significantly more money, and is campaigning more in New Hampshire than Fred Thompson who is invited.

Saturday, January 5, 2008
Clinton Machine Shaken by Setback
recriminations is being aimed at her chief strategist, Mark Penn, as the representative of everything about her pseudo-incumbent campaign that has been too cautious, too arrogant, too conventional and too clueless as to how much the political landscape has shifted since the last Clinton reign. One adviser summed up the biggest challenge that faces the campaign in two words: "Fresh thinking."

Thursday, January 3, 2008
Note to Iowa: Only One Top Dem Will End Iraq Occupation
Only two candidates have proposed a complete pullout of U.S. troops: Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. But John Edwards has come very close to their position, saying that he'd only train Iraqi troops outside of Iraq and leave no troops to "guard U.S. bases." And, while he'd keep a rapid-response force in the region, it too would remain outside the country's borders.

Thursday, January 3, 2008
Great Source for Iowa Caucus News

Thursday, January 3, 2008
New Hampshire identifies firm behind anti-Mormon push poll
In a report issued Thursday, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte pointed to two firms: Western Wats, of Orem, Utah, which made the calls; and Moore-Information Inc., of Portland, Ore., which hired Western Wats. She said Western Wats conducted the poll, developed its content and set the dates for the poll to be conducted.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Inside GE Corp's NBC-- It's Ugly
What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC. By John Hockenberry

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Joe Scarborough and Mike Huckabee Sing "Sweet Home Alabama" With Christ's Blessing
as Chuck Norris rambled on about the unfairness of taxes. Now what could be more of a testament to how "news," politics and entertainment have merged than this bizarre popular culture scene (known as Republican "populism," kind of a cross between a drive-in church and "Andy Griffith")?

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
We Must Reverse Our Zeal to Incarcerate
The US has the most prisoners and the highest jailing rate of any country - the insanity must stop.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
A Tale of Political Dirty Tricks Makes the Case for Election Reform
In New Hampshire's hotly contested 2002 Senate race, Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks were jammed with incoming calls on Election Day. The Republican John Sununu, won re-election by under 20,000 votes, and Allen Raymond, a Republican Party operative, went to jail for his role in the jamming. Mr. Raymond has now written a book about his experiences, "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Pelosi Negatives Exceed Positives in Latest Poll
(1 comments) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's own party is turning on her, apparently because of a perception among California Democrats that she has not done enough to shake up the status quo in Washington, D.C., according to a Field Poll released Friday.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Paul Rivals Clinton, Raising Almost $20 Million for Campaign
Presidential candidate Ron Paul raised almost $20 million for his campaign in the last three months, potentially outpacing every one of his Republican rivals and putting his fundraising in league with Hillary Clinton's.

Monday, December 31, 2007
Individual privacy under threat in Europe and U.S., report says
Greece, Romania and Canada had the best privacy records of 47 countries surveyed by Privacy International, which is based in London. Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst. Both Britain and the United States fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies." "The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country,"

Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tapes by C.I.A. Lived and Died to Save Image
(3 comments) Decisions about interrogation videotapes were prompted by fear about what the public might think, officials say.

Sunday, December 30, 2007
Latest Recording Industry Grinch Move-- You Can't Copy Your Own CD to Your Computer.
(2 comments) The recording industry has developed a reputation as chumps who have, instead of adapting and figuring out ways to make a profit with the internet, gotten nasty and stupid. Here's another example of their oafish foolishness. Anyone think the lawyers are the winners in this particular example of corporate shortsightednewss and stupidity?

Sunday, December 23, 2007
Racial Undercurrent Is Seen in Clinton Campaign
It has unfolded mostly under the radar. An important development in the 2008 Democratic battle may be the building backlash among African Americans over comments from associates of Sen.Clinton that could be construed as jabs at Sen. Barack Obama's race. These officials, including Clinton aides and prominent surrogates, have raised questions or dropped references about Obama's positions on crack sentencing guidelines, guns..

Saturday, December 22, 2007
Evidence Mounts Of White House Ties To New Hampshire Phone Jamming Scheme
the scandal goes "to the top of the Republican Party" because "the Bush White House had complete control of the RNC" and there was no way such a risky tactic wouldn't have been "vetted by" Tobin's "high-ups"

Saturday, December 22, 2007
War on Iraq: Pelosi Says She Miscalculated GOP Determination on Iraq
The Dems don't know how to operate like a party; the Republicans do. The Democrats lost the energy bill by one vote because they couldn't get Mary Landrieu, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate who's going to need every bit of help she can get from the party next year not to lose her seat, to toe the line. Cracking the whip, hanging together & using their leverage to enforce party discipline -- just not what dems do

Saturday, December 22, 2007
Shiite leaders oppose expansion of U.S.-backed citizens groups
The groups, mostly Sunni, that US military leaders in Iraq claim are making the surge a success, are making the Shiite leaders worried. They fear these could get out of control.

Friday, December 21, 2007
USA Today Squeezes Edwards Out of Race

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Giuliani Hopsitalized
(1 comments) taken to Missouri hospital with flu-like symptoms

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Dems mull ousting Byrd as chairman
90 year old Byrd can't handle demands of job? No longer able to walk without aides' assistance. Would be kept as emeritus head of powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Would be "replaced" by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Al Gore Moving From Wash. DC to NYC
New digs for Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management. The firm, created in 2004 in a partnership between Mr. Gore and former Goldman Sachs CEO David Blood, manages equity in socially conscious investments, currently overseeing about $1.5 billion.

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Official: Justice Dept. slowed probe into phone jamming
(1 comments) The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

Thursday, December 20, 2007
first Democratic-led Congress in a dozen years limped out of Washington
(1 comments) Democrats' failure to address the central issues that swept them to power left even the most partisan of them dissatisfied and Congress mired at a historic low in public esteem.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Poll: Edwards leads in Iowa
n a Dec 16/17 poll in Iowa, Edwards leads among likely voters 30-26-24 over Clinton and Obama. Edwards is also the clear 2nd choice winner, 42-29-28 over Clinton and Obama. This is the first poll to show Edwards solely in the lead in Iowa since July. Among highly likely caucus goers (of which there are 633), though, the three are deadlocked: Obama 27, Edwards 26, Clinton 24. Edwards again wins second choice...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Waxman to Mukasey: Libby dropped appeal so stop hiding Plame docs
Waxman to Atty Gen: Stop ignoring my requests for Plame info

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Liberals lose bigtime in budget battle
DNC= Democratic National Cavers. Politico says that the liberals lost. Wrong wording. Plug in "screwed." Liberals Screwed Bigtime in Budget Battle. welcome to the 110th invertebrate Democratic congress

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
$7.4 Billion Pledged for Palestinians
The pledges were part of the most ambitious fund-raising effort to help Palestinians in more than a decade.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Bush Wants Control Over Military Lawyers
(1 comments) The new proposal goes further than anything the administration has pushed before because it would affect all military lawyers, not just the top JAGs. Retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, the Navy's top JAG from 2000 to 2002, said the rule would "politicize" the JAG corps all the way "down into the bowels" of its lowest ranks. "That would be the end of the professional [JAG] corps as we know it," Guter said.

Monday, December 17, 2007
Bill Moyers Talks With MSNBC Host Keith Olbermann
video and transcript-- two of the greatest TV personas in the progressive universe.

Monday, December 17, 2007
Coast Guard Whistleblower Alleges Retaliation From Homeland Security
A civilian U.S. Coast Guard employee was placed on paid administrative leave, threatened with a criminal investigation and confronted by guards at gunpoint in retaliation for disclosing information embarrassing to the service's troubled fleet replacement program, his attorney said.

Monday, December 17, 2007
Pelosi and Reid continue to defy America
(2 comments) If these two failed leaders do not have the courage, conviction and will to follow the mandate that America gave them, they should step aside and let someone else take up the cause. Somehow, some way, there will be one or more great potential leaders, potential patriots, even in that much aligned Congress of the United States, that will come out of the shadows and provide the leadership that America demands and must have.

Monday, December 17, 2007
Arriana Huffington: Huckabee: The GOP's Cynical Use of Religion Has Come Home to Roost
Why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem? Now the holy-rolling monster the GOP's Dr. Frankensteins have created has thrown off the shackles, fled the lab, and is currently leading in Iowa

Sunday, December 16, 2007
Congress will defy Justice Dept. on destroyed CIA tapes; Harman: \'We\'re in Constitutional crisis\'
Despite the Justice Department's objections, a Congressional panel will press ahead with its investigation into destroyed CIA interrogation tapes, according to a key Republican on the panel. "I think we will issue subpoenas," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican

Sunday, December 16, 2007
UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief
The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

Sunday, December 16, 2007
Meet Joe Lieberman, the Next Zell Miller-- He Endorses McCain
Joe stab you in the back, sellout Lieberman has endorsed republican John McCain, demonstrating again, what kind of man he really is.

Friday, December 14, 2007
Congress Dems Stab Progressives in Back Again; Authorize War Funds
(7 comments) The Dem-led Congress authorized more Iraq war spending on Friday, sending Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy after failing again to impose a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals. The defense policy bill, approved 90-3 by the U.S. Senate, also expanded the size of the U.S. Army and set conditions on the Bush administration's plan to build a missile defense system in Europe. $189 billion authorized.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Pentagon plans unchanged by NIE Iran report:
as usual, Cheney and company are ignoring actual information and reality-based decision making.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Former President Sentenced for Abuse of Power
(2 comments) Sounds sweet, doesn't it? Former President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison for abusing his powers. In a democracy, it can be done.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Ecuador to Evict US, Offer Air Base to China
When the U.S. Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, it can expect to be evicted in favor of China.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Energy bill expected to lose renewable energy tax break
Dealing blow to the solar and wind industries, Senate expected to pass energy bill that strips out a tax provision to encourage investment in renewable energies. The House last week passed an energy bill that extended tax incentives beyond 2008 for businesses and consumers who purchase renewable energy systems. Those dynamic, "successful" Dems-- getting nothing done again. No wonder there's no time for impeachment

Thursday, December 13, 2007
US House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding Under Bush Veto Threat
Defying a White House veto threat, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to outlaw harsh interrogation methods, such as simulated drowning, that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists. On a largely party line vote of 222-199, the Democratic-led House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans torture in compliance with the Geneva Conventions

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Senate Judiciary votes to hold Rove and Bolten in contempt
Of course, if they were subpoenaed as part of an impeachment hearing, Bush could not block their testimony.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
VA must act to curb combat-vet suicides, panel hears
The Department of Veterans Affairs needs to do more to find and treat returning soldiers who're at risk of killing themselves if the country is going to avert a rash of veterans' suicides, lawmakers and witnesses told a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
New Jersey to become first state in four decades to abolish death penalty
A 44-36 vote in the New Jersey legislature to abolish executions in the state yesterday followed approval for the measure in the state senate on Monday

Thursday, December 13, 2007
Acidic seas may kill 98% of world's reefs by 2050
The loss of big coral reefs would have a devastating effect on communities, many of which rely on fish and other marine life that shelter in the reefs. It would leave coastlines unprotected against storm surges and damage often-crucial income from tourism. Among the first victims of acidifying oceans will be Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest organic structure.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Agents’ of Chávez arrested in voting plot
US prosecutors on Wednesday accused three Venezuelans and a Uruguayan of secretly acting for the government of Hugo Ch�vez as part of a plot to cover up an alleged attempt by Venezuela to manipulate the recent Argentine election.

Monday, December 10, 2007
NJ Caucus vote: Clinton Campaign Stumbles Big in New Jersey
In an innovative progressive caucus vote, with participation from many leaders of the NJ Democratic party, John Edwards was the big winner, followed by Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich. Clinton did not make it past the first round.

Monday, December 10, 2007
Bush's Mortgage Crisis Bandaid; A useless answer to a pressing problem
As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, "The administration's subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby's dream." Krugman added, "Given the Bush record, that should come as no surprise."

Monday, December 10, 2007
Retired teacher Trapped in Men's Room for Four Days

Monday, December 10, 2007
Led Zeppelin reunionTonight-- Tickets Going For $2000 and up
over a million people tried to get one of the 18,000 tickets up for sale, and buyers are coming to the UK from Brazil, US, Australia, Bahrain.

Monday, December 10, 2007
Tracing Business Acumen to Dyslexia
A study concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to excel in oral communication and problem solving and to own two or more businesses.

Monday, December 10, 2007
U.S. High Court Gives Judges More Power on Sentences
The U.S. Supreme Court broadened the sentencing power of federal judges, saying they aren't bound by guidelines that call for stiffer penalties for crack-cocaine dealers than those who sell the same weight in cocaine powder. The justices, voting 7-2, said a judge acted reasonably in sentencing crack defendant Derrick Kimbrough to a 15-year prison term. That was four years less than he would have received

Sunday, December 9, 2007
L.A. Film Critics give 'Blood,' Lewis top honors
Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," an epic tale of the oil business in early 20th-century California, won four awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in their year-end voting Sunday including best picture, director and actor honors.

Sunday, December 9, 2007
Civil Rights Icon Young Stabs Obama In Back And Insults Black Women at Same Time
(1 comments) Andrew Young said, of Bill Clinton, "He's probably been with more black women than Barack." That's the way Young is supporting HIS candidate, Hillary. Classy!!

Saturday, December 8, 2007
Huckabee Not Such a Nice Guy-- Hateful Remarks about Gays, AIDS Patients
(1 comments) "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk," Huckabee wrote...

Friday, December 7, 2007
Embattled State Department inspector general Krongard resigns
Embattled State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard submitted his resignation Friday, forced out for allegedly impeding ongoing criminal investigations into the construction of a new, $740 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and security firm Blackwater Worldwide. A State Department official said that Krongard had become a political liability, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asked him, through aides, to resign

Friday, December 7, 2007
Bush approval among military families down 50% since 2004
(1 comments) The new numbers stand in stark contrast to a poll of military families conducted by the University of Pennsylvania three years ago, in which twice as many individuals approved of the president's performance.

Thursday, December 6, 2007
Is Huckabee Democrats' Biggest Nightmare?
Should Huckabee wind up as the GOP nominee, the traditional Democratic playbook might well have to be rewritten to cope with his unorthodox approach.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Gallup Poll: Significant drops in support for Clinton & Giuliani - On Politics - USATODAY.com
Percentage points changed from a month ago: Clinton down 11 to 39%, Giuliani down 9 to 25%, Romney down 2 to 12%, Huckabee up 10 to 16%, Obama is up 2 to 24, Edwards steady at 15%-- the exact percentage Kerry had when Iowa held its 2004 caucuses.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
29 Year old Becomes Grandmother

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Romney Caught Employing Illegal Aliens
after attacking Giuliani, repeatedly, for running a "sanctuary city" Mitt gets nailed for illegals doing lawn work

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Hersh: Bush Told Olmert Of NIE Two Days Before President Was Allegedly First Briefed On It
Yesterday, Natl Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that Pres Bush was first briefed on the NIE's conclusions on Nov. 28. But today in an interview with CNN, Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker's Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, revealed that Bush actually knew about the NIE at least two days earlier and had a "private discussion" about it with Prime Minister Olmert two days earlier

Monday, December 3, 2007
Chavez loses bid to rule until 2050
Venezuelan voters narrowly reject constitutional amendment to let president run for election indefinitely

Monday, December 3, 2007
Despite Knowledge That Iran Halted Nuke Program, White House Continued To Warn Of False Threat
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released today concludes that "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." It adds that "Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007," and the country is "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

Monday, December 3, 2007
Violence erupts as Bolivia faces crisis over constitutional reform
A historic attempt to rewrite Bolivia's constitution has sparked epic street battles that have injured hundreds and killed three people across Bolivia in the past 10 days. More violence is expected. A constitutional assembly drafting the new charter has until Dec. 14 to finish its work, but bitter disputes have stopped deliberations amid accusations from both sides of trickery and bad faith.

Sunday, December 2, 2007
Venezuela in tight vote on Chavez's powers
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in a tight vote on Sunday in a referendum on scrapping term limits on his rule, and the opposition called on the leftist leader to accept an unprecedented defeat if he loses.

Sunday, December 2, 2007
Leading questions after Putin's huge victory
President keeps everyone guessing as he ponders ways to keep grip on power

Saturday, December 1, 2007
Ron Paul on track to be biggest fundraiser
(1 comments) In the first two months of the quarter that began Oct. 1, Paul already has raised more than $9.75 million, putting him easily within range to best the amount rival Mitt Romney received from donors during the entire third quarter.

Saturday, December 1, 2007
Mike Huckabee Says God is Pushing His Poll Numbers Up
(2 comments)

Friday, November 30, 2007
David Sirote: Conservative, Or Just Plain Corrupt?
Through their ethics scandals, Republicans in Washington long ago began making the word "conservative" synonymous with the term "corrupt." Surprisingly, though, it is a group of Democrats that is cementing this definitional conversion for good. In the midst of the housing crisis, a cadre of self-described "conservative" Democrats called the Blue Dog Coalition is demanding demleaders delay legislation designed to help...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Poll: Clinton Would Lose Against Every Top Republican; Obama And Edwards Strong
(18 comments) A new Zogby survey shows Hillary Clinton of New York would lose to every one of the top five Republican presidential contenders, representing a reversal of fortune for the national Democratic front–runner who had led against all prospective GOP opponents earlier this year. Meanwhile, fellow Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina would defeat or tie every one of the Republicans, survey shows

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
If Edwards Wins: The January 4th Narrative
We've spent months debating which of the candidates would make the best nominee and president. But no less important than what these candidates would do is what their victories would mean. There will be a story line coming out of the primary, and it will have a huge impact on the battle between the two wings of the Democratic Party, the PPs (progressive-populists) and the CCs (centrist-corporatists.)

Monday, November 26, 2007
The Just-Nominated Second in Command at the DOJ Helped Bush Steal Florida in 2000 and Clerked Under Scalia.
Maybe the White House put Filip as second in command at the DOJ to watch over Mukasey.

Monday, November 26, 2007
Teacher on blasphemy charge over 'Muhammad' teddy bear
A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today. colleagues told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where she was being held.

Monday, November 26, 2007
US meddling in Russian elections, Putin claims
Putin said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had been urged by the US not to send observers to monitor the process. The result, he said, would be to cast doubt over the legitimacy of the Russian election, on December 2.

Monday, November 26, 2007
Tape shows how physicist predicted parallel worlds | Science | The Guardian
Hugh Everett, a quantum physicist, developed his idea at the age of 24, while a graduate student at Princeton University in 1957. Everett's theory gave rise to the concept of a multitude of universes, or a "multiverse", where all life's possibilities play out. It means that somewhere Elvis is still rocking, the Nazis won the second world war... The recordings are believed to have been made in 1977

Monday, November 26, 2007
Sharif Rejects Musharraf Presidency
Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani prime minister who returned from exile on Sunday, has said he would not lead a government under the country's current president. "I am not a candidate for prime ministership under Pervez Musharraf," he told reporters on Monday, shortly before he registered as a candidate in January's elections. "We believe that any government serving under Musharraf will be illegal and undemocratic"...

Monday, November 26, 2007
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/24/2007 | The new key question: How happy are you?
new kind of public attitude polling gaining influence with corporate leaders and in government policy circles worldwide, called well-being research or, by those wishing to be seen as especially rigorous practitioners, behavioral economics. Others call it happiness research. Its pioneers intend that quantified self-assessments of satisfaction will someday be as powerful as the gross domestic product and other economic measure

Sunday, November 25, 2007
Will the Supreme Court Steal the Election for the Republicans in 2008? Will California Become the Next Florida?
a frightening possible scenario

Friday, November 23, 2007
Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request
granted without probably cause. File under fascism.

Friday, November 23, 2007
Scott McClellan Didn't Out Bush for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Cheney Did
we have watched the mainstream media ignore or dismiss the revelation by once White House loyalist Scott McClellan that Cheney and Bush were likely involved in the outing and knowingly sent him out to lie to the press about the role of the two key messengers: Libby and Rove.

Friday, November 23, 2007
Amazon's Kindle device out of stock
despite skepticism, the electronic book device, called an Ipod for books and blogs, has sold out

Friday, November 23, 2007
Real Threat to UK is US

Friday, November 23, 2007
Resurgent Taliban closing in on Kabul
...resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday. If NATO, the lead force operating in Afghanistan, is to have any impact against the insurgency, troop numbers will have to be doubled to at least 80,000, the report said.

Friday, November 23, 2007
Lebanon in void as presidential palace left vacant
Lebanon stepped into uncharted territory on Saturday when time ran out on attempts to find a new president before President Emile Lahoud's mandate expired.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Broadway producers sue strikers
Producers of nine shows sued members of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and its president James Claffey Jr. in Manhattan federal court seeking to recover damages for lost revenues. Of course. If you can't come to terms, so the people you're negotiating with. And with Bush appointed judges, they might just win.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Four Years Ago, Just Before the Iowa Caucuses.
In 2004, Iowans caucused on January 19. 43 days prior to that, on December 7, 2003, Dean was still ascendant. A Zogby poll out of Iowa released on December 2 showed Dean passing Gephardt for the lead.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Paul Krugman: Republicans and Race
Over the past few weeks there have been a number of commentaries about Ronald Reagan’s legacy, specifically about whether he exploited the white backlash against the civil rights movement. The controversy unfortunately obscures the larger point, which should be undeniable: the central role of this backlash in the rise of the modern conservative movement.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
NY Times OpEd: Release Justice’s Secrets
the profound moral, legal and constitutional issues raised at his Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are unresolved. Mr. Mukasey should open the door to their resolution by releasing the Justice Department’s long-secret legal opinions that have warped our fight against terrorism.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Video: Lunar probe films Earthset from the view of the moon in hi-def
ever wonder what it would like for the earth to disappear below the horizon, in a view from the moon. A Japanese sattellite shows just that.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Tom Delay Says: " I'd like to Bitch-slap Paul Krugman."
(2 comments) a nice compliment for Krugman.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Relax, it died 390m years ago - Eight Foot Long scorpion find points to existence of giant spiders
Imagine. You're strolling along the beach and a two foot long claw rises out of the water...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
McClellan points finger at Bush, Rove
(1 comments) in book to be released in April, Scott McClellan accuses President Bush, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney of being "involved" in his giving the press false information about the CIA leak case.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Chris Dodd Calls For Investigation Into Bush's Role In PlameGate
oday, Chris Dodd, using language that evokes memories of an investigation that took down another Republican president, has called on Attorney General Mukasey to begin an investigation into McClellan's claims.

Monday, November 19, 2007
America's addiction to sports
(2 comments) Americans are addicted to competitive sports in ways that are profoundly unhealthy to our schools, our bodies, and ourselves. And until we confront that problem, head-on, steroids will continue to plague us. Although every shred of evidence shows that adolescents do not learn well before 9 a.m., US high schools start the day at around 7:30 a.m. Why? To make room for afternoon sports practice, of course.

Friday, November 16, 2007
British General: Our Presence "˜Instigated' Violence In Iraq, "˜90 Percent' Reduction After Withdrawal
According to Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, commander of British forces in Basra, the presence of British troops instigated violence. Now, violence has reportedly dropped to one-tenth that of earlier levels:

Friday, November 16, 2007
Reid to Bush: No recess appointments wanted
(1 comments)

Friday, November 16, 2007
The Electability Conundrum
Voters, Democrats in particular, tend to winnow the field of potential presidential candidates to those they like best, then discard those people for someone they think others will like better.

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Can Obama Catch Hillary?
(1 comments) Obama has begun to embrace positions that a generation of Democrats have been advised to avoid.

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Saudis punish gang rape VICTIM with 200 lashes
(1 comments) he 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported. But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Speaker's office denies '10,000 letters' impeachment rumor

Thursday, November 15, 2007
Judiciary Committee strips telecom immunity from FISA bill.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Homophobic Surgeon General Nominee Reveals Bush Plans To Recess Appoint Him
Holsinger has come under intense criticism for his long history of prejudice toward gays and lesbians. He founded a church that "ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian" and "opposed a decision to allow a practicing lesbian to be an associate pastor" in the United Methodist Church. In 1991, he also authored a graphic document arguing that gay sex is "intuitively" unnatural and can lead to "lacerations...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Report Puts Hidden War Costs at $1.6 Trillion
roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, ncluding "hidden" costs such as interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care for injured veterans and the cost of oil market disruptions. The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Vets' Suicide Rate "Stunning"
five-month CBS News probe, based upon a detailed analysis of data obtained from death records from 2004 and 2005, found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets. 5000 vets will commit suicide this year.

Sunday, November 11, 2007
Glenn Greenwald - Dianne Feinstein -- Bush's key ally in the Senate -- to support telecom amnesty
(1 comments) Feinstein is not merely voting reliably for the most extremist Bush policies, though she is doing that. Far more than that, she has become, time and again, the linchpin of Bush's ability to have his most radical policies approved by the Senate. Could the universe be any larger between what Feinstein's constituents want and what she is doing in the Senate?

Saturday, November 10, 2007
Mel Brooks Starts Nonprofit Foundation To Save Word 'Schmuck'
"For many of us, saying 'schmuck' is a way of life. Yet when I walk down the street and see people behaving in foolish, pathetic, or otherwise schmucky ways, I hear only the words 'prick' and 'douche bag.' I just shake my head and think, 'I don't want to live in a world like this.'" (VERY funny) today, when faced with a situation where one can use a targeted or self-deprecating insult to convey a general feeling of disgust...

Saturday, November 10, 2007
Dems salivate after wins on GOP turf
Key victories for Democrats in Kentucky and Virginia in Tuesday's off-year elections have emboldened party members to look to traditionally red regions of the political map as potential areas for pickups next year.

Saturday, November 10, 2007
It's Official Udall Running in NM
Democratic Rep. Tom Udall who will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pete Domenici, an aide to the congressman said Saturday. polling looks like he'll be a sure win, thus a Dem pick-up in senate

Friday, November 9, 2007
Glen Greenwald: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement" Dems, on Mukasey Vote Fold?
(2 comments) Dems keep blaming the 60 votes the need in the senate to pass a bill. But 43 dems and Bernie Sanders said they opposed Mukasey's confirmation. So... what the hell are they lying to us about. Does their spinelessness cause brain damage too? BTW, every Dem candidate in the senate was a no-show on the vote-- Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama. If they showed and forced the 60 votes, Mukasey would be toast.

Friday, November 9, 2007
Recruiters struggle to find an Army
(2 comments) The Army is struggling to find volunteers for an unpopular war, despite recruiting bonuses of up to $20,000 and pay increases for enlistees that have beaten inflation by 21 percent since 2000. It met its numeric goal of 80,000 recruits last year, but it paid a price in terms of declining numbers of high school graduates and lower scores on skills and physical tests.

Thursday, November 8, 2007
Senate overrides Bush veto for first time
In a rebuke of President Bush, the Senate Thursday enacted a water resources bill, despite Bush's earlier veto of the measure. The override vote was 79-14, effectively enacting a $23 billion water resources bill. The measure primarily focuses on hurricane protection, flood mitigation and wetlands restoration. The vote was the first successful override of the Bush presidency.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Kucinich is Wrecking the Dem 2008 Strategy
(2 comments) We have Democrats running and hiding, afraid to stand up to the President even when he gets caught breaking the law. We have the media mindlessly reporting GOP talking points even when they are factually false and when the falsehood could be easily verified with about 60 seconds of research. And we have Republicans accusing those few Democrats who are willing to criticize the Leader of being on the side of Terrorists...

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Wexler Will Urge House Judiciary Committee to 'Schedule Impeachment Hearings Immediately'
(2 comments) "The American people are served well with a legitimate and thorough impeachment inquiry. I will urge the Judiciary Committee to schedule impeachment hearings immediately and not let this issue languish as it has over the last six months. Only through hearings can we bring begin to correct the abuses of Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration; and, if it is determined in these hearings that Vice President Cheney has..."

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Roosevelt's lessons for future presidents
His detractors are right: Roosevelt achieved nothing in his life, apart from rescuing American democracy from the Depression; taking the US into the second world war and, through his defeat of isolationism, into the world; leading the Allies to victory over the dictators; winning four consecutive national elections; and doing all this with a crippled body.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
MSNBC-Rosie Deal Dead
(3 comments) the show that never was

Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Lavish televangelist lifestyles raise eyebrows at Senate Finance Committee
The reportedly extravagant lifestyles of six television evangelists are raising some eyebrows at the Senate Finance Committee, which wants to know if the popular preachers are paying their fair share in taxes.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Pakistan's Sacked Chief Justice Calls For People to "Rise Up"
(2 comments) In a telephone address to lawyers in Islamabad, Iftikhar Chaudhry criticised President Pervez Musharraf, who imposed a state of emergency on Saturday. He said the constitution had been "ripped to shreds" by Gen Musharraf and added it was now "time for sacrifices".

Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Senate panel moves Mukasey nomination forward
(1 comments) Schumer and Feinstein sell out dems and constitution to support Mukasey, side with all republicans on the Judiciary committee.

Monday, November 5, 2007
Experts: No evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program
Despite President Bush's claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger "World War III," experts in and out of government say there's no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.

Monday, November 5, 2007
A look at the restrictions created by Pakistan's state of emergency
suspended rights: -Article 9 of the Pak constitution safeguarding life and liberty. Opposition lawmakers and activists have been detained. -People can be arrested without being informed of their offense and denied access to lawyers under emergency powers. -The right to free movement. -Citizens have been barred from assembling in public, including opposition political parties that will be in upcoming elections

Monday, November 5, 2007
Foreclosure wave sweeps America
2 million families are expected to lose their homes over the next two years, according to estimates by the US Congress's Joint Economic Committee.

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Pakistan's Musharaf: Video and Transcript Announcing Emergency
speculation that this was done against the will or wishes of the US. And mention of the influence of China.

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Retired JAGs On Waterboarding: "˜It Is Inhumane, It Is Torture, And It Is Illegal'
in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), four retired Judge Advocates General (JAGs) - the judicial arm of the U.S. military - sharply criticize Judge Mukasey's legal hedging. They unequivocally state that waterboarding is torture.

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Despite warnings, Bush officials couldn't stop Musharraf
(1 comments) The imposition of emergency rule on Saturday in nuclear-armed Pakistan underscores how little influence the Bush administration has on events in a country that has become the bulwark in the U.S. fight against terrorism.

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Pakistan: The Perils Of Emergency
The war against terror can lead to far-reaching consequences that might affect the very structure of present day Pakistan. South Asia’s hottest winter might have just begun.

Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Tortured Vote of Feinstein on Mukasey: Disingenuous or Just Plain Dishonest?
(1 comments) So why is Dianne Feinstein going to vote for Mukasey as Attorney General after he gave responses on waterboarding, torture and unitary authority that were right out of the White House Q and A response book? For Feinstein, perhaps it is that she is a disingenuous RepubliCrat. She has defected the Democrats on more key votes in the senate and the Judiciary Committee than you can shake a stick at.

Friday, November 2, 2007
Angry Father-in-Law Suckers FBI With Email Accusing Son of Being With Al Qaeda
Man angry with son-in-law fingers him as terrorist to FBI. Of course, our brilliant US Spy team, funded to the tune of $80 billion plus a year, arrests and deports the poor guy who was just trying to do business. No wonder 9/11 happened. These guys are... fill in the blank

Friday, November 2, 2007
Coffee condoms promote safe sex in Ethiopia

Friday, November 2, 2007
The Most Bizarre Scientific Experiments in the Name of Science
Elephant on acid, dog head grafts and a seesaw to revive the dead

Friday, November 2, 2007
Channeling Bush's Inner Sadist: An Insight Into His Obsession with Torture | BuzzFlash.org
(1 comments) For a boy who allegedly shot BB guns at his brothers and did who knows what to small animals, Bush as recalled by Garry Trudeau offers no small insight into what is clearly a sadistic (and as we have repeatedly said, sociopathic) individual.

Thursday, November 1, 2007
Democrats pin hopes on sushi
After careful and extensive investigation it appears there is in fact a strong correlation between politics and food

Thursday, November 1, 2007
Iraqi deaths up in October in blow to US 'surge' policy Spin
The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October, according to government figures obtained on Thursday, in a blow to a nine-month-old US troop surge policy. At least 887 Iraqis were killed last month, compared to 840 in September, according to the data compiled by the interior, defense and health ministries.

Thursday, November 1, 2007
US troops will be in the Middle East for next 50 years, says Abazaid
US troops could be in the Middle East for another 50 years, according to the longest serving commander of the Qatar-based US Central Command. General John Abazaid, who retired in May, said the "strategic situation" in the region - the rise of extremism and the global dependence on oil - would necessitate a long-term presence.

Thursday, November 1, 2007
The top US conservatives and liberals
(2 comments) To qualify for the lists, people have to live and work in the United States. Conservatives are people identifiably – though not always self-described – as right of centre. Liberals – though the term is an unpopular one in the US, with even Hillary Clinton preferring "progressive" – are those identifiably left of centre.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Schumer Asserts Iran War Would Destroy G.O.P. | The New York Observer
(1 comments) Bombing Iran, says Chuck Schumer, would be a big political loser for Republican candidates in 2008. "It would change the landscape against them, big time," Schumer, said about a scenario in which the Bush administration launches a military attack on Iran before leaving office. "I don't think they are likely to do it, because they are so weak-not because they are chastened--

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Exonerated Convertino: Terror case prosecution 'politically motivated'
Politicized trial initiated by people in DC. Trial exonerates a good guy. He says "Somebody must be held accountable for this."

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Incompetent RiIght Wing Dem House Leaders-- Hoyer and Emanuel-- Blew SCHIP Legislation
Total absence of diplomacy or negotation, failed leadership... no wonder this congress is going nowhere. These DLC right wing democrats ARE the problem

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
AP: Immunity Deal Hampers Blackwater Inquiry
"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. "Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

Monday, October 29, 2007
Paul Krugman: Fearing Fear Itself
(3 comments) In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then. Many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Sunday, October 28, 2007
Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap
hild workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids

Sunday, October 28, 2007
Waxman demands answers from Bush administration
Waxman, D-Calif., is in a unique position to demand answers to Iraq's big questions as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He can subpoena officials who don't cooperate and make them testify under oath at hearings, something he didn't have the power to do

Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Evangelical Crackup
(1 comments) After the 2004 election, evangelical Christians looked like one of the most powerful and cohesive voting blocs in America. Three years later their leadership is split along generational and theological lines. How did it all come apart?

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Internal Dem memo faults party message
memo is sharply critical of Republican policies but also suggests a neurological explanation for Republican message success: By using emotional appeals and warning of dire threats, Republicans can trigger neurons called "amygdalae" in the temporal lobe, which is the seat of the "fight or flight" response in the brain.

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Senators Want Probe on Internet Content Blocking
incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies'"power to discriminate against content."

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Bush Admin Refuses to Discloses Failings in Hurricane Preparedness
The state of Louisiana and the Bush administration are refusing to disclose analyses that would let the public know where gaps exist in the g